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  And it was Cosmo who’d secretly made the child, intending to bribe Lindy into releasing her imprinted hold on Delta. From the expression on Delta’s face when he looked at Stella, Cosmo had failed about as badly as when he’d tried to pet Wog. If anything, the bond between cyborg and baby was stronger than the shroud imprinting process.

  Even if Vic found a way to circumvent the keyholder code, she had the feeling the half-machine, half-organic being would never, ever give up his little family.

  That was more than she could say for a lot of Earthers.

  A pang of jealousy, sharper than Wog claws, pierced her. She ignored it, like she ignored all the various aches of sitting too long at her screens. “Whatcha doing, Stella?” She tickled a finger into the baby’s belly—she thought the cartoony sun, moon, and stars on the onesie was a little too cute, but whatever—and was rewarded with vigorous leg kicks.

  “Watch out,” Cosmo murmured. “She might have claws too.”

  Delta gave his brother a confused look before saying, “We’re writing notes for Lindy’s lunchbox when she’s out on the range.” He angled the scraps of paper toward Vic.

  Our love is brighter than quasars. Our love is bigger than the known universe, though perhaps slightly smaller than the unknown multiverses. Our love is sweeter than a supercluster of chocolate donuts.

  “Well, you certainly have a theme going,” Vic said. “Lindy will, uh, love it.”

  Delta pulled the quotes back to himself. “She doesn’t really like donuts all that much, but she knows I do. And she wants to make me happy too.” He shook his head—as if even with all his teraFLOPS of computational speed and almost calligraphically precise penmanship—he still didn’t understand it.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Vic said, slanting a glance at Cosmo. “Lindy and Lun-mei want you and Mach to be able to choose to stay together in your relationships, not be forced just because your keyholder code triggered due to…um…”

  “Biochemically induced sexual compatibility,” Delta supplied helpfully, “and the ineffable quantum mechanics of soul mates.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  Cosmo had circled warily around the bassinet—as if Stella might lunge out and bite him. Although maybe that wasn’t a completely unreasonable fear since she was part shroud. “Do you need me to deliver these messages? Is that why you summoned me?” He peered at the baby. “You should send this one. It seems to be behind in its training.”

  Delta tsked. “We aren’t accelerating her development. She’s perfectly on her own schedule. She’ll grow up just like any other Earther.”

  All the unique tools the Halleys had at their disposal, and they were going to doom Stella to any-other-dom? Like that always worked so well. Vic quickly squelched her grimace.

  Crossing his huge biceps over his chest, Cosmo snorted. “If I’d known you were going to waste our gifts, I would’ve installed her implants from the start.”

  Vic gazed into the baby’s deep eyes and imagined silver code flowing in their depths. She held back a shudder. No matter how much she loved her computers, no one should force that on a child. She turned her glare on Cosmo. “Nobody’s turning the baby into a cyborg,” she said. “We’re using you as the baseline for disabling the imprinting process.”

  Cosmo wrinkled his lip on one side in a sneer. “I’m the Omega. I do not imprint.”

  The way she understood the shroud matrix, the Omega wasn’t ever brought out of stasis except for the end of the world. Or the end of a world. Literally.

  Based on his personality, she could see why.

  “You might not have had the chance,” she said. “But I’m guessing you have the same base code. Mach and Delta have already imprinted, locking down that portion of their programming, so to analyze the original source code, I need to do a deep dive into your back end.” She paused. Eh, that had sounded more personal than she intended. “Of your code,” she repeated lamely.

  As he stared at her, the icy blue in his eyes expanded and the silver narrowed to knife edges. “It’s too late for the Alpha and the Delta. They are locked down. And I won’t be”—his voice dropped a whole damn octave—“tempted.” He pivoted to Delta. “This is not necessary.”

  “Don’t be scared,” his brother soothed. “It won’t hurt. Not like our initial programming. Victoria will be gentle with you, right?” He glanced at her.

  “Very,” she promised. How could programming hurt?

