The Hands We're Given

by O E Tearmann

  "Gorgeous chorals, and- Wait a minute. Seasons of love?" Kevin remarked a few minutes in, "This isn't a bad romance, is it?" One copper brow quirked skeptically.

  Aidan shrugged. "Honestly, I have absolutely no idea."

  Kevin glanced at him over the rims of his glasses, thin face outlined by the light from the screen. "Mm. Be aware, sir. If this is terrible, I'll get my own back for all that 'Oklahoma' teasing you've been dishing out."

  Aidan shot him a sidelong smile. "Yeah, yeah. Watch the vid."

  At first, Kevin watched skeptically. But his quirked brows began to rise higher and higher as they watched, and a slow grin pulled at his lips. "They're… We're not going to pay- Wait. They're actually refusing to pay for housing? They actually defied the Corps that blatantly in the street and didn't get… Wow."

  "Wow. Oh, wow!" he muttered a few minutes later, leaning forward as the character called Angel finished her dance routine. He laughed as the characters kissed. "This is… I can't believe I never heard of this. This rocks!"

  "Told you," Aidan remarked, watching Kevin's thin face light up with animation. Damn, he was gorgeous when he was happy. And Omi had been right about this thing.

  Watching the vid, he felt something in him soften and expand. He'd never seen somebody like him portrayed on screen before as a hero. Somebody who had friends and a good life. Seeing Angel die in the middle wasn't exactly fun, but the life the film gave her before that was…

  Amazing. That was the word. Amazing. For once, people like him and Kevin got to be the good guys.

  Aidan stared at the screen a long time as the end credits rolled to the theme song. Beside him on the couch, Kevin had caught the tune and was singing the lyrics softly, a grin on his lips.

  Aidan watched his face. Okay. Now or never. Kevin had liked the vid. He hadn't said anything about Angel. Maybe this was going to work.

  Maybe.

  Eventually, he cleared his throat. "So, better than 'Oklahoma'?"

  Kevin laughed. "Where in the world did you find this?" he asked, putting an arm companionably around Aidan's shoulders. "I'm surprised it ever got out of Zoncom's networks! This is…" Then he blinked, realizing what he'd done. "I mean-"

  He'd already started to pull away when Aidan leaned in. "A lot of searching on the Greynet snagged me a copy," he muttered. His heart was thundering in his ears, but here he was. Kevin had reached out and touched him. He'd wanted to touch him.

  Kevin's cheeks flushed red, and he dropped his eyes. "Er. Sorry, sir- Damn. Aidan. Sorry. I-I didn't think."

  "No," Aidan murmured, relishing this one moment of warmth. "I kind of… It's okay."

  Slowly, Kevin raised his head. Aidan was used to most of Kevin's expressions after three months on-base, but this was the first time Kevin had looked shy. His grey eyes were wary, but his smile was hopeful.

  Aidan returned the smile softly, feeling a lump forming in his throat.

  "But Kevin, one thing. Seriously. Don't call me 'Sir'."

  Kevin smiled thinly at his own gaffe, an expression Aidan had seen a lot more of.

  "Ah, yes. I'm afraid I generally tend towards manners and deference. Blame my parents."

  "That's parents. Fucking up their kids for generations," Aidan agreed, shifting into a more comfortable position on the battered couch. He swallowed hard, drew a breath. Please, please let this work, he thought.

  "The thing is, my name's actually kind of important to me. Really important to me. Because… it's mine. I mean, I chose it. I-"

  He met Kevin's gaze for a long moment before looking away, chewing on the inside of his cheek. This was dangerous. Was saying this going to change this easy companionship they had? Would it get out to the rest of the base?

  Could he risk it?

  Did he have a choice?

  Aidan swallowed hard. "Kevin, what I'm going to tell you, I- Promise me it stays between us."

  "Sure," Kevin agreed, sitting back, brow furrowed. Aidan's shoulders felt cold with the loss of his touch.

  "What is it?" the other man asked, head canting to one side.

