Between a Bear and a Hard Place (Alpha Werebear Romance) (28 page)

Metal groaned, and shifted.

Doors slid.

And then, there were bears.

All sorts of them – golden, brown, black, partially shifted, completely shifted, not shifted at all – surged from the now-open cells lining the entire room. Immediately Claire recognized Stone, and King was beside him, but all the rest were strangers.

“Uh... Eighty-Three?” she asked, as soon as she gained her senses. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

He turned around, briefly observed the onrush of furry tanks stampeding toward him and his two friends. “Straight ahead!” he pointed. “Run like hell! Once we’re through those doors, you’ll know the way!”

She didn’t ask how, she just believed him. Fury grabbed her hand as she went dashing down the hall toward the bay door. His squeezing grip, and the sudden appearance of King and Stone beside her, both confused and naked, but both comforting nonetheless, gave her strength. Her friend – the not-robot who had found his answers, who had risked everything to save them, he gave her courage.

And the rush of cooped up bears? That didn’t hurt either.

Claire rounded a corner, and drove her shoulder into a pair of swinging, hospital-like doors as she burst through, she happened to turn her head at exactly the right time to see a sign reading “B-3 NO ADMITTANCE” plastered to the wall. And below that, a clipboard with nothing scrawled on it since that day where everything changed.

A heaving rumble underneath, and more cracks opening up all along the walls meant this place wasn’t going to last much longer. “Come on!” Claire shouted back to Fury, to King and Stone, and to Eighty-Three and all the bears who were probably not listening very closely. “Just up ahead – I know the way, but I hope you don’t mind stairs!”

Stone squeezed one of her hands. Fury held the other.

For the first time in Claire’s life? She didn’t mind the stairs, and she really
did
know the way.

––––––––

“A
re you almost finished?” Draven was pacing back and forth in a room that strongly resembled a World War II intelligence bunker. A map was plastered to a wall in the back, florescent lights ran along the girders that made up the semi-open ceiling. Folding metal chairs – the sort that get used at conferences when all the “good” chairs are taken, made up the sitting space.

“How can this take so long?” he fished his pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket and contemplated one of them before placing the cardboard box on the conference table. Really, it was just a few card tables placed together end to end and covered with a cloth, but it worked well enough.

“Because,” Jill said as she plucked a pair of needle-nosed pliers from Jacques’s outstretched hand, “this isn’t exactly easy. And you better not be smoking. Chew your gum.”

Her statement was so flatly voiced that it wasn’t a command, or a question, it was more of a bald explanation of the way things already were.

“Yes mom,” Draven grumbled. He thumped his cigarette pack wistfully and caught a stick of gum that came out. He’d been so sad about having to quit that Claire fashioned him a little gum carrier that looked like his old favorite Camel Filters. He put the stick in his mouth and let out a Wint-O-Green sigh.

The curtain encircling the makeshift surgery area fell back down, ruffling against the dusty stone flooring. There was a slight clatter of metal on rock, just a little
ting
of contact, before someone beyond the curtain bent to pick up the dropped instrument. Immediately, silence fell again.

Except for the tapping of Rogue’s fingernails muffled by the dampening effect of the rise and fall of bubbles in the plastic sheet covering the tabletop, and Draven’s absentminded smacking, the silence was absolute.

Oppressive even.

“He hasn’t breathed in a while,” Rogue said to an arching pair of eyebrows from King. Stone and Fury looked his way too, Stone lifting his head off the table for the first time in what seemed like hours.

On cue, a sputtered, rasped breath came from behind the curtain.

Jill and Claire, along with the pilot, who turned out to be pretty damn good as a nurse, began fussing around. “Is he okay?” Jill asked. “He looks sorta pale.”

“He always did,” Claire said in response. “Only difference is that he’s got a little color now. I’m not sure about that hole right there.”

There was a long moment of humming, a little bit of hawing, and then another sputtered breath. “I think,” Jill’s voice sounded reticent, but fairly confident, “he seems like he’s breathing okay. Good thing his lungs were mostly intact.”

“Yeah,” Claire said. “And good thing that he somehow had a cyborg owner’s manual programmed into his brain-computer.

