The Watcher [Alien Nation #1]

Chapter 24

Avery sat at Dr. Anderson's workbench, her cybernetic arm resting on the table and her organic one clenched in a fist on her lap. All her panels were open, giving her arm the appearance of an exotic, metallic flower.

Beside her, Anderson worked in silence. There was some minor damage to the arm's outer casing—really, she'd had worse scrapes from falling out of high-up maintenance tunnels—but other than that, she was unhurt. From the way Lukas was acting, though, anyone would have thought she was on the verge of a cascade failure. He'd started out his repairs by ranting about the importance of 'listening to people who knew,' by which she assumed he meant himself, and had since fallen into a brooding silence while he worked. Avery could only hope it wasn't the silence before another storm. She knew she'd done the right thing by going to Earth with Jules, but guilt ate away at her anyway. Stars knew what Lukas must have thought when she disappeared.

After ten more minutes, the silence became unbearable. If she didn't say anything to break it, she'd start to fidget, and that was never a good idea when you had someone poking around your inner circuitry—someone who was already angry at you as it was.

"On a scale of one to imminent aneurysm," she said, "how mad are you?"

Lukas slowly raised his eyes to her, as if mildly surprised that she had the balls to speak to him at all. "Losing consciousness," he said, voice completely flat.

Avery cringed. Now that she was looking him in the face, she could see how his eyes were bloodshot, the slightest hint of shadow beneath them. His normally clean-shaven face was rough with the beginnings of stubble, and while his hair usually framed his face in neat waves, it was now sticking up at the back, as if he'd just rolled out of bed. He was a mess, and it was her fault. Mostly.

She waited a moment, and sure enough, more followed. Best to let him get it out of the way now, she thought, instead of letting him stay angry at her.

"What you did was monumentally stupid and reckless, Council orders or not. It was Trentino's fight, and if the Council had ordered her to risk her life to keep us all safe then so be it. And Erri'oytuu—it's a wonder the ghraals didn't all kill themselves before getting off that dust-bowl they call a home world, it's like they think they're invincible because of a bit of natural armour. If he thought he was capable of helping Trentino on her suicide mission, that's his business." Avery opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off with a withering look. "But you, Avery? For stars' sake, you're a machine! How can logic and reason and basic common sense escape you so entirely? Going to a planet besieged by hostile unknowns, all for an objective you had no personal stake in? I'm trying to work out if you had a malfunction somewhere, because that sort of glitch needs to be eliminated now."

Avery sighed. She wanted to be sorry, but he was making it very difficult. "It wasn't a glitch, Lukas. I'm not broken; I knew exactly what I was doing. I didn't do it just to piss you off or put myself in danger for no reason. Jules needed to extract the data core from a crashed ship—she needed me."

He watched her intensely, as if he knew that wasn't the whole story, but to Avery's relief, he didn't push it. "How did it feel?" he said eventually. "Being away from the Hub? That was the part I was most worried about. The thought of you out there alone in the galaxy made me feel sick with worry."

"It was... strange. And sad. But also refreshing. I've always thought of Earth as the place where my mum died, where I became this." She jerked her head at her arm, which still sat half-disassembled in front of her. "But it's more than that. I only saw a tiny part of it, a single street and a little island, but it was beautiful. The sky went on forever—with an obvious exception. There were wild birds in the trees, and real wind, and tiny bugs everywhere. I hated it at the time, because of the memories, but looking back...it was pretty awesome."

"Hm. And now that never-ending sky is swarming with hostile vessels, those birds will probably end their lives in the jaws of a cat, and those insects will spread diseases to the Terrans if Erri'oytuu did not eat them before they got the chance. Earth is a brutal planet, Avery." He shook his head. "You of all people should know that. It's a wonder nothing awful happened."

Avery hated that he was holding her arm so firmly in place, otherwise she would have left right there. "I trust Erri with my life," she said. "Only two people have earned that from me, and the other is you. I don't know what your problem with him is." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew they weren't true. She knew exactly what Lukas's problem was, and she couldn't believe she hadn't seen it earlier.

He was jealous.

Lukas sighed and wiped some coolant off his hands with a rag, then started sealing her arm back up. "I remember the exact moment I found out about your mother's death. I was sitting right here, and they told me through an email. An email! I'd already promised her I'd look after you—you had no other family, no idea who your father was or his whereabouts. I never actually thought I'd be entrusted with your care."

"I've always looked after myself."

"Because that was the way you seemed to want it, yes. But I was always looking out for you. Seeing you make a stupid, rash decision like that, it made me wonder if I'd failed you somehow. If I should have been there for you more."

Avery struggled for a reply. Lukas had never seemed like a parental figure to her—she'd known he'd been friends with Olivia Williams, but it seemed they'd been a lot closer than she'd realised.

Finally, Anderson sat back. "You can go ahead and finish closing up now," he said with a heavy sigh.

Relieved, Avery allowed her panelling to slide closed, but Lukas reached out and gripped her hand before she could move it.

"I was afraid of losing you," he said, looking into her eyes intently, as if trying to make her feel the hurt she'd caused him. "Don't make me feel that pain again."

"I won't," she said breathlessly, wondering how long he'd been keeping these feelings to himself. Lukas had always seemed like the kind of man who would keep his cards close to his chest, but never would she have imagined this.

"I don't know if I could save your life again."

"Lukas, I swear I'll be careful, okay? Anyway, the data core is safe and I'm light-years away from Earth. There isn't much left to risk my life for. It's back to repairing AIs and sleeping in shipping crates for me," she said, trying to keep her tone light as if to dispel some of the crackling tension in the air.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," he said, tone dark. "I don't think anyone can predict what's going to happen now. Some are saying the Council want to help defend Earth, and others, well... let's just say the Commonwealth may be about to find out if demilitarisation was as good an idea as it seemed in peacetime."