Spark and Tether, page 19
Sacheri sighed.
“I know how stressful you find boredom,” Jin said.
“You’ve spent way too much time with Paradis,” he said, and turned back to watching the stars.
Chapter 23
Sacheri promised himself he would not sulk while recovering but broke the promise before they’d even reached the apartment. They landed long after the city had gone to sleep, and while Jin called for drones to carry their bags, Sacheri stared resentfully at the night sky and the faintly visible trails of ships leaving Semiz orbit for the nearest gate.
“You okay?” Jin asked.
Sacheri shrugged.
“Almost home,” Jin said.
Sacheri remembered the conversation he had had with Jara about Jin caring for the ailing and wounded at Orinus Station, as their parents’ condition deteriorated and left them alone in the universe. He wondered how Jin had managed, even with Jara’s patient kindness, and if they’d kept this facade of good cheer the whole time.
He followed Jin up the back stairs with an ache in his throat. Jin glanced back at him as they pressed a palm to the lock, as if afraid he might not be there, and then stepped aside as the door swung open. Sacheri brushed past only to stop a step inside. The ache dissipated. He turned to Jin, who was blinking suspiciously fast, and then he surprised them both with a sob.
“Oh, my heart,” Jin whispered, and pulled him close with one arm as they swung the door shut behind them. Sacheri hid in their shoulder and wept, while Jin stroked his back, murmuring small comforts.
“What if I never come back?” he cried. “What if it never changes?”
“Everything changes,” Jin said.
Sacheri snorted and pulled his head away. “That’s not—”
Jin’s stare was steady.
He hated how disarming that was. “Okay, I’m okay,” he said. “Let’s have a drink on the balcony first.”
Jin had already set the kitchen on making a set of warm restoratives for them. Neta had been here, as evidenced by the large bowl of fruit on the counter, fresh food in the pantry and cooler, and flowers on the bedside tables. The kindness of it undid him, and Sacheri started to cry again, quietly this time. Jin brushed the tears from his cheeks and led him to the balcony, handing him his favorite wrap to keep the chill off. pulling the wrap close around his shoulders.
Sacheri took deep, steadying breaths as he stared over the tree line at the night sky. Jin put a mug in his hand—one of a pair of heavy stoneware pieces they’d collected during their first stay on Semiz. He had always liked the soft flecks of silver in the rosy gold finish, but for the first time he noticed a thin, distinct swirl of violet down one side and across the base. He could not look away from it.
“…a few days reacclimation time,” Jin was saying.
Sacheri slowly put the mug on the balcony table, turning it so the violet was no longer visible. “Sorry? I must be tired.”
“Of course you are. I was saying that I’d asked Cord and Neta to give us a few days before visiting. I promised I’d stop by in the morning, though.”
Sacheri nodded distractedly. “Sure. Thank you.”
Jin sipped from their mug, the match to his own. There was no violet in it that Sacheri could see. He picked up his own again, but did not look at it. He watched the trees, and the faint shadows they cast. Even though he’d slept for most of the trip from Danae, he was exhausted. “I think I’ll go to sleep.”
Jin took the mug from him. “I’ll be in soon,” they said.
Sacheri woke in the morning to a silent home and a small breakfast tray on his bedside table. He sat up, gingerly stretched his arms and legs and pulled the covers higher around his chest. Jin had left the drapes closed, and the room was nearly dark enough to send him back to sleep. He closed his eyes, reaching for his synplants, feeling his way though each edge of awareness. The secret hope he had held that returning home would somehow reawaken them had been an absurd one, anyway. He knew that. He opened his eyes again and opened his implant to comms. Paradis would worry if she couldn’t ping him.
He heard Jin set something on the kitchen counter. He couldn’t sense how they were feeling. It irked him to have to ask.
Jin leaned in through the doorway. He flinched, thinking they had moved entirely too quietly across that room.
“Good morning,” Jin said. “Would you like anything?”
Sacheri shook his head. “It’s too quiet,” he said.
Jin waved the windows open, allowing street sound in. “Better?”
Sacheri sighed. Jin sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to crowd him. He tried to think of something reassuring to say.
“You’re going to need time,” Jin said.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Paradis said the recovery protocols should arrive in the next cycle,” Jin said. “Maybe rest until then.”
“You can’t stay here for a standard year,” Sacheri said.
“Why not?”
He scoffed. “COR is not going to grant you—”
“I don’t need COR’s permission,” Jin said. “I won’t go anywhere until you are ready.”
Sacheri wished desperately for the synplants to read the look on Jin’s face. Their brown eyes were uncharacteristically hard, and the little muscles in the back of their jaw were tensing and releasing, all of the easy confidence he loved so much was replaced by some other feeling as sharp as a blade. He could not name it.
They had not talked about the event itself since landing on Danae. Sacheri imagined how it would have felt if they had been in opposite places, and what he would have done to get Jin to safety, what he would give up to not let that happen again. He raised Jin’s hand to his lips and held it there. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“We’ll see what Oversight says about recovery, and decide from there what to do next.”
