Having left five computers working their way painfully through the failed number crunching from the day before, Julia needed a distraction.

Anna’s makeshift lab was dimly lit and warm, the air slightly damp against Julia’s bare forearms. It reminded her of the bio-labs at Magdon Down where Anna had grown the first pieces of her biological armor infused with Chittrix protein. Some of the armor had survived the evacuation of Magdon, but more was required for those who scavenged supplies and defended the bunker on a daily basis. Anna had been working intensively for the last few weeks, and Julia missed her friend.

“It’s stuffy in here,” Julia called out.

Anna popped up from behind an open laptop, her face glowing pale blue from the screen.

“Needs to be. You know that.” She rapped her pen against her teeth and hung over a large glass tank. As an entomologist specializing in bio-weaponry, it was where she spent most of her free time—when she wasn’t holed up in bed with Garrick.

“I’m more and more convinced the Chittrix came from a tropical climate. Increasing the humidity and temperature has given me a significant boost in the armor’s material growth rates.” Anna suddenly bent back over her laptop and tapped furiously for a few moments, her fingertips loud on the plastic keys.

The air had a slightly funky smell as if someone had stuffed unwashed socks behind one of the humming monitors and left them there for a few weeks to develop an interesting aroma. Julia’s nose wrinkled in unsure appreciation.

“God, Anna, what on earth is that smell?”

Anna straightened, her face flushed with excitement. She jerked her head in the direction of the large glass tank behind her.

“Come and see.”

Julia made her way over, skirting several tanks of ant colonies that Anna was nurturing. Julia peered at the tracery of minute tunnels pressed up against the glass as she walked past. Near the bottom of the tanks, piles of milky white eggs lay in neat stacks. Tiny red-orange ants crawled over the eggs in a blur of activity, endlessly rearranging future generations. Julia understood the importance of studying these insects given their genetic similarities to the Chittrix, but she still didn’t want to get up close and personal with them. She double-checked the tank lids were tightly secured with large clips as she passed.

Anna was poking at something with a glass pipette. Likely it had many legs or at least, it used to before Anna dissected it. Julia didn’t want to know. She was happy to leave Anna to her fascination with growing armor from insects.

“I’ve got the chitin to take.” Anna snapped upright, waving the pipette excitedly in front of her face. “I’ve been struggling to get the correct temperature and humidity. None of the original tech here was precise enough.”

She pointed to a slender silver lozenge at the base of the tank that was connected to a laptop by a jumble of delicate rainbow wires. A red digital readout next to the lozenge echoed the numbers scrolling on the screen of Anna’s laptop.

Anna grinned. “Garrick found it for me.”

“Really?”

“Yup. It uses silicon-tipped fiber optics to control temperature variations in fractions of a second. Now that I’ve got the temperature right, I’ve finally got the chitin to start growing.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “So romantic.”

Anna stuck out her tongue before peering back into her glass tank. “Just because you’re a total cynic, doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the romance in everyone else’s life.”

Julia had never seen Anna happier than she’d been the last few months with Garrick. Sometimes Julia thought about the two of them and wondered if she was missing something, but then she reminded herself how neither she nor Sawyer wanted anything more, and that what they had worked perfectly fine. She was happy for Anna, but commitment was overrated.

Julia’s tone was dry. “Right.” She wandered to the back of the room where a desktop computer had gone to sleep, its screen a viral swirl of mauve and green like the double helix of a DNA strand. She tapped one of the keys, and it hummed into life. A close-up image of a Chittrix mandible blinked into view, so close the tiny hairs on the serrated cutting-edge of the pincers were visible. She recoiled from the screen.

“Jeez Anna, I don’t get how you can do this stuff every day. Especially after…” Julia hadn’t seen what had happened to Blake, their co-worker, but the description from Anna and Garrick of how he’d been spliced into a half-man, half-Chittrix had been enough.

Anna straightened. She pushed her hair off her forehead and fixed Julia with a glare. “Did you come down here just to piss me off, or is there a particular reason for this visit?”

Julia sat on a round stool and spun. “My geriatric computers are running calculations. They’re just warming up and having coffee right now. I’ve no idea how long the damn things are going to take, so I thought I’d come and bug you. I’ve barely seen you lately.” She pouted. “You’re too busy with that man of yours.”

Anna gave a mocking grin. “That’s rich coming from you.”

Julia laid on the hurt tone. “What do you mean by that?”

