DESPERATE  MEASURES

PART THIRTEEN:

Sid watched Maximus out of the corner of his eye, knowing he was there, knowing

he'd decided not to come out of the palms. Well, the General was on his way to find

the huge cave. That should keep him occupied the rest of the afternoon.  Then the

storm would come, that storm that had caused Brianna to seek shelter beside the

waterfall.  He was very aware of her sitting there in the shade watching him. He

had to play his cards right.  This time he had to.

Brianna had not seen Maximus and figured he was probably still back at the pond.

Watching Sid was turning out to be a fascinating study anyway. She found herself

wondering just how much of Maximus' thoughts and feelings, his actions and...

memories...were actually part of Sid now. It was more than strange to think that Sid

...my God, Sid!...would have intimate knowledge of her.

She felt he was deliberately trying not to look at her. Did he feel awkward, as
awkward as she did? She supposed she should just get up and go look for shelter
somewhere. Storms in the tropics were frequent and could come up suddenly. She

didn't want to be caught out in the open in one. But she didn't leave. She just sat there...watching...waiting to see what in the world he might do next.

Maximus had spent more time in encampments than he had in structures. He would

find himself a place. So she was not really worried about him. Competence...he

exuded that from every pore. Did Sid even have pores? She wasn't sure of anything

about him any more.

He'd made a large stack of some sort of siding material. Was he going to build
himself a shelter? He'd probably never spent a night outside in his life. Maybe

nanotechs melted if they got wet? He certainly was sweating, though. He fairly

glistened with it. She'd never seen him with his shirt off before and it gave her

the chance to compare his physical structure with that of Maximus'. The General

had the bulkier muscles of a soldier who was used to swinging a heavy sword. Sid was...sculptured. Yes, that was the word for it. He'd been deliberately sculptured

to have a perfect male physique. She wondered idly why his makers had wanted

that, wanted that perfect form in which to insert the programming of such criminals? 

Of course she knew that both men had the same ultimate source, had been brought to

life on the screen by the same actor, but one had always been the total opposite of the other...always.

Then another thought crossed her mind. What in heaven's name was it like for SID

to have Maximus' programming in him now, mixed in there among all the mass

murderers, the top criminal minds of a generation and more?  Surely there had to

be some sort of...consequence? But what? That was the million dollar question, now

wasn't it?

He turned just then, wiping a forearm across his perspiring brow, and smiled at her

in that way she so wanted Maximus to do. Most of the crates were pried open.  He'd

set a few, unopened, off to one side. An array of tools lay about him in the sand. What

was he going to do now?

He was wondering that very thing. It was good she'd stayed, had not gone off into the

jungle. He went over to the palms, sitting on the sand several yards to her right,

maintaining a discrete distance. Keeping his eyes on the supplies, not looking at her

as he spoke, he said softly, "I know you are a very capable woman, used to surviving

on her own, but please consider any or all of what you see there at your disposal.  I

don't mean in any way to indicate that you can not make it without those things. I

know full well you can. You are, in fact, much better at such things than I am." He

turned then, flashing an open smile. "They are there, free and clear, no strings. Just
part of my attempt to apologize to you." 

With that, he dusted the white sand from his hands, and walked quickly in the direction

of the waterfall. He wanted her to see clearly that that was where he was headed. It

should serve as a further deterrent to her going there tonight herself.

He'd only gotten about half-way there when the sound of hammering came to his ears.

He stopped, listening in pleasure. She'd not be spending the night in the spider cave.

He had one brief pang over his Marcus Aurelius and his Bach. "Not tonight, Sid," he

smiled wryly. Which brought up the question...where would HE spend the night,

knowing the storm was coming, where? Maximus had staked out the big sea cave by

now. Sid himself was not in the least inclined to huddle with the spiders.

 
He remembered the direction the wind would come from, so he walked around the

base of the hills to their far side. He didn't like being so far from Brianna, but there

seemed no help for it, not tonight. He set about breaking small limbs to construct a

temporary lean-to and wove palm fronds tightly together until he considered it would

be fairly waterproof roofing. Spending the night there was not his idea of a good time,

but, well, keeping Brianna away from the spiders was worth it. It was. He had not yet

gotten past being surprised at himself for feeling such things, for being capable of

feeling such things.

It was not that she in the least believed him when Sid said it was free and clear with no

strings, but Maximus was having nothing to do with her and Sid had headed toward

the waterfall where she'd thought she might spend the night. That left her rather in

the middle in between the two of them and damned if she was just going to lie on the

sand until dawn.

 
She walked among the stacks Sid had left. Everything was carefully placed so that what

she would need lay in close proximity. Large sections of a shelter were prefabricated,

requiring not much ingenuity to figure out how to put them together. There were even

cables for strengthening it against the wind. Sid seemed to have thought of everything.

What the heck! Why NOT? Stooping, she grabbed a large side section of a shelter,

dragging it across the sand and into the palms to be further away from the tides. If she
built the thing herself, it would be hers, would it not? Or was that her just trying to

ignore the fact that Sid had supplied the materials? One look at the distant clouds

gathering and she decided that such shilly-shallying would not keep her dry in the

night. So with a dogged determination, she constructed the shelter, telling herself the

story of the three little piggies aloud as she worked.

When the storm did roll in, she had an oil lamp on and was eating spaghetti she'd made

from ingredients in one of the crates. Maximus had found the large cave and was warm

and dry on his ledge way in its back. Sid sat in his lean-to, a steady drip of water forming

a growing puddle just to his left as the entire small structure swayed back and forth in

the howling wind. He sat, his knees bent, his forearms atop them, eyes closed, letting

himself disappear back into the memory of the bath house pool where the water flowed
warmly over his skin and Brianna looked at him with glowing eyes.

ON TO PART 14

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