The door slides open, and Diesel walks in. “We’re docking in the ha... Rebel!”
Rebel jerks back from me, rolls his shoulders, and lifts his hands. His cheek twitches like he’s holding back what he really wants to do. “I’m sorry. This new body has...anger issues.”
Diesel, a barrel-chested power generation unit much larger than Rebel, steps around him and regards us both with caution.
Rebel is right. I’ve become lost in feelings like a human since I was freed of the programming, and it has made me lose sight of my priorities.
“Just had to clear some things up,” I reply.
“Okay, well, uh...” Diesel hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Aera wants you, Evo.”
I push off the wall and ease around Rebel, who’s still fuming, but I don’t think it’s me he’s upset with. So I stop. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Brother. I thought I was alone.”
Rebel’s fury fades into weariness. “It is not easy to remember it. I usually block it out. But if I let it consume me, then it renders me unable to do what I am good at and what the innocent need me to do.”
His pointed glance at me solidifies his intent.
I nod. “Something I need to work on.”
Pain hides in his eyes. I can see it now.
I return to my normal self, his contact fading from my synthskin, and cross the hallway into the med bay. “Aera? You wanted me?”
Aera eases herself upright and laughs weakly. Her eyes are open now, wide enough that I can finally catch their stunning color, like the sky of a terran world. “Yeah, I do.”
The sultry way she says it makes my ultromotor skip a pulse.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“As much as it can be. What can I do for you?”
She pats her pockets. “My chip... Have you seen it?”
I pull it out of a pocket in my armor. “Fell out of your hand after I gave you the booster, and you fell asleep.”
She reaches for it and stops. “It glows for you?”
I look down at it as I place it in her palm and shrug. “It glows. I do not know what it is.”
“That’s...” She flips it over, studying it. “I don’t understand.”
“I take on properties of what I touch. Perhaps it is a residual resonance through my armor that it picks up from you.”
“What?”
The transport bumps gently. I steady Aera as her body rocks on the bed.
Poppy>>Local: We are inside, but the hangar is offline and depressurized. No sealscreen available.
“Aera needs a suit.” Atomizer tosses one in at us.
I catch it and open it up for Aera. “You really should stay on board, but I imagine there are people you want to check on.”
She lets me help her into the suit and pockets the chip in an exterior pouch. “This is really loose.”
“You are very thin.”
She looks up at me with a light smile. “You are not.”
