“Well, that was a little weirder than I thought it was going to be.” I said and opened the door to my apartment, then motioned to Alyssa. “Come in.”

“Thank you.” Alyssa said and went inside, then stopped just inside the door. “What a mess!”

“What?” I went in and saw half of the floor was torn up, the door had been removed from my immersion chamber, and parts and accessories were scattered all over. “Well, I guess Dennis managed to push my requisition through for my chair upgrade.”

Alyssa hopped out of the way of a service robot that grabbed one of the parts near her on the floor, and she shook her head. “You can't live here like this.”

I chuckled. “I've lived in worse conditions.”

“So have I.” Alyssa said. “That's why I know you shouldn't.”

I laughed. “What do you suggest I do? Get another apartment?”

“Come and stay with me.” Alyssa said boldly.

I saw the look on her face, and she has surprised herself with that statement.

“I... I mean...” Alyssa's face flushed red.

“Thank you for the generous and unexpected offer.” I said and smiled as I took her hand. “I would take you up on it, but I'm needed here.”

Alyssa looked around again, and the only place that didn't have parts on or near it, was the bed. “At least you'll be able to sleep if you want.”

“They don't need to sleep.” I said and pointed to the robots working in the immersion chamber with my free hand. “I doubt I'll be sleeping much with this racket going on.”

“Just turn off your ear mods and leave them in passive mode.” Alyssa said, and didn't try to let my hand go, despite my thought that she believed she should. “You'll only hear something spoken directly to you.”

I looked at her and smiled. “Now that is a great idea.”

The door admittance chime sounded, and I looked at the vidwall. Nurse Deloris was there, and I hit the button to open the door for her. Alyssa let go of my hand just as the door opened.

“I've got something planned for tonight, so I came early.” Nurse Deloris said as she entered my apartment, then stopped when she saw the mess. “You are not staying here.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“This is not a proper environment to do cybernetic maintenance and cleaning.” Nurse Deloris said. “I won't even consider doing a checkup on you in this pigsty.”

“That's two professional opinions for me to not be here.” I chuckled. “Are you going to offer for me to stay at your place, too?”

“Hell, no.” Nurse Deloris said. “I've got a date tonight.”

“Don't tell me it's getting serious between you and my best friend Steven.”

“He would kill you for saying his name like that.” Nurse Deloris said adamantly.

“Okay, you just told me it's serious.” I said and laughed, and her face flushed red. “Don't worry, I won't tell him, assuming he thinks about coming to see me.”

“I could mention it...”

“No, thanks.” I said. “I won't have you intentionally distract him from paying attention to you.”

Nurse Deloris smiled, then gathered the things she needed. “Is there a place close by where I can work on you?”

“Possibly.” I said and walked over to the connecting door to the apartment next door. I knocked, and a minute later, Nathan opened the door. “How is Sandra?”

“A wreck.” Nathan said. “She hasn't stopped crying since she came in.”

“I'm sorry about that.” I said.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Noreen asked as she came over to the door.

“If I can borrow your couch for about half an hour.” I said, and they nodded. Nurse Deloris, Alyssa, and myself went into the next apartment, and the nurse put down towels for me to lay on. While she gave me a quick bath and performed my cybernetic maintenance, I told Noreen and Nathan about everything that happened in the interview, up until the point where Sandra had to wear the noise-cancelling headphones. It was all military secrets after that.

“No wonder she's so distraught.” Nathan said. “To have all of that come out, and in front of who knows how many witnesses.”

“I think she surprised herself with it, too.” I said as Nurse Deloris finished covering my synthetic parts with lubrication fluid. “It was one thing to live through it gradually; but, when she went over everything out loud like that and admitted to everything...”

“It made her realize what she's done.” Noreen said and sighed. “Jack, I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault.” I said. “She's a grown woman and can make her own decisions.”

“I didn't help things by trying to convince her to move in with you.” Noreen said.

“Now that I know, she must have assumed she could still carry on with everything and I wouldn't be any wiser about her actions.” I said, and then chuckled. “That's probably true, too.”

“Jack...”

Nurse Deloris wrapped a towel around me so I could stand up without flashing Noreen or Nathan, and I held the towel with one hand and reached out to put my real hand on Noreen's face.

