Nero stepped back, then changing his mind, he walked forward again. He checked the straps fastening Corporal Kapur to the cot. There was no use taking unnecessary chances, just in case the chatterbox was actually telling him the truth. After ascertaining his subject was still very secure, he stepped back again and spoke.
“Override Protocol NWC47905AlphaReboot. Process the following command phrase:
Rise Companion. I am in need of entertaining.
Destroy code prompt after cybernetic unit Aja 490 regains full consciousness.”
Two seconds later an angry scream split the air and shock sent him flailing against the bars of the cage. The newly awakened woman strained against her straps, arching her back and screaming the whole time like someone mentally deranged. He could see she had already managed to loosen their hold, but fortunately not gotten loose from them.
Maybe he should have made them tighter after all.
He looked over and stared at his now openly laughing tormentor while he wondered what steps to take. Corporal MacDonald’s amusement chased away his fear because it made him very angry.
And besides, there was no need to fear the reaction of his restoration subject. He had taken precautions. Everything was under control, just like he said. This female cyborg was just having a stronger reaction than the other one. Hadn’t he witnessed the same many times in male restoration subjects?
“Ya know—in hindsight I believe it suited me better for ya to keep her sleeping. For seven years, I’ve lived and fought alongside that mocha skinned hellion. Do ya think the woman ever once said a kind word to me? No. Never. Aja’s always that way,” Meara declared, pointing with her hand at the thrashing, grunting female still working on her straps. “And she’s always that agitated too… all the bloody, fecking time. Aja’s attitude can wear a body out, I tell ya. But I guess ya’re learning that for yarself, aren’t ya?”
“Irish? Is that your horrible slang I hear?” Aja stilled as she realized she was mostly fine and turned to look around the room. “Where in the name of Shiva am I?”
Meara raised up so she could yell better. “Where do ya think, eejit? Ya’re in a fecking cage. I told ya to leave the captain be, but no… ya just had to go and attack her. I told ya she wasn’t acting like herself.”
“Why the hell am I tied up, Meara? Is somebody thinking to get his kinks from watching me squirm. Well, I shall cut off the kinky bastard’s man parts when I get free.”
Aja snorted and pulled at the straps, nearly breaking one. Trust Meara to get them into trouble—again. Snorting softly, she let the half-broken one be and promptly starting tugging at the other. Her bindings were just some sort of industrial fabric. The restraining bastard was going to regret that choice after she freed herself. Now to stall while she worked on it.
Nero straightened finally and edged towards the cot, letting her see him fully for the first time. “Corporal Kapur… I assure you that you are not restrained for nefarious purposes. I am Dr. Nero Bastion, your restoration manager. I have updated your base cybernetics. I have also succeeded in disabling the companion code, except for the one that brought you out of hibernation. I highly suggest you make a mirror image file of your new code and place it in your permanent storage.”
“A cyber scientist, you say? Well, I’m not in the mood to play doctor and patient games either, so you might as well look to some other poor lost soul for your kicks. By all the gods and goddesses, I swear I will free myself. Then you will be very sorry to have done this to me.”
Nero snorted, shook his head. “Please remain calm and try to use your higher reasoning. You are not a prisoner here and I am quite willing to release you from your restraints. All I need is your promise to cooperate and not become violent.”
Aja stopped struggling and turned her head to look into Meara’s cage. “Irish, what’s going on? Are we prisoners in our cages or not?”
Meara chuckled. “Only of a sort, Aja. Nero’s not so bad a bloke as we’re used to. Ya should talk to him before ya try to kill him. I think the man genuinely thinks he’s saving us from something even though I’m still not sure what that is. He uses a lot of geek speak and his logic is hard to follow at times.”
Aja snorted and resumed her tugging. “Saving us? Highly doubtful. And I can’t believe any woman waking up in a cage would ever be stupid enough to believe such a thing. Only you could see good in such a deplorable situation. This is one of the many reasons why I sometimes loathe you.”
Nero heard a strap snap as the angry Corporal Kapur made her last statement. Huffing in irritation, he rushed to the cage door, went outside it, and promptly secured it behind him. He was not into taking chances. Many cyborgs came out of the restoration process angry and violent. Their resentment also had a tendency to last for a while. Apparently, Corporal Kapur was going to be one of
those
.
“You and your friend are equally unreasonable. If you would just listen to my…
hey
,” Nero yelled.
He backed away when an unrestrained Aja jumped from the cot to the cage door, reaching through the bars for his throat. Now he completely understood why Kyra insisted on taking so many precautions. You could never predict with any accuracy what their reaction to being restored was going to be.
Nero crossed his arms and glared. “If I had electrified those bars, you would be writhing on the floor in agony right now.”
Aja stopped her attack and looked at the bars she was holding in amazement. Then she glared at a grinning Meara reclining on her cot in the other cage. “What the hell kind of game are you playing, Irish?”
Meara laughed and stood, having known the lecture would be coming when Aja figured things out.
“Well, I couldn’t do anything while the good doctor had yar chips and such spread out on a table, now could I? I figured it was prudent to wait until he put all the nuts and bolts back in yar skull. Besides, I really do think Nero’s trying to help. He was right over top of yar girls and never touched yar ta-tas once. And I’m sorry to say this, Aja… but he might be the only male alive who’s fecking immune to them. I hope ya’re not too deeply disappointed, being he’s so much yar type.”
Aja turned to the male with skin nearly the color of her own. He looked stunned by her behavior for sure, but that didn’t make him harmless. “If you’re truly trying to save us, why have you locked us up in cages like prisoners?”
Nero sighed in relief at her question, happy she seemed willing to listen to him at last.
