Chapter 7
"Where did you learn to cook like this?" Nia asked Jax, who was sitting across from her. His fingers were entwined upon the table as he stared oddly at her while she shoveled forkfuls of food into her mouth, wondering where in the world was she putting it all. He knew he should be worried about her eating so much, but he had never seen her this happy before and he wasn't prepared to spoil her good mood.
"I have many talents." he replied casually.
"Jax, you're being vague."
"Am I?" he returned, feigning innocence. Nia shook her head at him hopelessly and continued eating in silence for a while.
"What does shao'uta mean?" she suddenly asked. Jax's brow ridge raised questioningly. "When I was falling asleep, you called me shao'uta."
"Ah, yes, I did." Jax remembered.
"Tell me it doesn't mean "Prae'tor's wife" or "Prae'tor's possession" or something like that." Nia hoped. The robot chuckled, but shook his head.
"No, in the Yaut'ja language shao'uta means savior." Jax translated. Nia actually stopped eating and gave him a lost look.
"You and your baby will save the Yaut'ja people and you will forever be honored among them." he went on. Nia glanced over at Prae'tor sitting in his chair and found him watching them. She looked back at Jax.
"I don't want to be honored." she countered. "I want my body back the way it was. I want my humdrum life again, with my underpaid job and my monotonous college classes. What I want is to go home."
"I know and you will." Jax promised. His face was so sincere that some of the agitation growing inside of Nia melted away- some of it.
"This is just so…frustrating!" she whined, wanting to go on another rampage, but lacking the energy to do so.
"Of course it is. You are very emotional right now. You just need to get out of your quarters for a little while, that is all." Jax soothed and Nia seemed to perk up.
"You mean I'm not restricted to this room?"
"Definitely not."
"I can go outside and see the planet?"
"You will not be able to breathe outside for more than a few minutes." Jax denied. "But there is an excellent garden right down the hall." Nia scoffed under her breath, but didn't press the issue. At least she was going to be somewhere else for a while.
"All right." she relented and Jax smiled.
Nia finished eating then she relaxed in bed while Jax cleaned up. She thought it was nice to have someone clean up behind her and cook for her, even if it was an artificial intelligence. Finally Jax announced that he was prepared to leave. Nia had begun to drift off, but she quickly rose from the bed and followed Jax to the entrance. The doorway slid apart with a soft hiss and white vapor rolled into the room from the corridor, hiding Nia's slippered feet from view.
"This way," Jax directed and they walked side by side down the passageway, followed by Prae'tor. The hallway was exceedingly wide and tall, Nia supposed to accommodate the large Yaut'ja's. She stole a peek over her shoulder at the giant trailing behind her, then moved closer to Jax.
"Doesn't he have something better to do than hang around us?" she whispered and Jax eyed her curiously.
"Does Prae'tor's presence upset you?" he asked.
"Try answering my question first, please." Nia snapped, no longer whispering. Jax disregarded the jibe.
"Yes, I am sure that Prae'tor could be somewhere planning his next hunt, or training a younger generation of warriors, or any variety of things, but his desire is to be here watching over you." Jax replied.
"I'm not feeling this word: desire." Nia retorted. "And I thought you were supposed to be watching over me."
Jax smiled wickedly. "Prae'tor does not trust my competence." he said and the Yaut'ja growled something from behind them. It sounded pretty nasty to Nia, but the robot was unfazed.
"Well, you should act like you do." Jax tossed over his shoulder in reply. Prae'tor grunted, which Nia guessed was a stifled laugh.
"Change of subject." she chimed in. "Where does that lead to?" She pointed to her left to what was obviously an access door.
"Outside," Jax answered. She halted, her face glowing with interest.
"I want to see." she exclaimed and Prae'tor growled behind her again.
"I agree, that will not be a good idea." Jax said, glancing from the Yaut'ja to Nia.
"Oh, come on! You said yourself that I could breath in their atmosphere for at least a few minutes." she argued, but the robot did not look convinced.
"I just want to take one quick look at the planet." she pressed and could practically feel Prae'tor shaking his head behind her although she didn't turn around to check.
"If you are asking me to decide between your curiosity and your well-being, I choose your well-being." Jax finally replied.
"But-"
"I am sorry, Nia." he added, then finalized the conversation by walking away from the door, his gears whining softly with each step. Nia groaned, clenched her fists in anger, but followed him with Prae'tor only a few steps behind.
After a short walk, the group had come upon a door to the right of the hallway. Jax paused just long enough for the heavy, alien-metal doors to slide open. Fog from the hallway rushed inside the room before Jax could lead them inside. The smell of flowers filled Nia's nostrils before she could completely step into the area. At first glance she saw sunflowers, tulips, chrysanthemums, roses, and a few more that she couldn't identify, growing from what appear to be, but certainly was not, out of the floor in neat, precise sections.
