by Aurelia Skye
JSN strove to keep his tone gentle. “You have my personal guarantee no one would harm you, and to be blunt, the enclave offers little of strategic interest to the cyborgs. Your numbers are few, your defenses are weak, and your equipment is outdated. We have no reason for the truce to fall apart unless someone on your side betrays us.”
She frowned at him. “We have the ark, and you’re clearly interested in that.”
After a moment, he nodded. “It’s true that we are interested, but for the same reason you are, which is to revitalize the planet if at all possible. If we wanted it, we would’ve already taken it by now. I want to work together with you on this.”
“We have pulsers…” She trailed off, and it was unclear if she meant it as a threat, a warning, or a reminder that they still had something of value to the cyborgs.
JSN just nodded.
“I really can’t leave here. Why don’t you take some samples back to your base and see if it works?” She seemed reluctant to pose the suggestion.
He was equally reluctant to accept it. “I don’t want to do this without you.”
She pulled away from his hand, pushing back her seat with the clear intent of standing. “I’ll think about it, and perhaps we can talk more about it in the morning.”
He stifled a sigh of disappointment but nodded, watching her go for a moment before standing up to bus his tray. The nape of his neck prickled, and he was certain someone was watching him.
As he dropped his tray in the bin, he maneuvered his body to be able to see who was staring at him. It was an older man with only a few strands of hair left on his bald pate, and he was glaring daggers at JSN. He made a mental note to ask Gwen the man’s identity the next morning before leaving the cafeteria and returning to his quarters.
He paced restlessly for a bit, filled with confusion and conflicting thoughts and emotions. He’d never felt this way before, unless it had been for the wife whose name he could no longer recall and whose face would barely form in his memory after he’d been converted to a cyborg. He wasn’t certain what to do with all the pent-up energy, or how he should proceed. Human females were confusing.
Abruptly, he spun on his heel in mid-pace and walked to the chair, sitting heavily as he lifted his wrist to communicate with the base. At this time of day, he was certain Carrie would be with the general, so he used the general’s personal frequency.
“This is DVS.”
“It’s JSN. I need to talk to Carrie.”
There was definite confusion and a smoldering hint of jealousy when the general asked, “You’re calling to speak with my mate?”
“I need her unique perspective on a situation here.”
There was a brief pause, and then Carrie’s voice carried through the comm, though her picture didn’t accompany it. For some reason—and the most likely was he had disturbed them during a time when both were without clothing—DVS had shielded visual communications.
“What do you need, Jason?”
His lips twitched at the human name she insisted on using, but he didn’t really mind. He wouldn’t admit it to the other cyborgs, but it was pleasant to have a more intimate name again, rather than letters and numbers as a designation. “I don’t know how to handle Gwen.”
“You don’t handle a grown woman. What seems to be the problem, other than you’re trying to handle her?”
Judging from the acerbic tinge in her voice, he had inadvertently offended the general’s mate. “I would like to get closer to her, but she keeps withdrawing when I make any attempts to do so.” He was startled by the words that flowed from him. His original intent had been to ask Carrie about convincing Gwen to come back to the base with samples. He had intended to get her perspective and seek her counsel on how to proceed.
There was a pause for a moment, and she sounded like she was choking when she said, “I see. Just how close do you want to get to her?”
Biting his lip, he hesitated for a long moment as he searched for the right answer. “I’m not sure.”
Her tone turned brisk, and perhaps a bit disapproving. “Until you figure out how close you want to be, you shouldn’t try to get closer to her. She has children, which complicates the situation. I’m sure the last thing she wants, and the kids need, is for them to grow close to you only for you to change your mind. I’m sure the same can be said for Gwen. You can’t expect a casual hookup in your situation.”
His first instinct was to respond angrily, but he realized he was feeling defensive, and that had to be due to the truth in her words. “That makes sense. What do you think I should do, Carrie?”
This time, there was no hesitation in her reply. “You should just walk away unless you’re prepared to go all-in.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, he rubbed his eyes for a moment. “I’m sure that’s good advice. Thank you, Carrie.”
“Are you planning to follow it?”
He hesitated for a long moment, not wanting to lie to the general’s mate. “I don’t know.”
She sounded disappointed. “Just remember you’re not getting involved with just Gwen, but her children too.”
“I understand.” He signed off a moment later, still confused about what to do, but having a clearer picture of what a relationship with Gwen would entail. He was certain Pollux would accept him with enthusiasm, but Britta still hadn’t warmed up to him and might never. If he pursued Gwen, he had to be certain he wanted it to be a permanent arrangement, and not just a temporary fling.
When he imagined ending things quickly with Gwen, it sent a pang through his chest, which should have clarified the path before him. Instead, he was still mired in uncertainty and spent most of the night tossing and turning as he tried to determine the best course of action.
Chapter Five
They hadn’t set up a designated meeting spot, but Gwen went to the lab and wasn’t surprised to see JSN standing outside the door, clearly waiting for her. She offered him a tentative smile as she joined him. “I thought I might find you here.”
