But I’m not stupid enough to say it.
“You really buy into all that protocol garbage?” I ask, moving back to sit on the bed. I don’t pull the sheet over my legs. Let him see I’m not cold.
“I follow procedure,” he says. “But I do not worship it.”
I snort. “There’s a difference?”
“There is intent.”
Something about the way he says it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up again. I lean back on my hands, watching him in the low light. He hasn’t moved an inch, but there’s tension coiled in him like a fault line.
“You always stand like that?” I ask. “Like you’re waiting to be attacked.”
“I am always prepared.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is... familiar.”
I let that sit for a moment. The room hums around us. The panel glow paints the edges of his features in icy blue. For a second, I imagine what it would take to make him drop his guard. What would make his voice break pattern. What would make himlookat me like I’m more than data.
“Do you have family?” I ask, surprising myself.
“No,” he says.
“None?”
“None surviving.”
I nod. “Same.”
Silence again. This one softer. Still heavy, but not sharp.
“Why are you really here?” I ask finally.
“I told you.”
“No, yousaidsomething. That’s not the same.”
He doesn’t reply.
I look at him for a long moment. Then I lie back against the mattress and stare at the ceiling. “You’re bad at this.”
“At what?”
“Pretending you’re just doing a job.”
He steps further in now.Quietly. No sound. Just the pressure of his presence moving through the air like heat. He stops beside the wall, arms still at his back.
“You speak with certainty,” he says. “About what I do not feel.”
“Because you’re leaking all over the room.”
“I am not injured.”
“Not physically.”
Another beat of quiet. He shifts, just slightly. I hear it more than see it. His breath. The shift in air. The tension between what is said and whatcouldbe said.
