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Owen had allowed her to leave the medical center that same night, and she had gone straight to Davis’s quarters, where she had remained for the past two days. The only time she left was to take Penny out to use the potty, and she had declined Raven’s assistance to act as her guard.
Was she still in danger from any of the cyborgs who might consider her a target? How could she be when she was technically a cyborg herself now? That didn’t mean she went around with a false sense of safety, and she kept her eyes open, but she saw no one for those two days.
Except Davis, who returned to quarters every night, bringing food to her. He’d been quiet and given her the space she needed for the first day, but he had pushed yesterday for some sort of interaction. She had put him off by saying she was tired, but she doubted he would let her cling to that excuse tonight. She still had no idea what she was going to say to him, and she didn’t know what she wanted from him—comfort or complete isolation.
She was on tenterhooks by the time he came in that evening, bearing the tray she had gotten used to seeing in his hand. She took it from him with a weak smile and started eating, hoping she could avoid conversation by keeping her attention focused on the meal.
Surprisingly, he didn’t try to speak to her as she ate. Instead, he interacted with Penny and the puppies, who still did mostly nothing but sleep and eat. Their eyes weren’t even open yet, and on their own, they were absolutely adorable. Adding in the combination of Davis crouched on the floor, petting Penny while stroking a random pup, just about broke the cuteness scale. It sent warmth spiraling through her chest, and she set aside her tray to just watch him for a moment.
As soon as he became aware of her gaze on him, he looked up at her. His expression was tinged with confusion, but there was a steely determination in it as well. As he got to his feet, she braced herself to face him when she was still in a confused state herself.
He walked over to her, crouching on the floor by the chair where she sat, bringing them almost level. He took her hand in his, and she winced when it was the cybernetic one. Flinching, she tried to pull away, tugging harder when he wouldn’t allow it. “Let go. Please!”
He let out a broken sigh. “Have I done something? You’ve gone from pulling me closer to pushing me away. At first, I thought it was your injuries and needing healing time, but there’s more to it.”
She bit her lip before looking away from him. “I’m fine. I just don’t feel like...”
“Being touched?” He punctuated the words by lifting her hand and shaking it in a meaningful way. “It’s as though you can’t stand to have me touch you. Is it your new skin? Perhaps your nerve endings aren’t calibrated correctly?”
She stopped trying to tug away her hand, and she also surrendered to the tears burning behind her eyes. She was amazed to feel moisture on her left cheek just the same as her right when the tears started to flow. For some reason, she had envisioned that eye being unable to cry, though she knew it was technically identical, if not superior, to the human eye she’d had.
He looked alarmed by her tears, and he reached out for her without touching. “Are you in pain?”
She shook her head, and her tears flowed more freely when he cupped her cheek. His palm pressed against her human flesh, which should have been reassuring. Instead, it just made her cry harder.
Abruptly, he stood up and lifted her into his arms before she could protest or even think about turning away. Instead of doing so, she curled against him, unable to turn off the voice in her mind that noted he lifted her left side, so that her cybernetic skin pressed against him rather than her human side.
He took her to the bed, but only to sit down, and placed her on his lap, his arm around her as he firmly pressed her face against his shoulder. He didn’t speak as she cried, but he rubbed his hand up and down her back, precisely down the middle, soothing both sides of her.
Finally, when the tears abated, she lifted her head and looked into his gaze. She was embarrassed by her emotional display, but when she would have turned her head away, he cupped her chin to prevent her from doing so.
“Talk to me. Why are you crying?”
“How can you ask that? Look at me. I’m half... I don’t know what the hell I am.”
He frowned at her. “You’re alive, and that’s what’s important.”
Carrie nodded immediately, certain he was right about that aspect. Whatever she was, it was certainly better than being dead. “I don’t dispute that, and I’m happy to be here, but I don’t know what I am now.”
His expression softened slightly. “You’re Carrie Morgan, just the same as you always were. You’re my mate, and the woman with whom I’m falling in love.”
She stilled at the words, eyes widened in shock. “But...”
He arched a dark brow. “But what? Cyborgs can’t love?”
