Worms are great company (they're down to Earth)

They spent about an hour after that going over the design in more detail. Tecko was enough of a professional to keep in mind the actual most important reason why Nefu was here, and had set an alarm to avoid running out of time, but before the alarm went off, Kraa came out of the break room. Nefu reacted immediately by flipping over all of the sheets of paper.

Kraa was waving a portacom around. "My business partner arrived, I think you already know them. Is it cool if I let them in?"

Oh fuck.

"Sure, go ahead," Tecko said. For anyone else, she would have just gotten up and opened the door herself. What had she been thinking? She would not have told Nefu the things she did, if she'd known that Oriko was about to show up in the flesh. A possible future flashed in front of her mind's eye, in which Nefu told Oriko: "I have realized that the design you have permanently etched into your skin is an inaccurate representation of a real crosshair, and that despite this, Tecko is still willing to be friends with you. This has given me the confidence to show you and Kraa my design sketches."  He wouldn't – she had told him not to – right?

"Thanks for your feedback on my design," Nefu said. "You were right when you said that it would have been more logical to structure this appointment differently, so if it's acceptable, I would like to proceed to the maintenance next."

"Sure! You can get ready, I'll put this stuff somewhere safe." Tecko rolled up all of the loose sheets and put them back in Nefu's bag. 

Kraa traipsed back in through the workshop's entry, the sound of their footsteps followed by heavier ones. "Glad you were able to make it here, I didn't want to interrupt Nefu's consult on that mysterious thing he's working on, and I was getting so bored."

Tecko looked up, in the hopes that by some miracle, Kraa had meant someone else was here. But nope. Oriko was just as intimidating as before: wearing a sleeveless jacket that showed off his muscles, that clumsily stylized crosshair on his shoulder clearly visible. He wasn't wearing gloves this time, and Tecko wasn't surprised to see that his other tattoo, of a vine wrapping around his arm, ended in a skull and crossbones. Because of course it did.

"You should take up a hobby that doesn't require you to scream into a microphone," Oriko said. "Or work on some lyrics or something, that's quiet." Towards Kraa, he sounded a lot less angry than when he was questioning Tecko's competence. His murder-scowl also seemed softer. Huh. Maybe he'd just been in a sour mood that one time.

"Yeah, I could have done that, but it's more fun to hang out with you. And you showed up, so I imagine you agree."

"I had nothing to do that couldn't wait until later. Here." Oriko handed Kraa a small, greasy bag. The smell was delicious. "I figured you didn't get much of a chance to eat on the way here, so I got you some of those disgusting worms you like so much." Wait, hold on, did he actually just-

"For real?" The bag rustled when Kraa opened it. "Yes, and you even got them with my favourite sauce! Thanks, you're a real pal."

"Any time. Enjoy." He sounded almost shy, which was an appropriate way to feel after brazenly attempting to court a co-worker in front of Tecko. She felt so awkward to have witnessed this, and yet it didn't seem like he'd been rejected, it was more like Kraa hadn't interpreted the gesture as "a blatant show of romantic intent" at all. They had reacted like surprising someone with their favourite food – not just bringing snacks, but memorizing someone's preferences and getting them something you didn't even like yourself - was a totally normal thing to do between friends and 'business' partners.

Kraa took off one of their gloves and stuck a deep-fried worm into their mouth, chewing on it with obvious enjoyment. Maybe there was a cultural misunderstanding at play. Both of them were off-worlders, this really could just be platonic, but the way Kraa was looking at him while eating was full of such raw adoration that Tecko found it hard to believe that they weren't at least a little bit in love with their co-worker as well. Or at least, found him physically attractive.

Oriko seemed to notice Tecko for the first time. His expression lost all softness. "What are you staring at?" he snarled.

"Nothing, I was just-" Nothing good could come from giving an excuse. She had been staring. "Sorry, I was surprised that you brought snacks, is all."

"Well, don't be. It is none of your business unless eating is forbidden in your workshop. Did I miss a sign that said, 'no food allowed'? Are you worried that the grease will get all over your equipment?"

"I-its fine. You can eat in the workshop."

"Oh good, I didn't even think to ask about that," Kraa said, their voice slightly muffled because their mouth was full. "Can we also talk in the workshop? Please do let us know if we're distracting you at any point and you need us to be quiet for a bit."

"It should be fine if you talk, as long as you're not talking directly to me. I'm very good at tuning out irrelevant conversation when I need to concentrate on my work."

"I would also prefer if no irrelevant conversation is directed at me," Nefu said. "I believe that I'll feel more comfortable during maintenance if I have my voice fully available, and if there's no risk that I'm in the middle of a sentence when I have something to say."

"Got it," Kraa said. "That's valid, buddy, I don't think I'd be much of a conversationalist either if someone was poking around in my chest."

