Chapter Four

By the time Natasha reached her father’s house across town, it was late in the evening. She had driven aimlessly for at least an hour, vaguely wondering what she was going to do with her life. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Natasha knew the right move was finding an attorney and filing for divorce, but the magnitude of the task was overwhelming.

Natasha felt numb and fatigued. It was like she didn’t belong in her body any longer. Natasha debated making phone calls or stopping for a giant bowl of ice cream. In the end, with the radio turned off - but blowing the air conditioning at full blast - she had headed for the only place she felt truly safe and loved.

The street lights shone brilliantly against her windshield, making the drive almost too bright as she turned onto Willow Court. Her father’s house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac. She parked her little sedan on the street where it curved in front of his yard. As she got out of the car, she realized she should have called before coming and checked if he was home.

All the lights were on in the house. It was a stark contrast to the dark atmosphere at her home. Natasha knocked quietly on the door and waited. No one had pulled the weeds from the bedraggled flower beds since her mother passed away four years ago. The shaggy lawn was in desperate need of a mow. Maybe he wouldn’t mind her staying here as long as she offered to help out with household tasks.

Knocking again, Natasha began to worry that he might not be home. Her father had retired six months before, and perhaps he had finally taken up a hobby outside the house. The lights being on didn’t mean he was around. But where else could she go?

As she raised her fist to pound on the door one last time, she heard footsteps approaching. The heavy oak door swung wide on its hinges to reveal her father in a lab coat, goggles pushed back onto his head making a mess of his gray hair. “Natasha! What a surprise! Come in!” He stepped aside and waved her into the living room. “What brings you here?”

She knew that he had noticed the red streaks on her face and her swollen eyelids. Natasha wasn’t pretty when she cried, and she knew it. Fortunately, she didn’t have to be pretty in front of her father.

“Oh, Dad. I can’t believe this is happening to me!” She fell into his arms and told him what happened with Nick while settling onto the couch.

“Don’t worry, my dear. You can stay with me for as long as you need. I have plenty of room!” Neil waved his hand at the house in an attempt to encompass two stories of living space. He only occupied a fraction of it himself. Natasha thought the big house was the perfect size when she was younger. Now she worried that her father spent too much time rambling about it aimlessly.

“Thank you.” Natasha sniffed. She had been strong at first and felt like she was ready to face her cheating husband like any other challenge in life. But on the drive over she realized that Nick was not a cyborg who didn’t understand why he couldn’t shoot his way out of a problem. Her situation with Nick was something far more personal. “I don’t mean to be a burden on you, but I didn’t know where else I could go.”

“There’s no other place you should go. I’m euphoric to have you here with me again, although I wish it were for different reasons.” His goggles had started to slide down his forehead, and he pushed them back. Neil shook his head, making his silvery hair tremble around his skull. “I thought something like this might happen, but I refuse to say that I told you so. Now, how about a hot cup of tea?”

By the time Neil returned from the kitchen, Natasha had kicked off her sneakers and curled onto the couch. “Dad, I need to know something.” She gratefully accepted the hot mug from her father. “Why do men cheat?”

“Mostly because they’re idiots.” Neil took a sip from his cup. “It’s too hot. I wish I had a good answer for you. But I can’t say that I ever cheated on your mother, or even had the inclination. She was a wonderful woman.” He looked wistfully up at the ceiling. “I sure miss her.”

“Me, too.” Natasha laid her head on her father’s shoulder as she stared off into space, wondering what her mother would have told her to do. Would she say to work things out with her husband and preserve the marriage? As she thought about the possibilities, Natasha knew her mother wouldn’t have done such a thing. Her mother had been more practical than sentimental. She would have sat down with a pen and paper and generated a list of their next steps.

“Dad?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Why are you wearing a lab coat?” It hadn’t seemed odd at first, but Natasha had realized that her father was wearing something he would have worn to work before Cyborg Sector shut down. It was getting late. He should have been wearing an old t-shirt and slippers.

“Hmm? There’s definitely a reason.” Neil looked down as though seeing himself for the first time. “I was working on a few things around the house, you know. I thought it would be a good idea to protect my everyday clothing.”

