Page 38 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

The A.I. addressed me.

“Me?” I pointed to my chest.

“Yes.” Silver nodded. “Preferably in private.” Her eyes cut across to Cyburn sitting beside me.

I glanced at him with a confused ‘I don’t know what this is about’ look.

He shrugged, wiped his hands off with a napkin, swallowed his last bite of fish and stood up.

“Be my guest,” he said and began walking away without asking for any explanation as to why Silver wanted to speak to me alone.

Silver sat down in the dent of sand that was previously occupied by Cyburn. She straightened her legs and crossed one ankle over the other, much like a human would. She clasped her hands together and folded them in her lap.

“What’s up?” I turned my head in her direction.

“I have something pressing on my mind that I need to get off my chest,” Silver explained.

This was another human phrase that set Silver apart from the other robots and made it easy to forget that she was a robot herself.

“Okay, no problem. What’s on your mind?”

“I understand that everything is starting to go back to normal, and fences are being mended,” Silver said, then added, “so to speak.”

I smiled. “Yes, I understand what you mean.”

“Because of this, I wanted to make sure that everything was okay between us,” Silver said.

“Between me and you?” I asked.

“Yes,” Silver clarified.

“Of course. I’m the one who put you back together.” I offered her a tender smile.

“I’ll always be appreciative of that fact,” Silver acknowledged.

“It was the least I could do,” I admitted. “Everyone on the crew respects and loves you. We were all a little shaken by what Amada did to you.”

Silver’s eyes narrowed and her features darkened. “Everyoneexceptfor a certain someone.”

Of course, I knew she was referring to Amada.

“You don’t need to worry about her anymore,” I said. “She’s long gone.”

Saying this left a sour taste in the back of my throat. It was still hard to comprehend Amada’s decent into madness and all the chaos she left stirring in her wake. I tried not to feel too guilty. After all, Amada was a direct participant in her own downfall.

“Amada and I were friends before everything happened.” There was a note of sadness in Silver’s voice. “Or so I thought.”

“I know.” I tried to give her a comforting smile, but Silver was staring out to sea.

Silver stared straight ahead at the ocean. It was one of the rare times that a monsoon wasn’t pouring down around us. I knew she enjoyed being in the sunshine and fresh air just as much as the rest of us did.

“Her betrayal has stayed with me longer than I hoped it would,” Silver confessed.

“That’s part of the problem, huh?” I asked in a gentle manner. “Being a self-aware A.I. who is capable of having emotions comes with its set of pros and cons.”

“The emotions are hard to manage,” Silver attested.

“I can change up your settings if you want me to,” I offered.

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