Page 51 of BounBound By Scars

“Is that a—”

“Yes,” I cut him off, rolling my eyes as I turned back to the makeshift workstation. It had been over a week since I told Amelia everything. But she still hadn’t talked to me, save for the time she was complaining about Chariot, her new drone. I also thought she wasn’t talking to me in particular, just muttering her grievances in the middle of the Command Center. She missed her old drones.

Out of Hawk and Eagle, Hawk had always been Amelia’s favorite. Better weapon range, integrated thermal imaging, a LiDAR-enhanced 3D structural mapper, and—my personal pride—a custom-upgraded multi-axis gyro stabilizer I’d designed myself. The woman had a thing for firepower and stabilization. Sexy, really.

I was rebuilding Hawk. Or at least a version of it. She’d had to abandon both when Romano-gate happened. But I knew what they meant to her.

I also knew she hated Chariot. Too intuitive. Too calibrated. Too much AI. She liked control. She liked manual overrides. Chariot didn’t let her feel the fight.

“She never said it,” I muttered, hands deftly maneuvering around the microcontroller, “but I know she misses them.”

Zane tilted his head as he stepped in closer. “You’re cloning her old drone config?”

“Not cloning. Rebuilding.” I didn’t look up. “I saved every custom patch she installed. Every tweak. Even the janky sensor she refused to recalibrate. She’s emotionally attached to the flaw in the targeting logic—it gives her manual correction time.”

I pointed at my laptop’s screen. “Oh and I upgraded the sensor so it can still misfire in the exact same way. She won’t even notice.”

He let out a low whistle. “You’ve got it bad.”

I grunted.

Zane looked between me and the partially reassembled drone on the table. “You know you don’t have to reroute the current through a double-layered MOSFET just to reduce thermal stress. You can just isolate the motor—”

“—with a Peltier cooler… I know.”

He smiled as he fucking caressed the damn frame, like he was petting a cat.

“You are stroking my drone.” I deadpanned.

He grinned. “It’s sexy tech. Let me have my moment.”

I sighed and refocused. “I know that way works. But I want it to match her old heat signature model. Down to the way the left arm buzzed when she pivoted on auto-fire mode.”

Zane crossed his arms. “She’s dating Sebastian, you know?”

“I know.”

“Then why do it?”

I paused.

“She deserves to feel in control again. After everything… she deserves something that listens to her.”

A silence stretched.

Zane finally muttered, “Chariot doesn’t listen?”

“Chariot listens to the code. Not to her. It anticipates. She hates that.”

“That’s some telepathic shit.” He exhaled a quiet laugh, then nodded toward the parts scattered across the desk. “You gonna need weapons modules?”

“Yeah. But I can’t request inventory from the armory without Sebastian breathing down my neck.”

“I’ll distract him. Say you’re working on a new training model for the recruits.”

I glanced at him. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

He clapped me on the back, way too enthusiastically. “That’s why I’m the brains of the operation.”