Between a Bear and a Hard Place(69)

“Exactly.”

“You’re a weird son of a bitch.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

In a burst of speed that rivalled anything she’d ever witnessed, her companion seemed to blink out of existence and then reappear immediately beside the surprised meatball. “Sorry,” he said, before extending some sort of rod from the wrist of his left arm, and thrusting it upward, through the creature’s neck.

Immediately, it slumped to the ground with a squeaking sound, then a hiss, and finally a wet burble. Eighty-Three walked over the bubbling corpse unceremoniously, approached Rogue and ran his scanner up and down the body, which had somehow begun to straighten out.

“Unbelievable,” he said, awe marking his electronic voice. “Un-fucking-believable.”

“Trying out swears to sound more human?” Claire asked.

“Yes, did it work?”

“Try contractions, you damn weirdo,” Fury grunted as he pushed past both of them and knelt beside the fallen comrade he’d met only briefly, but liked all the same. “But first come over here and give him a shot of your laughing gas. Don’t matter how fast we heal, this shit is gonna hurt.”





-21-


“Glad you could make it.”


-Rogue


“Why am I tying you up?” Claire was confused, but doing what she’d been asked to do. It had been a week since the unlikely group had found Rogue and come together, and he was only just then starting to regain consciousness. Jill and Draven were still missing, but before any reasonable search for them, they needed to lick their wounds.

“Because,” Eighty-Three said, “that bear will not trust me. If I appear weak and helpless, as though he is in command of the situation, then he will be more comfortable. Here, use this.” The black clad figure produced a thin chain from a hidden pouch on his side.

She shook her head, laughing under her breath as she looped a chain around the rubber neck covering. “Does this hurt? And where did this thing come from?”

“We have many pockets. And does what hurt?”

“No, your whole get up. I mean, do you feel pain? Do you remember anything about what you were before?”

He cocked his head to the side and for a flash of an instant Claire thought she caught a glimpse of an iris through the black goggle lens. “I try not to,” he said plainly. “I hurt because I cannot remember. My life is a hole and I am unsure why I am the only one who seems to have come to any kind of understanding.”

“All those soldiers, and you’re the only one who thinks?”

He shrugged. “Not think,” he reminded her. “I’m the only one who wonders.”

She stared at him, mouth wide open.

“What?” he asked. “Are you finished?”

Claire cinched the last chain into place. “A contraction,” she said. “You used one.” A smile crossed her lips, and a hum – a happy sounding one – slipped between the respirator slats on Eighty-Three’s gasmask.

*

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around an escaped robot with a gasmask strapped to its face turning out to be on our side.”

“Not... a robot,” Eighty-Three said. “I have feelings too, you know.”

Claire was just staring at the two bears on either side of the tied-up... thing. “Then what are you?” Fury asked, with his trademarked eyebrow arch. “And why is that thing strapped on your face?”

Rogue grabbed the side of the mask and pulled. When he did, the hiss of a can of freshly opened tennis balls came out from around the rubber, and a strange, musty odor followed.

Eighty-Three made a panicked shrieking noise. “No!” he hissed. “You don’t... can’t breathe.” The bear released the mask, which somehow sealed itself back onto the blue-gray flesh that lay underneath. After a short coughing fit, the creature sighed in relief.

“Why are you things always so curious?” it asked, the question followed by the now-familiar static-laden hum.

“Why do you sound like a broken radio?” Rogue asked. Claire had to stifle her laugh, but that was what she’d been wondering too, since they first encountered the legion of faceless soldiers months back.

The black, goggle covered eyes flicked. Insects and Eighty-Three had a lot in common, apparently, because those thick, glass-covered eyes had at least two lids that closed in either direction. “And what about the deal with your eyes?” she added, unable to keep from feeding her curiosity.

Eighty-Three took a deep breath, which hummed. “When I broke radio, they stopped being able to trace me. I effectively left the network. But it also, apparently, caused me to not be able to turn off the noise, which I certainly do not like very much.”