by Peter Clines
“As you know, I handpicked this entire team,” he continued. “I wanted your particular expertise on these things.”
With that, every other man in the room nodded approvingly at Victoria.
“Now, Ms. Chattham.” Broderick grabbed the projection screen’s remote, switching the view to his own tablet. “If you would kindly refresh us on your notes regarding bionic appendages and then give me feedback on how I applied it to our team project, that would move things along.”
“Of course, Mr. Broderick.” For the next hour and a half, Victoria jumped between excitement about her research, and terror regarding what other knowledge about her Broderick was hiding and how he would use it against her.
#
“Another long day?” Bill placed a steaming cup of chamomile in front of his wife after she checked on the two sleeping boys.
She nodded, taking the warm cup with a murmured “thank you” while trying to gauge her husband’s mood and pain level.
He rubbed her shoulders. “A good day though?” He was testing her too. She couldn’t blame him. She’d come home a right bitch more often than not lately.
“Mmmnn.” Was it a good day? With one statement, her boss had elevated her from wait staff to new Chief Mechanical Engineer. It had been her work that was impressive. Then again, the tone of his voice, the baiting look in his eye whenever she looked at her notes…
“‘Mmmmn’ isn’t very descriptive,” Bill teased, tipping her chair back a few inches so he could kiss her on the nose.
“Ee!” She squealed, gripping his arms. “Don’t do that!”
“Ow!”
Her chair banged back into place as he yanked his arms from her grip.
“Oh, God! I’m so sorry, Bill! I just…I don’t like tipping…it feels like…” She bit her lip, fighting her mind from flashing back to the accident that had taken her arm—and nearly killed Bill.
“You don’t know your own strength.” He glared at her prosthetic arm. She stood, cradling it. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and leaned on the fridge. His lips silently counted, a trick their therapist taught him.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice felt tiny. Despite the brain injury that had screwed with his temper, Bill had never, ever raised a hand to her or the children. He’d lost it once, just once, and smashed the family computers. She knew in her heart he’d never hurt them. Hell, the therapy had been his idea!
He stopped counting but still took deep breaths. He was trying. Victoria put her left hand, her real one, on his chest, leaning her body on his and closing her eyes. After a few moments, he wrapped his arms around her. It felt good.
No need to worry him about what Broderick might know.
#
Broderick was building a robotic suit.
Victoria sat back in her chair upon reviewing the full project stats sent to her internal email. Until now, she had only seen pieces. She knew that Broderick World Enterprises was the world leader in robotics and that half the parts on the Medical Enterprises project were sourced from them, but she’d never, no pun intended, put the pieces together.
It seemed too ridiculous. Too much…well, too much like a particular comic book series kept in her dad’s pristine cardboard-backed sleeves. Victoria had been grounded, twice, for raiding his collection, but he’d eventually given in and started re-reading them with her when she was eleven. It had been her big Date with Daddy when she was thirteen to go see the movie.
Normal people, rich and über-smart as they may be—and Broderick was in the top tier of rich and über-smart—normal people did not try and build super human-robot fighting suits.
The specs didn’t actually include weapons, but they were incomplete. There were various partially created plans for flight that spanned rocket-fuel to electromagnetism. It was kind of scary.
It was also pretty damned exciting.
By lunch, Broderick managed to get his hands on enough supplies to let Victoria’s team of mechanical engineers start mock-ups for the joints. The team listened to her. It was past dinnertime, again, when they had done enough testing to get optimal measurements for the software designers. After a catered evening meeting with Broderick, they had a timeline to begin simulations within six weeks.
For the first time in almost two years, Victoria drove home with a smile.
#
“It’s okay, honey.” Victoria stood in a puddle of water amid the triangle of her red-faced husband, two tear-faced boys, and the still-trickling dishwasher, half-yanked from under the counter. “I can fix this. I can fix anything, remember?”
“I’m sorry, baby. I-I…” Bill cast a guilty glance to Mike and Petey. Neither of them had any injuries. Bill had a gash up his forearm that still seeped blood across a deeply purpling bruise.
“Shh… Sh-sh-sh.” Victoria looked between them, soothing. She took a tentative step toward her husband then put a hand on his arm. No warmth, so no infection. “Just wash this out with antibacterial soap, and I’ll take a look at it, okay, babe?”
He nodded. “Vic… I…” He glanced at the boys again. “I didn’t.”
She stood on her tip-toes and kissed his rough cheek. “I know, babe.”
Leaning his head on hers for a moment, Bill sighed.
“I’m gonna tuck in the boys. Just wash that out and have a seat, okay?” She kissed him once again before heading toward her sons.
When she returned to the kitchen, Bill was not resting in a chair but on his hands and knees, sweatpants soaked three quarters of the way up, mopping water and suds.
“I can get that—”
“You worked all day.” His arm swept across the floor with the zeal of one slaying enemies with a dishtowel.
Victoria knew better than to argue; she knew the lines by heart. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed a chamois from under the sink. “Mikey really likes the manga you got him. He’ll probably be exhausted tomorrow because he’ll read through this one tonight.”