Sacheri did not want to decide anything, ever again. “I’m going to sleep a little longer,” he said.
He did little but sleep for several days. Jin brought him food and kept visitors at the door and checked on him regularly, but did not once ask him for anything.
Sacheri woke on the sixth or seventh day—he’d lost count, and did not care—with a start from a dream. All that stayed with him was the physical memory of a rope in his hand, as if he had been following a cliff trail with bridges. He was breathing fast.
Jin’s head appeared in the doorway. “Hey.”
Sacheri reached out his hand, pulling them closer when they took it. “I…I think I had a dream.”
Jin sat cross-legged next to him. “Yeah?”
Sacheri smiled weakly. “It sounds silly. But…”
“What do you remember?”
Sacheri studied them, from the straight, even brows, to the generous curve of their lips and angled jaw. He did not want to share the dream, fragmented and meaningless as it was. The despair might be contagious; he needed Jin to be free of it. “I…I don’t remember specifics. I just felt it, when I woke. It’s the first since—” But they wouldn’t know, of course; he’d never talked about the way his dreams were shaped by the synplants processing, how he used dream states to rejuvenate, or how he hadn’t dreamed since—. He wasn’t sure if he had even realized it himself, until it was gone. “It’s—never mind.”
“Okay.” Jin kissed him gently on the cheek. “Hungry?”
Sacheri ignored the twinge of guilt in his belly. “Let’s go out.”
“Good idea,” Jin said. “I can’t hold Neta and Cord off much longer.”
Wandering the streets of the city felt almost normal. He and Jin stopped downstairs, where Neta hugged him hard and insisted they see Cord for breakfast, so they walked to the market square where Cord usually set his stall, talking little.
Jin was more at ease now, too. Though they glanced at him too frequently to mask their concern, they moved with more of their usual confident grace. He did not want to worry them any more than he already had, but he could not shake the heavy feeling that had followed the dream. It clung to him as they walked. He worried everything would be like this now: burdensome, loaded, dragging.
Cord led them to a small table tucked behind the tents, out of sight of the street and shaded from the late morning sun by the next stall over. Sacheri was grateful when he did not ask him anything and set two large plates of food in front of them and patted Sacheri’s shoulder warmly. Jin bowed low in thanks, and Cord patted them, too.
Jin looked up from their plate at Sacheri and gave him a small smile. “I’m glad you came out with me,” they said. “I missed you.”
Sacheri’s heart twisted in his chest, but he smiled back with all the hope he could manage. “Thank you,” he said.
Sacheri was sunning himself on the balcony when Jin leaned out through the glass door. “Paradis just pinged—you available?”
He sighed, and tipped the wide brim sun hat back so he could look at Jin for clues as to whether this was a real ping or just another check in on his emotional status, which had ranged from sullen to morose to despondent for the last several days. Jin had taken to directing him to the balcony where he could at least get fresh air and warm sun and a good breeze off the park.
Jin was calm, as usual, and he read nothing useful in it.
“I turned off comms to nap,” he said. “Does she want a video call? Or just a message?”
Jin looked out over the trees and then back to him. “Message is fine. The recovery protocol has been prepared. She’s bringing it personally.”
Sacheri sat up. “Now?”
“She’ll be here by dinner,” Jin said. They were watching him a little too carefully.
“Did she say what the protocol was?”
Jin watched him stand, reaching out a hand to steady him, which he ignored. “She didn’t. I wouldn’t have understood if she had.”
“She could give me a little time to prepare,” Sacheri huffed.
“You could turn your comms on,” Jin said mildly, pulling him close for a hug. “What do you need to prepare?”
He didn’t know. He said as much, muffled against Jin’s shoulder. Jin had found a handful of skysiders in the city and joined them in their favorite past-time, which was early morning exertion in the park as the sun rose. Sacheri did not know what would possess people to sweat that much that early, but he liked the new roundness in Jin’s shoulders. He said that, too.
Jin pressed their lips to his head. “I have no idea what you just said,” they said to him.
Sacheri raised his head. “I said you need a shower, and I might as well join you.”
Jin pulled him into the house. “That’s a better plan than sulking,” they said.
Chapter 24
Sacheri was on the balcony watching the trees when his ‘plant alerted him to Paradis walking across the courtyard in front of Neta’s shop. He waited until he heard her on the stairs below him before going to the door.
She was wrapped in a cream-colored cloak and matching head cover, leaving little visible other than her dark eyes and bright red lips. Sacheri hugged her tightly. “Aren’t we dramatic today?” Paradis held him close. Scanning, he knew. “When would you like to start?”
“Oh, please, at least put down your things and catch your breath,” he said, passing her to Jin, who took her bag as they hugged her.
“Welcome, Par.”
“Thank you. This place is wonderful.”
Sacheri had filled the rooms with local textiles—plush rugs, intricate woven tapestries, felted blankets tossed over every seat. Jin, like most skysiders, kept few material possessions, but they had developed an appreciation for North Miz artists of a particular style, and they covered the walls with their multimedia collages. Some of them glowed in the low light, casting skyscapes across the room.