A main pathway was stretched out in front of her, lined with tiny lights on both sides. She followed the main path with her eyes and saw that it branched off into separate lanes. Short trees, bushes and shrubs also dotted the scene adding just the right touch of reality to the room. Nia could hear birdsong and the chirping of insects, but she didn't see any off hand. She could also hear the lapping of water in the distance and she almost wandered off to search for it. She looked up to discover an image of clouds floating lazily across the ceiling, but the image was transparent, causing her to believe that it was a hologram of some sort.
A swishing of doors opening then closing somewhere in the huge room drew Nia's attention away from the ceiling. A little ways ahead of her and to her right another robot came into view carrying a potted plant. It looked exactly like Jax, except it had goldish coverings, where as Jax's were grayish. Its attention was fixed solely on his destination to the main path until Jax cleared his throat and the other robot stopped and glanced their way.
"Visitors, how nice of you to- oh!" The robot's gaze fell on Nia, who smiled awkwardly.
"The shao'uta!" it said with reverence, then its eyes settled on his counterpart. "Number 7-6-7-8-3-0-6-9, why did you not inform me that you were bringing the shao'uta here?"
"My designation is now Jax," Jax corrected him. "And coming to the gardens was a last minute idea."
Gardens? Nia thought. This place is more like an arboretum.
"Would your circuits have fried if you took one second out of your time to send me a comm- message?" the goldish robot fired back, his voice sounding more human than Jax's to Nia, who was finding the tiff amusing. Jax, however, kept his cool as always.
"We are here now." he reasoned. "Would you like to show us around or would you care for us to entertain ourselves?"
The other robot frowned at Jax angrily, but didn't voice another complaint. "I need to replant this specimen," it said instead and started for the main path. Jax and Nia were prepared to follow when Prae'tor gave a low growl from the doorway.
"You are not going to join us?" Jax asked, spinning to face him, and Prae'tor made a reply.
"Oh, yes, I did realize that. But if you were content, then so was I. To your duties, then." Jax answered and Prae'tor left the room.
"What was that all about?" Nia asked.
"He has been lacking in his duties as of late and now he is now going to try and make up for some of his absences." Jax explained.
"Good," Nia quipped, glad to see him go. "That guy makes me nervous." Jax only shook his head in despair, then trailed after the garden-robot followed by Nia.
The second robot passed many rows, or rather small blocks, of flowerbeds until he came to the type matching the one he was toting. He stooped down, tapped a code into a pad on the floor hidden by short foliage, and stepped back. Nia watched in fascination as the entire flowerbed rose slowly to the waist level of the garden-robot.
"Whoa," she muttered, impressed. "That makes his job a lot easier, huh?"
"Indeed." Jax agreed.
"So, um, what's you name?" Nia asked the gardener, who had changed his right hand into a small spade and began digging a hole in the black soil. It was about to call out its serial number when Jax held up a hand to stop him.
"If you extract the three letters from this one's model number as you did mine, you get the name Zen." Jax supplied, leaving out the fact that he had to rearrange them in order to create a suitable handle.
"Would you like to be called Zen?" she asked the garden-robot, who turned around to regard her.
"It would be an honor to be called Zen by the shao'uta." he accepted.
"And the shao'uta prefers to be called Nia," Nia quipped. To her relief, Zen nodded in understanding.
"As you wish." he said and went back to his work.
"What kind of flower is that?" Nia asked next. The plant looked familiar to her, but she couldn't place it.
"An orchid." Zen replied. "I removed it to cross it with a different kind of orchid. Just an experiment."
"Do you take care of all this by yourself?"
"Yes, I am the keeper of the gardens." Zen had finished digging the hole in the dirt and was now carefully removing the flower from the pot. He placed it in the new hole and covered it with soil.
"What would you like to see first?" he turned and asked Nia.
"What else is there?"
Zen looked thoughtful. "Hmm, well, there is the aquarium, the theater, the library-"
"There's a library?" Nia interrupted him.
"Yes." Zen confirmed, transforming his hand back to its original form. "Would you like to see it?"
Nia nodded excitedly.
The library wasn't much larger than her living quarters, but to Nia it was adequate enough. Everywhere she looked there were books lining the many shelves of the room.
"Where's the mystery section?" she asked Zen, the names of a few of her favorite authors already popping into her mind.
"Actually, all the books you see here are holograms. See?" Zen reached for a book on a nearby shelf and Nia's face fell in disappointment when his hand went straight through it. "Any and every novel you may want to read is on the computer." Zen pointed to a computer workstation in the back corner. "The bookshelves are just for aesthetic purposes."
