Kenji shook his head. “Not everything, I would hope. I am sure he has some sense about memory loose. But something that proves she has her humanity still and will not kill us on a whim.” He shook his head, Geir was fickle and his mind was his own. Kenji had stopped trying to figure on what Geir would do in any given situation. “You are right about that.” He snorted peering at the woman he had lost, amaze that she was alive for the most part. Finding a way to jumpstart her memories was going to be the hardest part for him. He had troubles with his own mind and had little idea of how to get her to remember anything.
He had hoped during the long time he was bedridden that if she had ever appeared again that everything would be right in his world. Things were right more or less, but the toll on his mind and spirit were not so easily erased. He had developed into a new person one much different than he would have if she had stayed. His eyes caught a hold of Jacob dashing into the room, when the five year old hugged the android he stiffed slightly to protect the young. His eyebrows lifted in shock and he rubbed his well-kept beard. She remembered him his name and his father. A very good sign.
Kenji frowned at the sudden shift in Cassie, recalling the past apparently fatigued her. When he wanted to continue to bring out memories to prove to Geir, Toni suggested he take her to bed. Was he completely insane? “Use to,” he pointed out. “Use to, Toni. I am a stranger to her now. Don’t you think that would be a little weird for her?”
His reasoning was lost on Toni and he barred his teeth at his almost brother in law as the pale woman was all but shoved in his arms. He closed his eyes for a second his mind and body at odds at this strange situation he found himself in. Her head rested on his shoulder and he was forced to carry the android to his room. He laid her down, took the rest of the cables off her and found a spot on the floor to sit with his back against the jagged wall. He drifted to sleep, during one of his half-awake moments he crawled into bed having forgotten that Cassie was there.
Kenji was asleep when Cassie woke, he jerked when she spoke and blinked at the android. “My room.” It wasn’t the one they had shared, that was on the other side of the cave. He couldn’t return to it after the hospital, he had no idea of Toni or his wife had done anything with the space or if someone else claimed it. There was hints that Ning had taken it over when he arrived, he hadn’t really cared enough to follow the ins and outs of the daily living of the community when it didn’t deal with killing robots or drinking.
Geir had stepped away from Ning and returned to the empty common room, he went straight to Kenji’s room and found him slumped over near the door while the android was sprawled on his bed. He growled his artificial eye brightening. Ning pulled the curtain closed and the older man glared at him. “Let it be for now,” he whispered. “Get some rest, I am sure this android will cause a huge disturbance in the community and you need to figure out what to do with everybody.” Ning touched his shoulder again those bright blue eyes searching his. “You can post someone at the door if it rests your mind.”
Geir nodded, he was annoyed even more than usual, a symptom of his fatigue. A guard was posted and the pair went to their own rooms to sleep the rest of the night. Sleep was slow in coming and he tossed and turned for a few hours before he peeled himself out of bed. His face hurt and he went to Wrench’s workshop. “The pain,” he said sitting on a chair. The woman set aside her work and grabbed a few tools to make minor adjustments to the implant. They didn’t ease the pain and she removed the front piece from his skull. She eased her goggles off her forehead and the headgear snapped on allowing her to see into the cavity and give her information on the small implant. She threaded a few of the long tools into the small cavity and turned a few adjustment screws.
Geir jerked and she reset the one she had attuned, she worked down the line of the fifteen delicate pieces until she found the one spurring the pain. She handed over the front piece and leaned on her table. Geir snapped his artificial eye back into place and his vision shifted back to one where he saw the world and the other scrolling information about his world his normal senses did not pick up. “The sensors are working again.”
“I will find a piece to replace that defective one that will be compatible with your system,” she stated turning to slip her delicate tools in the cloth sleeves. “It is interesting, don’t you think, that we humans are taking on more of our enemy. Using parts of them to enhance ourselves.”
“It is the only way to fight them on fair ground,” he said gruffly as he rose to his feet heading for the door.
“True,” she said, Geir stopped near the threshold. “Now we have a working android, I hope defective from her robot creators. Which we could possibly use to find robots and the pieces we need to get our people back up to one hundred percent.” She moved a few steps toward him and folded her arms in front of her chest. “You have done a good job keeping this community safe. There is a time in all wars when the defense has to turn to offense. This Cassie might be that key we need to turn the tide in our favor.”
“So you think we should just trust her?” Geir asked not turning.
“Trust? No not until she has proven herself like any other refuge. Ning had to prove himself that he wasn’t an operative of the enemy, as did anyone else. She is a tool that we can use one way or the other.”
He turned to Wrench. “What are you thinking?”
Wrench deactivated her goggles and pushed them up on her forehead. “A walking bomb if she proves to want to return to her creators. They use humans against us, I think we can use their androids against them. It won’t stop the war but it will give them something new to calculate. I can craft an explosive that would be undetected, if not their main factory, then some of those outposts they have laying around where the androids are trained. Anything to start bring the war to their front door.”