  Aidan opened his mouth twice before he forced the words out, his voice strangled. "I'm not what you think I am. I mean, I am, but I'm not." He ran a hand anxiously over his hair. "God, that doesn't even make sense. I'm sorry, I've just- I'm…" Feeling his heart race, he closed his eyes rather than watch Kevin's face. "I used to be… Amanda. I was born as an Amanda. There. I said it. I understand if you don't want to… or, hell, if you don't even want to talk to me any more off duty but there it is. I said it."

  Kevin's face went blank. "You're… Um, wow." Swallowing, he fiddled with his glasses, then pulled them off. He pulled that square of fabric he always kept in his jacket pocket out, scrubbing at an imagined spot on the lens. "I see…" Slipping them back on, he glanced at the screen. "And that was the reason for Rent? You were testing me out?"

  "Kind of." Aidan admitted quietly. "It's not something that's… I mean, talking about it…"

  The silence deepened until it seemed as if it might suffocate them both.

  "I can sympathize," Kevin interjected gently. "Some things don't exactly trip off the tongue, do they?"

  Aidan glanced up gratefully. "Guess not," he managed. "But you asked about specific concerns I had about going on-Grid. Yeah. I'm trans. And I've never been on the Grid before. That's it."

  Kevin nodded, looking a little stunned. "That's… Those are quite the specific concerns."

  "No shit," Aidan agreed quietly.

  Kevin fiddled with his little cleaning cloth, folding and unfolding it. Finally, he raised his eyes. "Well, I can plan around that. We can work out a route that avoids checkpoints with full biometric readers. We'll bring along a vial of phage nanoids to clean up skin cells and the like after us. I don't believe your appearance will… I mean, you're-" He froze as Aidan watched him, the usual easy competence he wore seeming to slip off him and leave him looking skinny, sweet and gawky as he tried and failed to start several sentences. "I… Well, if I'm being blunt, you don't look… I mean. You're… handsome, I mean. Very handsome." Kevin paused, then scrambled to explain, his cheeks flaming.

  "I mean that's just my observation. Speaking platonically, as a connoisseur of the masculine form," he added, words coming out too fast. "I didn't see anything wrong with… I mean- Oh damn, that came out badly." Glancing away, the pale man bit his lip.

  Aidan drew a slow breath. "I take 150 milligrams of testosterone every other week," he muttered, barely audible in the quiet room. "That's why it's on the req list. After all the work to get a hold of that and… some other stuff, I'd be pretty disappointed if I didn't look like what I am."

  Silence deepened around them.

  "So…" Kevin's voice trailed off, picked up the thread again awkwardly. "Do you want me to- I mean…"

  He cleared his throat. When he spoke again, it was as a logistics officer. "On the subject of the req list, I assume Damian's in the loop. Secrets have a snowball's chance in Hell around him. If you'd prefer not to inform anyone else on base, that's a non-issue. As for other difficulties, should we be requisitioning anything you need through our own sources rather than putting in request forms to Sector?"

  Aidan blinked, bewildered for a moment. Why was Kevin talking about request forms now? Was he trying to drop the subject?

  Then he got it. "You're trying to ask if Sector knows what's up with me without straight-out asking, yeah?"

  Kevin's lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. "And I failed miserably, apparently. Yes. I wanted to know if I needed to play any games with Sector, if they haven't been informed."

  "Magnum knows," Aidan admitted quietly. "And the Sector Medical, Petree, he knows. Gave me a once over before I went into Command training. So, yeah," he finished on a long breath. "Them. Nobody else."

  Kevin nodded. "I'll bear it in mind for logistical purposes, a
nd…" He paused, and Aidan could almost see his brain working. What was he trying to figure out how to say politely this time?

  Then Kevin gave him a small, crooked smile. "Don't worry about it staying between us. After all," he added, "dissimulation and information retention rather comes with the lifestyle, and the logistics vocation for that matter."

  Aidan smiled weakly. "Um, Kevin? I don't know what 'dissimulation' means. Or retention. Shit. Sorry."

  Kevin gave him one of his quick damn-I-did-it-again smiles. "Apologies. The lexicon strikes again. I mean I'm good at keeping things to myself. I've practiced quite a lot."

  The rush of relief felt as if it might melt the inside of Aidan's chest. This guy had actually gone out of his way to ask how many people he needed to keep Aidan's secret from. He'd been willing to "play games" with Sector. He grinned, sticking out his hand for Kevin to shake. "This means a lot. A whole lot. Thanks."

