Thomas's fingers danced over the holo-console, and the lab's lights dimmed until the displays gleamed like a constellation of tiny suns. The air thrummed with that peculiarly metallic warmth the place always had after surgery—ozone and ionized metal, the smell of progress. He didn't bother with pleasantries. His voice clipped across the room, clinical and warm in the way a surgeon's is warm before a scalpels' first cut.
"Some important logistics," he said, ticking each point off with a jab of his thumb at the floating checklist. "Mechatopia is inimical to unprotected humans. You cannot eat, drink, or bathe openly in the city—its synthetic environment and cleaning agents will break down organic tissues and the biolayers if exposed directly. You may—secretly and carefully—ingest human foods, but not publicly. The biomechanical layering protects your torso and limbs; it does not cover the cranial cavity and sinuses. In short: don't dunk your head in any public water supply. Got it?"
Luna froze mid-breath. The old, private fear—of being betrayed by ordinary things—stole across her expression. "So… does that mean I can't… eat cakes?" Her voice came out small and excessively hopeful.
Thomas rolled his eyes just a touch, an expression so human it could have been a glitch in his otherwise efficient manner. "You can eat human foods secretly. And you will need to ingest a daily supplement. The neck implant pumps and converts mechanical atmosphere into oxygen, but it's not a perpetual reactor. It needs recharge and biochemical support. I will supply you with Memorium tubes—semi-fluid nutraceutical cartridges. It's a cocktail of neuronic peptides, binding nano-carriers, and nutrient ions. It stabilizes your cognitive patterning with the implants, increases neuroplasticity, and fuels the implant's micro-pumps. One dose per day. Miss it and your implant will fail. Fail the implant, and you are not just exposed—you die."
The bluntness of the last sentence landed like a cold bar of metal. Valerian absorbed it the way he absorbed everything: with motionless, unemotional comprehension. "Understood," he said. The word contained no drama; it contained acceptance.
Luna's stomach did a small, traitorous flip. Death. A single missed drink could mean that. Her hand found the edge of the sofa as if to steady herself. Memorium. One drink a day. For life. For his side. The thought skittered and settled. There was a strange comfort in the ritual cruelty of it: a thing to do, every day—something she could count on that tethered her to survival and, selfishly, to the mission.
Thomas sauntered toward a small cabinet and produced two slim crystalline vials the size of a thumb—opalescent liquid sloshing within. "This is your Memorium supply. They feed into the neck port, or you can drink them if you prefer. The taste is… metallic, a little sweet, not pleasant—don't expect cake. But they work. One dose per 24 hours. No exceptions." He clipped one of the vials into a charging cradle on Luna's wrist-scrambler so the implant could draw a trickle-charge between full doses—smart redundancy.
Luna watched it click into place like a sacred relic slotting into an altar. Her eyes glistened. A daily sip. A tiny vial that keeps me alive and lets me stay near him. Relief and dread braided through her. She told herself she could do it. She would do it. For Flame, she reminded herself. And, selfishly, for this thin, impossible tether she had to Valerian.
Thomas's tone grew lighter as he leaned back on the console—his version of a grin. "You can remove the biolayer in one click when you're in a private room. The layer retracts into cartridge racks at the wall, collapsible and foldable. Pull the suit back onto the hanger, hit the retract, and the system stores it. Don't take it off in public—machines here detect human skin fast. We'll issue you an SDX Star Credit card for Mechatopia purchases and a Mechatopia wristwatch with local ID. The watch interfaces with their civic grid: transit, pay, local comms, translation microservices. And one more thing—don't say 'ISA' or anything connected to our organization. If asked, you're civilians. Specifically: a couple. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Understood?"
Luna felt the world tilt on its axis and tried hard to keep her mouth from dropping open. Couple. Boyfriend. Girlfriend. Perform affection. Her heart ratcheted; her cheeks burned so hot she thought the skin might steam. She could hear her own inner whir of panic, the familiar cadence: laugh, apologize, smile, hide. The instructions felt ridiculous and monstrously intimate all at once.
