Page 48 of Alien Attachment
“Sometimes the best place to hide is the last place anyone expects you to go,” she replies with that reckless confidence I’m learning to both admire and worry about. “Besides, Vex owes mea favor from before all this started. And they’re not the type to be intimidated by corporate goons.”
“What constitutes the right price?” I ask, while privately calculating how many of the bounty hunter’s possessions we can liquidate for currency and simultaneously processing the extremely convenient way Kaylee fits against my body, how her breathing has settled into rhythm with mine, how her skin carries the faint bioelectric traces of my touch.
“Hard to say with Vex,” she replies thoughtfully, her fingers finding the particularly sensitive bond-lines along my collarbone and tracing them with the sort of casual intimacy that suggests she’s already thinking of my body as territory she has access to. “They deal in information as much as credits. But they’re discreet, and they don’t ask inconvenient questions about why someone might need to disappear.”
I process this information while simultaneously processing the way her pulse has returned to normal but maintains that slight elevation that indicates continued arousal, how the scent of her skin has changed to include traces of my own bioelectric signature, how our bond carries an undercurrent of satisfaction that makes everything seem more possible than it did hours ago.
“We will need new identities,” I observe, though part of my attention is dedicated to the fascinating way her breathing changes when I allow my bioluminescence to pulse in specific patterns.
“Already thinking about that,” she confirms, apparently unaware that her casual touches are providing ongoing feedback through our bond that makes strategic planning significantly more complex than it should be. “Clean documents, ship registration, employment histories, the works. It won’t be cheap, but it’ll let us disappear completely from any corporate databases.”
“And after we disappear?” I ask, though I suspect I know the answer and find myself hoping it matches my own increasingly elaborate fantasies about our potential future.
She looks up at me, her eyes bright with possibilities I am only beginning to understand, her expression carrying a mix of determination and hope that sends warmth through circuits that have nothing to do with physical sensation. “Then we figure out what comes next. Together.”
The simple word carries profound implications that reverberate through my consciousness like ripples in still water. Not just survival, not just escape, but a future we will build deliberately, consciously, as partners in every sense. The concept is both thrilling and terrifying, representing possibilities I was never programmed to consider.
“I have no experience with ‘together,’” I admit, allowing vulnerability to show in my voice while my tendrils unconsciously tighten around her in what might be interpreted as protective or possessive depending on one’s perspective. “My existence before you was... purposeful but solitary. I knew my function, my parameters, my limitations. But I did not know choice.”
“Mine too,” she says softly, her voice carrying echoes of years spent in the vast loneliness of space, delivering packages to distant worlds, connecting others while remaining fundamentally alone herself. “But I think that’s the point. We figure it out as we go. No predetermined parameters, no corporate specifications. Just... us.”
Through our bond flows her determination, her hope, her remarkable capacity for adaptation. She has spent her life as a courier, delivering packages across dangerous space, solving problems through innovation and stubbornness and sheer bloody-minded refusal to accept defeat. Now she approaches our relationship with the same practical creativity, the samewillingness to improvise solutions when standard procedures prove inadequate.
“I would like that,” I tell her honestly, my voice carrying more emotion than I intended but finding that I do not regret the revelation. “To build something new. With you. Something that exists because we choose it, not because we were designed for it.”
Her smile is radiant enough to power the pod’s life support systems, and through our bond I feel her joy, her relief, her growing affection for the strange partnership we are creating from necessity and choice and shared pleasure. “Partners?”
“Partners,” I confirm, then add with careful precision because the distinction matters more than perhaps she realizes, “and significantly more than partners.”
“Significantly more,” she agrees, sealing the promise with a kiss that sends my bioluminescence flaring bright enough to illuminate the entire pod interior and probably visible from a considerable distance to anyone equipped with appropriate sensors.
We remain entwined as the escape pod continues its drift through the debris field, two beings who have found in each other something neither knew was possible. Outside, the galaxy continues its ancient dance of stars and planets and cosmic forces, wars and politics and corporate machinations that care nothing for individual lives. Inside our tiny sanctuary, we plan our future with the focused intensity we once applied purely to survival.
“Question,” Kaylee says after we have established preliminary courses of action for acquiring a new vessel and disappearing from ApexCorp’s attention, her tone suggesting she’s been thinking about this for some time.
“Yes?”
“When you said you were designed for connection and touch—how much of what we just did was programming, and howmuch was choice?” Her voice carries genuine curiosity rather than accusation, but I can feel through our bond that the answer matters to her in ways that extend far beyond intellectual interest.
The question strikes to the heart of my ongoing identity crisis, touching on issues of autonomy and authenticity that I am still learning to navigate. I consider my response carefully, examining my motivations and responses for traces of artificial compulsion versus genuine desire, parsing the complex interaction between designed capability and chosen application.
“The capacity was programmed,” I say finally, choosing honesty over reassurance because she deserves truth even when it might be uncomfortable. “The skill sets, the physiological responses, the basic drive for physical connection—these were engineered into my design. My creators wanted to ensure I could form effective bonds with designated partners.”
She nods, waiting for the rest of the explanation with the patience that suggests she’s prepared for complexity rather than simple answers.
“But the specific desire for you,” I continue, letting my voice carry the certainty I feel even when everything else remains uncertain, “the emotional context, the choice to pursue this relationship despite its dangers—that is entirely mine. They programmed me to be capable of bonding. They did not program me to love you.”
The word hangs in the air between us, more significant than I intended but accurate nonetheless. Love—not programmed attachment, not designed compatibility, but the genuine article that humans write poetry about and fight wars over and build their lives around.
She nods slowly, apparently satisfied with this distinction. “Good. Because I need to know that what we’re building is real.Not just convenient biology or artificial emotion, but something we’re choosing because we want it.”
“It is real,” I assure her with absolute certainty, letting the full force of my conviction flow through our bond so she can feel the truth of it rather than simply hearing the words. “More real than anything I have ever experienced. More real than the programming that created my capabilities, more real than the corporate specifications that defined my original purpose.”
“Even more real than your dramatic rescue of me from ApexCorp security forces?”
“That was mere tactical necessity,” I inform her with mock solemnity, though my bioluminescence betrays my amusement. “This is choice.”
Her laughter fills the small space with warmth and light, and through our bond I feel her joy, her contentment, her growing affection for the strange partnership we are creating from accident and choice and shared discovery. The sound makes my hearts synchronize their rhythm with hers, creating a biological harmony that seems to extend beyond the merely coincidental.
