***

Her eyes snapped open. Rylie couldn't remember when she fell asleep last night, but she was awake now with her sister passed out on the bunk next to her.

The smell of lavender filled the space, soothing her. She sat upright and let the covers fall as she got a better look at her. Janet breathed evenly, her hair flung out in a halo around her. An angel even when asleep.

Rylie felt the hum of the ship turn on under her feet as she quietly stepped from her bed and opened the door to the ship's hallway. I must've slept like the dead. She scrubbed her face with her hands, rubbing the morning glare from her eyes and paused when she noticed the closed door of the Cyborg’s quarters. It was shut firmly unlike the night before.

Rylie held her breath as she passed by it.

The sun had barely risen when she entered the main deck, but the mist had already begun to clear. She could make out the sky and the dark clouds that bruised it. Just what they needed: a rainy, miserable day.

“Morning, Da,” she yawned as she tied her hair back.

“Morning.”

She looked around and it appeared as if they were alone, but she could hear another, up the stairs and around the corner.

The watership moved under her feet, quiet as a whisper, while her da steered away from the jetty. The small island lot disappeared as they drove further out to sea. Rylie crept toward the side console and lowered the glass enclosure from above. It squeaked as it disappeared into the panels of the ship, and if someone were to be following them, their position would have been given away.

“Where are we heading?” she asked, enjoying the ocean breeze over her skin. The morning chill was the quickest way to wake up; better than coffee and faster than an energy boost.

“We're headed back to the settlement,” he answered. “The men are going to the homesteads nearby to question the other farmers and see if they know anything that we don't. Plans haven’t changed.”

“Oh,” she said with disappointment. “Won’t the other farmers suspect something if two Cyborgs show up? Cyborgs who came to our settlement first?”

“They’ll keep our contract quiet and act as agents for the government.”

The steps of someone large coming from the stairs interrupted their conversation. She turned around to see who it was, hoping for Netto. When the expanse of blue-grey skin came into view a moment later, healed of all the damage incurred the night before, she bit back a smile.

Then she remembered kissing him before fleeing. He held her gaze as a blush spread up her neck and over her cheeks. Rylie found the courage to look away but couldn't stop her heart from beating faster... or her throat from closing up. She coughed as Netto took a seat beside her, only furthering her immediate discomfort. I hope he doesn’t bring the kiss up—she looked at her da—in front of him.

She licked her chapped lips. The salt on them could've been the same salt from his cheek the night before. The warmth from his cheek could still be felt hours later. Netto’s presence only made it worse.

Rylie blinked hard and willed her awkwardness away despite the growing silence between them. She checked the map on the screen above her da’s head.

Having made the trip out to the furthest agri-lots many times before, she knew it would take several hours before they made it home. The island lots were the worst to harvest because of distance, and that distance often triggered something to go wrong.

Even though she had lived at the edge of the ocean her entire life, Rylie hated coming out to the farthest isles, because if she went out beyond them there'd be nothing but slate-colored water on every side for hundreds of thousands of miles.

Giant sea creatures would sometimes appear, wading through the ocean between the islands. They terrified her. Especially since they had no reference for them.

Everyone at home and in the nearby settlements called them leviathans. Everyone had stories; everyone had encounters. There were graveyards of pale bones along some of the beaches with skeletons big enough to walk through and build a home inside.

Once, a creature had knocked into her watership, throwing her to the floor. When she righted herself and peered over the side, all she could see was a black shadow swimming beneath. Rylie had stood there, frightened for hours, even after the shadow of the beast vanished.

Her da said there was nothing to fear from them, that the biggest ones never came close to shore and that all of the homesteads and the surrounding lots were protected. Rylie looked out over the water and breathed in the cold air as the ship gained speed.

Whenever a leviathan appeared, no amount of words could stop the thoughts of being shipwrecked, eaten alive, lost at sea, or waiting to drown in the ocean deep. Despite the rising sun, the ocean darkened under her gaze.

