Forbidden Worlds - Box Set (44 page)

Chapter 13

“Tess, can you hear me?” Marc’s voice broke through the filmy haze that descended over her senses long before they reached the lab.

Tess had only a vague recollection of Jared carrying her through the lobby, yelling some half-coherent explanation to Lars as to why he was taking a semi-conscious woman into the labs instead of to the hospital.

She hadn’t passed out, but her ability to see and hear came and went, giving her the sensation of drifting in and out of consciousness. At the moment she could hear but not see. She moaned a response to Marc.

“She can hear me. I’m not getting a reaction from her pupils.”

“How much fluid has she taken so far?” Jared asked.

“A double dose, but I don’t think that’s the problem. She’s not super dehydrated. Her temperature is coming up on 102. That’s critical. She may already have sustained permanent damage.”

Someone’s arms slid beneath her body and scooped her up. “Tess, you’re going to feel cold. We’re submerging you in an ice bath. It’s the only way I know to drop your temperature rapidly.”

Okay, do whatever you have to do.
She knew her silent response meant nothing to him, but she would have liked to have been able to let him know she understood. At the moment, she saw nothing but dim, blurry shapes and she’d lost control over all of her muscles.

A second later her body plunged into freezing water. She screamed at the sensory overload, but no sound came out. Even though she couldn’t move, she still felt every icy stab as she sank into the metal tub. She gasped, wishing they could have shut down her artificial nerve endings first. The agony nearly drove her mad.

“Is it working?” Jared seemed to be the larger of the two shadowy figures hovering over her.

“It’s too soon to tell.”

“Get a reading now.”

“I can’t put the electrodes on her.”

“Use a probe.”

After much cursing on Marc’s part, Tess felt hands on her ass, searching, prying her cheeks apart. The cool stab of a temperature probe pierced her. The penetration made her orgasm again. She moaned as her body began to thrash of its accord.

“What’s happening?” Marc demanded. “She shouldn’t be convulsing.”

“She’s not,” Jared’s whisper said it all.

“Jesus. What the fuck did you do to her, Jared?” Marc’s hands slid away from her ass, along with the ridiculously sensual pressure of the probe. By degrees, her muscles began to relax.

“Nothing. I—”

“Don’t bother lying. Look at her. I could feel the rigidity under her skin. Look at her throat, the reflexive swallowing. I almost couldn’t get the probe in. You’ve overloaded her sensory receptors. She said they were too sensitive. You made her that way, didn’t you?”

“Dr. Roker, you need to do your job right now and save the android body from damage.”

“Don’t want to lose your little blow-up doll, do you, you sick fuck?”

“
Doctor
Roker!”

“She’s a person, Jared. She’s Tess, for God’s sake. What did you make her do? Did you force her to fuck you? Did you threaten her job?”

Tess shivered violently as she listened to the escalating fight between Marc and Jared. Little by little, details of the lab came back into view, as her core temperature began to drop and her systems came back on line. Though still paralyzed, at least she could see the two men who stood at the foot of the ice-filled tub, screaming at each other.

“I didn’t force her to do anything. Sydney wanted sex. She got it. From anywhere she could. I just happened to be available.”

Marc laughed harshly. “Oh, that’s rich. Poor Dr. Simon. The raging sex-bot had her way with you?”

“Didn’t she try to seduce you too? When you were alone here in your lab with her, tell me she didn’t.”

“Of course she didn’t. Tess has morals.”

“Tess is gone. What you’re seeing there is something other than Tess. She’s become a separate entity.”

Marc rubbed a hand over his face and glanced at Tess. He probably couldn’t tell she could see him. Likely her eyes were fixed and glassy since she couldn’t follow his movements. “What are you saying? That putting a human consciousness into an android body can cause psychological damage?”

“Of course not. Not to everyone. Only those who are damaged to begin with. I believe now that Tess wasn’t ready for this. She’s lost herself inside Sydney, and we may never get her back.”

“Then we have to reverse the transfer and put her back in her own body.”

“No!” Jared grabbed Marc’s arm. The dangerous look they shared terrified Sydney. “You can’t yet. Wait until she stabilizes and Dr. Stanz has spoken to her, otherwise we could lose them both.”

“Both? Jared, there’s only one person there, and she’s suffering right now because of what you did.”

“’M okay.” Tess rejoiced. Finally her mouth worked. “I’m all right.”

Marc and Jared raced to either side of the tub. Marc took one of her hands in his. The heat of his body burned. “Tess, can you hear me?”

“I could always hear you. I just couldn’t see and couldn’t move. I feel better now.”

