Chapter Fifteen
KIRA
Quinn sent a signal telling her to come to the drone bay at 0900 hours. How he’d added an entirely new bay to the ship without changing its dimensions was a mystery. Then again, she also learned that he’d installed an infinity pool in the exercise room, so perhaps it was best not to question how he managed anything.
Inside the drone bay were racks of drones designed to tend to basic maintenance and repair of the ship. Nestled into a corner and turned outward to the room, a singular large pod with a man’s body resting inside of it. The egg-shaped design with a flat bottom took up only a small area. The inside of the pod formed to the body perfectly, with unnecessary padding covered in smooth and shining black fabric. A glass dome sealed the front. A pair of fabricated shorts rested on the android form to provide some modesty.
The body that lay in the pristine chamber was immaculately beautiful in its own right. Tall, a little over six feet, broad in the shoulders, slimmer in the hips, with eyelashes as long as the depth of space outside. The eyes were closed for the moment, waiting to be opened by a consciousness that had yet to take control. It looked peaceful. While Kira had not said it, she felt like she’d stepped into a child’s novel. As if he was a male sleeping beauty, encased awaiting a princess.
“Alright, you ready?” Quinn asked Kira and Watson as he scratched his neck.
Kira only nodded, but Watson came over the line with a gentle, Yes.
Kira looked at Quinn, not expectantly, but nervously again. She wasn’t ready for this to become the truth, even if she’d been working for it. Watson had fashioned himself as well as possible based on his prior looks and being Praetorian he bore the dusky skin and high features, but she’d not expected the purposeful five o’clock shadow to be redone, which made her smile, and the shaggy long hair in a dark brown that hung over his eyebrows.
“Okay.” With that, Quinn gave Watson access to the drone bay.
From there, the process became incredibly simple for him to transfer his primary interface into the android”s body. Watson took a moment to do so, and the instant that it clicked, his eyes opened. They were a startling shade of blue, brighter than Quinn’s, and more focused the instant they opened. They did not veer away from anything. Instead he took in the world around him.
The pod’s concave dome opened outward to Watson’s right, and his hands grasped the side of it.
Kira had been standing a few feet directly in front of the pod. She stepped back a little when his feet touched the ground. The breath she’d been holding came out then and her eyes trailed over him. Quinn watched her cheeks flush, the angle of her gaze calculated without thinking, it’d been on Watson’s chest. She averted them rather quickly, to the ground, then to Quinn, then back up to Watson’s face as he took another step, coming directly in front of her, his steps eating the ground up quickly.
Quinn remotely accessed the diagnostic feed of the android’s body, his eyes roving over the data. Something that might be a problem for Watson, as the data access would cause it to flit over his eyes as well. Quinn examined it all rather quickly and then shrugged his shoulders.
“No signs of any issues with the takeover. Told you he’d be fine. See? He’s walking around already.” Closing the diagnostic feed, Quinn added, “you should get some clothes. I designed a clothing fabrication drone. I’ll let you access that and you can have it create whatever you’d like.”
Quinn’s personal drones did not share the same network as the drone bay. He kept sole control of his literal army of drones, which now took up a fair chunk of one of the many cargo bays.
“Thank you.” Watson looked at Quinn, but still stood in front of Kira.
Kira jolted visibly. He’d synthesized his voice before based on his memories, but this time it did not have the unnatural feel of an A.I. overlaid to protect him. Even the Callistar was not immune to hackings, and if they’d found a sentient being, there was no telling what might have happened to him.
Watson turned his gaze back down to Kira and raised his hand. She stood perfectly still while he did so. He was… exactly as he had been.
“Captain,” he said in almost a whisper as he touched her cheek, feeling her skin.
“Watson,” she said breathlessly in return, just the slightest upturn to the corner of her lips.
“Uh huh.” Quinn narrowed his eyes as he watched the A.I. touch Kira, slipping out without another word.
Watson never wavered, his focus absolute upon her face, keeping her from shifting, from giving anyone else her attention.
