Coffee Cup Dreams (A Redpoint One Romance) (15 page)

He extended a hand. "Then I'll see you
tomorrow morning."

Tish stood up, grinning so that the dimple
reappeared. She shook his hand vigorously. "Thank you, Boss. It's
great to be here."

After leaving he stood outside her door for a
moment, his bot looking up at him. Her light flowery fragrance
still lingered around him, even with her front door shut behind
him. His hand tingled from the simple handshake. Compared to the
light and airy apartment the hallway felt drab.

He looked down at his bot. "I think we might
have a new permanent engineer. And I'm in trouble."

The bot chirped off a question, clearly not
understanding. Arthur chose not to try to explain.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

BREAKFAST AND MORNING coffee on the balcony didn't feel
right. The apartment was too quiet and too empty. Tish was alone,
having to fix both breakfast and her morning coffee herself. There
should be three bots next to her as she sat on the terrace enjoying
the morning view, relaxing with coffee and breakfast before heading
out to work.

She finished off her coffee and left the
apartment, not wanting to be alone any longer. She managed to get
half-way back to the maintenance platform before needing to ask for
help the rest of the way.

She arrived as several of the crew did. Damien
came out of the break-room with a cup of coffee, settling in a
chair in front of a console.

He raised it towards her in a toast. "And
she's back. Coffee is ready."

"No thank you. Already had mine." Tish leaned
her arms on the railing going around the raised center platform.
"I'm already wide awake."

Bots ran along the floor, circling the center
platform and zipping in and out of corridors and rooms. She felt a
sadness at seeing them. None of them looked familiar.

Rachel sighed as she collapsed into another
chair. She eyed Damien as she cradled a big mug of coffee in both
hands. "I hear you are without an apprentice today?"

"Thankfully." He crossed his right boot over
his left, raising an eyebrow at Tish. "Not that I'm against
apprentices. I would be glad to take you with me on my rounds
today. I have quite the mess to clean up."

"As do I," Rachel said. "I could use her for a
second day."

"Mine is a little more high priority than
yours," Damien said.

Rachel finished her sip of coffee with an
outright glare. "Your job is not more important than mine. I need
her."

"So do I."

While Tish liked the idea of getting fought
over by different departments she didn't relish getting stuck in
the middle of a fight. "I don't know where I'll be assigned. Arthur
didn't say anything."

Not that she would mind continuing her
training with either of them, even Damien, but the way he looked at
her told her he might want to be something more than a trainer. She
wasn't interested. In fact, her heart seemed to be dead-set on the
one person her mind knew she couldn't have.

Which made her furious at herself. Why was she
putting herself through this? Just because it had been so easy to
sit with him and laugh at the movie last night? That he'd sought
her out after hours? That he'd been concerned over her
welfare?

He was a concerned boss, nothing more. She
needed to keep saying it to herself until she believed
it.

"…what you did for the breach," Rachel was
saying.

Tish's head snapped up, trying to catch up on
the conversation. She echoed, "The breach? But I didn't do
anything."

"You repaired your section. With that area
secure, the station systems were able to complete the rest," Rachel
said, glancing at her. "Why do you think you did
nothing?"

She hunched her shoulders, "I wasn't able to
stay. Ended up almost choking in the smoke and then trapped in an
airlock. And I think I lost my bots."

Three whistles sounded in chorus from one of
the corridor entrances. In a blur of purple, red, and blue
holographic bands around their eyestalks, three bot converged on
her.

She stared down at them, dumbfounded, while
all of them stared up at her expectantly. She gripped the railing
to keep her balance, not believing her eyes. She'd left the bots in
a corridor filled with such dense smoke she could hardly see a hand
in front of her nose and now they were around her feet?

But there could be no denying the colored
bands around the eyestalks, each of them identifying an individual
bot.

"You're back!" She cried. She grabbed a towel
hanging from the railing and dropped down in the middle of
them.

They might not be as soft as hugging puppies,
but they were more vocal. She loved all the noises they made as she
polished their tops.

"I see they found you," an amused rumble said
above her head. She looked up to find Arthur laughingly gazing down
at her, his hands on his narrow hips. "Perhaps you should take the
hairbands off?"

"I like them, it goes with their names." She
loved the way he was smiling at her. He looked so much better with
a smile. She turned to her bots, asking them, "Do you want me to
take off the colored hair bands?"

The round of sharp clicks and the leaning away
of each eyestalk with a hair band answered her question. Tish
felt pleased. She rather liked the splash of color among all the
gray, black, and white colors around her. The only bot she'd seen
with any color belonged to Rachel.

"Looks like they stay, Boss. Sorry, but the
feminization of your team continues," Rachel said with great relish
from somewhere nearby.

Tish didn't pay any attention to the laughter
and jibes flying over her head. She had her bots back. She'd had a
genuine smile from Arthur. The day was looking up!

***

Arthur couldn't remember when he'd seen such an enthusiastic
human and bot reunion before. Despite the laughter and jokes around
her, Tish was still grinning and rubbing down her bots, uncaring
about all of it. And the bots were lapping it up.

