Transhuman (yes)

Adam woke from hunger pangs, he was guessing just a few hours after he almost died. Again. He really had to stop doing that.

"Hey. Guess you decided to sleep in this morning?" Cindi had an odd sort of look on her face. Like she couldn't decide to be happy or sad or scared or a million other things, so she settled on witty.

"Sorry. Late night at the club. Morning, you say?" He looked over at the hand full of IVs in him, then the flashing monitor. "I'm in a diabetic coma?"

"You're all out of glucose drip. About thirty thousand calories. And you don't have much left in the mess. Ive been spoon feeding you cooking oil since your stomach.... closed up." The swelling had gone down on her face. She had the same genetic marvel of a mother he did.

Adam wanted to ask if she was ok? But no one was ok after the day she'd had. And he played his part in that.

"Explains why I feel like I'm about to shit my pants."

Cindi laughed at that. Laughed until she grit her teeth and cried. Adam sat up and pulled his sister in close. He was relieved to find he didn't have any inappropriate reactions, to her warm embrace.

"Its gonna be ok."

Cindi was sobbing now. The events of the past day finally catching up with her. "I thought I lost you again." She whispered in his ear. Her tears hot against his cheek.

"Never." He promised.

But that only made her sob harder. So Adam just held her for a while. He stroked his sister's hair and squeezed her tight. Her head burrowed into the narrow crack between his shoulder and head. He wasn't going to let anything happen to his little sister.

---

"So you used my pad to hack into the station and reverse the gravity?" Cindi had been catching him up over a meal of protein packs and starch water- they really were low on food. "That's pretty nova, sis."

She tinged pink before she continued her explanation. "I did most of the work months ago, a few booby traps laid out in case things ever got bad." Things had gotten bad all right. "After we got clear of the station, I shut down your jammer and set off the emergency wave-comm. Corsairs have a good response time. He'd probably rotting in a cell by now." She didn't state the obvious, that they had left her friends alone on the station with a pissed of psychopath, who may have had a hand in their father's ****.

"Not dead?"

"I wish."

"I'm sure your friends are fine. I wouldn't want to tangle with Imani, and those girls are untouchable. Benefits of being one of the forty families."

She nodded slowly, but seemed to agree, because some of the tension left her face. The moment lingered for a bit before she asked what Adam had been dreading.

"What's going on with you?"

Adam put his head into the food to try and ignore her.

"You're built like a tank. You smell-"

"I smell?" Adam tried to deflect. But Cindi was undeterred.

"I saw your wounds close up. What even was that thing I put in your stomach?"

"You did put it in me right?" Adam stared in to her eyes. What if this was another trick by the Instinct? Lulling him into a false sense of safety before he lost control again?

"I did. I swear." Probably should have cleaned it better before though." Adam shrugged her off and kept eating. Cindi just watched him, happy to wait him out.

"What!" He demanded.

"You know what. I need to know what's happening to you? Are you sick? Did you take Gene mods? You know they're not safe to use on anything but newborns, right? Oh my god, are those tumors? Are you bulging with tumors, Adam?" Her gaze was equal parts fascinated and worried.

"They're not tumors." Adam shot back, still defensive. The last person he'd let in just walked out on him and he wasn't eager to repeat the process. It would be different this time. Adam would make it different. "I don't want to talk about this."

"You don't want to talk about this." Cindi repeated, chewing on the words over. "Should we talk about how we're on the run from the law. Or how about how I just saved your life? You know, right after you **** me?"

Adam threw his fork down. He met her stare for stare. She wasn't blushing now. "Did I **** you?"

"I don't ... know." Cindi said at last. "You fucked me. Took my virginity. You fucking came inside me even! What were you thinking, Adam?"

'I want to you to have my baby', didn't sound like a great reply, not since the pheromones had worn off anyway. Cindi didn't want those answers either, not really, not yet. But he had to give her something.

"It all started back on Gegis..."

---

Katerina Carter was furious. She'd been working for DAYS on that odd Mycovirus when the very same brutes swooped in, and without so much as a 'howdoyoudo?' took it and all her other research material. They thanked her for her service to the Alliance and told her it was time to get back to the classroom. She'd been sure she was on the edge of breakthrough. She could already tell, despite the hobbling **** upon her by the lab staff, that it existed as part of a larger organism, as some kind of viral symbiosis, though how or why, without testing was far beyond her. It was like trying to figure out a puzzle picture with only one piece. That only made her want it more though. Kat LOVED puzzles.