Netto leaned back and the movement pulled her eyes away from the water. Somehow, he made her feel safe, as if there were no monsters on the entire planet that he couldn't protect her from. They were dangerous thoughts to have.

She couldn't get attached to him because when he left, it would hurt her all the more.

Rylie took a deep breath to calm her nerves and to release the tight feeling in her chest.

“Morning, Netto,” she said, at last, minutes after he had joined them. “Did you sleep well?”

“Enough.”

Her lips twitched up. “What will you do after you question the other farmers?”

Netto turned to face her and her eyes shot to his neck where the muscles and tendons strained. It was thick. He was huge. “It depends.”

She lifted her gaze to meet his. “On what?”

His jaw ticked. “On what we find out.”

“You could check out the shipwreck,” she said without thinking. Her da stiffened and looked her way.

Netto asked before her father could speak, “What shipwreck?”

There was a look of worry in her his eyes and she regretted mentioning it. Rylie didn't know why he wanted to keep it a secret, but she knew how to read her father, and he looked at her with a yawning worry. She glanced back and forth between him and the Cyborg.

“What shipwreck?” Netto asked again, his voice lower.

“One of the waterships drifted onto shore. I don't know where.” Rylie palms dampened.

Her da looked away from her to address him, his face grim and tired, suddenly wearier than she had ever seen him before. He had never looked so withered nor the grooves on his brows so deep.

“One of the waterships turned up last week between my settlement and Crestalview. It was one of Charlene's. There wasn't much left and there was no body, but we suspect the worker came upon a storm and wasn't able to close up the ship or...”

“Or?” Netto prompted.

“Or that he was attacked. It has nothing to do with the crops. It’s tragic but unrelated and I trust Charlene has reported it to the authorities outside our jurisdiction.”

“Take me to it.”

“Why?” Her father frowned and his eyes narrowed.

“I want to see it for myself,” Netto said.

“Da's right. I shouldn’t have mentioned it, it doesn’t have anything to do with—” Rylie interjected but stopped. Netto looked at her and it was the first time his eyes had gone stone cold. It drew her back, and even the heat that he released couldn't stop the shiver that chilled her soul. She licked her lips and tasted salt.

“I promised I would protect you.”

She waited for him to say more but he didn't. Da nodded and changed the direction of the ship. No one spoke after that, the quiet anger coming off of Netto enough to intimidate her into silence. It wasn't long before the other Cyborg joined them.

When she saw Zeph, she took that as her cue to get ready for the day. Rylie sidestepped him and fled below, intent to wash the brine from her lips.

***

NETTO HAD NO CONTROL over his emotions. The tension he had felt the day before only continued throughout the night and into the morning. Although the wounds incurred from his partner were healed, it had taken longer than it usually did. His muscles were tense, his back rigid, and his hands kept clenching and unclenching.

He had slept, but stayed on the top deck for the duration of the night. Netto didn't trust himself down below, knowing that Rylie was mere feet away from him and that he wouldn't be able to follow where she went.

The soft brush of her lips against his cheek had been the most affectionate experience of his life; the willing touch of the female, given freely and tenderly. Where Rylie’s sister faked her desires, Rylie came before him genuine...sincere.

Netto had fought alongside women during the war, spoken with them as well, and even been desired once or twice by a woman but that desire abated when he opened his mouth. Back then, he was more of a shark, and his creators—his parents—had let his human and shark DNA grow into the man he was, which included his unusual blue-grey skin and a double set of razor-sharp teeth.

In those days, he didn't yet have a tongue. He had been a land shark in every sense of the word, and humans —even Cyborgs— were taken aback when he opened his mouth. When the war ended, he had chosen to have a tongue attached to his body. Using the funds he had accrued as a soldier, he paid the cybernetics doctors to build the appendage and include the sense of taste.

He knew he was attractive, having been told that his face was strong, his eyes intriguing, and his dimples when he smiled endearing. He was built with the strength to lift three times his size and the height to look down upon those he deemed enemies, but he wasn't built with a personality that encouraged companionship.

