Page 16 of Adrift!
He smoothed out the nubby fabric across his palm, feeling the unevenness of the tension making the stitches resist and wrinkle. “Thank you.”
“Maybe wait on the thanks. Mariah called it ‘texturally interesting but structurally challenged’.”
Despite everything, even with the image of her walking away from him still stuck in his mind, Ikaryo found himself tangling his fingers possessively through the fringed edges. “The color is perfect to hide almost anything I might spill.” He folded it gently to tuck it into his back pocket and smoothed the dangling fringe down his backside.
Remy, who’d been watching every movement, looked away. “Talking to Mariah and the others, I guess I was being…really cynical.” She shoved at the couch, and he obligingly tugged on his end. “They’re not oblivious to our situation or pretending this is okay. Even Mariah says she wishes the universe wasn’t such a shit friend sometimes. But everyone is just…trying to make the best of things. I mean, literally, they are making the best scarf or hat or—”
“Or dishrag.”
She started to wrinkle her nose, but then the dismissive expression gentled to a quirk of her lips. “Yeah, or that.”
They pivoted the couch section to align with the rest and stood back.
“Anyway,” she continued. “Unlike the universe, I don’t want to be a shit friend.” She glanced up at him through her lashes. “I’ll help you finish up here. Did you already throw away my drink?”
He’d turned off the ambient binaural beats that Mariah had requested for her session, but some soulful remainder of it echoed in him anyway. “Start with the curtains and I’ll make another one for you.”
He watched from the corner of his eye as she kicked off her purple boots—ah, she’d reprocessed her cocktail dress but not the orange socks—to clamber up on a couch near one drape. Though she was halfway across the room, a sound threaded through the quiet to reach him. So soft he would’ve missed it if not for the enhancements he couldn’t keep tuned away from her.
She was humming.
More breath than voice, something about the meandering melody roused him. The cybernetic interface at his temple began to resonate, picking up the frequency and amplifying it through his enhanced hearing. The refrain, when it came around again, was haunting, minor intervals that felt like longing poured note by note into a delicate thread of song.
The first detached drape fell across her shoulder, revealing the viewport and the black void beyond. Against that emptiness, her rainbow curves were a cry of vibrant life.
As if he could take in those sounds, he swallowed hard. All the parts of him that had survived the poisoning of his planet resonated with that longing and life.
She stretched on tiptoes to reach for the temporary ties he’d rigged up, tugging lightly to scoot the fastenings of the second drape toward her grasp. The cushion sagged under her foot.
He only meant to warn her, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out except a sub-acoustic sigh of desire.
When the ties slipped loose and she wavered, he was already behind her, anchoring his hands on her hips, holding her steady.
“Oh!” She glanced down over her shoulder at him, green eyes wide. “That was close.”
So close. Her little gasp—barely more breath than a bubble breaking—nearly shattered his composure. Even with precise calibration in his augmented hand, he knew he was holding her just a bit too tight. Plasteel and processors, bone and blood, all trembled as if tuning to her, his body seeking to harmonize with hers on some fundamental frequency.
Without thinking, he let it.
The quiet descant, perfectly pitched to complement her melody, emerged from his augments. Not a song, just a wordless counterpoint to the whisper of her tentative tune.
She stiffened, and he felt the chill that swept through her when her heart missed one beat, a response as if to a threat. Slowly, she spun within the circle of his hands. The curtain she’d been reaching for slid free, exposing another swath of darkness.
“What was that?” Her hands hovered uncertainly over his shoulders even though the shaky footing threatened her balance again. “That sound. Was it you?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have distracted you. You could’ve fallen.”
Her wondering gaze roamed over him, her fingers right behind, not actually touching him although he sensed the minute changes of temperature, pressure, and conductance as she traced above his artificial components. “Your biomech does that?”
“Not usually,” he admitted. “It’s designed to be mostly like the rest of me. Apparently it likes your humming.”
Her stockinged feet wavered, but she didn’t grasp for him, as if she trusted his hold. “You’re teasing me.”
He gazed up at her. “I wouldn’t. Not about this.”
“Play it again.”
“I can’t without—” He tilted his head to expose the augment molded across his cheek and jaw. “It was responding to your melody. To you.”
