by Meg Ripley
****
For the second time that day, Caden opened her eyes to find a breathtaking visage inches from her own. Umi’s eyes were glowing again, and Caden felt a gentle heat suffusing her body. She tried to raise her head to see what was happening, but found herself unable to move; she contented herself with moving her eyes instead. She could tell she was on her back, and Umi was straddling her body with his hands outstretched and moving a few inches above her. Confusion tinged her thoughts, and then she realized he was the source of the strange heat she was feeling. It was sapping the ache from her skeleton, and smoothing over the raw edges of her skin. He’s healing me, she thought. She watched his hands move above her, then let her eyes drift away. She saw tiny hairs on his forearms, and she noticed a barely perceptible movement of the muscles in his rigid pecs. His abdomen was taught and smooth, narrowing down to a slim waist before the kilt stole the rest from view. The muscles of his thighs were bunched, as well, probably tensed because of his concentration.
Caden thought it was their proximity, but she had a sudden urge to reach up, seize the back of his head, and press her lips to his, perhaps nibbling on the skin of his bare shoulders and chest for good measure. The urge intensified, and it occurred to her that the air was a little harder to breathe; Umi’s eyes were glowing brighter, his skin shining like polished brass. Then the glow faded and the alien spoke, startling her although she couldn’t show it.
“Welcome back.” Umi smiled gently, and Caden’s eyes snapped up to his. “You took quite a beating for me. Thank you so much, I really can’t express my gratitude enough. You should be fine now, but you might have taken some damage in the crash that I can’t sense yet.” The glow was gone, and he lowered his hands and stood up. Caden caught a glimpse of a tuft of dark green curls beneath his kilt before he backed away, and something like lust stirred in the lower part of her body before she batted it down. Focus! Caden didn’t have urges often, and rarely twice in one day; most cypeople had sexual urges about as often as they got angry, once or twice a month. What was wrong with her?
She sat up slowly, suspicious of the lack of pain in her body. When she was sure she could, she stood on her feet, craning her neck to examine all of her angles. Her suit was unharmed, and the only things broken seemed to be the actual projection lens and the metallic headband that held her communication device. The backup com was lost, too; she saw the wreckage of the pod lying in a burning heap some two hundred feet away. Then Caden gasped as she saw the red clay of the ground, the gentle motions of the grasses in the distance behind them, and the twin suns in the sky, realizing exactly where they were.
“How did we get here?” she asked uncertainly.
“I teleported us,” Umi answered. “Seemed smart to get away from the fire. How are you feeling?” He took a step toward her, sweeping his triad of eyes up and down her body quizzically, as though he knew something about cyborg crashes that she didn’t. Caden ignored him, a thought forming in her head. She still had a job to do, after all.
“We’re almost to your meeting hall.” She spun in a slow circle, scanning the horizon for the landmarks she knew would be there. “This is the Blood Desert, and it’s only fifty miles from the hall, even if we’re on the other side. Less if we’re further north, which I think we are, if that’s the Ibi Oasis.” Her mind was whizzing through her options, and she was glad she spent so much time training her instincts to make up for what could go wrong.
“You know my planet’s geography well,” Umi said. “But do you know its wildlife?”
“Sure,” Caden said, smiling as she turned to face him. She felt confident and in control, and a little light-headed. “You guys have Bezoar and Bezoar variants. They’ve pretty much wiped everything else out.”
“And do you know what Bezoar are?” Umi asked patiently. Caden bristled at his tone; he sounded like one of her old teachers trying to make her see why she was being childish.
“Little fuzzy guys,” Caden said shortly, tapping one of her boots in the sand and crossing her arms over her chest. “Look like fat, round cats with too much fur. Usually have two or three mouths, and will sometimes merge into one creature if they’re badly hurt in a group. That’s where the variants come from.” Caden put her fists on her hips and narrowed her eyes at the Hyppo. “What’s the big deal? Didn’t you hear me talk about those huge crabs I killed?”
