Chapter Eight
KIRA
Whatever time period he’d extended, she was within it when she crossed the bridge to the Callistar.
She entered her own ship, only to find it almost entirely alien to her. Not that the floor-plan had changed, or that anything obvious added to the distant halls. It was just clean in a way it hadn’t been since it had been manufactured. The stains were gone from the walls, some she’d not even realized were that. Her reflection peered back at her through the metallic panels that she passed.
It was eerie to be in such a sterile environment. But, no sign of Quinn.
Only her, standing there, really tempted to touch the clean walls, the intrusive thought similar to mussing a new desk or a clean mirror. Resisting the urge, she made her way to her quarters, which were the same. Then she followed the halls to the kitchens. Late afternoon had fallen, and it was nearly time to start dinner preparations.
Quinn being human, she opted for a fully human meal, steak, and potatoes. Hela, their cook, had left her some frozen pies. Kira chose an apple pie and shoved it in the oven. While she could bake, her lopsided cakes said it was best left to the professionals on that front.
Setting out the steaks, she’d seasoned them on the Eikos, letting them marinate. Heading to the back cabinets, she withdrew a cast-iron skillet. A family heirloom for Hela’s. She’d been the one to show her how to use, clean, and re-season it with express instructions that if it was messed up in any way when she returned it, her bottom would be so raw she wouldn’t sit for a week.
Putting their plates on the long table felt unnecessary, so Kira decided they would eat at the pass through counter. There were a couple of bar stools nestled beneath it. Putting him on the far side where the overhang came out, she moved one inside the kitchen, facing the inside cabinets. She could sit close enough it wasn’t a bother.
“This seems… fancy.”
Kira had heard him come in, but she’d been bent over, pulling the pie out of the oven. His voice back to the gruff fake Irish accent. Why exactly he talked like that was still a mystery since she’d heard his real voice- computerized speech- from a living mouth. While the Irish accent wasn’t the most pleasant, it was less unnerving than that had been.
The man looked a mess. Bags under his eyes, and he could probably use a shower. There was an air of tension about him, like a piece of chewing gum being stretched almost to the breaking point.
“Smells good,” he said, taking his seat.
“Thank you.” Setting his plate down in front of him, everything still steaming. A knife and fork followed. “What do you want to drink?”
“Uh, water?”
She poured herself something dark red and had the slight aroma of alcohol from even a distance. The genuine kind was hard to find and something she might have gotten from Toke’s stores. Whether stolen or asked for, it wasn’t a light thing to share, but she’d happily share it with Quinn after having seen the ship. Pouring a second glass anyways, she set it beside his ice water.
Settling on that topic she chose it as she didn’t think commenting on his appearance was likely to make him want to stay for dinner. As she set a glass of water before him, she said, “I’ve never seen the Callistar this clean, thank you.”
“Yer welcome.” he shrugged his shoulders. “I had to sterilize some places and figured I’d do the rest.”
Reaching up to her ear, she put a finger behind it, touching her communicator. Tapping it once put all non-emergent communication off for an hour. It also kept Watson out of her brain for the same amount of time. Not that he could not listen through the main communication array, but she wanted to focus on Quinn.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” Eyeing him, she pushed his silverware over on an old-fashioned cloth napkin.
Quinn picked up the wine and sniffed it before frowning. He took a small sip, his lips curling around the curved goblet, his frown remaining. “It’s a bit…” He trailed off, choosing to answer her question instead. “Naw, probably not. Not much I can do about tha’ though.”
The tinkling of silverware on their plates followed his ambiguous statement. He chewed with his mouth closed; she noticed. “Do you just not sleep well? There are some aids down in the med bay that can keep dreams out.”
Watching for his reactions, she realized her statement sounded concerned, but to him it could come across much differently. He may have believed she worried about him being able to finish his tasks, so before he could reply, she added, “You should take some breaks too, Quinn. Constantly working is not good.
“My brain has a quantum computer core embedded in the soft tissue. Sleeping medication doesn’t work on me,” Quinn grumbled softly. “Can’t take any medicine that messes with my brain chemistry too much.”
