Despite my disturbing dream, I felt wonderful. Having been able to spend the night and most of the morning in bed with Ray had lightened my mood quickly. Breakfast would be late that day, and I think everyone realized exactly what had happened when Ray and I stood together in the kitchen, holding tight to one another, rather than me just hanging off of her arm.

When I'd daydreamed of what it would be like if my feelings for Ray were reciprocated, I had not imagined that we would be so close so quickly. Having my affections returned was so much nicer than I could have imagined. It almost felt surreal, like a waking dream, but a good one. Perhaps she had been holding herself back until now, as well, and we were both making up for lost time. The idea that I hadn't been the only one pining made me feel that much more comfortable being held so close to her.

Holding tight to Ray's core while she kept one arm wrapped around me made me feel so much more present than I usually felt in my human skin. I felt more real. More wanted. Neither of us realized how starved we were for intimacy until we had it, and it just made everything feel perfect.

She was trying to teach me how to cook as well, but I think we both knew it was just an excuse to spend more time attached to one another before the day started in earnest. "So you have to add water to the eggs or they'll be dry and won't get fluffy like this. Milk works even better, but these aren't real eggs anyway, and you work with what you have." I nodded along to her words, wondering if maybe I'd pick up on enough to start making something for myself if she was going to teach me this stuff every time we were together in the kitchen, but I wasn't sure why I would when Ray liked cooking so much herself. She was already so good at it, after all. "Not too much, though, or they'll be wet when you serve them," she added.

"I kn-know you don't mind getting w-wet when you're served," I smirked up at her. It wasn't until I heard an actual spit-take and a peal of choking laughter behind me that I realized perhaps I said that louder than I intended, and felt blood rush to my face.

"M-Meryll!" Ray was stunned at my joke as well, but she smiled nervously down at me, blushing as well. I think she was trying to reassure me that she wasn't mad.

"Wow." I could feel the lighthearted smugness in Aisling's voice sat next to Joel, who was still trying to get his morning coffee back down again. "I didn't think you two could get more openly affectionate, but I guess I should have seen that coming, huh?"

"I should have guessed she was lewd, too." Shaw chuckled. "She's an acting conduit to the relay right now, after all, it's no wonder."

I bit my lip and closed my eyes to get a look from the sensor array while I skimmed through the network record. "And th-that means I know what sort of s-sites you've been sp...ending time on late at night, too, Shaw." I spat back at him with as much venom as I could muster as a warning. He held his hands up and stopped talking, but he still smiled knowingly.

"So are you two like... a couple now?" Mouse asked with a raised eyebrow. He clearly had no idea how to feel about this. The poor boy had probably never had the opportunity for a romantic experience with his peers before.

I opened my eyes again and looked up at Ray, who was looking down at me with an uncharacteristic shyness. "Are we?" she whispered to me, her claws tightening just a little bit around my arm, a cautious possessiveness in her tone.

After last night, it was hard to say no. Not that I wanted to, but I already felt like we belonged to each other so much more intimately than words were needed for. Maybe we did need to get to know each other personally a little better still, but it was hard to imagine a world where I didn't say yes.

So I nodded up at her and whispered back "Of course." She pulled me in front of her and wrapped both her arms around me, and I felt myself lift off the ground a few inches. She was so strong...

Joel finally managed to clear his throat and calm down from his own outburst. "Guess we better get used to seeing this, huh?" He sounded amused. "Breakfast is gonna be late more often for a while, too, I'm guessing."

"Ah! Breakfast!" Ray let go of me and reached up to continue stirring the food. I couldn't help but giggle, hoping that I hadn't drawn her attention for too long.

—

Ray and I finally parted from each others' touch to sit down to eat, though we had moved our usual arrangement around a little so that we were seated next to each other at the table, something the others made a little show out of moving around for that made the both of us blush again. We were teased a lot during that meal, but it was good-natured. I could tell that the others were happy for us.

I ate as much as I could, but ended up having to pass some of my plate back to Ray. I had just eaten last night, after all, and two regular meals in a row was a lot for me to take in. My stomach was probably quite smaller than a baseline human's.

I certainly had a better incentive to join for meals than just my physical health now, though. I started to wonder if I would put on some weight after all. Doc would be happy.

