The Bionics Series Book 1:
Alicia Michaels
THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors' imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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The Bionics
Copyright ©2015 Alicia Michaels
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63422-063-7
Cover Design by: Marya Heiman
Typography by: Courtney Nuckels
Editing by: Cynthia Shepp
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
About the Author
Part One:
The Bionics
(Blythe Sol)
One
Blythe Sol and Dax Janner
Dallas, Texas
August 15, 4010
4:00 am
I am awakened by my internal alarm system and all I want is to ignore it. I want to turn it off, roll over, and go back to sleep. The impulse to burrow beneath my thin, scratchy blanket, and ignore the world outside the house I have taken shelter in is strong.
Unfortunately, my internal alarm doesn’t work that way and won’t shut the hell up until I’m on my feet with my eyes open. I have the feeling that my alarm—which should only be heard by me—has also awakened Dog. I’m wondering if it emits one of those high-pitched screeches only dogs can hear. The furry bastard is licking my face with his hot tongue before I’ve even finished rubbing the sleep from my eye. I pet him on the head absently and stand, stretching the fatigue out of my human limbs.
I’m still not used to reconciling my human half with the robotic additions gifted to me by the Healing Hands department of the Restoration Project. It’s especially jarring first thing in the morning—half of my body takes longer to wake up than the rest. Eventually, I am able to stand and give Dog a proper ‘good morning’. The wiry mutt looks up at me expectantly, his tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth. His tail swishes from side to side until I go over to my pack and fish out a few strips of beef jerky. I still don’t know what breed he is. Medium sized with ginger-colored fur, he looks to be a mix of Irish terrier and God knows what. He reminds me a lot of myself, a mishmash of different things: black, white, girl, robot. We’re both a conundrum.
Dog leaps up onto his hind legs and spins in a circle for the treat, bringing a smile to my face as he always does. I have very few reasons to smile these days. It’s the only reason I keep the fur ball around, despite the fact that my situation isn’t exactly ideal for keeping a pet.
The muted mumbling of the television from the next room lets me know Dax is awake and watching the news. I also smell food, which means he’s making breakfast. Rifling through my pack, I find a clean shirt and replace it with the one I slept in. I’ve only brought one pair of pants with me, so I’m glad they’re my most comfortable brown suede. I pull on a pair of heavy wool socks and my boots before reaching for my jacket. It’s heavy with all the odds and ends I keep in the many pockets lining the front, but it’s warm and functional.
I grab the small pouch containing my toiletry items and walk into the bathroom, mentally thanking Dax for letting me take the big bedroom. While the house has been cleared of all furniture—with the exception of a beat-up couch in the living room and the bed I slept in last night—the power and water still run, as well as the heat. I fill my hands with water from the faucet and splash it over the dirty mirror, using the sleeve of my jacket to wipe a clean spot big enough for me to see myself. Opening the bag, I take my time with the essential grooming: brush my teeth, splash my face with water, and comb my shoulder-length, dark brown hair into a ponytail. Once that’s done, I brace my hands on the sink and stare at myself in the mirror.
I keep looking for that girl who had dreams of joining the Army and the ranks of the Military Police, of riding around on one of those sleek hover bikes and pinning one of their gleaming, silver badges to my shirt. Of being a hero, the kind of person people could look up to and trust. Like my father.
At only nineteen years old, I have lost most of my optimism; that girl is gone. I am now the antithesis of everything she once believed in. Sure, I look the same: caramel-colored skin halfway between my mother’s white and father’s black, brown eyes, beauty spot just beneath my left eye. Yet everything about me has changed, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the Restoration Project’s accessories. With a sigh, I reach into the bag for my contact lens case.
The single, glass lens stings like a bitch on contact and will hurt for hours after I put it in. But, it protects my bionic eye from the police scanners and keeps me safe while I’m walking the streets with Dax. There is no protection for my robotic arm, except for the polyurethane glove the Professor constructed for me to wear over it. It looks like my other hand and seals over the skin right above my elbow, where the titanium and gadgetry end and I begin. It repels water, is heat and cold resistant and, more importantly, keeps me looking like the other normies.
