Viper
The female stayed quiet the whole way down to her new room. In her hands she clutched the few meager belongings I was sure Poe had collected for her.Or Axios.That thought made my hands ball into fists. I shouldn’t care that she wanted to stay withhim.
And she had wanted tostay.The emotion was clear in every backward glance she gave as we walked down the hall.Just what had he done that made her long to stay with him? Maybe he treated her like a person instead of a problem,my processors surmised. I ignored them.
Stepping up in front of the door, I ordered her to turn around. “I can’t have you figuring out the code and letting yourfriendsin to play.” She did as I commanded, her stiff frame the only thing that told me she wasn’t happy about it. She still refused to speak a word to me. I should be jumping in my boots for joy.
Hadn’t I wanted her to be quiet? To not open her mouth and antagonize me at every turn?
When the door opened, she turned back around, walking in without hesitation. She held the bag containing her things to her chest as her eyes scanned the room. I knew to her it would look exactly like Axios’s quarters, except not lived in.
The layout was always the same. A roomy living room that opened to reveal a well-stocked kitchen. Cyborgs don’t need to eat, but we enjoyed it. Humans, on the other hand, wouldn’t survive without food, so I had made sure to stock hers beforehand. Down the attached hallway there were two bedrooms and one bath.
The bathroom was mostly ignored by cyborgs, but Marley had informed me the large soaking tub the bathroom held was heaven sent. I don’t know if this female would agree, but I had filled the bathroom with soaking salts and bubble bath just in case.
I wanted to keep the female someplace I could monitor her movements, but I wasn’t trying to be unnecessarily cruel. Since learning of her movie nights with Axios, I had made sure to stock a large assortment of entertainment vids as well.
As I watched her eyes roam over the space, I found myself waiting to see if she would notice that I had tried to make her time here comfortable. Her opinion shouldn’t matter to me, but it did. We had made some progress back in Axios’s quarters. I found myself not wanting to lose it.
Her eyes fixed on the collection of vids I had gathered. “I know you like to watch movies with Axios. I thought you would enjoy having them to watch here as well.”
She frowned. Dropping her bag to the floor, she marched over to the stack of entertainment vids, picking one up. Spinning around, she flung it at me, narrowly missing my head. “Get out!” She roared as she drew her arm back to launch another one over my head. “Do you hear me?” Thud. One more vid down, shattering against the wall behind my frame.
I scrambled backward, retreating until I managed to make it back out into the hallway. Slamming the door shut, I punched in the code to lock it, listening as thuds continued to strike the door. The sound indicated me leaving hadn’t ended her bout of fury.
I stormed back to my own quarters, frustration building with every step. This is what I get for trying to be kind. For trying to make her quarters as comfortable as possible. Had she thanked me for my generosity? No! She had tossed vids at my head like a mad woman. I should have known better. No more.
One almost nice conversation does not make us friends.
Oz
Viper left, well more like fled since I tossed every fucking single one of those vids at his stupid purple head. I couldn’t believe him. It was bad enough he had taken me away from Axios. But stocking my new posh prison with vids felt like a knife to the heart.
There was nowayI could watch them without Axios. Movie nights were officially canceled in my opinion.
Snatching my bag from the floor, I made my way to the second bedroom, tossing it on the bed. I don’t have much. Only what Poe and Axios had managed to bring me. There was an abundance of cat pajamas. I hadn’t wanted to ask Poe where those had come from.
Cat pajamas werenotmy typical jam, but I found myself reaching for them over the other ones. Don’t ask. I didn’t know what was happening to me, either. Big, bad Oz was a sucker for cute cat pajamas; who knew?
I pulled out my favorite pair, a cozy set covered with dancing cats and rainbows. By my guess it was midafternoon, still way too early for pajamas, but fuck it. Tugging my clothes off, I slipped on the familiar set and crawled into the large bed all alone.
A pang of loneliness struck. Soon Axios would head home from the lab and find me gone. He would search for me, I knew it, but there was nothing he could do. I swatted the tears that threatened to fall.
One night. I would give myself one night to fall apart, to berate myself for being so stupid that I ended up here.
I lied. It’s been two weeks. Two weeks of nothing but cat pajamas and feeling sorry for myself.
Don’t worry. The pajamas are clean…at least I think they are. I leaned down and took a sniff. Yep. Clean. Mostly. I think. Things have started to blur a bit.
It’s sleep, eat when I feel like it, which I don’t much anymore, and wallow. The great Oz reduced to a sad girl who yesterday tried to put a vid file back together just so I could be reminded of my nights with Axios.
Axios has been here, of course. He raised hell outside Viper’s door, ordering him to let me out, but to no avail. He comes to my door every day before work, knocking softly and asking me if I am okay. I usually mumble I’m fine then go crawl back under the covers.
Poe and Dax have come by, too. They also tried talking to Viper but nothing they said changed his processors, either. Now Poe sits on the other side of the door and holds a one-way conversation since I don’t feel much like talking.
Instead, I find myself thinking about how I got here. Not just locked in a stylish cage inside the cyborg rebellion, but how my whole life had led up to this point. How I had tried to be the badass, the girl who never asked for help, even when the monsters came. How I shut off my heart because it hurt too much when the people who were supposed to protect you hurt you instead.
How lonely I was and with all my skills, none of them could help me understand how to fix it. There had been progress, but it’s slipping away the longer I am left alone. Darkness had crept back in and so had the nightmares. Sleep was a constant battle of tossing and turning, sweat pooling beneath the sheets, drenching my skin in demons I couldn’t fight. Sleeping during the day helped some but even then, I wasn’t guaranteed peace.
I looked down, noticing that I had forgot my pants. Then again, what was the point of pants anyway?
I never left.
And Viper never allowed anyone to enter.
Tugging the covers up around my shoulders, I sighed.
Fuck pants.
And fuck the purple Technology Model who locked me away to fend off my demons alone.