Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 61982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
I smile and there’s a giggle on my lips, a warm haze running through my veins. It feels faintly familiar, but in a way I can’t entirely access. I feel as though I’m trying to remember something, a faint bell is ringing in the recesses of my mind. But it doesn’t matter, I’m sure.
Drak is helping me stand up, guiding me with one hand under my elbow.
“Good girl,” Drak praises. “You are ready to merge with the goddess.”
We go deeper into his ultra secret private office with the heavily guarded doors and the special markings to let everyone know they absolutely should not be there. I glide through the doors with him, feeling almost as if my feet aren’t touching the floor. I can’t feel my body like I usually do. Odd.
“How do I merge with it? More suckers?”
“Oh, no,” Drak says. “Those were training apparatus. For the merging, we’ll make a small incision…” He reaches out with a fingernail that is surprisingly sharp and runs it round in a line from my forehead all the way around the circumference of my skull.
“And we’ll remove the brain,” he says with a smile.
“Remove the brain,” I repeat in my pleasant haze.
“That’s right, and then we’ll install it in the robot, and you and the creature will be the same thing. Well, your consciousness will control the various functions assigned to it anyway.”
“You want to put my brain in the robot,” I repeat.
“That’s right,” he says, his tone soothing and warm and friendly. “Just pop your brain right in there.”
“What brain will you put in my body?”
“You won’t need a body after that, human. You’ll be part of something much bigger.”
“Does Arkon know about this? He likes my body.”
“We will let him keep it,” Drak says. “We can put you on machines to keep the basic functions running even without this delightful little meat computer.”
It feels to me that there’s something wrong with this plan, but I can’t fully articulate exactly what at this precise time. Odd, I know. It’s like my thoughts have been turned down, and the part of my mind that was afraid of things has been completely disconnected. I’m going to join with something beautiful, something bigger than myself. And all it’s going to take is a little cut.
* * *
Arkon
I feel something sever inside me. I am in the midst of helping the juniors recalibrate a joint system that keeps inverting itself, but in an instant I know something is wrong with my mate. She has become something of a constant presence in my mind and body, and her absence is very tangible even at a distance. This is a feeling I have not had before, but I’ve heard of people talk about mating bonds. Hard to tell if it represents something real, or if I’m just starting to get paranoid at not having her right by my side all the time.
I immediately use the intercom to talk to Drak.
“Drak?”
“Hm?”
“Is everything alright with Evie?”
“Yes,” he says. “She’s doing well. Deep in the simulation right now.”
I feel a little intellectually better and get back to work, but over the course of the next hour or so, the feeling grows until I can no longer push it away.
“I have to go,” I tell the juniors. “I’ll be back in a bit. Hold fire on this until then.”
Evie’s advanced simulation time is technically over now. She should be back in my office, but she’s not. And somehow I knew she would not be, even before I looked in there. She’s gone. I can feel her absence in a way I did not even know I could feel her presence.
Would she have run away? No. There’s nowhere to go. And she’s never shown any signs of trying to escape. If she had, something would be missing. Maybe something is.
I try to stay calm, though inside, I am already raging. The warrior I have had to be all my life knows when he has lost something. Ground, territory, advantage, anything.
I go up to Drak’s lab, telling myself that of course there’s a very reasonable explanation for this. He’s held her back late. She needs to do a little more. He’s found a way to iterate something…
The door to his lab opens, and he is standing there, almost like he was waiting for me.
“I can’t find Evie,” I say, only half-meaning in the physical sense.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I have her.”
“Thank the gods,” I sigh. “I was worried something had happened to her. I’m going to take her home now. We need to talk about these disappearing acts she keeps pulling…”
“She can’t go home right now, she’s indisposed,” he says.
“What does that mean? Where is she?” The tension is returning as quickly as it disappeared.
“She’s still here, but you are going to have to get used to her being different.”