“We need to make a decision,” he said when they were lying in each other’s arms on the bed.
“Do you want to leave?” she asked, cautiously.
“I want to go to Arcadia, but for now, that doesn’t seem possible. The cyborgs that joined us in this trip have no other coordinates, so until we’re able to find a way to communicate with Jarcor and the others, we’re stranded on this planet,” he explained. “Like I told you, I’m not happy with the way they handled the problem with Jonathan, but they recognized their mistake and apologized.”
“We’ve made progress with the transmitters. They were quite damaged, and we had to guess some of its components, but I truly believe we’ll be able to make them work,” she told him, furrowing her eyebrows.
“We have better chances at fixing them here. Out there, we’ll be on the run all the time and with no resources,” he pointed out, rubbing his face. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t be able to do it, just that it would be harder.”
“I know. Here, we can work for our food and shelter, and we would be able to get in touch with Arcadia a lot sooner,” she agreed, laying her head on his chest.
“We’ll stay then. We’ll help Sandra and her people as much as we can, while we’re here, and in exchange, they will help us get in touch with Jarcor.”
“That sounds like a plan to me,” she said, smiling.
She loved the fact he was consulting with her to make such an important decision but most of all, she was thrilled that he hadn't considered leaving her behind. She had missed him so much during the past days she had no idea how she would survive if he left her.
She wasn’t ready to even think of that possibility.
He pulled her close in his arms and claimed a kiss from her lips, while his hand pressed her belly gently.
Suddenly, he pulled back and stared at her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, startled.
“Something’s wrong with you,” he replied, jumping out of bed.
She looked at him a bit scared. What was he talking about? “Wrong? What do you mean?”
“Have you been feeling ill lately? Your body is producing some strange noises as if something is malfunctioning.”
“No, I have been feeling perfectly fine. Are you sure you’re not imagining things?” she asked, furrowing her eyebrows.
“No, I’m not. Please, get dressed, I want to take you to the infirmary.”
“Bret, you’re overreacting. I’m perfectly fine,” she protested.
“Please, indulge me. All my sensors are telling me something is wrong. I need to be sure you’re alright,” he asked, but she could tell he wouldn’t be persuaded to forget the visit to the infirmary.
Sighing, she got up and got dressed. A few minutes later, he was talking to the doctor in charge. “Can you scan her whole body?” he asked, in a stern tone.
“Why would you want to do that? She looks healthy to me?” the doctor asked, intrigued.
“My hearing and all of my senses are a lot more developed than yours. Though, I can’t scan human flesh, unless I’m looking for metallic parts, but I can tell her body sounds are different,” Bretdon insisted.
The doctor sighed and turned to look at Ophelia. “I guess there’s no harm in scanning you if you agree with it.”
“Yes, I agree.”
The doctor asked her to change into a medical gown and hop on the examination table.
“Is there a specific area you would like me to scan?” the doctor asked as he pulled the screens up and prepared the scanner.
“Yes, her thorax. Her breasts seem bigger, and the strange sounds I detected came from her lower abdomen,” Bretdon explained.
The doctor frowned but didn’t comment. Instead, he directed the scanner to Ophelia’s pelvis and waited for the image to show up on the screen.
“Here’s the reason for the changes,” the doctor said, pointing at the screen.
Ophelia let out a muffled cry when she looked at the image. Bretdon looked at both of them without understanding. He couldn’t see anything clearly in the image in front of him.
“What the hell is it?”
The doctor smiled and pointing at a white spot on the screen, he explained. “A baby. She’s pregnant.”
“That’s impossible,” he shook his head. “Cyborgs can’t breed naturally, the nanocybots kill the fertilized eggs,” he mumbled, in shock.
“I have no idea what nanocybots are, but she’s pregnant. And judging by the size of this baby, I’m sure she’s likely eighteen to twenty weeks pregnant,” the doctor explained.
“That’s impossible.” This time the words came out of Ophelia’s mouth. “I hadn't been with a man in more than a year when I met Bretdon. And we’ve only been together for a bit more than two months.”
“Listen, I’m telling you what I see. This baby is as big as a twenty-week baby. But I can’t tell you anything about its conception,” the doctor added. “For what I can see, it’s a healthy baby, and you also seem to be alright. You might want to get some pregnancy vitamins, just in case, but other than that I don’t see a problem.”
“Thank you, doctor.” Ophelia hopped down off the examination table and put on her clothes.
She couldn’t believe she was pregnant. Since Bretdon had told her cyborgs weren’t able to breed, she had put that possibility out of her mind. So out of her mind, she hadn't noticed the absence of her period. She had removed her birth control implant the same day she had broken up with her last boyfriend and hadn't worried about it ever since.
She looked at Bretdon, a bit worried. The expression on his face was so stern, it was impossible to determine what was going through his mind.
They left the infirmary and instead of guiding her back to their room, he headed out of the caves.
“We need some privacy.” His words sounded ominous, and Ophelia couldn’t help feeling a bit distressed.
The guards at the entrance didn’t even dare to ask him anything. The expression on his face was too dark, and Ophelia’s heart wrenched at the sight of it.
He walked for several minutes until they reached a small clearing in the woods before he turned to look at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant when we met? You didn’t know?” he asked coldly as he turned to face her.
Ophelia let out a deep breath as pain rushed through her body. “I wasn’t pregnant. I couldn’t have been since I hadn't been with a man for more than a year, when I met you,” she explained in a calmly.
“This baby can’t be mine,” there was a hint of desperation in his voice she didn’t understand. It hurt her like a sharp dagger slashing her heart in two.
“I’m sorry. I guess this wasn’t in your plans, and I understand, but it’s the only possibility. The baby isn’t more than two months old, but I guess it’s bigger since you’re a big a man,” she said trying to hide the pain his doubt was causing her.
