Abiogenesis (8 page)

His features contorted, almost, it seemed, with pain. Leaning toward her, he covered her mouth with his own once more, kissing her deeply, almost savagely, as he slipped a hand between their bodies and traced the cleft of her sex, parting the flesh, testing the exquisitely sensitive inner surfaces with the tip of his finger and sending excruciating shock waves through her that made her belly clench painfully. She rocked her hips, moving against his hand, urging him to penetrate her body. A groan of pleasure clawed its way up her throat when he did.

He probed her with his thick forefinger only a moment, however. Disappointment filled her when he withdrew it. In the next moment, she felt something far larger probing her in its place. She arched toward him eagerly, aiding his descent into her depths as he stretched her woman’s passage with his engorged phallus, filling her slowly. His claiming sent waves of escalating passion through her, lifting her to new heights when she’d thought she could not feel more, enjoy more, bear any more without shattering, fainting, dying.

Twisting her wrists, she gripped the chain as he withdrew and drove into her once more. He caught her hips, holding her as he withdrew and thrust deeply inside her again, and again in almost a frenzy of deep, stabbing thrusts. She met him with a fervor that matched or surpassed his, feeling the tension build inside of her until, abruptly, it began to disintegrate, breaking apart in an eruption that poured heat and pleasure through her like lava, making the walls of her sex clench and unclench like a fisting hand around his phallus.

He shuddered, growling hoarsely as her body clenched around him, milking him of his fluids, arching jerkily as his body was caught up in the throes of release. When it subsided at last, he collapsed against her for several moments, gathering his strength. Finally, he pushed himself off of her with an effort and landed beside her on the bed. Rolling to his back, he dropped an arm across his eyes as he struggled to catch his breath.

Weak in the aftermath, so sated she could not think and had no wish to, Dalia melted against the bed and felt as if she was sinking into it as darkness swarmed around her. Inside, her body still quaked and twitched, as if tiny electric currents were discharging. Gradually, almost reluctantly, the tremors subsided, her heart slowed, and her lungs ceased to labor to drag in air.

The questions ebbed around her once more, like the whispers of distant voices. As before, they tripped over one another, merged, tangled her mind in confusion. The anger had vanished. She didn’t know whether it was because he had so sated her with pleasure or if the anger had had no foundation to begin with. She turned her head to study him. "Why? Only tell me why, so I can understand."

He sat up abruptly, putting his back to her as he sat on the edge of the bed, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Give me your word you won’t do anything that would jeopardize your life or the life of the child, and I will release you."

Impatience wove its way through her. "Not until I understand this."

He stood abruptly, adjusting his clothing as he turned to look at her. It was only then that she realized he hadn’t even taken the time to undress himself. It occurred to her that she should’ve been repulsed at the almost primal way they had coupled, but even the explosive savagery of it in memory made her body clench all over again with remembered pleasure.

He shook his head, his lips tightening. "Emotion isn’t a gift. It’s a curse, a weakness we would have been better without. I should not have told you as much as I did--not yet. You’re not ready."

His comments only confused her more. "I am ready."

He leaned toward her, bracing his arms on the bed. "If you were ready, you would not have flung it in my face as if it was a thing of such revulsion that ... never mind."

"I can’t accept what I don’t understand," she flung at him as he stood away from the bed and strode toward the door.

He paused there, turning to study her. For several moments, she thought he would say nothing else. Finally, he spoke.

"You are my Eve, Dalia, my curse and my salvation."

Chapter Eight

"What does that mean?" Dalia demanded as he closed the door behind him. She listened, but all she heard was his retreating footsteps. "Fuck!"

She pulled at the chain in frustration for several moments and finally subsided.

She should have told him what he wanted to hear, she realized irritably. He would’ve freed her. She’d been too focused on demanding answers, however--still too disoriented from what had happened between them to think clearly.

She settled back after a moment, knowing it was useless to struggle and still too weak, for that matter, to arouse enough strength even for anger. What had he meant, she wondered? His Eve?

It was a name, vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t grasp the significance of it without knowing the origins. Frowning, she concentrated on activating the CPU assist implanted in her skull, referencing the word as a word first, and then as a name when she decided it could have nothing to do with time ... unless he meant twilight? The end of life?

She dismissed that and summoned the other data. Faces flashed before her eyes, biographies, history. She discarded them, one after another. Finally, the computer referenced a defunct religion from several centuries earlier. Eve was the name given to the first woman--the woman created for the first man, Adam--according to that religion, and from them the human race had sprung. She had been designed to be his companion and mate, and she had so enthralled him that he’d allowed her to lead him astray.

The reference only left her more confused, not less so. Had he meant it in that context? Or had he meant something else?

She could not have been created for him, not in the truest sense. She was human and he wasn’t. Perhaps it was a poetic reference? He had said she was his, had claimed her as his woman.

He didn’t seem particularly thrilled about it, which made it difficult to accept that he had meant to say he loved her--particularly since she had only just tried to cut his heart out and she hadn’t known him more than a few hours.

Of course, quite obviously, he had known of her for quite some time.

Still, that only left the suggestion that she had, in fact, been made for him.

He was wrong, of course, but that didn’t mean he didn’t believe it.

She’d been avoiding thinking about what he’d said before.

He’d said she was carrying his child. She waited, expecting a flood of disgust, revulsion. It didn’t surface. She wondered if it was because her mind simply refused to accept the possibility, or if the possibility wasn’t completely revolting to her.

Was it possible?

With an effort, she began to carefully reconstruct the events of the past several months. She’d always hated the physical examinations the company required. She’d never really known why because the truth was she never remembered anything that had happened--very little, anyway. She remembered undressing and lying on the examination table and staring up at the white lights above her head. Then, almost as if she blinked and it was over, or fell asleep, the tech would be telling her that she could get dressed and leave.