“And,” it was Jacques speaking then, “that he managed to get it all out before we had to turn him off.”

The artificiality of their friend was upsetting, to be sure. The parts of him that were metal all had to be removed, or else the danger of his human body rejecting the additions was, in Eighty-Three’s words, “a rather unpleasant thing to calculate.”

A Clod – the very same bizarre, lab-grown parasite that had attached itself to Stone’s spine – was quivering on the metal tray, glistening in the overhead lamp. “Good thing for
this
too,” Claire said, jabbing at the spider-like lump with a pair of pliers. “Everything has its place, I guess.”

She wrinkled her nose under the surgical mask as the golf ball-sized lump twitched away from the prodding instrument. Jill laughed briefly at her, before digging into something else that crunched a little before she yanked it out.

The thumb-length piece of chrome twisted in the middle and then sparked slightly before fizzling out.

“The hell was that?” Claire asked.

“Mind control bug,” Eighty-Three said, unexpectedly, through his newly detached mouth. His voice was crackly, a little painful sounding, but worked just fine. Without missing a beat, he added, “did I just talk? With my own mouth?”

His sudden speech surprised both Jill and Claire, and even got Jacques’s attention.

“It worked?” the voice was a little stronger that time. “Do I have lips?”

Claire just nodded, blinking away tears. It wasn’t pretty – that much was certain, but the
other
thing that was certain is that he’d heal. The cuts and the holes had all been kept clean for however long he’d been behind the mask. None of it was scarred over, none of it permanent. Well, none of it except for the eye.

“There aren’t any lines in my vision,” he said. “I’m seeing... what I remember seeing.”

Jill put a hand on the side of his face. “Just like you said,” she whispered, much better at containing her emotions than was Claire. “It all went just like you said. We were able to save everything except your left eye, which—”

“Wasn’t there in the first place,” he finished for her. “I don’t remember ever having it. I think I lost it in an accident when I was young. Which means that I’m also starting to remember,” he trailed off, drawing a quick breath through his nose. “You smell nice. All of you, even Jacques.”

“Jeez,” Jacques said with a grin as he pulled his mask off. “I don’t remember the last time someone paid me a compliment like that.”

“Is he awake?” Draven asked.

Before an answer came, a gloved hand pulled back the curtain and five faces peered into the room. “He’s awake!”

Stone glared briefly at the Clod which had taken control of him for a brief time. He pulled his lips back in a brief snarl before a clammy hand landed on his wrist. “That thing is the only reason I’m alive,” Eighty-Three whispered. “Thank you for... for carrying it, and for letting us use it.”

The two men exchanged a long look.

Under the obnoxiously bright florescent lights, the ghostly pale man glistened with sweat. His head was shaved bald, though there was the dark shape of a widow’s peak and a full head of black hair. His good eye was watery and hazel, the other had been covered with an eyepatch. His lips were blue, but quickly gaining color. His cheeks hollow, gaunt and so pale the veins in them were barely visible. With each passing second spent disconnected from the respirator and the machines and the GlasCorp control mechanisms, he seemed to be gaining weight and color.

“Thank
you
,” Stone said. “The only reason we’re alive is because you helped us in the first place.”

Eighty-Three moved his hands up in front of his face, flexing his fingers and wincing slightly. “It was the right thing to do,” he said. “I have to admit I didn’t think my hands would ache this badly.”

“The wires went all the way to your fingertips. You’re probably just getting used to moving without the machines,” Claire said, finally pulling her mask away. “You won’t be as strong as you were.”

The patient laughed, and pushed himself into a sitting position using his elbows for leverage. As soon as he was up, he looked around the room, staring at each of his friends in turn. “Seeing you all for... for the first time is strange. I feel like I’ve known you for my whole life, but I hardly recognize the way you look. My human eyes are,” he paused for a second, moisture welling up in his one eye. “Not human eyes.
My
eye, I’m not used to the colors and the clarity. I’m used to scan-lines and an interface that never went away. It was like looking at the world through a computer.”

Everyone was just watching him, waiting for him to say something else. He didn’t disappoint.