He had what he always wanted a true form, or had it been her dream? She had to believe that he would have never have been fully satisfied without the ability to do this, to exist, to share a space with another person.
“Is it as you remember?” She asked.
“Better.” The warmth in his voice lacked the characteristic of being analog, a thought that kept occurring to her. It was Praetorian. It was his voice, so close to his original she felt as though she was dreaming again.
“I’m happy for you.”
“I am happy for us.” His fingertips turned, his knuckles brushing on her cheek, down to her jaw, before reaching towards her to push a stray lock of hair back and away.
He froze with the silky strands in between his fingers, allowing them to flow back and out before capturing them again. The newfound fascination never tore him away from her face.
Kira was deadly silent because she knew not what to say. This felt too much like she should wake up any second until Watson laughed.
A full on burst, that filled his face with joy and expressed so clearly to her the differences between who she’d been around lately and how a normal sentient being reacted.
“What?” She smiled despite herself.
“I never believed I would feel this again. To touch your hair or your skin and they are,” he repeated the motion, “They are so soft, Kira.”
That smile wavered, as did her gaze on his face before it lowered. “I thought I, I thought I uploaded everything correctly.”
“You did, I remember it, but a memory pales in comparison.”
He tilted her chin upward with very little force but with a firm hold, thumb, and pointer finger wrapped around the bottom curve.
“I have been nothing but a voice for so long.” As he spoke, his voice strained. His adam”s apple bobbed. He did not need to swallow or breathe, but the motion was quite normal. It was so real, programmed to simulate life in every aspect. “I have not had hands to hold, eyes to look, or fingertips to touch and feel, to be a part of the world around me. It is barren like that Kira, I clung to the smallest reaches within my mind that remembered these things.”
“I never meant to make you suffer-”
“I would do it a thousand times again, Kira. To be here, in this moment, to know I am this time almost indestructible, and yet still here. Perhaps remiss of a few things, but does it matter if things aren’t how you imagined them?”
Her teeth harrowed into her lower lip. “I don’t know what I imagined.”
“You imagined a whole body, a regular body, despite you trying to hide it. I know that has been your goal, why you’ve persisted in working for Toke. I’ll admit I’ve been selfish, and I have not deterred you, for the fact that I wanted it too. I wanted it for you.”
There was no mistaking the drop in tone, the shift to where he held her face, cradling her cheekbones, keeping her steady and centered. Keeping her attention where he believed it should most be.
“Why have you not said anything?” Kira could wield a weapon with precision, but to utter those words evenly was beyond her.
“Because it was a dream.”
Kira’s right foot shifted back, then her left, and her head shook to tell him no, refusing it.
“No, Watson.” Firm, decisive something flashed dangerously across her face. “It was a dream, and now it is a reality. My debt is paid now, even if I am not the one that paid it.”
“Is that all I am to you?” He did not give her space to breathe, closing the gap between them. “Was I only a debt? A thing you had to repay?”
“You have never been simply that.” She did not like to be cornered, like any predator that thought themselves over the top of the food chain. His choice to follow a poor one. Bottom teeth ground tightly to the top row, her chest heaving upward. “You have been and always will be my friend.”
“You’ve forgotten then.” Why did she hear heartbreak, feel despair at his words, notice the tightening above his cheeks, the hollow way it came out?
“I’ve forgotten?” Deflated by his response, she wanted nothing more than for this to be easy. It should have been easy.
“What things were like, how easy it can be. I can show you again Kira, what it’s like when you’re around someone who truly understands.”
“I expect you to do your duties, nothing more, nothing less.”
His nostrils flared, then nothing, impassiveness. No muscle movement, no breathing, just impossibly straight shoulders and a light that haloed in his eyes as he said, “At your leave, Captain.”
The quick sidestep, the walkout, all of it was done with mechanical precision. The lack of swagger to his gait completely noticeable.
The door shut to the bay, leaving her completely and utterly alone. Her communication insert was quiet, the conversation over, but the lump beneath her skin still existed. The quick touch reassured her of that, but somehow it felt quieter than before.