  Other than backaches, social isolation, the urge to use her powers for evil…

  When Cosmo set his jaw, glints of silver flashed through the pathways under his pale stubble. “She is an Earther. How could she ever understand us?”

  She took an annoyed breath, but Delta slid in smoothly. “I admit, I didn’t like this idea either, at first. I know you have…difficulties, and I thought we should leave you alone. But Victoria says this is the way. And she knows code since she contracted with the Intergalactic Dating Agency outpost in Sunset Falls before they closed down.”

  Speaking of closing down… Her innards clenched at the reminder.

  She’d made a lot of bad choices in her life, but that had been her only mistake. One she’d never be able to make up for. But finding a way to free the shrouds from their coded chains would be a step in regaining her confidence—and paying off some small measure of her karmic debt. If she had to be nice and gentle with Cosmo, who had clearly been kept on ice for his piss-poor attitude as much as the danger he represented, then maybe she’d sneak out of purgatory a few days early. Although she was pretty sure she was mixing her mythologies between karma and purgatory. Her parents—both the unknown biological pair and the long-gone adoptive ones—would be so disappointed in her.

  Stella let out a little squawk, as if of sympathy, just as an unfortunate scent began to drift through the room.

  Cosmo recoiled. “I can fix that,” he announced. “A quick implant—”

  Delta stood and whisked the baby into his arms. “Just need a diaper change,” he said, his tone stuck somewhere between disapproval and delight. Obviously he was still entranced with everything about his little daughter. Vic wondered if her own bio parents had felt that way for even a second. She knew her adoptive ones had cared only so long as her wretched sob story had kept the donations rolling in.

  Not that she’d ever been as cute as Stella. There had to be a place where her bad choices, mistakes, and longing for something else wouldn’t eat at her.

  But that place wasn’t Earth.

  “Come on,” she told Cosmo. “The sooner we figure out how your imprinting subroutine works, the sooner you’ll be free.” And the sooner she could leave.

  Chapter 2

  With steps slowed by reluctance and the need to not tread on the back of her shorter stride, Cosmo followed the Earther female toward the back of the Strix Springs house. His nanites seethed in warning, though he could see no reason for the alarm. Certainly she could be no trouble. Although… She had changed her shape outside. And now she was changing her name.

  Suspiciously, he eyed the sinusoidal spiral of her backside twitching side to side beneath the hem of her puffy coat. While the fabric covering over that backside was the same as the denim Lindy and Lun-mei wore daily, he had never seen such tight jeans. “Why did your nomenclature change?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What?”

  “It’s a simple question,” he said testily. “If you can’t answer this, how will you unravel the complexities of shroud code?” When she just stared at him, he let out a harsh breath. “You told me you were called Vic Ray, but the Delta called you Victoria.”

  She tilted her head. “Victoria is the long form of my name, and Vic is my preferred term. Just like you are called Cosmo although your designation was the Omega.”

  He considered for a moment. “Your designation was victory?” Perhaps she had some redeeming qualities after all. Although Omegas were not brought out for a mere victory. By the time his designation was activated, th
e only option left was oblivion.

  She gave him what she probably thought he would perceive as a smile, although he could see the humor did not change the shape of her deep-set eyes. “Victory is a little in-your-face for my skill set,” she said in a confidential tone. “I’m more of a ‘sneak in through the back door and rifle through your belongings but you’ll never notice’ kind of girl.”

  He nodded slowly. “Like the Theta of a matrix. Ours was lost in the crash landing, but his role in the matrix was thief, assassin, saboteur, and political operative.”

  She sputtered. “I’m not that bad.”

  “So, thief only.” He glanced past her. “Well, Earthers are not as multipurpose as shrouds.”

  “Actually, I beat the fraud charges,” she muttered. “With a very clever bit of hacking, if I do say so myself.”

  Since that didn’t seem to require a particular reply from him, he paused in the doorway of the back bedroom where she’d led him.

