Page 25 of Her Alien Cyborgs
“But we thought about it a lot. At least I did. We were closely monitored, so it wasn’t something we could talk about, but thinking of ways to get away was how I made it through the long nights and the worst of the experiments.”
“I did too. Inside our minds was the only safe place we had.”
“Wait, they monitored your internal comms, too? I didn’t know they could do that,” Hezza said.
“They did. I couldn’t even tell Kalan I’d chosen a name for myself for months. I had to whisper it to him one time when we were doing combat trials.”
“I’m so sorry. You deserved so much better than to exist as nothing more than a number, even to each other.”
They lapsed into silence for a few minutes.
Surprisingly, Fyr’enth talked first. “Speaking of names. You’ve given us both at least one nickname now. I think we should have one for you, too.”
Hezza chuckled. “Actually, Hezzaisa nickname. No one uses my legal name. Not even me.”
“No one? How is that possible?” Kalan asked.
Hezza flicked out the fingers of one hand as if casting something away. “Easy. No one knows what it is. I always introduce myself as Hezza B. and then tell ’em the B stands for bitch.”
“You insult yourself?” Fyr’enth asked in obvious confusion. Kalan felt the same way. Why do that?
“I like to think of it as a warning that it isn’t smart to mess with me. It works too. Most of the time.” She speared another hash brown from her plate and ate it.
Kalan waited until she’d finished chewing to ask his next question. “What is your name?”
She sat quietly for several seconds as if considering her answer, or maybe deciding if she would answer at all. She put her fork down and lifted her gaze to his. “My parents named me Alyssa. My family name is Bratt. Not that I ever knew my family or my parents.”
Kalan held her gaze and waited for her to continue. She knew more about them than they did about her, and he wanted that to change.
With a soft sigh, Hezza picked up the story. “I was born in an illegal colony, on a planet no one was supposed to be on. It was owned by a corporation called Dynamex. By happenstance, that’s the same corporation that owned Liberty before it was forced to give it to the Vardarians for their new colony.”
She flashed him a small smile. “Small galaxy, huh?”
“Why didn’t you know your parents?” Fyr’enth asked.
“Because they died before I was old enough to have any real memory of them.” Hezza kept her expression neutral and her voice level. If he were a normal being, that might have been enough to fool him. But Kalan was a cyborg, and he saw through her act. Talking about her past caused her pain. Every micro-expression and element of her body language screamed it, but she told them anyway.
“Have you ever heard the expression that there are two sides to every story?”
They both shook their heads.
“It’s an old saying that means everyone always has their own version of events. That’s because those of us without enhancements have to rely on our organic memories, which are unreliable at best. In this case, there are two very different stories about what happened to my parents, and every other adult living in the colony where I was born. According to Dynamex, there was a cascade failure in the colony’s environmental controls. Toxins in the water supply, air quality issues, stuff like that. No one knows for sure because Dynamex just happened to be the ones who heard the colony’s distress call. By the time they arrived, most of the population was dead or dying. The only survivors were the kids. The adults put us all into the safest building and gave us all the untainted food and water.”
She tapped her chest and sighed. “I was maybe a year old at the time. I don’t remember much, except being in a cramped room with other kids. We were scared. Some of us were crying. Someone came. There was shouting. That’s all I remember.”
Kalan found himself reaching across the table to take her hand. It was not something he’d ever done before, but it felt like the right thing to do.
She squeezed his fingers tightly. “This all happened a long time ago, and like I said, I don’t remember much. I have a few fragments of memories from my life before that. A man I think was my father holding me high in the air. A woman singing while she rocked me to sleep. That’s it.” She looked at him and then at Fyr’enth. “I know that’s more than either of you ever had. You woke up floating in a maturation pod and climbed out to discover you were prisoners. I cannot imagine what that was like.”
“It was unpleasant,” Kalan said. “But we survived, and so did you.”
“Now, tell us the other side of the story,” Fyr’enth said. Then he belatedly added, “Please.”
“Since when do you say please to anyone?”He couldn’t resist taking a shot at his brother’s sudden act of politeness.
“You’re one to talk. You’restillholding her hand,”Fyr’enth shot back.
Hezza—No. Alyssa—eyed them both for a beat before continuing as if she hadn’t caught them talking to each other. He didn’t know how she could know, but she did.
