Serena’s cheek. “Not so calm after all. But you’ll learn. The nanites will teach you.”
Louisa departed in a swirl of laughter, and Serena gave in to despair.
Chapter Seventeen
John regained consciousness with a jerk. Thick darkness surrounded him and even his enhanced vision couldn’t penetrate the gloom. He tried to move and found that he was chained to a table of some kind. The feeling brought back painful memories of his transformation into a cyborg. But at least his nanites were working again, however sluggishly. He could feel them moving through his system, attempting to clear away the lingering traces of whatever they had used to drug him.
Serena, he thought desperately and yanked at his chains but to no avail. Titanium, he decided. Not unbreakable but time consuming to escape, and he had a horrible feeling that he didn’t have any time.
Who was that woman, and what did she want with Serena?
Since his vision was no use, he used the sound propagation enhancement, trying to get a feel for where he had been imprisoned. Solid rock surrounded him on three sides, but there was another room on the other side of the fourth wall. That was the way out. He just had to get free of his chains first.
He began straining at his bonds, working each one methodically despite the frantic sense of urgency beating at him. Time passed with agonizing slowness, but just as he thought he detected a slight give in one of the chains, he caught a noise from the outer chamber. He froze as the door was flung open and a blinding light filled the room.
His nanites worked frantically to clear his vision, and it cleared enough for him to see the woman from the corridor, the one who had threatened Serena.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “What did you do to Serena?”
“Now, now. No need to get excited.” The woman strolled casually into the room. “She’s perfectly fine. In fact, soon she’ll just be perfect.”
She tittered as her own joke and his skin crawled. There was a maniacal edge to her laugh that reminded him of the hybrids. But she didn’t look like a hybrid. She looked like a normal woman, an attractive one even, although not in Serena’s class.
“My but you are a big boy.” She gripped a bicep with icy fingers and he tried not to shudder. “We’re going to have fun with you.”
“We?”
“Serena and I. She doesn’t understand yet, but she will.”
“What are you doing to her?” he repeated.
“I told you—I’m making her perfect. A few nanites, a little pain, and then a brand-new woman.”
“And she agreed?”
“Rather surprisingly, she didn’t. I read her file and thought that ridiculous desire for a child would convince her.” Louisa’s brows drew together, then she shrugged. “But no matter. She’ll come around.”
“You’re forcing this on her?” he asked, horrified.
“Force is such a harsh word.”
A clanking from the outer room drew his attention, and he looked over in time to see a robot transporter enter.
“Ah, there we are. The transporter is going to take you to my ship.”
“No!”
“Now don’t be silly. This way you’ll be reunited with your precious Serena—although I suspect she’ll be a little different than you remember.” She tittered again, before sliding the table to which he was fastened onto the bed of the transport with unnerving strength. “It’s a shame we don’t have time to play now, but we’ll have six months together on the ship.”
She squeezed his bicep again, harder this time, but he refused to let her see how much it hurt.
“Oh, this is going to be fun. Bye now.”
With a girlish wave, she left him. He started straining at his bonds again but even though one of them seemed to have loosened slightly, it wasn’t enough to free him. The transporter clanked through a series of tunnels before emerging onto the surface. They were nowhere near the entrance to the lab but, as he had theorized, a small supply train was waiting. The transporter trundled up on the bed of one of the cars, and a minute later, the train began to move—carrying him over the desert and away from Serena.
Serena tested her bonds again, but it was no use. Her thoughts chased each other in frantic circles. Where had Louisa gone, and what was she doing with John? Did she really have him?
“Was she telling the truth? About John?”
Dr. Renfrey started to ignore her, but then he sighed and nodded. “Yes. She used one of the paralytic darts.”
Serena winced but she