He worked methodically while eating his food, formulating a science experiment across the fine china. The potato dissected into sections, each one with different toppings as if he were testing the combinations.
She outright starred, not because of the way he ate, but because quantum computers were insanely complex, insanely expensive, and insanely experimental. Even the most diehard cyberware junkies didn’t get machinery directly placed into their brain. They had some neural implants that would connect to a person’s brain, but only superficially. However, that was a far cry from opening up your skull and sticking a computer inside of it.
“Is there anything that helps?” She could get him something from Eikos or have it brought in.
“Music. It’s why I keep it so loud most of the time. Helps drown out other thoughts. People can’t multitask, just split focus. I can think about two things, or more, at the same time. Makes it hard not to always be thinking, but if the music is loud enough, then I can focus most of my mind on the songs while I work. Doesn’t help as much when I’m trying to sleep.”
Quinn answered methodically. Falling back into his mechanical voice. She discovered through further probing that she could inadvertently put him into the headspace he had been when he’d been somewhat incarcerated and his handlers were checking on his “health.” Automated responses explaining what details they wanted to know.
“Is there anything else you enjoy?” Keeping the focus across the table didn’t feel wise, but her curiosity drove her forward.
“Working? I enjoy making things… or I did.” He wore a frown, as if it were permanently implanted as well. “I guess just music otherwise.”
“You need a new hobby then,” Kira suggested. “What about painting? Or drawing?”
“Hobby?” He looked up at her. The ring of light inside of his eyes seemed to flash brighter for a moment. She’d seen it before, when he worked.
Is he looking for an answer?She thought to herself.
“Yes.” Drawing her knife down, it screeched on the plate and she readjusted her angle, catching an annoyed look Quinn cast in her direction.
“Harm,” he muttered. “Doing something just because you enjoy it… Maybe you are right, I could try a hobby.”
“You’ll find most of the crew have them. Max’s is getting into others’ personal business,” she joked lightly, giving him a smile that quickly flatlined. “He means well, of course,” she spat out quickly. Her last joke hadn’t been taken well, and the rush gave her away. She worried about this one as well.
The quizzical look she received and accompanying silence made her feel guilty. Her face blossomed red across her cheeks. Attempting to move along quickly, she asked, “Is there anything you want to know? About the crew or the ship?
“Know about you or the ship? You mean, besides, what’s in Toke’s records?” The man confirmed that he had read up on all of them. That he’d sliced into Toke’s computer network and took what information he wanted was no surprise. Thus far, as it related to anything scientific, there seemed to be nothing Quinn couldn’t do. It was people that were far too much for him to handle. “I... huh... never thought about that. It was discouraged.”
“This isn’t-” she was about to say Paradigm, but the reminder might have been too much for the man. Choosing her words carefully wasn’t a particular skill she was great at. “You are a person, Quinn, not some piece of property. Normal people can have a conversation and ask questions in return.”
“I’m a pretty far cry from normal,” he said with a snort. Closing his eyes, he let out a long breath. “Where are you from?”
Was that a joke? Maybe there was hope for him yet. She swallowed down the laugh that wanted to come up from deep within her at hearing him say something akin to normal.
“Preatoria I believe.” She wasn’t completely certain it was the major planet of what made up the Praetorian system, but her heritage was that, as far as she was aware. “But I grew up on Toke’s coattails. I never stayed in one place for long.” If she asked him in return, it might dredge up memories, so instead she’d ask, “What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever built?”
“Preatoria? A whole ‘nother world. I wanted to be from somewhere. One of the nicer researchers was from Ireland. I thought the way he talked sounded interesting. I copied it.” Reaching up, he scratched at his chin. “I guess Gary.”
He let out a low whistle, and a pocket on the front of his coat wiggled. A gecko popped out, or it had the shape of a gecko, but it appeared to be made of crystal with gigantic eyes the color of jet. The little thing shimmied its way out of his pocket, down his arm, and onto the table to explore.
Kira felt enormously giddy. Creatures in space were rare, leaning across the counter lowering herself a little to look at his creation. Her enthusiasm carried over into her speech. “Gary is adorable! What sort of gecko did you base him off of?”
