Artificial Heart

43

'W-what?'

'To conceive a hybrid lifeform,' he repeated. 'I was to prepare your body for insemination. It was one of many designations while studying your planet and your species.'

'You—you inseminated me?' She lowered her eyes to his lap. To their clasped hands. Goose pimples erupted all down her arms and legs. 'You forced this on me?'

'You consented to the experimentation.'

Prisha snapped up her head. She pulled away her hand. Then she was sending it through the air. He could have dodged it. He could have blocked it. He did nothing. It probably hurt Prisha more than it did him. His face was hard. He didn't even shift his eyes.

'How could you do that? That's disgusting! I thought you were better! I thought you were better than them!' Alf's face turned fuzzy, the room blurred, as her angry tears took over. 'Is it even yours?'

'Yes. Yes, it is mine. It was not meant to be.'

Prisha wiped at her face. 'What do you mean?'

'It did not take. Your body aborted it.'

Prisha blinked. 'What are you talking about, it's definitely taken!'

'No. The insemination did not take.'

She thought back. The erratic bleeding. The pain. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. 'H-how many times?'

'Every experiment.'

Prisha froze. She tried to remember. She tried to count but her brain didn't seem to want to work. There were so many times. Times when she was aware. Times when she'd been asleep, only to wake many hours later ...

'Except the last,' he said. 'I did not expect ours would take. It was not designated to take.'

'So, you didn't just have sex with me to ... to ...' Prisha raked her fingers down her wet cheeks. 'Stop with the tears!'

'No, I did not. It was a mistake. I did not know.'

Prisha nodded. 'A mistake. Right. It's all just a big mistake.'

Alf frowned. 'That is not what I said.'

'You said you had to leave me because it was no longer safe. And yet here you are.' She looked into his eyes. 'What's happened? You said they'd kill me. Why is is it suddenly so safe now?'

He didn't answer. He didn't need to. It was all over his face.

'They know. You told them. And now they want me. You've come to take me back for them, haven't you? Not to help me at all. Oh, Alf.'

'I did not tell them. They discovered you.' He paused. His organic eye stilled. It seemed to peer right through Prisha, into the distance, as though she wasn't there. All that startling, wonderful intensity that made Alf Alf was gone. Prisha shivered. 'I am at their command,' he said.

'You made love to me, Alf—you weren't supposed to do that. You weren't supposed to make contact with us. You were certainly never supposed to give us that sphere. What do you mean you're "at their command"?'

Prisha wiped at her face. Did they have some kind of control over his brain? How deep did the metal go? He'd turned his head so she couldn't read his face.

'I don't know what kind of hold they have on you, but you can fight it, Alf. You're not trash. You're not a machine. You're your own person with your own feelings and emotions and thoughts.'

He didn't move. No response. Stiff.

All she wanted to do was kiss that soft mouth of his. All she wanted to do was slap him hard in his metal face. To see that sinking look again. To make sure that there was a living, loving part of him and to make it hurt like he was hurting her.