Wasit possible?
With an effort, she began to carefully reconstruct the events of the past several months. She’d always hated the physical examinations the company required. She’d never really known why because the truth was she never remembered anything that had happened--very little, anyway. She remembered undressing and lying on the examination table and staring up at the white lights above her head. Then, almost as if she blinked and it was over, or fell asleep, the tech would be telling her that she could get dressed and leave.
She knew it wasn’t sleep, though. She couldn’t recall the sensation of falling asleep. She couldn’t recall any sense of sluggishness when she became aware again. It was more like a switch had been turned off--then turned on again.
Nausea washed over her.
Twice now, she remembered, Reuel had suggested that she was just the same as he was, a cyborg. When she’d tried to seize his ship, he’d called her a rogue hunter, gone rogue. She knew that was what he’d meant when he’d said she was his Eve.
It wasn’t possible. Sherememberedher childhood! She remembered her parents. She was named for her mother and her last name, Varner-Hoskins 570, VH570--it was typical now to combine the names of both parents. The 570 only referenced the order of their family in the name pool.
It was purely coincidental that it also suggested one generation beyond Reuel’s designation, 469. If what he was suggesting had been true, she would have been CO570, not VH570 ... unless.
She couldn’t accept it. Cyborgs had no past, no childhood memories, no parents and therefore no memory of parents. Such things could have easily been planted in her mind, she knew, and she would not be able to tell the difference, but there was no reason that she could see why it would have been done. Why make her believe she was human if she wasn’t?
The company would not have done that. There would have been no incentive, nothing to gain by it and they never did anything unless there was something to be gained from it.
Supposing, however, that whomever it was that had designed Reuel and the others had not been able to refrain from seeing if he could take it one step closer?
That still seemed unlikely. She still didn’t believe it, but she had to accept that itwaspossible.
It seemed equally unlikely that Reuel would be wrong, however. Cyborgs were as precise and meticulous about gathering and collating information as any of their predecessors.
Leaving that line of thought for the moment, she went back to the possibility of the life growing inside of her. This time, a definite sense of warmth washed over her.
She summoned the computer assist again, commanding it to analyze the fluids Reuel had deposited inside of her. The results confused her further. The seminal fluids were barren of life seed.
An odd sense of loss filled her. She didn’t want to examine it, though, and thrust the emotion away, commanding the computer to analyze the life growing inside of her.
Within moments, it began to furnish her with the stats. Her first feeling was one of relief. She hadn’t harmed it. It still lived, was growing ... within a bio-engineered womb.
Her heart seemed to trip over itself. “Why is the womb bio-engineered, not natural?”
Insufficient data to determine.
“Was it transplanted to replace a defective organ?”
Negative.
“When was it implanted ... the womb?”
February fourteen twenty two hundred.
“That can’t be right. That was on my birthday--three years ago. I’d remember that.”
Date of activation.
“I was born--twenty years ago! I wasn’t activated, you stupid, defective computer!”
Not surprisingly, the computer didn’t respond.
“Give me the DNA of the life-form,” Dalia said after a moment.
Combined DNA of donors Reuel, Cyborg Organism generation 479 and Dalia, Virtual Human generation 570. Donors each provided precisely half the combined DNA.
Dalia felt a sob of denial tear its way up her throat as the computer recited the codes.“What is the designation of the life-form?” she managed finally.
Unknown life-form.
