Partners - Book 1

by Melissa Good

  “I don’t really understand that. But I’ll take your word for it.”

  Jess chuckled. “So anyway, this must be the old language of Sigurd’s people. They’ve been doing this forever. Doesn’t surprise me they still write in it. It’s like a code, you know? This is probably where he puts down all his tricks about catching fish, and if it’s in this language, only his family can read it.”

  “Oh.” Dev nodded. “Okay, that I understand. Up in the crèche, sometimes, the scientists would do that, put their notes in code if they thought someone was trying to copy something they did. That’s the same thing, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Doctor Dan thought that was so silly.”

  “Bet he did. He seems like a pretty sharp guy,” Jess said. “Wonder where he did his field training?”

  Dev’s head cocked to one side again. “His what?”

  “C’mon. Didn’t you see him with that blaster? He knew what to do with it as much as I did, and my bio bomb didn’t scatter him to pieces. He’s friends with Bain. He was one of us.”

  Dev shook her head. “He’s been a scientist up on station his whole life practically. He told us so.”

  “Practically.”

  Dev stared at her, feeling anxious.

  Jess seemed to sense that, because she pushed the log book away and put a hand on Dev’s knee instead. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  Had she been freaked out? Was she? Dev let out her held breath, and thought about that. What was it exactly that Doctor Dan had said once? That he’d spent his life in the crèche, except...now she remembered, for what he’d called a misspent youth. Had he misspent that time with Interforce? Really? Gentle Doctor Dan? She remembered how shocked she’d felt seeing him holding a gun, and holding it with...

  Yes, he’d known well what to do with it. She remembered too, how he’d reacted when Bain had shot the man, coming between her and the rest of them, making sure she was safe. Had he been like Jess?

  “Relax.” Jess patted her knee. “It’s a good thing. He knows and so he made sure you know. He was probably a kid, but you saw how he talked to Bain. He knew him.”

  “Yes,” Dev finally said, in a soft voice. “He told me it was okay to trust him. Bain, I mean.”

  “He did?” Now it was Jess’s turn to be surprised.

  “Yes. Him, and you.”

  “And me? Damn man hardly knows me. And I don’t know him at all.”

  Dev shrugged a little. “Well, he knows me. So maybe that’s why,” she said. “And also, he really understands people.” She fell silent, a faint crease forming on her forehead. “He cares about what happens to us.”

  Jess wondered if that were really true. Certainly, watching Dev with Doctor Dan had given her the impression that the man was fond of her, but it was a business. Wasn’t it? They had hundreds of bio alts doing all sorts of menial jobs around the place, after all.

  “You’re different.” Jess spoke her thoughts aloud. “You’re special. Not like the others. I’ve seen bios around for years. None of them are like you. He made you like us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jess leaned on the console and regarded her. “He made you like us. He made you to pass as human, didn’t he? Way before he was asked by us to.”

  “What?”

  “All the other bios, they’re like s...like machines,” Jess said. “They can’t think for themselves. That’s the biggest problem in using them, but also the reason no one’s killed them yet. No one cares about them. But you’re different. Your brain’s like mine.” She studied Dev’s face. “It always was.”

  Dev’s eyes shifted and went unfocused for a long moment. Then she looked back at Jess. “Is it...am I...incorrect?” She asked, in a very soft, almost scared tone. “You think that’s bad.”

  Jess felt her heart thump uncomfortably. She stared into Dev’s eyes, seeing a deep emotion there that made her feel terrible. “N...no.” She managed to get out. “I just wondered why.” She reached out and touched the hand Dev had resting on the console. “How he knew.”

  “How he knew what?” Dev reached up and rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “I don’t like how this feels.”

  Jess stood up, unsure of what to do. “Hey. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.” She hesitantly clasped Dev’s shoulders in both hands. “I like how you turned out. I like that you can talk to me, and think and all that stuff, whatever the hell his reasons were.”

