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“A dozen, maybe. I didn’t see them all. I was kept in a secluded room the whole time. They certainly outnumber us.”
He tapped a few fingers against the desk. “We need to be smart. We have some time before they can even think about looking for you.”
I wasn’t sure I was ready to expend the mental energy to plan. I touched my ripped sleeve, fighting the urge to rip it off completely. “Do you have some clothes I could borrow?”
When he blinked at me, his eyes taking in my disheveled appearance, I blushed. “I need to get cleaned up. I won’t be able to think until I’m clean. I’m pretty sure my shirt is a goner.”
“Of course.” He stepped past me into the hallway. I caught the faint scent of maple and pine, but he was moving too fast for me to get more than a little whiff. I followed a little slower, mindful of my weak legs. He disappeared into one of the rooms and returned with some clothes. “I don’t know how well they’ll fit, but you’re welcome to them.”
“Thank you.” I took the clothes without complaint. I was just grateful to have something clean.
“Use my bathroom.” He gestured to the door he’d just come out of. “I don’t think there are any supplies in the other one.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. I stepped into the doorway and paused. “It’s Ethan, right?”
He smiled. “Yeah.”
“Thank you, for all this.” I felt my hands starting to shake again as fear tried to crowd into my mind again. “You saved my life. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.”
“Things happen for reasons you’d never expect. I think we were supposed to meet, Julia Carter.”
My spine tingled, and I turned away, unsettled by my reaction. It wasn’t like I was afraid or thought he was creepy. Quite the opposite. His presence seemed to affect me in a way I couldn’t explain. Like being close to him or looking in his eyes was too intense for me. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Without looking back, I went into the bathroom. I stripped down, gently peeling the bandage off my forehead, and stood under some hot water. The heat soothed my battered muscles. It felt good to slough off the layers of dirt, dust, and grime. I washed my hair three times to be sure I got all the muck out of it. Once I didn’t have to focus on the lack of cleanliness anymore, my head cleared and allowed me to concentrate on the problem at hand.
After I was scrubbed clean, I stepped out and dried off. I glanced in the mirror, checking myself for any major injuries. The spot where they had cut out my tracker was raw and throbbed when I touched it. My forehead was alright, though it was bruised. I had a dozen cuts across my arms and chest. My face had a few thin marks from the car accident, but nothing severe. My shoulder hurt, but my range of motion had returned. I tested it carefully and decided not to use it unless I really needed to.
Unable to do anything else, I pulled on the clothes Ethan had given me. The pants were too large, but I took my belt off my old pants and used it to hold them up. The shirt was also too big, but it had long sleeves, which I appreciated. I was practically swimming in the shirt, so I tied the hem up to make it fit a little better. I grabbed my gloves and tried to clean them off as best as I could before sticking them in a pocket.
The last thing I grabbed was my badge. I scrubbed off the dirt and wiped it dry. I stuck it in my pocket, too. I could have clipped it back to my belt, but I didn’t have a jacket to cover it, and I got the feeling Ethan didn’t like that I was a cop. I remembered the look on his face when he first saw it. I could have been mistaken, but I didn’t want to flaunt my badge around him just in case.
Once I felt put together and somewhat strong again, I left the bathroom. His bedroom was empty, and this time I took a moment to study it. It was small, but most spaceship rooms were. A bed took up most of the space, but there were books and notebooks strewn about the floor amongst some clothes. It was chaotic, but not dirty.
It felt impolite to linger, so I went back out into the hallway. “Ethan?”
“I’m in the cockpit.”
Turning, I headed for the front of the ship. I reached the cockpit and paused, fighting against the uncertain emotions I felt. Ethan was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, a projection screen pulled up with a bunch of technical stuff on it I didn’t even pretend to understand. In the pilot’s seat sat the android.
I had never met an android before since there weren’t many in existence. They were also extremely expensive. Androids used to be everywhere until an incident a few decades ago. Someone hacked into their data network and re-programed them to kill humans. Almost all the androids were destroyed, and production was outlawed for decades before the ban was finally lifted. Popular opinion of them hadn’t changed much, and most people thought they should still be banned. Androids were often considered dangerous, and only a few companies bothered making them. They weren’t commonly found, and as far as I knew, most androids were relegated to military use.
Ethan looked up at me and blinked, straightening. “How do you feel?”
Time to revert to professional mode.I shut off my feelings and looked away from the android. “Fine. Sore, but I’ll live.”
“Good.” He looked at the android. “Andy has been trying to get the outboard sensors working at least enough to warn us if anyone approaches, but he hasn’t made any progress so far.”
“On the contrary,” the android spoke, not taking his eyes off his screen. “I have made much progress. However, I have not gotten it to work yet.”
He looked human, with dark skin, hair, and eyes, but he was also inhuman in appearance. He sat too still to be a person because he didn’t breathe. He had perfect posture.If I sat like that, my back would ache. It wasn’t natural, and I could feel the unnaturalness of it growing the more I looked at him.
Ethan smiled, as though the android amused him. “Anyway, I’ve been tracking the progression of the storm. It seems like we have around three hours left before the rain dissipates.”
I pressed my hand to my temple. “Okay. And how soon after that can we take off?”
He shook his head. “The rain might stop, but the storm will be far from over. The particles will be denser in the center of the storm, but they will blanket most of the area for a while. And then we’d still have to deal with lightning and fire whirls long after the rain is gone.”
“Fire whirls?”
