She went to the door and was knocked back by a Starkeen guard, whose head-to-toe protective clothing looked like an oversized wetsuit. The mask that covered his face looked garish and made the children scream in horror.
The coward threw a gas bomb into the room and walked out. Within a millisecond, children fell out of their chairs onto the floor, all dead.
Noah got up from the back of the class and ran through the fallen little bodies. When he reached Mona, he cradled his wife in his arms. He begged for her to wake up, to tell him she loved him again, for all of this to be just a horrible dream. As always, as in every dream, she remained still and lifeless.
Some days, Noah wished he could have been with her, to die with her. What happened after that killed him on the inside.
"It was an emergency operation, Dr. Wiit," a Federation spokesperson had said. "We dressed our own guard as a Starkeen guard as a practice run to see what people would do if we were attacked. We hadn't intended to use live weaponry in the mock training."
Noah remembered holding himself together as the government apologized for their "lapse in judgment." Their lapse in judgment lost him his wife, caused parents to bury their young children, and killed his fighting spirit inside. How could he trust anything now?
In his dream, Noah screamed in the face of the Federation spokesperson who had offered Noah a job in exchange for his tragic loss. All of his perks were the government's way to absolve them of guilt. He continued screaming until he felt himself shaking.
Noah opened his eyes and saw a shadowy figure in front of him. With the hair and the soft hands holding his arms, he knew it had to be Mona. It had all been just a dream. She was back.
"Mona, I missed you so much." Noah pulled her down and kissed her so hard his body trembled.
He coasted his hand down her firm body. It was just as he remembered except her breast which, when he cupped it in his hand, felt bigger than before. She hummed against his lips as his hand moved down her body to her ass. Mona always had a great ass. This time, something seemed different. It was rounder than before. And since when did Mona wear clothes to bed? She always slept in the nude.
With all of these suspicious clues running around in his head, Noah finally felt hands pushing him back. He stopped kissing her and that's when the screaming started. He turned over and turned on the light next to his bed. When he turned back around to see who he had been kissing, he saw a very shocked and horrified Vivian.
"I'm not Mona! I'm not Mona!" she exclaimed.
Damn.
Chapter Six
Vivian hopped out of Noah's bed and ran to the door. Whether she had on a full ensemble or was completely naked, she was getting out of this place.
First Noah had woken her up by talking in his sleep. The only words Vivian could make out were "bomb" and "no." In these turbulent times, it wasn't unusual for people to dream of war. She just didn't know it hit Noah that hard.
When he started screaming, it worried Vivian. She jumped off the couch and tried comforting him. She thought it had worked when he stopped thrashing about. But then he kissed her.
Vivian's lips still vibrated. She could still feel the scratchiness of his beard against her face and chest. And his hands left a memorable impression on her body. He held her like prized possession, and not like an object. The feeling provoked too many questions. She had to run.
"Wait! Please, Vivian, wait!" Noah ran behind her and managed to slam the door closed when she opened it.
"I appreciate all that you've done. But I should go." Vivian tugged on the doorknob again.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to touch you like that. I thought you were—" Noah stopped, then slid down the door until he hit the floor. "But you're not. She's not coming back. She's never coming back."
Seeing Noah look so defeated, Vivian crouched down next to him. "Mona was your wife?"
Noah nodded. "She was a teacher. She taught second grade." He stared at Vivian for a second as though trying to decide what his next words should be. "During a government drill, they threw in a live gas bomb that killed her and all of her students."
Vivian's bottom jaw fell through the floor. Her heart broke for him and his pain. It was no wonder the man looked like he had given up. Any sane person would have been broken by now.
"After that, I got the job weeding out cyborgs." Noah bowed his head.
"And all of the other amenities, too, right?"
He glared at her. "Not enough."
"The government is trying to pay you off for your silence." She swallowed. "Should you have told me about what had happened with Mona and those children?"
Noah looked up at her. "No. Then again, you shouldn't be here with me, either."
"Maybe there's a reason we found each other." Vivian wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him hard enough so that he knew he wasn't alone in all of this. "The government took away my family, too."
Although slow to do so at first, Noah wrapped his arms around Vivian's body and pulled her to him. She smelled nothing like Mona. Mona had always carried an aroma of rare wild flowers, the kind that she and Noah had found during their one trip to the mountains. Vivian's scent was harder, like a natural musky aroma. Noah squeezed her tighter.
"I'm sorry I kissed you." Noah stroked the back of her head. "I just thought—"
"I know," Vivian said, cutting him off. "It's like your reaction theory you were talking about after dinner, right?"
"Something like that."
Vivian released her hold and sat back on her haunches.
"Vivian, we have a problem."
Her skin prickled.
"The High Commander is going to destroy the moon in a week. I need to figure a way to get you out of here, which is going to be hard since you don't have any paperwork proving you are who you say you are."
"What? Why would she do that?"
Noah explained the High Commander's theory, but none of it really made sense to her. All she knew was that in a few days, she had figure out a plan to survive.
"I can request my birth certificate from Earth."
Noah shook his head. "It would take at least a month to get to us from Earth; that is, if the High Commander hasn't already stopped all incoming shipments from Earth and Mars."