“Not. Your. Fault.” I said and stroked her cheek with my thumb. “I can't stress that enough.” I said and looked at Nathan. “It's all your fault.”

“Wh-what?” Nathan said, shocked.

“Just kidding.” I said and moved my hand from Noreen's face to his shoulder. “Don't blame yourself, your wife, or your daughter.”

“But...”

“Sometimes things just happen.” I said and let his shoulder go.

“Jack.” Noreen said and I looked at her. “What are you going to do now?”

“I'm going back to my apartment to try and get some work done, then I'll probably get some sleep.” I said.

“Jack...”

“Yes, I know that's not what you meant.” I smiled. “It's all I want to admit to at the moment, though.”

Noreen sighed, and you could almost feel her depression fill the room. I reached out and touched her face again, then leaned in close and placed a lingering kiss on her cheek.

“You won't have to move.” I said when I leaned back. “I gave you this apartment.”

“But... but that was on the condition Sandra moved in with you.” Noreen said.

“She did.” I said. “There was no condition that she had to stay.”

Noreen wrapped her arms around me and started to cry.

“Shh. It's okay.” I said and rubbed her back with both of my hands, and was very careful about the pressure my synthetic limb was applying to her. My towel was held in place by the pressure between us, and after a few minutes, she took several deep breaths and let me go. I quickly grabbed the towel to keep it in place, and smiled.

“I'll see you later.” I said, and walked over to the connecting door with Alyssa and Nurse Deloris right behind me.

“He got your nice top all messy with lubrication fluid.” Nathan whispered, but with my ear modifications I heard him clearly.

“I don't care.” Noreen whispered back.

It took me a moment before I realized that was one of the best compliments I had received in a while, considering how much she loved clothes. I thought about turning and saying thank you, then thought if I did that, they would know I had heard them from so far away. I successfully ignored my impulse and led Alyssa and Nurse Deloris into my apartment and shut the connecting door.

“Well, that was really awkward.” Nurse Deloris said, which made me smile, and she put the things she had used on me, back in the bathroom. “On that note, goodnight.”

I did laugh at that. “See you in the morning.”

“Send me a message about where you're staying.” Nurse Deloris said and pointed at me. “Get changed and leave. Do not sleep here.” She said almost angrily, like she believed I wasn't going to listen to her. “Do you understand?”

“I'll take him out of here, once he gathers some of the things he'll need to be away for a few days.” Alyssa said.

Nurse Deloris nodded to her and left the apartment without another word.

“How exactly are you going to get me to leave my apartment?” I asked as a joke, since I was going to leave anyway, and started to put on a fresh unitard. Alyssa's hand darted out and grabbed the skin on the back of my neck and squeezed.

“I believe mother cats do this to kittens that don't listen.” Alyssa said.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” I said and hopped from foot to foot. “I'll go! I'll go!”

“That's better.” Alyssa said and let me go. “Now get your things.”

“Geez, you don't have to be so pushy.” I said and finished getting dressed, then took out the portable display from the vidwall and transferred the calibration protocols for the new chair to it, then a pile of random files that I could work on, as well as several of the VR programs that had been on my father's old server. I passed the portable display to Alyssa and opened the closet with my backpack in it. I took it out and looked at the contents, added a dozen brown algenate discs, 3 generic unitards, and a bottle of lubrication fluid just in case.

“Hey, Rusty! Want to go for a walk?” I asked, and heard several thumps from the next closet. I opened the door and Rusty hopped out, and looked very excited. His tail wagged vigorously, and I found out the source of the bangs. “Amanda? Can you come along?” I asked, and heard a beep from Rusty. I knelt and opened his back panel, and saw the message.

You need a new communication pad.

I cleared the message and closed the panel. “To be fair, I was unconscious for most of the time I've been away this time, and when I wasn't, I was under guard by System Security and wouldn't have been allowed to talk to you anyway.”

There was no beep from either Rusty or the vidwall.

“I didn't say I didn't want to talk to you, dammit! I said I couldn't!”

There was still no beep, and I sighed.

“Let's go.”

