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Viper
Reaper thought I might be overreacting. He assured me that Dax had deactivated the tech in the female’s head. That there was no way it could be used to invade my processors again or that of any other cyborg’s.
Still, I don’t trust it.
I don’t trust her.
Which is why I had thought up a plan. Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer. And that is exactly what I planned to do.
I lifted my hand, knocking on Axios’s door, ignoring the tiny tremors in my circuits. I wasn’t a coward. I had never backed down from a fight in my entire life. I wouldn’t back down now. Especially from a small female that barely came to the center of my chest.Tiny but fierce, my mind reminded me.
The door swung open and Axios scowled. “What do you want?”
I put my hands up trying to appear non-threatening. “I only want to talk to her. I swear I am not here to harm her.”
His eyes flashed. “You already did! Your shove to the floor left her covered in bruises!” He shoved a green finger into my chest, his lips curling into a snarl. “So leave. There is nothing she needs from you.”
“What the hell, Axios?” A voice croaked from behind the massive rainbow cyborg’s frame. “You’re letting the light in. And why the fuck are you shouting at someone? Too loud,” she moaned.
Every warning bell within my frame lit up. The female sounded like she was in distress. “What is wrong with her?” I gave Axios a hard shove and he stumbled back. “What did you do?” I roared.
“Fucking hell! Shut up!” There was a groan and some rustling then a pale face appeared in the doorway. “He didn’t do anything, you ass. I’m hungover.”
Despite her words, my eyes scanned her frame, searching for any sign of injury. Dark circles dotted her under-eyes, her lips drawn into a thin line as she leaned heavily against the doorframe. Bright pink hair stuck up haphazardly around her face, her clothes were disheveled, and the smell of old liquor wafted from her tiny frame.
Shit, how much had she had to drink? It was literally seeping from her pores, like some type of horrendous perfume. My nose crinkled. “You stink.”
She lifted her right hand, giving me the finger. “Go away,” she muttered before she covered her mouth, a horrible lurching sound coming from her. “Oh, god.” She tried to spin around but it was too late, and with another lurch, the contents of her stomach ended up splashing against the top of my boots.
The look of horror on her face had to match mine.Her bodily fluids are splattered across my boots.I took a step backward, shaking one boot at a time, attempting to rid them of the horrid substance.Oh god, the smell.If I thought she smelled bad, her spewed stomach contents were a million times worse.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
I looked frantically at Axios. “Disinfectant, now.” My feet twitched in my boots. I could practically feel her thousands of germs eating their way through the leather. My whole frame shuddered uncontrollably. My breathing sped up, my processors unable to regulate it as my heart started to pound a frenzied beat inside my chest. Panic clawed at my circuits, black spots dancing in my visual systems.
The female must have noticed my distress, her hand reaching out to grab my arm. I waited for the revulsion at her touch, but it never came. Maybe the vomit I now imagined eating its way through my boots was enough to turn my revulsion elsewhere. “Sit,” she ordered, pushing me back through the door until my body hit the wall and I slid to the floor.
She swallowed hard before dropping to the floor beside me, her hands working at the laces of my left boot. She gulped, sweat dotting along her brow.
“Are you sure you can-“
“I got it!” Once the laces were done, she gave a hard tug, the boot flying off to crash somewhere behind us. The right boot went next, ending up wherever the left had. Axios appeared brandishing disinfectant and a cloth. He dropped to the floor, dousing my feet then giving them a good scrub. The moment the spray hit my feet the panic began to recede.
Axios’s blue eyes met mine. “Better?”
I nodded. “Thank you.” I looked up to see the female crawling slowly back towards the doorway.
She looked over her shoulder at us. “I’m going to just,” her stomach let out a strangled gurgle, “find the porcelain god and start praying to it.” She crawled through the door and continued her way down the hallway towards the bathroom at a snail’s pace.
“What is a porcelain god and why is she praying to it?” I questioned.
He shrugged. “By the direction she is headed I am guessing she is going to finish emptying the rest of her stomach contents in the bathroom.” He cocked his head to the side, an eyebrow raising. “The human waste receptacle is made out of something similar to porcelain, I wonder if that is what she is referencing?”
That sounded like a reasonable explanation. I nodded in agreement.
He turned away from me, making his way over to the mess that hadn’t quite made it on to my boots. I watched as he cleaned it up, no sign of panic or revulsion on his features. A stab of envy rolled through me.
My germ phobia made life difficult. As a cyborg, it was almost impossible for me to be contaminated. My systems maintained strict hygiene protocols and my synthetic skin repealed all foreign matter unless compromised. Even then, my systems would start a process to purge anything that might be toxic or foreign. To the other cyborgs, my germ phobia seemed at best confusing, at worst silly and ridiculous, but they don’t know what I survived. They don’t understand the conditions I had been kept in. I repressed a shudder.
But I had made progress recently. I had voluntarily touched the human females. It had been brief, but I still had done it. I had held Marley and Acer’s daughter, Ever. I had even held her stuffed duck, Quakers, which I knew with hundred percent certainty had to be covered in germs. But what Ever wants, Ever gets, and that little girl had the whole cyborg rebellion wrapped around her little yellow finger. Myself included. And if I’m honest, Ever germs aren’t all that bad.
This female’s germs haven’t been all that bad, either. I haven’t recoiled in horror since that very first day when she hijacked my processors. I have even willingly touched her. But vomit is where I drew the line. Human bodily fluids are disgusting.Maybe not all of them,my traitorous circuits whispered.
I rose to my feet, eying my filthy boots. There was no way I would be putting those back on.
“I need to check on Oz and make sure she is okay.” Axios’s words interrupted my thoughts. He looked at the boots laying haphazardly on the concrete floor. “Don’t worry about the boots. I’ll remove them for you so you won’t have to touch them.”
And with that, he turned on his heel and promptly slammed the door in my face.