Natasha cast a critical eye on her father. “I love you, Dad, but I don’t believe you’re wearing that outfit to clean the bathroom. What’s going on here? Did you get a different job somewhere else and forget to tell me about it?”

Neil sighed and shook his head. He ran his hand through his hair, knocking his goggles off onto the couch in the process. He picked them up nervously and held them in his hands. “I do have a few things that I’m working on. But I’m not cleaning the bathroom, and I don’t have another job. It’s hard to explain, to be honest.” Beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead, and he wiped them off with the edge of his sleeve.

“It’s okay, Dad. You can tell me.” Natasha had worried constantly about her father once she knew he would no longer have a job. He loved his family and was a devoted parent and husband, but science was his life. Natasha had been concerned about how well he would adjust to normal life just like she worried about the cyborgs every day.

He looked at Natasha with sad brown eyes and hollow cheeks. “I suppose I can. If I can tell anyone without being judged, it’s you.” He set his mug aside and rose from the couch, extending a hand and helping Natasha to her feet. “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

Natasha followed her father through the house as he led her to the basement door. He began speaking without turning to look at her as they descended the stairs. “When I found out I was going to lose my job, I was devastated. It wasn’t about the money, and I realized over time that it wasn’t even about having a sense of usefulness in the world. I’ve already made my contributions to science. My problems were curiosity and scientific drive. I had the urge to know more and to do more. I couldn’t stop myself.” He reached the bottom of the stairs and finally looked Natasha in the eyes. “I hope you understand that.”

As Neil flicked on the lights, Natasha took in the scene before her. The basement was unfinished, with the floor joists low above their heads. The concrete floor had been swept clean, but several fresh spider webs clung to the corners of the room. On her right was a stack of random cardboard boxes from the liquor store, each carefully labeled to indicate its contents. Long workbenches ran across two sides of the room, completely covered with loose wires and capacitors. In the middle of everything was an open laptop, its bright screen illuminating the room.

So that’s why it took him so long to answer the door, Natasha thought. He was working down here.

Natasha was instantly happy to see that her father had found a way to continue staying active. He could happily spend his retirement building robots or developing electronics. But then she saw something that sent a shudder through her entire body, weakening her muscles even more than they already had been from her ordeal earlier that evening. “Dad, tell me I’m wrong. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

In the far corner, a familiar-looking clear box stood between the workbenches and a stack of cardboard cartons. Natasha had seen a box like that before, but not in real life. It had been on the news or in training videos before she went to work at the Rehabilitation Center. A hulking male figure stood inside the box, connected to hoses and wires. He was tall and bulky, like a character out of a superhero comic. Even though his eyes were closed, he flexed his muscles like he was ready for a fight. The door of each cyborg cage had a small nameplate with an alphanumeric designation. This nameplate had been scratched out. The word “Fury” was written above it in a stranger’s handwriting.

“Are you making your own cyborgs?” she whispered. She couldn’t believe her father would participate in illegal activities.

“Not exactly. Fury was already a cyborg before he came here, but they were going to terminate him. I’d been working on him for a long time, and I didn’t want to see my work wasted. I brought him home.” Neil had been behind her, but he repositioned himself to stand between Natasha and the cyborg. “I’m sure I can adjust his programming.”

Natasha’s organs seemed to be vibrating inside of her. “Why were they going to terminate him?”

“He doesn’t always follow orders. On his last assignment, he wasn’t supposed to kill anyone, but he ended up leaving a trail of bodies. He seems to lose track of his priorities when he’s in an unfamiliar situation. But I’m sure these are things I can fix. It didn’t seem right to incinerate him when he has a chance at a normal life like the other cyborgs.” Neil gazed proudly at his creation.

“You just stole him? Dad, Cyborg Sector will put you in jail if they find out.”

Neil waved his hands at her in a placating gesture. “I know. But I’ll have him repaired before he can ever become a problem. When I’m not working on him, I keep him sedated in the holding cell.”

Natasha shook her head. It had been a long day, and she wasn’t in the mood to argue with him, especially since she knew he wouldn’t listen to her. Her father believed he could help this cyborg, and she had no choice but to believe in him, too. “I’m going to bed.”