Restoration Resistance Headquarters, Mosley Hall
August 16, 4010
3:00 a.m.
The blinding flash causes me to cover my eyes as the sounds of screeching brakes and metal slamming against metal fills my ears. The car flips as if someone has pulled the street out from under it, and the seatbelt bites into my shoulder and chest, leaving an imprint that will stay with me for weeks after this day. The windows explode and shards of glass fill the car, spinning through the air in front of my face in a haunting, macabre dance of deadly danger. My hands move to cover my face too late; a split second before I shield my eyes, a layer of blackness blocks out half my vision. Later, surgeons will pull a three inch shard of glass from my eye. Without my left eye, my peripheral vision is impaired and I do not see the foreign object flying through the gaping hole where a car door used to be. Seconds later, I can no longer feel my left arm…
The screams echoing from the walls of my bedroom are deafening. The high-pitched sounds mingle with the howling of some deranged animal, to create a chorus worthy of a full moon. Sweat is dripping down my face, neck, and back as I shoot upright in the bed, realizing through the haze of still-clinging sleep that the noise is coming from me. More precisely, it is coming from both me and Dog. I clamp my mouth shut and fight to catch my breath, bringing my hand up over my closed left eye. As always, the vibration of machinery meets my fingers and I sigh in both relief and despair. Dog goes quiet, realizing that I am now awake and calm. He licks my hand to console me and I reach down to hug him, assuring him that I will be okay. A few seconds later, the pounding at my door tells me that Dax was awakened by my nightmare-induced screaming.
Again.
“Blythe, it’s me, Gage, are you okay?”
I raise my eyebrows at Dog and frown. Gage? What the hell is he doing in Mosley Hall? I glance at the clock on my nightstand and see that it’s three o’clock in the morning. He knocks again, more quietly this time, propelling me into full wakefulness. I jump up and run to the door, realizing that he’ll wake everyone in the hall if I don’t answer him soon.
I fling the door open to find him on the other side, still fully dressed with his hair standing on end like he’s been raking his fingers through it again. His eyes travel over me and my face gets hot as I realize I’m not wearing anything but a tank top and a pair of indecently short shorts, and both are drenched in my sweat. Gage blinks a few times before focusing his gaze back on mine again. He swallows noisily and leans against the doorframe.
“I was walking and heard screams coming through your window. By the time I figured out what room you were in and got inside, you’d stopped, but I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Makes sense. My room faces the front of the building and my bed is close to the window. Still doesn’t explain why he’s out walking the grounds at three a.m.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says as if he read my thoughts. “Got a lot on my mind.”
I nod and open the door a bit wider. “You can come in if you want. I doubt I’ll be getting back to sleep either.”
He enters without hesitation and I close the door behind him, leaning against the heavy wood and watching him as he moves toward the center of the room. No one else fills up quite so much of my space except for Dax. I doubt they could both fit in here; standing side by side, their shoulders could probably span the width of the cube I call home. I watch the ripple of muscles that undulate across his torso as he removes his leather jacket to reveal the same white thermal top he’d been wearing earlier when we met. He turns and looks at me expectantly and I shake my head to clear it of thoughts of him whipping that shirt off over his head.
“Oh, sorry. Please, sit down.”
He lowers himself onto the only available seat in the room. My bed. He’s near the foot of the bed, so I take a spot near the headboard, pressing my back against the rough, chipped wood in an effort at placing some distance between us. I don’t know how I feel about the fact that being so close to him makes it seem as if my skin is on fire.
“So…” he trails off and clears his throat, shifting on the bed. “Are you okay?”
I lower my eyes and try to decide what I’m going to say. The only person that knows about the night terrors is Dax…and maybe Jenica since she shares a wall with me on the other side, but I’m not sure. She at least has enough respect for me not to say anything about it if she’s heard me screaming until I’m hoarse. Dax says I only do it when I’ve had a particularly jarring day. I’m thinking that coming back from our trek in Dallas empty-handed and then seeing those poor people from Memphis—many of them elderly and children—branded as terrorists when I know in my heart that they did nothing wrong, has taken its toll on me and brought up memories of my own past. It’s always the same; screeching brakes, shattering glass, the spray of blood and gore, that blinding flash of light that started it all and changed my life forever.
