"You're kidding me." Lu almost looked amused.

Taiga didn't. "Do I look like a machine that would lie?"

"You know, they do have reconditioning programs for people like you," Lu suggested. "I hear they're not too hard to get into, especially if you act against the norm."

"Yeah," Taiga agreed. "Tried it. Didn't like it. Don't plan to go back."

Lu laughed. "It's not like a drug, you know," she said darkly. "It's not a choice that you get to make."

Taiga's eyes narrowed, and he leaned in. "Trust me, Field Officer Lu," he growled. "I know that better than you could imagine."

"Well," she said, "it might not be fun for you, but you're basically a living machine anyway, right? Don't you think it might be a tad dangerous for you to run around without maintenance?"

Taiga decided that Lu's tone had shifted from bratty to condescending, and reacted in kind. "Well, seeing as you know so much about cyborgs, why don't you see if you can fix me?"

Lu gave him a crooked smile. "Can't do that, someone beat me to it," she said, and smirked.

Taiga blushed, feeling his cheeks down to his jowls burning. "I--that was--god damn you!" he spluttered, both hands clenching into fists. "That--screw you! Vulgar and goddamn--" he stopped because he couldn't think up a word more emphatic than "mean."

Lu arched an eyebrow. "Hyne help me," she drawled, "I've been kidnapped by the village eunuch." She eyed him carefully. "Maybe I should just walk back on my own."

Taiga's head fell forward, hair falling down in dirty curtains on either side of his face. Breathing carefully, he gave serious consideration to asking his suit to tranquilize him before deciding that that would just be more material for Lu to ridicule. "Charming as your company isn't," he said once he felt reasonably assured that he could speak without his voice cracking, "I'm not going to let you get away." He looked up, meeting Lu's flat gaze with a dark one of his own. "I can't take the risk that you'll tell them where I am."

"Risk?" Both of Lu's eyebrows were raised, now. "I would have thought they could trace you through all that machinery."

"What do you think I am, a homing device?" Taiga scoffed. "The suit doesn't do anything I don't tell it to do--except for reminding me what I'm supposed to be doing. You think it has a brain to think for itself?"

"I suppose not." Lu's lip curled slightly. "If it did, they wouldn't need you bastards inside it."

Taiga shook his head. "I was going to ask why those guys had you tied up and beaten senseless, but I don't think I need to anymore," he said. "Can we just raid this place and leave? I'm getting edgy around here."

"Robbing the dead," Lu said, turning to one of the packs on the tent floor. "Well, why not? I've already teamed up with the Machine With A Soul, let's see how much lower I can go?"

The ICI concluded that he didn't have enough things to be annoyed at at the moment, and decided to pitch in. Taiga C1128513. Analysis: Unthreated. Directive: None. Status: Incomplete. Directive: Recover helmet and shotel. Energy: High. Directive: None. Location: Southwest Kashkabald Wasteland. Directive: Return to outpost at Hawk's Pass.

Taiga grabbed one of the packs, clipping on the straps and stuffing the contents of the food cooler into it. "They wouldn't be dead if they hadn't tried to take me hostage," he said.

"Oh, yes, shame on them."

"Would it be too much to ask for you to shut up for the term of your natural life?" Taiga growled.

"Considering I don't take orders from machines--military or otherwise--I'd have to say yes."

Taiga almost gave up right there. Violence would only giver her more to be offended by; civility was lost on her. Both of those options cut off, Taiga decided to resort to his third: ignoring her as much as he could.

"Come on," he snapped. "And keep up. I don't want to have to carry you."

"Oh, yes, sir, cyborg, sir," Lu said. "And I suppose it really is a lost cause persuading you to do the decent thing and bring me back to an Estharan base."

Taiga ignored her.

Actually, it made him feel kinda good.