  He hadn’t been in this room of the house before—it wasn’t Lindy’s bedroom, when he’d stolen her genetic material in order to build the small Earther/Delta hybrid—but he suspected it had not looked like this before Vic.

  Though Omegas were not programmed for any particular expertise beyond destruction, he was a being from an advanced society. And even he was reluctantly impressed by the sophistication of this command center. It melded what he knew of Earther technology as well as some of the salvaged bits of the crashed transport that had carried his matrix, plus some other proprietary equipment that he assumed had belonged to the Intergalactic Dating Agency, or at least what she had copied of their hardware and design.

  “I probably don’t have everything I’ll need to access and unravel your programming, but this is enough to get us started.” She stripped off the puffy coat and hung it on the back of a large swivel chair in the center of several screens and keyboards. A cellular phone was tossed to one side, probably mostly useless out here, isolated from most Earther connection systems. “We had to wait until Lindy’s ranch hand interns left for their winter break. They already had enough questions about Stella’s sudden appearance.” She glanced back at him. “Well, are you coming in?”

  “No,” he said, as if she couldn’t see that for herself. His nanites continued to rush hard through his system, and his knees were locked tight, preventing him from crossing the threshold.

  Now that she’d taken off her coat, revealing a bright red hooded sweatshirt, it was very clear he’d underestimated her curves.

  He would’ve stated that his expression was as frozen as his lower joints—he knew he was not as facile with Earther mimicry as his matrix-brothers—but Vic’s eyes widened at whatever she saw on his face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He tried out an imitation of her wide-eyed stare. “My limbs have become paralyzed.”

  She jolted out of the seat she’d just taken, sending it spinning. “Shit. What happened? Is there something in this room?” She cast a frantic gaze around. “I have a custom drive eraser, but that shouldn’t do anything to you, unless I plugged you in.”

  This time, he copied her wild eye roll. It made his head spin a little, as his proprioception struggled to keep up with his drama. “I don’t want to be here.”

  She pivoted back to face him. “What?”

  “You say ‘what’ a lot. I wonder if you are like Stella—not very developed. No wonder my nanites are warning me to stay away from you.”

  Scowling, she dropped back into the chair. “Hey. I was top of my class in— You know what?” She winced at the word ‘what’ again. “Never mind. Your Alpha brought me here to do a job. I’m going to do it. And I thought you had to obey him.”

  “I do, technically. But since we were never fully activated, I still have enough autonomy to protect myself from an underdeveloped Earther female trying to rip apart my brain.”

  “It’s just your programming, not your…” She scraped one hand back over her head, knocking off the ugly animal head hat. “Except it is kind of your brain, isn’t it? That’s what a cyborg is: part this, part that. Your programming, even the bad stuff, is part of you.”

  He stared at the small red dot that remained on her forehead after she removed the hat. “Does that play music too?”

  She glanced at him. “Wha—?” She cut herself off, touching her fingertip to the mark. “Oh. I suppose you’ve never seen a bindi before.”

  He reviewed his on-board database quickly. “As we were crashing, the transport loaded an archive of all available planetary information at the time. Which was not much. The Alpha was able to snag some of it and he shared it with us.” He narrowed his eyes. “I have since supplemented that data, although access in Diamond Valley is limited.”

  “You’re trying to say you never bothered to learn about anything beyond this valley and you’ve never seen someone from India before.”

  “Would I know if I had?”

  She contemplated him for a moment, and his nanites prickled. Was she somehow scanning him already? “Probably you wouldn’t.”

  He bristled at her wry tone. “Omegas were never designed to be data collectors or observers.”

  “You aliens probably didn’t know how to ride a horse in circles around cows either. But you learned.”

  “I walk.” He clenched his jaw, thinking he’d probably just made her point in a worse way. “What is a bindi?”

  She let out a slow breath. “It’s a mark of cultural significance where I was born, but…” She chewed at the corner of her mouth. “I was taken away from there when I was about Stella’s age. Since the people I grew up with weren’t interested in teaching me about where I came from, I got this.”

