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The ship was flying into port and Kat was awake for it. She felt the tell-tale signs in her belly but she was also told by Bin-Three, her almost-constant creeper.
Kat rubbed her arms and entered the roach room, spending her time feeding and cleaning the filters of the critters. She was nervous and excited.
It had to be one of two places, Ghost City, where Gunner had mentioned, or the moon Dommik had been upset about the previous day. Either way, she was going to see it. She was awake.It’s going to happen.
The last of the enclosures closed, the alien bugs scattered around the strange, spiked sprout she fed it each day. It took the Gliese roaches hours to consume it even when every inch of the plant was covered up by hundreds of them. Until the green foliage was nothing but a stick of twitching critters. They made her sick.
She looked away and thrust the debris into sanitation.
Her muscles spasmed. And she knew the ship had landed, a hum released around her and the sound of the hatch opening filled the sterile room. Kat wiped her sweaty palms on her pants and walked into the facility.
She looked around but didn’t see Dommik.
Her steps faltered as a metal passageway opened up to a closed quarantine room.That’s not what I expected.Her eyes ran across the space again, looking for her Cyborg.
My Cyborg?Kat wiped her palms on her pants again. Ever since their conversation the day before, she felt a change, not only was Bin-Three with her like a shadow but a tension in the air. It wasn’t real but it felt like it was going to pop regardless.
There were no footsteps again last night.She had been waiting for them, wanting them and dreading them at the same time. Uncertain about the need to be with him. Kat bounced on her feet and continued to wait. A consuming, breathless, wanting had taken over her and it was dangerous.
What if he did approach my door? Could I risk sleeping with him?
She had never shown signs of having the parasite. She also knew that sexual intercourse could be a possibility of transferring it, although all studies on the illness suggested that it was neither an STD nor was it airborne. It was likely that it had to be ingested.
But how had my grandmother contract it? It doesn’t make sense.Kat still wasn’t willing to notify the medical branch. She was an expert on it and her grandmother never gave any indication, never told her anything about her time in the hospital visiting and waiting on her parents, on her.
She had chosen to give her nana the death she deserved, the death she had begged her for, in the comfort of her own home. It wasn’t smart.
Not by a long shot.She sighed.
Her love, her first love deserved the dangerous. Her grandmother had been her world.
It was what her grandma wanted. She had taken every precaution necessary to keep the house sanitized and insular with the help of her in-laws. They knew as much as she did and followed her grandmother’s wishes. Although she now knew why. The sooner she died, the sooner their inheritance would come.
Hah.Kat spent the money on a beautiful funeral for her, a deep cleansing of the house, and she had made a hefty donation towards research.
There was a fair amount left.
Kat touched the key-chip in her pocket. There was also the money from the house. The salary she made from the EPED, and all of it was collecting dust. Stale and unused. Even the amount she left for herself to buy a ticket off-world remained.
The money wasn’t the issue that plagued her though, it was the parasite, it was her attraction to a man who was half-machine.Can Cyborgs get sick?The idea that she would have opened her door to him last night and offered him a place in her bed; her tiny bed that would probably collapse with the two of them on it.
The door opposite the hatch opened up and she could now see a large, industrial space beyond. Dommik was still nowhere to be seen. Minutes went by in quiet. People walked in the distance. Her eyes followed them with envy.
Kat wiped her hands again and went toward the exit. The click of Bin-Three followed her. She stepped through the hatch and it didn’t stop her, it didn’t stop her when she went through it to the other side and stepped onto the port. It joined her on the deck.
“What is this place?”
“This is Ghost City, Katalina Jones. It’s ruled by cybernetic beings.”
Oh.They were in a giant docking station with a large opening at one end that led farther into the city and the rest was filled with small flyers static in the middle and dozens of passageways that resembled the one she had just come through. Each one, she assumed, led to a docked ship.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It doesn’t exist.”
She turned to the android. “How is that possible?”
