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I doubted I'd ever actually learn to enjoy social events, but if Dr. Mensah was going to be at a social event of any sort and I was near enough to attend, I tried to be there. Humans and augmented humans everywhere, and Preservation's usual lax security arrangements -- it was a nightmare.
Dr. Mensah went to a lot of social events.
What this meant was that I got more practice than I ever wanted at standing around trying to look vaguely nonthreatening while humans attempted to make small talk with me. Mensah suggested holding a drink for social cover and pretending to sip it if I didn't want to talk to the person approaching me, which she said was a trick she used sometimes. It didn't really seem to work (maybe I was doing it wrong?) but I kept the drink-holding thing as a way of looking a little more human and less out of place. I mean, some people knew who I was anyway, but a lot of people didn't. And the less that I got stared at by humans at these gatherings, the happier I was. (Still unhappy, for the record. But I was absolutely not not going to attend if Mensah was there; that wasn't an option.)
Unfortunately this led to something exponentially worse: humans making small talk with the intent of cultivating a sexual or romantic relationship with me.
I failed to realize this was happening most of the time -- I only knew about it in most of the cases where I knew about it at all because someone, usually Ratthi, told me about it afterwards. But sometimes it was so obvious that even I couldn't miss it.
Which was how I ended up at one of these social events with a very pushy human attached to me, following me around, trying to give me more drinks, and generally being obnoxious. I tried looking as SecUnit-y as possible, and I tried ignoring him, but neither of those things helped, so I did what I always do in situations like this: I turned to media. And media gave me a possible solution.
I had a limited number of my humans to choose from for this. The only ones of my humans available in this particular instance were Mensah, Arada, and Gurathin. Of the options, I selected the one who would never, ever want to talk to me about it later.
I enabled my "act like a human" code in full as I descended on Gurathin. The only warning I gave him was an abrupt Look natural in our private feed before I -- ugh -- put my arm very suddenly around his shoulders.
Gurathin went so rigid that his spine seemed to want to climb out the top of his head. That is not what I'd call looking natural, and I ought to know, I said into his feed, while out loud I said:
"Hello, darling."
I was going to have to erase this part of my memory, or maybe just encrypt it with a note to myself not to look at it unless I wanted to throw myself out the nearest airlock to avoid the humiliation.
Gurathin was still completely rigid, but he turned his head enough to see my pursuer losing steam and interest. The startled "?????" he had just sent me in the feed was abruptly canceled.
"Yeah, hi, babe," he said, turning more directly to look at me, or more like at my chin, because he did have some sense of self-preservation. "You just couldn't wait to see me 'til we get home, huh?"
I was definitely deleting this conversation. I squeezed my arm tighter around him. The faint, pained "oof" wasn't worth the extra bodily contact, but it at least gave me something amusing to distract myself with.
"No, I just couldn't wait," I said, frantically pulling scenes from various serials with way too many romantic relationship arcs.
"Is that a friend you want to introduce me to? You know how jealous I get when other people flirt with you."
Deleting this conversation, then deleting my ears. Fortunately, the "friend" veered off, especially when Gurathin leaned into my shoulder. He had relaxed and was getting into it. Which I could appreciate from a spycraft standpoint while also wanting to die.
As soon as my stalker-I-guess had gone off to stalk someone else, we practically sprang apart. Gurathin didn't even have the decency not to look amused, the asshole. But before I could march off again, he surprised me. "If they come back and bother you some more, feel free to come over here again."
"Really," I said warily.
"Yeah. Humans do this for each other sometimes too, you know, when someone's getting pushy." He wrinkled his face. "Just give me a little warning next time, like a codeword or something, before you try to grapple me into a chokehold."
"That is not what I was doing."
"It felt like it," he said, rubbing his shoulder.
"Fine. The codeword is 'chokehold.'"
"Really." Now he was even more amused.
I was almost sorry that the bothering human left me alone after that and I didn't get a chance to try it again for the rest of the event, just for the entertainment value if nothing else.
***
I had my own place on the station, with a nice couch to sit on and a large display surface on the wall for watching media, but people didn't really ever visit me there, except for Mensah and occasionally Ratthi. So Gurathin knocking on my door was a surprise. (I knew he was there, of course; I was watching him from the security camera in the hall, as well as a drone perimeter.)
It wasn't even an unpleasant surprise, which was unexpected.
