From the Ruins of Nosis

by Vanessa

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews!

Dragoncat: Nothing ever comes easily for Zee and Ro, does it? This story will have a lot more conflict than any of my older fics.

Optimus Magnus: Did TZP just start airing in your area, or did you get the taped episodes? It's been two years, and this series continues to attract new fans. If only WB would notice...

Iglika: Coming from you, that's a big compliment! My theory about Doctor Selig that I use in this fic is completely different now that I've read "You Need Me."

TZP dude: This reference you keep making to a site... Are you talking about The ZeeRo Project? If so, I am working on a new version of it, and I hope to have it up in a few months.

Disclaimer: Robert Goodman created The Zeta Project, I'm just borrowing them for my idea of how the series might end.

Chapter Two: Hope Rises

Ro Rowen hesitantly stepped out of the bathroom, attempting to dry her hair with an already soaked towel. It had been difficult to wash away the ash and saltwater, and impossible to forget everything that had happened that day. Anxiety had been plaguing her the entire time she was away from Zee; would he leave her as soon as her back was turned?

It was an immense relief to see that Zeta was still in the hotel room, still sitting motionlessly at the foot of the small bed. He didn't look up when she walked back into the room, but stared out the window as if he didn't hear her return at all. And he still clutched Selig's pocketwatch tightly, as if clinging to his memory.

Her heart immediately went out to him. She stepped closer to the bed, studying his holographic face. In the two years she had been with him, she had learned that he was more than a machine. Zeta, she mused, had always seemed more like a human who had the misfortune of being born into a synthoid's body. He wasn't just a robot with a conscience module; he was a tin man with a soul, with feelings, and with no way to express them.

Ro hesitantly reached out to place her hand over his cheek, feeling it pass through the semi-solid hologram to the cool metal frame below. That got his attention. Such a gesture was uncommon for the invulnerable Rosalie Rowen.

Her eyes met his, and his look of surprise slowly reverted to one of hopelessness, his eyes lowering and his brow furrowing in a very human display of sadness. His pale blue eyes seemed distant, and Ro knew that if it were possible, he would be crying now. True, he could easily alter his hologram to produce the illusion of tears, but that's all it would be. An illusion. Fake. And she knew that Zee hated faking his humanity far more than he hated his inability to cry.

"Zee," she whispered. Her hand slipped from his face to his shoulder, and she leaned forward, throwing her other arm around him in a tight hug. He hesitated, then slowly returned the gesture, resting his chin on top of her head. "Don't give up on me now, okay, Zee?" she muttered against his chest. "You've still got me. And I'm not going anywhere."

No. Ro wasn't going anywhere. Throughout their entire journey, he had tried many times to convince her to stay behind. It wasn't safe for her to be on the run from the government with a killer robot, he had tried to tell her, usually after she had suffered from some injury on his behalf. But Ro wouldn't hear it, and only a few months ago, he had come to understand why.

The NSA, he recalled, had tried to erase his memories, and in doing so, they reawakened the killer robot he had been before his experiences changed him. He had been stalking the halls of their headquarters, looking for the next target to eliminate, when he heard a voice... and then nothing else mattered to him but finding the source of those words:

"How many nights has he put a roof over your head, made sure you were safe, and warm, and had food to eat? I'm alive because of him!"

And that voice had saved him.

Ro was alive because of him.

He was alive because of Ro.

Nothing would make him leave her behind now. She was all he had left in the world. Somehow, that thought comforted him. No matter what happened, he would always have her. The ghost of a smile flickered across his face.

He could have stayed there forever, holding her, ignoring everything else around them. When she was there with him, so close, nothing else seemed to matter. He wasn't worried about the NSA agents tracking them down. He wasn't quite as angry at Brothers' Day; staying with Ro right now was more important than any sudden need for justice or vengeance. And if it were possible, he was even... a little less sad about the loss of Doctor Selig. Just a little.

When she began to relax against him, though, he was reminded that this had been a long, difficult day for both of them, and Ro needed rest. Zeta pulled back reluctantly, still smiling. "Get some sleep, Ro," he said softly. "We're going to start moving again in the morning. I... I don't know where we're running anymore, but..."

"We just have to keep running," she finished for him. "That's the important thing, right?"

"Right." He smiled as she fell back against the bed, burying her face in the pillow and closing her eyes.

"Don't go anywhere without me, tin man. I mean it."

"I will never leave you," he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. Several seconds passed with no reply; his exhausted accomplice was already asleep. Zeta sat there at the foot of her bed, watching over her and reviewing their conversation.

Selig was the only one who had known about the conscience module. The only one who could have told the government the truth. With him gone, there didn't seem to be much hope for them at all, and yet... after talking to Ro, Zee began to feel new optimism. It was such an illogical hope that this girl had given him.

But then, none of the things she had been making him feel lately were logical.

The last of the sun's light was slipping below the horizon, sinking into the dark water, when the synthoid's damaged hand finally emerged from the ruins of Nosis. The instant the cool air hit the damaged circuitry, thousands of tiny devices set to work repairing the missing patches of synthetic skin, a new technology made possible by Doctor Selig's cellular regeneration research.

