Theirwounds, or damage, was going to slow them, too, but she doubted even though they’d sustained more damage than she had that they would be as handicapped as she was. She was running on adrenaline and she knew it, but not only did she realize she couldn’t afford to lay around to recover, there was no place to lay around and no actual medics. “I feel like shit, but I can make it. I’ll feel a hell of a lot better when I have some ammo—and enough rations to carry me through a couple of weeks.”
Thankfully, he merely nodded and followed her when she shrugged her weapon from her shoulder and started out of camp. The throbbing from her wound began to intensify almost immediately and she paused after a little bit and checked her med-kit, counting the painkillers. She had three doses. She decided to take half a dose to dull the pain. If she took a full dosage, she wasn’t going to be very alert. Besides, she might need the painkiller worse later on. “I don’t suppose you guys were issued painkillers?” she asked, only half joking because she was hopeful they might have something.
“No,” Seth responded.
“Want one of mine?”
Seth sent her a sharp look. “Thank you. I do not need it.”
She didn’t believe him. He looked like he was in pain, but she didn’t push it. Shrugging, she put the kit up. “More for me.”
“Yes.”
Thank you for pointing that out, she thought irritably. She didn’t think it was a good thing that the cyborgs knew the humans among them were far weaker than they were.
They’d only been trudging through knee deep snow for an hour when they found their first corpse. Danika discovered it by stubbing her toe on it and falling over it. The fall set her wound to throbbing hard enough it might have taken her a while to get up if Seth hadn’t hauled her upright.
She thought she’d tripped on a rock, but she’d managed to clear enough loose snow away when she’d sprawled out to identify the object that she’d fallen over.
“He is dead.”
Danika flicked a sharp glance at Seth, met his gaze for a moment, and looked away. Until he’d said that, she’d convinced herself that it was a cyborg. In that state, he certainly didn’t look human. She swallowed a little sickly and knelt beside the corpse.
“I will do it,” Niles said.
When Danika glanced toward him, he lifted his head, looked her directly in the eyes, and she saw there the same change that she’d seen in Seth. Caught between horror at the task she’d volunteered for and shock that whatever it was affecting Seth seemed to be spreading, she couldn’t think of a response for several moments. “It has to be done. I might as well get used to it,” she finally responded.
“You do not have to grow accustomed now. I will … search this one for supplies.”
She decided not to argue with him. For one, she didn’t think she could manage the ‘job’ without puking. For another, arguing with a machine that could rip her apart as easily as tearing paper if he took the notion seemed like a really stupid idea.
Seth gripped her arm and hauled her to her feet again as if the matter was settled and she sent him an uneasy look.
Seth hesitated, but he didn’t like the look in her eyes. “No one here will harm you. We are programmed to protect our team leader, Danika.”
It was almost an admission that he’d changed—drastically—and it didn’t comfort her as it had no doubt been meant to. How much of their programming, she wondered, had been corrupted by whatever had brought about the change she’d noticed?
Also available from New Concepts Publishing:
Cyberevolution Seven:
Rules of Engagement
By
Kaitlyn O’Connor
( C ) copyright by Kaitlyn O’Connor
Cover Art by Jenny Dixon
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
