The Six: Genesis | A Reverse Harem Novel

Forty-Four

"Hey, what's going on with you, Blue?" He asks. "Why are you acting so strange?"

I don't have the heart to look Chris in the eye. What am I supposed to say? I cheated on you, but I didn't mean to?

And if I admit what happened, how do I explain liking it?

Charlie kissed me less than two hours ago.

Honestly, I don't remember getting back to my lab. Just the surprising softness of his lips as they caressed mine, and the determined flick of his tongue in my mouth. Rough hands touching everything and nothing at the same time, squeezing and rubbing wherever they could reach.

And the biting...

The licking...

The sucking...

Fuck.

It would be silly to deny liking it. I did. I do.

It's incomprehensible to want another kiss. I can't ask for one. Not when I shoved him away and slapped him silly.

It brought something almost feral to the surface, but I wasn't afraid. What would it feel like to be fucked with the intensity he wore in his gaze? Be pushed to the wall, fucked until my knees give out and I'm sore...

Stop thinking about it.

Charlie is an amazing kisser, but he knows I'm with Chris, and I don't want to lose him.

Chris stands before me in my lab, hands cupping my face to keep our gazes locked. My stomach plummets every time he asks what's wrong. I can't say I'm fine.

It's a lie and I don't want to lie to him.

He can feel it. Feel me. Feel the turmoil threatening to rip me apart at the seams.

I'm meant to be working now. Based on the device life projections, we should have about a decade before the nanites flooding our systems go bad and become junk. They have limited capability to regenerate and copy themselves, but I don't want to run the risk of becoming more nanites than human.

To upgrade to the newest versions, we have two options and neither one brings me joy or peace. The first, which makes me uncomfortable, is to infuse the newer nanites into our systems on a search-and-destroy mission. Tricky, and unnecessarily complex, it may inadvertently cause other issues if our immune systems deem the new nanites as a virus and attack them.

That's an even larger chance of unused tech pumping through the bloodstream. We use blood at every corner of our body, and the complications that can arise with loose bits of metal getting into brain matter terrify me. Chris may not like the alternative.

Since our kidneys cannot rid the waste from our bodies naturally, we'd need an external machine to clean our blood.

Similar to hemodialysis, we'd need the nanites to create what is called a vascular access site—an opening in our blood vessels—to clear the way for easy removal and reintroduction of the blood back into the body. A permanent access site may cause problems—safety problems—especially if it's damaged during an attack. Ignoring the risk of being under the gun again won't solve a thing, if Ryker is expanding my team, he must know something I don't.

That's on the list of things to check out as well.

If we adopted a dialysis approach, I'd need to redesign a dialyzer, used in hemodialysis, to target and scrape the nanites from our blood. Then, I'd have to closely monitor to ensure we didn't experience unintended side effects like low blood pressure, weakness, nausea and hypertension. This entire process is an incredible undertaking, but if it's successful, we can scratch one set of upgrades off the list.