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Then he winked. Matt got the feeling that while James found it amusing that the nunette thought bondage was titillating, his amusement was just in regard to her. But in regard to
Matt
being cuffed to the bed…. He shivered. And licked his lower lip. Completely unconsciously. Really.

James’s pupils dilated, his eyes focusing on Matt’s mouth. Then he slowly tracked lower over Matt’s body. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt. He wondered if James could see his heart beating under his rib cage, because it sure felt like it was trying to escape his chest.

Gah. He was getting hard and there were two nuns in the room. James’s smirk grew, and he took a prowling step toward Matt.

This must mean he was forgiven for yesterday?

“Ahem!” Pearl said. She gave them each a hard stare. Matt was sure he hadn’t blushed in years. Good to know he still knew how.

Pearl turned back to Benigna and plopped a pair of noise-canceling ’phones on her head. “Okay, we need to figure out what to do with her.” Pearl was strictly business when she turned back to Matt and James.

“She wants to go with us,” James said. Then he shot a look at Pearl and amended quickly, “I bet.”

“It’s all right, James. I know about your biocybe implant.”

Matt was watching James’s face when she said it, so he caught the flash of shock and dismay. Crap. He had to talk to James about what Pearl had told him yesterday. But with a nun chained to their bed, it might be hard to find the appropriate venue.

“I’ll need to discuss this with my partner. I’m going to have to leave her here,” Pearl nodded her head toward Benigna, “while I go and figure this out. I don’t want to bring Sister Carmella here. Just in case Benigna isn’t ‘neutralized’ effectively, Carmella shouldn’t be exposed, also.

“Matt, this might be a good time for you to talk to James about my past,” she added briskly. Her tone didn’t adequately cover up her uncertainty. She walked out the door before James could react.

Matt blew out a breath. He decided to just get it over with, like pulling off a med patch. “She didn’t explain it to me, exactly, but it seems she might know something about your implant. I didn’t tell her anything.”

James was pissed. Even if his expressionless mask didn’t give it away, the tic in his jaw and the look in his eyes did. Instinctively, Matt reached out and laid a hand on James’s forearm and opened his mind completely. Somewhat to his surprise, James didn’t shake him off.

“She wants to talk to you about it. She regrets it, James.”

James blew out a breath, puffing out his cheeks. “That explains why she always feels so nervous around me.” James looked at Matt for a second, then pulled his hand out of his pocket, letting Matt’s hand slide down his arm, catching it in his. “Yeah. I think she wants to help me.”

Okay, there were advantages to having a serious talk with a guy who could read feelings. Instead of the long, painful conversation Matt anticipated, it was this one-minute clarification.

Wow, all men should have boyfriends with mind-reading implants. It would prevent a lot of girly, emotional scenes.

Shit, did he just think
boyfriend
? James looked up at him sharply, wide-eyed. His hand tightened convulsively over Matt’s. Did James hear that? Or pick it up as meta-communication? Or whatever it was?

Oh fuck. As in, they hadn’t yet, and he was unconsciously thinking of James as his
boyfriend
. Well, consciously, now. This wasn’t good. James probably thought he was a possessive freak who went around sinking his claws into any guy who kissed him and ground his erection in his ass a little.

James tugged on his hand gently, reeling him in. He was looking in Matt’s eyes. It wasn’t until he was so close that Matt could see the individual whiskers in James’s beard shadow that he realized what James wanted.

James’s rough lips were on his, hot breath across Matt’s mouth. Gentle suction, capturing first his upper lip, then his lower. Matt slid one hand around James’s neck, James’s hand sliding around to the small of his back. Just the tip of James’s tongue flicking inside Matt’s slightly parted lips. Matt opened more, needing James to take what he wanted. He might have moaned a little.

A shocked sound came from the direction of the bed. A sort of muffled gasp-shriek.

The fucking nunette.

Benigna’s eyes were round as mini-discs. Matt had never actually thought anyone’s eyes could fall out of their head before, but now….

James got that grin again. Jesus, Benigna must have some kinky little brain waves in there. He turned back to Matt, gave him a quick kiss, and then nuzzled up to his ear and told him, “She wants to watch us fuck.”