  Dev exhaled, her shoulders relaxing under Jess’s hands. “If there was a reason, he never told me,” she finally said. “Maybe he just wanted to see if he could do it.” She stared pensively at Jess. “He likes to do hard things.”

  Jess moved her hands and cupped Dev’s face. “Fine by me. I like you just how you are.”

  Finally, that got a smile from Dev. “Well, I’m glad, since I don’t really have much choice in it,” Dev said. “Could we have more hot tea? This is a cold place.”

  “Sure.” Jess released her and went for the thermal. “Some tea for the insides and I’ll see what I can do for the outside”

  Dev took a steadying breath and went back to the controls, staring quietly out over the waves.

  DRIVING THE BOAT in the dark was hard. Dev kept one eye on the sonar and one on the dimly seen waves ahead of her as she concentrated on steering. The control room was dim, and behind her Jess was curled up in the hammock, getting some rest.

  Her entire body was aching with the tension of doing this somewhat unfamiliar activity, and the uncertainty of piloting the boat through the night seas was wearing on her.

  On the other hand, she was glad to be saving Jess from the effort. Jess had scrounged around and brought up enough odds and ends to feed them, and she was relatively full from it. She had a big, insulated cup in a clamp next to her, still with hot tea in it, and Jess had taken pains to try and make things as comfortable for her as she could.

  That was gratifying. She’d even found a thick, soft blanket somewhere and now it was tucked around Dev’s shoulders as she sat in the big pilot’s seat.

  It felt good, to have Jess be concerned about her. It made her warm inside, having nothing to do with the blanket. She had decided to see what she could do in return once they changed places. Surely there was something she could do for her partner.

  Her partner. Dev risked a glance over her shoulder at the somnolent form in the hammock. Once Jess had conceded her that title, she hadn’t looked back and then the rapidness of her acceptance of Dev had really surprised her. It felt good, and maybe that was why their discussion earlier about Doctor Dan had rattled her.

  It had.

  Dev didn’t want to think about being different, or made a certain way or something that someone else shaped. It made her feel strange, but thinking about being a bio alt bothered her.

  She knew that was incorrect. She knew she wasn’t considered a person, not by anyone that was naturally born. And yet...

  And yet. Just thinking about failure, about being sent back to the crèche and having to go back to being like she had been made Dev feel so bad she stopped it, just like that, because she didn’t want to get that stomach ache again.

  But it kept creeping back. Had Doctor Dan made her like a natural born? Dev caught sight of her profile in the reflection of the glass, a faint, ghostly figure outlined in the dim blue of the controls. She certainly looked like one. But then, they all did. You couldn’t tell from the outside a bio from a natural.

  What Jess had said was, it was something on her inside that he’d made the same.

  The same as Jess. Dev considered that, soberly, acknowledging in her head that she had always felt a little different. Or had that been wishful thinking? Didn’t they all want to think that? Dev exhaled a little, then she picked up her tea and sipped it, enjoying the mellow taste.

  Didn’t they all want to think they were special? Why else would they compete for the proctor’s notice, and that rare, cherished good word from Doctor Dan?


  And yet, Dev knew, that in certain ways she was in fact different. She was a dev unit. She was the only produced member of her set. That had given her status in the crèche, and she had begun to be aware of that, as she moved through the last of her classes and approached assignment.

  Gigi had been so excited, when she’d gotten hers. To be given an assignment as the assistant to the director was about the best thing one of them could hope for, if you weren’t specialized, and Dev well remembered how jealous the other bios in her class were when they heard about it.

  What would they think about her assignment? Dev adjusted one of the throttles, and had to smile at her reflection. She had hoped for something interesting, and though she’d never mentioned it to him, remembered wishing for an assignment in the lab with Doctor Dan.

  Being his assistant? Now that would have been something for them to be jealous of, if she’d stayed topside. Doss was the director, but everyone knew the most important person in the crèche was Doctor Dan.

