Loving one another was never the challenge for Adya and Reese-- acting like they didn’t was.
Neither of them were sure of Goddard's policy for romantic relationships between agents. They weren’t sure if they even wanted to call it one at all. Putting time aside both to a partner and to their jobs would be nearly impossible, especially considering how busy Adya was outside of agent work. Every day, a new interview, board meeting, or diagnostic check seemed to take up any ounce of free time she had.
But Reese can’t deny that she looks at her colleague and wants everything to do with her. Living with four other agents and being right next door to Adya certainly doesn’t curb the thought, either. Even with the cold, harsh metal beneath her artificial skin, her touch always feels warm. Even when every gesture and expression is the result of 1s and 0s in her computer brain, she finds herself picking up Adya’s idle habits. Even when the world spins too fast for them to get a moment alone, it seems to slow down right when Reese wants it to. Just for a second-- then it’s back to business.
The only alone time that the two get is always under... strenuous circumstances. Luckily, amid the chaos of a fight, there’s one thing that all their teammates can agree upon: Adya and Reese work well under pressure.
Colby’s rifle rests across her lap. The weariness starts to set in; it’s almost two in the morning and she’s been camped out on this fire escape for an hour, waiting for someone who might never come.
“What do you have for me, Colburn?” Adya says from her wrist com.
“Exactly what I had for you two minutes ago,” she answers. “An empty storefront with the lights off. No one coming in or out. The building is big, so I can’t guarantee that they’re not using another exit. What do you have for me, Prisham?”
“Well, I found out there’s a basement. The walls are too thick for me to hear anything; and if I go down any further, I’ll lose your signal.”
“Our mission is reconnaissance only. The people in this building are supposedly picking apart and old assembly line machines and reselling the parts.”
Adya keeps her footsteps light and ducks around the corner. The concrete is cold against her back in some spots, warm in others. It might just be the fact that she’s underground in a building that’s decades old, but something tells her that it’s more. “I don’t mind secondhand shopping until it means the difference between a bionic arm and a bomb.”
Colby’s tired eyes wake up when she notices five people look up and down the street before unlocking the front door. “Woah, woah,” she says, peering through the scope of her rifle. When one pulls at the handle, she notices his clawlike, bionic arm. “Adya, you’ve got incoming.”
Static.
“Adya?” she taps her wrist com gently a few times before giving up. The five figures disappear behind the building’s tinted windows.
Willing to take the risk, Adya slips into the stairwell and makes her way to the basement. Idle chatter and footsteps echo two flights above her. Shit, she mutters. The staircase goes down a few more flights, but she takes the first exit she sees. There isn’t enough time to shut it gently; the door swings back and latches with a tremendous thud on both sides. As she dives out of sight around the corner, she holds down the button on her wrist com. If live communication isn’t going through at this depth, all she can do is send out a tracking transmission and hope that no one has to use it.
Both sides of the hallway feature heavy, metal doors and one-way windows. Thermal vision tells her that each room has only a couple people inside; the rest of the space is occupied by machines, she assumes. She peers through one of the doors to see two men in dirty mechanic suits studying an elegant bionic arm propped up on the table. Instead of five fingers, the arm stops at the wrist with a wide opening similar to that of a gun. An arm cannon. We were right about this place.
The weight of Adya’s metal body against the metal door is enough to shove it open, however, and it lets out a creak that resonates down the hallway for everyone to hear. She breaks into a sprint down the hall. Even with the most lightweight bionics money can buy, her steps are heavy and loud against the concrete. She’s met by five pairs of eyes when she whips around the corner.
One of the men steps forward, extending his clawlike hand. “I’m impressed,” he begins. “This is a secure facility. Sneaking in here is pretty bold.”
“Guess I just love the thrill,” Adya responds, a firm hand on the pistol against her thigh.
“No, I think you’re just programmed that way.” He lets out a chuckle that feels almost robotic. Maybe his hand isn’t the only artificial thing about him. “Adya Milana Prisham. First human consciousness in a fully functional, artificial body. Designed for any fight. I’ve read up on you-- marvelous work.”
If she’s programmed for anything, it’s this. Her sense of fear is high enough to keep her safe, but low enough that she doesn’t freeze up in the face of danger. “Technically, I’m not built for combat. They didn’t start building military-grade bodies until after they put me in this one.”
