The first thing Kyle felt when he woke up… was a warm leg over his own. And another over his face.

  As he blinked the sleep away from his eyes, he realized that he was lying in a bed, sweaty, wearing just his boxers.. Which were wrapped around his left ankle, rather than in place… with at least three other people in it with him. Two of them, he recognized. Thor’s blonde head was fairly obvious down at the end of the bed.

  Sherry’s own darker hair was off to his left… and it was one of her legs over his face. And he didn’t know who the third person was, but she was completely bald and had a very faint, pale green skin.. Which meant, after studying her for a moment, he thought he recognized her.

  Sari; her people had chlorophyl built into their skin to reduce calorie requirements. Something she’d used as an excuse to go around in a sports bra and shorts, or whatever the most exposing outfit she found appropriate, at all times, which was a bit odd since there was virtually no natural sunlight in the Ash system; every time he’d met her she was inside one of the domes.

  He had barely spoken to her in class, but apparently she’d been in line to get her pilot’s license while he was getting his Captain’s one, and joined the celebration. And while she’d flirted with him, he thought that was because she hit on pretty much everyone rather than any actual interest.

  He could remember her joining, yes. Memories of the night before got a bit fuzzier when the alcohol got started. But one thing he was reasonably certain about; things had gotten complicated, thought not necessarily in a bad way. He was also no longer certain that Barry and Elise were boyfriend and girlfriend, from the way the others had spoken.

  It was fully possible that the four had become some sort of polyamorous relationship while he’d been off on his own and they’d been living in a fantasy world. For him, he’d gone back to the real world, to study, to fix the ship… and spent the bulk of the past year training. They’d gone from kids to adults in a virtual world he only visited, and had spent much more time together than with him.

  Despite how close they’d been earlier, and tried to stay… he didn’t really know them the way he thought. They might be his closest friends, but things had changed.

  He had no idea what he was going to do about any of this. Other than, for the moment, try to carefully detangle himself from the limbs around him, and go take a shower in… whoever’s room this was. He had a room he was renting where the wreckage of the Sapper was docked. This one was… somewhere else.

  He still had his kit, in a pouch by the bed… next to an almost identical one that was probably Sari’s; it had been years since the other two had been out in space for more than a brief span, and Thor had brought nothing but the clothes on his back, while Sherry had her own belongings in a purse . A spare skinsuit; unfortunately one of the bone white Screaming Skulls ones, that didn’t have any rank insignia, but might give the wrong impression. His usual set was still on the Sapper… or destroyed.

  His frame was nowhere to be seen; which was, hopefully, not a problem. He could get a new one if he needed it, and so long as he was careful, just the bundled-up skinsuit would be fine.

  He unrolled it before climbing into the shower, and tried to avoid thinking his usual thoughts while he wasn’t on his own ship… but they came to mind anyway. Every drop of water was recycled, purified, and used again. Water might be ridiculously abundant in space, but moving it around cost money.

  Someone may have pissed this water out the day before, or used it to flush a toilet, or any number of things… and it had definitely done all of that during the years it was here in this mostly contained system.

  It might even have been in a corpse that was rendered down after the implant was removed. If Thor and Sherry had died here, years ago, the water in their bodies might have become part of that permanent cycle.

  As he was rinsing off the soap, suddenly the lights in the room ramped up dramatically brighter, becoming a deeper, yellow color; and he could see the green form of Sari stepping in, even as he started drying off.. And she grinned, looking him over for a moment.

  “I was about to take a shower, and absorb a little UV before breakfast. It wouldn’t hurt you to tan a little… if you’d like to join me. For the shower, or breakfast… or both.”

  He studied her for a moment. Last night, he was drunk, like, really drunk, for quite possibly the first time. He could easily discard what had happened with this girl… and Sherry… and Thor… and pretend like he’d never been attracted to any of them, it was just the alcohol.

  Sherry and Sari. The names were quite similar, which he hadn’t realized when they were drunk. He’d likely even called them each other’s names… and Sari was waiting for an answer.

  “I did just finish getting clean myself… but one can never be too thorough, no?”

  ***

  Sitting at a small table in what was clearly Sari’s apartment, Kyle sat over a tray of eggs and bacon; not cooked, but faked and reheated, but still tasty enough, while Sari was eating just a single strip of bacon… it seemed every room she entered had the same yellow light start up, and while he’d changed into a full-body skinsuit, she’d changed out for a set of black shorts and top.

  She watched him eating… and then the odd tube of grey powder he poured over the scrambled eggs before he started eating them.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “..What kind of seasoning is that? Is it any good?”

  “Ahh, no. Its a dietary supplement. That frame I was wearing around, the one by your door? If I keep taking this stuff for another couple years, I won’t need it anymore. My bones are already way more sturdy than they were as a kid. I used to break something every month or two; my most recent one last week was about a year from the one before. Might be my last one, if I’m careful.”

  She blinked. “Oh. I…. almost forgot about it. Did you break anything last night? Or.. this morning?” She seemed a bit embarrassed. Which… was definitely the first time he’d seen her like that.

  “Nah. I’m not fragile, its just…” He set his right arm on the table, by the tray. “The kind of augment I got. My bones will eventually be way tougher than baseline, and already are… slightly. But my muscles? Up to the same standard as a heavy-grav augment, and have been since I was little. So long as I don’t do anything an un-augmented person couldn’t do, I’m fine. But if I just push on a door a bit too hard trying to open it… or pick up something a little too heavy…. Crack.”

