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“I’ve got you,” he rumbles as he lifts the other soldier into his arms. He carries him into the stasis chamber and lays him on the bench, and when I enter a moment later, he’s got his hand clasped in AX21’s.
I stare at their combined hands, and for a second, something in that image burns its way through my optic nerve and deep into my gut. I quickly shake it off and focus on the job at hand.
With the efficiency of experience, I snip off the rest of AX21’s uniform, hook up the machinery and attach electrodes and needles to his skin. Then I get my scalpel.
“Put him under.”
I glance at AX2, annoyed at the distraction. “What?”
“You trained us to endure pain, but we still feel it. Put him under before you start slicing.” He doesn’t look at me—his focus is on the other soldier, whose eyes widen as they flick from me to AX2.
An unbidden memory flashes, and I recall the times AX2 was on my table, injured but conscious. I’ve removed bullets and reattached circuits and veins while he’s been awake often enough, and he’s never so much as flinched while I did it.
I don’t like the tightening in my chest. Why would I have? I was fixing a machine.
I stare at AX2’s back for a short moment. Then I reach up to flick the switch that’ll inject the sedative through the needle in AX21’s arm.
When his eyelids flutter a moment later, AX2 sighs softly, as if releasing some pent-up tension.
It takes me hours to repair AX21. He must have been shot with at least one machine gun. Probably several, judging from the multiple angles of the entry wounds. Removing bullets is tedious work, and several have caused damage to his biological parts. I hate working with flesh. It’s so… gooey. I’m much more comfortable working on the mechanical parts, though the process of welding on synthetic skin with enough precision to make it look real takes forever.
When I’m finally,finallydone, my vision’s swimming. I flick on the transfusion of blood and hydraulic fluid that will allow AX21’s biological and artificial systems to recover, brace my arms on the bench by his thigh, and rest my head against them to steady myself.
A warm hand ghosts over my shoulder blades. I jerk up, not expecting the touch, and stare at AX2.
He holds a lidded stainless steel cup toward me. “Drink.”
I take it on reflex, too exhausted to fight. The first couple of gulps make me grimace. The liquid is so thick it’s nearly chewable, and it tastes like goopy, salty nothing—one of the nutritional shakes I formulated for the AX soldiers.
“Ew.” I try to put it down, but he places two fingers under it and forces it back to my lips.
“You haven’t eaten all day. Drink.”
He has a point. I glare at him, but take another gulp of the thick paste. It becomes easier as it goes, and somehow I manage to finish the full cup.
Once I finally hand it back to AX2, I feel a lot better. “What time is it?”
“Just past eight p.m.”
No wonder my vision got blurry. I stretch my arms out and roll my neck. I always get absorbed by practical work. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes.”
I glance out the window leading to the rest of my lab, toward the now dark computer screen. “Any news from… outside?”
“No.”
I sigh and turn my attention back to AX21. Fretting won’t do any good, so instead I focus on cleaning blood smears off his skin, starting with his feet. I work in silence, right up until I reach his upper thighs. Then AX2 materializes by my side, his hand clasping my wrist.
“Let him do that when he wakes.”
I blink and stare up at him. “Why?”
He arches an eyebrow. “You don’t need to be touching any man there.”
He’s…jealous?The notion is so ludicrous, I can’t stop a bark of laughter from escaping my throat. “Really? You’rethatalpha?”
“We’re all‘that alpha,’” he rumbles, eyes narrowed. “You want him to think I’m happy with you rubbing another man’s genitals?”