“Hm. How unfortunate for you.” The claw attached to his wrist retracts, replacing itself with a narrow, four-pronged tool that the man presses into Adya’s shoulder. An overwhelming jolt of electricity courses through her system. Her joints lock up and her eyes go wide before abruptly returning to a neutral gaze. The world goes dark as her mind retreats into her limp body.
When Adya comes to, she’s blinded by the white light shining directly into her vision. Her wrists are bound to the wall above her head in tight, metal clamps. The room feels, looks, smells-- sterile. She knows the sensation of a bionics procedure room all too well.
“They say that the best way to learn is by doing,” the man says, noticing that she’s conscious, “and I’m tired of reading articles and analyzing blueprints. Let’s dissect that hunk of metal you call a body, huh?”
A small canister slides under the door and clatters against the concrete the moment that he turns to face Adya. Thick, white smoke fills the room faster than he can kick it away or cover it. He stumbles back into carts and tables, knocking trays of tools to the floor.
The sound of a struggle becomes the only discernible thing among the chaos. Adya notices a second, smaller heat signature has entered the room. When the smoke clears, it’s not the man’s face that she notices first. It’s the long, brunette hair and slim, bionic arms. It’s the brown eyes that could see right through you if they chose to. It’s the casual smile that never fails to be a sight for sore eyes.
“Reese?”
Reese coughs out some of the smoke, making sure that her opponent won’t be getting back up anytime soon. She pulls a key from his coat pocket. In one, swift movement, the staff in her hand retracts and latches back onto her belt. “I see that you turned your recon mission into an assault,” she says. “And I just turned it into a rescue. I got your tracking transmission.”
“At two in the fucking morning?” Adya scoffs, but it comes out as more of a chuckle. She can’t even pretend to be mad. “What are you doing awake?”
“Couldn’t sleep. The apartment feels too empty with you and Colby gone and I was working late anyway.”
Adya stares at Reese for a long while as she wanders over. “You were worried about me.”
Reese rolls her eyes, stretching her metal arms over her head in an attempt to look nonchalant. She wears black skinny jeans and a big, gray jacket over a tank top. While she may look out of her element in civilian clothes, Adya can’t deny that she looks awfully good in them. It’s not often they get to be out and about in anything but their uniforms. This doesn’t exactly qualify as “out and about”, though. “Was not,” Reese says.
“Yes you were! You did this last time I went on a midnight mission. Nate and I didn’t come back until four in the morning and there you were, pulling an all nighter.”
Reese rests a hand on the wall above Adya’s shoulder. She leans in closer with the dumbest, most smug grin anyone’s ever seen. “For the record, I got an hour of sleep that night. But keep talking-- I’ll just leave you here.”
Adya giggles and taps her nose against her colleague's. Too much time around Reese and she starts to short circuit. “The things you do to get me alone, Agent.”
“The things I do? You were here first, tin can. I’m doing you a favor.”
She reaches up with the key and slides it into the lock. Soon enough, Adya’s arms slip out, but now they’re caught in a new grip. Reese holds tight to her hands and locks her lips against Adya’s. For a few seconds, everything disappears-- no bionics, no enemies, no threat of being dissected like a lab project. There is Adya and Reese, nothing more. The earth melts out from under their feet like rocks floating downstream, away from the heavy world.
Static spews out of Adya’s wrist com. “Adya?” Colby says. Great timing.
“I’m here,” she says, still eyeing Reese an inch away from her. “I’m on my way out. We were right-- they’re building black market bionics here.”
“What took you so long?”
“I ran into some unfriendly faces.”
“Followed by a very friendly one,” Reese chimes in. “Hey, Colby.”
Colby’s gasp is so loud that it almost scrambles her transmission. “Reese, the General is gonna be furious that you snuck onto this operation!”
Reese opens the door and follows her colleague out into the hallways. “Which is why we’re not gonna tell her.”
Ever the ambitious member of their team, Reese darts down the corridors, narrowly avoiding eyes and ears with ease. Adya follows close behind, ears still ringing from the kiss earlier. She can’t help but smile. The most advanced bionics money can buy, and the one thing that can take her out is a pretty girl with a melee weapon and metal arms.
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