Page 25 of Veiled Vixen

“No. I’m not leaving until you tell me what happened here while I was gone.”

“It doesn’t even matter.”

“Well, everyone else is saying it does and no one will tell me because they say it’s your story to tell. So… lights on, for fuck’s sake!”

One light flicks on in the corner. A single floor light that illuminates the room just enough to make out shadows of furniture.

And this is Baby’s doing. He’s in control of shit like that. But it’s interesting that he respects both our wishes. Turning on a light for me because I asked for it, but leaving the place mostly dark, because that’s what Crux wants.

The Baby is tiptoeing around us like we’re breakable. Telling in and of itself.

He did something bad. That much I can deduce. And for some reason, he’s sorry about that and this is his way of showing it.

“I’m not leaving until you fill me in.” And I prove that fact by walking over to the couch and flopping back into the cushions.

I wait. For a long while. Crux just sits in a corner chair, silent and still. Like he’s thinking. Or sad. Or traumatized.

But I’m not leaving. So I settle in and start thinking about my own problems.

Tray. Brigit. ALCOR. Booty. Asshole.

And, of course, Veila.

And those babies.

It bothers me that I don’t know who the father is. Why does that bother me? Yeah, that bothers me too. Because now that things are not chaotic, I’m not chained to a torture wall on her ship, and I’ve had some time to adjust… well, I feel that attraction.

I don’t want to, but it’s there. It’s definitely there.

“You’ve never been the best liar,” Crux says, breaking our long silence.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say.

“Right now it’s not. Baby?”

“Yes, Crux?” The Baby’s voice is low and soft.

“Get the fuck out.”

It’s weird when the AIs leave you alone. You never really know if they leave. They are omnipresent, after all. But there’s this feeling in the air when they do go. And I get that feeling now.

Emptiness.

I learned to recognize this feeling a long time ago. The first time Luck and I left Harem Station I felt it. We didn’t have Lady back then, just a regular ship. Not sentient or anything. So when we left though the ALCOR gate the first time there was this immediate feeling of disconnect.

It was weird at first. Luck and I both felt it. It was like being set free and being adrift all at once.

I didn’t like it. It took me a long time to be OK with it. Because in that moment I knew there was no all-powerful god-like AI watching over us anymore. It was just Luck and me, and that was it.

Either we figured it out together or we didn’t. No one was coming to save us.

And that’s the feeling I get now. Like the Baby really, truly did leave.

“OK,” I say. “What happened?”

“Corla,” he says. “Corla happened.”

“What do you mean?”