“You’re added to the system.” His arms stayed like pillars on either side of her head.
Kat tried to ignore them as she turned to face him. “Thank you.” His dark eyes filled her vision and his nostrils flared.
“Are you sniffing me?”
“You smell good.” The Cyborg leaned in and smelled her again. Kat veered back alarmed. His eyes never left hers.
Her stomach growled. He unpinned her and glanced down at her belly before he lifted away. One of his fingers whispered over a wayward curl of her hair, a slight tug, indiscernible but for the trail of goosebumps down her arms.
Kat swallowed. “So what do I do now?”
“You do your job and stay out of my way. You’ll respond to the EPED and tell them that I hired you. They may give you hell. You deserve it.” He stepped away and the warmth went with him. “I don’t like liars, I don’t like people in general, but you’re here now and so I will use you as I see fit.” He turned to leave.
Kat called after him, “What’s your name?”
The Cyborg paused, his back once again turned toward her. “Monster,” he said eventually. “Since that’s what I am.”
He left her there, shivering and uncertain at the computer; confused about the tense exchanges they shared. She had never dealt with a Cyborg before and wondered if they all acted the same way. Kat lifted her still tingling palm to her nose and sniffed.
I wonder what I smell like.
An android walked in holding a protein bar and a bottle of water. She drew her hand away from her nose as it placed the nourishment on the desk.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Katalina Jones.”
Kat studied the silver and bronze machine, taking it in, only to look past it at the open door, questioning where the Cyborg had gone off to. It didn’t sit well with her.
She looked back at the android. “What is your master’s name?”
“Dommik-One. Please eat, Katalina Jones, he demands it.”
Hmm…
“Call me Kat. Does he demand a lot?” she asked, opening up the protein bar. She still had to pee but her need for food outweighed her need to relieve herself.
“We are androids. We’re programmed to follow all orders by the Master.”
She eyed the machine. “Would you follow my orders?”
“We will follow Katalina Jones’s orders only if they do not impede Dommik-One, if they are humanly reasonable based on our programmed standards, and that they do not require us to abandon or jeopardize previously assigned tasks,” it stated monotonously.
Kat gulped down her water while the android stood beside her. The silver and bronze robot was shaped like a human with two arms and two legs but was otherwise androgynous. It had no other discerning features and it had no face. The machine was just a simulated human with a screen where its eyes and nose should be.
She looked down. It had no sexual organs and in a way, that relieved her. Kat wasn’t opposed to sex-bots, she just didn’t want the ones who would be her only co-workers be them.
“Is there a bathroom in here?”
The robot handed her a thin bracelet. “This will allow you access to everywhere our Master has deemed okay.” Kat took the circlet and put it on her wrist. “If you don’t want to wear it, there are codes you can memorize for each door. Follow me for the lavatory.”
Kat twisted the thin metal over her wrist, it was hot, unusually so. The android led her out of the facility and back into the main ship. The dark passages from before engulfed them. They stopped in front of the lav door.
“When you are done, go back to your quarters, the rest cycle is about to begin.”
The light of the android’s face lit up the space. It made the shadows outside their periphery even darker.Dark enough for a lurker.
When she finished up in the cold wet room, it was gone.
