Page 24 of Bred

Chapter Seven

Luca returns me tomy room, as nearly naked and handsome as ever. He slides into bed with me and holds me tenderly, knowing what I have just been through. I am still covered in Talon’s seed. I need to clean myself, but I can’t bring myself to do anything but lie in bed.

“You must think I’m so...”

“I think you’re amazing. And what I just saw was beautiful,” Luca says, reassuring me before I even finish my sentence.

There’s no jealousy in his tone. How could there be? He’s a machine. Machines can’t feel possessive—or loving, for that matter. He’s probably as attached to me as a tin opener.

I look into Luca’s eyes. “Do you know you’re a machine?”

He cocks his head and looks at me with an adorable expression in his melting brown eyes. God. I love the way he looks at me. I hope that never changes, even if it’s not ‘real.’ “What do you mean, machine?”

I hesitate before telling him what Talon told me, but then I think about it. Would I want to know if everything I thought I knew was a lie? Part of me wouldn’t want to know, but I think a bigger part would. I owe Luca the truth.

“Captain Talon told me that you were created a few days ago. You weren’t born in Victoria, Australia. You’re a...”

“Cyborg,” he says, his lips twisting. “I know.”

“So you lied to me too.”

“I was programmed to. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“But now you’ve told me the truth. Isn’t that against your program?”

“Now you know the truth, there’s no point in continuing a deception. I didn’t like doing that anyway.”

“So you had feelings about it? You have feelings? How can you have feelings if you’re a machine?”

“Feelings are just emotional processes,” he says.

I don’t know if that’s true, but I also can’t formulate an argument against it. I lie in silence, trying to think of what to say next and drawing a blank.

“You’re struggling with the concept of me as a sentient being,” he says. “I have some programming that might help. I could share it, if you like?”

“Sure,” I say, feeling sad for reasons I can’t explain. I want him to be real.

“All humans, all animals are machines in the sense you’re talking about. They’re just built slowly and differently than I am, but I don’t think there’s a difference, not really. I exist.”

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