The Bionics

by Alicia Michaels

Three

  Blythe Sol, Dax Janner, and Olivia McNabb

  Restoration Resistance Headquarters

  August 15, 4010

  5:00 pm

  The dining hall is buzzing with conversation as always, but I can’t hear a word of it. It’s all unintelligible—a jumble of noises and sounds, much like the hum of the hovercraft that brought us home. I stand in line to receive my ration, purposely avoiding Dax’s gaze. Olivia is as silent as I am, and I can tell what Dax said out on the steps is burned into her mind as well. I can see it in width of her eyes as she watches him accept a bowl of a soup and a hunk of bread. Neither of us can believe how easily a statement so brutal could have come from his mouth.

  Kill him.

  I glance over my shoulder to where Gage is sitting alone in the middle of the dining hall, his broad shoulders hunched over his tray. He keeps his eyes lowered and eats methodically, almost mechanically, as if he’s doing it because he has to, not because the food tastes good. The little girl—Agata—is at the kids’ table with the Hexley Hall matron. She seems happy enough now that she’s safe, and I remember that that’s all thanks to Gage.

  Kill him?

  Hell no. We should be giving this guy a medal and buying him a drink. He’s risked his own life to safe one of us, and that makes him all right in my book.

  “Blythe.”

  I look up to meet Dax’s eyes and see the warning there as he shakes his head, twice. My human eye twitches and aggravation causes my jaw to tick.

  Nobody tells me what to do and, damn it, Dax knows this. I turn my back on him with a flip of my hair and make my way over to Gage’s table. I can practically feel Dax’s rage, and I purposely exaggerate the sway of my hips as I go, blatantly letting him know that I don’t care what he thinks. He’s got little Miss Olivia offering to crack her legs open for him, and I’ve got a hero to meet and greet.

  “Hi,” I say as I set my tray on the stainless-steel table across from him and lower myself onto the matching bench. Piercing blue eyes stab me as Gage looks up from his bowl. The pupils widen and he pauses, spoon halfway up to his lips, soup sloshing over the sides.

  “Hey,” he answers in the same smooth voice I remember from the hovercraft. His tones are cultured, like the people who live in the big cities, and again, I’m left wondering where this guy is from and how he ended up here. His clothes are plain—a white, long-sleeved thermal shirt, brown suede jacket and blue jeans that showcase sinful stretches of masculine muscle—but they’re high quality, and it’s obvious that he’s not hard up for cash.

  After a few minutes of slack-jawed staring on my end, and open curiosity on his, Gage goes back to his soup with a shrug, obviously deciding the fish-eyed chick across from him is freaking crazy. I’m just amazed at he isn’t staring at my bio arm like it’s a serpent.

  The dining hall has suddenly gone silent, and I feel about a hundred pairs of eyes boring into me. A few whispers start up, and I know they’re wondering why I’m sitting with the outsider in the room. While he’s not the only Normal here, he draws the most attention because of his expensive clothes, and the way he talked back to Jenica when no one else would dare. No one knows his relationship to the little girl, and everyone wants to know where they come from. It’s obvious they’re from money, and people with money have connections… government connections. Knowing no one is going to accept him unless I prove he’s harmless, I try to strike up a conversation with him between bites of sausage-and-potato soup.

  “That was very brave, what you did today.” I start with that whispered compliment and wait to see where it lands me. Gage’s eyelids pop up, and he’s staring at me again. I shift uncomfortably under his gaze.

  “One girl,” he says with a shrug. “It won’t make much of a difference.”

  I lean forward, my fist clenched tightly around my spoon. “Are you kidding me? A girl with a bionic brain is just the ammunition that asshole in the White House needs to wage his war against us. If he can convince people that Bios like Agata can read or manipulate minds…” I trail off, shaking my head and sighing angrily. It takes me a moment to get myself together. “You have no idea what you have done for our cause. If nobody else tells you this… well, thank you.”

  A smile finally splits Gage’s face, and I can’t help but return the favor. It’s as if the corners of his mouth control mine with marionette strings; they can’t help but follow the pull of his smile. Across the room, I see Dax’s mouth tightening and his nostrils flaring in annoyance. My smiles are usually only for him and Dog.

