Chapter Fifteen

Vaun

After having slept in the truck nearly the whole way back, Vaun is unable to fall asleep. Being too bored and fidgety to stay in bed, he figures there’s a good chance some of the others might be awake as well. Too lazy to put any decent clothes back on, he only pulls on some socks and stuffs his head in through the top of his old wool poncho on his way out. It’s all he’s worn the last few times he’s gone down to the bar in the middle of the night to get a snack. No one has ever suspected he has nothing but undies on underneath.

While only wearing socks, he makes no noise while swiftly moving across the grate steel balcony. He abruptly stops when he hears something. It sounded like the soft ping of someone’s hand against the steel railing, but there’s no one around. He quickly looks over the edge, suspecting it’ll be Aaron, doing specifically what he was told not to. It’s not him though. At the last second, he sees the very end of Arma’s almost metallic amber hair flit out from behind the lower concrete wall under the balcony. Of course she’s be doing what she’s told not to.

He’s already wasted a few of his nights trying to stealthily follow her around in the middle of the night, to see what she’s been getting up to. It’s not easy constantly watching someone that never sleeps. At first, he thought she would surely be doing something nefarious, but she never seems to stop for any real amount of time to even do anything.

Same as with Aaron, she seems to just be wandering around like a sleepwalker or something. After mentioning it to Sy, they went over hours of security footage, to end up with nothing at all. It simply seems to be what they do instead of sleeping. Like a couple of sharks, they have to keep moving to stay alive or something like that. Strangely, in contrast to them, Five has no problem curling up in bed and reading all night, and that’s after twelve hours in front of a computer.

Apparently, Sy had already wasted many of his own nights, constantly watching them on the live monitoring system. He hardly took his eyes off of them for the first two weeks after they arrived. The only thing that’s still puzzling him and Sy, is that Arma is clearly sneaking about, all while specifically following Aaron around. They don’t know if she’s stalking him for practice, or to keep track of what he’s doing at night. Maybe she knows he’s dangerous and has been tasked by Valerie with keeping an eye on him in case he snaps.

None of it makes any sense. If anyone needed to be followed around, He’d think it would be her. As far as he or Sy can tell, Aaron has still never become aware of her presence yet. That’s what’s so impressive about her. He’d never be able to pull that off himself. He wonders if it’s why she’s always going barefoot.

He shrugs his shoulders and resumes walking around to the elevator. On his way up to the main level, he notices Aaron way down on the hanger floor too. Sure enough, Arma is following him again. He could’ve guessed. He’s always wondered what her reaction would be if he ever caught her, or maybe even somehow ghosted her. It’d be something to see.

When he gets to the bar, he surprisingly finds it to be empty. There’s almost always at least a couple people in there. It kind of ruins the mood. He sure as hell isn’t going to be drinking alone. The last thing he wants to do is head back to bed. Instead, he ransacks the cupboards for some snacks, finding a jar of mixed nuts, and a pack of ghost pepper jerky. With that and a six pack of double bock, he heads on up to Sy’s office to track Arma and Aaron on the surveillance system.

While he walks out of the lounge door and into the hall, he wrestles with the ridiculously tough plastic seal on the can of nuts. He has no idea that there’s anyone behind him until they scream “YAAAH!” His socks slide across the polished concrete and send him ass-up onto the floor. He holds onto the six pack for dear life and takes the brunt of the impact across his shoulder blades. Five, of all people is the one who got the jump on him. She is almost on the floor too, but with laughter.

“Nice undies jumpy cat!”

He rolls over like a turtle, and pulls his poncho back down over himself. “I almost broke my neck you crazy little shit!” He can’t believe he was just thinking she was the good one. She’s a little jerk.

Five’s hands are on her knees. “Oh that was hilarious! I wish I had that on video to show everyone!”

He’s a little short with her. “I promise you, no one would dare laugh.”

He can’t find it in himself to properly scorn her. She got him dead to rights, and all he can do is shuffle off in embarrassment. By the time he makes it to Sy’s office, his mood lightens up considerably. He admits to himself that it must’ve been pretty damn funny to see him hit the floor with his poncho up over his head like that. Even though she might not actually know any better, it’s really kind of encouraging to see that she has such a sense of humor.

As soon as he brings up the security feed over Sy’s desk, he grabs a beer and points it away from himself as he pops the top on it. Surely, Five would have liked to have laughed at him getting doused by foam too. Fed up with all the shenanigans, he takes the dagger out of Sy’s pen drawer, the one Arma left in the top of it, and takes his frustration out on the can of peanuts. Instead of slicing the seal, he cuts the whole top off of the jar and flings it at the door.

