I sit on the porch outside, finishing my coffee and scrolling my tablet for any useful information about this planet. Hopefully, something will spark an idea I can use to help out Lex and Abraham. I know they’ve been fine for years, but if I can help in some way, it seems like a good thing to do, especially after how kind Lex has been with no expectations.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a situation I can just muscle my way through. No one should know we’re here. Too bad she can’t just file a complaint against this guy.
“Come up with anything bright?”
Hesitantly, I glance over my shoulder at Yvonne. She doesn’t appear very awake. Her hair is still sticking every which way. She’s back to wearing shorts.
“How are your legs?”
She looks at her knees, giving one of the scabs a slight poke. “Eh, they don’t hurt unless I whack them on something. I think I’m the least injured of the entire group, ya know.”
Whatever. “I know.”
She sits beside me on the step. “I’m assuming the change in topic means no, you haven’t come up with anything. I overheard you saying to Abe and Lex you want to help get that official off their back.”
“Would be easier if I could show my face. That would be like 90% of a deterrent right there.”
She punches me. Hard. She’s lucky she missed the metal in my arm. “Ow.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Is she really going to start getting protective over my face? No way. “Dear, you can kiss me all you want, it doesn’t change the facts.”
She lowers her face, holding my eyes as she glares. It’s a different glare than before, not hateful at all, which makes it harder to glare back with any success.
“Did you just call me dear? My stars, with perhaps a bit less snark to it that would actually sound like an affectionate nickname.”
Heat burns my face. Getting a little too cocky for my own good. Well, I guess she isn’t taking back everything she said last night. Hating the relief that brings, I turn back to my tablet.
“Good morning, by the way,” she grumbles, then her hand touches my cheek, turning my head enough she can give me a soft kiss. Small and quick, it’s an extra promise last night wasn’t her in a strange mood or messing with me. It makes my heart-rate skyrocket more than last night. Don’t start panicking now, idiot.
“Ya know,” she mutters, “You could do something other than stare blankly at me when I kiss you.”
“Sorry, just my face.”
“That is blatantly untrue. If you look pissed and annoyed all the time, you can manage to look pleased once in a while too.”
She has a point. But my face is only getting warmer, and I’m well aware someone is probably watching us out the window. Somehow, it feels like it’ll hurt if I try to smile. Instead, I hold still when she goes for another kiss.
“Hmm,” she says, actually going for the smiling part I missed. “We’ll work on that.”
“I’d tell you not to bother, but we both already know you don’t listen to me.”
She makes a grumbling sound somewhat like she’s mimicking me and steals my coffee, still smiling. I’m not sure my presence has ever made anyone smile in quite that way. I don’t know what to do with the realization.
Anya’s voice drifts from the kitchen before she pops her head out the doorway, spots us sitting inches from one another, and manages to squeeze between the two of us and sit on the step.
“Whatcha doing?” she asks, leaning against my arm to look at my tablet.
“Looking at planet files.”
“Ew, boring.”
I can’t help but smile.
“What’s that robot gonna be finished?” she asks.
“Whenever we can figure out how to put it back together. Even if we get it on again, we don’t have enough parts for something that old—”
I pause long enough Yvonne asks, “What?”
I open my mouth, then glance back into the house. “Lex?”
She appears around the corner, more awake this time. “Yeah?”
“Didn’t that official guy say your neighbors saw someone walking with you who didn’t look human? That’s why he’s extra suspicious of you right now?”
Lex nods.
“They just said that someone was walking with you who had metal in them, not anything more specific?”
“No, not that he said. He seemed confused about the whole thing.”
I grin.
“What?” Yvonne’s staring to sound annoyed she’s not in on the idea.
Ignoring her, I get to my feet. “Abraham! Get over here! We’re fixing that robot!”
With a bit of putting our minds to it—and Bat helping this time—we get the robot all cleaned out and put back together by evening.
Is this a stupid plan? Probably. But at the worst outcome it’s harmless, and at best it will take a good amount of suspicion off Lex. Hopefully. As long as that human official isn’t too bright and hopefully not super stubborn. If nothing else, it’s a plausible denial for Abraham’s existence.
Anya has been seated next to me the entire time, even after I finished explaining my plan. All the humans look amused at the idea but Lex is happy to give it a try. The littlest princess keeps petting Bat while he tries to work on the robot, but he’s not hissing at her anymore.
Lex has found some roller wheels from one of her old pieces of farming equipment, but we can deal with those later. The most important part of this plan is getting this thing turned on. If it won’t do that again, the rest of this isn’t exactly going to work.
“I can’t believe you got this thing to ever turn on,” Abraham grumbles, sliding one of the remaining few pieces of its voice box back together.
