by StarAndrea
“Well, not by you,” Lyris told him. “Which is too bad; I think I mentioned that. If you questioned yourself a little more, your day might feel less weird right about now.”
“I object to you sharing my every thought with anyone in the vicinity when you open your mouth,” Saryn said. “If you must read my mind, perhaps you could do so less publicly.”
“He isn’t reading your mind,” Kris said. “Believe me, we’ve had this conversation too.”
“Um,” Lyris said. “I appreciate the thought. But actually, he’s not wrong. At this point, I honestly can’t remember what he’s said and what I just know.”
Saryn raised his eyebrows. “I find that oddly reassuring,” he said after a moment, when it was clear everyone else was waiting for him to respond.
It made Lyris grin, and he thought it was mostly relief behind that wide smile. “That’s because you’re a little strange,” Lyris said. “But in a good way, and I’ll definitely take it.”
“Why is it strange that he likes the fact you’re telling the truth?” Jenna wanted to know. “I thought you were all about sincerity around here.”
“I said it was good,” Lyris pointed out. “He’s clearly not comfortable with empathy, so I expected him to have a stronger negative reaction to me implying it’s out of control between us.”
“Which you were planning to keep to yourself,” Kris said.
At the same time Jenna said, “Between you? Just the two of you, specifically?”
“That’s what resonance is,” Kris said. “No wonder you wanted him on the team. This is another thing we didn’t ask about, isn’t it. So from now on, what if we just say: hey Lyris, anything you haven’t told us today? Would that do it?”
“The higher priority question,” Saryn said, “is what you mean by out of control.”
“No,” Lyris told Kris, and then he looked at Jenna and added, “Yes.”
Saryn knew he was next even before Lyris turned to him, and catching his eye was uniquely isolating. “Only a little bit,” Lyris was saying, and Saryn didn’t need to hear it. He knew just by looking at him that Lyris wasn’t as confident as he acted, and that he was almost as worried about the situation as he expected Saryn to be.
“What situation?” Saryn interrupted. He didn’t realize until he heard the words aloud that Lyris had been saying something else entirely. He stopped as soon as Saryn spoke.
“The one where I know what you mean or feel better than anyone else I know,” Lyris said. “And I just met you, which is almost as disconcerting for me as it is for you. The one where you can literally hear me thinking, which, no matter what you may think about empathy, is not normal.”
“I don’t like that situation,” Saryn told him.
“Yeah, I get that,” Lyris said, and some of the exasperation was seeping into his tone now. “You’ve made that pretty clear, but I’ve just told you it’s out of control and there’s nothing I can do about it. So I’m not sure what else you want.”
He knew what he was going to say and he was certain Lyris did too. “I want to leave,” Saryn said. “This is not a responsibility I sought, and I will fulfill it if there’s no one else. But I have other responsibilities as well, and I see no value in my continued presence here.”
“So leave,” Lyris said. “No one’s keeping you here.”
That surprised Saryn, and Kris too if her reaction was any indication. “I am,” she said.
“She isn’t,” Lyris told Saryn. “You should go. Come back when you want to be here.”
“Hey,” Jenna said. “You invited him.”
“Exactly,” Lyris agreed. “I didn’t force him to accept.”
“I can’t believe I’m the one saying this,” Kris said, “but maybe we could all take a step back. Flying and fighting tends to turn the enhancers up, and that’s surprisingly bad for normal interaction.”
“I see no change,” Saryn said. “I will take my leave of you now. I assume you can contact me should you need to, given that you’ve done it several times already.”
“We have?” Kris said.
“I have,” Lyris said, but Saryn was already turning away. He couldn’t remember how they’d gotten to the launch bay, but he knew the way out.
“Saryn,” Jenna said, and he paused. “You got me into this.” The warning was clear, and if Lyris hadn’t told him to go he might have listened.
There were so many things he could have said, and he hadn’t gotten where he was by choosing at random. So he said nothing. He was aware of Jenna’s wariness and Lyris’ sharp disappointment as he left, but he read nothing into Kris’ silence. Surely the leader of the Rangers had been turned down before.
There was no bot by the door when he left, and there were no cameras on the street that he noticed. If he arrived home earlier than he had planned, it allowed him to start the complicated process of catching up on his afternoon and rescheduling everything he had missed. Excuses could be made later.
News of new Rangers had already broken, of course, and he couldn’t avoid seeing Jenna’s introduction on the planetary newsnet. Speculation on the second Ranger came immediately on the heels of her statement: it had clearly been prepared for her, and she wasn’t subject to any interview afterwards, which Saryn thought was wise. No matter how good she might be at representation, or how knowledgeable she was when it came to planetary defense, this was not the time for a misstep.
She shared some of the attention with the shadow of an unknown teammate, despite Kris’ efforts to focus the coverage on Jenna. “We have several test pilots,” Kris told the cameras. “Their identities aren’t disclosed for security reasons.”
The person she was talking to correctly pointed out that no test pilot had ever flown in active defense of the system before, and Saryn wasn’t interested in hearing more. He terminated the news feed when his sister returned home for the evening, but the first words out of her mouth were, “Did you hear there’s a new Ranger? It’s that woman from New Hope. You should call her to congratulate her.”
