“Damn it, Remi,” he shouts, though the effect is ruined by his laughter. He wipes a bit of sauce off his cheek and licks it off his finger, raises an eyebrow in pleased surprise, and goes back to stirring.
I catch Ania’s gaze and roll my eyes, then beckon her over to my little corner of the flat, flicking on the salvaged lamp mounted to the wall above my desk. Light floods over the workspace, a natural daylight sort of wash that keeps my eyes from going all crossed while I stare at extremely tiny screws and wires. A plain brown shipping box with my name on the top teeters on the one empty corner of the desk. I allow a tiny smile at the return address, letting an unusual warmth fill my chest for just a moment. Davon’s graduation present. Remi, Jaesin, and I can never afford to give each other gifts, but ever since Davon aged out of the orphan care system and got a real job, he’s never missed an occasion. I leave it for the moment. If I’m going to get Ania’s ware fixed before we go out, I need to get started. My tools are everywhere, but my fingers find the correct screwdriver and a set of fine needle-nose pliers with barely a glance.
“Take off your ware and put your hand on the work top,” I order, then slip a pair of magnifying glasses on, settling them on top of my head. A faint snort comes from across the room, but I hold up a finger to Remi without looking over.
“Not a word.”
I click on the magnifier’s built-in light and accept Ania’s wrist cuff with a ginger touch, then sync my deck with her fingertip implants. I know this tech inside and out—I built it, after all—so I know exactly how delicate it can be. Not that Ania ever treats it that way. I set it on the tabletop, pull the magnifiers over my eyes, and lean in to focus on the minuscule screws holding the cuff’s access panel in place. The precise work makes my punching hand ache, but complaining about it will only draw a lecture from Jaesin about how to throw a proper punch. Again.
Across the room, there’s a sudden rush of sizzling, a pained yelp, then water dribbling in the sink. Ania’s low chuckle signals an impending fight.
“You planning to poison us tonight, Jaesin?” she asks, though she always scolds me for saying the same thing.
Jaesin growls. “Don’t tempt me. I don’t see you over here trying to cook. Doesn’t your family have a chef?”
Ania must be tired of us taking shots at her over her family’s money, but she never shows it, just accepts them gracefully. Which is even more maddening, to be honest. I tune out their bickering and zone into the job at hand. Access panel off. Drain what little is left in the maz chambers into catch jars, manually trigger the extruders seated inside the tips of Ania’s fingers. Watch the diagnostics spill across my vision via my contact lenses.
Ania falls silent above me, her not-flirting with Jaesin apparently finished. They’re the weirdest exes of all time. When I peek up at her, though, I find her looking back at me from the corner of her eye, hesitant. I know that look.
“Diz,” she murmurs, quiet enough to be concealed by Jaesin’s clanging. “Why don’t we all stay in to watch a movie or something tonight instead of going out?”
I speak without hesitation. “I think you should give Remi the choice and go with whatever they say. You can’t just dictate what you think is best for them. I guarantee, you try to tell them what they can and can’t do one more time, you’ll have a hot ball of firaz in your face. Burn those pretty eyebrows right off.”
Ania unconsciously lifts her free hand to smooth over one perfectly plucked brow, frowning. “I know. But we just got back from a job, and we have other things we wanted to do this week. I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
She isn’t getting it. I need her to really hear me, so I wipe the smirk off my face, set down my tools, and blink away the text on my contacts so I can meet her eyes uninhibited.
“Look, it’s their decision. They’ll appreciate having the option, I think, but if they say they feel up to going out, you have to leave it at that.” I flick my gaze over to Remi, whose shirt is slowly losing the war with gravity, revealing a strip of pale stomach. I look quickly away. “Is this just your way of getting out of taking us to Nova again? You ashamed to be seen with your broke-ass plague-orphan charity cases?”
Ania huffs. “I’m not going to let you pick a fight. Besides, what if it’s closed for earthquake damage? That wouldn’t be my fault.”
I bring up a quick search and hit their net site, then share the view with Ania.
“Open for business. Any other excuses?”
She pouts in silence for a long moment, so I blink the deck display back onto my lenses and analyze the diagnostics from her ware. The first two maz extruders are fine, the ones that handled the terraz and linkaz she used during the quake. She’s apparently been playing with fire recently, because she has firaz loaded in the third position. It’s a bit uneven, but barely so; she probably hasn’t even noticed. An easy fix. Her usual position-four obscuraz is fine, but sure enough, in the final spot, the magnaz extruder fires in fits and starts, the computer sometimes simulating a strong flow and sometimes the barest gossamer thread. It’s all gummed up, probably hasn’t been cleaned properly in months. No wonder Ania’s having trouble weaving with it on the fly. I click my tongue at her the way my mother used to do to me.
“Honestly, princess, you are the most high-maintenance slob I’ve ever met.”
“Hey!”
Too easy sometimes. I pour a shallow dish of a gentle scouring chem and guide Ania’s fingertips into the solution with easy pressure, then turn my attention back to the lines of code.
“Don’t move. Gotta flush out the blockage, and it’s gonna take a few minutes. I’m gonna tweak the programming in your cuff a bit so if the extruders start to clog again, it’ll trigger a message to get you to bring it over for maintenance so it doesn’t get this bad again.”
I level a look at her. “Do not. Let it get. This bad. Again. Rebuilding this thing from scratch would take longer than you have the patience for.”
“Thanks, Diz. You’re the best,” she says, leaning down to give me a peck on the forehead. I swat her away.
“Thank me by taking better care of your ware.”
And by not leaving.
My gaze drifts back to Davon’s gift, perched on the corner of my desk. Nothing for me to do while the chems work their magic on Ania’s ware, so I pull it into my lap and snag my knife to slice at the tape. With a furtive glance at Ania, I swivel my chair slightly away and pull the box flaps barely open, just enough to peek inside. To my complete horror, my lip wobbles when I see the contents. He’s included some of his standard practical gifts—a new multitemp soldering iron, some assorted computer components, socks—but nestled in the bottom is something wrapped in delicate tissue paper. Written on the tape that holds it together are three short words in Davon’s terrible handwriting: I’ll never forget.
My fingers brush over the paper, hesitant, heart in my throat. Whatever it is, it won’t be easy. I take a deep steadying breath through my nose and slip my finger under the tape, tugging gently, tearing the tiniest bit of paper possible along with it. I fold back the delicate tissue and smooth it away from the gift, biting my lip hard to keep control.