“It is not safe, but it is home. And yes, of course I—-” She looks up in surprise. “I have not called him that in months now, but yes. I did not make myself, after all.”
When had she stopped thinking of Mike as just ‘maker’? The shift had happened so easily that Veda wasn’t quite sure of when exactly it had happened.
Jack’s ears almost visibly perked up. He hadn’t heard the news about the attacks by Miraclebots months ago, and even if he had, he might not have made the connection – Veda seemed too shy and friendly to have ever been a threat. Sometimes, the blue man could be almost as blindly trusting as his fiancee.
“You sound fond of him,” he said with a little smile. “Wh-what do you call him, then, if not ‘maker’?”
Snapped out of her thoughts when Jack speaks up, Veda watches him silently before she finally realizes what it is he’s asked.
“I call him by name,” she explains softly. “He has asked that I do so, and, well… I do enjoy that he thinks highly enough of me to allow it.”
Watching her, and the way she spoke about her maker, Jack began to suspect that their relationship had gone beyond that of creator and creation, at least on Veda’s part. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that – not until he found out more, at least.
“I can imagine,” he said with a smile. “It feels wonderful when you know someone you admire feels the same way about you.” He swallowed nervously, trying to think how to phrase it. “Are you two, um … a couple?” He’d been about to say ‘item’, but realized Veda might take that the wrong way.
Jack Maple 