Zero's Heart - Mina Carter Page 0,35
right there. I mean, yeah… the execution is a little shoddy. Servos and wiring are rudimentary at best, but the idea of it?” Her lips quirked as she looked at him again. “It’s nearly as impressive as you are, Toaster.”
He groaned. “What will it take for you to forget that stupid nickname?”
She grinned, twirling her spanner. “How about you help me fix up this little beauty for your girl? I’ll bet she won’t like seeing those holes in her.”
“No. She really will not.”
He stepped forward, eager to have something to do. For the next hour or so, he and Red crawled over the armored suit, mending panels and sorting out damaged wiring units. As always, he and Red worked in companionable silence. The comfortable rhythm soothed his soul.
Then Red sighed and dropped her wrench into her toolbox.
“Okay, big guy,” she said, arms resting lightly on her knees as she sat on a gantry next to the suit’s shoulders. “Out with it. What’s bugging you?”
He looked up to find her studying him with a gaze as unblinking as a snake and twice as dangerous. Since she actually did have scales some of the time, the analogy was unerringly accurate. With a sigh, he put down the welding gun and faced her. It was pointless trying to argue with her. She’d just keep going until she got the answers she wanted.
“It’s Eris,” he said bluntly. “She’s so delicate and beautiful. And I’m...”
He grimaced and waved a hand to indicate himself—from his crooked nose where it had been busted in a cage fight in some dingy bar he couldn’t remember the name of through his metal arm to the implants under his skin. “I’m more metal and circuitry than man. How could she want someone like me? I’m just a machine.”
The lack of self-confidence was new and totally unlike him, but he’d never met anyone like Eris before. Someone who made him think, made him feel... made him want to be better than he was.
From the moment he’d met her, he’d wanted her, and he just realized it was more than him wanting to get her into the sack. He wanted more from her than to get his hands on her gorgeous body. Although, he’d be lying if he tried to claim that wasn’t a consideration. He wanted her as a person. And he wanted her to like him. Maybe more...
“You listen to me, Zero.” Red’s voice was firm as she dropped off the gantry to stand in front of him. “I’ve known you since T’Raal pulled you half-dead out of that gods-damn wreckage. You are not just a machine. If you think that, I’ll happily go a couple of rounds in the ring with you and give you enough bruises to prove you’re a living, breathing, feeling being. Okay?”
She hooked her hand into the back of his neck, bringing his forehead down to rest against hers. “You’re no more a machine than I am a cold-blooded lizard.”
Then she sighed. “I’m not good with this emotional shit, but you are one of the best men I know. You’re sensitive and caring, and I love you like a brother. Which means I have no problems putting the beat-down on you if you keep talking crap like this. Okay?”
His lips quirked. “So your way of dealing with my existential crisis is to threaten to kick my ass? You do see the irony in that, right? Your way of showing familial love is an expression of violence.”
“Affectionate violence,” she corrected. “And I promise not to kill you.”
“Gee, thanks,” he muttered hoarsely past the lump in his throat.
“You’re welcome. Any of us would do the same. We’re Warborne, remember? Warborne first. Warborne always.”
“Warborne always.”
The instant Zero got the notification from Talent that he was releasing Eris from Medbay, he put down his tools and practically ran through the corridors to get her. Since the Sprite was a small ship, that mainly resulted in him bouncing off several walls and almost flattening Skinny coming the other way. Since the heavy-worlder was a unit and a half no one wanted to take on in a fight, that was saying something.
“Hey! Where’s the fire?” Skinny yelled as Zero passed him at a run.
“Sorrycan’tstopthanks!” Zero called over his shoulder, turning the corner and almost running right into Talent helping Eris walk through the medbay doors.
“Hey, beautiful! What are you doing on your feet?” he asked, scooping her up and glaring at Talent. The little human had just been severely injured, and