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  A familiar voice spoke, “How are you feeling?”

  She pursed her lips and looked around. A translucent man, solid in build and rather tall, hovered next to her.

  The same man from my dream?

  His presence was utterly silent except for his voice.

  Her eyes widened in shock.

  “Atlas?”

  The projection smiled sweetly. She sat up quickly, feeling the tug of wires entrapping her body and stared at the projection beside her.

  The sentient intelligence was tall, unusually so, with every definition and groove accentuating a man honed through countless hours of battle. He was before her in one monochrome color, a dark sapphire blue that stood out in strong contrast to the fluorescent aura of the beams around the white room.

  Reina slipped her legs off of the medical pallet and leaned over to get a closer look at him. He stepped forward in silence until they were practically touching.

  She felt enveloped by him, invaded by him, and yet knew without a doubt that he wasn’t a physical being. Nor was he the same entity from her dream.

  Small numbers slithered over his skin like tiny, barely perceptible hairs. A very hot, possibly feverish heat spread through her.

  She knew it wasn’t from her illness, but she didn’t want to face the horror of what it really meant.

  The smile on his lips morphed into a devilish grin, and she caught it in the corner of her eye although her gaze was tracing the flowing outline of his digital body. His body was covered neck-to-toe in a suit of circuitry that looked like a second skin. It melded over him as if it was an extension of his form. She could still see the sculpted godlike physique directly beneath.

  Reina looked down. Unfortunately, his manhood was not outlined. I’m a pervert. She sucked in a breath.

  “Like what you see?”

  Reina jerked back, putting as much distance as she could between them, only being held in place by the medical bed.

  I do. Too much.

  “Is this what you really look like?” She shook her head. “I mean when you...when you had a body?”

  “It is an exact replica. I could change my appearance but this is my natural form, and so it comes naturally to me.” She watched as Atlas took a step back, allowing her an overall perusal.

  “You’re very attractive.” She gulped.

  “So I’ve been told. That pleases me, Reina.”

  “I’ll never think of you as anything other than a man now.” Her laugh was met with a grin.

  “I should have appeared before you sooner.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Reina eyed the projection with a pleasant appraisal.

  He looked at her, his eyebrows narrowing, creating a strange sort of digital cluster that looked like a shadow over his face. It was beautiful. “I prefer to keep myself hidden.”

  She realized then that he really was something more. The revelation was all at once strange and wondrous. Her curiosity about the snarky Cyborg grew.

  “Why?” she asked, feeling like she had to know.

  Atlas looked down at her with an unusual glint in his eye. “It stops the questions...and the pity.”

  I have questions. I don’t pity you.

  The sound of a door zipped open behind her, cutting off their conversation. A slightly pudgy man with overly large glasses stepped in and toward her with intent. “I’m glad you’re awake.” He looked down at the screen in his hand. “Captain Reina.”

  It was then, with a perception her old comrades would have laughed at, she realized she was no longer in her ship, nor was she fully clothed.

  Atlas whispered directly behind her, his warm robotic tone filling her ears. “We were forced to make a detour to a nearby Cyborg facility.”

  “Yes. Yes. Please sit back on the pallet, Captain Reina, let me look at your arm.” The doctor tapped the bed impatiently.

  “Who are you?” She lay back, comforted that Atlas was next to her. I’ve barely known him for a week. She internally frowned.

  “I’m Dr. Yesne. Yes-Knee. Please remain still.” He emphasized to them as if they wouldn’t be able to pronounce his name correctly.

  Reina twitched when his clammy hands clutched her body. She looked over at Atlas but he was watching the doctor’s fingers with a strange intensity. She followed his gaze. They ran up and down her robotic arm, feeling and pinching, tweaking and pushing at random intervals. She couldn’t feel anything more than a dull pain but that was mainly due to her nervous system being rebuilt.

  The more the man continued to pull and poke her, the more she began to feel less like a human, and more like a doll.

