Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gage held Audra as she fell asleep in his arms, her breathy poohs punctuating his own contentment.
She’d shown him her breasts. He understood the weight of trust she’d given him with that literal baring of her body, the worry and fear she must have harbored, wondering if he would be as disgusted as she by the changes her cancer treatment had wrought on her breasts.
He was more honored to have earned that gift than any chest candy he’d received from the Army.
Plus, her tits were still beautiful.
Smaller, more deflated than they’d been that morning in Higgenbotham’s conference room, not that he’d ever say that out loud.
Even with the changes he noticed, they were still glorious.
But he couldn’t tell her that. She wouldn’t believe him, not yet, anyway.
She was painfully self-conscious about them, finding fault in their very existence and hating what they represented.
He could relate. During the months he’d rehabbed with his cyborg leg, Gage could barely stand to look at it.
An impostor. A despised substitute for the real thing.
The physical manifestation of everything wrong in his life, representing all his failures as a commander and as a human being.
Not even fully human anymore. He had hated his leg, filling its presence with all his regrets and fears and weaknesses.
Maybe if he heaped all that negativity upon it, it would fall off and his real leg would grow back…
silly, illogical thoughts and wishes spurred by pain and grief.
It signified the point at which his life would never be the same, and it had taken Gage years to come to terms with it.
Audra had only just started that journey. It could be a long time before she accepted her own body again. But he was happy to walk beside her if she’d let him. Happy to keep telling her how beautiful she was in his eyes, if she couldn’t be in her own.
He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve such an angel, but he’d do whatever it took to keep her. With that vow seeping into every cell, every drop of synthetic lubricant, he followed Audra into peaceful slumber.
A proximity alert blared in his head. Gage bolted awake, senses on high-alert, gaze sweeping the room for possible threat. But there was nothing. The room was dark and silent but for his heavy breaths and Audra’s soft poohs.
Had the alert been a dream? A nightmare?
Red flashed across his cybernetic eye, and an alarm shrieked in his head. A staticky holo-graphic of the area perimeter flickered in his vision, multiple red dots in military formation flanked the HydroFoods building.
Someone was here who shouldn’t be.
Gage slipped out of bed without disturbing Audra and threw on his pants, shoving his feet into shoes and grabbing a dark shirt off a chair arm.
He quickly jogged through the silence of the bunker toward the door, but stopped when Doc and David burst from their room, frantically tugging on clothes and also heading toward the door.
He couldn’t make out their frantic whispers, but their tone was all he needed to know.
Something bad was happening.
“Oh, Gage, I’m glad you’re up.” Doc sighed with relief as he pulled a dark knit cap over his shock of white hair. “Our perimeter alarms have been triggered and I need your expertise. David, please wake up Everett. Adam and Luann, as well.”
David hurried away. Gage trotted next to Doc, who was spry for being a larger man. “Doc, wouldn’t Adam and Luann hear the alarm, too?” Why did he feel the need to whisper?
“Doubtful. I’m the only one with one in my room, which is an oversight I’ll soon correct.”
“But I heard the alarm in my head. Wouldn’t they?”
Doc paused in the stairwell and considered Gage for a moment before continuing. “I’m not sure why you would have heard it. Unless all that messing around Everett and I have been doing has connected you permanently to the server. Or it’s merely a residual effect.”
“Look, I’m not complaining. It’s probably a good thing because it helps us mobilize faster.
” Gage followed Doc into the lab to help set up their command center.
As former military, Gage was uniquely qualified for the current situation, and Doc was smart enough to realize this and accept suggestions.
Would a man like Higgenbotham be so quick to set his ego aside?
Gage already admired Doc for what he’d accomplished by himself; the ease with which the older man deferred to the expertise of others heightened Gage’s admiration even further.
As if he needed further proof he’d chosen the right side in all this.
By the time David arrived with the others in tow, the command center was up and working in the corner of the lab, the perimeter cameras projecting on the wall of screens a night vision view of a squad of approaching soldiers.
The aerial radar with enemy red dots and friendly green dots moving on a desktop screen. They were already talking strategy.
Doc turned to the others as they entered. “Oh good, you’re all here.”
Gage glanced up to see Eve, Audra, and Apollo also among the mix.
He tensed for a moment, concerned for Audra’s safety.
