บท 6: Fur in my teeth

"Hey Koz? I found this like, huge memory drive on the ship, looks like an external-"

"Don't touch that." Koz says lightly, not looking up from lacing on his boots for the morning.

"I can't touch anything." James points out. Kozimer does look up then, giving the camera a glare that he hopes clearly expresses the fact that it is far too early for his computer to be sassing him already.

"You know what I meant. Leave it alone."

"Why?"

"Just leave it alone, James."

"Ok ok, but what is it?"

Kozimer sighs and stands up, wondering if he could possibly just fall back onto the bed and pretend he didn't have a work ethic at all. "That's my personal log, it's an ongoing record of everything I have done since I joined the service. Every mission, promotion, fight, and assignment is on there. It helps me keep track of things. If I need to remember something or if I need to look back to see how I handled a similar situation before, and what the results were, I can look it up." He smiles wryly up at the camera. "You were supposed to help with that, originally."

"What, me?"

"Why do you think I was trying to make a search engine? I was testing it out on the ship but originally you were going to be part of the log. That way I could search for specific events more easily."

"Wow that sounds boring, glad that didn't happen."

Kozimer snorts as he walks down the bridge. "Yes well, I'm also glad that you don't have free reign over that."

"Don't want me to read your diary?" James teases.

He shrugs, moving to a screen to look over anything that had happened while he was asleep. "You can read it all you want, just don't tamper with anything. That's one of the few truly personal things that I own."

"I- wow really? I can look in it?"

Kozimer makes a humming noise of affirmation, reaching over to pluck the mug of...whatever caffeinated concoction the ship makes every morning, out of the materializer. He downs most of it in one go, to best avoid savoring the flavor, and winces as he puts it down. "Like I said, just don't mess with anything. Other than that knock yourself out. It's not too terribly interesting."

"It's your life though, right?"

"Hmm, past few centuries of it or so, yes."

He waits for some comment on being old, but James has gone quiet, probably already rummaging through the drive. Kozimer knows he should feel more nervous about letting an inquisitive AI in there, but he can't bring himself to really feel bad about it.

Until he doesn't hear anything from James for nearly two hours.

"Alright what are you doing? All this quiet is making me jumpy."

"Shhh" James responds. "I'm reading."

Kozimer blinks. "You're still reading that?"

"You know, for a dashing space general, your life is pretty boring." James says, sounding distracted.

"You don't HAVE to read it if it's so dull!" Kozimer glowers, feeling offended. He's been shot at enough times to consider his life decidedly NOT boring.

"Shh. Reading."

Kozimer sits back in his chair, smiling a bit stupidly. "If it's so boring, why are you reading it?"

"It's easier than just asking you this stuff. Also, what happened on this date like, way back when you were training? It got deleted and you put in a big 'NO' there."

Kozimer nearly spits out the next swig of caffeinated mud and spends a few minutes choking. "Nothing-! Look there were just things I did when I was young and stupid and-"

"Fun fact," James says, and Kozimer feels a chill of horrified dread at how pleased he sounds, "you can never fully delete anything."

"James don't-"

"Ohhhh look what I found! Let's take a look."

"Let's not." Koz says, feeling broken.

"Now what was so bad that-.....Koz...Koz oh my god."

"I told you not to look!" Koz says, ignoring how his voice hitches up an octave.

"You- isn't Selkvus that deer guy who came on here?!"

"Yes." Kozimer whispers like the last words of a dying man.

"Oh my god YOU AND SELKVUS!?"

"We were drunk!"

"I can tell!" James says, sounding absolutely delighted. "Oh god you were still drunk when you wrote this! Shall I recite a passage from times of old?"

"Shall I find the escape hatch and just fling myself into the endless void of space and into the arms of sweet death?"

"'Oghmf stars diary,' aww see? Even you knew this was just an overblown diary."

Kozimer lays down on the console, hoping there will be a spontaneous electrical explosion that will take him out quickly. "I was being ironic," he whines.

"Sure sure, anyway, 'i wooke up thiss mornIng and SELKVUS was IN MY BEDED and I WAS NAKED And i Thaink we did IT and iiM tryiNG not to throw UP OGSTARS THERE IS FUR IN MY TEETH.' I- no I cant, I can't anymore I-" James breaks down into fits of laughter before he can finish the damning passage.

Kozimer still waits for the sweet embrace of death via electrical fire. Unfortunately the ship continues running smoothly. "You can stop now."

"Aahhh that's fine it just breaks down into keyboard smashing after that."

"I think I was crying." Kozimer explains, feeling numb.

"This is beautiful. I hope I find more like this little gem."

"You're going to keep reading?" Kozimer doesn't get it. His log is mainly data and information. It's hardly something for casual reading, especially all in one go.

"Well yeah, I mean. It's information about you and just you." James says nervously. "I wanna know more."

"You could just ask me." Kozimer points out.

"Pfff as if you'd tell me all the good bits like your wild furry night!"

Kozimer winces at the unfortunate choice of words and sighs. "Alright alright, carry on then."

James's already gone silent, no doubt rummaging for other good bits. Kozimer shakes his head with a sigh and a small, private smile.