Valerian's reply was a single, cold shard: "For Flame." He didn't elaborate. He didn't have to.
Thomas clicked his fingers again and produced a pair of thin, matte cards and two compact, disc-thickness wrist modules that snapped closed with a satisfying micro-whirr. "SDX credits. These are preloaded accounts calibrated to your cover IDs—travel, temporary housing, a small local ledger for incidentals. The watches will emulate local biometric readings. They will also provide discreet language support. Nikhil Galdos—cyberexpert, part-cyborg, genius—he's my contact in Mechatopia. He speaks Hindi natively. If you can't speak Hindi, don't worry—just say his name: 'Thomas Pear sent you.' Tell him to switch to English; he'll recognize the code phrase."
Luna's mouth made the phrase—"Thomas Pear sent you."—clumsily under her breath. Say the name. He will understand. English. The announcement was supposed to be comforting, a small procedural bridge across culture. Instead, it betrayed another layer of uncertainty—what if Nikhil didn't take to English? What if the phonetics tripped her up? She practiced in a whisper: "Tho-mas Pe-er." The syllables felt foreign, clumsy, and silly in her mouth. Her cheeks flushed at the absurdity of rehearsing someone's name like a child's nursery rhyme.
Thomas noticed her anxiety and, with the bitter candor of a man who loved efficiency over feelings, teased: "Miss Mooncreast—memorize the phrase. No dramatic attempts at Hindi unless you want to be butchered by a pleasant cyborg linguist. He'll switch to English if you give the right name. Don't embarrass us."
Luna managed a tiny laugh, too high-pitched, half-protest and half-panic. Embarrass us. Don't embarrass him. Don't embarrass yourself. She pictured the cyberexpert as a hulking half-machine with a heart wired to servers—somehow fierce and kind. She pictured herself babbling in Hindi. The mental picture made her cheeks burn again.
Valerian's internal clock ticked a different rhythm. The procedural briefing was a list of variables. Memorium dependency, implant recharge cycles, disguise retraction, local contact—he cataloged each in an internal ledger. The "perform as couple" element added noise to that ledger; an emotional variable that was hard to quantify. He filed it away under "operational risk: social cover." For him, the cost-benefit analysis was simple: adopt cover, reduce detection risk, succeed. He did not say the words "I will protect her" out loud, but the silent calculus he ran included the human liability at his side—as a data point, as a weak node he could not ignore.
He glanced once at Luna when Thomas presented the vials. She looked small and fragile as she took possession of the Memorium vial, her fingers brushing the tiny capsule with a reverence she would not show publicly. It caught him off-guard with an unfamiliar twinge—an annoyance at the irrelevance of such soft things in a world that demanded steel. He cuffed it away mentally: Emotional interference. Neutralize.
Thomas handed them the cards and watches with a flourish. "Card activates at the city gate. The wrist module will grant you a local ID—choose a name now for your cover. Keep your communication to within the wrist unit; it routes through an encrypted Mechatopian mesh. And remember—public displays of intimacy must be believable but not theatrical. Hold hands if asked to appear tender. Don't overplay it. No lip locks unless it's the distraction we planned. Now—any questions before we send you out?"
Luna's mouth opened, then closed. Questions assorted like frightened birds were flapping at her tongue—what if Memorium tasted terrible, what if the implant failed, what if she mispronounced Nikhil's name and offended a cyborg genius—and everything collided into one small, emphatic want: Will he notice if I steal a small cake on the way in? Thomas's remark about secret eating had given her a half-permission, but the world felt full of eyes now.
She swallowed. Her voice came out soft and a little squeaky. "Will… will Memorium make me… different? Like—emotionally? Will I still… be me?"
Thomas blinked, and for a moment the scientist's shorthand compassion showed through. "It sharpens you. It increases neuroplasticity and reaction times, integrates with the optical overlays in your pupils. You'll be quicker, more focused, with microsecond pattern recognition. But it won't change your core personality. It's a tool. Use it or die." Then his tone slid back to clipped cheer. "Any behavioral side effects are temporary and mission-bound."
