Smart@ss Cyborg (Plus a Cute Donkey Sidekick)

CHAPTER 1

“Traxia’s inhabitants are a lawless, aggressive people, with a small populace scrabbling to make a living on this terraformed planet,” the AI drones on.

I’m listening with “half an ear,” as the humans are fond of saying.

(I mentally stroke my ego center, located primarily in the Fronto-insular Cortex of my brain, for utilizing this humanism.)

“This populace tends to be wary of Yonderin—”

Wise of them, I think to myself as the AI informs me about the history of my people, a predatory ocean-dwelling species—

Formerly ocean dwelling, rather.

“Which Traxians call ‘mermen,’” the voice continues. “Each of the Yonderin’s vast underwater territories are rich in minerals such as jeren, cobalt, and copper, but perhaps the most sought-after resource of the Yonderin territories are their crude oil seabeds. This became a form of wealth that allowed the Yonderin people to make a unique request in exchange for their mineral rights…”

The AI’s voice buzzes in my ears as my mind drifts, both supplying and pondering the request some of us made: we traded our tails for legs. Cybernetic ones.

And now we get to be where the people are. Alien people. Anywhere on land we want to go.

I’ve selected Traxia.

I’ve extensively studied the bipedal race, called Homo sapiens, and it’s nearly time for all of my tireless work to come to fruition .

Anticipation fills me. So does a distant sense of confusion as I find myself looking around the ocean deep. But I can’t seem to rouse myself enough to question why I’m here.

Kicking powerfully with my tail, I move along an ocean floor crevice, sticking to the shadows so that the sunlight streaming down into the cool coastal waters won’t catch on the iridescent scales of my tail and cause my lower half to glitter.

If that happens, my prey will know I’m here. And today, for some reason, I’m craving my favorite fish as if I haven’t had it in an age. I’m quite looking forward to catching and consuming it.

My gill slits itch on the left side of my neck. It bothers me enough to bring my hand up, slow as a floating ribbon of seaweed, to cover them—and something wriggles under my hand.

Parasite! I curse in my mind.

Baring my teeth—and feeling saltwater press cooly against my incisors as I do—I dig my shortened claws under the funnel-mouthed many-toothed creature hooked into my flesh, and rip it away.

My distraction is momentary but costly. A dark shape slams into me, propelling me backward—pinning me against a reef. Claws dig into my flesh.

My senses scramble to register what's attacking me. A fellow Yonderin. And his aggression makes sense when the cloying scent of a nearby female reaches my receptors.

Oh no. He’s attacking me because he has determined I’m a rival.

I must have ventured into a territory that clings to the Old Ways, where males and females pairbond. It’s almost unheard of—the ancient practice of males fighting to take mates, only to become dangerously aggressive, battling to keep their female and any young they produce safe from theft and harm. There’s a reason the practice has nearly been done away with. So primitive.

He releases me in favor of moving his female away from the fray before he circles and speeds toward me once more .

For precious heartbeats, I can do nothing but watch them, numb with overwhelming shock. I’m astounded. It’s incredibly rare to stumble across bonded pairs—and I'm unlikely to make the mistake twice: the male deemed to be the threat—that would be me—is almost always killed.

A disturbing prospect.

I shake off my astonishment. Rapidly refocusing, I move to defend myself. Swift as a riptide, I meet this attack and latch onto my aggressor’s arms. By instinct alone, I scan his bioframework. To my extreme luck, I identify a fresh wound on his side.

I catch at the spot, latching onto the injury site with a crushing grip.

He thrashes his tail and escapes the hold I have on him. Baring his teeth, he viciously kicks his caudal fin, propelling forward with stunning speed, eyes full of killing intent. I no more than observe this when he rakes his claws down my abdomen, spilling my intestines into the ocean—

I jolt awake, sucking a hard breath into my gills.

Or I attempt to. I no longer have gill slits. They were sewn shut with my last procedure. The procedure that took my tail and gave me cybernetic legs, turning me into a human.

My chest bows with my stifled inhale until I harness my nostrils and pull in a full breath through my lung sacs instead. I obviously managed to breathe while I slept so my autonomic system is operating perfectly well. It's only lifelong habits that trip me up.

“And thus the Yonderin cybernetic merman program was born,” the AI continues, the computerized voice filling my ears care of earbuds I inserted before I dozed off on the train. Something moves on my neck, right over my healed gill slits, tickling the flesh around the finely raised scars. I reach up and peel off some species of colorful beetle and crush it. It wafts up a retaliatory stench that stings my sensitive nose.

I rub at it, and then scud my hand over the bristles on my face.

Beard hairs. I opted for the facial hair upgrade.

I glance down—and not for the first time, I experience a flare of something akin to disbelief as I see my legs. When I was approached with the offer to turn my mineral rights into an opportunity to have the adventure of a lifetime on land, walking on two legs instead of living life in the deep with my tail, I took the chance. While many of our people have become ambassadors for our species, wielding far more influence on land than we were able to manage before, trapped underwater as we were—some of us just wanted the opportunity to indulge our curiosity and enjoy life on two legs. I am one of these individuals. Painful surgeries aside, it has thus far proved to be a pleasant adventure here.

Shoring up my thoughts so that I can focus on the land environment in which I now reside, I turn to look at my nearest seatmates in this train car.

We’re in the most affordable roomette, which combines couples and singles in a communal sitting area. The seats are close enough that in theory, the car occupants can make conversation. Sadly, the humans were not willing to converse with me when I arrived, hence me taking the opportunity to drift into unconsciousness.

