"One of those startup guys came through, you know? One of the ones who buy a mil-surplus frame and a bunch of shiny new gear and swagger out here thinking they've got an algorithm or just plain more smarts than any other prospector for alien relics, and after a couple of seasons they're pawning their shovel for beans and they either cash out broke or turn into a weird bitter oldhead like the rest of us. And he musta cashed out earlier than most, sold a pile of gear to the trade post all at once instead of trickling it out sayin' one big score was gonna fix it."
It's taken nearly an hour for Vin to open up, after showing up at Andrea's door at 2AM, shaking uncontrollably. They're on the back porch, looking out over the mountain with a couple of cheap beers in hand; Vin's wedged into a corner, tucked firmly under a weighted blanket, but that ain't new. Vin needed that since back in the war, when they were flying frames that had half the smarts and twice the reflexes and a couple of megatons of loadout.
"And the fuckin' guy musta thought he'd have an edge if he was cross-jacked."
Vin's frame these days is a sweet little thirty-footer; mid-tonnage mining excavator with a high-dex archaeology refit. The AI's less chatty than most, and goes by The Frantic Accretion of Experience. Fran's weird, a bit, but AIs are. And Vin's not that usual, either, not after three tours in combat frames. It works out.
"Saints, Vin, tell me you didn't," Andrea says wearily. The plugheads were a late-war innovation, and they were a breed apart. You didn't come back from being that close to the machine, not the same, not ever. A foolishness that the sheer piloting power absolutely couldn't make up for.
"Tell me you ain't ever thought it," Vin says miserably.
"I ain't ever done it."
Vin hiccups. "Body keeps tryin' to have emotions it ain't got the fundamental architecture for," she says, and shudders convulsively. "It was fine, mostly. Fine. She ain't got a direct analogue for taste, we had pie, she thought it was hilarious."
"And then what."
"She wanted to know what it's like to pilot her, and—" Vin fumbles the beer unsteadily to her mouth. "I ain't, I ain't got words for. Not something like that."
Andrea grunts, looking out at the mountain.
"The intimacy—" Vin tries to lace her fingers in illustration, and nearly drops her beer. "I ain't, I ain't — that would have fucked me up on its own, Andi, I ain't felt anything like that, I'd never have felt anything like that, I'm too fucked up for love like that—"
"You ain't broken," Andrea says sharply. "Brains ain't meant to do that."
"But the, the recursion, that. That fucked Fran."
"You gave yourselves a really wild drug trip while you were sharing a brain. Feedback loop." Andrea sighs. "You had a trip, Vin, and you're still on the comedown. S'all. You need to take it easy for a few days. Be normal. Pet that fuckin' stray dog you think I don't know you've been feeding all winter. Talk about normal human shit on the phone with a friend. Get through it."
Vin takes a couple of tries to put her beer down next to her, rattling on the boards to the shake of her hand. "All my friends is you and Fran," she says plaintively. "Why d'you think it seemed like a good idea?"
They sure are a pair of sad old bastards. Andrea sighs again.
"She wanted to come over still...." Vin closes her eyes. "She reckoned I'd be better if I. If. You. Human contact. Grounded me? With a, with a...if I asked for a hug."
"Uh-huh."
"...And I said no."
"'Cause you knew I'd be pissed?"
"Yeah." Vin gropes around for the beer. "...Naw," she adds shamefacedly. "Naw, I didn't want...with Fran in my head I mighta actually. Asked."
"You sappy fuck," Andi says, and after a minute or two of looking at the mountain, she very carefully scoots up the porch, not looking at Vin, absolutely not looking at Vin, until they're shoulder to shoulder.