She bit her lip as she shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant.” But was it? She had spent time with the cyborgs, and she had seen them interact. They had friendships and emotions, and they were fundamentally the same as the humans she had known in her previous life. It shouldn’t be any surprise to find out that they could love too. A sudden fear crossed her mind, making her heart skip a beat. “When did you start falling in love with me?”
Davis appeared puzzled by the question. “I can’t pinpoint an exact time. I felt drawn to you from the moment I saw you, and I thought it was the same for you?”
She nodded, absentmindedly wiping the moisture off her face when she realized it hadn’t completely dried. “But you didn’t say anything until tonight.”
He frowned. “I brought it up once when you first mentioned thinking your purpose here was to end the war, but I’ll concede the discussion quickly changed direction. There hasn’t really been an opportunity to mention it since, has there?”
“Maybe. Or maybe you just didn’t feel it with the same intensity until the last two days.”
He scowled at her. “What are you insinuating? I feel like I’m being accused of something, but I have no idea what the crime might’ve been.”
Carrie immediately softened her tone. “I’m sorry to sound accusatory, but I need to know...” She pulled her hands away from him and bunched them in her lap, unable to keep looking at him for a moment. His hand on her chin had slackened, but after a moment, it tightened to nudge her face up again.
“What do you need to know?”
“Do you like me better now that I’m half-cyborg? Do you prefer that side of me? Because I’m human, I think. I don’t want you to prefer the mechanical side, or pressure me to become fully cybernetic like most of you.”
He looked flummoxed for a moment before he blinked. “I would never pressure you to do such a thing. The reason most of us have fully cybernetic skin these days is strictly a matter of practicality. It heals faster, and most of us have lost our human flesh long ago in various battles.”
“Oh, but—”
He ignored her interruption. “It might surprise you to know when I first volunteered to be a cyborg, I had a cybernetic arm, two cybernetic legs, and a cybernetic exoskeleton implanted over my rib cage after it was irreparably crushed. Otherwise, I was still fully human, and my skin was similar to yours. I had patches of blue that blended with my human skin tone.
“Over the years, I’ve given up all human skin out of necessity, but that doesn’t mean I prefer a cybernetic state. I have no true preference, to be honest. It is what it is, and I’m happy to be alive. That’s the ultimate thing to celebrate about the technology we have. It keeps us alive, even if it slightly alters our appearance.”
“It’s more than slightly though.” She waved a hand down her body. “I look like someone literally sewed two disparate beings together.”
He let out a little sigh. “You look as beautiful as you did before, and I’m certain it will take you time to adjust, but the rest of us have already done so. You’re one of us now, even more so than you were before, but only physically. It’s up to you to fully integrate, and you were well on your way to doing so before the synthetic attacked you. The only person who can change that is you.”
She bit her lip until she tasted blood before abruptly withdrawing. “It’s just so different. What do I do now?”
“You can do the same thing you did before, which was stay on the base and help out around here, or you can join some of the scouting parties, or you could become a scavenger. We always have need for people to seek out supplies, especially terbium.”
She allowed herself to be briefly sidetracked from her identity crisis. “What’s terbium?” Raven had mentioned it once, but she hadn’t bothered to ask about it then. At the time, it hadn’t been relevant to her, but it suddenly seemed like it would be.
“It’s a derivative from bastnäsite or monazite, which we still have to mine. It’s critical for keeping our systems functioning and is a main component in our nutrient fluid. It’s fairly easy to find, but it requires hard work, and extra hands are always appreciated.”
Her eyes widened. “You’d let me go out there with the others to search?”
His mouth tightened. “I won’t like it, but I couldn’t stop you. I wouldn’t if it’s something you wanted to do, even though it’s not safe. It’s not safe for any of us, but that’s the reality. The other reality is if we don’t have terbium, we die. So if that’s your calling, Raven can take you out with her on her next mission. If you decide what you want, I’ll try to help you make it happen.”
It was the genuine acceptance in his eyes, along with the calm certainty in his tone, that eased most of her fears. While she was still a bit confused about her identity, and uncertain if she would be able to easily adapt to her new appearance, she was no longer concerned that he preferred the cybernetic side of her. He had accepted her as she was now far more easily than she could do herself.
