by R. K. Thorne
“C’mon, like you said, it’s been three weeks. It’s been fun but it’s not like we’ve been serious or anything.”
He went completely still.
“Oh. I…”
He held up a palm. “Don’t worry about it.” He rose to get up.
She sat forward on the edge now. “If you feel that much, then why won’t you stay? You can have a good life here, we can build something—”
A good life, perhaps. But not one he could have laughed with his mother about. He had to be able to look himself in the eye in the mirror at the end of the day. “No. Like I said, I don’t belong here. I should have never even entertained the idea. That was just leading you on. But I guess I wasn’t the only one.”
She blinked. “That’s it then, I guess.”
“Yeah, I guess. Goodbye, Jos.”
And he turned and started to walk away.
“Wait!”
He turned. She was wincing as she downed what was left of her mangabrew.
“I have to go back to Persad’s too. And I have the flyer waiting.”
“Oh.” He ran a hand over his face, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Well, c’mon then.”
Kael was sitting on a chair in Persad’s son’s room, trying to read an obtuse article on Peaks and Valleys but mostly fuming, when he saw them return. He had one of the remote monitors pitched on the side of Vivaan’s desk. Persad opened the door to her suite, and Adan strode in, face looking grim. Kael almost thought Josana wasn’t with him, but she followed a moment later.
But Kael’s business wasn’t with her. He rose and strode to the door. If he timed this just right…
Just as Adan came into view, Kael reached out and grabbed him by his collar, hauling him into the room. He slammed the door control and waited a split second to slam Adan into it once it’d slid home. Hopefully Persad wouldn’t notice and this fancy high-rise had some sound dampening.
“You’ve got a death wish,” he growled.
Adan rolled his eyes. “I was fine. I was with Josana. She’s had ample chance to kill me before you came along.”
“No, I mean from me. I’m going to kill you personally if you do that again.”
“I thought you were trying to impress the commander, not get kicked out.”
“Is that your problem with me? Cause last I checked she’s off having dinner with that smartass scientist.”
Adan frowned. “She is?”
“I don’t care about any of that. I care about doing my job. And you’re keeping me from doing it.”
Adan sighed and removed Kael’s hands from his collar. Kael let him. For now. “Ostrov’s an ass. That doesn’t mean anything. She’s just talking to him because his name’s in Persad’s data.” Adan gestured at the young man’s desk as he sank into Kael’s former seat. “She’s just using him. Just like Josana was using me.”
“Pardon me?” Maybe this could give them a clue as to who was after him. Doubtful, since Adan seemed completely uninvested in figuring out who was trying to kill him. But Kael could hope.
Adan waved him off. “She’s… not as young and innocent as she seems.”
Kael kept his face a frozen mask. She hadn’t seemed terribly innocent coming on to him in the mess, or any of another half dozen times, but that seemed unhelpful to mention now. After she’d hooked up with Adan, Kael had just assumed the girl was in permanent heat. Or bored as an ice miner on a desert planet.
“She wasn’t after me. She probably just wanted me to hack her out of… difficult situations. Or something.”
Kael frowned. “Illegal situations?”
Adan mimed a firing gun with one hand. “Yep. And you thought Ostrov was the smart one.”
He scowled now. “He is.”
Adan shook his head. “No, he’s not. If he were smart, he wouldn’t think he could beat her.”
A bark of laughter escaped him.
Adan continued, seeming to relax a little at the topic change, the light returning to his eyes. “Imagine that as a first date. You invite a girl over for dinner and arm wrestling and just destroy her five or ten times. Is that your idea of showing her a good time?”
Kael blinked. Well, actually… He had no idea what his idea of showing a girl a good time would be. Back on Faros… well, there’d been no money then, and that had been a different life, but with Asha there had been sunsets on the roof, sandstorms spent curled up in cozy tents, listening to street musicians, walking through the vibrant hum of the districts around them hand in hand.
Glory be, how strange that it could sneak up and stab him in the heart again just in the middle of a conversation. Eleven years of feeling nothing ought to have dulled the pain, but it seemed to have only delayed it.
“Kael, you okay?”
“Just… bad memories, that’s all.”
“Of a girl?” Adan said slowly.
Kael hesitated. Did he really want to go there? “Yeah. A girl. When we were teens.”
“Before the whole Theroki thing.”
“Yeah. It’s complicated.”
“Is she still out there? The one that got away?” Adan glanced at the door. At Josana? “Or the one that didn’t really love you anyway?”
“She’s not. Not still out there.”
Adan shook his head. “Married.”
“Dead.” Because of him.
His face must have been truly dark, because Adan rose and put a hand on either shoulder. “Whoa, whoa. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“It’s fine. It’s been a long time. I just… you said your idea of a good time. It’s been a long time since that was an option for me.”
Adan’s eyes widened slightly as that sank in. “Right. Well. I’m sure you’d do a better job than that fool any day.”
Kael wasn’t so sure. What had he done? Saved her life a few times until she relented and bought him a beer? Traded war stories? The lifesaving ought to count for something, but that was hardly romantic.
Maybe she wanted romantic. In the grand sense.
