“Okay, lock me in again, and get back to faking whatever it is Marek would be doing,” she said, stepping away, letting go of my hand.
I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay here with her, somehow, forever.
“And remember that he was a human, even if you aren’t. Plus you might actuallyneedto sleep—and eat. Don’t forget that,” she went on, walking back into her pen, before turning around to face me.
I was still stunned—by her love, and also by the enormity of what we had left to do.
And—now was I supposed to leave her?
“But I one hundred percent love you,” I repeated—with the math and all, just how she liked.
“Yes. But love doesn’t fix everything. It’s only a start.” She gave me a bittersweet smile, and then waved at me—like I should close the door on her, and also leave. When I didn’t, she laughed. “I’m pretty sure I technically outrank you. Don’t make me order you around.”
I looked at my hands—now empty of her—with dismay. “You might have to,” I said, but then picked up the tablet. I could not leave the woman I loved entirely defenseless. I took a moment to reroute permissions—granting the device limited access, a manual override of her inhibitor box, and the door of her cage, before handing it over. “It’ll open with a retinal scan. Hide it in your bedding.”
“Nex,” she demurred.
“I am in love. You can only ask so much of me,” I said, planting a hand on the wall beside her pen, triggering the glass’s closure with Marek’s palm. “I will be back, when I can. When it is safe.”
“Actuallysafe,” she demanded with a snort, her amusement now muffled behind the door. “Not just good-odds-math-safe.”
I made a face involuntarily—which only made her laugh more. “But I am very good at math.”
“Yes, but I’m not, and I need you living. So promise.”
“No,” I said—while locking her in. “I do not make promises I cannot keep. But—I also promise I will try.”
“That’s good enough,” she said, leaning up to give her side of the glass a kiss.
I walked out of the laboratory, undeniably a new man.
Going back to Marek’s room was safer. But the night offered cover, and cover meant freedom.
I reached into the ship’s surveillance mesh without thinking, pulling the feed from Kelly’s lab. The lights were dim, and there was no registered movement. I checked Sirena’s camera one more time, to spot her lying down on her pallet, before releasing my hold on her cameras and taking hold of Kelly’s, getting the data for a clean, protective loop as I walked down the hall.
On my way there, I ran through whatever data Voss’s crew had gotten on the Dullahan—which wasn’t much. They were more magic than science, and magic didn’t have to make sense.
The doors to the lab slid open, and Kelly’s eyes opened up. Spotting me—and thinking me Marek—he began to curseprofusely. I could read his lips, even if I couldn’t hear him, because his head was suspended in neural gel.
I took a moment to loop the sensors reading data from him, then unsealed the top of his container and reached inside, pulling him out of his suspension—and getting spat at in the process.
“How’d you like that!” Kelly crowed, the second his mouth was empty and his lips were free.
“I don’t.”
Kelly glared, first at me—and then at the stain the gel he’d spit had left on my chest. “Awww, man! I was hoping it’d be acid!”
“If it were acid . . . wouldn’t it already be burning you?”
“I’m a talking head. You think anything can kill me?” He snorted. “Unhand me, you motherfucker,” he said, gnashing his teeth in my direction.
I brought him to eye-level. “Kelly, it’s Nex.”
He stopped mid-snarl. His eyes narrowed. His mouth opened. Then shut. Then opened again.
“Bullshit.”
“It’s me,” I said evenly. “I downloaded myself into a human body.”