"Oh." Nia mumbled. "What if I want to take a book back to my room to read?"
"I anticipated that query," Zen said, who was starting to sound more and more like Jax to Nia. He walked to the computer desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a flat object of some sort. Only when he brought the thing closer did Nia realize it was a laptop computer except it was literally half the size of any of the notebooks that Nia saw students carrying around campus.
"I acquired this for you for your personal use while we were preparing for your arrival." Zen explained, handing the small laptop to Nia.
"How did you do that?" she asked, taken aback by its size.
"Ah, something called an In-ter-net?" Zen replied, hoping he'd pronounced the word correctly. Nia's eyes widened.
"A wonderful human invention, this Internet," Zen went on. "I was even capable of setting up a secure link to it with Yaut'ja computers. You will be able to browse the web as well."
"A one way link, I hope." Jax chimed in.
"Of course!" Zen snapped at him. "How basic to you think I am?"
"Wait a second!" Nia jumped in before Jax could voice his reply. "You bought this little laptop on the Internet?"
"Yes." Zen affirmed.
"But they don't come this small." Nia argued, waving the lightweight notebook around as if it wasn't real. "And where did you get the money?"
"Obviously they do come that small, they just are not as popular yet." Zen corrected. "And I got the money through a website called e-bay, I think it was? You would be surprised at the assortment of items humans can purchase there. And the price they are willing to pay for something is amazing." Nia could only stare at the garden keeper in speechless bewilderment.
"What exactly did you sell?" Jax wanted to know. Zen looked at him, but didn't reply.
"You did not sell a human any Yaut'ja technology, did you?" Jax demanded.
"It was only a cutting tool." Zen admitted. Jax's eye-lights brightened, then began to flash irregularly. "A small one, that I no longer used here in my duties."
"Are you out of your CPU!" Jax screeched. "You know selling or trading any Yaut'ja equipment to humans is strictly forbidden. If the council finds out about this-"
"I had authorization."
"From who?"
Zen grinned innocently and Jax knew immediately whom his counterpart was reluctant to name.
"I am going to strangle him!" Jax suddenly exploded, shocking Nia who was surprised to see him lose his temper.
"Compose yourself." Zen said. "It was all for the shao'uta."
"I can not believe he would do something like this behind my back!" Jax ranted on.
"What? Prae'tor gave you permission to buy me this?" Nia asked, finally catching on. She had been thoroughly enjoying the squabble between the two robots, but now she just seemed dumbstruck. Zen nodded in response to her question.
" 'Return to my duties'- Indeed!" Jax rambled on, mostly to himself. "He knew I was going to find out about this and he just did not wish to hear me lecture him on proper protocol, which I am going to do anyway the next time I see that sneaky little…"
"Prae'tor had been following you for weeks," Zen said to Nia, talking over Jax's ravings. "He knows what you like to do with your free time. I was given the secondary task of making sure you stayed mentally stimulated."
Nia's brows raised in interest. "Wow, you guys certainly have been expecting me." she mumbled. Jax, who was still a bit over heated, glanced at Nia curiously.
"Did you doubt that I was telling you the truth?" he asked her. Nia shook her head.
"No. It's just that…things are starting to feel more and more real now," she confessed, suddenly feeling dizzy. She shut her eyes tightly to fight off the wave of vertigo, the laptop slipping out of her hand in the process. Jax was at her side in less then a second while Zen dove for the piece of expensive machinery.
"Are you all right?" her guardian asked, lying supporting hands on her upper arms. "Maybe I should take you back to your quarters."
"I'm pregnant, Jax. I'm bound to have a dizzy spell every now and then." Nia barked at him.
"Well, you have had a rather exciting day." Jax said. "Maybe just a short nap would do you some good."
"I don't want to sleep, I want to web surf." Nia declared, elbowing her guardian aside. "Zen, will you show me how to use that?" she asked, nodding at the notebook.
Zen agreed gleefully, gesturing for her to join him at the computer desk. Jax followed, unhappy that his charge was uncooperative with his suggestion of rest. When they got the workstation up and running and Nia began chatting away about all the places on the web she wanted to show Zen, Jax surrendered on the idea altogether.
"Looks like we are going to be here a while," he sighed, and then looked for a place to sit and rest his components.
That's all for now, my friends. I'm not going to make the mistake of stating when I might have the next chapters up. I hope it's soon. Anywho, please review, even if you absolutely hated these chapters, just be humane. Oh, and I do love any and all suggestions. I may use them and I may not, but I still like to hear what you guys would like to see happen to the characters and such, since this fic is not etched in stone in my head. Good-bye for now!