“Are you in pain?”

She nodded, her teeth chattering. “Everything hurts. I’m so cold. It feels like needles all over.”

Marc let go of her hand and retrieved an electrode pack. “I’m going to get another temperature reading.”

“Use the probe,” Jared said. “It’ll be faster.”

Marc’s gaze shot daggers at him. “Not after what just happened.” Slowly, he dried off her right arm and affixed the electrodes to her wrist. After a moment, the monitor spit out a reading. “You’re finally down to 99.2. Come on, let’s get you out of this tub.”

* * * *

“You had quite a night.” Melissa handed Tess a cup of hot water that smelled faintly of chamomile. “Don’t drink, just sniff. Marc thinks the scent will calm you even if you don’t ingest any.”

Tess wanted to argue that she was calm, but it felt so good to hold the warm cup and breathe in the soothing aroma she decided not to say anything. Now that her core temperature was finally normal, the constant rolling orgasms had stopped. Her nipples were no longer tight and hard, her clit no longer pulsing and wet.

If she hadn’t been dressed in nothing but underwear and a clinging T-shirt from Sydney’s locker, she might have thought she was back in her own body. She felt perfectly normal, though she still looked like a supermodel.

A study in contrasts, she sat curled on Melissa’s couch, her feet toasty warm under one of the psychiatrist’s knitted blankets but her stomach still cold where Marc had strapped an ice pack to her abdomen. He now wanted to push her core temperature just a little bit below normal to take more readings.

Hot and cold, hot and cold. She wasn’t quite sure which end was up at the moment, but at least she’d been able to maintain her hold on Sydney, and she’d convinced Marc and Jared not to transfer her back to her body yet.

“It’s been rather intense to say the least.” She smiled wanly and brought the cup up to her nose. “Mmmm, I wish I could drink some tea.”

“You can end the experiment whenever you want, Tess. You know that. You can be drinking a real cup of tea in less than an hour.”

Tess remembered the conversation between Jared and Marc in the lab. Neither had spoken of it as they’d helped her out of the tub, dried her off and dressed her. Jared had taken a copious pile of printouts from the lab and retreated to his office without another comment to either of them, and Marc had solemnly walked her to Melissa’s office.

She wished he were here now instead of the prying psychiatrist so she could explain why she’d let Jared do what he had. Why it mattered to her that he understood, she couldn’t say. “I don’t want to end the experiment.”

“By my understanding of what happened early this morning, you may not have a choice.”

Tess waved a hand, balancing her warm cup in the other. “I haven’t been hydrating properly. That’s all.”

“That’s all? Really?”

“What did Marc tell you?”

“It’s not what he told me. It’s what he couldn’t bring himself to say. This obsession you have with sex is hurting you and Sydney, isn’t it?”

“This is how Sydney was designed. Maybe her systems need a little tweaking, but she was made for sex. That’s what Jared told me.”

Melissa sat forward, elbows on her knees, supporting her chin with her hands. “Dr. Simon told you he designed Sydney as a sex-bot?”

“Yes.”

“I have a hard time believing that.”

Tess let out an explosive laugh. “Are you serious? You can’t believe Jared Simon wanted a living doll he could fuck any way he pleased?”

“He’s a respected scientist. His plan for the android body is completely altruistic. He wanted to save lives and reduce suffering.”

“Ha. Yeah. That was a politically correct side effect of his real plan, to produce working sex-bot bodies for the super rich so they never have to die.”

“Sydney.”

“Melissa, do you really think I’m lying?”

“Marc expressed concerns about your mental state. He’s worried that the identity crisis is causing permanent damage to your psyche, and Jared agrees. We’d all like you to consider stopping the experiment early, but at this stage we won’t insist.”

“At what stage will you insist?”

“If you have another episode like this morning’s, or if you persist in these delusions. You’re not sleeping, are you?”

“Do I look like I’m not sleeping?”

“Don’t be facetious. Be honest. You haven’t slept since the transfer.”

“I don’t need to sleep.”

“Your body doesn’t need to, but your mind does. Lack of REM sleep can have a terrible effect on the mind. It can cause delusions, loss of judgment, comprehension problems. We need to know if this is a side effect of transfer or some unique problem you’re experiencing.”

“I slept in Marc’s lab last night.”

“The brain wave scan he did on you proves you didn’t.”

Tess stretched out on Melissa’s couch. “Fine. I’ll sleep right now. How’s that?”

“Be my guest.”

