B785 (6 page)

*

Einstein initially thought to make his way to the bridge, but riled up and in possession of a strange, tense energy, he diverted his path instead to the onboard gym where he found Seth sparring with another cyborg named Aphelion. Less sparring and more like wiping the mat with him. No one quite knew what type of programming Seth possessed. Of all the cybernetic units, he proved impenetrable to testing, but despite the fact they couldn’t download his programming or delve through the cybernetic options he’d been embedded with, Seth proved time and time again that he was cyborg to the core despite his more than human exterior.

“Einstein? What are you doing here? I would have thought you’d be occupied with our lady guest. And by occupied, I mean
occupied.
” Seth’s brows waggled and Einstein couldn’t stop the heat from rising in his cheeks. He really needed to run a diagnostic on his systems, or program a sub routine to root out the imperfection in his BCI causing him to succumb to embarrassment.

“Bonnie wanted a shower.”

“You’ve got a naked, wet female in your room and you left?”

“Yes.”

“Dude, what is wrong with you?”

“It’s called being courteous. You should try it sometime.”

“Ouch!”

Einstein couldn’t tell if he meant the blow Aphelion landed or his remark.

“Since she wouldn’t let me assign her a room of her own and insisted on staying with me, I thought it polite to leave and give her some privacy to bathe.”

“You dog!” Seth flattened his opponent and straightened with a wide grin. “She’s staying with you? Good for you, dude.”

“Why is that good?”

“Because. Isn’t this part of your master plan to seduce her and live happily ever after? She did call you her prince charming.”

“Her continual reference to the fairy tale is obviously a sign of trauma to her central core. I’ve already filed a mental report to run a full evaluation on her programming to root out the obvious defects. As for assigning her other quarters, as I mentioned, I tried. She wouldn’t let me.”

“Why not?” Seth asked as he pummeled the punching bag in a blurring rhythm no one could match.

“She says reassigning troops would cause resentment and that she trusts me to share my quarters with her.”

Halting his rhythmic punches, Seth turned to face him. “Ugh, dude. That sucks.”

“Why? I do not mind sharing the space. It is more than ample for the both of us.”

“Not that. The old I trust you bit. You know what that means.”

“You are alluding to something that I think goes beyond her actual words.”

“I am. It means she thinks you’re not going to put the moves on her. That she sees you as a
friend.
” Seth’s nose wrinkled.

“How is that bad?”

“Because how are you going to get in her pants if she doesn’t think of you as something more?”

Einstein wisely didn’t point out the obvious. One, she didn’t have any pants, and two, why would he want to get in them? Wouldn’t the sharing of slacks be uncomfortable? Sometimes, it was just easier to act as if he understood. “If having her as a roommate proves too disruptive, then I’ll just reassign her to other quarters. I’m sure I can devise an excuse if required.”

“Or she’ll shack up with another cyborg on her own.”

Familiar with that particular bit of slang, Einstein, in the midst of doing pushups, lost his rhythm and hit the mat—with his face. He waited for the laughter and when none came, lifted his visage to see Seth facing away working on another exercise device.

Spared the embarrassment, he rolled to his back and proceeded to stretch and work his abdominal muscles. “If Bonnie chooses to form an attachment to an onboard unit, then I will respect her choice.”

“Will you?”

“Of course. Why would I not?”

“Because you found her. Because you kissed her awake.”

Because she’s mine.
Where did the random thought come from? As if Einstein, or any cyborg for that matter, owned anybody. As free-thinking entities, they belonged to themselves. “I have no need for a female in my life.”

“Says the virgin,” scoffed Seth.

“I am not a virgin. I’ve experienced coitus. I just don’t see the big deal.”

“Then you didn’t do it right.”

“I ejaculated.”

“But you didn’t come.”

“What’s the difference?”

“If you’d truly had sex, I wouldn’t have to explain it. Lucky you, though, you’ve got the prime opportunity to finally get rid of your pesky inexperience. Bonnie is prime girlfriend material. And if you don’t do something to make your interest in her clear, she’s going to find someone else.”

