He’d watched her for months, gotten to know her habits and idiosyncrasies, understood how much she valued her sister and her career. Meeting her in person had been overwhelming. His groin ached with unfulfilled, almost forgotten need and his lips yearned to reclaim her mouth. He couldn’t stop thinking about the flush on her pale skin, her soft ash-blonde hair catching the light, the way her orange top strained over her full breasts…
Dollard reached for a medical scanner and waved it over Doug’s body, frowning when he reached Doug’s groin. “You’re having a physical reaction to something.”
Through gritted teeth, Doug replied, “It’s called an erection, doctor. You ended the Consort session before I finished.”
The doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t had a physical response to these women before. What’s changed?”
Attie’s rose-petal scent and kiss-swollen lips popped into his mind. He blocked it a microsecond later, but the tech pointed to his monitor where the nanites had already transmitted Doug’s thoughts into code for the diagnostic. “Sir, this might be it.”
Dollard pursed his lips and elbowed the tech aside so he could look at the display.
Shit shit shit. The doctor didn’t care about the women brought in as Consorts, but he still reviewed each new entry, and he hadn’t seen Attie’s. Doug needed to divert their attention. Now. “The algorithm I mentioned I was working on earlier is causing side effects to my autonomic system.”
Hands paused over the keyboard, the doctor jerked his gaze back to Doug. “The one to improve your hacking efficiency?”
“Correct.”
Dollard’s eyes lit up, and he reached for the medical scanner again, monitor forgotten. “Perhaps you’ve stumbled across an improvement to integrating the nanites with biological systems.”
The NIU project had begun with purely biological test subjects, but it turned out the nanites required cybernetic interfaces or they ended up destabilizing and killing the host. Once Dollard had realized that, he’d either added cybernetic implants to his test subjects or disposed of those who rejected them; Doug’s sister had only escaped with her life because the Denaidan pirates had found her and been able to clear the nanites from her system. Now the project relied completely on cyborgs, which in Dollard’s opinion was imperfect; he wanted to create spies who could walk into a room and never be detected.
The doctor adjusted the scanner’s setting while he spoke over his shoulder at the tech. “Have you reviewed that algorithm yet?”
“No, sir.” The tech’s throat bobbed with a nervous swallow. “He only gave it to us an hour ago.”
Dollard scowled as if the guy’d been sitting on it for a week. “Well, get on it immediately.”
“Yes, doctor.” The tech closed the diagnostic Dollard had been looking at and brought up the algorithm.
Doug let out an internal sigh of relief. Both men were now focused back on the nanites. Attie was safe for now.
Hovering the scanner over Doug’s body, Dollard shook his head. “I can’t detect any alterations to the test subject’s physiology. I’m going to need to run diagnostics on each of the cybernetic systems individually.”
Doug gritted his teeth again. A system-by-system check of his cybernetics would take days. And he’d probably be strapped to this damn table the entire time—Dollard seldom considered the comfort of his test subjects. But if it kept attention off Attie, Doug could endure. He’d endured far worse in the past.
“Doctor?” A scrawny security tech cleared his throat as he approached from the direction of the Consort Chamber. “There was a faulty component in the door mechanism. It’s fixed now.”
“It better be.” Dollard thrust a finger toward the other side of the lab. “Install a secondary security field over that entrance immediately. And check the other door.”
“Yes, doctor.” The man scuttled off.
Dollard returned to his scanner, only to be interrupted again a moment later by a call. “Dr. Dollard, your cycle in the cloning lab is finished. What do you want me to do?”
With a frustrated huff, Dollard set his scanner aside. He glared down at Doug a moment, then detached the hardline. “Go back to your room.”
Doug rose and moved docilely to his cell, grateful the doctor hadn’t ordered the tech to take over the scans. It meant Dollard considered it important enough to handle himself, which was both good and bad. For now, Doug would use the break to his advantage.
He settled onto the bed as the security screen shuttered closed, obscuring his view of the lab. Diagnostic scans always left him with a headache and a bunch of dirty code to clean up, but he didn’t have time for that now. He needed to find that AI. What had Attie done with it? Had it fallen off in the Consort Chamber, or had she left it behind in her room? He couldn’t spy on her in the Consort Chamber—no technology was allowed in there because the cyborgs might hack it.
Reaching out with his cyber-sensitivity, he searched the rest of the ship for the device. Why couldn’t he sense it? He’d never met a computer able to block him, and his stomach churned. The helpless feeling reminded him of his childhood, when he and Lisa were always looking over their shoulders in fear the station police or the cartel were after them. But he was no longer that little boy with no skills or connections. There were other ways of finding the AI.
Accessing the video logs in Attie’s quarters, he rolled back to the last time he’d been certain the AI was in her possession. He watched her move about her room. How many times had he watched her do this? And still, her movements mesmerized him every time.
She selected a uniform from her closet, then opened her