Tess closed her eyes and settled in a comfortable position. She worked at steadying her breathing but keeping her mind active. How could she let go now when they were threatening to pull the plug, to kill her? She had to stay alert or risk waking up back in her own body, if she woke up at all.

It seemed like an hour passed with her doing nothing but breathing in and out and thinking about what her future would be like. How long could an android body sustain itself anyway? Could she transfer from one to another if this one wore out?

“How long are you going to pretend?”

She ignored Melissa’s impertinent question. More time passed and finally she pretended to awaken, stretching and blinking sleepily. “There. How long was I out?”

Melissa set her own tea cup aside and rose, her expression grim. “Seven minutes.”

“How can that be? It seemed like hours.”

Melissa leaned over and put her hands on Sydney’s shoulders. “Tess, listen to me. You are suffering from sleep deprivation and identity confusion. If you don’t do something to change this soon, you could end up psychotic. I’m recommending to Jared that you transfer back to your own body as soon as possible.”

“Fine. Tell him whatever you want. I’m going home to get some real sleep.”

“I hope you do. Right now it’s the only thing that will keep you in Sydney’s body until the end of the week.”

Chapter 14

Tess was surprised no one tried to stop her from leaving the Gentron complex after she left Melissa’s office. She passed Jared’s office on the way out, but his door was closed and at the moment, she had no real desire to see him. With her body’s core temperature lower than normal, her sex drive seemed to be suspended, and she wasn’t in the mood for a repeat performance of the ice bath, no matter how amazing the orgasms had been that put her there.

She drove home carefully, concentrating on the road, cognizant of Melissa’s warnings about her judgment and reflexes being impaired. Sleep would have been a blessing, but now more than ever she was determined not to relinquish control.

At home, she changed into a loose-fitting nightshirt, grabbed a protein bar and her allotment of water and settled on the couch with the TV remote, hoping to distract herself. The droning voice of a news announcer lulled her until the phone rang.

Tye’s number came up on the caller ID. On the second ring she decided to ignore it. By the fourth she was replaying scenes from the porno in her mind. How many chances would she get to experience that kind of ecstasy? It was already Wednesday night, and on Friday morning she might have to go back to her own body, at least temporarily, if Marc didn’t solve the overheating problem.

She reached for the phone, but a knock on the door distracted her. It had to be Jared. As soon as she’d stabilized he’d ignored her, probably to convince Marc there was really nothing going on between them.

After the second, more insistent knock, she rose. Under her nightshirt, she wore nothing. That thought ratcheted her temperature up a notch as she hurried to the door. She flung it open, expecting to find herself straddling the project leader before she had a chance to say hello.

Marc stood outside. Worry creased his brow, and he squinted at her as though he wasn’t quite sure who she was. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Tess stepped back, hyperaware once again of her nipples hardening to stiff points against the thin fabric of her shirt. It seemed that proximity to any man made her hot and wet regardless of her core temperature.

“Can I come in?”

A hundred naughty responses to that question crowded her mind. Rather than make a raging fool of herself, though, she merely nodded.

He ducked inside, and she closed the door behind him. “Did you complete your tests?”

“Some of them.” He ran a hand through his hair, causing the blond strands to stick up in spikes again. “I came by because I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine. I ate a bar. I drank some water. I was going to get some sleep.”

“Are you? Really going to sleep?”

The lie formed too easily on Sydney’s artificial tongue. Tess quashed it. For some reason, she wanted Marc to know the truth. “I can’t sleep. I’m afraid to.”

“I understand.”

Tess stared at him. She’d expected a lecture or a threat. “You do?”

“You’re afraid your mind can’t hold on to Sydney. You feel like there’s nothing keeping you inside her except your own willpower, and if you let go, you’ll drift away.”

He’d read her mind. Down to the letter. She sighed and lowered herself to the couch. “How do you know exactly how I feel?”

His upper lip twitched as though he wanted to smile but found no humor in the situation. He sat down in the chair opposite her and met her gaze. “It’s how I felt.”

“What? You’ve—”

“It was a twenty-four-hour test. Jared transferred me into a blank body. It had no features, just eyes, mouth, ears and moveable limbs. I stayed in the lab overnight. I was supposed to be awake for twelve hours and asleep for eight, then awake for four before transferring back, but I couldn’t let myself go. I was scared to death.”

“When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?” Sympathy for him battled with indignation. If she’d known going in, would she have taken the chance? How could Marc not have said anything about his own experience?

“It was six months ago, when we finished the first prototype and put the translucent polymer on it. Jared wouldn’t let me look in a mirror. He said it would freak me out. Afterward, he swore me to secrecy. He threatened to fire me if I told you anything about it. He said my experiences were atypical because the body wasn’t finished.”