Like a lot of her nights, Five is back in the lab, parked in front of the computer in the scanning lab. It’s all she seems to do with her life anymore. She just sits there upright in her lab coat and scours over countless amounts of documents on the holograph. Only once in a while does she go over to a piece of equipment to examine it. After cycling through numerous other cameras throughout the compound, he finally locates Aaron down in the gym. He watches him put up a couple really heavy reps and then seemingly give up bothering with anything else. He’s having another one of those nights.

In an attempt to remind himself that he still needs to go back to bed at some point, he quickly finishes his first beer and pops open another. Annoyingly, he can never seem to be able to get both Arma and Aaron on the same camera. She’s obviously following him again, and like usual, he has no idea she’s there. To anyone else around, she never appears to be doing anything strange. She stands tall, calm, and observant, simply staying quiet and out of sight. Whenever Aaron starts looking wound up, like he is now, she’ll stand there with her arms folded, and head down, listening with her ear towards him. The way she leans against the wall and crosses her ankles seems so casual. By the look of it, he would think they were talking to one another around the corner, but the audio feed is picking up nothing but dead silence.

While slamming down another beer and casually cycling through more camera feeds, he notices that one of them is blacked out. When he goes back to it, he finds that it’s Sy’s quarters, and that it’s feed has been disabled manually from within the room. All it is, is a light switch on the wall for privacy, same in everyone’s room. What is not normal is that his is off. Sy always leaves his on, no matter what. It’s worrisome.

Sy’s apartment is the only one on the main floor, unlike all the others underground. He has a large decked-out suite all to himself on the second floor, wrapping around the front of the building over the lobby. His security feed being dark isn’t really a good reason to call him up this early in the morning, but he doesn’t like it. He considers going over there to take a look around.

As fast as he can, he rapidly cycles through all of the other cameras again, to make sure there’s nothing else out of the ordinary before leaving the office. They have a lot of enemies, and anything is possible in their line of work. After covering all of the feeds, he begins to feel like there’s someone else missing.

He’s already accounted for Five, Arma, and Aaron’s rooms being empty. The rest are of people who are on shift. When he suddenly realizes who it is that’s missing, all the hair on his body stands up. He calls Valerie’s com immediately. Her live feed pops up inside her purse, and she’s not going to answer it. Frantically, he double taps her feed to pinpoint her location. His eyes go wide and he claws at his buzzed head when her beacon pops up not fifty feet away, in Sy’s quarters.

With Aaron still down in the training center, he scrambles downstairs and starts sprinting towards the hall at the other end of the lobby. The second he darts past the front desk, the front door of the building slams shut. It’s Valeire, and she’s trashed. Clarice is there with her, trying to help her not fall down in her stupid tall heels. Luckily, her transponder wasn’t even on the second floor.

He looks up at the floor of Sy’s quarters and then back down to them with furious eyes. They were outside, out on the town without clearance, and without side arms too. Clarice should have known better than that. Even if it was only to pick her stupid sister up. Valerie is being loud, probably loud enough to wake Sy up. He wishes she would. She points at him as if he were a squirrel.

“Wow this isn’t awkward. Look Clarice, we’ve got the solar system’s most feared killer darting around here at night in socks and a blankie! Did you have a bad dweam?”

He could grab her by her hair right now, but even Clarice is looking at him funny. This night couldn’t have turned out any more stupid than it already has. The only thing that could possibly make it any worse would be having Sy charging downstairs naked, with his fifty caliber pistol. It has happened before. He need to get the girls the hell out of the lobby.

As much respect as he has for Clarice, his temper has no slack in it for either of them. He points down the hall to the elevator sternly. “Valerie, Clarice, you’ve got like ten seconds to get her ass downstairs before I drag it down there myself.”

The frightened look Clarice gives him almost makes him feel bad, but he is pissed. Valerie actually looks like she knows what kind of trouble she’s in and doesn’t mouth off this time. Aaron’s little vacation escapade is not going to work as an excuse for her this time. Down at the end of the hall, she almost turns to give him an earful, but Clarice keeps her moving. She curses him. “He’s not my fucking dad, and he…”

After taking a piss, he heads back up to the office to clean up his mess and close out of the security system. With one last look over the camera feeds, he sees that Clarice has dumped her sister off in Aaron’s room and gone to bed with Mikel. Valerie is passed out on the bed, face down, still wearing her silver cocktail dress and heels. Aaron and Arma are now nowhere to be found, but he’s not about to start looking. He’s learned his lesson twice tonight and is in no mood for a third one. Whatever they’re doing, he wants nothing to do with it.

