Made to Love (13 page)

“
Okay,” I said. 
“Most of the materials should be around here.”

Byron came to look over my
shoulder.  He reached an arm over my shoulder – I shivered at
the contact – and dragged his finger across the diagram.

“
I understand some of
this,” he said.  “But I don't see how the motor
runs.”

I pointed to a wire. 
“It's self-sustaining after it's started.”

“
That makes sense,” he
said.  “What I mean is...how does it start?”

It was a good
question.

“
Good question. 
Let's see...”

I turned the page.  On
the next two pages were diagrams of two persons: a male, from the
looks of the genitalia, and a female.  It appeared wires
hooked into the nervous system, which made sense, but
how...

The answer appeared. 
I flushed.

Octavius noticed right
away.  “What?”

Byron looked where my
finger stopped.  I didn't realize I was covering the male, and
I pulled my hand away with a squeak.  He turned his head and
made a surprised sound.

“
It appears mating is the
initial power source,” Byron said.  “Correct?”

“
You're a fast learner,” I
gasped.

In a flash, Octavius was on
his feet.  He snatched the book from my hands and looked at
the pages.  “No,” he said.  It didn't look like he
understood what he was seeing, but he still seemed resigned. 
And horrified.  “No.”

“
I don't understand the
extra appendage,” Byron said.

“
Extra
appendage?”

“
At the waist.  I
have never seen that before.”

I goggled at him. 
“You mean you don't--”

He started pulling at his
pants.  I cried out and covered my eyes.  “I believe
you!  I believe you!”

“
I guess I'm incomplete,”
Byron said.  I peeked between my fingers, and he was leaving
his trousers up, so I lowered my hands.  He looked quite
crestfallen.

Octavius, on the other
hand, appeared as if it was his birthday and Christmas all rolled
into one.  “Too bad,” he said.  “I guess you'll just have
to make do without it.”

“
Not at all.”

Octavius whirled on
me.  “
What
?”

“
The rest of him is
constructed from various parts,” I said.  “I could weld
something.  Or there are stores--”

Octavius grabbed my
forearm.  “We're leaving.”

And before I could protest,
he whirled me out of the room.

Chapter
Thirty-Two

“
What are you
doing
?” I demanded, shaking my arm free when we reached the
relative privacy of the stairs.

“
He’s been planning this
all along,” Octavius said.  “He—he is obsessed with you! 
He knew that by getting your help, you would want to help him mate
and start the battery, and it is all a plan to keep you for
himself!”

“
That doesn’t even make
sense.”

He gripped my
shoulders.  “Calliope.  I love you.”

Octavius bent and kissed me
passionately.  I enjoyed it, lost in his heady scent and
intoxicating taste, but I couldn’t help but feel a little
disappointed.  Kissing was all we could do.

But we have our
love
, I reminded myself.

When he let me go, I
frowned at him.  “At least Byron is innocent.  I can’t
imagine him trying to deceive me.  You know, when I went to on
Friday, nobody even knew who you were!  Not even your
band!”

“
I want to be nothing but
honest with you,” Octavius said.  “I am a siren.  My song
is intoxicating.  Enchanting.  When I am there, my sheer
presence creates a bubble universe in which I have a full, mortal
life.  When I am gone, I cannot do that.”

“
So when you’re there, you
exist as a human, but when you’re not, nobody knows you,” I said,
frowning.  This was too much for me.

He nodded. 
“Exactly.”

“
And how do I know you
haven’t enchanted me with your song?” I asked.

He smirked.  “Oh,
Calliope.  I have.”

Octavius kissed me again,
laying a hand on the small of my back to bend me backward until my
shoulders bumped the wall.  His body pressed against mine, so
cool in comparison to that of Byron, but it heated me in places I
didn’t even know heated.

He pulled away, our
foreheads pressed together, and I stared into his endless eyes from
inches away.  “I love you too,” I breathed.  “I do. 
I’ve never felt like this before.”

His hands stroked me,
molded to my body.  “Nor have I,” Octavius murmured. 
Pain flashed across his face.  “I don’t want you to power
Byron.”

“
I’m not the only woman in
the world,” I said, touching his cheek.  “We’ll figure
something out.  But we have to finish him in the first place,
and we can’t do that if you keep dragging me away from my
work.”

After a time, Octavius
nodded.  “Very well.  But I don’t want you alone with
him.”  I opened my mouth to protest, but he didn’t let me
speak.  “It’s for your safety.  Trust me, and you’ll be
safe.”

“
Okay,” I said. 
“Anything for you.”

For days, years, a
lifetime—we kissed in the hall.  And yet, there was some tiny,
disappointed part of me that was frustrated we couldn’t have sex
unless we were trying to breed.  Octavius was amazing in every
way possible, and it was crazy to think, but I could imagine
breeding with him.

If I got pregnant, though,
my parents would freak.

But only for the next
month.  Until I turned eighteen.

Octavius sensed my
frustration and laid kisses against the side of my throat. 
“Soon,” he whispered, “soon.”

Chapter
Thirty-Three

We returned to
work.

Byron was distant now,
casting suspicious looks in Octavius’s direction even as we
sketched out plans together. We had found blueprints describing
Byron as a finished product—what the scientists needed, where the
parts would go.

And there were sketches
detailing where things hadn’t yet been completed.  As I
suspected, Byron was intended to end up entirely
flesh-and-blood—why, I couldn’t understand.  It was obvious
the machine parts were far sturdier than his organic ones. 
But his “Father” – more like Geppetto -- seemed convinced in the
journals that Byron would be able to live, truly live, once
complete.

“
I just don’t understand
where they’re getting your organic parts,” I muttered, spreading
the papers across the steel work table.  “They’re not
documenting it.”

