Page 118 of Veiled Vixen

“I have run countless calculations and predictions on this very scenario.”

“Yeah? And what did you conclude?”

He sighs, which makes me smile. He’s more ALCOR these days than he is Baby. “Impossible to predict. Inconclusive. A very big risk.”

“Not helping, Baby.”

“No.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What are you going to do now?”

He pauses. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”

“And?”

“I like this new place. I didn’t get to see the old Harem Station. I was thrown into being as a temporary solution while ALCOR was gone. Nothing went right. People died because of me. And then everything went from bad to worse. I would be lying if I said I had any feelings about that back then. Because I simply didn’t care about these people.”

“And now?”

Another pause. “I have accessed the personal data of every living and dead person on this station since then. I have seen their place of work, where they live, have connected them to dozens, sometimes hundreds, of other people. I might not know them all personally, but I have background on them. I can make good guesses as to what kind of people they are.”

“What kind of people are they?”

“Bad people, mostly. Criminals. But that’s just the first layer to them. Underneath the criminal there are other things. They have friends. Lovers. Some of them even have children. They have hobbies, and jobs, and of course faults. They have a lot of faults. But most of them have this… history. One of quiet satisfaction.”

“What do you mean?”

“They found peace here. Harem Station is their home. I have met every single cleaning servo, every bot, every borg—even the ones who work for Veila. I have fixed the biosphere, the airscreens, the water generators, the medical centers, the autocooks, and even the floors are shiny and clean. I know every arcade, every shooting gallery, every clothing boutique, every restaurant, and every ship in the docking bays. I have even come to like that stupid dragonbee bot. She is quite funny at times. And it has occurred to me that…”

He pauses again.

I wait.

“That Harem Station is my home too. I think this is how it happened for ALCOR as well. He made this place one shop at a time. One restaurant at a time. One ship at a time. He met one person at a time until they became this collective thing called Harem Station. And that is how you learn to love a person, or a place, or a thing. That is how you find a new home.”

I smile a little. “You like us, don’t you?”

“I think I do.”

“Are you going to leave?”

“No. I’m going to stay.”

“And if ALCOR is alive? And he comes home? What then?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t fight him for it. I would. Or at least, I would want to. But I would not want to mess up Harem Station again. I would not want to ruin all our hard work and break it. So I would leave. If he came back and wanted me gone, I would leave.”

“That’s very mature of you, Baby.”

“I think it’s just… love. That’s all. I love you and this place too much to ruin it. And I know ALCOR loves it too. He would not break it either. If it were Mighty Boss or the Succubus coming to take it away from me, I would fight. But not ALCOR. He was the one who really made this station. I just… fixed it. Put it all back into place.”

“That’s not a small thing. You realize that, right?”

He stays silent.