Chapter Text
The rest of the team stays well away from me and Three as we emerge from the shuttle. They’d stayed well away on the shuttle, too.
You two are getting ichor all over my deck. Decontamination, now.
ART sounds pissed. Which is kind of fair. The slimy, sticky orange stuff (ichor, I guess?) is not only really gross, it also smells like a very large fauna died several weeks ago. Not that ART has a sense of smell (that I know of), but the humans were gagging the whole way back from the planet and haven’t stopped yet, so ART has to know the smell is terrible.
But it’s also unfair, because the thing that exploded when we hit it with our weapons was trying to catch the humans, presumably to eat them. So ART should be happy it got alien ichor instead of corpses, and I say so as Three and I trudge into the little decontam room off the shuttle bay.
Yes, yes. Thank you. Now get cleaned up.
We’re already shedding our uniforms, and I’m sure we’re both glad we aren’t trying to get suit skins off with this stuff everywhere. I know I am. The zippers are hard enough to manage. As we wrestle ourselves out of each piece they fall to the deck with a wet plop.
Three opens its gun ports and a little river of slime oozes from each one. Oh, great. I open mine and the same thing happens. This shit has gotten everywhere. This is not going to be a quick decontam. I mash the button to start the disinfectant shower and we both head for it. It’ll be a little cramped, but whatever.
«You first, then Three.» ART is suddenly looming over us in the feed.
Three immediately steps back. ART has never warmed up to it, I don’t know why. It’s much less annoying than any human except Mensah, and it’s been with us for months and done a great job protecting the crew. I grab its wrist and tow it into the shower with me, saying, “We’ll both fit, and we can’t risk this shit drying out on either of us. Who knows if we’d ever get it off?” I close the door firmly behind us.
I can feel ART being disgruntled in the feed, and Three looks slightly terrified, but I turn the fluid pressure up and the slime starts coming off of us and Three relaxes and even manages a little smile.
“Do you think it was your energy weapon or my projectiles that made it explode?” it asks.
“No idea. Fuck, some of this stuff has gotten between my organics and my inorganics.” That means I’ll have to peel back my skin at all the joins to let the fluids rinse it away. Doing that is really uncomfortable, trust me.
“Seriously?” Three is wrestling with its hair tie, which is all gummed up with ichor, along with everything else. I’d stopped growing my hair at 6 cm, but Three has gone much farther. Its hair now reaches just below its shoulders, thick and slightly wavy, the color of the summer grains Mensah’s family grew on their farm. Even tied back it hides the data port on its neck.
“Yeah.” I peel the skin away from one of my gun ports and we can both see a little wisp of slime/ichor/whatever washing out of the gap.
“Ugh.” Three starts doing the same with its own joins as soon as it gets its hair free. It doesn’t have quite as many to worry about (I’m an older model by some unknown number of years that’s probably greater than four, and we were manufactured by different companies anyway), but I’ve never been envious of that fact before. I swear a lot as I try to make sure I get everything.
“We could help each other,” Three suggests quietly after half an hour of this.
“I think we have to.” The idea of touching and being touched by Three isn’t as horrifying as if it were a human. (Humans are disgusting.) And besides, it’s necessary.
It turns its back to me. “I’m not sure about my shoulders or my lower back.”
It sucks in a breath as I part skin from metal at its right shoulder. I assume that’s from discomfort, but that doesn’t explain my own indrawn breath or the slight release of adrenaline my organics deliver. The sterile white shower suddenly seems even brighter.
I do what needs to be done and try not to think about adrenaline and inexplicable brightness and warm wet skin under my fingertips. Then I turn around and endure a whole new but definitely related set of sensations I don’t want to think about as Three’s fingertips explore my joins.
“I think that’s everything,” it says after a subjective eternity, and I turn. Its pupils are wide and I suspect my own are also dilated—that would explain the strange brightness. Something nameless clutches at my insides.
The streams cut off abruptly. «That took long enough,» ART grumbles, and we scramble out of the shower as though we’d done something wrong.