Born

He grinned at her, opened the leather vest covering his torso so she could see the thick tubes bubbling with a purple viscous fluid that matched the color of his eyes. “Chronic kidney and liver failure. I was enhanced at birth, not born with enhancements.”

“And I’m a clone of the original Cassandra’s DNA, with a few tweaks to make me…sturdier.”

“So I’m a freak of nature, that’s what you’re telling me?”

“No, you’re a step toward what we all need to become. Unifying the Born, the Cyborg…” His gaze wandered to the bed, “And the Bred.”

“You have to feed him, to eat food yourself. No more of those nutri packets for either of you. We need your baby as evidence that the Bred can procreate.

Only with living proof will they believe us.”

She needed to sit down. Luckily a large armchair waited nearby. Her heart thundered against her ribcage. “A baby? You want my baby?” It sounded like some twisted fairytale gone amuck.

“His baby.” Vitrolith nodded to Cormack. “Even then there will be some who resist, but we will face that challenge when we come to it.”

Allora didn’t know what to think. “This is too much, these memories eating at me and all this pressure. You can’t expect me to just—”

Cassandra placed her small hand over Allora’s mouth. “All we expect is for you to live here, with him, in peace. You belong together.”

Tears filled her eyes. “If only it were so simple.”

“It can be, if you accept it.” She glanced to where Cormack stirred in his sleep. “But you better hurry because if you can’t accept it, he never will.”

20

The smell of roasting meat woke Cormack from his bizarre dream. The foreign softness beneath him made him sit upright in a hurry, scrambling for the recollection of what had brought him here.

“You’re awake.”

He turned his head and caught sight of her sitting in a mammoth chair that seemed ten times too big for her. She had curled her feet up beneath herself and though her position appeared relaxed, he could practically see the tension radiating from her.

Cyborg. The whisper in his mind brought back the earlier scene, Allora crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. The girl that had touched him, shared things with his mind that had overloaded his brain, visions of war and death, even those that had not yet happened. Though the room’s temperature was warm, the memories chilled him to his marrow.

“Are you all right?” Carefully, he maneuvered to the side of the bed. “Where are we?”

“Our new home.” Her tone was bleak, hollow, all her fight spent.

It frightened him more than anything else that had happened. “What do you mean?”

She shook her head and he caught sight of the tears tracking down her face. Dismissing caution, he went to her, needing to comfort her.

“What has upset you so?”

She held his gaze. “I’m like them, a Cyborg.”

Cormack shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

“It’s true.” She rose, and then, almost as an afterthought, picked the chair up, with one hand. “I was born with their enhancements. My mother didn’t flee from the Cyborgs—she brought me to the colony so I could find the journal.” Her gaze skittered away as she set the chair down. “And you.”

His heart thundered in his ribcage. “What do you mean?”

A sniffle and then she looked up to him again.

“We are a science experiment. The Cyborgs want to free the Bred, but because of your conditioning they require tangible evidence, proof that the Bred have been lied to all these years.”

“What sort of proof?”

“A child, our child. Evidence that the Bred are not infertile, but are kept sterilized so the Born are in total control of you all, from birth to death.”

“Kept sterilized how?”

“The nutri packets. There is something in them—

” her words cut off on a sob and he had to take her in his arms, hold her while she cried. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. They’re so evil, working the Bred to death, rewarding them with food drugged to keep them sterile. And I  helped them.” The horror in her voice couldn’t be faked.

He stroked his thumb along her cheekbone. “You didn’t do this, didn’t ask for any of this. Allora, you are just a victim here.”

She shoved against him, hard enough that he was forced to release her. “But I’m one of them, one of your enemies!”

He looked her over once, slowly, surveying her up and down. “I see only my task mistress.”

This time he saw something else in her eyes besides her anguished tears. Hope, bright and unsure, but ready to take root, if he nurtured it.

“Allora, you are everything I’ve ever wanted, a gift. Even if I detest the giver, do you believe I’d return you and go about my life? Now you tell me there is a way for me to help my people, to free them.” His lips curled up. “And all I have to do is keep loving you?

Even if this is some sort of Cyborg scheme, I’ll fall into the net happily.”

Faster than his mind could comprehend it, she threw herself at him, knocking him back onto the bed.

Her lips pressed against his in a feverish kiss and she broke it only long enough to whisper. “I thought you’d hate me.”