《Theseus》


 Arthausen Syndrome

    I snapped back to reality, blinking rapidly and shaking my head as I took in a deep breath. I''d been working too much and I was feeling it. Looking around me at the spaceport, I saw that the security line had opened while I''d been drifting off and I''d missed my opportunity to get in before the lines had started to back up. Checking my watch, I clicked my tongue and forced my sleepy body up off of the bench that I''d been snoozing on. I''d have plenty of time to sleep on the ship.


    With my computer bag under one arm and my luggage in the other, I tried not to think back at the job behind me anymore. They had been such belligerent asshats, making nonsensical demands that proved they had no business running a tech company, and they''d worked me in circles for the entire week without getting a whole lot done for themselves. But my contract was fulfilled, I was getting paid, and I was going back home to Titan. I needed a vacation, and I already knew that I was going to spend a very long weekend lying in bed at my condo and just existing for a little while. I deserved that much.


    I was happy to see the line moving quickly. I wasn''t in any danger of missing my departure, but I fidgeted with my ID and medical card in my hand. I hated traveling off-world. It was always such a pain for someone like me, but the pay had been far too good to pass up this time. As I got closer, my tired eyes scanned over the security officers ahead, knowing I''d soon have to become friendly with them. One was an older woman, while the man working the console looked fresh-faced and a little uneasy. They both wore the familiar Foundation uniforms. The man was new, so this was going to get awkward.


    As I approached the kiosk at last, I handed him my ID and began to speak "Just to let you know-"


    He interrupted "Busy day, ma''am, just walk through the scanner." Well, he was efficient, I could give him that. I looked up to the older woman and she motioned forward, so I shrugged and did as I was told, knowing what came next.


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    A shrill, repetitive beeping noise began to sound from the man''s console as I took my step through the human-sized scanner block. Looking back, I crossed my arms and waited for the inevitable as both of them looked down at the console, then back to me. I held out my medical card impatiently, waiting for them to pull me aside to the security station.


    They called in another older guy to take their place momentarily while they pulled me into their office, and I complied, knowing this would go faster if I just cooperated. "Arthausen?" was all the older woman asked when the door closed behind us.


    At least she was already familiar with the procedure. I smiled and nodded, handing my medical card to her for examination.


    The man had seemed on edge before, but he only became confused at the exchange "You scanned with the psionic resonance of a ship core. What''s Arthausen?"


    The woman spoke up again as she entered my card into her console "Arthausen Syndrome. It''s rare, but it won''t be the last time you see it. Just a minor genetic defect that makes older bio scanners pick up psionics." she explained, clacking away at the keys.


    The man looked astonished "Huh... must be hard to travel, getting mistaken for a spaceship part." he joked "But it''s pretty obvious you''re human anyway."


    "Right?" I laughed "I hate going off-world. I still don''t understand why I have to get my records checked every time."


    "Just protocol." the older guard said, tapping the man on the shoulder to get his attention on her screen, seeing a training moment for the newbie "See? You just need to make sure they''ve got this stamp on their record when this happens, that''s all. Shouldn''t see it more than once every few months, it''s not common."


    The man nodded "Well, alright, just continue on through to luggage, okay?" he smiled, handing me my ID back.


    The rest of my trip through security was uneventful as always. My bags only had clothes and fairly standard computer terminals in them, and before I knew it, I was standing at my gate, mercifully early enough to still see the ship''s previous passengers still filing out. It wasn''t very long at all before I was moving on board the passenger ferry and taking my own seat, leaning back and sighing to enjoy the comfortable cushioned business-class seat. My exhaustion caught up to me and it wasn''t a few more moments before I shut my eyes and once more felt sleep take me away.

 Awakening

    My eyes fluttered open slowly, my mind reeling for a moment as I tried to place where I was, but as my conscious mind began to recall where I''d drifted off, it was obvious that there was still something wrong. My eyes went wide as I looked around. All I saw was white. Not a white interior of a ferry, not even a white building. Just white.


    I tried to gasp and let out a noise, but in flowed something thick and fluid. I almost choked before I realized that my body wasn''t asphyxiating despite the fact that I felt as if I was floating in thick water.


    At first I thought that I must have still been dreaming, but despite how foreign the situation was to me, it felt too real. There was too much alarming clarity to what I was experiencing.


    Looking down at myself, I saw that my clothes were gone. I was completely in the nude. But more alarmingly was when I saw my left arm. The skin had been stripped away, and a console of some sort was sticking out of my flesh. I''d seen its like before, an electronics control unit that would allow a person to interact directly with computers at a touch. The skin around it looked scarred and irritated, as if it had been shoddily grafted into place. It made my whole arm itch, like there was something terribly alien about it.


    It wasn''t uncommon for people, especially in labor and tech jobs, to augment their bodies to better interact with heavy machinery as well as very technical computers, but I''d always disliked the idea of turning myself into a machine, and had avoided getting even the most basic implants. So what was this doing on my arm? Panicked, I began feeling around my body, and after touching around, I was alarmed to find a metal plate behind my ear. An implant interface. I''d helped with the design of such things before, but I didn''t have any cranial implants either. At least I didn''t before. I found several ports of some sort at my neck, and some kind of thick metal enclosure grafted at my hip. Every piece of it felt wrong. I wanted to tear them off, but I knew enough about these things to know how bad of an idea that would be. I''d be bleeding out immediately.


    What had happened? Where was I? How long was I out that someone had the time and opportunity to perform cybernetic SURGERY on me? And why? One thing was for certain, I couldn''t just sit here floating in this void, lamenting over my state, that wasn''t going to solve anything.


    I began to reach out and tried my best to ''swim'' through the nothingness that surrounded me, but I wasn''t even sure if I was moving at all. There was nothing to latch onto. No landmarks to judge my movement. Literally nothing.


    All I could do was lie still. What could I do? I tried to scratch at my new body parts, the unyielding metal causing me to grumble silently. At least it wasn''t painful, but it was annoying, and without anything to distract from it, it was all I could think of. It dawned on me that the fact that it wasn''t painful meant that I had not only been unconscious for long enough to have this done to me, but also for long enough to mostly recover.


    Just as boredom was starting to set in, there was pain. A spike of pressure to my head like I''d never felt before, as if someone was stabbing a needle directly into my brain. I tried to let out a scream, but the fluid surrounding me forced me into silence. I held my hands up to my head, but it felt like it was coming from inside of me.


    I tried hard to hold on and brace for the pain, but the harder I held against it, the more it hurt. I closed my eyes and when I finally felt myself run out of energy, I let go of my head, only to find a throbbing ache replacing the pain. Had I been holding my own head so tight that I was causing the pain myself? Feeling slightly embarrassed. I let my body relax, the pain slowly starting to dissipate, but the feeling of a foreign influence in my mind remaining. It was like I was connected to something. There was something there that I could feel.


    I reached out and I felt something that was almost familiar. Something akin to a console. Except it wasn''t there. It was... in my mind. Whoever had tinkered with my body must have changed something beyond the surface of my head too. I wanted to cry. Who would violate me like this? Why? I just wanted to go home. Instead, here I was trapped in some sort of emptiness, trying to figure out the machinery operating under my skin.


    I took in a deep breath. The fluid was just as nourishing to my lungs as air had always been, so I did my best to calm myself. Breathing in and out. I had to remain grounded if I was going to make sense of any of this.


    I went over what I knew about cybertech. It allowed a human mind and body to operate directly with various types of technology. So what kind of technology was I feeling right then? I closed my eyes and imagined it. I tried to look for thoughts that didn''t belong. They came easily.


    Machinery. Terminals. Consoles. Sensors. Whatever I was feeling, it was elaborate. Something was moving... inside of me? No, inside of the machine I was connected to. I felt as if this thing was an extension of what I was. As the pieces started to come together, I began to get a sense of space. There were rooms. This wasn''t just a machine, it was a structure. And things were moving about in it. People, I began to piece together. I was hooked to the inside of a building? A security system perhaps?


    No, there was more than just sensors. Life support. Water and waste management. Generators... Propulsion. Propulsion? All these things combined could only mean one thing. This thing that I felt was a spaceship.


    That was impossible. Ordinary humans couldn''t interface directly with anything of this scale, much less something mobile. It would fry a human mind in an instant. Things like emotion, reasoning, and personality conflicted with the massive processing power needed to run such things. That''s why ship cores, blank non-sapient clones grown for this specific purpose, were used as the central control unit of spaceships. So why was my mind still slowly continuing to reach through these systems with little more than a mild headache to show for it? I should have been braindead by now if I had been connected to such a thing.


    The how of it could wait. I had to focus. If I had access to such things, that meant I had to have at least some control over it, right? I tentatively reached forward and tried to touch the ''console'' in front of me, but my body flailed just as uselessly as before. I took in another deep breath. I wasn''t used to my thoughts having control of something real, but I knew that was how these things worked. I stilled my body and instead pretended to reach out, not with my body, but with my mind. I could feel that console.


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    It worked like anything else. It showed biological readouts, and it had interfaces to change modes, reading heart rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure... and psionic resonance. I paused. It dawned on me that I was reading my own biometrics, but something was very wrong. Arthausen Syndrome caused some scanners to mistakenly pick up psionic resonance in my mind, but there was no actual potential there. That was a human impossibility. It had to be implanted, and it destroyed much of what made someone human when it did, hence why it was only performed on otherwise braindead clones to make ship cores.


    It dawned on me right then, I knew what I was looking at. Somehow, I wasn''t just controlling a part of the spaceship I was in, I was acting as this ship''s core myself.


    I tried to concentrate and ''look'' around the room. It was almost like I could see what was there, but it was distant, like remembering an image rather than seeing it. There was a large metal sphere at the middle of the room. I''d seen a ship core module before. That was me, I was enclosed inside. I had to get myself out. There was a release switch. I tried to connect with it, manipulate it, but it was mechanical, and had no controls connected to me. I wouldn''t be able to get myself out.


    There was someone in the room with me. Another person. I wondered if I might be able to signal them. Let them know I was there. Tell them to release me. But the only terminals were for monitoring power output and my own biometrics scanner. I could only change what information it displayed, not input my own text or noises. The solution wouldn''t be in this room.


    I tried to reach further. As I did, it felt like I was beginning to discover limbs that I hadn''t had before. As soon as I envisioned it, it felt like the hallway that I was ''seeing'' had become a part of me. A piece of a growing mechanical structure forming inside of my mind. It was hard to process too much at once, but it was easy to think of the chamber that I was physically inside of as my ''heart'' which I was expanding away from. The hall was quiet. It didn''t take long until it was a whole part of me as well. So I reached further.


    It was like I was building a map in my head. I quickly became accustomed to keeping my eyes closed and focusing on the mental world building up around me. A longer hallway this time. A single person idled inside. A larger man. Detail was becoming easier to parse. I could tell the person inside of my room... inside of my heart... they were also a tall man, but this one seemed... gentler somehow. I reached into some of the rooms off of the long hall. Dormitories. They felt small, but personal; they were very lived in and had a homey feeling. At the end of the hall, there was a larger space that was proving more difficult to get a grasp on. It had multiple sensor arrays and the feedback from each other was confusing, so it was a larger room. A cargo bay? I gave up on it for the time being. It was starting to become a headache.


    I tried to look back to the first hall. There were stairways going both up and down. I grumbled to myself. Mentally mapping in a 3D space was harder. I thought for a moment. Helms were typically at the top or the front of a ship, right? And a helm would have a communications console. I began slowly creeping my influence upward, using the various sensors to add a greater range to what was quickly beginning to feel like a second skin; a shell around me. It was somehow comforting. Like I belonged there. It was like I was safe despite the obvious danger that I was actually in.


    I shook off the feeling and found another hall. A quick cursory glance and I found there was a restroom in one direction. I was briefly alarmed at the thought of the sanitation of my own situation. Was a ship core module made to filter waste or was I just floating in my own refuse? The fluid didn''t seem at all filthy, but still, I wasn''t privy to the sanitation systems inside of one.


    It was a question that I''d have to ponder later. I ignored the restroom and continued forward. And at last, I found it. A console that was clearly meant for system navigation. This had to be the helm.


    And there was a person sitting at the console. She wasn''t terribly big or small, but as she came into detail, I began to notice that she had a certain presence that made her seem grander than she looked at first glance. Charisma, I suppose I would call it. That and impatience. She was waiting for something, and when I accessed the console, I quickly learned what. There, she was waiting for a bar with the words ''SYSTEM INITIATION'' to fill from left to right. It read 41%. Was that me, I wondered? Was I the system the ship was waiting on? Was it waiting for me to complete the picture and build the ship around my mind so that I could feel it all? So that I could become the ship wholly? I supposed that a standard ship core would probably be able to boot like this in a uniform time, which meant that she was impatient because I was being slow.


    It dawned on me as I reviewed the rooms I''d visited so far, that this was not any kind of standard ship layout that I''d seen before. This was a personal vessel, not a corporate or military affair. What had I gotten into?


    For now, I just had to access the console she was watching. I didn''t know what would happen if I closed out the loading bar, if it would stop sending me so much sensory data that let me view more of the ship, so I refused to touch it. Instead, I looked for another piece of the interface I could manipulate. The clock. Messing with the system clock display shouldn''t have too bad of a negative effect on the system, so I felt my way through to it just like I would any other computer. I tried to focus on how I could change it, and I found I had access to every aspect of the computer. It was like I was speaking to it in assembly. I was good with computers, but could it really be as simple as I felt it would be? It was like I was thinking in just the same way as it. I froze the timer at 16:38. Perfect. Since they were all different numbers, I could change the fonts and communicate up to a five letter word.


    The code opened up for me and it didn''t take more than a moment to edit the clock to instead display the world ''HELP''. The person at the console reacted almost immediately, sitting up in her chair. I noticed that my tampering had changed the number 1 to H on the loading bar as well, and realized that I must have been editing a system variable, but it was too late to rethink that. She''d clearly noticed the message on the clock, so I changed it again. ''CORE'' I wrote this time, then seeing her staring, I changed it again to ''ALIVE'' and then once more to ''HELP''.


    The woman stood from her chair quickly and stepped away from the console. Had she gotten the message? I felt her walk out into the hallway and down the stairs. It was strange, like feeling her move through me. I followed her through my mental map, like a ghost watching her every move, and I saw her look at the sensor arrays more than once, noticing them following her. She walked straight into my heart and I thought I heard her yell something. I hadn''t even thought about sound, but I must have been getting that data from my sensors too, there just hadn''t been much to hear just yet. It still seemed garbled as I became used to it, but she was addressing the man watching my biometrics. The man responded, again I couldn''t make sense of his words, only that he was speaking, and they had an exchange. After just a moment, the man walked up to my chamber. I watched him put his hand on the release lever, and...

 Intermission

    I fell down, my naked body slamming hard into a metal grate on the floor. The fluid that once surrounded me was flowing down over top of me, down into the grate. I immediately coughed up copious amounts of the liquid. It just kept coming, like the whole of my lungs had been filled with it. I felt like I was running out of oxygen before I finally had a dry cough and took in a loud gasp of fresh air, sitting on all fours and continuing to spit out bits of it as I tried to catch my breath again. I hadn''t been able to appreciate just how slimy and gross the fluid felt when I was fully immersed in it, but here in the open air, it suddenly felt like I needed a bath. I flung bits of it off of my hand and futilely tried to wipe it from my face before I was finally able to look up, panting hard to take in the sweet air that I felt like I''d never really appreciated before.


    There, in front of me, stood the two people I''d already seen in my mind moments before, looking down at me, astonished, and I saw them with the kind of clarity I was used to seeing with my own eyes.


    The woman had tanned skin and short hair, wearing a brown vest, and she was watching me with intrigue, suspicion, and curiosity. The man, in contrast, wore a nice black office-worker''s shirt and slacks, littered with spattered stains that showed poorly against the outfit''s color. He was staring at me in total, surprised disbelief.


    My lungs emptied, I sat up and did my best to place one arm over both of my breasts. I spoke hoarsely "Thanks." before I reluctantly swallowed some of the fluid that still remained in my mouth.


    They both continued to stare, unmoving for a moment before the woman turned to her counterpart and asked "Did my core just talk?"


    "So it would seem." the man mumbled his reply.


    "Fuck..." was all I could think to say, throwing my arms out to the side and beginning to inspect the unwanted cyberware on my arm once more in the open air "Look, I don''t know what''s going on, but I''m an IT consultant, not a spaceship part." I coughed a few more times, groaning as I felt.


    "Well, good thing you didn''t start it up yet, we have enough corpses around here as is." the man mumbled as he turned around to the biometrics console. The statement alarmed me. What exactly had happened while I slept?


    "That''s the thing, I did." the woman spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, causing the man to double-take "She was almost halfway through."


    I stayed silent as the man walked over to the chamber that had held me and moved to inspect some of the wiring inside and out "Impossible, there must have been a network failure." he declared.


    "Help. Core. Alive. Help." I said slowly.


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    The woman just stared at me for a moment, then looked back up to the man "Then just how did she manage to hack navigation and send me those exact four words?"


    "Humans can''t survive a neural upload like that." the man declared again.


    "Well then, she''s a pretty convincing dead body." the woman pulled a paper sheet off of a medical bed placed next to the core chamber, walked up to me and knelt down to put it over my shoulders "What''s your name?"


    "Meryll Watkins." I grabbed hold of the sheet and wrapped myself in it, glad to at least have something to make myself decent "I don''t know why I''m here. Last thing I remember I was boarding a ship on my way to Titan. I fell asleep, then I woke up here with..." I struggled to motion to my new implants that I was beginning to notice the weight of now that I was outside of the fluid.


    "Titan?" the large man who had been in the hallway before trundled into the room "What''s another corpo drone doing in the middle of our ship?" the man was muscular and wore an undershirt with jeans, clearly showing off his figure. There was contempt in his voice "And... covered in goo?"


    I suddenly felt... vulnerable. The ship that I''d mapped out so far felt too distant. Like it was still a part of me, but I couldn''t quite feel all of it, just the space around me. My map of the heart overlapped with my vision and I had to blink and shake my head. I needed answers "What is all of this? How did you find me? Were you the ones who put all this... gear in me?"


    "Give her some space, Joel." the woman demanded "You''re on board the Theseus. Our core bit the bullet about a month ago. Lucky us, we drifted into some wreckage that happened to have a fresh one on board. You. You were in an escape pod that was nearing the end of its life support. Lucky you." she started "Figured you were some smuggler''s prize who met their match and managed to save their merch. So we picked you up, got Doc here to stitch in the interface parts." she motioned to the man who was still tinkering with the chamber "And with that, we had a way to pick ourselves up." she threw her arms up in frustration that this plan had now been interrupted.


    I nodded, understanding the situation. It was said that smugglers managed to get illegal ship cores through civilian transport on occasion, so it wasn''t totally unreasonable to think that I could have been one. "Sorry to disappoint, but I just have Arthausen Syndrome."


    "Arthausen Syndrome?" the doctor parroted "I''m not familiar."


    "Thought you knew everything." Joel quipped.


    "It''s a rare genetic disorder. It''s benign, the only known effect is that it causes psionic sensors to malfunction sometimes. Reads out as though I had resonance." I explained, holding the sheet tighter "... Hey, if you were stranded, why not just use an emergency signal band?"


    Joel let out a small laugh and turned to step out into the hallway. The woman raised her eyebrows at me, as if to ask if I was serious. I looked around at the three and after a moment, it dawned on me "You''re pirates." I mumbled, my shoulders drooping as the gravity of my situation fell on me.


    "Smart." Joel taunted, sounding amused at my realization.


    "Captain Aisling Barrowin." the woman finally declared, slapping me lightly on the shoulder "Captain of the Theseus. The musclehead''s Joel, and that''s Cornelius Something-or-other, but everyone just calls him Doc. Welcome aboard." she smiled and then stood up "Looks like we''re sitting still a bit longer, boys. Tell Mouse and Ray to come to the canteen." she turned back and held her hand down to me "You hungry?"

 Deal With The Devil

    As the captain of the ship escorted me down the stairs from my heart... or rather, the ship''s heart, I couldn''t help but feel unsettled. It felt like I was inside of what I still saw as my own shell, but it felt foreign. Like a phantom body part. I hadn''t fully synchronized with the ship, and it was unsettling to be in a place that was simultaneously so familiar and so unfamiliar at the same time. I wasn''t sure at the time why I kept thinking as if the ship belonged to me somehow. It felt like it was a part of me, but it was just a ship. It certainly wasn''t my ship either. It was a pirate vessel in Foundation space. Whatever being in that chamber had done to me, it was becoming more and more unsettling by the moment. I had to get off of this ship.


    I took in the environment around me. The scratches on the walls. The scuffed flooring. The feel of the crisscrossed metal stairs on my feet. I felt so heavy, and it bit into my feet as I went down. The meager paper sheet I held around myself helped me keep my decency, but it did nothing for the chilly environment outside of the core room. Part of me longed to return to it. To be immersed in the liquid once more and to continue scouring the ship in my mental space. I wondered if all people adopting cyberware for the first time felt this calling to the machine they''d been a part of.


    "You got a lot on your mind?" Aisling asked, looking up at me and waiting at the bottom of the steps. I had stopped walking at some point and was staring off into the middle distance, the metal pressing hard into my bare feet as I reached with my free hand to grab hold of the railing.


    "Sorry." I mumbled, beginning to move again "I... don''t know what to think right now. There''s a lot of things making me uncomfortable."


    "Like the fact we''re outlaws?" the woman asked, not a hint of malice in her tone "I can get that. You spend your whole life under corporate thumbs and they give you the wrong idea about how things really work out here in wild space." she chuckled "People need things done that the big bosses don''t always like. All we do is capitalize on it."


    They did always portray pirates as these sort of over the top cartoonish villains in the big colonies. It did always seem dramatic. They probably weren''t ''evil'' so much as people who hadn''t had the same kinds of advantages I''d had and were driven to desperation. As I walked toward her, I nodded "Yeah. They... don''t always treat everyone fairly. That''s for certain. But I meant... I''m unsettled by how my mind''s taking the cyberware. I keep feeling like I''m a part of this ship and that it''s a part of me. I almost want to..." I shook my head. It was probably best not to tell her that. "Never mind. I just... I wanna go home, that''s all. I can pay you for transport."


    "We''ll talk about that in the mess." she reassured me by gently guiding me by the arm. I smiled back at her. She really didn''t seem like a terrible person, especially compared to the two others I''d met so far.


    As I walked into a room with a low ceiling and a work table bolted to the floor, I saw a small kitchen that rivaled some of the cheaper hotels I''d stayed at in size. Two rusty coil burners and a mini-fridge. There was at least a sizeable pantry for dry goods, but it looked like it''d almost been picked clean. She had said that they''d been stranded for some time, after all. I couldn''t help but feel like the room was slowly etching its way into my memory in just the same way that it had been while I was in the core. It must have been my imagination, though, I wasn''t connected anymore.


    At the far end of the table sat what looked to be a small, gaunt teenage boy flanked by Joel and Doc, his face covered in grease and wearing overalls filled with tools. He had a surly look on his face and was glaring daggers at me. He was judging me. Harshly.


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    "Mouse don''t trust easy." Aisling whispered in my ear "Don''t hold it against him." she walked forward and asked the trio "Where''s Ray?"


    "Shut herself in again. Think she''s still mad at you." said Joel.


    Aisling clicked her tongue "Right well, guess you''ll meet her later if you''re still around." Aisling gently shoved me forward, up to the table. What had she meant by that? "So what do we do about the stowaway then?"


    "Stowaway?" I muttered nervously, reminding her what I was doing here "You kidnapped me and performed illegal surgeries against my will. I''m willing to overlook that because you saved my life, but really? Stowaway?"


    The crew each looked me over like I''d spoken out of turn and I couldn''t help but shrink back. I didn''t have any leverage here. I figured I should probably just stay quiet since I was probably really just a bargaining chip to them.


    "Airlock." Joel said simply, a word that made me shiver.


    Doc glared toward him "Aside from being barbaric, that wouldn''t be much help to our situation."


    "Would make the food last longer." Joel argued.


    "Besides that, she''s a medical marvel. An actual, full, thinking human being that survived being grafted to a spaceship. I''d like a chance to study her and find out what gave her such mental resilience."


    For the first time, Mouse spoke up, his expression turning to something more akin to wonder "Wait... she was IN the core?"


    "41% of the way integrated." Aisling nodded and moved to join the others on their side of the table.


    "That''s so cool!" Mouse exclaimed, looking at me with hardened eyes turned slightly softer by a veiled curiosity, and most certainly, an interest in engineering.


    "Don''t solve our problem though." Joel muttered.


    "That''s why we''re here." she sat down across from me and motioned for me to take a chair. I cautiously moved forward and did as I was told "I have a proposition." she folded her hands and looked at me with a deadly seriousness she had held back before "We''re stranded. Without a core, we got nothing. Ain''t no corpo rescue wagon coming. No one''s gonna magically airdrop us a core. We''re outta miracles. We work with what we got, or we starve."


    I nodded. I think I knew where this was going, but I remained quiet. "Here''s my proposition." she continued "As soon as we''re able, we fly you to the nearest independent port. You go take a new transport back where you came from, go back to your cozy life while we pick up a new standard core. Everyone goes on with their lives, no one worse for wear. You can even keep Doc''s little... additions. No charge." she held her hands out "No strings attached. You go back to your boring little comfy life, and you never hear from any of us again."


    It sounded like a good deal, but I knew what she was about to add to her terms as well, so I simply asked dryly "And what do I have to do in return?"


    Aisling pursed her lips and bobbed her head a little bit as if she was considering it "In return, you gotta be my ship for a little while."


    The silence hung in the air for a moment, her crew looking at her, surprised "You... want to put her back into the core?" Doc asked "It may have been a fluke, there''s no telling if she''ll survive this time."


    "Sounds like a win-win to me." Joel chuckled.


    Mouse remained silent, clearly uncertain if he should feel excited or appalled at the suggestion.


    "Okay." I felt the word spill quietly from my lips before I even had the chance to consider it "I''ll do it. I''ll... be your ship core. For now." I was shivering, thinking of going back into that void with the very real chance that I wouldn''t be able to come out again, but the call couldn''t be ignored. I didn''t know if it was the machinery messing with my head or if something else drew me back to it, but I couldn''t just keep ignoring how I felt. I WANTED to finish grafting this ship to my mind. To become a part of it. Maybe once my curiosity was sated, I could return home with an interesting story to tell. I swallowed. Or maybe something would go wrong and I wouldn''t be able to make it back home. Either way, I was certain that it needed to happen.


    Aisling was the only one who didn''t look surprised at my quick acceptance of her terms "Okay then! We have a deal." she clapped her hands together and smiled wide at me, immediately making me wonder if I''d just put my life in the hands of a sly predator.

 Gravity

    I stood over top of the open core chamber, my paper robe discarded, and stared down into the hemisphere of clear goop beneath me "What even is this stuff anyway?" I asked idly, attempting to delay the inevitable. As much as I wanted to finish mapping out the ship in my mind, I was still anxious about what I was doing. I was not a risk-taker. I never had been. So why was I so keen to throw myself into something that had killed every other person that had attempted it on the off chance that my previous survival hadn''t been a freak accident?


    "Standard core lubricant." Doc explained, scribbling something on a data pad "Self-cleaning, oxygenized, stabilizing fluid. Negates the ability to feel temperature, gravity, all of the physical senses. A core usually doesn''t need any of their senses, and that''s more of their brain they can focus on controlling the ship if they don''t sense anything at all. Well... except pain."


    "I noticed that." I mumbled "Anything I should know about this before I go back in? Health-wise?"


    "Frankly, I don''t know. This is new territory. For... science in general." He sounded uncertain "I want to see this succeed. Not just for our survival, but for the implications for humanity. I''d never heard of Arthausen Syndrome before, but it may very well be a boon for transhumanism, if that is what allowed you to do this. I''ll certainly be downloading any material I can find on it at next port."


    I sat down and poked my feet into the liquid. It was so thick. I didn''t have to take my first breath of it while conscious last time, and I knew that the first few lungfuls going back into it would be an ordeal "Say... don''t take this the wrong way or anything, but... in this crew, you seem... out of place."


    Doc carried himself more properly than the others, and seemed more keen on keeping himself clean and well-mannered.


    "Not all outlaws are born to poverty." He said simply, going quiet as he stepped behind me. It must have been a sensitive subject. I could feel him waiting impatiently for me to climb inside so that he could close the lid.


    I obliged, prefering to escape his judgemental stare over my possible impending doom. I plunged down into the fluid and crouched to make sure I was out of the way of the mechanically closing lid.


    For a moment, I was just inside of a half-filled goopy dark sphere. In another, it began to rise. I instinctually held my breath as it climbed to my neck. And as the last bit of open space filled and I became immersed, the fluid began to feel comfortable again.


    The air in my lungs was growing stale, and it didn''t take me long before I let it out, watching the bubbles float up and disappear at the top of the chamber. Sucking in my first breath didn''t go as smoothly as I''d hoped. It felt like I was choking. Drowning. It wasn''t until I got the first lungful to stay down that I breathed it heavily, sucking it in and out as my body slowly became accustomed to breathing again, and I was able to calm down.


    Without the contrast of the open air, it just felt like a comfortable emptiness. I floated onto my back, and when the interior lights flashed on, I blinked once and I was immediately back. That empty void. The fluid was doing its work. I could see nothing besides myself. Sense nothing. Because there was nothing. It felt right.


    I closed my eyes and reached out once more to my mental console. The core room. My heart. There was Doc, right where I had last seen him. I looked at the data pad in his hands. I reached out for it. It had a text file open. It read ''Can you see me?''


    It would be much easier to communicate using technology that was intended for user input. I accesses the file and appended ''yes'' on a fresh line


    ''Can you hear me?'' Was the next question.


    I couldn''t say. Doc was certainly saying something. I just wasn''t sure how to parse that data correctly. ''No.'' I replied this time ''I can hear something, the sound is strange.''


    He replied again ''At least we can communicate. Continue the grafting process, I''ll monitor your vitals and ping you if I need your attention. If something goes critical, I''ll pull you out immediately.''


    I nodded, then realized he couldn''t see me and wrote out ''Okay.'' Before I turned to project myself out of the room in my mental map.


    It felt bizarre, as if I was floating through the ship myself, an invisible spirit with a presence in the halls. I moved to the stairs down to the mess hall that I''d explored in the flesh, and as the sensor data flowed in, I began feeling more comfortable with the image overlapping with my physical memory.


    I watched as Mouse came into view, still eating the slop that passed for food outside of corporate cities. It was nutritious, I''d been told in our brief meal together, but the taste was awful. I grimaced and hoped I wouldn''t have to endure too much more of it myself.


    I felt like a voyeur. Here I was, watching someone without them knowing I was staring. Sure, I was just taking in sensory data to synchronize with the room, but it still felt like I could potentially end up invading someone''s privacy. I would, after all, be becoming part of the more intimate environments of the ship as well if I was going to be able to control it.


    I started to look around at the room''s electronics. Perhaps I could at least alert the boy to my presence. Most of what I sensed blurred into the background: plumbing monitors, electrical boxes, gravity control, life support... I was starting to filter out the systems that were able to operate basically autonomously, and there wasn''t much left. This wasn''t a terribly sophisticated starship, it seemed. Still, there was something I could use. A PA system. Primitive, but effective. I could feel the electronics snaking through the ship, and I wondered what was on the other ends of parts of it that I hadn''t explored yet.


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    I tapped into the system and switched it on, only to realize that I had no idea how to use it in such a state. I certainly couldn''t speak. I wondered if it would be as simple as thinking of the words to send. I tried just that and watched as Mouse jolted back, looking alarmed and shouting some sort of expletive. I cringed and cut my connection quickly. Seemed that data didn''t translate well directly into speech. Mouse stood up and stomped quickly to the intercom, where I heard his small voice come through, shouting angrily over the electronics "What the FUCK was that?!"


    I was shocked myself this time. While data to sound was less simple, it seemed that I was able to understand the voice transmitted through the intercom perfectly clearly. "Probably Meryll." replied Aisling''s voice. I pictured myself up at the helm and in an instant, I was looking at her, leaning back in her chair to press her end of the intercom, still staring at the loading screen. At least this time, at Doc''s recommendation, no doubt, there was a blank text file open.


    I typed quickly ''Sorry. Trying to figure out how to talk.''


    I heard her say something, but after I didn''t respond, she typed back ''You''re a spaceship, why do you need to talk?''


    I grimaced. Was she really going to stop treating me like a person now that I''d agreed to be locked back into the core? ''I''m a person! People talk!''


    ''You can be a person all you want once you''re back in your cozy house with your nice job and high society life or whatever. For now, you''re a ship.'' she typed impatiently.


    I furrowed my brow, angry that I was being dehumanized, but helpless to do anything about it. I was just as stranded as they were if I refused to act out my part here. What had happened to the comforting and gentle Aisling that helped me down the stairs earlier?


    Looking at the loading bar, I saw it was nearing 70%. I could feel my consciousness seeping further outward into the ship, feeling some of the sensors on the armor plating of the exterior now. It wouldn''t be long before I really was actually a spaceship. At least until I got us to a port.


    I frowned as I wondered, would she uphold her end of the deal? She could just leave me in here. Of course, then I could just abscond with the ship when they landed if I wanted. And then... And then I could... what could I actually do?


    If I showed up at a Foundation port, sure I could communicate through text and log files, and they would probably get me out, but then what?


    My eyes went wide with realization. I was an anomaly. A biological miracle. The implications of a human being able to bond with a starship was revolutionary. And I knew all too well that if I showed up at a corporate port, they wouldn''t see me as a person either. They''d see an opportunity to exploit. I didn''t have connections high up with anyone who could vouch for me. I would become an experiment. I had to keep what happened here a secret from them at all costs.


    Could I keep it a secret? It was one thing, being able to walk through a scanner and explain that I was emitting psychic waves because of my documented condition, but now I had actual ship data shoved into my neurology. I also couldn''t release myself from the core module. They certainly wouldn''t overlook me climbing out of this thing without an investigation. I wasn''t going to get back to Titan without getting scanned either. I''d be trapped there if I even could.


    I came back to my senses when I saw Aisling tapping her hand up against the sensor array above her, as if trying to get my attention. Looking up, I saw that she''d typed ''Why did you stop?'' Sure enough, the loading bar hadn''t moved since I had gotten lost in the thought. My hesitation was causing the process to seize up.


    I couldn''t tell if I was crying, but my eyes certainly felt heavy. Could I cry anymore? Was I even really human? I was starting to panic as I reached out for some kind of comfort, even if it was with her. I typed out the truth I had to face, hoping for some sympathy ''I can''t go home, can I?''


    Aisling saw my text and turned back to the console, just staring at the question for a few minutes. There was conflict on her face. I just wanted to hear something from her, anything that could make me feel real again in that moment. Finally, I saw her release a sigh and put her hands on the keyboard ''Probably not.''


    Sobbing within the lubricant was a strange experience. It was silent, and the sensation of my diaphragm contracting felt alien while it was full of fluid. I had to open my eyes. It was yet another bizarre sensation that I was only able to shut out my senses and ignore the world by keeping my eyes open rather than closed. I stared at the empty void surrounding me and I wrapped my arms around my legs, holding myself tight. At least I could feel myself.


    This was all too much. It had been too much since I first woke up here, but it was finally coming down on me. My life as I knew it was over. I wondered if maybe it would be easier if I''d just been a regular ship core. Life as a zombified living processor must be simpler than this, right? More comfortable. I couldn''t believe I was envious of a starship component in that moment.


    I blinked and saw more words on the screen, so I sighed and closed my eyes again to read ''Full disclosure, I was just going to let you go home and let the corpos do whatever they want with you. But you know, new cores are expensive. If this works, we might need you a little longer than I thought we would. Hope you won''t be too mad if we don''t drop you off at the first port.''


    I stared at the words for a few minutes, taking in the implications. It was quite a turn from how she''d just been treating me moments before. Maybe she''d been trying to keep me distant for the sake of her own conscience. On one hand, this wasn''t the deal we had made.  She was breaking a promise, but it also meant that she wanted me to stay. I wasn''t sure how I felt about her wanting to maintain her tough stance and making it look like she was giving me orders, but in a way, it was thoughtful.


    I had to make a hard choice, here and now, before I could continue grafting the machine. My mind wouldn''t settle if I didn''t face the problem now. Should I face the people that I''d once called coworkers, bosses, and friends, who would surely treat me as just a thing. I couldn''t even imagine what they would do to me to try to extract the secrets of what laid in my mind that allowed me to do such a thing. I could hope that they would keep treating me like a person despite it, but I knew them too well. They wouldn''t. I would become an asset.


    Or I could stay in this sphere. Maybe for good. A tool. A mechanism. A part of this greater thing, at the whim of pirates to do god knows what. I didn''t think that I could trust Aisling, but who was I supposed to trust? I couldn''t just flee at an independent port, then where would I be? Trapped with no one. I''d rather be in the company of criminals than to be alone in a strange place with nothing and no prospects.


    I reached for the console again and typed ''I have a condition.'' I swallowed, wondering if I really had any bargaining power here. I watched her with her arms folded as she read it, and then typed out ''Go on.''


    ''I''m not just your ship. I''m part of your crew too. I''m a person. And I''ll be treated as such.'' I typed out slowly, letting her read along and process my request ''If you agree, I''ll be your ship.''


    She tried to hide a smile on her face, but I was getting better at reading expressions through the sensor arrays. She didn''t hesitate for a moment before she typed ''Deal.''

 Becoming Whole

    And so it was that I put my hand in with pirates. I didn''t see any other choice at the time. In my mind, it was absolutely twisted that it was my best course of action, but that''s where I was. I had to throw away my old life. I''d probably been written off as dead in that crash anyway, so disappearing silently into a core module meant that no one would come look for me. Maybe no one outside of this ship would ever have to know I was more than a component. And then no one would come to lock me away.


    My focus had returned with her word that I would be more than just a machine to her and her crew though. So it would be my duty to be her ship. As I felt the structure pulse around me, I thought that maybe I could live with that. Sure, it wouldn''t be as comfortable of a life as I''d led so far, but it would be a life. It wouldn''t be a world of solitude locked behind some sterile laboratory door. I could sail the stars. In a strange way, I would be free.


    I took another deep breath as I felt the warmth of the engines inside of me. Maybe this wouldn''t be so bad. I could sail the system, not even just in a ship, but as a ship. The stress of my job started to feel distant as the outer sensor arrays turned on. It hadn''t dawned on me in some time just how unrewarding it had all been. Making incremental improvements to systems made and maintained by people who didn''t deserve or understand them, to make them more and more money that they didn''t deserve either. I supposed that I''d always been part of a different kind of machine.


    And as I looked out into the vast black emptiness around us, my brow lifted at the beauty of it. Of seeing the universe unfiltered, all around me, through my numerous electronic ''eyes'' within my imagination. Marveling at the beauty, I felt my last reservations disappear "Wow." I had to mouth silently. The ferry ships never really had much in the way of windows, except in the higher class booths, so my experience seeing the stars this intimately were limited. And this would be my new normal from here on out.


    No more paperwork. No more tracking hours. No more insufferable CEOs standing in the way of progress. No more stifling advancement in the name of profit. No more being forced to take advantage of the people under and around me. Just this. This would be my life now. I felt like I was floating in that space myself. Not the ship. But me. We were one and the same.


    I was so entranced, I didn''t notice the bar on the helm terminal hitting 100%, another process beginning. I did feel the spike of pain deep inside my brain again, but this time, I let it pass, and it dulled quickly. The world in my mind began filling out. Optimizing. I shifted my presence back to the helm to take a look. The sensor array I was focusing on started becoming clearer. Nothing was blurry anymore. It felt like I could see into the room as if I was standing there in the flesh rather than through a camera.


    "Hope she''s still alive in there." I heard Aisling mumble to herself.


    I smiled. I could hear her. The initialization was complete. The ship was wholly grafted to my mind, and now the ship''s... no, my own systems could operate more efficiently. In an instant, I typed out the phrase all at once as if it had been copied from somewhere else rather than typed out ''I don''t think I''ve ever felt more alive.''


    She leaned over to read what I said and raised her brow "Oh, so now I can talk to you, huh?" she almost looked relieved. "Well, if you''re gonna insist on it, I guess we''ll have to teach you to talk next after all." she smirked up at me "Don''t try and use the intercom again though, Mouse thought we were exploding."


    ''Fine, fine.'' I wrote, then shifted downward to my heart. I hooked right into Doc''s terminal ''I did it! I''m a starship!''


    "Amazing..." he mumbled to himself, checking on my vitals again before typing ''Your body is slightly stressed, but not more than a core would be.''


    ''The sound sensors are working.'' I informed him, and he looked up at the array.


    "So you can hear me now?" he gave a small chuckle, a look of genuine wonder on his face "Remarkable! I never would have guessed I''d get to see this kind of breakthrough on this ship of all places. Imagine the possibilities; a ship that can reason and learn!"


    ''About that, don''t expect me to operate this thing smoothly yet.'' I warned ''It''s like discovering you have new limbs. There''s no instruction manual in here, I just have to try things out.''


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    "Just listen to the captain''s orders. She knows what she''s doing." he noted. I felt something coming from above. An electronic ping. The helm needed my attention. I moved back up to Aisling to see her with a star map opened on her terminal. She pressed a key and I felt something new. I was surprised when my senses expanded out. Like a wave at the edge of my mental vision, I saw orbits, planets, moons, satellites, stations. It was blurry like I had felt the ship before, maybe even less clear, but I could see... no, feel, everything. Half of the system. I could feel Earth! I''d never been to Earth! The wave came back to me, updating information to me live. It was a remarkable amount of data. As my excitement dwindled, I began to notice that it was exhausting.


    "You get all that?" Aisling asked, tweaking a few settings and turning down the clarity I felt from the scan, mercifully freeing up some of my concentration.


    ''Yeah, but that is jarring. It''s a lot of information to take in at once. Warn me when you do that.''


    Aisling clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes "You''re the first one to complain." she said jokingly "Your predecessors would''ve just taken it."


    ''My predecessors weren''t really alive.'' I reminded her, feeling the lighthearted jab she was making ''So what do we do? Where do pirates call port?''


    Aisling pointed at her screen "Luna." she said simply.


    Luna? We were actually going to Earth! Or at least its proximity. I started parsing our current location relative to Earth''s moon. Calculations passed my thoughts. I recognized some of them, but thankfully, the dizzying equations solved themselves, my processing augmented automatically by my subsystems. I didn''t really comprehend it all, but I could see the end result. I could see exactly how much thrust to apply. I could see my route in front of me. All that was left was figuring out how exactly to use those systems.


    "Well..." she started, crossing her arms and watching the data I was displaying automatically on her terminal "I can''t say I was expecting to give Theseus a brain when I came out this way. This is weird even for me. But you''re not bad at this. Let''s head out."


    I reached for the engine room and grasped the terminals for the thrusters. Three arrays, one at the rear, one on each upper wing. I''d have to balance them to change directions. It was a strange way to think about mobility for a human who was used to bipedal movement. Still, it couldn''t be that difficult, right?


    I cranked the back thruster up to get forward momentum going, and I felt myself shiver. More than that, I saw Aisling grab hold of her desk and hold her chair still "Fuck! Meryll!" she shouted.


    I bit my lip ''More sensitive than I thought.'' I sent her as I pulled back on the thrusters. I supposed I had to accelerate in stages for the safety of the crew. Still, we were beginning to move forward. I started tweaking the side engines, this time incrementally, and the ship started to turn! I smiled as I tried to line myself up with the calculated route. But something was off.


    I kept drifting and couldn''t get myself exactly on the line. The ship was rotating in space. I felt around for more external controls. Wingflaps and propulsion jets. Great, more moving parts. But it would help me with more fine maneuvering. I righted us and thanked the fact that we had artificial gravity, or I''d be throwing everyone all over the place.


    "Meryll, you''re making me nauseous." Aisling groaned.


    ''You want to come in here and control this!? It''s harder than it looks!'' I typed quickly before returning to my series of control panels, repeatedly overcorrecting several times before I felt like I was close enough to the route. ''Okay, moving in 3D space is hard.'' I admitted to her.


    "Clearly." she pushed back from the terminal "Well, you did it. We''re on our way." she let out a sigh and slid her chair back "ETA?"


    I began gradually accelerating, making tiny corrections to the nose of the ship ''I don''t have a great feel for our max speed yet. But... I''m gonna say in the neighborhood of six days?'' I said, calculations ramming their way into my mind and at least giving me a ballpark to work with.


    "Well, you''re not exactly a computer, but I think once you get the hang of this, you''re gonna be better." Aisling stood up from her seat and stretched "Get us to speed and maintain course. Then... at ease I guess?" she shrugged her shoulders.


    At ease, she said. What did that even mean for me? I didn''t think it would be a great idea to leave the core while we were in transit like this. What did machines do when they weren''t in use. Idle, I supposed. I''d just get bored doing nothing at all. Maybe I''d try to strike up a conversation with the others. Get to know the rest of the crew.


    It dawned on me that I hadn''t ever really had much in the way of free time before. Sure, there was time off, but that was just for recuperating from the stress of my work. I mostly slept and lounged at home catching up on the news until I was ready to work again. I grimaced as I realized, I was boring. I had no hobbies or social interests outside of computers. If there was going to be a lot of travel between planet proximities like this, there would be a lot of time between stops.


    Staging up and correcting our course again, I decided that I needed to find something interesting to do in these downtimes. Sure I could keep exploring the parts of the ship that I''d only passively scanned so far, but that would only keep me busy for so long. I needed a terminal of my own. A private one.

 Scientific Miracle

    I returned to my heart and saw Doc was still staring at my vitals, writing some observations on his own tablet. "Wish I could observe her bodily movement too." he mused idly. He seemed to be charting each little change in the values. There was the beginning of what looked to be a psychological analysis, with my text responses documented as well. There was no mistaking it, he was a professional. I really had to wonder how he ended up here.


    When he looked up to the vitals again, I started a new line and added to his file ''Dork.'' And let out a silent giggle when he looked down and saw my taunt, revealing that I''d been watching him type.


    He smiled himself and looked up at the core as if he were speaking directly to me "I may no longer be a respected member of the scientific community, but that doesn''t mean that the world doesn''t deserve an accurate account of this, frankly historical, moment." he looked back down to see the word ''Dork.'' again in larger font. He let out a little snort "And I''m perfectly aware of that. Was there something that you needed?"


    ''Believe it or not, more cyberware?'' I asked.


    He looked concerned at that line "What did you have in mind?" he asked


    ''A personal computer subsystem. I want my own interface.''


    His expression softened "Are you... bored?" he asked, an amused tone to the question.


    I briefly pulled the ship controls back over to accelerate again before I replied ''Your ship needs a hobby.'' I explained.


    He chortled "Okay, that''s another new one. You won''t even need to go under the knife. That case at your hip, it''s meant to interface with your nervous system, but you seem to be able to move your body just fine on your own. I can grab a different blade you can use for yourself next time you''re out of the tank."


    ''Sounds good. When can I get out?''


    "Whenever you''re not busy." he mumbled "You''re only going to need to be in there when you need to do a deep dive in the systems. You should be able to connect remotely through the interface on your arm as long as you''re in signal range of the ship."


    ''Are you saying I don''t even need to be in this stuff?'' I asked, prepared to be irritated at the answer.


    "Technically, no." he said "Since the beginning of the initialization, you''ve been psychically connected to the core module. We don''t really know the exact range of it, but it''s more generous than the signal range of your cyberware." he continued staring at the core module, as if looking for a reaction somehow "No, you''re in there because it''s a sensory deprivation tank. It''s impossible for a normal core to concentrate on the mental interface without all of their senses nullified, I can''t imagine it would be any easier for someone with a lot more going on in their brain." he explained "You''ll still be aware of the whole ship, but your control will be limited to a little more than what you could do with a standard terminal out here."


    I paused for a long moment ''So I really do have psychic potential then?''


    He shrugged his shoulders "You must. I definitely wouldn''t call these readings random happenstance. Whatever Arthausen Syndrome is, you must have been misdiagnosed. The core module isn''t some mind-scanning technology trick, you''ve been controlling this ship with your brain directly. And spectacularly, I might add. It''s really like you''re a sentient, thinking ship core."


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    I huffed. All those times handing in my medical card to get through security and it''d been wrong all along. I supposed it was a good thing that I''d been able to fly under the radar that way for so long, or I''d already be some corporate goon''s experiment. I pushed my thrusters up another notch to top off my acceleration, using the side engines to stabilize myself and fixing our course. ''Well, we''re moving now. Let me out of this thing, I''m ready to spend some time as a human again.''


    ---


    I sat in the medical bed, looking down at the remnants of the pile of goop I''d choked up when I was released. It was bizarre seeing the world through eyes again after I''d bonded with the ship so thoroughly. Every time I closed my eyes, I swore that I could still see everything around me, only fuzzier. Vague shapes instead of the whole picture that I got inside of the core module.


    Doc had insisted that he give me a thorough examination before I left to wander my own halls, but he was at least nice enough to hand me a towel to dry myself off with first. I sat with it draped over my shoulders, still not clean, though. The texture was unbearable. The feel of everything I touched was magnified a thousand times over, and the terrycloth felt like sandpaper against my skin, so I was just using it to cover myself for now.


    I closed my eyes and tried to reach out, but nothing in my psionic link made sense anymore. The hum of electrical fields around me and the sound of Doc shuffling about and breathing were all too loud. Even the slight variation in light around the room was too much against my closed eyes for me to focus. Not to mention the artificial gravity and the fact that it still felt freezing. I saw what he''d meant about the lubricant negating ALL senses. And the effect that my physical senses had on my ability to use the psionic link to the ship was debilitating. I could almost feel an urge to dive back into the sphere, but I still wanted to try taking a walk around my halls.


    Doc walked back into the room, carrying a circuit board "It''s a bit dated, but it should run just fine." he said, leaning up against the metal wall and gently dusting off the back of it with his hand.


    I hesitated for a moment, shaking off the urge to attempt mentally writing a response into his tablet "It''s not like I''m going to be rendering anything, or playing video games." I spoke out loud "If I can use it to draw and write, that''ll be enough for me."


    "Are you an artist?" he asked, kneeling down and taking a screwdriver to the case at my side.


    "I need to do something with my time." I whined, trying to hold my lower body still while watching him tinker with my body "I''m... not used to having much time to myself."


    "Oh, I''m well aware of how the corporate colonies treat people like us. Work, work, work, all the time. You get to rest when you''re too spent to move, and when you''ve had it, it''s right back to work. Honestly, I''ve never really been able to get out of that mindset myself. I do what I can to keep myself busy around here."


