It wasn’t until much later, when everyone was settling into their bunks and getting a little rest, that Juliet managed to corner Aya alone in her quarters. She’d lured her there with promises of catching up and revealing more about her past, but as soon as the door snicked shut, she turned on her petite friend, grasped her shoulders, and gently shook her to emphasize each word, as she asked, “Is there something you need to tell me?”
Aya’s eyes widened as she smiled, revealing her perfectly imperfect teeth. “Hmm? What do you mean?”
“Come on, Aya! Is something going on with you and Leo?”
“What do you mean?” When Juliet began to shake her a little harder, she giggled. “Luck-Juliet! You’re making me dizzy! Okay, okay! I’ll talk, but you have to promise not to be mad.”
“Mad? Why would I be mad?” Juliet moved her hands from Aya’s shoulders to her neck and began to mock-choke her. “Leo? You know he’s the one I told you about, right? The merc who was hitting on me all the time?”
“Aaaghaaghaag!” Aya made fake choking sounds, shaking her head back and forth until Juliet relented and let go of her. “I figured that out, yes. Well, Frida made it clear, but you also told me he stopped and that you were getting along fine!” Juliet’s scowl didn’t recede, so Aya hurriedly added, “Besides, it’s not like anything’s happened. We’re just flirting a little, and he’s been super sweet.”
Juliet stared at her for several long seconds, unable to stop her lips from creeping into a matching smile. “Just be careful, little sister. He’s sweet, but he’s also a big idiot, and I don’t know if he’s ever had a relationship that lasted longer than—”
“I’m good. Really. Don’t worry about me, okay? I know you always see me as someone you need to protect, but I’m not a little kid. I’m not exactly innocent!” The last part sounded defensive, and Juliet nodded, backing off a little. She wasn’t Aya’s mom. She still had every intention of getting Leo alone and threatening his life, but Aya didn’t have to know that.
“Fine, all right.”
“Is that why you lured me here? I thought you were going to spill some deep, dark secrets!”
Juliet looked around the room, saw Angel sitting on her bunk, and grinned. “Hey, when you see a permission request on your AUI, accept it.”
“Okay…” Aya blinked and then looked at Juliet quizzically. “What was that for?”
“So that you can see and hear me,” Angel said, hopping up from the bunk.
“Aya, meet Angel.” Juliet stepped over to her bunk and sat down while Aya stared at Angel’s projected image.
“You, um, you’re using my implants to project an image of yourself? That’s great!” She looked at Juliet and narrowed her eyes. “Why didn’t you do that sooner?”
Angel answered, “Because she was worried about WBD hunting her down and killing or kidnapping any of her friends who knew too much about me.” While she spoke, Angel stepped closer, and Aya reached out to touch her, but her fingers passed through the image with a flicker of static; Angel could only trick Juliet’s nerves because she had physical access to them.
“That’s Angel’s not-so-subtle way of saying we don’t have to keep all of our secrets anymore. My name is just the start of it. Aya, Angel’s special—”
“I know! I’ve seen how she talks to you, how she talks to me—like when we were surprising you with the Cherry Blossom’s paint.”
“Yeah, but it goes deeper than that. She’s not just a clever bit of code. She’s been with me,” Juliet tapped her head, “since before I met you. She’s shared every moment between us. She cares about you like I do, she’s—”
“More than just a PAI.” Aya’s mouth fell open, and Juliet could see her connecting the dots behind her eyes. “Are, um, are you a t-true, um…”
“She’s a person. She’s alive. She’s part of me.”
“But AI…”
Juliet nodded, watching as Aya came to grips with what she was telling her. After a minute, as Angel also watched Aya with big, hopeful, violet eyes, Juliet patted the bunk beside her. “Come and sit. Let’s talk; I’ll tell you everything about it.” Aya nodded and stepped around Angel. She sat close to Juliet, almost touching, which she took for a good sign. Her friend was freaking out a little, but she wasn’t scared. She wasn’t running the other way. Juliet turned and adjusted her bunk, adjusting the head upward, and then she scooched back, making room for Aya to recline beside her.
“It all started back on Earth, in Tucson, where I used to be a scrap cutter, working for cheap corpo-minted bits. I was barely scraping by, hardly able to afford food after I made the monthly rent for my arcology studio.”
“You worked for a megacorp?”