"This isn't fair. I did nothing wrong and I may get stuck here?" She felt tears stinging her eyes.
"You could be shipped out with the cyborg soldiers."
Vivian grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him to her. "Please don't lock me up with those cyborgs again!"
Noah held her wrists. "It would be okay. You would get shipped to Earth."
"And what about you? What if you don't get shipped to Earth, too? What if you're sent to Mars? Who's going to help me?"
Noah raked his fingers from both hands through his hair. "Shit."
It was the first time she'd heard the good doctor curse. His hopelessness spilled over onto her. Vivian wasn't feeling optimistic about her chances. A thought hit her.
"You have your wife's clothes. What about other personal items like jewelry?"
Noah rutted his eyebrows. "Yeah, sure. Why?"
"What about her identifications?"
Noah was quiet for a moment. So Vivian offered to fill in the blanks for him.
"All they want to see when we get through a checkpoint is an I.D. You saw that I have bones in my arm so I can pass the scan. If you have her I.D., I could get through a checkpoint with it. Once we get to where we need to go, I'll give it all back to you and I'll go on my way."
"So you want to be my wife?"
"Just your pretend wife to get out of here. What do you think?"
* * * *
What did Noah think? He thought that after dealing with the passing of his wife, that having a knockoff version pretending to be Mona would send him further into a psychotic tailspin. He thought that helping this one woman wouldn't have affected his life like this. He thought the option of staying on this forsaken rock and being blown away
was a mighty fine option.
"No, that's not going to work." Noah stood up from the floor.
"Why not? We won't go out in public if you don't want. I'll cook and clean here for you. When it's time to go, I'll keep my head down until we get through the proper points. Then we'll be home free."
Noah searched through his desk drawer. He found an envelope that contained all of Mona's identification. After dumping the contents, he sifted through and pulled up two items. He went back to Vivian, who remained on the floor by the door.
"Her license expired shortly after she died five years ago. You're going to need a current piece of identification to get through." Noah kneeled down and grabbed Vivian's hand. "You also don't have the same fingerprints that she had. Considering the office would have record of her prints, that would be another dead giveaway if you try and renew her license."
"Does she have an inter-galactic passport?"
Noah got quiet again.
"Aren't those good for ten years?"
Noah stared at her for a moment. His instincts hadn't failed him before. The day his wife had gone to work, he remembered telling her to stay home. Now he was getting that same tingling feeling. It had nothing to do with that mind-blowing kiss.
Even in his dreams, he knew he wasn't kissing Mona. There was a different type of passion in Vivian's kiss—a strength, an untamed heat. Noah balled his hand into a fist when he remembered where it had been, roaming her body, squeezing her succulent breast, and palming her soft ass.
No, having her as the next Mrs. Wiit, real or pretend, could not be in the plan.
"I just don't understand why I can't just appeal to get my identity back so that I can leave legally." Vivian crossed her arms over her chest in a defiant gesture.
"Let me make sure I understand you. You want to make an appeal to the same government that's going to blow up this hunk of rock in a few days to cleanse our population of useless cyborgs? Is that what you really want to do? You think the High Commander or anyone in her council will understand this huge error? If anything, they'll make sure you'll stay here on the moon when it's destroyed."
Hell, even a shot of Kicker wouldn't do him any good right now. Noah wrung his hands together.
"I thought you wanted to help me." Vivian stood up and moved in closer to Noah.
"I don't trust, um, the system." Noah wanted to say that he didn't trust her.
The fact of the matter was that he barely knew her. Now all of the sudden she wanted him to let her adopt his dead wife's identity. Noah didn't want to resurrect her only to put her to rest again.
Vivian grabbed Noah's hands and he let her. He didn't snatch them away or tell her to stop. He wanted to hear her argument.
"I'm desperate. I don't want to die. Please."
When Noah heard the fear in her voice, he stopped moving. "Just give me some time to think. I'll figure something out." He lost his wife because he didn't listen to his gut. He didn't want to lose Vivian while she was under his care.
Although Vivian loosened her grip on his hands, she still held them. She pulled him to the couch and sat down. Patting the space next to her, she invited him to sit with her.
After Noah accepted the invitation, she asked, "So what do you want to know about me?"
He rubbed his eyes and scrubbed his hands in his hair. "Nothing. Let's just go back to sleep." When he was about to get up, she put her hand on his leg.
"I have a feeling the more you know about me, the more you'll try to help me. So ask me anything."
Noah nodded and resumed his spot. "Okay. Let's say you're being attacked by a soldier. Would you—"
Vivian held up her hand. "Don't question me like I'm a cyborg. Talk to me. You're a man. I'm a woman. I want to be your friend. So let's talk like friends. How did you meet your wife?"
"I don't want to talk about her." The statement came off as a guarded one, but really Noah had lost most of his recollection about Mona. The drugs were working.
"Okay, tell me—"
Noah cut her off. "No, you tell me about yourself. Where did you grow up?"
Vivian thought for a while. "I don't remember."
The hairs stood on the back of Noah's neck. "Why wouldn't you remember something like that?"
