Origin Complex (Steel Frame, Book 2) by Andrew Skinner
Author:Andrew Skinner [Skinner, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-22T16:00:00+00:00
MONARCH and its reivers give me space, but Iâm not sure it helps. Itâs impossible not to feel exposed.
Moon averts her eyes as well, but this will go faster if I have someone to lean on. Together, she and VALOR help me out of the plating first, then soft armour just behind. I donât need any help with the under-layers, and I say as much. Iâm not sure Iâve ever seen a reiver blush.
Moon gives me space, but VALOR holds nearby, and Iâm not chasing it away. Thereâs comfort in having it close, something to buffer me from MONARCH. Besides, thereâs nothing it hasnât seen before.
The clothing is soft and well-made, warm enough for the brisk conditions inside the dome, yet slightly too light. Iâd prefer something that felt a little more like armour.
âThis isnât how I imagined it,â I mutter, hugging myself.
VALOR watches me. âFirst contact?â Thereâs a glimmer of amusement. âNo, I suppose it wouldnât be. How did you imagine it?â
âWell, for one, it wouldnât have been me.â
âYour egoâs not that swollen.â
I stick my tongue out. âSeveral thousand analysts in Sigurdâs employmentâthousands, tens of thousands more with our competitors, even if theyâll call them something different. Maybe just as many with the Greys. Millions, once youâre past the specialistsâpeople whoâd just trip over something in the dark. Count them all together, and thereâs no reason Iâd be the one to do it.â I smother a shiver. âHavenât thought about it for years, actually. Itâs all you think about when theyâre training you, running through first-contact protocols, reading and re-reading the data recovered from the Babylonian.â
The first, and only other time on record, that a human being reached out to something other.
And it reached back.
âLetâs hope this goes better than that,â mutters VALOR.
âNo one knows what really happened to them. Thereâs an argument as to whether that was contact at all.â
âBut either way, this isnât what you were imagining.â
âNo. Iâd always pictured ship-to-ship. One vessel to another, standing out in the vacuum, trading careful whispers across the edge.â I pick at the seam of my sleeve, simple and delicate. âAnything but this.â
VALOR holds with me, but it seems Iâll have to do this on my own.
I turn, square myself up, and face the place where one of them is waiting for me.
âThank you.â
That earns me a glanceâthe closest VALOR comes to showing surprise. âWhat for?â
âBeing here.â It almost chokes me. âLooking after me.â
âIâm trying my best, analyst BinâSyan. But you keep making it difficult.â VALOR uses that swagger-voice again, solid and reassuring, as if there was no universe in which anything could be the matter. Thereâs a swell of warmth, energy inside that heart-chamber, close enough to touch but just out of reach. A moment feeling my heart beat, in time with that other place that is anything but; a little star, pulsating.
Call, and I will answer.
I reach for VALOR, pull its head to mine. Forehead plating, cold enough that it stings against my brow. Thank you.
We part, and share one last glance.
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