Cyborg Nation by Kaitlyn O'Connor (e novels to read TXT) 📕

couldn’t hold the flesh together and manipulate her instrument at the same time. Apparently seeing her dilemma, Gabriel approached, knelt beside the bunk, and held the wound closed while she sealed it.

Releasing a sigh of relief when she’d finished, she glanced at Gabriel as she brushed her hair from her forehead with the back of one hand.

He was still bare-chested, she discovered with a start. He rose even as she glanced at him, turned on his heel, and departed, giving her a good view of his tight buttocks, which the thing he was wearing left completely exposed. She didn’t know what it was, but it was certainly not under-shorts!

Her patient caught her attention as he sat up. Still trapped by his leg, Bronte’s eyes widened as the movement brought his chest directly into her line of vision. She tipped her head back to look up at him just as his hands settled on either side of her head, entrapping her thoroughly for his perusal, which he took his time with.

“It is a very great shame that you are human,” he said finally.

“Why?” Bronte asked, her voice little more than a breathy whisper.

Something flickered in the depths of his deep, jewel green eyes. Instead of answering, he released his hold on her. Dropping his hands to her hips, he lifted her up and set her away from him and then rose and went into the facilities.

Bronte stared at the closed door for several moments after he’d disappeared and finally got up shakily. With the mindlessness of long practice, she gathered the things she’d used and returned them to her bag, more shaken than she could ever recall being in her life.

They’d taken her and she still had no clue why. She should have been shaking with terror, she mused, not thoroughly rattled by an inopportune surge of raging hormones and animal lust.

She was afraid, deep down scared, but that had certainly not prevented a physical response and her body clearly had no discrimination. They were cyborgs! Not even real flesh and blood men!

She glanced at her hands at that, staring at the blood that belied that thought.

They bled. They felt pain. Whatever they’d tried to make her believe, despite the fact that they’d managed to control it and move and behave as if they were completely unhurt, she knew better.

They hadn’t simply interacted with her, responded stiltedly in a facsimile of human behavior. They’d been toying with her, verbally sparring, provoking her to see how she would react.

They were not simply machines. She didn’t know what they were. She didn’t know how it had come about, but they had evolved well beyond machines with AI and clever programming. They were thinking beings! Sentient life forms!

Chapter Three

Escape was the single thought running through Bronte’s mind as she left the cabin. Even as she stepped out, however, she could see the other two cyborgs at the helm of the small craft.

There was no escape!

There wasn’t even a place where she could be alone to fall apart where they couldn’t witness her weakness and analyze it, and probably record it for the others.

There were others, she knew. She had no idea how many others. The company certainly hadn’t published the figures and even if they had, they would very likely have lied.

She stopped, surveying the mid-section of the vessel. If she only had a little space, a little time to herself to come to grips with the hopelessness of her situation ….

Her gaze lit on the door of the facilities in mid-ship. She made a bee line for it before she had even fully registered that she had found a temporary haven. She needed to wash up after attending them anyway.

There was another bath … room, fully equipped, assuming they had need for it and she supposed they must if they had two bathrooms … or maybe not. They might have stolen the ship and refitted it. Should she assume they were fully functional pseudo-biological entities?

Why the hell not! They were functioning completely on their own as far as she could tell. They had obviously planned and executed the mission to grab her … in the teeth of opposition, which they had expected and been prepared for. They had risked their lives to grab her … or rather her father, but the very fact that they had simply adjusted the original plan without missing a beat was proof positive of evolved, more human-like thinking. AI certainly allowed for adjustments in the face of error or miscalculation. That was what it had been designed for, but even with it the bots had never been able to function with this level of efficiency.

More accurately, they had required a considerable amount of time to adjust. Depending upon what they had to adjust for, it could take a minute or hours. Unlike human decision making, which involved almost as much ‘hopefulness’ as facts, the computer with the AI unit could not be satisfied with ‘almost’ or ‘close’ or ‘best three out of five’. They could not function without absolutes, would stop for however long it took for them to carefully and methodically reevaluate the situation.

Gabriel had come to a decision as soon as he had fully grasped that she was a doctor, just as her father had been, same specialty, same training and education, just not as much experience. From what she could tell, the other two had arrived at the same conclusion in roughly the same amount of time. Dr. Bryan Alexander Nichols was no longer among the living and not an option, so they had taken her instead.

Why did they want her? Actually, she didn’t suppose they did. They had not seemed particularly happy about having to take her instead of her father.

But why would they have any need for a pediatrician?

There was only one reason they would, of course, but it was nonsensical. Even if she did accept that they had somehow evolved into sentient beings—and she still hadn’t completely accepted that notion—they had