His AI sounded.Incoming transmission.He paused and looked at the source.
Vee.
Fucking Vee. The bane of his existence. She was finally calling him.
He halted his warp preparations and rushed to accept it.
“Hello?” Her voice came through and filled his audio tech.
“Vee,” he said roughly, unable to find the right words. He didn’t want to lose her again. Not when he finally had her. Making conversation didn’t come naturally to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he spoke directly to a human.
“I need to know. Are—are you really Cypher? Please tell me honestly.”
“Haven’t we already established this?” he snapped.
A lengthy inhale sounded through the comm. “I don’t understand. I’m so confused,” she whispered.
That makes two of us.Though, against his better judgment, be believed the worry in her voice was genuine. He sat heavily in his captain’s chair. No matter the circumstances, he wasn’t going to allow himself to feel sympathy. He lowered his voice. “Understand or not, the information you released is classified. Take it off your site. Better yet, take down your fucking site, and vanish. Stay off the network entirely. If you do that, I may let you live.”
Fuck.He palmed his mouth. He shouldn’t have said that to keep her comm open.
Vee’s breathing grew ragged. He bet if he were next to her, her heart would be racing. Would her chest rise and fall along with it?
Is her blood pumping?
He pictured her in distress, skin flushed, lips parted, hair a mess, and found he rather enjoyed the image.
“I can’t!” she said.
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“You didn’t see…?”
“See what?” he asked but was already inputting his name and Vee’s into the network while loading up her site. Within seconds, a new picture of him loaded into his headspace, and with it the broadcasted announcement that he was participating in the Terraform Zero Championships this year. Site after site appeared with him and Vee, increasing by the second.
Cypher let out a string of curses.
“Please don’t kill me,” Vee begged through the comm. “I’m not ready to die.”
He continued to curse, moving to her media page to read all the congratulatory comments, pausing when a slew of threatening ones appeared as well. The comments grew worse as his visual tech scanned them.
His gut twisted with anger.
She was his to deal with, no one else’s.
Vee may have been naïve, may have been young, but to receive this kind of animosity? At least he had a reason to exact his revenge, a personal, private reason, unlike the masses.
His opinion of humanity plummeted.
“I can fix this,” she continued to plead. “I’ll fix this. Just give me a chance. I only found out you were even real a couple of hours ago. You see, I’ve always worked alone. I’m known for being a loner, and the contract—”
“What contract?”
“The one I signed with my sponsor to fund my trip to the championships,” she answered.
“Who?” he demanded.
“I don’t know if I should tell you. I don’t even know who you really are.”