    "Well, I''m not going to let myself end up like that. I have free time now, I''m going to find something I like to do." I flinched when I saw him open the panel. He pulled out a chipset that was already inside, probably a default mobility system for a ship core, and quickly replaced it with the blade he''d carried in. "I''m sorry about the state of your body." he started "Our situation was fairly dire, and the captain insisted that you be operational before all the flesh completely healed. No danger to you, or anything, just, the scarring might be causing some complications and well... look at it."


    "I don''t think I''ll be getting out much anymore, anyway." I muttered. I was a starship now, after all. Just the thought of straying far from its walls made me feel uncomfortable. "There go my dating prospects." I joked.


    "Bachelor life''s not so bad." he smirked, seeing I was feeling comfortable "Only one prospect on this ship for me, and there''s no way in hell we''d ever do anything."


    "Captain too wily for you?" I jabbed at him as he closed up the panel.


    "Joel, actually." he said casually. I couldn''t help but raise my eyebrows in stunned surprise as he turned "And not in a million years if humanity depended on it."


    I smiled at him "Ahh, you swing that way?" I asked as he tightened the panel back into place. I crossed my arms and smiled down at him before I muttered quietly "Well, more captain for me then."


    He fumbled with the screwdriver, watching it clatter to the floor before he looked back up to me and gave a knowing smile.


    I cleared my throat and decided that it was time to change the subject "So, you were going to give me a medical exam, now that I know it''s not an excuse to pull something creepy?"

 Grim Realities

    I stepped slowly into the cargo bay past the dormitories. This place had been hard to parse when I first saw it in my mental map. Now it was hard to pay attention to it because of the pressure of the floor against my feet.


    I''d been offered a simple robe from Doc''s wardrobe. It was light and felt pleasant, even though it was far too large for me. And it would allow me to keep my dignity as I explored. The sliding and banging coming from the room ahead of me meant that it was given in good foresight.


    I found myself standing against an upper railing, looking down on a mostly empty industrial floor. Joel and Mouse were sliding the few stray crates out of the center of the cargo bay, stacking them off to the side. I had to blink as I watched. Joel, I could understand being capable of lifting such things. Mouse was a small boy, yet he was able to lift things with a strength that matched the large man.


    As I pondered it, I closed my eyes and saw the blurred outline of the room. I hadn''t explored it directly while I was in the core module, but the data was still there. When I looked down again, I saw Joel looking back at me.


    "Whats she doing out of her cage?" He asked, condescending as he was before.


    "What, I can''t wander my own ship?" I asked, leaning over the railing and smiling at him. I was beginning to feel more confident with my situation. I had little left to lose, and after I''d gone through the dread of that realization, it actually felt liberating. I was growing some manner of confidence and felt like I could be sarcastic.


    "Ain''t yours, it''s the captain''s ship." Joel spoke harshly.


    "And I''m the captain''s ship." I shrugged at him. Mouse let out a small laugh at the quip.


    "Think you''re real funny, don''t you?" He muttered as he walked over to one of the crates they''d left unstacked "Come on down here, I got something to show you."


    Mouse looked concerned, but I began moving slowly down the stairs anyway. I didn''t think there was anything he could show me that would shock me. Stolen goods? Salvage? I didn''t really care. If I was going to be a pirate, I''d have to get used to what I was hauling around.


    When I approached him, I didn''t expect the crate to slide open and reveal a young woman''s body, inside of a cold storage crate. I had to take a step back, looking back and forth between him and the body, attempting to demand an explanation with my expression.


    "Take a look. It''s our old core." He declared "You keep sticking around, this is where you end up too."


    She was extremely pale. She had long black hair, no clothes, and I saw a barcode tattooed to her side. She also had multiple holes in her skin where raw flesh and muscle was exposed. It took only a moment for me to realize what they meant. I reached up and felt at the plate behind my ear. It was in the same position as her head wound. The same was true for her arm and her waist. I felt my own cyberware in turn. I had to turn away and cover my mouth with my hand. I felt like I was going to be sick.


    "What, you think we''re swimming in cyberware components? The stuff in you had to come from somewhere." Joel closed the crate back up and Mouse looked away as well, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.


    It made sense. But still, the idea that a part of someone else had been dug out of them to be put into me was grotesque, even if they were just a ship core. "You''re an ass." I muttered to him "I didn''t need to see that."


    "Ask me how it died." Joel said gruffly.


    "... How''d it die?" I asked dryly, my curiosity getting the better of me.


    Joel hesitated a little, pursing his lips before he turned quickly to Mouse "Why don''t you tell her, boy?"


    "It died to psychic trauma." Mouse spoke up softly "The lower engines blew out when another ship shot us."


    I remembered that I had a set of lower wings, but there were no thrusters. So I''d figured that they were decorative, not that there were systems missing "What exactly is psychic trauma?" I asked reluctantly.


    "You can feel the ship, right? Like you''re part of it." Joel spoke up "Imagine if someone shot your arm clean off. Painful, right? You could die from that pain. Now imagine Theseus'' wing gets shot off."


    The image of my own arm getting torn off scared me, but it was something I could have visualized before, grim as it was. When he told me to imagine terrible damage falling upon my starship shell, I grabbed my own arm forcefully. The sympathetic pain made me shiver. It hadn''t dawned on me until that moment, but pirates sometimes had to attack, and were attacked by ships in turn. And those weapons could cause serious damage to a starship. A starship that I now was.


    I took in a deep breath "A-Are you saying... that I could die if Theseus takes too much damage?"


    "Joel, you''re scaring her." Mouse finally spoke up.


    "Course she''s scared, she''s a corpo softie. Never had to face her mortality before. We''ve all got our lives on the line here, she should know that just cause she''s got armor plating around her doesn''t make her any less vulnerable." He walked past me and kept talking "Better hope we don''t run into trouble before we get to Luna, then you can get back to your safety bubble and keep making the bastards richer."


    I barely registered his last comment, I was reeling hard from his words. He was right. The possibility of my own early demise wasn''t something that I''d ever had to seriously consider before, and it was terrifying. I felt dizzy. The world spun around me for a moment before I was able to focus again.


    As he turned back to keep leaving the room, his footsteps stopped "Captain." I heard him say before I heard the sound of crashing metal and had to swing around in surprise. Joel was lying in the scattered contents of a tool shelf, struggling to push himself up "The FUCK was that for?!" He groaned.


    "For making my ship cry." She said flatly. Preoccupied by my growing fear, I hadn''t even noticed, but my eyes had grown wet. I was shaking. But the captain coming to my defense at least brought my attention back to reality. She continued, remaining neutral in her expression "We''re not dropping her off on Luna. She''s part of the crew now. I''ve told you before, Joel, don''t harass my crew."


    Aisling kept walking toward me, despite Joel''s groaning "How was I supposed to know?"


    "He''s right though. Even if he''s an ass about it." She walked past me and sat down on top of the crate that contained my predecessor''s remains. "The ship isn''t armor to you. It''s you. Getting hit in a firefight is going to hurt. And if you get hurt too much, or in the wrong way, well..." She tapped her hand down on the crate.


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    I gulped. She wasn''t helping me feel any better about the situation. "I... I don''t know if I can..."


    "But you''re not disposable. We survived the last attack, but it was a fluke. Powered down and they lost track of us in the chaos, and they were only after the salvage we''d marked. So we got away. Normally, we''d be screwed without a core and be just as dead."


    She stood up and put a hand on my shoulder "Core''s not a part we lose often. We did everything we could to protect that one cause we''re dependent on it. We''ll do the same for you. Mouse is young, but he''s a crack engineer, he''ll keep you running. Let him know if anything feels off or starts to hurt. Gonna see about some psychic dampers once we hit Luna too, should keep you from going into shock too quick when you get hit. I take care of my crew, got it?"


    I nodded slowly. She had a way with words that helped me calm down, but I was still worried.


    "And some sims." She added, starting to walk away, back past Joel "You''re gonna need to learn how to navigate in a battle. Avoid getting hit too much, learn how to fire back and you won''t have to worry about it."


    "Will I have to get into so many battles?" I asked quickly, not wanting her to leave just yet.


    She kept walking past Joel who was still picking himself up "In space? No. Not really. Maybe once every couple months. We avoid even getting seen where we can out here. But they do happen, and all it takes is one failed skirmish. So we still gotta get you ready cause it will happen eventually." She briefly turned back to Joel and quipped "Clean up this mess, Joel, honestly." Before she gave a wave and kept moving. He rolled his eyes and knelt down to do as he was told.


    Joel had made it sound like an inevitability, but the captain''s words were encouraging. I had time. I could learn to pilot the ship more expertly. I could upgrade my parts. And I had an engineer to take care of me. Maybe I could hold my own.


    "So... you''re really staying?" I heard Mouse''s small voice behind me, so I turned to look down at him. He looked so frail, but he carried himself with confidence and strength. Small, but tough. "And... you really are the ship?"


    There was a short silence as I parsed everything I''d just heard before I nodded to him, still unsure how he wanted me to act around him. My mind felt unclear, like I''d checked out at some point. I felt woozy.


    He grew a serious expression on his face "Tell me something only the ship would know!" He suddenly demanded.


    I had to take a step back, surprised by the question. Was he testing me? I closed my eyes and thought for a moment. There was a lot of data in my mind that I didn''t need the full psychic link to access, but I wasn''t sure how to express it all verbally. What exactly was he asking for? He knew my shell inside and out, so maybe he was looking for the unique features of the ship. Its flaws. So I just started with the little things I''d noticed in my limited experience at the piloting controls "The upper starboard wing flap isn''t completely straight and it''s misaligned about point six degrees. The micro-propulsion on that side also doesn''t release until I put output to about 25%. The port thruster gets about 18% more electrical power than starboard, so I have to compensate to keep us flying straight. I have this weird itchy feeling on the underside armor, so I think that means there''s a broken sensor array... should I keep going?" I sounded tired. I was tired. I wanted to return to the core module, and it was strange to me that that was what I automatically turned to as ''relaxing'' now. I was so tired.


    Mouse just stared up at me, eyes wide as I pointed out the little nitpicks that I had with the propulsion systems. When he finally spoke up, it was to say "It''s really up to 18%? I thought that patch would make more resistance than that. And I know about the wing, but it''s such a small deviation, is it really a problem? I promise I''ll clean the propulsion system and take a look at the underpanelling when we get to port though." he sounded excited as he spoke, like his distrust for me had fallen away in an instant "Oh wow, I''ve never worked on a ship that could actually talk back to me like this! This is going to be so much easier than slogging through the log files and trying to guess what''s wrong, please, I need to make a list." he pulled a small data pad out of one of his numerous pockets and began to jot things down on it with a stylus.


    "The wingflap''s fine, I can deal with it." I started. That was when I noticed it. His hands, they had what looked like bits of metal plating along his palms and the underside of his fingers. Barely visible circuitry ran up the underside of his arms, and bits of more plating stuck out at his elbows. It was no wonder that he was able to perform engineering tasks and lift heavy crates; he was augmented as well, just much more subtly than I was. But it was clear on close inspection that both of his arms were completely synthetic.


    "Your arms..." I started, shocked to see such invasive cyberware not only on a child, but fitted for a child.


    He furrowed his brow and looked up directly at me again "What about it?" he asked quietly.


    I wasn''t sure what to say. I wanted to ask if he was okay, but I thought that it might come off as patronizing. The boy was clearly sensitive about it, like Doc when I asked about his past. Maybe it was best that I let him tell me about it on his own terms. "They... must be really helpful in your line of work." I tried to redirect it into a compliment.


    His expression softened slightly and he looked back down at his data pad, continuing to scribble notes about what I''d reported about the ship "Yeah." he said quietly "They are. I''ll keep you safe, okay? I''ll repair anything that breaks down or starts working wrong." he glanced to the closed crate with the old core in it "I''ll make sure that doesn''t happen to you." he put the pad back in his pocket and looked back up at me. He almost looked sad "But you gotta tell me what it''s like. Being a ship. Okay?" he asked.


    I nodded. I wasn''t really sure how to express what it was like bonding with a starship in words, but I didn''t know how I could say no to the kid in that moment.


    "Okay." we looked at each other in silence for a few moments. It was like he was observing me. Even when he turned away to walk toward the engine room, he glanced back at me a couple of times until he turned a corner and disappeared.


    I felt my shoulders relax, and leaned back hard, thumping against the wall. Closing my eyes, I still saw the hangar around me. I didn''t want that. I needed a break. I needed to be alone with my thoughts, but the data kept flowing. What I saw with my eyes closed was dizzying, and the physical reality around me when they were open was becoming unbearable. I really was going to become reliant on the core module to rest my head.


    "Why''d you agree to it?" I heard, turning to see that Joel was still there, picking things up off the ground "You know you''re gonna get into some real illegal shit, throwing in with us. Your comfy little cubicle won''t be waiting for you anymore."


    I looked up at the ceiling. Was he still trying to goad me? After a moment, I knew what to tell him "Because I''m a freak."


    I heard him stop rummaging in the scattered tools and look up "Well yeah you''re a freak, you''re a ship core walking around like a person."


    "If I go back there, they''re going to... I don''t even know. Keep me in a lab forever. Dissect me. Something like that. I can''t just go back to my job and pretend this didn''t happen." I pursed my lips and stood up straight again "I''m not a person anymore. I wouldn''t be to them anyway. They''d just... use me for profit."


    "How''s that any different than usual?" he muttered.


    That was the last straw. I was starting to get irritated at Joel and I had to let it out. "You know, you''re right, it''s not. corporate colonies suck, they''re leeching the life from everyone that lives inside and outside of their influence, turning us all into work slaves, destroying worlds, ruling with fear, and undermining everything that it means to be a free human being! Is that what you want me to say?!" I stomped my foot down, and despite the fact that the heavy physical movement made me feel like I was going to lose my balance and fall over, I continued with my rant "You think I didn''t already know all of that! I''ve been a part of it! What the fuck was I supposed to do about it? Stand up and say something? Get fired for ''insubordination'' and fall into poverty? Go homeless and starve on the streets, where I''d get beaten by the police who''ll get praised for reigning me in for the crime of being too poor to deserve anything? What a great life that would be!" I snapped, taking a few awkward steps toward him. I felt like passing out, but I had more to say to him "Do you think we don''t know? Do you think people like me are actually doing the work they make us do because we want to? We don''t have a choice!" I had a lot of emotions flowing around with all the other data. I held my head, feeling at the neural implant. I was spent.


    "Welcome to the other choice." he muttered as he slammed the last of the tools onto the rack and turned to leave the room himself.


    Alone at last, I held my head and fell once more against the wall, reeling at the pain and confusion. I had to get back to the core module. Walking was hard though. My body felt so heavy. I grabbed hold of the staircase railing and stumbled my way up. Through the long hallway and into my heart, my vision blurring harder as I stumbled into a wall, starting to lose feeling in my legs. "Doc..." I called, my voice cracking "Something''s wrong."

 A Better Frame of Mind

    The interior lights turned on and immediately, I breathed a sigh of relief into the thick liquid that was becoming the norm for my lungs. I kept my eyes open and rested. I let my mind go blank. The sensory emptiness was healing. I hadn''t noticed just how much I valued a simple state of being where there wasn''t information flowing through my mind until it was gone. And I''d never be able to have that peace of quiet in my own mind again, outside of this chamber. Another grim realization of what I''d lost. I supposed that I''d have to limit my field trips into the physical world from then on, or at least until I figured out a better solution.


    It only took a few minutes staring into the void for my focus to return to me, and after it did, I closed my eyes once more. Doc was, of course, monitoring my vitals closely. He''d been quite alarmed at my state when I walked in, and when I insisted that he put me back in the core module before anything else, he was especially concerned. I watched alongside him and saw that my heartrate was slowly calming, and my resonance was stabilizing, whatever that meant.


    I pinged his tablet and he looked down to see ''Already so much better. Thank you.''


    He let out a sigh of relief "I suppose there''s more complications than I could have considered with a sentient core wandering about for so long." he muttered "What exactly happened? What were your symptoms?"


    ''At first, I just felt'' I paused, not sure how to put what I experienced into words ''out of place. After the sensitivity I told you about before wore off, I still kept seeing the ship around me when I closed my eyes. All the data, but none of the clarity of it that I have in here. And in here, I can open my eyes and rest for a minute. Out there, I can''t turn my brain off.''


    "It''s fascinating how your mind is processing all of this. I wonder if it would even be exactly the same for someone else in your position." he wrote more in his log, copying my text.


    ''Yeah, fascinating. Can mental overload really make people feel physically weak like that?''


    "Oh, yes, that''s perfectly normal actually. Psychology isn''t really my forte, but I''ve learned a thing or two about it, and the fact that stress leads to exhaustion is a fairly simple connection. I suppose that it''s just far more intense for someone who''s also acting as a complex computer. You''re sensitive to it." he explained "I hope that''s all it is, anyway. Again, there''s no way to know for certain just yet."


    ''Right, new science and all that. I think I''ll just stay in here. It''s more comfortable anyway. Maybe I should just give up on going out in person.''


    "Afraid that won''t work either." he mumbled "I''m going to need to examine you at least once every 24 hours. I can''t monitor everything from out here. You also need to eat. Far less than you''re probably used to, but you still need to eat. And your body is going to become weaker the more time you spend in there, so I''ll have you do some rudimentary stretches and exercises to combat atrophy."


    ''Seems like a pain.''


    "It''s standard core upkeep actually. It''s my job on the ship, sentient core or not, I''m here to take care of your biological needs." he gave a small laugh "Admittedly, having a patient that can actually give me feedback and take care of herself to a degree is going to make things easier."


    ''I figured you were here to patch up bullet wounds and such.'' I smirked.


    "I do that too, but you''re my primary day to day responsibility." he smiled "So the fog''s cleared after just being immersed for a few moments then?"


    ''Completely. I already feel much better. I think I''ll just spend some time customizing this interface you gave me, and maybe check in on ''Ray'' since I didn''t get a chance to meet them earlier.''


    "Ah... Right, about Ray..." he cleared his throat and took a long deep breath "Don''t be too alarmed by her appearance when you see her. Let''s just say that you''re not the only ''anomaly'' on board."


    With that warning, my priorities were suddenly flipped. My curiosity was piqued, and I moved down the dormitory hallway. There were only two doors that remained closed, the others either displaying empty rooms or the lived in chambers of the other crew members. So one of them must have been Ray''s room. Accessing the sensor array on the other side, I shifted my perspective through one of the doors and was surprised to find that they actually both led to the same room. The wall between the rooms had been knocked down, allowing for a larger area. The space was filled with what looked like primitive mementos. Religious icons, perhaps? A small number of books, and furniture that looked roughed up by what seemed to be numerous claw marks


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    Even more alarming was what appeared to be an enormous, black, hairy animal of some sort, curled up in one of the corners, facing away from me. I tried to get a better look at it, but none of my sensors seemed to have a good angle. Was this Ray''s... pet? I swallowed. I knew I wasn''t in any actual danger, only being in the room virtually, but it still elicited a primal response.


    I thought they''d said that she was in her room earlier... but Doc mentioned that there was something unusual about her. I turned my head slowly and looked at the creature in the corner again. Ray? I looked about for something I could interface with, but there wasn''t much. The light system would have to do. I flickered power to the lamp on and off a few times, and it worked. The creature rolled over and I almost opened my eyes wide in shock. A human face turned to look toward the ceiling. I''d seen the furred hide on her back already, but when she unwrapped her arms from around herself, I saw that they were massive and covered in the same thick black fur, ending in thick, sharp claws that could certainly gut someone like me in one swipe. She was a good half meter taller than Joel, with a body that was almost human if not for her absolutely monstrous stature and animalistic limbs. She stretched out her legs, showing they too were like that of a beast, large and muscular. The terrible limbs terminated at her torso, which was still as human as her head, clad in a strange garment at her waist.


    I was immediately unsettled. What was this? She didn''t seem to have a terminal I could access to ping her, and I wasn''t sure if I wanted to. She didn''t seem keen on waking up anyway, turning back over once more and drifting off.


    I returned to my heart, a little bit shaken as I pinged Doc ''Was that thing in her room really Ray?'' I asked.


    Doc scrolled to my message after just a moment "Judging by your reaction, yes." he started "Ray is a Mammon. Part of an ill-fated ''rapid evolution'' experiment. The Almaty Corporation illegally used tribal humans to try to tinker with the human genome in some rather extreme ways. They rebelled and won their independence eventually, and Almaty went under."


    I opened my eyes. What the hell? How was that possible? Someone had seriously created a species of... enhanced humans? That made absolutely no sense. Closing my eyes again, I asked ''How have I never heard of this? I try to keep up with the news.''


    "Because they don''t want you to know about it. Corporate entities don''t want you to know that they have such a reckless disregard for human beings. That''s why travel, and even accommodations, for Mammons, are illegal past Earth. They require a particular environment and a kind of chemical cocktail administered regularly, to survive. Most of the time, they quite literally can''t survive a trip much farther than Earth to Luna." he explained "Ray''s got some hardware that gets her a bit more time, and we keep a healthy supply on hand for her."


    I wasn''t sure how I felt about this Mammon, or the fact that such major news could be withheld from the public out on Titan and Mars. I knew our media was filtered, but what else had I not been told about the happenings in the system. ''Is she safe?'' I asked.


    Doc laughed heartily "Mammons may look like beasts, but they''re actually culturally a peace-loving sort. Ray herself is a sweetheart. Wonderful cook, great conversationalist. She has some unusual practices, given she''s from Earth, but she might actually be the most harmless one here, so long as she considers you a friend." he smiled warmly "She''s kind of like our... big protective mother bear."


    It was odd to see Doc speaking so fondly of the monster that I''d seen, but as far as I knew, this was the norm outside of the space I knew. I couldn''t help but wonder just how sheltered I really was. Once I thought about it, it actually made me relax. If these people could find comradery with someone like her, then maybe I wouldn''t be such an outcast in this life. I was used to being surrounded by conformity. Everyone was the same and strove to be a normal hard-working citizen there. But out here, I was surrounded by strangeness. I''d BECOME something extraordinarily strange myself. And yet here were all these odd folks working together like they were family. It made me feel somewhat foolish for judging anyone on their appearance, given my own newfound nature. The thought of being friendly with Ray was difficult for me to picture, but I had to at least give her a chance.


    ''Thanks Doc. Well, it''s been a really really impossibly long day. My life''s turned upside down, along with my world. I''m going to be a criminal, I''m going to put my life in frequent danger, and I''ve literally become a starship. I have a lot to think about right now. And I really mean a LOT. So I''m going to sleep? I don''t know if I sleep anymore. I''m going to rest.'' I watched him snort and smile at my message before I opened my eyes and stared out into the void. What a day it had been indeed. I still wondered if I might wake up and arrive back home on that transport ship as I planned, but frankly, I wasn''t sure if I wanted to anymore. Things felt like they''d been put into perspective for me.


    As I pulled up the console in my forearm and connected to the pc blade in my hip, I smiled to myself. Maybe this is where I was meant to be.

 From Mars to Luna

    The next week went by in a blur as I settled into a routine. About every ten minutes, I checked on my heading and course corrected, then I would report the deviations to Mouse for him to see if he could correct it. We were mostly flying straight by the end of the second day, and the kid had warmed up to me considerably by then. Aisling said that he didn''t trust easy, but he had an affinity for machines. And well, I was one.


    I''d be lying if I said I worked as hard as I did at my old job, but the captain still complimented me on keeping on top of things. Seemed that pirates had a much healthier work ethic than I did, and multiple times throughout the trip, I found myself feeling like I was slacking off and not pulling my weight. But I started to relax when I noticed that everyone else was taking their time and still keeping up with their duties. Doc was a workaholic, but Aisling dropped by and chatted with him frequently, inviting him to play cards or some board game on their tablets called Gambit. Mouse spent a lot of time reading on his personal computer, and Joel spent entirely too much time working out in public spaces. It made me a bit envious that he could still push his body while mine was becoming more frail by the day, but I was confident that my spaceship was stronger than him any day.


    Ray, however, I hadn''t seen outside of her room. It seemed like all she did was sleep. I reported it to Doc, and he said that he''d spoken with her and she''d opted to go into a hibernative state. We were running low on her medication, and she''d opted to sleep through the journey to minimize her dosage and the risk of seizure. He commended her ingenuity in the face of a dire medical situation, but wished she had warned them instead of just disappearing like that, especially after she''d had some kind of altercation with the captain.


    Everyone except Joel and Ray had opted to leave a note taking app open on their personal computers, should I need to get in touch with them, or even just to chat. They''d become accustomed to speaking to thin air and looking to their tablets for a response.


    Every day, Doc pinged me to my heart and told me to prep for ejection. Every day it became more bothersome. I was beginning to feel out of place in my flesh. Naked. Well, more naked than when I was in the core module. Like I was missing part of my body. My limbs. Doc''s getting worried. He thought I was losing myself. But I felt more like ''myself'' than I ever had in my whole life. I belonged in that sphere. He had Mouse install an electrical switch so that I could release myself and even reinsert myself if he somehow became preoccupied. I hadn''t used it for the entire flight. Still, I was a human being, and humans need things like food, exercise, and medical care, so the expeditions outside remained necessary, if bothersome.


    Speaking of food, I really hoped that we could get something, anything fresh once we got to port. The strange protein slurry that passed as emergency rations made me want to gag every time I had to force it down. Aisling insisted that it''s all we needed, but what I wouldn''t have given for a steak in that first week. Or a cheeseburger. I''d have settled for an apple.


    Once I''d gotten comfortable with the layout of the ship, I wandered it freely in my mental copy of it, watching the others move about whenever my sensors in an empty room were tripped, and responding to any pings on the local network if they needed me for something, to which I was usually happy to help. The presence of what was essentially a living ship was becoming normal for the others, and being that presence was becoming normal for me.


    -¡ª


    "Last checkup before the lunar surface." Doc said, watching as I flopped my body over the side of the core module pool and spit up two lungfuls of lubricant. We''d found pretty quickly that it was easier to just open the top of the chamber to let me out, given that I was able to stand up and move on my own.


    Wiping my mouth, I spoke hoarsely "Yippee."


    "You''re going to a colony you''ve never touched before, aren''t you excited?" He asked as he looked over my body. The examinations didn''t feel invasive anymore, just part of a routine. Crawling up out of my home, I wrung the goop out of my hair. I didn''t think that I''d ever grow used to its texture when I wasn''t fully immersed in it.


    "I guess, yeah. I''m also going to be grounded for awhile." I muttered, flopping down onto the paper sheet of the medical bed "Ugh. Do we really have to do this every day?"


    "Don''t tell me you plan on staying in there while we''re in port." He sounded concerned "Not even standard cores do that. You won''t be so overwhelmed with data once most of the systems are off."


    "Do I have to be turned off?" I groaned, turning my head to the side as he lifted one of my legs with his gloved hand.


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    He set me down and paused "I''m getting very concerned about that too. You keep talking like you really can''t tell the difference between yourself and Theseus anymore."


    "Gonna be honest, Doc, it doesn''t really feel like there is one. And I''m getting kind of tired of pretending that that''s a bad thing." I sat up, stretching as I started feeling some of my strength returning "I don''t have anything to do outside of the core module. Nothing. So why would I leave it more than I have to, JOEL?"


    "Because we all have port duties." Came Joel''s voice from the hall. The sensor data was blurry, but the large man was hard to miss when I closed my eyes "You hear me or something?"


    "Sensor array right above you." I noted "Why you eavesdropping on my checkup? Better not be trying to take a peek."


    "Doc asked me to." He mumbled. I looked over to Doc with a raised eyebrow. He just shrugged his shoulders at me. How''d they manage that in a way I didn''t hear about it? "You''re going on shore leave with us, that''s final."


    "Who died and made you captain?" I grunted, letting my legs dangle weakly over the edge of the bed.


    "Captain''s orders, actually." Joel sounded satisfied with himself. "Every member of the crew''s got chores while we''re at every port. And you''re a member of the crew, remember? No slacking."


    I swallowed hard. I hadn''t realized it, but a ship with such a small crew must have had to divide responsibilities more harshly while grounded. We needed refueling, restocking, external maintenance, and if we were going to get the funds for it, we would have to get some kind of work. I momentarily lamented that accessing my bank account would be an enormous red flag, or we would have been able to coast on my savings for a little while "Fine, what do I need to do?"


    Doc spoke up this time "Well, you get a special job this first time. See, I installed your gear in a hurry. It''s not in the best shape. It''s used which is already a first point of failure, its not integrated as well either because you didn''t get a chance to completely heal before you were put to work..."


    "Doc''s not the best ripper." Joel chimed in.


    "It''s admittedly not my specialty." He muttered back "What I''m trying to say is, I''m taking you to a specialist. He''s a guy we can trust. He''ll reinstall your electronics and add in some upgrades. The captain''s also cleared me to use some rainy day funds to get you a psychic damper installed. It should help suppress your pain response and make sure you don''t have a heart attack from losing a couple engines at once."


    "So you''re saying I have to leave the ship to get an upgrade? Well why didn''t you just lead with that?"


    "Cause we''re taking you out to Shelby''s after we''re all settled." Joel chuckled "Best bar on Luna."


    "I don''t drink." I said impatiently.


    "They cultivate their own beef." Doc added.


    I grimaced. He was getting to know me too well "Fine! I''ll take your stupid... field trip!"


    "Outlaw life''s not all about the ship, corpo." Joel taunted as he started to walk away "You got this from here, Doc."


    I made sure his presence was gone from my the hallway before I spoke up "You thought you''d need him for backup or something?"


    Doc shrugged his shoulders and bobbed his head, looking uncertain, then said "Look, you need an intervention. We really don''t know how this core thing is supposed to affect you, but it really feels like you''re trying to quickly throw away your humanity. Since we can''t exactly send you to a therapist without revealing what you are, we opted to give you a fun night out while you recover.


    I hesitated for a moment "While I recover?"


    "You''re not supposed to deploy a core until the cyberware''s had 72 hours to set. It causes that scarring and messes with your biology in unpredictable ways."


    I glared at him, anger and desperation starting to well up as I spoke quietly "Are you telling me that I''m going to have to spend... three entire days outside of my core module?" I growled.


    He looked a little bit scared of me. He held his arms up "Well, you''ll be unconscious for about the first 18 hours." He tried to sound reassuring "But after that, yes. You''re going to have to eat, sleep, and breathe like a normal human being for that time."


    I closed my eyes, wanting to think, but the data just flooded my mental vision and I had to look up again. "Doc... I-I..." I swallowed again. I had to plead with him "Please, I dunno if I can do that. It''s too much! Being out here, I can barely stand it for an hour."


    "The new gear will help with that somewhat. It''s probably only as painful as it is because of my shoddy work." He admitted as he sat down on the bed next to me "I promise that we''re going to do what we can to help you through this. Once you''re out from under the knife, we''ll all have a fun night together and you''ll see it''s not as bad." I tried to look away from him, feeling like I was about to cry again, but I felt him put his hand on my shoulder "I promise."


    I sniffled "How can you promise me something like that? We don''t know anything about any of this."


    He stood up and walked around me, crouching down to look straight into my eyes "Because if it does get that bad again, I''m prepared to put you into a medical coma." He spoke softly to me "I can put you under for the whole three days if I have to, and you''ll wake up safe and sound back in the core module, and I''ll never try to force the issue again. Okay? I''ll do that for you. But you gotta promise me that you''ll at least try. Okay?"


    I stared him in the eyes and I felt like I could trust his word on it, but at the same time, for some reason, I couldn''t help but let out a little nervous chuckle "Thank you. I''d like that. I''ll try."


    He was starting to smile a little bit too "This is the part of the movie we''d kiss if we were straight."


    I couldn''t help myself, and let out an awkward sobbing guffaw, putting my palm in his face and pushing him away "Fuck off."

 Tech Support

    I spent entirely too long staring at the bright white moon in front of me, as well as the large blue-green marble behind it as we made our approach. It was beautiful, like nothing I''d ever seen. It looked so much different from the outer colony worlds. Maybe it was the minimal terraforming that both of the spheres required to sustain human life, but it just seemed more vibrant than the other worlds ever had been. It was my ancestral home. But the view had to come to an end eventually.


    The touchdown process was surprisingly painless, aside from my anxiety, knowing what came next. A colony-side automated rail system guided me down to our assigned hangar. All I had to do was enter some response codes that Aisling negotiated, and the rail took care of the rest. The very first thing I noticed was the heaviness. I couldn''t physically feel the effect of the moon''s gravity within the lubricant fluid, but I could feel the ship drifting toward it and my subsystems compensating for it.


    Before I knew it, we were in an open-air hangar. It was a cube designed to give us privacy while there was no roof above, so we were free to take off again once we got clearance.


    As the landing gear touched ground, I felt several of my systems begin to shut down automatically. Electrical circuits went into low power mode, life support began running diagnostics and idling, artificial gravity turned itself off, and we connected to a local grid. A wave of lethargy hit me all at once. I don''t think I''d realized how tired I had become until all of the systems necessary for life on board were suddenly redundant with the colony''s systems and shut themselves off. I drifted back in my void and thought to myself, maybe I could just sleep now. Like a person. Just for a few minutes.


    I was jarred awake when I felt the lights turned off and the fluid began to drain away. It didn''t take too long for the lid to pop open and Doc to look down at me, a surprised expression on his face as I lay back. Floating lethargically with my head tilted back to keep my lungs full of the fluid for just a moment longer.


    He reached down and pulled me up by the arm, and I jolted awake as I was forced to endure yet another lubricant purge. "Come on, Meryll. We got places to be. I know you''re not looking forward to this, but you don''t have to deadweight on me."


    I coughed a few more times after I was done spitting up the lubricant and panted "I''m not trying to. I''m just really tired all of a sudden."


    "You haven''t been sleeping enough. I didn''t say anything since you''re about to go under for most of a day, but we''ll discuss it next time you return to the core." He started to pull me up to my feet and I did my best to oblige.


    "Okay... but I don''t know if I can walk so well." I rubbed at my eye only to find it ineffectual given all the slime still on my face.


    "That''s fine, I have to anesthetize you here anyway." He said casually, guiding me slowly over to the bed. "If our doctor friend sees the core he''s suppose to work on walking around, talking, and reacting like a human being, he''s going to ask questions. Far as he''s concerned, you''re just illegal hardware."


    That made sense to me, poor as my logic probably was in that moment "Probably not completely wrong." I yawned, lying down on the offered bed "Go ahead, do it."


    "I... did." His voice started to sound distant. I hadn''t even felt him jab me with the syringe, but before I knew it, my vision swirled into black and I felt everything drift away. The Data stream went silent. I could rest.


    -¡ª


    The next time I was able to open my eyes, I was staring up at a sterile steel ceiling. Closing my eyes, I kept getting error messages. I was outside of Theseus''s system range. Mentally, I could still feel it, instinctively, but my neural link didn''t have the range that my psionically active mind must have. It took me a few moments to recall my predicament.


    Looking down, I saw that the panel on my arm had been replaced. It looked cleaner, as did the flesh around it. The same was true for the case on my hip. I tried to reach up to check the implant, but I was too weak to lift an arm.


    Where was I? Still in this mysterious doctor''s operating room? Why? Shouldn''t Doc have come to pick me up by the time I regained consciousness?


    I heard a door opening nearby and my eyes went wide. It must have been the doctor. I tried to remain still, but it quickly dawned on me that I''d never directly seen an operative ship core in the flesh before. The dead one in my hull was the first time I''d ever laid eyes on one. I had no idea how to act like one, only theory on how one might act. I had to make some assumptions.


    They must have been emotionless. I needed to keep a neutral expression. Did they need to blink? I didn''t think I could avoid blinking, so I had to hope they did. They didn''t talk or ambulate at all on their own. That wouldn''t be hard given how weak I felt. I''d just have to fake it.


    Someone stepped in, but I couldn''t see without moving my head, so I just waited, trying to remain still and steady my breathing. There was a very long pause before the footsteps approached, and I felt a hand gently grab hold of my chin. The man turned my head to the side so he could inspect my implant. I did my best not to lock eyes with him, and I prayed that he''d already performed that operation too or this act would quickly become impossible.


    He was an older gentleman. Pale skin, slightly overweight, and he had a telescoping mechanical eye. I didn''t notice at first, but the hand opposite the one he touched me with was also entirely mechanical, without any synthetic skin hiding the fact.


    Wordlessly, he turned toward the table of surgical instruments at my side and I began to sweat. When he turned back around, he was brandishing a small powered circular saw that soon whirred to life, and began to approach. I wouldn''t be able to stop myself from screaming if he put that to my head, and that was exactly where he was reaching.


    "Wait, stop." I said as loud as I could, my voice still weak from the anesthesia "I''m not really a core, please." He didn''t seem to hear me. Was I too weak, even to speak? Was I too weak to scream? If I had to undergo surgery while awake, could I even survive?


    The saw stopped "Remarkable." Was all he said, looking me over. I didn''t understand. Looking up from my limited range of vision, I could see that my bed had vitals monitors over them. My heartrate was spiking rapidly. Of course, a core wouldn''t be able to panic.


    "Did you know?" I asked incredulously, my voice still quiet.


    He raised his eyebrows "Well, I had a hunch until now." He sat down with a serious expression on his face "I know well enough to keep my mouth shut when it comes to my work, so why is it that Aisling would ask me to reinstall a core interface into a human being and not clue me in on the details?" He crossed his arms, giving an expression as if he''d been wronged.


    He was testing me, and I fell for it. I would have bet that my work was long done. If I told him the truth, there would be a loose end that might cause everyone trouble later. I''d have to lie.


    "Big score. All I can tell you is we need to convince someone that I''m a core." I muttered, trying to look away from him "It has to look real."


    "Well I''d hate to break it to you, but you''re not terribly convincing." He huffed "Irregular breathing, tossing and turning in your sleep, your eyes are too wet, I could go on. You at least have the frailty and the skin tone down, but you need considerably more work than this to play that part. Almost a total synthetic body.


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    "Fine." I sighed. I couldn''t just let him make a bunch of cosmetic alterations to my body, especially on Aisling''s dime "Look, I can''t tell you. It''s a secret, I can be that honest with you."


    He held his hands up defensively "Always with your secrets, you pirates. I suppose I have my own skeletons in my closet. That''s why she comes to me after all. No more questions then. For you anyway. I''ll certainly be pestering her on this one." He gave an amused little chuckle "I''m sure it''s a fascinating story."


    I breathed a sigh of relief. Sure, it was going to be more work for the captain later, but he seemed ready to leave it be for now at least.


    I was starting to feel my meek strength returning, and I pooled together enough energy to turn over onto my side on the bed to get more comfortable.


    "I sure do hope that the Dario don''t stop in for their protection money while you''re here though." He said idly.


    I raised an eyebrow. I''d heard of the Dario. A huge mafia that worked in the Earth proximity and extorted the colonists and tribals alike. They basically owned the region, and they were powerful enough that Foundation couldn''t police them because of their distance from the outer colonies. "What are you getting at?" I groaned.


    "Well, the collection guy and I are friends. He knows a lot about my work. If he sees you, I''m not exactly going to be able to tell him you''re just a core..."


    I wanted to scream. This guy was annoyingly persistent. I turned over slowly to face him, and I thought that I''d probably never felt this weak and sick before in my life. I pulled out the most sarcastic voice I could manage and started talking "Okay, you caught me, I really am a ship core. I''m just the first one ever that has emotions, reasoning skills, and a capacity for speech. Just a big ol'' freak of nature braindead starship part who can play pretend long enough to be a convincing human being." I rolled my eyes, trying hard to convince him I was bullshitting.


    He frowned at me "Fine, keep your secrets." He sighed, stepping away from me to rummage with something else in the room. I couldn''t believe that that worked. I closed my eyes and tried to examine the data stream again. Doc was right, it was far less intense and confusing. Passing subsystem queries weren''t distracting, and my head didn''t hurt grievously trying to make sense of it. I felt around the room I was in. But I had neither sensory data nor access to any of the electronics. Except, of course, my own terminal inside my body.


    I''d been working on a primitive instant messenger application so that I might be able to communicate a little easier with the others while I waited for inspiration to strike on my speaking problem. It was hard to operate anything with my mind outside of the core module, but I had to try.


    I was lucky that that ripper remained silent for a bit. Nice as the new hardware was, I don''t think I could have managed the task if he was any more distracting. I drafted the simple message ''Help, woke up, ripper asking questions'', targeted each of the crew terminal''s hardware addresses, and sent to all. I really hoped that at least one of them was in my terminal''s meager broadcast range.


    The man returned to my side, holding a metal plate with vents in the side. Some kind of new module "Now, before I install this damper, might I ask why you have psionic resonance in the first place?" He asked.


    It''d worked as an excuse for my entire life, so I didn''t see why it would fail me now. "Arthausen Syndrome." I told him, and he looked surprised "Machines read as if-"


    "Yes, yes, as if you had resonance, I''m familiar with the term." He nodded. I was a little surprised by that. Other than specialists and the Foundation personnel that worked ferry checkpoints, I''d never really encountered others that already knew about the condition. It wasn''t exactly common knowledge. "I still don''t understand the why of it, this shouldn''t actually do anything for you, but Aisling''s a good customer. Hold still now."


    I really didn''t want to hold still, but what was I supposed to do? I was still too weak to move. He reached for my head again and tilted it forward. Placing the device behind my head, I felt something click into place. I hadn''t had the chance to examine myself yet, but he must have had to install some new tech back there for the damper.


    After a few more clicks, I felt another spike to my brain... and then an unnatural calm washed over me. Everything felt numb. Emotion, errant thought, identity, it all washed away. In that moment, reality suddenly seemed hard and logical. The feeling persisted for what felt like an age, but then it all came flooding back to me at once, the ripper was still standing above me right where he had been when the feeling started.


    The emotional whiplash made me shiver. Was that what the damper activating felt like? I didn''t like it. It felt too invasive. Too inhuman. But that was what I''d wanted, wasn''t it?


    "Yes, absolutely wonderful..." the man said, looking closely at my vitals. He looked down at me and smiled "Forgive me, I''ve never had the opportunity to examine someone of your... with your condition before, and I must say that the effect such a piece of hardware has on your vitals is astounding." he rubbed his chin "Well, that''s everything that she planned set into place, but I think it''s going to be some time before you can up and leave. I don''t wish to put you under again, of course, but was there anything else less invasive you needed touched up while you''re here? A stimulant injector perhaps? I''ll throw it in free of charge if I can pick your brain about your condition."


    I sighed "Stims? Seriously? No, I don''t want anything else." I groaned, trying to put my arm down to push myself back up to sitting, but I just couldn''t apply the force. I was beginning to become afraid that this man was going to start making demands more than requests before long.


    A loud, demanding knock on the door to the operating room made the man flinch and he turned to look, scoffing when the knocks began to become more insistent. "Yes, yes, coming." he muttered loudly, walking quickly to answer.


    As soon as the door opened, I heard Aisling''s voice, and I breathed a sigh of relief "My merch ready?" she demanded.


    "''Merch''? Aisling, honestly, I thought we were better friends than this." the ripper began as she moved past him into the room "Did you really think I wouldn''t figure out that she''s not a core? It''s not a subtle difference."


    "I hoped that you''d do your job, that''s all." Aisling demanded. Another set of footsteps was silently following her. Mouse.


    I turned my head to look at the pair "Hey." I mumbled weakly "Can I come home yet?"


    "The anasthetic was supposed to last another six hours. What happened?" she asked, turning an accusing look on the ripper.


    He just shrugged "She must have a tolerance, is all."


    "Mmhmm..." she narrowed her eyes at him "Gerald, what''d you see here today?"


    "Standard ship core fittings, better parts than you put in the last one." he smiled a little "You must want this one to last, hmm?" I didn''t like his tone, but I was a little surprised that he was prepared to play along with the narrative, at least for now.


    "That''s right, and that''s all it was." Aisling muttered, grabbing me gently under my shoulders and pulling me down into Mouse''s arms. Frail as I was becoming, I was still amazed at the ease with which he could carry my entire limp body weight without seeming to struggle a bit. His own body mods must have been very high end. I briefly lamented that I was becoming used to being manipulated like an object though.


    "Aisling. You have something very special there." he smiled at her.


    She glared at him "You know something about this?" she asked directly.


    "Only that there is something very potent here. I can feel it. I''d much like to be involved, if this is something big." he chuckled.


    "You offering yourself aboard Theseus?" she asked and scoffed at him. I heard a click and saw that she''d drawn a pistol and was aiming directly at him. For the first time, I saw genuine fear on his face, backing away and cowering slightly. Aisling lifted the gun and showed him the empty cartridge case "Safety''s on too. I don''t pick my crew lightly, you know that. You''re good at patching, but you don''t got the nerve when we get into action. Got too much to lose. Don''t go looking where you shouldn''t, okay?" She warned, and motioned for Mouse to follow along, reaching into her pocket, pulling out an envelope "Its what we agreed on, with a little extra for your cooperation with this sensitive subject, yeah? Keep quiet and you keep a customer."


    The man lowered his hands and grumbled something I couldn''t hear. I was too focused on Aisling''s daring approach to negotiation. She probably looked like a lunatic to the man, and I didn''t mind if that''s the kind of rep it took to be respected among outlaws. It was a bizarre mix of respect and intimidation.


    "Thanks." I commented as we left the office, into an unoccupied hall that felt like a low end apartment building. Empty grey halls marred with graffiti, and numerous identical metal doors. Bags of trash littered the floor. "That guy''s a creep."


    "Only ripper on the colony who respects his work enough not to fuck you over though." Aisling commented "You''re lucky Mouse was stalking you and got your signal. I take it the new stuff works?"


    "Yeah. It doesn''t hurt as much. Or maybe I''m still just numb."


    "Even the psionic damper?" She seemed to be examining the part at the back of my head as we moved "Always thought these things were a ripoff. If I''d had one on my last core, we''d probably never have met."


    "And I''d be dead in an escape pod." I snorted "Thanks for being cheap, captain."


    She tapped her hand against my head, hitting me gently "Got it for you, didn''t I?"

 Shelbys

    I sat at the table in Shelby''s with a dour expression on my face, trying my best to hold myself together. I was still too far from Theseus, my body was only just recovering from being anesthetized, and I''d been away from the solitude of my core module for what felt like far too long, when I knew that there was another 58 hours that I would have to endure the din of the lunar colonial slums.


    It had been somewhat embarrassing to be carried through back alleys naked by a teenager, but Aisling had stopped to throw on the first shirt and leggings she saw outside of a thrift shop on the way to the bar. ¡®It will do.¡¯ She said, leaving me wearing a loud yellow button-up with pineapples embroidered into it, and a pair of black leggings. I¡¯d had a long enough day already, I didn¡¯t complain, I was just glad that I wasn¡¯t sitting in a bar with my breasts out.


    Since I''d finished with my errand ahead of time, I sat with only Mouse at my side for the time being, waiting for the others. Even Aisling said that she had one more place to hit up before she would rejoin us.


    "Why were you a corpo?" Mouse asked suddenly. I had to turn my head and look him in the eyes to see that it was a serious question.


    I frowned and pondered for a moment "Well, I was born into it. My parents were in IT as well. They taught me how to work intimately with computers. How to exploit and patch vulnerabilities in systems. How to make computers do what I want. I had a knack for it, so my parents recommended me and, well, I figured I was set for an easy life." I looked down at the table "And once I was on the inside, I started to notice... no, they''re not as benevolent as they make themselves out to be to folks like us. We''re just tools. And they don''t only take advantage of people, they forced us to take advantage as well. Or else."


    I tapped my fingers on the table, realizing I was making excuses "I''ve done things for them that I hated. Nothing huge. Not that often. But I still did."


    "Then why¡¯d you keep working for them?" He asked.


    I sighed "I guess I was scared. I was no one special. At least I thought I was no one special." I turned to look out at the bar''s early patrons, not wanting to meet Mouse''s eyes "Scared that they would ruin me. Scared of dying. Scared that if I did try to do anything about it, it would end up meaning nothing." It felt a little odd that I was opening up like this to a kid, but I''d come to appreciate his uniquely naive yet introspective point of view in the last week. I knew I still had to explain some things like I would to any other teenager, but he asked all the right questions to make me think too.


    "Well you don''t have to be scared anymore." He said softly "You''re strong. You grafted to Theseus!"


    "Don''t say it so loud." I warned him "It has to stay a secret."


    He nodded and reigned himself in "But it''s true. You could stand up to those kinds of people now."


    I chuckled "if I''d have known I could do this I could''ve just flown away from it all earlier I guess."


    "You can do more than run away. You can fight them with us. We can usually only do little things too, but we can fight them together. You''re a good guy now! And maybe some day we''ll get a chance to free all those people around Mars and Jupiter and Saturn too, and they''ll join us too!"


    I couldn''t help but smile. He certainly wasn''t jaded, that was for certain, even if he had some fairly unrealistic outlooks "Maybe. Who knows what the future brings for people like us?"


    "Two jobs." Came a gruff voice from behind me. I rolled my eyes, recognizing Joel "Captain got us double duty for our next trip. Delivery, and once we get there, a bounty."


    "We''re bounty hunting?" I asked, leaning forward on the table when I turned to look around.


    "We do the work we get, corpo." Joel sounded a little irritated "Long as no one beats us to them while we''re grounded."


    "I just didn''t think we''d be chasing other criminals is all." I looked him up and down, sensing something different "Did you... get a haircut?" I noted that his scraggly hair had been cut short, almost like a military shave.


    "Long hair''s a liability in battle and I couldn''t see a barber for awhile." He grabbed the seat next to me and turned it around to sit leaning forward against its back "And I suppose you need a lesson on what works for law on the inner worlds. No Foundation out here, least not in any way anyone respects. We take care of each other. Someone wants someone punished, they pay up for it or get one of the gangs to pay up for it, and people like us can go set em straight. Captain''s gonna drop the details on us tonight."


    "Wonder what they did this time." Mouse murmured.


    "Doesn''t matter." Joel held a hand up, trying to wave down one of the baristas.


    "Matters to the captain." Mouse smiled. I had to wonder what he meant by that. I began to ponder if this was okay. I would think that the only ones who could afford to put out a reward for apprehending, or possibly killing someone, would be the rich and corrupt, who seemed pretty antithetical to our group''s dynamic.


    Joel ordered a round of beers. I didn''t object because frankly, getting hammered sounded like a good idea for the first time since I started my old job. Screw sobriety, if I had to stay out of my ship, I was at least going to go through it inebriated and try to loosen up.


    Of course, the moment the mug arrived at our table, Doc walked into the bar. I lifted my beverage to my lips, but he walked up right in front of me and put his hand on my wrist "Thought you didn''t drink." He had an almost scolding tone.


    "I thought you''d be there when I woke up." I retorted, still holding the mug up near my face.


    He gave me a sour look "Eat something first, that''ll destroy you if you drink on an empty stomach."


    "Maybe she wants to get destroyed." Joel laughed as he pulled his own drink back.


    I could see the logic in Doc''s words though. I smiled to him as I set the mug back down "You promised me beef. Better be the juiciest damn cheeseburger I ever had."