Quinn blinked slowly at her reaction. Gary seemed thrilled by it skittering up to her, leaping onto Kira’s hand and heading up her arm. Its little paws had just the right amount of warmth to almost feel real. If it wasn’t for the impossible coloring of it, she might have thought it a living animal.
“Uh, leopard. I took a brain scan of a gecko, tweaked the intelligence enough to understand basic human language, and added in an imprinting subroutine for loyalty. I uploaded that into a neural net that replicates a gecko’s body perfectly and grew a polymorphic crystalline gel compound around it to simulate muscles, skin, and bone before covering it in the smart diamond scales.”
“Well, he’s super sweet.” She rubbed his head. Gary stuck out his little tongue to ‘taste’ her skin, perhaps in order to judge her even if its sensors depended on its similarities to a real one.
Letting him walk over her hands, he climbed up her shoulders. When he hit bare skin around the collarbone of her loose black shirt, she giggled and told Gary, “That tickles, bud.”
Raising her hand to get him down, she held the creature gingerly, even though it would be extremely hard to break him. Moving him back down to the table, holding him in both hands, she smiled from ear to ear. Apparently, all it took to break her composure was an animal, and it didn’t matter the sort.
When she looked back up, she found Quinn observing all of this with a slightly disbelieving look on his face.
“He looks like he’s smiling,” she said, running a finger under his chin and lifting it up a little. The sweet little smug thing the sort of critter she used to fall for on alien planets, but would never take. They were wild and meant to be wild.
Kira still smiled like a fool. “This is brilliant, Quinn.”
Both knew his talents, and she should have been saying that about the engines or the new manifold, but no, she said it about a gecko made of spare parts.
“Uh, thanks. I just wanted...” Quinn shrugged and looked away, staring down at his dinner before returning to eating his meal without comment. Gary hopped out of her hands and crawled his way back up Quinn’s sleeve, vanishing into his jacket.
Finishing up her own meal with gusto, she never turned down food or waited until it got cold. So she dug back in, but she tried to keep the conversation going since he was doing so well. “May I ask how you found Toke to begin with? I would have figured you could have just commandeered a ship on your own-” that made the thought process kick in, “But you need enough supplies to live on. That’s a little harder, I see now.”
Quinn nodded his head in agreement. “Toke is an expedience. In theory, I could manage to get everything I need with enough time, but not easily. Getting money without making it obvious is hard. Buying large quantities of supplies is hard. Retrofitting a ship is hard. These things would take time to set up. With Paradigm putting all of their resources into locating me, speed is important. Toke already had the resources and network to get what I needed, and barter is the oldest form of trade.
“As for how I found him, I got access to an unsecured terminal with unfettered galactic-net access while at a shipyard. From there, I already had a script prepared to scan for what I needed. Someone with resources, connections, and connections to illicit resources. Toke came up really fast.”
“Toke runs the largest illicit business with ties to every major government in the galaxy to do their dirty work. They all know that he does business with everyone else. It’s common knowledge and yet the whole thing is called Rumor.” She snorted. “It’s no surprise you found him first, honestly.”
Toke hadn’t hidden himself very well, but when you were as powerful as he was, you really didn’t have to. He was the pirate king of smuggling. No one dared defy him, and he was so well protected it was almost impossible to kill him. The bar they visited had no actual clientele that day. Kira knew it even if everyone in it had not known that they were all working for the same man. It was a brilliant scheme, if not a dangerously wicked one.
“Yes, it wasn’t very hard, seeing as he was already a man with everything. It seemed offering the one thing his wealth could not yet buy him would make him keen to do whatever he could to assist me.” Quinn said.
“He’s stayed in power so long by knowing a good deal when he sees it.” Her tone then wasn’t loving towards Toke. She knew who he was, who she was to him, and the debt that she owed. The memory of that fact brought her to down the rest of her ‘wine.’
Glancing at the bottle, she knew she did not need another glass. Being a lightweight for real ethanol meant knowing limits. They chemically altered the fake substitute to allow you to be sober in an instant if you wanted to be. This... well, she could hardly account for who she’d be later.