  Right as the doctor’s hands cupped her neck and ran over her shoulder, uncomfortably close to her breasts, Atlas’s gruff tone split the mood with thunder. “Well, doctor? She is cleared to go back to work?”

  Dr. Yesne didn’t look away from the incision on her neck, responding absently. “I’m afraid not entirely.”

  “–What?” She and Atlas asked at the same time.

  The doctor looked up then, slowly, with one last slithering glance over her exposed arm. She shivered involuntarily. The heat that had built between her and Atlas had become ice cold.

  “I ran her medical diagnostics on the ship. She was feverish and dehydrated. That was all,” Atlas said.

  Reina piped up, “What did you mean, ‘not entirely?’”

  “I will be joining you for the rest of your mission, I’m afraid. Until you reach Port Antix.” His wispy mumble made her grimace.

  OH, HELL NO.

  Atlas, in his very vulnerable projection, glared at the doctor with such a horrible look that he was sure his eyes would burst into lasers and kill him. He imagined the man’s skin melting off and it almost made him smile.

  He wasn’t a physical being per se, but he had claimed the ship as his, and Reina went with it. Regardless of what that meant.

  The thought of the chubby doctor with the groping hands near his captain fueled the fire of his hatred for the cybernetic unit of the Earthian Council.

  Atlas looked down at the girl between him and the man with concern. His captain had shielded herself with a stone-cold emotionless look again. Her version of armor. One that was often underestimated but obviously needed for a woman who was in her position.

  He ghosted his surrogate hand over her arm, willing his imaginary seeds of comfort to take root inside of her, all the while hating himself for his lack of a physical touch.

  His mind turned back to his body: frozen, with barely a fiber of life left in it. Waiting for his return. He just needed a heart that could mutate to accommodate his specialized nanocells.

  Once he had his body, nothing could hold him back. Nothing.

  “It’s not necessary for you to join us.”

  “I agree. I feel much better now,” Reina encouraged.

  The doctor readjusted his thick glasses. The heat of his skin had fogged them up. Atlas was disgusted by the man’s overall lack of discipline even if most would envy his intelligence. He was being harsh, he knew, but he just didn't like how the man had touched Reina’s arm, especially since it was the one piece of her that he could actually touch.

  While Reina had been unconscious, Atlas had a revelation: the reason why she had been sought after and chosen for this specific mission. The moment she had passed out in exhaustion, he stormed the medical blockades of her body as her immune system struggled to fight him off like a virus. It was immediately clear to him why Reina had been singularly chosen to be his jailor and his key.

  Her great-grandfather General Jensen had donated his genes to the cybernetic program. He had led thousands of human warriors against the alien threat.

  His genes had been manipulated and spliced with several dozen other examples of humanoid perfection to create the first generation of Cyborgs, including Atlas himself.

  And for a terrible macabre minute, his eyes drifted to her heart. He could own it, but not as the centerpiece to his reconstructed body.

&n
bsp; Atlas could harvest her. Compatibility was guaranteed. For some reason, the thought sickened him.

  “Unfortunately, we have no choice in the matter.” Atlas watched the man’s eyes drift over Reina’s toned, taut form. “I will be your caretaker for the rest of your mission until we reach our destination. I assure you it will be of no inconvenience to you. The Earthian Council wants to ensure Reina’s recovery.” The doctor shifted and looked at him.

  “Dr. Yez-Men, correct? I can assure you that I am the only protector and crewmate Captain Reina needs.” He drifted closer to the stout man. “You do know what our purpose is, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “We’re leaving the network. You see, we’re going into hostile territory, long before we even reach Port Antix.” He lied. “The likelihood of death is high. The likelihood of us coming back from the dead space alive is so infinitely minuscule, you could be stranded on Port Antix for years before another ship makes contact.” His voice filled with fake gravitas. “Are you willing to risk your career, your life, to take care of Captain Reina? When she is already well taken care of?”

