Doc actually blushed at her generous accolades. Rys would have confidently gambled a month’s pay, five minutes ago, that blushing was a medical impossibility for his staid doctor.
“Well, I admit it was initially developed as much from desperation as inspiration. In fact, all the upgrades to it have occurred pretty much the same way. I was just trying to keep our soldiers alive, intact, and functioning at peak performance. Their field requirements have really kept me hopping, you can’t baby a piece of hardware when your life, and lives of your team is on the line.”
Rys looked at her out of the side of his left eye. Amazing! She just wrapped him around her little finger in less than five seconds. He was going to have to study her technique; it could have some practical applications on covert missions!
Wait. Perhaps I shouldn’t be amazed by this phenomenon; she managed the same thing with me, after all.
“Well, Rys, sit down in that chair and let me have a look at what you’ve left me this time.”
Rys blinked. Doc usually proceeded to lecture him for a good ten minutes, as a preamble, before taking a look at anything. Was he going easy on him because of Anne? Bringing her along was proving to be an excellent strategy. Whatever the case, he wasn’t about to question his good fortune. Rys promptly took the chair he was pointed to and automatically tilted his head at the proper angle, so that Doc could have easier access.
Doc produced a digital magnifying scope from his coat pocket, and spent several minutes examining Rys’s damaged eye in painstaking detail. He made those characteristic impromptu grunts now and again that always got on Rys’s nerves. “Yep, you definitely busted this one up good. The only use this pitiful pile of slag will have in the future will be for salvaged parts for your next catastrophe.”
Rys was afraid that might be the case, and gave a small embarrassed grin. “Yes, sir. Is my new implant standing by, and ready to be switched out? I think we can eclipse our old record, if it is on line and positioned for immediate insertion!”
“Well, your luck is holding, I do have one ready. However the new eye has some upgrades, which will require a little more time to connect and align. Cheer up; maybe we can go for the title next time!”
Upgrades were usually the rule; Doc couldn’t help but tinker with his masterpiece. He always had a new vision of perfection, somewhere just around the next corner. Rys groaned, as his day just got significantly longer.
“Rys don’t give me that. They’re good, solid, useful upgrades. You’ll like them, I promise!”
“I probably will,” Rys agreed with a resigned sigh. “But it usually takes me a few days to get used to them, along with a couple of bottles of meds for my headaches.” While he was trying to get accustomed to all the new features, he would inadvertently activate unfamiliar functions. It was annoying to be taking a shower, and then suddenly zoom in on the bottle of shampoo for no apparent reason.
“Is it difficult adjusting to upgrades?” Anne asked showing obvious concern, thinking about what could happen.
“No, just inconvenient and irritating,” he assured her. “I sometimes activate the different features without meaning to, and then I have to scramble to figure out what I did, and undo the command.”
She frowned. “Maybe you need to take a few days off from school, until you’ve mastered it.”
“I probably need to do that anyway,” he observed. “Otherwise I’m going to have to come up with an explanation for an eye that is injured one day, and fine the next.”
“Good point,” she concurred. “Doctor Barnes, how long do you think this will take?”
“Oh, about a half-hour I expect.” Doc finally broke eye contact with the wreckage in front of him, and glanced away from Rys to answer her. “The connection ports seem to be intact; it’s just the eye itself that was damaged. I think I can just retrieve this one from its socket and drop the new one back in. If things don’t mesh up as seamlessly as I project, it will take considerably longer of course.”
She nodded in understanding. “Do you need me to step outside, or may I stay and watch?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave,” Doc replied in an apologetic tone. “The technology behind all of this is still considered sensitive information, and on a need to know basis only.”
Rys cleared his throat. “Actually, she can stay if she would like to.”
Doc gave him a sharp look. “And why is that?”
“She’s Vice-Minister Dorian’s daughter, Doc. She has a Secret Clearance—she has to, in order to be able to share quarters with her father.” Rys had double checked that detail on the ride over here, just to be safe. His cranial chip had pulled the information up easily from the ‘net, without a problem. Hacking into her file had taken a little more time, but he hadn’t been hanging around Gremlin for two years without acquiring a few useful tricks.
Anne stared at him incredulously. “And how would you know that?”
“I read your file.” He gave a very blasé shrug of the shoulders, as if it was standard operating procedure.
She snapped her mouth closed, still looking decidedly perturbed. He was sure he hadn’t heard the last word on that particular subject. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me? I can see that I shouldn’t put anything past you, ever. Rest assured that I will be more watchful in the future.”
“Excellent intuition,” Doc nodded firmly, with a sarcastic tone in his voice. “Nothing is sacred to these Special Forces guys. Classifying anything is like painting a targeting on it — they take it as a challenge instead of a deterrent. I can just about guarantee you that if they want something, they will find a way to get it.”
This amused Rys no end. “Now, Doc, we don’t hack into every folder that’s labeled classified, just the interesting ones! We do have a limited amount of time in our schedules you know.”
Doc shot him a look that clearly said I don’t believe you. “Well, Miss Dorian, since you seem to have sufficient clearance, you may stay if you wish. Perhaps he won’t squirm so much if you keep him entertained.”