  Instead, here she was, down world, in a fish boat, driving across the water in the dark, in a storm, with a partner who liked killing people and enjoyed practicing sex in dangerous places.

  Life could be quite unexpected. Dev smiled briefly. Now that she was here, though, she wouldn’t trade this experience for all the status in the world, even for a place in Doctor Dan’s lab. This was something none of them had ever even imagined.

  She had done things already that no bio alt ever had, and experienced things she didn’t think maybe a lot of natural born had. Though it had been so short a time, she absolutely knew she didn’t want that to change. No matter how dangerous, no matter how scary and difficult, she wanted this.

  Dev took another sip of her tea, and set the cup back in its swinging holder. A soft sound made her look around again, and she frowned, not entirely sure she’d heard it. As she cocked her ears though, it happened again. At first she thought it was maybe the hooks swinging, but then she saw Jess shift again, and cry out, her body and hands tensing visibly.

  Dev’s eyes widened, and she rapidly switched her attention back and forth between the window and the hammock. “Jess?” She called out softly.

  Jess cried out again, twisting in the hammock.

  Dev pulled the throttles back and slowed the ship, feeling the bow pitch down as it came off plane and they went with the motion of the waves. She glanced anxiously at the scanner and hoped there was enough free water around them as she left the controls and bolted back to where her partner was struggling and gasping. “Jess!”

  She grabbed hold the hammock as they pitched and in the next instant found herself gripped in an iron hold around her neck as Jess sinuously twisted around and slammed them both to the ground.

  Dev reacted instinctively. She got her hands around Jess’s wrists and clamped down on them, tearing the hold off her and shoving herself and Jess off the deck, reversing their positions. She landed on Jess and held her down. “Jess!”

  For a moment the staring blue eyes bored through her, then they blinked, and she felt the powerful form under her lose its tension.

  Another long silence as they looked at each other. Dev was very surprised to see wetness around Jess’s eyes and she shifted to one side and released her, afraid she’d done her some damage. “Are you all right?”

  Jess lifted her hand and covered her eyes, breathing hard. “Fuck.”

  The hand, Dev noted, was shaking. She cautiously touched Jess’s shoulder, feeling a shivering in it as well. “Jess? Are you in discomfort? Is there something I can do to help you?”

  “No,” Jess finally answered. “Get the boat moving again. I’m fine.”

  Dev didn’t think that was true. But she understood that refusing to do what Jess asked would not make her be in less discomfort. She very gently squeezed the shoulder her hand was resting on, then she pushed herself to her feet and went back over to the controls.

  She settled into the seat and started up the engines, applying power and steadying the boat’s movement as they shifted forward and plowed back into the waves. She looked back over her shoulder, to see Jess sitting with her back braced against the cabinet, her head held in her hands.

  Dev almost stopped the engines again, the urge to go do something to help overpowering her. “Jess?”

  Jess’s shoulders shifted and she straightened, resting her forearms on her knees before she slowly pulled herself up and walked over to the stool next to Dev, dropping onto it with a grunt. “Shit.”

  Her offers of help having been rejected, Dev sorted around to figure out what she should try next. “Would you like some tea?” She picked up her mug and moved it closer. “It’s still hot.”

  Jess rested her hands on the console. “Soon as I think I won’t throw it back up, sure,” she said softly. “Crap I hate that.”

  “Throwing up?”

  “Hallucinations. Dreams.” She paused. “You know.”

  Hallucinations and dreams. Dev riffled through her programming quickly, then went over it again. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I really don’t know. What are they? They sound uncomfortable.”

  Jess looked at her. “You don’t dream at night?” she asked. “See pictures in your head? Go to different places while you sleep?”

  Pictures in her head. “Well,” Dev mused. “Sometimes, when I got a lot of programming, I saw some pictures when I was waking up. But they weren’t really different places. Just a flash or two, like a person’s face, or a smell.”

