Page 1 of Smart@ss Cyborg

CHAPTER 1

“Traxia’s inhabitants are a lawless, aggressive people, with a small populace scrabbling to make a living on this terraformed planet,” the AI drones on.

I’m listening with “half an ear,” as the humans are fond of saying.

(I mentally stroke my ego center, located primarily in the Fronto-insular Cortex of my brain, for utilizing this humanism.)

“This populace tends to be wary of Yonderin—”

Wise of them,I think to myself as the AI informs me about the history of my people, a predatory ocean-dwelling species—

Formerlyocean dwelling, rather.

“Which Traxians call ‘mermen,’” the voice continues. “Each of the Yonderin’s vast underwater territories are rich in minerals such as jeren, cobalt, and copper, but perhaps the most sought-after resource of the Yonderin territories are their crude oil seabeds. This became a form of wealth that allowed the Yonderin people to make a unique request in exchange for their mineral rights…”

The AI’s voice buzzes in my ears as my mind drifts, both supplying and pondering the request some of us made: we traded our tails for legs. Cybernetic ones.

And now we get to be where the people are. Alien people. Anywhere on land we want to go.

I’ve selected Traxia.

I’ve extensively studied the bipedal race, calledHomo sapiens,and it’s nearly time for all of my tireless work to come to fruition.

Anticipation fills me. So does a distant sense of confusion as I find myself looking around the ocean deep. But I can’t seem to rouse myself enough to question why I’m here.

Kicking powerfully with my tail, I move along an ocean floor crevice, sticking to the shadows so that the sunlight streaming down into the cool coastal waters won’t catch on the iridescent scales of my tail and cause my lower half to glitter.

If that happens, my prey will know I’m here. And today, for some reason, I’m craving my favorite fish as if I haven’t had it in an age. I’m quite looking forward to catching and consuming it.

My gill slits itch on the left side of my neck. It bothers me enough to bring my hand up, slow as a floating ribbon of seaweed, to cover them—and something wriggles under my hand.

Parasite!I curse in my mind.

Baring my teeth—and feeling saltwater press cooly against my incisors as I do—I dig my shortened claws under the funnel-mouthed many-toothed creature hooked into my flesh, and rip it away.

My distraction is momentary but costly. A dark shape slams into me, propelling me backward—pinning me against a reef. Claws dig into my flesh.

My senses scramble to register what's attacking me.A fellow Yonderin.And his aggression makes sense when the cloying scent of a nearby female reaches my receptors.

Oh no.He’s attacking me because he has determined I’m a rival.

I must have ventured into a territory that clings to the Old Ways, where males and females pairbond. It’s almost unheard of—the ancient practice of males fighting to take mates, only to become dangerously aggressive, battling to keep their female and any young they produce safe from theft and harm. There’s a reason the practice has nearly been done away with. So primitive.

He releases me in favor of moving his female away from the fray before he circles and speeds toward me once more.

For precious heartbeats, I can do nothing but watch them, numb with overwhelming shock. I’mastounded.It’s incredibly rare to stumble across bonded pairs—and I'm unlikely to make the mistake twice: the male deemed to be the threat—that would be me—is almost always killed.

A disturbing prospect.

I shake off my astonishment. Rapidly refocusing, I move to defend myself. Swift as a riptide, I meet this attack and latch onto my aggressor’s arms. By instinct alone, I scan his bioframework. To my extreme luck, I identify a fresh wound on his side.

I catch at the spot, latching onto the injury site with a crushing grip.

He thrashes his tail and escapes the hold I have on him. Baring his teeth, he viciously kicks his caudal fin, propelling forward with stunning speed, eyes full of killing intent. I no more than observe this when he rakes his claws down my abdomen, spilling my intestines into the ocean—

I jolt awake, sucking a hard breath into my gills.

Or I attempt to. I no longer have gill slits. They were sewn shut with my last procedure. The procedure that took my tail and gave me cybernetic legs, turning me into a human.

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