He shrugged. “It seemed like a logical place to meet. Have you decided about the base?”
Gwen shook her head. “Not yet. I’m still considering it. In the meantime, it seemed like a good idea to determine what might be the most viable samples for the environment you can offer at the base.”
“I was thinking something similar.”
She was aware of the way his body pressed against hers when he followed her into the room. When the door closed behind them, it was a stark reminder that they were alone, and there were no curious gazes on them now. She swallowed the lump in her throat at the thought, uncertain if it was prompted from anxiety, excitement, or a mixture of the two. “Tell me about the base please.”
“I can tell you about the atrium, which is where the samples would live once grown to maturation. It’s a temperate climate, usually around seventy degrees Fahrenheit, with artificial sunlight, controlled moisture and temperature levels, and an abundance of fruits and vegetables.”
Her mouth watered and her stomach grumbled at the image he was describing, and it spurred her to accept his invitation to go to their base. Caution held her back though. “It sounds lovely. It might be an ideal setting for birds and insects.”
“I agree. If we’re successful in growing clones of small creatures, assuming all the samples are still viable, we might eventually have room for larger specimens, like bovines.”
She groaned aloud. “Can you imagine real cheese, milk, and butter?” She’d never tasted those things, but she’d heard older people in the enclave reminisce about how they had tasted. Cattle had gone extinct along with every other animal on the planet when the humans deployed the weapon, and the small herds they’d attempted to keep alive in the enclave had all died within the first decade.
“And steak,” he said with a chuckle when she glared at him.
“We aren’t growing animals just to eat them.”
He shrugged. “Certainly not in the beginning, but it might be a v
iable option someday, if we find a way to heal the environment and repopulate the planet instead of small areas in an underground base.”
She nodded, though it seemed strange to her to eat an animal after being a vegetarian all her life. She let out a small sigh as she realized it was a quandary they were unlikely to face in their generation. It would likely take hundreds of years to heal the damage done to the Earth, and that was assuming no further harm was inflicted, which meant they had to destroy the synthetics before they could really focus on the future.
She walked over to retrieve the inventory list, bringing it back to JSN. “So, birds and insects?” She didn’t really need to ask the question, since they had just discussed it, but it helped distract her from the strong column of his throat and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed as she stood close to him. Her gaze darted to his lips, and she could easily recall how it felt to kiss them. It sent a spark of heat shooting through her, and she quickly looked away from him as she attempted to regain her composure and expunge the thoughts from her brain.
“We should have bees. There are crops that are tedious, if not impossible, to pollinate by hand without the assistance of bees. Do you have samples of flora as well as fauna? We might be able to revive some of the extinct fruits that are currently unavailable as well.”
She flipped to the section “Let’s see what plants we have that need bees for pollination.” Before she could run a search, JSN started speaking.
“Alfalfa, allspice, apples, apricots, avocados—”
He broke off when she lifted her hand. “It must be a neat ability. How did you do that?”
“Cyborgs have access to all the data collected throughout human history as long as it was stored in a digital format somewhere. A lot of the data was corrupted sixty years ago, after the weapon was deployed, but anything before that is still fairly well intact. We have apples and peaches, along with strawberries, cherries, and walnuts. Otherwise, we haven’t tried to cultivate other bee-dependent crops, because of the labor involved with pollinating by hand. We haven’t had time to focus on a more expedient process while fighting the synths.”
Her search results had called up the list of plants that required bees for pollination, and she stared at them as she scrolled through. There were asterisks by some of the plants, which indicated there were no samples available, meaning tangelos, coconut, and bok choy, among others, were gone forever. “I suggest you take samples for papaya, eggplant, and cocoa.” She had chosen them almost at random, prompted mostly by her own curiosity about how they might taste.
“Those are good choices. We should definitely take those back to the base, along with bees, and maybe a couple of species of birds.”
She didn’t miss his we, and she opened her mouth to argue, but paused when the room started shaking. Gwen held her breath, waiting to see if it was a small earthquake or a larger one. It quickly became obvious they were in for more than a few tremors as the room shuddered around them, and chunks of the cave they had utilized to build their enclave crumbled around them.
She let out a startled yelp when JSN pulled her into his arms, but quickly snuggled against him and took advantage of the protection he offered as chunks of the ceiling fell around them. She heard a crash, but her head was tucked against his chest, and she was unable to see what it was. All she could do was cling to him as the room rumbled around them for what felt like hours, though it was probably less than a minute.
Dust filled the room, and she was coughing as soon as she inhaled. JSN seemed to have a similar problem, and it took a few moments to clear their lungs enough to breathe. By then, some of the haze of dirt in the air had settled, allowing her to see the damage when she lifted her head from his chest.
Her gaze went first to the machinery, and she was relieved to find it looked unharmed. She moved closer, instructing the computer to run a self-diagnostic to ensure the machinery was working, and the freezing temperature had held stable in the sample room. She let out a small breath of relief when the computer reported all was nominal.