I waited for Ray to finish before I got up with her, chatting about how the food turned out, but all good things must come to an end eventually. I began to feel that familiar longing to abandon my flesh. I'd been outside of the core module for too long now, and as wonderful as it was being held by Ray, I needed the comfort of machinery and uncompromised digital control, too.

"Go on." Ray hugged me tight against her one last time. "I know you need it, digital shaman," she chuckled as she let me go, and I stumbled back slightly toward my heart.

"I'll be right h-here. All around you." I squeezed her hand and let go. Then I shed my clothes with practiced ease, and smiled back at her one more time before I disappeared behind the core module, ready to immerse myself once more in the void.

—

Love was a wonderful drug, but so was the existential euphoria of actually being a starship in whole. To compare the two feelings would do both a disservice, but I definitely needed both in my life now. I was simultaneously relieved to be back in my void and for once, looking forward to the next time I would emerge.

Closing my eyes, I immersed myself in my work, reviewing the network traffic of the previous night to ensure there were no anomalies or anything that had made its way through my rapidly developing database of filters for unwanted activity. I remembered the occasional prickle I'd gotten against my brain last night, interrupting my fun times when Mouse got curious about Europa, and when Joel tried to search for details on the conference in question directly. I'd sent them both quick messages chastising them and giving them less obvious routes to find the information they were after, but I hadn't spent too much time tweaking my 'forbidden topics' list yet.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It didn't seem like anyone had made any obviously problematic searches or posts anywhere, though. Especially Shaw. He did more on the network than anyone else, but he navigated the relay with the careful ease of someone who knew he was being watched. He had poked around a lot of useful informational sites while he made contact with dozens of his 'sources'. Some bantered cordially that he was still alive while others responded with dismay at his reappearance. He spoke with stiff accountants on the subject of holdings, markets, and exchanges he had missed, and he downloaded records off of what was obviously a personal remote server to review. He was a busy man when we gave him leeway to do his thing. I figured I would check it myself later, he probably had some interesting skeletons in his closet...

That also reminded me that I had my own contacts to check in on, though far less far-flung and varied than his were. I had a former Arthausen scientist, a psychiatrist, a cyberneticist, and a core tech savant to let know I was still alive.

Predictably, Dr. Yates didn't reply right away, likely busy with a client, but I knew the others weren't in as social of fields, and I was saving Agatha for last, since I knew we would be wrapped up in conversation for half the day as soon as she saw my handle.

So it was time to hit up Dr. Fuller. I sent a simple greeting, 'Hey, I hope we didn't leave too much of a mess back there when we left.'

It didn't take more than a few minutes before she returned, 'Fuck, I thought you were dead.'

'I'm apparently pretty hard to kill. We've been laying low for a while now, and we're pretty sure we can get away with networking again, especially here.' I knew that was a naive way of approaching things, but I wanted to give the impression that I felt safe.

There was a long pause while Fuller typed up a lengthy response. It was a bit odd communicating over such a long distance that I didn't have direct access to the system she was communicating from. Most of my communication had been with people within the same local network so far. I would have to get used to that. 'Well you certainly made things complicated here for a while. Skygraves made up some obvious bullshit about your crew assaulting the station to justify putting the whole place on lockdown and shooting everywhere. You know how much stuff he damaged trying to make you look like the villains? Kinda hard to run a psyop on a colony full of meticulous evidence-based researchers, though. We love asking inconvenient questions, and most of the security folks aren't the kind of loyal sycophants that would let him turn this place into a police state on a whim. You know he tried to say you specifically shot those four guards that died, and Dr. Godin? He's painting you like the leader of a bunch of psychopaths.'

Huh. There were only five fatalities. I supposed it made sense a few of the people we'd shot hadn't died to their injuries immediately. 'I fucking wish I shot Godin. But that's kind of funny, considering I was too scared to even try. I even pointed a gun at some of them at one point and froze up. Hadn't ever killed anyone before at that point.' I shivered at the memory of the man trying to drug me into submission and then showing up at Dr. Yates's office with a gun.

I realized what I said just a moment before Fuller's reply came in, 'At that point? But now you've killed someone?' she asked directly.