“I’m worried about Agata,” he continues talking when I don’t respond. “I mean, I know she’s safe now. Getting her to Professor Hinkley was my first priority. When I got in touch with his contact in Washington and he told me where to go to find your team, I was happy. I just knew I had to get her here.”
“Even if it means death for you?”
His head comes up and his stare is sharp as it connects with mine. “There are some things that are worse than death.”
I wonder if he realizes he’s preaching to the choir.
“I wish that I had died that day,” I admit, unable to look away from his gaze no matter how much my mind tells me that I need to. “I wish that all the time.”
He inches closer to me on the bed. “Is it really so bad? Professor Hinkley gave you and the others a second chance at life. It’s not fair that the government has decided you and others like you pose a threat.”
I think about a news broadcast I saw a couple of weeks ago, showing a surveillance video of a man with an arm identical to mine smashing in the window of someone’s car and beating them to a bloody pulp for no reason, before pulling a limp body from the driver’s seat and driving off in the stolen vehicle. Of course the thief was found and immediately executed; no trial, no jury, no questions asked.
“Some of us are dangerous,” I answer, and of course, it’s the truth.
“Some people are dangerous,” he insists. “Bionics are still people….just modified.”
“Right now your blood pressure is 124/90, your heart rate is an elevated 70 beats per minute; not bad, but still high for a healthy male that I assume is athletic. You have a tattoo on your left arm of an eagle, and a fractured rib.”
“That is amazing.”
I shrug. “It’s my eye. It is capable of reading a person’s body heat signature as well as their vital statistics. It allows me to pull away individual layers, such as clothing, skin, and muscle to expose what’s underneath. It’s how I knew about the rib.”
I reach out with my bionic arm and poke the rib for emphasis, raising my eyebrows as he winces in pain. “Still think I’m human?”
Gage reaches for my arm—my robotic arm—and grabs it by the hand. I can’t feel it, or his hand circling the wrist above it. His eyebrows wrinkle as he turns my arm over, inside facing up. He traces the inside of my arm, his fingers sliding over the cool metal and, for the first time since I woke up with that hunk of machinery on the other end of my elbow, I am wishing that I could feel the damn thing.
“Cold,” he murmurs as he draws circles on the metal. His fingers stop on the inside of my elbow, on the line where the titanium ends and I begin. I hear his breath catch in his throat and another noisy swallow as the pad of his index finger slides over my skin. I gasp as he trails it up the inside of my arm, flesh now on flesh. The human contact that I’ve denied myself for years has left me sensitive to every touch, and I feel as if I’m being caressed for the first time.
Of course Dax has held my hand from time to time; he’s even held me against him some nights when the nightmares get particularly bad until I fall ba
ck asleep. But he’s never touched me like this, and while I’m no virgin I certainly feel like one right now. A thousand emotions are exploding in me at one time and just as many sensations are following the path his finger traces up to my shoulder, pausing at the strap of my tank top.
“Warm,” he says with a smile. “Only about….what…ten percent of you is metal. When I got past your elbow, I felt skin, blood flowing through veins, muscle, and…goose bumps?”
He says that last bit with a smile, forcing me to look away in embarrassment. He holds his arm out toward me, pulling up the sleeve of his shirt and revealing a tanned arm sprinkled with light blond hair, which is standing on end. He leaves the sleeve above his elbow and holds his arm out in front of me.
“See?” he says gently, his head way too close to mine, his breath brushing my cheek. “I have them too.”
I reach out with my human hand and touch his arm. His opposite hand comes up to cover mine.
“If anything,” he says, his fingers gripping mine tightly, “the additions to your body give you character. They tell a story about where you’ve been.”
