Turncoat: Turncoat Trilogy Book 1

Chapter 13.1

The next day, we pulled into the station early, early enough I could get into work and cancel my extra leave without much fuss. Except from Vicki, who insisted I keep weight off my injured leg and take the extra leave time to recover. Carly kept an onslaught of questions about Nick's father and his condition and what happened and why I was favoring my leg.

With a sigh, I answered everything I could, telling her about the train accident and Nick's father who passed away the day before we arrived. She launched into condolences as I looked to Allen for help. He managed to quiet Carly only for Felix to offer his condolences which got Carly started once more.

Sometimes I wish I had bionic ears so I could turn them off.

Things were normal for a week or so, no dead head's came to chat with me or anyone else. Our banter returned to normal with bribes and jabs flying back and forth while we worked. Someone managed to take down a Reaper Drone, the armed drones were armed to the teeth with machine guns and various other offensive tools. Bullet holes riddled the armor and the interior motherboards were destroyed. I salvaged what I could, which wasn't much. All of the armor needed replacing, most of the internal circuitry, even the one rifle had become dented and jammed because of the damage sustained. That project consumed most of my week, keeping me late some days as I worked to finish the part I started that day.

As the week wore on, I would stay late to work on the repairs to the reaper drone and then go back to Nick's flat which turned out to be where the cell was housed, only to have to spend most of the night fixing their various pieces of equipment. The week began to drag, and drag. I almost feel asleep welding a piece of armor onto the frame of the drone, earning myself a burn on my wrist and bruise on my head.

The night I went home and busied myself in the pillow of the bed I had been provided. Sleeping through the night for the first time since the train raid and subsequent execution of prisoners. The next day at work, Carly was trying to talk me into coming out for drinks with her after work again.

"Come on, please, Tawny!" she whined. "I'll buy you any drink you want, I promise."

"I'm sorry, my boyfriend really needs the moral support right now," I said.

"He can come with us! Who are those people at your station?"

Four dead heads stood at my station, one of which was examining the reaper drone which I had nearly finished fixing. He reached for something on the 'bot. If he so much as scratched the armor or ruined one of the mother boards I required, I would murder him on the spot.

"Hey! Don't touch that!" I shouted storming up. I grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away. "What are you doing here? Get out of my station!"

One of the other dead heads began fiddling with the schematics for the reaper drone. I closed down my computer with a quick hand motion.

"I said get out!" I shouted. Several people were staring at me, obvious as to why, nobody spoke up against the dead heads.

"Sergeant Jameson, you would do well to remember who you are speaking to," Captain Becker said walking up.

"So, sorry, Captain, I didn't realize these men were here to ransack my station under your order. If I did, I would have forced them out much more physically. I am very busy and this 'bot has taken me almost a week to repair."

I guess I get a tad bit bitchy when I am tired. The full nights rest didn't do much to infringe on sleep deprivation's hold on my mind. With my bionics caffeine patches weren't allowed, so I had to make do with whatever natural stimulants I could produce, which were numbered after a week of constant work.

"Sergeant Jameson, you will adjust your tone when speaking with me," Becker said forcefully.

"What do you want, Captain? I have much to do today, including rewiring the entire 'bot," I said keeping my voice as even as I could manage.

"You're favoring your left leg," he remarked.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Something happen to the right?"

"Train accident, blockaded tracks caused an emergency stop, a glass shattered and one of the pieces ended up in my leg," I said. "It was an accident."

"A train holding known resistance members, correct?" Becker asked.

"Nobody was arrested as far as I know, so I cannot speak to that," I said.

Becker narrowed his eyes. "Just three days before you had left to go down south to spend time with your boyfriend's dying father, staying in a town a hundred miles from the train station you boarded at. Why is that?"

"Tickets were cheaper there I guess, I don't know, my boyfriend set up the trip," I said. "You'll have to talk to him. May I get to work now, Captain?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you had some unannounced visitors in the next few days if I were you, sergeant," Captain Becker said before he turned and walked away.