106
“I am trying to understand,” Milo said between his teeth. His ears and the back of his neck felt flaming hot. “But it’s different to anything I know.”
“But ya ain’t complaining, are ya?” Tania asked.
“I’m not complaining as such,” he said. “But it’s a lot of pressure. Can’t you see that? I’m just one person, Tania. And I hardly have time for myself. I live inside my head a lot. How am I supposed to give you all that much more attention?”
“Have we asked for it?”
He thought about that.
He was sitting in the Security Room. A recording was frozen in front of them.
A recording of Paddstone having another meeting with Vesna. She was delaying him. That much even Milo understood.
But that wasn’t what was filling his mind.
What filled his mind was how Fedwina had been adamant that she wasn’t going to wear a shirt.
And that his other golems had conveniently disappeared for long periods, leaving him with his new assistant.
“It just feels so… mechanical.” He sighed. “I thought it was me and you. Then you threw Selma at me. And then Mila. And now you’re throwing Fedwina at me. I feel like a clock. That I see you at one, see Selma at two. It feels cold. Aren’t you even a little bit jealous when I’m with someone else?”
“Nope.” Tania shrugged. “Milo, there’s a good reason we’re like we are. One day, maybe you’ll understand.”
That only made him grouchy.
After activating Fedwina, the Prime had cheerfully advised him it had unlocked another archive. So, now he had Supplemental Archive Two.
And there were clearly some secrets left for him to discover.
The second archive didn’t hold any blueprints. Instead, it held information about the fortress itself. He hadn’t been able to spend much time in it, but it seemed to have the initial designs and meticulous drawings of the layout.
The Tinkers would go insane if they could see it.
More surprisingly was Fedwina telling him not to waste too much time in there. She told him she could tell him anything he wanted to know.
So, he’d asked what had happened to the dwarves. Where had they gone? Had they died?
And she’d promptly told him she couldn’t tell him because it was restricted.
She couldn’t even tell him what archive that would be in or how to unlock it.
“I don’t like thinking you’re not human,” he said. “It makes me feel like I’m using you.”
“You are,” Selma said. She was sitting in the chair on his other side, picking at her nails. “And we don’t mind. It’s what we’re for, Milo.”
“It sounds gross.”
“Well, it ain’t gross to us,” Tania pouted. “You’re making it gross by saying it’s gross.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry won’t cut it,” she growled. “Ya gotta try and understand, Milo. You’re our engineer. To us, that means something. It’s like if ya got hitched to some broad, you’d wanna be called a husband, right?”
“I guess.”
“It’s the same with us.”
“But humans only have one partner,” he said. “Any more is cheating.”
“Well, you humans are weird,” Selma said.
“Real weird,” Selma said. “Did you know Jassie’s in love with Belt?”
“What?” He blinked at her. “Jassie?”
“Yeah. It’s why she’s always so depressed.” Selma sighed. “Cerena isn’t the type to let Belt see her, though. So, she’s sad.”
“It’s ruining her life,” Tania said. “We told her she should join another team, but she ain’t thinking straight.”
Selma nodded. “Her head’s on backwards.”
“Poor Jassie,” he said, feeling bad for her. He liked Jassie.
“Now, if Cerena wasn’t so selfish, things might be different, right?” Tania pointed out. “They’d make a great little throuple.”
“That’s the thing,” Milo pointed out. “For Cerena, she loves him so much and she wants him to feel the same to her. She doesn’t want to see him loving someone else. It’s like a betrayal.”
“Silly human rubbish,” Selma snorted.
Tania stared at him, eyes intent. “Milo, do ya love me?”
“I think so,” he said, feeling his cheeks get warmer. He’d never been good at talking about his feelings. “I mean, yes. In my way?”
She shook her head and blew air through her lips. “Engineers,” she said. “All the same.”
“Do you love me, Milo?” Selma asked, sounding nervous.
“Yes,” he said, more firmly.
“So, what’s the problem?” Selma shrugged.
“Because, for us, a heart isn’t something that can be divided up.”
The two golems wouldn’t understand, he thought.
No matter what he said to them, he couldn’t explain why he felt guilty when he was kissing one of them. When he was holding them in his arms. Especially if another was standing nearby.
“Ah,” he growled. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’m not good at this.”
“Good boy,” Tania said, patting his cheek. “Leave it to us.”
“Or your new Personal Assistant,” Selma said with a grin. “I’m sure she’ll tell you what to think.”