They were going to have to take her back with them. She’d never survive here.

M
ATT
was still laughing when the door opened, admitting Pearl and another nun. Of course it was a nun—what else would it be?

The new nun was basically a pinch-faced crotchety old lady. She looked like a barrel of laughs. Not that SEALs were generally the life of the party. “Sister Carmella, this is Matt Tennimore, with QESA, and First Lieutenant James Ayala, Psi-force.”

Then Sister Carmella smiled, and she became a friendly, crotchety old lady. “Hello, boys.  Nice to meet you. I’ll skip the BS, Lieutenant. I’m sooo retired. Call me Carmella.” She turned and looked at the bed, and her mouth became pinched again. And sour. She stalked over and ripped off the ’phones. “I see you’re entertaining Sister Maligna.”

James snorted, and Matt laughed outright. Sister Benigna made indignant noises behind her gag. Carmella smiled nastily. “She’s not my favorite nun,” she told them. Unnecessarily.

Pearl just raised an eyebrow and set the tray she was carrying on the table next to the bed. On the far side from Benigna. “Matt, you really need to eat in order to continue healing. I’ll look at your wounds once we deal with Benigna.” She tossed Matt a roll after setting the tray down. He could see butter on the tray, but was too hungry to bother getting it. He took a bite of the roll. Mmmmmm. Homemade. With real wheat flour.

Carmella turned back to them. “So, Ayala. Pearl tells me you can read minds.”

Matt turned to Carmella. Apparently they were going to talk freely in front of the nunette. “Not exactly, but I can pick up feelings and intent. Sometimes a word or two.” James turned and looked at Matt when he said that. Matt reddened (it was becoming a habit). James must have picked up the “b” word earlier, just before kissing him. Shit.

Of course, the kiss might be considered a positive reaction.

Pearl glanced at Matt and then James interestedly, and raised both her eyebrows. Matt looked away and ate his roll.

“And Benigna is interested in going with you when you leave?”

James hesitated momentarily. “She wants out of here. Whether she really wants to go with
us
, I don’t know.”

Benigna was making more noises behind her gag, pleading noises. James quirked one side of his lips at her. “She has quite the dirty little mind, from what I can tell. I think she feels it’s wasted here.”

“MMMMMPH!” Benigna was now glaring daggers at James. He quirked the other side of his lips. Matt almost felt sorry for her. Except she had almost exposed them to God knows what by stumbling in where she wasn’t wanted. That effectively killed his pity.

“Well, we gotta do something with her,” Carmella said.

Pearl chimed in. “We don’t particularly want to… eliminate her. But if she poses a threat….” Pearl shrugged. Matt bet she was less dispassionate than she seemed. Carmella would probably eliminate Maligna, though, like a bad tumor (were there good tumors?).

Ah, scare tactics. Not his forte.

“But if she went with you, and we could trust her not to escape, that would solve all our problems.”

Benigna was nodding fervently, and making eager, agreeable noises. Clearly, she would happily go with them in order to avoid “elimination.” And probably the free porn she imagined she’d be getting on the trip.

James made a show of being reluctant. Matt let him have at it and wandered over to his tray to eat more. He was starving. Besides, James was better at emotionless badass than he was. When he wasn’t being nice. Strange that a guy who could be so nice could also come across as so callous when he needed to.

Soon, Benigna was free and breathlessly proclaiming her willingness to accompany them to Oregon, promising not to escape. James seemed to be buying it.

Carmella looked less than convinced. But she hauled Benigna away. “Come on, Maligna. We’re going to tell Mother Superior that you’re doing penance in my kitchen for the next two days. Two days?” she inquired, turning back.

“We shouldn’t leave any later, but if we can leave earlier, we might,” James answered. Pearl nodded.

Carmella looked satisfied with that. “So, you’ll be spending one to two days in the kitchen with me while I get you ready. I have
lots
of little jobs I think you’ll enjoy,” she purred, smiling maliciously.

Carmella and Benigna left, Benigna yammering on to Carmella about how she was fine with traveling with the two men, even if they were sodomites.

Matt choked on a carrot, and James had to whack him on the back. Which wasn’t actually necessary, but probably made James feel like he was helping.

