Partners - Book 1

by Melissa Good

  Dev looked around the small platform, then back at her. “Yes.”

  “Why?” Jess heard a sharp note enter her voice, not entirely intended.

  Undisturbed, Dev merely looked at her. “Since this morning, after the attack, it seemed to be you were,” she said. “I didn’t mean to offend you by asking.”

  Jess studied those open and guileless eyes, hearing the polite concern in Dev’s voice and not detecting any hidden meaning behind the words. “I’m not offended,” she said, gruffly. “I said you could ask me things, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.” Dev smiled. “You did.”

  There was an odd sense of conflict in her. Jess found herself teetering between brushing Dev off, and confiding in her and she wasn’t entirely sure why. It was a strange feeling, new and confusing.

  Dev spoke up again, a faint hesitance in her voice. “I hope it wasn’t something I did that disturbed you.”

  All at once, Jess decided. “Nah. You’ve only done good stuff, Dev. I slammed my back against a door handle this morning right where I got hurt last time and it’s bothering me, that’s all.”

  Dev looked relieved, and yet, still concerned. “I’m sorry you got hurt. Are you going to med?”

  Jess shook her head. “It’s not that bad. Just annoying and med tends to make big deals out of nothing.”

  Dev nodded. “I never liked going either,” she said. “You never knew what they’d do to you and then...” She paused. “Well, you never wanted them to think you were really hurt or really sick.”

  Jess looked at her, head tilted slightly in question.

  Dev glanced aside. “Not much use for damaged products.”

  Jess blinked. “What?”

  Dev looked embarrassed. “We’re not actually people. Not legally. So if you were really damaged they’d just scratch you and start over.” She glanced up at Jess, who was sitting there, roll forgotten in her hand, her jaw a little dropped. “So that’s why we like to find a place to do good work,” she said softly. “Kind of makes it safer.”

  Jess reached out and put her hand on Dev’s shoulder. “You’re as much a person here as I am,” she said. “So don’t worry about them trying to scratch you as long as I’m around.”

  It was hard to say, really, which one of them was more surprised to hear her say that. Certainly Jess herself was a little amazed and more than a touch confused as to where it had come from. She barely knew Dev, really.

  And yet, it was true. Whether it was that she felt sorry for the kid, or that she felt responsible for her wasn’t really important.

  “Thank you,” Dev said, after a moment. “So that’s why I asked if you were upset, and I was hoping it wasn’t at me.” She studied Jess’s face. “And I’m very sorry you don’t feel well. I hope it gets better soon.”

  Jess relaxed. She lowered her hand to her knee and settled slowly back against the wall, not bothering to hide a grimace now. “I’m sure it will be.” She sighed. “Never get stabbed in the back, Dev. It takes forever to heal and hurts like hell.”

  Dev watched the sharp profile across from her, wondering if it was a trick of the half light or if Jess really looked for a moment as sad as those words sounded. Then her companion shifted a little and the impression was gone.

  “Okay.” Dev went back to scavenging her box. “I’ll try to remember that. It’s too bad you don’t have null grav here. That’s where I went when I hurt my leg in training. It made it feel better.”

  Jess thought about that. “Well.” She finished her roll and dug out the sweet cake. “No, we don’t have null gravity here, but you know, water’s almost as good.”

  Dev immediately looked interested. “Like the shower?”

  “No.” Jess shook her head. “The gym pool maybe. It’s going to be too rough to go surf the caverns tonight.” She glanced up to where clouds were now scudding over them, and the corresponding wind was picking up. “Want to join me later?”

  “In the pool?”

  Jess nodded. “I forgot the pool’s pretty good for therapy. Gets the Gs off you.”

  “Yes, absolutely.” Dev’s eyes brightened. “Maybe you can show me how to swim. I didn’t have a lot of success with that.” She finished her tube of water and folded everything up, putting it back into the container neatly.

  “What the hell made you just jump in?” Jess asked.