“And she’d be right,” Tania said, thrusting out her lower lip.
“Milo, that girl’s got her head on straight.
Ya gotta listen to her, okay? Don’t you be pushing her away because of all that crazy human baloney.
You’re an engineer now, okay? And that means ya gotta look after your golems. All of your golems.”
He held his arms up in surrender. “Alright! Alright. I give in.”
“See?” Tania shot Selma a look. “He can be smart when he wants to.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t.”
“Will you two stop that?” He shook his head, his eyes caught by the frozen image of Padrick on the screen. The man’s face was enough to make him feel irritated. “We need to talk about your upgrades.”
“Upgrades?” Selma perked up. “Really?”
“I’ve got some to do over the next few days. I’ve been working on them.”
“Really?” Selma’s grin made her look more goofy. “Aww, Milo. You’re so good to us. Isn’t he, Tania?”
“Yeah.” Tania smiled. “He’s the real deal. What cha got for us, then?”
“Well, I have a new sword for Selma,” he said. “That wasn’t so hard to make.”
Selma’s eyes widened. “A sword?”
“It’s got some flashy effects. You can press a button on it and it’ll shoot out lightning wherever you point it. It’s powered by a core in the hilt.”
“For real?”
“Yeah.” He scratched at his chin. “I want to upgrade it later so the lightning’s more visible on the blade. Like how Belt does it.”
“You can do that?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said.
“Aww, Milo,” Selma gushed. “I’m about to cry!”
“I made daggers for Mila which will blast raw mana. It’ll look like arcanomancy to most mages,” he said. “I think we can improve on that, too. My challenge is for you, Tania. I don’t know what I can do. But, for now, I think we can rely on the grenades Mila was using. Maybe adapt them somehow.”
“I made it hard for ya,” Tania sighed. “I shouldn’t have picked geomancer on my forms.”
“It’s alright,” he said, patting her hand. “I’ll think of something. I also want to upgrade some of your arms.”
“What?” Selma held up her hand. “My arm?”
“Yeah. I think for you and Mila, I can make some flashy effects which look like you’re adding power to your hands or something. That’ll make it look like your strength is more magic than just physical.”
“Wowser,” Selma said. “Ya really thought about it a lot.”
“I mostly used the list you gave me,” he said, flushing again. “Some of them I can’t do yet. But there were some simple ones I can adapt.”
“It’ll be helpful,” Tania said. “We’re getting more attention lately because we ain’t showing our tricks. Some of the others think we’re hiding because we’re being sneaky. It ain’t helping how we offed Fergus.”
He nodded. “I heard. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
At least if Selma uses some in spars with Belt, it’ll do a lot to stop people thinking that way.
” He tried an encouraging smile for her, knowing she was still feeling regretful about choosing geomancy.
“I’ve got Fedwina looking through the archives and library to see what I can do with you.
I’m cross-referencing that with some books on geomancy. I’m sure we’ll figure something.”
“Thanks, Milo,” Tania said, trying to sound hopeful.
“Ah, stop looking down at your feet,” Selma told her. “You know he’ll fix everything. It’s Milo. He’s our engineer.”
“That’s right,” he said, giving her two thumbs up before pointing at himself. “Engineer.”
“Alright, Mister Engineer,” she said, booping his nose. “I’ll leave it all to you.”
“I asked Mila to get together all the explosives we’ve got so we can hand most of them over to you. She’ll also work with you to go over how to use them. I know you know how, but she was able to fool Fergus and Jin for a long time. She’s got a few sneaky ways of making it look natural.”
“Sure,” Tania said. “I’ll do that.”
“I’m sorry if it’s not a lot. I know grenades are a bit simple.”
“Don’t be silly, Milo. There ain’t nothing wrong with a big bang. Which reminds me,” she purred. “That’s kinda why we’re here.”
“What?”
“Well, we saw ya were worried about how we feel.” Tania put a hand on his cheek.
“And how you think we’re jealous of each other,” Selma added, putting an arm around his shoulder.
“So, we thought we’d take things up a notch.”
“Or two,” Selma said, kissing the back of his neck.
“How about it, Milo?” Tania licked her lip and leaned in close enough. “Wanna learn some of the perks of being in a throuple?”
He gulped.
Then he squinted at her owlishly.
“I thought we were a fourple?”
“Milo,” she grinned, climbing onto his lap while Selma started moving around him. “We’re whatever you want us to be.”