  “Not the same thing,” Jess said. “But if you don’t have them you’re damned lucky. Wish I was a bio in that case.” She rested her forehead against her wrists.

  Dev put a hand on her back, gently rubbing it. She wasn’t really sure why she’d done that, or if it was helpful, but under her fingers she could feel, just a little, relaxation in the stiffness of Jess’s body. “I was just thinking about how much I wished I wasn’t one.”

  Jess reacted, lifting her head and looking back at her, the faint glow from the controls reflecting off her pale eyes.

  “I mean, how much I’m really enjoying getting to do everything,” Dev said. “And how much better it is than being in the crèche.”

  “Ah” Jess grimaced a little and rubbed her temples with her fingers. “Well, crap right now I’d trade ya. Thought I was past them.”

  “What does that mean?” Dev asked, softly. “Are you sure you don’t want some tea?”

  Jess sighed and straightened up a little. “Never mind. It’s a stupid thing and I don’t want to talk about it.” She accepted the cup, though, and took a sip. “Show me how to drive this thing and you can go get some sleep.” She got up and came close to Dev.

  Then she stopped, and put the cup down and put her hands on her hips. “Wait a minute.”

  Dev glanced sideways at her.

  Jess leaned on the console so she could see Dev’s face. “Did you just pick me up and body slam me?” She watched as a flush of color darkened Dev’s face, visible even in the dim light. “You did.”

  “I...” Dev felt nervous and suddenly very anxious. “I didn’t mean to cause you discomfort,” she said. “Did I hurt you?”

  Jess was more than glad enough to let this distraction drive her recent nightmare out of her thoughts. To have had one at all infuriated her and she was embarrassed that Dev had witnessed it. “No,” she said. “I just didn’t think you were that strong. I’m bigger than you are.”

  Dev smiled briefly, relieved that Jess didn’t seem upset. “Well, we did work out a lot in plus grav,” she said. “So I guess that’s why. I wasn’t sure what was going on and I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.” She paused. “Or me.”

  “You?”

  “You grabbed me by the neck.”

  Jess felt a shock go down her entire body. “I did?”

  Dev glanced at her for a brief moment, her lips tensing into a faint smile. “I think you were sort of still asleep.”

  Well, that wasn’t good. Jess frowned. �
�I...” She stopped speaking, and took a step back, half turning and folding her arms across her chest. Then she sat back down on the stool and studied the deck. “Sorry,” she managed, after a moment. “When you’ve done all the...” She paused again. “Sometimes we relive stuff that’s happened in our sleep. Agents. Like me.”

  “I see.”

  “I guess we don’t have any really good things to relive,” Jess said. “So we get all the bad things. All the attacks that went wrong, and the friend’s we’ve seen die and—” She stared at the ground. “Anyway. I’m sorry. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you.”

  “It’s okay, you didn’t,” Dev said. “I just wanted to hold you still long enough for you to come back up.” She adjusted a control, and glanced at the scanner. “Sometimes when we...when bio alts, that is, are down for programming they come up and if things aren’t right security has to hold them until they integrate everything.”

  “I’m not a bio alt.”

  “No, I know,” Dev said. “But it was the same sort of thing. You weren’t really here.”

  “Oh.” Jess sighed. “Thought I was past them from this last clusterfuck.” She rubbed her temples. “I had them after that one for weeks. Couldn’t sleep worth a damn. Anyway, if you see me like that, just stay the hell away from me. Let me suffer.”

  Dev was silent for a long moment. “I don’t think I can do that,” she said in an apologetic tone. “Seeing you suffering causes me a lot of discomfort.”

  “Does it?” She watched Dev release one hand off the controls and extend it, and then felt the warmth of Dev’s touch against her cheek. She was unable to look away from those eyes and there was something so compelling and intense in them, it made her a little short of breath.

  “It does,” Dev said. “So I’ll try not to get my neck in the way of your hands, but don’t ask me to not try and help you. Please.”