The Bionics (The Bionics Series Part 1) (4 page)

Dax
shrugs but cuts his eyes at me. I feel concern emanating from him and I know he’s wondering about how I’m feeling after staying in that trashed house.
It’s something we do while on missions, but nobody knows better than him how hard it is for me to be reminded of my own trashed house burning to the ground, or the loss of everyone I’ve ever loved. It feels even worse when we don’t get there in time to save the people we are there to save.

“No M.P.s, no Bios,” he answers simply as we leave Mosley Hall and cross the arcade toward the dining hall, which is situated right at the center of Restoration Resistance Headquarters. The grass beneath our feet and the blue sky and clouds overhead are synthetic, but I appreciate them. The
Professor
created the program to give us a sense of still living in the outside w
orld
.
It appeals to all of our senses, so not only can I feel the grass, I can smell it, as well as the scent of approaching rain. A soft breeze tricks me into thinking that this is real.

Without the changing weather we’d just be living in a gigantic hole carved into the side of a mountain. I appreciate the normalcy of rain or snow every now and then. It follows the patterns of the seasons—at least, the seasons we used to have before the r
uined ozone
layer—so for now we’ve got a
pleasantly
balmy
summer
and a slight chance of rain.

“That’s too bad,” Oliv
i
a answers. She turns to me with an impish smile and I already know what’s going to come out of her mouth next. “You get a good look at that Gage guy?”

I keep my
gaze
straight ahead, avoiding both Olivia’s and
Dax’s
stares
. I can’t afford to let them know that I still can’t get those blue-gray eyes out of my head.

“Yeah,” I answer as calmly as I can. “
What about him?”

Olivia rolls her eyes. “Okay, play dumb. I’m just going to go ahead and say it. He’s
freakin
’ hot.”

Dax
frowns and I see the corners of his mouth tense. I laugh at him, which only draws his dark, hawk
ish
gaze toward me. I shrug.

“
How’s it feel
to have to share the henhouse with another rooster?” I ask.

Dax
doesn’t answer, but his lips tighten and I think he’s about to blow a gasket.

“
Dax
doesn’t trust him,” I offer, filling in the silence.

“Really?
Seemed all right to me.”

“Olivia, if you
would think past how f
ast you can spread
your
legs for this prick, you might actually see the truth.”

Olivia flips
Dax
the bird with her bionic hand. “Fuck you,
Janner
.”

She’s pretending to be mad, but her wide grin says it all.
Oliva
is the Resistance Headquarters slut and everybody knows it.
S
he and
Dax
have even gone at it a few times, but
I pretend not to know about it
. For some reason, the thought of my best fr
iend and the neighborhood ho’
getting it on fills my mouth with bitter bile
; it’s not exactly a topic of conversation I want to pursue
.

“Come on
,
you two, use your heads,”
Dax
continues, stopping just outside the doors
of the dining hall. “How many
N
ormals
do we have running around the place?”

“
Not that many other than the family members of the other
Bios.
,
” she answers. “Oh, well,
other than the
Professor
, but he doesn’t count. He’s practically one of us.”

“Exactly.
There’s a reason we don’t let them in. We have no idea what he wants or why he’s here.”

“
He’s a family member too.
He’s protecting the little girl,” I argue. As soon as the words are out, I regret them.
Dax
is staring at me as if he’d like to shake some sense into me. Deep down I know he’s right and I should be suspicious of Gage. After all, there’s a reason that we are here.
“Look, I just don’t think we should be crucifying this guy just
because he talked back to
Jenica
, or because he’s not a Bio. There are other people here just like him who
have
brought their children, siblings, or parents
to Headquarters
to try to escape the M.P.s. You know that the penalty for harboring a Bio is death in
most
states. This guy has nowhere else to go.”

“We don’t know what kind of connections he might have or what kind of information he might be feeding someone on the inside,”
Dax
argues, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper as a few more of our team and some of the refugees walk past us and into the building. “We have m
anaged to stay hidden for years
and letting this guy in could prove to be our most fatal error.”

“Well, what do you suggest we do about it
,
Captain-Fucking-Know-It-All?
The Professor never turns anybody away unless they give good reason. So far as I can tell, all he’s done is rescue a little girl,
”
Olivia challenges, her hands on her round hips
.
Dax’s
jaw ticks and I know he’s about three second
s away from smashing her face
in
…that is, if he could catch her first.

“Don’t you have someone you could be screwing right now?”
Dax
counters.

Olivia sways her hips and bats her eyelashes. “You offering, baby?”

“That’s enough!” I interject. I don’t like t
he way Olivia is looking at
Dax
and I’m in no mood to watch those two get into it. Besides, I want to know exactly what
Dax’s
position is on Gage. We have always agreed on everything, but I have a feeling that Gage is going to be one of those
topics
best not discussed by us.

“So, are you going to answer the question?” I ask once the two have stopped staring daggers at each other. “What do you think we should do about Gage
if he turns out to be dangerous
?
”

Dax
shrugs. “Simple. Kill him.”

***

Three

Blythe Sol,
Dax
Janner
, and Olivia McNabb

Restoration Resistance Headquarters

August 15, 4010

6:00 p.m.

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 that what
Dax
said out on the steps is burned into her mind as well. I
can see it in
the
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 is eating 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 kid’s 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 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 that the fish-eyed chick across from him is freaking crazy. I’m just amazed at how beautiful he is and elated that 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 that they’re from money
and people with money have connections…government connections.
Knowing that 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 B
ios 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
; t
hey 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?”