Valerian's answer was a low hum beneath Thomas's words—stern and unfluctuating. "Tools become part of you. Understand."
Inside, Luna felt that statement as a small, strange comfort: tools could be chosen. If she lost a piece of herself, maybe it would be one she chose for a reason. For protection. For staying near him.
Thomas cleared his throat, tapping the holo to show the last bullet points: meeting Nikhil, head to District 7 hub, do not trigger maintenance drones, follow local traffic protocols, and—most importantly—report to him via secure channel once you're established. "You leave in five. Dress, calibrate, drink your Memorium, and get out there. Try to look like you belong. And Miss Mooncreast—try not to be a tragic Marie Antoinette crying over cake. We don't need stories here; we need results."
Luna's fingers curled around her SDX card until the edges warmed against her palm. She performed one ridiculous little waguri habit—she puffed her cheeks, then let out a breathless laugh that was half hysteria, half attempt at composure. Cake, Memorium, pretending to be a girlfriend, not fainting, say Thomas's name properly, don't die. The list skipped like a scratched record.
Valerian's last glance was a single, practical note: he tilted the watch module onto his wrist with care, the interface whispering "link established." "Memorium schedule synced," it displayed in tiny glyphs. He set their departure to synchronize with the city's transit windows, aligning their arrival with a supply convoy's shadow to reduce scrutiny. The man was an engine of logistics; his every move smoothed the mission's path.
Before they left, Luna practiced—silently, uncomfortably—repeating the phrase Thomas told her to use. "Thomas Pear sent you," she mouthed twice. "Thomas Pear sent you." Each iteration felt the same: absurd and oddly ritualistic, like a charm. Her cheeks warmed at the absurdity, and she let herself smile despite the knot in her chest. It was a small, rebellious pleasure: the truth you keep for yourself.
The elevator hummed as it descended, the walls transparent and revealing the colossal skeleton of the Mechanical Trade Expanse. Neon lattices stretched out in every direction like the ribs of some interstellar leviathan. Massive cargo freighters drifted lazily past docking gates, their hulls flashing with streams of machine-script. Walkways of translucent green plasma glass crisscrossed the air, glowing highways packed with civilians, cyborg merchants, and the occasional floating drone-ferry carrying families with pets wrapped in containment bubbles.
Luna stood stiff in the elevator, tugging her coat closed as if it might hide the faint lavender glow radiating softly from her bioengineered skin. Her pupils still flickered with that new luminous sheen, faint lilac circuits gliding in rings across her irises. Every time her gaze accidentally met someone's, they looked twice—first at her, then at Valerian, whose storm-blue glow was even sharper, colder, more alien.
Luna's face turned crimson. They're staring at us. Everyone is staring. Do they know? Do they see me blushing like a child? Oh no, what if they think we're… lovers already… oh my god… stop, stop thinking that! She pressed her lips together tightly, lowering her head, letting her half-moon earrings swing forward to cover her burning cheeks.
Valerian, by contrast, was marble. He didn't glance left or right, didn't so much as acknowledge the weight of countless eyes on them. His stride was unbroken, measured, deliberate. To him, stares were noise, irrelevant. This is cover. Nothing more, he reminded himself. But his stormy gaze swept across reflective glass once—just once—and caught Luna walking half a step behind him, clutching her coat as though shielding something sacred. He didn't comment. He never did.
Thomas, striding ahead, broke the silence with his dry voice: "Get used to the stares. You glow. Biolayers are sophisticated, but in the Trade Expanse? People notice anomalies. It's why the couple disguise will work. You'll stand out—but in the right way. Lovers always stand out."
Luna nearly tripped. She made a small hiccuping sound—half laugh, half mortified squeak. "L-Lovers… stand out?" she repeated under her breath. Her heart skittered like it was trying to leap out of her ribcage. Why does he keep using that word? Why does it sound so… dangerous… when Valerian's right here beside me…
Valerian didn't even twitch. He simply said, flatly, "It doesn't matter how we stand out, as long as it conceals our true purpose."