“So am I.” And one of my hands was pretty shredded too.
Abraham clicks the voice box back into place, yawning and leaning around the robot to shrug at me. Might as well give it a try.
Lex also parked one of her hover scooters in front of the house. A little engine like that can easily double as a good enough power source to plug this thing into since we haven’t had it sitting out in the sun. I wouldn’t want to short out the rest of her house by accident.
I eyeball Anya sitting right next to me, but I’m fairly certain if this thing was going to blow up on us, it would’ve done it back on Amerov. Still, I nudge her out of the way.
Zane’s improving. He’s been out of bed most of the day, still confined to the couch but usually sitting up when he’s not napping. I helped Lalia and Lex with the bandages earlier, enough to see he’s probably going to have some scaring regardless of the expensive medicine Lex has stashed away—he didn’t seem too upset about it, but I spent a good hour considering the ramifications of hunting down Lee’s ship again so I could follow through with shooting Kel in the face. I’m glad I didn’t do such a thing in front of Anya, but I regret more than a little not shoving the little girl into another room where she couldn’t see and going back to take my revenge.
Either way, he seems invested in our progress, so I figure he’s feeling a little better as well as healing up. This morning’s conversation sure cheered him up.
I glance at Yvonne but look away before she can make gooey eyes at me.
“Wanna try turning it on?” Abraham asks.
“Sure, could only burn the house down.”
Lex gives me a look like I’m an annoying toddler. Abraham snickers.
I find the port on the back of the robot’s neck where Yvonne accidentally switched it on the first time. For a moment, nothing happens. Then its head swivels up, turns back and forth, and some of the old lights flicker along its metal components.
I grin.
“Cool,” Anya says.
The robot’s head swivels in her direction, though I’m not certain it sees her.
“Hi,” I say, giving it a gentle tap on the top of the frame of its metal skull. “I’m the cyborg that talked to you on Amerov, do you remember that?”
It’s quiet for so long I think we might’ve damaged its voice box trying to clean it out, or maybe whatever ports and wires were giving it some sort of consciousness.
“You used me as a power source,” it says in a scratchy voice that makes the nearest dog laying by the fire jump and pin its ears in surprise.
“That’s right,” I say, more and more pleased with myself as the moments pass. “How do you feel?”
It thinks for a moment before saying, “Untethered.”
An odd thing to say, but I understand it anyhow. It’s not much of a body it has, and I’m pretty sure it can’t see us.
Yvonne scoots next to me, “I’m Yvonne, I was there last time.”
“Yes.”
“Can you see?”
“No.”
I say, “No. It’s okay, we’ll get you eyes. We’re on another planet far from Amerov, there are two people who live here who you might like.”
As carefully as I can, I explain where we are and how Abraham helped me put the robot back together. It asks a few questions but mostly stays silent.
I say, “Abraham can give you a better body and put you back together, and no one would bother you here. You can’t go with Yvonne and Anya because Captain would probably confiscate you. I’m not sure how happy you’d be going with me. We don’t really know where we’re going from here. So we were wondering if you’d like to stay with Abraham and Lex, or if there’s somewhere else you’d like to be?”
Both Abraham and Lex are watching us. Abraham had twitched at the mention of Captain but otherwise stayed still and silent. They don’t know what’s going on with us, or if they have checked the bounty charts by some chance they haven’t mentioned it. They don’t seem to recognize the royals, but I’m sure they know we’re really up to some crap. They must be curious, Abraham, particularly after the mention of Captain, but I suppose some people happen to be actually respectful.
The robot is quiet, enough I check to make sure he’s still charging up. I don’t want him shutting down right in the middle of the conversation.
“Are you alright?” I ask when it’s been nearly five minutes and Anya has started bouncing in place next to me. Bat’s little eyes flicker between the two of us.
“Yes,” it says. “I can stay here forever?”
Somehow, its robotic voice sounds longing. I felt bad about the idea of abandoning it, but I’m really not sure how happy it would be sitting in my ship, especially not with how long it would take me to piece it together, and how we’ll be heading out to uncharted space after this. I was hoping it would like the idea of this place: peaceful, two kind people, one of which is enough of a cyborg still to understand it, and a purpose by helping the two of them out around here.
“Yes, you can,” Abraham says, leaning around it to get a better look at where its face should be. He sounds like he’s trying to hide how thrilled he is by the idea. He might like fixing things up even more than Bat. Bat sits in my lap, satisfied with his job. I pet his ears.
“I would like that,” the robot says, and I catch Lex smiling out of the corner of my eye. If it makes Abraham happy, it going to make her even happier.
“That’s good,” I say. “Abraham’s gonna get you fixed up. Do you think you can help us with something?”
