"I had to break up with her," Lux said miserably. I could tell she'd been crying.

"Good lord, why?"

"It's just…it's complicated, Mateo."

"She's breaking up with me!" shouted Adaobi in the other call.

"Why, Ms. Adaobi, what happened?"

She was brave, holding back tears. "It doesn't make any sense! Can I come over?"

"She wants to come over," I said to Lir.

"Oh no." His ears went back. "Peligro!"

"Muy peligroso," Agreed Ruhk.

"Peligroso as fuck, dude!" shouted Mabruk, flailing his many arms.

"Come on over," I said. "I have a little house and I'll introduce you to the coolest guys to have ever existed ever."

Adaobi disconnected. Lux was still talking. "It's just that I can't stay here, I just became Human! I'm having so much fun, you get that, right? This isn't a rejection of her, this is me wanting to…to…"

"Take big bites," I said.

"EXACTLY!" And she started crying again. "Why is that so difficult for her to understand?"

"I think it's because she loves you," I said.

Lux started crying harder.

I jabbed at Lir with the phone. "Can you talk to one of them? I can't do both."

"I'd talk to Ms. Adaobi, but it's cleeeeeearly not me she wants to meet right now." His ears went up, at the angle that meant I am amused at Mateo's expense today.

Mabruk raised one of his five hands. "Did Lux meet someone else?"

"Did you meet someone else, Lux?"

"Not exactly." She started crying even harder. "I don't want to hurt anyone!"

"Who is it?" I asked, and Mabruk shouted the same thing.

"A team of producers who saw my play! They say I'm a natural!" She sniffed, and her voice was creeping into excited. "I'll be a star, you get it? I'm going to be producing and hosting a news series! Can you believe it? I'll…I'm succeeding."

Oh.

This I understood very well. Success is difficult. "I get where you're coming from. So this isn't…a romantic relationship."

"No! And never again! Breaking hearts is terrible, terrible! You think I want Adaobi to be so sad? That I want Todd burning down a city because I politely declined? You know Gary, that asshole Gardener that tells people how to fix their stuff? He's part of it too! I met him in person, he's a dick!" She sniffed again, less emphatically now. "You don't hate me?"

"How could I?" You're my fault, I didn't say. The pain you're feeling, the pain you're causing, that's my fault. "When are we leaving?" But I have this Winnie… I wanted to haul the words back in. I have this Winnie. I couldn't leave. "When are…we…"

"We?" She shouted it. "WE! The whole point of this is that I want to live a life! ME. I can't do it if you're stalking me the whole time!"

"Stalking."

"Stalking! I know you're … well, crazy. But this is the only life I've got! I want to experience it the way I want to! Adaobi doesn't get that, and now YOU don't!"

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

The pain from her words actually yanked an irresistible, astonished tear from my eye. That hadn't happened since I'd found out mom had died.

"Oh…" She stopped. Remorse from her. She could feel what her words had done. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You don't want…it's different with you. You're not trying to … I'm sorry, Owen, I'm so sorry, I know that hurt."

I wasn't going to wallow, but it had hurt. I tried to be understanding. I'm sure I failed, but Human society is built on lies, right? "I…okay."

"Okay." She sniffed again. She was getting control over herself. "I…just wanted to know that you didn't hate me, okay? I'm getting another call. Travel chick, setting us up. Thank you, Mateo, you're a good friend."

She disconnected.

"Hurricane Lux," said Lir and I in unison.

"Girl's a damn wrecking ball," said Ruhk. "It's your Winnie, how you want to handle Adaobi, Mateo?"

"Battle stations."

Adaobi's little air car arrived. I hugged her when she hopped out. She gave me a cordial back pat. She was dignified, cold, even severe. But the grief was flowing, pouring like a waterfall.

"Let's get inside," I said. We entered the little bungalow the Pingsters had built.

Once we were alone, and nobody could see her, she began bawling, hugging me back in earnest. I couldn't understand what she was saying through her tears, but I patted her shoulders and said "Oh no," and "Oh how awful."

When she could speak clearly: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It's why we're here, Ms. Adaobi. You know, I figured something was up at breakfast."

"Me too," said Lir, poking his head in. "I'm so sorry, Ms. Adaobi. Want to watch Star Trek?"

She sniffed. She was getting herself together. It was impressive to watch. Soon it was like it never happened. She was still in pain, but it didn't show. "I want to watch Star Trek."

These smartphones never ceased to amaze. I could project Star Trek on the wall of my little living room, and she sat next to me on the little couch.

"This is a new show!" I shouted. "Oh man, what?"

She started petting Lir, who'd clambered into her lap. "Right. Okay after Sliceday it turned out anyone could make whatever they wanted, pretty much. Here, watch watch!"

It was Star Trek. You had a ship, a crew, they explored.

It wasn't in space. It was a flying ship that cruised over the ocean, encountering various civilizations and dealing with them. Sometimes they'd help the people they met, other times they'd run for their lives.

"Is this a reality show?" I asked, amazed.

"It is! They all wear the Federation uniforms, they have this crazy powerful ship they built, they just make a lot of videos and edit them together each week. It kicks ass!"

And it did kick ass. The captain of the ship was a Cazador named Deimos. She was funny and smart and short-tempered. The Chief Engineer was something called a Maker, a kind of sentient hermit crab that liked building and destroying things. There was a science officer Gardener, a Human medical lady.

It wasn't a well-constructed story. It was a lot more real than that. The Enterprise FoF met a civilization of sentient fungus, did something stupid, were attacked and barely escaped. It was riveting.

"Captain Deimos is always mouthing off," Adaobi said. "She starts shit that doesn't need to get started. Once she bit the ambassador from a porcupine-people city and almost died."

"Wow! Wow! …What's that," I asked her. "That's…you're getting hit."

Jolts of pain. Not part of the breakup, I could tell. Complaints. Emotional zaps, dozens of them hitting Adaobi. I realized I'd been feeling them from her for some time.

"Those are the things that bother people on my Winnie. As their mahout, their representative, I suppose, I run around fixing their problems. And they fix mine. It's called a community, you hot idiot." She grinned at me, red-eyed. "Sorry, you're not an idiot, just new to it all. I'll fix these in the morning. I'm allowed to have a break-up wallow now and then."

Light from outside. "Pizza's here," I said.

"Beer too?" Adaobi asked.

"Beer too."

Soon she was snoring on the couch.

"Well done, dudes," said Lir from her lap. "You too, Rebound." I was patted on the head by Mabruk, and Ruhk licked me on the face, rather horribly.

I lifted her, put her in my bed. She wasn't heavy; you'd think someone with so much responsibility and strength would be heavy, like a sack of iron bars.

She felt the pain of her…what, townspeople? Citizens? And acted on it. Making their lives better, their town stronger. Working together for a better life.

It sounded awful.

I put Lir under the covers next to her, tucked them both in. She put an arm around him as if he were a stuffed animal. He shot me the thumbs-up, shooed me away.

Rebound, eh?

The rest of us watched more Star Trek until I passed out on the couch.

I was awakened by my own yelling. The furry warmth of Ruhk leaned next to me while I went back to sleep. Nightmares again. Fire. Todd. Doctor Michelle. Lux. Fire.

The next day, the Covenant of Man had a new video out.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.