"Yeah, come in," I said, and paused the Strife in the Galaxy fourth spinoff movie, which I was watching on my big display surface. (It was a lot like the second one. Not very many new ideas. I was looking forward to discussing it with Ratthi later.)
Gurathin edged into the room and looked around curiously.
"I assume you're here for a reason," I said.
He snorted and relaxed a little. "Remember Operation Chokehold at the senate awards banquet the other day?"
I had a moment of perfect blankness before I did a quick memory search and realized he was talking about the thing where I pretended we were (ugh) dating to get rid of the person hitting on me. I hadn't even bothered to find out what the event was actually about. The important thing was that Mensah was there.
Also, so much for Gurathin being the one I could trust to never speak of it again.
"I'm trying to forget it," I said.
Gurathin's expression twitched into something like a smile. "You know how I said humans do this for each other now and then?"
"No," I said.
"Can I at least tell you what I want?"
"Okay, fine." But I started the media playing again, with the sound low. I could watch that and listen to him at the same time.
"There's a meet-and-greet for new grad students and faculty down planetside at the FirstLanding University tech college tomorrow evening. It's mandatory to attend. Which means Dr. Bentah will be there, and she's been trying for the last two years to set me up with everyone she knows. For some reason, me being single is an absolute affront to her sense of world order. It would make my life a lot easier if I can show her I already have a partner."
There was a long silence: 7.9 seconds. Long enough that even by human standards, it had to be getting uncomfortable.
"Why me?" I said finally. "Can't you ask anyone else you know? Literally anyone? I'd think Ratthi would be good for this."
"He would," Gurathin said. "And I did think about it. But you're more intimidating than anyone else I know. Plus, all of my other friends are already friends with other people at the university. If I take anyone else, there are going to be questions about it forever. You can just glare at everyone all evening, and it may fix the problem with people asking questions about my personal life permanently."
Well, if he put it that way, I could see why he wanted me. I thought about saying no. Then I thought about the potential entertainment value of being able to mess with Gurathin all evening, in a situation where he couldn't do anything about it, by his own request. And also I did sort of owe him a favor for the other day. Not that I couldn't have gotten rid of the annoying human on my own, but he did help. Hmmm.
However, this would mean standing around talking to humans I didn't know while pretending to be Gurathin's ... ugh ... partner, and I was not doing that for free.
"There's a price," I said.
Gurathin gave a little sigh, but his mouth twitched again. "Of course. What is it?"
"New media. Media I haven't seen. A lot of it. I don't care where you get it from, just make sure it's in my feed by tonight. And there's one other condition."
"What's that?"
"We will never, ever speak of this again."
He smiled with startling, unexpected warmth. "Deal." Then he added, "Thanks."
***
It was 5.2 hours later, as I was watching the new season of Wormhole Monster Hunters that had been politely decanted into my personal storage and replaying the conversation for the sixth time -- running iterations of different scenarios for how best to do this without accidentally touching Gurathin more than necessary for the mission and never, ever seeing anyone at the party ever again -- when I suddenly stopped and said out loud, "Wait, what does that mean, your other friends?"
Luckily there was no one around to hear me but my drones, or I would never have lived it down.
***
So I went to a social event on the planet, and I can't even express how much I love being on planets, as Gurathin's "plus one." He said that since it was at the university, most people wouldn't be dressed up, so I wore my usual preferred off-duty outfit of loose dark pants and an oversized hooded jacket with lots of pockets. I wasn't sure exactly how a "plus one" would act at something like this, so I decided "bodyguard, but with extra (ugh) touching."
Bodyguard I could do; I did it all the time with Mensah. The protocol of touching was harder to figure out. Gurathin stopped jumping after the second or third time, which made it a lot less entertaining.
We introduced me as "Lar," as in Lar Secundus Tryffig, the bodyguard of the colony solicitor's opposing counsel from the body snatcher arc in episodes 730-789 of Sanctuary Moon. (Gurathin had suggested that I go as myself, I said absolutely not, and then we were deadlocked for a while. Eventually I suggested the name without explaining where it came from. Gurathin just threw his hands in the air and said, "Fine.")
Lar was a character I actually did like. I had disliked him thoroughly in his first twenty or so episodes, but it was one of those twists where he turned out to be unexpectedly sympathetic after he saved the colony solicitor's cousin's clone in episode 758 and you find out about his sad, neglected childhood on the algae farm. Now I really liked rewatching the arc (except 765, but that's a filler episode and nobody likes that one), so I modeled my scowl and general behavior after Lar's, and grunted one-word answers to questions. I occasionally noticed Gurathin watching me with an expression I interpreted variously as amusement, panic, or dread, though I was always a little unsure about his face.
