ILL
Chapter 15
Two hours later Zen returned to Nia's room completely repaired and in pristine condition. He was surprised that Prae'tor wasn't present and hovering over her as she lay on the bed, her eyes wide open, vacant and staring up at the ceiling. Jax was in a chair next to the bed, his back to the door, but he twisted around when he heard them open.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped when he'd set eyes on his counterpart. "I gave you specific orders to-"
"The other A.I's are effecting repairs to the pyramid. They are quite capable-"
"I ordered you to do it!"
"I was concerned about Nia and the baby," Zen explained, keeping his calm. Jax, however, flew out of his seat.
"If you were so concerned about them you would have taken whatever precautions necessary to make sure she was safe. Instead, I come back to find one of my robots destroyed, the pyramid in shambles and Nia, not only near comatose, but holding onto a Yaut'ja weapon with a dead xenomorph on the end of it!"
The garden-robot drew back in confusion. "What are you mad at me for?"
"Because you could have prevented this!" the other accused, "All you had to do was get Nia to a safe place and stay there."
Zen had to stop himself from breaking out into mock laughter. "Has your memory processor been erased? You know how hard it is to get that human female to do anything she does not want to do?" he reminded, pointing at the bed.
Jax grunted and dismissed the other's statement with a wave of his hand. He turned away and wondered over to the kitchen table.
"Is she all right?" Zen asked knowing full well that Jax wasn't yelling just to be yelling. "Did she miscarry?"
The guardian-robot shook his head. "No, but she could have."
"I know that!" Zen snapped, remembering with acute clarity how hard Nia had hit the floor after the xenomorph tossed her off. When he spoke again there was no longer any anger in his voice. "How is she?"
Jax turned back and looked at his charge lying unresponsive on the bed. "She has minor acid burns on the top of her feet and around her ankles, more bruises than I care to count and a small contusion on the back of her head, but other than that she is fine."
"And the baby?"
"Its vitals are all normal, which is incredible considering what it has been through today."
Relieved, Zen walked to the head of the bed and knelt beside Nia. "Why is she like this, then?" he asked, brushing a tress of her hair off her forehead. Jax moved back to his chair and sunk down into it before answering.
"Sometimes when a human experiences an extremely traumatic event, their psyche will shut down in order to protect the personality. But Nia is strong. She will snap out of it in a few hours."
A smile slowly spread across Zen's plasti-metal face. "You would have been so proud of her, Jax," he bragged. "She was amazing! Wait until I tell Prae'tor how she showed absolutely no fear whatsoever when she jumped out of that ventilation shaft and landed right on the xeno's back-" he stopped abruptly after seeing the appalled look on the other robot's face. "Um…nevermind."
Jax tried not to think about what Zen could have told him. For a lack of anything better to do, he transformed his hand into a medical scanner and moved it back and forth over the woman's lower abdomen.
"So…do we know how the xeno's got here?" Zen asked, noting the look of sheer worry on the other robot's face and decided to keep him talking, hoping it would help.
"No," Jax replied, his voice low and thoughtful. "Something like this has never happened before, not in all the eons of Yaut'ja existence."
"And you would know this…how?"
Jax smirked at him. "You surf the web for fun, I read Yaut'ja historical records. The point is what happened here today was an isolated event. Xeno's are never brought back to the home planet. The Yaut'ja go to them. All survivors are examined for alien-implantation as soon as they reboard the mothership. That is standard procedure and there have never been any deviations."
"You are thinking like a robot, Jax," Zen said wryly.
"I am a robot, stupid!"
Zen ignored the jibe and shook his head hopelessly. "You are missing my point, as always," he griped. "What I am trying to say is, the fact that all of this turmoil actually happened means that somewhere along the way protocol was not followed. Maybe someone missed a step."
Jax tossed him a strange look. "It is hard to miss a stage two xenomorph growing inside your ribcage," he snapped in agitation.
"Hey…leave the sarcasm to the professionals," Zen retorted. "Is Prae'tor overseeing the investigation?"
Jax grunted. "If he is overseeing anything it is making sure that there is enough xeno-blood to go around to mark all of his students."
The other robot chuckled. "So no one is looking into the incident?"
Jax shook his head. After realizing that nothing had changed with the fetus' vital signs, he returned his hand to normal, then laid his forehead in it forlornly. His face clouded over with something the garden-keeper had never seen before. Guilt.
"It should have been me," he mumbled, his eyes settling on Nia's expressionless face. "I would rather have her throwing a tantrum then see her like this."
Zen frowned in confusion. "What is the matter, Jax?" He was quiet for so long that Zen was afraid he wouldn't explain further.
"I should have been here to protect, Nia, not you. I am her guardian."
"There is no way you could have known that-"
"No!" Jax shouted, his voice echoing around the room. He lifted his head from his hand and glared angrily at his counterpart. It took him only a few seconds to calm down and when he did, both of the robots glanced at Nia, but she was unaffected by the outburst.
"When the Great Pyramid was overrun," Jax continued, his voice back to its regular pitch, "I knew I should have come right back. Prae'tor and the others were more than capable of…" he let the rest of the sentence trail off and fell silent again. After a moment her lowered his head to his hand once more. "I should have been here," he insisted, but Zen was not about to let him feel sorry for himself.