  Kevin took his hand. He didn't pause. "Think nothing of it."

  It might have been all in Aidan's head, but he could have sworn that Kevin held his hand a few beats beyond what a handshake required.

  Event File 23

  File Tag: Job Offer

  Timestamp: 11:00-7-15-2155

  The printer spat as it finished putting down the last layer on the flat white square. Topher watched it like a cat.

  "Okay. Think that worked. The cells are alive. Nutrient base's steady. The melanin's bleached out. Looks like the genome code went in good. I had to mess with the algorithm we use on the bio-inks for normal Synth, so the cell shapes are a little weird, but we're not transplanting these things onto anybody, we're just covering your guys' hands with them. If I'm right they'll shed at the same rate as nat skin."

  "I still can't believe you got this to work," Kevin replied, watching as the boy handled his experiment. He didn't have to try to sound sincere. What Damian and Topher had come up with between them after Kevin had explained that their commander was a red-hot property on the Grid left him in awe.

  Topher gave a noncommittal, critical noise in the back of his throat, studying his work. "Yeah, after four tries I got it. First time, the stuff was fucking Jello, I had to clean the rig out. So, what'd the commander do that he's so high up on the shit list?" Slowly, he lifted the sheet of synthetic human skin tissue out of the 3D rig, blowing on it. "I mean, I never heard of anybody who the Corps were watching for so close that he had to hide all his gene signatures."

  "I didn't think it was my place to ask," Kevin remarked casually. "You might want to take a leaf out of my book."

  "Kay," the younger man agreed with a shrug, lost in his own thoughts as he tested the sheet's flexibility.

  Kevin watched the translucent layer shiver slightly. The stuff looked more like packing tape than the usual Synth-skin printed and transplanted over wounds. It didn't look promising, but, if this experiment of Topher's worked, it'd mean a new level of protection for every Duster. If they could not only falsify the genome sequences encoded in Citizen cards to match their own but print human skin with genomes they chose, that opened up whole new avenues of evasion and undercover work.

  Topher shot him a quick, wide grin. "I think it worked."

  "You feeling ready to take it to the Great and All Knowing Damian and have him look over the stuff?" Kevin asked, unable to resist a smile in return for the boy.

  The young transport specialist glanced down at the sheet in his hands. "I guess?"

  Kevin chuckled, gently ruffling the boy's fedora on his head. "Come on, I'll go with you."

  Damian's eyes whirred as he focused in on the sheet, studying it with an accuracy neither of the naturally-sighted men could pull off.

  "Hmm. Cell shapes are off, but it could be worse."

  "So, is it gonna work?" Topher asked.

  The lanky doctor gave a shrug. "One way to tell. You got the card you printed to match this?"

  Topher held out the card. Taking it, Damian pulled a flat plastic genome reader from one of the drawers set into the white wall. Carefully peeling Topher's experiment off its sheet, he held the tissue-thin stuff between thumb and forefinger.

  "Toph, let's see a hand."

  Topher held out his left hand. Damian carefully draped the synthetic skin over it, smoothing the edges until they melted into one another.

  Lifting his genome reader, he set it to 'recognition' and ran it over the card he and Topher had coded together, giving it the code it was searching for. Then he ran it over Topher's left hand.

  The light in the upper corner blipped a reassuring green.

  Damian ran the flat square over the card again, then over Topher's right hand. The light in the corner glowed red.

  Damian raised his head, one of his rare grins showing white in his dark face.

  "Toph, you may have something here."

  They tested the process four times with four different genome codes.

  "It's gonna work!" Topher announced, and Damian agreed with a slow nod of the head. "Want to help me write the report on your new idea for Sector?"

  Topher laughed, holding up both hands in defense. "Man, if I gotta write reports, tell 'em it was your idea!"

  Kevin shook his head, chuckling. "All right, you did the heavy lifting. I suppose we'll serve as your secretaries. I'll bring back a report of how it does on its field test. What's the lifespan?"

  Damian tapped his fingers on the pristine white ceramic of his work station as he thought. "Five hours in moderate temperatures. But don't push it. These cells are running on nothing but a nutrient solution."

