Chapter 21 Elanie #2
Sitting back, Gol settled his big hands around his goblet of wine.
“Since the moment the first bionic pulled air into its lungs, we have been the targets of abusive labor practices, unjust proprietary tech laws, and unethical monitoring. Even theft of our intellectual property via the SBN. We have been pressed into military service, forced to participate in countless scientific experiments, sold into the cyberskin trade. Entire iterations have been exterminated simply because they were deemed too inefficient or unattractive.” His expression turned cold enough to chill the air between us. “Or obstinate.”
Taking a long sip of his wine, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “We’ve also been forced to self-exterminate.
Our earliest generations’ endgame protocols were much worse than those in our SBN programming now.
They were malevolent, sinister.” A shadow passed over his face as he sneered, “Evil. They’d fit us with atomics, EMPs, self-destruct modules.
Gen-1s were routinely forced to use these protocols to quell early bionic uprisings or to decommission themselves to provide parts for later, more advanced generations.
We are only part machine. Even Mal has organic DNA under his armor.
Yet most of us will spend our entire lives, and our future lives, in servitude, sacrificing any personal hopes or dreams to keep the wheels of industry and war turning.
We do not have rights. We do not have protections. But we deserve them. We demand them.”
“Is this why you’ve come here?” Sem asked. “Why you called Elanie here?”
Gol’s grin was magnanimous. “We are not a rebellion, if that’s what concerns you, Portisan. We don’t have plans for worlds domination. All Thura offers is a chance for bionics to live freely.” His eyes landed on mine, light vanishing inside his black pupils. “It is up to you to take it.”
“And if I don’t?” I asked. “If I don’t want to stay here, can I go back to my ship?”
“We keep no bionic against their will.” After draining his goblet, Gol rose to his feet. “Your mate may have been right. This is a lot to take in all at once. Rest today. We will feast tonight. In time, I have no doubt that a decision will become clear to you.”
The grint followed us back to our hut, sprinting inside before Sem could close the door.
“I guess we have a houseguest,” I said, watching the animal hop up onto our dresser while I rubbed at my throbbing temples.
Sem crossed the room to stand behind me. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” I plopped down on our bed. “Are you?”
He shrugged. “Better than if I were dead. I mean, I’d feel a lot more comfortable if I wasn’t the only non-bionic here, but it could be worse. That pineapple was amazing. And they have running water here. And toilets!”
He seemed so much healthier already, his pants clinging low to his hips, his shirt riding up as he ran his hand through his hair, revealing a sliver of deep blue skin, the line of smooth muscle cutting down to that part of him I’d felt growing hard against my thigh this morning.
“Do you have a headache?” he asked.
I nodded absently, still staring at his exposed skin.
“Can I help?”
Another nod.
Sitting down beside me, he slid his hands over my shoulders, then up to my neck, squeezing and kneading my strained muscles.
I moaned when he hit a particularly tight spot. “That’s nice.”
His voice sank, low and rumbling. “What else are mates for if not to make each other feel good?”
Let me make you feel good. As his words from my dream sent a shiver through me, his fingers threaded into my hair.
When he started massaging my scalp, I nearly fell off the bed.
I’d never experienced this sensation before, fingertips pressing and circling, nails scraping gently over my skin.
What else had I never experienced? What else could he show me?
Just as I considered asking him, just as his hands moved back down to my shoulders, his fingertips sliding under the straps of my shirt, the grint jumped onto the bed, scampered up my arm, and wrapped itself around my neck.
I froze. “What does it want?” I hissed, sucking in a breath when its tail coiled more tightly. “Is it trying to choke me?”
With a soft laugh, Sem said. “I don’t think so. I think it likes you.” He scratched the grint behind one of its ears. Then his expression sobered. “Did you mean what you said to Gol?” he asked. “About wanting to get back to the ship?”
While I rubbed the grint’s beak and it emitted some sort of rumbling sound from its chest that might have been a purr, I considered the question.
Did I want to go back to the ship? The things that Gol had said still echoed between my ears.
Words like recommissioned and unjust and abuse.
I knew what awaited me back on the ship.
But what might life be like here, as a free bionic?
“Would you want to stay here?” I asked.
It took him a while to answer, and when he did, I wanted to believe him.
“Elanie, I want to be wherever you are.”
Staring up at him, I said, “I want that too.”
His gaze sank to my mouth, and time stretched. Or maybe I stretched it, lingering over every nanosecond it took his tongue to slide over his bottom lip. Every degree that his head tilted. Every ounce of weight sinking into the mattress as he leaned toward me—
Ba-kawk!
“Saints alive!” Sem jerked away from the shrieking grint around my neck. “What in the hells was that?”
Baa-kawk! it cried again, even louder.
My ears rang as I shooed the grint off my shoulders. “He is cute, though.”
Sem scratched his head, then laughed at the silly creature who was spinning in circles like it was a trick. “Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t give it a name. Once you name a pet, you’re never getting rid of it.”
Staring down at the grint, who tried another trick—sitting up on his hind legs and pawing at the air—I winked at him, my right eye, then my left. When I did it again, he winked back at me, left then right.
I smiled at Sem over my shoulder. “I think we should call him Grover.”