“Oh,” he grunted as he turned and touched his bare feet to the cold stone. “I forgot what cold felt like. I forgot what sounds felt like, the way they resonate in your ears, the way everyone sounds different. Can you all say your names for me? It sounds odd, but just so I can hear the way they’re supposed to sound?”

He pushed himself to his feet, immediately his knees buckled. Stone grabbed one elbow, and King the other, both men supporting him. They looped his elbows around their necks and went to sit again. “No,” he said, with a small laugh. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get my legs under me. I think the atrophy will go away quickly, but only if I take the pain.”

The two bears exchanged a glance and then both bent their knees, letting him support himself more and more.

“Tingles,” he said with a laugh. “Tickles. Feels like blood is surging through my muscles. Feels like... I think I can stand now, thank you.”

Tentatively, the two giant bears stepped away, gingerly releasing their hold on him. His knees did wobble a bit, but Eighty-Three was standing on his own. Only minutes after having his entire body altered, he was standing on his own strength.

“I guess that serum worked,” Draven said.

“Must have,” Eighty-Three said. “I hurt. My muscles, they all ache, and even the hardness of this floor feels painful. The light hurts my eyes, every word you speak hurts my ears, but it’s an honest pain. A human one, if that makes any sense.”

“Rogue,” Rogue said, recalling the request from a few moments before. “I’m Rogue and you saved my life.” The bear reached out, took the clammy hand in his and shook it.

Fury looked at the black-haired bear and took a step forward, then clasped Eighty-Three’s hand. “I’m Fury. That was a hell of a fight.”

A tear rolled down Eighty-Three’s hollowed cheek. It caught a groove from some removed piece of mechanical equipment, and then rolled down his neck. He touched the collar of the Metallica tee that Claire put him in. Looking down, he scrunched his eyebrows and lifted the shirt. “This is ghastly,” he said with a smile, observing the flaming skeleton that appeared to be in an electric chair. “But comfortable.”

“It’s cotton,” Jacques said. “And I’m Jacques. Pleasure to meet ya.”

Eighty-Three accepted the handshake, nodding. Without any warning, he pulled the pilot in with a clumsy gesture, and hugged him tight.

“Was that appropriate?” he asked when they separated. “I feel very close to you, but I’m not sure what to do with those feelings.”

The gruff Cajun was looking at his gaunt friend, and then pulled
him
in for a hug. “Doin’ what you feel,” Jacques said, “ain’t ever inappropriate.”

“Ever?”

“Well, how about ‘usually’?” Draven asked. “I’m Draven. You saved my friends, I owe you everything.”

Eighty-three cocked his head to the side, which made his neck pop several times. “They saved me, too. Right here, just now, they saved me. Why do you keep saying that I did so much saving?”

“Went both ways,” Jill said. She squeezed the rail-thin shoulder, though it seemed to grow more muscular under her fingertips. “You helped us, we helped you. That’s what friends are all about. We help each other when we need it.”

“Friends?” he asked, apparently confused at the notion. “Does that mean that—?”

“Suppose it must,” Stone and King both said at the exact same time. Both reached for a hand, but seeing what was happening, Stone let the older bear reach first. He nodded slightly. King regarded him for just a second and nodded back.

“Friends help each other. Friends we are.”

“And we never forget friends,” Stone added, taking the man’s other hand.

“Which can get a little irritating,” Fury said, chuckling to hide his own thickening voice. “But we’re here for you. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, that’s what we do.”

Eighty-Three was smiling, and slowly shaking his head from side to side. The wet trail running down his face kept getting bigger with each passing moment. “I have... friends.”

“You have a family,” Claire said, hugging him tight. “No matter who you really are, or where you’re from, no matter any of that. We’re family now. We’re
all
family. Even if we fight and growl at each other sometimes. Even if we get infested with parasites and try to kill each other. Even if we keep getting mad that someone keeps making us quit smoking,” she laughed under her breath. “We’re all family. And you know what the best thing about family is?”

Cleo rolled over from where she’d been upside down and asleep for the past several hours. Her paws clicked along the floor, and when she got to Eighty-Three’s side, she made a mewling sound and licked at his fingers. A moment later, he was scratching her around the jowls and about a half-second after that, he was on the floor rubbing her exposed belly and making the same bark-growls that she was.