But no. She’d said no. She didn’t want anything from him. Besides, asking her out for some nonsense thing like dinner and strategy games seemed… disrespectful? Disingenuous? Certainly anticlimactic. How could dinner be exciting when you were used to being shot at together? Who needed games when you had actual strategy? What was he supposed to do?
But of course, he wasn’t supposed to do anything. He was a convicted criminal, a kid living under bridges and in caves who’d barely gotten a third grade education, even if he’d fixed some of that in later years. It didn’t matter. He’d been an outcast from the day he’d been born, and no change of name or job was going to change that—to him, to her, or to anyone else.
Before he could think the better of it, his fist lashed out and slammed into the wall beside him. Adan jerked back.
Kael shook the pain out of his knuckles and stared at the dent he’d left behind. Great. The missing guy was definitely going to appreciate the new hole in the wall over his bed. And he’d been doing so well with his anger management.
Adan stuck his face right in front of Kael’s, waved his hand up and down. “Hey. Everything on in there?”
“Slag off, asshole. You didn’t have a chip messing with your head for a decade, so I don’t expect you to understand.”
Adan frowned hard. “I didn’t say I blame you. He’s an ass. But he’s not her type. Quit worrying.”
“I’m not worrying about anything.”
Adan looked pointedly at the dent. Kael just grunted in form of reply. It wasn’t exactly a growl, but… Was he supposed to be counting to ten or something?
“Right.” Adan drew out the word, then pursed his lips. “Look, sorry I snuck away. That was an asshole thing to do. Guess Josana brings that out in me.”
“That’s hardly surprising. She’s a total—”
“Can you at least wait until I’m over her to tell me that?”
“No guarantees. But you completely broke it off?”
“
Yeah. Listen, I won’t take off again. I swear. I’ll stick with you, we’ll find Vivaan, and we can get back to the ship and off this stupid rock.”
Kael took a slow breath, studying Adan’s face and trying to cool down. The pilot seemed sincere. “All right, fine. I guess. Truce?”
“Truce.”
“But I swear I’ll break your legs if you’re lying to me right now.” Yeah, really had a grip on the anger now. He sounded like he was back in the Gray Dragons. He shook himself, tried to throw it off. Both the anger and the past.
“I’ve had enough lies for today. I’m not.”
Kael held out a hand to shake, and Adan grasped it. “Praise the Almighty for that,” Kael muttered. He was proud to not overly crush the pilot’s hand. Presumably he needed it unbroken.
“I, too, am pleased with your decision to stay,” came a voice from Vivaan’s desk.
They both jumped, Adan clutching his chest. “Frag—don’t scare me like that, Xi.”
“My apologies. I did not anticipate a fear response. I am not used to operating in this fragmentary environment.”
Kael shook his head. “We didn’t expect you to be talking out of this random desk, that’s all. You haven’t before.”
“Noted in the fragmentary behavioral profile. I appreciate your continued assistance with detailing my reaction models, Kael. My speech from this unit is not entirely random, as Adan has requested I take a thorough look through Mr. Vivaan Persad’s files to check for anything that may have been missed.”
“How’s that going?” Adan ran a hand through his hair. He looked exhausted.
“I have not found anything else I would consider suspicious. In fact, the suspicious thing might be the overall lack of data. Either he was very uninterested in technology or he had not operated this unit for very long.”
“Maybe he has another computer somewhere,” Adan said.
“Maybe the doctor is holding out on us.” Kael raised an eyebrow.
Adan frowned. “Has she given us any reason not to trust her?”
“Not exactly. But if you get the chance to poke around while we’re gone…” Kael raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Adan rubbed his chin. “Hmm. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Ellen was still fuming when she marched back into Persad’s apartment. How that man could piss her off when she’d beaten him so soundly—and so gently. Jesus, she could have rubbed his face in it if she’d wanted to.
She hadn’t. And she hadn’t even gotten any useful information out of him.
And now that idiot wanted her to waste her time on another stupid game. She’d crush him.
Before she could find someone to take out her exasperation on, Persad stepped out of the workshop room, her monocle blinking in surprise. “Ms. Ryu! Just in time. I have both chips ready. If you’d like, I can get your lieutenant and we can begin…”
Shoving down the lashing anger, she nodded bluntly. “Of course. Where do you need me?”
“Just in there. Be right in.”
No one was in the foyer or the main seating area. They must have all returned to their rooms to rest and recharge. Smart. Unlike her, wasting her time with that idiot. Now she had no real new information, except that he was playing some kind of elaborate game, and she was pissed as hell.
The workshop was lined with high tables covered with tiny bits of electronics parts, tools, and what were probably the fine-electronics printers Persad had mentioned before. She sank into a generic, uncomfortable looking chair against the wall.
In the middle of the room, Persad had a very different chair, presumably for the chip installations. It was more like a table really, with just a slight angle to sit on, foot rests and arm rests.
And restraints. Ellen eyed those uncomfortably, but they looked unused. They’d probably just come with the chair.
The main body of it was heavily padded, almost like a sofa, except for the opening down the middle. Something like a masseuse’s table, except instead of leaving room in a round circle for a face, it left a whole strip down the back.