Rylie didn't seem to care about his demeanor and it made him want to claim her all the more for it.

He wanted to have her in front of him, beneath him, on top of him. Netto wanted her in his hands, over his face, he wanted his nose buried in her hair. He wanted to get high off of her scent. He wanted her to kiss him again.

He lifted his hand and rubbed his cheek.

“We’re almost there,” Montihan said.

Several hours had gone by since they left the agri-lot this morning. Netto looked up and over the water, seeing the mainland come into view and the long strips of beach. It was disjointed by bluffs and rocks and, as they approached, he saw the trees or something like them sprout out from the water, as if parts of the beach were nothing more than a drowned forest. The air reeked of fish, sweat, and the manufactured scent of recycled energy.

Lavender lingered as well but he filtered it out. The flowers were for Zeph and he didn't want the smell of the younger sister in his nose.

The thought of Zeph brought the man into view and Netto approached him from the bow.

“What do you think we’ll learn here?” Zeph asked. “I'm just as curious as you are but Montihan is right. One downed boat can't be what is making the nuggets not grow.”

Netto looked away from him and back at the incoming land. “There’s something off. The water doesn't feel right.”

Zeph nodded. “Spoiled.”

“Yes,” Netto agreed. “Spoiled.”

“Was it different when you were here last?” Zeph rubbed the back of his neck. Janet was sitting by her dad and Zeph kept looking toward her, but the girl didn't notice.

“Yes.”

“Elaborate.”

“It was fresh, alien, like how it is on most of the new worlds and planets that we visit.”

“Could be disease, could be a rift, it could be the result of a new breeding cycle of an alien beast that only fucks once every sixty years. Who the fuck knows? The deaths only started recently so they could be related. But Montihan said that there was no body when they discovered the wreck. In fact, there might not even be a ship remaining if the other farmer, whose land we’re beside, decided to reel the parts back in.”

Netto dropped his hand as the ship slowed. He heard their host and his daughter preparing the anchor but he didn't turn around to help. Zeph walked away and joined them, returning several minutes later to his side.

“I have a feeling,” Netto said.

“Is it a good one? Does it have something to do with Rylie?” Zeph laughed.

Netto sliced his tongue against his upper teeth, hating the sound of Rylie's name on the Croc's lips. He wanted to claim her name.

“No. I need to see the ship before I know for sure.”

Zeph pulled off his shirt and threw it on a nearby seat. Netto turned away as Rylie ascended the steps. She didn't smell like the ocean anymore, but of fresh water and soap. He breathed her in as it was the only thing he could do without losing control and frightening her. She stopped and looked at him for a moment before coming to his side.

He wanted her to kiss him again, but she made no move to do so as everyone readied the ship to depart.

“Do you think there's more to this than the lack of crops? And the spyware on the ship?” she asked quietly. “Do you think the deaths have anything to do with this?”

He didn't know what to tell her so he simply told the truth. “Yes.”

Netto peered down at her as her countenance sagged. Her breath slowed and a look of worry clouded her otherwise sunny features. She wasn't tall—barely reaching his chest—and there was more than a foot of difference between them, in both directions.

Rylie openly gazed at him, he reached out and touched a strand of her hair. It felt like silk between his fingers and he fought the urge to bury his hands in it. He liked the way it looked against his skin.

“Don't worry. If it all connects then whatever's causing it won't hide for long.” Netto kept speaking just so he could continue standing before her playing with her hair, “I'll take care of it.”

Rylie looked away from him and from where he touched her, her brows furrowed as if trying to understand what was happening. If she asked him, he wouldn't know what to say. He didn't understand either. Only that he was holding himself back from taking what he wanted.

“You keep saying that. Why? We didn't ask for your protection.”

He let go of her hair and led her down the steps, toward the railing where the others had already jumped into the water that came up to their knees as they headed for the shore.

“I give it freely,” he answered honestly. “I need to protect you.”

He jumped over the side.

“Why?” she asked looking down at him with puzzlement.

