Regene was quite surprised. He had assumed that the status of this relationship was something of an open secret that everyone knew because behavior gave it away but not because they had been informed. Surely, Tieria had no idea of this. Regene suspected that the girl had been more than a little disappointed.

This was all that Regene could learn from this human girl whose interest in machines was amusing. For what Regene knew she might have been stumbled on something very private but she would never tell Regene about it and all things considered there was no need. Regene decided that a reward was in order.

"Do you still want to know how a Veda link operates?"

As he spoke Regene activated his connection and set his eyes alit with a golden glow shaded with depths of red. It never failed to cause an impression and Feldt's look of fascination was something Regene fully counted on. He would play his cards wisely and disclose just enough to be entertaining without being particularly useful.

"How can you do that? Humans can't-"

"Humans can't interact directly with a supercomputer? You are quite right on that account. Tieria and I are human/Veda interfaces equipped with an inbuilt biological circuit that conveys information, accelerating synaptic responses via quantum brainwaves."

"You're androids. As I thought. But you're absolutely perfect in terms of craftsmanship."

Regene wondered if she was about to pull out a wrench and use it on him.

"You could put it that way."

Regene doubted that this girl would approach this subject with Tieria. Or any other subject, for that matter.

"Are you going to reinstate Tieria's Veda link? He's been without it for a long time but…"

Regene let her trail off. The possibility had occurred to him but it was not a thing that concerned human girls, no matter how geeky or into technology they may be.

"Perhaps. Perhaps I will."

I

"You are a civilian. To use weapons against a civilian is a war crime even if no actual violence is committed. As an operative my actions cannot be excused."

Tieria spoke calmly, with well calibrated words and looked Regene in the eye. He was ashamed of his outburst that only confirmed that nothing good came from letting his emotions dominate him. It only reduced him to a confused mess that was bound to fail. Regene watched him soberly enough.

"Apologizes accepted."

Tieria could not leave it at that. Once his intellectual side caught up with him he could not help but let it torment him, imposing a punishment proportional to the offense. In this case that entailed facing Regene when he would rather avoid contact.

"You can report this incident. I'll be court marshaled and probably expelled from the organization. Given Celestial Being's strict policy regarding civilian security I may be executed."

And that may not even be such a bad idea

This defeatist attitude was a recurring malady that he could not seem to shake off.

"Report it? There's no need for that."

"It is a right you're entitled to-"

"Do you like pink?"

Tieria blinked. He was completely at a loss and Regene smiled warmly at his confusion.

"What…?"

"I've been wondering. You have a lot of pink cardigans. So I guess you're fond of pink?"

Tieria had not the faintest idea of where this was going. It seemed so random and yet to typically Regene that he found himself smiling against his will.

"Oh, not really. I bought them in bulk the first time I was on Earth. They were on sale and I wanted to stay within the budget as much as possible. I did not know that gender conventions also applied to color schemes."

Tieria had no idea as to why some colors were deemed masculine while others were feminine. The selection seemed so utterly arbitrary that he could not understand why humans in general seemed to know it intuitively. It was a code that went beyond his computing skills and one to which he could not apply his ability to process data almost instantaneously.

"I think you look pretty in pink. It goes well with your purple hair."

Regene's bemused breeziness made Tieria uncertain as how to react. It was as if nothing had happened and Tieria felt as if he was eschewing his responsibility.