"Thank you. If you don't mind me asking, whom did this belong to?" She regarded him as he continued eating.
Noah didn't want to open that can of worms, but the more he looked at Vivian the more he felt that strong pull to tell her the absolute truth.
"It was my wife's." Noah took a drink of the processed liquid made on the moon.
The drink was thick and, to give it a more pleasant taste, the processing plant added a citrus flavor. It still couldn't rival water.
"Oh, so you're divorced?" Vivian shifted in her chair. The motion made her round breasts jiggle from side to side.
Noah felt himself get harder. "No. Um—" He wanted to tell her the story but he couldn't choke out the words.
"She died?"
That was the truth. Not the complete truth but good enough. Noah nodded.
Vivian dropped her fork and covered her mouth. "I'm so sorry."
"The couple in that picture is us." The confession lightened the weight that had been pressing down on his shoulders. He still felt a bit of heaviness, though.
"You two looked good together, very happy." Vivian managed to hold his hand before Noah could move away.
The connection offered him a sense of humanity after so many years. His body thawed the longer she held him.
"Thank you." He slipped his hand away from hers. It was bad enough he now had a hard-on that wouldn't subside no matter how many times he went over the Periodic Table in his head.
"Wouldn't you like to be happy again?" In a strange move, Vivian started to smooth her wet hair back from her face, but then she stopped.
The softness of brown cascading curls enticed Noah to want to plunge his fingers inside of it. When imagined that her pubic hair would be the same color, he grunted. As soon as Vivian shot him a puzzled look at the guttural sound, he coughed to cover the salacious response.
"Scientists aren't meant to be happy. We're supposed to be grouchy and nerdy and," he stared at her before choosing his final word, "lonely."
"For some reason, I don't think you fit the typical scientist mold." She finished off her first plate and scooped up more food.
What a turn-on: a woman with an appetite.
"Why do you say that?" Noah watched her.
"Despite what you said, I don't think any scientist would have helped me like you have."
"That was nothing. I just offered you a place to sleep until we can figure out what to do with you."
"And I don't remember any scientists looking as good as you." Vivian twirled her fork in her food.
"Are you flirting with me?" Not that Noah minded, but since he didn't really know her, he wanted to know her motivation.
Vivian blinked. "I don't think I am. Am I?"
Her naïveté came off as adorable on her.
"You're very precocious." Noah folded his arms.
"You would say that about a child. I'm not a child." She set her fork down. "I'm a woman."
Like she needed to tell him that. His entire body knew she was a woman. Ever since he saw her in that towel earlier, he couldn't stop thinking about her womanly curves and her full lips. Now he ached to see her face. What was she hiding?
She stood from her chair and sauntered to him. With each step, Noah's heart beat faster and faster.
"You have rice in your beard." With slow, deliberate motions, she plucked each piece of rice from his scraggly hair. During this entire operation, she kept her unoccupied hand on his shoulder.
With this close proximity, Vivian could probably see the tent in his pants. Noah leaned forward. When he did, he noticed her hard nipples through her dress.
He gripped the table to keep himself from grabbing her and kissing her luscious lips, such a foreign reaction for a man of science. He needed to control his emotions better.
Once Vivian was done with her extraction, she raked her fingers through his hair, removing strands from in front of his face. "There. Much better."
Noah swallowed hard. "If you're done, I'll clean up. It's only fair since you cleaned my entire place."
Vivian opened her mouth like she wanted to reject his offer when his communications console signaled an incoming call.
"Perfect timing. I guess I will get to clean up after dinner." Vivian lifted his plate.
Noah pushed himself back from the table. When he caught her gaze dropping to his lap, he jerked to his feet and turned his back on her.
"There's dessert in the freezer. Ice cream if you want." He went to his desk to answer the call.
The image on the screen caught his breath. Thank the gods Vivian removed the rice from his beard.
"Good evening, High Commander." Noah bowed his head.
It wasn't often that the actual High Commander called scientists. She could have had one of her people call him to relay her message. The stately woman with dark hair and a silver streak in the front wasted no time with words.
"You and your team meet in the communications room in thirty minutes."
"Yes, ma'am."
A puzzled expression covered the High Commander's face as she moved her head from one side to the other. "Dr. Wiit, you are in your own living quarters, right?" She looked down at her own console.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I've haven't seen your apartment look so neat and clean before."
Noah laughed. "I know what you mean, ma'am."
"Might be a good thing. You're going to need to pack and be ready to go soon. See you in thirty minutes."
The transmission ended without further explanation. Noah punched up his phone list. If the High Commander requested to see his whole team, he had little time to waste.
"I've got to make some calls," Noah said to Vivian as she moved around his kitchen like she'd done it a million times before.
"Okay."
"For your protection, stay out of camera range. I'm calling other scientists who have seen you before. They would ask why you're here in my apartment."
She strolled to him before he could make his first call. After standing next to him and leaning back against his desk, she asked, "Is it for my protection or yours?"
Noah crossed his arms over his chest. "Both. I could get in trouble for bringing you here. You could get in trouble if you aren't who you claim you are."