QUINN
Quinn just kept going, doors snapping open and then closing promptly behind him. Irrationally angry. Enough so that he considered remotely deactivating Watson’s body. He knew that was stupid. Nothing inappropriate had happened.
Nothing, he told himself. It was nothing, but when he went to dinner, walked into the room, saw all the people, saw Watson standing behind Kira, his hand on her shoulder, Kira looking at Watson, he decided he wasn’t in the mood for any of it. Turning on his heel before anyone could say anything to him, he walked right back out.
Passing Kira’s door to his own, the tightness of his jaw audibly gave way to a loud crack as he adjusted it with his palm. He collapsed onto his bed.
Then he heard, “Quinn?”
It wasn’t his imagination. His processor told him that. So he rose, his expression flat as the door opened. The room behind him spartan to her sight. A bed, a guitar he’d fabricated, an exercise machine, but nothing else. “Yeah?”
“I brought your dinner.” She tentatively held out a plate with a lid.
“Thanks,” he said, accepting the plate. Not immediately shutting the door in her face, but also not saying anything else. He didn’t know how he felt or what to say.
“If you don’t want to join everyone for dinner, I can start sending it up. I know how overwhelming it must be.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, rubbing his nose. “I enjoyed eating with you. But yeah... I didn’t like what I saw in the mess hall.” Which was vague because he wasn’t actually sure what had upset him more. The people or Watson.
“What you saw in the mess hall?” A tilt of her head, a quick roving of his face, lips slightly parted, his algorithm kicked in… concern and confusion.
“Yes.”
“I know we’re a rowdy bunch sometimes.” She bit her bottom lip, drawing in the lower part just slightly underneath where her canines sat. Further concern.
“I dunno. I’m kind of annoyed with Watson,” he muttered, backing into the room to sit on the bed and eat.
“With Watson?” Her shoulder met the doorframe, legs crossing at her ankles.
Quinn grunted. He didn’t even know why he talked about it. He had no reason to be angry with Watson. The android, looking at Kira, got his insides all twisted up. As if Watson thought he was so great, when Quinn had literally grown the body he walked around in. Watson just went around being handsome and touching Kira like it was some right of his.
“He is grateful to you. You’ve given him something that he would not have had for sometime otherwise. It would have been when we returned at the earliest, and that would not have been for a few more years at least.”
“Maybe.” The way he said it not unlike a child who was trying to imply that was the reason he was upset and she should drop it. It was an entirely unconvincing way to say it. He couldn’t know she might piece together that he didn’t know why he was upset anymore.
“Maybe. May I come into your room?”
He nodded.
“It is alright to be conflicted about some things, Quinn. We’ve been alone for a long time, and this is adding in a lot of new dynamics.” She perched on the end of his bed. It gave him space, but the proximity set off his sensor again, concern.
The door slid shut the instant she sat. Okay with Kira being inside, but he didn’t want anyone, especially Watson, coming up to his door and thinking they could interrupt.
“I don’t like it.” He picked at his food like he had no appetite. Usually, even when he was upset about something, he ate normally.
“I know, but I think if you got to know some of them, it might make you more comfortable, even Watson. However, if you don’t want to, we can have lunch sometimes, just you and me.”
“I’d like that.” He didn’t like having others around. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t want to share her, to share this with anyone.
“Alright, I can do tomorrow, but it may be late. Morgan and Rick are coming on board and they’ve made me promise to give them a tour of all the new features when they get here. Rick got the specifications for the security changes that were made, but I doubt Morgan even bothered to read the manual.” She didn’t roll her eyes at Morgan, but it lingered there somewhere in the way she said it.
“Okay.” He reached out slowly and patted her shoulder once before pulling his hand away. “Thank you.”
“Two on the promenade again?” The warmth that blossomed over her face didn’t need translating this time.
“Okay.” Relief flooded him. She’d not drawn away.
“Okay.” She slipped out through the doorway as she called back, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He later returned his plate to the mess hall, mostly uneaten.
