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

matter if they couldn’t actually feel love. They felt loyal, protective, and responsible, and they acted accordingly. It might not actually be love, but it felt like it. It was close enough to make her love them.

She ate because her body said she needed food even though her spirit said she didn’t and because she realized it was more important than ever to make sure she had a good diet.

Even if they were hurt and angry with her, she knew they’d forgive her when they found out about the babies. They wanted a family.

Two of them were bound to be disappointed, though, she realized, feeling her hopefulness plunge, and that was most likely to be Gabriel and Jerico—certainly Gabriel. They’d only had full penetration the once right before the crash, and she was sure she must already have been pregnant then, several weeks along at least, and that meant only Gideon or Jerico could’ve fathered the babies.

It was strange that she had three. It was possible, but it seemed unlikely that she would’ve released three eggs at once. She hadn’t been trying not to get pregnant, but she hadn’t taken anything to increase her fertility because she hadn’t even been dating anyone when they’d taken her. The interference of the nanos must have caused the cells to divide, she decided, which meant she’d lost one. Cells always divided evenly.

She could still lose more. It was going to be very crowded and they were going to be vying for what they needed. She could lose all of them.

She tamped that thought. She wasn’t going to borrow trouble again! The med tech would’ve said something if there’d seemed to be anything wrong.

She wondered if she was far enough along to determine paternity, and then wondered if she should find out even if she could. Who ever had fathered the babies would want to know, but she hated the idea of disappointing the other two—especially Gabriel. He always seemed to get the short stick, no matter what.

She decided to go to the med center when she’d finished eating. She didn’t especially feel like working yet, but she didn’t think she could just sit around twiddling her thumbs and worrying about her companions’ plight without going crazy.

It was also a good excuse to get rid of the ‘alluring’ women’s clothes Caleb was determined for her to wear.

The men’s med uniforms had disappeared, she discovered, removed by Caleb no doubt while she was out of it and replaced with uniforms closer to her size, which explained some of his comings and goings while she was trying to sleep.

He insisted on carrying her. She reminded him that she needed to walk and that she could judge for herself when she’d had enough. He informed her that she was doing plenty of walking around her quarters and would be once she got to the med center and that was enough. When the med tech said there was no further reason for concern, then he would not interfere.

She let that go. He wasn’t going to be around long enough for that to be an issue. As soon as she was called to testify, she’d explain everything and they’d let Gideon, Jerico, and Gabriel go and then she wouldn’t need a guard. She’d have them.

She really hadn’t intended to do anything at the med center except examine the offices set aside for her use and try to find out how she could get them to allocate what she needed for it. Like her personal quarters, though, she found a fully equipped office, right down to a receptionist and med assistant—both male, which didn’t surprise her.

What surprised her was that there were several women waiting with babies.

They all had the same complaint—the infants were weak, unable to talk or walk, uncoordinated, so stupid they drooled on themselves, toothless, and, in fact, incapable of doing anything at all as far as they could see besides crying and relieving themselves. They weren’t even capable of feeding themselves.

She thought the first report was a hoax, or a strange joke. She realized very quickly, though, that these women were cyborgs. They didn’t joke, especially not about something as appalling to them as what they’d reported.

After informing the mother that the baby was not only amazingly strong for an infant, but exhibited every sign of being exceptionally intelligent, she had the woman wait and went and checked her other patients.

There was nothing wrong with the babies, at all.

The problem was with the mothers.

When she’d finished examining all of the babies, she brought all the women back into the reception area and conducted a brief parenting seminar. She wasn’t prepared but she explained the basics of care, handling, and feeding their infants, explained that it was normal that infants were helpless, not an indication that something was wrong with them, and told them to come back in a week and she would have a place readied where she could give them more training.

When the women had finally left, she informed her receptionist to see what he could do about finding additional room for future parent training sessions and asked him if he knew how to contact any women who were expectant mothers since she thought it was important for them to learn as much as they could before they had their babies.

She was almost surprised the first babies had made it at all considering the women didn’t seem to have any clue of what to do with them, but she supposed it was because the babies, like their parents, were exceptionally strong and intelligent.

It couldn’t be avoided that the cyborgs had thought they’d needed a specialist for their babies because they thought something was wrong with them, when, in fact, there was nothing wrong them and they would probably never need her.

The babies, she had discovered when she examined them, had nanos of their own to protect them from pretty much anything that could be thrown at them, and if the nanos couldn’t ‘fix’ whatever problems