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It was so raw, the way he said it. It lacked anger. She could only hear fear. Pure terror and worry in the way he spoke, in the way his shoulders hunched up. “I... I will be here if you need me,” she told him. What else could she say?
Quinn vanished. Going forward, he seemed like he intended on making himself scarce whenever she was aboard the ship. He didn’t kick her off, but she guessed he tracked her movements, as he was never anywhere near.
Communication was kept to a bare minimum, simply thank you’s for his meals, a polite no when she asked him to dinner again. Kira became frustrated as he isolated himself as deeply as he could within the bowels of the ship. The only sign of his presence were the progress trackers he’d installed on her communicator ticking towards completion.
Left to her own devices, she began exploring every room in the Callistar. They were all changed in some way. For the ship’s systems, the overhaul was total: engines, life support, reactor, hydroponics, medical, and even the entirely new drone bay were all state-of-the art. The kitchen remained the most familiar, but additional apparatuses for cooking were added to what was already there.
The crew’s rooms were mostly untouched except for some small quality of life improvements. Brand new mattresses made of a learning foam that read the body of the inhabitant and optimized temperature, curvature, and softness to provide a perfect night’s sleep. He’d provided personal entertainment headsets with hours of entertainment downloaded to the shared computer core. The improvements to the shower stalls in the bathrooms, with additional water outputs and options for massaging water baths, were personal favorites of hers.
There were even decorative choices, much like with Kira’s private room, added on to make the rooms feel more personalized to the inhabitants. It more or less confirmed that Quinn had read files on all of them. He treated their home with respect as he did his best to continue to honor the way the ship had once been, while making everyone’s lives better.
Even with her time taken up by volunteering and exploring, his absence loomed. Particularly because his messages became more and more terse and brief than before- if that was even possible. Kira mulled it over, giving him a few more days of his self imposed isolation before she decided at the end of a week that she had had enough. Putting herself together, she left her room, which he’d fixed during the supply run she did off the ship. It was what made her decide to finally go and find him. Hounding his drones through the ship, she knew he was avoiding her. The only way to keep him from doing so would be to keep herself off the system, but it was impossible.
“Watson, can you check life signs from the Eikos?”
Captain, I think it might be best if you leave this one alone.
“Life signs, Watson.”
Watson would not grumble at the command because the system only garbled it, so he would do so. He was sentient, and capable of lying, and in this case, he actually assisted Quinn, sending her on a wild goose chase.
Finally, she stopped listening to Watson and threw up her hands in frustration. Blocking him off, she went through her favors on the other ship, contacting the Eikos security team directly to ask.
They informed her there was one signal of life outside the ship.
Checking the relayed percentages and guessing by the largest left, she headed down to the nearest airlock to see if he was visible. Checking the comms there, he disabled the short band radio that would let her talk to him from the airlock, and his communicator was still off, which made her options suiting up or waiting by the airlock itself.
Banging her fist next to the viewing port, she returned to Eikos that night in order to share a night with what company she could find. It wasn’t particularly the best, but she was in a mood that she couldn’t settle.
Cutting off Watson to keep him from playing mother hen worked for a while. When he began to openly show concern, rebooting the link himself to ask her to return to the ship, she ignored him, instead pushing her limits and snapping at him.
Then, he would do the last thing he could. He would attempt to contact Quinn.
Chapter Ten
QUINN
Watson and Quinn had never actually spoken. The man had put the A.I. into a box, cutting off access to all but non-essential systems. It wasn’t exactly a great way to make friends, but as Quinn had well established, he didn’t want to make friends.
Still, an A.I., even one that was a clone of a person’s intelligence, was less likely to bother him than a normal person. “Yes?” Quinn said, curiosity getting the better of him as he opened the channel Watson pinged.
Sorry to bother you. Watson started off as polite, not that Quinn could parse how he came across at all, but it wasn’t a command. The Captain is on the Eikos. I believe something is wrong. Her vitals are unstable, and I cannot reach her comms. Seeing as I cannot physically retrieve her, you are the next best option.
Watson had a sense of urgency to him about the situation, and he spoke faster than he should have.
“You think something has happened to her? How would you know that?” Quinn grunted as he finished the current weld running the laser down the line before setting aside his tools, getting to his feet.
He immediately walked towards the exit to Eikos. If Watson was being honest, then any wasted time would be a risk to Kira’s health. Quinn began by sending drones ahead of himself to track her down.
Her implanted health monitor is connected to my systems. I couldn’t reach her, but I was able to access the Eikos systems. The room she is in has no visuals, but audio is available. The Captain is slurring heavily, and as far as I am aware, she is not inebriated.
Quinn had no clue what the hell was going on, but something shifted in his brain at Watson’s words.
“Understood.”
Every ounce of emotion left Quinn’s voice. Anything remotely resembling humanity faded away. A flash of blue eclipsed his eyes, and a few moments later, even more drones left the ship moving onto the Eikos station.
In under a minute, the entire station blared alarmingly loud warning sirens giving the impression they were being attacked. More than one hundred drones had just entered the ship and started quarantining everyone that stood between Quinn and Kira’s life sign with impenetrable deep space shields.