“No!” Juliet laughed. “God no, but nothing in Tucson was cheaper than the studios in the Helios arcology. I think they used them to hook suckers like me until we inevitably fell into debt with the corporation.” She turned onto her side a little so she could look into Aya’s eyes as she continued. “So, one night, I was working some OT, cutting up scrap from a wreck. I was waiting for a ride to pick me up when I saw headlights approaching, and they weren’t my friend’s headlights; I could tell the difference. I hid behind a stack of old scrap and…”
#
When Juliet woke the following day, she was delighted to see Aya was still snuggled in her blanket, her back to her, rising with slow, deep, peaceful breaths. She’d been a little freaked out at first but soon got caught up in the tale of Juliet’s struggles to hide from WBD. Angel, of course, had joined the storytelling, and by the time Aya had begun to succumb to her sleepiness, they’d been back to their old selves, laughing, joking, and—Juliet was sure—trusting each other implicitly.
Of course, that only made the omissions in her story sting even more. She hadn’t told her about the psionic lattice or what she could do with it. How do you tell someone you can read their thoughts without fundamentally changing your relationship? Would anyone, even Aya, want to be around her if they knew their thoughts were only private as long as Juliet chose to keep them that way? The truth was that Juliet was afraid that if she revealed what she could do, she’d be left alone with Angel, and maybe Athena, when all was said and done.
She carefully rolled to the side of the bunk—plenty wide for two people, thanks to it being the “captain’s” quarters. The gel didn’t transfer movement much, so she managed to stand without disturbing Aya’s slow, steady breathing. Juliet hurriedly pulled on her jeans, grabbed her socks and boots, then padded to the door. Once the ships had all met up, Athena had reduced their thrust to eight-tenths of a G, so it was effortless to tiptoe silently. The noisiest part of her departure was the sliding door.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She leaned against the wall, pulled her socks on, slipped into her boots, and made her way to the lift. Two minutes later, when she was just outside the mess, she paused, listening to the conversation taking place within. Two men were speaking rapidly in Japanese and laughing raucously. “Is that—”
“Shiro and Rutger,” Angel confirmed her suspicion. “They’re talking about pirates…I think Shiro is telling Rutger about the salvage job when we found the Cherry Blossom.”
Juliet stepped around the corner, and, sure enough, the two men were sitting at the left-most table, sipping coffee while they rattled on. Angel began to display text translations of their words, but Juliet ignored them, loudly saying, “Good morning, gentlemen.”
Both men cleared their throats and stood, and Juliet almost laughed at how similar their expressions were. Tanaka was first to extricate himself from the table and step toward her. “Lucky, I—” His words cut off as she crushed him into a tight hug.
“You look a lot better than yesterday.” While she squeezed him, she looked at Shiro and winked when his dark brown eyes met hers. “Thank you both. Thank you for trying so hard to find me.” When Tanaka finally relented and haltingly put his arms around her, she smiled and kissed his cheek for the second time in two days—she doubted he remembered the first time. Then she let go and stepped over to Shiro, ignoring his and Tanaka’s protestations about how they “didn’t do much.”
Shiro’s hug was warmer and his body softer, a thought that nearly made her laugh as she realized she was having it. “Is Alice okay? I’m so sorry she had to get in the cockpit of a fighter again.”
“She’s well, and her counseling program thinks the experience has benefited her. She’s still sleeping.”
Juliet released him, looked fondly into his eyes, and then back at Tanaka, who stood near the table awkwardly watching. She nodded toward their coffee cups. “Any more of that sludge?”
“Yes!” Shiro turned and hurried through the swinging kitchen doors.
“You’re feeling a lot better?” Juliet moved over to sit at the table, gesturing for Tanaka to reclaim his spot.
“Much. Yesterday is a…blur. Kostas says it’s the blood loss.”
“Yeah, I bet! If you didn’t have a bunch of artificial organs—”
“I would have succumbed.” Tanaka briefly bowed his head as he flatly admitted his near-death situation.
“Well—”
“Juliet!” Angel interrupted, suddenly appearing atop the table. “I just got a data packet through the Martian local net, forwarded from Earth. There are messages from Ghoul!”
“Um, hang on a sec, Rutger. Can you tell Shiro—”
“Your coffee,” Shiro announced, stepping through the swinging doors with a steaming mug. “Vanilla creamer was all we had…” He trailed off as he saw Juliet’s face.