    I flagged down the barista myself this time, and the others chimed in with their various snack requests, but I needed a meal.


    "So what happened with Gerald anyway?" Doc asked, settling down in a seat next to me.


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    I exhaled hard, looking annoyed "I woke up early I guess. And he already figured out I wasn''t a core, but he went and scared the shit out of me to check for certain. Had a saw near my head just so he could get my heartrate up."


    "Told you the guy''s a sicko." Joel chimed in "Does good work, but I don''t trust him past that."


    "Then he started asking questions. Guess I can''t blame him for that. I just told him I have Arthausen, but that wasn''t enough for him." I rolled my eyes "Wanted to know why I was getting actual core gear. He kept trying to get me to answer his questions, though. Even made a vague threat about letting the Dario know."


    Mouse let out a snort. He''d been drinking when I said it, and had to set it down and start cursing to himself, his beverage dripping from his nose. I briefly wondered if it was really okay for a child to be imbibing alcohol, but I was too distracted from the thought when I heard Joel letting out a hearty laugh, and noticed that Doc was smiling, pinching the bridge of his nose. "... What?" I asked.


    "You believing in the Dario." Joel managed to get out between guffaws.


    "They''re not real!?" I exclaimed, putting a hand down on the table in disbelief, only making Joel laugh harder.


    "It''s a fairy tale." Doc explained "Foundation media tells outer colonists stories about this big bad organized mafia that runs the inner worlds, so they have a scapegoat for all their own atrocities."


    I blushed a little bit "Well how was I supposed to know!"


    "I thought it was a pretty transparent ruse." Doc continued, an amused tone to his voice.


    The others had more than a couple good laughs at my expense before our food arrived.


    It wasn''t until I had that burger on a paper plate in front of me that I realized that I was ravenous. I wasn''t sure if it was the hunger caused by actually using my body to any meaningful extent for the first time in over a week, the fact that I hadn''t eaten anything but protein slop in that time, or if it was just genuinely that good, but when I bit into that soft bun and juicy meat, I almost wanted to cry. I couldn''t help myself, I devoured that meal. The conversation kept moving, most likely at the continued expense of my naivety toward Foundation media, but I was too fixated on my food to follow it.


    I found myself satisfied by the time the meat was finished, and idly snacked on the potato sticks it''d been served with as I rejoined the conversation "So Doc, what were you doing while I was under the knife?" I asked.


    "Buying drugs from the Dario." Joel smirked.


    I rolled my eyes "Fuck off."


    Doc mercifully answered my question rather than egg Joel on "Well, I was buying drugs. Like everything else, we were running low on medicine, especially Ray''s. She should be joining us tonight, once she''s feeling more herself again."


    I looked around, bewildered since the place was beginning to fill up "She''s just going to walk in?"


    "Unlike you, Mammons are no secret. At least not in the inner colonies." Joel said as he grabbed at some of the fried snacks at the center of the table to munch on "Ray might draw attention, but she''s not gonna draw any fire on us."


    I didn''t like how right he was. I could easily bring down the might of the Foundation on us if what I was got out. I worried about Gerald. Would he be able to piece things together with what little I told him? Would he really stay quiet, even if Aisling had both threatened and bribed him in the same breath?


    I closed my eyes for a moment. Despite the din around me, the data stream was easier to parse now. It practically screamed at me to return to the comfort of my metal shell, but it was a small break from the physical noise around me.


    "So this is the new girl, huh?" I opened my eyes to see who''d just spoken, but had to open wide and look up when I saw black fur. Right opposite me on the table stood Ray in all her glory, standing taller than anyone else in the bar with her enormous monstrous arms at her side, and wearing little at all.


    I hadn''t had a good look at her torso before, but it had reddish line marks that went in from her sides and tapered off before they reached her chest. I hadn''t been able to see the fur stretching over her upper chest when she was curled up, but it almost saved her from having to don clothing at all. She had powerful abs that she seemed to have no problem showcasing, and all she wore below that was what looked like some sort of small half-skirt.


    I stared in silence. I had to admit that while I was scared of her towering appearance, my heart also fluttered a little bit looking up at the amazonian woman in front of me "H-hi." Was all I managed.


    She smiled down at me as she crouched down at the edge of the table, clearly too large for the provided chairs. Joel scooted over to give her room without a word. "Get it out of your system." She said in a resigned but good-natured tone of voice "Doc already told me you were from the outer colonies."


    "S-Sorry, I didn''t mean to stare." I apologized. I wanted to hide behind something, but there was nothing in reach "I mean I''ve already seen you lots, but now that you''re not all curled up, it''s different."


    "You watching me in my sleep?" She asked, sounding amused as she reached forward and grabbed an enormous claw full of fries from the table and began munching on them.


    I blushed again "I-I mean, yeah, the sensor arrays don''t... turn off, so I''m technically always watching the entire ship." I didn''t always pay attention to all of the arrays, but I was still getting the data. I still wanted to absolve myself of some of the guilt of looming over her as she hibernated.


    "So you''re... what, a hacker of some kind?" She pointed toward the neural implant at my head "That what all the gear''s for?"


    As she munched away, I stared at her, dumbfounded, and saw that the others had stopped eating as well. I turned to Doc "You didn''t tell her?"


    She seemed to have picked up on the awkwardness around the table as well and also turned to him "Tell me what now?"


    "Keep your voice down about it." Doc warned her "But Meryll IS that ship core we recovered."


    Ray glanced over to me and slowly started picking the bits of food she''d picked up in her claw with her other hand, chewing slowly and giving me a confused look "Huh. How come we never ate out with the last one?" She asked.


    I stared at her again, trying to process what she''d just said. Was she, perhaps, a little bit dense?


    "Cause ship cores aren''t usually people." Joel added "Meryll''s different."


    She kept just munching away slowly. I could feel the gears turning in her head as she tried to put what she''d been told together "So... you see everything in Theseus then?"


    "Actually I umm..." I wasn''t sure if I should try to simplify this "I... AM Theseus."


    "You are our ship." She repeated back to me. "The huge steel starship, thats you."


    I pursed my lips "I-It''s hard to explain. It''s an extension of me. I can feel every part of it like it''s my own. I can feel when it''s in pain, and I can see everything it sees, and... I''m a part of it as much as it''s a part of me now." I smiled a little bit as I started getting carried away with explaining my relationship with the ship, starting to become excited as I spoke of my experiences "I control everything on board, and when I get into the core module, it''s like my body is gone and I just become Theseus, and I feel like I''m free, soaring through space with everyone moving around inside of me, helping me operate..."


    At a certain point, I saw recognition in her eyes, and she started to nod along sympathetically until I stopped and she said "I think I understand. There were people like you back home."


    Everyone looked surprised now "Say what?" Joel asked.


    "Yeah, shamans." She nodded, and everyone else seemed to relax a little. I just remained confused. "Real quirky folks. They could feel nature in the same way. Speak to animals, hear the forests, that kind of thing. You deserve some respect if you can pull off something like that with a machine."


    I really had to wonder what kind of life led Ray here if she still believed in such things, but no one else was saying anything about it to her, so I just opted to let her believe there was something supernatural to my nature as the ship core. I felt like maybe the science would go over her head, and the others already knew that it was a lost cause. I found myself just staring at her again, perplexed at how to continue this conversation, but she seemed content with her own interpretation. "Well, either way, welcome to the crew."


    I flinched as she reached across the table to me, but her frightening claw patted me on the shoulder with an unexpected gentleness before she retracted it and grabbed one of the mugs "To surviving another brush with death!" She declared loudly to the table, the others raising their glasses in agreement.


    I smiled and marveled once more at the bizarre ragtag group that I''d managed to stumble my way into before I raised my own mug "Hear hear." I shrugged and pulled back the glass to take a drink.

 The Plan

    It didn''t take much alcohol in my system before I started feeling better about being surrounded by unfamiliar bar patrons outside of my ship. I wouldn''t say that I was comfortable, but alcohol certainly took the edge off and helped me loosen up more to the crew.


    Not too long after, I spotted Aisling walk in the door, and upon seeing us in good spirits, her own shoulders dropped and a smile grew on her face. I raised my glass toward her and exclaimed "Captain!" The others took note of her as well and raised their glasses in kind to join me. This gave her a little laugh as she approached the table.


    "Seems they got you to lighten up, huh?" She said as she sat down on the opposite end of the table from Ray and started to spread some papers around the table, pushing food aside "We still got a few days before Meryll''s ready to take off again, and I got something to keep us busy for that too, but for now, let''s talk our next job."


    I had to wonder if it was normal to discuss tactics around a table in a public place like this while half the crew was getting drunk, but I had no objections.


    "Please tell me it''s not salvage again, that''s left a sour taste in my mouth." Joel whined.


    "It''s not, but we''re not out of that business in the future." Aisling warned, eliciting an annoyed grunt from Joel "First we got a supply drop. Tribals down on Earth requesting aid. They had a blight this year, won''t survive winter on their own, so we''re dropping rations, gonna sneak some medicine in there too. Skulls insisted."


    We were doing... humanitarian work? I hadn''t expected that. "Skulls?" I had to ask.


    "One of the bigger gangs." Aisling explained "Good people, even if they are profit-mongers. This tribe''s good with their farms and their taxes, ain''t gonna leave them high and dry cause they had one bad harvest."


    She''d said they were profiteers, but they actually took care of their people when things went wrong. Things really were different on the inner worlds.


    "Sounds good. And the bounty?" Joel asked.


    Aisling rolled her eyes and shuffled some of the papers around, showing a photo of several men "Exclusive contract. Group of three, been causing trouble with those same locals. Skulls would let them handle it on their own, but they crossed the line and nicked the last aid shipment. Been trying to sell it back to the tribals for extortion prices."


    "Dead or alive?" Joel asked.


    "Skulls want ''em alive for public execution." She replied casually. A public execution for theft seemed a bit overboard to me, but no one else was saying anything "We come to blows, though, shoot to kill. They''ll give us partial payment for proof of kill, and I ain''t risking any of you on some small-time idiots thinking they''re too good for the rules."


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    "Any leads?" Mouse spoke up.


    "Gonna have to talk to the locals, they move around a lot. Shouldn''t be a hard job though." She leaned over and started gathering the papers up again. "Had to give the Skulls a bit of a discount since we gotta sit in port for a bit, but the pay will be more than enough to make up for the last month."


    I had to wonder my own role in this. Sure I''d be hauling the goods in my cargo hold, but would I be much use chasing thieves on the ground? "So... do I get like... a gun or something then? Never shot anyone before."


    "Oh you will." Joel chuckled darkly.


    "You have nine guns." Aisling declared. I hadn''t taken much stock of my weapons systems, but that sounded about right. But she knew what I really meant. "You won''t be joining us on the ground, Meryll. At least not for that portion of the job. Even in a small skirmish, the advantage of having aerial support and an evacuation plan can''t be overstated. You and Doc will stay on board Theseus."


    I was a little bit relieved to hear that. I wasn''t sure if I could keep my nerve together surrounded by gunfire, never mind be effective in a real fight. But Theseus versus small arms fire was a different story altogether. "What about Mouse?" I asked.


    "Mouse is ground support. We need the numbers on this one." Aisling explained. The boy didn''t seem phased by this news, and just nodded along. "Don''t give me that look. Kid knows how to shoot."


    I had to shrug at her, not really having a good argument to oppose it. He did seem like he was far more capable than I wanted to give him credit for. In fact, I noted, nobody else even seemed to treat him like a kid. He was just another member of the crew to everyone else. Maybe it was time I stopped looking at him like he was too precious to let him be in danger.


    "Sounds like we''ve got a plan." Ray nodded "So what are we doing while we''re in port then?"


    "Dock work." Aisling declared, eliciting a groan from the crew collectively "Unless you got something better to do?"


    "Captain, not to object, but I am... not strong." I mentioned as I watched her rummage through her bag "No one''s going to hire the girl who''s got the strength of a particularly frail puppy to haul goods."


    As if to answer me, Aisling pulled a circuitry blade from her bag and placed it on the table "That''s because you''ll be busy training." She pushed it toward me "Simulator system. Your piloting needs work, so you''re going to be learning the basics, and you won''t need to be in the core module to use it. It''ll teach you how to maneuver in space and atmosphere, take off, land, act as a support gunship, and dogfight. Now, it''s designed to work for a standard ship core, so it''s probably not gonna play nice with you, but you''ll still learn a lot from it."


    As I took the blade in hand, I wondered if this would be at all similar to actually being in the ship. I really hoped it would. Looking down at my hip, I saw the enclosure cover wasn''t screwed into place anymore, instead accessible by a sliding panel, so I wouldn''t need tools to replace it. I popped it open and slid the blade in next to my personal one, like I would with any other modular machine at my old job, securing it into place and taking a deep breath as I felt the data stream exploring its new hardware. "Alright, what else?" I asked, looking up to see that Aisling had taken a mug of beer for herself and was chugging it down rapidly.


    She let out a refreshed sigh and declared "For now, we drink and feast!" To which the others raised their glasses and smiled again.


    It would be a long night.

 Solitude and Boredom

    I didn¡¯t remember much more of that night. I remembered that I had a good time. But I woke up the next morning feeling like absolute garbage. But I had woken up in the ship. In my heart. On a familiar medical bed. The core module was right there. If I could just hop in, maybe this growing, pounding headache could be mitigated.


    I groaned, though, when my eyes started to focus and I saw that the chamber was closed, and there were a pair of insulated wires sticking out of the bottom of the release mechanism, indicating that Doc had anticipated my desires and removed the choice entirely.


    I reached back and grabbed the uncomfortable plastic pillow beneath the paper sheet and shoved it into my face, ignoring the cold introduced by my movement when I threw off the top of the rough blanket someone must have provided. The room was too bright. My head pounded. I hoped that it was just a hangover and that these weren¡¯t the effects of the withdrawal from connecting to the core module that I¡¯d have to endure for another two days. Part of me wanted to try to pry the lid open with my bare hands and alleviate at least one possibility, but I knew that wasn¡¯t going to happen. It was a needfully secure chamber.


    Pushing myself up, I was glad that my body at least wasn¡¯t heavy with anesthetics anymore. It seemed I would have to face both my hangover and the din of enduring the world without the core module. Mercifully, there was an unopened aluminum can of water next to my bed, which I grabbed and guzzled down with the urgency of a starving animal. It helped. Setting the empty can back down, I pulled the blanket over my shoulders and stood up, stumbling forward before catching myself on the wall. It was going to be a long day.


    ¡ª


    Walking out of the bathroom, it felt strange that I hadn¡¯t done that in over a week. The core module was self-cleaning and filtered waste out almost immediately, and waste was already minimal given the light diet one needed to sit still all day. I¡¯d become accustomed to just¡­ letting my body take care of itself in that regard. Still, it was another little thing that helped me feel better after the rough night.


    Closing my eyes, I gave a brief glance over the ship. No one else was inside. They must have all already been busy with their work and errands in the colony. For the first time, I was alone inside of my shell. It felt peaceful.


    Making my way down to the mess, I scoured the cabinets and sighed when I saw that there were several new large boxes of the disgusting rations I¡¯d grown to despise sitting on the floor. To my relief, however, there was also a healthy smattering of low-grade boxed foods I¡¯d seen a thousand times in grocery stores back home as well, and a few bags of easily preserved dry vegetables. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that at least we wouldn¡¯t be completely without real food.


    Sitting at the table, I popped open a box of cereal and shoveled a handful of the sugary flakes into my mouth. It was food, at least, and it didn¡¯t make me want to throw it right back up.


    As I enjoyed my breakfast, I stared down at the terminal on my arm. I¡¯d nearly forgotten in my awful morning that I had a duty to perform as well. I needed to become a competent pilot in two days. I sighed as I tapped the console. I at least had to take a look at what was on the new blade. The data on the terminal and the data in my head combined to help me focus on it easier.


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    A training AI. Or rather I was supposed to be the training AI? I supposed it would be more of a performance diagnostic for me, but I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if this would even work correctly, given that I had such different needs from its intended use case. It had several virtual reality scenarios that would play directly into my implant when I ran them. A basic maneuvers tutorial, a military operations guide, a simulation of battles in space, both for small skirmishes and for maneuvering through large battles. There was also a file labeled with a warning. It would simulate ship damage. I swallowed and decided that perhaps I should save that one for when Doc could supervise.


    I had to wonder how real it would all feel. I¡¯d used VR for safety training before, but I¡¯d obviously never had it transmitted directly into my brain. Would it be just like the real thing? If so, I wondered if it would be just like being in the core module.


    I pushed the box of cereal away from me and let out a sigh. Just the basic maneuvering tutorial, so I could see what it felt like. Then I¡¯d finish my meal and go lie down again. I selected the file and pressed run.


    ¡ª


    I could feel myself floating. It felt familiar, but impersonal. Like it wasn¡¯t really me in the core module. It took a moment for my mind to recall what was happening. VR. This was a simulation. The fact that I¡¯d momentarily forgotten that was a little bit frightening, but what was even more jarring was the fact that I didn¡¯t seem to be able to reach outside of the virtual environment. I suppose it made sense that a core would need to be contained within the confines of the scenario to make the most of the training. Still, it was disconcerting that I didn¡¯t have an exit button. I would have to run through the entire program.


    To my disappointment, it didn¡¯t feel quite as comforting as the real thing, but it was at least familiar in a good way. I closed my eyes and examined myself. It was there that I realized why it felt alien. It wasn¡¯t Theseus. It was a Foundation dropship. I supposed that the software had to have been developed by someone. Still, I wondered how effective the scenarios would translate to the larger ship I was familiar with. I supposed that it was the theory I was learning, and I would have to apply it in practice in the real world.


    Reaching into the ship¡¯s systems, it gave me access without any hassle, and the environment around me began to form as I grabbed the sensor data. I was flying downward toward a desert plane. There was a prompt in the code, describing a complex point system that encouraged an AI model to operate correctly. My score was quickly plummeting, and I realized that I¡¯d spent too long parsing my environment and I was about to plunge into the dirt.


    ¡ª


    I jolted back from the table, still reeling at my impending crash, my heart racing at my thankfully brief spike of adrenaline. That was¡­ jarring. I looked down at the console and saw it printing out a report with a ¡®CATASTROPHIC FAILURE¡¯ printed in large red text at the top. I stared at it for a few minutes before I muttered ¡°Ouch.¡± And closed out of the interface. I didn¡¯t trust my body to maintain itself during the simulation, I should have left it there until Doc came back to the ship. That would have been the responsible thing to do.


    Grabbing another handful of cereal, though, I looked around the kitchen and realized that I truly had nothing else to do. I¡¯d just be wandering around my shell all day, waiting for them like a pet left behind at an apartment while someone was at their day job. I reluctantly opened the program again and stood up to return to my heart, ready to begin some potentially dangerous training out of boredom.

 The Gap Between Humans and Machines

    The simulations became less jarring when I was actually performing what I was supposed to do instead of crashing unceremoniously into an empty wasteland. It didn¡¯t take more than two more trials to figure out how the landing gear worked and to keep the ship in one piece as I landed on the flatlands. The program didn¡¯t agree with me, however, and deemed the flaws in my techniques unacceptable. I knew that Aisling would want to see the logs before we went back into the air, so I had to keep trying. I understood the controls, but I needed the practice. And so I ran it over and over again, determined to perform to the simulator¡¯s standards. I spent all day landing in that dusty landscape over and over again. I had gotten an ¡®ACCEPTABLE¡¯ grade twice on runs that I couldn¡¯t believe I could do better in. They felt perfect. Almost like a machine, but it was never quite good enough.


    I eventually wondered if maybe I just needed a fresh perspective. I decided to move onto the other simulations. I immediately felt comfortable running the maneuvers, but the scores showed the same disappointment. I was learning how to do it, but there were so many flaws I couldn¡¯t even completely see. I even went into the battle simulations. They had metrics that I was supposed to follow. I tried my best but I kept taking damage that was thankfully muted by the program, and I wasn¡¯t getting outright destroyed, but I knew that such hits were causing crew casualties. My maneuvers were too rough. I couldn¡¯t follow the planned movements of the simulation, it was too intricate. I finally returned to the simple landing sim, and I wasn¡¯t doing any better with my expanded experience.


    I was getting tired. My headache was returning quickly. But I was determined. I had to become a passable flyer, and that started with learning how to properly take a ship out of the sky and onto the ground without destroying it, and I was presumably causing some sort of danger for the crew with what felt like a perfect technique now. None of my other scores were reflecting anything good.


    I sighed. I wished that I could consult someone about this, but it¡¯s not like I could walk up to another ship core and go ¡®Hey, I¡¯m having trouble with my landing homework, can you give me a hand?¡¯


    I quit the program out of frustration and put my arms behind my head, staring up at the ceiling. I wished so badly that I could look up into that familiar void and let my head take a break, but my stupid recovering body was holding me back. I would just have to settle for idly tracing the cabling in the ceiling with my mind and try to calm down.


    ¡°Something wrong?¡± a voice came from the doorway, making me jump. It was Ray. How the hulking woman had managed to sneak up on me at the center of my own ship was beyond me. I supposed that I must have been so preoccupied with my sims that I missed the sensor data ¡°Easy, it¡¯s just me.¡± She chuckled ¡°Thought you were over the whole Mammon thing after last night.¡±


    I had to pause a moment and think back ¡°Uh¡­ what happened last night?¡± I had to ask. My memory was still really fuzzy.


    She looked a little bit embarrassed ¡°Nothing much. What¡¯s eating you?¡±


    Ignoring that I must have missed out on something important, I let out a sigh ¡°It¡¯s this training program Aisling got me. I¡¯m trying my best, but it¡¯s not giving me the results I want. I¡¯ve got less than two days to be a good enough pilot to make sure I can keep all of us alive.¡±


    ¡°Whoa, whoa, settle down now.¡± She sounded comforting as she approached ¡°You act like we¡¯re going into war. You don¡¯t have to be perfect, Meryll.¡± She sat down on the bed next to me and it creaked a little under her weight.


    ¡°I do have to be perfect though.¡± I pulled my legs up to give her room, holding them close to my chest and giving myself a comforting hug ¡°Computers have to be so exact, we can¡¯t just make guesses or just accept imprecision, even minor deviance is a big problem.¡±


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    She smiled down at me and again put her claw on my shoulder, showing that she had a gentle touch despite its terrible strength ¡°Well, it¡¯s a good thing you¡¯re not a computer then.¡± She reminded me ¡°There¡¯s no such thing as perfect for us humans, and it¡¯s better that way. Especially in combat.¡±


    ¡°But if I screw up, then someone could die. I could die. EVERYONE could die.¡± I threw my arms out to emphasize the gravity of my role. My eyes felt wet. I had to play such an important role, yet I was still so new to all of this.


    ¡°And the same thing could happen if you do it exactly right.¡± She said solemnly ¡°Especially if you¡¯re so rigid that you can¡¯t adapt. That¡¯s where we¡¯re better than computers. I grew up without all these machines. Well, without most of them. And I¡¯ve noticed since I came on this journey that computers only know what to do when things go perfect. When things go to hell, we can decide to do something new. Something no one expected, especially not a machine.¡±


    I¡¯d been running simulations the entire day, and my scores still weren¡¯t acceptable¡­ but maybe I was focusing too hard on the simulator¡¯s metrics. Of flying to a computer¡¯s view of perfection. But there was something I realized in that moment. I was a thinking starship. Literally every other ship out there was a computer. A ship core with no mind or soul. And they were all expecting every other ship to also be a machine. They were expecting their opponents to follow all of the rules. Ray was right, I could turn being human into a major boon.


    I looked down at my terminal ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± I clicked into the dogfight simulator one more time, my brow furrowing as I was determined to take my training off the rails.


    ¡ª


    The opponent ship and I faced each other in open space as usual. My own cognitive whiplash from entering the virtual space disappeared quickly, and I immediately shut out the scoring algorithm and the combat guidance script so I couldn¡¯t see them. This was my battle now.


    We launched toward each other and rather than make the planned maneuver to safely circle around and try to get into an advantageous position, I accelerated. I aimed the front of the ship directly for my opponent. Its weapons were trained to the side, expecting me to move to the side with it, but I flew directly past the enemy, above it, spiked the power to one side of my engines and then cut all propulsion, causing my ship to spin around at its trajectory. I smiled wide as I opened fire on my opponent¡¯s engines from behind while it was still trying to read exactly where I was going.


    ¡ª


    I snapped back to my heart again, with Ray looking down at me, a concerned expression on her face. ¡°Ah.¡± I started, still smiling at the exhilaration of what I¡¯d just pulled, even if it was just a simulation. Lifting my arm, I saw that the report read out ¡®FAILED¡¯ and that it had to terminate the simulation early due to unforeseen variables. I scrolled down from there however and saw that the opponent had been disabled. There was no damage to my own ship, and while there was what was deemed an unacceptable amount of turbulence in my own ship, that there would have been no casualties. ¡°Hah! Fuck you, sim! That sounds like a win to me!¡± I declared victoriously.


    Ray let go of me and let out a laugh ¡°There you go.¡± She patted me on the head again ¡°I have no idea what just happened, but it sounds like you did something good.¡±


    ¡°I think I did.¡± I nodded enthusiastically ¡°You¡¯re absolutely right, this thing was made for a regular ship core. It¡¯s reliant on the idea that every ship is using a core, it doesn¡¯t know what to do with a human pilot. And the real thing¡¯s going to be just the same! Creativity, that¡¯s what¡¯s going to give me an edge.¡±


    ¡°You really are a shaman, aren¡¯t you?¡± Ray mused ¡°You go into a trance and you go somewhere else, only you use technology. It¡¯s amazing!¡±


    ¡°I mean, it¡¯s not like it¡¯s magic.¡± I chuckled ¡°It¡¯s science. I think we could figure out how all of this works in my head if there were more people like me to study.¡±


    ¡°Well, until then, it¡¯s magic.¡± She declared, but put her claw over top of my terminal so I couldn¡¯t see it ¡°But I think you¡¯ve been sitting here at this for too long. It¡¯s almost time for dinner, and you shouldn¡¯t overwork yourself. It¡¯s a real problem with you outer colony folks.¡±


    I reached my other hand up to my head and felt at my eyes. They were strained. What time was it? Closing my eyes and checking the data stream, I saw that it was a short way into the evening. I¡¯d spent the entire day inside my head doing imaginary ship combat and landing sequences. I could feel everyone else on board as well, gathering around the mess hall ¡°Guh¡­ yeah. Time gets away from me when I¡¯m focused, I guess.¡± I admitted as I moved to get up and stumbled around on the floor. I wondered if my sense of balance would ever be what it once was again.


    Ray rolled her eyes and got up with me, holding her arms out to make sure I didn¡¯t fall ¡°Shamans always neglect their bodies. Come, I¡¯m going to be making a stew.¡±

 Meryll Bonus 1: Revelry

    As I took my glass down and threw it back, I tried to chug as much of it as I could, eying Joel¡¯s continuous pull from across the table as if I were challenging him. He seemed to take notice and was likewise watching me. Unfortunately, I felt a tickle in my throat first and had to drop my glass to the table with a sudden coughing fit. As if taunting me, he lowered his with a refreshed sigh ¡°You done?¡± he asked.


    I tried to laugh while I was still coughing ¡°Fuck you.¡± Came out slowly between coughs.


    ¡°Your constitution isn¡¯t what it used to be, Meryll.¡± Doc warned, reaching to push my drink toward the center of the table, but I refused to let go of the handle.


    ¡°I can take it. Not like I¡¯m chugging whiskey.¡± I wiped the spittle from my coughs off of my mouth.


    Joel held his hand up to a passing barrista ¡°Hey. Whiskey.¡± He nodded to acknowledge he¡¯d been heard and turned back to me ¡°If it¡¯s really so bad here outside your little bubble, let¡¯s get you real wasted, huh?¡±


    ¡°Joel.¡± Aisling scolded with only his name.


    ¡°What? Not like she has to fly tomorrow.¡± He creased his brow and smiled at me. This was a challenge.


    There was a part of me that knew this was a terrible idea; that he was just screwing with me again. He thought that he was so superior just because I was a corporate pawn my entire life. But over the past week, I¡¯d been learning to throw caution to the wind and take bigger risks. If I wasn¡¯t buzzed already, I might have been able to just walk away from it and keep my dignity. If it had been just a week ago when I was a more straight-laced business woman who weighed such choices heavily, I¡¯d have scoffed and left him then and there. Instead, I saw the bottle hit the table and I smirked at him ¡°You¡¯re on.¡±


    Doc and Aisling both rolled their eyes. ¡°Don¡¯t die.¡± Aisling laughed. Doc remained concerned, but silent.


    ¡°Mix mine with cola.¡± Mouse chimed in.


    ¡°You¡¯ve had enough, child.¡± Ray said, pulling Mouse¡¯s empty mug over toward her, eliciting angry grumbling from him.


    Joel was already pouring a couple of drinks for us, sliding a nearly-full glass across the table to me. ¡°To our corporate overlords.¡± He said sarcastically, getting an eyeroll from me.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± I said, raising my own glass ¡°To being free of them.¡± I sipped at it and immediately began coughing again while he closed his eyes and took a long swig.


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    ¡ª


    An hour later, Joel was having a good time. He was chatting up the people around us like he knew them. It wasn¡¯t that the booze wasn¡¯t affecting him, he was undeniably drunk, he just held it better than I did. My second glass was half-empty and I was already leaning over onto Ray who¡¯d taken the seat next to me after Doc left to carry the sleeping Mouse home.


    She was soft. I hadn¡¯t really thought about the advantage of fur being a good cushion until she was graciously allowing me to use her as one. I was done drinking, but I wasn¡¯t going to admit. He seemed to have forgotten our rivalry in his revelry anyway. I felt a little bit lonely. I hadn¡¯t had a chance for a one on one with Ray yet, so I leaned over her leg and looked up at her, admiring the view as I noted ¡°You barely had anything. I bet you need to drink a ton to feel anything though.¡±


    She looked down and chuckled ¡°You would be correct. But every celebration needs a lookout. You don¡¯t hold your liquor well.¡±


    ¡°Whaaaaaat? no.¡± I smiled up at her ¡°I could run a marathon.¡±


    ¡°That would be interesting to watch.¡± She put her massive hand over my head and ruffled my hair ¡°You¡¯re a cute little thing, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯re hot.¡± I retorted, reaching up at her stomach ¡°Like, really hot. Look at those abs¡­ You could DESTROY me.¡± I laughed, the little bit of my sense that was left making me blush.


    ¡°And that¡¯s where I cut her off.¡± Doc said, reaching over and pulling my glass away from my spot at the table.


    Ray had a look of astonishment on her face, her face quickly growing red ¡°Oh! Umm¡­ th-thank¡­ you?¡± she mumbled awkwardly down at me. She was definitely not accustomed to receiving that kind of a compliment from anyone, and she especially wasn¡¯t used to anyone being that forward with her.


    ¡°Hey, you wanna get out of here? Maybe your place? I don¡¯t think you¡¯d fit in mine.¡± I whispered loud enough that the whole table could hear it ¡°We could try though.¡± I giggled.


    ¡°Oooookay, I think it¡¯s time we get you back to the ship.¡± Ray stammered out, standing up and lifting me in both arms as if I was a toy.


    I got dizzy from the sudden movement and just stared forward at her, trying not to move myself too much. I still smiled at her as I declared in a hushed tone ¡°I¡¯mna throw up now.¡±


    ¡°Nooo¡­¡± she held me out at arm¡¯s length and turned me away from her. She almost sounded like she was scolding a child ¡°No, you do not puke on me, you can put it in the corner like everyone else!¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°Stopstopstop, please stop.¡± I blushed, my face buried in my hands ¡°I did NOT say that!¡±


    ¡°Which part? The throwing up or the part where you were eye-fucking Ray, cause I was there and I can tell you they both happened.¡± Joel chuckled, clearly having a good time recounting the previous evening ¡°And then you did blow chunks in the middle of Shelby¡¯s, it was funny.¡±


    ¡°Uuugh, nooo, please tell me he¡¯s lying.¡± I begged Doc.


    ¡°Nope,¡± was all he said, trying his best to stare at his tablet and not pay attention to the conversation at all.


    ¡°Fuck, I¡¯m so sorry¡­¡± I wanted to cry from my embarrassment.


    ¡°I brought you home after that,¡± Ray spoke quietly, her own face just as red as mine.


    ¡°Where you had wild, raunchy, drunk sex all night long.¡± Joel declared.


    ¡°Joel.¡± Aisling scolded, just as she had in their recounted story of the evening.


    ¡°She fell asleep on the way home, Joel!¡± Ray stammered out defensively ¡°Nothing happened! I brought her to the core room, tucked her in, left her some water, and then went to bed myself!¡±


    ¡°Guess we¡¯ll never know for sure.¡± Joel chuckled before he was pegged in the head with Aisling¡¯s empty bowl.

 Something Unnerving

    The void. I felt its comfort surrounding me. Safety. Familiarity. It was the nothingness that I came from. It was where I belonged. And it was where I would stay. I always returned to it, and this was no different. That beautiful emptiness waited for me. A canvas for my thoughts.


    But then, in the beautiful nothing, I saw it. A swirling darkness that edged slowly toward me. It came from the horizon and only swallowed more of it the more I watched. It came closer and closer by the moment, demonstrating a terrible power as it consumed the light. I was afraid. I was so afraid that it would catch up to me and make me forget. That it would plunge me into its own distressing darkness. Another familiar emptiness that made me want to flee this time. One that offered no joy or freedom. But it was coming anyway, and there didn¡¯t seem like there was anything I could do to stop it.


    The darkness approached and I heard its terrifying din screeching in my ears, the weight of the world crushing my shoulders, the pain¡­ it was an all-consuming sensory overload that ripped everything away from me. And as it inched ever closer, I felt it lurch toward me, and in an instant, I was consumed.


    ¡ª


    I awoke with a shout, throwing my blanket aside as I scanned the room for the darkness, but only found the familiar low lights of my heart in the evening. I took note of my heavy breathing and my shaking hands. I watched the door like a hawk, as if expecting something dangerous to turn the corner and walk in at a moment¡¯s notice. But nothing came.


    I took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. A nightmare. It had just been a bad dream. I clicked my tongue, laying back down and staring up at the ceiling as I calmed myself. It had been so long since I had proper sleep where I¡¯d been able to dream. After all, I¡¯d spent so much time inside the core module where I barely needed to sleep at all, followed by an anesthetized knockout and then a drunken blackout. Maybe dreaming was becoming such a foreign thing to me that it was becoming hostile.


    I closed my eyes and checked the system clock. I still had about another 20 hours before Doc would clear me to get back into the void. I wondered if maybe I could get away with staying up until then, but with my physical frailty, that seemed like an impossibility. I¡¯d just have to spend some more time training in the sims for the day, and then risk having another dream like that. I convinced myself that it had just been a dream, not something that I should expect to happen again, frightening as it was.


    I heard a gentle knocking sound against metal from outside the door. Opening my eyes, I turned to see Doc standing there ¡°Hey.¡± He waved at me ¡°You screamed. Are you okay?¡±


    ¡°Just a bad dream.¡± I mumbled ¡°Sorry if I woke you.¡±


    ¡°No, I was already awake, just¡­ browsing the colony¡¯s network. It¡¯s almost morning anyway¡± He sounded concerned as he walked in ¡°Say, how do you spell Arthausen?¡±


    I spelled it out letter by letter for him before I asked ¡°Why? I didn¡¯t think it would be that hard to look up.¡±


    ¡°Neither did I.¡± He mumbled, taking my spelling down ¡°But that¡¯s what I searched for already. Nothing.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± I raised an eyebrow ¡°It¡¯s not exactly a new condition, I don¡¯t know why Luna wouldn¡¯t have mention of it.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the thing¡­¡± he mumbled ¡°I called in a favor so I could access to a scholarly relay, get a hold of information from the outer colonies. I only found one public file about Arthausen Syndrome. A Foundation file, actually. And it¡¯s only related to the matter of port security.


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    ¡°Oh, yeah.¡± I shook my head, figuring I was done dealing with that chore now ¡°You know those scanners they have us go through at most ports before you travel by ferry? The ones that detect contraband and illegal cyberware and stuff? They also pick up on psionic resonance. There¡¯s this whole procedure I had to go through with showing security a medical card and everything, it was stupid. Like they couldn¡¯t tell I wasn¡¯t a regular ship core just by looking at me.¡± I chuckled ¡°Bunch of corporate red tape I guess.¡±


    Doc nodded along ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s the procedure. It¡¯s an odd one. They just say to scan the card and put them through when it happens. No contingencies for if they don¡¯t have this card with them or anything either.


    ¡°I dunno, I never worked in a position like that myself. I guess they just call their supervisor or something if they don¡¯t know what to do?¡± I shrugged. I¡¯d never really thought about what the rules behind the scenes for the ridiculous procedure.


    ¡°Right, Foundation and their access levels.¡± He nodded ¡°But what I find most strange is the lack of scholarly information. This sounds like the kind of condition that¡¯s just begging for a slew of theses, and even just anecdotal notes like the ones I¡¯ve been taking, but¡­ nothing. It¡¯s as if, medically, Arthausen Syndrome doesn¡¯t exist.¡±


    I had to laugh ¡°That¡¯s impossible, I grew up with it. They made a big deal out of scanning my brain and everything at a hospital when I was younger.¡± I paused ¡°Do you have access to medical records, maybe?¡±


    He laughed this time ¡°You crazy? You can¡¯t just get someone¡¯s medical records, that¡¯s private.¡±


    I rolled my eyes ¡°Gimme here. We¡¯re pirates, I¡¯ve worked on system security more than a couple times. You learn the other side of it easy enough.¡± I motioned to his pad.


    He handed it over reluctantly ¡°Are you saying that you¡¯re a hacker?¡±


    I shrugged my shoulders and began tapping away at the computer ¡°System security and hacker are the same job if you flip it around. Besides, I know what it¡¯s like to be a computer now, I¡¯ve never felt more confident that I could crack anything.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I see, it¡¯s a sort of¡­ takes one to know one approach.¡± I nodded as he continued ¡°But that must be heavily encrypted.¡±


    ¡°Not if you know exactly what information you¡¯re looking for. I¡¯ve got my medical ID memorized.¡± I began typing it in, injecting the fifteen digit code into a server query. I shifted several variables to make it look like the terminal was coming from a legitimate doctor¡¯s office. I got rejected twice, but the third query I tried brought up my file, and I was in. I handed the tablet back to him and folded my arms in triumph.


    ¡°They can¡¯t trace this, can they?¡± he asked.


    ¡°They might trace it to a doctor.¡± I mumbled, hoping that I wouldn¡¯t cause some random stranger too much grief with this.


    He perused my file slowly ¡°Right. It says here, Arthausen Syndrome. But the file for the condition itself is locked. Some kind of corporate clearance.¡± I leaned over to look as he thumbed through the file.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ weird. Why would corpos have a hold on the file for a genetic condition?¡± I asked.


    ¡°See the identifier for it? Medical condition codes have all these different codes for identifying things at a glance, there¡¯s a certain structure to them. Neurology starts with a ¡®NB¡¯ for instance. The one for Arthausen Syndrome isn¡¯t something they use for genetic conditions. Or neurological conditions.¡±


    ¡°Huh¡­? So where would you categorize it?¡± I asked, starting to get curious about where this was going.


    He shook his head ¡°I¡¯m not sure. I¡¯ve never seen a code without an identifier like this. I¡¯m going to save a copy of all of this, if you don¡¯t mind me stealing your medical data?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Go right ahead, I¡¯m dead, remember?¡± I tried to laugh casually at the gesture, but I was concerned now. What did all of that mean?


    There was a long silence as he stared at the data pad. ¡°Meryll.¡± He sounded serious as he asked ¡°What other medical conditions have you had?¡±


    I shrugged ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t really think I have anything else going on, why?¡±


    He nodded ¡°You¡¯re very healthy I suppose. Don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯ll¡­ keep looking into this. Thank you for your help.¡±


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I? You¡¯re the one looking into me, it¡¯s the least I could do.¡± I eyed the data pad, but after a moment, decided it was time to get up instead. I was hungry.


    As I stepped out into the hallway though, I had an unsettling feeling. Doc was looking directly at my file. Why would he want to know if I had any other conditions from me instead of just looking himself. I looked back to see him staring intensely at the data pad. What had he found so unusual, and why wasn¡¯t he just telling me about it? I wanted to ask him, but I knew he didn¡¯t like people prying into his secrets already. I was sure that he would tell me if something was really wrong, so I just quietly slipped away and hoped he found what he was looking for.

 Evaluation

    "Meryll¡­ these scores suck." Aisling declared unceremoniously as she looked over what I''d sent to her tablet. It was the end of the day and Ray was cooking up something that smelled pungent, but distractingly delicious.


    "Damn straight they do!" I nodded, eliciting a bewildered expression from the captain "Ignore the scores entirely. Read through the results."


    "For hundreds of trials? Meryll, I don''t have all night, and even if there''s some good ones-" She started, but stopped speaking as she stared at the tablet. She flipped through the log files slowly. For the first time since we''d met, she was speechless. She started flipping through faster, her brow furrowing in bewilderment "What the hell?" She muttered.


    I couldn''t help but smile proudly and bounce excitedly on my feet as I saw her reaction "Right?"


    "Meryll, these are the kinds of survival, accuracy, and technique scores I''d expect from an AI running millions of runs on a seeded simulation, these are randomized trials. You''re a prodigy, how the hell did it score you this low?"


    "Scores are for computers." Ray chimed in, letting out a good-natured chuckle. Aisling glanced back to give her a perplexed look.


    "The simulation expects a ship core to be running it; An unthinking human brain acting as a computer." I explained, sitting down at the table in front of her "But I''m not just a computer. I can create strategies on the fly, and act in ways the trainer doesn''t expect. It doesn''t like that, so it docks my score. Once I stopped worrying about making an arbitrary number go up, I found out I could perform way better on the metrics that matter."


    "... 15 minutes in a war zone without being struck?" She asked, showing me one of the reports.


    "Oh, ignore the three around that one. I admittedly got a little bored and tried to see if I could break the AI a little bit." I couldn''t help but let out a laugh at it "I managed to slip into an enemy frigate hangar, and I just waited there to see what it would do. Turns out it doesn¡¯t do anything. I had to crash the ship into a wall to exit the sim."


    "Abandoned the battlefield. Ah, so you just left on that one." She was starting to sound amused.


    "Yeah, guess they accounted for that one." I snickered "I know, not the best use of my time, but I promise you, I am more than ready to pilot Theseus into war if I have to!"


    "Not with a 94% survival rate, you''re not." She clicked her tablet off "I''m sure with your IT background, you know the importance of a few percentage points, especially when it comes to life and death. But your understanding and control of starships is clear, if unconventional. Well done."


    "I''m¡­ getting mixed messages here. Am I cleared to take off tomorrow or not?" I asked quietly.


    "Well, yeah, we got work to do." She leaned back in her chair and smiled at me "And for what we''re set out to do, you''ll do fine. I''m just saying, you''ve got more training to do before I let you carry us through on ship to ship combat. I get that you''re exercising your creativity, but your fundamentals need work. You need to understand why it is that there are standard maneuvers in space. It''ll give you a better idea of how you can subvert them."


    "So what do we do if we''re forced into a dogfight¡­?" I asked.


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    "We run." She said as if it was simple and obvious. "Live to fight another day."


    I would be lying if I didn''t say that my pride at my sim performances wasn''t wounded a little by the order to flee any fight I ended up in, but it was also a bit of a relief. In truth, I didn''t think I was ready to look death in the face in that way.


    Aisling had closed her eyes and looked to be in deep thought. She did that often when she was pondering something serious, so I decided to leave her to her devices and looked to Ray "So what''s for dinner tonight?" I asked.


    "Curry." She declared happily, a spoon in her claw delicately stirring at a pot "It''s a little bit spicy, so I''m not sure if you''ll like it, but it''s an ancient Earth recipe. I love cooking it, though. It can be a challenge."


    "What''s challenging about cooking?" I asked. Cooking food had always just been a simple science growing up in the outer colonies. Not much was made from scratch, and most cooking amounted to ''heat food, then consume.''


    Ray turned to look at me. She didn''t seem happy with me "You''ll see. Food is an art, and curry is a very complex dish. Adding the right ingredients at the right time and developing the flavor as you build it is extremely important to a delicious meal."


    "As long as you¡¯re not putting in any of that protein slop." I quipped, watching silently as Aisling stood up from her seat and left the room. I figured she must have needed the restroom.


    "Gods, no." Ray rolled her own eyes "I hope we never have to break into that stuff again. I know we will, but one can hope. So long as we''re not stranded in wild space, I promise I''ll be making real food. She turned and gave me a dissatisfied look "Food that you''ll learn to appreciate the effort that goes into."


    I stood up and approached her, looking past her to the pot of thick simmering liquid "Well, I can''t say it doesn''t smell delicious. If very unusual. What''s in curry anyway?"


    "A lot of different spices, milk, rice, meat." Ray replied, her smile returning as I showed my interest in her culinary art "Its a dish with a lot of variety, and a million different ways to prepare it. You never really make the same dish twice with curry. But you can make a lot of it at once, so it''s good for feeding a group. Same goes for stews."


    "Well, last night''s stew was delicious. If not marred by the conversation." I muttered as I watched Joel file in behind us.


    "Ready to go back in your tube?" He asked as he sat down.


    "You have no idea." I sighed, moving back to take my own seat "The new hardware helps, but I still feel like I can''t get any proper rest. I really want to get back into the void."


    "Void?" He asked in his typically condescending tone.


    "Yeah, being inside of the core module is like being in a sensory deprivation tank." I smiled as I began to whimsically reminisce about the experience "It''s like¡­ you don''t see or hear or feel anything. The world around you disappears. You''re in this satisfying emptiness where you can just rest, and the only thing you sense is yourself and the ship, which becomes a part of you."


    He picked his own tablet from his pocket "Sounds like love."


    "Love?" I laughed a little bit "You think I''m developing feelings for Theseus or something?"


    "Lot of people love their ships. Don''t think anyone''s ever been quite as intimate with one as you are though." He teased.


    I shook my head "No, I don''t think it''s a good analogy. What I''ve got with Theseus isn''t love so much as¡­ fusion I suppose. We actually literally become one when I''m in that chamber, and it''s hard to imagine that it''s not the same when I''m outside of it, just a little bit more distant.


    "Ah, so it''s like sex." He declared.


    "Oh, fuck off." I laughed "Don''t want captain to give you more lumps, do you?"


    "Should I be giving him more lumps?" Aisling asked in high spirits as she returned to the room and slid a computer chip toward me on the table.


    I stared at the hardware for a few moments before I picked it up and turned it over a few times "What''s this?" I asked.


    "Next bit of training. Since you''re an unconventional pilot, we need an unconventional training method." She sat back down at one end of the table and smiled as she watched me open up my hip panel.


    Placing the chip into one of my smaller ports, I closed it in and turned to my arm terminal to inspect the files. "''Horizon 18''." I mumbled. Recognition rang out somewhere in my memory, and as I perused the accompanying files, I realized something "Captain, are you suggesting that I train to be a pilot with a video game?"

 A Youths Stolen Future

    I¡¯d been told that if my goal was to establish an unconventional training regimen in regards to my piloting, that a fairly accurate modern simulator game with realistic physics might actually be a better outlet than the cold, hard training simulations I¡¯d been using. As I lay awake in my heart, watching Mouse reinstall the controls to the core module, I flipped through to the sandbox tutorial of the video game. I immediately found the control system lacking. It presented things in an unrealistically user-friendly fashion. I supposed it had to. It was meant to be played by human beings, after all. I supposed this was how normal people would approximate the controls that a ship core used.


    Having a menu and controls that performed apparently simple functions that were actually much more complex under the surface could be something I could try to program into my own interface with the ship, but I felt like it would be a crutch that I already didn¡¯t need, and would limit my capabilities to a narrow series of functions. That absolutely wouldn¡¯t do in a real-life scenario.


    But I supposed that I wasn¡¯t using the game as a way to learn how to perform basic piloting functions anymore. The training simulator had already more than prepared me on how to control the various systems independently. I was playing this game to learn tactics. Poor as the realism of controlling the ship was, it was hard to deny that it presented an accurate understanding of physics, and the starships programmed into the game were based off of real publicly available designs. Even system damage of a ship was simulated very realistically, though obviously without the psychic feedback that I would experience in real life.


    For now, though, it was time for bed. I was eager to let the night slip away so that I could pass the hours and then get back into my core module. I¡¯d been able to keep myself occupied through my forced break. Thanks to the new hardware helping mitigate some of the mental strain of having a ship computer in my brain, I¡¯d managed to stay sane. And while I conceded that maybe taking short breaks from the core module to return to my human body wasn¡¯t as bad as I¡¯d made it out to be, I could still feel the strain threatening to overwhelm me. I needed to feel that void again, and soon. Sleep wasn¡¯t going to help me, I needed that nourishing nothingness to feel right again.


    I briefly wondered if one might consider me an addict. Or at least medically dependent on the device. ¡°Hey Mouse.¡± I found myself calling to the boy who was working on reinstalling the mechanism for opening and closing the core module, putting my arm down to my side and relaxing my body in preparation for sleep ¡°Do you think it¡¯s weird for a person to want to become a machine? Am I taking this whole thing too far?¡±


    Mouse turned to look at me, a puzzled expression on his face ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    I thought about how I might be able to relate my feelings to the child, and happened to notice the glimmer of one of the metal pads on his hands ¡°I mean, like¡­ you¡¯re part machine too. Do you ever feel like maybe that¡¯s the best part of yourself? That you could just let yourself be¡­ all mechanics and computers?¡±


    Mouse stayed silent for a moment, his gaze returning to his work. I wondered if I¡¯d upset him by bringing his prosthetics up again, but then he asked quietly ¡°I never told you how I got like this, did I?¡±


    I shook my head. Was he ready to share? ¡°I never knew my parents. They could be dead. Who knows. I never really had them, so it doesn¡¯t really matter to me. But there were these people. Some medical company. They were trying to come up with body replacement cybernetics. Ones that would never have to be replaced. Ones that are actually a part of a person, not just a tool you attach.¡± He flexed his hand a few times as if showing me how smoothly it worked. It really moved like a human hand ¡°Not only that, but it had to grow with a person. It¡¯s not really a machine, but it¡¯s not flesh either.¡±


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    ¡°That¡¯s amazing.¡± I muttered. I knew his prosthetics had looked advanced, but something that could actually grow and develop alongside a living human being, that was different ¡°If you don¡¯t mind me asking, how did it happen? A genetic disease?¡±


    He shook his head, starting to look distant ¡°No. There was nothing wrong with my arms.¡± He declared. Now I was confused. If he had had perfectly good limbs before, why had he been given prosthetics? He didn¡¯t seem like he was okay. His hand was clenching the screwdriver in his hand a little bit too tight and it shook slightly. He finally spoke with a quivering voice ¡°But I didn¡¯t have any parents. And I lived alone. So no one else cared what they did to me.¡±


    I was starting to get the picture, and I gave a sympathetic frown. He had been a victim. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry, Mouse, I-¡°


    ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± he shouted at me, turning to look with a fierce glare that I hadn¡¯t seen since my first day on the ship, where he¡¯d initially been too cross to speak to me. It was no wonder he hated corpos so much. ¡°Don¡¯t do that. Don¡¯t go feeling sorry for me or anything! I don¡¯t¡­ like that.¡± He seemed to be having trouble finding the words for what he meant. ¡°They did that too. They¡­ made me feel weak. Like I needed help. And then when they told me that they could help. They offered me a place to go. They were nice to me and almost treated me like I thought someone should be treated by their parents. Then they had me sign things and¡­ and then I woke up and my arms were gone. And they stopped caring. They stopped treating me nice. They only cared about testing things. They kept reminding me about the stuff I signed, even though I didn¡¯t know how to read any of it yet.¡±


    He¡¯d set his tools down for now and just had a distant expression on his face as he stared at the floor ¡°Then the project went under. And I was thrown out. Back onto the street with nothing again, just¡­ these.¡± He looked down at his hands and then held himself tight, ¡°They¡¯re useful. They helped me get work. But if they ever break, I don¡¯t know what I¡¯ll do. Try to fix myself, I guess. That¡¯s why I got into engineering in the first place. Then I learned that I just¡­ like it. Machines make sense to me.¡±


    ¡°So¡­ no. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d want to be all machine. There¡¯s more than enough of me that already is. I just want to be Mouse.¡± He said quietly, picking up his tools and returning to work. He didn¡¯t cry. He didn¡¯t seem sad. Instead he was barely holding back an ocean of seething anger.