I sit on the porch outside, finishing my coffee and scrolling my tablet for any useful information about this planet. Hopefully, something will spark an idea I can use to help out Lex and Abraham. I know they’ve been fine for years, but if I can help in some way, it seems like a good thing to do, especially after how kind Lex has been with no expectations.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a situation I can just muscle my way through. No one should know we’re here. Too bad she can’t just file a complaint against this guy.
“Come up with anything bright?”
Hesitantly, I glance over my shoulder at Yvonne. She doesn’t appear very awake. Her hair is still sticking every which way. She’s back to wearing shorts.
“How are your legs?”
She looks at her knees, giving one of the scabs a slight poke. “Eh, they don’t hurt unless I whack them on something. I think I’m the least injured of the entire group, ya know.”
Whatever. “I know.”
She sits beside me on the step. “I’m assuming the change in topic means no, you haven’t come up with anything. I overheard you saying to Abe and Lex you want to help get that official off their back.”
“Would be easier if I could show my face. That would be like 90% of a deterrent right there.”
She punches me. Hard. She’s lucky she missed the metal in my arm. “Ow.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Is she really going to start getting protective over my face? No way. “Dear, you can kiss me all you want, it doesn’t change the facts.”
She lowers her face, holding my eyes as she glares. It’s a different glare than before, not hateful at all, which makes it harder to glare back with any success.
“Did you just call me dear? My stars, with perhaps a bit less snark to it that would actually sound like an affectionate nickname.”
Heat burns my face. Getting a little too cocky for my own good. Well, I guess she isn’t taking back everything she said last night. Hating the relief that brings, I turn back to my tablet.
“Good morning, by the way,” she grumbles, then her hand touches my cheek, turning my head enough she can give me a soft kiss. Small and quick, it’s an extra promise last night wasn’t her in a strange mood or messing with me. It makes my heart-rate skyrocket more than last night. Don’t start panicking now, idiot.
“Ya know,” she mutters, “You could do something other than stare blankly at me when I kiss you.”
“Sorry, just my face.”
“That is blatantly untrue. If you look pissed and annoyed all the time, you can manage to look pleased once in a while too.”
She has a point. But my face is only getting warmer, and I’m well aware someone is probably watching us out the window. Somehow, it feels like it’ll hurt if I try to smile. Instead, I hold still when she goes for another kiss.
“Hmm,” she says, actually going for the smiling part I missed. “We’ll work on that.”
“I’d tell you not to bother, but we both already know you don’t listen to me.”
She makes a grumbling sound somewhat like she’s mimicking me and steals my coffee, still smiling. I’m not sure my presence has ever made anyone smile in quite that way. I don’t know what to do with the realization.
Anya’s voice drifts from the kitchen before she pops her head out the doorway, spots us sitting inches from one another, and manages to squeeze between the two of us and sit on the step.
“Whatcha doing?” she asks, leaning against my arm to look at my tablet.
“Looking at planet files.”
“Ew, boring.”
I can’t help but smile.
“What’s that robot gonna be finished?” she asks.
“Whenever we can figure out how to put it back together. Even if we get it on again, we don’t have enough parts for something that old—”
I pause long enough Yvonne asks, “What?”
I open my mouth, then glance back into the house. “Lex?”
She appears around the corner, more awake this time. “Yeah?”
“Didn’t that official guy say your neighbors saw someone walking with you who didn’t look human? That’s why he’s extra suspicious of you right now?”
Lex nods.
“They just said that someone was walking with you who had metal in them, not anything more specific?”
“No, not that he said. He seemed confused about the whole thing.”
I grin.
“What?” Yvonne’s staring to sound annoyed she’s not in on the idea.
Ignoring her, I get to my feet. “Abraham! Get over here! We’re fixing that robot!”
With a bit of putting our minds to it—and Bat helping this time—we get the robot all cleaned out and put back together by evening.
Is this a stupid plan? Probably. But at the worst outcome it’s harmless, and at best it will take a good amount of suspicion off Lex. Hopefully. As long as that human official isn’t too bright and hopefully not super stubborn. If nothing else, it’s a plausible denial for Abraham’s existence.
Anya has been seated next to me the entire time, even after I finished explaining my plan. All the humans look amused at the idea but Lex is happy to give it a try. The littlest princess keeps petting Bat while he tries to work on the robot, but he’s not hissing at her anymore.
Lex has found some roller wheels from one of her old pieces of farming equipment, but we can deal with those later. The most important part of this plan is getting this thing turned on. If it won’t do that again, the rest of this isn’t exactly going to work.
“I can’t believe you got this thing to ever turn on,” Abraham grumbles, sliding one of the remaining few pieces of its voice box back together.