Because I like your voice and the way you look at me. You comfort me. “Because we need to complete the mission. Do you have your knife?”

She looked away from him and pulled up the hem of her shirt, revealing the knife clipped to a threaded belt on her hip. “I do.”

Netto rounded his hands over her waist and lifted her from the boat. She gripped his wrists from the sudden contact, but before she could struggle away from him, he set her down in the water. His hands remained around her for a second longer than necessary. He couldn't stop himself from squeezing before he let go.

The water splashed as Rylie stepped back. Her feet kicked up plumes of sand, clouding the area between them. She turned away from him and walked toward the others. Netto followed and the five of them proceeded companionably down the beach.

They came upon the shipwreck a short distance away, hidden behind a series of rocks jutting up from the ocean floor.

“Well, I guess Charlene hasn't removed the wreck yet.” Montihan walked forward, leaving the rest of them behind.

Netto didn't know what to make of it. He had expected a damaged watership that had drifted up onto shore, but something else altogether lay before them. It didn't take a Cyborg to know it wasn't what Zeph or the girls were expecting either.

Netto scanned the remains; every broken piece and groove, every scratch, scrape and tear. If he didn't know what he was looking at, he might have never realized it had been a ship at all. He had a perfect point of reference, having spent the last day and a half on an identical one.

“What the hell?” Janet said, echoing what they were all thinking. “A storm did not do that. Da, what were you thinking?” The girl took a step toward Montihan but stopped when Zeph put a hand on her shoulder. Janet turned back, burning him with a look that could kill before she dislodged herself from his grip and approached her dad.

Rylie remained silent beside him, having no reaction at all. The sisters couldn't be more different. Netto caught his partner’s eyes in grim silence.

“The ship is torn in two, shoot, it’s torn in fourths.” She lowered her voice. “Something else did this.”

Montihan spoke up, gliding his hand on the gash of one of the metal pieces. “We can't rule anything out. We've never lost a man to one of the sea beasts. I can't understand why it would happen now. The worker could've hit rocks or could've been drunk. We don't know because we weren't there.”

“Waterships have cameras?” Zeph asked. “Or any tech that matters?”

Montihan said over his shoulder, “We have security tech but nothing would've survived this, and we've already tried to locate this ship’s signal. Everything, even the waterproof machinery, was destroyed. We had the Kepler satellites check again after we found this. If the security feed had picked up something prior then we'll never know.”

“All right.” Zeph slowly walked around the ship. His partner was looking for anything they could use to help them figure out what happened. Netto need didn't need to look. He already knew what happened. However, details were needed to go along with the proof he had before he suggested their next course of action.

He pulled inside himself and threaded his connection outward, looking for a signal to the network. He found a weak one. It felt like a feather over his conscience. He delicately picked it up. The sensation of his body vanished, and for a moment he lost ground, but he was able to find what he was looking for: the Kepler government’s meteorology chart and weather data for the past two weeks.

Netto centered on the Montihan’s region and expanded outward, but no storms had occurred in the last week. As he continued to search, it confirmed that no storm destroyed the watership. It didn't rule out drunkenness—that much he couldn't prove—or mechanical failure, which he would also have a hard time proving, based on the condition of the ship.

He let go of the flimsy connection and re-centered inside his body, taking control of the cybernetics he had left behind.

There was a hand in his grasp. Netto looked down to see Rylie's fingers threaded through his. Her skin felt cold and the palm of her hand clammy. Netto delicately squeezed it in reassurance. Tension radiated off her. He wanted to absorb it but she let go and left him.

The touch of her skin remained firm in his mind. His eyes trailed after her as she walked toward her dad and took his arm. His jealousy soared as she pressed her forehead against Montihan’s upper arm.

“It's going to be okay.” Rylie put her arms around her father as he turned to hug her back. “I know why you didn't want me to see this, but I wish you wouldn’t keep things from me. If Janet and I are to inherit, we can't be left in the dark. This is as much our problem as it is yours.”

