05:32, Thirdsol 4th M6, 2226

A lingering exhaustion plagues the following sols to the extent that I'm convinced that my meatware has failed me completely and I'm succumbing to radiation sickness. Checking my radioisotope levels secretly at work confirms that I'm still in perfect health and it's only my heart that's broken. 

My feverish paranoia that every denizen of Eris knows about my vampirism seems to have left me. I don't care who finds out. I'd almost feel relief at being apprehended by a warden now. 

I haven't fed for three sols, not since I drained three IndoChina security guards to save Shiro. In the miserable alleyways that enclose Eris-1's market I happen upon a homeless woman nestled among boxes. She coughs into a sodden cloth, a convenient host. Hunger rakes its claws but nothing can bring me to feed on her. There's no point. I press a packet of vend momos and an analgesic pill into her palms, then trudge onwards to the hospital.

Of course, I'm entirely to blame for everything. I indulged myself with stupid hopes that Shiro might risk his own execution to cure me, and to love me. The idea is so absurd that I laugh out loud at the red bricks of the Kida Biotech building on my way to work. 

I pass the entire sol in a daze, tending to frail miners with hauntingly similar symptoms to Shiro in the neat array of basement beds that makes up the underground radiation sickness facilities. At the end of my shift I loiter around the hospital hov bays, anything to prolong returning to my pod to be alone with my thoughts, yet too caught up in them to seek distraction in the metaverse. 

My third night of crying myself to sleep is interrupted by the buzz of my pod's door scanner. I slide on my lenses to find a steel-grey armoured hov glinting under the garage lights in my lens camera. The wardens have arrived to arrest me for draining three IndoChina guards. The eerie absence of panic that should be rising inside me frightens me more than the thought of my imminent execution. I whisper a final prayer to the Goddess.

"Heems!" Jaya flies through my pod door before I've got it fully open, their hair an even wilder curly mop than usual. 

My nerves dance to some strange dissonant tune: I've never been so pleased to see a warden in my life, yet my heart heaves in disappointment that my end has been delayed yet again. 

"Daiyu's gone! She's not in her pod! She went with them!"

"With who?" I usher Jaya into an armchair and bid them breathe slowly. "When did you last see her?"

"Three sols ago. I found her unconscious in her pod. I took her to the hospital, and they sent her to Kida labs to get her meatware examined. Now all of her things have gone from her pod! I've left a million messages in her lenses and at the Warden Station but it's like... like she doesn't exist anymore. She's left me."

I don't believe it for a second.

"Daiyu could barely raise her head to talk to me when I visited her. Even if Kida had given her a diagnosis that had made her want to leave you, how could she have got the energy to clear out her pod just one sol after visiting Kida?"

"You don't understand. Daiyu was my examiner during Warden training. She was demoted when the Chief Constable found out about us. She had to beg the examination board to keep me on the warden training programme. With her demotion she doesn't have the money to go underground. She keeps saying that she's a financial burden on me. I've taken so much time off work caring for her and..." Jaya's jaw clenches in an effort to hold back tears, "...she's told me so many times that I'd be better off without her."

"No, Jaya. I promise you, Daiyu loves you. She told me that she'd never leave you, no matter how sick she gets. She told me about the Chief Constable's wife, how she just disappeared after talking to Kida."

Jaya rises out of the armchair, fists clenched. "You think that Kida Biotech took Daiyu against her will?"

"I don't know."

Jaya checks their pulser, adjusts various tools on their belt, then turns towards the door. "I'm going to get her back." 

"No!" I pull them away from the door, dangerously close to touching their bare wrist. I let go and shrink away in a panic. "What are you going to do? Smash the glass on the Kida building and storm in there alone?"

"I'm a warden. I can make people talk."

"Megumi Kida will just tell the wardens that you're pulsing the place up and you'll get killed by your own colleagues. And then you'll never be able to help Daiyu."

A few moments of resistance and Jaya returns to the armchair and dashes their pulser into the cushion. "I need to get Daiyu back."

"Who do you know in the Chief Constable's office? You could ask them to help you."

"Do you know how much protocol that would take? There isn't time!"

The solution nucleates in my mind so naturally that I almost blurt out the words into Jaya's face. I'm already so close to being arrested that I shouldn't take any more risks, but Jaya seems desperate enough to keep more of my secrets. 

"Listen, I know someone who can hack into Kida Biotech, and break you out again. He seems to have a map of the Kida building. I saw him infiltrate the building and leave through a hidden exit in the perimeter wall without triggering any security. He might have left Eris by now, but I can ask."

"Don't tell me." Jaya slides exasperated hands down their face. "The ore thief who seduced you on that IndoChina Mining 'porter. You've seen him since, haven't you?" 

I shake my head, more to dispel the tears springing into my eyes than to deny the accusation. Whatever haunted expression is hung on my face seems to be a confession to Jaya of what Shiro and I have shared.

"You're supposed to report him, Heems! Ying Chen has been pestering us wardens to find him! She wants to make an example of him for the Earth governor's visit! There's no way we can ask him to break us into Kida."

"Do you want Daiyu back or not?"

"If we use this thief to get into Kida Biotech and it doesn't work, at best I could lose my entire career less than one year after completing warden training. At worst I could get pulsed, and lose Daiyu in the process." Jaya is pensive for long moments. Eventually they stand up and begin to fiddle with various tools on their belt. "I  don't even have money to bribe him, and he certainly won't help a warden for free. I have to do this alone."

"Don't worry about money. I've got money to bribe him. And I know he needs it badly."

"No." Jaya shakes their head so wildly that their mop of hair bounces about their face. "I won't take your money."

"It's OK. I won't be needing money soon. My meatware's faulty. I might not last long. I'd rather he has it."

"You've got radiation sickness too?" Jaya reaches for me but I spring away, terrified of inadvertently draining them. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm still radiation-resistant. It's... a different glitch." 

"Is that why you've been crying?"

"No." I paw at my face. I haven't looked in a mirror for three sols. I must look like I feel. "I'm tired. I just... He..."

Hot tears begin to stain my shirt. Jaya inches towards me but I retreat across the pod until my knees bump against my bed. 

"Heems, that fucking parasite isn't worth your tears. You'll get over him and find yourself a nice doctor. Someone who doesn't drain society like he does. Someone who loves you. If it hurts too much to call him—"

"I'm fine." I swipe at my tears. "If he refuses to help, I'll contact Megumi Kida myself. She may be interested in my meatware glitch. I might be able to exchange myself for Daiyu."

"You can't do that, Heems."

I smile. "It's OK. You and Daiyu need to be together. I want to do this."

If Shiro has already left for Earth, or if he simply refuses to take a bribe to break Jaya into the Kida building, then I'm ready to give my glitched brain up to Megumi Kida's researchers in exchange for Daiyu. She and Jaya should never be apart.

I bring up Shiro's number in my lenses. The thought of hearing his voice sends my body quivering. I'm about to make the call when a message from him arrives in a splash of pink across my retinas. 

"Jaya, he's messaging me. He's still on Eris."

My heart stills. 

Jaya stares at my face, their eyes bulging as if my horror is flowing into them from across the room. "What's he saying?"

"'Please help me' with some coordinates listed."

Jaya all but pushes me out of the pod. "Go to him. Don't worry about me and Daiyu. Go!"