The fingers flexed experimentally, both checking for malfunctions and searching for something to hold onto, something to pull it to the surface. Normally, the synthoid would have had no difficulty swimming to the surface on its own; dragging along an injured man made this harder.

Finally, the hand found a scrap of floating wreckage large enough to hold him. All of its superhuman strength went into keeping itself afloat while lifting the man from the water onto the makeshift raft. He was fortunately still alive, but in bad condition, having hit his head when the escape pod was shut down. He was unconscious, and the synthoid knew that it was possible that he might have a concussion.

Even now, even after all the effort put into rescuing him, time was running out. Doctor Selig had to make it to a hospital.

Ro awoke the next morning to find that Zee was gone. Her initial panic faded when she discovered the note he had left, assuring her that he had just gone out for supplies for the journey– dry clothes, food for Ro, things like that– and he would be back shortly. "You looked so peaceful," the note read, "and I know you needed sleep, so I didn't want to disturb you." She smiled, almost able to hear his apologetic voice.

An hour passed with no word from Zee. Ro began to get restless, pacing around the small hotel room, trying to find something to keep her mind off what might be wrong. She truly believed what Zee and his note both promised, that he wasn't going to leave her behind, but... What if he had been captured? There was no way the NSA didn't know by now that they had boarded the Nosis with Brothers' Day. How long would it take them to send Bennet and his team?

"Don't go out," the note warned. "Stay inside and wait for me. I promise I'll come back soon."

She obeyed the note until she couldn't stand it anymore. If Zee was in trouble, she was going to help him whether he liked it or not. She picked her holoprojector up from the small table by the bed, clasping it onto her wrist, and ran towards the door.

Before she reached it, however, the door flew open. She took a step back, startled, as Zeta dashed into the room, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her toward the window. "It's Bennet," he told her, his voice low. "He knows we're here!"

She allowed herself to be pulled closer as he cut through the glass, didn't even argue when he leapt with her from the window, despite the fact that they were on the fourth floor, and she had a paralyzing fear of heights. His hand shot out to grab the ledge of a nearby building, lowering them both safely to the ground.

The NSA van was nowhere to be seen. There was no team of armed agents waiting outside to ambush them. Ro wondered for a moment if Zee had been mistaken... but Zee rarely made mistakes. Well... not when it came to things like this, anyway.

"I was coming back with the supplies," he said, as if in response to her unspoken question, "and I saw him in the lobby. He was obviously asking people about us. I tried to sneak past him, but he saw me, and followed me. He's probably searching the hotel rooms for us right n–"

This time, Zeta was wrong. Bennet had assumed that they would escape through the window, and that following him back to the hotel room was therefore a lost cause. Just as Ro was beginning to wonder where all the agents were, he burst through the hotel's front door. "Zeta, wait!"

Not "Freeze," or "Don't move, Zeta!" Just "wait." That in itself was strange. Even more odd was the fact that Bennet didn't appear to be armed; he was well within range to throw an EMP device or containment shell, or at least to shoot at them. But he didn't. He didn't even try to approach them.

Zeta, despite this highly unusual situation, had no intention to "wait." He took Ro's hand and pulled her forward, spinning on his heel and running as quickly as she could keep up. Behind them, he could hear Bennet mutter something under his breath, then he, too, was running. "Zeta, please listen to me!"

He had only heard that tone in the agent's voice once before, when he had learned that his son was trapped in a submarine with Ro. It was a desperate tone, one that had proven to the synthoid that, whatever else he was, James Bennet was a good man. He almost stopped running.

Their chase had attracted a rather large crowd, and Zeta used this to his advantage. Still holding Ro's hand, he holomorphed both of them, darting into the large group of people, constantly changing their disguises so that soon, no one knew who they were, or where they had gone. Zeta slowed his pace to a quick walk, and they became just another middle-aged couple trying to get through the crowd. Bennet, without his various containment devices or his hologram-filtering binoculars, couldn't tell them apart from anyone else.

He wasn't one to give up so easily, however. He ran through the mass of bystanders, "accidently" bumping into people in order to test their solidity, all while calling out "Zeta! Miss Rowen!" Several people regarded him with looks of confusion or annoyance. Zeta and Ro avoided his searching gaze completely.

"Where are the others?" Ro whispered. "Doesn't it seem strange that West and Rush aren't with him? And why doesn't he have any weapons? I mean, not that I mind, but..."

"I don't understand it either. But if Bennet knows we're here, he must know we had something to do with the destruction of Nosis. Keep walking, Ro. We have to get out of this city."

Bennet was getting entirely too close to them. Ro glanced back at him and saw the desperation written clearly across his face, heard him continue to call out to them. She walked a little faster.

"Zeta! Miss Rowen!" There was a long pause, and then, more hesitantly...

"Zee! Ro!"

Zeta froze.

Next: Chapter three, "Mission Complete"

New fic: "The Call"

Currently writing: "From the Ruins of Nosis"

"Remembering Zee"