  "Roger that," Kevin agreed, glancing at Topher. "Think you can have a set coded up for Aidan and I with cards attached in the morning? We'll leave after breakfast."

  "Sure," Topher agreed with a nod, but his eyes held Damian's, wide and wary.

  Kevin tipped his head. "Toph, what is it?"

  Topher shrugged awkwardly. "I just- You sure you wanna put your ass on the line with something I just started playing around with? Maybe we oughta test it some more?"

  So that was it, Kevin thought as he watched the younger man stuff his hands in his pockets. Smiling, he put out a hand and clasped Topher's shoulder. "You worry about getting the machinery to do things no one's tried yet, I'll worry about putting it through its paces. In my experience, your work's eminently trustworthy."

  Topher glanced up at him with a small smile. "Thanks, man."

  "Honor where it's due," Kevin replied with a teasing smirk for his benefit.

  Damian clapped the boy on the back. "Listen to the guy, Toph, even if you only get half of what he says. You did good."

  Topher glanced down, grinning. "Yeah, well. I gotta do a prayer real quick, then Dozer's gonna need me. We're redoing one of the bikes. See you guys."

  Kevin was halfway to his own office, thinking through plans for the next day, when the sound of jogging feet coming down the hall whipped him around. He was getting far too high strung these days, he told himself with chagrin as Lazarus joined him in the walk down the hall. The narrow space caused them to brush shoulders as they paced.

  Lazarus gave him a small smile. "Hey, dude."

  "Afternoon," Kevin agreed, smiling carefully. Laz seemed to have himself straightened out, but better safe than sorry.

  Lazarus ran a hand through his sun bleached hair. "I hear you're going out on a run with Aidan tomorrow to get that recruit. Hear you're trying new tech to make it work."

  Kevin nodded. "Yes, after breakfast. Topher and Damian just finished their tests. It's going to be a really useful-"

  "Dude, write me in on this one," Lazarus interjected.

  Kevin stopped, blinking. "What?"

  "Write me in on this run," Lazarus repeated, turning so they faced each other. "You're gonna try something new while you're babysitting a commander and a grid-kid. You need backup. I got some stealth stuff together, guns that'll get thro
ugh checks."

  Kevin winced. "Laz, we're trying to pass unnoticed. This isn't a guns type of mission. A gun is the very last thing we need to get caught with."

  "Yeah, but you're going to have a commander with you, a wanted one," Lazarus replied, his expression shockingly earnest after these months of sullenness.

  This was the man Kevin knew, he realized. Passionate, annoying as hell sometimes, but bright eyed and full of life.

  And he was going to have to put that spark of life in Lazarus's eyes out again. He hated to do it, but he knew his work. If they took Lazarus and one of his guns with them into this situation, they might as well shoot themselves with it.

  He tried to break it gently. "Laz, I'll watch the commander's back."

  "So who's watching your back?" Lazarus demanded hotly, eyes holding Kevin's. "You need somebody who can shoot if everything goes to shit on this!"

  "The last time we were in a mission, you weren't the one shooting, Laz. You were the one who got shot," Kevin replied quietly. He braced himself for the explosion. It came as he expected.

  Lazarus took a step back, his expression hardening. "Fuck you, dude! Just because I fucked up one time-one time-you think I'm no good anymore?"

  Kevin stepped in, putting his hand on Lazarus's shoulder. "Laz, I think you're the best. You know that. That's why I was planning to ask you to do escort out to our extraction point and cover till we're back. We're using the tunnel into the train maintenance system. We could use you on the way out and back."

  He raised his voice when Lazarus opened his mouth. "I also think bringing a gun to a meeting with an unstable contact situation when we're already a hot property trying to avoid undue attention is about as smart as playing tag with ViperDrones." Squeezing the other man's shoulder, he smiled crookedly. "I wish you were going in with me. I miss running with you. But today I need to run alone and know you're there at our extraction point to watch my back."

  For a moment, Lazarus's lips twitched with words he didn't say. Then he reached out and grabbed Kevin's shoulder hard enough to send pain down his arm. "You come home, you get me?" the other man demanded. His voice was rough over the words.