Alyssa led the way over to the door of my apartment, then the three of us... well, four if you counted Amanda inside Rusty... left the apartment at a good pace and went to the elevator. We left the elevator and told Crush where we were going. He made several disparaging comments about his squad commander, and she dented his chest plate with her fist as a warning. He only laughed and told us to have fun, and we left the lobby and hopped into a Tube car to head several living sections away.

What I hadn't known at the time was that Sandra had entered my apartment through the connecting door to talk to me, and I wasn't there. She gathered up the few things she had managed to sneak into my apartment over the time we had been seeing each other and left. Just like that, she had moved out without even discussing things with me first.

In my ignorance, I rode the Tube car to Alyssa's living section, and we entered it without doing a hand scan.

“It's broken.” Alyssa said, almost as if she could read my mind.

“Why didn't...”

“You're kidding, right?” Alyssa asked and stepped into the waiting elevator. “Getting scanned all the time is a pain in the ass.”

“I just do it without thinking about it.” I said.

“You'll start to hate it too when your processors ramp up to full speed.” Alyssa said. “Microseconds count then.”

I blinked my eyes at her, and she chuckled.

“For someone that worked on cyborgs for so long, you don't know a lot about cyborgs.” Alyssa said, and I shook my head.

“It's not that... it's that I'm not...”

“Go ahead and say it.” Alyssa said.

“I'm... dammit, I am a cyborg.”

“There you go.” Alyssa said and the elevator opened on a very low floor. We had to walk down three hallways to get to her place. “You're one of us now, despite your lack of cohesiveness.”

“Wait, what?”

Alyssa chuckled. “You're still lopsided and walk funny, because you're favoring your normal leg.” She said and opened her apartment. “My home is my home, so don't touch anything.”

I snorted a laugh and stepped inside. There was a small work station that was a couch and a table, that I assumed folded down into a bed, mainly because I couldn't see one. There was a small bathroom off the living room, and that was it.

“Wow, I didn't think they still had cubicle apartments.” I said and Rusty barked his agreement as he ran into the apartment and hopped up onto the couch.

“They left them for the military's use.” Alyssa said. “They are small enough that they didn't need extra reinforcement for cyborgs with heavy mods, and big enough that you don't feel cramped.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked and held out my backpack. She pointed to a closet by the door and I put it in there. “With the two of us here, it's going to be pretty cramped.”

“I think you're confusing cramped with cozy.” Alyssa said and put my portable display on the workstation table.

“Cozy, huh?”

“If I hated your guts it would be cramped.” Alyssa said and smiled. “As it is, I don't mind looking at your not-unpleasant and slightly shocked face.”

That made me laugh and that broke the tension I hadn't realized had surrounded us. It was a little strange to be in this kind of situation with someone that was supposed to be keeping an eye on me and my activities, and yet I was now sharing her living space instead.

The irony of it in comparison to what my situation with Sandra had been like, was not lost on me.

“Do you mind if I do a bit of work?” I asked, and Alyssa shook her head. “Do you want to fold the bed down first?”

“We can do that after we eat.” Alyssa said. “You have about an hour.”

“Thanks.” I said and sat down on the couch, and moved over to leave her plenty of room to sit as well. I started up my portable display, then Rusty had to plug his tail into it so Amanda could enter the password for me. I pat Rusty to thank them both, and brought up the code for the first VR program Amanda and I had been in when I ran the old L.I.F.E. program.

I had been thinking about the things that I needed to change for a while now, copied the file into a new workspace, then started to alter the code to fit our much better technology. I worked for an unknown amount of time, and then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“What do you want for supper?” Alyssa asked me.

“Anything is fine.” I said. “If you're making it, that is.”

Alyssa laughed. “Did you see a kitchen when you came in?”

I opened my mouth to respond, then smiled. “Then order me up a burger and fries, cyborg special, and get anything you want.”

“Jack...”

“Or we can eat one of the discs I have in my backpack.” I said. “Which do you prefer?”

“The take-out places have been using the discs in their food, so it depends on if we want to spend more points for the same thing.”

“Spend it is.” I said. “You order and I'll pay.” I smiled. “It's the least I can do for letting me stay at your place.”

Alyssa nodded and placed the order. I paid and just lightly worked while we waited. I didn't want to get lost in the code and have to be reminded to eat again.