She stopped spinning. “I…”
He chuckled. “Perhaps we’ll find out later.”
Wide-eyed and blushing, she nodded. A coy smile tilted her lips for a second.
Hell, she’s so easy to toy with.He’d had her many times now, but had also not allowed her to explore him back. When he took her, he took her completely. He couldn’t do it any other way.
If anyone tries to take her away from me again...
His mood darkened.
Vee swallowed thickly. “Well…let me introduce you to my greatest passion.”
She turned away from him, always unaware of this predatory nature. It only emphasized how innocent she was and how bad of a Cyborg he was for taking advantage of her and not finding a better substitute for his fever.
Greatest passion…He knew what his greatest passion was currently.
For the next several hours, Vee went through the basics of the game, which he knew instinctively but enjoyed her excitement in explaining. The happiness in her voice calmed him.
And as the hours passed by, he was surprised how much she took his mind off of everything when it was he who wanted to shield her.
When the basics were finished, and what was considered a ‘game’ ended, the real tactical draw began. From weather patterns to agriculture, to bodies of water, to accessibility, the game had everything. His mind took it all in and stored it away, but it was Vee’s fascination and depth of knowledge about every aspect that floored him.
The eagerness in her voice, and the passion she showed for it all enlivened him. It wasn’t even a job to her, but she took it as seriously as one. Like how he took his job seriously on Ghost.
It was beautiful.
Cypher silently listened as Vee brought up her planets and explained their draws and drawbacks. After lingering in a login hub for hours, they spiraled ‘planetside,’ and he could’ve sworn he felt the give of grass beneath his boots.
Grass. Real fucking grass. When was the last time he’d been on grass? Had he ever? He checked his databases and couldn’t come to a firm conclusion.
Fucking grass.
“Yria is one of my favorites,” she said as he kneeled to run his hand over the ground in awe. The sound of waves was somewhere off in the distance. “It’s been a challenge, though, what with the lack of landmass and the sentient lifeform already here. And several human colonists have STDs from laying with the aliens.”
He rubbed a blade between his fingers. “Can you give them medicine? Have you run any tests?”
“Not yet. It’s hard to land here, and I currently only have a finite amount of supplies. The aliens are far more primitive than we are. They fear the tech. They don’t fully trust me yet.”
“Have they gotten sick, or just the humans?”
“Not that I know of, and if they have, they probably won’t let me near them with a needle without me risking death. If I die—which does happen—that puts me back quite a bit.”
Cypher stood, looking around. A breeze lifted his hair and ruffled the leaves of the trees nearby. There was chirping coming from among their branches. It was all so real. “Then why bother?”
“If we all die, then it’s a failure. My death is the only one I can reconfigure.” Vee laughed. “The point of the game is to reach the goals set out from the beginning, and how to solve the problems on the way—in the best way possible.”
“Then all you can do is make your colonists aware of the situation and give them what medical treatment you can. If they choose to continue to sleep with the aliens, that’s up to them. If the aliens refuse help, don’t press it, unless your people begin to die. Diseases aren’t easy. Species relations less so.”
Vee sighed. “I know. It’s just sucked since getting here in the first place was hard. Relations with the aliens residing here was hard in the beginning, and now this… They have the numbers to wipe us out if they want to.”
“And then there’d be war. Look at what happened with us and the Trentians.” Cypher waved his hand. “We killed each other indiscriminately for nearly a hundred years, even though we could communicate and understand each other’s customs. Unless the beings of Yria are inherently peaceful, crossbreeding may be the only way to ensure future relations. Get the data you can from those humans who are infected, and hope you can make a cure. Otherwise…” He shrugged. “Why bother? Move to a different area on the planet.”
Vee stared at him pointedly. “You’re right. But we bother because it’s important. Yria, if we can establish ourselves on it, will provide food, resources, knowledge, and of course water, for our people who dwell in space. And a much-needed station and haven in this galaxy for people and aliens in distress. There’s no other stop within galaxies from Yria. But it’s the water that’s most important. There’s an abundance here.”
“It’s fake.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Yeah, Yria is an AI-generated planet in Terraform, but there are water worlds out there like this one. Someday we may not have a choice but to land on one, and having data like this”—Vee flicked her finger and dozens of screens came up around her—“would be invaluable. It’s only a matter of successfully establishing a colony now, and an infrastructure.”