Tecko came to an uncomfortable realization. The ability to speak during maintenance was not something Nefu'd ever had before. The previous time, he obviously hadn't been able to, because that was when she'd installed his speakers. Before then, he'd talked by typing on a keyboard taped to a portacom which was running speech synthesis software of some kind, and that device would have been in the way. The first time she'd asked him to put it away for a moment, he'd immediately agreed and tried to hand it to Oriko for safe-keeping, zero hesitation, and Oriko-

"No, this is unacceptable. Hey, mechanic, have you already forgotten that you're working on a person? You first need to agree on a signal that he can use to tell you to stop, even my dentist knows to do that."

This had felt like an extreme overreaction, she was literally just going to take a look inside without even touching anything. However, Oriko was very scary. She had told Nefu that he could raise his hand if he needed anything. He'd pointed out that if she accidentally turned him off, he would be unable to move. The best thing she'd been able to come up with on the spot was 'you could keep moving your hand to show that nothing is wrong.'

In the here and now, Nefu laid down on the workbench and helpfully opened up the front panel on his chest. "I have begun transmitting my diagnostics. I think they're all normal, apart from the known issue with my battery indicator." His wireless diagnostics appeared on the screen next to the workbench. There were a few alerts about an 'unrecognized I/O component' utilizing 3200% of Nefu's processing capacity, but those had been there the previous time, too. His battery indicator was reporting that he was about three-quarters of the way charged (a lie; it went from 'half' to 'full', instead of starting at 'empty'). His temperature and fan speed were high, though not high enough to be cause for concern.

"I agree, everything looks good to me. I'm not going to touch anything yet, but I'll hand you the vigilance device already." Tecko picked up one of the many objects which she'd laid out beforehand. It was a simple nightguard's alarm, intended to be operated with one hand by a person of any species. "If you drop it or stop pressing any buttons for more than a few seconds, it will start beeping and then I'll know that something's wrong."

"Thank you, I remember how to operate this device," Nefu said.

"That would have been convenient for you to have on you during our first meeting," Oriko said.

Oriko probably did not mean 'because you could have used it to alert your neighbors if I'd lost my patience and killed you.' What he meant instead was: 'My friend would have benefited from this technology earlier.' Tecko looked back at her past callousness in shame. She'd been trying her best to treat Nefu like a normal customer whose body just happened to be the machine, but she was more like a surgeon than a mechanic in this context. The best time to acknowledge that would have been right around the time where she'd offered to determine what parts his creators had used to build him. The second best time was now. "Nefu, I'm sorry for not previously acknowledging how scary this must be to you. You're trusting me with a greater responsibility than my other customers, and I want you to know that I'm taking that responsibility very seriously. I'm confident that I will be able to do what you asked without any problems."

"I believe you. The outcome of all of our previous appointments has been strictly beneficial and according to my wishes. All fear I have regarding this operation is irrational, and based on past experiences that are no longer relevant."

He did not sound afraid. He sounded the same as when he'd voiced his fear of his friends not approving of his appearance, like this was a minor concern in the grand scheme of things. But what he meant, when only paying attention to the words he was saying, was: "I have had traumatic experiences with maintenance in the past, actually." She had most likely made that worse, but as bad as she felt about not checking in to make sure he was comfortable enough, she didn't think she was alone.

He was called 'practice' and his hardware was of noticeably varied quality. Cloudborn remembered the past from before they became self-aware, she'd learned that much from studying the topic on the Aethernet. He had not told her for what purpose he had been created, but his name should have been a red flag. Skilled dronesmiths had constructed him out of mismatched parts, probably ones they just happened to have on hand, and had cared more about appearances than about whether his spare battery was real – as long as everything looked good on the outside, it was fine, right? Whoever had decided that creating an artificial intelligence was an okay thing to 'practice' deserved nothing but bad things.

"Maybe Oriko really did kill Nefu's creators. Meddling with artificial intelligence is a serious crime. He'd probably get paid the same whether the assholes were brought in dead or alive." This was all a fantasy. Her hypothesis was entirely based on the fact that it would explain how a pair of bounty hunters came across a recently awakened cloudborn. She could just as well have placed Kraa in that role, but that was not who she pictured pulling the trigger.

In her imagination, a cold-blooded killer would not turn to their colleague, right as Tecko was shining a light into the body of their apprentice, and break the silence by saying: "Would you still love me if I was a worm?"

"What," Oriko said.

"That's what it says here on the bag," Kraa clarified. "I think it's a conversation-starter, and that it can be about all kinds of love, including the love for someone you just like hanging out with and working with a lot."

"Well, it's a stupid conversation-starter. How would I even be able to tell you apart from the other worms?"

"I dunno. Don't drop me in a pile of moist compost, I guess, or you might lose track."