Besides, if the conversation hadn’t turned to Toke, she wouldn’t be considering it. She wasn’t an actual lush.
Quinn finished the last bite of his meal as a drone came in to clean up the mess. “Thanks for the food. It was good.”
“Quinn?” Waiting for him to look back, she asked, “May I show you my favorite part of the ship? Before I leave.”
He paused, one brow lowered, and the other raised. “Sure?”
The relief she felt showed in a genuine smile as it spread across her face, making her much more likable than the sullen looks he’d gotten thus far.
“Come on,” she almost took his hand to pull him along. Her fingers graced the edges of his palm before she realized her mistake. He flinched while she attempted to pass it off as a case of walking too close as she passed him. Awkward, but she tucked her hands into the pockets of her pants, hoping to prevent herself from doing it again.
They went down the hall through the maze that was the Callistar. Heading down a slim working corridor, she explained, “It was closed in because of being nonessential when they did the first renovation. So the only access is through the tubes.”
“Hrmm, I think I know which room you’re talking about from the diagrams,” Quinn said. “I was debating going down there and seeing if I could do anything with it.”
Unused space was rare on a spaceship, considering the cost of making one was huge. Kira clearly did not feel bad about it admitting, “To be honest, I blocked it off. Although, I thought I had it removed from the maps as well, that is, unless you cross-referenced and found the space.”
“Hrmm? No, I just did a deep spectrum scan of the hull and superstructure. Like I said, this ship is going to be moving faster than what it was graded for. In order to stop the ship from shaking apart, it needed to be graded. If it failed, then it needed to be replaced. A new section that meets stress requirements put in and dry welded together.”
“Ah.”
The old maintenance tubes, basically large round pipes with ladders, were still there for quick access to interior systems. Opening the latch, she went first, leaving him to close it. Putting her hands on the rung above her, her ankle completely healed she took off, going up it at a moderate pace. Her hair swayed behind her as she climbed, and something else was definitely in his view since she led the way. One quick glance down told her he had no interest in the female form. He kept his eyes firmly on the ladder.
Popping out on a level tunnel, she turned right, hitting a small corridor with a keypad lock. The system remained offline to the main ship, running off its own battery power for the door. Jimmying it open in an emergency would trip an alarm that would alert her immediately. She did not bother hiding the code. She figured he could sort it out if he really wanted.
Punching it into the keypad, the door slid open. Peering inside they were met with complete darkness, other than the illumination that came from behind them. She touched the wall and a ring of light went around the room at the ceiling. It brought into focus a table in the center that had a rounded glass top in the form of a half sphere. A slim counter ran around the circumference in a slick black, cool to the touch. Beneath it, the housing came directly down to the floor from the globe wrapped in black metal.
Kira shut the door behind him.
Figuring if he didn’t recognize the item he could look it up she didn’t explain. She knew it was an old star projector, one of Astromech’s creations from when the company was still booming. Charting in an old-fashioned manner by projecting out systems and planning leaps, it had been critical to that function once upon a time. Then when it served its use, it became a novelty for projecting constellations one could walk through, mainly used to educate children.
Beside it a thick pad with a blanket laid out on the floor, with a few pillows. “Even Watson can’t reach me here,” she told Quinn. She wanted him to know this was special to her, and special for her to bring him there.
Quinn examined the device in the center of the room before visually scanning the rest of it. She knew he was possibly checking her words. He would find no cameras, no sensors, no connected intercom system. A small communicator rested on the ledge of the star projector, but that was it.
“So, just a little private viewing room?” He sounded distracted, the way he did when she brought lunch and his hands were busy, but he didn’t stop at that. “I can see why you’d like having a private place to get away.” That sounded more human, more feeling, as if he wanted to clarify that he really got that. “If I had a place like this, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
Kira settled down on the thick pad, grabbing the blanket, patting a spot a little way from her. She made sure plenty of room existed between them and she listened to him before leaning back and tapping something on the pedestal bottom next to her. A hatch released sliding backwards allowing it to be programmed from below a simple input system with a visible keyboard and search query function.