Her husband sagged a little as she knelt beside him, and she almost melted from the gratitude in his eyes and the silent question of why she even put up with him. Picking up his towel and tossing it into the sink, where it landed with a sploosh, she edged closer and took his injured arm. Kissing his knuckles, she asked, “Can I see this now?”
Darkness touched his face again, though he relaxed his arm. “I know how to bandage a cut.”
“I know you do. Doesn’t stop that crazy mom instinct from wanting to check every little injury on my boys.” He had, in fact, done a good job of layering sterile pads up his arm and neatly taping each overlap. Being the stay-at-home parent to two boys since even before the accident meant that Bill knew his way around the medical shelf in the linen closet. Victoria lightly kissed the bandage. “See, you couldn’t do that yourself.”
He smiled again, blue eyes hinting the playful spark she loved from the moment she met him. “No, you’re right. That wouldn’t work if I did it.”
“All right, what I need is the area closest to the washer dry. Can you work on that while I get my toolbox and change real quick?”
He nodded. When she returned in her “dirty work” sweats and a so-worn-it-was-almost-see-through Batman T-shirt, heavy toolbox clutched in her prosthetic hand, cordless drill in her flesh hand, the area around the dishwasher was just about bone dry, and the rest of the kitchen floor had only sheens of leftover dampness. Bill grinned from the floor. “Good enough?”
“Perfect.”
Victoria removed the front panel so she could access the internal motor. She really didn’t need the tools or the drill. It wasn’t a plumbing problem; a quick glance below the sink when she had grabbed the chamois informed her the pipes and hoses were intact despite Bill’s hulkish moment. It wasn’t electrical either, thank God. Not that she couldn’t have fixed that just as easily—her talents actually seemed to have the most power over any current or charge issues—but that would be dangerous with all the water.
She felt her husband’s tense body behind her. Victoria tried to mask her own deep breath. “If we just can edge it back in, it’ll be fine,” she said. “Then just epoxy the crack for now. My job is going good, so we’ll be caught up on the bills, and we can start getting those renovations we planned.”
He didn’t say anything, but skinny as he was, he moved her out of the way with his body and muscled the washer back in place.
“We can just have the contractors start in the kitchen…” She continued her pep talk as if her husband wasn’t doing exactly what his physical therapist had told him not to. If she pointed it out, he’d only push harder.
Bill grunted, not meeting her eyes. The red on his too-pale cheeks and the tight lines around his eyes confessed more pain than she knew he wanted to let on. Trying not to limp, he grabbed the epoxy from the broom closet and sealed the crack with the same precision as he’d bandaged his arm.
They finished cleaning up together before retiring to just an hour of television before Victoria had to go to bed for her next early morning.
#
“Why is it that it seems only you can make the joints work correctly, Ms. Chattham?” Mason Broderick glanced between the armor on his arms and legs and the woman making minute adjustments.
Victoria pressed her lips into a tight smile, not missing the layer of acid concealed below his joking tone. “I’ve worked on joint mechanics longer than anyone else on the team, sir. And my day-to-day life kind of depends on it.”
“I see.”
Her stomach turned. She’d never planned on getting this close to her boss, but once he’d put on the armor, the joints seemed to have lost their fluidity. Proximity was only half of her discomfort. The mechanical team was stuck on this part when the prosthetics project lost its funding. Same problem. The joints only seemed to respond with proper sensitivity to Victoria.
She was basically puttering around Broderick at this point. In her mind, she was coaxing the machinery to respond to his body, pick up on nerve sensors they’d so carefully tuned to his physiology. There was some other signal she sensed wasn’t coming from the armor. She couldn’t pinpoint it, but not having encountered it in her prior projects, she dismissed it for the moment; she could investigate it later.
In a voice so low only she could hear, he said, “I never realized that just tightening and loosening the plating screws had so much effect.”
“Amazing, isn’t it.” She allowed herself a moment of pride at how neutral she kept her voice. “Try moving now.”
Mason Broderick proceeded through what looked like some martial arts kata. He didn’t move quite like she’d seen in generic movie montages, but when he was done, he nodded.
“Better. But I think we can fine tune it a bit more. There’s still a lag, and the hydraulics aren’t compensating enough for the weight difference.”
“It’s also lacking the torso, which will smooth things out.” Victoria folded her arms. Her phone vibrated for the fifth time that hour. Something must be wrong. Her lip twitched. Bill could just be fretting over something silly like one of the boys misplacing something. She wished her voice didn’t waver as she continued, “Weight has to be evenly distributed over the body. The arms and legs are designed to work with the strength enhancement of the torso to balance everything.”
Broderick nodded and glanced at her glowing, buzzing hip. “Makes sense. Do you need to get that, Ms. Chattham?”
“Yes, please, excuse me.” Ignoring her boss’ amused yet disapproving face, mirrored by the rest of his all-but-clones, she casually retreated to the upstairs women’s room and called her husband back.