“I, um, need to go listen to some messages that just came through. I’ll be back in a minute. Thank you, Shiro.” Juliet walked out, and, with Aya in her bunk, she decided to go into the med bay, which was just around the corner. As soon as the doors slid shut behind her, she walked over to a chair beside the recovery bed and sat down. “Okay. Did you listen to the messages?”
“Yes. You had half a dozen from her; most were just asking where you were, but the last two are troubling. Juliet, I think WBD sent her one of the ‘Angel’ chips.” Angel said the name reluctantly, like it tasted bad in her mouth.
“What?” Juliet leaped from the chair as though she could physically do something about the news.
“It’s not as bad as you might think. Here, let me play the final message." A window appeared on her AUI, and, after a brief moment of blurry still-image, Ghoul’s face resolved. She looked just as Juliet remembered her, but her expression was troubled; she seemed…down. She smiled, but it was tentative and not reflected in her eyes. No, her eyes were not cheerful; her pale blue irises stood out amid bloodshot scleras, and it looked like she hadn’t slept well in a while. Hesitantly at first, then with more and more haste, she began to speak.
“J, I, uh…I did some more thinking about it, and I just can’t. I don’t know what you expected from me or what you wanted me to do once I put that chip in, but I won’t do it. You see, I wasn’t really truthful to you when you were here. I said I was getting along with my sister and my niece, and that was true for a minute, but, um…” She trailed off as tears built up in her eyes, and she sniffed, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “But my sister died. She was picking up a woman in a small town up in the mountains—Nederland, I think it’s called—when a storm blew in. They say it wasn’t the driver’s fault, that the road was damaged during the war and the rain made things start to crumble…”
As Ghoul paused to breathe and gather her thoughts, Juliet wiped her cheeks, crying once again, imagining Ghoul’s gut-wrenching tragedy—losing her sister after only just finding her. “God…” she sighed softly.
“It’s awful, but—” Angel stopped speaking as Ghoul started again.
“Anyway, I’m the only person Brooke has, J. Do you see that? Can you understand? I’m sorry I’m letting you down. I know you wouldn’t ask for help if you didn’t need it, but you’ll have to figure it out. Just keep going like you have been—you’ve done great without me so far. I messed things up as a soldier, as a daughter, as a sister, as an operator. I messed things up with you. I won’t mess things up for Brooke—nothing will ever take priority over her. Good luck, and if you get through things and don’t hate me, well, you know where to find me.”
“Oh, God, oh…Thank you!” Juliet sighed, blowing out a pent-up breath. “Message her, Angel. I know it will take time to get to her, but tell her to destroy that chip and never let anyone see it. Tell her to grind it to dust and burn it!”
“Done.” Juliet rubbed her eyes, unable to feel anything but relief. That Ghoul might have inserted an ‘Angel’ chip provided by WBD—the idea horrified her. There wasn’t any way she would have gotten one of the more benign version-two chips like Ruby. No, they would have given her one like poor Jensen had in his head. “While you’re at it, warn her about the listener! I doubt it’s still there, but just in case. Oh, Angel!” Juliet put her head in her hands and thought for a minute. “Tell her I’ll try to contact her soon, but not to worry.”
“Are you upset?”
“What? No! Why would I be? I’m relieved!”
“I mean, are you upset that the chip was sent to her, supposedly from you, and she didn’t use it? She sent you this message saying she chose her niece over helping you.”
“Please tell me you’re joking right now.” When Angel didn’t respond immediately, she added, “I care about Ghoul—Cassie—but her niece is family, and she’s a little kid! She’s absolutely right to prioritize her. I wouldn’t want to drag Ghoul into this mess, even without her niece in the picture! Her message was perfect; if things work out, I know where to find her. I’m much happier going forward thinking she’s safe in that commune, in the shadow of those beautiful mountains, with her little niece to love and care for. Aren’t you?”
“Yes. It’s a wonderful image.”
“Right.” Juliet brushed her hands together, signaling she was done with the topic, and then hopped to her feet. “Now—coffee!”
Walking through the med bay doors, she recognized a sense of lightness, a feeling of being unburdened, and she knew she wasn’t being wholly forthright with Angel. She was happy thinking of Ghoul in that situation, but there was more to it; she was also freed from having to deal with the feelings that had come up during her brief visit with her. She had an excuse to look forward instead of back, and, whether it was real or not, she’d just tied Ghoul up with a bow; she was someone she cared about who was living the life she wanted, and Juliet may or may not get around to addressing those feelings someday.