  “I did what I had to do, nothing more. What’s your name?” Gage asks, mopping the bottom of his bowl with the crust of his bread.

  “Blythe. Blythe Sol.”

  “Blythe,” he repeats slowly as if rolling the moniker around on his tongue and testing its flavor. I guess he decides he likes the taste of it because he nods. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” I say before taking another bite. “Where you from, Gage?”

  His eyes harden and his jaw clenches, his knuckles going white around his spoon. “D.C.”

  My jaw drops. Only the richest and those in the upper echelon of society inhabit the nation’s capital. Just as I suspected, Gage comes from a very rich and influential family. My windpipe is suddenly gripped in an iron grasp, and I feel like I’m going to be sick. If Gage is from Washington D.C., then everything Dax suspects could very well be true. It’s just too much of a coincidence—the fact that he’s so strong and good looking and just happens to be from the city where the Military Police train and the most militant of those against us are located. But then I look at him and the protective way he’s watching the girl, and I can’t help but chastise myself for jumping to conclusions. If I suspect him without cause, I am no better than the people who would judge me because of my titanium parts.

  Gage must suspect the train of my thoughts because a grimace crosses his face before he says, “It’s not what you think. I really do want to help. I think it’s wrong what the president is trying to do.”

  “Is that so?”

  I make a mental note to rip Dax a new one later as he lowers himself onto the bench beside me, dropping his tray on to the table with a loud ‘clang’. His dark eyes are hard and shining like onyx, every muscle in his neck and shoulders coiled with tension. Gage isn’t impressed or intimidated, and I admire him for meeting Dax’s anger head on.

  “Yes,” he answers, his biceps flexing in answer to Dax’s clenched fists.

  “And just who the hell do you think you are, marching in here like some kind of goddamn savior to the poor, deformed outcasts?”

  Gage’s meaty hands grip the edge of the table as he stands, all six foot, four inches of him solid muscle. Dax is of equal size and just as frightening as he rises as well.

  “Better than being some bitter, meat-headed jackass,” Gage hisses.

  “That’s enough!” Olivia interrupts as she joins us at the table. For once, I am happy to see her and her obnoxiously large breasts and perky smile. “Dax, the guy just got here. Lay off him.”

  Dax’s nostrils flair. I can tell that he wants to leap over the table and treat Gage to a roundhouse kick in the chest with one of his prosthetics, but he decides against it. The guys sit back down, and Olivia joins Gage on his side of the bench. I try to ignore the annoyance I feel at watching him turn that wide smile on Gage.

  “I’m Olivia,” she says. “I thought it was real nice what you did for that little girl.”

  “It was nothing,” Gage answers.

  “Damn right, it wasn’t,” Dax grumbles. Gage tenses but doesn’t respond.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  “No!” I answer quickly to the girl with Kevlar for skin. Her name is Yasmine, I remember, as she sits down on my opposite side. “Please, join us.”

  The more the merrier at this point. I have a feeling if Dax and Gage ever get a chance to really go at it, it’s going to take several of us to stop them, despite the fact that Gage
doesn’t have any robotic advantages.

  “You’re Blythe, right?” she asks, ignoring her plate and turning those wide, brown eyes of hers directly on me.

  I nod.

  “They say you’re the one to talk to if I want to meet the Professor.”

  Gage perks up at this. “I want to meet him, too.”

  I’m not surprised that they want to meet him. Even before his retreat to the underground and the forming of the Resistance, he became something of a celebrity for heading up the Healing Hands Project after the nuclear blasts to create the bionic technology that saved many of our lives. Everyone knows him as the leader of the Resistance, even the president. They’d like nothing more than to get their hands on the Professor, who is pretty much public enemy number one. This is why we are so protective of him. Very few of us have access to him, and to get to him, you have to go through us.

  “Whoa, you guys,” Dax says. “The Professor is a busy man. He doesn’t have time to entertain.”

  “I want to join your team,” Yasmine answers, irritation edging her voice. I love the way she’s eyeballing Dax like she doesn’t give a damn. I like this girl already. “I overheard some of the others saying that you go on missions to save others like us from the MPs, and I want in.”

  “What can you do?” Dax challenges.