Quinn sat patiently. He still had access to all the ship’s systems, so he knew she was running late. Though he found that he didn’t like tardiness. He didn’t enjoy sharing her attention, and he knew that was stupid and childish. All of his feelings about Kira were getting caught up in a big tangle, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do about it. It was distracting. That was why when she squatted down next to him, throwing her legs off the side, she caught him off guard.
“Sorry I’m late.” She separated out a bag of sandwiches. Their head cook, Hela, back on board, meant they weren’t Kira’s concoction.
Quinn jumped as she spoke, taken aback by how she had snuck up on him. He wasn’t one prone to be surprised. With access to most camera networks and a brain capable of actual multi-tasking, it was fairly easy to maintain an awareness of the world around him. However, like any human, his thoughts could be so focused on a single thing that every other thing was blocked out. It had just never happened to him before when thinking about a person. She was the first who had ever commanded all of his attention, and she hadn’t even been in the room.
“It’s alright.” He grumbled softly. Clearly a bit upset, but not inclined to make a big deal out of it.
Concern, the algorithm flashed it in the corner of his readout, letting him know that was what she looked at him with. The damned word becoming a repetitive nuisance.
“We’ll be leaving tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll be in known space for a while so Morgan can truly acclimate to the new controls.”
“Okay.” The idea should have made him happy, delirious even. His dearest wishes were coming true. But what he wanted… he wanted to still be doing repairs, so it was just the two of them.
“Quinn.” Kira leaned forward, her forehead resting on her forearm positioned on the railing. “It’s okay that things change, ya know?”
“I liked how things were,” he spoke as he often did, low and unsure, but he couldn’t know how he came across. “Things were getting better. I was…” He continued low enough she couldn’t hear, but he wished she did.
“You were?”
“Yes, I valued our time together.”
Kira sat relaxed against the railing, leaning her head against the cool metal, watching Quinn for his response. Tension consumed him. Admitting it put it in danger, or it would have before, any expression of enjoyment, any change in his chemical makeup in his brain, they yanked it away immediately.
“I don’t plan on ignoring you, Quinn.” Kira touched him this time. It wasn’t a pat, but a prolonged touch. “I’ll be busier, but I will make time for you. You’re my friend.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“I know. It’s been nice these past few months.”
“It was. It hurts less when you are around. That’s what I wanted. Or close enough.”
“You make me happy too, Quinn.” She held out her hand for him to take.
That signal was enough to get through Quinn’s slightly oblivious behavior. An application that read body language could only cover so much. Reaching out slowly, he took her hand in his, squeezing her palm lightly once he did.
She held on for a little longer. “Would you want to pick a constellation to show me tonight?”
The warmth against his hand, the smoothness of her own, the way she didn’t let go, it was all-consuming. He gave her a tentative smile, then a nod, because he did not trust himself to speak.
“Can you link your communicator and I’ll message you when I’m finished with prep?”
“Oh, yeah, I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
They ate lunch together in silence after that. Both of them focused on their food. When done, he lingered with his fingers wrapped around hers for a few moments, not wanting to pull away but knowing he had to. So, slowly, he unwinded first and took his hand back.
At half-past eight, his communicator beeped with a written message. ‘Where do you want to meet?’
‘I’ll come to you.’
He found her in the shuttle bay talking to a man that could be considered handsome. Perusing their files well before his initial transport to the Callistar, he recognized Morgan, their resident pilot.
Morgan grinned, not unlike Kira did when she meant to be mischievous. “Nice to meet you.” He extended a hand to Quinn, not bothering to give his name. “I heard you’re to thank for the new speed.”
Kira elbowed Morgan in the arm. He ignored it, his grin only widening.
Looking at Morgan’s outstretched hand, then to Kira, then back to Morgan, Quinn shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t take his hands out of his pockets. “Yes,” he said, not sure why Morgan had phrased it that way, as though he needed Quinn to confirm it. He’d done the retrofit.
Morgan lowered his hand, tucking his thumbs into the front loops on his pants. He still had that same smile. “Can’t wait to give it a go.”
