Chapter Four:

---

Kat couldn’t disassemble the metal furniture in the room, not without tools, and try as she might, she could not pull the stool away from the desk. It was anchored to the floor.

She huffed and crossed her arms over her torso as she eyed her room for the hundredth time. Her stomach growled from hunger. She knew her limitations and with her limited resources–a bag filled with only personal effects–she had no real chance to get out.

Not even to use the lavatory.

A noise sounded outside her door, distant but getting closer. The android? Footsteps. Heavy footsteps...the Cyborg.

Kat stiffened and faced the inevitable.

The door slipped open without a sound, and for a moment, she resented it with every fiber of her being.

The Cyborg stood on the other side, quick-fire rage crossed his features. Kat took a step back.

He dominated the doorway, and was big enough to be the door itself. Her pulse quickened as her eyes left his face and trailed down to his half-naked body. Dark pants hugged him but that was it. Even his feet were bare.

A sliver of fear coursed through her as he took a heavy step into her room. It was much too small for the both of them. He stared her down with dark eyes that had a gleam of evil in them.

Kat finally looked at him for what he was, a hunter, a malformation, a predator. Before he was just a mysterious and intriguing entity, now he was a man that looked like he wanted to strangle her.

Kat swallowed. “You opened the door.” He continued to stare at her, the muscles of his arms twitching as if he was trying to restrain himself. She continued, “I need network allowance.”

Her face twisted. I should’ve asked for his name.

Please don’t kill me.

His hand reached out and closed around her throat. Tight, menacing, but gentle. And big. She knew he could crush her but hoped that he wouldn’t.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he growled.

“I’m your new assistant, Katalina. Kat for short,” she blustered. The body heat radiating off his chest enveloped her.

“Did you think it was smart? Lying your way into my ship and past my androids? One that is often filled with beasts and dangerous pathogens? There’s a reason I work alone. I could kill you, I could do anything to you, and there is no one who could save you.”

His hand gradually loosened and fell back, his fist clenched at his side. Kat took a deep breath.

“I needed the job,” she said slowly. “I heard what you do–”

“Hunt,” he interrupted. “Stalk. Sometimes kill.”

“You help colonization efforts and you help find cures.”

The rage on the man’s face lifted just enough to show a twinge of curiosity in his eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest again, feeling like she needed armor against his gaze.

“Pretty words for what I actually do, what I like to do.”

“You still do it, though. I want to help…” Her eyes kept drifting down his body to take in his sculpted chest. Kat wanted to look lower, take the entire Cyborg in, but she didn’t.

“You’re an idiot. There’s no way you can help.” He turned to leave.

“I’m a nurse. Wait! I’ve been around death my whole life. I help people die. I’ve helped so many people die. I want to be around life for awhile, and I want to help people live now. Please.” She grabbed his arm. A charge of static electricity zapped her hand. Kat jumped back as the shock coursed through her. She looked at her palm, expecting to see a burn, a blister, or pink skin, but there was nothing.

The Cyborg shuddered as if he was shaking the feel of her off of him. The muscles on his arms flexed, her eyes were drawn to them, her stinging palm forgotten.

“You shouldn’t touch me.”

“Why? Because you’ll shock me?”

“I’m not used to it. I may react badly.”

He walked out of the room.

Kat gaped as he disappeared around the corner. His looming presence was missed immediately and for some reason his words made her pity him.

He makes a better door than this stupid metal panel. At least I could get through him if I tried hard enough. And with that thought, she quickly stepped out of her room. The door zipped closed behind her. She looked back at it and then around at the empty, dark passageway of the ship. She had no idea where to go. The Cyborg was gone.

She brushed her tingling palm against her pants and started walking down the direction he had gone.

Why is it so damn dark? The shadows thickened around her, only lifting away every several yards by a dim red light.

Kat called out, “Hello?”