  “I just wanted to feel what it was like. I never had any programming at all about that so I thought the fastest way for me to learn about it was to just do it,” she said. “It’s like that sometimes for us. You find a hole, and you want to fill it in.”

  Jess considered that. “Interesting philosophy.”

  Dev smiled. She set the package down and got up, walking over to the edge of the platform and putting her hands on the railing.

  The wind was coming up, and it was a little exciting to her to be facing into it, feeling the pressure of it against her skin as it blew her hair back and made her blink.

  “Don’t get any ideas.” Jess placed her hands on the steel rail next to Dev’s. “Jumping in that would be a fast lesson but very very short.”

  Dev chuckled a little. “We’re curious, but not generally self destructive. I know the difference.” She studied the view, and exhaled. “This is so amazing though. It’s like looking out at the stars in the crèche but better. So unlimited.”

  Jess leaned on the rail and pondered that, watching Dev out of the corner of her eye as the spray dusted her skin. “Unlimited?”

  Dev nodded, pointing out at the horizon. “It goes on a long way but you can tell that. The stars—you can’t really tell how far back they go so this gives you a better look at something big. It seems more real.”

  “It also gets you wet.” Jess wiped a bit of spray from her face. “I’m guessing space doesn’t do that.”

  Dev held her hand out and watched her skin get coated. “No. You can’t touch space. And it can’t touch you. Not like this.”

  The air of the world filled her lungs, so much thicker and more vibrant than what she’d been used to and she could feel the salt on her lips and smell the pungent scent of the water. “It makes me feel all over.”

  “You like that.”

  Dev turned to look at her, with a smile. “Very much. Don’t you?”

  Jess smiled in return, looking down at her folded hands on the rail. Then she glanced off across the horizon. “I might learn to,” she said. “C’mon. Let’s go back inside before the storm hits.” She turned and picked up her bundle, keying the airlock with her free hand. “See what other trouble we can get into tonight.”

  SHE WAS GOING to learn how to swim. Dev felt a bit like bouncing around her quarters, as she waited for Jess to finish her discussion outside.

  The halls had started to finally empty out as they walked back, but Stephan Bock had caught up with them just outside the operations center and Dev had quickly realized he wanted a private talk with Jess.

  In the crèche, she’d gotten that a lot. Proctors and other instructors always wanted to talk outside their earshot, as though bio alts really didn’t know what was going on.

  Dev found that a little funny. New proctors always acted like they were dumb, and though some sets certainly weren’t that sharp, most had average intelligence and knew what was going on around them.

  Others, like Dev, were just as intelligent as the teachers instructing them and it was usually a funny moment when the newbies figured it all out.

  Like spelling words they didn’t think the bio alts would understand. Like they were children or something.

  She remembered one of them, a woman who had just come to the crèche from one of the science stations. She was teaching a class in how plants grew, and thought she had to explain to them what a pea was.

  Like they didn’t live on a biologic test station, and had been fed every single variety of pea the Ag group could come up with in hopes of developing something they could use downside.

  Dev had stood up and recited
the entire phylum of them, in alphabetical order. She could still hear her class laughing, and see the discomfited look on the teacher’s face as she was forced to just stand there and listen.

  She chuckled, now, and went over to the dispenser for a bottle of water to sip, but paused when she saw a light sedately flashing on her pad.

  Curious, she went over and sat down, pulling the pad over and keying it on. To her bemused surprise, she found she had a message waiting.

  A message? Who would be sending her a message? She touched the surface of the pad and the message opened up.

  Dev

  Thanks for your help today! I really appreciated the extra hands!

  Hope you can come back soon and we can really get into the engines!

  Clint

  Dev sat back and folded her arms over her chest, rereading the message a few times. It didn’t seem to really have a purpose. Clint had said the same thing before she’d left that day, so why had he sent it?

  Just to be polite? Dev keyed the screen and the data input came up. She replied to the message, deciding a polite gesture certainly warranted an equally polite response.