He spitefully drinks another beer on the way down in the elevator, and then the last one while heading across the balcony to his own quarters. He tosses the crunched can over the edge and turns to his door. Before he can make it inside, someone down below tries to chuck it back at him. “Go to bed already, you bum!”

After a little more wandering around, Aaron finds himself back up on the balcony, heading towards his door. Halfway there, he stops out front of Five and Arma’s apartment, wondering if they’re up. When he’s down on himself, seeing them usually cheers him up. At one time, they looked up to him for all their answers, but now, it seems it’s the other way around. He grabs the handle of their door and leans his forehead against the door. He waits a moment, thinking he needs to get his shit together. Even though the time of day doesn’t really mean a damn thing to any of them, he still considers that it’s not a good hour to be knocking on their door.

The last thing he wants to be doing is straining their relationship by bringing his problems around. As he turns away to head to his own room, he finds Arma in her usual naked form right in front of him on the balcony, blocking his way. She’s leaning against the door jamb with an outstretched hand. When he looks up at her in surprise, she catches his eyes in hers.

“Need someone to talk to?”

He almost denies it, but she’s plainly caught him standing there at her door. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. Before he can come up with an excuse, she reaches all the way around him, and turns the door handle.

He can feel her body heat when she corrals him into the room. Just when he thinks she might grab ahold of him and do god knows what, she swiftly diverts her attention away. She crosses the small living room away from him, turns off half of the lights, and turns the volume up a little bit on the music that’s already faintly playing on the other side of the room. She simply leaves him standing there with a nervous look on his face while she heads into the back, where the bathroom and closet are.

The music she’s playing is relaxing. He recognizes some of it from what he used to listen to. When he looks around, he realizes it’s the first time he’s actually ever been in their apartment since the day they all moved in. There’s not much organization to anything, but yet it’s still quite tidy. He smiles when he recognizes the painting from his apartment over the headboard of what must be Five’s bed. After he had died, and the shit hit the fan, he never really recovered anything from his previous life. All he saved for himself was his old alarm clock and backpack. He finds it touching that the two of them had both taken things to remember him by.

He can see signs of their individual characteristics in the way they’ve laid their things out. Five’s bed is obviously the one that’s neatly made in a pinkish tan bed set with white linens underneath. The frame, and both night stands are matching walnut pieces. He can’t imagine where she could’ve gotten them. Her side of the room looks much like what a single woman’s might be like. She has a cute little sea shell night light plugged in next to her bed too. He thinks it’s adorable. She had told him once that she’s not a fan of the dark. It scared her when she spent her first night all alone in an alley.

Arma’s side of the room is in strong contrast to Five’s. Her furniture is much darker, glossy, and black-cherry in color. Her bed has a big fancily embroidered red and gold comforter on it, while her sheets are milk chocolate in color. She has a wide panorama landscape picture of a mossy forest over her bed, stretching across the entire width of the headboard. Next to each of their beds, on their night stands, are the knives he made for them. He is perplexed to see that they’re stuffed in very nice handmade leather sheathes. The impressive work looks like it must’ve been done by Marek.

While waiting for Arma to come back, he plops himself down on Arma’s couch. He assumes it’s hers because of how long it is, and that it’s kind of parked on the floor at a random angle to their TV. He looks over at their holograph projector with his head tilted over sideways, trying to imagine what crazy position she’s been watching it from. To be polite, he takes his boots off and lays flat on his back before closing his eyes for a second.

Expecting she can still hear him , even with a quiet voice, he talks to her from the main room. “What goes through your mind while you’re up at night Arma?”

His eyes snap open when he feels her weight lay down right on top of him. It’s quite dim in the room, but he can see the soft light reflecting off of her glossy smooth skin. Instead of being naked, he can see that she went and changed into a modest pair of white underwear and a sports bra. She staggers her legs with his and rests the side of her face down on his chest. Her arms gently wrap around under his back as she squeezes up on him, to get more comfortable. His body stiffens up a little, startled by her hold on him, but then relaxes when she eases up.

