Page 4

NATALIE

T he first days with the baby passed in a hazy blur.

If we weren’t sleeping, we were eating. Both of us.

The guys returned to making tempting fresh smoothies and ordering incredible prepared meals from the closest town.

If my eyes were open, so was my mouth. Quite frankly, it was embarrassing once I realized how often I was eating.

Snryx gave me a chiding shake of his head, implements swinging gently about his shoulders.

“You’re feeding a growing dynos. In case you didn’t notice, she’s already functioning like a two or three-month-old human infant.

Another day, she’ll be sitting up by herself and crawling. Next, she’ll be running.”

I gazed down into her wide, glowing eyes. Luminous, pearly gray like a full moon, ringed in red like her father’s eyes. So pretty. I stroked her cheek gently while she nursed. Waves of feel-good endorphins flooded me until I felt almost euphoric. Silly. Drunk.

Not on alcohol. On love.

Did all mothers feel such overwhelming love for their children? Or was our bond enhanced by her scientifically advanced genetics?

“ Your scientifically advanced genetics,” Kroktl reminded me. “You carry just as many Sirian cells as us now.”

“I do?” I whispered, stunned and a little afraid. “Is that normal?”

Snryx made a noncommittal sound I couldn’t decipher.

I dragged my gaze away from my baby’s and looked at him.

Brow creased, he stared back but he didn’t seem to see me, the person.

It was more like he looked through a magnifying scope at a very interesting specimen, his scientific brain fully engaged.

“Sn? Is that normal?”

Eyes flashing yellow, he gave himself a shake.

“That’s the first time you called me the shortened name.

I like it,” he added quickly before I could apologize.

“What is normal, anyway? Normal for a human? Of course not. To our knowledge, humans don’t have Sirian cells.

We don’t know of any other human like you, though perhaps there are others yet undiscovered.

“Normal for a dynos? Again, no. We’re engineered so each cell has its unique purpose. We do evolve and improve our responses, but the Sirian cells don’t multiply. You’re human, but not. Myrm, but not. We don’t know what’s going to be normal for you.”

After a light rap on the door, Lohr entered the room.

“I thought our xenobiologist might have more insight than I,” Snryx said.

Lohr came to the edge of the bed and dropped to his knees. “May I sample you, Natalie? Then I’ll run fresh diagnostics against my first sample. You’ll be able to see the differences on the grid.”

I nodded, though I couldn’t help but add, “Will I be able to understand it, though?”

He froze with his tongue partway distended, his eyes widening. “I believe you will, yes.”

My cheeks burned and I nodded. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just afraid if it’s all scientific words and phrases, I won’t understand it anyway.”

The tip of his tongue touched my knee in the barest brush, and then his tongue curled back up into his mouth.

His eyes fluttered shut, and streams of data dropped to the grid immediately.

:You don’t need to understand the details.

That’s my duty and privilege to provide such expertise to the squad. :

“And mine,” Snryx added aloud.

The rush of data steadied. On the grid, I could feel the sensitive sensors in his tongue and mouth, holding bits of my data.

My cells. Just from lightly touching my knee, he literally had some of my skin cells inside of him.

Traces of minerals from sweat and dirt, microscopic particles of sand from Creel, Mexico, where Axxol had been caged.

Computer-speed fast, Lohr sorted off the minerals and organic material he wasn’t interested in and focused on my cells.

:Fascinating. You’re a miracle, Natalie, and I don’t say that lightly.:

“What does it mean?” I asked softly.

Two moving vids popped up on the grid, playing side by side.

At first glance, the image on the left contained random blobs moving around in liquid.

Almost like jellyfish swimming in an ocean or plankton in a droplet of pond water.

The other image hummed with ordered movement, lines of shapes moving rapidly like trains coming in and leaving a station in between floating blobs.

The image froze, showing several different kinds of cells.

Wavy blobs mixed with concrete circular shapes.

Some were more oval but they all had rigid outlines rather than the wavy, flowing shapes on the left.

They looked too uniform and structured to be natural.

I had to assume that all of the guys’ cells looked so… engineered.

“It’s easy to see which ones are the Sirian cells,” I said slowly. “Are they attacking my regular cells?”

“Not at all.” Lohr released the videos so the busy train station flowed again. “In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Sirian cells were actively repairing any damaged human cells they find. It’ll be interesting to see how your body responds if you’re exposed to external bacteria or viruses.”

“I can bite her again,” Axxol said, his tone flippant and acidic. Though the grid betrayed him.