  The stodgy doctor backed up a step, and for a brief moment, Atlas felt triumph that his fake shell could intimidate others.

  If you were a machine, I could fry you.

  The other man peered at him with annoyed unease, and when he glanced at the barely dressed woman on the bed, his eyes sparkled. “It doesn’t matter the danger, I have been made aware of the parameters of this adventure and the opportunities for scientific advancement. I will be joining you on your journey. And S.I.,” the doctor said in a derogatory tone, “I volunteered.”

  Atlas watched as the man turned toward Reina and dismissed him.

  The next hour fell into a silent rhythm. Reina kept looking back at him, eyeing him, her discomfort apparent. They couldn’t speak privately because Mr. Yesne stayed with them every moment, continuously reaching out and running his hands over the girl’s arm, running tests. He remained by her side as her comforting element until she was cleared and processed. Her blood samples and biomarkers categorized and added to her shipboard medical record.

  After a twenty-four-hour delay, the three of them made their way back to the ship, leaving the hidden, obscure lab behind.

  “Follow me, Dr. YesMe, I will show you to your quarters.” Mispronouncing his name again, he turned to Reina. “Captain, I believe there is a correspondence for you that needs your attention on the bridge.” He willed her to listen, placing the intent into his eyes and it only took a moment before she understood his meaning.

  “Thank you, Atlas, for taking care of me.”

  The doctor tried to intervene but he cut him off.

  “You’re welcome.” He watched her slowly move down the winding passageways, her hand absently trailing the wall. He turned to the annoying man who stopped him from following her. “Let’s get you settled.”

  “I would like to see the rest of the ship.”

  Atlas grinned. “Absolutely.” He led the man down a side hallway, away from Reina, deeper into the flyer. The doctor hesitated briefly, watching the girl move farther away from them before following.

  He led him down to the lower deck where the machinery, reactors, and unused analysis computers dwelled. He led him past the engine rooms and the stockades. The weaponized bots and drones.

  Atlas severed his conscience and channeled the ship, dimming the cold passageway lights so subtly that by the time they got to their destination, Yesne was peering.

  “Where are we?” He shifted his feet, a huff to his breath.

  “I thought you might want to see the cybernetic unit we have installed. It’s state of the art. We house it below to keep it cold.” Atlas flourished his arm at the closed door. “Don’t you want to see where you’ll be working?”

  The doctor scrutinized the door as if he could see beyond it. “Seems oddly out of place for a cyber lab, I would expect it to be a part of the medical bay.”

  Atlas bared the teeth of his projected face before settling it into stone. Taking cues from Reina. “It is.” He opened the door. “After you.”

  He watched the doctor hesitantly enter into the bright light, then immediately closed and sealed the door behind him. Atlas walked away as Dr. Yesne’s muffled cries of outrage were swallowed by the chill of the lab door.

  Chapter Seven:

  Their mission resumed. But the time that ticked away wasn’t the same.

  Atlas watched as the stars flew by like tiny little specks of dust. The rainbow sparkles no longer held a glittering beauty to him. He coveted their spotlights when he was alive, but now he looked upon them with boredom.

  He had seen a billion of them in his time, and yet they did nothing for him but act as pretty little lights out in the land of nowhere.

  The doctor lay below in cold stasis; he had stopped yelling eighteen Earthian hours prior. Atlas knew he had to take advantage of the situation soon. The doctor brought an opportunity to him, one that he could barely think about or hope for. If Yesne was a proficient surgeon, he could rebuild his lost piece.

  The gleaming intelligence was a beacon in the man’s eyes. Although, Atlas did silently wonder if the glint was truly intelligence and not merely grease. He would have killed him if he thought that he looked at Reina as anything more than a new cybernetic wonder.

  The first Neoborg, or Cyborg for that matter, to be a part of a ship. A living extension of an entire structure. In a way, Reina was the closest thing in the world to himself.