'I admit to nothing.' The messaging encryption I used was good enough that I wouldn't expect anyone to intercept our chat, but I knew better than to leave a message confessing to murder on anyone's terminal, even someone I trusted. I carefully picked over my words to elaborate, 'Sometimes, in this lifestyle, you have to defend yourself, and sometimes that isn't pretty, and sometimes you have to do things you aren't proud of, and that's something I've come to terms with. Okay?'

'Right.' Came the terse response. 'Anyway, while everyone was still pulling themselves together after that whole disaster, some goons from Foundation of all corps shows up knocking on our door demanding entry, and of course that jackass lets them in. They made a bunch of us sign NDAs, and a couple of us... disappeared when they left.'

'Shit, anyone I know?' I asked.

'I don't know your contact list. And I was in hiding the whole time. I think you understand why. I spent a week buried in a storage crate eating emergency rations dry and waiting for a signal from my friends that the coast was clear.'

Right. If Foundation found out Fuller was there, they definitely would have vanished her, too. I was glad she'd managed to evade them, but that must have been a rough week. 'Guess I'll have to ask around. I do have some news on the subject of my kind, though.'

'Don't care. Don't want to know.' She replied immediately. 'I don't want anything to do with it.'

'Are you sure? It involves... psychic superpowers.' I chortled silently at calling them that. It was a term I tried to avoid most of the time, but it was hard to deny that's what they were.

'I'm sorry, what?' There was a long pause where she typed something, then deleted it several times without sending it. Finally, 'Okay, fine, I'll ask, what the fuck are you talking about?'

'We're more than living cores. Something about waking us up made our psionic resonance more powerful. Different. Our psionics affect the physical world around us in ways that... don't entirely make sense. They hadn't even outfitted Lily or Cassandra with neural links the first time I saw them, so making them into cores isn't even their goal anymore.'

'Fuck, they are alive then? Shit.' I imagined that in the physical world, Fuller had probably just unleashed a tirade of curses. 'And they have... what, superpowers? The fuck does that mean?'

'We've been calling them psychic talents, yeah. I haven't seen it myself, but Cassandra can move things with her mind, and Lily...' I paused. I realized that it would probably be a terrible idea to suggest that I was intimately familiar with Lily or that she was even still alive. As far as Foundation knew, they probably thought her dead, and I couldn't be completely certain telling Fuller wouldn't come back to them eventually. 'She could see things that hadn't happened yet.'

It took her another few moments to respond, 'Could?' Then there was more typing. 'Never mind. I think I get it.' She continued on, longer this time, 'But that sounds impossible. You can't just see things that haven't happened. It's like you're telling me time travel is real. Are you telling me that psionic resonance can do more than efficiently operating machinery?'

'Way more. I haven't exactly figured out what I can do yet, but... I have some ideas. Personally, I hope I don't run into any more of my sisters. I've been getting some of my memories back, and... I didn't get along with most of them.'

'Understandable. You've read my files, they're not the most sociable group. Are you feeling any side effects of recovering your memory?'

I opened my eyes and looked down at the still-visible abrasions on my arm from where I'd bitten myself, then closed my eyes again and replied, 'A few. Nothing too bad yet, but I haven't remembered much.'

'Look, this is all very fascinating, but I really shouldn't be getting involved in this stuff again. I'm already nervous enough with Foundation on our ass a few months back. I don't need to be any more a part of this conspiracy.'

'Sorry, I thought you'd want to know.'

'The worst part is that I do, it's fascinating, and the scientist in me wants to know everything, but the survivalist in me is telling me to back the fuck off and leave the whole thing behind me.'

'Well, if you ever want to know more, just hit me up. I wouldn't mind telling you everything.'

'Don't tempt me.'

'Well, if you want more mundane news, I'm dating Ray now.' I smiled to myself as I just put it out there.

'The Mammon? Look, fascinating as that is as well, I have to meet with Dr. Yates.'

'Ah. He must be busy since we left. I hope we didn't cause too much ptsd...'

'For lunch, Meryll. We're getting lunch.' Oh right, the two were friends. I'd forgotten that Fuller was the one who referred me to him in the first place. 'I'll talk to you... when I talk to you.'

'Later.' I sent and turned my focus to messaging my other Venusian friends.

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