Taking a page from Seth’s book on humanisms, Einstein replied, which was to say, he didn’t answer at all. “Whatever.”

A blasé response, but it shut Seth up. They continued their work out, switching their conversation to other topics. However, Seth’s words kept repeating themselves over and over. For some reason, they bothered Einstein. He couldn’t have said why. His existence didn’t require the addition of sex or a female to complete or enrich it. He was perfectly content with his current status. If that was the case, though, why did he imagine he could hear a loud buzzer of denial every time he told himself that?

An answer to that question remained out of reach, no matter how hard he worked his body and attempted to remove the excess adrenaline from his system. Opting to use the shower in the gym to sluice off, and the spare clothes found there, he delayed the return to his quarters as long as possible, ostensibly to give her some privacy even if the definition of cowardice kept taunting him.

Dressed, exercised, and unable to remain in the gym any longer without question, Einstein left only to veer down the corridor away from his room.
I should check on the bridge.
Never mind he held a direct wireless link to the shipboard computer, a visit in person seemed called for.

He heard Aramus bellowing before he reached the bridge.

“This area is off limits.”

Why did it not surprise him to hear the dulcet voice of his dilemma reply, “Why? Is it for boys only? Are you all hanging around in your underwear telling fart jokes? I can fart on demand if I have to. Heck, I can even belch the alphabet. Want to hear?”

“No!”

A tiny chuckle escaped him at Aramus’ disgusted retort. Swinging around the corner, he came across the arguing pair. Bonnie saw him before his captain did and smiled. “Charming, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. Grumpy pants here wouldn’t tell me where you went.”

“Onboard personnel locations are private. In other words, if Einstein wanted you to fucking know where he was, he would have told you.”

Bonnie stuck her tongue out at Aramus and Einstein stepped between them when it looked as if Aramus might forget she was a lady—albeit a mouthy one determined to get throttled.

“I was in the gym. Sorry. I forgot we’re not linked on a neural level and I didn’t yet have a chance to program you for onboard communication access.” Just another deficiency to add to his growing list.

“You are not giving her access.” Aramus crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at the petite female.

“Why not?” Einstein asked.

“Because for all we know, she’s a military spy.”

“A spy?” She laughed. “What part of I hate those bastards and they were glad to be rid of me did you not grasp?”

“Says you.”

“Says anyone. If you could access my files, you’d know the general abhorred me. He’d never use me as a spy because I am more likely to feed him false information so I can watch him fail than to give him anything he could use to hurt anyone.”

“Again, says you. Besides, even if you are telling the truth, it doesn’t mean you’re not a secret spy. How do we know you’re not a carrier of some bug, or tracking device?”

“Now you’re grasping,” she said with a roll of her eyes, a disconcertingly human motion given their robotic gleam. “You found me in a box gathering dust in a brothel. I’d say the chances of your theory panning out are slim to none.”

“But possible.”

Einstein watched them argue back and forth, staying out of the heated debate until they both turned to him and said, almost in unison, “Can you show him/her wrong?”

Stubborn, meet equally stubborn. And lucky him, they’d chosen Einstein to mediate. “I’ve yet to detect anything out of the ordinary.”

“However, it’s possible, right?” Aramus pressed.

“I guess.”

“Oh, you would take his side,” she huffed, crossing her arms. “Men always stick together.”

“I said possible, but in my opinion, unlikely,” he added, wiping the smirk off Aramus’ face only to plant a smug expression on Bonnie’s.

“So how do we settle this? I don’t want this
female
,
” Aramus sneered, “having access to our secrets until we know for sure.”

“I’m already monitoring for signals. I ran all the scans I could when she was inert.”

“But none since she woke up.”

“No.”

“So test me then,” she offered, opening her arms wide. “Strip me naked and probe me, charming. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Here? Now?” His high-pitched squeak didn’t resemble his usual voice at all.

“Of course not here, silly. Back in your lab. As if I’d give Mr. I-Think-I’m-So-Mighty a peek at this body after the way he’s treated me.”

“Treated you? You’re lucky I didn’t lock you up. If I had my way, you’d be in chains undergoing a debriefing, but apparently, that would be cruel.”