He pauses, leaning in so close that locks of his hair brush my forehead. “Where have you been, Blythe?”
I know he’s referring to the screams and my nightmare. I wonder if I can put him off like I do the others, but quickly realize by the glint in his eyes that he’s not letting me off that easy. I clear my throat and open my mouth, but no sound comes out. Gage leans forward and presses his lips to mine, taking advantage of my open mouth to nibble on my lower lip.
With a soft sigh, he closes the distance between us and cups my face in his hands, taking my breath away with the simple act of molding his mouth to mine. My hands resting on his thick thighs, I come up on my knees on the bed, leaning into him, trembling both inwardly and outwardly, unsure of what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, but know that I can’t stop. Kissing Gage feels like walking down the street used to be before the government labeled Bionics as dangerous. It feels like freedom.
“Hey Blythe, I couldn’t sleep and I was thinking…”
Dax’s voice trails off as the door to the bathroom we share knocks against the wall, pushed open by my bone-headed best friend who never knocks because he knows I’m never doing anything he can’t see me doing.
Except this time.
This time, guilt propels me away from Gage and back against the headboard, my lowered eyelids shielding me from Dax’s dark glare.
“Sorry,” he says, sounding anything but. “Didn’t realize you’d have a visitor at three o’clock in the goddamn morning.”
Part of me wants to rip Dax a new asshole for being such a jerk. What right does he have being mad at me when I know he’s screwed Olivia on several occasions, and who knows what other groupies he’s got salivating over him in both Mosley and Hexley Halls? Another part of me feels like I just got caught doing something unforgiveable, although I’m not sure if it was that I kissed someone, or if it’s just the fact that the someone I kissed happens to be Gage.
Gage stands slowly, his hawks-eye gaze swiveling from me to Dax and back again. He nods as if figuring something out and collects his jacket.
“It is pretty late,” he says as if he had no idea what time it was. “I’ll let you get some sleep now, Blythe. See you at the meeting tomorrow morning?”
With my nightmare and Gage’s appearance at my door, I’d forgotten all about the meeting Professor Neville organized for tomorrow morning over breakfast. Jenica will be bringing her intel on the Memphis Resistance group and we’ll be formulating a plan from there. Dax hates that Gage was even invited.
“Sure,” I say. “Good night.”
He leaves with a nod in Dax’s direction. The jackass who’s supposed to be my best friend just continues staring daggers at Gage until he’s out of sight. He then slams the bathroom door and walks to the middle of the room, pauses, runs a hand over his buzz-cut head, and paces to the door and back again, his face a mask of disbelief. When he finally speaks, his voice is a hoarse whisper.
“What the hell did I just witness?”
I rear back as if slapped and, honestly, it’s how I feel. “What I think you just witnessed,” I hiss, coming to my feet, “was a consensual act between two mature adults that had nothing to do with you.”
“Nothing to do with me? How can you say that?”
He looks truly hurt, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. In fact, for some reason, it downright pisses me off.
“You know what?” I challenge, stepping toward him and tilting my head back to look him in the eye. “I can say that, because it seriously has nothing to do with you! Do I come barging in your room when you’re rattling the headboard with Olivia?”
His jaw gets so tight I’m afraid it might snap. “That’s not fair.”
“Why not, because I’m a girl and I’m supposed to sit around with a chastity belt on while I wait for you to make a move?”
Dax clutches his chest like the wind’s been knocked from him. “You’ve been waiting for me to make a move?”
Shit.
I didn’t mean it like that.
Or did I?
I honestly can’t say that I’m sure about that one. Dax is sexy for sure and, a great friend, but do I like him in that way—want him the way Olivia does? I’ve never explored the possibility, because I’ve never thought of him that way. He’s like Dog: comfortable, loyal, and mine.
“No,” I say, a half lie. “What I meant, was that I don’t understand why you’re so upset when we’re just friends. Right?”
