“Mmm, it is a girl I think.”
Natasha crouched down briefly to scratch the cat behind his ears. “Really? Maybe you could find a boy cat and you could get some kittens.”
If Freya managed to breed the kitten when it was older she could retire on selling the kittens. There were so many people who wanted pets on University Hill. When they saw this little thing, though it was worse for wear living in the Wildlands, it was still cute.
Freya smiled a little smile at the kitten. When she looked up Natasha was watching her with a look in her eye. Before she could dismiss the look, Natasha asked, “Is everything okay?”
Freya shrugged and fussed with the kitten until her emotions were more settled. She looked up when the door opened. Rawiri came in and smiled at them. “Hey guys. Are you two ready to cook me some food, I’m starving?”
Natasha growled at him. He laughed and it was clear he meant it as a joke. The juxtaposition of his earlier mood made Freya frown at his words. He continued to banter with Natasha as they discussed plans for dinner while she watched.
It took her a long moment to realise the smile was not in his eyes. Her lips framed a small oh as she watched. His mood hadn’t changed at all. Instead, what he was showing her now was a façade.
Freya almost called him on it but thought of the times she had done the same. Her heart broke a little. You only hid like that when it was too painful to even see the look of pity in people’s eyes.
She glanced down at the kitten. Rawiri was more like that animal than she had realised. The kitten showed what she went through in the ribs showing and the mangy fur. Rawiri was just better at hiding. She glanced at Rawiri. What trauma was he hiding?
___
“You are a jerk.” Rawiri turned when he heard Natasha. She had an arm propped on her hip.
He sighed. “I know, but I didn’t think I was that obvious.”
Natasha shook her head. “She is a lovely girl and she is trying to be nice to you. You can at least be nice in return.”
He wrinkled his nose. “I thought that was what I was doing.”
She shook her head. “She wants honesty from you. Share a bit but don’t pretend that everything is alright.”
He wanted to groan. He didn’t want to admit to Natasha that he wasn’t strong enough to share what was really happening inside himself. “It isn’t and I’m not pretending.”
He winced as he knew he was lying. He ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, you are right. But sometimes it is easier to pretend that everything is alright than it is to show how weak I am.”
Her eyes softened. “You are not weak and showing your emotions is not weak.” She sighed. “I thought the same thing as you do, once, but I learned the hard way that you are actually stronger when you can embrace what you are feeling. Freya is good for you and if you really want what you two have to work, then you’re going to have to show her everything of yourself. The strong bits and the weak quivery bits.”
There was a tense silence and he eventually filled it with, “You’re right.”
That was all he was willing to concede. That didn’t mean he would actually share anything with Freya. She was too good for him, anyway. If he shared the dark bits that were inside of him, she would run and he knew that would hurt. He could just push her away and he would know that she hadn’t time to reject him.
Rawiri winced at his thoughts. He really was a coward.
___
Rawiri stopped Freya before they got into the truck. She frowned up at him and he sighed. He really was making a mess of everything.
He lightly touched her cheek. “This place makes me prickly. There is a lot of history here and it doesn’t sit well with me. I just don’t want you be offended if I snap. It isn’t about you.”
Her face softened. “Fine, Rawiri but don’t think you can take it out on me all the time.”
He let her go when she turned. Wincing, he really was a jerk. He wasn’t sure what she saw in him. It wouldn’t matter. Soon she would be safe and there would be no reason for her to be around him anymore. He could at least act civil while they were hiding out. When they returned to the city, he would get Jephry or Misha to watch over her.
___
Rawiri went still as landmarks passed and he knew they were coming towards his old home. Not that it had been much of a home when he had lived there.
Though there were things that were the same as the building they approached showed the years that had passed. It was still standing though some outbuildings had collapsed.
There were no vehicles outside and the place felt abandoned. It had been a long shot that his brother had been out here anyway.
Natasha said, “I think it has been abandoned for some time now. I only found it a month ago but it had that kind of empty feel. It was pretty wiped clean at that stage so I didn’t explore more.”
Rawiri asked, “Did you get into the basement?”
Natasha glanced at him. “Basement?”
Maybe they would find something after all. Natasha pulled up outside.
Natasha asked, “You want me to stick around? I have a job site just up the road and I thought I’d check on it while we are out here.”
Rawiri shook his head. What they were looking for would be here and he wasn’t sure if wanted any witnesses.
He glanced at Freya. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted her to see what they could hide in there.
Freya jumped out and he knew there would be no way to talk her out of it, anyway. He turned back to Natasha and shook his head. “Go to your work. We should be fine for a while. It doesn’t look like my brother is here.”
She shrugged and when he closed the door of the truck, she pulled away. Rawiri went to stand next to Freya.
She looked at the sprawling building. “Was it just you and your brother?”
She knew the answer as she already knew some of his secrets. She glanced at him when he didn’t answer.
He wrinkled his nose as he answered, “No, there was a group of us. Mostly kids really but we had been living rough for a while and taking what we needed. We were no angels.”
