“Since we’re in this together, if I get hurt, you need to feel it, too,” Haley cooed threateningly from the ethereal embrace. “It will help strengthen our bond.”

  “Please. Please don’t do that,” Mac all but begged.

  Haley looked up with wide puppy-dog eyes and a shy smile, “But we’ve been getting along so well. Don’t you care about me? You did promise to stay with me,” She reminded him playfully.

  There were a million wrong ways to answer that question. All of which happily proposed themselves to Mac. There were depressingly good odds he was about to spout out at least one of them and doom himself for the next untold hours. He really hoped the AI was not reading his mind just then.

  “Yeeeessss,” Mac replied cautiously with a faint smile on his lips. Haley wouldn’t really…

  Haley wrapped her arms around him, squeezed tightly enough to restrict his breathing, and emitted a cute girl noise before happily announcing. “We’ll be together… forever.” A small indicator at the edge of his vision revealed a percentage slowly scrolling upward.

  The AI released her constricting grip (had that actually been a threat?) and stepped back. Somehow, in the midst of the quick movement her clothes had transformed into a sharp, short-skirted, light-colored military uniform complete with shiny buttons and a small set of awards atop one breast. As she raised a hand for a teasing salute with all the respect of a bored teenager, as an off-kilter navy officer’s hat materialized on her head. A playful look danced across her otherwise serious and very beautiful face with more than a hint of possessiveness lurking in the depths of her wide eyes among the ones and zeros waiting to spring when the moment was right. “What are your orders, Mac?”

  “Task at hand, task at hand,” Mac reminded himself trying not to stare.

  “Am I distracting?”

  “Kind of.” Mac replied unable to keep his eyes completely off the perplexing AI.

  “Really?” Haley asked as her expression softened… and became that much more attractive.

  “Of course,” Mac granted the AI the acknowledgement it sought. Swearing followed by a crunching sound echoed across the comms even as Mac tried to refocus both himself and his… quirky AI. “We’ve got friends out there to take care of, and I need your help to do that. I’m also a bit new to this, and I need your help to avoid damage. Can you help watch our back while I assist my bolt?”

  A look of pure determination spread across her beautiful features and she saluted again, this time with actual respect, “I can do that… but we’ll need to stay moving so we’ll have the needed momentum at the ready to dodge attacks.”

  “That’s my girl,” Mac smiled, having won Haley over and sparking a bright smile on her semi-transparent face. “Let’s start by helping me identify who’s in trouble, please.”

  Haley closed the distance between them and slipped into her previous place on his back. He felt her ethereal arms across his chest again and the faint weight of her ethereal form riding on his back. Her voice was momentarily serious now as she spoke into his ear, “Seven is being stalked about three hundred meters from our current position. Enemy is airborne at two hundred meters. It’s a type V. I’ve mapped them onto your second vision.” Mac could… feel their positions as Seven dashed between trees. It seemed like Seven had finally gotten his legs, if the quick starts and stops he was confidently making were any indication.

  “Does it know we’re here?” Mac mentally marked the stalker.

  “Inconclusive, Handsome,” Haley responded.

  “Do we have any way to knock it out of the sky?” Mac searched for solutions.

  “The main cannon should be sufficient to at least harry it a little bit,” Haley recommended. “A long enough stream of fire could break the shields.”

  “One? Two? Either of you dudes out there?” Seven whispered into the comms. “This OG is out to ice my rear. I can’t shake ‘em.”

  “A bit busy just now,” came back Scruffy’s strained response with the clang of metal in the background.

  “We see you, Seven,” Mac confided. “Start making your way South by Southwest. You’ll find a clearing we can use for an ambush.”

  “I like ambushing noobs,” Seven replied hopefully.

  “But you’re the noob,” Mac countered.

  “I’m Noobslayer42, fool,” Seven shot back.

  “You’re just Seven now,” Mac reminded him. “But that’s a good thing. Are you ready to ‘go all Seven’ on that stalker of yours?”

  “Since forever.”

  “Good. Here’s what I’m thinking…”

  XXXXX

  “Nice try, scrubs,” the stalking pilot taunted over the comms as he lifted both battle suits into the starry night air, “You not only failed to account for my superior intellect, but you even forgot to account for my obvious mass and velocity. It’s all physics... and genius, when you think about it.”