Tess forced a breath out of Sydney’s lungs. “That bastard. So sleep deprivation could be a side effect.”

“It may be something we have to teach patients to overcome. We still don’t know if sleep is possible. There’s no evidence to suggest your mind would cease to function if you were unconscious. In fact, you were technically asleep for twenty minutes while the transfer took place. Your memories, your essence is stored in the liquid crystal memory fluid and only a magnetic pulse could wipe it out. It should be no different than powering down a computer. The data stored inside remains intact, even with no power flowing through the system.”

“It sounds good in theory. But I don’t feel like I belong in here, sometimes.”

Marc nodded. “But you’re exhausted. You’re not yourself.” He let out a faint laugh. “You know what I mean.”

Shame washed over Tess, a feeling so intense she almost doubled over. “What I’m afraid of is that I’m more me than I’ve ever been. In Sydney, I got to be all the things Tess isn’t, all the things I’ve always wanted to be. This is the me I might be if I’d been born beautiful.”

A dark emotion clouded Marc’s eyes. “What makes you think you’re not beautiful?”

She scoffed. “Come on. Look at this body. You’ve seen every inch of Sydney. Don’t tell me she’s not every red-blooded American male’s wet dream.”

Marc shrugged. “Yeah. She’s hot. But Tess, you’re beautiful too. You’ve got those deep brown eyes, that sweet smile. Your hands...I love looking at your hands. The way you move—”

Tess gaped. Marc had never given her the slightest clue that he noticed anything about her other than her intellect. This revelation rang false to her, as though maybe he was trying to prepare her for the trip back to her own body. “Come on.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

“Have you seen my ass?”

“Yours or Sydney’s?”

“Mine.”

“Yeah. But I don’t ogle you.”

“Of course you don’t. What’s to ogle? Limp hair, thick glasses, small boobs.” She ran a hand down Sydney’s impressive curves. “This is what I would look like if I could. Being inside this body unleashed something in me. Maybe it’s something that should be leashed back up because it’s...hard to control.”

“Don’t confuse that with the adjustments Jared made. He programmed Sydney’s systems a certain way. It’s all wrong. You shouldn’t be feeling the way you do. If he’d stuck to the parameters of the original design, you wouldn’t be having this reaction.”

Tess jumped up, anger heating her artificial blood. “Don’t make excuses for me, Marc. The minute I put my hands on Sydney’s body, prim and proper Tess disappeared. Sure this body is especially responsive, but the first thing I did when I got her home was fuck her, just like Jared wanted to do. All I’ve thought about since I woke up inside Sydney is sex, and that’s because Tess doesn’t get to have any.”

Marc rose too. He matched her tone and her stance. “Well, that’s Tess’s choice.”

“You think so? You think I didn’t want the bodybuilder who lives upstairs? You think I didn’t want you?”

“Me? You wanted me?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, her sudden bravado fading. “Not...like that. I like you. I didn’t think...”

“You slept with
him
.” Marc muttered the words under his breath.

Tess wanted to blame Sydney, but Melissa’s words echoed in her head.
Sydney isn’t a separate person. Sydney isn’t real
. “I’m sorry.”

“I understand.”

“Don’t be so goddamned understanding. Get mad at me. Please.”

“Why? I’d probably have done the same thing.”

“Slept with the bodybuilder upstairs?” Tess smiled sheepishly.

“Um…no.” He held out his hand. “Sleep with me, Tess. I mean really sleep. When you’re back in your own body, we can talk about something more.”

Fear replaced Tess’s anger. She shivered. “I don’t know if I can.”

“I won’t let you disappear. I promise.”

She took his hand. His warmth coursed through her. How could she spend the night with Marc and not let Sydney fuck him? She wanted it. She needed to feel him inside her, but she’d die if she had to ask. “You’ll stay?”

“All night.”

She led him into her bedroom.

To his credit he made no comment about the dildo she’d left on the nightstand or the handcuffs still dangling from the bedpost. Tess thought she’d burn up with embarrassment, but Marc ignored all of the evidence of Sydney’s transgressions. He kicked off his shoes and lay down on her bed.

She climbed in next to him, careful not to automatically throw a thigh over his. His dark jeans bore a slight bulge that she longed to explore, but she forced herself to behave. She stretched out, twined her fingers with his and closed her eyes. “I’m counting on you. Keep me here.”

“I will. Don’t worry, Tess. I’ll be here when you wake up and so will you.”