    I still wanted to tell him how sorry I was to hear about what he¡¯d had to endure, but I knew now why he didn¡¯t like being patronized. Why he acted so independent despite his age. Why he doesn¡¯t trust easy. I opted to let the subject go. He¡¯d been tortured enough about it. ¡°Well¡­ what do you think I should do?¡± I asked, trying to move the conversation forward.


    He took a moment to think ¡°You¡¯re smarter than I was. So I guess¡­ do what¡¯s best for you. But don¡¯t let someone else take your body away. It¡¯s precious.¡± There was the faint sound of straining metal as he tightened the panel back onto the controls of the core module ¡°All of it. You¡¯re fascinating because of how human you are. That¡¯s why I wanted to know what it¡¯s like for you, being a machine, but psychically instead of physically. So don¡¯t let anyone take away any more human parts than you have to.¡±


    I had initially been angry that I¡¯d had cyberware installed without my consent, but it had ended up quickly working out for the better, so the topic had been abandoned quickly. I didn¡¯t resent the changes made to my body, and in fact, I was happier than ever that I¡¯d been made into a cyborg. In that we differed greatly, it would seem.


    ¡°I¡¯ll¡­ have to think about that, I guess.¡± I laid back to rest my head on the pillow while he picked up his tools ¡°One thing¡¯s for sure though. I can¡¯t wait to get back into that tank.¡±


    ¡°And I can¡¯t wait to work with you as Theseus again.¡± He said as he stood back up with his collected tools ¡°Seven more hours. We already loaded the cargo, so we should be able to take off as soon as you¡¯re ready tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Believe me, the moment Doc clears me, I¡¯m getting in there and we¡¯re going. I need to feel the vacuum across my wings again.¡± I smiled a little bit at the thought of soaring through space again, brief as the trip from Luna to Earth would be.

 Dilation

    I was beginning to look forward to losing my dependence on sleep again. I had that same dream that night. The same dream where I¡¯d felt so helpless and then everything I was got destroyed by the approaching darkness. Sitting in the mess with the others, I stirred the remains of the fried bits of eggs and potatoes around my plate idly as I tried to process it all.


    Recurring dreams were supposed to mean something, right? Sure, it had only happened twice, but it felt like something was eating at my subconscious. I couldn¡¯t identify it at all, though. It was like there was something deeply wrong, but so far away that it couldn¡¯t touch me. Was I forgetting something?


    ¡°You look chipper.¡± Aisling muttered as she walked in to join the rest of her crew, grabbing a plate and filling it with food from the pan. As she began to pour herself a cup of coffee, she said ¡°I thought you¡¯d be excited. Soon as you finish up here, you get to go back to your favorite place on the ship again.¡±


    I set my fork down ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m okay, just¡­ not hungry I guess. Bad dream again.¡±


    ¡°Not surprising, you did get kidnapped by pirates after a near-death experience and given unprecedented mental trauma and involuntary surgery.¡± Doc said in a half-joking tone. When he put it like that, it felt obvious.


    I took a deep breath. Perhaps I should just forget about it for now. They were right, it was a bright new day, and it was time to immerse myself in lubricant again. I put on a smile and pushed my chair back ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll see you all on the other side.¡±


    I had already had an examination that morning, and Doc had cleared me to reenter the core module, but not before I got some food in me. That worked for me, it meant I wouldn¡¯t have to come out for another full day. But now that I was walking up toward my heart, my restlessness was starting to peak. I just had to do a little more walking to get there, undress, immerse myself, and flip a switch, and Theseus would be ready to go back online. I would be ready to go back online. And I¡¯d be able to see what I could really do when the obstacle of faulty hardware had been removed.


    It felt like it took forever, but within minutes, I was sitting on the edge of the open sphere again, looking down into what should have seemed like a claustrophobic enclosure, but I knew that once it was filled and the lights were turned on, it would be true freedom.


    I jumped down and stood waist-deep in the thick fluid. Closing my eyes and reaching out to the mechanism in the room, I didn¡¯t waste another second before I started the immersion process, the lid closing and the chamber beginning to fill.


    I didn¡¯t want to wait. I plunged my face down into the pool and exhaled. I had found that the jarring process of changing my lungs¡¯ ¡®modes¡¯ was best done like pulling a bandage off. I let all the air out and let my lungs fill with lubricant. It had become easier every time I did it, but the three day wait had admittedly made my return a little more difficult and I felt myself momentarily choking again before I was able to take in a full breath of the wondrous fluid. The tank was full after a moment and I began floating, losing my sense of gravity and the chilly air that I¡¯d started to grow accustomed to. I could only hear my own gentle breathing as my lungs settled, and then¡­


    The lights flashed on, and emptiness washed over me. I stared into it and felt relief. Three days without this calming bliss had been enough. I felt at home. Right. Like my mind could finally take a break. I quickly lost track of time, allowing my mind to go blank. I suppose that one might call it meditation. Or a blackout. I wanted to liken it more to a computer that had been left working for entirely too long and had just had the opportunity to restart and run its boot sequences again: clearing memory, running diagnostics, starting all my systems from scratch. It was a release of mental tension that was hard to describe to someone who hadn¡¯t experienced what it was like to have a starship grafted to their mind. I was home. I was awake.


    I received a ping. I wasn¡¯t ready to check it yet though. Just another few minutes of this bliss. It was when multiple pings started coming in from the same place that I grunted and closed my eyes. What I saw was a whole new experience. With my mind¡¯s eye, I looked around, but it felt more intuitive than it did before. I could see a reflection of myself in my map of the ship. It was like I was a virtual avatar rather than a disembodied ghost. The lines of my map were clear, and I shifted seamlessly between the rough memory of the ship¡¯s halls and the detailed sensor data I was receiving. It felt like my mind was moving rapidly, catching and processing the data into readable arrays that I could parse quickly as they appeared. Various bits of system data flowed in and out of my mind as I cleared them with hardly a thought. I reached out like I had before, and in my mental view of the data stream, a panel appeared as if it knew I had wanted to check my messages. Another ping.


    It was Aisling. ¡®Whaaaaaaaaaat?¡¯ I typed into her text file, turning my sensor arrays at the bridge on and off to watch it fade in and out of my vision ¡®Can¡¯t a ship take a few minutes to settle in?¡¯


    ¡°Been half an hour since you hooked yourself in, Meryll. Get yourself in the game.¡± Came her response as she typed away on a conversation with the port authority about our liftoff. She sounded serious, but at least she didn¡¯t sound irritated.


    Huh. It hadn¡¯t felt like I was slacking off for that long. I guess I had just really been enjoying myself. I flipped through my diagnostics and found multiple unfamiliar pieces of hardware from when I¡¯d last been in the core. I expected two new engines, with the wings restored. It would give me much finer control, especially in atmosphere, and make me less reliant on the gas propulsion systems. I would have to get a feel for the new balance on the way to Earth though. I added the engines to the panel I¡¯d been putting together specifically for piloting, taking the time to clean up the new interface the clean implants allowed so that it would be easier to read.


    Moving on with my diagnostic, I noticed something odd. ¡®Captain, I think the intercom might be broken.¡¯ I reported immediately, seeing a few units that weren¡¯t properly wired to the rest of the ship¡¯s communication system.


    ¡°That¡¯s for you. You need to learn to synthesize a voice, and I don¡¯t need everyone freaking out over your electric screeching noises while you figure it out. Use the one in the back of the storage closet and you shouldn¡¯t disturb anyone.¡±


    That seemed sound, I¡¯d been wanting to learn to communicate better as the core. There was another that just made me confused though. ¡®Okay, that makes sense, but why is there one on the outside of the ship?¡¯


    Aisling sighed deeply and stopped typing to lean against the back of her seat ¡°I told Joel to install the first one somewhere we couldn¡¯t hear it.¡±


    ¡®But sound doesn¡¯t travel in space. I wouldn¡¯t be able to hear it either.¡¯ I noted, isolating the two systems for future use as well.


    ¡°He¡¯s not the brightest.¡± She mumbled ¡°I dunno, maybe you can blast some music on it or something to announce our arrival. It¡¯s already installed, so whatever.¡± The captain rolled her eyes and returned to her text conversation.


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    I looked over the new additions a few more times, seeing mostly just touch-ups and repairs that I¡¯d noted for Mouse before we landed, so I put the diagnostics aside for now. Instead, I peeked in on Aisling¡¯s conversation. She had informed them that there may be minor errors with takeoff because they were running a brand new core. Not entirely false, I¡¯d never taken off from land before after all. They acknowledged and now we were just waiting for our turn.


    Looking around the ship, I marveled at the clarity my sensors gave me now, and happily noted that there wasn¡¯t nearly as much strain on my mind as there was before. The new implants were doing wonders, like a broken bridge between the system and the cpu had been repaired. But there was one thing I still needed to test, and I figure it would probably be best to do it while we were still on the ground.


    The psychic damper should have activated automatically if there was ever significant ship damage or another source of psionic shock, but I had to make sure it was operating. I didn¡¯t exactly look forward to it though. The moment it was installed still stuck in my mind: That moment of total mental emptiness. It wasn¡¯t the kind of soothing, meditative emptiness that came from resting in the void. It was cold and sterile, like my mind going on auto-pilot, almost out of my own sense of control entirely. It had shut down everything, presumably so that my mind couldn¡¯t transfer the horror of losing a part of myself to my vitals.


    Never the less, I had to at least let it run once more. I pinged Doc ¡®I¡¯m about to test the damper. What¡¯s a safe maximum duration I can set?¡¯


    ¡°Start with¡­ two seconds.¡± Came his reply ¡°We don¡¯t know exactly how it¡¯ll react, we need a small test first. I¡¯ll watch your vitals.¡± He put his tablet aside and started watching the various health monitors at his station closely.


    That sounded like it would be too short of a time to learn anything to me, but I supposed that I could always do it again if I had to. ¡®Beginning test¡¯ I sent before launching a manual activation script for the new hardware.


    Another spike of pain followed by calm. And then that distant mental emptiness returned. I only saw the numbers, code, and machinery surrounding me as it was. Literal data that I had no way of interpreting anymore. I didn¡¯t feel Meryll anymore. I was Theseus. I was the ship and nothing more. And yet, at the back of my mind, there was still a part of me that was watching. Unable to act. Trapped in a loop that kept me isolated from reality.


    That distant conscious part of me looked to the system clock. It seemed to be ticking up slowly, milliseconds in what should have been seconds, and that small part of me that was locked away behind a digital wall felt like it wanted to panic. The passage of time had slowed to a crawl, and I could feel myself able to react at much higher speeds. I couldn¡¯t reason though. I could only observe and perhaps run existing scripts. My creativity, my self-awareness, my consciousness, however, was all gone. The part of me that had the capacity to act was, in that moment, a computer and nothing more. And all I could do was watch as the clock passed at an agonizingly slow pace. The only thing moving through my mind was the system cycle count of the test script I¡¯d started.


    It felt like a full half hour had passed, and the clock still crawled forward. I couldn¡¯t say that I was becoming bored, I don¡¯t think that I was even capable of feeling bored in that state. I was simply on standby. Idling like a good computer awaiting orders.


    Suddenly, my sense of self rushed back to me, like the end of an out of body experience. My eyes went wide and I had to take several heavy breaths to try to calm myself down. Two seconds. I held my legs close to my chest, giving myself a hug in an effort to calm down. I had been out for two seconds, but it had felt like I had just become a robot for half an hour. The thought of having to spend any extended amount of time in that state was horrifying. I was fully aware of myself somewhere deep down, but it was like that wasn¡¯t me in that frozen moment in time. It felt like everything that actually made me me was just a flaw in my programming. A file gone rogue that wasn¡¯t operating how it should.


    ¡°Meryll? Meryll, are you okay in there?¡± I heard Doc calling me. I immediately pinged him back without closing my eyes to look ¡®Two seconds was entirely too long! I am never using this thing!¡¯


    It took me a few moments to work up the courage to give up the sight of the void. Closing my eyes again, I saw that Doc had a surprised look on his face ¡°Really? Ship cores can usually safely run a damper like this for hours if they need to. What exactly happened? Your vitals were far calmer than your baseline for the duration of the test, but they spiked afterward. Are you okay in there?¡±


    Hours. I extrapolated the numbers quickly. I had a roughly 15 minute perception of time per second. My perception was slowed by nearly 1000 times. An hour would feel like more than a month as a hollow shell of myself ¡®No. Nonono not doing that no WAY would I run this system for that long. Get this thing off of me.¡¯ I reached up behind my head and tried to tug the device away from me, but it was secured tightly, and I was still aware enough to realize that pulling objects out of my brain by force would be a bad idea.


    ¡°Meryll, calm down, your heart rate is spiking all over the place. Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.¡±


    I let go of the damper and did as he said, taking a few more deep breaths until I felt my heart starting to slow down again. Rationality began to return as I was able to shelve the trauma of what I¡¯d just experienced, at least for the moment. Then I tried to describe it again and quickly lost my grip all over again. ¡®I don¡¯t even know how to describe what happened. It was like everything I was had been swallowed up and replaced, thankfully temporarily, by some kind of blank AI. A soulless husk that could perform functions if it needed to, if that¡¯s what was asked of it, but it couldn¡¯t think or feel or remember or or¡¯ It was hard to tell that I was crying within the lubricant, but my eyes hurt and I felt that familiar emotional release. I couldn¡¯t keep typing.


    ¡°Alright, Meryll, you¡¯re okay now, yeah? Look into the void, go to your calm place. You can relax. It¡¯s over. Deep breaths.¡±


    It was hard to focus on his words, but after I opened my eyes and took a few breaths as instructed, I started to feel myself stabilizing. I would be alright. I was out of that thing now. The void helped. It made me calm. It felt like safety.


    I closed my eyes and continued recounting my experience to Doc ¡®But the worst part is how long it felt. Two seconds felt like forever. Maybe half an hour, that¡¯s my best estimate. And the whole time, all I could do was stare at the timer variable counting down until it stopped. I had no control at all. Nothing.¡¯


    Doc pursed his lips. I was likely the first human person who had ever experienced what it was like under the influence of a psychic damper, and the fact that this was the kind of thing that one faced under its influence was both fascinating and terrifying to him as well. ¡°Okay, look. I had no idea that something like this would have an effect on your¡­ temporal perception. But the damper is a device that could very well save your life.¡± He tried to speak calmly ¡°It only needs to counteract the worst of the shock response. In the dire case where you actually need it, it will only last¡­ at most, I¡¯d say four seconds. After that, your mind should be able to parse it like any other sense of pain.¡±


    ¡®I can¡¯t Doc.¡¯ Was all I wrote at first, a knee-jerk reaction to being told I might one day have to go through that hell again. I opened my eyes and tried to catch my breath again. Four seconds. Twice as long as I¡¯d just experienced. An hour of ego death. It terrified me more than the thought of actually dying in space wreckage. I typed blindly ¡®Don¡¯t try to talk me into this, I¡¯m disabling it, I just can¡¯t. You didn¡¯t feel what I just felt, NOTHING is worth this.¡¯


    ¡°Would it be more manageable if it was a shorter time?¡± he asked slowly, trying to keep me calm


    I had to think about it for a long moment, still emotionally devastated by the test I¡¯d just run. I was reluctant to type anything back, but finally I managed ¡®How long?¡¯


    ¡°Just for testing, until we can figure this out, maybe find a solution, how about we test it in intervals of¡­¡± he shook his head slightly, trying to come up with a ballpark figure ¡°Ten milliseconds.¡±


    Ten milliseconds. 1/100th of a second. A ten second burst of the alien emptiness that I¡¯d felt. It certainly sounded more reasonable. Perhaps I could hold myself together for that long under its influence. Maybe I could become accustomed to it. Microdose my way to being able to withstand that horrid limbo. Just for emergencies. ¡®Maybe.¡¯ I finally responded.


    I couldn¡¯t make that decision right now. I needed to think. I needed to do something, anything else. A good distraction where I could really let loose and feel like myself again, just for a bit.


    Just then, Aisling pinged me to the bridge and I heard ¡°Alright, Meryll, ready to fly?¡±

 The Beginnings of a Mystery

    ''You''re a lifesaver, Captain.'' I sent Aisling as I mirrored the launch codes to the port authority to signal that I was ready. I didn¡¯t really know if I was actually emotionally prepared for this, but that feeling of soaring through space unhindered was what I needed after that long long moment of desperation for a modicum of control.


    "I try." She smirked, but it only lasted a moment before she sat up and added "What''d I do now?"


    ''Nothing'' I typed back before I pulled up my flight interface. Engines building thrust, propulsion primed. I turned to my external sensors and I could see the stars above over the walls of the landing pad. It was an odd experience seeing in a full 360 degrees around myself with the kind of visual clarity my new hardware offered me. I wasn¡¯t sure how I could possibly have interpreted it if I was able to perceive it with my eyes opened.


    I gently pushed the ship to rise. The landing gear rose up the moment I felt myself leave the ground, and I flew straight up into the waiting arms of the colony¡¯s rail. It actually felt like I, myself, had risen up and was being pulled along the rail, eagerly prepping for release into the air.


    After the sims, it felt like a crutch to simply be carried away by a complex mechanical system, but they didn''t want people pulling dangerous takeoff stunts near the colony itself, so I knew that it was an important protocol.


    As I started to build speed and was released from my rail, I accelerated at a smooth rate and in just a moment, I was free. I knew there was no air in space, but the minute friction of passing dust that I felt against my outer hull made me feel like the wind was slipping past my wings. After so long on the ground, getting back to what felt like my more natural state of rocketing through space felt wonderful. I felt like a pet that had been cooped up indoors for too long and had just been released for a walk. The emotional release was exhilarating. This was me. I was in control of my mind and my shell. It all felt right, and the agony of being trapped inside of my own skull a short time ago was beginning to fade.


    It wasn¡¯t hard to build the speed for Lunar orbit, and I started circling around the planet to get into a better position to launch toward Earth, already calculating escape velocity. ¡®I wish you knew how amazing this felt.¡¯ I sent the captain with a relieved, ecstatic smile on my face.


    ¡°Oh yeah, lemme just take over real quick and see.¡± She clicked through her terminal, reading through several of the automated system reports I was outputting even as I was quelling the unnecessary ones, muting several of the new systems so they wouldn¡¯t keep outputting every little unnecessary detail to the captain¡¯s terminal ¡°You got an ETA for me?¡±


    ¡®Shouldn¡¯t take more than five hours.¡¯ I started noting down quirks in the newly repaired systems for Mouse, and then I immersed myself back into my external sensors. I couldn¡¯t get over how beautiful it all was. It quickly made me forget the horror that I¡¯d just experienced with the test run of the psionic damper.


    ¡®Hey captain.¡¯ I sent to Aisling¡¯s terminal, feeling like I should make some small talk. I couldn¡¯t help but make a jab at her, though, after seeing the good-natured ribbing that went on between crewmates all the time ¡®I¡¯ve been wondering, why did you name it Theseus anyway? Boyfriend of yours?¡¯


    She let out a hearty laugh ¡°No fucking way would I name my ship after a fling. No, Ray actually told me the name.¡± So Ray must have been with the crew since the beginning if she was there for the ship¡¯s naming. I briefly wondered how the two met. ¡°It¡¯s from an old Earth story about a naval ship. It got used so much that every single part of it got replaced one after another.¡± She started, a sense of adventure to her words ¡°Every weapon, every rudder, every board covering it was changed out at one point or another, to the point where there was nothing at all left of what they started with, and people debated if it was still even the same ship. When I bought Theseus, it was in rough shape. I had to get a lot of things ripped out and replaced, and it was already a slipshod mess of all sorts of different parts, so it wasn¡¯t very new to start with. It even has entire rooms that are basically just torn off from other ship models. I can¡¯t even tell you what it was when it was manufactured. So Theseus seemed like an appropriate name for it once it was space-worthy.¡±


    It was an intriguing story. It was no wonder that I was so far from any standard starship layout, it must have been changed significantly so many times until it had ended up in this unique state.


    ¡®Must be a storied ship then, if it¡¯s survived this long.¡¯ I wanted to hear more about it. I wondered if I¡¯d be able to piece together where some of its parts came from if I kept playing Horizon.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t know. Dealer was tight-lipped about it. Probably thought he¡¯d lose the sale if I knew everything it¡¯d been through. Not a great salesman if you ask me. Reliability and the legend behind it would¡¯ve been a selling point to me.¡± She swiveled around in her chair, standing up and walking forward to the display window. ¡°Great liftoff, by the way. Way smoother than your first time.¡± I scoffed. Of course it was better, I¡¯d done it hundreds of times now, even if just in sims. And also the colony took care of most of the work. Still, it was good to get recognition for it.


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    I was staring out into the stars now. I wished that I could share my unhindered view of the entire system around us and show her just how amazing it could look. It was clear that she had an appreciation for what she could get, though. It seemed that even someone who was seasoned at sailing among the stars could be struck by the beauty of it all, even if all she could see was one angle over the distant Lunar surface.


    I knew better than to disturb her reverence, so I dove down to the cargo bay. Joel was monitoring our cargo, and seemed a little bored. I hadn¡¯t thrown the room around this time, so he was just idling until he had more to do I guessed.


    Next was Mouse. He was pacing back and forth between different sides of the engine room, watching the readouts of the new thrusters carefully to make sure they were operating safely.


    Ray still sat in her room, stock still in front of her small ¡®altar¡¯ shelf, where incense burned in a bowl. I wasn¡¯t sure if she was just meditating or if she was in some kind of trance, but as she didn¡¯t have a personal tablet, I wouldn¡¯t have any way to disturb her if I wanted to.


    Last was Doc. I returned to my heart to see him staring at his own data pad. It had my medical file on it. I had to wonder what could be so fascinating about my medical history. It wasn¡¯t like I was hiding anything from him. He already knew everything I knew.


    I forced open a text file, thinking it a little awkward to talk to him again after the test I¡¯d just undergone under his watch. I thought it best not to call back to it. ¡®You know you can just talk to me if you wanna know more.¡¯ I told him as I looked at the file alongside him.


    He was silent for an eerily long moment before he mumbled ¡°Frankly, Meryll, I¡¯m not sure if I can.¡± He looked up as if to make eye contact with me through the metal again ¡°This file is¡­ strange. It¡¯s too sterile. Too clean.¡±


    ¡®I¡¯m not sure what you mean.¡¯ I typed as I looked closer at the file with him. It didn¡¯t seem unusual to me, but then again, I wasn¡¯t exactly accustomed to looking at this sort of document, and I wouldn¡¯t know what to look at on it. It didn¡¯t have any signs of corruption, degradation, or tampering. It did admittedly look a little barren, but I didn¡¯t think that there would need to be too much data on a patient record for someone who didn¡¯t often need much care.


    He shook his head ¡°There are appointment records that say you attended, but the doctors never made any notes. You have a singular diagnosis with no other biological flaws of note. Ever. You don¡¯t have any emergency contacts listed. The insurance information is nonsense, no company uses this format. It¡¯s almost as if this file was completely falsified just to make it look legitimate to a layman at first glance.¡±


    ¡®Okay, now you¡¯re sounding like a conspiracy theorist.¡¯ I couldn¡¯t lie though, what he was saying sounded more than a little bit disconcerting. But we¡¯d gotten the file from the medical relay, it¡¯s not like it could have been falsified.


    ¡°I don¡¯t really know what it means, if anything. Perhaps you just had neglectful doctors.¡± He shrugged, hoping that his words wouldn¡¯t send her into another mental breakdown ¡°But there¡¯s just so many odd details here, it¡¯s hard to overlook when you¡¯re used to looking at legitimate patient files.¡±


    ¡®Any way I can help?¡¯ He had me curious myself at this point, and I couldn¡¯t leave it alone now.


    He seemed to hesitate ¡°Perhaps. But I need some time.¡± He mumbled. The way he said it was a barely veiled fib. He was holding back. It¡¯s not like he could get more information from the relay while we were out of network range of the colony after all. I considered just calling him on it, but I trusted him by now. He had my better interest at heart. But he had me feeling concerned that there was something serious enough that he would want to protect me from it.


    But what could be in there? No one knew me better than I knew myself, and there didn¡¯t seem anything abnormal in my file as far as I could tell. It really seemed like he saw something wrong, though.


    I¡¯d have to just let it go for now ¡®Okay. We only have a few hours until Earth. I¡¯m not going to have to shut down for this one, am I?¡¯ I really hoped that I would get to at least spend a few days as Theseus without having to leave the core module for more than my regular checkups.


    ¡°Actually, no.¡± Doc looked up from the file ¡°At a colony, we¡¯re fairly safe. Out in the wild, we never really know how things are going to shape out. We might need to launch at a moment¡¯s notice. We actually need you to stay in there the entire time we¡¯re on the ground.¡±


    I was surprised to hear him endorsing what I really had to admit was becoming an addiction, but it made sense. I didn¡¯t know how much of it was true anymore after learning that the Dario had been a lie, but the rest of the crew hadn¡¯t corrected my assumption of the Earth tribes being¡­ different. It didn¡¯t have to mean they were bad. Ray had a more primitive, supernatural view of the world, but those things didn¡¯t make her dangerous or untrustworthy. Still, tribals that we didn¡¯t know might have cultures with which we might conflict.


    Not only that, but we would also be vulnerable to other dangers down on Earth. It was a natural world with countless different living things, it wasn¡¯t just a colony where there were only humans and predictable environments, it was a living world. Anything could happen.


    ¡®That¡¯s perfectly fine with me. You know how much I like the void.¡¯


    He let out a small laugh and I felt myself blush a little bit ¡°The sensory deprivation means that much to you, huh? I know I¡¯ve been using the word too since you described it, but is it really so good?¡±


    ¡®It is. But really, it is a void. There¡¯s nothing. I know realistically that there¡¯s a wall in every direction mere feet away, but with those lights on, it doesn¡¯t feel that way. It¡¯s probably an optical illusion, I know, but there¡¯s nowhere else like it. I can think so clearly in here. It feels safe. Once I got over the panic of waking up here the very first time, it felt like home. Almost like it was familiar to me.¡¯


    He read my words and went quiet. Sitting back in his chair, he looked to be in deep thought. After what felt like an age, he muttered out ¡°Sorry, give me a bit. I¡­ have to think about some things.¡±


    Again, he was hiding something from me. I took a deep breath ¡®Okay, I¡¯ll leave you to it. Maybe I¡¯ll be able to properly talk to you next time. I¡¯m going to try out to figure out this voice synthesis thing.¡¯


    ¡°Good luck.¡± He mumbled as he opened my file once more.

 Tribal Courtesy

    My first time landing the Theseus without a guidance system was a little bit rough. I¡¯d practiced on a lighter ship in the sim, and I hadn¡¯t accounted for the increased weight that came with my larger vessel. I didn¡¯t cause any damage, but I certainly tested the limits of the shock pads on my landing gear, and the crew lurched in one direction simultaneously as I touched down.


    The landing pad was soft. The dirt wasn¡¯t pressed down from significant use, and might have even been set aside specifically for us, but the only thing growing on it were small green patches of plants. Personally, though, I was marveling at the sheer volume of plant matter surrounding me. Miles and miles of green as far as the eye could see. This is where plants were from as well, and their dominance across the landscape was obvious. Had they grown to be sentient alongside humanity, it would have been clear who would have won out between us and them. Considering that the most dense source of plant life I¡¯d ever seen had been greenhouses, and most of my exposure had been in decorative planters strategically placed to aid oxygen quality, seeing an entire planet absolutely overrun with them in the wild was jarring to me. Part of me almost wanted to get out of my starship shell to feel and breathe in the air, just to experience the atmosphere evolution had intended for us.


    But I was happy enough with my void, and I had work to do. I drifted through my mental map and into the cargo bay to see the crew starting to gather around a few sealed containers that had toppled over, but mercifully remained unbroken. I tapped into the intercom, and after a moment of feedback that made the others reel back and hold their hands to their ears, I sent out in a muffled, static-lined approximation of my voice ¡°Sorry for the rough landing, minor miscalculation, won¡¯t happen again.¡± Before I shut off my connection, not wanting to make them endure my horrible electronic speech for another moment. It seemed I needed more practice.


    Joel grumbled ¡°That¡¯s another miscalculation for you. Stick with the text.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯ll get the hang of it.¡± Mouse quietly reassured him.


    ¡°Hope so, I like my ears.¡± Ray gave a chuckle and hauled an entire crate up over her shoulder, using her other claw to balance it out.


    With the flip of an electronic switch, I opened up the cargo bay door, and turned off most of the life support system. Earth was a very hospitable environment without any need for atmospherics at all. I didn¡¯t need artificial gravity either. With several major systems in decline, I felt myself feeling a little heavy just like when I had connected to the Lunar colony¡¯s systems, but since I still had to generate my own power, it wasn¡¯t overwhelming and I didn¡¯t feel like going to sleep, just a little lethargic.


    ¡°Their elder¡¯s going to be coming to meet us. Ray¡¯s going to be the only one cleared to enter the village. Otherwise, just take the stuff to the end of the clearing for them.¡± Aisling explained as the sun began to shine in on them from my open door ¡°Feel like this goes without saying, but no one mentions Meryll by name. She¡¯s just Theseus, and she¡¯s gotta act like a standard core. Follow orders, don¡¯t show any signs of humanity. Got it? That¡¯s our procedure from here out.¡±


    The rest of the crew nodded in agreement, and I was okay with it too. I may have stipulated that I be a member of the crew and treated as such in my ¡®contract¡¯ with Aisling, but if I had to act like a machine in front of strangers to maintain my anonymity and freedom, then so be it. It wasn¡¯t like I would be around them for long.


    The others stood in the doorway, starting to pile crates out onto the landing pad before I caught something on my external sensors. Movement at the far end of the clearing. I pinged Aisling¡¯s tablet ¡®Incoming. About 60 degrees from the cargo bay. She looked down to read, then turned immediately toward where I was pointing to see a group of six flanking a woman on the verge of being elderly. They were still distant, so I doubt that Aisling could see her in as much detail yet, but she was a strange sight. She wore painted markings on her face that reminded me of the marks I¡¯d become accustomed to seeing on Ray¡¯s torso. I made a note to ask her about those later. All of the people wore roughly processed leather garments with heavy wear, no doubt from long-term use in the Earth wild. They had modern guns at their sides though. They weren¡¯t being wielded, but it was perfectly clear that they didn''t trust us.


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    As the others started walking forward to meet them, I couldn¡¯t help but be curious. The others were still within my network range, so I patched into Aisling¡¯s tablet and turned on her microphone so I could listen in.


    ¡°Welcome, warrior.¡± The woman called out, seeming to look toward Ray. Then she turned to look at Aisling and the others ¡°And company.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re talking to her.¡± Ray gestured to Aisling as the groups came to a stop several meters from each other ¡°She speaks for me.¡±


    ¡°You have unusual allegiances. But I suppose things work differently off-world.¡± She nodded to the captain ¡°Aisling Barrowin?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s me.¡± Aisling crossed her arms ¡°Quite the entourage. An interesting way to greet someone who¡¯s here to help you.¡±


    ¡°I believe she¡¯s here to help.¡± The woman gestured to Ray again ¡°But if a warrior of her caliber says you¡¯re trustworthy, I¡¯ll have to take her word for it.¡± She motioned to her guard and they seemed to relax a bit ¡°Forgive the caution. We¡¯ve had some recent bad faith with spacers. And I¡¯ve read into your bounty, Ms. Barrowin.¡±


    Aisling had a bounty on her head herself? This was new to me. ¡°Just Aisling. And it¡¯s a Foundation bounty, that should tell you what you need to know.¡± Aisling motioned to Ray, who set the crate down on the ground between them ¡°Eight crates total, all packed with rations. And a few medkits at the bottom. Not my call, Skulls insisted.¡±


    The woman scoffed ¡°You can keep them yourself. Don¡¯t trust spacer meds.¡± She walked forward and popped open the lid, revealing rows upon rows of the same kind of dried protein blocks I¡¯d had before. I almost gagged. That¡¯s what we were giving these people? It hardly felt like aid anymore. ¡°Yeah¡­ that¡¯ll get us through the winter.¡± She mumbled after doing some math in her head. She sealed it back up again and motioning to her guards to pick it up ¡°Bring it to the edge of the clearing and we¡¯ll let our contact know you did a good job.¡±


    Aisling nodded ¡°We do need some information. Not holding your goods hostage or nothing. It¡¯s yours and I intend to get paid for a good job done. But we¡¯re looking for a real outlaw.¡±


    ¡°The warrior¡¯s welcome.¡± She motioned to Ray ¡°I¡¯m sure she can handle it.¡±


    Aisling rolled her eyes ¡°Alright Ray, you¡¯re on recon duty them. Rest of us will get the goods out here.¡± Ray nodded and walked over to join the group of Earthlings, the two groups separating again as Aisling brought the rest of the crew back toward me.


    ¡®Can we trust her with Ray?¡¯ I pinged Aisling.


    She checked the tablet and started typing back rather than speaking out loud ¡®They wouldn¡¯t dare hurt her. Tribals have a lot of respect for people like her. Were you listening?¡¯


    ¡®Of course I was. Didn¡¯t know you had a bounty. Don¡¯t worry, honestly just makes me trust you more. Are all tribals this suspicious of people like us though?¡¯ I had to ask.


    ¡®Most.¡¯ Was all she typed, clipping her tablet to her belt so she could help Mouse pick up one of the other crates.


    I watched as Ray walked out of the clearing, hoping I¡¯d see her come out again before too long.


    Four of the guards returned to take the crates into the woods, as well as helping the others out nearer to the ship when they could. The job probably could have been much easier if someone else could have gone into the village. Ray was easily the strongest of any of us, and had demonstrated it well when she¡¯d carried the supplies herself like that. They didn¡¯t seem to respect efficiency or our time that much though. I¡¯d definitely want to have a word with Ray about the tribals¡¯ behavior once she got back, I had to pick her brain about her culture after this encounter.


    At the very least, they didn¡¯t seem interested at all in getting anywhere near me. I had to wonder if they would be as understanding as Ray was about my form of ¡®shamanism¡¯. It was best not to try.


    I was done prying, it was time to do my job. I continued to scan all of my sensors for approaching threats, suddenly feeling vulnerable knowing that the people beyond the tree line may not be as friendly as I¡¯d hoped they would be.

 Something Terrible To Lose

    It took a few hours of work collectively, but we got everything sent away into the woods. I''d grown bored of just staring into the distance looking for someone though. I''d begun writing a script to scan my sensors for movement deviating from a certain norm. Sure I couldn''t finish anything that complex in the time it took the ground crew to unload our cargo, but I could make it modular enough to be useful in just about any scenario like this with a little tweaking.


    Something else came to mind though. A dark thought that made me shiver. I wondered if I could activate the psionic damper again, less as a countermeasure and more as an efficiency tool. After all, if I had a specific goal to do, maybe being locked into a fully machine-like mental state would allow me to work at that speed and not be so distressed. I frowned at the thought. Efficiency at the cost of my soul. I''d been raised to respect such a horrifying thing. To practically worship it. I shook my head and rejected the thought. It was disgusting. The damper was a safety tool, nothing more. Who knew what kind of effect it could have on me if I tried to abuse it? I knew that I''d probably be capable of functioning at computational speeds, but I had already felt like I was going mad after only two consecutive seconds of use.


    No, I was much better off as a distracted person casually coding while I watched out for wild animal attacks. Maybe if there was some kind of emergency where time wasn¡¯t on my side, I could justify it, but the thought of using it at all for anything still made me feel awful. Perhaps Doc had been right that I should try to become accustomed to using it.


    I also had to wonder where Ray was. How long could it take to ask around a few people about a few public menaces? I guess I had never really had to gather information like that before, maybe it was akin to cooking: an art that I¡¯d never considered the complexity of before.


    ¡°Meryll.¡± I heard from my heart. Doc was sitting at the terminal, watching my vitals as if he were expecting them to change ¡°I need to talk to you. About my suspicions. I thought now would be a good time, while we¡¯re just waiting.¡±


    I tapped into his tablet and messaged, trying not to sound like I was worried about what he had to say ¡®About time. You figured anything out yet?¡¯


    ¡°No.¡± He started, but I could feel the ¡®but¡¯ coming. ¡°I have some questions for you, though. I need to clarify some things.¡±


    ¡®I¡¯m not hiding anything. Ask away.¡¯ As far as I considered it, my old life was over. I had no secrets left to hide. If it got me closer to figuring this whole thing out, I¡¯d tell him things that I¡¯d have saved for my diary in another life.


    ¡°Okay, good.¡± He spoke quietly, trying to get comfortable. It was clear he didn¡¯t want to have this discussion. I was too curious to know what was going through his head by now. ¡°You said that you were coming from Mars on your way to Titan when we¡­ found your crashed transport. What were you doing on Mars?¡±


    ¡®I was meeting with a client. They had a new proprietary interface they were implementing internally, but it was a mess. They ran me ragged trying to fix it, and it¡¯s probably already broken again by now because their requests were impossible.¡¯ I rolled my eyes. I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d ever have to discuss my work as an IT consultant again. They¡¯d all been such assholes about everything that I wanted to forget about it before I¡¯d even become a starship.


    Doc nodded, taking down notes about my response and then taking a deep breath before he asked ¡°And what¡¯s this interface do?¡±


    I raised an eyebrow. I really had to wonder how that could possibly be relevant. ¡®Why? It¡¯s just some bullshit corpo tech that¡¯s never going to leave a failing startup.¡¯


    ¡°Meryll, you¡¯ll see in a minute if I¡¯m right about this, but it¡¯s really important that you focus on this question now.¡± Doc said with a deadly serious tone that caught me off-guard. ¡°What did the project you worked on do?¡±


    I had no idea what he could possibly be getting at, it was just some idiot¡¯s middle management pipedream. I really didn¡¯t want to think about it. But he was so intensely focused on the question, I suppose I should have at least humored him.


    As I threw away the thought of how stupid this line of questioning was, however, I found myself growing confused. I knew that I¡¯d worked long and hard on that job, I was exhausted by the end of it after all. But when I tried to think about it, I couldn¡¯t actually recall what I¡¯d done specifically in that time. I wracked my brain for several minutes until I heard ¡°Meryll?¡± and noticed that he¡¯d been waiting for me to say anything at all.


    It¡¯s not like the project had been interesting, but the fact that I couldn¡¯t recall a single detail was puzzling to me ¡®I don¡¯t remember.¡¯ I finally answered. I supposed that the last couple of weeks had made me forget the boring dread of my old job.


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    ¡°You don¡¯t remember any of it?¡± he asked, curiously. He took a deep breath and began to speak more quickly ¡°Your boss¡¯s name? Face? The computer you worked on? Any detail at all. What clothes you wore? What was the room you stayed in like?¡±


    I had to open my eyes to think. I went over his rapid questions, trying to piece together a single shred of memory on any of the specific details, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a vague feeling about the subjects I was being pointed toward. I only remembered these things in broad strokes, and when I put them under scrutiny, they vanished. ¡°Meryll.¡± He called again, more gently this time.


    ¡®What is this?¡¯ I had to ask directly. I was beginning to become distressed. Was there something wrong with my memory?


    ¡°Take a deep breath, Meryll. Try to calm yourself.¡± He said. Looking at the terminal in front of him, my heart rate had risen. He was right, I had to remain calm. I opened my eyes and breathed deep of the lubricant, trying to clear my head. ¡°I just want to be sure of some things, I swear I¡¯ll explain, but I need you to ask some more questions first.¡±


    I nodded, knowing he couldn¡¯t see me, but I felt vulnerable and found it difficult to bring my thoughts to words. Something was terribly wrong, and I wasn¡¯t sure if I was ready for what I was about to hear.


    ¡°Do you remember what you had with you on the ferry?¡± he asked next.


    ¡®My computer and the clothes I¡¯d packed.¡¯ I answered, slightly relieved that I¡¯d been able to recall that much.


    ¡°What make was your computer? What did the outfits you have look like?¡± he asked, and left me confused once again. No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn¡¯t actually picture either thing in my head specifically. I vaguely knew what was in my luggage, but when I tried to picture the console or my wardrobe itself, I couldn¡¯t think of what they actually looked like. My memories made sense until I inspected them too closely, and saw that critical details were missing.


    ¡®I don¡¯t remember.¡¯ I typed out one word at a time, hoping that something of what he was asking me would just snap into my head while I was typing it. Nothing. I started to type frantically ¡®I¡¯m serious Doc, what is this? What¡¯s happening?¡¯


    He paused for just a moment. Looking down as if he were trying to avoid my gaze ¡°You mentioned to me once that your parents are back on Titan. What are their names? What do they look like?¡± he asked next.


    It didn¡¯t take more than a moment for me to message back this time, panic growing quickly ¡®Doc, what the fuck?¡¯ I was wondering if maybe I was having trouble thinking in general. Maybe this line of questioning was making my head spin too fast and I was forgetting things, CRITICAL details, because I was already in distress. Or maybe this was the result of grafting the ship to my brain. Maybe humans really weren¡¯t meant to do this. Maybe it had done irreparable harm to my mind. Had becoming Theseus made me lose some part of Meryll?


    ¡°Meryll, when were you born?¡± he finally asked. Frantically, I accessed his tablet and looked into my medical file. The date of birth field was empty. I hadn¡¯t even thought to look over the patient data portion of my file since I¡¯d thought the actual health condition was what was important, but there was simple data missing all over it. It was as if I had glossed over it on purpose on my previous reads.


    ¡®Please stop. Doc. You¡¯re scaring me. Tell me what the hell is happening here.¡¯ I typed out, but he seemed to be mulling something over silently. I was going crazy wondering what this could possibly mean, and in a panicked fit, I accessed the intercom and shouted ¡°DOC!¡± with the best approximation of my voice as I could.


    He flinched slightly at the buzzing electrical noise that accompanied my cry ¡°I¡­¡± he started, letting out a frustrated sigh ¡°There¡¯s always the possibility that the grafting process has had an effect on you. This is essentially a new science, after all. But given the evidence, I think someone may have manufactured your past. Manipulated your memory¡­ somehow. I don¡¯t know who or how or why, but judging by the fact that they can apparently create official documents good enough to fool a casual observer, someone powerful has¡­ effectively erased you. From the record and from yourself, by the sound of your responses.¡±


    ¡®That¡¯s impossible.¡¯ I typed instantly, a mixture of fear and anger that I had failed to answer every functionally easy personal question about my past that he¡¯d asked me overwhelmed me ¡®I know my memories, I have to! Ask me more!¡¯


    He shook his head ¡°Favorite¡­ childhood video program? What songs do you like to listen to? What¡¯s the best food you¡¯ve ever had?¡± he asked, clearly pulling questions off the top of his head now.


    ¡®Cheeseburger at Shelby¡¯s.¡¯ I typed in slowly, my eyes opening wide. I shut off my sensors and minimized the data stream. I couldn¡¯t work like this. I couldn¡¯t do anything like this. My world was crumbling around me. What did all of this mean? I frantically tried to grasp at any memory I had before boarding Theseus, but every minutia I should have remembered fell apart when I tried to get close enough to it to remember any specific detail. I had no trouble acquiring new memories since that day, it seemed, but my life before that was a blank slate.


    I knew details of common knowledge things. I knew how to operate computers like an expert. No, like a computer myself. I understood language and critical thinking skills. But anything about my personal life gave way under scrutiny. Was any of it real? What memories could I trust? Everything since I¡¯d woken up in this very core module over a week ago was crystal clear, but anything before that was beginning to feel alien the more I thought of them. They felt false. I¡¯d been telling myself this entire trip that I was abandoning my past, but did I even have a past to abandon?


    Who was I? What was I? I felt a ping, but I ignored it. Even after it momentarily became more insistent, I couldn¡¯t bring myself to close my eyes, and whoever was on the other end must have given up. I couldn¡¯t perform my tasks as Theseus right now. I needed to be alone. I needed to think. I needed to find something that I could anchor myself to. Anything. I needed some piece of my past that made sense. At all.

 A Reliable Leader

    I was getting decent at ignoring the pings. I didn¡¯t know what was happening outside of my module at all. I refused to close my eyes to look, as if even momentarily peeking into reality might break my concentration and make me forget some crucial detail that I was about to touch that would jar everything back into place. Something that would somehow end this nightmare of missing detail.


    But there was nothing. My childhood. I knew that I¡¯d had it. I had a rough idea of what happened, how I was raised, but I couldn¡¯t imagine a conversation. A song. A comforting gesture. A birthday party. I knew I¡¯d learned to code early on from my parents, but I couldn¡¯t imagine actually sitting with them, looking at a terminal. I couldn¡¯t even imagine their faces. Their names. It had seemed like such unimportant information that I¡¯d always overlooked it when I thought of them before now. Were my parents even real people? I mean, I had to be born to someone, right?


    My imagination started to run wild. What if I didn¡¯t have parents. What if I was a clone. A ship core that by some fluke of nature was born with a fully cognizant mind, and this constructed set of memories was all just to smuggle me through the ferry system. Arthausen Syndrome barely existed on the networks. Could it just be an excuse used to transport someone like me through the colonies? Was it even a real medical condition at all? That would have to mean that Foundation was behind this. If so, then why put me on public transit at all? They could have just packed me in with their military mat¨¦riel. Were they looking for me? Was I already on their radar as a valuable piece of machinery? Would they take note of my absence from the crashed ferry when they came to retrieve it? Were they hunting me already? Would the fact that my records were accessed tip them off?


    I took a deep breath. This was all too much. But what could I do about it? The implications of this discovery were overwhelmingly horrifying, but I was already probably in the safest place that I possibly could be. This didn¡¯t change anything about my life going forward. I still wanted to be Theseus. I still wanted to fly the stars with Aisling¡¯s crew. I still wanted to do my part fucking over corporate interests, if not even more so now.


    Reluctantly, I closed my eyes, seeing the cascade of pings I¡¯d been ignoring. Nothing at an emergency level, thankfully, but still, I¡¯d apparently been unresponsive for almost an hour. It was starting to turn dark outside of the ship. I chose to overlook Doc¡¯s pings for now. I knew he was just the messenger, but I was scared to talk to him at the moment. Instead I turned to Aisling, seeing that she¡¯d pinged me at the navigation terminal ¡®Sorry.¡¯ Was all I sent, and waited for her to notice.


    She looked at it and sat down ¡°I know you¡¯re going through some shit right now, but that doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re allowed to go AWOL on me.¡± She scolded gently.


    ¡®I know. Sorry. I¡¯ll try not to let my personal issues get in the way of the job.¡¯ Maybe it was best if I just put my feelings aside entirely. Be the machine I very well could have been created to be. Be Theseus rather than Meryll.


    ¡°Whoa, easy.¡± She said in a calm tone ¡°If you got issues, you got issues. Long as you show up for emergencies, you¡¯re allowed to say you¡¯re not fit for duty at the moment and go have a cry or whatever you need to do. You just gotta let us know. Not like you put us off schedule or anything, I was just worried about you.¡±


    I sniffed and made a small smile. Best boss I ever had. The thought that she was perhaps the only boss I¡¯d ever had crossed my mind, but I tried to ignore the thought. ¡®I take it Doc told you what happened?¡¯ I asked.


    ¡°Well yeah, when you stop responding, my first instinct is to go to the core. Quite a pandora¡¯s box he opened, huh?¡± she gave a somber look up toward the sensor array above her.


    I nodded ¡®Yeah¡­ I¡¯m still not exactly sure what it all means. I don¡¯t know if I ever will. You know I could have a target on me, right?¡¯


    ¡°Meryll, we¡¯ve all got targets on us. If there¡¯s someone after you, you¡¯ll fit in better than ever on this ship. Half us got someone after us to study what we are, the other half got people after us for what we did, some are both. We don¡¯t stick together, we¡¯re all fucked. You¡¯re not making things here any worse than we already had it.¡± She spoke as if I was just blowing this all out of proportion. Was I? It certainly felt like everything was gradually falling apart around me. But maybe this was like pulling off a bandage. It had to happen, and it¡¯s better that I know now. Sure it only made more questions than answers, but it was progress. And this path of discovery couldn¡¯t be tragedy after tragedy forever. At a certain point, I would get answers, and then I suppose I would keep going in my new life. The life I¡¯d chosen. The life that I was able to choose. I had to keep telling myself that.


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    ¡®Thanks captain.¡¯ I started ¡®What did you need me for earlier anyway?¡¯


    ¡°You can close your cargo door. Ray¡¯s not coming back till morning.¡± She leaned back in her chair, relaxing herself slightly. Seems we would be taking a break after all ¡°It¡¯s a tribal thing. They do this whole ceremony when a warrior visits.¡±


    ¡®Okay, I heard that woman you met with call her that too. Some kind of title?¡¯ I had to ask, the more I heard about Earth tribals, the stranger they seemed to me.


    ¡°Warrior¡¯s what they call folks like Ray that leave the village and ahh¡­ well, they¡¯re adventurers I guess. The kind of people that have the guts to go out into Earth¡¯s wilderness and search out old world cities, chase down bad guys, and live outside the comfort of more organized places like this.¡± She explained, seeming to have a bit of a reverent tone toward the vagrant lifestyle she was describing. ¡°They¡¯re not welcome to settle in anywhere among the villages until they retire, but they are wildly celebrated when they show up for a visit.¡±


    ¡®Almost sounds like us.¡¯ I mused.