“I don’t squirm,” Rys objected indignantly.
“Fidget, then.”
“Doc, I have only moved once on you, and that was when you did the initial surgical installation. Haven’t I proven myself to be a cooperative and trustworthy patient since then?”
Doc ignored him completely, unwilling to concede the point. “I’m counting on you, Anne.”
She gave a solemn nod, as if the fate of the galaxy rested on her shoulders. “I’ll do my best.”
Rys gave up. They were obviously enjoying themselves, and had formed a spontaneous tag team to outmaneuver him. He might as well let them play; it was plain there was nothing he could do that would deter them. “Doc, where would you like to do this?”
“Lay on the bed there. Anne, if you stand on the left side near the head of the bed, you’ll be safely out of my way,” he instructed cheerfully. “I’ll go fetch my numerous instruments of torture and be right with you.” He favored them with his most evil grin and headed off on his errand.
Rys lay down on the bed, trying to get as comfortable as possible. He was going to be in that position for a while. Anne took up her assigned post on the left side of the bed, standing so that she was easily within his line of sight.
“Just when did you read my file?” she asked seriously, firing the first volley of the engagement.
“Today,” he admitted openly, with nothing to hide. “I didn’t even know that you were the Vice-Minister’s daughter until Sara told me. I just hadn’t made that connection. Considering everything that was going on, I thought it was prudent to run a check and make sure you had clearance. That way I would be able to answer your questions truthfully.” When she frowned he added uncertainly, “Should I have asked for your permission first?”
“I would have felt less invaded if you had,” she finally admitted, after a long pause. “I understand why you had to check, and I do appreciate the forethought, so you could legally talk to
me about your situation. Next time you have a question that concerns me, would you discuss it with me first?”
He mentally flinched. Ouch, he’d muffed that operation! “Sorry. I promise I will do that next time.”
A smile tugged at her mouth. “Are you so sure there will be a next time?”
“In my experience, there is always a next time.”
Doc was tunelessly whistling as he came back in, both hands carrying a tray filled with an impressive assortment of tools, wiring, and one eyeball sitting in a sterilized container. “Rys, I need a reminder. What was the color code for your eye again?”
“636,” Rys replied promptly, without missing a beat. Seeing Anne’s confusion, he explained, “Doc has numbered every possible shade, tone, and hue of color for the human eye. That way it’s easier for him, once he has determined the color of their natural eye, should a duplicate become necessary. My individual shade of grey is number 636.”
“What a great idea,” Anne noted to Doc. “It must save a lot of time and guess work. I probably would have just tried to match the color every time.”
Doc lapped up her praise like a starving dog. His chest puffed out like a peacock with an extra fancy fan of feathers. “Thank you, Anne. It’s nice to have someone around here appreciate my genius.”
Rys rolled his good eye, in a silent appeal to the heavens for strength. “Doc, if we appreciated your genius any more than we already do, your head would be so overinflated, you would have to work in a tent because you couldn’t get through a door.”
Doc glared at him. “Just for that crack, considering what I am currently doing, I am cycling your eye over to basic red.”
Rys was pretty sure he was kidding, but you never knew with Doc. He could play a masterful game of poker, and never break a sweat. “Forgive me, great master, your humble servant spoke with undue haste and lack of forethought,” he intoned with false humility.
“Do you think I’m that easy to placate, boy?”
Alright, time to switch to Plan B. “I will buy you a steak dinner, to redeem my soul.”
“You are forgiven,” Doc replied magnanimously, with a wave of his hand.
Rys managed to maintain a straight face, but his cheeks were aching from the effort. Anne was howling with laughter, which wasn’t helping his control any. “Thank you, great master. You are most generous, as always.”
Doc, grinning at his victory, bent over and started removing the broken eye. Rys was more focused on Anne, than a procedure he had already endured three times before. If anything about him was going to rattle her, this was probably going to be the deal breaker.
He watched every nuance in her face, but she didn’t appear to be unnerved in the least. In fact, she seemed fascinated by the whole process, and was engrossed in Doc’s every movement. Doc, for his part, was keeping up a running commentary on what he was doing for her benefit.
It was not the reaction he was anticipating. “This really doesn’t weird you out?” he asked her, a little taken back.
“No, it’s amazing and interesting,” she assured him. “Are you sure you don’t feel anything? It looks like it has the potential to be painful.”
“Absolutely nothing,” he confirmed. He found the presence of her hand on his arm far more distracting. Pleasantly distracting, but distracting nonetheless. “What does it look like?” He’d never been able to watch from a mirror or a monitor while Doc was working on him, and was curious about what she was seeing.
“It’s surreal,” she admitted. Her eyes were firmly fixed on the right socket. “It’s like there’s a metallic sleeve situated inside your orbital cavity, instead of the normal tissue you’d expect to see.”
“Huh.” Not the most intelligent response, but the only one he could come up with at the moment.
“I made this oculus stronger and more durable than the others,” Doc noted idly as he picked it up and gave it an admiring glance. “I’m tired of replacing this thing every couple of months. I have enough real work to do, I don’t need to practice my speed drills.”