“Your room is here.” Jin led her through the entry alcove and placed her bag on the bedside table. “Work room is there.” They pointed across the alcove.
Paradis turned back to the main room and stepped through to their bedroom and the wide glass doors overlooking the park. “This balcony! You sent pictures, I know. But…wow.”
Sacheri grinned at her back as Jin put an arm around him. Paradis turned and saw them, and he caught a flash of relief cross her face.
“You both look well,” she said. “I’ve been worried.”
Sacheri gestured to the balcony chairs, and she took one—the one he’d bought specifically for her visits. He settled into his own favorite, beside Jin’s, who had ducked back inside. “I’m fine, other than the obvious.”
“Tell me,” she said.
“I’m getting used to it,” he said, and cringed inside at the bitterness in his voice.
Paradis glanced up as Jin returned with another round of drinks.
“This is what the locals like,” Jin said. “It will warm you.”
“No changes?”
He thought of the dream. No more had come, but he clung to the hope it had brought him. “No.”
Paradis took a long drink. “This is delicious,” she said to Jin.
“Everything here is delicious,” they said.
“You’ve adjusted to life on the ground, then?”
Jin smiled shyly at Sacheri, who could not keep from smiling back. “I had help.”
“Good to see the two of you are the same as ever,” Paradis said, and Sacheri caught an undercurrent he didn’t understand.
“What does the protocol look like?” He asked.
“Standard rejuvenation process with a little extra memory probe.” Paradis was looking out over the park, toward the water line of the horizon.
“That won’t do much with dead synplants.”
Paradis didn’t respond right away.
Jin shifted slightly in their seat, and he considered how much he needed to explain; Jin had seen most of the usual synchronist systems at work in one way or another. This one sounded like a platitude, a pretense of action, with little hope of any real effect. He might spend eternity like this, unable to feel anything beyond the numb creeping up his limbs, threatening to consume him, leaving him forever out of reach.
“The theory is that the shock you received may have created a block between the standard implants and the synplants, which we may dislodge and resolve with this process. You were not yet stable enough physically or emotionally when you were on Danae, or we might have done it then.”
“You’ve talked to the mentors, then.”
“I have talked to the mentors.”
Jin’s head tilted slightly. Paradis saw it and took a deep breath, giving Sacheri the opportunity to explain first—to set the boundary around Jin’s involvement. Funny, he thought, how little Jin showed on the surface, and how the three of them were attuned anyway. He said, “The mentors are Oversight’s guiding council. They are the most experienced and most trusted of us. They would know if there were other syns who had similar experiences.”
“Oversight runs on a structure that reflects COR’s influence on the early operations but does not mimic it exactly,” Paradis added. “We are not required to adhere to any instructions or decisions.”
Sacheri snorted. “But we can be cast aside, nonetheless.”
“By what authority?” Jin asked.
“COR has no authority there but funding,” Paradis said.
“It sounds bad,” Sacheri said. COR did not hold fiscal power over any independent organization, technically speaking, but some arrangements allowed for unofficial influence.
“It’s worse than it sounds,” Paradis said, and placed her drink on the table. “But it’s what we have, and they are mostly benevolent.”
“Helps to have status,” Sacheri noted.
Paradis grunted. “That may not last much longer. My grandmother is not well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jin said.
“I’m sorry you have to be here,” Sacheri said.
Paradis gave him an annoyed look.
“Another?” Jin asked, taking her bottle from the table.
“No,” she said. “Thank you, though. Would you like to start, Sacheri?”
He nodded. The light was fading, and the sky had begun to shift toward night. It would be some time before the stars came, but he’d found it uncomfortable to watch the light change lately. “Let’s start. Would you like to change?”
Paradis’s hand brushed his shoulder as she slipped past him. “Yes. I’ll meet you in the work room. Why don’t you prepare Jin, while I get ready?”
Jin let Paradis past, and then leaned against the doorway, ankles crossed, arms clasped loosely at the elbows. It was a little too casual, and Sacheri recognized it at once for the uncertainty it was.
“There’s no risk,” he said.
Jin swallowed, and a muscle twitched under their ears. The constant current of worry would be sweet, he thought, if it wasn’t so indicative of all of the hurt he’d already caused. Sacheri took Jin’s hands and wrapped them around his back, pulling them close against him as he did so. The worry lifted, a little.
“It’s going to look a little like… well, probably like what you saw on our first run. I’ll be in a bit of a trance, but Paradis will be fully connected and in control of it.”
“Hm,” Jin murmured.
Sacheri put his hands on either side of Jin’s face and gently traced the curve of their neck with his fingers, and they shivered in response. He brought their faces together and dropped his voice to a whisper.
“We’re all built with safeguards. She can retrieve and guide repair, I can withdraw at any time, and we can exchange roles at will. That mechanism is an addition to my standard implant, and doubled in the synplants.”