Freya shrugged. “What else can people expect when you leave a group out in the cold like this? I always thought Whatinga was too stringent on its immigration laws.”
Rawiri shook his head. “I wouldn’t want a bunch of ex-raiders living in the city either. We weren’t innocent, Freya.”
She gave him a look. “That is debatable.”
Before he could comment, she moved towards the house. The ground floor was almost completely stripped even the built-in cupboards were mostly gone.
He imagined they had been used for heating at one stage. Though the thought of burning wood bothered him. He had been living in Whatinga for too long.
Dust covered the floor but where the trapdoor was there were footprints. Someone had been coming and going from here for a while and recently as well.
Rawiri’s heart skipped.
Was his brother there now? He motioned for Freya to step back though he doubted his brother had any weapons that could hurt her with her atramento.
He pulled the hatch back and he knew already that his brother wasn’t there. There was a stillness to the room below that told him he was already too late.
Turning on the lights, there was still electricity so it couldn’t have been too long ago that his brother was here. He was surprised that Natasha hadn’t found the solar panels when she had checked out the area. They were a little further away from the house and they needed to be tended often.
Freya gasped behind him and he turned. She moved quickly. Checking things over. The room looked very different from the food storage room that it had been in his day. There were long tables and gadgets and glass beakers.
Rawiri asked as he picked up a random glass tube. “You know what this place is?”
She nodded and she flicked through some papers. “This is an Ambrosia lab. Here he has results. It was quite meticulous. I can see that intelli
gence obviously runs in your family.”
He snorted. “You don’t think he had a lab tech working for him?”
She shook her head. “A one-man operation, I’d say. From what I can tell from the notes and the equipment that is here.”
She must have found something in the notes as she quickly dropped them and moved further into the room. Opening a fridge, she pulled something out.
It was a metal box. He came up next to her. “What is it?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. He only calls it the samples.”
She shifted the box to another table to better look at it under the light. A click sounded in the silence.
Rawiri didn’t think, he knew.
He grabbed Freya around the waist and ran for the door. His speed felt like a fizzle over his skin as he moved. Bubbles of air boiled on the tips of the hair that grew on his arms as he ran.
He was at the stairs when he felt the air rush past him into the lab.
He was at the front door when it rushed out again and heat seared his back. They were thrown through the door and outside. He rolled to put out the flames on his back as bits of building spat out of the hole that once held a structure.
Rawiri crouched and turned to look at Freya. She had the box of samples cradled against her chest. She must have kept hold of it when he had grabbed her.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head and tried to move. She let out a breathless yelp and ran her hand over her lower back. She swore and squeezed her eyes shut. He scrambled over to her. “What is it?”
“Fried, I think. Have a look at the bioware on my back. That blast must have an EMP booster on it.”
She rolled over and he lifted the back of her shirt. There was a metal spider like thing on her lower back. It was blackened and he touched it gingerly.
It was warm to the touch. “It’s fried.”
She swore again and reached for him. He obliged by scooping her up into his arms and getting to his feet. They would need to get away from the fire in case something inside blew up.
Natasha would see the smoke and be returning soon, anyway.
Rawiri asked, “What did the Bioware do?”
She looped her arms around his neck as she answered. “Well, it made me walk. I’m paralysed without it.”
He was stunned by this revelation and merely said, “Oh.”
He had never realised this could hide under her clothes.
He had dozens of questions but asked the one that really mattered, “Why didn’t you tell me, Freya?”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t important.”
He frowned at the nonchalant comment. “Like hell, it isn’t important. If Portland knew then he could have taken you out in the city. A quick frequency jammer and you would be on the floor.”
She frowned at him. “It doesn’t matter because he doesn’t know and he never will.”
His voice rose. “He could. He is on the Council; he will have access to records. He could bribe your Bioware doctor and find the exact frequency. You were vulnerable. You should have told me.”
She glared at him. “Listen carefully. Rawiri there is no way he knew.”
He growled. “How can you be so sure? There are always records.”
She gave a smile that was more a smirk than anything else. “Not of this operation. You see, Hal did it for me. Years ago. She was working off the books then as they were bringing in the new regulations about Bioware. There were still dozens that had defected from the big governments and were working but in those days, you didn’t have to be a doctor to be a Bioware engineer. Most worked in a kind of apprenticeship.”
Her eyes were warm with the memory though he couldn’t believe she would have any fond memories of being paralysed.
“That was what Hal did. She worked with this brilliant doctor who then moved to New Haven. No one really believed that Hal was a brilliant Bioware engineer so they ignored her, mostly. She worked mostly off the books. The only people that know I am paralysed are my parents, Professor Nasser and Hal. No one else.”
He went silent as he thought on this. It was only when they saw the dust plume from Natasha’s truck that he spoke again.
“I’m sorry I overreacted. I just hate thinking about you being in pain like that.”
She leant up and kissed his cheek. “The funny thing is when you are paralysed pain isn’t the issue.”
He rolled his eyes at her tone. Standing he placed the box they had found in her hands before he picked her up again. “Maybe we should head back to the city. We won’t find anything out here, I think.”
