Rio by Allyson James

Author:Allyson James [James, Allyson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-10-28T09:02:59+00:00

Rio

Nella thought back to the alley, tasting again the panic as she crouched behind the abandoned crates, knowing the bot would find her no matter what. She remembered when Rio had come striding through, getting between her and the bot.

“Tall,” she said.

Rees gave a short laugh. “True. What else?”

“Strong,” Nella mused. “I was terrified, and I felt like he could protect me, even when I didn’t know him. And then he fought off the assassin bot.” She smiled at the memory. “He outsmarted it and crushed it to bits. I’d like to think he did it for me, but I realize he didn’t know I was there.”

“He might have known. Shareem can see much without seeming to.”

“I didn’t know he was Shareem at the time. I’d never heard of Shareem.”

“You must have been sheltered on Ariel. I thought everyone knew about Shareem.

DNAmo even exported a few off-planet for huge amounts of money before they were shut down.”

“Exported a few,” she repeated the phrase, marveling that he could say it in such a calm tone. “You mean slaves.”

“Shareem aren’t slaves. DNAmo didn’t force them to go and even gave the Shareem a percentage of the money.”

“It’s still human trafficking,” Nella said. On Ariel, it would never be tolerated.

“But Shareem aren’t human.” A glint of humor entered Rees’ eyes. “When I say that to Talan, she gets put out with me. Sometimes I say it just to rile her up, because she’s pretty when she’s riled.”

“I am certain she’d be happy to hear that,” Nella said, pleased that the muscular and unpredictable Rees enjoyed gently teasing his wife. “When DNAmo was forced to leave, did they start production again on another planet?”

“If they did, I never heard of it. They might have changed their name, but they probably never made more Shareem. They lost a lot of money and most of their research notes. The best scientists, like Dr. Laas and Dr. Ralston, stayed here. DNAmo screwed them over almost as much as they did the Shareem.”

“What happened to all the Shareem?” Nella asked. “When you were suddenly free, what did you do?”

“We weren’t all that free,” Rees said. “The government of Bor Narga talked about terminating the experiments, permanently, when they walked into DNAmo. The Shareem heard about it pretty quick and got their asses out of there. I actually escaped before DNAmo was shut down, but not long before. I helped Shareem go to ground—

we were created to be imaginative and resourceful, so we put that to use hiding instead of thinking up sexual games. Well, we still thought up sexual games, but first we hid and survived.”

“You helped Rio.”

77

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