Janet joined the hug. Netto watched, jealousy giving way to envy. He looked at his partner but Zeph wasn't watching the family; the rubble of the watership held his interest. Families weren't meant for Cyborgs, only for humans. From birth, it was a human’s right to family as it was a Cyborg's right to strength.

“Your ma and I are afraid for you girls and for our friends. We haven't lost one of our own, yet, but every day it feels like our luck might change.”

“We’ll just have to be more careful. Smarter,” Janet said, laughing under her breath. “More cunning.”

“We’ll take extra precaution. We’ll send two waterships to every lot, so no one is alone out in the ocean,” Rylie suggested as the girls clung to their father, who ruffled their hair.

“Yeah, it could be like old times when Rylie and I had to work together in our training. Let the competition commence.”

“We can reinstall the turrets on each boat and keep enough firepower on each ship to take down a serpent. It's not like we have enough work to go around as it is right now and I'm sure many of the workers would like companionship during the hauls.”

Netto watched the exchange even after the girls released themselves from the embrace. He wondered what a hug felt like. Warm, he assumed.

“You girls are going to do just fine,” Montihan said as he turned back to the destroyed ship. “But your Ma and I hope this is merely a fluke. So far, it's been the settlements north of us that have been affected.”

“I know what's wrong.”

Everyone turned to Netto.

“He doesn't know but he has an idea,” Zeph said, a little competitively.

“Well?” Janet prompted.

“What do you know?” Montihan asked, the tired grooves over his brow a little less deep.

“The oceanic seawall has been damaged.”

“That's impossible.”

“What's the oceanic seawall?” Rylie asked.

Montihan continued, “That sensory barrier, I was told, is supposed to last hundreds of years. It's only been several dozen... The coastal inhabitants of Kepler were promised.”

“You were.” Netto nodded, feeling the strain of the endeavor ahead. “But this,” he pointed at the rubble, “wouldn't have happened otherwise.”

Zeph laughed. “Sure, it could if the guy really wanted to kill himself and take the boat with them. Like Montihan said, he could've been drunk. It could've been a storm. Fuck, the man could've brought a bomb on board, drove the ship straight through the jetty walls and then blasted himself to all the high heavens. Maybe he pissed off the broodmother of some beast in the ocean.”

“No, I helped set up the oceanic seawall many years ago. We made sure that it was set so the largest monsters couldn't come within five hundred miles of the shoreline, and we used planetary sensors to help drive the creatures out into the ocean. The noise it projects reconfigures to drive the worst ones away. It worked.”

“I don't understand? We see large creatures out in the ocean often enough. Wouldn't a wall disrupt their habitat?”

“No,” Zeph answered before he could.

Netto shook his head. “No, it wouldn't. The barrier emits the noise through a shield, it's invisible to the naked eye, but there are gaps that smaller creatures can easily get through. Creatures not deemed aggressive in nature by the scanners.”

Zeph rubbed his lips, and Netto knew the other Cyborg was weighing the likelihood of his suggestion. He knew the Croc would agree with his rationalization eventually. He looked at Rylie; her face had gone ashen, sallow despite her bronzed skin. The whites of her eyes were startling and her lips parted slightly on a shallow breath. Montihan was looking at his eldest daughter as well.

“Rylie...” Her dad placed his hand on her shoulder.

She licked her lips and shook her head, her gaze unfocused. Netto stepped forward and threaded his fingers through her hair. “It's okay,” he said. “It's okay to be scared.”

“There are bigger sea creatures out there?”

“There are always bigger creatures out there, Rylie. We have no idea what's out there. What's one leviathan to another?” Janet choked out with not a little bit of fear of her own.

Netto’s nostrils flared as the breeze quieted to a whisper and the smell of the ocean and dead fish were replaced with the rusting metal of the wreck. Zeph joined their group, his attention on Janet.

Netto focused on Rylie. “You didn't know there was a wall?”

“No,” she whispered.

“I told them that nothing could come close to shore and that they were safe. Not that there was a wall out there with monsters behind it. There is no point frightening my children when the wall was promised to last well beyond their lifetimes,” Montihan said with a hint of rising anger.

