Veda’s confusion shows on her face as she watches Jack, keeping her attention on his face in order to better read the man’s mood. “We are… we are from here, this city. This is where we were… born, I suppose.” If that even fit.
“I have not known many places beyond this city, just two others. Still,” Her smile turns secretive, toying a loose thread on the couch cushion between her fingers. “Of the few places I have been, I prefer this city.”
Jack couldn’t help smiling a little at that. “I know what you mean. This city can be d-dangerous, but it can also be a very nice place. M-most of the best things in my life have happened here.” He glanced briefly at the room where Katelynn had gone.
“So … do you have any family, Veda? Friends?” He decided to say what he was really getting at. “A maker?”
“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’?"
Jack Maple 