“I rescheduled our session,” came his icy voice. “They couldn’t take us any earlier than four weeks out. If you think you can actually get out of work, of course.”
Joder. Their couple’s therapy had been today. She had missed one for the interview then missed another. This would be the third reschedule. “I’m sorry, baby. We started testing today, and I couldn’t get out—”
“Couldn’t even answer the phone for two hours?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“What if it was an emergency?”
“I programmed Krissy’s line into your phone for that. Under ‘Emergency.’”
“What if I forgot?”
The question hung in the air.
“It wasn’t though,” she finally said. “And I said I was sorry. I’ll be at the next meeting. I promise!”
“Yeah, whatever. Enjoy work.” The sarcasm in his voice cut.
Victoria heard the click as he slid his phone shut, hard, ending the call. Thank God she was gripping her phone in her flesh hand; her prosthetic one would have crushed the damned thing. With a conscious thought for each flexing muscle, like when she was learning to control the prosthetic, she moved her hand to her pocket and inserted the phone before she threw it across the bathroom and broke it.
#
Only the kitchen lights were on when Victoria pulled into the driveway. Swallowing bitter bile, Victoria ascended the side porch stairs, each feeling higher than normal, and came into the warm kitchen. She picked up the faint smell of chamomile flowers even before she saw Bill at the stove, hand clenched around the tea kettle handle, squinting at the laminated yellow sheet on which the boys had drawn a steaming kettle (different from the steaming coffee-cup-adorned sheet by the coffee pot) in the corner to help Daddy keep track of different recipes and kitchen tasks.
What was there to say?
After he set the kettle down, counting five checks that it was on the burner that he’d ignited, Bill leaned on the handle of the oven.
Laying her head on his back, she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry I missed our meeting today.”
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t push her away. When the kettle whistled, she let him pour into the two cups he’d prepared with tea bags. They sat in their usual seats at the table, kitty-corner from each other where each could face a kid or reach another kid.
“I miss you.” Bill’s comment shattered the tangible silence into slicing shards.
Victoria felt herself deflate. “It’s testing. You know how my schedule is for testing. It’s my job.”
“I don’t mean…” He stopped and scrunched his face. “Vic, is this what you want? This job I mean. Yes, the money’s good…but are you happy?”
With her eyes closed, Victoria could hear unasked questions though she couldn’t honestly say she wasn’t hearing her own fears. Is this job more important than our marriage? Than our family?
There was also what she hadn’t told Bill. She intended to, but every time she considered it, she was either afraid to ruin his good spirits or didn’t want to further stress him when he was already stressed or in pain. Broderick knew something about her arm. And her abilities. With his lawyers, if he went to claim her arm, claim every penny of their savings, their house…she didn’t know if she could stop him.
Was she happy? She loved the project, yes, but could she even quit now if she wasn’t? Would Broderick come after her for whatever secrets he thought she knew to make her arm—and his suit—work? Would he go after her family?
“I don’t want to leave my job,” she said. At least that was truth. “I’ll make things work. I won’t miss our next session… I’ll black it out on the calendar, set five different alarms on my phone, my email, everything. And I’ll find a way to start cutting hours.”
Bill stared at her for a long time. He had the most beautiful and intense blue eye
s, and they could cut like diamonds. She didn’t want to feel she had to hide pieces of her soul from his scrutiny.
She reached across the table and took his hand. “Baby, I just need you to trust me to fix things right now. Please? I need you to trust me.”
He snatched his hand back. “Do you know what that sounds like?”
She cocked her head, not understanding what he thought it sounded like. “Huh?” Then it dawned on her. Late nights, grouchiness, missing family meetings, secrets… Shit! “Oh, God, babe, no-no! I…wouldn’t even think!”
He snerked, clicking his cup down on the table and pressing his hand over his mouth, possibly holding in tea. After a swallow, he all but giggled. “Obviously not. I can’t remember the last time I ever saw you that confused.”
“Every guy I work with is an asshole!” was all she could sputter.
Bill raised his hands in surrender. “And you want to work there?”
“The project we’re working on… Broderick bought out Medical Endeavors.” She held up her right arm. “It’s based on what I did with this… It means something to me.”
“You never told me that.”
“Non-disclosure agreement… Like fifty pages long. I shouldn’t have even said this much.” She begged him with her eyes to understand.
Taking and releasing a deep breath, Bill nodded and sipped his tea.
#
Mason Broderick resembled a demon when he was not happy, but Victoria stared him down anyway.
“We are on schedule, and I cannot miss this appointment. I have had it marked on every calendar in this office for a month now.”
“And we’ve had our testing schedule for two months. You helped put it together.” His voice was a cold knife; he didn’t even look up from shuffling papers.
“Nowhere in that schedule does it state that we would work eighteen hour days, every day, for all of testing with absolutely no personal time no matter how far ahead we schedule it.” Victoria put her hands on her hips and glared harder, hoping to pry his eyes to hers through sheer will.