  Mac tried to ignore the condescending lecture about how his old friend had become his enemy as he struggled against the grip on his battle suit, all the while rapidly ascending. “Haley, countermeasures, please,” Mac grunted against the firm grip pinning his cannon arm against his side. The increased haptics made it rather uncomfortable.

  “No options available. We are overpowered,” Haley replied apologetically.

  “Let me go, you first-level noob!” Seven struggled and kicked erratically. Both his arms were pinned to his side.

  “First-level noob?” the captor replied rather perturbed. “I am no first-level noob such as yourself. I’m so far beyond your understanding of these works of military art, that I feel dirty even touching such a snot-eating babe as yourself.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Oh, you went there!” Seven hollered back.

  Mac could almost imagine their captor smiling fiendishly. “I not only ‘went there.’ I had dinner, took in the depressing scenery, and came back unscathed. I even got a delightful souvenir for my trouble. Bottom’s up,” The captor flipped both battle suits upside-down as he released them. “Have a nice Summer, I fear that “The Fall” can be something less than enjoyable.”

  “Work with your AI,” Mac called to Seven, even as he flipped his own jets on and tried to right himself.

  “Loot boxes…” Seven cursed as Gravity and Physics high-fived each other at the hand-off near the peak of his ascent.

  “Just tell your battle suit what you need,” Mac coaxed his bolt member.

  “I want to live!” Seven exclaimed. This was followed a moment later by “I’d better survive the fall!”

  “Be more specific,” Mac tried again even as Haley engaged her thrusters to stop the spinning. “Thank you, Haley,” Mac replied subvocally to the AI as the stars quit spinning. “Gentle landing please, but no need to stay in the air with the falcon.”

  Seven continued to tumble toward the forest below until his thrusters finally kicked on and arrested his fall. Mac passed him on the way down, feathering his own descent. “Don’t hang there too long, Seven,” Mac advised. “You’ll attract attention.”

  “I got this, now,” Seven replied over-confidently. “I just need a moment to orient myself to these controls.”

  Mac felt their old captor circling back, “You don’t have a moment. He’s coming back.”

  “Five seconds to landing,” Haley advised as Mac loosened his knees.

  “Haley.”

  “Yes, Sweetie,” the AI replied.

  “Ready the main cannon, again. Let’s try to disrupt our foe,” Mac suggested as he raised the main cannon attached to his arm.

  “We needed that for balance,” reprimanded the AI as Mac felt his knees bend in response to the suit contacting the ground. He did not stick the landing and toppled over awkwardly. Mac instinctively rolled and saved himself a second impact, but now he was under a tree and had no time left to aim.

  Seven was going to suffer for it.

  “Dragon scales…” Seven cursed as the predator struck him out of the sky like a lightning bolt. Mac felt/watched him plumet back to earth uncontrollably.

  Just before Seven impacted, Mac noticed the blip belonging to Two flash on his mental radar.

  “Got ya,” Scruffy exclaimed as he half-caught Seven just before an awkward impact. This was followed by a grunt of pain as Two bore the brunt of the collision.

  “I’m sooo gonna wreck that poser,” Seven threatened malevolently and likely unintentionally over the comms as he stood up with one foot on Scruffy’s suit.

  “You can’t tell me to do something and then go manual in the middle of the operation,” Haley schooled her pilot as Mac stood the battle suit up. “That was downright rude… and I could’ve gotten seriously hurt,” Haley sounded… anxious?

  “I’m sorry, I…”

  “When I have the controls, you need to give me the controls,” Haley continued very seriously but with a fearful tinge to it.

  “Think about…”

  “I can run the sequences, but only if you let me.” Did Haley raise her voice at the end of that? Were AI supposed to be able to do that?

  “That’s beside the point, Love,” Haley answered the unspoken question. “We’re together in this, and if you don’t let me do my part… we’re both going to get hurt.” That sounded distinctly like a threat. Mac noticed he could feel the cool night breeze on his skin and the crushed stick under one of his feet.

  XXXXX

  Mac stood on the descending elevator with the rest of his smashed-up bolt some thirty plus hours later. The clock suggested it was almost time for breakfast. His entire body ached. “You know, Haley, you could slip some pain killers into the link,” he requested hopelessly for the umpteenth time.

  “Sorry, Handsome, but I won’t have an addict as my pilot,” Haley replied sternly from over his shoulder.

