Unknown - The_Growing_589064

“Well, when you told me about Tacoma’s ‘suicide bomber’, I had gone with the assumption that we were talking about an android carrying a bomb.”

“We’re not?” Maggie asks, a little shiver of apprehension skittering down her spine.

“It doesn’t look that way.”

“Then what are we talking about, if not an android with a bomb?”

“An android that is a bomb,” Dakota intones, continuing to gaze at Kirsten.

“Got it in one,” Kirsten replies soberly, lifting a piece of metal whose purpose is incomprehensible to both of her watchers. “I’ll need to gather up as much of this stuff as possible to be sure, but unless I miss my guess, we’re talking about an entirely new type of android here. One that I’m almost positive didn’t exist before the uprising.”

“Jesus,” Maggie breathes. “How certain are you about this?”

“Certain enough to make it an executive order that no one, including Tacoma and everyone else who was out here, speaks a word of this to anyone.”

Maggie nods. “Consider it done.” Rising to her feet, she dusts her hands off on the legs of her fatigues. “I’ve got a few tarps in the back of my Jeep. Let me bring ‘em over and we’ll start collecting the evidence.”

Dakota also rises and looks down at Kirsten a moment more. “I’m gonna check out some likely staging areas. This place reeks of an ambush.”

“It does,” Kirsten agrees, looking around. Darting a quick glance in Maggie’s direction, she gazes back up at Dakota, a sweet, shy smile curving her lips. “Be careful, ok?”

Koda tips her a wink and a megawatt grin that leaves Kirsten seeing stars. “You got it.”

Thankfully, Kirsten’s blush fades before Maggie returns, arms full of tarps and several sets of latex gloves. “You’re the expert, Doc,” she grins, laying her booty on the ground next to the smaller woman. “Let me know what you want me to do, and I’m there.”

Smiling her thanks, Kirsten pulls on the gloves, pats the ground next to her, and begins showing Maggie exactly what it is that she’s looking for. Within moments, both are heavily engrossed in their task.

*

It is several hours later and the sun is preparing to set as Kirsten gets to her feet and stretches legs gone numb as blocks of wood. Intense concentration and looking for miniscule android parts without benefit of her glasses has given her a headache strong enough to fell a charging moose. Stretching, she groans in mingled pleasure and pain as her vertebrae crackle and pop down the length of her spine, struggling to realign themselves against the ravages of inactivity and poor posture.

Nearby, Maggie stows the last of the gear in the jeep, taking care to tie it down securely, especially given the stiff evening breeze that has suddenly kicked up.

Kirsten looks down at the now denuded ground, then west, toward the setting sun. She watches the sky fill with color with a sense of almost pleasant melancholia. Her day has been long; her night promises to be longer still, but she feels…fulfilled. The task set before her is one that she is confident in her abilities to take on. Better than running line after line after byte after byte of fragmented code with no end in sight. Better still than playing titular head to the lost and the broken.

They had lost one today. An elderly woman who most in the camp adored. She had lost her entire family in one fell swoop, only managing to stay alive pinned beneath the body of the man she had shared her life and heart with for over fifty years. The children of the base had swarmed to her like bees to honey, and she seemed genuinely glad to fuss over them. In the end, though, the family she’d gained couldn’t replace the family she’d lost, and they’d found her this morning, an empty pill bottle at her side.

It had been the third suicide in as many weeks, and people—too many people—were looking to her for answers she didn’t have.

Here, though, is work she can do; answers she can give; a place where she feels most comfortable and, if she is to admit deep secrets to herself, worthy as well.

Her reverie is broken by the sudden appearance of Dakota, approaching from the direction of the setting sun. The breeze blows the thick ink of her hair back from her brow, and her eyes snap and glow with a color that seems to emanate from within rather than without. Her muscled arms swing freely, fully exposed by the sleeveless flannel which flutters and jumps against a simple black tank she wears beneath. Her jeans, ripped and faded, cling in all the right places as her long limbed, almost cocky stride, brings her rapidly closer.

Looking upon her, this beauty with the sun at her back gilding her body in pure gold, Kirsten is struck once again by her exquisiteness—wild, untamed, much like the woman who wields it so easily. Her eyes remain fastened to the vision as if glued there, and she feels a curious pulling, a heaviness and a fullness that can be nothing other than desire. And yet, desire seems too coy a word for what she’s experiencing. High, sharp, almost painful, it is at its roots—and she lets herself finally admit this—lust. Pure and unfettered and so very compelling that she actually—and this is a first for her—feels her joints become weak, and yet hot, as if she’s being filled with liquid fire. It makes her want to do things that, frankly, she’s never considered before, and those thoughts are equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.

“Well, that’s the last of it,” Maggie comments, coming to stand beside Kirsten and almost launching her into orbit unintentionally. She gives the younger woman a look as Kirsten gasps and holds a hand to her chest. “You ok?”

“Yeah, fine,” Kirsten hastens to reassure. “Just…um…thinking…about stuff.”

Taking in Kirsten’s high color, dilated pupils, and energy that seems to be rolling off of her in waves, she follows the direction of her heavy gaze, and smirks, suddenly having a pretty good idea exactly what “stuff” Kirsten is thinking about. “Mm. Hm. Gorgeous, isn’t she.”

Kirsten turns her head sharply, her face so full of naked emotion that Maggie instantly regrets teasing her. “Hey,” she says softly, laying a hand on Kirsten’s shoulder, “it’s alright. Really.”

“But—I—.”

“It’s okay. Promise.”

This eases Kirsten somewhat, and she nods, letting out a long breath of relief. “I’m not used to—feeling like this,” she confesses quietly.

“You’ll be fine. Trust me. I won’t say it gets easier with time, because we’re talking about Dakota here, and it would take a blind man not to see the sparks you two create just by being in the same vicinity, but I think you’ll be able to handle it just fine.”

“I hope so,” Kirsten breaths, girding her figurative loins as Koda gets within hearing distance. “I sure do hope so.”

“In and out from the west,” Koda declares, seeming to take no notice of Kirsten’s rather flustered state. “They were lying in wait just beyond that small ridge there, out of Tacoma’s line of sight.” The others follow the direction of her gesture with their eyes. “No way anyone could have seen them until it was too late.”

“A definite ambush, then,” Maggie grunts, hands on her hips.

“I’d say so. I could only track them down to the next road. Lost ‘em there.” Dakota sounds mildly disgusted with herself.

“But they were headed west,” Kirsten remarks.

“Yeah. Due west.” She looks at Kirsten, eyebrow raised.

“Just another piece of the puzzle,” is her answer. “I think we’ve done as much as we can here.” She looks to Maggie. “Do you think I can borrow a couple of your techs?”

“Borrow?” Maggie asks, grinning. “You can have ‘em with my compliments. The whole lot of them is so bored it’s driving me to the brink!”