After a minute or two, the excruciating pain in my left eye fades to an annoying throb. By lunchtime, it’ll be an irritating itch and by the time I’m ready to take it off, I’ll have gotten used to it. I slip my digital watch on and grab my bag before returning to the master bedroom, throwing it into my pack. Rolling my blanket up, I slide that in there as well.
4:20 am. Better get a move on.
Dog sits near the door on his haunches, waiting patiently for me to open it. As soon as I do, he’s rushing to the living room to greet Dax, who’s sitting on the couch in front of the television. The sleek sofa is the only piece of furniture left in the room. The remnants of the family that once occupied are scattered across the floor. Broken photo frames, forgotten children’s toys, and articles of clothing tell the story of a family recently terrorized by the Military Police. The television is working just fine though, even if it isn’t one of those sensory-stimulating models they have in the big cities that are still standing. Those babies have picture so colorful and sound so realistic that you’d swear the actors of your favorite shows were right there in your living room. You can smell what the TV chefs are cooking, as well as the fabric softener in commercials full of smiling people and soft towels. I step over a broken vase and dodge a disembodied baby doll head, dodging the debris scattered around the room like landmines until I reach the kitchen.
Dax has, in his usual fashion, made the most of what we found when coming upon this house the night before. He’s located and cleaned a few pans, plates, cups, and utensils and raided the fridge.
“Fresh eggs?” I ask as I dig into the pan he’s left on the stove. The eggs are still warm and are mixed with bits of Dax’s rationed beef jerky. “Potatoes?” I scoop some of those onto my plate too, eyeing the orange concoction in a glass pitcher on the counter with awe. “Is this real orange juice?”
“The house couldn’t have been vacant for more than a few days before we showed up,” Dax says from where he sat on the couch, glued to the news. “The expiration date on that orange juice was for a week from now. And the potatoes aren’t real, but the eggs are, so eat up.”
We fall into silence again as I sink down onto the sofa beside him, sitting my glass on the floor between my feet. I dig into my eggs and groan aloud with ecstasy. It’s been months since I’ve eaten real eggs. Despite the beef jerky, which is an odd mix, I wolf it down pretty quickly, content to let Dax finish watching the broadcast in peace.
Silence between Dax and me is comfortable, which is good because I’m not much for conversation unless I have something to talk about. Dax knows this about me and understands that my silence isn’t always a bad thing. After I’m done eating, I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He is reclined against the back of the couch, his long legs spread with Dog resting between them. His smooth, brown skin is offset by dark, midnight black hair buzzed close to his head and twinkling brown eyes.
Dax is a great, hulking beast of a man, broad in all the places that count, but as warm and charming as they come. He and I are only a few years apart in age—he’s nearing his twenty-first birthday—and I always wonder what our lives would be like if we’d met before the nuclear blasts that hit several major cities in the United States and changed our lives forever. Would we have ever met? Would we be friends? More than friends?
I often tease him that if he didn’t have titanium ribs and a set of robotic legs, he could be on one of those electronic billboards in the city, posing in his underwear. Dax always laughs at me, but I think it’s true. Then I think what a shame it is that guys like Dax can’t be models. They can’t be anything but dead or in hiding.
Him finding me two years ago was one of the best things that ever happened to me, because it saved my life—he saved my life. He turns to me and smiles, and I smile back. Besides Dog, he’s the only one that can make me do that.
“Ready, B?” he asks, reaching for the remote and turning off the television at the height of President Drummond’s speech. The image of our brown-haired, blue-eyed national leader disappears, and I am relieved to be free of his deceptive gaze. “I think I’ve had enough of that asshole to last me all week. How ’bout you?”
I snort as I stand and sling my pack over my shoulders. “I don’t know why you watch that garbage. All they do is fill the airwaves with his messages and his voice. If you’re not careful, you’ll become one of his mindless drones. You’re already part robot, so you’re halfway there.”