“You’re forgetting their most deadly quality.” Umi’s dark green hair ruffled in the dry wind. “They’re electric. What if you get shocked and die?”
Caden snorted. “I face death more often than you think, Umi. I’m a Minder. It’s my job to look out for danger and dispatch of it. I can handle anything that comes our way. If not, you can get yourself out of here.”
“What if you get shocked and corrupted?” Umi asked, his voice low and pleading. He took another step toward her, and Caden wanted to take a step back automatically, but the urgency in his gaze stopped her. “What am I supposed to do then?”
The question stopped her; she hadn’t expected him to be so concerned, even though his kind were natural bleeding hearts. “Again, you get yourself out of here. What’s the big deal? Come on, you have a meeting to get to.” She started to take a step around him, but he put his arm out and caught her waist. The movement was too intimate, coming from him, but rather than be upset, she felt a frisson of desire roll across her skin. Her heartbeat sped, and Caden froze and turned slowly toward him, locking her stormy gray eyes on his trembling cerulean irises. She still didn’t feel any anger, or even any fear over why she didn’t feel anger. All she felt was a slowly strengthening desire to move closer and kiss the full lips that looked so deliciously soft.
“I can’t leave you,” he whispered. “Caden. I just…couldn’t.” He swallowed, and Caden tried to figure out what had changed between them---and what had changed about her. She stepped toward him, and he kept his hand on her waist while she stood squarely in front of him. Nothing about him made her feel nervous, annoyed, or made her want to look away. Earlier she had been jumping out of her skin, and now she was being touched by him…and actually enjoying it a little, if the tingle in her waist was to be trusted. What had changed when she was knocked out? What happened to her while she was being healed? The answer hit her in the gut right on the heels of her question.
“You woke me up,” Caden whispered, and Umi’s eyes flew wide open. “That’s why my emotions are being regulated so well.” She took a deep breath, waiting for panic to slide in on the heels of her revelation. She felt a tremor of anxiety, but it didn’t buckle her knees like it normally would. Caden laughed and took a step away from the Hyppo, pointing a finger at him accusingly. “You woke me up without my permission!”
“No,” he said instantly. “I didn’t. Caden, I didn’t!”
“Then why am I…okay?” She was crying, and she wasn’t quite sure why. Then the answer came flying out of her mouth. “What if you took away my power?” Her voice was more of a screech than a shout, and Umi flinched away from her tone. “What if I can’t Hulk anymore?” Caden balled her hands into fists and fell to her knees, feeling rage and despair wash over her---but it wasn’t painful and debilitating like it was after she blacked out. “I’m just me now,” she wailed, pounding the soft clay beneath her with her fists. “I’m just a stupid cyborg!”
“You’re not!” Umi was taking a step toward her and eying her uncertainly, but his voice was sure and forceful. “Caden, you were like this when I was healing you. I think the crash must have jolted you awake. I promise I didn’t do this, but I won’t pretend I don’t think this is good.”
Caden sat back on her heels, peering at Umi through the veil of tears. “How would you know what’s good for me? How would you know?” Umi didn’t speak, so she pressed ahead. “The one thing that set me apart was my Hulk mode. I’m too small to take seriously otherwise. I’m worthless. Xondux needs Hulk, not Bruce Banner.” She laughed bitterly. “You don’t even know what I’m saying. Umi, just go. Just ge
t to your hall; leave me here to die.”
“No.” Umi crouched in front of her and took hold of her shoulders. “I do know what you’re talking about. And you’re wrong.”
Caden looked at his shining eyes, fierce with grim determination. “What?”
“You’re wrong,” Umi repeated. “I shared knowledge with you while you were healing. Bruce Banner was not just some scientist. When he was not in Hulk mode, he was still in invaluable part of the Avenge Team.”
“Avengers,” Caden said shakily. “We shared knowledge?”
“So I know that the Hulk is incomplete without his other side, and that he is miserable when he denies one part or the other. The Hulk was best when he accepted himself as he was; all the heroes were.” Umi squeezed her shoulders, and Caden shivered as he pulled her a little closer to him. “I know what you are, Caden. And I know what you can be. Embrace your fear when it comes. Let it be a part of you. Let it make you better.”