Anna stabbed the glass pipette in her direction. “You know very well. You and Sawyer. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

Julia’s stomach tightened. Was it that obvious? Her tone was measured when she replied. “He’s allowed to look.”

Anna laughed. “Yeah, he’s looking all right. Are you telling me there’s nothing going on with you two?”

Julia avoided eye contact. She’d lived in the cramped confines of Magdon Down with Anna for six months, but had known her for much longer than that. Anna wasn’t stupid. “Nothing’s going on. My head is only full of equations and computery-science things. I’m close to miniaturizing the tech components of the Sweeper without losing power.”

Anna tapped her chest. “This is me you’re talking to, Julia. Not some idiot you just met.”

Julia elevated a perfectly arched eyebrow. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied, her face straight while her mind raced. Did everyone in the base know? Or just Anna who knew her so well?

Anna snorted. “You and I lived together in that tiny room for six months. You think I haven’t noticed you disappearing at the same time as Sawyer? You are an item, aren’t you?” Anna’s hands dropped to her hips, challenging Julia to speak the truth.

Julia considered her options. Anna was her closest friend, the nearest thing she had to family since the invasion. She sighed, glimpsing the insect on the screen with the tiniest shudder.

“Maybe.” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Maybe?”

“Mmm. That’s all I’m saying.” But she winked over her shoulder at Anna. It felt good to finally share her secret.

Anna smiled. “I’m glad. You deserve someone nice. Someone kind to take care of you.”

Julia drummed her fingers on the desk. “He is not taking care of me. I do not need taking care of. Besides, you know me. I’m no good at relationship stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah. Talking. Communicating. Personal stuff where you have a connection without getting naked.” Julia gave the stool another spin.

“So it’s not a relationship?” Anna’s expression shifted into a frown of confusion.

“Nope. If we were in a relationship, I’d have to become a strange, frightening version of the real me, and no one wants that. I have an emotional allergy to any kind of romantic commitment and apart from everything else, I don’t have time for it.”

Anna smirked. “Well, if it’s not a relationship, what is it then?”

Julia shrugged. “Friends with benefits.” God, it sounds so tawdry when I say it like that.

Anna’s mouth dropped open in understanding. “Friends with benefits? Sex friends?”

“Yeah. Friends with sex.” Julia hooked her fingers in the air to emphasize her words. “We’re just friends having fun. There’s no commitment. He’s a free agent as far as I’m concerned.” She frowned for a moment, “Well he's free to move on, but not to share himself around while we’re friends. I’ve never really thought about it before.” Her voice lowered. “Maybe I should clarify that with him.” She paused. There was no doubt in her mind that even if they were still friends, she was the only woman in Sawyer’s life right now.

Anna stared. “I hope you know what you’re doing. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. One of you is going to want more.”

“It’s not going to be me. I have my work.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“No.” Jeez, Anna was taking this all the wrong way. “Sawyer’s a big boy, Anna. He can take care of himself. No one’s forcing him.”

Quite the opposite actually.

“My research takes precedence right now. I have my work, and he has his, and we have time for each other after when it suits.” She waved an arm at the room, stuffed with monitors and insect tanks. “Look at all the shit we have going on in our lives. It’s too much. I don’t have the headspace for the rest. The talking to him, finding things out about him, putting up with all his dubious habits that would start to annoy me within twenty minutes. I don’t want commitment, and neither does he. We both just want fun and companionship with no strings attached. It’s not that difficult really.”

“And he’s okay with this arrangement?” Anna asked.

“He is. It works for both of us.” Julia was pleased with how resolute her voice sounded. She got up off her stool. “I’m working twenty-hour days trying to improve the Sweeper. I just want to relax, and get back to work.”

Anna pointed at Julia with her pen in affectionate disbelief. “You may be right, and I hope you are, but in my opinion, that is going to come back and bite you.”

“Yeah. I’m supposed to want to be in a relationship. After all, every girl does, doesn't she? I’m sorry, but I don’t see the appeal of ending up with a broken heart, clutching his manly t-shirt to my face while I sob in my room.”

Anna grimaced. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”

Julia glanced down at the thriving armor in Anna’s tank. “No,” she admitted. “It doesn’t, and I’m going to make sure it never is.”

She straightened and forced a smile, ignoring the whispers of uncertainty in her mind.

“I have work to do and aliens to fry,” she called as she headed out the door.