Page 17 of Kiss of Steel

He got to his feet.

She opened the door. “Holy crap, it’s cold!”

The temperature had dropped, but the chill felt refreshing after the oppressive heat of the unit. He started to follow her onto the porch, but she stalled out in the doorway. “Don’t forget your coat.”

“I’ll be okay without it.”

“It must be near freezing. The sun is setting. It’s going to get really cold after dark.” She shut the door and faced him. Her chin jutted out.

“It’s not far to the mess hall.”

“You’re such a man!” She huffed. “Get your coat.”

A flood of emotion rushed through him—she’d called him a man disdainfully, not realizing what a compliment it was to be called a man in any context. Then she’d had the audacity to issue him an order. He took orders from no one; those days were over. He would never bow to anyone again. However, it floored him Honoria appeared to care if he got cold. He’d never mattered to anyone. Solutions had treated him like a piece of equipment to be used and then literally stored on a shelf until needed again.

He grabbed his hand-me-down jacket and shrugged into it. It smelled like her.

In tacit understanding, they backtracked the path they’d taken to get to their unit. Swaths of crimson and orange streaked the sky, the color so brilliant, even the white domiciles blushed peachy-pink.

Walking beside her, he felt off-kilter, awkward, out of his element. Normally, if he didn’t need to speak, he didn’t. “The atmosphere and clouds are scattering the short blue wavelengths of light, leaving the longer reddish wavelengths visible to the eye,” he said.

With an amused expression, she tossed her head. The starset had added flaming highlights to her short, gleaming hair. “Is that your way of saying it’s a pretty starset?”

Not as pretty as you.Shocked by the unbidden ideation, he realized he did find her attractive. He’d never considered human beings as pleasing in appearance. He noted the symmetry or lack thereof of their features, face shape, blemishes, pigmentation, the hue of their irises. Height, weight. All the details that made them unique and identifiable individuals yet still unremarkable and forgettable. But there was something memorable about Honoria.

“It is…colorful.” He had to say something.

“It will be night when we finish dinner. It will be dark.”

He floundered for a reply. “Yes, it gets dark at night.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

He’d been trying to converse. Why was talking to her so much more difficult than speaking to anyone else? He had no difficulty engaging with his targets; however, those conversations had a purpose—distract them so he could move in for the kill. He and other cyborgs discussed their missions, but little else. What was there to talk about? Only with Fury had he developed a rapport. In truth, he had very little experience with the kind of small talk humans favored. So much human interaction seemed to be much ado about nothing. “No. I wouldn’t do that.”

She narrowed her eyes but then seemed to relax. “My thought was that it will probably get colder.”

Hewasmore comfortable wearing a coat. And when a strong gust of icy wind tugged at the garment, he fastened it up with satisfaction. “No doubt,” he replied, and then added with uncharacteristic amusement, “Fortunately, we have bricks made of shit.”

She giggled, and then he laughed, too, his rumble rusty and rough. He laughed less often than he spoke. “You should have seen your face when Phibious explained what theherb cakeswere.” He grinned.

“That’s a euphemism if I ever heard one,” she said. “When I get paid, the first thing I’m going to buy is a set of tongs. Depending on how many credits I have on my card, I may get a set sooner. But I need to wait to see how many credits I have and how much food costs.”

They left the neighborhood and passed through the gap to enter the quad. With no barriers to impede it, wind whipped and whistled across the square. At the far end, the bunkhouse and mess hall glowed, lit up for the fast-approaching night.

“Brr.” She shivered.

He felt ashamed by his actions in the conveyance. “You can let your teeth chatter. It won’t bother me.”

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that.” She picked up the pace.

They entered into a din of sound, of clanging pots and alien tongues, and unfamiliar, albeit not unpleasant, cooking odors.

“Good thing we got here when we did. The place is filling up,” she commented as they waited to reach the check-in. “At least, the lines are moving fast.”

Two lines funneled to one check-in/pay station. Manning both sides, aquadrubrachianbiped worked fast and furiously, two of her arms swiping pay cards on the right, the other two scanning cards on the left.

“Can you tell me how much a meal costs?” She handed over her card.

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