Cyborg Nation by Kaitlyn O'Connor (english readers TXT) 📗

in a shaky breath, she focused on removing her makeshift garments and lay down on the table, staring up at the ceiling and trying to block out the certainty that both men were looking her over with eyes that missed nothing.

The medic set the scanner and took up a position in front of the vid as the instrument began its trek down her body. Surreptitiously, Bronte watched his face, although what she thought he might give away of his thoughts she had no idea. Professionals in general were trained to keep their thoughts to themselves to keep from alarming a patient unnecessarily so it wasn’t at all likely that the medic would give anything away even if he saw something. And, considering he was a cyborg, it was only that much less likely he would be horrified by anything he saw.

The scanner stopped at her toes. “First scan complete,” the computer announced. The scanner began the back scan.

Bronte’s thoughts shifted abruptly to the one thing that had been worrying her for weeks. Try though she might to keep her thoughts from affecting her, she felt her heart rate pick up with anxiety a split second before the computer announced it.

“You have nanos,” the medic said. There was no noticeable nuance of surprise in his voice but the fact that he’d announced it at all meant he was.

Bronte swallowed with an effort against the dryness in her throat. “Yes. I was hurt in the crash. Gideon, Jerico, and Gabriel all contributed some of their nanos to keep me alive.”

“They have repaired the damage from the crash.”

They’d also, to her certain knowledge, repaired her defective eyesight. When he stopped the scan over her abdomen, she waited for him to tell her what else the little bastards had been up to once they’d run out of things to fix.

Despite her certainty that he wouldn’t give anything away, he did. She just wasn’t certain what his expression denoted as he studied the screen with frowning intensity. “Gestating,” he finally said slowly, flicking a glance at Caleb.

Bronte followed the direction of the medic’s gaze, stared at the taut faced soldier a moment and looked at the medic again while that slowly sank in. “Are you sure?” she demanded, tensing to sit up to look at the monitor herself and then forcing herself to relax again.

The medic looked at her strangely. “I am certain. There are three. This makes it difficult to ascertain time elapsed.”

Bronte stared at him blankly. “Three what?”

His face went taut, his lips tightening. “Cyborg/human fetuses.”

Bronte thought for several moments she would faint. She closed her eyes as the shock rolled over her in a cold wave. Instead of fainting, however, she burst into tears, sobbing loudly in spite of her efforts to stem the excess of emotion. It was ridiculous, she knew, to get so emotional over relief, but she’d worked so hard to convince herself that she had to face the likelihood that something was terribly wrong with her it was as if the abrupt lifting of her certainty of horrible death had broken the dam holding back everything she’d tried not to feel. “I don’t understand,” she wailed when she finally managed to find her voice. “The crash … how could I still be pregnant when I was hurt so badly? I was sure even if I had been that it would’ve been terminated by the injuries.”

Needless to say, the medic couldn’t answer that question any better than she could. She discovered, though, when she’d mopped the tears from her eyes so that she could see that the medic and the soldier had retreated to the hallway outside the examination room. It occurred to her abruptly that they probably thought she’d come unhinged from everything that had happened. She tried harder to regain control over her emotions but it seemed beyond her. The dam had broken and she had no control over the emotions pouring out.

She more than half expected the medic to dash for a sedative, but then she realized that probably wasn’t something they would keep on hand. They weren’t human. She doubted they’d ever dealt with hysteria. Eventually, it leveled out on its own. She wasn’t certain if that was because she’d exhausted the pent up emotions or if it was the realization that the two cyborgs were discussing her, but when the soldier abruptly turned and disappeared, she leashed the tears and began to regain some semblance of calm.

Apparently heartened by that, the medic re-entered the room. Grabbing up her clothes, he thrust them at her and then pulled the scanner away so that she could sit up.

Revolted as she was at the necessity, she used one edge of the material to mop her eyes and nose since no one had thought to give her a tissue. She almost started crying all over again at the sense of misuse that caused her.

She was among cyborgs, she thought miserably. No one was going to understand or empathize with her situation.

The medic waited until she dressed herself—or maybe he’d just been waiting until she appeared calm enough to understand him.

“The injury to the supporting structure of the leg has left that area weakened, but there is new growth of cells there and it appears that it will grow stronger as these cells reach maturity. There is also a great deal of new cell growth in the other area of injury, and the new cells have also not reached full maturity. These will also be weak until they do mature fully. There is some overall dehydration which will require drinking liquids to replenish.”

Bronte nodded, feeling pretty much divorced from everything around her as her emotional turmoil left her.

The soldier reappeared in the doorway. “I am to take her to her quarters if she is not in need of medical assistance.”

The medic nodded. “I can not see anything to indicate that her natural healing abilities and the assistance of her nanos require interference. They are slow to do their job,