Severo jumped at the sound of a door slamming open, followed by feet rushing down the hall. When Seri appeared out of the hallway, the man gasped, “I have an idea!” His excitement was clear.
“That’s great!” Severo laughed.
“So, I figured, if I break down?—”
He smiled dumbly as Seri kept talking. Severo had no clue what the Nymph was saying, or what any of it meant, but couldn’t help but find Seri’s excitement endearing. Like, he was smiling, and his cheeks were flushed. It was adorable.He loved seeing the man happy and smiling. Though…it did make his heart do funny things.
Seri suddenly stopped, a frown appearing on his face. “You have no clue what I just said, do you?”
“I… Well.” He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not really… I’ve never been that great with sciency stuff. Though I can understand it if it’s explained enough times. But you find it great, so that’s…great, right?”
Seri snorted, but then he began to giggle. “You are so…”
“Funny? Entertaining? Devastatingly handsome?” He gave the man a cheesy smile.
“Weird.” Seri laughed.
Severo let out an exaggerated sigh. “Underappreciated, as always, it seems!”
Seri rolled his eyes.
There was a ding. He glanced at his computer. “A response!”
Clicking on the correspondence app, he checked Ender’s reply. “He has someone! A Dr. Lance Namond. You have an appointment for tonight!” He read more. “Looks like it will be done with this app, and will be voice only for safety purposes. Though the doctor is part of the organization, and is vaguely aware of what is going on. Ender just mentions that you never know when a hacker will come knocking, so best not to use a video feed.”
“Tonight?” Seri asked, voice cracking.
He glanced at the obviously wary Nymph. “You can take things slow, Seri. You don’t have to tell him anything you don’t want to, especially not during the first session. Just feel things out and see how it goes.”
“Right…” Seri sighed and glanced away. “What is my daughter wearing?”
“Uhhh…that old thing? Just something I found lying around. She’d spilled some milk, so I changed her. That’s all!”
“Lying around…as in, on a shelf in a store? As in, it's brand new? As in, you snuck out and bought more clothes again?”
“No… The opposite of that.”
“Severo…”
“It was just one more thing!” he cried.
“Severo!”
“Maybe five other things too…but they were on sale!”
Seri sighed.
Seri sat thereat the table, curled up in the chair, chewing on his thumbnail as he waited for the so-called Dr. Lance Namond to connect. He eyed the time in the corner of the laptop screen. Two minutes left.
Seri took a deep breath. He could do this… He could. He would. Seri glanced around the room. Eyeing the mess of toys, he made a mental note to clean after this.
Severo had taken Skya with him to his room, to give him some privacy. Seri honestly should have just taken the laptop into his, but for some reason, he had a hang up about talking to a stranger while in his bedroom. Even if it had only been his bedroom for seven weeks…
He jumped when the laptop began to beep. Glancing down, he saw the audio feed on the app said live.
A deep male voice called out, “Seri, are you there?”
He took a deep breath. “Dr…Namond?”
