Epilogue

“So that’s pretty much it…” Vincent finished as he lay face down on his king-sized bed, arms folded under his cheek.

“And did this person ever say why they were after me?” Riana asked curiously from behind him as she worked her fingers across the muscles of his calves.

Vincent winced as her fingers ran across the darkly discolored contusions where the stranger had gripped is leg so tightly while trying to prevent their flying off into space. “Gah! No. They never did say anything beyond it was all your fault.”

“And you think the nanites were changing them from male to female?” She did her best to avoid the tender spot on his leg with her fingers. He groaned his enjoyment of her ministrations as she manipulated the pressure points in his lower legs.

“Mmmm. Pretty sure, yeah. Damn that’s nice Ree…”

“And her hair and eyes were blue but otherwise she looked like me?” She dug her fingertips into the soles of his feet and twisted them around a couple of times, causing several of the joints in his feet to pop loudly.

“Uhhhhhh… Yeah. I’ve no idea how that happened, or if it means anything at all really. In any case, it isn’t as though we have to worry about it now. They were pushed out into space without protection. I doubt even you could survive in hard vacuum for long…”

“Yeah… Me too…” Riana looked at her left hand suspiciously as she continued to work the kinks out of Vincent’s legs and feet. It had been more than a year ago that it had happened… There were no scars or other visible signs that it had ever even happened, but it had. She remembered it as if it were the day before, the sickening feeling as the mercenary Gregory Shantal had twisted her left hand right off of her body with a resounding snapping sound and a tearing of flesh. The hand that he had kept after wrenching it forcibly from her arm. The hand that was teeming with nanites. Nanites designed to rebuild her body out of any available materials…