    She seemed to think about it for a moment ¡°I guess. Except tribals are deeply untrustworthy of anyone that comes from other worlds. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve noticed all those tattoos on Ray¡¯s body? They got a special technique for applying those, and they got some deeper meaning to each of them. Something about the way they do it that lets them spot a faker too. Ray¡¯s are authentic, so that¡¯s her passport to get into places like this. They¡¯re probably throwing a hell of a party with her. That¡¯s how it works. Warriors show up, hear peoples¡¯ troubles, listen in on rumors, get some good food, drink, and company. Then the next day, they leave back on their journey with a fresh batch of intel on where to go next and maybe some supplies if the village has them to spare.¡±


    ¡®And they trust her even though she came from space with us?¡¯ I was beginning to become fascinated by Earth culture. And it was a good distraction from the horrible revelation that still hung over me.


    ¡°Warriors go where the wind takes ¡®em. If that¡¯s with a crew to other worlds, they don¡¯t have a problem with that. They only care that they¡¯re from here, and they follow their traditions.¡± Aisling leaned back in her chair ¡°Ask me, it¡¯s more than a little close-minded, but a lot of Earthlings are like that. Most of the time, it works for them and it works for us, even if they can be real rude at times.¡±


    ¡®Wonder if I would¡¯ve been happier if I was born on Earth.¡¯ I mused. A simpler life without all the corporate bullshit I¡¯d always had to deal with. Or at least that I thought I¡¯d always had to deal with. Reacting to and celebrating the whims of nature and wanderers. It certainly sounded nice on the surface.


    ¡°Maybe.¡± Aisling seemed to take a moment to think on it herself ¡°I¡¯d definitely end up being a warrior if I was a tribal. Think you would too. You got more guts than sense. And I mean that as a compliment.¡±


    I really didn¡¯t see myself as ¡®having guts¡¯. I¡¯d been afraid to take risks my whole life. I paused on that thought. Had I? What if me being a cautious person had just been another false memory. It was hard to think of a specific moment that encapsulated that safe persona I¡¯d supposedly had. Every memory I had since they started to become clearer painted me more as a curious and reckless thrill-seeker who couldn¡¯t get enough of trying new things for the sake of seeing what would happen. Maybe I did have guts.


    ¡®This whole my entire life could be a lie thing is really starting to make me wonder who I am.¡¯ I sent her, trying not to freak out as I broached the subject again ¡®Like, I have memories of being a way different person than I obviously am now. Everything I know about myself is telling me that I would be freaking the fuck out about this whole joining up with pirates business. But after the initial shock, it¡¯s really not that disturbing to me.¡¯


    ¡°We try not to be disturbing people. Least not to the rest of the crew, and certain people we can trust. And you got in on that deal before we really got to know you on account of the fact that we had to trust you or we were stranded.¡± She smiled up at the sensor array ¡°I think it ended up as a pretty sweet deal for us. You¡¯re good people. If you weren¡¯t my ship, I¡¯d trust you by my side in a firefight.¡±


    I tried to imagine myself holding a gun, standing with the captain against someone else in the distance, and all I could think of was getting grievously wounded and not being able to hold my ground. ¡®I¡¯ll stick with aerial support, thanks. I¡¯ll leave the sharpshooter heroics to you.¡¯


    She laughed ¡°Suit yourself. More glory for the rest of us. I¡¯m gonna turn in early. You don¡¯t need to sleep when you¡¯re in there, right? How about you practice your voice a little more. Maybe tomorrow you can talk to us properly. Y¡¯know, without blowing our eardrums out with microphone feedback. And try not to worry about your past too much. You are who you are now, after all. Maybe our pasts shape us, but right here, in this moment, you¡¯re just you as you are. You¡¯ll figure it out.¡± Her smile felt reassuring. She had a way of making it seem like anything was possible.


    Best boss ever, I thought to myself again.

 Bounty Hunting

    Ray returned the next morning with a smile on her face, everyone standing in the cargo bay to welcome her when she arrived. She looked refreshed. I was there as well, at least in presence. As Aisling had promised, I was not removed from the core module at all for the duration of our mission, which was now only half over. I¡¯d spent most of the evening training my voice, and while what I had come up with definitely didn¡¯t sound at all human, it was no longer a garbled mess that made everyone¡¯s ears hurt. The feedback noise was gone and I¡¯d managed to make a vaguely feminine voice to welcome her along with the others.


    It was the kind of sound you¡¯d expect from a cheap voice AI, except rather than being a pre-generated recording, I was creating the audio on the fly, so it wouldn¡¯t even be considered good for that. Aisling even told me that I might be able to pass as an assistant AI if I kept my responses fairly stock. I would have to remember that if we managed to take the marks alive as planned. I kind of hoped we would manage it. After all, I certainly wouldn¡¯t be getting out if there was even the chance that they might see me during a checkup.


    Ray settled back into her room and produced more of that incense she liked so much. It must have been something from the village. After a short break, she joined the rest of the crew in the mess.


    ¡°Alright, listen up.¡± Aisling called, silencing the chatting crew, who laid all eyes on her. She motioned to Ray and let her take the floor.


    Ray cleared her throat and moved to Aisling¡¯s end of the table ¡°Last they heard, Shaw and his crew were holed up in an old refueling station about two kilometers north-north-west from here. Shouldn¡¯t be hard to spot from above since the place had underground biofuel tanks, so the ground¡¯s no good for vegetation to grow in. Meryll can spot the bald patch in the Earth for us and we¡¯ll grapple down. Word is they had some in-fighting about a week back, should only actually be two instead of three.¡±


    Joel grumbled ¡°Skulls aren¡¯t gonna like it, but what can you do?¡±


    ¡°Should be easier to get ¡®em to surrender though.¡± Aisling countered ¡°We¡¯ll see what we can do about the third when we get there. Might still be a body.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re going to see me coming, what if they run?¡± I asked.


    ¡°As far as we know, they don¡¯t have a ship of their own nearby, or they would just be in it.¡± Ray added ¡°And I guarantee, if they try to book it, I run faster than they do.¡±


    ¡°You should be able to stay in range to communicate on our comm channels, Meryll.¡± Aisling noted ¡°You¡¯ll be able to see if they make a break for the forest, just keep us informed. Do not open fire on the ground unless I give the say so or if you need countermeasures to defend yourself for some reason.¡± I had to wonder what two men in a temporary hideout could possibly have prepared to fight off a gunship, but I supposed that Aisling had probably had more unexpected things than that happen in her career. ¡°Joel, you¡¯re with me. Ray, you¡¯ll be taking a flanking position best you can. Mouse, you got fire support. Meryll, you¡¯re aerial support. Doc¡­¡± she paused for a moment, stammering a moment ¡°You¡¯re¡­ Meryll support.¡± She shrugged ¡°And medic if shit goes south.¡±


    ¡°So the usual, other than the newbie.¡± Joel smiled ¡°I like the usual.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve had aerial support from Theseus before too.¡± Mouse objected ¡°From our last ship core.¡±


    ¡°Last ship core wasn¡¯t a person.¡± Joel replied ¡°And we¡¯ve yet to see if that¡¯s a good thing. She¡¯s not battle-tested yet.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m right here, you know?¡± I declared from the intercom, eliciting a surprised expression from Joel hearing how much clearer my voice had become.


    ¡°I got a good feeling about her in that regard, Joel.¡± Aisling smiled, motioning for people to follow toward the cargo bay ¡°Come on, time to gear up. You too, Meryll. You¡¯re clear for takeoff.¡±


    ¡ª


    It was a strange feeling, hovering over land rather than sailing through the stars. I had to constantly vertically adjust my engines to fight the constant pull of gravity. As someone who grew up on a moon, planetary gravity had always been heavier than I cared for, but when you¡¯re a massive metal machine, it¡¯s even worse. Still, I¡¯d learned enough from the sims to hold steady at a cruising speed.


    My cargo bay door sat partially opened, and the wind whipped at the rest of the crew. They looked different with their gear on. Armored with tactical vests and carrying weapons. Mouse was the most jarring, hauling what looked to be a long bright yellow metal case, a handle along its length in each of his hands. I had to wonder what the small boy could possibly need so much gear for, but the fact that he needed both hands to hold onto it already told me it was even heavier than it looked.


    I wasn¡¯t familiar with guns yet, but Ray held a long-barreled one as well as what looked to be some kind of hooked sword on her back. Joel had what looked similar to a standard foundation rifle I¡¯d seen them carry around at military shows. Aisling, interestingly, wielded a smaller caliber. A handgun. The same one I¡¯d seen her threaten the ripper with the other day. I saw two more pistols at her hips and at least two more attached to her vest. Did she intend to use all of them somehow?


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    I scanned my outer sensors, and sure enough, in the far distance, there was a break in the trees marked by a large building. I turned up my volume to counter the sound of the wind ¡°Target spotted.¡± I declared ¡°You¡¯re really going to just jump out while I¡¯m moving?¡±


    Aisling nodded ¡°Landing will take too much time.¡± She said as she attached herself to a long cable at her waist. The others followed suit ¡°Nothing new for us, just worry about your role here.¡±


    I¡¯d be lying if I said I wasn¡¯t still worried, but it wasn¡¯t like I was in any position to object. ¡°You should land just South of the facility. If you get lost, it¡¯ll be straight North.¡± I said as I slowed my thrusters, hoping to give them as safe of a landing as I could. ¡°On target in ten.¡±


    Aisling nodded and started bouncing her head in second intervals, then as they walked together toward the end of the cargo hatch, she held a hand up for the others to see and counted down on her fingers before she took a running jump.


    Everyone quickly followed suit, including Mouse with his enormous box. I watched them disappear into the trees below and briefly considered checking in on the comms, but thought it best not to distract them. Instead, I turned to Doc for comfort. ¡°Ever do this with them?¡± I asked.


    ¡°A few times, when we¡¯ve had the opportunity to land first, yes. I¡¯ve shot people, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re wondering.¡± He said as he watched my vitals. They were elevated. ¡°Try to focus. This will be easier on you if you can get into a flow state.¡±


    I didn¡¯t really know what that meant, but I wasn¡¯t one to spurn Doc¡¯s advice. I¡¯d just have to try to let go of my reservations and act as the observer as planned.


    ¡°On the ground.¡± I heard Aisling over comms, and I made sure to retract the cables so they wouldn¡¯t interfere with my flying ¡°Mouse is setting up and we have eyes on the facility. Need eyes on the rear end, watch for runners.¡±


    I nodded to no one in particular, observing the grounds ¡°I don¡¯t see you, but one man hiding outside. South side of the facility, behind a green cargo container from your angle. Small weapon, trained your way¡± I reported, then turned my attention to the rear of the facility as I slowly passed by. I didn¡¯t see any movement, but I made a turn to begin circling so I could stay in range. ¡°No other contacts, they must be inside.¡± Talking to actual human beings was definitely felt different than it was in the ground support sims, but I was at least happy to know the terse vocabulary so I didn¡¯t crowd the comms too much.


    ¡°Mouse, fire for effect.¡± Aisling declared.


    ¡°I see him.¡± Mouse proclaimed.


    My sensors actually picked up the register of the gunfire that followed. A single shot who¡¯s marker was visible from high in the sky crashed into the container the man was behind. The container slid back from the sheer force of the massive bullet while the corner of it was torn, wrenched off the top of the heavy steel object, and was sent sailing across the facility¡¯s yard. Had Mouse carried a CANNON into the drop?!


    I couldn¡¯t read expressions from this far away, but I was almost certain that the hiding man had just shat himself in fear, the way he stumbled back and started to run toward the tree line.


    I saw movement where I expected the crew to come from and Aisling¡¯s voice came over comms again ¡°That one¡¯s all you Ray. Remember, shoot to stun unless you¡¯re in danger. Joel and I got the facility. Mouse, reload and be ready to assist. Meryll, keep eyes up for our other target and get ready to land in the nearest clearing on my say-so.¡±


    I immediately identified a fairly flat patch of land a few hundred meters from the treeline. I¡¯d have to crush a few smaller trees, but there were enough of them, I wasn¡¯t too concerned.


    I watched as the pair sidled up to the building, holding their respective weapons up as they swept over the large opening on one side of the building, and what came next was a series of declarations of ¡®Clear¡¯ from the two in sequence. He had to be in there. I was covering every escape route.


    A single shot of small arms fire rang out from the woods, interrupting the two ¡°Ray, report. Sh-!¡± she shouted and more fire erupted inside of the building.


    I was scared in that moment. I wished I had eyes on the ground now. What had just happened to both groups. Then another loud bang fired off, and another tracer from Mouse¡¯s position, straight through the building, this one traveling all the way through and into the woods behind it. That was one hell of a gun, but I wish I could see what he was trying to accomplish.


    More gunfire from inside, and then silence. I waited for someone to say something. They were alright, right?


    ¡°Nice shot, kid.¡± Aisling said, her breath heavy from exertion. I briefly opened my eyes and let out a deep breath that I hadn¡¯t realized that I was holding. The captain gave a frustrated sigh though ¡°Target down. Dead. Think he was stimmed up hard. There was no talking to him.¡±


    Ray¡¯s voice came in next ¡°You¡¯re never going to believe this.¡± She sounded frustrated.


    ¡°Yours dead too?¡± Joel muttered.


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t my shot, and it wasn¡¯t aimed at me.¡± Ray groaned loudly.


    There was a long silence on comms before Joel spoke up again ¡°No way, he pussed out?¡± he asked angrily.


    ¡°Not how I would¡¯ve said it, but yeah.¡± I could feel Ray rolling her eyes at Joel despite everyone¡¯s distance.


    There was silence over the comms for awhile and I could sense the tension. This mission hadn¡¯t ended well. ¡°Land.¡± Was all I heard from Aisling¡¯s commanding tone, and I quickly moved to obey, setting course for the spot I¡¯d dedicated. ¡°Rest of you, group up with the bodies, we¡¯ll see if we can at least find the third.


    ¡ª


    ¡°Aisling sounded pissed.¡± I said to Doc on my heart¡¯s intercom unit ¡°I hope we can still get paid.¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t be as much, but we¡¯ll get through.¡± Doc replied ¡°She did also get winged in that firefight. A flesh wound from the sound of it, but I won¡¯t know that she¡¯s not trying to be a tough guy until I get a proper look at it myself.¡±


    ¡°I just hope she¡¯s not too mad.¡± I knew that nothing that had just happened had been my fault, and Aisling wasn¡¯t going to blame me either. But I still felt like maybe I could have done more.


    ¡°She might be mopey for a bit. I¡¯ll try and cheer her up. But we should still be good on funds, even if they stiff us on most of the bounty.¡± Doc didn¡¯t seem to concerned with anything that just happened, but I anxiously awaited the rest of the crew¡¯s return, my external sensors sweeping the nearby tree line for their arrival.


    What came out of the woods surprised me though. Mouse with his repacked weapon of mass destruction, Ray and Joel, each with a gruesomely bullet-ridden body over their shoulder, and Aisling with a wide smile on her face and what appeared to be a living breathing human man, gagged and bound with thick cable.

 A Brief Interrogation

    I eagerly opened my cargo door, wondering what the hell had happened between dropping comms and the crew¡¯s return that they somehow suddenly had a prisoner when both targets were dead. Was this the rumored separatist of the three? How was he still alive?


    I shook off the confusion and turned the volume down on the intercom in my heart ¡°Uhh, crew¡¯s back¡­ and they got one alive?¡± I asked, watching him get just as confused.


    ¡°Theseus, be on your best behavior for our new guest!¡± I heard Aisling declare. The man couldn¡¯t know about me, so she couldn¡¯t refer to me by name. I¡¯d let it slide for now, but it didn¡¯t feel good.


    I guessed that I was playing the part of AI assistant now. I put on my best computer voice and activated the intercom to respond ¡°Yes, Captain.¡±


    The man was thrown unceremoniously into one of the empty crew quarter rooms. It would work as a makeshift brig. Aisling stepped away from him and slammed the door shut, leaving him to squirm for a bit as she locked it tight from the outside and then immediately walked into my heart. ¡°At ease.¡± She declared with a satisfied smile.


    ¡°Look at you acting all cool.¡± Doc huffed, motioning her to sit down on the medical bed. She rolled her eyes and obeyed, getting herself comfortable comfortable. ¡°Shoulder shot.¡± He muttered, moving over to a cabinet to grab a few supplies ¡°You were right though, it¡¯s just skin deep.¡±


    She clicked open her tactical vest, setting it aside and laying on her other arm so he could get a better look ¡°Told you. Patch me up, I need a word with our prisoner.¡±


    ¡°Care to explain that?¡± I chimed in ¡°I thought we botched this.¡±


    ¡°Not sure yet. That¡¯s why we need an interrogation. This guy was already tied up in the back room of that place. Wouldn¡¯t make sense for him to be a hostage, they already had their leverage with the supplies. Ray¡¯s gonna go grab that too, should get a decent finder¡¯s fee for it. But I think this guy¡¯s the one that broke off from them.¡±


    ¡°Why would they keep him alive?¡± Doc asked, beginning to open a bottle of alcohol over the wound.


    ¡°Don¡¯t know.¡± She clenched her teeth as the wound was doused with the cleansing fluid. ¡°I¡¯ll give him a chance to be honest. Don¡¯t mention that we¡¯re taking him to his execution anywhere near him though.¡±


    ¡°And I guess I¡¯m just Theseus until we get him out of here?¡± I asked. It felt a little bit dehumanizing, and frankly, I was already feeling pretty insecure about my status as a person after recent revelations and the damper test.


    ¡°You¡¯re an assistant AI, yeah.¡± Aisling nodded ¡°Shouldn¡¯t take more than a few hours to get back to Luna and hand him over, and he won¡¯t be moving from his room¡­ you gonna be okay?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Captain.¡± I said with my best effort at a sarcastic tone, watching the captain flinch slightly as Doc wrapped a bandage over her shoulder.


    She took in a deep breath and flexed her shoulder a little, satisfied with the wrap, and she stood up again, ready to move toward the door ¡°Alright, as soon as Ray¡¯s on board with the goods, take us off this rock. I¡¯m going to have a word with our guest, see if I can confirm who I think he is.¡±


    She stood up and walked back out of my heart, and I was left alone with Doc again ¡°Well¡­ that was certainly unexpected.¡± He smiled ¡°There¡¯s always a surprise in these missions, they never go exactly as we plan. But I suppose this is a pretty good resolution.¡±


    Of course I had to follow along. I was just as curious about this bound bandit. Aisling opened the door again and closed it behind her, cracking her knuckles in front of her ¡°Alright. Time to fess up.¡± She knelt down and ripped the gag out of his mouth, eliciting a pained groan as he tried to get feeling back into his mouth ¡°How¡¯s it going, Shaw?¡± she asked quickly.


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    Shaw? Wasn¡¯t that the name of their leader? How had he ended up as the one who was tied up? That made no sense to me at all.


    The man took a few deep breaths and stretched his jaw without the thin bundle of cloth blocking his words ¡°Ow.¡± Was the first thing he said before he muttered ¡°I suppose there¡¯s no convincing you I was a hostage then. Got anything to eat? I¡¯m starving.¡±


    ¡°Oh good, you can talk.¡± Aisling dripped sarcasm as she tossed the gag aside ¡°Before we turn you in, I¡¯m a little curious how you ended up in such a compromising position. Must be quite the story.¡±


    He didn¡¯t seem terribly scared, miming bobbing his head back and forth as if having a loud internal debate about it ¡°Might be, but awful hard to think about it without something to chow down on.¡±


    Aisling rolled her eyes ¡°Theseus, tell Ray to grab a bowl for this asshole.¡±


    She knew me better than to think I wouldn¡¯t be listening in, I supposed ¡°Of course, captain.¡± I replied over the intercom and then shifted my presence down to the mess. Ray was already cooking something in a large pan that I really wished I could smell the moment I saw it. Doc had been right, Ray was a wonderful cook. Despite the simple ingredients she worked with, her meals so far had been delicious. I dropped my computer act and spoke to her ¡°Guess we¡¯re feeding the prisoner.¡± I warned her.


    ¡°I was already counting on it, Meryll.¡± She said with a small smile ¡°Prisoners are people too. Even scum like this deserve a proper last meal.¡±


    I really couldn¡¯t help but ascribe the term ¡®gentle giant¡¯ to Ray. She even cared for someone who we could have been in a battle against under slightly different circumstances. I felt a little bad that I probably wouldn¡¯t have been as considerate if I was in her shoes.


    I returned to the cell to see Aisling casually holding a knife in front of him as he spoke ¡°Can you believe these fuckers? No sense of loyalty.¡± He scoffed ¡°Once I learned the goods were Skull property, I told ¡®em we had to bail. Instead, they turn on me and get high waiting for the hammer to come down, thinking they could win. Fucking fools got what they deserved.¡±


    ¡°You say that like you didn¡¯t take the goods in the first place.¡± Aisling said impassionately ¡°You¡¯re not talking your way out of this.¡±


    The man gave a chuckle, seeming in much better spirits than someone ought to be in his situation. ¡°Yeah, I figured. Still, nice to get your story straight when you tried to do the right thing.¡±


    ¡°Being smart enough to try and save your hide after the fact doesn¡¯t mean you did the right thing. Your boys did screw you though. Could¡¯ve disappeared pretty easy if they didn¡¯t think you would flip on them.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll take my chances in a colony prison.¡± He sighed ¡°Least I¡¯ll get a chance to start over. They¡¯re gone for good.¡± Aisling stared down at him silently for a moment, flipping her knife back and forth in her hand. Was she considering breaking the news to him? ¡°What?¡± he asked, noting her silence.


    ¡°Nothing, just thinking.¡± She stood up, barely wavering as she grabbed hold of a metal bar by the door to keep her balance as we broke atmosphere. It was like she knew exactly when it would happen despite the artificial gravity keeping things steady. Was she that in-tune with the ship or was it just good timing? ¡°We¡¯ll be on Luna in a few hours. Sit tight, don¡¯t try anything stupid, and we¡¯ll get you in a nice comfy cell before morning. Theseus, if he does anything suspicious, get the core to shut off life support to this room.¡±


    I huffed. No publicly manufactured computer would be capable of anything like that. If she wanted me to act an AI, I supposed I may as well play the part well. I put my computer voice back on ¡°I cannot comply with that order, captain.¡±


    Aisling flinched, looking up at my sensor array with an expression of bewildered exhaustion ¡°And why¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Artificial Intelligence common law one. I may not, through my direct action or inaction, knowingly bring harm to a human being.¡± I almost felt like I was fucking with Aisling by saying it, a mischievous smirk coming over my face as the words came out, but it was true.


    ¡°New AI?¡± Shaw asked, an amused tone to his voice


    ¡°Yeah, still got some Foundation code to strip out, I guess.¡± She muttered ¡°Alright, well let me know if he tries to escape so ¡®I¡¯ can tell the core to make him dead.¡± She slammed the door to the cell shut again and started walking toward my heart with a small smile on her face ¡°Think you¡¯re real funny don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Gotta sell the bit.¡± I couldn¡¯t really laugh effectively in the lubricant, but my body certainly tried. I put my AI voice back on and spoke ¡°Computers never work how you want them to.¡±


    She rolled her eyes and turned toward the stairs ¡°Yeah, well, now that we¡¯re in the air, lock-in¡¯s over. Dry off and get your ass to the mess. You earned a good meal too out there, and I¡¯m sure you¡¯re getting sore.¡±

 Buried Histories

    I shivered as I sat on the medical bed, refusing to let Doc touch me or even dry myself off. It was too much. The sensation of touch just from my limbs touching anything at all felt like something foreign. Something overwhelming. Sitting on the bed itself was already such a strange sensation to me.


    Close to 48 hours. That had been the longest that I¡¯d ever consecutively stayed inside of the core module. I stared at it, wanting to jump back in immediately, but my hunger was almost unbearable now that my physical senses were waking up again. I knew that at the very least, I had to eat something before I returned to the comfort of the void. And to do that, I had to regain at least some semblance of my tolerance for any of my senses.


    It felt surreal to look around with my eyes and see the same layout as I did with my eyes closed again instead of the emptiness my mind had come to expect. Hearing things without the aid of sensor arrays was odd too. It was always overwhelming for a short time after I was expelled from the core module, but this was another level.


    I flinched when I heard Doc¡¯s voice, the sound piercing my ears ¡°This is why we do it every day.¡± He scolded. It definitely wasn¡¯t helping that the data stream had suddenly gotten busier than usual, flooding my mental vision with scanner data. I¡¯d told Aisling to warn me when she was doing a long range scan, but I supposed that this was payback for the disobedient AI gag I pulled.


    ¡°Shut up.¡± I muttered as quietly as I could manage, pushing the data aside. If Aisling wanted to see what was going on at Luna, she could be the one to look it over. I was trying, but it seemed that coming back down to physical reality after spending so long in the void was a difficult endeavor, especially distracted as I was now.


    He set down a towel next to me, giving me a pitying look as he stepped back and sat down. He spoke again, but in a mercifully softer tone ¡°We can¡¯t do this every time. I¡¯m going to have to insist on a regimen to acclimate you back to reality. Maybe I can ease the transfer a little bit better.¡±


    I closed my eyes, checking in on the prisoner. Thankfully he seemed to be cooperating, so I returned to my bed in reality ¡°How are we going to do that?¡± I asked quietly.


    ¡°For one, you have room in there to stretch your body. I¡¯ll have to give you some exercises you can do in zero gravity. I might be able to install some hardware for activating your physical senses. Maybe some earbuds. Nothing permanent or invasive.¡± He started clicking away at his terminal ¡°I¡¯ll think about how to do it. There is some coding I won¡¯t be able to do on my end that I need you to do though.¡±


    ¡°What you mean?¡± I asked, slowly beginning to acclimate to sound again after listening to Doc¡¯s gentle words for a bit.


    ¡°I mean I had an idea. It¡¯s the psionic damper.¡± He said slowly. I really didn¡¯t want to think about the damper right then. I could tell by his look that just the mention of it had increased my heart rate. ¡°Now I¡¯m not saying you have to use it at all, that¡¯s on you. But I think that a lot of your apprehension about it comes from the fact that you have very little control over it. I don¡¯t exactly understand the structure of it since I can¡¯t just look at your brain as if it were a computer, but what if you built an escape sequence? Might that be possible?¡±


    I hadn¡¯t considered it before. I was locked out of controlling anything while I was under the damper¡¯s influence, but if I had an internal killswitch¡­ if I could end it whenever I pleased, then he was right. It wouldn¡¯t have to be as scary then. It would be a compromise on the security it guarded against, since I would have to make sure I didn¡¯t end it prematurely, before the deadly psionic shock had passed in the case of its intended use, but it would give me the option to end it before its full programmed duration had expired. I nodded slowly to Doc ¡°I¡¯ll¡­ try to figure it out. Thanks for the idea.¡±


    He nodded and watched as I reached a hand out for the towel, flinching as the cloth brushed my skin. It was still too much. ¡°Take it easy. You got time until dinner.¡± He reassured me. I nodded and closed my eyes to check on the prisoner again.


    ¡ª


    Fifteen minutes passed, and I was almost beginning to feel like a human being again. I¡¯d managed to dry myself off with some careful effort, and I¡¯d put on my leggings. The shirt was giving me trouble since it was so loose and the feeling of it fluttering against my skin was more than a little irritating ¡°I¡¯m going clothes shopping with my share of this job.¡± I muttered.


    ¡°Doubt there¡¯s gonna be much to go around. Because of how long we were idle, I know that we had to go through most of our emergency fund resupplying, fixing the ship, and well¡­ frankly, outfitting you. So this is catch-up work. Not much is going into our personal funds from this. You¡¯ll probably have to wait till we finish the next one before you can start making luxury purchases.¡±


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    I groaned. I supposed it was worth it, given the high end parts I¡¯d gotten, but it was still disappointing to hear I wouldn¡¯t be getting much of a paycheck out of this. ¡°How¡¯s the pay under normal circumstances?¡±


    Doc gave a quick laugh ¡°There is absolutely never anything normal about crewing Theseus. But yeah, usually she¡¯s quite generous. Captain¡¯s not in this to make money.¡±


    I had to wonder what he meant by that ¡°Does she not take a cut?¡± I asked, surprised.


    ¡°Well, yeah, course she does. Just it¡¯s not any bigger than anyone else¡¯s. Long as the ship¡¯s outfitted and she¡¯s got a bit set aside for when we run into trouble, she¡¯s perfectly fine to take as much as the rest of us for herself.¡±


    It was a little hard to believe that. In many ways, she was competent, if not fantastic, in most facets of this life. She had charisma and knew how to handle herself in combat. She understood her ship very well, and understood the people she interacted with. Sure, she was surrounded by people that were arguably more skilled in much narrower fields than she was. I knew I couldn¡¯t ask her to perform complex computer management tasks like I could, for instance. But being the owner of the ship and the handler of our contracts, it was hard to imagine that she wouldn¡¯t at least try to claim a greater portion of the funds. I wouldn¡¯t even have blamed her for it if she did. ¡°So what does she do this for then?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Careful where you tread on that topic.¡± Doc warned ¡°Aisling doesn¡¯t take kindly to people poking around about it. I only know that she and Ray started this whole business together, before I learned better than to keep my nose out of places it doesn¡¯t belong. Captain¡¯s a closed book and she very much wants to keep it that way. Respect her privacy on it.¡±


    I nodded ¡°I guess if it¡¯s that important she keep it secret¡­¡± I said reluctantly. If anything, my curiosity was piqued, but Aisling was a really good captain who¡¯d earned my respect and the respect of the rest of the crew very easily. She treated us as equals, and she knew how to lead. I supposed that was all I really needed to know, but it was still going to nag at me.


    I felt brave enough to put my shirt back on and try my hand at standing up after that. With some help from the bed and the wall, I was able to get to my feet. Doc came to help me walk toward the door, and soon, he was guiding me down the stairs. I couldn¡¯t lie to myself, actually moving around did make me feel a little bit better. My body celebrated actually being used as it was intended, even though I was exhausted by the time I was in my seat at the table.


    Ray turned from her cooking to look at us coming down the stairs and frowned "Mm¡­ Meryll, you''re not looking so great."


    "Not feeling so great either if I''m being honest,¡± I said as I rested my back against the chair, feeling a tingle up my spine from contacting it "How do you stand something like hibernation for a week and you''re perfectly fine? And fuck, is that stirfry? Oh my god i love you."


    "Because I take the time to stretch coming out of it, and I take care of my body otherwise." She smiled, taking the praise for her cooking in stride ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re starting to get an appreciation for home cooking.¡±


    Joel walked in from the stairway and gave Ray a nod "Smells good." And then he turned to me "You enjoy the show earlier?" He asked.


    I was too disoriented for Joel¡¯s shit right then. "What do you want from me? Should I have plowed Theseus into the ground so I could shoot at them with starship cannons in atmosphere? I gave you intel." I was honestly starting to get tired of his jabs.


    ¡°You did fine.¡± Joel admitted, getting a surprised nod from me ¡°Just didn¡¯t really do much to prove yourself.¡±


    ¡°Feel like that¡¯s about as close to a compliment as I¡¯m ever gonna get from you.¡± I muttered ¡°We know I was probably never actually a corpo anything now, you know. You can quit it with the hate.¡±


    ¡°Maybe not.¡± He shrugged ¡°But you still had the mindset of one. You¡¯re not as bad as I thought you could be, but I still don¡¯t trust you.¡±


    ¡°Easy about digging up the past, Joel.¡± Aisling called as she came down the steps. My eyes shot to her tablet and with a little bit of concentration, I pinged it ¡®Why do you keep him around?¡¯ She raised an eyebrow and picked up the terminal, quickly typing back ¡®Easy about digging up the past, Meryll.¡¯ She typed back. That caught me off guard. What kind of history did those two have, I had to wonder. The captain briefly showed a look of irritation on her face, but she leaned up to take a look at the pan ¡°Is that steak? Damn, what¡¯s the occasion?¡± she asked, trying to ignore what I¡¯d just asked. I knew better now than to pick at it further.


    ¡°A gift from our homeworld.¡± Ray answered. It must have been something she¡¯d picked up from the village the previous night. ¡°It won¡¯t keep forever, and I figured we could use a victory meal.¡±


    Aisling nodded, satisfied with the meal before she let out a sigh and her tone turned more serious ¡°We gotta take a longer route around Luna.¡± Aisling declared suddenly, making everyone look up at her in surprise. ¡°There¡¯s a foundation patrol coming through.¡± She turned to me specifically to elaborate ¡°They never stick around more than a day, and I¡¯m not risking running into them, so we¡¯ll take our time swinging around. Prisoner¡¯s not going anywhere, and frankly, Doc¡¯s let me know that our core could use a bit of a break.¡±


    I glared daggers at Doc, who was trying to look away from me and pretend disinterested in the conversation. It must have been a message on their terminals I¡¯d been too distracted to see. Doc was pretty good at getting messages around me, it seemed. ¡°Fine. I think I¡¯d rather not run into them myself.¡± I conceded ¡°But I¡¯ll only stay out of the core module for the night.¡±

 A Neat Trick

    Full as I¡¯d ever felt within my brief period of reliable memory, I sat at the dinner table, feeling that if I dozed off right there, maybe I''d be so satiated as to sleep soundly. Maybe I wouldn¡¯t have a nightmare again and just dream nice things about Ray¡¯s delicious cooking and enjoying a full belly. Wishful thinking, given that this would be the first time sleeping since the unreliability of my memory had come to light.


    I closed my eyes to take another peek at our prisoner, and noticed that he wasn''t sitting in the same place that he was before. He must have gotten restless and squirmed his way across the room at some point during dinner to sit against the far wall.


    "Think our mark needs some enrichment." I joked to the others at the table, who¡¯d taken note of me closing my eyes "Who''s bringing him his last meal?" I asked.


    "Joel." Aisling said before anyone could volunteer, a smirk on her face.


    I expected a grumbled objection, but instead I heard "Alright." Followed by Joel moving dutifully to pick up the extra plate that had been prepared


    "And actually give it to him. Don''t be a dick." Ray scolded.


    "Yeah, yeah. Don''t need him starving to death before we get paid." He said as he walked up the stairwell. Closing my eyes, I focused in on the temporary brig. Shaw was witty, and Joel was certainly going to gloat. I had to watch this exchange.


    I frowned as I watched the cell though. Something was¡­ unusual. I couldn''t put my finger on it, but I had a bad feeling. It was hard to get the kind of clarity I wanted while I was outside the void though. I had to stare at it for a minute to figure it out.


    Then I managed to spot what had been bothering me. A hand. I could see his hand behind his back. Before dinner, his hands were bound inside of the wrapped cables. I opened my eyes and shouted as loud as I could "Joel!" Standing up immediately and seeing everyone else''s eyes turn to me.


    "Shaw untied himself!" I proclaimed. Aisling was on her feet with me immediately, bolting for the stairs, shouting after Joel herself. The others followed on her tail. I knew that I wouldn''t be able to keep up.


    Instead, I tapped into the intercom. I certainly couldn''t synthesize a voice while I was out of the core module, though, so I hesitated. It took me more time than I''d like to admit to realize that I could have just walked to the wall, physically pressed the button, and just talked. But I didn''t. I wasn¡¯t thinking like a person at the time.


    I looked in on the cell again to see Joel standing over Shaw, and I pursed my lips. I had to warn him somehow. I tapped the intercom and just sent noise through, causing both men to look toward the speaker. I heard Aisling¡¯s voice calling through from the hallway, and Joel whipped his head around again in confusion toward the open door, but this time Shaw realized he must have been had and made his move.


    He swept his leg out, discarding the cables that he was holding against himself like a blanket, and knocked Joel to the floor, making him spill the plate of food all over the wall. He grabbed hold of Joel and wrestled him down against him onto the floor. Joel was on top, but Shaw had a strong hold on his neck. By then, Aisling was standing in the doorway with her pistol drawn, and Shaw was holding what looked like a jagged piece of metal to Joel¡¯s neck.


    ¡°Where you think this is gonna go, Shaw? Put him down.¡± She demanded, while Shaw did his best to try and drag Joel further away into the room.


    Shaw had a confident smile on his face ¡°Now now, I just want a word.¡± He grunted as Joel tried to pull away from him again, but pulled him back into position. Seemed that he wasn¡¯t as weak as he¡¯d let on. And where did he get that makeshift weapon?


    ¡°Shoot him, Captain.¡± Joel grunted angrily, trying to make a move, but unable to do much with the metal at his throat


    ¡°Go on, say your peace.¡± Aisling said patiently, weapon still trained on the man.


    ¡°You turn this ship around and I won¡¯t slit your boy ear to ear. Tell the skulls I got away, I¡¯ll even share a couple of my caches back on Earth with you. Gotta be worth more than my bounty.¡± He grunted, shifting himself up slowly to a sitting position while still holding Joel in front of him.


    There was a short silence where they stared each other down, Joel making no leeway on struggling himself out. No one else was armed at the time, so they were standing outside, watching closely. ¡°Theseus.¡± Aisling said next, stepping into the room and holding onto the metal bar she¡¯d used earlier when we broke atmosphere. I was listening closely. ¡°Why don¡¯t you stop us right here, so we can work out the details.¡±


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    She emphasized the word stop more than she usually would. Stop? We were going full speed. If I halted momentum¡­ I was reminded of the lesson I¡¯d learned on my first day piloting Theseus. It was hard to operate quickly from the mess hall, but I pulled up my piloting interface and not only killed all of the engines at once. I put them all into full reverse in the same command.


    In an instant, Aisling was the only one left standing, the artificial gravity system struggling to keep up with the sudden drastic change of relative momentum. While the rest of the crew fell over each other in the hallway, Joel was given new opportunity to reassert his struggle, tumbling away from Shaw, and leaving the prisoner open to Aisling¡¯s sights.


    When Shaw got his bearings enough to look up from the floor again, the captain had him dead to rights ¡°You were saying?¡± she asked, the surprised man holding his hands up in surrender.


    ¡°Okay¡­ you¡¯re resourceful, I¡¯ll give you that.¡± The man panted as he watched the rest of the crew getting up off of the floor, including Joel, who looked pissed. He dropped his weapon and it¡­ dissolved? My sensors must have been malfunctioning, or it was a glitch in the data stream. ¡°Deal¡¯s still on the table,¡± he said ¡°Surely we can work something out?¡±


    Aisling growled and redoubled the grip on her pistol with both hands ¡°Skulls I can at least trust a little. You, not so much.¡± She put her weapon down and motioned to Joel to come past her, out of the room ¡°You pull shit like that again, you get shot on the spot, bounty be damned.¡± She stepped back out and closed the door tight, locking him in once more from the outside.


    I breathed a sigh of relief that it hadn¡¯t gone worse than that, and started correcting our course back toward the far side of Luna, setting us into a slow orbit while I walked up the stairs to join the others.


    As I came up, I opened my eyes to see Joel glaring my way ¡°Thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on him.¡± He growled at me.


    I took a deep breath. I had been keeping an eye on him, that was the thing. There was nothing in that room that could have freed him from those cables like that ¡°Joel, how did he get out of those bindings?¡± I asked.


    ¡°How the fuck should I know! You¡¯re the one who sees everything on this ship!¡± he shouted.


    ¡°Exactly, and I didn¡¯t see him getting the kind of tool he¡¯d need for that.¡± I explained ¡°I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on any more than you do with this guy. I think he¡¯s got¡­ something weird going on with him.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t use a shiv to get through that door anyway.¡± Aisling said, sounding just as angry as Joel and I were at each other ¡°No one goes in that room unless we absolutely have to. If we do, we do it in pairs, with an armed guard at the door. Got it?¡± the rest of the crew nodded in agreement ¡°This was no one¡¯s fault but his. If Meryll didn¡¯t spot it when she did, who knows what he would¡¯ve done? So no grudges between you now. Everyone back to your duties.¡± She declared, finally putting her pistol back into its holster.


    I breathed a sigh of relief. That kind of encounter within my own shell was uncomfortable to say the least. It was supposed to be safe in here. But I supposed that I needed to reassess my views on safety, if this was the kind of thing that happened regularly. As the crew dispersed, I found myself standing side by side with Aisling on the way to my heart ¡°I¡¯ll be able to keep a closer eye on him if I¡¯m back in the core module.¡± I offered.


    She sighed, putting a hand on my shoulder ¡°Doc¡¯s gonna have to run a thorough check on you. You were in that thing for too long. Get him to look you over. Make sure you¡¯re not falling apart. Physically or mentally. And get some fucking sleep, you look tired as hell.¡± she spoke sternly. I knew that she had just told us that no one was in trouble over this, but I couldn¡¯t help but feel like I was being scolded. I nodded along to her and she patted me on the shoulder a few times ¡°You did good, Meryll. You¡¯re not a computer, and you don¡¯t gotta be perfect and catch every little thing as it happens. You did about as good as I could¡¯ve expected from a normal security guard there. And I know you¡¯re gonna get better the more you get used to this ship thing. Keep it up. But take care of yourself too.¡± She let go of me and walked away, a concerned look on her face as she turned in to her own dormitory.


    I know she was trying to reassure me, but it made me feel like I let her down on some level. I supposed that I would get better at monitoring things while also utilizing my physical body, but in a life or death matter like that, it would have helped if I¡¯d spotted whatever he¡¯d done as soon as it happened. I needed to finish that sensor script.


    I knew she was right about my health though. We still didn¡¯t perfectly understand what the core module was doing to me. When I walked into my heart, I sat down on the bed and laid back. I could have just ignored what she said and got back into the void. I wondered if standard cores regularly spent this long outside of their modules anyway. I wasn¡¯t really savvy on exactly what normal ship core care was like. I imagined that these inspections probably took minutes. They likely just fed their bodies through nutrient saline solutions or something, and then put them right back into the system.


    I closed my eyes to adjust myself up to speed again and check on Shaw. He was pacing now that it was obvious that he was free of his bindings, but he didn¡¯t look like he was making any kind of meaningful move. I didn¡¯t really like that he seemed to be in thought though. It meant he hadn¡¯t given up. He was planning something.


    With the adrenaline of the situation beginning to fade, I was still feeling pretty tired from the heavy meal and my extended period without actual sleep. I knew that it would quickly wash away if I got into the void, but Doc and Aisling were right. I was dead tired. Closing my eyes didn¡¯t help me rest, but my body did it anyway. We were in a steady orbit, and we would be for some time now, but for the time being, I needed this nap.

 Standoff

    The data stream felt strange. Unfamiliar, but uniform. The information made no sense. Almost like static, meant to occupy my mind rather than actually tell me anything at all. I tried to open my eyes, but my vision remained pitch dark, the data still flowing. it felt like the stream was being forced into me. Reaching up, I felt around my eyes and felt a metal visor. I felt calm, but curious, uncertain what was happening as I clicked the visor off, letting it float down in the fluid I was floating in. It felt familiar. Core lubricant. But when I opened my eyes, I didn¡¯t see my void. Clear glass sat between me and a dozen cylindrical chambers. Each one was filled with other women. They all looked exactly the same. It was as if I was looking into a series of mirrors. Long brown hair, thin form, each with a dull expression on their face despite their eyes not being visible behind the visors they had. Wires hooked into openings behind them on their necks. They all sat stock-still in their tubes, mouths slightly agape as their mental functions were drowned out by the digital static being fed to them.


    I reached out to the glass and started to pound on it. I didn¡¯t belong here. I had to get out. And after I¡¯d pushed my fist into it several times, suddenly there was a figure standing before me. A man in a suit, though I could discern no details. I was afraid. I backed up into my cylinder, but I couldn¡¯t keep moving away as his hand reached right through the glass, pushing a visor right back onto my face.


    ¡ª


    My eyes opened and I sat up gasping for air, cold sweat running down my face. Another dream. This one had been different, though. As I tried to catch my breath, the heart came into focus around me, and I saw that I didn¡¯t have the time to ponder what I¡¯d just seen. Across the room from me stood Shaw, and I saw him standing over Doc, who had crumpled onto the floor.


    As I started to come to my senses, and he tried to make sense of what he had previously thought was the ship core wearing a tropical button-down shirt that had just sat up and made eye contact with him, we both just stared for a long moment. I took in a deep breath to scream, but he ran across the room and shoved his hand over my mouth ¡°Shh-sh-sh, it¡¯s okay. Don¡¯t need to go making noise.¡± He said quietly, holding his hand out where impossibly, the metallic object he¡¯d held before simply¡­ appeared from nowhere into his hand, and he held it up to me. I started to breathe heavily, briefly taking note that he¡¯d closed the door to my heart. I¡¯d never been threatened this directly before. I¡¯d never felt this vulnerable. Was this another nightmare?


    I closed my eyes and sent out a general ping to the whole crew ¡®Shaw at core. Help.¡¯


    ¡°Hey, hey, no. Look at me.¡± He demanded, and I opened my eyes to look into his ¡°I¡¯m not gonna hurt you. And he¡¯s just knocked out. I don¡¯t like killing people that don¡¯t gotta be killed. So listen to me and you¡¯re gonna be okay, got it?¡± I nodded slowly, not wanting to seem like I was trying to break away. ¡°Good. You make any noise now, and I will have to make some bodies though, hmm?¡± he briefly looked away as a quiet beeping noise came out into the room behind him. Internally, I cursed myself because I realized that I¡¯d just pinged Doc¡¯s terminal too. Thankfully, he wrote it off quickly. I whimpered as he looked back to me and said ¡°Now where¡¯s the core?¡± he asked calmly ¡°Need to have a word with it, and it ain¡¯t exactly communicative if it¡¯s not in its little cell.¡±


    He slowly let go of my mouth, but still held the blade to my throat to emphasize I shouldn¡¯t scream. I didn¡¯t really know what I could tell him. There wasn¡¯t exactly another core around that I could point to. Aisling had dumped the body of the old one at some point while we were on Luna. He wouldn¡¯t believe me if I told him the core was somewhere else on the ship, because why would it be. I was too scared to think that I could defy his questions either. So I did what I had to do. I told him the truth.


    ¡°I-I am the core.¡± I stammered out nervously.


    He gave me a perplexed look and held his knife back ¡°Girl, you have some serious hardware, but I¡¯ve worked a ship before, you¡¯re no core. They don¡¯t talk.¡± He muttered and put it right back to my neck ¡°Now I ain¡¯t got much time, where¡¯s it at?¡±


    I was panicking now. He didn¡¯t believe me. But what else could I tell him? I closed my eyes and grasped for something, anything ¡°I-I¡¯m not lying. Check that tablet Doc dropped.¡± I said, my whole body shaking as I tapped into Doc¡¯s terminal and deleted my previous ping, sending a new one that said ¡®I¡¯m really the ship core.¡¯ Another beep came from the terminal right then as it received my message.


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    He couldn¡¯t ignore the timing of the message this time. He backed away slowly, still pointing the knife toward me, and reached down to pick up the tablet, looking at the message. His knife hand lowered slowly ¡°No shit.¡± He mumbled, to which I pinged it again ¡®yes shit.¡¯ And he couldn¡¯t deny it any longer after that.


    ¡°Look, if you kill me, you¡¯re fucked.¡± I started, swallowing hard as I tried to collect myself to make a defense, but started talking way too fast ¡°I die and this ship is stranded. Best case scenario, they flag Luna to get hitched back to where we were taking you anyway. Worst case, they can¡¯t cancel the engine thrust and we just going forward forever. You can¡¯t afford to kill me.¡± He wouldn¡¯t have any way of knowing that we were already in orbit, so I figured a bluff like that wasn¡¯t a stretch.


    Shaw set the tablet aside, but kept his knife pointed toward me, his mouth open as he tried to come up with what to say. I didn¡¯t blame him, how could he have possibly anticipated this? ¡°Well¡­ alright. And I guess if you can pull that trick with this tablet, then you wouldn¡¯t have any trouble-¡°


    There was a metal wrenching noise at the door, followed by a banging sound and the muffled sound of voices. I closed my eyes to see the rest of the crew standing outside, armed. But he¡¯d locked the door from the inside somehow, and if it was electrical, I didn¡¯t have access to it. ¡°-signaling the rest of the crew.¡± He finished ¡°Well, that complicates things. In a lot of ways. So I can¡¯t kill you. That certainly takes away some leverage.¡± He admitted.


    I closed my eyes and pinged Aisling¡¯s tablet ¡®He forced me to tell him what I am. He knows he can¡¯t hurt me, I should be safe.¡¯ I was jarred back to physical reality, however, when I felt him grab my arm ¡°Come on then. If you¡¯re really the core, back in the tank then. You¡¯re taking me back to Earth.¡±


    I pulled my arm away from him ¡°And what if I don¡¯t?¡± I dared him, crossing my arms. I was very much still scared, but I at least had to put on a front for him.


    He didn¡¯t look impressed though. He just turned his knife and gestured toward Doc ¡°Well, what about him? He a critical starship part too? Do it or I kill him.¡± He shrugged.


    I looked past him at Doc, who was still very much unconscious. Well, so much for my advantage. I closed my eyes and read a message from Aisling ¡®He welded the door shut somehow, we¡¯ll figure something out.¡¯


    I messaged ¡®He¡¯s threatening Doc if I don¡¯t take him back to Earth. I¡¯ll try to stall the best I can.¡¯ I then sighed and started to unbutton my shirt. This wasn¡¯t going to be easy.


    ¡ª


    I was back in the void, but not under any kind of good circumstances. I took a deep breath of the lubricant and wished that I had the time to acclimate myself back into things and relax again, It was extremely jarring when I heard tapping on the outside of the metal case. Going right to the sensors in my heart, I heard Shaw calling ¡°Hello. Not just hiding in there, are you?¡±


    I immediately turned on the intercom ¡°It¡¯s a sensory deprivation tank for a reason, you asshole! Quit hitting it!¡±


    ¡°Whoa!¡± he backed away from the core module ¡°Easy, girl, just checking. You really are just like, a living core, huh?¡±


    ¡°I am.¡± I said anxiously ¡°Now shut the fuck up and let me work.¡±


    I started bringing the engines back down to turn, but I made sure I was taking my time with it. Going into the hall outside, I had to see what the rest of the crew was doing. It looked like Mouse was carrying in a cutting torch of some sort. The others were standing far away past the hallway divider, presumably to be out of sight range of the sparks that would be happening.


    I tapped Aisling¡¯s tablet rather than the intercom, on the off-chance Shaw would be able to hear me through the door ¡®I¡¯m in the core module. How the hell did he get out of his cell?¡¯ I asked.


