“Who ordered full evac?”
“Well, I did, but—”
“And who determined the station damage was irreparable?”
“Minerva…”
She pointed her finger at him. “There was no time, right? You had to make split-second decisions? Lives were on the line? Am I right?”
He glared at her, blinking rapidly and squeezing his eyelids shut as he pressed his fingers in circles at his temple. “Please stop talking for a second. You weren’t there; you don’t know what happened…”
“Send it to me! You have a vid of the whole thing. It would have started recording the second the alarm sounded and kept the prior buffered thirty minutes for context.”
“No, wireless went down on impact. It never got the signal to record.”
Minnie snorted. “Convenient.”
“Not really. Now listen to me a minute. I did start recording when I ordered evac…” Minnie was about to speak, but he held up a hand. “Yes, I ordered evac, but only after consulting with Aether. She agreed we didn’t have time to get everyone through the tube to the BH, undock, and reach anything close to a safe distance before the blast. Yes, maybe you or Zisa or Ang could have repaired cooling, but who knows how long it would’ve taken? Zisa was panicked and you were in quarters on the other side of the station. You didn’t make it to the EV until a minute before the station blew!”
Minnie was clenching her teeth. She didn’t want to hear anything more. He was right on every count, and she needed for him to be wrong. She needed to purge and to see his face betray his regrets.
“Why didn’t anyone come get me? Why was I the only one in quarters?”
“Everyone else was already up. Tom was in hygiene when the pod struck, but other than you and him, we were all in Wheel A or below. Another reason why the BH wasn’t an option… and Aether wanted to go get you, but she would have held up her EV, and Qin along with it. I promised her that I would wait for you. In fact, just before you showed up, I’d unstrapped and was on my way out to get you.”
Minnie didn’t buy it. “Really. To save me. The person that stole Aether away from you? Leaving you alone for the rest of your life?”
John closed his eyelids. He dug his knuckles in, rubbing near his fone.
That was too harsh…
But she wanted to hurt him. She wanted him to feel pain. Why should he get to sit there in a protective shell of rationalization and logic? A robot like him needed something long and pointed to pierce through the metallic exterior to the heart.
They sat in silence for a moment, John’s head hung between his knees. Minnie wondered if he was crying. She couldn’t tell anymore if she felt good or bad about the prospect of John Li tears. But she wouldn’t be apologizing either way.
John startled her with a sudden short laugh—a choked sort of outburst. It echoed through the cavern.
Weakly, he said, “I wanted to talk about food.” He chuckled quietly to himself.
“I’m sorry,” Minnie whispered. The words escaped despite her resistance.
“No… no you’re not. You have a lot of anger and frustration built up against me. It’s only natural it come out now.”
Minnie dropped her eyes to the powdery floor, the oddly unmoving shadow of the heater. As her forehead warmed, her mind had expected the random flicker of fire.
John went on, “You know, before Aether… before the two of you… you were the single highest source of complaints against me in the inbox and in group. Afterwards, well… you hardly ever say a word in group anymore. I guessed you felt bad, or believed that you’d won in some way.” He peered up at her with his bio eye, still squeezing the other shut and rubbing around his fone. “Plus, you got her. In-house therapy, right? I tried to tell you so many times, I’ve never harbored adversarial feelings about you. Even after Aether… That was all on me. My failures. My shortcomings. She stuck with me far longer than she should have. It hurt like hell, but I was happy that she found you. Surprised a bit, yes, that it was you…”
“And not Qin or Pablo or Tom?”
“I suppose. Though probably not why you’d guess. In reality, my relationship with her has been great since then. It was what we needed. To be the friends we were before one of us decided it should be something more.”
Minnie pulled the blanket up over her exposed shoulders. “So you’re saying you never miss her? The rest of her?”
“I’m… No, I’m not saying that. Of course there’s a… closeness, when it’s all out there. We don’t talk about certain things anymore—probably for fear of triggering the other.”
“Of course not.” Minnie observed a tenderness in him for the first time. Each of his words required herculean effort, but he was opening up nonetheless. She went on, “Aether is very maternal. I can imagine how that was a comfort sometimes. And something that wouldn’t be appropriate now.”
John glanced up at her and looked back down just as fast. He nodded and sighed.
Minnie swallowed. “I see it now. And not as a weapon—honestly. I see how lonely it must be for you. I’m sorry if I ever made it harder on you.” A thought suddenly popped in Minnie’s head and she was helpless to hold it back. “You’ve got vids of her though, don’t you? Gross stuff.”
John appeared stunned. “Vids… What? I wouldn’t—”
“Nevermind. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
The cave was quiet for a time, only the sounds of drips and drip echoes, their breathing, the heater’s low drone. Even with his head down, Minnie could see John wincing. He’d been nursing an apparent headache on his fone side.
Minnie broke the silence. “What’s wrong with your head?”
“Huh?” He looked up at her. She pointed at the fingers pressed into his temple, rubbing in circles. “Oh, right. Something wrong with my fone or housing. Not from evac, though. Been going on for a few weeks.”
“Does it go away if you shut down?” John nodded. Minnie flipped a palm upward. “So shut down.”
“Upgrade was on that supply pod. Two gens.”
“Bummer.” She peered around the cave, the silence growing louder with each second. “So… you wanted to talk about food?”
John nodded again, sucked in a deep breath, all too ready to think and talk about something else. He pulled his backpack to him. “We need to start day one meds. The EV water has sups, but I believe we still take the day one tab with three-fifty mils from our suits.”
“Two hundred mils is the minimum,” Minnie corrected. “We might want to ration until we check that sinkhole water.”
“That’s fine for now, sure. Tomorrow we’ll dive into those bars.”
“They’re chalk flavored, if I recall correctly.”
“Their creators were focused on concentrating calories and nutrients, not taste.”
“Cripes, John, it was a joke.”
“I know, and I appreciate the attempt at levity, but perhaps now isn’t the best time. We’ve got people up there, you know.”
Done. Oh, sweet mother of pearl. So done.
He studied her face. “We on the same page?”
She concealed her murderous ire with a deadpan he could never read. “Absolutely.”
“Good. Now, ingestion is going to be uncomfortable, regardless of flavor. Though I don’t think we’ll be able to taste for a couple weeks.” He ran a finger down his smooth, glossy tongue. Their taste buds had seemed to disappear after the first few weeks without solids. “We’ll have to be careful when we run out of calorie bars. Rely more on scents as far as spoiling and such goes. Obviously, we have multisensors for chemical content.”