Abiogenesis by Kaitlyn O'Connor Read Free Book Online Page A

her hands and stepped out, as well. He’d opened a cabinet in the wall, she saw. He pulled a sheet of fabric from it, tossed it to her, then pulled another one out and began to rub it over himself, soaking up the excess water on his skin.
    She scrubbed the cloth he’d thrown to her over her own skin and discovered that it was reasonably effective. Her skin still felt damp, but only a little. Her hair continued to drip even after she’d scrubbed the towel over it. Reuel’s black hair was nearly as long as her own, falling well past his shoulders, so she watched him to see what he would do with his own hair.
    He merely rubbed it with the cloth to remove as much water as possible, raked a comb through it to remove the tangles and left it to drip. Shrugging, she combed the snarls from her own hair and left the bath with cold rivulets of water trickling unpleasantly down her back.
    He was standing before an open locker in the room, pulling clothing from it, she saw. Turning, he tossed a tunic to her. She caught it, but studied it doubtfully. The clothes she’d stolen before had been too big. Any tunic that would cover his body was unlikely to even remotely fit her.
    Mentally shrugging, she pulled it on and discovered she hadn’t mistaken the matter. The tunic fell almost to her knees. The neck opening gaped and the sleeves completely covered her hands.
    When he’d finished dressing, he turned to study her. His lip quirked upward on one side. Striding toward her, he caught the fabric in his hands and ripped first one sleeve and then the other from the tunic. She rather thought it might have worked better, however, if she’d merely rolled the sleeves up. The shoulders drooped well down her upper arms and the armholes ended in the general vicinity of her waist. The sides of her breasts were fully exposed and the whole breast threatened to fall out the sides when she moved.
    She studied the effect doubtfully.
    "We are machines, not men. You needn’t concern yourself that any will be so overcome with lust over your human body as to accost you," he said dryly.
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
    A combination of anger and discomfort brought color forward to tinge Dalia’s cheeks. Obviously, she had gravely insulted him when she’d allowed him to see how revolting she considered the idea of copulating with a cyborg. He seemed determined to emphasize the fact that he was a cyborg at every opportunity, at the same time giving it the lie by proving that he was far more than a ‘mere’ machine. He was not imitating the reaction of a human to an insult. Clearly, he had felt it. She wondered if his creators realized just how far beyond machines these cyborgs had evolved. She supposed they must if they considered them so dangerous. "It hadn’t occurred to me that it would be a problem," she responded tightly. "I was only thinking that it was not very comfortable."
    She could tell by the expression on his face that he knew she was lying.
    Was he truly as unique as he seemed? Or had the others she’d destroyed been as he was?
    It disturbed her to think they might have been. She had refused to consider that they were anything more than machines, very impressive machines, the cutting edge of technology, but still no different, really, than any other machine when all was said and done. Cutting them down was no different than destroying ... a refrigerating unit, for instance. Except they bled, and the blood gave her nightmares and the look of despair in their artificial eyes as they died gave her nightmares.
    If she had not known that strangely beautiful, and very unforgettable, face from the bulletins that had been posted on him, she was doubtful that she would ever have realized that he was not human, and that disturbed her almost as much as the other. How many, she wondered, walked undetected among them? Infiltrating every aspect of their society, possibly preparing to strike down their creators before their creators could destroy