“Want to come to the company hangar later today?”

  They’re eating breakfast together on day five, in what Lanis already considers an irrevocable ritual, when Mirem casually poses the question between bites of fruit.

  Lanis can barely swallow her bite of oatmeal. “Seriously? Are you going to put me in a Suit? Do I need to sign anything first? Liability waivers?”

  Mirem has to cover her mouth so that food doesn’t spray out from her laughter. “Of course I’m not going to put you in a Suit!” She pauses, considering. “Anyway, the master armorer does that.” She barely gets the words out, nearly choking on her own mirth.

  “God, you do think you’re funny, don’t you?” Lanis says, but she’s laughing too.

  They’ve debriefed their days over dinner— that’s what Lanis likes to call it, after her years in Fleet— and she told Mirem about researching the job application process. She opened up her Admin ID Profile after a deep meditation on the second day and was reminded once again that she was medically discharged with a rank of Cadet, Status D. She was also awarded dual master's degrees in Artificial Intelligence Pairing Logistics and Physics, with minors in Administration, Cybersecurity, and Philosophy.

  Lanis lets Mirem shake her head in disbelief when she pings over her resume.

  “Right, um, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding a job. Pairing Logistics, awarded by the Orbital College of Science? Dear God. Do you know that their graduation rate is like ten percent? Any corp with half a brain will interview you, if nothing else than because they’ll be damn curious. We can practice the interviews,” Mirem says, her voice trailing off in wonder, glancing at Lanis with even more respect, if such a thing was even possible. She shakes a fork at her. “You’ll crush it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bidding war. God, I’d love to see that.”

  Lanis grimaces. Part of her wants to let Mirem think it’s that easy. She lets the fantasy of a corp bidding war linger for a moment, slowly chewing. Then she swallows, and points out the problem.

  “Yeah, I wish it was that easy. But do you see the ‘Status: D’? After my rank? That’s what’s going to give me problems. It’s sort of a,” Lanis waves her hand, unsure of how to explain it— “black mark.”

  Mirem frowns. “I’ve never heard of that before… what is it?”

  Lanis sighs. “It means….” Lanis begins, and hesitates. How to explain, without sounding crazy? “It means, like, ‘damaged goods.’ It means, ‘inquire further’ before hiring. They told me it would give me trouble, in their words. I’m about ninety percent sure that they did it as a way to try to get me to stay within Fleet, in some role. A sort of, ‘stay with us or you’ll be scrubbing toilets’ threat.” Lanis tries to shrug, as if it doesn’t matter.

  Mirem sits back with her arms crossed, and shakes her head at the clear injustice of it all. She then leans forward, speaking with an intensity that surprises Lanis.

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  “Look, if you could just get to a practical exam, that might not matter. I’m sure you would ace that, what with your AI training. It might seem like Fleet is all powerful, but you haven’t seen a corp sniffing out talent. Trust me, they can overlook almost anything…” Mirem says, trailing off, her mind drifting to some unpleasant memories.

  Practical exam. Left unsaid is that the last time Lanis was in an AI pairing she basically lost her mind. Then again, that was with a Jupiter-class AI mind under emergency protocols. It was the Entity and the Warp that gave her the psychotic break, not the Demeter. Right? Right.

  Still, Lanis thinks, she hasn’t touched a near-equivalent AI since, and she’s nervous, despite her newfound mental stability, or maybe because of it. The fleet doctors said there probably wouldn’t be an issue, to just take it slow, and let her mind heal. Probably? What do you mean probably? She remembers asking a tall, severe looking doctor. Oh, not more than one in five that you won’t make a full recovery regarding your AI-pairing abilities, he said dryly, as if that was supposed to be reassuring. Her face must have said something, because he quickly added, Quite good odds, all things considered.

  She’s been thinking about that conversation a lot recently.

  Lanis and Mirem have also discussed the Arena Games, Lanis peppering Mirem with more questions over every meal they share. She’s been reluctant, Lanis can tell, to bring it up again after that first night, after finding out what she has about Lanis’ past. It’s almost as if Lanis isn’t just some prospective Versk client anymore, lured in with sex.

  Still, Lanis has been insistent. She wants to see Versk, see the Armored Suits, and hopefully even the AIs.

  Which brings her back to the question posed over breakfast on day five of their strange, budding relationship.

  “Well, I’d be thrilled to see where you work,” Lanis says, carefully spooning another bite of oatmeal into her mouth, though it’s too late to cover up her excitement. “I feel like Versk is this other lover that you have. Not that, you know, whatever,” she adds.

  Mirem rolls her eyes. “You make it sound like I’m there every day. I only visit the actual hangar when I’m taking a prospective client on a tour, or when my boss asks me to drag along a VP to show them where all the money is going. It’s pretty much all 5-tonne Suits there, along with a few one tonne Corp security units. Which reminds me!” Mirem winks, and springs up to the kitchen counter, rummaging in a drawer for a moment. “Here. I remember it’s your favorite!” She tosses a protein packet over the counter to Lanis.

  Lanis catches the packet and lifts it up, running her fingers across the blocky Murkata-Heisen logo that’s proudly stamped across the foil. Underneath is the food division’s mascot, a fat brown cat with eyes squinting in contentment.

  Mirem continues, beaming: “Murkata-Heisin bought a twelve-percent stake in the company last month. The geniuses in the mining division are killing it, and Murkata wanted in. Anyway, what matters to us is that they sent over a couple of ten-tonne Suits— outdated models by their standard, but still great tech. Something for the engineering team to play around with or even salvage for parts. God, I don’t even want to know how drunk my boss had to get with their team to swing that,” she says, shaking her head in wonder. She looks back to Lanis, clapping her hands.

  “So, you’re up for a day trip?”

  Lanis bites into the protein packet, sticky strawberry tang flooding into her mouth. The taste is reassuring.

  “Let’s go.”