Once he caught his breath, Matt sat on the bed, pulling the food tray to himself, setting it in front of his crossed legs.

Pearl and James were trying not to seem like they were avoiding each other’s eyes. Matt sighed. “Why do we need to leave within two days?” he asked, giving them a break. He could practically see Pearl’s shoulders fall in relief.

“When I checked in this morning, Lance had arranged a rendezvous for us with a SpecOps/Contract team at Brownlee Dam. It’s about thirty kilometers away, but we probably need to give ourselves two nights for travel. I don’t know if we can find the horse again, and now we’ll be dragging Maligna along.”

“When’s the rendezvous?”

“Fourth night from tonight at 0330. Two nights of travel should be plenty. The team’ll create a distraction near the border crossing downstream from the damn, and we’ll cross at the dam then. Because of the current no-fly truce they won’t be able to cross the OR-ID border.”

“So, I guess we should see how my wounds look.” Matt sighed again.

“Yeah, we’re going to have to swim for it, so you have to be healed enough to get across. The eco-terrorists only partially destroyed Brownlee Dam. We’ll have to go through some swift water.”

“No broken skin,” Pearl clarified.

“I can’t just dose up with anti-bionanos?”

“You could, but there are still parasitic bugs, not to mention pollutants.”

Duh
. “Shit,” he muttered. James came and sat next to him, sliding a hand around the back of his neck and giving him a squeeze.

“Won’t leave without you.” James seemed to think this should be comforting. His eyes widened in surprise when Matt’s instinctive reaction was to force him to go. “That’s not okay with you?”

“I want you out of this place! Where the RIA can’t ever stick you in one of their fucking camps again and fuck up your head anymore.”

“And on that note,” Pearl broke in uncertainly. James sighed and closed his eyes, his hand tightening on Matt’s neck again. Taking comfort now, not giving. Then he straightened up and let his hand slip off.

Matt’s neck felt cold.

“Maybe you should tell us what you know,” James suggested. He was expressionless again, and his voice was nearly a monotone.

Pearl looked down at her twisting hands. She took a chair when James indicated she should sit. “I was a research scientist for SOUF working in neural enhancements. Nothing intrusive; changes that could be brought about through medications or supplements. A few changes to the neural network that might be made through neurofeedback. Some of my work might have… pushed the envelope, but all of the troops were volunteers, and I never okayed a therapy if I wasn’t sure the risk outweighed the benefit for the individual.

“About seven years ago, I was appointed to a multidisciplinary SOUF team working on practical biocybe applications.” Pearl looked at them, finally. “It’s known that there’s more information available than the human brain is capable of capturing or processing. The team’s task was to develop a way for the human brain to process information that normally can’t be processed—like the way we can’t see the UV spectrum. The specific goal was to capture and process brain waves.”

“So you and this team developed a way for soldiers to read them.” James was regarding her steadily.

“Yes.” She nodded slowly. “We came up with a hypothetical method of application, but only preliminary primate experiments were conducted. It was an implant, and while I was apprehensive, I knew we couldn’t avoid more invasive brain work eventually. I decided it was better if I was working with the scientists who were pushing those therapies than against the system, imposing at least some of my ethics. Others on the team agreed with me. But the implant blueprint was taken and immediately implemented in Psi-force troops.”

“Like me.” Even James’s voice was expressionless.

“Like you.” Pearl leaned forward and planted her elbows on her knees, looking intently at James. “The implant we designed was a programmable, organic framework. The brain can grow to work with the implant, but the implant itself can’t grow. The implant could be ‘enhanced’ later by introducing new programming. The initial programming—before implanting—would only need a portion of the implanted network to function.

“The biggest problem is that the organic implant could essentially reprogram itself in ways we couldn’t predict or control if ‘fed’ with other stimuli. Maybe even stimuli we aren’t even aware of, or don’t currently see as a danger. It has the potential to be very dangerous. Figuring out more about the specific dangers and stimuli was the objective of the next phase of testing. Unfortunately, some scientists on the team thought this feature was a plus.”

Matt shot off the bed. “This is what was done to James? Someone put this organic, unpredictable, untested biocybernetic implant in him?”