Page 80 of Bred by the Alien Prince

"Come to the medbay when you can."

"Hey, Connor," I wanted to ask before he shut the lid. "Do you... you know... feel any different? Now that the AI Core is gone and your shackles removed."

"I've run four hundred tests of my systems and subsystems, and I can't find a major anomaly. And the others have remained with the colonists to aid in rebuilding. I would say it is a good outcome for all. I won't forget what you've done."

He closed the lid and sealed it shut. I hoped he would come to get me out of here once I was onboard. Dying in a container of MREs was not the way I wanted to go.

The ship rumbled while taking off, and thankfully, it wasn't long before Connor opened the container to let me out.

"We're not far away enough yet, but I figured you could hide here until we are."

"Thank you so much!" I gave him a big fat hug, which he took awkwardly well, and I grabbed myself one of the pizza MREs and hunkered down. Ah, the good old days... if a week or maybe two could count as old days. This reminded me of what I did back on the colony ship: sneaking food and hiding away to eat, relax, listen to music, or whatever I wanted to do until I lost my mind from the boredom. Then Derek took pity on me and assigned me to the RA position.

I snuck out of the cargo bay and ran to the medbay, confident that Lorvian still didn't know I was onboard, or maybe he knew and was waiting for me to reveal myself. To be safe, it was better to assume he didn't know. When Connor entered I came out of hiding.

"Thank goodness there's a bathroom in here. Hiding always makes you have to pee."

Connor showed neither amusement nor any sign of registering what I meant. He headed over to the computer and punched the keys, so typical for an android, alleviating some of my fears about unshackling him.

"So, what does this blood test say?" I asked, taking a seat. "Have you told Lorvian the results?"

"No, I thought it would be more to your advantage to know first. I told him I needed to scrub the sample to free it of contaminants."

"Did you?"

"It was a lie."

"You can lie now?" I said, surprised.

"I could always lie." He smiled. "I have news you would like to hear," he said changing the subject. "The humans fixed their communications array before we left, as a result, I've gained immediate access to the database and could update my files. I have current news about your family."

"You do?! How?"

"I have records of everyone who was onboard the Ignis."

"How did you get my records? Are you sure they're mine?" I asked skeptically.

"There were some discrepancies where your files were mistaken for a Richard Pitt. However, Richard Pitt was given a cancer diagnosis during his medical screening. You were not officially registered into our systems until day 66 of our departure."

"Did they know I was a stowaway the entire time I was on the ship?"

"No. Cormac did a good job on your false ID."

"You even know it was him?" I laughed.

He nodded.

"And you didn't…I don't know, do anything about it?"

"What was there to do? You along with fourteen other stowaways were already onboard. Assigning you jobs and making use of healthy resources was for the better."

"I didn't take your tests, how did you or the AI know I was healthy?"

"Our AI Core houses information on every human being born in a hospital, every human who visited a doctor, every human who has received humanitarian aid in some third-world nation, and the list goes on. Of course, you could have been diagnosed with something later on, but so could any other human. And we had ways of taking samples from you discreetly for testing. "

"Do you have any idea how creepy that sounds?"

"No. It was my job to prepare information for every colonist on Scion."

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