"I was in a terrible accident not too long ago."
"What kind of accident?"
Vivian bowed her head. "I don't know. I'm sure I've must have asked my parents but I don't remember. Is that strange?"
Considering Noah was self-medicating to forget a lot more, he was a poor judge. "You can't help what you don't know."
"When I woke up for the first time after the accident, I was in a hospital. My parents never left my side. I don't remember anything from my childhood. I just know my life from the accident to now."
"So what were you like afterward?"
"Slow."
Noah blinked at her statement.
"I had a lot of recuperating to do. I had to learn to walk again, how to eat, how to dress myself, how to do basic functions. Once I was a hundred percent, I worked for my parents."
"What exactly did you do?" Noah imagined that she would take pictures of humans having sex with cyborgs or being a voyeur in someone's fantasy.
"I maintained the 'bots. I would make sure they were all cleaned and working properly. I kept the rooms cleaned. I made sure the books were all maintained."
"Sounds like you ran the business."
She shrugged. "I was okay with that. As long as I stayed busy, that kept people like Urlean off of me. I was never stationary for him to get to me."
Noah snickered. "So no serious boyfriend?"
Vivian shook her head. "I was always working. And the men who came to the house weren't the type of men I wanted as a partner."
"And what do you look for in a man, or partner? Are you a lesbian?" He wondered when she referred to her romantic coupling as a partnership.
"I don't think I have an interest in being with another woman. I like the way a man looks." She moved closer.
Noah remained in his spot. If he reacted, it may send the wrong message to her. "So what interests you in a man?"
She peered up as she thought about the attributes. "Sounds like you're interviewing me like I'm a cyborg."
"To be honest, you're answering like a cyborg." The hairs hadn't settled in the back of Noah's head since sitting on the couch with Vivian.
If her plan was to get him to trust her through this conversation, she missed her mark. If anything, it raised even more questions.
Vivian sat up straighter. "Sorry, I'll try to infuse some humanity in my answers." She curled her legs onto the couch underneath her backside. "What do I like in a man, a man I'm interested in romantically? Integrity. I like to know he has a good heart. Honesty. Generous. Oh, intelligent."
"What about physical characteristics?" Noah asked purely now for selfish reasons.
"Hmm," she peered down, then interlaced her fingers with his. "Big hands are nice. A nice, kissable mouth." She brought her head up. "Too bad I can't see what your lips look like under all of that mess."
Noah chuckled, but there was a method to his madness. The worse he looked, the more people stayed away from him. That was just the way he wanted it.
"You're one to talk. Your hair has been covering your face the entire time." He reached his hand up to move it back. "Why don't you—"
Vivian jerked her head back. "No. Please."
He nodded, understanding the need for a piece of security.
"Another thing I like in a man is his eyes." Broaching Noah's personal space, Vivian caressed his bearded cheek. "Those were the first things I noticed on you."
"Really?"
She nodded.
A twinge attacked his belly at her revelation. "While you were so afraid and screaming for your life when you were in the cell, you had time to notice my eyes?"
Vivian removed her hand from his face. "I noticed your compassion. I thought out of all of the people I saw there, you w
ould be the one who could help me." She stood up. "I'm not so sure now."
Vivian started to walk by Noah when he stopped her by holding her hand.
"Sit down." He didn't pull her back, but he continued to hold her hand. "Please."
"I know you don't trust me. I know this is all strange for you. It is for me, too. But please believe me that I'm not here to hurt you. I'm not going to steal from you. I'm not a spy and I'm not a cyborg. I'm a woman. I'm alone. And I'm scared. But if you don't want me here, I'll leave and I'll be okay. But please, just stop treating me like I'm your enemy."
Noah let out a long breath. "You're right. I'm the one who brought you here. You didn't ask to come here. So I shouldn't treat you like a prisoner. I apologize. Forgive me?"
Vivian nodded. "Yes."
"Good. Let's talk more about your—"
Before Noah could finish his statement, Vivian pressed her lips on his. He started to push her back at first, but quickly yielded to the grateful gesture, so much so that he slipped his tongue into her mouth.
The warmth of her mouth seared his tongue. He wanted so much to taste the rest of her body, slide his tongue over her breasts and down to her untouched vagina.
When she rubbed her hand against his erection, Noah bolted to his feet. "I think we should go back to bed, our own beds."
Vivian tilted her head. "Did I do something wrong? I thought you liked me."
"I do. I did. I mean, I still do."
"Why did you ask me so many questions about what I like in a man?"
"They're just questions." Noah paced behind the couch. "You shouldn't touch a man like that on the first day you meet him. Didn't your parents teach you—" He stopped short on that rant. "It's just that I have an early day. We can talk more in the morning and when I get back from work, okay?"
Vivian nodded then kept her head down. Noah couldn't put his finger on it but there was something off about her reactions to things. As much as he wanted to chalk it up to her significant memory loss, something still wasn't jiving.
"I'll take the sofa. You take the bed." Just as Vivian was about to object, he grabbed her shoulders, spun her around, and marched her over to his bed. "I won't hear another word about it. You sleep here. If you need me, I'll be on the couch. Good night."
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