She'd have to work outside the lab for this one. Her brain snapped the disorganized mess of it all into concrete blocks, then stacked them into orderly rows and columns. Obstacles and opportunities became facts to be studied and discarded if impractical. The brutes probably didn't care if she stayed on Thiidian. And Sam was glad of her mother's company. She couldn't enter the lab, which still left the military base proper and the barren, unfit for human habitation wild swamplands open to her. Supposedly there was an extensive cave network that was rumored to run the entire surface of the planet. She doubted it though. Rumors had a way of exaggerating she simply couldn't tolerate as a scientist. Moving on. Kat had her own equipment, though it wasn't nearly as thorough as a full lab. None of it mattered though, she was willing to bet they guarded that lab relentlessly. No sample here and no idea where to look in the swamp. Kat swept the blocks aside and started fresh.

Records! They had to write down their findings somewhere. On flimsy or hard drive or even ancient scraps of paper like those foolish romantics back at the university. She rolled her eyes, Liberal Arts, what a waste of good research money. Back to the issue. Military outfits were good at keeping secrets, but back about storing them. They had all these levels of security but the data ended up in the same place. In her mind's eye Kat flew through the maze of hallways the brutes had led her on the very first day. The video crystal clear in her mind, she played through it at high speed, letting the sounds and pictures wash over her- there! She slowly wound things back. She'd passed a records room off the east wing on her way to the mess hall. There was a private on duty at all times. She studied him, pale, like everyone on this swampy hell, bored, hungry? She felt the satisfying click of her blocks falling into place. The poor guard had a terrible, shift, and had to wait until nearly 1600 to get lunch. He was starving and bored out of his mind guarding a door no one cared about on a go nowhere, do nothing assignment. Probably not what he had in mind when he enlisted. 'Don't worry about a thing, hun. Aunt Charlotte will feed you and keep you company. And you're going to let me sneak back there and grab a file or two. Yes. Yes, you are.

It was only then that Katerina allowed herself to smile. The board laid out before her in perfect order, she didn't know what the picture was yet, but she could see the pieces already.

---

Adam and Cindi were in the medbay. They'd spoken for hours, first about his condition, which had led from the mess to the medbay -Cindi was as bad as Aunt Kat about her insatiable curiosity -for some tests. While he was being poked and prodded, their conversation had shifted to catching up on lost years. Cindi told Adam about the Academy, Adam shared a few choice adventures, he'd been prepared to censor the more lurid details, but remembering the crowd his sister ran with, it hadn't really been necessary.

That took them right up until the results started pouring in.

"Well I don't think you're gonna get any taller, thank god." Cindi devoured the results with her eyes. Sometimes he forgot his kid sister had grown up to be a prodigy scientist.

"Here here."

"Wanna see?" She held out the flimsy.

"Nah. Its all Greek to me."

"What's Greek?"

"Dunno. I heard someone say it once." Adam admitted.

"Hu-uh. You're bone density is off the charts. Let me-" And without losing a beat Cindi grabbed a nearby medical tray and swung it down across Adam's kneecap.

"Owwwwww." He looked at her incredulous.

She held up the dented mental. "Unreal."

"Yeah. It hurt. By the way."

"White blood cell count high. Hemoglobin levels high too. When was the last time you were out of breath?"

He thought of his spacewalk. "Its been a while."

"Your tissue density is higher too, I don't know how you're not full of cancer right now. Stay away from water." She eyed a scalpel. "Increased metabolic rate and T-cell counts would explain the rapid healing."

"No!"

"It's fine. We already tested that."

She kept murmuring to herself as she read, he caught the word, thymus?

"Your immune system is in overdrive." She replied when he asked about it. She paused to look down at her blinking pad. Actually HIS pad. But she'd pouted when he broached the idea of returning it Little sisters were like that. "Uh oh."

"What's wrong?"

She didn't answer, instead she flicked a hand toward a wallscreen and the medical chart transformed into a wanted poster. His wanted poster. Apparently, he was wanting on suspicion of ****, attempted ****, ****, and piracy. At least they didn't have a recent picture of him.

"No camera's on the station?"

Cindi shook her head, her face tight with worry. This was bad. They'd have the new IFF, and his name. Not long until Cooperative put two and two together.

---

Cindi followed her brother's clomps into the cockpit. Did he have to take such huge steps?"Hey. Slow down. We need to-"

"We?" He whirled around to face her. "There is no we. There's just me. Me with the voices in his head and monster DNA and the government is after me, the mafia too. Me. Me. Me." He seemed to regret getting in her face. Good. Jerk. His practically muttered, "I'll put you down on the next safe planet with some credits and my Pad."

Her Pad now. And no. Her stupidly noble, stupidly stupid brother wasn't going to leave her behind while he stupidly died. Not happening. "Where would you even go? I've seen how you eat. You'd starve to **** before you got out of the quadrant. WE, need to figure out our next move."

Cindy had hated when Adam and her horrid cousin tried to leave her behind and go off on adventures as children. It was childish to feel the same now, but she couldn't help it.