“How can fear make me better?” Caden whimpered. “How can it make me anything but weak?”
“You have to answer that yourself.” Umi’s eyes moved behind her, focusing on something in the distance. “And you might have to answer sooner than you think.”
Caden turned to see what his eyes were focusing, and almost wished she hadn’t.
What looked like a giant lump of matted fur was moving quickly toward them, eating up yards of space with each seconds. It was making a fearsome crackling noise at is moved, and Caden’s mind was curiously blank. At first she thought it was a mountain, and then it let out a great roar that shook the ground beneath their feet.
“Bezoar,” Umi whispered. “Caden, I can’t teleport us. There are huge pockets of disruption in the blood desert, we’ve never been able to figure out why. The interfering energy would dice our bodies to pieces.”
So will this Bezoar, Caden thought as it neared them. Now was about the time that her body usually dropped and her blinding terror took over; being awake to see this sort of thing was not something she was used to. The ground was shaking harder and harder as the snarling beast barreled toward them, and Caden could see a few dozen red eyes embedded in its body at different angles. Her fingers clenched into a fist, but she couldn’t move any other muscle.
“I’m sorry,” Caden heard herself whisper.
“Caden, it’s okay. I don’t blame you for whatever happens.” Umi’s voice was steady, but his body was shaking like a leaf. She pictured the Bezoar bowling her over and crushing him, and the image snapped the last bit of indecision from her body. She could feel his fear behind his words, and his fear stuck in her mind more than anything else. It felt sharp and cold, and finally the red thorn of anger finally took hold of her mind. She knew it was because they had just done the energy equivalent of making love, but his fear had become unbearably personal.
“Nothing is going to happen,” Caden said. The anger bloomed in her chest, and she stepped in front of him, shoving him back with one hand and squaring herself in front of the beast. Her heart was slamming against her ribcage, and her body was vibrating with the anxiety and adrenaline coursing through her system. Caden didn’t think about Umi’s soft cries of pain as he landed a hundred feet behind her, focusing on stopping the thing intent on causing him more harm. As the beast got nearer, she noticed odd lumps on the parts of its body between its eyes---like bundles of nerves, or even joints. She realized that those were the places where the Bezoars all knitted together; she was looking at the equivalent of its heads. The beast was two hundred feet away and closing, and the dust it was kicking up nearly overtook Caden’s small frame; for a moment, her fear swelled up like a cloud to swallow her—but instead of turning from it, she let it sink in and sharpen her instincts, pulling the acidic feeling deeper into her body as she leapt into the air. The Bezoar collided with her at the same time as she plunged her steely fingers into four of its eyes, and a torrent of boiling liquid poured out over Caden’s hands. The beast kept moving, and she felt it swing its body around, trying to fling her from its fur. Caden pushed one hand deep into the cartilage between two of its eyes and closed around a bundle of sinewy fibers and tubes. She was dimly aware of Umi screaming from somewhere around her, and then she ripped her hand backward, screaming at the top of her lungs as her fingers came away covered in spinal fluid and brain matter.
The last thing she was aware of was being toppled onto the ground. She knew that she had fallen from a height, but she couldn’t make sense of how far. She felt hands slip around her shoulders and carry her away, but there was also a curious singing coming from somewhere far above her---before she slipped out of consciousness, she wondered if they were what humans called angels, singing to her from the gates of heaven.
“So she awoke on her own?” a female voice spoke softly.
“Yes. I healed her after the crash and found that the trauma had jostled her empathy board awake. Then we were attacked.”
“Why are you not hurt?”
“She shielded me both times—during the crash, and from the Bezoar. She took it down herself.”
The owner of the first voice gasped. “So it’s true---she took down an Octo-Bezoar herself?”
“All by herself.”