Unfortunately Bharadwaj was also there, which Gurathin could have warned me about, as I informed him through the feed loudly enough to make him flinch.
I didn't know! I would have told you, I swear. This is just supposed to be the tech and systems people. She must have been invited by a friend or something.
Holding a drink for social camouflage as Dr. Mensah had taught me, I managed to avoid Bharadwaj for all of 10.4 minutes before she approached me with a bright smile. "Hello, Sec--"
I'm undercover, I said in our private feed, and highlighted my feed ID, which was set to Lar.
"Are you supposed to change it like that?" she asked, frowning.
It's for the mission.
"What mission?" she whispered, stepping close to me, looking worried. "Is someone after Ayda? But she's not even --" Then she noticed where I was looking, which was at Gurathin looking at me from across the room with one of those amusement/panic/dread expressions. "Is someone after Gurathin?"
Someone definitely was at the moment. Dr. Bentah, who I recognized because I had insisted that Gurathin give me dossiers on the other significant parties to this mission, had cornered him at the table with the foods on little plates. Here I was, allowing myself to be distracted by Bharadwaj and failing the mission parameters already.
"I'll be right back," I told Bharadwaj, absolutely not meaning it. I shoved my drink into her hand and headed for Gurathin.
I tuned into the drone surreptitiously riding under his collar and heard Dr. Bentah very cheerfully saying something about ".... my second mother's cousin's group is looking for a queerplatonic fourth, very nice people, so kind and welcoming, and such a beautiful house! They feel like they have a hole in their life that the right person could fill, especially if that person loves children, because with five children that young in the household --"
Gurathin was listening with what I had no trouble identifying as what the media would call a rictus of frozen horror, because that was my reaction, also.
Chokehold! I said into the feed, giving him some warning before I stepped up and put a stiff arm around him from way too close.
"Is this person -- bothering you?" I asked. Lar had said those exact words in episode 754, so I felt fairly comfortable imitating the inflections. (The fact that he was saying it to the colony solicitor about a body snatching alien pretending to be one of the soldiers from the clone farm was irrelevant in this instance.)
"Uh, no," Gurathin said. Suddenly he relaxed and leaned against me. It was so very sudden that I could tell he was faking it, and it made me go rigid this time. "Dr. Bentah, I don't believe you've had a chance to meet my partner, Lar. Lar, this is Kiki Bentah."
"Oh, you found someone! Gura!" She clasped his arm, which made Gurathin go tense and my threat assessment spike and it was only when I felt Gurathin twitch a little and give me a swift ping in the feed that I realized I had started to reach for her to remove her hand from my client, possibly with a broken wrist.
"Yes," I said. Offering up my greatest sacrifice of the evening, greater even than my current semi-embrace of Gurathin, I held out my hand the way humans greeted each other. "It's nice to meet you," I lied.
She clasped my hand in not just one but both of hers. I could see why Gurathin avoided her. "Oh, Gura, this is wonderful. Why didn't you say anything?"
Gurathin grimaced and slid a little closer to me, as if he wasn't already too close. "We're, uh, we're very new. We haven't told many people yet. In fact, you're one of the first." He leaned toward her. "Consider it a gesture of great trust in your discretion, Kiki. If you could do me a favor, please keep it to yourself until Lar is ready to meet everyone."
She made a sign I had only seen people do in the media, twisting her fingers at her lips in a way I didn't quite understand, although I knew what it meant. "Of course. Your secret is safe with me. So, Lar! Tell me about yourself! What do you do?"
Help, I thought.
"Bodyguard," I said, unable to think of anything else.
"Here on Preservation?" She looked amazed. "For whom?"
"Dr. Mensah," I said, because I couldn't think of anyone else for that, either.
"Oh, the President? Of course, I didn't even think she must need one. Gura!" she said, grasping his arm again. I felt him flinch, because he was still touching me. "You didn't tell me your hot partner was so important!"
Hot? I think some of my components melted a little, in the bad way, the fusing and running together way. Gurathin was clearly still uncomfortable. Having outed myself as security anyway, I reached over and firmly plucked her hand from his arm. "Don't touch him," I said. "Gurathin doesn't like to be touched." I added belatedly and not very sincerely, "Please."