The very closest is a female human, one with a pleasant… ah. A pleasant, cloying scent. The scent that is likely responsible for triggering a dream sequence wherein I was attacked for nearing a mated pair of Yonderin, I gather as her mate, human and seated beside her, sends me a warning look. They’re dressed in muted, neutral colors, like tiny prey hoping to avoid the attention of predators. The male is wearing fitted trousers, a collared shirt that looks to be made of linen, and a herringbone tweed waistcoat with four buttons, and although I would prefer a brighter color, I admire its construction.

The female is wearing a tab-collared blouse in some flecked pattern, with pleats at its shoulders, gathered sleeves, and tall cuffs at her wrists. Her skirt is an unremarkable brown. Both of them are in hats, him in a black gambler and her in some sort of fancy lady’s hat. The fact that the male hasn’t taken his off could be a deliberate insult, I believe. At the very least, I take it to mean they aren’t comfortable enough in my presence to relax, let alone see to niceties.

I’m wearing Dixon striped trousers in an unfortunate blue on blue—it’s very dark. But the man who helped me outfit myself cautioned me against my natural color preferences, and I bent to his advice. I also took his advice about my Wyatt stripe shirt, which is white with light blue striping—and I was very pleased when he praised my first choice of this fine cherry-colored Jacquard vest that I’m wearing over it. My hat is made of genuine beaver felt that’s somewhere between brown and black in color. My boots are Nfurian hybrid leather and have been buffed to a high shine. It was difficult to find pants and boots that would fit my frame. My legs were made quite tall in order to match the length of my body, thus most of my clothing required alteration. I made the tailor very nervous. Sadly, I make most land dwellers nervous. Including, it seems, these train car neighbors of mine.

I attempt to appear nonthreatening. I don't smile; I’ve been finding that it causes activity in the amygdala’s fear response center to hyperactivate in humans when I try, so I do my best to maintain a placid expression. “Excuse me,” I say instead, and watch the female flinch.

Her mate wraps his arm around her and glares at me harder.

“I’m famished,” I inform them.

The woman gasps and covers her mouth with a white-gloved hand.

The whites of the male’s eyes begin to show and a vein at the side of his forehead begins to throb as his heartbeats’ pace explodes.

Guessing at the cause of the couple’s upset, I try to allay their fears. “I can see that you’ve heard of my kind’s reputation. And although Yonderin are known to be a fierce people with fiercer appetites, I’ve been firmly informed that I should not eat humans.”

The woman’s fear response center glows neon.

Her mate's center just about does the same .

“Heifer dust,” I mutter to myself. “Evidently not even the assurance that I was told not to eat humans doesn’t reassure humans.”

The woman bolts from her seat and her mate lunges after her. They huddle on the opposite side of the train car, where the female begins to shake and weep.

When the train car’s door slides open beside them, they both nearly levitate to the ceiling.

“Lunch service,” a train employee begins to call out, friendly-like. But the couple rushes past him, shoving aside his cart in their haste to escape.

As he quickly rights the food service and calms the clattering dishes and silverware, I sigh mightily and slump in my seat.

“What got into them—” the train employee starts to ask before his words abruptly cut off.

Bracing myself, I raise my gaze and find him staring at me. His brain’s fear network is experiencing an explosion of activity, his hippocampus, thalamus, and amygdala instantly overstimulated.

Because of me. Simply at the sight of me.

Clearing my throat, I stay slumped in an attempt not to spook him further. “Do you have any dishes on your cart that contain fish?”

A short time later I’m alone in the train car, consuming something brown and lumpy. Beans and beef, the employee managed to tell me before he fled.

It tastes nothing like the seafood I’ve been accustomed to all my lifespan. But then again, I knew food would be different on land.

I struggle to chew and swallow the foreign material. But as desperately as I miss raw fish meals, I don’t regret that I’ve left home for here, for Traxia’s landmass, embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.

I go still when my body experiences the feeling of deceleration. Suddenly there’s a loud hiss overlaid by a grinding screech—the sound of the train’s brakes, I know from my research. This is followed by a whistle louder than any underwater beast .

Moving quickly, I set my unfinished meal on the empty seat beside me and raise my hat to my head before positioning my legs to take my weight. Then I stand. Taking up my saddlebags which contain all my worldly possessions, I grasp the handle of the roomette car and draw it aside, exiting.

Leaving the train is easy, with the way the humans give me one glance and shy back from me, clutching their suitcases and bags. I pass all of them, tipping my hat to be cordial.

None of the males tip their hats in return.

I step down from the temperature-controlled train car—and I’m walloped with a wall of dry heat.

I grimace. Excessive exposure to this burning sun can be dangerous to a human—and it can become dangerous to a Yonderin as well.

“I need to find the livery,” I murmur to myself, glancing up and down the dusty streets. “My equine transport will be more efficient than my C-legs at helping me reach my next climate-controlled destination.”

My equine transport was arranged days ago, before I ever boarded the train. From the vids I’ve seen, I know that a horse is a cowboy’s closest companion. A sidekick, if you will. I'm quite excited to begin my partnership with mine. I’m to ride a faithful and trustworthy sixteen hands tall Quarter Horse cross animal named Bosco. Although I was matched to him due to my height, I liked his color, which is an electric red with luminescent white legs. His muzzle is mostly white and his eyes are a startling blue. I’m quite elated to meet him. All I must do is find his whereabouts.

I scan my surroundings. Boardwalks line the sides of each street and connect clapboard stores with signs that give an idea of what services they offer, just like the vids I’ve watched. And then I spot the sign that reads Livery Stable & Wagon Yard.

There’s some repair or alteration happening to the sign, as it appears that someone has recently attempted to paint over the additional words of Harvey & Co, rendering them hardly legible. But this is the place I need.

“Excellent,” I say to myself, and I move my legs to claim my trusty steed.