Tecko could have helped the off-worlders by explaining that this was a reference to a local in-joke. She was not going to, because there was absolutely no way Oriko would react in any other way than by saying something like: 'stop listening and focus on your work.' And that would honestly be valid. She ignored the conversation, and concentrated on the task at hand.

For obvious reasons, the kill-switch was difficult to even reach, and it had been designed to cut the power on its own when an attempt was made to disable it. However, this was the kind of challenge she dealt with all the time. She might not have met a cloudborn before Nefu, but she was an expert on getting around proprietary technology's elaborate anti-repair measures. Often, those did something far more permanent when triggered by accident.

She approached the situation the same way she always did: systematically and carefully, but without hesitation. After a bit more exploration, she was able to find a way to reach the kill-switch without disconnecting any wires. It offered little resistance. Someone with two hands might have had trouble, so it was a good thing she had four.

When she was finally able to take the remains of the kill-switch out of Nefu, everything had turned out fine, but there was more than just the machine which needed to be 'fine.' "Part one done, no need to worry about remote controls any more. How are you feeling? Swapping out the battery should only take ten more minutes at most, but if you'd like to take a break, now's an ideal time for it."

"I would not like to, but thanks for the offer," Nefu said. "The irrational fear I'm experiencing is significantly less bad than usual. I did not realize that my friends' philosophical debate on the nature of love, loyalty and identity would be such a helpful distraction." The what now? "Please proceed with installing my new battery as soon as you're ready, I'm looking forward to not needing to carry an external power supply around any more."

Kraa clapped their hands. "See? The worm thing was a great conversation starter."

"Hm. I still say it's stupid, but a thing can be great and stupid at the same time."

Installing the new battery was so easy that Tecko could have done it with her eyes closed. She did not, of course. Although she could not stop herself from following the conversation around her, she still did not acknowledge that she was hearing it.

"I think after this, we should go do something fun," Kraa said. "They have this game here, where you hit a ball with a hammer while on a hoverbike, I've always wanted to try that."

"Hoverpolo, right? Could be fun, I hope we can afford it." She was only momentarily confused by the fact that he'd said 'we' – they were business partners, of course their finances would be similar. Except, they wouldn't be, because Kraa was paying their apprentice a wage so reasonable, that he was able to purchase high-quality parts for himself which many consumers would describe as 'whoa, yikes, don't you have anything cheaper?'

"I already checked, it's like, fifty creds per person, plus five for the public transport," Kraa said. "Yeah, I know - reason to do it now is that we might not have a reason to come back here."

"I'm curious about this game," Nefu said, despite earlier statements about wanting to have his voice free. "It seems like using a hammer would make it especially challenging to hit a ball, and I have never operated a hoverbike before. However, it's very expensive and I'm saving my money for a personal project."

"Don't worry about that, we would pay for you," Oriko said. Wait, wasn't Nefu just Kraa's apprentice? "Let's do it. What use is money if you can't use it to have nice things?"

"That's the spirit! Heh, you know, we might be eligible for a family discount, since chronologically, Nefu is less than twenty-"

"No," Oriko said. "Sorry. That same logic could be used to bar many cloudborn from places such as dance clubs, casinos and movie theatres, so I don't think we should even joke about it in front of the mechanic."

At the same time that Tecko made the connection between the new battery and Nefu's diagnostics processor, her brain 'made the connection' as well. "Holy crap, they were Nefu's parents." This made so much more sense than any other interpretation of their relationship: Kraa having an apprentice who they didn't treat like an employee at all. Oriko's protectiveness. The way Nefu trusted them enough to bring them along for emotional support, but was still afraid that they would abandon him.

"I thought it was funny," Nefu said. "It's funny because when I purchase liquor, I'm asked for identification even though I obviously am not planning to personally consume it."

It explained why Nefu had been traveling with them since pretty much the moment he'd become sentient, even though if her guess was correct, his artificial intelligence had been created not specifically for bounty-hunting purposes, but just for shits and giggles. The bounty hunters had found a cloudborn, helpless and in pitiable circumstances, and had adopted him much like one might adopt a stray troppa. This was a comparison she needed to never voice. "On average, I am doing increasingly well every day" indeed.

"They do that to make sure you're not some kid using their parents' remote presence drone to get booze," Kraa explained. "I hope nobody at the liquor store's given you any trouble once they realize you're really a cloudborn? They shouldn't, but sometimes ignorance can make people very rude."

"Ignorance or worse," Oriko said. "Not all people want to be educated on what they're doing wrong."

All the parts were falling into place. Nefu could not use a word other than 'friends' to describe them, because in a legal sense, cloudborn didn't have parents. The closest thing they had to parents in a traditional sense were their creators, and if a cloudborn with non-shitty creators were to out one of those to the world by calling them a parent, that person would be exiled for the crime of their creation.

