His try at reassuring her just makes Veda more nervous. Until now, Jack had been at least friendly. The chance that he wouldn’t be after this is nearly a certainty in her mind, and her eyes dart back and forth over the apartment, fussing with the hem of her shirt. Her hands are tight on the fabric, bunching it between her fingers. “I… I am not…” She has to close her eyes, take in a calming breath, before finally meeting his green eyes with her own. “I am not quite hu-human,” she finally manages, nearly inaudible.
Jack’s sensitive ears picked up the words easily. “W-well, neither am I,” he replied, with a nervous grin. The fact that Veda appeared shy and uneasy, instead of threatening, did a great deal to convince him that whatever she was hiding, he could handle it. “Th-there are a lot of non-humans in this city.”
The unspoken question, What are you?, hung in the air, but Jack refrained from saying it out loud. After years of being asked that himself, he knew how hurtful it could be, and how sick a person could get of hearing it.
Toeing the carpet with one foot, Veda cracks a nervous smile. “Not… not quite like me, I do not think.” She lets go of her shirt’s hem, brushes one hand through her hair. It had been getting longer, lately, Mike had been right about that.
Her shoulders set, posture a touch defensive, as she gathers her courage and finally admits the truth. “I am no… I have never been… alive, in the sense you would normally think of.”
“You’re … not alive?” Jack watched her intently for a moment. Since his taste in fiction ran more toward fantasy than sci-fi, his first thoughts were of ghosts and the undead. But Veda didn’t look like a supernatural creature – and besides, “never been alive” somewhat ruled that out.
He decided to come right out and ask it. “Then, wh-what are you? M-maybe you’d better just tell me."
Jack Maple 