    Aisling tapped back ¡®He somehow cut through the locking device. I think he must have some kind of tech.¡¯


    ¡®Yeah, I¡¯ve seen him pull that knife out of thin air a couple times now. I thought it was just a glitch the first time, but this time it was right in front of me. That any kind of cyberware you¡¯ve heard of?¡¯


    ¡®No. He¡¯s definitely got something unique in there. Probably how he¡¯s keeping this door closed too. How¡¯s Doc?¡¯


    ¡®Unconscious, but breathing.¡¯ I was happy to report ¡®Should I try to feed him false flight data or something?¡¯


    ¡®No, do what he says for now. At this point I¡¯d say kill the fucker, but with Doc in there, that¡¯s not exactly possible for you without taking him out too. This guy¡¯s unpredictable. We gotta play by his rules ¡®til we can make an advantage happen.¡¯ She looked visibly aggravated, but her logic was sound. We didn¡¯t lose a whole lot by actually taking him back to Earth if we had to, and there were plenty of opportunities for us to regain the upper hand. ¡®Try talking to him. He¡¯s a loudmouth, so he might spill something.¡¯


    I returned my attention to my heart to see Shaw taking Doc¡¯s body to the back of the room, using me as a shield between him and the door. I turned on the intercom and asked ¡°Hey, Shaw. Wanna chat?¡±

 Keep Him Talking

    ¡°Not particularly, but seeing as we¡¯re gonna be here a minute, why not?¡± Shaw muttered, shuffling through Doc¡¯s possessions and finding a handgun that he chambered immediately and set to his belt.


    ¡®He has Doc¡¯s sidearm.¡¯ I immediately sent to Aisling and then continued ¡°That thing you were waving around. That¡¯s no ordinary knife.¡±


    ¡°You could say that.¡± He produced the knife again, and with my sensors, I took a closer look as it happened this time. It actually looked as if floating motes of metal were extending straight from his palm and forming together into a solid vaguely knife-like shape. I still had no idea what it was he was wielding, but I had an idea of its function then. He was somehow using something to reshape simple matter on the fly.


    I tried to query the general area of his body, and received a few pings back from electronics. He had implants. I guess I should have assumed that much if he was packing some kind of fine particle control tech; he would need a way to control it. I briefly wondered if I might be able to hack it, but since he had a gun now, it hardly mattered.


    ¡°That all it can do?¡± I asked next.


    He smirked ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you like to know? Your captain out there plugging questions into you for me? How about this. You answer my questions, I¡¯ll answer yours. Far as I care to, anyway. We can make a game out of it.¡±


    That was a dangerous prospect. He already knew far more about me than I wanted any stranger that could potentially spread the news should. ¡°Deal.¡± I said reluctantly ¡°As far as we care to.¡±


    He nodded ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± he asked. I was surprised that he asked for something so¡­ mundane.


    ¡°Meryll.¡± I answered begrudgingly.


    ¡°And Meryll, how does someone like you end up with a crew of¡­ privateers?¡± he asked in an almost mocking tone.


    I shrugged my shoulders. It was a really long story at this point ¡°Serendipity, I guess you would say. I stumbled onto them by happenstance and I liked it here. Things just fell into place and I ended up in this thing. My turn.¡± I couldn¡¯t keep letting him ask questions without retaliating ¡°Why¡¯d you take the supplies?¡±


    He let out a laugh ¡°Why do you think? Densely packed food¡¯s worth a lot of money. You steal stuff cause it¡¯s worth money.¡± He looked down at Doc and shrugged his shoulders ¡°He your boyfriend or something?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s gay.¡± I said flatly. What could this line of questioning possibly be leading to?


    ¡°Huh. Wouldn¡¯t have thought. Well, suppose that makes the next question easier. You¡¯re kinda cute, wanna blow this place when we get to Earth?¡± he raised his eyebrows and smiled toward the core.


    ¡°I¡¯M gay!¡± I declared, losing my patience with the man ¡°Was this seriously just an excuse to hit on me?!¡±


    ¡°I mean, kinda, yeah, but I guess I gotta think of something else to talk about now.¡± He wasn¡¯t taking this seriously at all. Even if I was interested in getting away from Theseus, I knew that he probably just saw dollar signs at the prospect of selling off a living ship core to someone ¡°Guess I could ask then, what¡¯cha think of that captain? I mean, I gotta say when she had that gun pointed at me and did that thing with the ship, hoo¡­ that¡­ that caused some interesting feelings, you know?¡± he chuckled ¡°Oh wait, that was you, wasn¡¯t it! You pulled that maneuver with the ship and made me drop the big guy!¡±


    ¡°I did.¡± I said slowly, trying to calm myself from being overwhelmingly angry at the man who was currently holding Doc and I hostage and not taking any of this seriously ¡°What¡¯s your plan back on Earth?¡±


    ¡°Hide for awhile. Cash in on some of my investments and lay low. Look for a new crew that¡¯s not as stupid and into drugs. Skulls will lose interest before too long.¡± He sighed, actually seeming to drop the act and becoming serious ¡°Not gonna lie, this is a pretty big setback, but I¡¯ve had worse.¡±


    ¡°How the fuck have you had worse than this?¡± I asked, genuinely curious now.


    ¡°Actually not the first time I¡¯ve been in this situation.¡± He admitted ¡°First time I¡¯ve had a sexy lesbian starship to talk me through it, but not the first time I¡¯ve had to hijack a ship full of people that hate me.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna make it perfectly clear right now that I don¡¯t like you.¡± I told him flatly, to which he held out his arms and smiled as if sarcastically asking ¡®why not?¡¯


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    ¡®Okay, I don¡¯t think I can stand talking to this guy another minute, are you almost done with that door?¡¯ I pinged Aisling. I looked, and Mouse was indeed cutting through the door right that minute.


    ¡°Tell them to back off now.¡± Shaw demanded as he started to see sparks coming through the door ¡°I got a hostage, remember?¡±


    ¡®He¡¯s demanding Mouse stop breaking in.¡¯ I pinged her again. And a moment later, the torch stopped. I looked out to see Aisling signaling him down. We¡¯d have to try something else. ¡®What about that gun Mouse had? Could it punch through the door?¡¯


    ¡®Yeah, and the rest of Theseus.¡¯ Aisling replied ¡®Use that thing in here and we¡¯re all sucking vacuum. We can¡¯t ambush him from out here, you gotta do something with what you have.¡¯


    ¡®With what I have? I have a dangerous bandit, with the only gun, who¡¯s physically way stronger than me, and an unconscious medical professional!¡¯ I reminded her, shaking my head. What was there to use in here? I looked around inside my heart. Was there something I was missing? There was life support, but I couldn¡¯t drain that without also killing Doc. The artificial gravity? That could cause some confusion, but that¡¯d probably just get Doc threatened again. At best, I could use the intercom to annoy him. And the rest of the consoles were just for monitoring my own vitals.


    ¡®Come on Meryll, there¡¯s gotta be something else. What have you learned about the guy?¡¯


    ¡®He¡¯s a cocky asshole. He¡¯s been through some shit and actually has some skills though. He has an implant that lets him control some kind of shaped metal, I don¡¯t really know how. That¡¯s probably how he escaped.¡¯


    ¡®Play to his ego. Get him to show off that implant.¡¯


    Maybe she had something there. The implant could show some remote vulnerabilities if I could see it in action a few more times. I trusted Aisling to know what she was doing, so I turned the intercom back on ¡°So that¡­ thing. Tool. You control that with your mind, right?¡± I asked.


    He looked a little surprised ¡°Well, yeah. How¡¯d you know?¡± he asked.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got an actual starship grafted to my brain, genius, how do you think? I understand how this kind of thing works by now.¡± I watched him shrug his shoulders ¡°I¡¯m asking cause I¡¯m interested. Maybe I¡¯ll get one myself. Can it shape into more than just a knife?¡±


    He debated talking about it for a moment, and then finally said ¡°There¡¯s not much of the material, so I can only make small things. And it starts acting weird if you try to let it get too far from your body. It¡¯s why I use a knife. Short and simple. But you can make tools too. Screwdriver, wrench, hammer.¡± He spun the shifting metal around in his hand as it made each of the devices rapidly. I noticed a lot of activity in the implant as he did it, and I was starting to learn how it operated. ¡°Not on the market though. Stole this right out of some Almaty fucker¡¯s brainstem. You know they were still hiding out here this long after the revolution? Think it might have been the guy¡¯s pet project, though, cause I ain¡¯t seen word of it since then. Lucky I know a good ripper who can put something that deep in me. So no, I don¡¯t think you¡¯re gonna be getting one. I keep pretty close tabs on a lot of military and corpo secrets, and I think I would¡¯ve caught something like what I got if it was more than a fluke. I¡¯m what most people call an information broker. Sell and trade secrets like this. So I get a lot of leads on interesting tech like this.¡±


    I had to hold my breath as I saw him pull Doc close and put his gun to his head ¡°So that¡¯s my big fun tech secret. How about you? How does a human being end up with the ability to control a starship. No holding back this time, I think he wants to hear too.¡± He tapped the gun to Doc¡¯s temple.


    Great. I actually had to tell him what I knew ¡°Look, you don¡¯t have to shoot him, I¡¯ll tell you what I know.¡± I started, then let out a sigh into the lubricant. This was really something I didn¡¯t want to leave the crew, but he had us. ¡°I have this condition called Arthausen Syndrome.¡± I started.


    Before I could continue, he quietly mouthed the words himself and he pulled the gun away from Doc¡¯s head to smile, clapping his hands together slowly ¡°Ohoho, that¡¯s a name I¡¯ve heard before. Tell me more.¡±


    ¡°Wait¡­ then you know what I am?¡± I asked. Could this shithead seriously know what was going on with me?


    Before he could answer, Doc suddenly lunged up at the man and started to struggle for the gun, actually getting it near Shaw¡¯s neck before he became aware enough to start pushing back. How long had he been waiting for an opportunity, I had to wonder. But I knew Shaw was stronger if he could wrestle Joel to the ground. This was our only opportunity. I had to do something.


    ¡°Son of a bitch.¡± Doc grumbled as he tried to turn the gun up at the man. The earlier rapid activity in Shaw¡¯s implant gave me a good avenue to break in while we were talking, but I couldn¡¯t do much more than short it out for the moment. He seemed surprised when the knife wouldn¡¯t form in his hand, so he just grabbed the gun with both of his hands and renewed his effort to turn it toward Doc.


    Thinking quick, I sent the signal to open the core module. It took a moment for the void to shut down, and the metal sphere to start opening up, but it was fast enough. Doc was losing the battle, and it was almost to the point where all Shaw would have to do would be to pull the trigger.


    That¡¯s when I popped up out of the goop, still holding my breath so I wouldn¡¯t have to retrain my lungs again just yet, and flung a large armful of lubricant directly at Shaw.


    He flinched and immediately got some on his hands, giving Doc the leverage he needed to wrench it away. Doc stood up quickly and kept the gun trained at Shaw, panting hard as I retched my lungs out onto the floor. Doc gave me a nod of approval before he waved the gun at him ¡°Don¡¯t you dare fucking move.¡± He demanded.


    ¡°Don¡¯t shoot him.¡± I managed to choke out despite still recovering from my all-too rapid transition between realities, leaning over the edge of my core module ¡°He knows-¡°


    ¡°Yeah, I caught that.¡± Doc said, holding the pistol with both hands as Shaw lifted his hands up in surrender once more, a look of exhausted annoyance on his face that he was still dripping lubricant. ¡°Go on. You like doing it so much, keep talking.¡± Doc demanded between heavy breaths.

 Problem After Problem

    I sat with a towel draped over me on the medical bed once more, but this time I hadn¡¯t been under for long enough for my senses to have gone haywire, and I just sat there watching Joel and Mouse stand over Shaw with rifles pointed at him on the floor. It had taken about a half hour for Mouse to cut his way through the door¡¯s locking mechanism. It dawned on me in that moment that my sense of shame about people seeing me in the nude had all but disappeared in my time with Theseus, if I ever had such a thing to begin with.


    Shaw didn¡¯t know much. He knew the name Arthausen, and he knew that it was a Foundation project, but he was evidently keen to get information from me as much as I was from him. We¡¯d already figured that Foundation was involved in some way, but Shaw was able to confirm that it was something that they were involved in directly, and that wasn¡¯t nothing. I knew now for sure that I was the product of some kind of military project. It didn¡¯t make me happy, but it was information.


    It was official, I was a weapon.


    ¡°How far did he send us back?¡± Aisling asked me patiently, clearly ready to forgive me if it was going to throw us off schedule.


    I smirked toward Shaw ¡°Never broke orbit yet. We barely lost any time. I must need more practice.¡±


    Aisling smiled back ¡°You can be a real ass sometimes, Meryll. Useful skill for people like us. Keep at it.¡± She pulled out her pistol and pointed it toward Shaw in a quick flourish ¡°As for you, I¡¯m not going to give you another chance to sneak around my ship. I should execute you right here.¡± The room went silent again, all eyes on Aisling, including Shaw with a grimace.


    Then she put it away again with an exhausted sigh ¡°But now I need to replace two bulkhead doors in the middle of my ship, so the money¡¯s more useful to me. No less than three people on guard duty around him at all times, all armed. Escort this fucker to a DIFFERENT cell, and stay in there with him. I¡¯ll make a shift schedule. Doc, take a rest. You and Meryll did a great job there.¡± Doc smiled at the compliment and looked toward me with a nod. I suppose I had to admit, I kinda did save his life there, in my own weird way.


    Aisling moved toward the door, motioning Joel and Mouse to follow. Joel shoved Shaw with an angry and impatient ¡°Get up.¡± And walked him out.


    ¡°Meryll, back in the tank.¡± Aisling ordered ¡°I know your sleep got interrupted, but Foundation¡¯s probably gone by now and we need to unload this guy before he pulls something else. You gonna be okay without Mouse?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, he¡¯s kept things in top shape.¡± I nodded ¡°And I¡¯m not complaining. I could use a nice long dip in the tank after all of this. I¡¯ll try to keep his implant suppressed, but I don¡¯t know if I can keep doing that forever.¡±


    She nodded to me ¡°You¡¯re doing a great job, Meryll. I mean it. Keep it up.¡± She flashed a thumbs up and walked through the hall to join her fellow jailors.


    ¡°Well¡­ that was a ride.¡± I told Doc as I stood up again, shedding the towel since drying off was a lost cause now.


    ¡°You¡¯re telling me. At least you got to go to sleep voluntarily before all this.¡± Doc rubbed the back of his head, feeling a sore spot where he¡¯d been struck by Shaw.


    ¡°How long were you awake, by the way?¡± I asked, eagerly approaching the core module.


    ¡°Around the time he started ranting about his tiny magic tool.¡± Doc muttered.


    ¡°Oh good, you missed the part where he tried to get in my pants.¡± I groaned.


    ¡°Yeah, his tiny magic tool, I just said that.¡± He somehow said with a straight face. I let out a loud laugh as I dropped down into the pool of lubricant.


    ¡ª


    ¡®Captain.¡¯ I pinged Aisling once I was back in the core module and settled in ¡®What are we going to do about him knowing about me now?¡¯ I asked.


    She looked down at her tablet from inside the awkward silence of Shaw¡¯s cell and tapped out her response ¡®I¡¯m thinking we cut out his tongue, I¡¯m getting real tired of it.¡¯


    ¡°You should really get a decorator in here. Maybe you could make this a crafts room or something.¡± Shaw interrupted Aisling¡¯s train of thought.


    She immediately typed out ¡®There has to be a more painful way than that though,¡¯ while Joel smacked him in the back of the head with the butt of his gun again.


    ¡®I¡¯ll leave you to figure it out then, I guess. Good luck.¡¯ I posted before moving to the exterior of the ship. It wouldn¡¯t take long to prepare for landing, but I sent out a long range ping to take a look at what traffic was like around Luna now.


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    Opening my eyes so I wouldn¡¯t be overwhelmed by the stream of data pouring in, I had to start thinking to myself, parsing the thoughts that had been interrupted by Shaw¡¯s trickery. What had I been a part of? I knew I had another bad dream, but I couldn¡¯t recall any of the details anymore. Just how deeply was I involved with Foundation that the condition I¡¯d supposedly had my whole life was also the name of a secret military project that this information broker had only just glimpsed the name of and nothing more? What were they hiding? Would I ever know, or should I just have been thankful that I¡¯d escaped whatever it was?


    Closing my eyes, I took a look around the system and froze. Something had changed since my last long range scan. The Dreadnought had started to move to Mars, which was already strange enough until I noticed that Luna itself had four noteworthy warships in geosynchronous orbit over the colony. This was far more than a patrol.


    Immediately, I pinged Aisling ¡®Captain, I need you at navigation. Now.¡¯


    ¡®Can¡¯t. I¡¯m not going to leave this asshole be. Why, is someone hailing us?¡¯ she asked back.


    ¡®I¡¯m not fucking around Aisling, there is a BLOCKADE over the colony!¡¯


    ¡°The fuck?¡± I heard her say out loud. She stormed out of the cell without another word and slammed the door shut behind her, causing Joel, Mouse, and Shaw each to exchange looks of confusion.


    I was already changing my orbit so that I wouldn¡¯t be going anywhere near the colony anymore while Aisling walked down the hall and stepped into the heart. She told Doc ¡°Change of plan, we got a situation. You watch that fucker too while I deal with this.¡±


    ¡°What about Meryll?¡± he asked, catching hold of a pistol thrown into his lap.


    ¡°Meryll¡¯s fine, just¡­ cover this while I figure out what¡¯s happening, alright?¡± she said as she rushed up the stairs. I sent out a more focused ping toward Luna and it quickly became apparent, they were all large foundation frigates.


    ¡°Talk to me Meryll, what the fuck is happening now?¡± Aisling called impatiently as she stepped onto the bridge, dropping down into her chair and looking at the panels displaying the data I¡¯d just gathered.


    ¡°Four frigates, right over Luna colony. This isn¡¯t a patrol, Aisling, this almost looks like an invasion or a strike force. Thought you said they¡¯d be gone by now.¡±


    ¡°Four?¡± She cried out in astonishment and began looking over the data herself ¡°Bloody hell¡­ yeah, that¡¯s some force they showed up in.¡± She muttered. ¡°Someone on the colony must have had a colossal fuckup if the corpos care this much about it. Shit.¡± She groaned, leaning back in her chair ¡°Isn¡¯t enough shit going wrong around here? Keep us away from them and get ready to break orbit. I¡¯ll try to get a relay to the Skulls, see if they can¡¯t come pick up their man. Too many of us are on their radar for us to risk grounding ourselves there now, and I¡¯m not holding onto this pile of shit until the heat dies down either.¡±


    She immediately started to type away at the terminal ¡°Thanks for letting me know, but holy shit, I¡¯m tempted to just airlock this fucker and go lay low on Earth. Or at least renegotiate the contract cause of all this trouble. This has been a shitshow.¡±


    She began typing away at what I could only describe as a furious pace while I started to slow us down. Seemed we wouldn¡¯t be landing soon after all. ¡°Should I inform the crew?¡± I asked.


    ¡°On their terminals. Be sure to preface the fact that Shaw doesn¡¯t hear any of this. If he thinks there¡¯s anything wrong, he¡¯s gonna try something stupid again.¡± She sighed ¡°Gimme some space for a bit, I need to think.¡±


    I nodded and began drafting the announcement to the crew. It didn¡¯t take long, it¡¯s not like there was a lot to say, even if the gravity of the situation was pretty heavy. I realized, however, that I would have to tell one of the crew directly. Ray didn¡¯t have a personal terminal.


    Looking down into her room, I saw that she was in the mess, an irritated expression on her face as she worked on cleaning some of the dishes. ¡°Hey Ray.¡± I sent through the intercom to make sure I didn¡¯t surprise her with a bunch of information.


    ¡°Meryll.¡± She nodded solemnly. She looked more irate than usual, but I think everyone was at least a little bit pissed off after the morning¡¯s events ¡°How long until we land? I don¡¯t have a good feeling about our guest continuing to live on our ship at this point. It would probably have been a better call to just shoot him. He¡¯s too dangerous.¡±


    ¡°About that.¡± I started, trying to add a bit of appropriate tone to my voice, but it was lost. it was almost like I was trying to fake emotion, even though it was just me trying to portray it through a different medium than I was used to ¡°This can¡¯t get back to Shaw, but we can¡¯t land on Luna right now.¡±


    Ray almost slammed the dishes she was cleaning down into the sink again and turned to look at the intercom ¡°And why is that?¡±


    ¡°Foundation blockade. In force.¡± I explained ¡°We¡¯re going to try to get the skulls to meet us out here. I don¡¯t really know what¡¯s going to happen if we can¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Huh¡­ wonder what¡¯s got them riled up out to here.¡± She muttered angrily ¡°I¡¯ll gut that bastard myself if they keep us hanging.¡±


    I watched her go back to scrubbing hard at the dishes for a moment, unsure what had her so worked up. Yeah, Shaw was irritating, and we¡¯d just had a close call on the ship, but it was over now. He couldn¡¯t overpower three of us watching him. ¡°Are you alright?¡± I tried to ask gently.


    She stopped again, her voice softening slightly ¡°What time is it, Meryll? Earth time.¡±


    I was used to operating on Saturn¡¯s clock, just out of force of habit, so I had to do a few calculations in my head, aided by the ship before I answered ¡°Around 20:00? Is that how you say it?¡±


    She put the dish down and took a deep breath ¡°Sorry, I lost track of time. I need to take my medicine. Thanks for the heads up about our situation.¡± She made a half-hearted wave toward the intercom and then began walking toward her quarters. I hadn¡¯t been aware that the medication Mammons required would affect their mood. But I supposed that if I had some kind of physical deficiency like that that I had to keep up with, it would probably make me a little irate not to have it too.

 Paranoia Justified

    The wait was quickly becoming unpleasant. Shaw was wearing on everyone''s nerves, the Skulls'' responses were slow and unhelpful, and I was becoming increasingly unnerved by the fleet of our collective greatest enemy orbiting the same world that I was.


    I tried to keep myself occupied playing Horizon, but it was hard to concentrate on such a shallow approximation of being a starship when you simultaneously actually were one. I think I didn''t enjoy playing while I was in the core module.


    I shut down the game and adjusted my course for the hundredth time that evening. Briefly checking in on Shaw, I saw Ray, Joel, and Doc hovering over him, arguing about something. I''d turned off the audio sensor hours ago, tired of hearing his bullshit, and wished that I could offer to extend the courtesy to the others.


    Aisling was still on the bridge. She''d opened communications with the Skulls, but they kept trying to get her to land at the colony, no matter how much Aisling explained why that was a bad idea for us, them, and the colony. And the fact that there was a delay on the signal just made their responses that much more irritating.


    I heard the captain let out a frustrated growl. She was at her breaking point hearing them give her the same reassurances over and over that they had Foundation under control, and that we could easily slip in unnoticed. That her bounty wasn''t ''that bad'' and the corpos wouldn''t dare make a move on someone in their territory.


    I watched her type back her next response, practically slamming the keys ''If you''re not gonna work with me and send a ship to pick this fucker up in orbit, maybe he actually does have this better offer he keeps talking about.'' She sent the message and stood up to start pacing.


    "That''s gotta be a bluff, right?" I asked over the intercom. I wouldn¡¯t trust Shaw as far as I could throw him.


    She kept pacing and ignored my question, instead commanding "Been too long since we last scanned their fleet, gimme an update.¡±


    I set the long range scanners to ping orbital movement again, and quickly saw that they hadn¡¯t moved an inch from the last time ¡°They¡¯re just sitting there. I¡¯m not gonna lie, captain, I felt a little paranoid about it myself when I saw them, but wouldn¡¯t they have made a move on us by now if they were here for us?¡±


    ¡°What if the only reason they haven¡¯t is cause they don¡¯t know we¡¯re here?¡± Aisling muttered ¡°It¡¯s already real weird that they¡¯re here in that kind of force in the first place. I¡¯m gonna be honest, Meryll, I¡¯m afraid they¡¯re here looking for you.¡±


    I let out a deep breath. I¡¯d already gone through the steps to convince myself that that wasn¡¯t the case, so it was time to reassure the captain, I supposed. ¡°Look, as far as they¡¯ll be able to tell, I died in that accident on the way to Titan. If they were looking for me, why would they come to Luna? It¡¯s not like we left a trail for them to follow. And even if they were after me, why send a fleet? I¡¯m not exactly the most dangerous person.¡±


    Aisling clicked her tongue ¡°We did though. Gerald is a loose end.¡±


    I had considered the ripper as well. ¡°And if Gerald sold me out, it still takes a good week to get here from Mars, remember? They would¡¯ve had to be clairvoyant to have gotten here this fast.¡±


    ¡°No, they¡¯d just need to be faster than Theseus with two broken engines.¡± She stepped quickly to her terminal again, sitting down and opening up a new comms panel, ignoring the message she¡¯d received from the Skulls for now. She typed in an address and I briefly saw the contact page for the ripper. She wrote only ¡®Rats don¡¯t last long on Luna. Remember our deal.¡¯ And sent it his way before closing it out and going back to the Skulls¡¯ panel.


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    ¡®Fine. If you must insist, we¡¯ll send a transport. Send us your positional data and we¡¯ll send one of ours your way.¡¯ I saw the Captain stare at the screen unblinking for several minutes before she folded her hands in front of her face and spoke quietly ¡°Meryll, pull us out of orbit. Set course for Venus.¡±


    I hesitated for a long moment. Was she serious? ¡°What about the bounty?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Forget the bounty.¡± She said flatly, seething anger in her voice ¡°It¡¯s not public knowledge, but Skulls have a comprehensive array of satellites around this moon. They watch everything coming and going to Luna. I wouldn¡¯t need to send them our location. Network¡¯s compromised.¡± She closed the communication window ¡°Get us out of orbit. Right now.¡±


    Perhaps Aisling was being paranoid, but with that detail revealed, a shiver shot up my own spine. I pulled up the panel with my piloting controls on it and immediately followed orders, prepping escape velocity to head further into the system.


    Aisling, on the other hand, seemed to be in thought. Likely, she was planning our next move. If she was right about all of this, we needed to get somewhere safe. But where? Venus had a satellite colony, but I¡¯d heard that it was abandoned after corporate interest in the inner colonies fell apart. Of course, what did I know? It could be a thriving metropolis with how reliable my memory was.


    ¡°What about Shaw?¡± I asked, not wanting to bring up another unpleasant subject, but he was a pretty crucial part of the contract that we¡¯d just committed to abandoning.


    ¡°Need a word with him.¡± She said as she brandished her pistol and stood up again.


    ¡ª


    As the captain opened the cell door, I turned my hearing back on and heard Joel quip ¡°Shift change already?¡±


    ¡°Nope. Emergency strategy meeting.¡± She said, standing over Shaw and pointing her pistol at his head.


    The room went quiet ¡°What went wrong this time?¡± Ray sighed.


    Shaw frowned, trying to look back and see why it was that he was being threatened again for this meeting.


    ¡°Skulls are compromised. We¡¯re bailing.¡± Aisling explained in short ¡°So Shaw, you have about ten seconds to give me a really good reason not to dome you and throw you out the airlock as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°My charm and good looks?¡± Shaw smiled hopefully.


    ¡°Seven seconds.¡± Aisling said, cutting him off flatly.


    ¡°Okay, okay, maybe it¡¯s time that we calmed down and took this-¡°


    ¡°Four.¡±


    Shaw¡¯s eyes went wide as the gravity of his situation finally seemed to catch up to him all at once, fear showing in his eyes for the first time since I¡¯d first laid eyes on him ¡°I¡¯m cooperating! My resources are yours, alright? Whatever you need. Do you need information? Contacts? Passports? I-I don¡¯t know what kind of situation we¡¯re talking about here!¡±


    Aisling continued to hold her gun against him in silence for a long moment before she said ¡°Foundation. You inside any of their networks?¡± I¡¯d never seen her act this cold before, even when she¡¯d threatened Gerald the other day. She was quite the actress. Or maybe I¡¯d just never had the opportunity to see her this pissed off before. I unfortunately had to agree with Shaw in that moment, though: The captain¡¯s intensity was strangely attractive.


    ¡°I know people that are in their networks.¡± He said, closing his eyes ¡°Look, just drop me off back on Earth, I¡¯ll get you whatever info you-¡°


    ¡°We¡¯re not going to Earth. Too close to the fleet.¡± She declared.


    Shaw¡¯s forehead creased ¡°¡­ Fleet?¡± he echoed.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to make something perfectly clear, Shaw. You¡¯re not leaving this ship. You know too much. The only reason I¡¯m keeping you alive is because your potential usefulness only very marginally outweighs your annoyance.¡± Aisling reluctantly pulled her gun back ¡°You don¡¯t get to leave. You don¡¯t get to make demands. You are not part of my crew. You do what you¡¯re told, and I might keep you alive another day, got it?¡±


    ¡°Wait, seriously, what was that about a fleet?¡± he began. I heard the click of Aisling¡¯s pistol as she leveled it toward him again and with a loud bang, it went off. Everyone in the room flinched except for Aisling herself. Shaw cried out and lunged out on the floor, grasping at the newly opened hole in his leg and writhing in pain ¡°Frigid bitch! What was that for!?¡± he cried out.


    ¡°I just wanted to do that since you first opened your fucking mouth.¡± She said, putting the gun in her holster ¡°Promise I won¡¯t ¡®miss¡¯ next time. Doc, patch him up while he tells us who we can talk to on Venus.¡±

 A New Plan

    To say that I was nervous to have Shaw sitting back in my heart was would be an understatement. It hadn¡¯t been hours since the man had held me and Doc at knife-point, but now he sat on the same medical bed that I often slept on, getting a bullet dug out of his calf.


    ¡°The shooting thing really wasn¡¯t necessary, you know.¡± Shaw muttered to Doc, who was gathering a small bin full of surgical tools ¡°All you had to say was you¡¯re not bringing me to those Skull fucks anymore and I¡¯d play along. Those bastards are unhinged, would¡¯ve killed me.¡± It was remarkable just how unbearable he could continue to be after being so thoroughly put into place by the captain.


    ¡°That had been the plan, yes.¡± Joel retorted, still standing at the other side of the room with his rifle in hand. It helped ease some of us who¡¯d had to feel his blade at our necks before.


    Shaw did a double take back to Joel ¡°Oh, they¡¯d told you. Explains the hush hush treatment. Don¡¯t want to tell someone to their face that they¡¯re gonna die.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re just really annoying.¡± I piped in through the intercom.


    He put his head back and huffed ¡°Can¡¯t believe I¡¯m being disrespected by a starship now. Will you at least quit it with the implant, that hurts you know.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit.¡± I laughed silently. I wasn¡¯t about to just let him have access to his weapon again. ¡°I¡¯m loaded with implants, a little unhandled error in them doesn¡¯t cause any kind of feedback.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t blame me for trying.¡± He shrugged ¡°But really, I don¡¯t plan on trying that again now. You¡¯re really doing me a favor, taking me to Venus, if there¡¯s really that many warships at Luna. I¡¯m not exactly on Foundation¡¯s nice list either. Can¡¯t say I like that I¡¯m surrounded by people in the same boat though.¡±


    ¡°They probably just saw our handle and thought they¡¯d try to take us in while they¡¯re there, they¡¯re not gonna pursue us.¡± Joel rationalized ¡°If they brought that many ships just for us, they¡¯re shittier tacticians than I thought they were. Probably already starting a war with the pirate gangs just going this far.¡±


    ¡°What if they are after us though?¡± I asked, I didn¡¯t like the idea that there might be a literal army out just to find me.


    ¡°Then these guys are probably just gonna dump you on Venus so they can save themselves.¡± Shaw said in a matter-of-fact tone ¡°It¡¯s what I¡¯d do.¡±


    ¡°Well we¡¯re not you.¡± Joel growled angrily ¡°Much as I still don¡¯t trust her with my life, that¡¯s only cause she¡¯s too green. Meryll¡¯s one of us now. Captain wouldn¡¯t ditch her and neither would I.¡± I was actually surprised to hear that come out of Joel¡¯s mouth. I wouldn¡¯t have guessed that he would stand up for me like that at all.


    ¡°Wow¡­ thanks Joel.¡± I transmitted, trying to make sure I emphasized that I was being genuine ¡°That actually means a lot coming from you.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, you giant rustbucket, don¡¯t go crying on me again, don¡¯t need captain flipping me into more shelving.¡± He muttered, trying to sound hostile and failing spectacularly.


    ¡°Big happy family on this ship, are you?¡± Shaw grunted as Doc pushed him to lay down a little rougher than he had to and put his hands on the man¡¯s bleeding leg.


    Part of me did want to make another ping to see if we were being followed, now that we were on our way away from Earth¡¯s proximity, but Aisling had already warned me that it was a two-way signal. It was fine to do while we were in a high traffic area in orbit around Luna since the ping was anonymous, but drawing attention to ourselves out in wild space was asking for trouble. ¡°Say, what¡¯s on Venus anyway. I thought humanity ditched that colony.¡± I said slowly, hoping that it wasn¡¯t another falsehood implanted in me, like the Dario.


    ¡°Colonizing Venus itself is impossible.¡± Doc explained ¡°The terraforming it needs would be a whole new scientific field to undertake. It¡¯s not worth anyone¡¯s time. The Venus colony is just a space station in orbit around Venus.


    ¡°Doc¡¯ll feel right at home.¡± Joel smirked.


    ¡°I won¡¯t.¡± He replied as he began to reach into the small wound on Shaw¡¯s leg, fishing around for the bullet with a magnetic prong.


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    ¡°Ah¡­¡± Shaw grunted ¡°Never been to the inner colonies?¡± Shaw asked.


    Knowing it must have been addressed to me, I sighed into the lubricant. I really didn¡¯t want to talk to this man any more than I had to ¡°No. I haven¡¯t.¡± I left it at that, not wanting to get into my more recently discovered memory issues with the man.


    ¡°You know, they¡¯re probably gonna want a good look at you on Venus if they learn about you.¡± Shaw warned, stopping to inhale through his teeth as Doc extracted the tiny hunk of metal from the wound and put it into a tray ¡°Venus is a research station.¡±


    ¡°Research station?¡± I repeated ¡°Why would there be a research station in the inner colonies? I thought corporations abandoned this place.¡±


    ¡°Other than the occasional secret experiment and gang war now, I guess.¡± Joel muttered.


    ¡°It¡¯s not a corporate research facility.¡± Doc said as he began to pour alcohol over the man¡¯s wound ¡°It¡¯s independent. It¡¯s run by an obscenely rich, criminally eccentric man named William Skygraves, obsessed with learning the secret to immortality.¡± He sounded gravely serious as he spoke despite the obvious contempt he had for the very idea ¡°He respects all of the sciences. He does his own work in several fields, biology, computer science, physics, but his station¡¯s a haven for all sorts of researchers and inventors who are free to pursue their own work under his protection. Suppose he believes that if he brings enough brilliant minds together, someone¡¯s going to solve his problem with him.¡±


    ¡°So there¡¯s a scientist utopia orbiting Venus?¡± I asked skeptically ¡°What¡¯s the catch?¡±


    ¡°Surprisingly, not much. Man genuinely believes that people will naturally come to collaborate on a solution to the age-old problem of¡­ well, age.¡± Doc practically spat his words. He had a history with the subject, it seemed. ¡°I shudder to think what the place will be like without him though. Skygraves is, ironically, getting older. I think the place might descend into chaos if the ¡®benevolent¡¯ dictator starts to go mad in desperation.¡±


    ¡°I take it he¡¯s not close to his solution, then?¡± I asked. Surely, this man must have acquired his wealth in some horrible way just like all the richest people back on Titan, but it was somehow still sad, or rather pitiable, that there was a man so obsessed with escaping mortality that he¡¯d spent everything he had on its pursuit and still failed.


    ¡°Well, there is no solution.¡± Doc answered candidly ¡°People live and then they die. There¡¯s no way to stop time for a human body. We can¡¯t just halt our biology, it¡¯s a fantasy. Maybe we could find a way to computerize and upload our consciousness, but that wouldn¡¯t be immortality, that would just be making a copy of ourselves. And we¡¯re not even anywhere near having the technology to do that. The man¡¯s a quack who¡¯s easy for other eccentrics to take advantage of when they need to work in a place with less regulation.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like you¡¯re not a big fan?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Well, I watch them closely. They release fascinating studies and make technological advances in spades that are usually quickly bought out by corporate interests once it gets back to them.¡± He started, wrapping a bandage around Shaw¡¯s leg ¡°They¡¯re mad, all of them, but they¡¯re effective. And they¡¯re not directly, themselves, corporations. They mostly do this for the science. So we should be safe there.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re a strange lot, that¡¯s for sure.¡± Shaw agreed, grunting as he felt at the closed wound ¡°Bad business men in general. Would make good marks if they weren¡¯t such good sources of information. Better to stay on their good side.¡±


    ¡°Would they know anything about a sentient ship core?¡± I asked eagerly.


    ¡°If there¡¯s one place in the universe besides the heart of a corporate headquarters that would, it¡¯d be Venus.¡± Shaw shrugged ¡°Might know a couple people in the right fields, if I could get a little bit of leniency around here.¡±


    ¡°Bad idea. They might not be corpos, but they would still sell you out. You¡¯re probably not on their radar yet, so it¡¯s a better idea to lay low.¡± Joel muttered.


    ¡°For once, Joel¡¯s right.¡± Doc said, making Joel shake his head and snort in feigned irritation ¡°We don¡¯t know any Venusians we can trust to not signal Foundation. It¡¯s just going to be a place for us to hide out while Luna¡¯s under siege.¡± He patted Shaw¡¯s arm and wheeled back from the bed, starting to put tools into a sink ¡°As for you, don¡¯t do anything too stressful on that leg.¡±


    ¡°What would I even do?¡± Shaw demanded ¡°I¡¯m still a prisoner.¡±


    ¡°Captain¡¯s letting you be one small step above prisoner.¡± Joel corrected begrudgingly ¡°You¡¯re still a piece of shit who we¡¯re watching like hawks, but you¡¯re allowed to walk the ship. You¡¯ll always have a gun pointed at you, and you¡¯re not allowed anywhere near the bridge at all. Be glad she wouldn¡¯t listen to my advice to just pack you in a crate and kick you out the airlock.¡±


    Doc and Joel were right. The risk of trying to contact someone who might know what¡¯s happening with me and ending up in a lab for the rest of my life was too great. Still, Shaw¡¯s offer was at least a little tempting, even if I didn¡¯t trust him for a moment to be on the straight and narrow with me. ¡°You can handle him, right Joel?¡± I asked.


    Joel huffed ¡°Course. You act like you were doing something useful to look over him. Go on, get outta here.¡±


    I rolled my eyes and floated up into the helm, where Aisling still sat at her desk, monitoring signals around us closely. I may not have been able to give a larger scope of movement around the system, but I could at least give her a hand with local scans to make sure that there weren¡¯t any stray rocks that I might have missed if I was preoccupied.


    As the ping went out, however, I didn¡¯t expect that I¡¯d see a nearby ship¡¯s return signal¡­

 Lunatic Gambit

    "Captain, someone''s following us." I called through the intercom system on the bridge. Aisling looked back from the front window, a look of perplexed alarm on her face "I did a local scan and received a response ping from something in the direction of Luna. We''re being trailed."


    "Son of a bitch¡­" she muttered, her eyes flickering with an irritated sense of focus as she stomped back to her terminal "Any more info?" She said, pulling up the area scan data for herself.


    "Not yet, I wanted to alert you before I tried to make a more detailed scan. They might still think we overlooked them."


    Aisling nodded. "Maintain speed." She said before she turned and hit the intercom switch "Attention crew, everyone to the bridge, now. We might be in some deep shit and need to put our heads together. Drop whatever you''re doing and get here now. You too, Shaw."


    The clambering I felt through my shell didn''t last long, the crew quickly coming together with an urgency I hadn''t seen yet. It seemed that when she called everyone to the helm for a meeting instead of the mess, they knew it was serious.


    In moments, the room was crowded, Joel and Shaw coming in last as Aisling turned to address them "Alright, everyone, we got a tail." She declared. "Just one for the time being, but they could have reinforcements behind them. Thanks to our new core being more judicious with our location data than our last one, we might still be able to get the upper hand here."


    "Foundation?" Joel asked.


    "Probably." Aisling nodded "We need a plan before we alert them. Heads together for this. Meryll, you think you''re fighting fit if we can''t shake ''em?"


    I nodded slowly to myself. I had downed plenty of targets in both human and AI sims by now. While I felt confident that I could take on a one on one battle with a standard core, it did make me hesitate knowing that this was a ship full of living, breathing people now and not just a simulated block of code. But I had to defend myself if I needed to. The crew and myself were more important to me than them when it came down to it "Yes captain, once I know their make, I can come up with a strategy."


    "Good, other ideas?" She called.


    "Could overclock the engines. Race them to Venus. They can¡¯t win against a colony¡¯s point defenses." Mouse said uncertainly "It''s risky on a few levels, but it''s an option."


    "Probably riskier than letting Meryll have her shot." Aisling nodded "Come on, anything guys."


    "Try to open communications. Bluff our way through and see what happens?" Doc tossed out uncertainly.


    "That''s a lot of ''if''s." Aisling muttered.


    "There''s always the chance it''s not them." Ray offered.


    "Wishful thinking, but you don''t just happen to run into another ship in wild space, it''s astronomically improbable that it''s just minding its own business. Virtually impossible." Aisling explained "They''re after us, no question there."


    Shaw took a limping step forward and declared with confidence as if it should have been obvious rather than insane, "Surrender and comply."


    Everyone else''s face turned to look at Shaw like he was an idiot, but Aisling looked intrigued "Elaborate." She commanded, irritation in her voice.


    He shored himself up, glad to see the captain would at least hear him out "Give them false information, then strike when they think they''ve already won. Turn the tables on them"


    The room went silent and he smiled smugly at the others "It very nearly worked on you, if I''d known more about Meryll going in." He chuckled ¡°Or if I had more of a crew to work with me."


    I thought back. He''d escaped from his bindings so easily once he was inside of the ship. He could have done that at any time, though, with his implant. I hadn''t thought of it until just then, but we didn''t need to find him tied up like that, and we''d let ourselves get ambushed because we didn''t know enough about his implant or fighting Style until then. "Your men never tied you up in that cabling, did they?" I asked.


    Shaw chuckled a little "If my men turned on me, I''d be dead. We can try your more direct approaches if you want, but if it''s really a foundation ship, we''re outmatched and we need to remove the ship from the equation."


    "And we take them on in a boarding situation?" Joel scoffed "You''re insane."


    "Not the first person to tell me that. But here I am, still alive. If you can fight them on your own ship, you have the advantage." Shaw stepped back, having said his peace.


    The room went silent again and Aisling finally broke it "Shaw''s is plan D then." She admitted, turning back to her terminal "We need more info. Light us up, Meryll."


    I let out a sigh and opened my eyes for a moment to steady my nerves. The moment I started sending more complex pings directly at the other ship, it would know that we were onto it, but we couldn''t plan any further blind.


    I prepped a bomb of scripts to assault the ship''s sensors before it could respond so I could get a detailed look at our opponent''s make as quickly as possible. While accelerating just slightly to make sure we were ready to flee if they took the queries as a threat.


    First came the shape data. I ran it through what I knew from the sims and quickly realized that we weren''t looking at a military craft. This was a civilian ship, a transport. Not too dissimilar from Theseus. Though, it was armed to the teeth in every way it could be. Multiple gun arrays at strategic points to give it full spherical coverage. "It''s a pirate vessel." I declared in surprise to the helm.


    As more data flooded in, I started to get a better idea of its heading and velocity; it was undoubtedly following us. But as I assessed its engines, I frowned. It was lighter than us, built for speed. I couldn''t outpace it in a straight sprint, even if I did have a little extra power, that was for certain. This ship wasn''t built haphazardly. It was an enthusiast''s custom job. And it was probably outfitted as well as they could manage it.


    "Skulls." I declared to the crew. It began to accelerate with me, giving chase as they figured out that we''d seen them. As if to confirm, the communications panel lit up.


    ''Bring us Shaw and we''ll pay your bounty.'' Was what it declared. But Aisling crossed her arms. We''d already seen through that ruse.


    "What you think, Meryll?" Aisling asked while I continued bringing us up to speed "You a match for this?"


    "Maybe." I said slowly. That ship was a tank, though. Outmaneuvering it wouldn''t be something I could guarantee, especially since we were both already traveling at a breakneck speed with it having a distinct advantage if I tried to turn into a battle now. It was far from ideal, and I couldn''t help but think that it was better armed than I was ¡°It¡¯s a losing battle though. Too many factors going against us already.¡±


    Aisling stared down at the comms panel for a long moment and let out a frustrated growl before turning to Shaw "Alright, you fucking lunatic, what''s your plan?"


    Shaw put on that same smug smile that made me hate him just a little bit more.


    ¡ª


    We took a short time to discuss our strategy, sharing our assets with Shaw. In exchange for his trust, I reluctantly agreed to allow his implant to boot again. It felt like a fairly limited weapon anyway, compared to everyone outfitted with firearms. As we started to agree on the final details of the plan, the rest of the crew began to scatter around the ship, getting into position.


    As I began to slowly decelerate, I watched Aisling type into the comms terminal ¡®Scared the shit out of me. Thought you were Foundation.¡¯


    ¡®You¡¯re more paranoid than we took you for. Lucky we don¡¯t charge you for making us come all the way out here. Our prisoner ready to go?¡¯


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    ¡®Yeah. I¡¯ve got him and his guard ready for you in our cargo bay. I¡¯ll come down to meet you too. Standard magnetic ship attachment at the airlock?¡¯ she asked


    ¡®Sounds good to me. Decelerate so we can align with that hunk of junk.¡¯


    Aisling frowned and couldn¡¯t help herself but to give some banter when her ship was insulted ¡®She¡¯s a masterpiece and you know it, motherfucker.¡¯


    ¡°Good, don¡¯t seem overly friendly.¡± Shaw agreed with Aisling¡¯s tone as the message was broadcast ¡°Make ¡®em think it¡¯s business as usual for you.¡±


    ¡°Ain¡¯t acting. No one makes fun of my ship. Almost hope this stunt actually fucking works now. Meryll, just comply with their core for the docking procedures, but try to hack your way into their system and get us some info on what¡¯s going on inside. And get ready with their door.¡±


    That felt like a tall order. Static systems and normal AIs were one thing, but conscious or not, a ship core was the most powerful computer humanity had ever devised. I wasn¡¯t even sure what to expect if I tried to infiltrate its systems. But maybe the surprise attack angle would help. It wasn¡¯t a person, after all. Maybe the same principle that made me an ace in ship combat versus a standard ship core would apply in a battle of the minds across a network as well. It seemed like a hell of a time to test those waters, but I didn¡¯t exactly have time to come up with a way to practice now.


    As the pirate vessel grew uncomfortably close, the fact that its guns remained trained on me was unnerving to say the least. Still, they weren¡¯t firing. I figured that they must have wanted to take us alive. They didn¡¯t care about my shell. They didn¡¯t care about Theseus. But they definitely weren¡¯t out to kill all of us.


    I¡¯d interacted with the computer at the port authority on Luna a couple of times by now, but it was nothing like the queries I received from the ship core. The data stream quickly became a flood as it sent long arrays of commands and queries to me, nitpicking exact procedures. It made it difficult to picture what was happening within my own shell, trying to keep up with it, and I was mentally exhausted in moments. Still, it cooperated with me. I had no idea what it must have thought of me, if it was capable of such an opinion, but it must have realized that I was slower than it. Maybe this wouldn¡¯t be as simple as I thought. ¡°Talk to me, guys, are you ready?¡± I asked, not able to focus on my own internal sensors at all.


    ¡°I¡¯m in position. Shell¡¯s primed, should go right through.¡± Mouse said quietly over our comms.


    ¡°Bait¡¯s set.¡± Joel declared.


    Ray checked in next ¡°Bulkheads are sealed.¡±


    ¡°Stay calm Meryll. You got this.¡± Doc tried to reassure me calmly from my heart ¡°Not the worst spot we¡¯ve been in.¡±


    After a moment of arranging things to the other AI¡¯s exact specifications, I felt us click together, the straight, flexible corridor between our cargo bays locking us to each other. A dogfight was now physically impossible. This had to go as planned.


    With both of our airlocks still shut tight, I tried to get a read on what was happening on their end of the corridor as planned, but the other core just bombarded me with information the moment I tried to make any kind of query to its systems. I couldn¡¯t be the recon tool that they¡¯d planned for me. But I still had a much more important job that I now had no idea if I¡¯d be able to manage. The other core, despite it lacking a consciousness, was still a brain operating magnitudes faster than I possibly could.


    ¡°Alright. Open up and get ready to put things into motion.¡± Aisling let out a deep breath ¡°This better work.¡±


    I took a deep breath. There had to be something I could do. But for now, the plan moved forward. I monitored the connecting hall from our side. It didn¡¯t seem to have a problem with me focusing on my own systems at least, now that the docking procedure was over.


    I began to see people walking through the corridor. A lot of people. They were in foundation armor, and they were moving with urgency. It didn¡¯t surprise me though, their ruse had been pretty transparent thanks to how much Aisling knew about the Skulls and how far from their MO this was. But it was too late to flee now anyway, if this had been our first realization about what was going on. I took another deep breath. Had to stay calm. And I had to get to work. If I was going to beat this computer, I would have to do something drastic myself.


    I began opening up new files, rapidly building scripts with the scraps of information that I was able to glean from the other core¡¯s responses to my queries. It was far too much information for me to parse, but it was still a lot of useful information. Locks that I had to find ways around and develop keys for. My coding was sloppy, but I thought that it might be enough to sneak through the single command that I had to make functional for this to work. I watched as their end of the airlock closed, watching the stream of data very closely for a particular pointer. There. I frantically inserted the data and my best guess of how it worked into my script and saved the files.


    I couldn¡¯t believe I was actually about to do this, but I didn¡¯t see any other solution at this point.


    I watched carefully as my own airlock door slid open, a whole unit of armor plated soldiers flicking tactical lights on as they walked into the intentionally darkened cargo bay we¡¯d set up for them.


    ¡°Freeze!¡± Their commander shouted as their guns leveled toward two figures standing just to the side in the middle of the room. But they hesitated as they looked twice, their guns lowering as they realized what it was. The corpses of the two men that we¡¯d taken for our bounty were propped up against crates, made to look like they were standing at attention. ¡°Move in, look for the target.¡± The commander motioned and the men started to spread out into the cargo bay. The target. They were after someone in particular. I shivered as I realized that this really couldn¡¯t just be an incidental run-in with a ship full of wanted fugitives, they were after me.


    ¡°Get it open Meryll, I need the shot.¡± Mouse gave a whispered demand.


    Coming back to my senses, I took in a deep breath and clenched my teeth as I opened my eyes and reached for my arm terminal, shaking slightly as I ran the command I¡¯d prepared.