The fairytale she’d just created in her mind took away the pressure that, unacknowledged, had silently grown, slowly adding an emotional burden, something she’d been carrying, ignoring its demands to be dealt with. Now, she felt like she didn’t have to. She paused outside the med bay and subvocalized, “I’m an emotional chicken.”
“What?”
“I hide from intimacy. I avoid it. What would have happened if I’d admitted that I cared about Jensen instead of trying to compare him to a phantom from another person’s past? Could I have demanded he stay with me? That he not do his ‘bigger than you and me’ job? He might still have his mind. He might be on our side right now! What if I’d admitted to Nick that I thought he was handsome, that I wouldn’t mind spending a little personal time with him? Maybe I could have talked him out of helping Ray! What if—”
Angel cut in, “Stop it, Juliet! You’re only human, and neither you nor I are perfect! We do the best we can. It’s true: you do avoid intimacy, and that’s something you should work on, but I’m not going to let you compare yourself to the rest of humanity and come up short! You’re the best person I know, and if it’s a little hard to give your heart to someone, well, that’s just the way it—”
Of course, Angel’s instant support brought tears to her eyes, and Juliet started laughing at the absurdity, interrupting her supportive monologue. She hurriedly ducked back into the med bay and stood inside the door, wiping her eyes and letting her near-hysterical laughter die down. “Oh my gosh, Angel! I’m such a mess, but I’ve got one thing going for me.”
Angel’s voice was soft as she appeared before her, stepping close to take Juliet’s hand in her small, delicate fingers. “What?”
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you, and I love you, and I know you love me.” Neither of them said anything after that, especially as Juliet pulled Angel’s imaginary body into a hug, stroking her smooth, silky hair as she pressed her head against her chest.
Five minutes later, not really feeling any clearer about things but definitely feeling very loved, Juliet returned to the mess hall to find that Alice and Dora Lee had joined Tanaka and Shiro. As soon as Alice saw her come through the door, she jumped up and rushed over to hug her. “Hey, tiger! I heard you fought your way out of a dreadnought and blew the damn thing up while you were at it!”
Juliet smiled, pushing her away so she could look into her eyes. “And I heard you were back to your old ‘ace-pilot’ behavior, shooting interceptors and gunships down left and right!”
“Hah! I scared off a few shuttles and one other interceptor; he didn’t want any of this!” Alice flexed her biceps, and, though they didn’t exactly make her jumpsuit bulge, Juliet acted suitably impressed, laughing as she squeezed Alice’s skinny arms.
Juliet looked over Alice’s shoulder to see that the coffee cup she’d set aside was gone. Eyeing the cup firmly in Dora Lee’s grasp, she asked, “Um, what happened to my coffee?”
Shiro chuckled, “You took too long!”
Tanaka grunted his agreement, and Juliet groaned. “Is there any more?”
Alice winked at her. “New pot’s brewing.”
Just then, the PA system crackled, and Athena’s voice came through, “Attention all personnel. Frida and I will begin the intelligence debriefing in ten minutes. Please report to the operations room if you’re attending.”
“Why doesn’t she just send a message through our PAIs?” Alice asked.
“Oh, puh-lease!” Juliet laughed. “You’re always using the PA system on the Kowashi.”
Dora set her mug down with a clatter. “Some of us don’t have PAIs yet. Hoping to remedy that ASAP, however. Not really my favorite thing—all this silence in my head.”
“Come on.” Alice tugged Juliet’s hand. “I’ll walk with you.”
“Uh-uh. I’m waiting for coffee. Meet you there.” Juliet walked toward the kitchen but paused and turned back to face Alice. “Hey, Alice?”
“Yeah?” She raised a soft, bright red eyebrow.
“Thank you. You made light of it, but I know how you feel about combat flying. Thank you for putting yourself through that for me.”
Alice opened her mouth and drew a breath to reply, but Juliet saw in her eyes that she reconsidered her words. She shook her head and simply said, “You’re welcome, Lucky. I’d do it again for you.”
“Same here, Alice.” She turned to the others, who were all in various stages of getting ready to go to the briefing. “I’d fight for any of you. I hope you all know that.”