  “So you wouldn’t forget the truth of your hatching.”

  Her lips curved, still not quite a real smile but it released her bitten flesh from between her teeth. “Oh, I’m not going to forget that I’m not from around these here parts. But I’m sorry to say the tattoo was more about rebellion than enlightenment. I wanted… I guess I wanted to force everyone—my parents, their congregation, the people I worked with—to see me for what I am.”

  For some reason, the lock of his knees loosened. “What are you?”

  “I’m…” She stared at him, her mouth open to keep explaining.

  He waited.

  “A lot of different things, I guess.” This time the skin around her eyes actually crinkled, transferring the energy of her smile to make her eyes glint. “Kind of like you.”

  “I am not a lot of things,” he warned her. “I am one very bad thing.”

  Her smile faded. “I’m here to change that. But only if you want. I know what it’s like to be made into something you don’t want to be, and I won’t do that to anyone.”

  She gazed at him. The skin around her eyes was darker than the brown of her skin and there were also many hundreds of tiny speckles of pigmentation cast over her cheeks and the long line of her nose. The effect made him feel as if he were falling into a star-studded sky, but the hue was all strange—warm and earthy instead of pale and cold.

  The muscles in his belly trembled in a chaotic way that reminded him of fluttering butterfly wings, even though it was winter and most insect life in Montana had gone dead or dormant.

  Dormant like he’d been, until the ship smashing into Earth had broken him out of stasis.

  “I wasn’t made,” he said. “Not like the others. And I can’t be unmade. I am…Omega.”

  Her eyes widened again and she bit her lip again—he was starting to anticipate her little micro gestures—and he knew he’d probably frightened her. In a moment she would run away, like the cats. His stomach muscles fluttered again, and he clenched them to make them stop. Better she run now, before he decided he wanted to pet her.

  Then, to his shock, she laughed.

  “And I am Vic Ray,” she intoned. “Poor Punjabi orphan, rescued by missionaries, turned black-hat hacker extraordinaire”—she spread her hands in a graceful gesture
—“now reformed.” She slapped both palms down on the arms of her chair. “Don’t worry, Cosmo. I’m a bad person too.”

  He blinked. “You’re…not afraid of me.”

  “Oh, I am. Mach explained what you are. But fear makes me chatty.” She flicked one fingertip over the red mark between her dark brows, although he thought she didn’t even realize it was one of her gestures. “Look, I don’t think you appreciate that being able to hack yourself is pretty damn radical. People would pay money for that, big money. Not that I’m doing this for any money,” she added hastily. “If you want to stay a self-destructive—and everybody-else destructive—monster, that’s cool. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. Or you can be different.”

  “Is that how cats work?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What?” As soon as she said it, she laughed again. “I can’t figure you out. But if you want me to try, come sit here.” She yanked a rolling stool out from underneath the long desk. There was a stack of papers and an open tin on the seat, but she tossed those on the desk and slid the stool toward him.

  He looked at it and then at her. If she wasn’t the cat in this subtle war game, if he was, he could hiss. He could run away. He could bite her…

  The flutter in his mid-section returned, and he put one hand over his belly.

  “If you’re hungry, help yourself.” She gestured at the tin which contained a collection of bite-sized orbs with the rough, mottled appearance of something he might step over out in the cow yard.

  He jerked back. “I consumed all necessary carbon yesterday to maintain my nanites.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen how you guys eat burnt toast. So you’ll probably love my laddoo.” She took one of the orbs from the tin and popped it into her mouth. “Nuts, dates, figs. Annoyingly healthier than what I want to eat but if I’m gonna snack at my station at least this isn’t too bad.”

  He raised his skeptical stare from the unfamiliar Earther foodstuff to her. She was not food, so… Why did he still think about putting his mouth on her? “You said you were bad too. If that is true, why are you not eating what you want if it too is bad?”