Andena the Rebel Ch. 14

Tancred gasped because he realised he would start to suffer from major withdrawal symptoms within a few hours and pleaded, "You can't do that! I need my medication!"

"You will be fine. Don't try to get out unless you want to be electrocuted. We'll regularly check to make sure that you are still alive."

The android got up and opened the door of the lorry and sat down again. Tancred knew he had lost everything and shouted, "How dare you to treat an emissary like this Haruz! I'll kill you if I get my hands on you!"

Haruz's laugh was half-hearted, and he said, "I hope you're willing to share your food with the rats, although if you keep it all neat and tidy, you'll be fine. Have a nice time Tancred."

Tancred roared, "You are dead! You hear me Haruz? You can't stop us! You will fail!"

Meleda woke up with cramps in her stomach, and she felt sick. It wasn't the first time that she had to deal with the consequences of being fragile and not paying attention to the needs of her body. A hot shower was usually the best remedy. While showering, she recalled what she had read in Bionex's reports. It was fascinating and horrible at the same time. The research and experiments Bionex had conducted were amazingly advanced but from an ethical point of view, it was truly sickening and highly illegal. What they had done to the woman they had 'rescued' wouldn't have happened in a regular hospital. She knew that the poor woman probably would have died or been paralysed for the rest of her life. She thought that it was remarkable that they hadn't put any effort into finding out who the woman was, but then she realised the search would have brought unwanted attention from other systems.

The only thing Meleda couldn't understand was why Bionex had ordered ten androids. Why was a company investing an enormous amount of credits in machinery which has been banned? It didn't make any sense to train the androids as a small army unless Bionex intended to plan a coup. For her that was reason enough to disable them as soon as possible.

She had been looking for an update to Miss Danette's report, but she hadn't found anything new. Her bots hadn't come back with anything coherent the last time she had looked. Meleda had the feeling that she had to step up her encryption, and she had quarantined those funny files the bots had gathered. The disappointing results made her think that Bionex was onto her, but she still had her trump card left to play. It was tricky, but if she would time it correctly, she could have unrestricted access without them even noticing it.

She felt a lot better when she got out the shower, and she dried herself as quickly as possible. She needed to eat a good breakfast and after that, she would check her system for new results.