The drop to Entana went exactly as planned, and we made our way to the monorail under the cover of night without any complications. Eve looked around excitedly at all the new sights like a kid on vacation—rather similar to how I’d been my first time down planet-side. It was cute and all, but I had to remember lives were at stake here, and we needed Eve focused for the mission in hunting down Gamma-17.

  Sitting beside Eve on the monorail, I leaned closer so she’d be the only one who could hear me, “Hey, I’ve got a proposal for you.”

  Eve turned to me, barely contained excitement flashed in her eyes, “Oh yeah?”

  I nodded, “Preemptively, I say we call a truce. We need to take this mission seriously, and I need you to focus and follow my orders to help us find the Predazoan.”

  “What do you propose?”

  I looked around the rest of the monorail car; aside from our team, there was hardly anyone on board, and no one at all seemed to be paying attention to us—but still, I felt I needed to remain stealthy.

  “You behave and help out with the mission, and I’ll take you on an actual date—dinner, a show, the whole deal, exactly like a human couple.”

  Eve’s eyes grew wide, and she smiled eagerly and opened her mouth to respond, then paused as a look of consideration crossed her face. “Just one date, for days and cycle’s worth of work?”

  Damn, she was going to ask for more, “What are you thinking?”

  Eve tilted her head back and forth, trying to decide, “A date is a nice reward for the end of our mission, but I need something to keep me motivated throughout our time here on Entana.”

  I took in a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh, “Eve…”

  Eve waved me off, “I won’t ask for anything outrageous; something reasonable as a daily reward.”

  I eyed her flatly, and she gave me that adorable, wide-eyed innocent stare, “Alright, what else do you want?”

  “A goodnight kiss; every night I behave and follow along with your commands, you reward me with a kiss goodnight.” She held up a finger, “Not some kiss on the cheek either, I want a kiss on the lips.”

  A simple kiss? That wasn’t so bad, I could probably manage that, so long as her goodnight kiss was just that, “Not a make-out session though, right? Just a quick kiss on the lips, that’s all.”

  “How quick?”

  “What, just a quick peck, right?”

  Eve shook her head, “That’s not a good reward.”

  “How do you think a goodnight kiss should go?”

  Eve cocked her head to the side, “10 seconds, open-mouth, minimal tongue.”

  I scoffed, “That’s basically making out. No tongue.”

  Eve rolled her eyes, “10 seconds, open mouth, no tongue.”

  I shook my head, “10 seconds is way longer than a normal goodnight kiss. Two seconds.”

  Eve glared at me, “Outrageous. Five seconds.”

  “Three seconds, and a morning hug.”

  Eve held her hand up, then tapped at her chin as she considered my offer, “A real hug, not some church hug where we keep our pelvises two feet apart?”

  The fact Eve even knew about church hugs was already ridiculous and it made me curious what all she’d learned about humans either from consuming the minds of those government agents or just from the earth media she watched. “A full embrace.” I confirmed.

  Eve’s smile was wide and victorious, “Deal.” She said and offered her hand for me to shake; I took it and gave it a single pump, and she beamed and interlocked her fingers in mine as she settled our hands into her lap. I didn’t know if I’d just made a foolish mistake in moving the lines in how physical I was willing to go with Eve, but it was just a kiss—something even family and friends might share. Well, not an open-mouth kiss—unless you’re really good friends. Still, I had to risk it; I needed Eve focused on the mission if we were to succeed, and I needed to employ whatever gambit I could to make her take it seriously. Maybe I’d get lucky and giving her just a little bit of affection would give me more control over the situation—if she really was so desperate to be with me as she claimed, I could use this all to my advantage. Did that mean I was being manipulative—was I the honeypot? It wasn’t like there was some manual in how to navigate this crazy situation; I just had to adapt as best I could to maintain control for as long as possible.

  The monorail glided along to our stop, and our little team exited together. A quick walk over and we were back at the hotel. It had only been a day, so I was sure our absence would hardly be noticed. We all took the elevator up to our floor, and once we got off we split up from there, with just Doctor Kianna remaining behind.

