Backup Plan

When Dr. Ruth Balise ran out of funding for her research, she had no idea the twisted path her work would take. Her psychiatric profile adjustment was supposed to be more humane -- a way to render violent sociopaths and the criminally insane harmless to themselves and others.


But in a black market society where medical miracles are for sale to the highest bidder, a death sentence is far too wasteful. Why settle for just one replacement body part, when you can own the whole thing? Prisoners are maintained in semi-stasis, their memories wiped, the cost of their physical care sponsored by aging aristocrats, hosts for future replacement organs.


After all, they're just bodies -- empty shells. Pod fuck-bunnies, their monitors call them, living in an endless loop of sex, drugged with their own endorphins into a constant state of euphoria, their bodies maintained in prime health. They're not supposed to wake up -- ever -- and they're certainly not supposed to escape.


Now Ruth is one of them, and only Panama Red, the space pirate turned bodyguard who's out to rescue Ruth, can save her life. But will he still be willing to trust her with his heart, once he knows she engineered this hell?