“
But not much machinated
remains, right?” Byron asked hopefully.

“
It looks like… your
heart, your eye, part of your arm, and... um…”  I tried not to
look at his pelvis, but that was the most obvious missing
part.  If the work-in-progress diagrams were up to date, he
had a mechanical stand-in that allowed him to relieve toxins from
his bladder.

Octavius snorted.  Oh
well, at least he was being quieter.

“
What of my medications?”
Byron asked.  There was a complex system of tubes and beakers
connected to an IV that he had to plug into his arm twice a day to
ensure he could get pumped full of some cocktail that appeared to
be keeping him alive.

“
I saw that somewhere,” I
said, going to the bookshelf to find one of the old folders I’d
been looking through.  I brought it back to the table and went
through the papers.  “Here we go.  A lot of it is
anti-rejection drugs—the kind of thing they give heart transplant
patients.  Probably so your body won’t shake apart from the
different mechanical and organic parts you’ve got thrown
together.  Some of it is antibiotics and stimulants.  And
the rest seems to be nutrition and basic, run-of-the-mill
saline.”

“
It is life in a tube,” he
said.  The look he gave his IV bag was a mingled admiration
and hate.

“
I’m not going to be able
to finish putting you together overnight, Byron,” I said, folding
my arms to take in all the huge amounts of work remaining. 
“It’s just too much.  Maybe in the next month, before Father
returns—yes.  If I have the parts.”

“
What do you plan on doing
about that?” Byron asked.

I frowned.  “I just
don’t know.  It says exactly what he needs, but none of it
makes sense.  His heart needs to be from a human teenager, but
I can’t imagine us getting on the donor list.  The arm should
be easy enough to fix—we just have to remove everything and put in
a new bone, but we’ll do that right before the… uh…
powering.”

“
He doesn’t need a new
eye,” Byron said.  “He’s obviously not blind, and he’ll be
able to survive without it.”

“
If we keep him on
anti-rejection drugs,” I reminded him.  I turned a page over,
trying to read it in the dim light of the lab.  “Some of the
mechanical parts actually do look like they might be supposed to
stay in place.  Like some complex, pseudo-neural
network.  It’s complicated.  I’m going to have to study
it further.”

“
And my penis?” Byron
asked.

Ugh.

“
That’s going to be the
hardest of all.  Nobody donates their…”  I swallowed
hard.  When I spoke again, my voice was an octave
higher.  “You know what?  Maybe I’ll take this upstairs
and work for the night.  We should all relax.  I still
have school tomorrow, too.”

“
You’re right,” Byron
said.  “I need to reconnect to my station soon, so I will go
to bed for the evening.”

“
Great,” Octavius said,
hopping off the table.  “See you.”

“
I could use
help.”

“
I’ll do it,” I
said.  I shot a shy smile at Octavius, and I leaned up to
whisper in his ear.  “You could stay with me tonight.  Do
you want to go get in bed?”  Maybe he only
thought
he
couldn’t function without breeding.

It seemed he was thinking
along the same lines, because he immediately grinned. 
“Yeah.  I’ll get ready.”

He disappeared up the
stairs, leaving me to arrange Byron on his gurney again so he
wouldn’t get pinched by the straps.  “Are you sure you need
these?” I asked, giving a distasteful look to the set-up.  “It
looks so uncomfortable.”

“
I need to sleep in this
position so I can get a full dose of my medication,” he said. 
“Why is he staying with you?”

“
We’re friends,
Byron.  Close friends.”  I flipped the switch, and the
clamps closed on his limbs.

“
You will come back soon?”
he asked anxiously.

“
I’ll let you out in the
morning before school so you can keep working,” I promised.  I
started to head out, then hesitated.  “Good night,
Byron.”

“
Good night,
Calliope.”

I turned off the lights,
leaving him to bubbling beakers and glowing potions.

Chapter
Thirty-Four

After a frustrating night
of failing to have sex and being forced to just cuddle, I went into
school on the back of Octavius's motorcycle.  I wouldn't have
even done that much – pressing against him was getting me bothered
in all the wrong ways – if I didn't think he would be offended if I
kept turning him down.  Well, not that I was turning him down,
but his ego had to be fragile at this point.

We started toward the front
doors.  I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice when
Rich Coos approached, and we collided.  I fell on my butt, and
the papers in my arms scattered to the wind.  Octavius
scrambled to pick them up, and Rich offered a hand.

I rolled my eyes, but took
the hand.  At least there was one guy around that was pretty
simple to understand.

When the skin of our hands
contacted, I felt a jolt.  It was so strong that I fell
backward again.  My eyes unfocused briefly, and I saw a hint
of sunlight around Rich's head.  But it wasn't just sunlight;
there seemed to be something more, something...
something...

He yanked me to my feet and
caressed my hand before letting go of it.

“
Watch yourself,
Calliope!” he exclaimed, his voice booming.  “You'll hurt
yourself if you keep that up.”

“
You were the one to run
into me,” I said, but without the oomph that I was hoping it would
have.  If anything, I was close to weeping, and I didn't know
why.  It didn't necessarily seem like I was sad, either. 
I couldn't put my finger on it.

Octavius came up to me with
an armful of papers.  “Is he bothering you?”

Rich and I both looked at
him.  Octavius seemed like a slight shadow next to Rich's
golden rays.  I couldn't understand it.  Octavius was way
more attractive than this doofus... wasn't he?

“
I think you're the only
one bothering anyone right now,” Rich said.  “Buzz
off.”

Octavius started to heave
my things to the ground, but I stepped in front of him and took
everything back.  “It's okay,” I said.  “We were just
leaving.”