  “Eve, are you still planning on staying in Adam’s room?” She asked, flashing a quick apologetic gaze to me.

  Of course, I wasn’t surprised.

  Eve held up our hands together, “Obviously.”

  Kianna nodded and turned to me, “Zyno has already changed rooms, so it’ll just be the two of you together from now on.” I could tell Kianna wanted to apologize to me, but she wouldn’t do so in front of Eve. I assumed Eve already made this arrangement back when she was speaking with mission command as they established the new safety protocols—same as her staying in my quarters back on The Radiance.

  “Well, I suppose it’s goodnight for now, even though our schedules are all weirdly backwards from being back on The Radiance. We’ll probably need to take another couple days to adjust again.” Kianna reasoned.

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  I shrugged, “I should be fine by tomorrow. Do we have a mission briefing or anything in the morning?”

  Kianna shook her head, “No, we all already briefed back on The Radiance, so tomorrow will probably be a light-duty day.” She shrugged, “You could take Eve around to see if she can sense any sign of Gamma-17, pick up a trail for us to follow.”

  Eve pulled me tighter against her, “It’s a date.”

  I rolled my eyes, “Hardly…”

  With that, Kianna bid us goodnight, and Eve and I went back to my—our hotel room. Eve rushed inside and jumped on the hover-bed like a little kid, “When do I get my goodnight kiss?” She asked eagerly.

  I threw my jacket off and sat down in the little recliner and turned on the TV, “We’ve been planet-side for less than an hour; you don’t get a reward kiss until you actually put in some work—show me something worth rewarding.”

  “Awww…” Eve paused in her jumping on the bed and sat down on the edge as she looked at me, “So what do you want to do for now? It’s strange how backwards your scheduling goes from being in orbit and then planet-side; our day’s just started, but it’s the middle of the night.”

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “Do you actually need sleep? Don’t you have some endless energy or something—perfect cellular regeneration?”

  Eve giggled at that, “I might have boundless energy, but my mind can still grow weary—especially with how human it is now. Sure, I could stay up for several cycles in a row if I really needed, same as I could hibernate for decades without stirring. But for maximum efficiency and comfort, I should like to sleep regularly.” She smiled, “Plus, I’d like to be on your schedule—awake and asleep together.”

  I nodded along, ignoring most of what Eve said while keeping the conversation going, “Honestly, the strange Imperial schedules along with them changing around drastically when planet-side has been one of the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make ever since leaving earth. A 32-hour day seems absolutely crazy, but with the way they section it out with shift-breaks makes it more manageable, but then you go planet-side and it’s one big chunk all over again.”

  “I’ve noticed you’ve been sleeping a lot better since you’ve been aboard The Radiance. It seems your insomnia has calmed down for now.” Eve said mildly.

  It kind of bugged me when Eve was acting so normal—like a girlfriend worrying over me—but I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe I felt it was some trick, and certainly one of the more subtle ones at that. “Maybe the weird Imperial schedule actually helped my insomnia?”

  “I think you’re also in a much healthier headspace; I think you’ve recovered from that awful experience that caused your breakdown—the PTSD.” Eve added.

  I let out a sigh and looked over at Eve; she was just watching me with those big, glowing yellow eyes, nothing really written on her face for once—no obvious expression I could read.

  “I suppose I have you to thank for that—or the little Evie I found back on earth. Taking care of her—or you, I guess, certainly helped with my recovery.” I offered quietly.

  Eve got up to sit on the edge of the bed closer to my recliner, “You know I’m still that little Evie you found back on earth, yes? Just because I talk and I have this new body, that doesn’t mean we’re separate entities.” She gestured to herself, “Think of this as the grown-up version of the little girl you knew.”

  I snorted, “Yeah, and you wanted to have me groom that little girl into this version of you—cause that’s not super weird and creepy.”

  Eve placed a hand on my shoulder, “Adam, I just wanted to give us a sense of equality moving forward. I didn’t want you to be afraid of me and what I was capable of; I was hoping if you felt you had a sense of dominance over me, it would help bridge that gap.”

