Dev took another sip, pausing to think. “It’s very different.” She said. “It feels like it’s staying on my tongue a long time after I drink it.”
“Uh huh.” Jess studied her, intrigued and a little surprised at the supple power of her new pilots body, now relatively exposed in the light clothing. Her arms and legs were firm with muscle and she had visible definition under her light golden skin.
Jess hadn’t expected that, but then, she had to admit she never really had thought about it too much before either.
Bio Alts in the citadel were just window dressing. Jess had no idea if any of them even had names. She certainly never bothered to look at them with their clothing off.
But this one, now.
This one interested her. She watched Dev cautiously swallow another mouthful, and after a brief pause, lick her lips, an approving expression on her face. “Like it?”
Those clear, pale eyes lifted and met hers. “It has alcohol in it?”
“Yes.” Jess chuckled briefly. “Our one remaining vice.”
Dev nodded. “In the crèche, too.” She admitted. “Doctor Dan gave me some before I left, but it was really different from this.” She said. “I like this, and the stuff we had at dinner.”
“Yeah, the beer’s not bad.” Jess leaned against the workspace table. “You get to taste some really weird stuff on the outside. You’ll see.”
Dev looked up at that, and grinned. “I will.” She said. “I’m glad. We heard stories about downside from some of the people that came to the crèche, but it sounded so strange we didn’t believe most of it.”
Jess grinned back. She was getting used to seeing the collar, she realized, the faint glowing traces not really seeming out of place around Dev’s neck. The metal itself was very thin and flexed a little as Dev moved and she wondered if it was ever uncomfortable.
What would it feel like? She only just stopped herself from reaching out to touch the thing, and supposed Dev didn’t pay much attention to it. Guess you could get used to pretty much anything, she decided. “Does that bother you?”
“Huh?” Dev looked around, then at her. “What?”
“The collar.” Now, Jess surrendered to curiosity and lifted her hand up, touching it with her fingertips. “Does it pinch, or whatever?” She could feel the almost smooth surface shift a little, as Dev swallowed.
“No.” Dev cleared her throat, glancing aside with a touch of embarrassment in her expression. “ Don’t think much about it usually.”
Jess lowered her hand. “It feels warm.”
“Body heat.” The bio alt explained briefly. “When I got it put on at first it used to… “ She paused. “I felt it, sometimes. But now I don’t.” She looked up at met Jess’s eyes. “When you get programmed, the sensors come down over your head and clip into the slots here.” She touched the collar herself. “Then they tell you to go down, and when you come back up, there’s a bunch of new knowledge there.”’
“Huh.” Jess rested her chin on her hand. “Do you know ahead of time what you’re getting?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you ever get something you didn’t like?”
Dev considered that soberly. Had she? “I don’t think so.”
Jess grunted softly. “I can remember some classes I wish I hadn’t been forced to take.” She admitted, “You’re lucky.”
Dev looked thoughtful for a long moment, then she smiled. “Yes, I am.” She glanced away and then back again. “Are we going to go outside soon? For this mission thing?”
‘Yes.” Jess replied. “I just haven’t planned out when and where yet. But it’ll be soon. They want this taken care of before it can take hold.” She added. “So get some rest tonight. We might be on the move after they get me the weather and mechanical status tomorrow and then the timing and sleep gets pretty random.”
Dev nodded. “Night and day didn’t mean much in the crèche. At end of schedule, you just reported to your sleep pod, and stayed in it until the cycle completed. She looked around the room. “I like it better here. You don’t know what might happen.”
“You like that?”
“I think it’s really interesting.” Dev replied. “Everything’s new and different.”
Jess leaned her elbows on her knees, and studied her cup. “I never thought about it like that.” She admitted. “Every day is different here, in a way.” She exhaled. “So I better let you get some rest and go sack out myself.”
“Thank you for the drink.” Dev finished hers. “It was very nice of you.”
Jess met her eyes, and smiled. “Ah.” She stood up. “Dangerous for me to drink it all myself. I end up walking into walls and singing.” She took Dev’s cup and the bottle. “I’m glad it worked out this morning, Dev.”
“Me too.” Dev smiled back, letting her elbow rest on the back of the chair she was sitting in. “You know, it’s the one thing we bio alts all really want. To find a place we can belong, and to do good work.”
Jess raised the bottle, and then she turned and approached the door. It slid open as she neared, and then closed behind her.
Dev sat there for a while, absorbing the sweet taste on her tongue, and replaying Jess’s words in her head. She decided she liked the agent a lot, appreciating her straightforward ways and her quirky sense of humor.
And she had been, except for Doctor Dan, the kindest person Dev had met so far anywhere, almost treating her just like another natural born sometimes. It was nice, and it made her feel really good and with an abrupt suddenness, she realized no matter what difficulties they would face, she wanted to be here, and not go back to the crèche.
Even if it was hard. It was good not to have proctors all around her, or the sameness of classes, or being treated like just one face among many.
It was good to have interesting people around her, even if some of them were rude. It was good to be able to do hard, and difficult things.
Abruptly, the door between her quarters and Jess’s opened, making her blink as the tall, dark haired woman leaned into the opening. “Hello.” She murmured, half sitting up and peering through the shadows.
“Door’s not locked.” Jess outlined the obvious. “So just don’t scare yourself if you walk by and it opens.” She ducked back away and the door closed again, leaving the room once more in quiet peace.
Dev studied the door, quite surprised. She could see the scan pad light was now a calm green instead of the red it had been before, and she wondered what that was supposed to mean. She diligently searched her programming, but there were no references to anything like that in there.
Figures. Dev got up and went behind her workspace, sitting down and pulling her pad over to her, logging in with a thumb press and calling up the rulebook of the citadel, which had provided her with a lot of useful information so far.
After a few minutes reading, she pushed the pad back, unsatisfied. There was nothing in the book about doors, or quarters, or anything like that. Dev rested her chin on her hand and frowned a little. Then she sighed and got up, returning to her bed and snuggling back under the covers.
Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe it was just Jess’s way of saying she was happy with having Dev on her team.
Maybe she’d just gotten tired of ringing the bell.
Dev let her eyes close again, this time, fading into sleep before she really had a chance to think about anything else.
**
Jess set the bottle down in her cabinet, and put the glasses on the tray underneath. She studied it for a moment, and then she turned and wandered over to her bed, dropping down onto it and looking up at the ceiling.
She was tired. It felt good to be tired, in the way that you got when you’d expended energy in doing something worthwhile rather than just hung around the citadel kicking yourself.