Page 37 of Cloverleaf Station

“Sure. Of course, she’ll be jealous because she wants you all to herself, but she trusts you to take care of her bestie. After all.” Elenus’s smirk melted into a smile. “You took such good care of her.”

“I …” Kieron couldn’t stop himself—he reached out and clasped Elenus’s face in his hands and pulled him down into a kiss. It was awkward, given that the Ganian man was over a foot taller than him, but it felt perfect all the same. “Thank you,” he said when they finally separated. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for letting me have more of you than I should.

“You’re welcome,” was all Elenus said in return, which was the perfect amount of reply.

Chapter sixteen

Even during the very best of times with Zakari and his family, Kieron wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced happiness quite like this. Zak’s kids had been so small when Kieron was around them, he’d been almost afraid of them—scared of dropping them or mishandling them or doing something ungentle that would leave a mark.

Zakari had made fun of him for his overcaution, but Kieron knew better than to trust in luck. Sometimes the best thing you could do was create and maintain a little distance, and so as much as he loved those kids, the only person he let himself be really free with his affections with was Zakari—and only by mirroring. Back slaps, hugs, the occasional gentle punch to the shoulder—if Zak had done it, Kieron let himself do it. He never went beyond that, though.

Being with Catalina and Elenus was incredibly freeing in that way. Catalina was the perfect child in some respects because, well, she was almost impossible to hurt—in the traditional sense, at least. You couldn’t drop her on her head and give her a boo-boo; you couldn’t break one of her bones. Her bones were made of elaborate polymer metals that Kieron didn’t have the first clue how to break down, and Elenus had built so many security features into her structures that even getting close enough to take a look would ultimately prove futile.

“Moritz really got past all of that?” Kieron marveled as he looked at the blueprint hovering in the air in Catalina’s projection area. She was helping Elenus make upgrades by showing off current pictures of her own … in a person, Kieron would have said viscera, but this was layers and layers of wiring and solid-state data and all sorts of other things that were well outside Kieron’s areas of expertise. “How?”

The blueprint abruptly vanished, and Catalina made a sad, whining sort of noise. Her lights dimmed, and her ports began to close.

“Aw, honey, don’t be upset,” Elenus wheedled even as he shot Kieron a “see what you did?” kind of expression. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Oh, right. Elenus had mentioned how trusting Catalina was. She’d probably let Moritz in herself and been subsequently brutalized by him.

And he’d just gone and reminded her of that.

Kieron stood up abruptly. “I need to—go.” He did, he needed to go somewhere else, somewhere away from this little family unit that he was bumbling around at the edges of, like a satellite with an uneven orbit. Either he was going to crash and burn against one of them, or he was going to careen into the distance, cold and alone.

Better that he throw himself there.

Kieron went straight to the clinic and checked the program for replacing his implant. He let the medbot take samples and readings and finally, when the diagnosis came up “ready for implantation,” Kieron scheduled the procedure then and there.

“As you wish,” the clinic’s computer, which had a different voice from the rest of the station, said pleasantly. “Do you have a preference in regard to painkillers and anesthesia?”

“Fast acting and local only.” Kieron wanted this over and done with as quickly as possible. He needed to restore his full functionality, and he’d be out for at least a day if he let the medbot put him all the way under for the implantation.

“Would you care to inform your party of your procedure?”

“No.” Just … no.

“You will be required to have accompaniment for the twelve hours after the procedure, to ensure that there are no side effects. Do you have this accompaniment?”

“Yes.” It counted if they were in the same station.

“Please lie face down in the Regen chamber. Your procedure will begin shortly.”

Kieron stripped down to his briefs, then got into the Regen chamber, which changed its topography to make a hole for his face and properly support his neck and back. He heard the medbot whirr into place, smelled the antiseptic it sprayed on the implant that he’d handed over to it earlier. It was just a few inches long but would be set close enough to his brain stem that the procedure was a little risky.

“Please don’t move.” There was a brief sting where the medbot injected him with a local painkiller, and then everything above his shoulders started feeling rather … floaty. “How do you rate your pain?”

“Zero,” Kieron said dreamily.

“And now?” He could hear it moving above him, probably testing his body to ensure he really was completely numb, but he couldn’t feel a bit of it.

“Still zero.”

“Very good. This procedure should take no more than five minutes. Please inform me if you feel the need to move, and do not sneeze.”

No sneezing. Yeah. Smart. “Understood.”

Kieron relaxed into the process. Being operated on was simple—not fun but simple. He could see why some people got addicted to it, adding mod after mod and changing themselves so fundamentally that over time, you wondered if they were even the same person anymore.