"About tomorrow," he said.
Nyx tilted her head toward him, "That’s what you’re going with."
"That’s what I’m thinking about."
She watched him for a mont with the patience of soone who had decided not to argue the point yet. "Okay," she said at last. "Tell about tomorrow."
"Supplies, for one thing. There’s definitely more of those caches around. We can’t let others get to them first. "
"Mm." She shifted against his shoulder, settling in more comfortably. "That definitely sounds like a tomorrow problem."
"That’s literally what I just said."
"So you should stop thinking about it tonight."
He looked up at the ceiling.
"There are also two people sowhere in this building," he said after a second, "that disappeared from the cara feeds about a while ago. I don’t know where they went or what they’re doing."
"Are they coming up here right now?"
"No, the elevator-"
"So." She tugged lightly on the fold of his shirt she had been idly holding between her fingers. "Tomorrow."
As argunts went, it was annoyingly complete.
Proxy, possessing the uncomfortable self-awareness of a man who could feel himself losing ground one centiter at a ti, decided to attempt a counteroffensive anyway.
"When it gets light we should consider relocating. This room is defensible and the network coverage is good, but staying stationary makes us predictable, and predictable on this island-"
"Is the bed uncomfortable?"
"What?"
"You’ve been talking about moving since we got here." She sounded genuinely curious, not accusatory. "Is the bed uncomfortable?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
The bed was, objectively speaking, the most comfortable surface he had encountered since waking up inside the heliplane, which was admittedly a low bar, but still.
"The bed is fine."
"Good." She sounded satisfied. "Then we don’t have to move."
"That is not the logic I was using."
"It got us to the sa answer though."
He rested the champagne glass on his chest, looked at the ceiling again, and briefly searched for a reply.
There were many things he could say.
None of them were a good idea.
He wasn’t oblivious. It wasn’t as though he had been misreading the hints during the evening. Their night had been drifting in exactly one direction ever since the shower, the bar counter, sowhere around the second glass of champagne.
Being dense was not the problem.
There were certain lines after which crossed situations stopped being reversible, and historically speaking Proxy had maintained a strong professional reputation for knowing where those were.
Nyx knew that too.
That was why she was pushing further and further for them to cross that line.
And only she knew what she’d do after that happened.
"We should also consider the rest of the ga," he said. "There are thirty people on this island, and we’ve only had one direct encounter today. Statistically speaking that number is going to start producing more encounters as people move toward the resort looking for-"
"Are you warm enough?"
"I’m- what?"
"You seem tense." Her voice softened slightly, and she moved her head a fraction against his shoulder in the small habitual way she had when snuggling. "I’m just asking."
Proxy closed his eyes briefly.
There was no way to ignore it. He had understood that sowhere around the second sentence of the conversation. The rational decision would be to accept the loss, let the cara feeds run passively through his deck, and go to sleep.
Instead he turned his head.
She was already looking at him.
From this distance her pale eyes looked warr in the dim suite lighting. She waited with an eerie kindness, as if she had already decided how sothing was going to end and was simply allowing him the dignity of arriving at the conclusion himself.
He leaned closer and whispered very warmly beside her ear.
He said it once.
In a voice he did not normally use.
Then he leaned back again.
Nyx’s expression went through several distinct stages in quick succession. The warmth remained, but it shifted color entirely, a complicated pink spreading from her face down along her collarbones.
She made a small sound that failed to beco an actual word, reached up and tugged at her own hair slightly, ducked her chin, and twisted away from him in the extrely specific involuntary motion of soone whose composure had just been temporarily evicted.
Essentially, she squird in embarrassnt.
Proxy took advantage of the opening this created. He stood up, walked to the bathroom, and locked the door.
He turned on the tap.
He looked at himself in the mirror.
After a mont of consideration, he ca to the conclusion that he had no coherent internal comntary regarding what had just happened.
From the bedroom there was an awkward pause.
"That’s not fair." Nyx cried out.
"I’m freshening up."
"You were already fresh."
"Personal hygiene is important in high-stress environnts."
"Proxy." Her voice developed a subtle edge. "Co out of the bathroom."
"I’m not finished."
A small, frustrated sound filtered through the door.
"You can’t hide in there."
"I’m not hiding. I’m maintaining baseline personal standards."
"You are hiding."
"I’ll be out shortly."
Another pause. Longer this ti.
Then, in a very flat voice, "I hate you."
"Consistently noted."
He took his ti.
The tap continued running. He observed the bathroom ceiling, which matched the sa corporate luxury aesthetic as the rest of the suite, and thought about nothing in particular. He also chose not to examine that decision too closely.
When he ca back out, she had found so thin and suggestive pajamas stocked sowhere in the suite.
She sat in the center of the bed wearing them, arms folded, damp hair draped over one shoulder, looking at him with eyes that drowned him in grievances.
"The bathroom," she said, "has a lock."
"It does."
"You used it."
"I did."
She stared at him for another second.
Then she reached out, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him into the bed with a single decisive tug that briefly reminded him how extensively her implants augnted her everyday physical strength.
He landed on his back.
She snuggled against his side with the attitude of soone who wouldn’t accept a no regardless of the reason or intention.
"Good night," she said.
"We still need to talk about-"
"Tomorrow."
He exhaled.
She was asleep, or extrely close to it, within a few minutes. Her breathing slowed and evened out against his shoulder. The thin resort fabric was warm where it pressed against his arm. Her hair had finished drying and spread loosely across the pillow.
The suite was quiet.
Proxy watched the ceiling.
He ran his deck passively, bringing the cara feeds into the background of his vision.
Ground floor, east corridor.
Nothing.
Main lobby.
Nothing.
Stairwells.
Nothing.
Sowhere on the lower floors the two figures he had lost earlier had made camp sowhere. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact room, but the complete absence of motion on the caras suggested they had found sowhere to stop.
The building was quiet.
Beyond the smart glass, the island was dark.
Thirty people out there in the dark.
He ran the feeds again.
Nyx shifted slightly in her sleep, adjusting her position, her hand loosely closing around his chest.
Proxy continued watching the ceiling.
For a long ti.
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