"All of the A.I.'s are responsible for Nia, in one way another, not just you," he scolded.
"But…"
"One even sacrificed his life so I could get her to safety!" Zen continued as though Jax had not spoken. "Not to mention the fact that I almost got ripped to shreds. But do I get a "thank-you"? Oh, no! I get yelled at and blamed for this whole mess."
"I do not blame you for everything," Jax defended, "just for bombing the place."
"I did what I had to do to stop that beast from getting to her. You would have done the same." Zen affirmed. The other robot wanted to protest, but could not find the words because he knew that the garden-keeper was right. The problem was that Jax did not want to admit it.
"I was upset," was all he could bring himself to say.
Zen scoffed, but he was grinning when he did it. "Oh, come off it. You were venting and you know it. You are so human!"
Jax sat up straight in his seat and his mouth fell open, mortally offended. However, he was interrupted before he could fire back.
"You say that like it's a bad thing," moaned a familiar voice and two sets of robot eyes shot to the stirring female on the bed. Zen found his voice first.
"Nia! You are awake. Are you all right?"
She nodded, then moved a hand to her pounding forehead. She looked at Zen with concern in her honey-brown eyes. "Are you okay?"
He smiled broadly. "I am a machine. I can be easily repaired."
Nia would have laughed, but her head felt like a train was running through it. "Did anyone get the license plate of that zoo-morph that ran me over?"
Zen got the yarn and chuckled. "Yes, she is fine," he declared merrily.
"I was not expecting you to wake up so soon," Jax admitted. "Are you in a lot of pain?"
"Shhh, stop shouting!" she reprimanded him although the robot had not raised his voice. Zen stifled another laugh.
"I can give you something for that, but it will eventually cause you to fall asleep again." Jax offered, ignoring the rebuff. The woman shut her eyes and tried to push the pain to the back of her mind but to no avail.
"Sleep…yeah, sleep would be good," she replied and her guardian rose from his chair to go to a kitchen cabinet. Nia opened her eyes and looked at Zen.
"Is it dead?"
"You do not remember killing it?"
Her eyes widened in shock. "I killed it?"
The robot nodded his head enthusiastically.
"How?"
Zen was about to tell her but he was cut off.
"Since you are about to explain anyway, start from the beginning," Jax suggested, sitting down in his chair with a hypodermic needle in his right hand.
"Can we say oral medication?" Nia quipped glancing at the needle hesitantly. Jax smiled at her, but gave her the shot anyway. Zen began to relate his side of the incident up until the time he found Nia standing in the doorway of the main entrance. She then backtracked and explained what lead up to her being there. Jax was visibly upset that she had gotten out of bed, but he did not interrupt.
Next she explained everything that happened until she was shoved into her room, then Zen took over because that was where her memory blurred. When the narrative ended Nia braced herself for the tongue-lashing that was sure to come, but Jax only stared at her, his expression unreadable.
"I'm sorry, Jax," the woman said sincerely when the silence dragged on too long for her liking. "I'm sorry I broke my promise and got out of bed. I'm sorry that I did not stay put after Zen locked me away in here and I'm sorry I put my baby in danger again."
Suddenly the robot's face brightened into a smile. Nia glanced to Zen in confusion and found the same look on his face.
"What?" she asked, turning back to Jax.
"Once more you have said 'my baby'," he informed her and she sighed with relief. "And after hearing the full story from you both I honestly believe that you did everything necessary to save your baby's life," he added.
"And mine," Zen threw in. "Though technically I am not alive."
Nia was staring from one to the other in slight disbelief. "I gotta' admit, Jax. I was not expecting you to take this so well."
"What were you expecting?"
"I was expecting you to tear me a new one," she confessed.
Jax frowned in perplexity. "Tear you a new what?" he asked and Zen and Nia burst out in laughter.
"Nevermind," she said. "I'm just glad you aren't mad at me."
"And I am glad that you are okay."
"What about me?" Zen piped up, looking hopefully at Jax, who smirked.
"No comment," he replied dryly and Nia laughed. Zen's face fell.
"You're doing a whole lot better than Gab, remember?" she said to the gardener and he nodded in agreement.
"Who is that?" Jax asked and his counterpart called out the model number of the A.I. that fought the xeno at the main entrance and how his name was derived.
"I take offense to that. I am Nia's guardian angel," Jax clarified.
"What you are, is jealous," Zen corrected and received a dirty look from the other robot.
"Help me with the covers," Nia requested of Jax, trying to stave off another brawl. The medicine was kicking in and she wanted to snuggle under the sheets before she fell asleep again. She moved over to allow Jax to pull back the flat sheet while Zen fluffed up her pillows.
"No fighting while I'm asleep," she pleaded when she was comfortable underneath the covers, looking from one to the other. Then she smiled brightly, "Wait until I wake up so I can join in."
Zen got the joke and laughed. Jax, however, didn't think it was funny and he tossed the other robot a "get out" look. When his eyes fell back on Nia, though, she was sound asleep.