“So, there are bigger monsters out there?” Rylie looked out toward the ocean. Tiny wisps of her hair—dried by the elements—curled around her face. Netto wanted to pull her against him, hide her eyes from the water, and erase the blank fear. But it wasn't his place.

“Yes,” he said. “Much bigger than anything you might've seen.” Her dad shot him a look that could kill. Netto ignored him. “But I could be wrong as Zeph said. The ship could have incurred its damage elsewhere. But the grooves...” He stopped as she looked up at him, and pursed her lips. Her color came back slowly and the fear diminished in her eyes.

“So what's the plan now?” She turned away. Netto and Zeph shared a look, then Zeph spoke up.

“We’ll investigate the oceanic wall. The sooner we fix it, the sooner the creatures will be locked away.”

“Yes, we’ll head there after we drop you guys off at the homestead.”

“Like hell, you will!” Janet took a step toward him, her finger out and pointing at his face. “You're not leaving us behind.”

Rylie responded with grim determination. “There is no way I'll allow you to take one of our waterships without us.”

“Montihan will be with us.” Zeph shrugged then walked back toward the rocky bend and the anchored boat. “It'll be dangerous and you'll be a distraction,” he said before he disappeared around the corner.

“He's right,” their dad interjected. “I'll take them out. You guys should stay at the homestead and run the shop.”

“No.” Rylie shocked them all, the one word filled with authority. “It would take us hours to get back to the homestead and you wouldn't be able to make it to the outer wall if it's past the farthest lots until nightfall.”

Netto wanted her; he breathed in her scent and filtered out everything else. He could taste her on his lips, he could feel the silk of her hair over his body, and the burn of her kiss against his cheek. The preserved memory of it was now in the forefront of his thoughts. It made him harden.

He stepped back and turned away. If his erection sprang forward, there would be no way to hide it. The plates throughout his body, back, chest, and legs shifted and expanded as his muscles grew under the immediate need.

Control. I command control. I command it now. He ran the codes through his systems, close to putting himself into temporary lockdown.

Rylie sucked in a breath and continued. He hoped that she hadn't noticed the change in his demeanor.

“If we leave now, without making a detour we can at least get back to the far lots before this evening. And like Da said, the likelihood of another attack has to be minimal. We don't even know if this barrier is broken. The watership is mine and although my Da owns the business, this boat goes nowhere without me on it. We’re not going back to the homestead. We’re not going to lose that time. Let's figure out if this is an issue, and if it isn't, we can go back and you can interview the other farmers—but you won't take my ship without me.” She shot her dad a look. “And my ship is the best one we have.”

Rylie stormed past him and followed after Zeph.

“Well, that settles it. Gotta love her when she lets that fire rage.” Janet laughed and took off after her sister. Netto looked at Montihan.

“I'm not okay with this,” he said. “Is there another way?”

His host looked old, older with each passing day, and Netto wondered if there was something more plaguing the man besides stress.

“We can always take another ship, but Rylie is right, the one we’re on now is the best. I gave her ownership on her twenty-first birthday, nearly seven years ago. She lives on that boat. It's her home away from home. She would never let it go out to sea without her on it.”

“She's afraid of the sea beasts,” Netto said.

“She's not afraid of much but she suffers from social anxiety and hates the unfamiliar. Unlike Janet, Rylie respects the ocean for what it is, and that respect comes with fear but also with love. I should have never given her that boat.” He chuckled softly, the sound a throaty rasp.

Netto had seen some of those creatures long ago and they were monstrosities that he did not want Rylie to see. “It'll be dangerous.”

Montihan sighed. “Yes, even if the seawall isn’t broken. The nights alone, so far away from land, will be bad enough. How will you know?”

They trekked back to the watership, which had since been unanchored and hummed with life.

“Know what?” Netto asked.

“Know if it's broken? And even if you knew that, how will you know where?”

“I’m a Cyborg.”