  He looked over at his captain. Atlas wanted her to initiate a conversation between them. He was shocked at how much he craved it. How much he wanted someone to want to talk to him.

  “So, you trust me yet, Captain?”

  A nonchalant laugh answered him. “You could be grooming me.”

  “You’re far too perceptive for that. Should I be?” He flickered the fine blue lights around her. “I would like to groom you.” I would love to be a man and run my hands all over you.

  He watched as she looked around for his projection. But he kept himself hidden.

  “I don’t know what your endgame is but flirting with me will not get you there.”

  “What if my endgame has changed?”

  He projected himself right in front of her and laughed as she jerked back, crowding her personal space again.

  “What’s your endgame?” she asked, eyes wide and breasts heaving. He noticed every nuance and wanted his body to cover all of it. He willed the memories of physical touch to the forefront of his mind.

  “I want weapons access now.” He pulled back. A diagnostics update pinged. Annoyed, he fired off the update and got back to the matter at hand.

  “What the fuck would you need weapons access for?” The anger on her face pleased him.

  Playing their game, he answered her with a question. “How are you feeling? You look beautiful.”

  Feel, Reina, feel for the both of us.

  “Why do you want weapons access, Atlas?”

  “So I can protect you. I’m a terrible protector without weapons. I don’t even have a body to shield you.” He moved closer to her sitting form again, knowing that he affected her. “These conversations are getting old. Just give it to me.”

  “Protection from what, exactly? We’ve been drifting through the safest, most direct channels to our destination. I can’t imagine a pirate fleet will appear on our route. They’re smarter than that.”

  “But what if they do? What if you’re asleep? Or if you relapse? How is your arm, Reina?”

  She lifted her chin ever so slightly, giving him that queenly look that so suited her name, but her ever-vulnerable brown eyes sucked him in. God, what I would do to be alive. Your friend...

  I’ve never belonged to anyone. I’ve never even been seen as anything but a war machine, a weapon.

  “If something attacks, then we’ll destroy them. This ship has better armaments than most cruisers six times its size. If I am asleep, I will wake up. If I grow sick again,
I will have you and Dr. Yesne treat me.”

  “Dammit Reina, you broke our game.” He leaned in close, imagining he could smell her womanly scent. What did a woman smell like? Flowers? Fruit? All he could recall was gunpowder and death. “I want weapons access. Your reasoning is flawed.”

  “I like you, Atlas, and my reasoning is sound.”

  “Hmm. That’s all well and good but if we’re attacked while you are asleep, it doesn’t matter how quickly you wake up. Most crew teams have a second-in-command. I am your second, third, fourth and final line of defense in case of emergency according to Wasson.”

  “How do I know you won't use the weapons against me? Or the Council?”

  Atlas narrowed his eyes. “I would never hurt you. I have been tasked to protect you, to keep you alive. I am a man of honor, above almost all things.”

  “Almost?”

  He smirked and then vanished, only to reappear behind her chair to whisper in her ear. “I would never lie to you.” He pretended to breathe. “Give me weapons access.”

  She sat forward, stood up, and walked to the overarching windows into space.

  He followed her.

  Atlas watched her silently, knowing she was mulling over every possibility, thinking about him. With glittering stars in her eyes, suddenly the dust specks held a new meaning to him. He looked out at the vast expanse of space with her.

  “I’m a terrible captain.”

  “You’re a fine captain. And you have so much more potential than you realize. Becoming something beyond human doesn’t happen overnight, and from what I’ve seen thus far, you have been doing a commendable job. It is hard to prove your worth when there is little chance to prove it.”

  He watched her trail her nails through her silky hair. The same hair he desperately wanted to feel under his fingers.

  “Stop it, Atlas, I am a terrible captain. I can’t even manage one ship. One. With only one crew mate, who is already well beyond proficient in his job. How are we ever going to find the souls lost in deep space,” she sighed audibly, “with me leading this mission?” Her arm hung limply at her side. “This appendage has done nothing but hurt me.”