For the neck and spine and the bits and bobs the cybernetics researchers loved to tuck along them. She was alone now, so she did shudder this time. But it was only a moment or two before Kael and Persad entered.
His expression was uncharacteristically dark, and it didn’t lighten when he saw the chair. Or even when he met her eyes, which surprised her a little. Whether she liked to admit it or not, his eyes usually lit up when they rested on her.
“You first, Lieutenant.”
He headed straight for the chair, no hesitation, stepped onto the footrest, spun, and lay back into the thing. Ellen stood and came closer.
“You don’t need a clean room for all this, Persad? I didn’t feel a buzz on the way in.”
“I have some scrubbers in my work area, but no. Nanos do the trick in here. Just like the ones in your interfaces, I’m sure.”
“Did you get some rest, like the others?” she murmured to him, as Persad got situated. She shouldn’t be distracting Persad at the moment.
He shook his head. “Not as much as I’d like.”
Persad held out a comm for him to see the specs Ellen had sent earlier. “Can you verify these are your upgrades?”
His eyes widened. “Where did you get those?”
“I sent them,” Ellen put in. “Dremer wrote them down when she updated your chip.”
He let out a low whistle. “I guess it’s right. That’s more detail than I’ve ever seen.” He shrugged and flopped back in the chair. “Does it really matter?”
“Of course it matters. Timeframe of installation?”
“About eleven years ago.”
“Hmm. How did you become a Theroki, anyway?”
“I don’t like talking about it.”
Persad frowned, but at the computer monitor to her side. “I can see that. That was quite the heart rate and adrenaline spike.”
He blew out a dejected breath and closed his eyes. “Yeah. I’m working on that.”
“And you, Ms. Ryu. I didn’t expect you to have a chip interface as well.”
“Wasn’t my choice.”
“They didn’t exactly ask either of us,” Kael muttered.
Ellen wasn’t sure Persad even heard him. Ellen stepped closer and leaned one arm against the chair arm while keeping her eyes on the doctor. She’d promised she’d watch his back—literally—if this ever happened, so she wasn’t going to let him down. She meant it in a friendly way, but her forearm brushed his, only the smooth black fabric between his arm and hers. She could feel the heat of him, and suddenly the brush didn’t seem so benign.
She shifted her arm away, not wanting to distract him, keeping a watchful eye on Persad. “The universe sure has a way of teaching us we don’t always get what we want, doesn’t it?”
She felt the pressure of his eyes boring into her but didn’t turn her head. She tried to keep her eyes on Persad, but finally she relented and met his gaze. He was frowning.
“What?” she said.
“You can be brutal sometimes, you know that?”
She stared back, wide-eyed, and opened her mouth. What could she say to that? What did he even mean? The silence stretched on.
Oblivious, Persad spoke first. “Okay, I’ve got a handle on these. Take off your shirt.”
He sighed, leaning forward and pulling the thin black fabric over his head.
A ripple of muscle, skin, and ink. Scars. She averted her eyes a split second too late. Hopefully he didn’t notice. Still, her attention was pinned on him in her peripheral vision as he dropped back into the chair, the way he twitched when Persad found the panel. Several panels, actually, from the series of clicks and puffs that came from his back.
“Okay, we are cooking now. Oh, this is convenient. This should only take a slight modification, hold on. I made this for a newer model of multiple-chip interface, so it’s a little too small, but that’s an easy enough fix… Not too bad back here, for eleven y
ears of…” She turned back to the table behind her, bent over the magnifying glass. She trailed off, lost in her tinkering.
Ellen glanced back at Kael and found him watching her, his head cocked to one side.
“There we go!” Persad held up the tiny device triumphantly. “Now brace yourself, I’ll just slide this in. Let me know if anything goes haywire!”
“That’s reassuring.” Ellen frowned around at Persad but thought better of distracting her at the last moment. She leaned back to study his face for any sign of a problem instead.
Kael was ignoring the doctor with a long-suffering air. His eyes were still trained on Ellen.
“What?” she said again.
“Sometimes I can’t figure you out, Commander.”
She swallowed. “I’m not that complicated.”
“Aren’t you?”
Something must have slid home, because he winced, his head jerking back suddenly. And then the expression was gone.
“There.” Persad straightened. “How do you feel? Now this piece goes on the scalp…” She slipped something that looked like a pebble under his hair. “Also interferes with communicators too. They won’t work near your head or inside armor. You keep it at arm’s distance and on speaker mode, and it should be fine though.”
“Great,” Ellen muttered.
“Let me just take some quick diagnostics.”
He blinked. “I feel… fine. No different, actually.”
“Excellent. All your readouts are normal. Looking good. Closing you back up.” She futzed around for a few more minutes and then straightened. “Done. You’re free to go, Mr. Asidian. All right, Ryu, your turn. I’ll go get your chip. Take a seat.”
Persad shuffled out, and Kael stood and stepped away to let her in. She tried to focus on the chair and not the fact that he was only now putting his shirt back on.
She flopped back. Good thing she’d had the foresight to wear a tank top.