She turned the corner and ran right into him. He wasn’t a door this time but a wall. Once again, she found herself jerking back, her heart pounding.

“Follow me,” he said roughly.

Kat nodded and stayed on his heels. He led her down a short path until they faced a ladder that went up into a closed hatch. They hadn’t walked far.

The Cyborg continued, “This level houses the living areas of the operations crew and if you turn around and go back the way you entered, you’ll find where we keep the specimens. This ladder and everything above is off-limits. If I catch you on one of the upper levels, you’ll be thrown in one of the habitats until we reach the next planet. And, Katalina, most of these planets you don’t want to be stranded on.”

“What’s up there?” she asked. He turned to face her. Darkness cloaked his naked chest from her view. The glint of black eyes appeared wider and more hollow in the darkness; like the pits of a human skull, the sockets wide and empty.

“The bridge and the living quarters of the main crew.”

“So you have a crew?” She scooted to the side as he walked by. She didn’t want them to touch again, his warning still clear as day in her head. But the heat that he gave off was an invisible beacon to her within the cold confines of the ship.

“I have androids.”

“And me.” Kat had to add for good measure. She was met with silence.

He led her back past her room and into an empty lavatory station with multiple shower pods. The Cyborg didn’t say anything as he led her through the short, dark hallways, past many doors that she assumed were more living units until they reached the end of their short trek. The area opened up abruptly and she recognized it as the entryway the android from earlier had led her through.

The thick metal slipped silently into the walls as multiple laser shields deactivated. Kat cringed away from the sudden light.

It glowed ruby red before it turned green. Just beyond was another laser barrier and beyond that was the menagerie. She could see the giant glass enclosures through the lights.

When the Cyborg stepped up to the second blockade, it too went green and vanished.

Kat followed him into the giant, multi-level facility. It was as bright as the ship was dark.

Her companion walked further into the cavernous space to an open door. He grunted, “Are you coming?”

She tried to catch a glimpse of the fluffy dragon-like creatures from earlier. One of the androids was next to its enclosure, working at a projected console.

Kat scurried across the space and into the open room. It was filled with computers and holographic screens, wires and buttons, and blinking lights. Some of the screens were turned on to show empty glass cages. Some had creatures on it while others were blacked out.

The Cyborg held out a chair for her. “Sit,” he demanded.

She sat.

A blush crept up her neck, over her beating pulse, until it flooded her cheeks. Kat was embarrassed by how easily his commands worked on her, even his unspoken ones. Her hands twitched against her thighs, unsure on what to do, as he leaned over her and typed something onto the screen. The heat of his bare chest made it hard for her to breathe.

I won’t look. I won’t look. I really want to look. His solid, glorious, white-as-a-spirit chest was directly behind her. His arm was over her shoulder. The Cyborg jailed her between him and the desk. The smell of metal and heat filled her senses as he continued to type, unaffected.

The heat coming off of his body was enough to make her sweat. His long blue-black hair fell over his arm and tickled her cheek.

“You’re added to the system.” His arms stayed like pillars on either side of her head.

Kat tried to ignore them as she turned to face him. “Thank you.” His dark eyes filled her vision and his nostrils flared.

“Are you sniffing me?”

“You smell good.” The Cyborg leaned in and smelled her again. Kat veered back alarmed. His eyes never left hers.

Her stomach growled. He unpinned her and glanced down at her belly before he lifted away. One of his fingers whispered over a wayward curl of her hair, a slight tug, indiscernible but for the trail of goosebumps down her arms.

Kat swallowed. “So what do I do now?”

“You do your job and stay out of my way. You’ll respond to the EPED and tell them that I hired you. They may give you hell. You deserve it.” He stepped away and the warmth went with him. “I don’t like liars, I don’t like people in general, but you’re here now and so I will use you as I see fit.” He turned to leave.

Kat called after him, “What’s your name?”

The Cyborg paused, his back once again turned toward her. “Monster,” he said eventually. “Since that’s what I am.”