“Captain Pennington subdued you for attacking her and Eric. She put you into a state of hibernation supported by your companion code. At the moment, she appears to have entered that state herself, though we haven’t been able to tell how or why it happened. We hope you will help us learn more about the companion code so we may attempt to free Captain Pennington from it as well.”
Aja glared. Well, she’d heard some fancy stories before from cyber scientists. The worse being Creator Omega who had tweaked her programming routinely in efforts to throttle her emotionally charged rebellions. Yet Nero Bastion’s story of some mythical restoration was the lamest anyone had fabricated to procure her cooperation.
“Filthy liar.
Backrichod
.”
Nero stiffened at the last insult which had been offered in his father’s language. “I have never had intercourse with any animal, especially a goat. Now be respectful… or else.”
Aja snorted at his quietly offered threat. His flashing brown gaze did not frighten her. “Really? Or else what?
Chod ke bal ka kida
.”
Nero advanced toward the cage again. He was used to angry cyborgs and angry soldiers. He was not used to angry women throwing temper tantrums and his reaction was outside his normal calm. Emotional outbursts devoid of logic were precisely why he had given up dating women. A weekly visit to a sex bot took care of matters without any drama at all.
“Listen you… you…
meri ghand ka baal
.
Meara laughed and rose to go lean against the bars, looping her arms over a rail. “Oh, how grand. A fecking Hindu swearing contest. Did ya leave my translation program in place, Nero? I don’t want to miss the true meanings of yar loathing for each other.”
Nero turned his glare to Meara. “
Bolti bandh kar
.”
“Hey now—watch using yar evil tone with me. I’ve been nice to ya so far,” Meara snapped, a frown pulling the smile from her face when Aja smirked at her. She had actually liked the scientist. “What did he say to me, Aja? Tell me so I can loathe him too.”
“Shut up, Meara. Stop acting the fool. I can’t believe you haven’t released us both by now.”
Meara snorted. “After all these years together, ya could at least take up for me with a stranger, even if he is good-looking by your standards. And don’t tell me ya haven’t noticed his arse. Ya know ya like anything browner than ya are and he’s the most handsome male we’ve come across.”
“You are a stupid, foolish woman—and a loose-tongued, Irish she-devil. This cyber dickwad just told you to shut the fuck up. Frankly, I wish you would because your niceness gives me a headache.”
“Oh. Bloody hell, then,” Meara said, chastised out of her good mood. She turned a hurt expression to Nero. “Now that’s not a very nice way to be, especially after I’ve worked so hard to warn ya about Shiva’s handmaiden there.”
“
Quit joking about Shiva
,” Nero yelled, his passionate and loud voice bringing a stunned silence to the room as both women raised their eyebrows at his reaction.
He turned back to the woman still pressing against the bars of her confinement. “Now Aja,” he began, using her given name to try to get through to her.
He stepped uncomfortably close, ignoring instincts warning him to stay away. He patted his lab coat pockets nervously, making sure he had what he sought… just in case.
“I apologize for my loss of temper. As I was explaining before...”
Aja popped the cage door open swiftly, both ending his speech and sending him flying backwards to land on his ass.
Exiting the cage, the determined woman didn’t look down as she stepped over his prone body.
She also didn’t spare Corporal MacDonald a glance either, he noticed. Instead, Aja Kapur silently marched to where her weapons were displayed on the desk.
Nero crawled to his feet. “You would think someone would at least be manning the monitors and come to offer assistance. But no… they’re all off having their own crises while I deal with you two mental cases alone.”
He stumbled across the floor and spun Aja around by one of her shoulders. “Remember later that your hostile behavior left me with no choice but to take serious action against you.”
When she jerked away from his touch and picked up a sword, Nero shook his head and took a tiny remote from his pocket. He regretfully pressed a button on it and pushed away the less worthy feeling of enjoying the vindication. Aja’s body seized in reaction to the stun his wireless device delivered. Grunting at the sudden pain, the nerve disrupting pulses took her to the floor. She dropped both the sword and the scabbard she’d been trying to sheath it in.
Nero waited ten seconds to be sure the surge had weakened her sufficiently then turned the stun setting off. He had created it as a weapon of last resort against rebellious restoration subjects. Aja Kapur was certainly one of those. She had given him no choice but to use it on her.
Reaching down, he hoisted the still spasming woman up into his arms, shaking his head the whole time he carried her back to the cot. Guilt over hurting her threatened his composure. She was amazingly more fragile when disarmed than spitting at him from behind bars. And she was far more beautiful with her defiant gaze than he had felt comfortable noticing.
He glared at the grinning, clapping redhead as he passed by her cage. He had no doubt Meara could have freed herself just as easily. He wanted desperately to know how they were able to do so, but not as badly as he wanted to know something else.
“I was trying to be as kind as possible. Is she always so disagreeable?”
Meara lifted a hand, waving it in the air as she shrugged. She was not surprised the intelligent man had taken the volatile Aja down.
“Yeah. Aja’s pretty much like that all the time. Sometimes I think her only saving grace is her ta-tas. Men tend to overlook her fierce qualities to get a peek at them. To hear Aja talk though, ya would think they were one of the last wonders of the world. I don’t believe it, but probably because I’ve seen her naked.”
Despite his disgust with himself for listening so avidly to such nonsense, Nero’s gaze dropped to Aja Kapur’s breasts no matter how hard he fought against the urge. They were indeed magnificent by his standards… and would be by most men’s he assumed. The woman wore no support for them beneath the black cloth… he’d noted that earlier. The rise of her breasts and their saluting attention to his gaze was all natural… well, as natural as a cyborg’s exquisite musculature could be to an envious human.