A Bump on the Head - Jake and Ariel 02

[jpwolf]

The second short story in the Jake and Ariel series.

A Bump on the Head

Someone was calling his name.

"Jake!" It was a woman's voice.

Why the hell did his head hurt so bad?

"Jacob Lee Ragus, if you don't answer me, I'll...I'll. Oh I don't know what I'll do, but it will be bad!"

His thoughts were beginning to clear. He knew the voice now. It was Ariel. She was the only person other than his mother to have ever called him by his full name. Why did females do that?

He ran his thoughts briefly through his memory. "Oh," he thought. He'd hit his head on something.

Groggily, he opened his eyes. Bright light stung them and made his head hurt worse. He groaned.

"I'm okay, Ariel."

"You scared me!" she said. "You could have crushed your skull, hitting your head on my cabinet like that! This is what happens when you don't listen to me. I told you to take a break and stop messing around in my innards."

"I'm fine, thanks," he said with a sarcastic grimace. When had she learned to nag?

"Are you sure?" Her tone was quieter. "I really was scared, Jake."

"Sorry, babe. We humans are a bit tougher than we look, though. I'll probably have a headache for a few hours, but other than that, I should be fine."

She humphed as she looked down at him from her primary display with a look of concern on her digital face.

He looked around for his socket driver. Where had he dropped it?

"Have you seen my socket driver?" he asked.

"Why?"

"Because I need it to finish what I was doing."

"Oh no you don't! You're not working on me any more today. The last thing I need is your brains splattered all over my circuits."

He chuckled. She really was getting the hang of being a nag. At this rate, she would be acting like his mother in a mazura.

"What's so funny?"

"I was just thinking that you remind me of my mom." He grinned up at her.

"Is that supposed to be funny?"

"It is to me."

"I think you must have scrambled your brain when you hit your head."

He shushed her. "Not so loud, babe, I do have a headache, you know."

She grumbled something that he couldn't hear.

"Did you say something, dear?" he asked.

"No."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Dear god, she really was beginning to act like a real woman.

[SOTS]

Did she grumble something along the lines of, "If you did splatter your brains all over my circuits, who would clean it off?"