  “I’m not asking for one of the mega cocktails,” Mac tried in vain to coax the AI, “Just a little something for my headache. Please?”

  “Stop asking, Sweetie,” Haley replied unwillingly. “The answer is still no, and no amount of begging will change that. I’ve dealt with an addict before, and I refuse to make one of you.”

  “Just a little something to take the edge off.” Mac pleaded.

  “I should never have patched you through to that girl,” Haley slipped off his shoulder to stand in front of him, hands on her hips. Even for an image of light, she was as crazy beautiful as she was sadistic.

  “Her name is Natalia,” Mac replied, “And she was just trying to help.”

  “No. Her name is Natalie,” Haley corrected, “and she was trying to steal you away from me.”

  “Maybe,” Mac’s eye twitched ever so slightly, “if you had patched her warning through about sunset, we wouldn’t be limping now.”

  The ghostly image dropped eye contact and frowned at the ground. Mac was in pain and more than a bit angry. The frustration began to boil over, “She’s a vampire, Haley. She drinks blood to survive. She could rip someone in half… if she so wanted! You’re a scaled AI! I’m fairly certain you can read my mind. You should be able to logically reason that she poses no threat to our relationship!”

  The petulant AI stood in front him with her fists clenched at her sides and a far too attractive pout on her lips. Her bangs covered her eyes, and she almost seemed to tremble. She held that pose for an eternal five seconds leaving the sound of the descending elevator to hum in Mac’s ears.

  At last, Haley spoke softly at first but became increasingly louder, “You promised I could be with you, and that you wouldn’t leave me.” Mac recalled the earlier conversation but wondered where the AI was headed with this. “You said you would be my pilot. We fought together, struggled together… hurt together.” That last part was certainly true. “We’re supposed to be in this together. There isn’t room in our relationship for some poser to distract you from me.” The girl made of light was even beautiful when she was angry.

  “You’re not making any sense,” Mac replied carefully.

  “No! You’re not making any sense,” Haley shouted up at him. “You’re mine! I love you! I refuse to let anyone else have you. Doesn’t the last day mean anything to you?”

  How to respond to that? Mac tried not to think. As he had stated earlier, it was more than evident that Haley could easily read his brain waves. Somewhere his subconsciousness had pointed out the elevator had stopped moving.

  “And look what you’re doing right now. You’re trying to hide from me. Why? Why?! Don’t you love me, too?” Haley almost pleaded as she looked up into his eyes. “We could be together, forever. Don’t you want that?” a shy smile graced her face beneath wide, pleading eyes. “I’m so much better than that she-witch you think about so much.”

  “I don’t think about Natalia that much,” Mac argued foolishly. “She’s just a co-worker. We need each other to survive.”

  “So, you’re just going to ignore how Natalie seems to always be near you and is trying to help you?” Haley’s pout returned.

  “That’s what co-workers do,” Mac spread his hands helplessly. “And her name is Natalia.”

  “I know who that wench is.”

  “Name calling is not helping your case.”

  “She cares about you,” Haley asserted. “She even risked herself to save you… four times since we launched in fact. You are supposed to be my pilot, not distracted by some darkly dressed, wannabe floozy.”

  “That was uncalled for, Haley,” Mac put his foot down.

  “You see!” Haley pointed at him, “You do care about her more than me!”

  “She’s a living soul… I think,” Mac corrected himself, “and my co-worker. Of course, she’s important to me. I need her to stay alive! That’s how it works in this business!” Mac didn’t mean to shout.

  “Oh, so you don’t need me?” there was a dangerous look on Haley’s face. As the world went dark around them. It was just Mac and Haley alone in the darkness. Even the gentle hum of the power generator was silent. “Are you sure you don’t need me?”

  The air felt warm and Mac’s thoughts began to cloud. “Haley,” Mac half-laughed, “What, what are you doing?”

  “I thought you said that after all we’ve just been through you didn’t need me,” the light girl’s fists were clenched at her sides.

  It felt hard to breathe, “Haley… I need my team, too.”

  “She’s not on your team,” the AI responded petulantly.

  “I…I… Haley… I’m having… trouble…” Mac’s brain fogged, and he needed a drink of water like you need one at three AM.

  “I love you, Mac,” The girl of light walked up to him and put a small hand on his chest just above his heart. “I won’t let anyone else have you.”

  Mac’s chest cringed in pain, “Oh scales…”