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“SP29 has feelings for her and DL16.Darius,” he corrected himself.
It took a few seconds for Rhys’s meaning to sink in.“Oh,” Hannah said in surprise.
“I had no idea.I don’t know if Darius knows, either.SP29 is struggling with those feelings right now.”
“Well, yeah.Holy shit, that must be torture for him.”
Rhys’s eyes raised in surprise.“You’re not upset?”
“Of course not.He is who he is.”Now it was Hannah’s turn to feel a little awkward at what she’d have to say next.“I don’t think Jasmine would mind, to be honest with you.”
“That SP29 has feelings for two people?”
“No.I think she’d welcome it.”She pinned him with a stare.“Do you see where I’m going with this?”
Rhys was silent for a moment as he considered the implication.When it hit him, it was like an old-fashioned lightbulb flicked on in his mind.“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“You won’t tell Jasmine about this, will you?It’s very important to SP29 that he handles this in his own time.”
“Of course I won’t say anything, as long as you don’t tell anyone that Jasmine would totally be willing to have two boyfriends who are into her and each other.”She leaned back in her seat, the old wood squeaking in protest.“Wow, this is our first secret between us.”
“Is it common for couples to keep secrets about their friends?”
“Yeah, I think so.”She yawned.“Come back to bed for another couple of hours.We both need sleep.”Rhys opened his mouth, as if to protest, but she cut him off before he could speak.“Your computer bits need downtime as much as your organics do.Plus, I sleep better with you in the bed.Let’s go.”
Rhys drained his glass and left it in the sink.Wrapping an arm around her waist, he nipped at her earlobe, drawing a squeak from her.A frisson of heat ribboned through her despite her exhaustion.“Let’s go back to bed.”
The landing pad’srepair was the day’s priority and necessary if they were going to bring in supplies from off-world.Hannah led Rhys on a tour through the ruined facility, pointing out the comms board where she’d sent that fateful SOS months ago.He picked up the yellowed book of instructions and distress codes, leafing through the crumbling pages.“It was a lot of touching wires together to see what would spark,” Hannah said.She pointed at a comms board that had to be hundreds of years old.An ancient keyboard with buttons had been attached to it, the letters on the keys long worn away.“That thing hardly worked at all.I had to guess which key was which letter.”
“We received your verbal SOS,” Rhys explained.
“Oh, so I spent all those hours trying to type for nothing.”There was a levity in her voice, despite her words.
“Unfortunate, yet not a waste of time.Your message was sent on an old Omega Three channel, which is why no one but us picked it up.The tech is too old for modern spacecraft to recognize.”
“And yours did.”Hannah ran her fingers over the keyboard, sending dust particles into the air.
Rhys picked up a loose comm array and turned it over to inspect it.Its bottom panel had rotted or been torn away, revealing loose bundles of wires.No water damage, though, so some of the components might be salvageable.“Our ship is equipped to recognize transmissions on all known channels.”
“Why?”
He nearly replied with his own question as to why their ship could do that but paused.The conversation with SP29 lingered in his mind, especially their questions about their existence.Did they retain all that old tech in case whoever started the cyborg project came after them?What were the odds, after their being alone in space for so many years?“I don’t know,” he slowly replied.He turned around the room, taking in the broken tables and tech, the dirt and debris littering the floor.“SP29 and I talked about that last night too.”He kept his voice low, not wanting the other cyborgs inspecting the facility to hear them.
“About why you keep century-old tech aboard your ship?”
“In part.We don’t know why we exist, Hannah.”Was he malfunctioning, or did his voice catch?
She looked at him a little sadly.“I guess you have time to think about that now.”
“We always did, we just...didn’t bother to.I’m not sure if I like contemplating my reasons for existing over and over.All I know is that I wasn’t a particularly good person before now.”
“Of course you are.You came here to help us.”
“No, I mean the original Rhys Hammond.I don’t know how to explain it, but he wasn’t good.He agreed with whatever the original cyborg program was, agreed with its reasons for existing, and then something happened that made him change his mind.”He remembered the shadow looming over him, the horrific knowledge that he was about to die for the first time.“I think I’d like to find out why we exist.”
A shadow crossed over her face.“Are you sure?”
