vN The First Machine Dynasty(83)

Not that Amy honestly expected to design or build her dream condo, once they hit Mecha. She just liked playing with the layouts. The materials there were different, and the specs, and the regulations. Her much smaller self once relished in exteriors, in the knots of wood or the stippled surfaces of old bricks or the cactus-like networks of grey water pipes grafted onto old buildings. Now she considered what would go inside the space. She approached the small spaces as a challenge and then looked for the most beautiful version of every absolute necessity: the thickest towels, the finest plates.



It felt good to have some dimensions between her hands again. She had stuck a small but good projector in the seam between her container's northern wall and ceiling, and it allowed her to stretch out the shapes of beds and sofas and tables. Under its light she sculpted chairs like roses or tubs like mouths. Her predilection for saving each of these designs, once the bane of her parents' storage allotment, became an opportunity for her to give Javier the grand tour of a different home each day.



You're nesting, Portia told her, more than once. How very organic of you.



Amy studiously ignored her.



"I like the idea of this bed," Javier said now, his finger poking at the dimensional projection of a mattress suspended on tension wire, "but I think in practise it could really get somebody hurt."



"We can't get hurt," Amy said, before she could simulate the outcome of her words.



Ostensibly, Javier had his own container to sleep in. He just seemed to wind up in hers, because Junior insisted on crawling inside it after the sun went down. At least, that was how it happened the first time. She woke up, their first night aboard, to see Junior's little body silhouetted against the deep blue of the night sky, framed within the container hatch, and he silently wormed his way under the covers and into her arms. He acted a like a dog who, upon circling a rug three times, sleeps in a fortuitous slant of sunshine for the rest of the afternoon. He slept with his back to her chest, no squirming or poking or kicking. Minutes later Javier arrived, shook his head, and sat down on her other side.



"Is this OK?" he had asked.



Implicit in all their conversations about Mecha was the assumption – at least on her part – that they would be sharing the same space. Javier still slept in his own bed, even when it was shoved up against hers. Amy had no idea if Javier slept there because he wanted to, or because the failsafe made him want to. She had no idea how to ask, either, or if he would even know the difference. Just in case, she kept her hands to herself. Shortly after sunrise, they usually found Junior in the hollow between their bedrolls. Their motion triggered the lantern, and Amy made certain to watch the slow rise of greenish light exposing the new details of Junior's face. Every morning, it looked a little more like Javier's.



They had yet to talk about the future. They showed each other pictures, instead.





When not designing, she reviewed profiles of scientists that Rory sent to her. None of them knew yet that they had the chance to work on Amy or Portia, but Rory had traced their communications and reported on their excitement about the subject and their eagerness to discuss it online. Most of them were corporate, but Amy liked the academic ones better. They knew how to spell. And they looked a little bit down on their luck, like they really needed a project like this one on their stats and not just another bullet point to look smug about.



Thinking of herself as someone else's project got a little easier every day.



Lab rat, Portia called her, as Amy looked up old peer-reviewed papers. Quitter.



At least once a day, Amy spoke with a media rep. They always experienced a little lag as the translation engine worked through their conversation, but the rep had a whole series planned around Amy's "healing process". The subscription revenues would offset the costs of their stay in Mecha, and global authorities concerned about Amy's activities could observe the raw feed. Each episode would document her visits to various specialists and her attempts to integrate into Mechanese culture. Naturally, Javier and the others would be a subplot.



"What is the exact nature of your relationship?" the rep asked her, once.



"I'll have to call you back," Amy said.



Early one morning, before dawn – and before Junior started moving, and before the lantern glowed slowly to life – Javier devised a new way to practise Japanese.

"What's this one?" Javier asked, drawing on the back of her neck with one finger.



Amy tried to picture the character in her mind. "Ah," she said.



"Nice. What about this one?" He drew two small lines dancing beside each other.