  Hello Clint

  You are most welcome. I am glad we had good results. I look

  forward to helping again.

  Dev

  Dev regarded the message and then sent it, with a little smile. “That’s nice,” she said. “He’s an interesting person.”

  Another natural born who treated her almost like one of his own kind.

  The inner door popped open and Jess trudged in, rolling her eyes and sitting down into one of the chairs near Dev’s workspace. “What a shoe box full of buttcracks this is sometimes.” She propped her elbow on the chair arm, letting her head rest against her hand.

  Dev stopped in mid motion and stared at her, then went back to the pad and started typing on it. She stopped and looked at Jess. “How do you spell that second thing? I think I can guess what a shoe box is.”

  Jess chuckled wryly. “Stupid. Stephan was trying to convince me to do the intake speech tomorrow night. I told him that was his job. I don’t know what got into him.”

  Dev folded her hands on the desk. “So, he wanted you to talk to everyone?”

  Jess nodded.

  Dev considered this. “You have a very nice voice. I’m sure the new people would enjoy it.”

  Jess stared at her with her head cocked just slightly to one side. “What?”

  “All of those people who are just getting here,” Dev said. “I’m sure it will seem very strange to them, so wouldn’t it be great for them to have someone as experienced and nice as you to welcome them?” She watched Jess’s eyes open up a little wider. “I would have liked that.”

  “Rather than having someone beheaded as your welcome? Yeah, I guess,” Jess muttered, her brows contracting. “What the hell would I say—wait a minute. Did you call me nice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me? Nice?” Jess sat up a little.

  “Yes.” Dev smiled at the look on her face. It was a mixture of embarrassment and uncertainty and she found it sort of intriguing. “You’ve been very nice to me. I wanted to say thank you for that.”

  Jess blushed visibly, which was very interesting. “Just trying to help,” she muttered, then got up. “Let’s do this pool thing.” She brusquely indicated the door. “Maybe it’ll make my back chill out and I can get a decent night’s sleep.”

  “Okay.” Dev got up and joined her and they headed for the door. She was a little puzzled though, since she’d never quite experienced such a discomfited reaction to a compliment before. She reviewed what she’d said, a few times, and decided she couldn’t detect any particular reason her words should have caused Jess distress. “I’m sorry if I said something incorrect.”

  They walked through the central hall, the few people going in the opposite direction mostly ignoring them. Jess glanced to either side as they turned the corner to the rec area, and cleared her throat “Ops agents aren’t supposed to be nice.”

  “Not even to the people they work with?” Dev asked. “Why?”

  “Because we’re assholes.”

  Dev frowned. “Here we go with that ass stuff again.” She sighed. “I think I have to ask Doctor Dan if he has a translation for all of this. I’m not sure why you all find people’s behinds so interesting.”

  “Heh heh.” That put a grudging smile on Jess’s face. “We’re just typically nasty tempered people,” she said. “You saw us in the bar. We’d go at each other’s throats every meal if house rules let us.”

  “Well, okay,” Dev said. “But Jess, you have been nice to me. Not nasty at all. You’ve been nicer to me than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

  Jess remained silent as they entered the gym.

  At this late hour, it was almost empty. There were a few people in the weight bearing area, and one on a treadmill but the rest of the huge space was quiet, and the lights had been dimmed a bit in response to that.

  They walked together into the changing room. Jess went to what was, apparently, her locker and opened it, studying the contents with a dour glare.

  Dev decided remaining quiet was probably the best thing to do. She opened her locker, then paused.

  After a brief moment, they both looked up at each other at the same time.

  Jess came over and sat down on the bench next to Dev’s locker, her exercise gear in her hand. “Sorry,” she said. “I think we’re nasty to each other because we know it’s pointless to make friends. You just lose them. After a while of that, you just walk around the pain.” She fiddled with her gear, and then shrugged. “Stupid, really.”