Her relief turned to dismay when she turned to join JSN, who hadn’t walked with her to the equipment. She realized why when she saw a pile of rubble blocking them from exiting. There were chunks of cement obvious, and they had been used to fortify the ceiling at some point in the enclave’s past, but they had failed this time. Along with rebar, there were also big pieces of the cave walls themselves. It would take a while to clear the mess, and she let out a low sigh of frustration. “I don’t have time for this.”
“At least we’re alive.” He put an arm around her shoulders. “Do your people know we’re here? We might be trapped from the outside as well.”
Gwen tried her communicator, breathing a small sigh of relief when she reached Leith. “We’re trapped in the ark room. Could you send someone to see if the corridor is clear? We’re going to have to dig our way out of here.”
“Do you have an ultrasonic disintegrator?” asked JSN.
Leith answered before she could relay the question, clearly having heard JSN over the comm system. “We do, but we have to get it in to you first. I’ll be there as soon as I can, Gwen.”
After she had disconnected, she caught JSN’s troubled expression. “What’s wrong?” Being a cyborg, he probably had far more sophisticated equipment available to him to analyze the damage. Perhaps they were on the verge of being buried by the ceiling, judging from his troubled expression.
“I don’t wish to call into doubt your friend’s abilities, but how will he clear the corridor?”
She stiffened at the question, shoulders dragged back on instinct. “Leith is perfectly capable of doing most of the tasks that you and I are. Don’t let the chair fool you. He’s modified it to give him greater mobility.”
JSN seemed to accept her words without further doubt. “How did your friend end up in a wheelchair?”
“He was injured during childhood.” She was still annoyed at his doubting Leith. “He’ll get us out though.”
“I hope he can find a way to get us the ultrasonic disintegrator. It would certainly make escaping this room that much faster.”
She nodded, looking around before finally settling on taking a seat on the floor underneath a solid table. It supported heavy equipment, so if it collapsed, it would certainly injure them, but it would also offer further protection from aftershocks, which weren’t uncommon after an earthquake.
She was unsurprised when JSN scooted into the space beside her, and it was a bit of a tight fit. It really was almost necessary to lean against him and lay her head on his shoulder, for comfort’s sake. He didn’t seem to mind the presumption, and she didn’t protest when his arm went around her waist, his hand settling on her hip as he pulled her closer still. She was suddenly in a different kind of danger than from the cave-in. She was certain JSN would never physically hurt her, but he could do great damage to her heart. “I hope Britta and Pollux don’t realize we’re trapped in here. She’ll fret herself sick. She’s so much like her father.”
“He was a worrier?” His voice rumbled through his chest, vibrating against her cheek.
“He was a strange combination of risk-taker and worrier. He was always far more willing to risk his own safety than anyone else’s, and he worried so much about me and the children. When he disappeared, Britta cried for him for weeks, and she was inconsolable. It was only when I enlisted her help to start taking care of Pollux that she came out of her depression. She feels things deeply, which is a trait she gets from Stephen and from me.”
He stiffened. “Your husband disappeared? I thought he was dead?”
Gwen licked her lips, feeling the pain all over again. “He was out with a small scouting party. We had noticed an increase in synthetics in our area, and he wanted to know from where they were coming, so he recruited a couple of others to go with him and find out. They never returned, so of course we assumed they were all dead. If you don’t return, that’s your fate. It’s not like the synths t
ake prisoners or typically leave wounded. They shoot to kill.”
JSN nodded. “Carrie was lucky. I guess we have you to thank for her luck, since you used the pulser on that synthetic. If you hadn’t been there, she would have died.”
Gwen nodded. “You can actually thank Leith for the design though. It was his idea. Anyway, I found Stephen’s remains about a year ago, when I was scouting for a new meeting location for the daily coordinates I sent out in the broadcast to the cyborgs. I buried him in a cave, and if it’s safe someday to take Britta and Pollux, I’ll show them where he is when they’re older.”
He took his hand in hers, and she clung to him. At that moment, Gwen was weaker than usual and needed his strength. Just remembering the ordeal of finding what had remained of Stephen and burying him on her own was enough to bring tears to her eyes and send a surge of nausea up her throat.
“I’m sorry you had to do that alone.”
She nodded, temporarily too choked up to speak.
“I don’t remember much about my wife. In fact, I can’t even remember her name or see her face clearly anymore. I remember she had red hair, which was pretty unusual. I don’t remember any more if it was natural or from a bottle.” He chuckled. “I just remember it was beautiful. I’m sure we never had any children. I think I remember her being insistent about not having them while I was in the military. I’m not sure though. The memories are all kind of a tumbled blur thanks to the modifications made to my memory during conversion to a cyborg.”
She winced as she cleared her throat. “I think having a few tattered memories would be worse than having a sharp and clear recollection. At least then you would know what you lost, and why it hurts.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps it’s easier not to remember her clearly. I have a vague sense of loss when I think about her, but I don’t remember feeling such an intense pull to her as I do to you.”