  “I thought you said I wasn’t dominant—I’m a switch, remember?”

  Eve smiled, “And so am I; we can take turns being in control and relinquishing control—take turns pampering and spoiling each other, dominating and submitting. We don’t need fully established roles between the two of us; we can be whatever we want to be and explore everything in between.”

  I waved her off so she pulled her hand from my shoulder, “Yeah well, you fucked that all up by having such a weird plan in the first place. You could’ve probably just talked to me about wanting to be equals or whatever, but you had to go and scheme things out instead.”

  “We’re talking now, aren’t we?”

  I shook my head, “Too little too late.”

  Eve stood up and crossed her arms under her chest, clearly frustrated, “Don’t you understand why I might have some trepidation over just talking with you? Even now you don’t believe a word I say—you think I’m only doing all this to control your mind or turn you into some puppet, to which I would ask you why I would ever do such a thing? Do you really think I need some single human as my pawn? I could destroy The Radiance and everyone that knows of the existence of Predazoans before you could even get back to the shuttle. Why would I want you as some mind-slave?” She pressed.

  I shrugged into my recliner, “I don’t know dude, maybe because I have the failsafe and it’s connected to my heart rate?”

  Eve’s eyes narrowed, and in response, the tentacles at the back of her head snaked out towards me, two wrapped around my legs and lifted me up, while the other two reached into my pocket to grab the failsafe controller. The tentacles swung back around to drop the failsafe controller into Eve’s hands.

  “Eve, what are you—” I started, but Eve cut me off by pressing the center button, and a hologram displayed above the control, showing a list of prompts to activate the failsafe.

  I stood up quickly, “Eve, stop that.” I said, reaching for the controller.

  Eve held me back with her six hair tentacles, wrapping around my limbs and my waist, keeping me in place a few feet away from her, “Why? This is what you think I’m worried about, right? I’m just trying to manipulate you so I can be free of your control, is that it?”

  Eve followed along with another prompt, and she pressed one of the delayed activation keys, and a timer showed on the hologram.

  “Eve, knock it off, deactivate it.”

  Eve pressed one final button to activate the countdown, and it started ticking down at one hundred seconds, “There.” She tossed the controller to me and released me from her tentacles, “I activated the failsafe, taking you out of the equation completely. You can just sit there and let it reach zero, and it won’t even be you who killed me—your hands are clean, and you can finally be rid of me and all my evil schemes.” She said coldly, holding her head up high and proud.

  I looked down at the timer ticking away, then back at Eve, “What is this, some weird powerplay?”

  In response, Eve’s chest and ribcage opened to reveal her biomass core; the little silver egg-bomb had a blinking red light on top, “In a way, sure, it’s a powerplay; I’m giving you complete control over my life, and the only way to stop it is for you to actively save me. If not, you can let the timer run out and I’ll have killed myself—you can walk away like you had no part of it.”

  Surely she had to be bluffing, right? I looked at the bomb in her core, then down to the controller ticking away—60 seconds left.

  “And if I do nothing? If I let you just kill yourself?”

  Eve gave me a sad, soft smile, “Then you will lose the woman who loves you more than anything in the entire universe, and in time you will come to realize what a mistake that was.”

  I didn’t buy it for one second; Eve already said she knew I wouldn’t be able to kill her back on The Radiance, she probably knew I wouldn’t just let her die either. I deactivated the timer and shut down the failsafe, and Eve closed up her chest again.

  “See? You’re the one with control here after all.” She said, leaning forward to hug me.

  I pushed her away, “Oh will you just fuck off? You knew I wouldn’t let you die—is this all just some fucking game to you?” I threw the controller onto the bed, “I’m so sick of all these games and schemes!” I put my shoes back on and stomped off towards the door.

  “Where are you going?” Eve called, sounding more concerned than she had when the failsafe was active.

  “I need some time to myself!” I shouted, then slammed the door behind me, finally free of Eve and all her ridiculous manipulation.