He looks down at her and sees that she already has her eyes closed. She takes a deep breath and exhales as she lets her weight settle down on him. He can’t believe she’s lying on top of him like this. It’s nice, and comforting, but god, if Valerie ever saw. It’s been a long time since he’s had any kind of bonding like this though. It feels like trust, and it’s nice.

Sounding as if she might be falling asleep, she softly answers him. “I think about us, and what the future will bring. Compared to you, I’ve only been around for, like, two years. It feels like so much has happened already. It makes me nervous about how different things might end up ten, or twenty years from now. I can’t imagine a hundred. I like what we have now.”

“When you say, us…”

“You know, you, me, Five. We’re the only ones that are really like one another right now. One day, we’ll probably be the only ones left. We’ll always be together won’t we?”

“Yeah, of course we will.”

“Oh… you mean, us.” She looks up at him with her big golden eyes and sets her chin in the middle of his chest. She’s been hoping to talk with him about her feelings for him, but she’s feeling almost too timid about it now. As hard as it is to face him with her feelings, she has to. They can’t keep leading each other on like they have been. It’s beginning to be cruel.

Absentmindedly, he lays his arms over top of her and starts to rub at her back. It’s as natural to her as it is to him. “I was thinking about that earlier today. I have a feeling I won’t be seeing any easy days for a long time, if ever again. It makes me feel really alone. No one will be able to follow me where things are headed.”

She forces herself to come right out with it. “What is someone supposed to do when they’re in love with someone they’re not supposed to be?”

“Man… I don’t know. It’s a really hard thing to deal with. I uh, suppose if a person never did anything about it, they’d either end up hating themselves, or hating the other person. Love can tear things apart just as well as it can bring them together.”

“Are we really that different from the others Aaron? You were one of them once. What’s it like now? Is it harder? Sometimes I feel like it’s got to be. Everyone else looks so content. I can’t even tell you what I feel half the time. I really trust you Aaron, but this...like you said, this is dangerous. I’m always holding so much back, but it’s crushing me.”

“Yeah, I’d say it’s harder. But it is not all bad. I always knew there’d be a heavy price to pay for not dying. I keep telling myself that things’ll get better. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if they don’t. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it back.”

She smiles a small understanding smile at him. “Yeah, exactly, like it’s going to come unleashed one way or another. I can handle ruining my own life, but I don’t want to hurt Valerie.”

His hands pause. “Hurt Valerie?”

“Oh…” She didn’t mean to let that last part slip. She drops her forehead into his chest. “It’s you Aaron. It’s always been you.”

He lets out a breath and tries to look down at her face, but she’s got it hidden. “I know.” When she quickly looks back up at him, he gives her a sympathetic smile. “Did you see me through the glass, that day you were running out front of my apartment? The day you were shot.”

“Yeah, I remember. Somehow, I knew I’d see you again.” Does that sound weird?”

When he looks into her eyes this time, it’s different. It’s like he has suddenly remembered her from a past long forgotten. She wants to grab him, hold him down, and mount him right where he is. She wishes she’d never have seen that shit on the internet, but it’s all she can think about.

Subtly, she slides her hands up along his back, inside of his shirt, feeling the muscle along his spine, and pulling herself against him. She shifts her weight so that her groin presses down onto his, feeling the sensation of it crawling up her spine. She presses the side of her face down on his chest again, taking in the feel of the thick soft depth of it.

The sound of her long exhale, as she settles down onto him, drives his desire through the roof in an instant. He felt it was presumptuous, or even piggish to think of her feelings for him like he has been, but now, they’re absolutely unmistakable. As much as he tries to gain control over himself, his body proves to be more human than he’d come to believe.

He can feel her pressing down on him more and more every bit as he involuntarily gets harder. He takes in a deep breath with the indulgence of it. Starting from high up on her back, where his hands are resting, he works his fingers down each side of her spine, spreading the muscles on each side. The farther he moves down, the more he pushes her down against himself.

When he reaches the crease between her glutes, she arches he back, pulling her chest up off of him. Completely giving in to his lead, she lays her forearms across his shoulders and drops her head back down. As much as he wants to unleash everything on her, he knows he can’t keep going like this, not right now. It wouldn’t be right. This is the kind of shit trashy people do. It is so hard to let go of her though. He can’t tell her, or even himself, no. It makes him feel weak and no-good to shut her down after letting himself give in like this. He tries to tell himself that they have time, and that they were built for each other. It’s not fair to her.