  Dev sat down next to her. “I understand. Sometimes it was like that in the crèche. You never wanted to get too close to anyone because they could get assigned at any time and you’d never see them again.”

  Jess nodded. “Yeah.”

  Dev looked down at her hands, clenched a little on her workout suit. “Well,” she said. “You know, I’m your pilot, so maybe it’ll be that whatever happens will happen to both of us at the same time.” She glanced up, getting caught by Jess’s intent gaze at close quarters. “So maybe its okay to be nice to me.”

  Jess frowned a little.

  “I thought maybe you were being nice to me because you wanted to please Bain,” Dev said, in a quiet tone. “And that’s okay too. Nice is nice no matter why—to us at least.”

  After a brief, still second Jess relaxed a bit, her face easing into a faint smile. “Nah. I’m nice to you because I like you,” she said. “I don’t like a lot of people.”

  Dev felt an unusual heat on her skin, and knew it was her turn to blush. “Thanks. I like you too.”

  Jess’s smile became more pronounced. “So let’s go swimming,” she said, getting up. “Don’t pay attention to the crap I say, Dev. Sometimes I just talk out my...” She paused, and laughed. “Sometimes I say things just to hear myself talk.”

  Somehow, Dev thought, as she changed into her workout suit and followed Jess into the big open space. Somehow, she didn’t really think that was true. She thought Jess said exactly what she felt.

  At least, she certainly hoped so.

  “Okay.” Jess led the way around to the shallow end of the pool and stepped into it. The brief exercise clothes just outlined her tall form, and she paused for a minute and let her hand down to test the temperature. “Ah.” She sounded surprised.

  “What’s wrong?” Dev stepped in next to her. “Oh. It’s warmer than it was earlier.”

  “Yeees.” Jess seemed pleased. She splashed into the water and then dropped onto her back, making a wave swirl out from her all over the tank. “Oh, I like this.”

  Dev followed more slowly. She took the time to enjoy the feeling of the water buoying her, it’s warmth immediately penetrating her and easing muscles just a little sore from her earlier exercise. “That feels very nice.”

  Jess had gone to the edge of the pool and was leaning against it, her eyes half close
d. “It sure does. Damn, I’d forgotten what that felt like.”

  Dev made her way through the water over to her side. “Why is it warm now?”

  Jess exhaled. “I don’t care.” She shifted her shoulders and let her head drop back. “Just feels good.”

  It did. Dev flexed her hands, breathing in the smell of the water.

  “Okay.” Jess reluctantly opened her eyes. “So here we are, in the pool.” She pushed away from the side. “What did you do when you jumped in?”

  “Just this.” Dev made a paddling motion with her hands.

  “Natural instinct.” Jess looked approving. “Babies do that when you drop them in the water.”

  “You drop babies in the water?” Dev’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”

  “Ahm...well, I’ve never done it, but that’s what they say.” Jess launched herself forward. “Watch.”

  Dev did, avidly. Jess lifted her arms up and put them forward, pulling back against the water and making her go forward. She was also kicking her feet.

  “Ow.” Jess stopped after a few strokes. “Damn it.” She rolled over onto her back and used her legs to move her back to where Dev was, keeping her hands folded on her stomach. “Fucking shoulder.”

  “It must hurt a lot.

  Jess came to a halt next to her. “Driving me crazy,” she said. “Okay, now you try.”

  Dev thought about what she’d just seen and made a picture in her head about it, running through the motions in her imagination before she took a deep breath and presented herself to the water.

  At the first stroke, her head went under. Dev only just kept herself from sucking in a breath in surprise, moving her other arm forward and exhaling as her head broke the surface again.

  “Whoa whoa...” Jess’s voice echoed behind her.

  Dev’s head went under again, and then she felt hands on her, hauling her up to the surface. She spluttered as she came up again, shaking the hair out of her eyes as Jess came around in front of her and grabbed her other arm just above the elbow. “That didn’t work out very well.”