Being Green, a 40 page cyborg short story, will release on December 2nd. This story will be free and will only be available to newsletter subscribers. (If you haven’t subscribed, sign up here – http://tasteofcyn.com/2014/05/28/newsletter/ ).
While we’re waiting for December 2nd, I thought I’d share the first scene from Being Green
Green wanted Doctor Shelby Cooper.
It was an irrational desire, especially for a normally logical cyborg such as himself. He’d never seen the botanist. He’d never spoken with her, never heard her voice. They had only communicated through written messages.
But her words had intrigued him. She shared her knowledge of plants fearlessly, not caring if she was judged harshly for her unique stances. Her quirky observations often made him smile.
That, in itself, was a miracle. He’d suffered a lifespan of abuse from his sadistically cruel human masters before he had escaped. Interacting with other beings had given Green little pleasure.
The exceptions being Zip and Barrel, his friends, and Windy, his beloved plant, and now, his Shelby, as he’d grown to think of the human female.
Enthralled by her messages, he had investigated her and these findings had increased his fascination. She lived alone on a planet, cut off from the rest of the universe, enjoying a lifestyle he’d often dreamed of yet hadn’t thought possible.
He had to talk with her, had to see her.
Not only for his sake. Windy remained damaged, unhappy with her new surroundings. He had to repair her.
Zip and Barrel didn’t agree with his strategy. They thought him reckless and had organized one last intervention on the bridge of their ship, trying to talk him out of it.
It wasn’t working.
“We’re hailing her,” Green declared, jutting his jaw.
“Hailing her isn’t without risk.” Barrel met his gaze. The cyborg sat in the middle of the bridge, in the captain’s chair, in front of the giant viewscreen. He was the leader of their group by default. No one else wanted that role. “Your little botanist is human. She could report our existence to the Humanoid Alliance. They’d then know we’re alive and free and come after us.” He glanced at Zip. “After all of us, every cyborg.”
“That is a risk,” Green admitted. “But the risk is limited.” He’d investigated his Shelby thoroughly and wasn’t concerned. “She’s isolated from the other humans in some unknown location, by choice, it appears, and if she did report us, this isolation has made the Humanoid Alliance skeptical of her insights.”
“They think she’s crazier than a Palavian strung out on Mox-X.” Zip, the technical specialist and mood lightener in the group, grinned.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting some peace and quiet.” Green wanted that for himself. He was tired of fighting, tired of pain, of conflict, of seeing beings die. His gaze drifted to Windy, his plant. Her head was bowed, her leaves limp and brown around the edges. “We have to save Windy.”
“We do.” Barrel sighed. His friend knew how much his plant meant to him, how she’d once been the only being keeping him sane. “But is this the best way to accomplish that goal?”
Green knew it was, but he allowed the others time to think. They gazed at the viewscreen, their processors whirling.
Stars sparkled against a sheet of endless black. Green was weary of that vista also. Due to the risk of contagion, Windy wasn’t allowed on the cyborg home planet. It had been half a solar cycle since he’d stood on soil, had breathed anything other than recirculated air.
For a cyborg valuing solitude, life on a small ship was an ordeal. Zip and Barrel tried to accommodate him, tried to give him space, but it often wasn’t possible.
“Her assistance is necessary.” He broke the silence. “My Shelby is an expert in ancient Earth plants.”
“Your Shelby,” Barrel repeated.
Green ignored him. “Zip has determined that Windy is an ancient Earth plant.”
His friend nodded. “There are some variances but there are too many similarities not to reach that conclusion.”
“We need this botanist’s insights,” Green stressed. “It’s the logical approach.” That was the truth but it felt like a lie. There was nothing logical about his turbulent emotions, about his intense need to contact his Shelby.
Barrel glanced at Zip. The younger cyborg nodded and his friend sighed. “Then we take the logical approach. Cover our transmission trail, Zip, and hail this plant doctor.”
Zip tapped on the console. “Green requesting that Doctor Shelby Cooper open hailing frequencies.”
There was no response.
“Green requesting that Doctor Shelby Cooper open hailing frequencies,” he repeated.