“Aramus!”

“What? I said I wanted to, not that I was going to.”

Why did Einstein have an urge to bang his head on a wall? Violence to his cranium wouldn’t solve anything.

“Kinky, are you, captain? I’ll bet the ladies love that.”

“As if you’d know anything about ladies,” Aramus retorted.

“Touché. But back to the spy thing. You have questions. Ask away. I have nothing to hide.”

“I doubt that.” Aramus, true to form, didn’t trust anyone. Einstein often wondered why. Just what had the big cyborg suffered in his past to make him so leery of anyone, even his own kind? And especially women.

“Wow, I don’t know where you were when they handed out the nice guy microchip, but apparently, you should have stood in line for two. You are some kind of suspicious.”

“Just following protocol, Pita.”

“Pita?” Her nose wrinkled. “My name is Bonnie.”

“Not to me you aren’t. In my books, you’re P. I. T. A. PITA as in pain in the ass.”

With that, Aramus whirled on his heel and stalked off, leaving Einstein alone with Bonnie, who giggled. “Wow, is he ever easy to rile up.”

“He has his reasons. Not everyone made the transition from mindless droid to sentience with ease. Some woke with memories best left buried. Aramus was one of them.” Even if the surly droid denied it. Aramus claimed to not remember anything, but his attitude spoke of a grudge. However, Einstein respected his right to privacy. They all did.

“I suffered too. It doesn’t mean I turned into a righteous bitch.”

“Then you’re luckier than many. Some found the memories of their past and indoctrination with the military too much. Many went insane when they remembered what was done to them.” The suicide rate in that first year and kamikaze missions was statistically high for a population their size, but in the years since had thankfully settled down. They still had the occasional cyborg snapping, or sporting a quick temper, but most came to some kind of grip with their past lives and moved on.

“Poor bots,” she murmured. “I guess I can understand that. Fiona and some of the others went through some rough shit, rough enough that forgetting was probably a blessing in disguise. Even Chloe began to blank out in the end.”

“And you?”

Bonnie sighed, a sad sound so unlike her usual bubbly nature. “Cursed with the memory of an elephant. Defective, as the doctor used to say every time he tried to program me into being the perfect little soldier.”

“How did they program you? I saw no sign of an exterior port and you exhibit no wireless signal.”

“I already told you. None of the females had wireless. General Doom claimed he wasn’t making that mistake again. When the docs needed to upgrade my software, they used to slice me open right behind the ear. I’ve got a micro connector embedded back there for hard wiring.”

“When we get back to our planet, if you don’t mind, I’d like to connect our computer to you. We’ve been trying to gather as much info as possible about the different cyborg units. While we have the males pretty much figured out, the female units seem to all have different characteristics.”

“Every flavor possible,” she joked. “We were the general’s experiment. No two female cyborgs were made alike.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

As they walked back to his lab, he questioned her, in the name of science, of course. “How did you come to the military’s attention?”

“I got drunk one night and caused an accident while my sister was driving. They said it was bad. I don’t know. I don’t remember any of that. They kept me pretty drugged up. When I woke up, I was part machine, a whole lot of pissed, and a prisoner of the military. You?”

“I have no memories of my time before, but from what I’ve gleaned on the files I accessed, I was a juvenile delinquent in foster care who came to their attention because I hacked a secure website.”

“Must have been some hack.”

“Apparently, the CIA took offense at a fourteen-year-old getting past their safeguards.”

She whistled. “Holy shit. They got to you young. How old are you now?”

“According to records? Twenty-five. Apparently, they kept me incarcerated for quite a number of years before entering me in the cyborg program.”

“No wonder you’re so clueless. You never really had a chance to live.” Her sad tone made him shift uncomfortably. Used to his past, he’d never before had someone pity him for it. Most envied him his intelligence.

Uncomfortable with the turn in conversation, he took an example from her and changed the subject. “You said the military gave the females different aspects. What abilities did you get?”

“I got a smorgasbord. Quick healing. Impervious to pain. An enhanced skeletal structure and embedded armor around my ribcage.”