Dax laughs and stands, pulling on his blue-jean, fur-lined jacket. I always joke that it makes him look like one of those old-fashioned pilots they have photos of in the museums. He pulls a skullcap over his head, and I dig mine out before stuffing my ponytail in it and covering my ears. I have gotten used to bundling up every morning before starting out. Ever since the burning out of the ozone layer, and our nation’s pitiful attempts at constructing a synthetic replacement that left our planet in even worse shape, the weather is unpredictable. While August used to be the hottest month of the year in the state of Texas, today we will more than likely find ourselves tramping through snow.
I stare up at the smooth, white exterior of the house with its round windows and clear, glass roof. It’s a beautiful house—this is one of the few areas in the state not affected by nuclear war—but too conspicuous for us to use as a hideout in the future, so I tell Dax we should burn it. If the MPs should come back looking for more of our kind, our fingerprints and hair fibers will be everywhere. We can’t leave any hint of our presence in this house or neighborhood and since we can’t use it as a hideout, we’ll burn this beautiful place to the ground.
He finds a gas can in the garage and goes back inside. Dog and I stand on the brown, withered grass out front and wait for him to come out. By the time we set out on our way, the house is lighting up from the inside with orange flames, soon to be no more than a pile of smoldering ash. We really kick it into high gear then, putting as much distance between us and the house as possible before the fire department shows up.
As we walk, I reach into one of my many pockets and pull out a pair of gloves. They don’t offer much protection from the cold, and I technically only need one since my bionic hand feels nothing. But I wear them both because for one hand, they’re better than nothing, and if I’m going to wear one, I might as well wear the other to keep from looking suspicious. It’s a beautiful morning, even if the sun hasn’t come up yet. A few stars remain in the sky, and that pretty mix of pale blue, orange, and pink has just started to spill out over the horizon.
It is now 5:00 am..
We’re making good time, although I dread going back to headquarters empty-handed. Coming back with even one refugee would be worth it, but at this point, it seems like too much to hope for. We’ve been in Dallas for five days now, combing various neighborhoods for signs of life or people in hiding.
“Do you think there’s anyone left in this neighborhood?” I ask Dax as we walk. I am keeping a sharp eye on our surroundings, counting on my bionic eye to give me readings on any nearby signs of life. It’s picking up the body-heat signatures of me, Dax, Dog, and a rabbit hopping past us across the street, but nothing else. It’s got our environment’s temperature read at thirty degrees, and is telling me there’s a seventy-five percent chance of sleet and freezing rain tonight.
Dax shrugs. He is looking for signs of life too, even though he knows I’m more likely to spot them first. “I doubt it,” he says. “Looks like we got the short end of the stick this mission. MPs likely raided the entire ’hood.”
I nod in agreement but don’t say anything else. With the house in that condition and still standing, it was more than likely that an arrest had been made, just like Dax said. Some poor soul had been imprisoned before we had a chance to get there and save them, along with who knew how many others on the block. Typically, when these neighborhood raids happen, entire streets get cleaned out as people like me are arrested and their families are punished for harboring them. I shudder at the thought of what is being done to them.
“We can’t change what happened at that house,” Dax says, and I know he’s sensed the direction of my thoughts. He knows I tend to take these things personally. “We save the people we can, B,” he reminds me, repeating the age-old mantra of the Professor. I know he’s right, but I still can’t help it. Seeing that house reminded me of my own childhood home… of kneeling on the front lawn, surrounded by MPs in their gleaming white armor. Of staring down the barrel of a gun and waiting for death. That was the last time I ever laid eyes on my family.
I never will again.
“There are plenty of houses down this street to check,” I say, quickly changing the subject. “Hopefully, I’ll get a readout and we don’t have to go back to Jenica empty-handed.”
Really, I don’t give a flying fuck about Jenica, but I need an excuse to voice my desperation at needing to find someone… anyone.
Dax glances at his watch. “We have a few hours before the hovercraft makes its rounds. Let’s get moving.”