He liked having me in his mouth. One big gulp. Me, his prey, struggling inside of his throat. Wriggling and fighting to survive being eaten by a T-rex.

“Like fuck you will,” Kroktl retorted.

Though he also remembered the feel of my very tasty flesh in his mouth. He’d caught me after I jumped out of a helicopter. Where Axxol had swallowed me whole to whisk me away from my mate, Kroktl had saved me.

And he wanted to have me in his mouth again.

Gulp. That shouldn’t turn me on so very much. “What are the new cells doing?”

“It’s impossible for me to analyze your entire body from such a small sample,” Lohr said. “Snryx’s medbot can provide a much more detailed picture, though it may need some reprogramming.”

I forgot the little robot thingie was still inside me.

Now that I was thinking about it, I could point to its location in my stomach.

A steady stream of data had been flowing from it onto the grid ever since he deployed it inside me.

Body temperature, the chemical make-up of my blood, bone density, organ function.

He and Lohr then used that information to fine tune my dietary needs to make sure feeding our baby wasn’t draining my own bones and teeth of necessary minerals.

“I don’t think the medbot’s reprogramming will be necessary.

” Something about Snryx’s casual, almost smug tone drew my gaze up to his face.

His eyes glowed warm amber, and his implements flowed around his shoulders like swaying tendrils of a delicate ocean plant in the ceaseless tide. “Ask them, Natalie.”

My eyebrows lifted with surprise. “Me? But…” I meant to ask “how” but the word faded away as my awareness focused inward.

I stood in the middle of the busiest train station in the world, the hub of all metabolic activity in my body.

There weren’t any actual trains or tracks or even a control panel but I could feel every system like delicate, invisible wires shooting through a vast universe.

Tangled and crossed, braided and threaded, some connected without touching, each one pulsing a complicated message I could somehow understand.

Down to the tiniest, most insignificant cell growing my toenail and every strand of hair all over my body.

Everything hummed and vibrated with energy, sparking higher with my focus.

Millions of ants marched through the nest in perfect harmony with one another, until they all paused and lifted their antennae in my direction.

They quivered with anticipation, shimmering with rising power, ready to explode into action at my command.

A literal army of sentient cells flowed through my body.

My entire spinal column glowed with a soft, white light generated by their frenetic activity.

They lined my vertebrae and bones, transferring more calcium and minerals to make them stronger while also acting as armor.

My bones were heavier and more difficult to break.

A shimmering net laced through my brain, glittering like a million distant stars in spinning galaxies.

A red sun twinkled, and I knew it was my squad’s grid, glowing with Kroktl’s Tri-R eyes.

But what were the other stars? How close were they?

There were trillions of them. It’d take eons for me to study each one…

The lacy web sparkled, a dizzying multi-color rainbow that felt like amusement.

It was laughing at me—and I understood it—because it was sentient and also a part of me.

“Ask them, Natalie.” Snryx’s comment made more sense now.

:What are those other stars?: I asked silently.

Images flickered through my head of different creatures, some like my dinosaur squad, while others had more alien anatomy I didn’t recognize from the little bit I knew of paleontology.

Dyni squads. Kroktl said DSC had taken the universe’s most deadly predators to make Dynosauros, so it made sense some of them might be alien to Earth.

Each light was a full squad of genetically engineered soldiers created by Draco Sirius Command.

So many. A sinking pit widened in my stomach. If they were all commanded by DSC, what chance did we have to stay alive?

Many of the twinkling lights shifted to a deep purple.

Smaller, only specks against the shining stars, but there were many more of them, sprinkled like tiny grains of sand throughout the universe.

One of them zoomed closer, filling my mind with soft white light, shining silver walls, and crystal rainbows overhead.

A scene played out in my head—one I’d lived.

Lying in the ginormous bed, watching the swaying ocean life of Gioiello outside the large window.

The special cave Axxol had created for me to make up for the horrors he’d put me through after kidnapping me from the squad.

A crackling sound like sticks clicking together drew my attention to a dark shape looming beside the bed.

I’d been terrified then, but now I knew what this creature was.

The Myrm drone had helped me understand enough to use Axxol’s blue ozone jump so I could free him before DSC completely decommissioned him.

The strong scent of vanilla and overripe fruit filled my nose. Black wings tucked close to its sides. It stretched out its long limb and I wrapped my fingers around it, connecting to all the surviving Myrm.

All the voices whispering in my head. We are one .

:The purple specks are Myrm?:

The spots blinked, dim and weak. Not complete. Alone. Hiding. Waiting for a Mother.

No. Waiting for The Mother.

Me.