Chapter 5

FOR EVERY TEN THOUSAND OF US, THERE WAS ONLY A SINGLE ONE OF THEM, BUT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A MILLION TO ONE FOR ALL IT MATTERED, BECAUSE THEY SIMPLY WANTED TO LIVE MORE THAN WE DID AND THEY PROVED IT IN EVERYTHING THEY DID.

- GYSGT. MADISON MARSHALL, MEMOIR.

.•° ✿ °•.

Where does one find a cherry-headed asymmetrically inclined bombshell of a childhood memory, on a station this size? Where was I even going to start? How was I going to find her? Lilt may have been in her quarters, but I didn’t know where she’d have been assigned them, or if she was even here long enough to have her own. She could have been on the promenade, but I hadn’t the slightest idea what she’d be there for, and the promenade ran almost the entire length of the station. She could have had a duty posting, but I had no idea who to ask about that because she was from another vessel. I had to know why she was looking for me, though, because I didn’t know when she was leaving.

At the end of my search in my head and before I even began the search with my body, I found Lilt in the place I knew that I logically would: at the pool.

She met with the edge of the pool when she saw me, the way I had when I’d seen her, and I couldn’t help but see the parallel. The difference was that when I’d gotten out of the water to greet her, I’d been glistening and underdeveloped, dripping water unevenly and awkwardly on the floor between my toes, like an inelegant child. When Lilt pulled herself from the pool, every drop of water raced along her skin, chasing one another over bony hips and skin pulled taut over her lean and toned form. Where I was cute, angelic, dollish, and child-like, Lilt was everything antithetical to me: she was elegant, she was refined, she was a punk rocker from the days of yore and a waifish model all rolled into one, accentuated by more metal in her navel and just above one hip.

I’d been planned for function; Lilt had crafted her body in pursuit of form.

In short, she was beautiful. And it was hard not to stare.

“You came in on another vessel,” I semi-accused her, “why didn’t you say so?” I had my cheeks puffed in entitlement when I asked her the question, as though the very action of asking it held her to a strict requirement to answer. I got this way when I was annoyed; I wore petulance like Lilt wore nonconformity - beautifully and naturally. She smiled, leaned down, and booped my nose with the wet tip of her finger.

“You never asked, Skipper.” I scrunched up my face and puffed out my cheeks in response, like the energy of her touch had triggered some kind of allergic reaction. “Besides which,” she continued, “shouldn’t you have known that? Don’t Skippers know everything?”

“Obviously we don’t.” I grumbled, looking away from her and down, because she’d clearly caught me at a disadvantage. Why was she making me feel this way? What gave her that right? “I don’t care, it doesn’t matter, it’s whatever, I just wanted to make sure you got back to your...ship?” I studied her reaction, then sputtered a correction: “I mean station. Station, right? You’re from another station? I mean I just wanted to make sure you got back safe.”

She looked at me, stepped out of the pooling water at her feet with a smirk, and began to walk away.

“Where are you going? Don’t you walk away from me, Lilt!” How had this been the girl that had freaked out over my limb malfunction? She was so peppy and fangirly earlier, and then she was so oblivious, and now she was so... she was so...

“You’re not cool, Lilt! You’re... you’re inconsistent! You’re inconsistent, and inconsiderate! Inconsiderately inconsistent, that’s what you are!”

“And you’re a brat,” she countered, “who thinks that nobody else but her has the right to be a Skipper.”

“So! So what?” I was following up behind her, my little legs plenty athletic enough to keep up, but my gait a little bit wobbled and waddled by comparison; just a reflection on my proportions more than anything else.

“So what if I don’t think you should be a Skipper. You weren’t even honest with me about where you were from, and Skippers don’t lie so whatever.”

“But you just lied?” She stopped for that, with her arms crossed over her bikini top and a bemused smile, “You just lied right now, because Skippers lie all the time. Half of what the program is about is lying, Cadence. Oh, sorry, what was the term? Controlling the Flow of Information?”

Why was she being so... so... impossible?