Caden realized she was lying on a soft surface in an immaculately clean room. She opened her eyes, and after a moment, two shapes swam into view. Umi was talking to a short, curvy alien with brilliant violet skin and piercing lime-green eyes. The figure wore a deep blue robe that covered her from neck to toe. Caden thought it was a women.
The female Hyppo smiled at Umi. “And you two are bonded now, I see? Does that mean you’re keeping her?”
Caden’s heart pounded and she closed her eyes part-way. What?
“That’s up to her, of course,” Umi said, his voice bashful. “I didn’t know they were sending her with me to be in my detail, and she didn’t either.”
“Well, Earth only recently decided to lend us help,” the female Hyppo said. “Most of the cypeople probably don’t know they’re being reassigned to us.”
“Most of them don’t know something is wrong on our planet at all,” Umi said, and his tone was dripping with misery. “They’re coming into the situation totally blind. What if none of them can really help us? What if we’re only sending them to their deaths?”
“Umi!” The female Hyppo’s tone was one of admonishment. “You know better than to doubt our predictions. The High Council is infallible.”
“The High Council is all,” Umi said, but his words sounded empty and automatic, utterly without feeling. “The High Council says we’re all helping each other. I feel like we’re all missing something.” Caden hadn’t heard him sound so bitter before this. It bothered her.
“That may be,” the female Hyppo allowed. “But I think that’s a matter for another day. Our soils need to be replenished. Our people are starving. Our very suns are freezing over. We must do something.” The Hyppo turned her head and smiled, and Caden’s eyes snapped shut, but it was too late. “And I think your cyborg is awake.”
Caden opened her eyes as Umi twisted around to peer through the doorway and into the stark white room. His face lit up as he smiled, and he slipped into the small room and closed the door as Caden sat up.
“Are you ok?” he asked, kneeling before her on the bed. His cerulean eyes were peering into hers, and he took both of her strong, slim hands in his. “You saved me, Caden.”
“How did we get here?” She felt no pain as she sat on the foamy mattress, and her hair was unbound around her shoulders. She let the sheets fall to her waist as she reached forward to press Umi’s shining face between her palms, and a current of something she couldn’t quite name passed between them. Her body was naked, but she was healed from the injuries she knew she should have died from. She slipped her thumb over the fullness of Umi’s mouth, and he shivered, smiling as she gazed at him in silent wonder. “How did you save me?”
“I ran,” he said softly. “When you ripped out one of its neu
ral sacs, the fluid got all over you and starting eating through your skeletal frame.” His eyes were dark with fear as he spoke, and Caden realized she could hear the quick pounding of his hearts. “I ran. You were screaming, and…I thought I was dying, Caden.” He laughed, and the sound was bittersweet---like the wind chimes she used to see on Earth outside some houses when she was leaving a patrol to go back to the hub. It made her sad without quite knowing why. “I was healing you while I ran.”
Caden gasped. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
Umi’s eyes burned into hers. “Neither did I.”
The silence stretched between them, and Caden’s mind burned with questions-- she wanted to ask why he tried so hard, why he kept running for what must have been two or three hours while carrying something twice as heavy as he was, how he was even standing up and conscious, even though it surely couldn’t have been more than half a day since the meeting had passed. The words were there in her mind, but like earlier, she found herself answering them as soon as they had been formed—and the answers were all the same. It was the same reason he had found himself unable to deal with the idea of leaving her dying body behind if something went wrong, the same reason that she squared up in front of a beast that very nearly killed her—the same reason she found herself unable to look or pull away from him now. She could hear the thudding of his twin hearts, and it was far faster than it should have been; she began to wonder why, and again the answer came immediately, and was the same as the others. She felt her lips curl upward slowly, and saw Umi’s beautiful face light up in response. They—and their energies-- were entwined, like two separate particles spinning thousands of micrometers apart in space but still inexplicably bonded together in rhythm. They had been, ever since their energies mingled and Umi healed her body; it was the reason for the warm, gently tingling feeling wrapping around her heart, her sudden clarity in the face of death. She let herself feel it before she opened her mouth to speak.