He hesitated and she reached up through him somehow. In a crisp instant he felt how it had been for her. She had somehow rewritten herself into his neurological circuitry, lodged fragments in his Aspects, hidden. All before he had decided to strip her chip from his spine.
If he let her get any control this Killeen could take him easily. He began tracing through his own recesses, searching for her. She fled. Then her voice chimed in him, clearly, unafraid:
Ask him if he remembers whether Family Knights take their boots off first.
“Huh?” Toby said. The man gave him a puzzled look.
If Knights keep their boots on when they’re on top.
Without knowing why he was doing it, Toby repeated the sentence.
The man’s mouth opened and closed and then said, “What? Who’s talking?”
“Shibo.”
The man said slowly, “I thought you said once you didn’t know.”
The sliver of Shibo said thinly,
Knights keep run-ready.
Toby repeated it and the man said, “So the one on top has to keep his boots on.”
She answered,
What makes you say “his”?
Killeen answered, “You said you never got on top.”
Toby was getting uncomfortable with this but he repeated Shibo again, who said,
I wanted to be on top, be fast, wear boots.
“You learned how.”
Good teacher.
The man grinned. “Seemed like you learned somewhere before me.”
Never learned your moves, naysay.
“Compliments, even. You always know how to get what you want.”
Toby struggled to say something. All the knotted energy surrounding Shibo, of his carrying her as an Aspect, of his ripping her out with crude tools when she went awry—all of it collided and tightened his throat until he could not speak.
Anything, anything to get it again.
The tiny voice was so desperate it opened a flood of sadness in Toby. He croaked out the words for her. The man’s eyes widened and Shibo cried to Toby alone,
It’s him! Him!
“Maybe there’s a way for even that.” Killeen peered into his son’s eyes but without seeing him.
That’s the point.
When Toby repeated it he was surprised to find tears had run down and over his lips.
“You always liked to joke about it.”