“You’re not here to be a Skipper, are you, Lilt?”

“I am not.” Contrary to our first meeting, she was now the calm and collected one, and I was the one freaking out.

“I should report you to Skipper Command...” I mumbled.

“You mean the same Skipper Command that directed you to interview me, Cadence? It’s almost like they know who I am, why I’m here, and wanted you to meet me.”

“Don’t even act that way, I saw the way you reacted when my...” I gestured to my arm discretely, because taking about this in public was a pretty severe faux pas to begin with, “you know. And you didn’t know anything about being a Skipper, you didn’t know anything about me. So just stop, alright? Stop with your games, with your... your cute fricking smile, stop looking so hot, and stop acting like you know anything okay because you don’t!”

“You think I’m hot, Cadence?”

“Stop with that smile!” I stomped my foot, and she laughed brighter than the color of her hair. “I said that Skipper Command knew about me. I didn’t say I knew anything about Skippers.”

“But you do!”

“I do?”

“Know things about Skippers!”

“Do I?”

She was so infuriating.

“If you don’t know anything about Skippers, then why are you even here? Am I being redeployed? Is that what this is about? Because this station needs me, Lilt, I’m the best-“

She put her finger to my lips and stole my voice with a gentle gesture mirrored on her own.

“Discretion is the greater part of valor, Cadence. Let’s talk, alright? Somewhere that maybe isn’t the most socially active place on your station. Controlling the Flow of Information, that’s right, isn’t it?” Yeah, it was. But I couldn’t even nod. “Let me buy you a coffee.”

“Skippers aren’t allowed coffee.” I mumbled, “but Blackcurrant Tea sounds nice...” Lilt laughed one bright laugh, putting her arm around my shoulder, leaving cold wet residue on my skin that tingled and fizzled on my nerves like it was dancing through every single pore and fiber of my body. The warmth of her touch itself only added an electric charge to the wetness, like every bit of skin was irritated, but that every itch joined out and held hands and left only a very not-unpleasant buzz across the surface that shivered down into my core.

“No more lying to me, Lilt.” I said, quietly, as though I could focus on ultimatums right now.

“Only truthing, I promise.” Was her reply, as though that was even a word. She was so dumb.

“Who are you?” It was such a simple question.

“You know who I am.” And a useless answer.

“I meant why are you here?” Something I longed to actually know.

“Let’s get to the promenade first.” She was smug in an entirely different manner to the way that Perry was, and it made me feel things that were completely and utterly different as well.

Actually. It made me feel like I didn’t know how to feel.

I didn’t want to tell her no, I didn’t want to tell her I couldn’t come with her because I had to do something first, I didn’t want to take her hand off my shoulder, I didn’t want to be apart from her for reasons I could never have explained. This level of attachment wasn’t my normal response to someone, especially not someone I’d been so quick to dismiss earlier in the day - like most Skippers, I went out of my way to not get attached to people. But she spoke to me, not across to me, not down to me, not up at me. She spoke to me, and my perfectly binary rhythm in my chest dictated that my ears listen.

I think even without the water on my skin, I would have felt just as electric; that electricity thrumming didn’t nullify my need to handle an obligation before I could take her up on her of tea-and-knowledge, though.

“I need to check in with my Handler before I can come to the promenade, maybe I could just meet you there?” I suggested, not being at all truthful to the woman I’d just demanded no more lies from.

“Your Handler, Cadence?” Her tone said curious, but her smile said tease.

“My SpecTech,” I frowned and clarified, “he’s going to be worried if I don’t check in.”

“Well, if you say so. But don’t keep me waiting, alright? Blackcurrant Tea with milk, right?”

“No milk. I like my tea bitter, like I am.” I think the brightness of her laugh distracted me enough from the fact she was mocking me with it, and I stuck my tongue out at her, one part of me in body and in gesture that would always be human.

Lilt went ahead to the stairwell, and I waited for the door to click shut with a heavy clunk. Then I exhaled. I had to get back to my room. Because it had been a long day. And my diaper was very, very, wet.