Dr. Bentah looked absolutely baffled. I could feel Gurathin's amusement and ... something else bleeding all over our personal feed. "Oh, you -- don't?"
"He's got a condition," I said.
Gurathin turned his face away because he was losing control of his mouth.
"You do? Gura! You should have said something!"
"Don't worry about it," Gurathin said, getting himself somewhat under control. "I'm ... on medication for it. Lar, would you like to go look at the, uh, the vegetable chips? You know how you love vegetable chips. It's nice to see you, Kiki. Excuse me, please."
With that he and I took a few steps away in tandem before I dropped him with a small shove that restored some personal space. Gurathin covered his face with his hands. His shoulders shook. If not for the feed metadata, I would have thought he was crying.
I have a condition? he said, his feed voice full of amusement.
It was all I could think of to say. Shut up.
I'm going to die.
Of what? I asked, alarmed.
Trying not to laugh, SecUnit. After a moment he got himself under control, just as Bharadwaj joined us.
"Was that Kiki Bentah? Oh, Gura, is she still trying to set you up with her friend's nephew?"
"No, now it's her mom's cousin."
"Oh, deity, the one with the five kids?" She glanced at me. I saw her comprehension dawn. I wondered where the nearest airlock was. "Wait, is that why you're here?"
Gurathin covered his mouth with his hand again. I hadn't even known he could laugh. Shut up, I told him.
"We are on an undercover mission," I said to Bharadwaj.
"At the FirstLanding University Tech College grad student meet and greet?"
"Please don't ask questions. It's need to know only."
She turned to look at Gurathin, who reached wildly for a bowl on the table. "Bharadwaj, have you tried the vegetable chips? They're from that new little farm down by --"
"No, I haven't tried the vegetable chips -- okay, thank you, I would love one. Gura ... are you making SecUnit pretend to be your date?"
"I'm not making SecUnit do anything."
Bharadwaj looked at me.
"Do you really think Gurathin could make me do anything?" I said.
"See?" Gurathin said.
Bharadwaj stared back and forth between us both. I had no idea what was wrong with her now, although I wished she'd stop looking at me so much. Then she said, "Are you ... are you really dating?"
Gurathin stuffed a handful of vegetable matter in his mouth.
I sent a message through the feed to the fire alarm. I needed to stop this conversation now, and it always worked in the media.
The media didn't mention that the whole room was rigged with water-spraying devices that immediately came on everywhere. Maybe that was a Preservation thing.
***
It was a warm planetary evening, so I didn't feel too bad about all of the damp humans gathered out in one of the university's public biomes while the FirstLanding Fire Responders thoroughly checked out the building.
Just admit you did it, Gurathin sent to me. He was helping Bharadwaj dry off her hair with one of the blankets that the fire responders had handed out to anyone who needed one.
Did what?
He smiled one of his little smiles, actually more like what would probably be called a smirk in the media. "Are you all right?" he asked Bharadwaj in a softer tone than he generally used with me.
"I really hope they get the fire system fixed so it can't malfunction like that again. Do you suppose it was a student prank, Gura?"
"Hard to say," Gurathin said, giving me a pointed look. I went on drying off my drones.
"It doesn't look like they're going to let us in again soon," Bharadwaj sighed. She took the blanket from Gurathin and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Do you two want to come over to my place? We could watch something. I have one of the new uni housing units with the big media display surfaces."
I perked up at "big media display surface." Gurathin said, "Don't let us ruin your evening."
Bharadwaj bumped his shoulder with hers. I noticed this didn't make him flinch like Dr. Bentah's touching. "Gura, I know you hate these events and you only go because your department head makes everyone come. Both of you can just put your feeds on do not disturb --" Like mine wasn't anyway. "-- and we'll pretend that we got cold and you came back to my place to dry off and we didn't notice them trying to get in touch."
"That's very devious by your standards. I'll accept." Gurathin stood up and gave her a hand up off the grass. He looked at me, standing near them.
"No touching."
"Yeah, that's what I figured." Smirking again.
***
So we went back to Bharadwaj's apartment and I shared some of my brand new media to Bharadwaj's very big and very nice display surface (I definitely needed to upgrade mine) and I didn't even object when Bharadwaj made a crunchy food thing and both of them ate it in my vicinity. I curled up on a comfortable chair in a corner with a good view of the media.
"You two aren't really dating, right?" Bharadwaj asked cautiously after we'd all settled down to watch.
"No," I said emphatically.