  “Huh. Odd. They made us for basic outdoor labor. Stronger, takes us a lot longer to get tired, need less food, so long as we’re regularly exposed to sunlight. Where I grew up, everybody was like this, and I didn’t meet someone without green skin til the day I set out to come here.” She gestured at the light overhead. “Obviously it doesn’t have to be earth’s sun, just any light within a certain range. Its a bit weird, though.” She finished off the single strip of bacon she’d chosen.

  “Forgive me if its a stupid question, since I’m from some backwater, but… Its like…. They made augments for the first time hundreds of years ago. And they’ve got the people they made just to be better, like me. The ones better suited for an environment, like your friend Sherry. And I’m assuming yours is a combat one, based on that problem, not meant for kids?”

  “Sure. Though… those aren’t the only kinds.”

  Sari chuckled. “We had a cat-girl in our class, yeah. So lets say the three normal ones are just… improvement, environment, and fighting. Why don’t they just make one perfect augment, that’s great at all three? I’m already stronger than base-line.”

  Kyle studied her for a moment as he chewed the next bite of eggs. “Mmm. You remember Billy?”

  “Like… completely covered in black fur Billy?”

  “That black fur insulates him from heat, and in extreme heat, lets him survive longer by absorbing it and flaking away from the body. If I used a flamethrower on him, or a laser, he’d be way better at surviving it than me, and if we were stranded on the right world, I might be useless while he’s still perfectly comfortable.”

  Sari nodded. “So our perfect augment would have black fur.”

  “There’s heat-resistant folks without the black fur, so maybe, maybe not. Plus…. He hates the cold. When the air conditioner was set too low? He was miserable. He actually wore his helmet and kept himself fully sealed when he had to go near refrigerated chambers. You have a planet with hot days and cold nights, he might freeze to death.”

  He set the disposable tray and fork in the recycling bin by the door. “Then you’ve got Sherry, who can’t survive a high-G world, but who could get sucked out into space while she was in the shower, and survive long enough to be recovered… and I’d be willing to bet that while you need less food than her… she needs way less air than you. So if life support on a ship failed, she might last weeks while you’d last hours.”

  While Sari was slowly nodding, they could hear a rustle from the bedroom… and then Sherry herself emerged with a groan. “And her hearing would also be better. Or maybe its just that she’s got a hangover. And is currently talking about herself in the third person. Is this a hangover? I’ve never had one before. Ugh. What do you do for a hangover?”

  Normally, Sherry seemed… clean. Precise. Everything in its place. Right now? Her skinsuit wasn’t fully closed, her hair was a mess, and she was blinking constantly as if the light caused her physical pain.

  Kyle chuckled. “Ahhh, and of course, the same thing that makes her not need as much air makes her more susceptible to hangovers. But she probably hasn’t had real alcohol before, only inside games where any hangovers are purely simulated and can be turned off.”

  She glowered at Kyle for a moment… and shook her head. “Ugh. Alright. I’m gonna go grab a shuttle and get back down to the surface. You wanna come along, or head down later?”

  He glanced at the bedroom. “..What about Thor?”

  “He’ll get up when he gets up, or when Sari here kicks him out. You’ve got your ultra-secret, only talk about in person, thing, so we can go talk about it before you go spend a few months staring at old wreckage and dreaming of weird bullshit masses of garbage welded together instead of just buying a ship like a normal person.”

  Sari perked up, glancing at the two of them.. “Oooh, something spicy?”

  Sherry glanced at Kyle, then at her. “Something secret? I dunno. You just… bring blondie with you when you come down. And have fun.” She looked around for a minute, seemingly aimlessly…before finding the door.. Staring at a storage closet… and finding a different door before heading out into the station proper.

  Sari watched her leave, then glanced back at Kyle. “Like, how secret? Just don’t want to be heard talking about, or…”

  He chuckled. “Like you seem nice, and if you want to go out on an actual date instead of just getting drunk and hooking up, I’m definitely going to be in-system for a few months and would be interested, but secret enough I wouldn’t talk about it right now with someone I didn’t know that well. Yet.”

  “...Huh.” She studied him for a moment. “...I’m not going to date you just to find out a secret. But sure. Whats this about welding garbage together?”

  “...You know how the dubs just love looking through the wreckage of space battles, and pay people to haul stuff here so they can study all of it?”

  Sari nodded. “Sure. There’s actually a bunch of businesses that fix up old wrecks and sell them to aspiring mercenaries. I’ve shuttled people around for em lots of times.”

  “I built my own, custom, ship, using parts from a bunch of others. And got shot up. So now I’m gonna look at fixing it… and upgrading it.”

  “...Hmm. Can I see it?”

  “Sure. Hell, if you’re getting paid to haul people out to those folks, I can hire you for that trip. I’m staying at one of the salvage stations out by the junkyards.”

  The green-skinned girl nodded. “Well. Honestly, getting your hands dirty on an engineering project seems like a better first date than dinner, so sure, might as well. Though, to be clear, I will be judging you by the quality of your work.”

  Kyle nodded along, amused. “Hah. Well, I’ll try not to disappoint. Can I have your number? I should wake up Thor and head out.”

  “Definitely. Looking forward to next time.”