“It’s a little more than that,” she said with a smile. “It used to be one of the astronomy rooms where the crew plotted where they would go next.”
The invitation triggered a slight frown from Quinn, but he joined her on the floor. He leaned against a pillow, folding his legs up to his knees and wrapping his arms around them as she turned the device on and the room exploded into brilliant light. At waist level, there were stars. The device displayed beautiful reflections of the constellations and planets, which could be manipulated to almost anywhere in space.
If one were laying down, it felt as if they were looking up to them and stargazing.
“Oh.” Quinn murmured softly as he took it all in, silent as his gaze traveled over it all.
Blue flashed in his eyes and he snapped them closed. He placed a hand against his temple, his lips moving, but the sound inaudible. When he dropped his hand, he returned to watching the stars. The electronic blue that his eyes usually had, unless it flashed a brighter shade, was gone. Just normal, pale sea-glass blue took it all in now.
His tells were not so absolute that she found it easy to gain any kind of true understanding of what went on inside his mind, but in that moment she could see just how wrong she’d been about him.
He craved human experiences and kindness, though he’d never say it out loud.
She relaxed and leaned back fully at first, but now she came up slightly onto her elbows. Watching the sky, she whispered, trying not to ruin the moment that had been created between them. “I like to watch recreations of the comets sometimes. The ones that mining processes have destroyed.”
“That sounds interesting,” Quinn said, keeping the same gentleness as she had when she spoke as he continued to stare up at the starry projection.
Twisting, she’d run through the screen until she found a favorite. It lasted over half an hour, in which the sky became full of projections of falling rock that fell into fire and ketone bursts.
Coming back down, she left a serene silence as she settled into a large pillow that held her up at just an angle to be comfortable. There were a few other blankets around them. The temperature dropped, making it just a little cooler in the room. If she was sharing, she was going to show him what it was like to sit with a blanket and just stargaze.
Then it hit her and she asked, “Do you need music? I can put some on the console.”
The sudden question made him blink in surprise. “I was... playing music on my neural net during dinner. I just turned it off... I’m fine.” The way he said it made his surprise at this revelation more than apparent. “But, yeah, maybe something in the background.”
Flipping through the selections, she settled on classical music, not too far off from what he listened to, but this music only used acoustic instruments as opposed to his electric ones.. “If you need vocals and lyrics, I can switch it again.”
He shook his head. The song went from one to another, the second featuring only on a single classical guitar. Halfway through the piece she heard him snoring. Smiling to herself, she listened to both before draping a blanket over Quinn and allowing him to sleep without someone staring, leaving the door open.
Heading back to her own quarters, she wasn’t sure about the invitation- if it was okay for her to stay or not, so she collected a few items to head back to the Eikos.
You took him there?
She almost jumped out of her skin at the interruption. She’d cut off communications during dinner and never turned them back on. Watson was patient, but apparently not that patient. She let out a snort after her heart calmed a little. “I did.”
Why?
She shrugged her shoulders out of habit before remembering he couldn’t see it. “I dunno.”
Kira wondered if Watson had a lot on his mind, the question faded, because she certainly did.
QUINN
Quinn did not wake for… Eleven hours, thirty-two minutes, and eleven seconds. Give or take about thirty minutes for the time his net had been off before he’d fallen asleep. System alerts piled in as he reconnected. A few projects called for his attention, but most work had continued under an emergency drone controlled A.I. he’d put into place before the neural net had been turned off.
Crawling off of the cushions, he rearranged them to the exact specifications on their arrival. Heading back to work, he sent out a short, “Sorry this took so long. I just woke up. Thanks for last night.”
“You’re welcome,” was the response he received. Warm and lovely in tone, but with some background noise- people laughing. A quick check showed that Kira wasn’t on board the ship anymore.
It passed from his mind for a few days before he updated her. “Might take me longer to finish than I thought.”
“Take your time, setbacks are normal,” was the message he got back and something akin to a care package with his meal. A warm blanket, a collection of music on a data drive, and even some muffins for breakfast.
He, in return, sent her something equally precious as the care she’d put into the package. “I didn’t change the door code.”