"No, no. I asked SecUnit to come as my plus-one because Kiki keeps hounding me -- er --" Bharadwaj had given him a look. "I mean, keeps kindly trying to set me up with a partner."
"Poor Gura. She's just concerned about you."
"Uh huh. Well, now she thinks I have a partner as well as some kind of touching-related condition -- sorry --" He covered his mouth with his hand for a moment. Bharadwaj had her feet in his lap right now, so it was a good thing Dr. Bentah couldn't see that, because his cover would be blown. "SecUnit, you did great. I'm remembering that for the future."
Good for you. I'm deleting my memories of this entire evening as soon as I need room for more media storage.
He was trying not to laugh again. I would expect nothing less.
"Are you two talking in the feed?"
"I asked him to be quiet so I can listen to the media," I said before Gurathin could say anything.
"Oh," she whispered. "Sorry."
It was another half episode before I remembered the other thing I needed to ask about. Into Gurathin's feed, I said, What do you mean, your "other" friends? As opposed to what?
What? Gurathin said. Bharadwaj had pulled a blanket over her legs and his lap. He was sprawled on the couch, looking more relaxed than I was used to seeing him.
I sent him a brief clip of our conversation: "Plus, all of my other friends are already friends with other people at the university."
You saved that?
For mission purposes.
Right. I'm not helping you with this one. Figure it out for yourself.
Unfortunately, I had already figured it out. I'm deleting this immediately.
Be my guest.
I saved it to permanent storage instead; take that, Gurathin.
We watched media until both humans fell asleep on the couch, and I turned the volume all the way down, playing it only in my internal audio, and switched to something familiar because watching new media in the same room without them was simply rude. And then I comfortably watched media until I got a ping which indicated I had been tagged as my Lar feed ID on the internal FirstLanding university net.
Well, that didn't seem good. I opened it.
It was something called the Tech College Bulletin News and it was in the Personal Updates section, a notice that Dr. Gurathin of Tech College was now dating --
Yeah, that was a picture of us taken tonight. Submitted by Dr. Kiki Bentah, it said.
Gurathin stirred sleepily. Apparently he had gotten the ping as well.
I sent him a copy and the message This is all your fault.
There was a long pause (sleepy humans are even slower than normal humans, even augmented ones) and then he sent back, Well, I was right that this will probably get her to stop trying to set me up with everyone she knows.
I AM NO LONGER SPEAKING TO YOU, I said and blocked him.
I unblocked him a few seconds later because he'd sent me a message and I was curious. It said, As far as they're concerned, you're Lar Tryffig. Is that really from Sanctuary Moon?
I blocked him again.
He was now laughing quietly, which made him move enough to wake up Bharadwaj. "Did something happen?" she mumbled sleepily.
Gurathin put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down. "No, no. Go back to sleep. SecUnit is convinced that I've ruined its personal life."
This was such a blatant misrepresentation of events that I unblocked him to say, I don't have a personal life, and I will see to it that you don't either.
You already have, which is appreciated. Thank you.
Uh, you're welcome. I guess.
Conversations with Gurathin never quite go how I plan them.
Oh, I just got the message that this finished downloading, he added, and sent me a link to a storage area on the personal feed space kept for station residents that contained some data files I had never seen before.
What is this?
More media. You said you wanted something you hadn't seen before. This is one I think you'll like, it's low-budget, kind of a parody of Stryfe in the Galaxy, but really heartfelt anyway. And these are some others sort of like it. Feel free to go through them. I'm going back to sleep.
I looked through the directory. The other media he'd found for me earlier were new shows I could have gotten for myself with a little effort, but these were really obscure things I hadn't actually heard of before. Uh ... thanks. I hesitated, but not for very long. Do you want to watch this one? I asked, queuing up the first one. From what he'd said, it sounded like it was something he liked.
I don't mind if you put it up on the display, but I'm going to sleep.
I projected it and turned the volume on low. I saw him drowsily watching for a few minutes before he drifted off again.
While I watched, I checked the feed. The "Bulletin" message now had 14 messages from what I guess were colleagues of Gurathin's, mostly "Congrats!" or approving sigils. It occurred to me that Gurathin was right, "Lar Tryffig" didn't exist in real life, which meant all of this was entirely Gurathin's problem to deal with.
A new message popped up from a feed ID I recognized as Ratthi's, a string of sigils and "!!!???"
Definitely Gurathin's problem.
I smugly settled back to watch my new media.