Rys wasn’t about to touch that statement. Not with a ten foot pole and fire proof gloves.
“I never noticed it before,” Anne leaned forward a little, her head tilting to the right to get a better look under the lights, “but there’s a fine scar there, at the edge of your face. Did that happen when you lost the eye?”
“Lost the eye?” Doc snorted under his breath. “My dear young lady, he just about lost the right side of his skull. We had to fit all the pieces back together, before we even started to worry about his eye.”
Anne went white, her face instantly draining of all color as she stared at Rys in horror.
“Doc,” Rys hissed in a clear reprimand.
Doc stopped in mid-motion, eye in one hand and suction insertion rod in the other. “You didn’t tell her the story?”
“Negative,” he replied in a short decisive manner, praying Doc would just drop it.
“All he said was that he didn’t duck quickly enough,” Anne whispered hoarsely, hoping the doctor was in the mood to share.
Doc studied her through narrowed eyes for a moment, like he was actually seeing her for the first time. “I guess I can understand why he didn’t tell you more. I’m sorry, Anne, I wasn’t considering my words very carefully. Of course it would be disturbing for you to realize how close we came to losing your friend entirely. I must have tapioca for brains, I apologize.”
“Doc, you can stop now,” Rys gritted the words out between clenched teeth. Anne was gripping his arm so tightly that his circulation felt like it was being inhibited by a tourniquet. She looked like she was close to tears, too, which was very disturbing for him. He hated to think of any woman crying because of him, especially her. “Anne, take deep breaths. This was three years ago, remember? It is just water over the spill gates.”
Anne sucked in a shuddering breath, and then another. “Sorry. I should have realized…of course, if something damaged your eye…”
The more she thought about it, the more unsettled she was becoming. Rys had to shift her mind off that track and onto another, quickly. “You know this city pretty well, don’t you?”
She blinked, taking in the question like he was speaking a foreign language. “Yes, pretty well. Why?”
“I’m just wondering if there was a good steak restaurant in the area. Maybe one with a respectable salad bar as well? Doc is part rabbit, he adores vegetables.”
Doc chuckled low in his throat. “You have no room to talk, Rys. You eat fruit like you are afraid that it might be a passing fad!”
Successfully diverted, Anne’s steel grip loosened on his arm. “There’s a really good one about three blocks over,” she offered after a moment. “As I recall their salad bar is fairly decent as well. Doc, would you be able to come with us after you finish with Rys’s eye?”
“I actually stayed late today just for him,” Doc answered absently as he leaned in closer to Rys’s face, seating the eye carefully inside. “I am technically off duty right now. Rys, stop blinking, you are driving me to drink!”
“How can you expect me to control an involuntary reflex?”
“You’re a soldier, you’re supposed to obey all of the orders you’re given,” Doc retorted. “Make it happen, Mister! Ah, there’s what I need!”
“Do you want me to turn it on now?” Rys asked hopefully.
“No, stand by one. Let me run a quick systems check to make sure that everything is connected right.”
There was a soft knock at the door.
“Anne, would you get that, please? My hands are a little full right now.” Doc requested, concentrating on the task at hand.
Anne let go of Rys and opened the door, revealing a somber Sara and Jeremy. “Oh, hello,” Anne greeted them in a relieved tone of voice. “You’re just in time. The eye is in and the doctor is just doing a final check before they activate it.”
They both visibly relaxed at that welcome news, coming in and shutting the
door behind them. “There weren’t any complications?” Jeremy asked with his eyes focused on his new son.
“Not a one, sir,” Rys assured him cheerfully. “Doc, can I try it now?”
“Rys, I’ll tell you when you can actually turn the eye on, all right? I am not screwing in a light bulb here you know! Anne, I really need him occupied, he keeps pulling me off task. At this rate I am going to starve to death.”
Anne rolled her eyes and went back to Rys, picking up his hand in hers. Rys really enjoyed when she held his hand like that. What was it about human contact that was so soothing?
“Rys, surely you know better than to distract the doctor when he’s operating on you? If you aren’t careful, you could end up cross-eyed!”
“But he never tells me anything,” Rys complained. “How can I be involved, when I don’t have any intel?”
“You don’t give me a chance to tell you anything before you start assaulting me with questions!” Doc retorted with considerable asperity.
Anne chuckled. “Rys, if you keep badgering the man like this, you’re going to owe him more than just one steak dinner.”
“There, done,” Doc pronounced, stepping back from the bed with satisfaction. “Now you can activate it.”
Rys turned his new eye on and blinked, looking around.
“How is it?” Sara asked anxiously.
“Better, I think.” Rys started cycling through the standard functions. “Infrared works fine, the zoom is…wow! Doc, what’s the range on this thing?”
“About three miles,” Doc answered proudly. “Neat, isn’t it?”
“Very nice!” Rys beamed, feeling like a giddy kid with too many new high tech toys. He didn’t know what to play with first.
“Three miles?” Anne repeated incredulously. “What was it before?”
“Two,” Jeremy answered. The only sign of surprise on his part was a simple quirk of the brow.
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