"I'll figure it out, Cin. I'm heading upspiral. Out to the Periphery." Her jaw dropped.

"That's so stupid, it makes me think you were adopted. Even I know humans that go out there, don't come back. Its Alien territory."

"Its the best plan I got." She was losing him. Not now. Not when she just got him back. Would he let her stay if she...? No. Not when things were already this volatile. Adding that back in could send him running. She got it in a flash.

"You don't need to run. You need a biologist." The concept spun into a full fledged idea, then even a plan, albeit, with some details missing. She just had to hook him. "You want to find out what's happening to you, right?" He nodded. "So we go to a place that has equipment, doctors."

"Except I don't really want a stranger taking a close look at me." Adam countered, but his defenses were weakened. And now the coup de grace.

"That's fine. Aunt Kat isn't a stranger."

He paused. "She isn't a doctor either."

"I'm pretty sure they call her Dr. Katerina Carter."

"That's doctorate and she's a xenobiologist. This is crazy." Adam threw up his hands. He was about to say no. And there wasn't much she could do about it, not when he was a giant and she was a ... perfectly respectable height. She wasn't going to win physically, or logically. So she fought dirty instead.

"Go ahead and run away then. Chicken!" Adam stared at her. Incredulous.

"Stop being such a child."

"Stop being such a coward!" She retorted. Eyes getting hot. She would not cry! "Dad would be ashamed of you."

"I can't believe you'd say that to me." 'I'd say anything not to lose you, brother'. "Okay. Let's say we did your plan-"

"We can change the IFF again. We have the codes now." She had him.

Adam brushed his hair back. When did he start making that an anxious tic? "It didn't work out before. And we don't want to push our luck."

And there it was. We. She didn't gloat. Didn't dance. 'See brother. I have grown up. And I learned a lesson you never did. A win's a win, no matter how you get it'.

"Well then how are WE going to get there?"

---

Adam didn't care for the way his sister had inserted herself directly in his mess. It had been bratty ten years ago, when he and Sam wanted to do something too big for her, and she'd stubbornly refuse to be left behind. It wasn't exactly cute now either. But just like ten years ago, Adam had a feeling that at the end of the day Cindy would be coming along unless he literally tied her up and dumped planetside. She really did know how to get what she wanted.

"The Invader has stealth tech." He finally admitted.

"Like we can turn invisible?" Sometimes Adam forgot how focused his sister's education had been. She could fly a ship, that much was clear, but she barely knew how they worked.

"Long range sensors detect heat, put off by engines. Engines make a lot of heat. To keep the crew from roasting, heat sinks disperse it in to space. All ships have them. And they make it impossible to hide."

"We-" Adam tried not to roll his eyes at how pleased she looked when he said the word "-are equipped with heat traps. The Invader can store it's heat for hours, days maybe before it has to vent. If nobody looks too closely-"

"Or looks out a window." Cindi chimed in.

"Or that. Then we just float on by. Takes longer without the engine to boost us or course correct; once we're aimed at where we want to go, if we just use our thrusters, we could probably land without anyone noticing. Taking off won't go be like that though."

"So we have to be ready to run." She agreed.

"Yeah, that's basically my entire life at any given moment."

"I'm starting to see that." She smiled for the first time since they left the station. We got any board games?

They didn't. But Jdics did have a not so surprising collection of east Asian dramas, period prices, spaghetti westerns, and martial arts holos. Cindi had pronounced it, 'worthy'. And a after a relatively quick jump at faster than light speeds and one quick burn with the engine, they were on their way to 'Thiidian'; some backwater planet even compared to other backwaters. There really wasn't much to do besides talk and watch holos, which is where they found themselves most nights.

Tonight's piece was a black and white classic The Seven Samurai. Adam had discovered early on that Cindi was a cuddler. And while he wasn't filled with overpowering urges and mental problems anymore; he was still a man with strong, confusing feelings for his very attractive cuddle partner. It got even more awkward whenever she would nuzzle her full breasts into his chest, or place a hand on his leg, dangerously close to his thigh. He realized Cindi was teasing him on purpose. It was her own way of trying to explore these feelings between them. He wasn't about to take advantage of that. Not again.

Instead he tried to bury himself in the blur of black and white figures, but his blood runs cold when the heroes rescue a kidnapped village who had been made a war concubine. Even Cindi tenses against him. Her earlier accusation echoes around them.

"Did I hurt you?"

She didn't reply. Of course she didn't. The answer was obvious. He pulled himself free of her, but before he could rise off the couch, she grabbed him.

"Adam, you didn't-

"I **** you, Cindi." He felt the shame, the self loathing roll over him in waves. A ****, that's what he was. A sister-**** bastard. "I'm a monster."