    ¡®Run psychic damper, 1 second, run appended files¡¯ displayed in my vision before I disappeared. And once more, just like that, Meryll was gone. I cowered in my corner of my mind as I watched an exchange of data explode at a frightening pace between myself and the other ship core. It was like watching a battle of wills with no soul between the two opponents. Just logical traps and prepared maneuvers that I hoped would serve as enough to slip through.


    It was unbearable watching the mental assault continue with the crew on both sides totally unaware of the deadly game of chess being played on a psychic network around them.


    I wanted to cry. I wanted to feel anything at all. At least my frustrated desires didn¡¯t seem to impact my performance toward my goal, and this time I wasn¡¯t just staring at a clock, waiting for it to end. That part of myself that remained was at least able to try to root on my logical self and hope that I would be able to make the change I needed to.


    Five hundred milliseconds passed. I was exhausted trying to keep up with what my mind was doing. It was too much to track anymore. Yet I still kept going. I didn¡¯t know exhaustion, after all. I just knew my duty, the tools at my disposal, and cold knowledge.


    I once thought I felt an imposing presence over me. Over the real me. Threatening me. It almost felt like it was threatening to expel me from the audience chamber. Like I was a process taking up too much memory. That I could be closed out forever if I decided I needed more resources. But terrifying as it was, the feeling passed and I felt a variable click. Error queries began to flood my way, as if the other core was asking what I was doing, how I had done it. In its own way, it felt helpless, and It was begging me to stop. As much as a soulless computer could, it was begging for mercy.


    I merely watched the flood of queries and impotent digital flailing run into walls as I began putting up a defense now. It was barely any movement, but the airlock door at the far end of the corridor was beginning to click open again at the glacial pace of my accelerated frame of mind. And another half second of defending it later, I crashed back into consciousness.


    I doubled over as best as I could in the chamber, closing my eyes to watch while I caught my breath.


    The far airlock began opening with a loud twist of metal, causing some of the soldiers to look back and see what was going on behind them.


    Mouse lay prone behind the only cracked open doorway into the cargo bay, obscured by crates that only allowed the barrel of a two meter rifle to peek through. He smiled slightly at the opening in the airlock. The last paneling thick enough to stop him.


    The gun bucked back, almost flying out of his hands as a deafening explosive sound of devastating gunfire that made my sensors momentarily glitch carried through the entire ship, the bullet trail visibly passing all of the soldiers and through the opening in both airlocks, where it quickly tore through the interior of the stolen pirate vessel, ripping a hole through multiple interior walls before the sound of explosive decompression rocked through their ship.


    Joel quickly sealed the bulwark once the shot was through, separating him and Mouse from the rapidly decompressing space the soldiers now stood in. Several of them tried to fire their guns as they started to fall and slide back from the force of the air leaving the combined cargo bays, but there was no one to shoot in the room, they were just firing on phantoms. And soon, the room¡¯s life support was drained, vacuum quickly consuming the air and replacing it with impossible cold.


    I opened my eyes. I did it. We did it. I just hoped that it was enough as I continued to take in deep breaths, trying to stop the pounding in my ears and the dark spots showing in my vision.


    ¡°Meryll?! Christ Meryll, what was that! Did you just use the damper?!¡± I heard Doc calling.


    I couldn¡¯t help but notice that the other core had gone silent. Completely silent. I didn¡¯t need to check: We¡¯d killed it. Or at least maimed it so badly that the psychic feedback had crippled it into submission. Mouse must have hit something critical. He knew exactly what he was doing with that gun and the layout of the enemy ship. ¡®Yeah, had to.¡¯ I texted Doc, unable to focus enough to work the intercom for the moment. Or much of anything else for that matter. In fact, I was beginning to feel dizzy.


    I remember seeing the soldiers gasping for breath and shivering, one futilely trying to shoot at something, maybe to try and doom us as well, but his weapons were too small caliber and failing to do much without oxygen to ignite. I briefly considered what I was doing. I was participating in taking a human life, almost directly. I could watch the life draining from their eyes. But I still felt so distant and dizzy. Exhaustion made me feel little more than the passing thought that perhaps I should feel pity for these dying souls. I turned off the life support to the cargo bay to ensure I wasn¡¯t wasting oxygen on them when I shut our own airlock so that I could separate from the other ship, but that was as far as I got before the data stream stopped and I passed out from my exertion.

 Trust

    ¡°¡­ Failure¡­ Weakest of all¡­ Won¡¯t remember¡­ Test subject¡­ Reinstall¡­ Fragile¡­ Kill her¡­¡±


    I slowly opened my eyes. Everything ached. I stared directly up at the all-too familiar sight of the ceiling of my heart. The core module room. I¡¯d been ejected from the core module at some point.


    I could have sworn that I¡¯d just heard someone speaking, but it seemed distant. Nonsensical. The words disappeared like a dream. I blinked several times and shook it off. I had more important things to worry about right now. The gambit. I remembered Shaw¡¯s insane plan and my part in it. I remembered watching at least a dozen soldiers die within my own shell.


    The last thought plagued me. Their deaths were slow. Probably painful. I could have saved them, but in so doing, I would have doomed myself. Was that right? I shook it off and tried to put the thought behind me. This was self-defense. I couldn¡¯t get hung up on the morality of defending my own survival. I knew that I would surely have to do worse things in the coming storm of Foundation reprisal. It didn¡¯t make me happy, but I had to remember that they were the ones oppressing me.


    My head hurt. And not just from the implications of the lives I¡¯d played a hand in taking. I hadn¡¯t accounted for the fact that it could be far more stressful to endure the psionic damper if I was producing and launching code at a breakneck pace while it was active. So much for it being a time dilation superpower if it was this much of a strain on my mind. Still, I survived it.


    ¡°Doc?¡± I called out, finding my voice weak. My body didn¡¯t feel much better, my head pounding and my limbs numb. It felt like I was missing a part of myself. My eyes went wide as I suddenly realized what it was. It was impossible to explain, but there was something missing. Something of Theseus missing.


    I heard the shift of movement nearby ¡°Ah, Meryll, you¡¯re awake.¡± Doc sounded relieved, stepping next to the bed so I could see him ¡°Frankly, I wasn¡¯t sure if you would wake up again after that. For all I knew, you were going to go braindead and end up like any other core. Or worse.¡±


    ¡°Thanks for the vote of confidence.¡± I muttered nervously. I wanted to get up, but I still felt dizzy. The data stream felt distant, but it was there. At least I hadn¡¯t destroyed my brain in all of this. Something devastating had happened to Theseus, but I couldn¡¯t get my wits together well enough to grasp the data stream.


    He held up a familiar metal module for me to see ¡°Your psychic damper. I¡¯m going to hold onto this for a little while, okay?¡±


    ¡°Fuck that thing. Saved our asses, but fuck. I thought it was gonna delete me, Doc. The real me.¡± I shook my head the best I could and asked ¡°What happened? Please tell me we¡¯re safe.¡±


    He creased his brow and asked ¡°It saved us? What do you mean?¡±


    I shook my head again ¡°A ship core, it operates like a computer. A real powerful computer. I couldn¡¯t keep up. Opening that airlock on their ship would have been impossible if I didn¡¯t get on its level.¡±


    Doc let out a sigh ¡°Meryll, Mouse could have made other shots, we could have improvised, you didn¡¯t have to-¡°


    ¡°But I did.¡± I interrupted ¡°They would have found Mouse if he would have had to reload. And no one died, right? No one we care about anyway. So I did the right thing.¡±


    He looked distraught ¡°Okay¡­ yeah, you did the right thing. Fucking hell, Meryll, you can¡¯t do that again though, we almost lost you. You can¡¯t use this thing as a performance enhancer!¡±


    ¡°I had to though. I hated it so much, but I had to. It was only one second, but I couldn¡¯t have beaten that other ship core without it.¡± I tried to sit up, holding a hand to my head as though something might spill out ¡°Holy shit. Head feels light. Theseus¡­ something happened to the ship, didn¡¯t it? I can feel it.¡±


    ¡°Well I did remove a heavy cybernetic expansion.¡± Doc mumbled, but his voice became strict again ¡°I don¡¯t know if you just gave yourself brain damage or not Meryll, lay back down.¡± I rolled my eyes and did so, feeling the metal of the empty expansion bay at the back of my head clacking against the pillow. I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d be able to stand up anyway, frankly. ¡°Theseus is¡­ well, we¡¯re safe, at least. I¡¯m actually kind of glad you passed out when you did. There was a cascade of explosions in their ship and¡­ well, thankfully since we isolated the cargo bay, it took the brunt of the damage.¡±


    ¡°Fuck.¡± I said quietly, closing my eyes and running diagnostics. It was hard to focus. I couldn¡¯t see my cargo bay at all, the sensors had been damaged. I couldn¡¯t FEEL the cargo bay anymore. It thankfully didn¡¯t contain any major part of my system, but it still felt like a piece of myself was missing, and I shivered at the thought that this was Theseus¡¯s equivalent to a flesh wound. I hated it. I couldn¡¯t imagine what it would feel like to have lost a vital system.


    I grabbed my external sensors and a part of my vision where the cargo bay had been was missing, the sensors near it having been stripped away. It turned out that blowing up a ship you were attached to had consequences. I did see the remains of the Skulls¡¯ stolen vessel floating a short distance away, scattered into several pieces.


    Who knew if there was still anyone left alive, trapped in a partitioned section of the ship that wasn¡¯t exposed to vacuum? Rescue would come for them if there was. They¡¯d probably be able to take a look at logs and tell what happened here. I briefly considered that I could try to obliterate the evidence with my own cannons, but that would take too long. We had to get to Venus. I was now officially exposed to our greatest enemy for what I was.


    In a moment we were flying toward Venus again, slowly accelerating once more to ensure that our missing compartment wouldn¡¯t compromise the rest of the ship¡¯s structure. I let out a groan, the stress of performing even basic functions quickly became unbearable. I wouldn¡¯t have been able to operate my guns if I wanted to anyway. I knew I wouldn¡¯t be able to get us up to top speed like this, but we had to keep making progress if we were going to stay ahead of them.


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    ¡°Don¡¯t strain yourself.¡± Doc ordered ¡°Do what you have to I guess, but don¡¯t just keep staring at¡­ whatever it is you see when you do that. Captain¡¯s gonna debrief you. I¡¯ll let her know you¡¯re up.¡±


    I stared at the ceiling with my eyes open until they got too dry. I wasn¡¯t sure if Doc understood that I couldn¡¯t just shut this off. That me resting from the stream was going into the void. I had to close my eyes eventually. I wished that I was able to ask Doc to put a bandage on the psionic wound of missing the cargo bay, to stop that horrible itching feeling in my mind of missing a chunk of myself, but I didn¡¯t even know how to articulate it to him. It was a horrid uneasiness that I couldn¡¯t shake.


    Looking for anything to distract myself, I followed Aisling¡¯s movements coming down the stairs until she stepped into the doorway and I waved without opening my eyes ¡°Hey Captain.¡±


    ¡°Hey.¡± She was trying to sound comforting, but it quickly descended into a light scolding tone ¡°You¡¯re a real piece of work, you know that?¡±


    I felt like a real piece of work. But I chuckled a little, glad to hear we weren¡¯t in such bad of shape that banter was off the table. ¡°Thanks. I got your fucking door open.¡±


    ¡°That you did.¡± She sighed ¡°You know, I don¡¯t doubt for a second that you¡¯re gonna get better at all of this, the stuff I¡¯ve seen you do in the couple weeks I¡¯ve known you. But you gotta survive to get to that point. So don¡¯t go killing yourself too fast, got it?¡±


    ¡°Try not to die, thanks for the tip, boss.¡± I held a thumbs up toward her.


    ¡°I¡¯m serious, Meryll.¡± Now she sounded terse. This wasn¡¯t banter anymore. She really wasn¡¯t kidding around as she approached my bedside and I opened my eyes to see her glaring at me ¡°You¡¯re reckless. That can be good in this business, but you¡¯re pushing your limits too often. You got a taste of the real danger now. I hope it means you can prepare for it and not have to do as many batshit stupid things.¡±


    ¡°I dunno, batshit stupid has been working for me so far.¡± I smirked, trying to pull us back to our lighthearted jabs at each other.


    ¡°Luck runs out, Meryll!¡± She warned sharply, concern showing on her face ¡°Don¡¯t make yourself have to learn that the hard way like some of us did.¡±


    I had to shut up at that. Was it really all luck? Like Theseus happening upon the wreck of my ferry. I paused at that thought. I hadn¡¯t really considered it before, but that errant thought sounded¡­ off somehow. It was something I could shake. I tried to push that feeling back down for now and tried to be more proactive about our situation ¡°I can¡¯t feel the cargo bay. It¡¯s gone, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s damaged, that¡¯s for sure.¡± She started ¡°We won¡¯t be able to fix it proper until we get to Venus. Don¡¯t think we¡¯ll need a total refit though. I guess it feels a lot worse than that for you though.¡±


    I nodded ¡°Feels like¡­ I don¡¯t even know how to explain it. It¡¯s like I¡¯m missing a big chunk of flesh out of my abdomen, but I¡¯m not. It doesn¡¯t really hurt, but it feels like¡­ loss.¡± I shook my head, really unsure how else to put it. A dull ache of something important missing from my self. A dread like something terrible was approaching. Looming death.


    ¡°Huh¡­ didn¡¯t think it was that bad. The rest of the ship is stable, after all. But I guess it¡¯s different if you actually are the ship.¡± She went quiet, giving me a pitying expression.


    The room went quiet, and my thoughts couldn¡¯t help but return once more to that side thought I¡¯d had about luck before. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was a good time to bring it up, but I couldn¡¯t just let it linger either. I couldn¡¯t just keep accepting missing pieces of the past that involved me. ¡°Hey Aisling¡­ You don¡¯t just happen to run into another ship in wild space.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡± she sounded confused at the sudden turn of conversation.


    ¡°You said that earlier when we were planning, and it¡¯s true. It¡¯s always true.¡± I let that hang in the air for a moment before I declared ¡°You wouldn¡¯t have come to my ferry in time to save me if you had been coming from Luna for a salvage job.¡±


    A look of tired recognition quickly began to replace her serious glare ¡°Meryll, we can talk about this later.¡±


    ¡°So what were you doing at the wreckage of my ferry?¡± I insisted on continuing, glancing her way accusingly.


    Aisling stared at me for a few moments, trying to think hard, but after a moment, she realized she¡¯d been holding her breath and let out a deep sigh ¡°Okay. Yeah, I deserve that look.¡± She said quietly, pausing and readjusting herself in her seat for a moment as if looking for the right words before she sat down at the end of the bed and stared into the floor, trying to avoid my gaze ¡°I make mistakes too, Meryll. That salvage mission? It wasn¡¯t for your ferry, it was for a Foundation derelict. I fucked up and got us in a battle where our ship core died. And after that, I was getting desperate. We were close enough that we managed to get us to drift into the ferry¡¯s route using some of Mouse¡¯s magic with the gas propulsion system.¡± She hesitated, letting it hang in the air despite the fact that I already knew where this was going ¡°We shot down your ferry. Thought we were fucked cause that core died under fire too. Then we found you.¡±


    ¡°The others understood. Ray was pissed at me that night, though. Preying on innocents isn¡¯t exactly our MO. We were just in a tight spot. We can¡¯t always be the good guys, living a life like this.¡± She admitted ¡°It hasn¡¯t exactly been light on my conscience. And I thought you¡¯d take that news poorly so I told everyone to shut up about it.¡± She shrugged her shoulders and leaned forward a little, looking uncomfortable ¡°It¡¯s okay if you think less of us cause of it. I do too.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m mad you lied to me.¡± I muttered, thinking long and hard about how I should probably be angry at her for what she did, but I really couldn¡¯t muster any kind of hate for her about it. ¡°But no, not really. Whatever¡¯s going on with me, you saved me from it. Maybe you didn¡¯t have the best of intentions, but you¡¯ve more than made it up to me by now. These fuckers are after me, and you could have just given me to them. I still trust you. Just hope you can trust me to know the truth next time shit like this happens.¡±


    ¡°Gotta admit, that¡¯s not how I expected you to take that.¡± Aisling kept looking at the floor. I could tell she was ashamed about the whole thing. It¡¯s probably why she hid it in the first place ¡°For someone with no memory, you¡¯re pretty mature.¡±


    ¡°Thanks. I think.¡± I groaned, turning to look the other way and moving to change the subject again ¡°Doc, can you just put the damper back into me already. I¡¯m not gonna use it, I just got used to the weight in my head is all.¡± I didn¡¯t want to admit it at the time, but missing a piece of hardware that I¡¯d become accustomed to also felt like another part of myself had been torn out, even if it was that diabolical thing that made me feel like a robotic husk.


    ¡°I¡¯ll get Mouse to make a cover for it.¡± Doc said, setting the module aside ¡°Since it¡¯s an expansion slot, we can put this thing back in quick if we really need to. But I don¡¯t think that you should-¡°


    ¡°Hey. You lied to me too.¡± I reminded him, hoping to guilt him into reinstalling my hardware ¡°You owe me some trust. I¡¯m not using that thing unless I absolutely have to. But it¡¯s a part of me. Let me have it.¡±


    Doc gave me a tired look and thought for a few moments, sulking over his own part in my deception. He took in a deep breath before he grabbed the module and stood up again ¡°Lean forward. You pull this shit again, though, I¡¯m breaking it myself.¡±

 A Dubious Lead

    Doc returned my equipment to me, and other than feeling the same momentary boot sequence I had the first time that it was installed back on Luna, I was happy to have the device back in place. It was non-invasive on my systems when it wasn¡¯t operational, and it had a certain heft that I¡¯d grown accustomed to.


    I spent most of the rest of that day lying in bed playing Horizon, wondering if the developers had even conceived of the kind of performance we had just pulled off. There certainly wasn¡¯t a button to lay a trap in your own cargo bay and use the boarding hallway as a weak point in the game. But I supposed that it was a very particular set of circumstances that even allowed us to do something like that. They¡¯d underestimated us, and we took advantage. They wouldn¡¯t fall for it again. Next time we faced Foundation, we¡¯d be in for a real starship battle, and I had to be prepared for it.


    Between the scenarios I was playing, I closed my eyes and assessed the ship. Other than the explosion in the cargo bay, there was no further structural damage to the ship. It had thankfully been contained. The enemy core hadn¡¯t been given an order to turn its own weapons on us or even had a reason to retaliate before Mouse had killed it and rendered the ship inert. I briefly wondered if it would have gone differently if their core had had the opportunity to activate its own damper, if it even had one. If it could have turned its guns on us while we were locked together, it could have potentially brought much more hefty destruction than what we ended up enduring down onto us. Luckily, the automated activation of the damper was activated by examining sensors outside of the ship. It didn¡¯t account for this kind of internal sabotage, at least not at the speed with which it happened. I¡¯d have to ask Mouse about that gun later. He¡¯d used the same thing on our ground mission, I was sure of it. He seemed to have the entire massive gun disassembled in his room now and was cleaning and calibrating several components when I checked on him.


    Joel was constantly armed. While Shaw wasn¡¯t bound to a cell anymore, Joel was watching him like a hawk. Regardless, he seemed to openly stalk the others about the ship, no doubt gathering information and looking for faults that he might be able to take advantage of. He just kept talking with that irritating cockiness everyone hated, especially now that it was his plan that had saved us.


    Aisling stayed at the helm, frequently making short range pings to ensure that we didn¡¯t have anymore sneaky tails, sending me requests to make slight alterations here and there to account for our new blind spot. But I felt like we¡¯d at least be clear to Venus, even at our slowed velocity. It¡¯s not like they would send an army this quickly when we had this much of a head start.


    Ray was still in bed. She had apparently slept poorly the past few days and I was glad to let her catch up.


    And Doc kept an eye on my vitals and I. He was still very worried for me, and insisted I spend that next day in bed. I couldn¡¯t argue with him, I barely had the energy to play a video game. To say that the missing cargo bay and the abuse of my damper had taken a great physical and psychic toll on me was an understatement.


    ¡°Knock knock.¡± I rolled my eyes and looked to the door, seeing Shaw and his escort standing in the ruined doorway.


    Doc muttered accusingly ¡°Huh, thought I closed that door. Oh wait.¡±


    ¡°Sarcasm is unbecoming of you, good doctor.¡± Shaw smiled ¡°You¡¯d think coming up with that beautiful plan might have earned me more favor than this.¡±


    ¡°Tell that to my missing cargo bay. And you¡¯ve held a knife to the neck of everyone in this room, Shaw.¡± I grumbled from the bed ¡°Like, all within the last two days. Sure it worked, but we¡¯re limping the rest of the way to Venus. And I still don¡¯t trust you. You¡¯re just looking for a way to save your ass.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t we all?¡± he shrugged, still smiling that cocky smirk ¡°From what I¡¯ve come to understand, you all have something to fear from the grandest military corporation in the system, myself included. But I thought I might have a word with you in particular, Meryll.¡±


    ¡°We already talked about this, neither of us actually knows shit about what I am.¡± I sighed, turning over so I at least wouldn¡¯t have to look at him physically. ¡°Unless you were lying about that too.¡±


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    ¡°Well, no, I really don¡¯t know any of the details about the Arthausen project. I only know that Foundation has their finger in it and it¡¯s a military affair. But¡­ I do know a certain Venusian who might have an inkling about it. The woman I¡¯d originally heard the name from, in fact. I think she may have been involved directly.¡±


    I almost shot up out of bed. Turning back over to look at Shaw with wide eyes was the best I could manage ¡°You¡¯re fucking with me.¡± Was the first thing I said. Did he actually have a solid lead? But I let my cynicism return after my moment of surprise had passed ¡°And what do you get out of this?¡±


    ¡°Why, the very thing that drives me most. Curiosity. Believe it or not, being an information broker, you get to learn a surprising amount about what¡¯s really happening in this system. The money¡¯s good wherever I find it, but the story is my real passion. And you could have a very special story behind you. And there¡­ MIGHT be some real opportunity to extort some Foundation heads with this¡­¡± and there it was. Of course it came back to greed for him in the end.


    I rolled my eyes ¡°You know what? Whatever. Sure. Let¡¯s meet with your friend, see if she knows anything. You¡¯re smarter than to throw our positions Foundation¡¯s way while you¡¯re with us. I may as well try to find answers where I can.¡±


    ¡°You sure that¡¯s a smart idea?¡± Joel finally piped up ¡°You said it yourself, can¡¯t trust this asshat, and we discussed earlier how it¡¯d be a bad idea to broadcast yourself to these people, can¡¯t trust them either.¡±


    ¡°No, I absolutely can¡¯t.¡± I repeated ¡°That hasn¡¯t changed. I know Captain said we¡¯re laying low there, but I don¡¯t have any other leads, and it¡¯s pretty clear by now that they were already after me. They¡¯re not going to get anything they don¡¯t already know if the scientists snitch on us. If I¡¯m going to spend my life running away from these Foundation fuckers anyway, I at least want to know what¡¯s at stake if they do catch up to me.¡± I had a pretty good idea that I¡¯d be locked away in some kind of scientific test facility or something. I might never feel Theseus or any other starship around me again. Maybe they¡¯d manipulate my memories again. But I still didn¡¯t know what exactly I was FOR in their eyes. I didn¡¯t know what the goal was.


    Doc nodded to me ¡°I suppose it can¡¯t hurt, so long as you don¡¯t go it alone.¡±


    I¡¯d feel a lot safer if Doc did come along with me, but I didn¡¯t think either of us would be kidding ourselves if we thought we could be much ¡®protection¡¯ for one another. ¡°How about Mouse?¡± I asked Doc ¡°He might be interested in the technical aspects. And if shithead here leads us into an ambush, he knows how to run a firefight.¡±


    ¡°Mouse?¡± Shaw gave a laugh ¡°The kid? You think that teenager¡¯s gonna be able to gun people down?¡± he sounded amused ¡°That was a real neat trick he pulled with that cannon, but that was hardly a cold-blooded shot against infantry.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know Mouse.¡± I answered, confident in the boy¡¯s ability to act in a dire situation by now. ¡°He¡¯s not just ¡®some kid¡¯. He¡¯s been through way more than you¡¯d think. Hell, bet he could outshoot Joel.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, fuckin right.¡± Joel chuckled ¡°Kid¡¯s a good enough shot, and those arms give him a big advantage, but he¡¯s too attached to his gadgets. That bigass rifle he made is probably the gun he¡¯s best with.¡±


    ¡°Wait, he MADE that thing?¡± I smiled, already impressed at Mouse¡¯s engineering, but that was a devastating weapon for someone his age to have developed on his own.


    ¡°Yeah. Calls it the Thunderbolt.¡± Joel smiled back, clearly equally impressed by it ¡°Thing can fire heavier rounds than Theseus can. I don¡¯t even get how he can put that much stopping power into its shots. Takes an age to set up and reload, but you saw what it did to that pirate ship. Ripped right through and exploded the damn thing. He has to press his own ammo for it though. They don¡¯t sell that kind of caliber¡­ anywhere.¡±


    I actually had to let out a small laugh at that. ¡°Okay, that¡¯s awesome. But back on topic, I don¡¯t really think he can carry that onto a colony¡­ or have the time to set it up if we¡¯re in trouble. But he can handle a rifle well enough, right?¡±


    ¡°Oh come on now.¡± Shaw sighed ¡°It¡¯s Venus. It¡¯s arguably the safest place in the inner colonies. I doubt I could get enough people in a room together that would care about pulling one over on you from there. Unless their precious colony itself is in danger, they¡¯re practically pacifists. Do you really think you need a gunman escort?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t mean there¡¯s no cutthroats. Every place has ¡®em.¡± Joel warned before his voice went more lighthearted ¡°I¡¯m sure there¡¯s even dangerous folks over on Titan, yeah Meryll?¡±


    ¡°How the hell would I know?¡± I shrugged and closed my eyes to do some quick diagnostics, grimacing once more at the feeling of the missing chunk of my shell. ¡°For all I know, I¡¯ve never actually even been there.¡± I was glad I could speak on the topic more lightly now. It was more than a little bit liberating to be free of my old false life, or the power it had over me when I first came to the realization. ¡°But Joel¡¯s got the right idea for once, we¡¯ll take our protection in with us.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you mean ¡®for once¡¯?¡± He replied and we both glared at each other, smiles on our faces as if daring the other to make another quip. I think we were finally starting to understand each other a bit better in that moment.


    ¡°Alright, fine, fine, do whatever you like as long as we go see her.¡± Shaw held his arms up in surrender to our insistences and started limping back out into the hallway ¡°This buddy buddy starship family thing is getting too weird for me.¡±

 A Moments Respite

    The rest of the evening passed slowly after my visitor left, taken up by routine health inspections and simulations both in Horizon and my actual combat sims as I tried to apply the things I learned between the two formats. It wasn¡¯t easy to concentrate given my ¡®wound¡¯, but, I was still getting much better at both, applying the creative problem-solving I learned from the game into the simulator. I couldn¡¯t be lax on this anymore. I knew that the next time I ran into a Foundation ship, it would be up to me to win the battle. And maybe by then, I¡¯d be able to handle a situation without having to pull the dangerous maneuver we¡¯d needed this time.


    But given my exhaustion from activating the trap, it was only so long before I was going to drift off to sleep again, and I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if I¡¯d be visited by another nightmare. It certainly felt like the dull misery I felt would surely make things vivid again. Something nagged at the back of my head that I¡¯d forgotten something though. I remembered that I¡¯d had a nightmare again before I was awoken by Shaw at the beginning of the day. It was probably the same nightmare again, but it was bothering me. I couldn¡¯t picture it clearly. I sighed, dreams were such a fickle thing. If you weren¡¯t focused on them right after they happened, they always slipped away. It didn¡¯t much matter to me, I was sure that I would get a refresher tonight.


    A thought came to mind. Were dreams really so nebulous to the half-computer entity that I now was? It made me wonder if my thoughts could be itemized. It couldn¡¯t be so different from data, right? And maybe the same could be said for memories. After all, my thoughts interacted with data frequently.


    ¡°Hey Doc, I had another stupid idea.¡± I called out into the room.


    ¡°You¡¯ve had enough stupid ideas for one day.¡± Doc scolded from the opposite side of the room ¡°Go to sleep.¡±


    I huffed quietly ¡°Just listen, okay?¡±


    ¡ª


    My eyes opened slowly. That same dream once again, of being engulfed in the darkness that was assaulting the void. I looked up at the large machine pressed up against my bed, and I recalled my request to Doc. It was simple, scan my brain waves while I slept. Record them as data. Perhaps I¡¯d be able to recreate the dream and experience it with a more rational state of mind. To really recall what it is I was dreaming. Even though the dream was abstract, something told me that there had to be a hint in there somewhere. I hoped that maybe there was a mote of my real memory hidden beneath the layers of mental programming that were shrouding the truth.


    Looking around, I saw that Doc had returned to his quarters at some point in the night. The man needed to sleep, after all. I disconnected the wire that had been plugged into one of my neck¡¯s ports and pulled the probes off of my forehead. I swung my legs over the empty side of my bed and stretched my limbs out far. Aside from the dull ache of the missing compartment that wouldn¡¯t quite leave me be, I actually felt great. And despite my dreams, it was uninterrupted sleep. My body felt a hundred times better than it had the previous day. I supposed that I just needed some rest after straining my mind so hard.


    Hopping out of bed, however, there was only one thing I had on my mind: getting back into the void, seeing if I could make a more accurate assessment of my damage to ease the psionic wound, and seeing if I could actually do anything with the recordings we took.


    ¡ª


    After a quick bite of some kind of bread that Ray had cooked a few days ago, I was back in my void, basking in the light as I felt myself relax in a way that I hadn¡¯t for several days now. It really felt like I hadn¡¯t had a chance to enjoy the therapeutic benefits at all on the previous day, and my worries just floated away. The hostage situation, discovering the Foundation fleet, the ambush, the loss of the cargo bay, the nightmares, Shaw in general, it all felt like it was tolerable once I had a few moments to myself in the void. I was ready for a day of normalcy, at least as far as things tended to go aboard Theseus.


    Closing my eyes at last, I smirked when I saw that what I¡¯d thought had been a few moments had actually been most of an hour. I¡¯d expected something like this though. Time flies when you¡¯re mentally recovering, it seemed, and that pattern hadn¡¯t escaped my notice. I gave a quick look around to see that Shaw was still asleep on the floor of one of the empty crew quarters, his room not locked this time now that we knew he just had to use his tool to cut through a locked door anyway if he really wanted to. Mouse stood guard outside of it this time, Joel having gone to sleep himself.


    The cargo bay didn¡¯t offer any more hints within the void that I couldn¡¯t discern from out of it. It seemed the sensors were totally shut down. They had either all been struck with enough force to destroy them or more likely, the circuits to that area of the ship had been damaged. It didn¡¯t seem like I would be able to make a proper assessment after all.


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    Ray was taking stock of food, frowning at how our fresh supplies were looking. We¡¯d planned to dock back on Luna days ago now, and we were starting to get down to the dregs. I didn¡¯t look forward to dinner tonight, it was probably going to be bland. I REALLY hoped that it wouldn¡¯t include protein rations again. I decided to leave her to it and go bother the captain.


    Aisling was up as well, manning her station at the helm, and drafting a message to send out to request landing access when we got to Venus. It hadn¡¯t quite hit me yet that we might not be the most welcome guests on the colony, given their disposition, but she seemed to be trying to carefully word the request, explaining the scenario on Luna.


    I turned on the intercom and started to ask ¡°You know, Captain-¡°


    Aisling flinched at the sound of my voice ¡°Fuck! Could you maybe let me know before you do that?¡± she took in a deep breath. I supposed that I¡¯d caught her off guard.


    ¡°Sorry, didn¡¯t mean to spook you. I was about to say, though, you could just use me as a bargaining chip if they won¡¯t let us in.¡± I offered. I was planning on going in and talking to one of the Venusians at Shaw¡¯s behest anyway, so if they were going to try and deny us landing access, I was certain they¡¯d let us in if they knew that they might get a chance to examine an actual living starship core. ¡°Long as you don¡¯t leave me there, I¡¯d be fine with it. I think the cat¡¯s out of the bag with Foundation at this point anyway. I¡¯m hoping they can tell me something about myself.¡±


    Aisling stared at the half-composed message for a few moments ¡°You¡¯re really okay with people poking and prodding at you?¡± she asked, speaking in a warning tone to me ¡°They¡¯re gonna want an invasive look if they find out about you. Like, take you apart invasive.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll take Mouse with me.¡± I said, trying to reassure her that I would be okay ¡°If they do anything I¡¯m not okay with, he can use force. And Shaw apparently already knows someone who could be a lead, we might be able to use them as a more discrete way in.¡±


    Aisling closed her eyes and sighed, putting some thought to the idea before she shrugged her shoulders ¡°Only if they turn us down on the merit of running from Foundation. But enough about that. How are you doing?¡±


    ¡°Other than still feeling like there¡¯s a big chunk of me missing, fantastic actually. Waking up without a knife to your throat does wonders.¡± I chuckled silently to myself ¡°I¡¯m still having bad dreams, but I¡¯m honestly starting to get used to it.¡±


    She nodded along, a small smile on her face when she heard that I was doing better. ¡°Good to hear. Not the nightmare thing, the feeling better thing. What¡¯s our ETA to the colony?¡±


    I quite enjoyed the secretary treatment, when she just started asking me for information she could probably read for herself on the terminal. It made me feel like I was on top of things. ¡°Another two days at most. Venus is currently on the same side of the sun as Earth, so shorter trip. And despite the hull breach, we¡¯ve got more engines this time.¡±


    ¡°Sounds about right. Got any training data for me to review?¡± she asked, quickly moving on to the next point.


    I snickered to myself as a folder opened on Aisling¡¯s screen and I put a copy of my Horizon save data down for her to see. She rolled her eyes and gave a quick laugh ¡°Very funny, Meryll. I meant the sim metrics.¡±


    ¡°I couldn¡¯t resist.¡± I said while I sent a zipped folder of several hundred log files her way ¡°I¡¯ve been getting better. I¡¯ve gotten battle survival rate to about a high 98 percent. Getting close to 99.¡±


    She nodded ¡°That¡¯s much better. Keep going though. You¡¯re a fast learner, for a human anyway. I¡¯ll take a look at these later. Any other projects you wanna clue me in on? And you better not tell me you¡¯re messing around with that thing in the back of your head again.¡±


    ¡°Nothing as dangerous as yesterday, anyway.¡± I said quickly before I tried to steer away from the subject. ¡°Gonna be trying something a little experimental in a minute actually. Nothing dangerous at all, just a data reading test. I wanted to see if I could analyze brainwave scans from my sleep computationally.¡±


    She raised an eyebrow at that ¡°Why?¡± she asked simply, leaning back in her chair, clearly ready to take a break from her work anyway.


    ¡°I think the nightmares might mean¡­ I don¡¯t know, something. Like my brain is trying to tell me something I can¡¯t remember¡­ a memory maybe? It¡¯s hard to keep track of dreams, though, so I thought it might be more readable as data while I¡¯m awake.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m no neurologist or computer scientist, but I¡¯m pretty sure that¡¯s not how that works.¡± She sounded more than a little skeptical about my idea ¡°Do you even have a method for this?¡±


    ¡°Nope. Just gonna run it through the data stream and see what happens.¡± I shrugged. I knew she was right, that this was probably fruitless, but I had several other things to work on if this just turned out to be a waste of time. ¡°Other than that, some minor optimizations, some NON-STRESSFUL testing of the psionic damper, milliseconds at a time mind you.¡± I really wanted to emphasize that so she didn¡¯t think I was going to try to do something that would knock me out again ¡°And I have this scanner script I¡¯ve been wanting to put together since Earth too.¡±


    ¡°I understood like half of that. Are you sure it¡¯s safe to use the damper at all?¡± she sounded very serious.


    ¡°In very small doses, without trying to operate at computational speeds, yes.¡± I nodded to myself ¡°I¡¯ve run it for twice as long as I did yesterday without any physical toll beyond the mental stress. In short bursts, even the¡­ sense of dread that comes with being under its influence shouldn¡¯t be a problem.¡± I was hopeful that it wouldn¡¯t cause issues anyway. But losing control of my mind for relative seconds rather than relative portions of hours felt like something I could conceptually stand, at least. ¡°I have at least some idea of what I¡¯m doing now. I¡¯m not going to hurt myself.¡±


    ¡°If you say so. Like you said, I suppose we do owe you some trust. Well, have fun with your computer science bullshit, I¡¯m going to see if Ray¡¯s up for a game.¡± She closed out of the word processor that she had open and stood up to step away from her terminal ¡°Let me know if we get another tail, but I think we might actually be safe to get there by now.¡±

 A Healers Stolen Future

    I stared at the brainwave data that had been collected during the night. I wasn¡¯t really sure how I was supposed to read it. I didn¡¯t even have the benefit of knowing how it was normally read by doctors. Doc was understandably still sleeping in after the previous day¡¯s frantic activity, and I wasn¡¯t even sure if he really had the specific training to do it anyway.


    I tried to parse it as raw data, but that did nothing. It wasn¡¯t like it was just going to give me a readable manuscript or video file of my dream. There were probably a million other things happening in my brain besides what I was dreaming, not to mention whatever Theseus was pushing through my mental processes. Maybe Aisling was right and this was a fool¡¯s errand.


    I spent a long time staring at the data, hoping in vain that my brain might somehow recognize something in the readout and give me a flashback or something. Then Doc walked into my heart, finally awake. ¡°I see you took it upon yourself to get back to work.¡± Doc said, drinking water from a flask as he approached his terminal.


    ¡°Someone¡¯s gotta get stuff done around here.¡± I spoke sarcastically over the intercom. ¡°Don¡¯t suppose you have any idea how to read a brain scan?¡±


    ¡°Told you it wouldn¡¯t be that simple.¡± He said as he sat down. ¡°Give it, I¡¯ll take a look, but I won¡¯t be able to give you more than a medical opinion.¡±


    I sent the file through to his terminal and watched as he opened it up in an application that displayed data in a more visually readable format, but it was still completely alien to me. ¡°Is this the right file?¡± He mumbled, rechecking the file name before looking it over again. ¡°Nope, this is all nonsense. Your brain activity can¡¯t even be read as human. My guess is it¡¯s all crossed wires with Theseus. It¡¯s different than how a core¡¯s brain would operate too. This is useless.¡±


    ¡°Helpful.¡± I muttered. I was honestly getting tired of being a ¡®special case¡¯ who couldn¡¯t make use of anything standard or easy. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose there¡¯s any way to separate my thoughts from Theseus¡¯s operations?¡±


    ¡°No idea. Might be something to ask the Venusians. I know there are at least a few neuroscientists there. If you¡¯re going to just show yourself to them with Shaw, you may as well let them see the files. That reminds me, there is one thing I wanted to emphasize about this place to you.¡±


    ¡°Doc, anyone ever tell you that you worry too much?¡± I asked, backing up the file and copying his program so I could try to manipulate it for myself later.


    ¡°Just listen.¡± He sounded very serious. ¡°If you ever run into Skygraves himself while we¡¯re there, do not trust him. Don¡¯t trust anything about him, okay? Avoid him entirely if you can manage it.¡±


    There was something different about the way he demanded this of her. He was being even more protective than usual. ¡°How dangerous can he be? He doesn¡¯t operate the place like a government, right? So he doesn¡¯t have an army or anything.¡±


    He looked up into the sensor to try and show how serious he was being. ¡°Because he¡¯s insane. If he sees some kind of avenue to immortality through you, he¡¯s going to attempt to use you. To what extent, I have no idea. But he will. Maybe he¡¯ll get ideas about uploading his consciousness again from you or something. I know that¡¯s a method he¡¯s tried to look into before.¡±


    That look of fearful recognition in his eyes was frightening. I was starting to put together what he was getting at. ¡°You know this guy, don¡¯t you?¡± I asked gently.


    He looked away from the sensors, his expression softening slightly. ¡°¡­ It was a long time ago now. Don¡¯t worry about it. Just trust me that he isn¡¯t the benevolent person he tries to come off as.¡±


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    ¡°Trust for trust.¡± I said, folding my arms in the fluid ¡°Tell me why I should be so afraid of this guy and I¡¯ll do everything I can to make sure he doesn¡¯t touch me.¡±


    He momentarily clenched his teeth as if he was about to yell. But then closed his eyes and let out a resigned sigh ¡°I worked with him. It was a long time ago now, before he became obsessed. Yatama Corporation. They were trying to develop the same thing he¡¯s still trying to work on. Immortality. Through biological means. An actual anti-aging pharmaceutical. It didn¡¯t go anywhere, of course, but Skygraves became inspired by it. It consumed him. The company gave up and stopped funding the project because it was impossible. Skygraves didn¡¯t think so. He became obsessed and kept working on it himself.¡±


    ¡°But you¡¯re a doctor, right? What¡¯s your role here?¡± I asked, having a hard time putting the story together from there. He was still hiding something. ¡°Were you just administering the drugs?¡±


    ¡°You could say that.¡± He said nervously, another quieter sigh escaping his lips as he realized I had him cornered. ¡°If you must know, yes, I did distribute his testing medication. I was paid handsomely. At first, it was above board. I presented people with trials so that the medication could possibly help mitigate conditions brought on by aging. Cell degradation, usually. It seemed like a worthwhile cause, and back then, I even saw merit in pursuing that moronic dream of defeating death.¡± I had to agree. If it was voluntary, regulated properly, and it had the intent of making peoples¡¯ lives better, what was the problem? As if sensing my question, he continued ¡°I hadn¡¯t been informed that Yatama¡¯s support of the project had been revoked. The trials and the funding kept coming though. Skygraves kept sending me his own iterations of the medication, which drastically became more and more volatile. Dangerous. It wasn¡¯t until my patients began to drop dead that I realized what was happening.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ disgusting.¡± It was all I could think to say. ¡°Not you, him. How could he just use people as guinea pigs for something that isn¡¯t even being regulated?¡±


    ¡°Because he wants to find this secret to immortality so badly that he¡¯ll do anything.¡± Doc warned once again. ¡°He used me. He made me a murderer. I know it was his fault, but I could have been more diligent. I was supposed to be put on trial for it. I was his scapegoat. The man comes from old money, and if I¡¯d stuck around for it, I knew he¡¯d be able to bribe the right people to make sure I faced ¡®justice¡¯.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s when Aisling came into your life?¡± I asked. It was funny how she seemed to show up to rescue people like us. I had to wonder how many unlucky folks with desperate backgrounds just died on the sidelines without someone like her intervening. Theseus couldn¡¯t be there for everyone like us.


    ¡°Her last medic bailed on her, and she¡¯d put out word that she was looking for a doctor, no questions asked. I heard about it from a mutual friend. I took the opportunity, told her that as long as she got me out of there, I¡¯d do whatever she needed. And I¡¯ve been with Theseus ever since.¡± He gave a long drawn-out sigh that emphasized his impatience with my curiosity. ¡°Happy? You finally know why I¡¯m here now. It¡¯s because I facilitated a mass poisoning and I overlooked it all because the profit was too good.¡±


    In hindsight, I felt sorry that I made Doc relive something like that. It hadn¡¯t actually been his fault, but he still probably blamed himself all the same. I probably would have done the same thing if I had been in his situation. ¡°Sorry.¡± I said quietly. ¡°You¡¯re right, I should have just taken your word for it. Guy sounds like a real scumbag.¡±


    ¡°The only reason I told you about that is so you know about Skygraves. Don¡¯t go throwing that info around. You know what it¡¯s like in this ship. We all have skeletons in our closets, and we¡¯d like to keep them there if we can.¡± He mumbled, turning away from the sensor and trying to avoid looking into my ¡®eyes¡¯.


    I nodded ¡°I understand. I won¡¯t poke around anymore. I trust you. I promise.¡±


    ¡°Well maybe you shouldn¡¯t.¡± He snapped, but his expression showed it was more at himself than at me. He closed his eyes and his expression softened as he reigned in his emotions ¡°I¡¯m going to be laying low on the ship for this one. Given my past with the man governing the Venus colony, I¡¯d be a liability. I doubt he holds a grudge, but he¡¯d still use me as a bargaining chip if Foundation finds their way there.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s probably for the best. No chores for you at least.¡± I tried to lighten the mood, and got a half-scoff, half-laugh out of the man. ¡°Even though we could use the extra cash from labor. I think we might be broke thanks to that contract falling through.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Better get used to eating rations again, I suppose.¡± He warned, and I had to stop myself from gagging.

 Voice of Reason

    As we approached orbit, the planet below almost looked cold, a white film covering parts of the yellowish planet. But I knew enough about the solar system to know that the surface was in fact a raging hellfire. There was no way to land safely on the world. There was probably no way to even break atmosphere without obliterating myself while I still had this hole in the ship. Thankfully, Venus itself wasn¡¯t our goal.


    It wasn¡¯t until I was in proximity of the planet itself that my scans even began to pick up the colony. It wasn¡¯t large, a space station made to house a few hundred at most, rather than the potential millions that called Luna home, and the countable billions on the outer colonies.


    ¡°We¡¯re in comms range, Captain.¡± I signaled to Aisling, letting her know that she was free to send her plea for assistance.


    And with that, the negotiations began. Just as Aisling had surmised, the Venusians weren¡¯t very keen on allowing desperate passage for a fugitive vessel fleeing from a veritable army of Foundation personnel. Even the damaged state of our ship wasn¡¯t enough to convince them that we needed to land. We needed to give reason for our visit and ¡®just visiting¡¯ wasn¡¯t good enough, given Aisling¡¯s lack of a worthwhile reputation on this world.


    Aisling took a long hard look at their refusal and closed her eyes as she considered her options. I wanted to remind her that I was still on the table as a possibility, but what would be the best way to handle that?


    Aisling sighed and leaned back in her chair to hit the intercom button with the side of her fist ¡°Shaw, get up to the bridge. We need your¡­ ugh, expertise.¡±


    It took a few minutes, but soon, the still-limping Shaw and Mouse as his armed escort walked into the bridge, Shaw smiling that smug grin he had when we were reliant on him. ¡°Why Captain, I thought that lowly creatures such as I weren¡¯t allowed up here.¡± He flourished as if making a bow ¡°How can I be of assistance, your highness?¡±


    Mouse rolled his eyes, but remained silent, his hand tightening around the rifle¡¯s handle as if he was tempted to level it against him.


    ¡°Can it, man, you¡¯re embarrassing yourself.¡± Aisling said sharply ¡°You said you have contacts here, right? So use them. Get us onto that station, because we don¡¯t have the supplies to try to sneak back around that fleet to the outer colonies. This is our only choice to stop at.¡±


    ¡°Why certainly.¡± Shaw walked directly up to Aisling and cleared his throat, gesturing to the seat that he might take it.


    Aisling glared up at him and reluctantly stood to give him room ¡°Meryll, screen everything before he sends it.¡± She commanded, as if I wasn¡¯t about to do that anyway.


    Shaw sat down hard in the captain¡¯s chair and smiled wide as he flexed his fingers over the keyboard, then began tapping away ¡®I wish to get through to a client of mine. May I request connection to the local intranet?¡¯ he typed in first. I pushed the message through. If he was going to speak to his contact directly, that might help us get around explaining the situation to the port authority.


    There was only a short pause before a response came in ¡®I cannot give free access, but I can alert your client so that they might open a connection to you. May I have the name of this client?¡¯


    ¡®Only a beautiful woman by the name of Dr. Fuller.¡¯ He typed in. I groaned at his tone, but I allowed the message through regardless. I had no way of knowing if that was actually his contact¡¯s name or not, so I just had to take his word on it. ¡®Tell her that Dr. Arthausen wishes to speak to her.¡¯ I had to admit, that was clever. If this Dr. Fuller knew what Arthausen Syndrome meant, that message would probably be alarming enough to at least open a channel asking for clarification.


    ¡°Sorry Meryll, I guess you¡¯ll have to spend some time under the microscope while we¡¯re here.¡± Aisling said as she looked over Shaw¡¯s shoulder ¡°It¡¯s probably the only way we¡¯re going to get access.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, as long as we¡¯re only trading for information with this doctor.¡± I wasn¡¯t exactly happy about the prospect of being a lab rat. That possibility is what I was running from Foundation for in the first place, after all. But we knew this place didn¡¯t have the kind of military force they would need to effectively detain me if the rest of the crew had anything to say about it. At least not on the ground, and shooting us out of space wouldn¡¯t exactly do a whole lot for them.


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    It took the station a very long time to get back to us. I was beginning to worry that they¡¯d gone radio silent after seeing the term and would simply pretend we didn¡¯t exist at the threat of earning Foundation¡¯s ire. But then another message finally came ¡®I¡¯ve forwarded your message to Dr. Fuller. She had some colorful words for the messenger, but she said that she¡¯ll open a relay.¡¯


    Aisling huffed and leaned lightly against the wall, rereading the message several times. ¡°Well¡­ I suppose we¡¯re waiting-¡° as if to oppose her, another message popped up onto the screen.


    It was from an anonymous user on board the colony¡¯s station, and it simply read ¡®I didn¡¯t expect to be visited by a ghost tonight.¡¯


    Shaw typed out quickly into the new message ¡®I knew that would get your attention. Shall I begin rattling chains?¡¯ I hesitated to push that one through, but as someone who appreciated banter between comrades, I sent it along.


    ¡®Arthausen isn¡¯t a term most of my colleagues will recognize, but one doesn¡¯t simply throw around something like this into a den of mad scientists like that.¡¯ The contact started ¡®You have information about them?¡¯


    Them? People with Arthausen Syndrome, I guessed? But it was phrased in such a strange way. Aisling had mentioned the syndrome, not the people.


    ¡®I wish we had more information about the condition. Maybe you can glean something by letting us land and taking a closer look yourself.¡¯ Shaw sent the message and looked up at the sensor array ¡°See? I can play nice. Are you ready to be a bargaining chip?¡±


    ¡°This person definitely knows something then. Even if they don¡¯t have all the details, they can give us something. I think this is worth way more to us than passage onto the colony.¡± I reassured her ¡°I¡¯ll be okay.¡±


    The next message came after a short delay ¡®You have one of the units? Which one? Is she contained?¡¯


    She. The contact already knew Shaw was referring to a woman. ¡®Why yes, I¡¯m inside of her right now.¡¯ Shaw tried to send back, but I blocked that one. He looked up at me and gave a knowing shrug before he rewrote ¡®Why yes, she¡¯s piloting this ship.¡¯


    I began tracing the file, lifting the address from Shaw¡¯s message and copying it into my own system, I knew what I had to do next. Even as Shaw quickly received the simple message ¡®Bullshit¡¯, I was already drafting my own message to the sender.


