Through Their Eyes

by



Ann Marie Olson





Story © 2000 Ann Marie Olson

      *CRACK!* I managed to choke off my howl. Blinking back sudden tears, I looked up into a very startled pair of gray and blue eyes. Stars swam in my vision from where I'd hit my head on the stone floor.
      "Are you all right, Anatoly?" Tyrna's high pitched voice did sound sincere.
      "No," I gulped back nausea. "I'm not."
      He moved. I screamed. This didn't help any. Bone ends grated together. "Oh, God, Anatoly, I'm sorry." He got up, unfortunately elbowing the other side of my ribcage in the process. It bent sickeningly, but fortunately, nothing else broke. "I only meant to hug you." Tyrna's chin quivered.
      "I know little one," his expression was so downcast, I couldn't stay mad at him. I prodded at my ribs. Only the fourth this time, but damn it all, I'd only finished healing last week. "You don't know your strength yet."
      "I know," Tyrna was only twenty-three. It showed. The clumsiness of an adolescent did not go well with the strength of a battle servant. "I thought I was getting better."
      "You are," with his help, I did manage to sit up. Last time he'd broken one of my bones he'd run howling from the scene.
      "I think I can tape it," his rawboned hands fumbled with my shirt. This was not reassuring.
      "You poor little thing," I stroked his mousy hair back from his eyes. Ilya'd told me Tyrna was supposed to have rich brown hair when he grew up. I'd believe it when I saw it. Not to say I doubted our creator, but he sometimes had odd ideas about growing up. I was nearly thirty and he still promised me I'd be good looking. "No, I'll be all right." Tyrna had no idea about injuries or healing. He'd already forgotten his scrapes with jumping into the practice wall, falling off the rafters, repeatedly, and managing to break three of my toes by jumping right in front of me in an earlier, equally ill-fated, attempt to give me a surprise hug.
      "Are you sure?" He ducked his head, exposing his vulnerable neck. I put my arm around his shoulders.
      "You could help me up," I hoped he'd get it right.
      "Great!" Before I knew it, he'd picked me up. "Whoops!" This was my least favorite comment from a servant. My life flashed before my eyes. Then I realized it was the ceiling. My stomach drifted in free fall. I knew it was going to hurt when I landed. I gritted my teeth ... hard.
      Strong arms caught me without even once jarring my injury. He was learning. I was amazed. This was a first. Although I did have to give him credit, Tyrna never once repeated any of his painful mistakes ... exactly.
     
      "I have to do something about this," alone at last, held together with duct tape and bailing twine, as Ilya was wont to say, I plucked at my lip. Any servant seeing the gesture would have gone into paroxysms of fascination. They loved playing with my mouth. Ilya called in an oral fixation. I called it annoying.
      I honestly didn't think my erstwhile servants would have harmed me deliberately. But the young ones were painfully clumsy ... to me, not to them. They healed minor injuries immediately. Their bones were reinforced to the point where they would break a toron's jaw. I had no such advantages.
      "Hmmmm," I eyed the computer Ilya'd given me years ago with new insight. It was at least as obsolete as some of Ilya's favorite sayings. Seating myself gingerly at the console, I eyed the antique monitor with distaste.
      Grumbling at all the idiotic humans who'd decided the created couldn't be trusted with computers one could actually design anything with, I put up with what I had.
      Hours later I wasn't a great deal closer to a solution. I had found out all armor body mods were now legal and how to do them, (if I'd been human) my stock portfolio had doubled again, (whoopee, it wasn't as if I could own anything, not being human) and the Duma was considering a bill to legalize the status of the created. (Except for those created for military, recreational or service industries ... not that there had ever been any sapients created for any other purposes.)
      Lost in my frantic pounding on the keyboard, (I could almost type as fast as a mongoloid human in a headset when I really put myself out) I came back to reality as Ilya's hand descended on my shoulder. I hissed in pain as his grip twisted my upper body.
      "Still playing computer games?"
      "Checking my portfolio," out of habit, I'd left it programmed it to display them when anyone else could see. Ilya'd surprised me before, and the last time had been far more painful than a broken rib. I couldn't meet his sapphire eyes. How I envied Ilya's body mods as I looked at him. He hardly had more humanity left than I. This wasn't saying much. A bear was more human than either of us.
      "Buy some Bioprima," I didn't have to be told twice. As quickly as I could, I entered the buy order for a thousand shares. "Aren't you going to ask why?"
      "I figured you'd tell me," I knew Ilya could never resist bragging, and his insider information was always good. I could never be classified as an insider, as I could never be employed ... a side thought tickled my brain.
      "BioTerna is dealing with Prime Minister Nikolai Raspuryin to get their chimps human status." Ilya leaned on the edge of my desk. "Nikolai is so fascinated with them, he's going through with it."
      This was probably a test. As the information sank in, I matched Ilya's sharp toothed grin as well as I could. "If BioTerna gets their balls cut off when their primary product is ruled human, and therefore subject to human law, they're going to go down the toilet."
      "And BioPrima already had a hostile bid in for them, at kopeks on the rouble," his reinforced fingers clattered on the surface of my desk. The sense of being tested grew stronger in the air. My last brother had been gone for nine months now. Stubborn as I was, I was not going to let Ilya scrap me as a failed prototype.
      His gaze turned faintly hostile. I met it this time. I suppose I could have pleaded with him again for the armored ribs, but I'd be truly damned before I asked Ilya for anything. He nodded and let himself out.
      My eyebrows danced up past my shaggy hairline. Oh shit! I realized what Ilya's provocative stance meant. If I didn't come up with some way to defeat his current scheme, I'd be as dead as my brothers.
     
      I took a deep experimental breath. The new ribs seemed to work as ribs. After Ilya'd left, I'd prodded and poked at the idea hiding in my mind. At last it'd surfaced, around three in the morning of course.
      The brisk morning rain felt good on my fevered body, still trying to shed the last heat from my first foray into bioengineering. A few pellets of ice found their way inside my collar. I was surprised they didn't turn to steam.
      A hard thwack and I found myself hurtled across the courtyard. *Tyrna! Kolya! Trina! Lyri!* I called my servants all at once. Nothing broken this time, I rolled to a crouch in an alcove. Ilya rushed me.
      Of course I ducked. I couldn't stand up to my creator. He'd practiced all the biomechanical mods on himself before setting them in the battle servants.
      A loud screech nearly shattered my eardrums. Tyrna's lithe form draped itself over Ilya's shoulders. He shrugged off the servant as easily as he did the rain. "Away!" He commanded. They ignored him. Mine, our bond strengthened to adamantine.
      Kolya dove for Ilya's ankles. The two of them went down in a tangled heap. Trina hesitated. "NO!" I lunged to my feet. The crimson of agonizing pain sheeted my vision through my link with Trina. Lyri leaped into the fray. My fist crashed into Ilya's jaw.
      Lyri stopped with her teeth on Ilya's ear. Ilya's other ear flattened to his skull. Trina shook off Ilya's mental attack. "Wait, Lyri," I shook my hand. It was badly bruised, but still worked, more or less.
      "Why didn't my kick take you down?" Blood trickled down Ilya's neck as Lyri nicked his ear. He grimaced in pain, glaring sideways. I smiled softly.
      "Why be bound by the rules of humans?" I offered him my bloody hand, silently asking my servants to step back. Lyri growled softly as she released him. All four of them stood behind their creator who was no longer their master. I was now their master, in truth as well as name. "I'm not human."
      Through my servants' eyes, Ilya's respect made me beautiful.