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At once the sniffer bared its metal teeth and began sniffing her all over. Lili remained perfectly still, even when it stuck its cold metal snout in her crotch. The cool numbness of the temporary emotion damper held her fear at bay, though she was dimly aware that without it, she would probably be screaming and trying to get away.
At last, the sniffer withdrew its snout. Its glowing red eyes blinked to green and it looked up at the guard and made a low, metallic whining sound.
“Well…there appear to be no emotion pheromones at present.” The guard still didn’t look satisfied, but Lili was in a hurry.
“I have passed your test,” she pointed out. “May I go now?”
“In a moment.” The guard frowned down at her. “I cannot help noticing that you are unlike most Dark Kindred who live and work around Z4.”
Lili had an answer ready for this too.
“The Tolleg who mixed my DNA and monitored my Gestation Tank neglected to put in enough grown hormones,” she said. “But I find my size is useful aboard the Med Barges—I am able to get into smaller areas of the engine for repairs when needed.”
This seemed to satisfy the guard, because he finally nodded.
“Very well. You may go.”
“Thank you.” If she’d had feelings at all, Lili thought she would have felt relief. But she was aware that sooner or later, her feelings were going to return.
The temporary emotion damper she was wearing was only good for about an hour or so, which was why she’d waited until the very last minute to turn it on. Once it wore off and she started having feelings again, she would be fair game for the sniffers—she had to get to Light and Dark before then.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you a longer time without emotions,” Yipper had told her. “But it’s dangerous to install long-term dampers in humans. Any longer and it might become permanent. I know you don’t wish to lose your emotions for good. No you don’t, no you don’t.”
“No, I don’t!” Lili had agreed wholeheartedly. An hour wasn’t much time but she’d been sure that it would be enough to find Dark and Light—especially since Yipper had installed a kind of GPS tracker that would lead her right to them.
The GPS was located on the underside of the fake metal sheath that covered her left arm. It was directly connected to the tracking devices that had been implanted in Light’s leg and Dark’s arm. A small screen showed a kind of map where Lili was the blue dot and Dark and Light were two red dots. A dotted green line showed which way to go to reach them.
Lili didn’t have a great sense of direction but in this case she was confident. All she had to do was follow the path marked out for her and find her way to those red dots to find her guys. It literally couldn’t be simpler and it shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes—twenty, tops, she estimated.
She turned and started away from the guard and his sniffer, casting a surreptitious look at her forearm as she went. The red dots were exactly where they had been earlier when she’d checked in the shuttle—they hadn’t moved even a little bit, which was good. The green line showed a mostly straight path with only a few turns which she was sure she could follow with no problem.
That was until she heard someone calling from behind her.
“You! Stop!”
Even with the emotion damper in place, Lili felt her heart pounding a little harder. Turning, she saw it was the same guard and his sniffer, coming after her.
“Is there a problem?” She kept her voice flat and unemotional. “I have passed your test—I only wish to find sustenance,” she added.
“No problem—I thought I would take you to the nearest Garn House,” the guard said. “It is my meal break too—we might as well walk together. I am LJ-91, by the way,” he added.
If Lili hadn’t had the damper, she was sure she would have wanted to shout with frustration! What was this guard’s problem? Why was he so interested in her? Was it because he somehow sensed she was female and whatever male sex hormones he had left in his robotic body were reacting to her? Or was it just that he didn’t trust his sniffer’s reaction to her?
Either way, it looked like she was stuck with him—at least for a while.
“It is kind of you to take me to the Garn House, LJ-91,” she said, giving him a slight nod.
“It is no inconvenience as I am going the same way,” the guard responded neutrally. “Come—it is this way.”
He turned and led Lili to the left, away from the road she’d been headed towards.
Lili cast another furtive look at her tracking map. To her consternation, they were now going away from the two red dots. As she watched, the map expanded outward and the dots got smaller as her own blue dot moved away from them. The green line that led to the red dots kept switching itself around—rerouting as it tried to get her to turn and head in the right direction.
But there was nothing Lili could do but follow the guard. His sniffer was walking on the other side of her which meant she was surrounded by cyborgs.
There was nowhere to run and nothing to do but keep walking.
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