“Hello, Mirine,” he said, more pointedly than she deserved. “My day was fine, thank you. And yours?”
“So much more exciting after I saw five RAVs flying with the system patrol,” she replied cheerfully. “I’m sorry your day wasn’t fine; can I help?”
“I just said it was fine,” he reminded her.
“Which obviously means it wasn’t,” Mirine said. “You’re radiating not-fine right now. Is it because of the New Hope Ranger? I thought you secretly liked her.”
“I didn’t even remember her,” Saryn said, honestly surprised that his sister did. He clearly talked about work too much if she remembered people like Jenna from his passing commentary on political opponents.
“Until you saw her?” Mirine asked. “Or until they said her name? Because I never met her but I recognized her name right away. You talked about her constantly.”
“Did I?” Saryn asked, frowning.
“Yes, and you know you block out people who distract you, so I assume you’ve forgotten her on purpose,” Mirine said.
“If that were true,” Saryn told her, “I wouldn’t even remember your name.”
“I think you need more distractions,” Mirine told him. “Let’s go out to eat. To the surface? No one will pay any attention to you if we eat above ground, and that way I’ll actually get to talk to you.”
“Given how well this conversation has gone for me so far,” Saryn said, “I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be appealing or not.”
“Oh good,” Mirine said. “So I get to choose?”
He let her choose. He didn’t accompany her after the meal, because Mirine liked to find physical activities to defuse stress at the end of the day and he could feel the enhancers in his system humming just below the surface. He didn’t think he’d be able to run like an ordinary person, let alone go unnoticed at whatever air park or hover field she picked out tonight.
When he got home he found Jenna waiting
for him.
Inside.
He knew she was there before he walked in, and there was nothing he could do but walk in like he had no idea and close the door behind him. He waited then, because it was uncomfortably reminiscent of Lyris’ casual ambush the day before. Apparently knowing any Ranger meant that he would be seeing all of them whenever they felt like it.
“Saryn?”
She sounded surprised, which he thought was unfair. She was the one in his home.
“Hi,” Jenna added, suddenly visible even in the darkness, which he hadn’t noticed until he realized he couldn’t see the color of her hair. Apparently enhancers only improved the physical abilities a person already had; they didn’t magically grant color vision without light. Nor did they create empathic awareness in those without it, not that he’d been able to convince anyone of that so far.
“Sorry to break in and lurk,” she was saying. “It was that or draw a lot of attention outside your door.”
“I have a comm,” he said.
“I don’t have your code,” she told him. “I actually came to give you mine, since it turns out none of the other Rangers can reach you either.”
“Lyris can,” Saryn said without thinking.
“Oh, really?” Jenna sounded more amused than surprised now. “He didn’t say. But he’s been sulking ever since you left, and Kris has totally given up asking him direct questions. So I guess he wouldn’t have.”
“He admitted to contacting me multiple times before,” Saryn pointed out. “I was there. I heard him.”
“Well, by physically locating you,” Jenna said. “Right? Like this. You’re not actually hard to find, just hard to talk to.”
“I’m perfectly available,” Saryn said. “You just found your way into my residence without any invitation or prior access. Surely you see the irony in telling me I’m difficult to interact with now.”
“I had help getting here,” Jenna said. “Are you mad at me for breaking in, which is totally fair, or are you snippy because Lyris is freaking you out? Because you’re not alone in that.”
Saryn looked at her in surprise. “Are you uncomfortable in Lyris’ presence?”
“Sure,” Jenna said. “I mean, I wouldn’t tell him that, but I probably don’t have to. He’s an empath, right? A full empath, not like the rest of us, and let’s be honest, I already know more about most people than I want to. I can only imagine what he’s aware of all the time.”
“I’m sure he’d be willing to tell you,” Saryn said. “He seems very forthcoming to me.”
“Apparently only to you,” Jenna replied. She wasn’t fazed by his impatience or unwelcoming attitude, and he didn’t know whether to admire that or find it threatening. “The rest of the team makes a joke out of how little he shares with them.”
“The rest of the team seems very insular to me,” Saryn said.
“This from the person who literally walked out of the hangar this afternoon because he didn’t want to be around us,” Jenna remarked.
“I had other things to do,” Saryn said. “I’m not walking away now.”
“So it’s not me you don’t want to be around,” Jenna said. “And Timmin wasn’t there, which leaves Kris, who I actually like, and Lyris.”
“Whom you don’t like,” Saryn said.
“I don’t dislike him,” Jenna said. “And he did let you give me the enhancers, which I like, so I have a net positive feeling toward him. It’s just not a strong one.”
Saryn wasn’t interested in discussing Lyris further, but her reluctance to leave indicated an intent that was unfulfilled. He hadn’t given her his contact information, which was her stated goal. But she was also still talking to him, and her company was pleasant and untroubled.
“What are your feelings toward me?” Saryn asked. “You seemed conflicted earlier. Have you settled on a net emotional direction for me?”