“You’ll get a chance in the morning.” Kira stepped away from him towards Quinn. “I’ll see you at 0800.”
“0800, Captain.” He offered a sloppy salute with two fingers.
Kira rolled her eyes.
Quinn’s shifting from foot to foot betrayed that as always he was clearly uncomfortable around the pilot, but at least he wasn’t making eyes at Kira. For whatever reason, her statement that she would have slept with Morgan came back to him in that instant. He didn’t like remembering that.
Brushing their palms together, he curled his fingers around Kira’s, his intention for them to fit together. It just seemed like the thing to do. He wanted to do it to show to Morgan that he could. Hell, he wished Watson were around so the sardonic A.I. could see that Quinn could just touch Kira as well. Even if doing it where someone could see made him feel nauseous.
The inquisitive glance from Kira, the way Morgan turned about messing with something on the shuttle, they noticed.
He struggled to not let go, gripping tighter. His ears grew red, a gentle tug in the right direction, and they were in the hall.
Kira gave him exactly ten seconds before asking, “What was that about?”
“What was what about?”
“You’re a lot of things, Quinn, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
Kira went first at the ladder. Leading the way meant he had a view upward of her legs and hips and bottom as she took the rungs. Her shirt only hid things when you were looking at her from a level angle. This way, it hung loosely over her bottom. He could see under it. Knowing that idealism was a sliding scale didn’t help him. Kira’s pet bottom, her shapely legs, the thighs muscular and calves well formed, all of it glaring obviously. Conventionally, the woman was attractive. To him, he just discovered that meant something.
Taking a single look upward, his cheeks colored, and he forced his eyes to look at the ladder. Then, he looked up again despite himself. Forcing his eyes straight ahead to focus on the climb, he tried not to think about what he would see if he just looked up again.
In the Astrium, he chose the projection for the night, one of The Pillars, a giant creation of bronze and gold mixed among the stars. Laying close, his hand inched out but remained in the middle.
Kira moved hers in return, hovering over his own, before asking, “Is this alright? I want you to be okay with touch. Though it means something different to others, to me it’s just normal.”
“It’s alright.” He closed the gap. “I didn’t like it at first, but it’s nice.”
“Quinn, when you did this in front of Morgan earlier, it could be perceived as something different from just being friendly or leading me.”
“Okay.” He knew that already. He’d been informed by his developing algorithm for social cues that him taking her hand could be considered a romantic gesture. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that thought, but he didn’t regret doing it.
“Okay.” They watched for a while before she commented, “It really is gorgeous.”
Quinn did not reply. He’d fallen asleep in the silence, soothed by the warmth of another so near. He jerked upward when her weight was gone. “Mmm?”
“I have to be up early,” she said. “They can’t get a hold of me here except on the emergency line if I don’t set it up otherwise.”
“Oh.” He knew the necessity of it, but he didn’t rise. He just hoped she’d return. From his angle, he could see her set an alarm. Then she was back, with a large blanket, laying down, skin on skin contact between them again, fingers intertwined. A light touch, nothing magnificent, but he could see her in the dim light. The way her eyelashes rested on her cheek, the ease in which she settled in, her curved lips and the shadow beneath them with the overhead projection, he had to calm his racing heart, his mind, he’d turned everything else off the instant they’d been alone yet it felt still so full, so busy.
In the night, he gravitated to her warmth. Neither had woken for it. The lights rose in the morning, and she untangled herself from him. He could feel her slip away. “Kira?”
His hair frazzled, he felt rather bewildered. It took him a few minutes to figure out what had happened. Blinking slowly as he realized that they just spent the night sleeping on the same “bed.”
“You can go back to sleep.” The lights were already dimming back from the array.
“You aren’t.”
“Yes, well, I have a ship to launch. But you are now a passenger and thus are free to sleep in.” He could hear the amusement in her voice.
Remaining without her felt insignificant. So they departed, her untangling her hair without offering a true goodbye at the bottom of the ladder, leaving things unsaid between them, but what could he have said?