Cyber Witch

Chapter 16 - For Avia

[Zach]

"Pacing won't help," Flint mumbled, while laying on a bunk with arms folded across his chest. His irritated eyes traced my back-and-forth walk.

The guest quarters had become our prison. I tried the hatch again — still locked, of course. Hours before, we woke up here, sore and unceremoniously laid face-down on the deck. Since my com-viewer was missing, I didn't know how much time had passed, but it felt like forever.

"We need to do something to help Avia," I finally said, as if Flint didn't know.

"Agreed," Flint replied. "But even if we get out of here, those androids would intercept us." Flint tapped his ear then pointed upward, reminding me of the listening devices in this room, and that we needed to not reveal too much.

"Right," I spat, sitting down on another bunk and placing my head in hands. The helplessness hung sour in my gut.

Flint swung his legs over the bunk edge, sitting up. "Do you love Avia?"

My eyes snapped up, the unexpected question from a hardened ex-marine surprising me. But Flint's steel-blue eyes were sympathetic, showing no signs of judgement.

"Yeah," I answered, looking down again.

"She loves you, too. Told me as much."

"It's hard to just sit here." I shuddered as a flurry of dark emotions swept through my mind — burning rage that Damon violated her; icy dread that I might have lost her forever; bitter self-loathing that I could not protect her; sickening despair that I could do nothing now.

Flint's eyes glanced down to his leg, then back up again. "I understand. Kicking Damon's arse would make me feel better," he said. Reaching down, he rolled up a pant leg, revealing his dark-gray plas-steel artificial leg. A certain touch sequence opened a hidden compartment, and he extracted a rod-shaped plasma cutter tool. "But sometimes, there is nothing you can do. Know what I mean?"

My eyes widened, but I continued the verbal ruse for the listening devices. "I suppose so."

"When the time is right, we will see Avia again."

My eyes met Flint's, and in his, blue fire burned. He had not given up — far from it. When the time is right, he had said. So, we wait for the right opportunity.

But waiting was hard. How long? Each moment worrying for Avia was agony. With the plasma cutter, we might escape the cabin, but what then? Damon would see us coming, and there were almost a hundred armed androids at his command to stop us.

"I'm worried about Avia," I said.

Flint lifted sympathetic eyes. "I'm worried, too."

We waited in tense silence. I laid back on the bed, fingers interlaced behind my head, and stared at the upper bunk above me. Avia was the most resourceful person I had ever met. I learned that chasing her, frustratingly so at first, then gratefully so after we teamed up.

Given the circumstances, what could she have done? She had created an anti-bot code of some sort. Would she have executed that? But that Flint and I were still locked up implied it didn't work, or she never got the chance.

Or Avia had been harmed... My gut twisted at the thought. No! That was not acceptable, so I cast the notion away.

"Hang in there, Avia," I mumbled to the universe.

Letting out a long, frustrated breath, I turned onto my side. But something hard poked into my right hip. I rarely put anything in my upper side pockets because of this, choosing instead the cargo-style leg pockets. Sitting up, I dug into my right pocket.