“Oh, sure,” Jenna said. “I’m not indecisive. But you’ll either like it and give me a hard time, or you won’t like it and this whole conversation will be really awkward. I’m dragging it out on purpose, because I don’t see a way for it to go well for me.”
“And yet you’re here,” Saryn pointed out.
“I like excitement,” Jenna told him.
It made him smile. “Without knowing the content of your reply,” he said, “I can only guess that this may help. I enjoy your company and would like it to continue. I won’t promise not to challenge you no matter what you say, so perhaps that reduces the consequences of your decision. I will, however, give you my comm code, so that if the conversation doesn’t go as you wish you’ll still have achieved your objective and may feel free to leave at any time.”
“That’s very practical,” Jenna agreed. “You’re a much better communicator than anyone else I’ve talked to today.”
“Yes,” Saryn said. “That’s my job, but you do motivate me to do it better.”
“Really,” she said, and now she was smiling too. “Well, so far this conversation is looking very promising.”
His comm display was overly bright in the shadowed hall. As he set it to accept contact information, he asked, “Will I find the house AI compromised if I ask it to perform simple tasks on our behalf?”
There was no answer, and when he looked up to hand his comm to her he found her expression surprised. “You have a house AI?” she asked.
“You didn’t encounter our house AI when you were breaking in?” He wondered what exactly her entry had involved. She’d said she had help; he assumed Rangers could override civilian security protocols at their whim. Illegal, probably, but not impossible.
“I walked in,” she told him. “Nothing’s broken that I know of.”
“Emmi,” Saryn said. “Did you register an unauthorized entry to this residence during the last solar cycle?”
A soft blue light blinked on from a high corner of the hallway. “Yes,” the AI’s appropriately modulated voice replied. “Jenna of New Hope entered without authorization and stands before you now.”
Saryn exchanged glances with Jenna. “Why did you let her in if she wasn’t authorized?” he asked.
“Mirine said you liked her,” Emmi replied. “As I detected no hostile activity, your preference seemed to override standard stranger protocols.”
That wasn’t unreasonable, and it was certainly within the bounds of the AI’s ability to judge. When he didn’t say anything, he saw Jenna’s smile return. “Who’s Mirine?” she asked.
“My sister,” Saryn said. “She’s very willing to volunteer her observations about my life, most of them frustratingly accurate. I’m sure you and she will get along very well.”
“I look forward to meeting her,” Jenna agreed. “Does she live here too?”
“Yes,” Saryn said. “We share the common areas of this residence. Emmi, follow us with low light, please. May I interest you in a drink?”
“Where do you get your water?” she countered, handing his comm back to him. It had been used to connect to hers, registering only as “Jenna” in the contact log. She was correct to believe that this would be enough of an identifier.
“Is that meant as a test?” he asked. “I do have imported water if you prefer it.”
“I do not,” she said indignantly. “First off, how do you afford imported water and why would you waste resources on it, and second, why do you think I’d want it?”
“I travel,” he reminded her. “I am the carrier, so no resources are wasted but my time and energy. I have it because people who are not you are impressed by it, and I offered it to you because you stand against independence.”
“I’m against independence because this colony is unsustainable,” Jenna told him. “Not because I’m in love with Eltare.”
“In that case,” he said, “I get my water from the town reclaimer on the surface, but I have several underground varieties if you prefer a higher mineral content or less aeration.”
She laughed, which was his intent, but then she sa
id, “You can’t tell me what I want to hear forever, you know. Eventually you’ll have to tell the truth.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “What makes you think I’m not telling the truth?” he said.
“Because we disagree with each other,” Jenna told him. “We have fundamentally different views on everything important, but you’re trying to charm me, so you’re pretending you think I’m right.”
“I disagree with your assessment of our level of disagreement,” Saryn said, and she smiled at that too. He wasn’t the only one trying to be charming. “Just because people perceive things differently,” he added, “doesn’t make one of them less correct than the other.”
“I didn’t come here to play word games,” she said. “And don’t get me wrong, normally I’d be happy to argue with you over this. But it’s been a long day, and right now you’re the only person in the world who knows just how long. So if you want some company, I could use some comfort.
“If you don’t,” she added, “just let me know. I have what I came for.”
“I would appreciate company,” he said. “I will endeavor not to remind you of work repeatedly, but I do value clarity of expectation. Do you propose primarily conversation, or also physical comfort?”
He saw her draw breath to answer and he added, “You’re welcome to stay the night regardless.”
She paused, raising her eyebrows at him. Not offended, he thought. Just curious. “You know that won’t stay a secret for long,” she said.
“I don’t require that it be a secret,” he said. “If you do, we should make other arrangements.”
“I don’t think secrets are a strength of mine,” she said. “I’m interested in both if you are, but I think we should see if we can get through drinks without shouting at each other first.”
“I rarely shout,” Saryn informed her.
“Then we’ll have to see if we can get through drinks without me shouting at you,” Jenna replied. “Politics obviously aren’t a good topic of conversation. I’m tired of talking about the Rangers and I think you are too. I’m not sure what’s left.”