"You're NOT."

"You didn't even recognize me anymore, Cindi. The things I've done... I don't even know how I got here sometimes. I just feel..."

"...Lost?" She finished for him.

Adam nodded.

"I know." His little sister rose up and swallowed him up in a hug. "But you don't have to be lost alone."

She held him for a long time after that, squeezing and humming with each breath; pushing the dark thoughts out of his head, until all that was left was her. Cindi. His sister. But was that all she was? Was that all he wanted her to be? Why did something that felt so right have to be wrong? Behind them, the holo villager girl disguised as a boy was discovered in her forbidden love affair with a young Ronin.

"You were my first, you know." She was still buried in his chest, arms wrapped around him tight, not looking at him. He remembered the feeling of her barrier giving way; the blood and tears that marked her as innocent. And how she'd thrown it in his face just hours before.

"I'm sorry."

She looked up at him. They searched each other's eyes. Hers were blue and lovely, like the rest of her, flecked with bits of green, and bright with intelligence. "Are you?" She asked.

Cindi was giving him an out, he realized. A chance for them to go back to being... normal. Siblings. A chance to forget. Just say it was all just the pheromones and he wished it never happened, say it and they'd have one less problem threatening to ruin their lives. But he couldn't bring himself to lie. He wasn't sorry. It wasn't the pheromones. It was him. He loved her. As a sister, and something more. Something he was only just beginning to discover.

"I should have gone slower. Been more gentle. I'm sorry for that."

A strange energy passed between them. An understanding deeper than words. A kind of connection only made in childhood, forged by companionship, boredom and secrets.

"Don't be. It wasn't anything like I ever imagined. But now that it happened, I can't picture doing it with anyone else." She had a hopeful smile now. Tremulous and excited.

"Will you kiss me, brother?"

And he did.

---

The second time was easier. Not just because she was making love to Adam, instead of being fucked to **** by him, but also because she just understood the mechanics at this point. Her shared gossip among friends and private 'research' had proved woefully limited. Sex was at its core, an equation. Men needed to take something from you, and you had to let them in order to take something from them. Adam had taken her virginity, but she was pretty sure she had stolen his heart.

Of course there was a biological component, she noted while riding her handsome lover. Her brother's penis went in well, not easy (it was like a mini arm!), but easier. She found if she just relaxed and controlled the pace she could take him without issue. And feeling him stuffed all the way up to her womb set shivers of pleasure down her spine. How had she ever lived without this? And how could she go without it moving forward? She would feel so achingly empty without him.

"That feels amazing, Adam!"

"You -ugh- you look amazing!"

"Oh yeah?" He had one hand in the covers, holding on for dear life, the other playing with her breasts. "Tomorrow we're gonna drag the- the- yes, Yes, YES! -mirror in from the bathroom. I wanna watch us."

"Whatever- you want, Cin."

"Oh, yeah? I really like it when you use your mouth..."

Cindi laughed when he rolled her onto her back and slid down to devour her sweet center. That thick tongue of his worked her like pro. He took his time, not just trying to 'get it over with', but savoring every bit of her. Gentle and teasing, followed long licks, like he was trying to melt her (it was working), only to furious suck her nub or nip at her labia; he never stayed in one spot for long and kept changing the pattern. It was maddening and glorious and perfect. A few screams later, and another orgasm in the books for her hunky big brother. She rolled onto her stomach and sent him her best come hither look.

Adam gripped her tight, pounding away at her snatch. There was something about this position that appealed to the animal inside her too. She just laid there and took what her mate demanded of her. It was primal. So was wanting his cum inside her. And she did want it. But she wasn't ready to be a mom. Not yet anyway. Even if the thought of her and Adam... made her more than a little giddy. Bad enough to let him cum inside her once. At least it had been her first time. Everyone knew you couldn't get pregnant your first time. Still, as incredible as it had felt....

"Adam." She moaned. "I'm not on birth control."

She felt him quiver. "Where do you want it?"

INSIDE!

"Outside. Anywhere." Her nails dug into the mattress. "Fuck. Fuck me! Just outside."

And with a growl he pulled free, and ground his hips against her backside. He phallus jerking and seizing in between her checks, and shooting ropes of scalding cum across her lower back. So hot. So much. It would definitely be a good idea to get on birth control as soon as possible. It didn't feel right to waste it outside. No. It belonged inside of her. She reached back, it had already been smeared over both of them. She sucked it down. The taste was salty and rich, not so much like her own flavor (Adam had ensured she was very familiar with it now) but she thought she'd come to enjoy eating it. Drinking it? Was this stuff liquid or solid anyway? Cindi fell asleep wrapped in her brother's loving arms, questions of semantics dancing through her brain.