Dax studies me for a minute before sighing noisily, bringing his hands up to his hips. He hangs his heads and nods. “Yeah, Blythe. We are friends, and that’s why I’m worried about you getting too close to this guy. We don’t know him, we don’t know where he’s from, and we don’t know what he wants. I don’t trust him.”
“You’re being ridiculous. You don’t know anything about him!”
“And you do?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I know that he’s from D.C. And before you start going on and on about how that makes him even more unsavory, consider this: a guy from D.C. probably has government officials or M.P.s in his family. That means the axe would fall even harder on his neck if someone were to rat him out for rescuing that little girl. Don’t you get it? He’s put his life on the line for her and he cares about The Bionics! You may not be able to see that, but I do.”
“So you’re going to let blond hair and a set of blue eyes turn your head? Where’s your focus, B?”
“From what I’ve been hearing through this wall between my room and yours, blonde hair and blue eyes have been turning your head at least once a week for months now. And my focus is where it’s always been: on finding the others and saving them before it’s too late.”
Dax turns toward my door, glancing back at me over his shoulder. “I only want to make sure you’re okay. I know that August fifteenth is always hard for you. It’s hard for all of us.”
I turn my back on him, unwilling to continue to allow guilt to gnaw at me for something I shouldn’t feel guilty about. “It’s the sixteenth now, Dax, and I’m fine.”
Six
Blyth Sol, Gage Bronson, Yasmine Zambrano, Jenica Swan and Professor Neville Hinkley
Restoration Resistance Headquarters, the office of Professor Neville Hinkley
August 16, 4010
7:00 a.m.
Breakfast in the Professor’s quarters is tense, but necessary if we’re going to organize some kind of rescue mission for forty-eight hours from now. Jenica has rolled in the flat screen partitions, filling the dining area with maps and surveillance footage of both Memphis and Stonehead, the maximum security prison facility where Bionics are held while awaiting their punishment, which is always execution. We are watching a video feed hijacked from the M.P. station in Memphis of Bionics coming and going from their underground shelter. They did a good job of keeping hidden, only letting those with less
obvious technology leave and only when absolutely necessary. It was the small mistakes that got them caught, and we all watch the footage of the arrest silently. I glanced around and saw some with anger in their eyes, others with despair. It mirrors my own turbulent emotions at watching members of the Resistance rounded up like cattle and carted off to prison.
Beside me, Yasmine allows a tear to slip down her cheek and across from me I can see that Olivia is fighting them. Professor Neville has already seen this footage and is busy tackling his biscuits and coffee. Dax and Gage are glaring at each other from across the table and any second now I’m thinking they’re going to pull out the rulers for a dick-measuring contest.
Men.
“That footage was taken by Military Police cameras outside the Memphis hideout for the members of the Resistance arrested by the Enforcers,” Jenica says, pausing the video feed and turning to face us with her usual military precision. “Our intel suggests, that even though many of them were captured, there are still several down there needing rescue. Also an issue, is the fact that the Memphis branch of the Resistance is responsible for procuring fuel for our vehicles. This is not an immediate concern, as we have some in reserve for situations just like this. The important thing right now are the prisoners at Stonehead and those still trapped inside of the Memphis Hideout.”
“How many still inside?” Dax asks, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms across his chest.
“At least one hundred,” she answers. “Should we undergo a rescue mission, we will need two crafts to bring them back, so we’ll need a second pilot. I will, of course, serve as the first.”
“It’s a trap,” says Olivia, popping a genetically engineered grape into her mouth. My whole life I have wondered if the bio-crap the government came up with to replace real produce tastes anything like the stuff that used to grow in the ground. Of course, this technology is at least a century older than I am and by the time I was born real crops were no longer an option. Oh, and forget about beef from a real cow. I’ve never even seen a cow in person, let alone eaten one. Everything is synthetic; the real stuff is reserved for those with really deep pockets. I’m sure the President is eating Grade A beef with his eggs right now.
The Bionics (The Bionics Series Part 1) Page 5