“You don’t understand,” he shouted.
Bretdon felt so close to losing control he was trembling. Rubbing his face, he gathered the last threads of self-control and took a deep breath. “When I was declared an adult, I was chosen to participate in a breeding experiment the government was conducting. I was forced to have sex with more than a hundred women, most of them human, the other ones cyborgs. They were trying to breed cyborgs naturally, but it was impossible,” he explained. “The minute the sperm reached the egg, it would destroy it, rather than fertilize it. The nanocybots seemed to consider the eggs as a potential threat, and there was never a conception.”
Bretdon hated to remember those times. It had been so humiliating the way they had used him and his friends as if they were nothing more than stallions used to breed.
He had hated every single experience to the point he had thought he would never feel attracted to a woman again. Ophelia had proven him wrong, but this pregnancy was something he couldn’t accept. It wasn’t possible.
Ophelia listened in silence, starting to understand a bit more of his disbelief.
“They tried to fertilize the eggs out of the women’s womb, and the result was the same.”
“Then, how did they manage to breed all of you?” she asked, puzzled.
“According to what I was told, the nanocybots were inoculated into the embryo when it was a few days old.”
A thick silence fell between them, and Ophelia wrapped her hands around her waist, feeling very tense.
“I understand why you’re so skeptical about this pregnancy, I guess I would be too if I were in your place, but this baby is yours. There’s no other possibility,” she said, in a stern tone. “It’s up to you to decide if you’ll be a part of the baby’s life or not.”
“It’s impossible, they tried so many times,”
“I don’t care if they tried a million times, Bret,” she ranted, losing her patience.
She had never expected to become pregnant, especially after he had told her it was impossible. She had dedicated her life to her career and with a war going on starting a family wasn’t the most intelligent thing to do. But, it had happened, and she wanted to celebrate the moment. She was expecting a little miracle, and his disbelief wasn’t allowing her to.
“You saw the baby, as well as I did. It’s a fact, it’s real,” she added, still mad at him. “I admit getting pregnant wasn’t in my plans, but now that I am, I’m happy. If you’re not, if you can’t believe in me, it’s alright. We’ll go our separate ways and move on with our lives,” she concluded bitterly.
Her words shook him out of his shock. He was losing her. He couldn’t let that happen. He wasn’t prepared to let her walk away from his life. Baby or no baby, he wanted her, and he wasn’t going to let her go.
Deep down, he knew she was telling him the truth. Fear and confusion had clouded his judgment, but now he could see clearly, she wasn’t deceiving him.
“No, that’s not what I want. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have doubted you, I just never thought this was possible.”
She nodded, not entirely convinced by his change of mind, but willing to accept it for the moment.
“How do you feel about this?” he asked cautiously stepping forward and pulling her into his arms.
She let out a deep sigh and rubbed her forehead on his broad chest. “I’m not sure yet, it’s been quite a surprise.”
“Didn’t you suspect anything?” he asked, curious.
“No, I didn’t. With everything going on around us, I have to say I hadn't been paying much attention to my body and its physical functions,” she admitted, with a scowl.
“Are you happy with this?” he asked softly, not willing to start another argument.
“Yes, I am,” she tilted her head back to look at him. “This is our baby, Bret. It’s our little miracle.”
He nodded and hugged her tighter to his chest. “I have to admit this worries me. Part of the experiment was to make women carry the modified embryos, in order to eliminate the artificial wombs.”
“Did it work?” she asked, a bit concerned with the tone of his voice.
“No, it didn’t. Nanocybots on the embryo rejected the womb and destroyed it.”
“How far did they go?” she asked, worried. She didn’t want to lose her baby.
“None went further than a few weeks,” he admitted, but he was still worried.
“So, we should be safe, right?”
“How should I know? As far as I know, this has never happened before.” His tone revealed his anguish.
“Well, we still have seven months ahead of us,” she started saying.
“Cyborgs don’t take that long to be born.”
“What do you mean?” she took a step back to look at him, with her hands protectively on her belly.
“We develop a lot faster than humans. No baby cyborg lasts more than five months in the artificial wombs.”
And those words made him remember another fact he hadn't considered. No woman or female cyborg had done very well carrying a baby cyborg in their wombs. Apparently, their nutritional needs were so high they sucked it from their mother’s life. The problem was so severe, humans had been forced to end the pregnancies, especially, after a couple of women died because of it.
She was in shock. Gulping, she looked at her still flat belly. “So, I could be halfway there?” she asked, tremulous.
“I don’t know for sure, but it’s a possibility, yes.” He rubbed his face, worried, knowing that telling her about those women would only make her more nervous and he wouldn’t accomplish anything with it.
“Oh, god,” she mumbled, really scared now. If he was right, she would be giving birth in no time. She wasn’t ready for it.
He pulled her back into his arms. “We’ll be alright.” It was wishful thinking, but he would do all in his power to make sure nothing bad happened to her.
“I truly hope so.”
“At least, we’ll have medical assistance that won’t ask many questions,” he said, with a grin on his face. And that he planned on using on a very regular basis.
She chuckled. “Right, it would be hard explaining this pregnancy to a doctor in a hospital.”
“We’ll surprise the good old doctor here, believe me,” he assured her.
She took a deep breath. The pain his suspicions had caused her hadn't disappeared completely. “Are you sure you want to be a part of this, Bret? There can’t be any more doubts.”
He cupped her face and locked his eyes in hers. “I’m sorry I hurt you with my doubts. It was never my intention. My logical brain has trouble accepting the concept of a miracle.”
She nodded. “I know. It’s not easy to believe in them,” she scowled.