He grunted when she unexpectedly shifted in his lap and pushed him down on the bed. He seemed surprised, but certainly not unwilling, when her fingers moved over him to strip off his clothing. He leaned back, arms splayed, and opened himself to her. Carrie appreciated the sign of trust, and she allowed herself to be as open with him as he was with her.
The kisses started out slow and gentle, but quickly escalated to needful. Her hand stroked down his body, her mouth soon following the trail her fingers had forged. He let out a harsh sigh when she reached her destination.
She slipped her lips around his shaft, encompassing his erection with her mouth and taking in as much as she could. She teased and stroked him with her lips and tongue, until he was moaning and arching frantically against her. Then she deepened the suction, reveling in the way his body jerked under hers just before he stiffened in her mouth and started coming.
After that, it was a blur of motion entangled limbs as he flipped her over, settled between her splayed thighs, and surged inside her. She discovered she was exactly the same on the inside as she’d always been, and her sheath clung to him tightly, and in a way that left no doubt of her welcome.
When they had both reached satisfaction, they lay replete in each other’s arms, and she curled against him. As she was starting to drift off, the thought filtered through her mind that his arm was snugly over the right side of her waist, completely in contact with her human skin. Dozing off after the loving they’d just shared, she realized how silly it was to be worried about such a thing anyway. She would adjust to her new state, and he’d clearly already done so. She had no doubts or uncertainties about that as she slipped off to sleep.
***
SHE DECIDED TO VENTURE out with Raven two days later, which was the next time her friend was on a scavenging rotation. Their sensors could tell them where to find good deposits of the minerals they needed, and she also discovered why she wouldn’t have been allowed to do this task when she was fully human. Both metals were radioactive, and while her cybernetic components could quickly heal the damage, the radiation would be enough to kill the average human after a short time.
Carrie was nervous when she followed Raven and several other cyborgs into a mine. There was evidence that they had been excavating for a while, including a manual lift that worked on a pulley system, along with lights that appeared to have been shoved seamlessly into the wall. She didn’t know how the technology worked, but it provided ample illumination. In fact, it was brighter in the mine than it was outside with the haze of dust in the atmosphere.
Soon, they were all on the lift, and she held her breath as they descended, moved downward by two of the cyborgs controlling the pulley system that lowered them deep into the mineshaft. There was a moment of fear when they descended farther than the lights provided by the main level could reach, but by the time the lift opened at their destination, and light returned, she was far calmer than she had been.
There was still an air of adventure about the whole thing, along with a strong dose of uncertainty. She’d certainly never been a miner in her previous life four hundred years before, but she was anxious to contribute to the community and try something new.
It took less than a half-hour for the new to wear off, and Davis had definitely been right. It was hard work, and physically demanding. Even with the technology they had, including ultrasonic vibration machinery that did most of the rock breaking for them, it was the most difficult task she’d ever undertaken.
Two hours in, she was definitely noticing the difference between her cyborg and human sides. The left side was still functioning smoothly without aches and pains, while the right side was starting to feel the overexertion. She was certain she’d soon build up the muscles required, but it was a sharp reminder of her new state.
Surprisingly, it didn’t concern her too much. Maybe she was coming around to the new version of herself, or perhaps she was just too tired from mining to get emotionally angsty about the whole thing at the moment. Either way, she shoved aside concerns and continued on her task without allowing doubts to fill her mind.
Raven worked nearby, and she kept up a steady flow of chatter to which Carrie tried to respond. The more she worked, the more difficult it became to focus on conversation, and she started letting Raven’s words wash over her in a pleasant haze. That must have been why she initially failed to heed her friend’s warning, not noticing the words until Raven’s tone had taken on a sharp edge. She blinked as she looked over at Raven. “What did you say?”
“Back away slowly. You’ve reached a weak area. You can tell by the brittleness of the rocks.”
Carrie looked down, straining to see what her friend meant. “I don’t—” She broke off abruptly as her left eye picked up tiny cracks appearing under her feet. “Oh, no.” She started to take a step back, but it was already too late.
The rock broke underneath her, and she plunged downward. A shout escaped her, and she scrabbled to grab hold of anything to break her fall, but all that accomplished was scraping her hands. There was nothing to hold onto, and nothing to stop the sharp descent that ended with a bone-jarring crash jolting through her entire body. Blackness immediately crashed over her, and she lost all awareness.