She didn’t answer. They waited and waited and waited.
Green grew alarmed. They normally communicated via written messages at this time each planet rotation. Where was she? “Force the hailing frequencies open.” They were cyborgs. They had that ability.
Zip’s eyes widened. “She’d view that as aggression, as an attack upon her systems, upon her.”
“I’ll deal with her reaction.” Her lack of response worried him more than breaking any hailing protocols. “She could be damaged, require fixing.”
“The humans refer to the process as healing, not fixing.”
“Her damage is none of our concern.” Barrel frowned.
“She’s a female and the sole being on her planet capable of communication.” Green straightened in his seat. “How can we not investigate? We’re cyborgs, not selfish humans. We have a sense of honor and a duty to protect others.”
Barrel’s jaw jutted. “Fraggin’ hole. How can I argue with that logic? Force the hailing frequencies open.”
“Consider them open.” Zip’s eyes gleamed with the challenge of hacking into a new system.
They watched him work.
“She’s not your Shelby, Green.” Barrel shifted in his seat. “I process that you want a female of your own. We all do. But you can’t claim the first unattached female you contact.”
Green said nothing. His emotions toward his Shelby weren’t logical. He processed that yet couldn’t deny them.
“Rage bred with hundreds of human females before he met Joan. None of them were his female.” Barrel leaned forward. “You haven’t even seen this botanist. You might not be attracted to her.”
“I’m attracted to her thought processes.”
“You don’t have to stick your cock into her thought processes.” His friend shook his head. “Be cautious. Don’t form an attachment to her until you’re certain.”
Green heard his concern but he didn’t know how to follow Barrel’s advice, how to combat the conviction deep in his cyborg heart that Shelby Cooper belonged to him.
“Accessed.” Zip raised his arms in triumph. “And in record time. I am a deity, a cyborg without equal.” Humility wasn’t one of the young cyborg’s strengths.
Green gazed at the main viewscreen. Cyber static snapped and sizzled. Forms appeared and disappeared, distorted by the feed. Was his Shelby one of those forms?
Can our cyborg without equal clean the feed up? He asked through their private communications line, the need to see his female tremendous.
I am a deity. I can do anything. Zip drummed his fingertips against the controls, his actions cyborg fast. The feed is scrambled at the source.
His female must be tech inept. That pleased Green. He could share his knowledge of technology with her and she could share her knowledge of plants with him. They’d both grow as beings.
The image stabilized. Leaves framed a view of what appeared to be his Shelby’s sleeping chamber. Plants covered every free space. A covering sheet draped over a mound on the sleeping support. Graphs decorated the white walls.
Is she in the chamber? Barrel asked the question Green was thinking. The space was chaotic.
“Doctor Shelby Cooper,” Green called.
“What? Where?” The covering sheet was thrown back. A tanned leg appeared. It was attractively lush, tantalizingly full. “Stars.” A husky voice groaned and Green’s cock twitched to attention under his flight suit. “Now I’m dreaming of him, matching a sexy voice to his words.”
Was she referring to his words? “You’re not dreaming, my Shelby.” It heated his circuits that she would fantasize about him. “This is Green. I require your assistance.”
“Green, the sick plant guy, you’re here.” A face peeked out of the covering sheet and Green inhaled sharply, the sight of his female stirring his desire.
Fraggin’ hole, Barrel muttered though their private line. She’s beautiful. There will be no dissuading him now.
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Green, a cyborg warrior, cares for one being—his plant Windy. When Windy becomes sick, he’ll do anything to heal her, even venture across the universe to visit a worlds-renowned plant doctor.
He doesn’t expect to find love.
Doctor Shelby Cooper is the sole resident of a tiny planet. She prefers to be alone rather than risk caring for another being and then losing him. The curvaceous scientist is determined to resist Green’s patient caresses, his thought-burning kisses, his slow seduction.
She has underestimated the power of a cyborg’s passion.
Love your Cyborg books! Thanks much for giving us Green for free – I would gladly have paid for his story! I can’t wait to read the whole book.