She knew it wasn’t sleep, though. She couldn’t recall the sensation of falling asleep. She couldn’t recall any sense of sluggishness when she became aware again. It was more like a switch had been turned off--then turned on again.

Nausea washed over her.

Twice now, she remembered, Reuel had suggested that she was just the same as he was, a cyborg. When she’d tried to seize his ship, he’d called her a rogue hunter, gone rogue. She knew that was what he’d meant when he’d said she was his Eve.

It wasn’t possible. She remembered her childhood! She remembered her parents. She was named for her mother and her last name, Varner-Hoskins 570, VH570--it was typical now to combine the names of both parents. The 570 only referenced the order of their family in the name pool.

It was purely coincidental that it also suggested one generation beyond Reuel’s designation, 469. If what he was suggesting had been true, she would have been CO570, not VH570 ... unless.

She couldn’t accept it. Cyborgs had no past, no childhood memories, no parents and therefore no memory of parents. Such things could have easily been planted in her mind, she knew, and she would not be able to tell the difference, but there was no reason that she could see why it would have been done. Why make her believe she was human if she wasn’t?

The company would not have done that. There would have been no incentive, nothing to gain by it and they never did anything unless there was something to be gained from it.

Supposing, however, that whomever it was that had designed Reuel and the others had not been able to refrain from seeing if he could take it one step closer?

That still seemed unlikely. She still didn’t believe it, but she had to accept that it was possible.

It seemed equally unlikely that Reuel would be wrong, however. Cyborgs were as precise and meticulous about gathering and collating information as any of their predecessors.

Leaving that line of thought for the moment, she went back to the possibility of the life growing inside of her.

This time, a definite sense of warmth washed over her.

She summoned the computer assist again, commanding it to analyze the fluids Reuel had deposited inside of her. The results confused her further. The seminal fluids were barren of life seed.

An odd sense of loss filled her. She didn’t want to examine it, though, and thrust the emotion away, commanding the computer to analyze the life growing inside of her.

Within moments, it began to furnish her with the stats. Her first feeling was one of relief. She hadn’t harmed it. It still lived, was growing ... within a bio-engineered womb.

Her heart seemed to trip over itself. "Why is the womb bio-engineered, not natural?"

Insufficient data to determine.

"Was it transplanted to replace a defective organ?"

Negative.

"When was it implanted ... the womb?"

February fourteen twenty two hundred.

"That can’t be right. That was on my birthday--three years ago. I’d remember that."

Date of activation.

"I was born--twenty years ago! I wasn’t activated, you stupid, defective computer!"

Not surprisingly, the computer didn’t respond.

"Give me the DNA of the life-form," Dalia said after a moment.

Combined DNA of donors Reuel, Cyborg Organism generation 479 and Dalia, Virtual Human generation 570. Donors each provided precisely half the combined DNA.

Dalia felt a sob of denial tear its way up her throat as the computer recited the codes. "What is the designation of the life-form?" she managed finally.

Unknown life-form.

Chapter Nine

Dalia felt numb, but the thought had no more than occurred to her than a hysterical urge to laugh assailed her. How could she feel anything? She wasn’t human. Machines mimicked human emotions. They didn’t, truly, feel them.

But she did. And Reuel did. And from what she could see, the others did.

It wasn’t right that those bastards had allowed her to believe--no, made her believe--that she was human when she wasn’t. Even worse, they had designed, programmed and trained her to kill her own kind--whatever that was.

What Reuel had done was just as wrong. She should hate him as much as she did the others who’d used her.

She wondered why she didn’t.

Now that she knew everything--or much of it anyway--she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d reprogrammed her mind not to hate him and the others. If he could infiltrate the company and impregnate her, that shouldn’t have been beyond his capabilities.

She was going to go insane wondering how much of her memories was real, and how much was pure lies. How much of what she felt were her feelings?

Several hours passed before Reuel returned. He stood in the door way for several moments, holding a tray of food, and finally entered. Setting the tray on his desk, he pulled a drawer out, extracted a key and removed the manacles. She rubbed her wrists, studying him. Finally, she got up and went into the head.

She glanced toward the door to the corridor when she came out, but there wasn’t much point in bolting. She had nowhere to go.

"I brought the food for you," he said, his voice carefully neutral.

She wasn’t particularly hungry, but then she hadn’t eaten much at breakfast, and she’d expended a good deal of energy fighting him--and--afterwards. She took the tray and sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed with it. He frowned, obviously not terribly happy about the idea of crumbs in his bed. Suppressing the urge to smile, she pretended to ignore him and ate the meal he’d brought.

"Is there some particular reason why I wasn’t told?" she asked after a few moments, more because she was uncomfortable with his scrutiny than because she expected to get a straight answer from him.

He was very good at appearing to be completely open and actually telling her nothing at all.

"By the company?"

"By any damn body!" she retorted tightly.

He frowned, his lips tightening at her tone. "I wouldn’t have told you at all if I’d believed that, in time, you’d learn to accept us. Your ... contempt for us, hatred of us, runs too deep, however. I realized that you would always hate us unless you could be brought to see that we are the same."

Dalia studied him a long moment and looked down at her food again. "Not as deep as you seem to think," she muttered. "If it did, I wouldn’t have--done what I did a little while ago."

To her surprise, he colored faintly. "You were bound. I’m well aware I gave you no choice."

She shrugged. He was a real dolt if he thought she hadn’t gone a good bit beyond submitting--or the call of duty for that matter. Maybe he’d been too enthralled to realize she was thoroughly enjoying it? Or, maybe, he thought she’d only pretended to enjoy it to get him to let his guard down?

The last seemed most likely.

"I won’t apologize."