I turn my gaze to Aspect, half disbelieving, but the honesty in Kori’s voice is obvious despite the mask-filtered tone.
Aspect straightens, wobbling a bit on their new makeshift leg. They chirp, “Aspect is still—learning how to—people!”
“And doing a bang-up job.” Kori laughs.
I shake my head. “Where did you get the memories?”
“Sellers on the market. Myself. Bodies I’ve found in the Passage. I came to the Shadowlands to see if the installation of a nightfolk’s perspective might finally awaken something properly sentient. Instead Aspect lost a leg. Almost lost their ability to power on altogether.” And I took out their voice box with my foot, but despite the uncomfortable twist in my gut, Kori doesn’t need to know that; I fixed it, after all. Her voice trails off. “And that’s on me.”
The mech twitches. “Aspect is not—experiencing—repulsion—from Kori!”
“Maybe that’s because I was too selfish to program it.”
“You are not—a shellfish! You are an—organic—with your—crunchy parts—inside your—squishy parts. Aspect—does not have—squishy parts. Aspect is very—crunchy.” They tap their new leg rhythmically on the floor. “Leg—went CRUNCH!”
Kori shakes her head and turns her attention back to me. “So why bring them back to me, Adria?” My name in her mouth does something strange to my insides, makes them curl like rogue vines around each other.
I tap Aspect’s head. “It’s obvious from their—ah—quirks, that they prefer never to leave your side. So I’ve installed a tracking chip.”
Kori snorts. “Well, that makes two tracking chips in Aspect. My mother installed one, too.” When she sees me tense, she frantically clarifies, “I never actually let that thing work. It’s set to indicate a randomized series of locations right now, so my mother doesn’t wonder what I’m up to. But I doubt it can transmit back to the Daylands from this far away, if it even survived our crash landing. And I’m sure any intact illusion will only last so long after I don’t come home.”
Fair enough, I suppose.
“Mytracking chip,” I clarify, “notifies my comms panel where Aspect is at all times. And if they are ever outside this fortress, I will know.”
“What’s to stop me from telling them to stay here and making a break for it?”
“You offered me sunlight from the depths of your despair. I’ve known you only for a short time, Kori, but you and I both know you won’t leave your friend to wander the dark forever in search of you.”
Kori stares at her boots. “So what are the rules?”
“You should consider them gracious allowances. You are a criminal in your world and a trespasser in mine.” But the snarling venom in my voice is fiercer than I intended, and I grit my teeth, trying to clamp it down. “We maintain living quarters of Pagonian plate, designed for dayfolk like yourself should diplomatic relations between our people ever reopen.”
“Is that also why you have dayfolk rations on hand? Potential for … diplomatic relations?”
“Does that shock you?”
Kori gives her head a little shake. “After all that’s happened to me lately, my ability to feel shock is rapidly dying.”
I almost laugh at that. “I will lead you to your new quarters. You can wash, properly eat and drink, whatever you like, without fear of the planet’s radiation. Aspect will go with you.”
Aspect raises their arms victoriously. “Aspect will—follow Kori—everywhere!”
“They can’t spend too long in the plated area,” Kori notes. “They run on the same radiation that could kill me. Even at home, I have to let them take their little walks aboveground.”
“Then the mech may step outside the chamber to recharge. They’d best not wander far, and you’d best not leave the chamber yourself at all, if you don’t want your head to leave your shoulders.”
She shudders at that. I don’t know when violence became more to me than a desperate final resort, now simmering in my bone marrow, bubbling, boiling, always ready to explode. This girl delivered me sunlight, and with it, a glimpse behind her mask. I know the loneliness that writhes within her. I don’t need to employ threats to make her understand, but it’s as though I don’t know another way to speak.
Swallowing anger and shame alike, I tap the button on the wall. The freezing cell barrier collapses into nothing. Slowly, Kori rises to stand on legs nearly as unsteady as Aspect’s. The mech hops up and down, clapping and singing her name as a joyous refrain.
“Follow me,” I say, when the reunion’s volume dies down. “I’ll show you to your quarters.”
CHAPTER
15
KORI
