“I’m hardly jealous,” Rhea said. “In fact, I’m the opposite.”
“Really.” Will sounded doubtful.
“I’m free of the urges that control ordinary humans,” she said. “The urges that drive them to make bad decisions. I like this freedom. I don’t think I’m ever going to get genital extensions.”
“We’ll see,” Will said. “I’m willing to wager on it that in a few months from now, when your debt is cleared, the first thing you do is install genital extensions to your body.”
“How much do you want to wager?” she asked.
“How about fifty creds,” he replied.
“You’re on,” Rhea said. “You might as well subtract that from my debt right now.”
“Nope,” he told her. “We wait until six months after you’ve paid off your debt. If you haven’t installed genital extensions by then, I’ll pay you the fifty.”
The next two cupboards had shelves littered with broken dishes. Worthless.
“Machine sex,” Horatio said suddenly. “It’s the only way to go. You say sex is dirty? Well, machine sex is the cleanest around. Why do you think so many people own fembots? Or kenbots, for the lady among us. Even better is virtual sex.”
“As usual you’re late to the party,” Will said. “We were done talking about the dirty part of sex about a minute ago.”
“Well, I didn’t want to interrupt,” Horatio said.
“He’s right, the comment was kind of late,” Rhea said.
“My mind works non-linearly,” Horatio said. “I recorded my response when you mentioned dirty sex, waited until the two of you had hashed out your competing thoughts on the matter, and then added my piece.”
Rhea smiled but said nothing.
“I once dated a cyborg, you know,” Will sent. “She didn’t have genital extensions, but I fell for her anyway. Our relationship transcended the sexual. It was… interesting. She could still satisfy me with her mouth, of course. But she didn’t ask for any pleasure in return. All she wanted was my company.”
“What happened?” Rhea asked.
“She realized that she indeed wanted pleasure in return,” Will said. “She become a VR addict. VR can stimulate the same regions of the brain involved in sexual reproduction, when the right attachments have been implanted. The mind-machine interfaces of cyborgs come with the necessary implants already.”
“I didn’t know that,” Rhea said.
“That’s right,” Will said. “Now I know what you’re going to do with your spare time every night going forward. There goes the target practice Horatio told me about.”
“I’d rather not become a VR addict,” Rhea said. “I think I’ll hold off, for the foreseeable future, and avoid opening pandora’s box. Like I told you, I have no urges to seek sexual gratification of any kind. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“If you ever need an introduction to virtual sex, I’m your man,” Horatio said. “Or rather, machine.”
“Pervert,” Will commented.
“What?” Horatio said. “There’s nothing wrong with having sex with a machine. Couples in relationships do it all the time. It’s not cheating when it’s with a machine.”
“Um, I’m not in a relationship?” Rhea said.
“I meant that only as an example,” Horatio said. “No disrespect.”
“None taken,” she said. “But can we move on to a different topic now? I’m not sure how we got started on this tangent in the first place…”
“I blame it on you,” Will replied over the comm. “You brought up mating.”
“Only after you said sex is dirty,” she countered. “In fact, I’m starting to wonder if you did it on purpose to—”
Rhea heard a sound like splitting wood outside, followed by a crash. Glancing out the window, she saw a Karg erupting from the treeline and making a mad dash toward the farmhouse. Two more broke through the dead trees beside it.
“Kargs!” she sent.
The creatures were headed straight for the kitchen portion of the manor.
12
Rhea’s first instinct was to reach for her pistol, but her brain was firing on all cylinders, enhanced by fear and whatever flight-or-fight chemicals her mind-machine interface was pumping into her artificial cranium, and she realized it was impossible the Kargs could have seen her. Their echolocation would’ve harmlessly bounced off the farmhouse exterior. The kitchen portion, with the windows still intact, would appear little more than a rectangular object to them, at least until they got closer. Those same unbroken windows would have also prevented Rhea’s smell from carrying to the creatures.
They were attacking something else. There was no other explanation.
It took the last of her will to remain stock still as she watched them charge. While the Kargs had weak vision, they were getting close enough to pick up movement behind the windows. She probably should have ducked when she first saw them.
Too late now.
When the Kargs didn’t deviate from their course and continued straight toward the kitchen area of the farmhouse, she wondered if she was wrong about them attacking something else. Their hearing was sensitive: it was possible they’d overheard her conversation with Will, even if the windows muted sound.
Should have used thought communication.
Or maybe they’d spotted her after all.
Her hand drifted to the pistol. She opened the holster and wrapped her palm around the grip.
The Kargs continued heading straight toward the biggest window, which was located just above the sink. Their head segments opened and closed in anticipation, and the serrated teeth on the tentacles hanging from their underbellies gleamed beneath the sun. Clacks, clicks and hisses issued from them—echolocation.
At the last moment the bioweapons swerved, narrowly avoiding the house. She watched them race in front of the other windows. One of the creatures slammed a companion into the exterior as it passed, hard enough to shatter the particular window that was next to it. The three of them continued running as a group, turning from the building and quickly vanished from her line of sight.
Rhea, what’s going on? Will sent over their mental link. Update me.
They haven’t attacked, she replied.
She moved to the closest window and peered outside. She spotted the Kargs near the middle of the clearing, between the guesthouse and barn. Two of them had thoroughly pinned the third, and the