"Okay, enough," he said to Vasiliy's comment
about the tech womenfolk. Personally he liked having more women on
the team. They saw and fixed different sorts of problems than the
men usually went for. "Time to head out on repairs. Anyone need
backup?"

No one had any surprises for him. Only a big
list of repairs to work on, far more than any of them would be able
to finish in the course of a day, much less a week. Nothing new
about that.

"Aqua, hold still. You have a dirty patch,"
Tish said.

Arthur stopped in the midst of talking over
the life-support systems status with Damien to stare at her brown
head as she scrubbed one of the bots. "Names? They have
names?"

Her smile froze as she turned her head up
towards him. Damien must have been smiling, because her grin
reappeared after glancing in his direction.

She pointed from one to the next, "Yep, names.
Violet, Crimson, and Aqua. It's better than 'hey, you'."

He ran a hand through his hair, not caring if
it made it stand straight up. Damien let out a belt of laughter,
cuffing him in the shoulder. "I would say you hit a home-run on
this one. It's always the unexpected ones that fit in."

Tish turned from one to the next. "Is that a
compliment?"

Arthur gave a sheepish grin. "It's a
compliment. The bots came back to you and are clearly attached.
Congratulations, the station likes you."

Her grin came back even bigger than before.
When he suggested she get ready for her shift, she jumped up and
ran towards the locker room with all three bots trailing
behind.

"Have a plan for her training? I hear she did
well with Rachel yesterday. I wouldn't mind seeing what she can do
with life-support," Damien said as he watched her leave.

Which wasn't the only reason Damien would want
her with him for the day. Arthur was no fool. He'd seen the way
Damien looked at her.

And he didn't want to share her. Not
yet.

"Sorry. She's with me today. I want to see
what she can do personally."

Damien smirked at him. "Sure. Have
fun."

She returned with all three bots, ending
whatever else Damien had been about to add. The crews began to
disperse to their assigned duties. Tish watched them, an expression
of confusion descending over her face.

After he sent out the last crew she finally
asked, "I'm sorry, was I assigned to someone? Did I miss my
assignment?"

Arthur turned his head from the display he was
studying. "You're fine. You are with me today. No point in simple
training sessions since it appears you'll easily pass the trial
period."

Which the supervisor in him said was a good
thing. Another part wished she'd flunked out and he could find her
a job in another department. Then the conflict of interest would be
gone.

He pushed off from the console, disgusted at
himself for thinking such selfish thoughts.

"What are we working on today?" She
asked.

"I'm hoping that between the two of us, we can
repair the primary defense systems on the outer exit ring." And
after that, if she proved as instinctive with the systems as he
hoped, other top priority repairs. He reached into his pocket and
pulled out a new identification band. "Since you lost your
original. Sorry about your wrist computer."

Tish quickly put it on. "So long as it was
lost for good purpose. Like fixing a relay."

Her three bots chorused together at the
statement. His bot queried the others with a question to which the
other three answered with a chirp. The bot conversation apparently
over, all four bots looked up at them.

Arthur laughed along with Tish. "And so we
start off the day."

With four bots in tow he led the way out to
the transit platform, and then into the area with the fault. He
started pointing out some of the systems until he realized she
could rattle them off with a little prodding from him.

Connecting with the bots was one thing.
Starting to connect up with the station itself so quickly was
something else. Rachel's report came to mind, reminding him of her
previous display of skill.

"Keep using those instincts," Arthur said as
they rounded a wide corner through which several of the larger
robotics moved through, some of them carrying supplies in an open
back cavity. "If you start to feel them fade away it means you are
trying too hard."

Tish nodded. "Got it. What did you say we were
repairing today again?"

"Primary defense systems."

"Weapon systems? I don't know anything about
weapon systems," she said. "Should we have brought a sled of
special tools like Rachel does?"

"Rachel's systems consistently use the same
tools. Most systems aren't like that. Use the same instincts you've
already been using. As for tools, we won't know what is needed
until we get there." He gestured after a freightbot as it passed
by. "If necessary we can have a bot fetch additional supplies or
tools."

"I'm not used to improvising like this," Tish
said as she watched the bot disappear down the corridor. "It's not
typically a good way to work in an office."

"You are definitely not in an office any
longer."

The dimple appeared as she grinned. "I know.
Isn't it great?"

"Looks like I just lost a maintenance clerk,"
Arthur said, echoing the grin.

To Tish's protests and the complaints of her
bots he laughed.

***

Despite the assurances, the idea of 'winging it' did not
appeal to Tish at all. When the laughing was all done and they were
further into the area she asked again, "Shouldn't we go on more
than 'feelings' when dealing with weapons?"

His smile disappeared, worry replacing it. "I
wish, but this needs to be done, as soon as possible. The last
pirate attack took out the last defense node around the transit
tube exit. We need to get it going before another attack. Using our
instincts is the best way to do it."