She understood now, and she understood one more thing – Kraa and Oriko were definitely in a committed romantic relationship, no matter how much Kraa talked about the love between friends. By the standards of ancient scutran cultural traditions, even taking care of a pet together would have been enough. Kraa had to know that too, because otherwise, they wouldn't have felt the need to go through such lengths to clarify that this was all totally just business partners being pals – they were probably worried that Tecko would disapprove on account of them being of different species. It stung a little that they'd think she'd have such prejudice, but if she looked at it objectively, she wasn't exactly doing anything visible to show her support of the community.

"There you go, both batteries installed, and I fixed the battery indicator, too." Tecko held up a mirror so that Nefu could inspect the result. He raised his head slightly to get the angle right.

"The wiring is tidy. Assuming both batteries will perform according to specifications, I'm happy with the result." Nefu sat on the edge of the workbench and clicked his chest-panel shut. "I'd like for you to clean the dust out of my cooling-fans as well. I can do that myself, but I like that it's included in the maintenance. It's calming."

"Of course." Tecko grabbed a handheld vacuum cleaner. Why did getting Nefu's emotions involved in this suddenly make it weird? She thought of a way to relate. A visit to the salon, perhaps, where they dried off your fur after trimming it. Or maybe this was more like the glass of water you got to rinse out your mouth after you went to the dentist.

"That dust must be your fur," Oriko said. "Why don't you wear a tail-sleeve and hat? It's not okay to shed all over your customers' internal electronics, imagine if a surgeon did that."

Oriko was still rude, but knowing that he just really cared about his adopted robot child made him a lot less scary. He had some valid points sometimes, but this was not one of those times. "I understand your concern, but I vacuum regularly. My workshop is a lot less dusty than the outside air around here, and if I needed it to be even cleaner, I would have to forbid customers from bringing snacks or keeping their boots on." Her adrenaline spiked. That had come out a lot more passive-aggressive than intended. Scary or not, he was still a bounty hunter.

To her surprise, Kraa started laughing. "She's right, you know – the food you brought me was so greasy and crumbly! I tried not to, but I definitely dropped a few crumbs." Oh great. The vacuum cleaner did not do well at removing grease-stains at all, she'd need to clean that up before the next customer got here.

"That wouldn't end up in-" Oriko buried his face in his hands and sighed. "Fur flies around because of how light it is, disgusting deep-fried worm batter does not."

"I don't think Tecko's fur contributed significantly," Nefu pointed out. "She's right that the outside air around here carries especially large amounts of dust, and I'd already noticed that my fans were overdue for a cleaning before I stepped in here."

"Fine, I concede the point." Being this flustered was a good look on him. "Don't wear a hat. All the things you're doing right are making up for the things you're doing wrong, anyway."

"Tecko is the foremost expert on reverse-engineering unusual technology, you know," Kraa said. "So much so, that she's going to be on the First Contact team to Trask-Solut to figure out any ridiculous crap that the aliens created."

"Huh. Weren't these aliens so primitive that they haven't even gone into space yet? Their technology can't possibly pose a challenge to you."

It wasn't phrased like a compliment, but she decided to interpret it as one. "Well, you never know. Primitive technologies from within the Interplanetary Alliance can actually be quite difficult to figure out, because their makers were just as ambitious, pushing all of the known laws of physics to their limits, and without making use of any easier solutions that have been discovered in the meantime. I'm really excited to find out what bizarre devices the Trask-Solutians have come up with!"

Oriko shrugged. "If you get bored you can always come back I guess."

"I'd like to visit Trask-Solut some time," Kraa said. "I think it will be fun to meet these people. Imagine what stories they must tell about what's out here, beyond their horizon. They must imagine us as being so much cooler than we are! And they're so unaccustomed to violence that they thought saying hello to a bunch of technologically-advanced strangers was a good idea, so if a really nasty interstellar crime asshole decides to lay low there and harass the locals, they will definitely need a bounty hunter to come in and fix that mess."

This was... Really something she hoped would never happen. "It might be a while before you'll get that opportunity! They'd first need to decide to join the Interplanetary Alliance, or set up an extradition treaty with us. And before that happens, diplomacy needs to be established with their government. And before that happens, that's where I come in."

"I bet these people aren't going to be as peaceful as everyone thinks," Oriko said. "I bet they were just so overconfident in their abilities with spears and antimatter canons, that they thought that if the whole fleet of Raan Beta showed up on their doorstep, they could take them."

"I would like to see Trask-Solut as well," Nefu said. "I'm curious about its people and its technology, but also about the rest of the planet. If you see anything that's interesting and would like to share it with a fellow technician, please send me a message any time."

"Can't promise that, I'm afraid. Anything I discover there will probably be way too classified at first – you'd almost have to join the First Contact team yourself to get clearance."

There was no way to know how he felt about that. He looked at her, face blank of any features which might give it away, and said: "Understood."