Her Cyborg Awakes (Diaspora Worlds) by Aires Melisse

Author:Aires, Melisse [Aires, Melisse]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Grand Street Publishing
Published: 2012-05-22T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Sabralia awoke alone in bed one night a weeks later. Only a few hours of their sleep cycle had passed, so she was a little surprised she was alone. They had reverted to the way they had slept together as mistress and cyborg, spooned naked together.

All the lights were powered down. She entered the main room. Kaistril was at the com.

“Couldn’t you sleep?”

His lips curved in welcome, but he shrugged. “The encryption is finally removed. I opened my case file.”

“Oh.” He seemed so…somber. “Is there something wrong?”

He reached for her and pulled her onto his lap. Sabralia stared at him, alarmed. Normally such a move was a prelude to sex, but he wasn’t hard.

“What?”

He looked away. “There’s a failsafe.”

She was silent for a moment. “On the ship?”

“No. In me.” He tapped his temple where the appliance once sat.

Understanding dawned, followed by clutching horror.

“Will it kill you?” Nausea welled up her throat.

“I don’t think so. I got the temple device off pretty early on. In the event of missing maintenance procedures, the temple device sends in nanos that are supposed to shut the cyborg down, but not damage it.”

“Shut you down? Like kill you?”

“I don’t believe so. They don’t like to destroy something they’ve put so much research and resources into. I was an experiment. All the cyborgs in the harem were experiments. Sooner or later Sirn would have moved me to military duties. They just want to shut the cyborg down until they can collect it and recondition it, if it begins to remember.”

“Is someone coming to collect you?” she asked, horrified.

“None of our sensors indicate anyone is following us. But eventually someone will notice this ship is gone. A ship like this is worth the gross national product of some planets.”

“When do you think the failsafe will start?”

“I think it already has. I am tired, but I can’t sleep. Puregens recover quickly, so I am rarely tired. None of my activities should tire me.”

“What about the weight bearing exercises? Are you doing many of those?”

“Just the normal sequence. Nothing that would make me tired.”

“What can I do?”

“We’re going to dock at Katherine Hub in just a few days. I don’t know how responsive I will be by then, but we can get a prerecorded message zipped to New Prague. It’ll cost, but it is a common service on the hubs.” He tapped the com and showed her.

“I have it all set. My brothers will come for you.”

“Us.”

He nodded and gave her a crooked smile. Her heart raced in fear. This was serious.

“You’ll need to find secure housing and a reputable buyer for the jewels to pay for lodging. The ship is worth a great deal, but it will be recognized if we try to sell it. We need to just abandon it so we can’t be traced to it at the Hub. Hopefully my brothers can retrieve it when they get us.”

“I think will have more physical maladies than mental ones. The purpose of the nanos is to shut me down so I can be retrieved.

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