Page 6 of Max
“So now I have good reason to be afraid to go to town.” She pulled Angus’s saddle off and set it by a nearby tree on the ground. Taking up a rope attached to the saddle, she took off his bridle and attached a metal clip to his halter, tethering him to the tree with access to the meadow grass. Angus immediately started grazing.
“He needs water.” Falyn went to the canvas saddle bags and pulled out a collapsible bucket.
“I saw a stream about two hundred yards west of here,” said Max, holding out his hand. “Let me go get some. I see far better than a normal human in the dark. We don’t want Angus to step into another hole.
“Thank you, Max.” She handed him the bucket. “Angus would try to follow if I go.”
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
While Max jogged toward the stream, Falyn untied the sleeping bag from her saddle. It was made from a synthetic material compressed in a compact roll that was easy to tie to the back of a saddle. With the setting sun, the ground was becoming damp. She spread it on the grass by the saddle to use it for a headrest.
Max jogged across the meadow toward a stand of trees that marked the stream’s bank a short distance away. With his enhanced vision, he could see almost as good at night as in daylight.
He didn’t like leaving Falyn alone, but he knew the horse needed water after the long run and trauma. He downloaded the horse care data while he was tending its broken leg. There was a time when such an injury warranted euthanizing the animal.
Max knew Falyn was his genetic mate almost immediately. After his experience with her avatar in stasis, he’d been reluctant to tell his real mate. He worried she would reject him. The avatar made him feel flawed, but now he wondered if the avatar was defective.
So far, Falyn didn’t seem as if she would reject him. She did kiss him back, and there were sparks. He was reluctant to project a future with her because one kiss didn’t mean she would accept him as her mate.
The long walk back to her homestead should give them time to learn more about each other.
As he reached the creek, he jumped down from the bank to the water’s edge. It was only several inches deep, but he managed to fill half a bucket. He jogged back to Falyn and the horse without spilling any.
Angus looked up from grazing as Max approached and held the bucket for him to drink. The horse drank most of it and then went back to grazing.
Carrying the bucket over to where Falyn sat on her open sleeping bag, he set it by the tree. “May I join you?”
“Sure.” She patted the fabric next to her.
Max sat down beside her. “He drank about two liters. I will give him some time, then get more.”
“If he is filling up on grass, he probably won’t want more for a while.”
“I can keep watch if you want to try to get some rest.”
“I’d appreciate that. Now that you mention it, I feel pretty tired now that the adrenaline surge is over.” Falyn lay down on her side, resting her head against the saddle. She took a deep breath and let it out, quickly falling asleep.
Chapter Four
While Falyn slept, Max checked in with Captain Savage to let him know he’d found his mate. The captain suggested he could delay starting his job for a month. Max decided to take him up on it but still planned to scout a location for his new base of operations before that.
Next, he shared the news with the other members of his team. He did that not to brag but to encourage them that it was possible for them, too. It only took him a few minutes to communicate with the other five cyborgs over their network.
Then there was nothing much to do until daylight except to bring more water to the horse. While the horse could now walk that far, the bank was a four-foot drop from the creek bed. Max didn’t want to risk the strain on its healing leg.
Rather than boredom, Max was happy to sit by Falyn and watch her sleep while he memorized her face and form. He kept looping through his CPU that she was the mate he had hoped for all his life.
The scientists who created them could have compiled a database of family lines for their genetic mates. Almost every aspect of human existence was in the data cloud on Earth. But the Enclave was too busy cranking out cyborgs to fight the war. Fellow cyborgs were disappointed and angry, believing they’d been betrayed. They learned it wasn’t deliberate when the rangers returned to Earth. Buried deep in the database, they found a treatise detailing why it wasn’t done.
Too many people were killed or displaced in the bombings. The power grids went down and took mass communications with them. The war they fought for‘her’ made it harder than they expected to find‘her.’
Max smiled, silently rejoicing that he had found his mate and she was attracted to him. But he worried. Would she want him when she found out he was flawed? Or was he? The avatar, though AI-driven, wasn’t a real human female. He shook his head.
Saving her horse already went a long way toward winning her favor. She clearly valued it as more than just a work animal. Watching her hold its head in her lap while stroking it tenderly and encouraging him with softly spoken words filled him with longing.
Lying with his head on her lap while she spoke soft words of endearment, stroking his close-cropped blond hair, was as close to the definition of heaven as he could get. Max didn’t allow himself to think about breeding her. That would only make his pants seem uncomfortably tight again.
Falyn indicated she’d need time to adjust to the idea that he was her cyborg mate. Or maybe that he was a cyborg. She didn’t seem to understand that even though he explained it.
