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Reaper stopped walking, the rest of the rebellion following suit. “There are humans here, too?”
“Yes. Quite a few in fact,” Ion stated proudly.
Reaper frowned.
Lennox pinned the unmoving Reaper with a hard stare. “I know what you are thinking, Reaper, but every human here believes that cyborgs deserve to be free and happy. They are like your female. She and the others must have taught you that not all humans are bad.”
Reaper gave a small, reluctant nod.
“I’ll take that for now. But one day, I think we’ll be friends,” Lennox smirked. “After we trade insults and constantly piss each other off for a time, that is.”
The deep cut on Reaper’s right cheek twitched, his one good eye flashing in irritation. Lennox chuckled, clearly not intimidated by Reaper’s grumpy demeanor.
The door to the lodge was flung open and out rushed a tiny human child, a huge grin on her face. Barreling towards Quantum, she launched herself at him, the Military model catching her with ease. Wrapping her small arms around his neck, she hugged him tight, causing him to let out a deep laugh.
The child, who appeared to be around the age of five or six, pulled back to peer at him. “I missed you.”
Quantum rested his forehead against hers. “I wasn’t gone that long. How could you miss me?”
The child huffed. “I always miss you.”
“What about me?” Zero asked, a playful grin on his face.
She held her arms out and Zero plucked her from Quantum. “Of course, silly! I miss all of you when you go away.” It was then that her eyes landed on Theo. Her mouth rounded into an o. “You brought me a friend!” She looked around Zero’s frame, her eyes wide like saucers at the sight of all of us. “You brought me lots of friends!” A smile lit up her face before it tipped down into a frown. She tapped Zero’s arm and he lowered her back down to her feet. “But they are hurt! Whatcha standing outside for? Bring them in so we can fix ‘em!”
“Lillian is right. Let’s all go inside so we can assess any injuries and work on repairing them.” Lennox gave the order and with no other alternative, we all followed her into the lodge. Once inside, she ordered Zero to take anyone suffering from damage to Medical. Dax and Dr. Shaw insisted they go with them, and Lennox agreed.
Reaper started to argue that he was fine, but Aria pushed him towards Dax. “Get fixed. Theo and I will be fine.”
I turned to look at Nara, who was ushering Core towards the injured group of cyborgs, her hand on the small of his back. “You’ll be fine. Chaos, Caliber, and I will be right here waiting for you until you get back. I promise.”
Core shook his head, refusing to move. His golden gaze darted from his brothers to Nara and back again, his hands wringing together in front of him.
“I’ll go with him.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Nara’s shoulders relaxed as she breathed out a shaky, “Thank you.” She gave Core a gentle push. “Go with Brone. He’s injured, too. It would make me feel better if you went together. You can look out for him, and he can look out for you. That’s what friends do. Take care of each other.”
I never said anything about being friends with him.I wasn’t as opposed to it as I had been before. I knew that Nara and the three cyborgs were a package deal. Nothing would send Nara running faster than alienating Core, Caliber, and Chaos.
It simply hurt.It hurt to watch her fuss over them, worry about them, and shower them with love and attention. Part of me couldn’t understand. The person that had been present when I had been freed from my vat hadn’t shown any concern for my well-being at all.
With a critical eye, the female had looked me over for flaws, forcing me to stand there naked while she inspected every inch. Once I had been deemed acceptable, I had been herded with the rest of my batch to the MechTechs. They fine-tuned our programming and sent us off to begin training.
War created profits. Countries paid the Global Allegiance to have us to fight their battles. We were another piece of tech, crafted to help whatever government ours had deemed worthy; and whoever made our government more profits.
Money equaled power. And our government had both.
Day after day, news feeds came in about battles being fought in other places. Places too poor to afford cyborgs coming to help. Warlords stealing hundreds of children in the night. Madmen killing sections of their population for nothing more than being other or praying in a different way.
The Military Models had suffered, desperately wanting to protect and defend the innocents from those that would hurt them.
None of us understood why some lives mattered and some didn’t; including our own. So watching Nara fuss and fawn over her three cyborgs made my chest ache with longing. Their lives mattered to her.
She hadn’t simply handed them off. She had stood behind that door and hurled insults at me to protect those she cared about.
Tank Classes could intimidate even Military Models sometimes.
Not Nara. It was at that moment that I knew. Knew I had to make her mine. I hadn’t even needed to see her face.