He left her there, shivering and uncertain at the computer; confused about the tense exchanges they shared. She had never dealt with a Cyborg before and wondered if they all acted the same way. Kat lifted her still tingling palm to her nose and sniffed.

I wonder what I smell like.

An android walked in holding a protein bar and a bottle of water. She drew her hand away from her nose as it placed the nourishment on the desk.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Katalina Jones.”

Kat studied the silver and bronze machine, taking it in, only to look past it at the open door, questioning where the Cyborg had gone off to. It didn’t sit well with her.

She looked back at the android. “What is your master’s name?”

“Dommik-One. Please eat, Katalina Jones, he demands it.”

Hmm…

“Call me Kat. Does he demand a lot?” she asked, opening up the protein bar. She still had to pee but her need for food outweighed her need to relieve herself.

“We are androids. We’re programmed to follow all orders by the Master.”

She eyed the machine. “Would you follow my orders?”

“We will follow Katalina Jones’s orders only if they do not impede Dommik-One, if they are humanly reasonable based on our programmed standards, and that they do not require us to abandon or jeopardize previously assigned tasks,” it stated monotonously.

Kat gulped down her water while the android stood beside her. The silver and bronze robot was shaped like a human with two arms and two legs but was otherwise androgynous. It had no other discerning features and it had no face. The machine was just a simulated human with a screen where its eyes and nose should be.

She looked down. It had no sexual organs and in a way, that relieved her. Kat wasn’t opposed to sex-bots, she just didn’t want the ones who would be her only co-workers be them.

“Is there a bathroom in here?”

The robot handed her a thin bracelet. “This will allow you access to everywhere our Master has deemed okay.” Kat took the circlet and put it on her wrist. “If you don’t want to wear it, there are codes you can memorize for each door. Follow me for the lavatory.”

Kat twisted the thin metal over her wrist, it was hot, unusually so. The android led her out of the facility and back into the main ship. The dark passages from before engulfed them. They stopped in front of the lav door.

“When you are done, go back to your quarters, the rest cycle is about to begin.”

The light of the android’s face lit up the space. It made the shadows outside their periphery even darker. Dark enough for a lurker.

When she finished up in the cold wet room, it was gone.

Kat quietly made her way to the open door of her quarters. A trickle of fear ran up her spine. She looked down each end of the hallway but she couldn’t see far beyond the gloom.

“Hello?” she called out. “Dommik?” she whispered under her breath.

Kat shook herself and quickly walked into her room. The door shut behind her and the lights came on. Her fingers trailed through her curls as she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her heart raced. And it wasn’t entirely with fear. The image of the Cyborg’s muscled chest filled her head, his depthless dark eyes that made him ghoulish in the shadows, and his sculpted arms trapping her in the chair.

The blistering heat he radiated.

She heard footsteps outside her panel door, heavy and slow, stopping right on the other side. Kat turned around to face whatever came through.

But they picked up again and faded away.

***

That night, hours later, Kat’s eyes sprang open. She was curled on chemically cleaned bedding that had magically appeared, and a loose cotton blanket that smelled like the Cyborg covered her to the tip of her nose.

The footsteps had returned but accompanying them was the sound of clicking. Metal on metal.

Once again they stopped outside her room. The lights were set to dim and she twisted her head on her flat pillow to stare at the closed door. She could see him, in her mind, right on the other side of the barrier, standing there breathless like she was.

Kat moved her fingers into the blanket and tucked it tighter under her chin. Her body was flushed despite the cold temperature of the ship.

Her eyes burned. She refused to blink. The footsteps had yet to move.

Part of her wanted Dommik to walk through the door. Part of her wanted him to go away.

Kat licked her lips and waited until time slowed down and sleep gripped her remaining energy and pulled her under into its blissful throes. She fell asleep without ever realizing it had taken her. She never heard the footsteps leave.