Arma squeezes her thighs together and soaks up the very last bit of pleasure she will allow herself this time around. She exhales a long breath out through her nose, and smiles at the thought of what ground she has gained with him. It’s pretty much a sealed deal now. She knows better than to take advantage of him now. Like he had fessed up to Five, It’s would not be fair.

Without looking at him, she deescalates their little session. “It looks like both of us have some things we need to get a handle on.”

He lets out a big relieved breath. “Yeah, I guess we do.” He pulls his hands away from her rear and squeezes her hips reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”

Abruptly, her more sensible mind crashes in on her. “But you have Valerie. I can’t do this Aaron. I can’t do that to the two of you.” She’s ashamed of herself, and of what she’s done.

“Hey, hey. It’s not… Don’t worry about it. Like I said, love is not all wonderful and gentle. Valerie already left me anyway, she just hasn’t told me to my face yet. I don’t think she’ll ever have the stomach to either.”

“Wha…” Her eyes are big, but skeptical.

His face changes to disappointment. “She thinks I’m her burden to carry. Like, her punishment or something. She thinks she’s getting what she deserves, as if it’s that goddamn bad.”

She can see the shame and hurt on his face. “You really were in love with her weren’t you?”

“Yeah, but like she said, I’m not that man anymore. She made me feel like a… fukin monster Arma.”

“She doesn’t think you actually came back does she?”

He sits up with her still in his lap, propping himself against the arm of the couch with his elbows. “I don’t know. I overheard her talking with Sy the other night. She was drunk. It wasn’t pretty. She basically said I’ll always be a monument of what she’s lost.”

She hugs his head to her chest and lays her face on top of his head. “I’m sorry Aaron.”

He cautiously wraps his arms around her. “It’s ok. I’ve come to terms with it. What happened to me changed me, and what happened to her changed her. Maybe we’re not the same nice caring people we used to be. Ending up here didn’t do any of us any favors either. I actually scare her Arma.”

“Well, I hope that’s not true Aaron. You should try and get her back. If it’s true, then fine, I’ll be here, but I’d never feel right doing this behind her back. God I’ve tried not to.”

He doesn’t tell Arma, but he knows it wouldn’t be right of him to ask Valerie to take him back, now that he’s a machine. No matter how much he tries to show her, or tell himself that he’s truly the same Aaron she loved, there’s only one reality. He’ll probably always love her, for what they once had, but it can never be the way it was. Valerie has seen him through a lot, but not like Arma has. The new terror of a man inside of him wants a woman he can lay with and slay with. First, he’ll have to make peace with Valerie and end it himself. He won’t burden her with the guilt of letting him go.

By the time Five walks into the apartment, the two of them are sitting next to each other on the couch, watching television. Luckily, they’re not anywhere close to being in the same position as earlier. He’s laying back on one end with his legs folded across half of the couch, and she’s on the other end, watching the holograph from upside down. She’s on her back, with her legs sprawled over the back of the couch, and her head is hanging upside down from the front. At the exact same time, they both say “hey Five!” She has a big smile on her face when she turns around after closing the door.

Arma has a grin on her face too, and is kicking her long slender feet back and forth a little behind the couch. “Whatcha been workin so hard on?”

She shakes her head, sighs, and then grins big too. “It’s been a heck of a day, but… I got Marko’s assistant robot talking to me today! It knows everything, like everything!”

Five pauses to look at the two of them for a second, before taking her lab coat off and hanging it on the rack by the door. “How has… your thing been going Arma?” The inflection of her voice is a little coy.

He detects a little bit of an insinuation in her tone. Like she’s alluding to something kept secret between the two of them. He quickly looks at Arma before she answers back

“You know, I think It’s gonna pan out.”

He catches her winking at Five. It makes him feel a little ashamed of himself. He wonders if Five has been aware of her desires for him this whole time. She’s probably even been encouraging her. He bets Arma is going to tell her that they’ve been fooling around too, as soon as he leaves.

By the way Five is avoiding eye contact with him, he’s pretty sure she already damn well knows. Luckily she spares him anymore embarrassment. The three of them spend the rest of the morning talking about the future and how Vaun told him that he’s getting his own special shuttle. They depict scenarios of their lives projecting all the way out beyond the lives of their friends, everyone else they know, how they’ll always have one another’s backs, and the inevitability that many others will eventually be joining them.

One thing is for sure. They will have to control how things play out. They will be the gatekeepers of their world. Only those they feel are worthy will be brought back. Five and Valerie have already begun working on finding a way to fund and secure everything they’ll ever need to keep themselves operational on their own.