A/N: All right. This one isn't that great either, but I'm trying. Thanks to all my reviewers, by the way. I usually reply to all my reviewers and thank them, but "okta" was anonymous, so I'll just say thanks to her/him/it here. Thanks!
Chapter 2
"Berto, he's doing it again," whined a voice over the intercom in Berto's room.
"What do you want me to do? I told you to take it easy on him."
"If I had wanted to take it easy on someone I wouldn't have brought him here in the first place."
"Well, now you're stuck with him."
"GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW AND FIX HIM OR I'LL SET UP A SPARRING MATCH BETWEEN YOU AND THE TOASTER OVEN!"
Berto jumped off his cot and took off down the hall towards Abigail's wing of the building. He wasn't exactly devastated to leave his room. After he had been brought to what he assumed was a DREDD base six weeks ago, he had been given his own room, because he was needed for Max's "upkeep". The room he had been given was pretty nice, the only problem being that it was EMP equipped to stop him from using any types of electronics to foil any attempts to get a signal to N-Tek. This was also very effective in sending him into what he had named "electronic withdrawal".
When he arrived to where the intercom page had come from, he saw Max sitting on the floor against the wall, with Abigail standing a few yards away, arms crossed, poking him in the side with her foot.
"You're not recharging him right, that's why he keeps doing this. Aren't you supposed to be the genius?"
"It's not my fault the equipment's faulty. Our transphasik generator doesn't work that great, and I worked on that myself," Berto talked as he gingerly picked up the Dread-version of the portable transphasik generator from the corner of the room.
"You're wrong. This is the same as yours, only better," Abigail argued as she watched as Berto opened the laptop-like device and plugged it into Max's biolink. He tapped in a code, and then sat down next to Max.
"Hey, Bro," Max said sleepily, waving at Berto.
Berto remained silent as he alternately monitored the progress of the generator to the read-out on Max's biolink.
"Oh, come on,, Berto. Say hi to your hermano, won't you?" Abigail smirked, obviously amused with the disunity of the seemingly indestructible Team Steel.
"After all," she continued, "it's not his fault he's had a little change of heart."
"Yeah, not my fault," Max echoed her, still sounding lethargic.
Berto didn't respond to either of them, but his blood boiled at the sound of Abigail saying his nickname for Max. He sat in silence for five minutes until he heard a low beep from the generator. Glancing over at Max, he saw that he was now completely alert and looking around. They made eye contact, but Max quickly broke it, and stared at his feet instead.
"Sorry, Bro."
Berto looked at him sideways. "If you're so sorry, why don't you snap out of it and get us out of here."
Max didn't have a response to that, and stayed silent.
Abigail watched the two for a moment, then got impatient. "All right," she said, gesturing towards Max, "up. Let's go again."
"I'm still too tired," Max said, yawning. "I want to sleep."
"GET UP!!!"
"Abigail, dear..." drawled a voice from a darkened corner of the room, "be considerate of our guest."
Berto glanced at Max, looking for any sign of his old hate for Dread. There was a little flicker, but Berto couldn't be sure exactly what it meant. Maybe just recognition.
Abigail, meanwhile, spun around, unaware that she had been being observed. "I am being considerate," she pouted. "I gave him a few minutes to wake up, didn't I?"
"Ah yes, and before that was that oh so sportsmanship-like kick to the wrist."
Berto looked at Max's biolink, surprised that he hadn't noticed the small but noticeable dent in the metal right above the Josh/Max button.
"You kicked his biolink?!" Berto yelled.
Abigail rounded on him. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I mess up your science project?"
"HE'S NOT A SCIENCE PROJECT!"
"Well, let's ask him, shall we?" Abigail turned to Max, still slouched against the wall. "Max?"
Max looked up, an occupied look on his face. "Hmm?"
"Are you Berto's science project?" She asked in a kindergarten-teacher-talking-to-student-voice.
Max seemed to space out for a second, and didn't answer her. This peaked Berto's interest, being the first time since leaving the rainforest that he had seen Max not automatically obey Abigail.
Abigail looked frustrated. "MAX!"
Max sat for another moment and then abruptly shook his head. "No, I'm not."
"WHAT?!" Abigail fumed, drew her foot back to kick Max, was deflected by a disapproving glance from Dread, and then stormed off into the hallway.
Dread seemed to be interested in Max's new change in consciousness. He got up from the chair he had been sitting in and walked over. "So, you're not a science project, Mr. Steel?"
Max looked up. "Nope."
"What makes you say that?" Dread asked, eyebrows raised.
"The voices," Max replied simply.
"The voices told you to say that you're not a science project?"
"Yep."
Dread was silent for a minute. Berto could see that he was doing some heavy thinking.
Finally, Dread seemed to reach the end of his thought process. "All right. Mr. Steel, report to the lab, why don't you have a little chat with 378? Dr. Martinez, please follow me."