She nodded. “Besides, I’ll need Hal to fix this. Do you think he knew it was going to be you when he set that bomb?”
His voice was hollow as he answered, “Yes, and I don’t think he cared. He probably thinks I abandoned him.”
Her eyes showed her pain for him. “You didn’t, you were just trying to save yourself.”
He settled Freya against his body and started towards the smudge of buildings in the distance and the dust plume on the road.
After a long silence Freya said, “I’m not very good at words. I like concrete things. I mean things that are either black or white. Emotions and things well they are confusing and difficult.”
He didn’t answer as he wasn’t sure what she was about. After a short hesitation she said, “I just want to say that if I said something to you that hurt your feelings then I am sorry.”
Pain pierced his chest. The last thing he wanted her to feel was she had hurt him. He glanced down at her. “Words seem easy to me most of the time but when it comes to this, I think you are right.”
She glanced away but not before he saw the pain in her eyes. She murmured “Words seem to hurt.”
He rushed. “Sometimes it is better to just sing and pretend the world is perfect than it is to drag up all that dark emotion that is inside of us. You just dug a bit deep is all. It isn’t a bad thing, just painful.”
She gave him a wry look and he smiled. “You better than anyone knows that sometimes to heal the hurt you have to hurt a little more. You don’t have to worry about your words, Freya, as no matter what you say the only thing you ever want for me is to be better.”
She rested her head against his chest. “If I was capable, I would kiss you right now.”
He shifted her weight and leant down to brush his lips over hers. “I wish you were better as well.”
She settled down against him and his arms tightened a little and he hoped she understood. He concentrated more on his walking. He liked having her so close to him. Her warmth moving from her body to his.
When they finally arrived at Natasha’s truck and he had to put her down to open the door, he found he was oddly reluctant. He knew then he was in trouble. He might not put a name to what he was feeling but he knew Freya was someone that would hold a very significant part of his life from then on. That meant he would have to find some way that she didn’t run away when she knew everything.
Chapter Nine
Edge: April 2088
“What happened to you guys?” Natasha asked.
Freya answered before he could gather his wits. “We were blown up.”
Natasha looked over his shoulder at the smoldering hole that had been the building and said blandly, “I see.”
Rawiri was less concerned with the devastation than he was with the injuries sustained. “Freya is injured. We need to get her back to your place quickly.”
Natasha looked closer at Freya. “You alright?” concern flavored her voice.
Freya sighed. “I’m alright. This is an old injury that was aggravated.”
“Aggravated!” Rawiri almost yelled.
How could she take this so lightly? She was paralysed.
Freya tightened her arms around his neck. “When I was a child, I was in an accident. My spine was severed and I was paralysed. Getting injured out here isn’t ideal but I’ll be fine. Hal was the one that did the original B
ioware.”
Natasha’s eyes warmed and he wanted to yell at her as well for not taking this as seriously as he was. But he kept it to himself. He knew he was overreacting to the situation.
Freya was a doctor if there really was anything to worry about, she would be aware of it and he doubted she would be so calm.
Actually, thinking that calmed him down. Freya wasn’t able to hide her nerves at the best of time. If she was really worried about her injury, then she would have been showing it. He looked down at her briefly.
When he looked up again, he said to Natasha, “Just get us back.”
Natasha quirked an eyebrow. “On the double.”
___
Hal frowned as she looked through the screen.
Her voice was a little distant as she was still focused on the injury. “Yeah, I think you are right. Completely fried. Rawiri tilt the screen a bit more.” She motioned with a flick of her wrists to show what she meant by tilting.
She made some sounds as he moved the screen so she could see the burnt-out chip at the back of Freya’s spine.
Rawiri kept his emotion off his face. He didn’t want anyone to know he was worried.
Freya turned her head so she could look at the screen. She had turned away so Hal could see more of her back.
“So, what can we do out here?” Freya asked.
Hal sucked air through her teeth and winced. “Well, with it so fried we will need to replace it. And working on the fly would be alright for a run-of-the-mill Bioware chip but this is one of my specials. It has so many components to it that to synthesize it in Edge would be impossible. Did you guys find what you were looking for out there? Maybe it is time for you guys to head back to the city. You can stay here if you are worried about Portland trying to get hold of you again.”
Freya rattled on about what they had found in the lab but Rawiri was distracted. He placed a hand on Freya’s lower back. He knew she couldn’t feel it. His fingers traced the small chip. It had burned the edges of her skin in a black star. It was puffy and he knew when it was fixed, she would feel the pain then.
Natasha had brought him a salve and he put that on. She might not feel the pain now but they needed to get the swelling down if they were going to put in another chip. He had heard enough of the conversation between Hal and Freya to know that it was a very complicated operation that would be needed to literally get her back on her feet. His hand tightened on the jar of salve and he took a few calming breaths. It had been so close. If it wasn’t for the atramento they would be as fried and crispy as the chip was.
Hidden Hero Page 7