“So am I.” And one of my hands was pretty shredded too.
Abraham clicks the voice box back into place, yawning and leaning around the robot to shrug at me. Might as well give it a try.
Lex also parked one of her hover scooters in front of the house. A little engine like that can easily double as a good enough power source to plug this thing into since we haven’t had it sitting out in the sun. I wouldn’t want to short out the rest of her house by accident.
I eyeball Anya sitting right next to me, but I’m fairly certain if this thing was going to blow up on us, it would’ve done it back on Amerov. Still, I nudge her out of the way.
Zane’s improving. He’s been out of bed most of the day, still confined to the couch but usually sitting up when he’s not napping. I helped Lalia and Lex with the bandages earlier, enough to see he’s probably going to have some scaring regardless of the expensive medicine Lex has stashed away—he didn’t seem too upset about it, but I spent a good hour considering the ramifications of hunting down Lee’s ship again so I could follow through with shooting Kel in the face. I’m glad I didn’t do such a thing in front of Anya, but I regret more than a little not shoving the little girl into another room where she couldn’t see and going back to take my revenge.
Either way, he seems invested in our progress, so I figure he’s feeling a little better as well as healing up. This morning’s conversation sure cheered him up.
I glance at Yvonne but look away before she can make gooey eyes at me.
“Wanna try turning it on?” Abraham asks.
“Sure, could only burn the house down.”
Lex gives me a look like I’m an annoying toddler. Abraham snickers.
I find the port on the back of the robot’s neck where Yvonne accidentally switched it on the first time. For a moment, nothing happens. Then its head swivels up, turns back and forth, and some of the old lights flicker along its metal components.
I grin.
“Cool,” Anya says.
The robot’s head swivels in her direction, though I’m not certain it sees her.
“Hi,” I say, giving it a gentle tap on the top of the frame of its metal skull. “I’m the cyborg that talked to you on Amerov, do you remember that?”
It’s quiet for so long I think we might’ve damaged its voice box trying to clean it out, or maybe whatever ports and wires were giving it some sort of consciousness.
“You used me as a power source,” it says in a scratchy voice that makes the nearest dog laying by the fire jump and pin its ears in surprise.
“That’s right,” I say, more and more pleased with myself as the moments pass. “How do you feel?”
It thinks for a moment before saying, “Untethered.”
An odd thing to say, but I understand it anyhow. It’s not much of a body it has, and I’m pretty sure it can’t see us.
Yvonne scoots next to me, “I’m Yvonne, I was there last time.”
“Yes.”
“Can you see?”
“No.”
I say, “No. It’s okay, we’ll get you eyes. We’re on another planet far from Amerov, there are two people who live here who you might like.”
As carefully as I can, I explain where we are and how Abraham helped me put the robot back together. It asks a few questions but mostly stays silent.
I say, “Abraham can give you a better body and put you back together, and no one would bother you here. You can’t go with Yvonne and Anya because Captain would probably confiscate you. I’m not sure how happy you’d be going with me. We don’t really know where we’re going from here. So we were wondering if you’d like to stay with Abraham and Lex, or if there’s somewhere else you’d like to be?”
Both Abraham and Lex are watching us. Abraham had twitched at the mention of Captain but otherwise stayed still and silent. They don’t know what’s going on with us, or if they have checked the bounty charts by some chance they haven’t mentioned it. They don’t seem to recognize the royals, but I’m sure they know we’re really up to some crap. They must be curious, Abraham, particularly after the mention of Captain, but I suppose some people happen to be actually respectful.
The robot is quiet, enough I check to make sure he’s still charging up. I don’t want him shutting down right in the middle of the conversation.
“Are you alright?” I ask when it’s been nearly five minutes and Anya has started bouncing in place next to me. Bat’s little eyes flicker between the two of us.
“Yes,” it says. “I can stay here forever?”
Somehow, its robotic voice sounds longing. I felt bad about the idea of abandoning it, but I’m really not sure how happy it would be sitting in my ship, especially not with how long it would take me to piece it together, and how we’ll be heading out to uncharted space after this. I was hoping it would like the idea of this place: peaceful, two kind people, one of which is enough of a cyborg still to understand it, and a purpose by helping the two of them out around here.
“Yes, you can,” Abraham says, leaning around it to get a better look at where its face should be. He sounds like he’s trying to hide how thrilled he is by the idea. He might like fixing things up even more than Bat. Bat sits in my lap, satisfied with his job. I pet his ears.
“I would like that,” the robot says, and I catch Lex smiling out of the corner of my eye. If it makes Abraham happy, it going to make her even happier.
“That’s good,” I say. “Abraham’s gonna get you fixed up. Do you think you can help us with something?”