Vivian let out a long sigh. "You examined me. You saw the bones in my arm. You've talked to me. I've given you my full name. You can check on me. I haven't lied to you."
Noah wanted to believe that. A pang in his gut warned him to keep himself guarded even around this dangerous beauty.
"Would you like some ice cream?" Vivian stood from the desk.
Noah shook his head.
"Okay, then do you want to talk about that?" She pointed to his lap.
Although his erection had subsided a little, it left a sign of his arousal.
"You want to talk about it? Fine. It's been five years since I've been in close proximity with another female human other than my female counterparts. Yes, I do find you physically attractive; however, nothing will happen between us."
Vivian nodded and took a couple of steps back.
Noah continued. "For you, I'm sure you're grateful for being rescued from a situation you should have never had to endure in the first place."
"What are you talking about?"
Noah pointed to her chest. When Vivian looked down, she must have seen her hardened nipples still jutting forward. She crossed her arms over her chest.
"How our bodies react is normal. To do anything further would be damaging and detrimental to us both."
"Why?" Vivian asked.
Noah wanted so much to kiss her. "Our reactions to each other are temporary and stem from situations from our pasts that have shaped us. The feeling is momentary and fleeting. Once you leave, I won't think about you and you won't think about me."
"You think?" The same two-word inquiry that brought out Al-Tomlyn's accent also accentuated the seductive timbre in Vivian's voice.
Just the sound of it awakened N
oah's cock again. He pulled himself close to his desk and pretended like he was about to make a call.
"I know. I apologize for my crude reaction to you. It's neither polite nor professional."
"But real." In a moved that shocked Noah, Vivian slithered her hand around Noah's chin to cup his cheek, then she kissed his other cheek through her hair. "If you need anything, I'll be in the kitchen." She sashayed away from him.
During her walk all Noah kept imagining was him fucking her in the kitchen on the countertops, against the refrigerator, and even on the floor. He had almost believed the bullshit he had spouted about their bodies' reactions. Too bad he wasn't sure if the excuse was true for him.
Thirty minutes later, Noah, the other scientists in his group as well as the guards all met in the communications room. Tension filled the air as everyone whispered to one another about what the High Commander wanted.
The huge screen in front of them flickered then populated the image of their High Commander. The guards all stood at attention. The scientists, including Noah, sat up straighter.
"Good evening, all." The High Commander's voice boomed through the room.
They all greeted her in unison.
"I've made a decision about the war, the sex cyborgs, and the fate of the moon. Another wave of Cerillion and Starkeen forces are heading toward us. The cyborgs we've been able to weed out to make soldiers have been working out wonderfully. However, we're spending too much time, energy, and resources destroying the other models. From now on, those models we find who are incapable of being transformed into fighting soldiers will be housed temporarily."
"Temporarily until what, High Commander?" Noah asked.
"Until the moon is obliterated."
The silence quickly was replaced by a panicked murmur.
"Obliterated? What do you mean?" Noah had to place his hands on top of the table to keep them from shaking so much.
"Once we weed out the warriors from the whores, you will all be shuttled back to either Earth or Mars. We'll leave the sexbots here. I've had my weapons team create a laser beam strong enough to destroy whole planets. The moon will be blown up. It's the easiest thing to do to ensure that our secrets stay that way."
Chapter Five
Noah couldn't breathe. He looked around the table to see the other scientists and guards were as confused and shocked as he was.
"With all due respect, High Commander—"
The High Commander stopped Noah by slamming her hands on her desk. "Get on with it, Doctor."
"Yes, ma'am. Destroying the moon seems detrimental to our cause. We have the Earth, Mars, and the moon with resources and fighting forces on all. For that reason, we're able to attack from any of those places to cover ourselves. Destroying one will make us more vulnerable and also get rid of an important resource to house humans. Earth is dying. Mars is not completely habitable yet. The moon is the best alternative."
"Thank you for your opinion, Dr. Wiit. I'm sure your colleagues are happy that you expressed an opinion that they, too, might have had. However, I've watched the tapes on all of the interview sessions." She scanned the group. "I see Dr. Luc is not in attendance. Any word on his condition?"
With everything going on with Vivian, Noah hadn't even checked on his colleague. He assumed Al-Tomlyn was still in the infirmary nursing his wounds from the attack.
A medical doctor at the end of the table stood before addressing the High Commander. "I was the one who checked out Dr. Luc, ma'am. He sustained a couple of fractured ribs, a concussion, a broken nose, a broken jaw and several cuts and bruises. With some accelerator, his surface wounds should heal in a couple of days. His bones should heal in a couple of weeks."
Noah released a sigh of relief.
"As I was saying before, I've watched the tapes. It concerns me how easily these cyborgs are willing to give up our secrets. It also concerns me about this chameleon that I've heard so much about. Has he or she been captured?"
"Not to our knowledge, ma'am," one guard said after stepping forward.
"That worries me." The High Commander interlaced her fingers and set her hands on her desk.