Which was stupid. She wasn’t any safer in the bunker below than here with him, and at least she wasn’t alone.
She threw herself at him and he held her tightly, as if she’d disappear if he ever let her go.
He pulled her onto his lap, wanting her as close to him as possible. She seemed to share that sentiment.
The conversation in the room was fast and focused, voices tumbling over one another.
“Charlie has eyes on the intruders. His team is already tracking them and ready to engage.”
“Looks military with those weapons. Charlie shouldn’t engage unless he absolutely has to.”
“Why are they here? Any idea what their objective might be?”
“Probably to retrieve Audra. Or Audra and Gage, both.”
“Our signal would have disappeared or been stagnant at the last-known point.”
“Is this a rescue mission?”
“Hawks only cared about the intel Audra had. He wanted it before anyone else got to it. My guess is she would have been expendable at that point.”
“And definitely expendable now that she’s surely handed off the intel.”
“Or she was merely a ruse to find your hidey-hole, Doc.”
“There’s no way they could have known I was connected to Doc. I didn’t even know.”
“Hold up. Pan back to the left. Screen three.” Gage instructed.
He’d continually scrutinized the camera feed, looking for clues as to who had been sent.
He finally saw a familiar name badge: Briggs Valor.
Another soldier-turned-cyborg who’d rehabbed with him.
The fact that soldier didn’t carry a firearm confirmed the name. Valor had a weaponized arm.
Apparently, he hadn’t been dumped into a desk job, like Gage had. Or maybe he had, and, also like Gage, had jumped at the first offer of something more exciting.
Had Valor also been told a handful of half-truths?
“I know that soldier.” Gage pointed at the screen. “Is there any way to patch me into his coms?”
Everett was already at the computer, typing furiously. “It would be easier to patch you into his CPU directly, like we’ve been practicing. But I don’t want to show our hand on that just yet.”
The others agreed, and they watched the advancing red dots on the radar while Everett worked his magic. Adam and Gage discussed the weaponry in view and what other weapons could be hidden. “Keep an eye out for any possible laser beams.” Gage warned “We don’t want them guiding any missiles to us.”
“Yeah, a bunker buster would really suck.” Luann pointed out the obvious.
Audra cried out softly and buried her head against his shoulder. “This is all my fault.” She whispered, her body trembling.
“Don’t you dare blame yourself, beautiful.” Gage murmured against her hair. “This was bound to happen. And because of you, I’m here to help.”
He pulled back just far enough to see the worry in her eyes, and brushed his lips across hers. “And I’m not going to let anything happen to the woman I love.”
Doc was mumbling into a small mic, and listening through his earpiece, sharing intel with Charlie. “Charlie says they’ll set up a counter-target if we see lasers. If nothing else, multiple targets might confuse them for a few moments.”
“Gotcha hooked up, Gage.” Everett shoved a microphone his direction. “We’ll all hear his response, so don’t get too kinky.”
“No promises.” Gage pulled the mic closer and pressed the button. “Hey, Loverboy. Glad to see you’re back in action.”
On the screen, the squad leader paused, flashing the soldiers behind him the tactical signal to stop. Then he pressed his fingers against his bone conduction headphone, no doubt an instinctive reaction to the shock of hearing a voice from the past. Had they not told him who he was coming for?
Valor’s voice rang through the lab. “Who is this?”
“Breaks my heart you don’t remember me.” Gage chuckled. “Did they ever figure out that recoil malfunction with your ammo cycle? Or are they still saying you just need to want it to work?”
There was a long pause. Gage was talking about things only a very few would know about, referencing the weeks he and Valor spent together as newly minted cyborgs.
The soldier onscreen stood upright from where he crouched behind a bush and looked around as if Gage would be there. “Python? Is that you?”
All eyes, curiosity burning bright in their depths, turned to Gage. Even Audra pulled back to gaze at him. His face heated in embarrassment and he coughed. “Um, Anaconda takes too long to say.”
“This is about dick size, isn’t it.” Someone snorted. When Gage nodded, the rest of the room giggled and guffawed. Audra merely smiled knowingly and resumed her post on his shoulder.
“Python?” Valor repeated through the headset, frowning. He raised his cyborg arm, as if ready to gun Gage down if he showed his face.