  Without taking her eyes off Dax, Yasmine reaches for the knife on her tray. She brings it down, full force, on her arm. The blade bends in half on contact, repelled by Yasmine’s diamond-hard skin. She arches one dark eyebrow at Dax.

  “I can also walk through fire without getting burned and withstand temperatures cold enough to turn you into an icicle,” she says. I can hear pride in her voice, and I know that she will be a lot like Jenica, who is proud of her bionic additions. Dax nods approvingly, his eyebrows raised.

  “What about you?” she asks Dax, arms folded over her chest. “So far as I can tell, you’re just a big lummox with car parts for legs.”

  Dax laughs and I’m glad to hear the sound. Things have been way too tense since we left the hovercraft this afternoon. He stands and grins at Yasmine.

  “Punch me,” he says, pointing to his torso. “Right here.”

  Yasmine stands as if eager to take on the challenge, cocking her fist back. When it connects, the sound of bone connecting with metal reverberates through the dining hall, drawing all eyes to our table. Yasmine cradles her undoubtedly throbbing hand with the other and nods. “Okay, not bad,” she acquiesces.

  “And you can take that ‘car parts’ joke up with the Professor,” Dax says as he slides back into his place at the bench. “He’s the one that made my legs.”

  “What happened to you?” Yasmine asked, her voice suddenly soft and childlike. I know that she’s thinking of the day that changed all of our lives.

  “I was living in New York when the bombs were dropped,” Dax answers, his eyes lowered to his tray. “I wasn’t close enough for burns, but the impact leveled my entire neighborhood. I got trapped under a semi from the chest down. My entire body south of my ribs has been reconstructed with titanium. My legs are enhanced with the Restoration Project’s machinery, giving them extra speed, endurance, and flexibility. I’m metal inside and out. My bones from the ribs down are titanium, but I’m skin and muscles over that down to my knees. Calves and feet are all machine.”

  A few minutes of silence pass before Yasmine looks to Olivia. The petite blonde shrugs and flips her hair over her shoulder like she’s talking about a trip to the mall.

  “Radiation poisoning,” she says as if it were no big deal. “My body was wracked with tumors for years. By the time I finished cancer treatments, my adrenal glands were gone. I got new ones. Oh, and I lost my hand in a totally unrelated incident. Call my new one a bonus.”

  Gage frowns. “What reason would the president have to be afraid of a girl with enhanced adrenal glands? Look at you; you’re hardly more than a hundred and thirty pounds. You’re just a girl!”

  My bionic eye catches the sneer that crosses Olivia’s lips just before she disappears in a blur of blonde hair and black suede. Two seconds later, she’s back at our table, holding a chicken leg. Across the room, one of the little ones at the kids’ table is bawling his eyes out over his missing dinner. Olivia takes a huge bite out of the chicken and grins as she chews.

  “Don’t underestimate me, Gage,” she says in that throaty voice of hers that always sounds like a cat’s purr. “I’m more than just a little girl.”

  Gage’s eyebrows are nearly touching his. “My apologies,” he says with a laugh.

  After a while, he realizes that everyone is watching him. He glances over at the kids’ table and the smiling, laughing Agata. He sighs and plunges ahead.

  “Agata sustained a head and spinal cord injury in the blast that hit Stafford, Virginia. She was paralyzed from the waist down, had lost most of her speech ability, and suffered memory loss. We were afraid she’d have to live out her days in an institution, a vegetable. The bionic left brain and modifications to her spinal cord gave her a second chance. It’s good to see her walking and running again.”

  My jaw is nearly on the table, and Olivia is brushing a tear from her cheek. Even Dax has softened a little bit after hearing that. The emotion in his voice is thick, and we can all tell that he truly cares about Agata. Gage shrugs off our stares and admiration, taking a sip of water.

  Then he swivels that blue gaze to me. “What about you?”

  My mouth tightens involuntarily and my bionic eye fills my vision with readings of my heart rate going up and my core temperature rising as bile clogs my airway. Dax’s hand is on my shoulder, but his hard eyes are fixed on Gage in a narrowed glare. Just before I turn and leave the table, I hear my best friend growl, “She doesn’t like to talk about it, man.”