Page 29 of Meteor Storm

“I learn,” I said, gesturing to her hand where she held the thing concealed.

“You learned? In two days?”

I shrugged a shoulder, crouching down in front of her as if about to pick up one of the sparring weapons scattered around the yard. She watched me closely, her lips parted.

“Humans cannot do this?”

“No,” she snorted. “It took me two years to learn Spanish for my trip abroad and I lost it as soon as I stopped speaking it all the time.”

“Spanish. Human language?”

“One of them. We have a lot.”

I nodded, taking a slow, subtle scan of the yard again just to make sure we weren’t drawing attention. Attention wasn’t exactly a good thing on Mekah Prime and we had far too much already.

“I am sorry,” I said. “For what happened in the game.”

Penny was silent. I lifted my head to meet her eyes when she did not respond. She was looking right at me as if she did not hear me.

“I know I used the correct words,” I said. “They are the ones I studied most.”

“You studied to say sorry?”

I nodded once and the stunned look on her face only hardened. She just kept staring and then, the worst happened. Her eyes began to redden, glistening with unshed tears. Many species shed tears. Not monrians. Many simple things had been bred out of us. It seemed like a useless function, but I knew what it meant, nonetheless.

But Penny’s tears didn’t fall. She took a deep breath and raised her chin, pressing her lips together.

“I told you to do it,” she said.

“For survival.”

“Which is the reason you did it.” She paused a moment. “Right?”

I nodded again and she mimicked the gesture. There was something she wasn’t saying. Something she was keeping within herself. Be it anger, sadness, or hate, she was swallowing it.

I wished I could peel her apart and find out what it was. Penny was a complicated thing beneath the tenderness of her skin. I had studied her little device in depth, but I still knew nothing about her. A fact I was eager to change, but I did not want to know her in that place.

12: Penny

The way he came to me, making himself small as if for my benefit. He was so big, crouching didn’t make him any less menacing, but I was still looking down at him, and it seemed intentional like someone kneeling to pray for forgiveness from their god. Only he wasn’t asking a god for forgiveness. He was asking me.

I didn’t know why that made my eyes hot with tears, but it did. And to hear him speak in words I could understand, despite a strong accent, caught me off guard.

I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten his hands on my Buddy, but I was so damn relieved when he gave it to me. Not that it would be useful to me that far away from the Nexus or Earth. The signal was likely lost and no one was coming for me, but it was familiarity in a world where everything was so foreign.

I squeezed it in my hand, staring down at Thilar like he wasn’t real. I couldn’t fathom how he could learn to communicate with me in just a couple days, but he had. And it was to say sorry.

I had so many questions, but knowing he could understand me suddenly made it hard to ask. Especially with so many prying eyes and ears. I took a deep breath and sighed.

“I…” he started. “Nearly got you killed the first day. Nearly let you die in the game. And I hurt you.”

Why did he have to say that so softly? It almost made me feel sorry for him even though I was the one who had been violated. At least that’s what I was telling myself. Afterall, I’d told him to do it.

Then again… there was a certain level of violation that came with being forced into committing such an act.

I knew how devastating losing control was.

It didn’t make me feel less conflicted about everything.