I watch in surprise.
"Well… Anzo found his True Mate in prison. Within a month of being there, his arm grew back. The artificial one is no longer needed."
My jaw literally drops.
"Holy shit! The True Mate Bond is powerful enough to regenerate a whole missing organ?"
"Yes, exactly." On the screen, Blue inputs a command, and the arm moves its fingers. It looks rather macabre.
"Wait," I murmur, watching how easily he controls it, because something doesn't add up. "Do you have expertise in technology and bioengineering too? Not just genetics and pharmacy?"
Blue raises his eyebrows as if I asked something obvious.
"Of course. I hold four doctorates, one of them in bioengineering with a specialization in nanobiotechnology."
I feel like an idiot.
"When I was talking about all the things I do… you know, the hacking stuff, back then…"
"What about it?" Blue raises an eyebrow.
"I mean, could you do that too?"
"Well. I have never hacked into any electronic system for legal reasons. But I’m positive I would be capable of it if I applied a bit of effort."
"Being around someone like you can give a person an inferiority complex," I mutter darkly. "And here I thought I had an edge over you in something."
Blue shrugs, still issuing commands to the arm as it bends and straightens.
"Gabriel, this is childish. You and I are not in competition. I have devoted my life to science, and you are still a student. However, you do have an edge in radio-frequency hacking, I assure you."
"Whatever," I mutter under my breath, feeling a bit uneasy.
To be fair, he’s basically right. My need to shine in front of him is a little juvenile.
And I think there’s another reason, too. I guess I want to have something that might impress him… Ugh! I really don’t understand myself sometimes.
Blue studies some entries in the device logs for a moment. I look at them as well.
"There is a slight delay in the signal," he says in a quiet voice.
Curious, I lean in and analyze the logs. Blue shifts the tablet toward me, noticing my interest.
"Not just a delay," I murmur, sliding my finger across the screen. "Look here. Every command goes through a smoothing filter and gets queued. That queue occasionally clogs, and the system starts buffering commands instead of executing them in real time."
I frown. Blue stays silent, watching me attentively. We are standing very close now, almost head-to-head. I can smell him: his shampoo, even the faint scent of his skin, which is so sweet, alluring, intoxicating.
It takes a lot to focus.
"On top of that, you have packet retransmissions. See these repeats? The signal doesn't go through on the first attempt, so the controller resends it. That adds extra milliseconds."
I glance at him briefly. Those large sapphire eyes are close again, close enough to get lost in if I don't control myself. I exhale, fighting the urge to look at his plump lips.
"This is not a mechanical issue. It is communication and control. Either the bus is overloaded, or someone set the filtering too aggressively, and the system is creating its own lag."
For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. I just inhale his closeness.
Finally, Blue speaks.
