Page 376 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

I didn’t know what Akri had done with the camera in the hallway, but wouldn’t someone have seen him leave his cell before he did that?

He was getting heavier and heavier to hold up, so I had no choice but to drag him over to my bare cot and help him onto it.

If I didn’t, we’d both go down to the floor.

“Okay, I got you,” I said, but he was really heavy, and his feet barely lifted as he walked.

“Just a little further.” He landed as gracelessly as before, but at least now I could straighten his legs on the cot and help him settle more comfortably.

Then I went back to gather our belongings so I’d have access to them while he rested.

Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out some water and food, and, in between filling my own needs, I fed him, too.

I didn’t like how pale the normally dramatic colors around his eyes were right now.

There were even little streaks of white stretching from the corners of his eyes downward.

Much like I’d get dark smudges from lack of sleep, he was getting white ones.

“Just rest, okay? We’ll get out of here when you’re feeling better. ”

Akri shook his head, one tentacle gathering enough energy to slither across the bed and curl around my knee. “Not leaving yet. I haven’t got what I need.” I stared at him in consternation. What was he talking about? We were in serious trouble, and he wanted to stay put?

“You mean you haven’t decrypted that thing yet?” I asked. My eyes scanned his chest, but I saw no sign of the green amulet he normally wore. If they’d taken that from him, he would want to retrieve it; we’d come here to crack the damn thing, after all.

Akri’s mouth twitched into a smile, his eyes opening to show me that some of the pinpricks of white had returned; I hoped that meant he was recovering. “No, that wasn’t my only objective. I’m getting a unique chance to work with the only scientist in the Zeta Quadrant who has studied my species.”

Opening my mouth to reply, I shut it again when I realized what he meant.

This asshole lab toad had experimented on him, and he called that “working together.” Had he let himself get tortured so he could simultaneously pick that guy’s brain?

If so, that was extremely daring and ballsy.

Look at how exhausted he was—his right tentacle still hadn’t moved at all, making me fear it was terribly damaged.

“I managed to tuck the amulet into my satchel without them seeing. I don’t think they bothered to search our bags…

” He moved his arm in the direction of our pile of things, which I’d left in the middle of the tiny room.

Getting up, I gently removed his left tentacle from my knee so I could search his satchel for it.

“Do you want it back?” I asked him when I located the glittering green disk on the thick gold chain.

It was a little ostentatious, especially now that I knew Akri was a reserved type of guy who didn’t even appreciate aesthetics the same way I did.

The thing was heavier than it looked, and the gem-like green disk felt strange, like it wasn’t quite what it appeared to be.

When I sat down on the edge of the cot at his hip, his left tentacle immediately returned to touching the closest part of me, my knee.

I smiled, relieved that he was acting a bit more like his normal self again, even if he still appeared extremely tired.

“No, you keep it on you. I’m certain they’ll leave you alone. It’ll be safer.”

Nodding, I appraised his features again.

My eyes skated along the long, smooth line of his narrow jaw and pointed chin.

There were little dips in his cheeks, dimples that deepened when he smiled.

His nose was just like that of a human, but his eyes were very alien, and the more I’d gotten used to them, the prettier they seemed to me.

The whiteness around them was fading into deep orange once more, so he was definitely perking up.

“Will you tell me what happened? Where are you hurt? Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked him.

With one hand, I gently touched the scrunched-up, loose fabric of his shirt, which still clung to his arm because of the tight fit, but hung in tattered folds around his front, since it had been cut open at the back.

Akri nodded. “There are supercomputers on most planets in the universe, of various capabilities. Any of them probably would have worked to decrypt the amulet.” He drew in a breath, his eyes shifting from my face to the hallway.

“I picked this one because of the Ovt scientist Lekri. His secondary field of study is my species. I hoped to steal all his research notes, but I haven’t managed that yet. ”

It was the first time that I’d ever heard Akri refer to the species he was as if it were his. Previously, he’d always talked about his body and species as if they belonged to someone else, and he was just temporarily a part of them.

“I’m losing control, Jenny. These violent urges are getting the best of me, so I need answers about what I’ve become.

The Akilad are nearly extinct and very hard to find, so he was my next-best source of information.

” I didn’t believe for a moment that he was really losing control.

I was fairly certain that he was just struggling to comprehend the reality of living in a body with hormonal fluctuations and instincts that a machine didn’t have.

Everyone had the occasional intrusive thought, but that didn’t mean we acted on them.

Maybe he just didn’t know the difference?

Akri was very serious about this. Terrified, even.

He was genuinely worried that he would act in violence, cross a line he didn’t want to cross, and end up hurting a friend.

“Akri,” I said, my hands stroking over his wide chest, petting him.

“You’d never hurt anyone you care about.

I really don’t believe your control is all that bad; I think you’re doing great. ”

He vehemently shook his head, his right tentacle flopping limply against the cot’s hard mattress.

“No, I am! Just look at my head appendages; they keep grabbing you! And my body…” He made a face, his eyes lowering to glance down along his body.

I followed his line of sight and had to grin when I realized that his cock had gotten hard.

“It keeps doing that without my say-so!”

“Yeah, that’s normal,” I said. “It tends to do that when you find a person attractive.” My words made him look absolutely aghast, horrified, even.

The thought hadn’t crossed his poor mind that maybe it was normal to be that unruly.

I imagined he was basically going through some kind of puberty, experiencing arousal for the first time.

If he’d always been a machine before that, it wouldn’t have been a feeling he was familiar with.

It was no wonder it freaked him out so much.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That is extremely inefficient. It is very distracting when it happens… There has to be another answer besides that!” The poor guy was in denial.

I didn’t like seeing his distress, and I really didn’t like that it was making him take a risk he didn’t need to take.

He still had not said anything about what that stupid scientist had been doing to him for hours, either.

When I asked, his expression became pained, and he got a little fidgety, which meant that he was deciding whether he wanted to tell me or not.

“The nav port is located in my tentacle because the area is extremely nerve-rich. They normally only install those ports at the base of the brain stem, which is still a risky procedure, no matter how good the surgeon is. With my species, it’s much simpler—the way the nerves are clustered makes it much more efficient. ”

He picked up the limp right tentacle to show it to me.

“Lekri took several biopsies from this one to study, and then he had me use my port to run endless exercises and simulations on the supercomputer.” I took the limp, abused appendage from his hand.

With my fingers, I gently stroked along the surface.

There were several vertical slices along the rich ocher skin, covered neatly with plasfilm and stitches.

“He’s arrogant and he’s stupid,” Akri added, which made me laugh through the sadness I felt.

“Giving me access to that computer is the worst thing he could have done. I exhausted myself with the work I did on that machine, while making it appear I was struggling through his stupid exercises.” He didn’t say what ‘work’ he’d been doing, but it was safe to assume it would aid us in getting out of here eventually.

“Don’t worry, Jenny, I will be fine. The food helped, and the water I drank is helping me replenish the spinal fluid he took.

I just need another day to get what I need from here, and then we’ll leave.

” I didn’t like that, but I also knew there was nothing I could do to change his mind.

He wasn’t ready to live with the truth yet; he had to find out for himself.

I just hoped I could be at his side to show him that it was going to be all right.