"Ma'am, if this chameleon is out there, it could be anywhere. Dr. Urlean's lab was on Mars. He or she could still be there. It could have gone to Earth. Are we going to destroy every planet or satellite until it's caught?"
"No."
Noah relaxed his shoulders.
"Just the moon," the High Commander said. "In one week, you will all need to be off. Doctors, do what you can to make Dr. Luc comfortable enough to travel. Your new planetary assignments will be issued to you by tomorrow. Gather your essential belongings before you leave."
The transmission ended as abruptly as it started.
"What the hell? She's destroying the moon?" one of the guards said in astonishment.
"This is like the old Sodom and Gomorrah story, huh?" another guard said as they filed out of the room.
"I wish Dr. Luc was here. Had he made that speech about saving the planet instead of Dr. Weak, maybe the High Commander would have taken notice." A few of the guards chuckled as the exited the room.
Noah knew people had called him names and talked about him. To hear the insults in person felt like a punch in his gut.
He couldn't blame anyone for not respecting him anymore. He'd definitely dug his own grave in that respect by sleeping through important meetings, or missing the meetings altogether, and by his disheveled appearance. Who knew another person's death would be so detrimental to his own life?
Now Noah had bigger problems on his hands. How the hell was he going to get Vivian off of the moon without proper documentation? Why did he bother getting himself involved? He should have just chalked her up as a fighting cyborg. That way she could have at least lived. And she was a fighter. But as a human, she couldn't have passed the extreme heat and cold tests she would have had to endure.
As he walked back to his apartment, he ran through scenarios of what to do with her. He could try to send her back to Earth now with some money to help her get set up. Or he could send her to Mars where employment working in the various mines was abundant. She could work and make her life there. Or the last scenario, the one he kept pushing out of his head. She could come with him.
Aside from her inquisitive nature, Noah enjoyed her company. They laughed at the same jokes. She held her own in conversations.
But, she wasn't some doll that he could play with. Vivian was a human being. He had to sit her down and ask her what it was that she wanted. Then they could go from there. With only a week, he didn't have a lot of time.
Noah opened the door to his apartment. A few things surprised him. First of all, the kitchen was spotless. Vivian had cleaned and put everything away. Second, the apartment had very few lights on, just one overhead light in the kitchen and the light next to his bed. And the last thing that made him blink was seeing Vivian sleeping on the couch.
After he had insisted to her that she take his bed, she still took the couch. She lay nestled under a blanket, using a pillow from his bed under her head.
Noah stood over her body. He wanted so much to take her to his bed. That was the deal. He bent over to lift her. When he scooped under her legs and shoulders, she immediately moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Vivian nuzzled her face into the side of his neck. When Noah felt something like her lips kissing touching his skin, he let her go and stumbled backwards. As though what she'd done was a part of a dream, Vivian curled under the blankets and turned over onto her side so that her back was to him.
The morning. He would go over all of this with her in the morning. Right now, even Noah needed to get some sleep and, most importantly, create some much needed space between him and Vivian.
After grabbing his pajama pants and T-shirt, Noah ducked into the bathroom. He brushed his teeth. When a glob of toothpaste fell onto the counter, instead of leaving it, Noah cleaned removed it, aware of the time and effort it took Vivian to clean this
room.
He kept that same awareness when he changed. Instead of leaving his dirty clothes in a pile on the floor, he carried them to the hamper next to his washer.
Before going to bed, Noah found his lab coat and searched through the pocket until he found what he was looking for, his Kicker.
Instead of administering the drug in the open, he disappeared into the bathroom again, closing the door behind himself in case Vivian woke up and walked in on him. Noah placed the stick next to his neck as he faced the mirror. He turned his gaze down, staring instead at the faucet when he shot the drug twice into his bloodstream.
The euphoric feeling from the drug hit him at once. His head felt light. He stared at his hands—they and everything around them looked blurry. He smiled as though joke after joke after joke were being said in his head yet he couldn't laugh.
Noah dropped the stick on the counter, unable to grasp anything in his hand anymore. Then he stumbled out of the room to his bed. He managed to collapse face first onto it.
Sleep would come easy. That was the one good side effect of the drug. And with each administration of the drug, Mona would be wiped clean from his memory.
Unfortunately, just as slumber fell on him easy, so did the dreams. Lately, he only dreamed one dream, the same images over and over again.
As clear as if his eyes were open, Noah watched Mona teaching a classroom full of students. He could see every child's face, their gazes full of wonder and happiness.
As usual, Mona looked like a goddess. Her long, curly hair was pulled back into a bun. As the government had dictated, she wore a regulation teaching jumpsuit—a black, unflattering ensemble that Noah couldn't wait to rip off of her when she came home from work every night.
In this dream, Noah walked into her classroom. Mona smiled at him and continued teaching as he made his way to the back and took a seat.
In the middle of her lesson, a screeching noise sounded outside. Noah yelled for Mona and the children to run but no one moved. They all remained in their seats, covering their ears. Some of the children cried. Mona did her best to calm them by asking for silence and keeping her voice even, at least that was how he had imagined it if he was there with her when this happened.
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