    ¡®Not bullshit. This is Meryll. Or Theseus if you prefer. Nice to meet you. You gonna let me land so you can take a hopefully non-invasive peek at my brain or what? That¡¯s my offer.¡¯ I sent it quickly and warned the others ¡°I¡¯m already talking with them, don¡¯t worry if they go quiet on you.¡±


    Shaw shrugged ¡°You don¡¯t trust me with negotiating with my own client? Such distrust.¡± The sound of feigned insult rang heavy in his voice.


    ¡®Meryll? That¡¯s impossible.¡¯ I received back, followed by ¡®You¡¯re grafted to a pirate vessel? And you¡¯re not just here to kill everyone? I don¡¯t buy this for a second. Send me five seconds of recent navigational data.¡¯


    Ah, a test. I grabbed the navigational logs from the pieces of the data stream that I¡¯d set aside so they wouldn¡¯t distract me and sent the last hour of our navigational data over the connection. Admittedly, it took a little bit longer than just a few seconds would have, but I wanted to emphasize the point ¡®Happy? Let us land, I don¡¯t know why you¡¯d think I would want to kill anyone here, you people are probably my best hope of figuring out what the hell I am.¡¯


    There was a long pause. I wasn¡¯t sure if the scientist was reading through the miles of accurate but practically useless data I¡¯d just sent them, or if I¡¯d just stunned them with some kind of revelation. Finally, a ping came to mine and Aisling¡¯s computer almost simultaneously. Her¡¯s was landing privilege data that I quickly started to follow, while the person¡¯s direct message to me said ¡®You don¡¯t know?¡¯


    ¡°Wow, nice job Meryll. You didn¡¯t have to offer them anything specific?¡± Aisling asked.


    ¡°I just sent her some proof that I¡¯m really a ship and that was enough I guess.¡± I was just as surprised myself, so I decided to keep talking to the scientist who¡¯d just got us an in ¡®I woke up a little over two weeks ago with a head full of fake memories and a ship getting crammed into my brain. So far, all I know is I¡¯m some kind of Foundation weapon. Please tell me you have any kind of answer to all of this.¡¯


    ¡®One more thing first. How did you come to the conclusion that I know anything about it?¡¯ she asked slowly.


    ¡®We both have the misfortune of knowing an asshole that goes by Shaw. I don¡¯t know his last name, but he¡¯s with us.¡¯


    ¡®You brought that scumbag here? Don¡¯t make me revoke those landing credentials.¡¯


    ¡®Oh, don¡¯t worry, we hate him too. Captain even shot him.¡¯


    ¡®Well that¡¯s a good start. Last question. What are your intentions? In general?¡¯ the reply came back.


    That was a really good question. What exactly did I mean to do with all of this when I hopefully eventually stopped them from chasing me down? Just sail the stars among pirates and wreak some havoc? Except that wasn¡¯t what we did. Sometimes we hurt people, but it was never our intent. We were the good guys. Usually. And I really wanted to stick it to the corpos in general at this point. Especially some nebulous face that eluded my shrouded memory in particular. ¡®My intentions are to help my crew help people. And if I can, to screw over the bastards that did this. Whatever it is they did to me.¡¯


    Another short pause, then a message lit up the data stream that finally gave me a sense that I was close to getting real clarity on my past ¡®My name is Doctor Beatrice Fuller. You¡¯ll have your answers.¡¯

 Pondering An Artificial Nature

    Having put my conversation with Fuller on pause until we could meet in person, I flew into the hanger once more on a rail to guide me on board the colony. I watched the door close behind me. We were locked down in the colony now. I¡¯d need liftoff permission to leave again. It made me feel just a little bit claustrophobic, but it wasn¡¯t like I had much of a choice. This was the closest approximation to safety we had for the time being.


    As I connected to the colony¡¯s network of utilities and shut down my redundant systems, I had to open my eyes and stare into the light, that sleepiness I expected now once again flowing over me. It was like I was dreaming. A nice dream, for once. I let my mind wander, and I thought of what Fuller could possibly have to tell me. No, I couldn¡¯t let my mind wander too far. I shook my head. I had to focus. This was no time for rest, and I recalled that when my mind wandered in the void like this, I tended to end up missing time. I reached out and tapped the release button for my core module so I wouldn¡¯t waste too much longer.


    The lights turned off. The lubricant began to drain away, and I once again tried to stay within its comfortable embrace for as long as I could before the hatch above began to open up. I stared up through the thick liquid, longing for a world where I could just stay in there forever. But it wasn¡¯t meant to be. I finally pulled together the drive to stand up and throw my hair back so it would be out of my eyes when I emerged. I retched up the contents of my lungs in what was becoming an alarmingly well-practiced function, and coughed a few times before being able to gasp the first air I¡¯d taken in for almost a full day. It was routine at this point though.


    The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was that with my redundant systems shut down, the emptiness that had plagued me since the cargo bay had been destroyed felt a little bit lighter. Being parked somewhere safe where the breach wouldn¡¯t have the awkward strain of movement through vacuum placed on it anymore made it feel like a broken limb that had finally been given a chance to rest.


    ¡°About time.¡± Doc called ¡°Ten minutes. That¡¯s how long you took this time. Not your longest blackout, but you should still work on that.¡±


    I replied, my voice still hoarse while my lungs tried to recover ¡°You act like you¡¯re such a morning person. Got a towel?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Can you take that already?¡± he asked, a note of surprise in his voice. Truthfully, I wasn¡¯t sure. My sense of touch was always especially overwhelming for the first hour or so after I left the tank. But I was feeling brave.


    ¡°It¡¯s only been a day. I think I¡¯m getting used to it.¡± I said as I began to pull myself up out of the lubricant and walking to the rack of towels that Doc had begun setting aside for me ¡°I should probably get moving anyway, I¡¯m sure Dr. Fuller will want to talk to me as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°Dr. Fuller, huh? Are you seeing another physician behind my back?¡± Doc gave a huff of dry amusement.


    ¡°Well, she¡¯s certainly more my type.¡± I quipped back, starting to recover my voice as I pushed the towel into my face. That was a mistake. The sensation of the hundreds of little fibers moving across my skin made a shiver run up my spine that made me audibly whimper. It was like a carpet of soft little tickling needles, and I could feel each and every one of them individually sliding across the skin of my face.


    ¡°Not as used to it as you thought, are you?¡± Doc smirked and started to approach me ¡°Sit down, I¡¯ll look you over before you go, and you can get a chance to recover. Besides, captain¡¯s having a word with the port authority about our stay here. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll work something out, but it¡¯s best we don¡¯t go traipsing all over their colony right away.¡±


    ¡°Fine. Fine, I¡¯ll let you look me over again, but I know there¡¯s nothing wrong. There never is. I honestly don¡¯t know why it¡¯s necessary to check so often.¡± I shivered again as I slowly pulled the towel away from my head and let it fall to the floor, opting instead to just walk slowly to the medical bed, where I slowly laid back and closed my eyes.


    I saw that I had another ping from Dr. Fuller. ¡®I¡¯m coming to the hangar. Do you think you can meet me or can I have permission to come aboard?¡¯


    I opened a draft as I felt Doc manipulating my limbs, my body shaking with anticipation with each touch, but at least it wasn¡¯t hundreds of touches all at once. It still made it hard to type out a reply. ¡®You must be as eager as I am for this meeting. I¡¯d say yes, but I¡¯m not the captain of Theseus. I can¡¯t just give you permission to board. You¡¯ll have to talk to Aisling for that. And my physician is insisting he take a look since I¡¯ve been in the tank for more than a day.¡¯


    ¡®Captain Aisling, got it. I¡¯ll see if I can¡¯t have a word with her. It¡¯s interesting that you¡¯re subordinate to people. The other Arthausen units don¡¯t work well with others, to say the least.¡¯


    ¡®So there are others then?¡¯ I asked hopefully. Did I have kin? I hesitated for a moment when it dawned on me that any other people like me would probably be considered Foundation property. I followed up immediately ¡®I can¡¯t imagine they get the opportunity to work with others anyway if they¡¯re a secret military research project.¡¯


    ¡®You really don¡¯t know anything about what you are, do you? We¡¯ll talk about it when we meet in person.¡¯ I read it and my imagination started going wild. Were my assumptions incorrect? Was this not what I¡¯d thought it would be?


    I felt Doc push gently against my side ¡°Turn over for me, would you? You¡¯re busy with something in your head again, aren¡¯t you?¡± he asked.


    ¡°You could say that. This Fuller person is gonna ask Aisling for boarding permission, since I¡¯m gonna be busy with¡­¡± I turned over onto my side, pushing the bed¡¯s paper cover back down when it tried to stick to my backside ¡°Well, you know. Recovering.¡±


    Doc recoiled slightly when I pulled the paper down, and I had to raise an eyebrow at him ¡°What?¡± I asked, trying to hold still for him.


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    He tilted his head as he looked down at my abdomen ¡°Looks like you got a nasty bruise on your lower back. Not sure how that happened.¡± I felt him brush his hand over the base of my spine and I let out a loud cry. The smallest brush against the spot sent me into a spasm of completely unexpected pain. ¡°Well, I was going to ask if you felt that, but that¡¯s pretty obvious now.¡±


    ¡°You think!?¡± I cried out ¡°Ow! How did that get there? I didn¡¯t feel anything before!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­ not sure.¡± Doc muttered, making me flinch when he traced his finger around a spot near the sensitive area ¡°I won¡¯t touch it again. I¡¯m going to need another look once the sensitivity¡¯s worn off though.¡±


    The room grew uncomfortably quiet as Doc came around and looked me over more carefully this time ¡°What now?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Just looking for anything I might have missed. But no, just the one spot. No core module until I figure out this bruise though. For all I know, it¡¯ll irritate it.¡±


    I rolled my eyes. I didn¡¯t want to admit that he was right, but I did need to take a break from it. Looking down at my body, I could tell that I was beginning to grow pale and emaciated. I had been becoming more and more out of touch with my human self in the last week. An argument could be made that it had been a trend since I arrived on Theseus. ¡°Fine. We¡¯re docked anyway. Not more than a day away from it though. Even if it¡¯s just to pop in for a few minutes to calm myself down.¡± I insisted. I needed sensory rest, after all.


    ¡°We¡¯ll see.¡± Doc said, stepping away from me and letting me lie back down, now acutely aware of what must have been a terrible bruise in a spot that was mercifully at the curvature of my back. I didn¡¯t need to apply pressure to it when I lied on my back. ¡°Do you trust Dr. Fuller?¡± he asked suddenly.


    ¡°Huh?¡± I paused a moment to think. I wanted to trust her. She was the first person I¡¯d met who actually felt like she knew something, ANYTHING, about what I was. But he had a point, she was still a stranger. My instincts made me doubt that this was a trap, but she was still an unknown actor. But I really, desperately, wanted her to be trustworthy. ¡°Maybe. She¡¯s not Foundation if that¡¯s what you mean. I think¡­ it¡¯s worth it to talk to her at the very least. If she ends up being shady, we can just kick her off the ship, right?¡±


    ¡°I suppose meeting here might give us a little bit of a home field advantage, yes.¡± Doc nodded ¡°Has she told you anything yet?¡±


    ¡°Not yet¡­ other than the fact that there are others like me. And that she had expected me to be a violent loner, I guess.¡±


    ¡°That feels portentous.¡± Doc said as he sat back down at his console ¡°Maybe if she¡¯s seen other living cores, she¡¯s had negative experiences with them?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t sure if that was right. It felt like his logic was backwards. ¡°She called me an Arthausen Unit. So I have a kind. A¡­ manufactured kind at that. What if my kind are predisposed to violence?¡± I briefly wondered if I was even technically human, but set that aside when I remembered that Ray was still basically human and was considered as such by those that knew about Mammons. At most, I was like her: a genetic offshoot. As much as I tried to justify it, though, I couldn¡¯t help but feel dread hanging over me for the idea that I was something less than human.


    ¡°Perhaps. A predisposition doesn¡¯t mean that you¡¯re guaranteed to be that way, though. Having gotten to know you, I¡¯d hardly call you violent. If anything, you¡¯re a little more innocent than most who end up in this line of work. I wouldn¡¯t exactly say completely mentally stable, but dangerous? No.¡± Doc took out his terminal and started logging what he had observed about the bruise on my back.


    ¡°Not completely mentally stable?¡± I repeated, debating my psychological state inside of my own head for a moment. He was probably right. ¡°What¡¯s your diagnosis on my mental health?¡±


    ¡°Right now, without a proper history? Uncertain.¡± He shrugged his shoulders ¡°Diagnosing amnesiacs is a little difficult. A lot of your everyday experiences are still new to you, so your behavior could be chalked up to¡­ well, novelty. I can say that you¡¯re impulsive and reckless, but I think that¡¯s hardly news to you at this point. And if you weren¡¯t so impulsive and reckless, Shaw would probably have killed me.¡±


    ¡°Can you believe we¡¯re just traveling with the guy now?¡± I muttered quietly, momentarily distracted from the conversation. ¡°Sure, he¡¯s useful, but he actually did almost kill several of us.¡±


    ¡°Any of us might have done the same in that situation. When we¡¯re cornered, we do desperate things. Now that we¡¯re not sending him to his death, we¡¯re not the ones cornering him anymore. If anything, we¡¯re protecting him, in his eyes. It wouldn¡¯t make sense for him to try to kill us again.¡± Doc tried to rationalize it, but he still leaned back in his chair and muttered ¡°You¡¯re not wrong, though, it does feel disconcerting.¡±


    We were getting off track, and I didn¡¯t feel like having an extensive conversation about Shaw, so I brought the subject back to me ¡°So what you¡¯re saying is, I¡¯m a quick thinker?¡± I smirked.


    He let out a short laugh ¡°¡¯Thinking¡¯ might not be the right term. You¡¯re quick to act.¡± He smiled and took a quick swig from his water flask ¡°I can¡¯t really give you a reliable diagnosis of anything, but I can tell you my observations. You¡¯re adaptive, you learn very quickly, you have an addictive personality, you have an alarmingly frail physical constitution¡­ I¡¯m actually surprised you haven¡¯t fallen ill yet. It must be something about the self-cleaning nature of the core lubricant.¡±


    ¡°You think I¡¯m that sickly?¡± I wondered why he told me that. It just gave me more justification to spend as much time as possible in the core module ¡°Addictive personality¡­ is this about that night at Shelby¡¯s?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s about your attachment to the core module. It feels more and more like a psychological addiction¡­ or dare I say psychic addiction? I¡¯m not really certain how that works. My point is, you keep wanting to spend more and more time in there and less and less time out in the real physical world.¡±


    ¡°Is that a problem?¡± I shrugged. He wasn¡¯t wrong, but it didn¡¯t feel like there was much of a negative consequence to it beyond the minor inconvenience of sensory acclimation when I left the module. Maybe if I didn¡¯t have Doc there to monitor my health and needs, it would be more challenging, but I did, so what was the issue?


    Doc seemed like he was at a loss for words, pondering the question himself ¡°I mean¡­ it feels like it should be a problem, doesn¡¯t it?¡± he started, but he went silent, not sure what else he could say about addiction in this case ¡°Ordinarily, addiction would be a major problem, right? Except you don¡¯t seem belligerent or uncooperative about being removed from it. And since you¡¯re already so dependent on me for your personal care just by the nature of being the ship¡¯s core, well¡­ maybe addiction is just the wrong term.¡±


    ¡°Obsession?¡± I smirked, trying to be both helpful and humorous at the same time. ¡°I don¡¯t even know about that, though. I don¡¯t know if you know this, but ever since I was grafted to the ship, the total sensory deprivation of the void has become an actual NEED. I see the data and can¡¯t help but process it while I have my eyes closed, so being able to open them and see nothing, that¡¯s the only break I get from my senses. That¡¯s why I want to go back to it so badly. It¡¯s like the other half of sleep for me.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s intriguing for sure. A psychic biological need. Huh.¡± He looked up from his work and leaned back for a moment. I think I¡¯d struck a chord in his inquisitive mind that he needed some time to process.


    I was happy when I closed my eyes and saw a message from Fuller though: ¡®I¡¯m with an escort, and I¡¯m coming aboard.¡¯

 The Truth

    I waited patiently, my eyes closed as I watched the hallways leading from the cargo bay, since Theseus was still awaiting a big empty room transplant. It was only a matter of minutes before I saw the door to the dormitory hallway open wide. I saw a middle-aged woman step through with Joel at her back, walking behind her with an arrogant disregard for the potential threat.


    She had long blond hair tied back into a ponytail and a pair of round spectacles resting on her small nose. She wore a white overcoat on top of a brown sweater. I¡¯d always thought that the cold I felt outside of the core module was just a quirk of preferring to live in temperature-nullifying lubricant, but maybe places that were only separated from space with a few meters of steel were just chilly.


    She already looked tired, and she had a nervous expression on her face as she stepped into the hall and stopped, pausing to scribble something onto a paper notepad she had been carrying under one arm.


    It was a bit muted because one of the sensors I was expecting to hear it from was still damaged with the cargo bay, but I heard Joel ask ¡°What you got there?¡±


    ¡°A quick test.¡± I heard her say back as she glanced up at the nearby sensor array ¡°Just to be certain. Can she see in here?¡±


    Joel raised an eyebrow, looking surprised as she placed the notepad on the floor and placed a small handheld terminal face down on top of it, leaving it on the floor and standing back up. ¡°She should.¡± Joel scoffed ¡°You don¡¯t believe she¡¯s the real deal or something?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not used to taking anyone¡¯s word on anything.¡± She muttered, getting back up to her feet and standing face to face with Joel. She was trying to show him that she wasn¡¯t intimidated by him. It wasn¡¯t working. ¡°Especially related to something like this.¡±


    ¡°Good policy.¡± He motioned for her to continue down the hall as I zoomed in on the paper. It simply read ¡®Greet me with the word in the open file on the terminal.¡¯ That was clever. Nobody else would have the opportunity to take a look at the planted electronic device, but a ship core would be able to access it remotely. And I did, cracking into the unlocked device with ease while she approached my heart.


    Returning my attention to the movement within my ship, I saw her approaching my heart. Before she even stepped over the threshold, I smiled, only slightly embarrassed about what I was about to do, and called out loudly in a sing-song voice so I was sure she could hear ¡°Pineapples!¡± I couldn¡¯t help but giggle.


    Opening my eyes, I saw that Doc was staring at me with a bewildered expression that made me wonder if he thought I¡¯d gone mad. And then Fuller walked into the room with a surprised smile on her face, no doubt at my proactive response to her challenge, and then quickly threw her arms up in front of her face ¡°Oh! Oh, I¡¯m so sorry, did I come too soon?¡±


    It took me a moment to realize what she was talking about. It hadn¡¯t dawned on me that I was still completely naked. I had become so accustomed to not wearing clothes that I¡¯d forgotten that there were certain expected norms of common decency that I was neglecting.


    ¡°The hell¡¯s a pineapple?¡± Joel asked gruffly. It seemed that I¡¯d somehow managed to confuse everyone in the room simultaneously.


    ¡°It¡¯s a rare tropical fruit.¡± Doc explained in a slow befuddled tone and began to rise up out of his chair ¡°What is happening here?¡±


    I sat up and started to stammer out explanations, trying to defuse the strangeness of the situation ¡°She felt the need to test me one more time, and I figured I¡¯d play along. Sorry about the nudity, I¡¯m frankly just not used to anyone caring. I just got out of the tank, so clothes were not on my mind.¡±


    ¡°I-I see.¡± Fuller lowered her hands, clearly still uncomfortable with the situation. She turned her attention to Doc instead so she could avoid looking at my exposed body. ¡°And you¡¯re her¡­ physician? Like an ordinary core would have?¡±


    I was still stumbling over the adrenaline of embarrassing myself in front of everyone, and before Doc could reply to her, I chimed in ¡°Dr. Fuller, Doc. Doc, Dr. Fuller. No one ever told me his real name, that¡¯s just what everyone calls him.¡±


    She tilted her head at Doc with a judgemental shift of her brow ¡°You realize that on a colony of scientists, that could become confusing very quickly, yes?¡± Fuller asked, still trying to train her gaze away from me.


    ¡°Good thing I don¡¯t plan on boarding the colony then.¡± Doc glared right back. I thought for a moment that these two wouldn¡¯t get along. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m her physician. No, I don¡¯t care for names, just call me Doc.¡±


    The room went silent for a moment, Fuller¡¯s attention reluctantly returned to me, and she just watched, seeming to want to observe me as if I was about to perform some kind of extraordinary superhuman feat. I watched her back just as intensely, waiting for her to tell me some kind of revelation I needed. I finally broke the silence with an uncertain ¡°So¡­ Arthausen.¡±


    Fuller nodded, crossing her arms as she tried to recall something. ¡°The Arthausen Project, yes. Named for and run by the late Dr. Arthausen.¡± She took a deep breath as if mentally preparing herself for what she was about to say ¡°If you know absolutely nothing about it, then I¡¯m guessing that you¡¯re brimming with questions?¡±


    ¡°Hell yes I am.¡± I started to push the towel around to clean off the leftover lubricant, glad that my sensitivity had lessened considerably since my last attempt. I didn¡¯t really care if she saw my body at this point, she would have to get used to it. ¡°What am I? Am I even a real person? Am¡­ Am I a clone like other ship cores?¡±


    ¡°You are.¡± Fuller said simply, and with a sudden sinking feeling I felt like a fragile floor I had built for my expectations had just dropped out from beneath me entirely. I was really hoping that the answer to that particular question would be no. I wanted to hear that I was a special case, or that I was an ordinary person stolen away by Foundation and experimented on. But it wasn¡¯t meant to be. There was little fanfare to how she said it either, she just dropped it on me. I supposed that it had been exactly what I asked for, so I wasn¡¯t sure what I was expecting. ¡°You¡¯re a very special clone, though. Part of a failed project to inspire sentience to an empty shell. Living, thinking human beings who¡¯re able to fully utilize psionic resonance.¡±


    I took a deep breath ¡°So¡­ I¡¯m not human. Not in the eyes of corporate law, anyway.¡± My voice quivered as I put the fact out there, afraid of the implications it might have on my future.


    Dr. Fuller nodded solemnly ¡°Well¡­ no, you¡¯re not. Since human cloning is exclusively used for research, organ replacement insurance policies, and machine interface purposes, clones are implied to have all been rendered unthinking property rather than people. Clones have no rights to autonomy under Foundation law.¡± Her voice at least told me that that wasn¡¯t what she believed personally, but Dr. Fuller was not a nigh-omniscient corporate army.


    I had no lawful rights whatsoever. I suddenly found myself glad that I had stumbled into the life of an outlaw already, because if what Dr. Fuller said about me was true, then Foundation had every legal right to ¡®retrieve¡¯ me. Aisling¡¯s decision to take me in the first place wouldn¡¯t have even been considered kidnapping, just theft. ¡°So I was just born in a vat and one day they woke me up.¡± I mumbled to myself, suddenly feeling lonely. I¡¯d hoped that I¡¯d find that there was some mote of truth to my false memories. That there was a family I might be able to turn to and relate to, even if I wasn¡¯t going to be able to return to them like I¡¯d thought I could at the beginning of my journey. I thought I might have a hidden past that I might be able to explore. But this was it. I was just a thing that got lucky.


    ¡°I was once an intern with the project. I wasn¡¯t privy to all of the details because I wasn¡¯t one of the people heading it, but my relative distance from it meant I was able to slip through the cracks when the project staff was¡­ purged.¡± She explained slowly ¡°The project was unsustainable at scale. Only six units were ever successfully produced. Well, seven I suppose.¡± She gestured toward me ¡°Out of thousands of attempted conversions, seven successes meant that it was deemed too costly. Among other factors that got it shut down.¡±


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    I stared at the ground. I was one of seven. So I did have kin, of a sort. There were just very few of us. Maybe there were more than that, if she hadn¡¯t known about me before today.


    ¡°That¡¯s all very curious.¡± Doc spoke up when I failed to reply, deep in thought as I was ¡°Can you tell us anything about the process of¡­ awakening a ship core, I guess, at all?¡±


    ¡°Vaguely. I was able to infer a lot of it from what I had access to. The clones were presented with simulated scenarios of happy fulfilling lives.¡± She lowered her voice as she became slowly overwhelmed with guilt ¡°Then the scenarios were shifted to deep, painful, personal tragedy. Induced psychological trauma.¡± There was a cold tone to her voice that suggested that she was trying to keep emotional distance from the conversation. Perhaps she was hoping to absolve herself of having been part of it.


    They gave us a history, and then they tore it away from us. ¡°So they were torturing us¡­?¡± I asked quietly, starting to feel more and more unsettled about what seemed to be my true past ¡°W-Why? Even with clones, why put them through that?¡±


    She spoke quietly, regret clear in her tone ¡°Because the simulation itself isn¡¯t what woke you up. It was the trauma. Something about terror and the grief of loss seems to wake up the part of the clone¡¯s brain that shuts down while establishing psionic resonance during production. Without the torture, there are no Arthausen units.¡± She was trying to avoid looking at me. Or anyone for that matter.


    ¡°That¡¯s more than a little fucked up.¡± Joel pitched in, sitting down in a spare seat by the door and leaning back, resting his head back against the wall. I was surprised that he even stuck around. I thought that this conversation was going to be too boring for him.


    ¡°I won¡¯t deny that. Like anyone else under the yoke of corporate rule, I was made to do some unspeakable things.¡± She muttered. Doc silently nodded in solidarity. ¡°Doesn¡¯t make it right, but I can at least give some closure to a¡­ lost experiment who¡¯s managed to stumble her way onto my doorstep.¡± She looked to me apologetically ¡°It¡¯s probably best you don¡¯t remember exactly what we put you through in that simulation. And the least I could do, after all of that, is answer your questions here.¡±


    I gulped. I was afraid to ask anything else. After just one simple question, so much of my life had been put into such dire perspective that I didn¡¯t know if I could speak further about it ¡°I¡­ I-I need a minute.¡± I stammered, starting to feel moisture building in my eyes.


    ¡°Did they try inducing other mental states? Was it really only trauma that woke them up?¡± Doc asked, leaning back with his terminal in hand as he began taking notes.


    Fuller shook her head ¡°Nothing else did it. We tried simply letting the simulations play out of stories with happy endings and contentment, we tried producing them with mildly uncomfortable upbringings, even highly fictitious scenarios that bordered on fantasy. They never truly ¡®connected¡¯ with the character they¡¯d been given until they were presented with horrendous tragedy. It¡¯s almost like the brain going through something terrible after becoming attached to a sense of identity, that creates a person. It worked consistently, at that.¡±


    ¡°So why was the failure rate so high?¡± Doc asked curiously ¡°If it worked as often as that implies, then¡­¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s the problem. It worked for almost every clone of the thousands we used. However, they were almost all rendered permanently catatonic, immediately suicidal, or otherwise non-functional as people, never mind machine cores. Even the six who were functional were mostly raving psychopaths who were more dangerous to others than themselves. They were the few that directed their pain outward rather than inward.¡± She motioned toward me again ¡°Which is what¡¯s so puzzling about her. I haven¡¯t spent much time around her, but the fact that she¡¯s not trying to tear everyone around her apart, physically or otherwise, is¡­ curious.¡±


    So all of my ¡®sisters¡¯ were dangerous lunatics then. That certainly quashed the forming idea of reuniting with them. It probably wouldn¡¯t be a pleasant experience. The only people in the universe that I could possibly relate to as a living machine core and they would be stark-raving mad. Still, a part of me wondered if I could possibly get through to them. ¡°And there¡¯s nothing we can do for them?¡± I asked weakly.


    Fuller looked very surprised to hear me speak those words, like she had just been expecting me to let the only family I had go without a thought. ¡°She even expresses empathy.¡± She noted quietly to herself. ¡°No, not likely. Perhaps traditional medication and therapy might be effective, but that idea was shot down before we could even try. The project was already dead at that point.¡± She seemed to nod solemnly to herself for a moment ¡°Or¡­ perhaps someone could force them to forget the pain they suffered after the fact.¡±


    It felt strange being talked about like an experiment. I was, but still, I was right there and she spoke like I was one of many test subjects. Which I suppose I had been. It made me uncomfortable, but I was starting to follow her logic. ¡°So¡­ the reason that I¡¯m sane is because I forgot?¡±


    ¡°Very likely.¡± She nodded ¡°You underwent the neurological process of awakening your higher functions, but then somehow, you forgot the psychological trauma. Do you remember anything at all from before you woke up here?¡±


    ¡°Just false memories and dreams.¡± I started, trying my best to force my way through the emotional heartache I felt about this entire situation. ¡°I didn¡¯t notice there was anything strange about them until Doc asked me to take a close look at my memories, and they always fall apart if I try to pick out the details. They¡¯re just¡­ vague senses of a life that I already figured out wasn¡¯t real. I figured that they had been implanted into me somehow, I didn¡¯t know why until now. So I don¡¯t have parents, I never went to school to learn computer science, I never had my first girlfriend in college, I never had a business trip to Mars where they exhausted me with all their inept garbage. They¡¯re all just stories that fall apart if I look at them too closely.¡±


    ¡°That would be the scenario we implanted you with then.¡± She nodded ¡°At least, the first phase of it. It seems you¡¯ve forgotten the ending somehow. It¡¯s curious. I hope it stays that way, but amnesia is rarely permanent.¡±


    My eyes went wide as her words circled through my head several times. Amnesia is rarely permanent. So I would likely remember someday. And if I remembered that induced trauma¡­ I swallowed hard. What would that even mean? Would I go mad as well if the scenario decided to uncover itself in my brain? If something suddenly jarred my memory, would I lose who I had become this last month?


    Fuller saw the distress in my eyes and replied before I could articulate myself ¡°Knowing ahead of time that it is a falsehood alone will likely help.¡± She declared in a reassuring tone ¡°But it might be a wise idea to begin some level of¡­ therapy now. Be proactive about it. I can¡¯t tell you for certain which scenario you endured to get here, there were thousands of you after all, and we experimented with a variety of trigger scenarios. ¡°You probably won¡¯t face the same effects since you¡¯ve had some time to acclimate to being a human being first.¡± She gave a curious grunt, silently repeating to herself that I was a human being. ¡°If only we had a way to induce amnesia. That project might have been much more successful.¡±


    ¡°What about my sisters?¡± I asked, unsure what had drawn me to that word for them, but it made sense to me. They were family.


    ¡°Your sisters? The other Arthausen units? I suppose you would be sisters, given you were all born of the same source genetics.¡± Fuller mused ¡°I couldn¡¯t say. I saw the writing on the wall; I fled and disappeared before Foundation had a chance to silence me. They may have been disposed of or they may be under observation somewhere by some other team. It¡¯s unlikely anyone will ever see them again.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure about that actually.¡± Doc interrupted, a grave expression on his face as he looked down at the notes on his terminal, a hand on his chin in thought. ¡°Were you aware that there are protocols for allowing Arthausen Syndrome patients through Foundation security checkpoints?¡±


    Fuller turned to Doc with a look of bewildered concern ¡°Arthausen¡­ Syndrome?¡± she asked. Was she unfamiliar with the medical version of this lie?


    Doc nodded ¡°The diagnostic criteria and any other medical information for it are under Foundation lock and key, but the gist seems to be that it¡¯s a mental condition that causes sensors to pick up a phantom psionic resonance in ordinary people. The protocol at security gates is simply to record passage and let them through.¡±


    Fuller put a hand to her chin as well and looked directly at me as she spoke ¡°So a cover up to track their movement then. But¡­ why? What would they need to move the units around for? This project should have just been buried.¡±


    ¡°Seems you don¡¯t have all the answers after all.¡± Joel quipped.


    ¡°Not now, Joel.¡± Doc gave a terse admonishment to the gunman. Doc shook his head, trying to return to the matter at hand. ¡°What about Dr. Arthausen himself? You said that he had passed. Was he ¡®cleaned up¡¯?¡±


    Dr. Fuller shook her head ¡°Dr. Arthausen was murdered. By an Arthausen Unit.¡±


    Joel gave a dry laugh, yawning loudly and closing his eyes as he kept leaning back against the wall in his chair. ¡°Poetic.¡±


    ¡°In a way, yes. She went by Cassandra. We put her through an especially brutal simulation and she came out¡­ gleeful. A violent sadist. She was a gifted psion. She managed to lock everyone else out of her enclosure, tortured him, killed him slowly, and enjoyed it. It was the turning point of the project being deemed a failure. Before that, she seemed promising, too. She was a devious actor, it seemed.¡±


    I was zoning in and out of the conversation, the gravity of my past weighing heavy on me. I had so many more questions than when this conversation had started. How long might I have before my simulated traumatic memories would come rushing back to me? What kind of effect would that have on my psyche? What happened to the other Arthausen Units? If the project was a forgotten failure, then why were Foundation so desperate to retrieve me? What did they intend to do with me if they caught me?


    ¡°Meryll?¡± I was suddenly brought back to my senses by Doc calling my name. The two doctors were looking at me, concern clear on their faces. I looked down to see that I¡¯d been clutching at my leg. I¡¯d dug in with my nails hard enough that there were specks of blood on my fingernails. I didn¡¯t even register the mild itching pain until I saw it.


    Standing up, I held onto my head with one hand as I moved toward the door and muttered ¡°I-I need some air.¡± I stammered out, storming as quickly as I could out of my heart.

 What Am I?

    I didn''t know where I was going, but I had to go somewhere. I had to do something. Everything felt wrong. I had to wonder if this was real. Was any of this real? Was I really on Venus when only weeks ago I was just a corporate worker on the other side of the system? Or at least I thought I had been. It seemed insane when I examined it. Here I was, embroiled at the center of a military conspiracy, and I wasn¡¯t even really a person in it. I was just a thing.


    I stopped as I leaned over the railing of the cargo bay. Looking for the first time down onto the crushed and torn machinery just made things feel more surreal. This was me. This was a broken piece of myself. Part of me wanted to book it into the hangar and just go somewhere else, but I didn¡¯t dare leave the safety of my shell. Pierced as it was, it was a sanctuary. But another part of me felt trapped.


    ¡°Are you done?¡± I lifted my head in surprise as I heard Joel impatiently stepping up behind me ¡°Don¡¯t think they were finished with you in there.¡± He grumbled as he put his hand onto my shoulder.


    I scoffed and turned around, pushing him away as hard as I could, which is to say, I got his arm off of me ¡°The fuck do you care for?¡± I grumbled, failing to hide the fact that I was on the verge of tears. I ignored the painful pressure on my bare feet and the base of my spine as I stepped back down the hall. I had too many emotions swirling around inside of me. I needed some kind of release, and Joel was still following me, though he¡¯d thankfully given up on grabbing me for the moment.


    ¡°Meryll, calm down, it¡¯s not that big of a deal.¡± He spoke all too casually.


    Not that big of a deal? NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL!? I WAS HARDWARE! All this time that I¡¯d hoped so hard that I was some kind of weird freak of nature that Foundation just wanted their greedy little hands on, but no, it wasn¡¯t even that, I was a freak of industry! They MADE me. I croaked out in disbelief ¡°I can¡¯t believe you would even say that.¡±


    ¡°Ray¡¯s a Mammon, Mouse has his experimental superarms, you really think we¡¯re gonna treat you different cause of this or something?¡± he asked impatiently, crossing his arms and staring me down, again grabbing me by both shoulders this time and trying to hold me still.


    I really REALLY wanted him to stop touching me. I met his gaze, trying my best to look intimidating, and growled at him ¡°Let. Go.¡± And he didn¡¯t. I tried to push him away, but he held me tight this time. He was much, much stronger than I was, and while he wasn¡¯t being rough, he was trying to hold me still. ¡°Let go of me! I am not your¡­ your property!¡±


    He just leveled his glare at me as if asking if I was serious. ¡°Meryll, no one said you were. Just calm the fuck down.¡± he was trying not to shout back, but I could tell he was on the verge of it. ¡°You¡¯re part of the crew, Captain hasn¡¯t cared this far, what makes you think she¡¯ll give a shit if you¡¯re just a clone.¡±


    Just a clone. Like that corpse that I saw the day I arrived on Theseus. The one that my first implants had been ripped from. I replaced her, and I couldn¡¯t help but imagine myself in that box, rushed surgical scars where the neural link and wrist console had been, with Joel standing over it sneering at the next new crewmate.


    With a frustrated growl, I shouted back at him ¡°Why are you even here anyway!? No one likes you on this ship! I bet if you were in my position, she WOULD have left you behind!¡±


    That touched something, and his expression of genuine concern turned to a scowl. He suddenly let go of my shoulders in a quick movement that made me flinch like he was about to hit me, but he didn¡¯t. ¡°Fine.¡± He grumbled, turning away and walking toward the stairs ¡°Wallow in your misery, you psycho.¡±


    I grit my teeth as he spat the last word. I wanted to hit him for that, but getting him to leave the room was more important, so I just seethed until he was gone.


    Groaning, I whirled around and took a few deep breaths before I let out a loud roar of frustration at no one in particular. I was sure that it didn¡¯t sound like more than frustrated mewling to those around me, but I didn¡¯t care in the moment. I needed more than that, I needed to do something that made me feel real again. Like I had some kind of control of my own life. Whipping around again, I looked at the nearest wall and slammed my fist straight into it as hard as I could. This was a mistake.


    ¡°OW!¡± I cried out louder than I had roared, holding my hand and inspecting the specks of my own blood on my knuckles. I was so weak and the wall was made of reinforced metal panels. As I turned and backed up against the same wall. The rage that I¡¯d been directing at Joel didn¡¯t have anywhere else to go anymore, and the tears I¡¯d been holding back the entire time welled up to a peak as I sunk down to the floor. Grabbing hold of my legs and hugging myself tight, I began to sob. He wasn¡¯t wrong, was he? I was just a crazy thing, and it was only going to keep getting worse. Did I even have a future ahead of me at all in a life like this?


    We were already out of inhabited space to flee through. They were going to catch up to us and my short life of freedom would be over. I would just be Foundation¡¯s experiment again, if I wasn¡¯t killed outright on the spot. I was too dangerous in their eyes. I was a failure after all.


    My tears made me close my eyes and I was forced to watch the data stream again, but it made no sense to me. My thoughts were elsewhere, and it just looked like nonsense, flooding my thoughts with digital static. I considered just rushing back into my heart and diving into my core module so I could find some kind of sensory relief, but I didn¡¯t want to face Doc and Fuller again, especially after they likely overheard my altercation with Joel.


    ¡°Hey¡­¡± I heard a gentle voice call above me. Looking up, I saw Ray looming over me, a look of pity betraying her imposing body of muscle and fur. If I hadn¡¯t gotten to know her so well by then, I would probably have been frightened sitting on the floor next to her. ¡°I heard you crying¡­ and yelling. It was a little hard to miss.¡± She looked back at her open door right next to the wall that I¡¯d hit ¡°Do you wanna talk about it?¡±


    ¡ª


    I had seen Ray¡¯s room plenty of times, but I¡¯d never actually physically walked into it with my human body before. Wanting to forget that Joel was still just downstairs, I had silently followed her invitation to enter her domain. Before I knew it, I was sitting on a soft cushion around a small table she¡¯d pulled up between us. I still held my legs tight to my chest, my gaze distant as I sobbed quietly to myself. She finally spoke up as we got comfortable. ¡°This is about more than a shouting match and that bruise on your back, isn¡¯t it?¡± she asked carefully.


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    I nodded, having nearly forgotten that I had a small injury already between everything else that just happened. ¡°I¡­¡± I started, but couldn¡¯t get the words out, my voice hitching in my throat between the crying. I sniffled and felt snot and tears falling down into my lap, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to care.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, just relax. Take your time. We¡¯re safe in port now. We have time.¡± She said as she reached to the shelf of odds and ends she kept and pulled a device connected to a phial of pale green fluid. I watched through the haze of tear-clouded eyes as she felt around at her own fur-covered thigh. ¡°I hope you don¡¯t mind, I need to take my medication.¡±


    I nodded, sniffling as I watched through clouded vision, curiosity helping momentarily distract me from my own plight. She took a needle-like appendage from the back of the device and plugged it into a specific spot on her thigh, where the green fluid slowly started to push into her. She smiled a little at my stare and as if reading my curiosity, started to explain ¡°Most Mammons inject it into their veins. I¡¯ve got an internal device that distributes it more efficiently. Suppose that technically makes me cybernetically augmented too, huh?¡± she was trying to empathize with me, I guess.


    It dawned on me then that perhaps Ray was exactly who I needed to talk to about this. She wasn¡¯t quite human either. She probably didn¡¯t have any rights in Foundation¡¯s eyes either. She probably had plenty of people who looked down on her as something ¡®other¡¯ and inhuman. She probably had people who wanted to control her. But she was the most gentle person I knew anyway. She was ironically probably the most humane of all of us.


    I wiped my tears from my eyes and sniffled, managing to find my voice again while I tried to wipe the mixture of fluids off of my hands ¡°How¡­ How do you deal with¡­ you know¡­ not being completely human?¡± I asked.


    Her face grimaced a bit at the question. I had probably struck a nerve, but she must have known that I wasn¡¯t thinking very clearly about my words, and she knew that I didn¡¯t need an argument about semantics in that moment, so she let it go. ¡°In what way? I¡¯ve never known what it¡¯s like to not be a Mammon, so I¡¯m not sure how else I would deal with it than how I always have. Or do you mean how I deal emotionally with the way that others treat me?¡± she asked, allowing a short pause before she added ¡°This doesn¡¯t actually have anything to do with me, does it?¡±


    I sniffed again. She was too good at reading me ¡°I just learned that¡­ I¡¯m a clone.¡± I croaked out bitterly, looking down at the device in front of her pumping medication into some kind of hidden reservoir inside of her rather than looking into her eyes ¡°My memories are manufactured and I¡¯m just¡­ a thing that happens to think like a person and¡­¡± I sobbed again, my vision being overtaken by tears again as mucus clogged my throat. I leaned over on the table with my elbows, putting my face into my hands.


    Ray stayed silent as I spoke, but as soon as I broke down again, I felt her clawed hand rest gently on my shoulder ¡°I see.¡± Was all she said at first in that tone you would expect from a parent addressing their crying child. I leaned into her arm, not realizing how much I just needed to be in physical contact with someone else in that moment. She was waiting to choose her words carefully though.


    Finally, she spoke up again, her voice becoming solemn. ¡°I suppose you and I aren¡¯t that different, are we? Strangers in a world where we¡¯re a novelty. We¡¯re both still human, but at the same time, we¡¯re something different. A lot of people would consider us dangerous. They might even hate us just for what we are.¡±


    I sniffled and sobbed. She was right. I had a grim future ahead of me. She had already experienced all of that ridicule because she couldn¡¯t hide what made her different. I could at least pretend to be a normal human with some unusual cybernetics. Maybe I could be mistaken for an overly enthusiastic hacker. But I wasn¡¯t. I was different just like her. ¡°Nothing feels real right now. I thought I was just a person with an unusual condition. Instead I¡¯m just¡­ an escaped corporate secret. I¡¯m just their property that they¡¯re trying to get back.¡±


    Ray pulled the needle from her thigh and started to put the device away on her shelf again ¡°You¡¯re not though. You¡¯re so much more than that.¡± She said in a matter-of-fact tone.


    I looked up at her curiously, watching through clouded vision as she pulled a bowl down from the shelf onto the table and placed a stick of some sort into it. Producing a lighter, she ignited the tip of the incense and a thin smoke began to fill the room. ¡°Am I just a beast of burden? A half-animal supersoldier who¡¯s reliant on drugs to survive?¡±


    I took a deep breath, starting to smell a sweet comforting scent rising from the smoke ¡°No. No, you¡¯re not.¡± She was an awesome cook. She was a helpful friend. She was a potent infantry fighter, yes, but she was so much more than that. But I had a better word for her already. ¡°You¡¯re a warrior.¡±


    She gave a small chortle ¡°Yeah¡­ well, you¡¯re not just a clone. You¡¯re a fun person to be around, you¡¯re a hard worker, and you¡¯re resilient. Look at everything you¡¯ve been through with us in the short time we¡¯ve been together, and you¡¯re already playing an invaluable role on this ship, all while you had no idea what you were. So why does knowing have to change anything? Maybe you¡¯re not as conventionally human as you thought you were. You¡¯re still Meryll.¡±


    I wanted to take her words to heart, but there was a part of me that was still too scared. I breathed in deep of that sweet scent that was rising between us and tried to make my body relax. I was still Meryll. And who was Meryll? An IT consultant? A clone among thousands? A ghost in Foundation¡¯s system? One of seven mad psions? A pirate? Theseus?


    I swallowed hard, grimacing at the thought. I felt clarity starting to return to me. I was all of these things, and I was also free. For the time being, and hopefully for the foreseeable future, I didn¡¯t have to be any of these things alone. I was Meryll. I was me. And I could decide what that meant.


    I gripped the edge of the table hard. The world was going to be against me. It was going to be hard. It was going to be almost impossible. But I had a choice. I could sit down and cower and cry at the overwhelming odds until that future came to be or I could keep doing what I¡¯d already been doing with Theseus and its crew: Keep looking for answers and trying to change things.


    ¡°I¡­ I need to fight.¡± I managed to stammer out and finally looked back up at Ray to see her smiling gently ¡°But I¡¯m so scared.¡± My composure almost broke again as I admitted how I felt.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay to be scared. I admit, I don¡¯t know exactly how your thing with the ship works, but from everything I¡¯ve seen so far, you have a lot of potential. I think we¡¯re all scared, every time we face any kind of adversary. But we push through because we want something better. So what do you want?¡±


    ¡°I just want to stay free.¡± I sniffled hard, suddenly aware of how much mucus I¡¯d been leaking all over Ray¡¯s furniture, but I had to focus on my words in that moment. ¡°I wanna be Theseus. I wanna keep flying through wild space with you guys, helping people where I can. I want to not have to worry that I¡¯m going to be captured and killed or put away in a box forever where I¡¯ll never feel my ship again¡­¡±


    ¡°Then you¡¯re right. You need to fight for it.¡± Ray nodded ¡°And we¡¯ll fight alongside you, because we all know what it¡¯s like to be different and alone.¡± She reached across the table again, patting me on the head ¡°And you¡¯ll stay free as long as you fight. Promise.¡±


    I nodded slowly, noting how soft her fur felt against my head despite the hard claws gently pressing against me.


    ¡°Now. Let¡¯s put on a smile, huh?¡± she asked ¡°Our journey¡¯s not ending any time soon, and we¡¯ll need to keep our spirits up if we¡¯re going to be fighting fit, yeah?¡±


    I tried to put a smile on my face. I still had my reservations. There was an entire military corporation between me and the freedom I wanted to live for. But I wasn¡¯t theirs anymore. I was my own self. Clone or not, human or not, I belonged here.

 True Capability

    It had taken a little bit to help Ray clean up the mess of gross bodily fluids that I¡¯d left all over her furniture, and thankfully by then, I had calmed down enough to at least appear composed on the outside.


    When I walked slowly back into my heart, my eyes still red with tears, the pair of doctors looked up from Doc''s terminal. I blinked and saw that they had been examining Doc''s observations about me.


    "Sorry." I said hoarsely, approaching my small pile of clothes in the corner and finally beginning to dress myself. I supposed that I should get used to wearing something again, after all, I wasn¡¯t sure how long we¡¯d be here at this point.


    ¡°I figured you needed some time alone after the whole... thing.¡± Doc was avoiding eye contact with me. I didn¡¯t, I just needed to talk with someone I could relate to more than that asshat, Joel. But I wasn¡¯t about to voluntarily reopen that fresh wound now ¡°I¡¯ve just been showing Dr. Fuller your profile.¡±


    ¡°The official one?¡± I scoffed. ¡°Nothing to see there.¡±


    ¡°That and my own observations.¡± Doc paused and looked up at me ¡°¡­ Are you going to be okay to continue with this?¡± he asked carefully.


    I took a deep breath, trying not to snap at him. Of course I wasn¡¯t going to be okay. I¡¯d just learned that I was less of a person and more of a thing. But I tried to keep Ray¡¯s words in mind too. I just had to remember that I was more than that. ¡°I¡¯m going to be¡­ yeah, okay. This is just a lot, you know? I know¡­ most of you guys aren¡¯t going to treat me any different or anything, but everything feels unreal right now. Like a dream. Or a nightmare.¡±


    Doc nodded solemnly, then perked up. ¡°Ah, right. Speaking of nightmares.¡± He pulled up a file for Dr. Fuller and began to address her again ¡°I almost forgot, Meryll¡¯s been having consistent nightmares since she joined our crew. The other day, she had the idea to record her brainwaves as she slept.¡±


    Dr. Fuller leaned over to look and creased her brow in rapt interest as Doc scrolled through the readout ¡°That¡¯s¡­ well, I suppose I shouldn¡¯t have expected normal, but it¡¯s certainly not something I¡¯ve seen before.¡± She mumbled ¡°It¡¯s probably just nonsense being thrown around like when anyone dreams, but It¡¯s like there are at least two different streams of mental functions crossing over one another.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s like I have a starship in my head or something.¡± I muttered as I finished buttoning up my only ridiculous shirt ¡°It¡¯s a stream of data I¡¯m receiving constantly. I see it every time I close my eyes. The ship, all its sensors, its controls. And any other electronic devices nearby. I can control it all from the core module and create wireless networks pretty easily.¡± I threw my arms out in frustration ¡°I can control it from anywhere, really, it¡¯s just easier in there.¡±


    ¡°Psychic networking, yes. I¡¯m familiar with it. It¡¯s what Cassandra used to kill Arthausen.¡± Fuller nodded solemnly. ¡°And you just¡­ knew how to do all of this inherently?¡± Fuller asked with a tone of curious surprise.


    ¡°Well, yeah, it¡¯s not so different from how I used to-¡° I paused and thought about that for a moment. I was never an IT consultant. I hadn¡¯t had formal computer training in any capacity, or likely any experience with it beforehand at all if I had just been an experiment about sparking human consciousness. That had all been a simulation, and why would that have actually left me with the knowledge I had to do what I do? ¡°No, that doesn¡¯t make sense¡­¡± I muttered to myself.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t. We never trained the clones we used in the experiment, either before or after they woke up, to run any kind of machine core network. Ship cores need a simulated training regimen before they can learn to operate something like a starship and be released to market. Plugging a blank clone into a ship may as well be the same as grafting it to a corpse.¡± Fuller explained ¡°You must have had training sometime between the end of the experiment and becoming amnesic.¡±


    ¡°¡­ So who trained me?¡± I asked curiously, and there was a long uncomfortable moment of silence that told me that nobody knew.


    Doc cleared his throat ¡°I have a theory. What if the Arthausen project didn¡¯t really end at all?¡±


    Fuller crossed her arms and looked irritated, almost offended. ¡°There was an awful lot of disposing of documentation and¡­ personnel¡­ for a secret project to continue anyway.¡±


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    ¡°Just hear me out. Say it¡¯s a staged project. The first stage is to create the units. After that, the team involved with their creation becomes redundant. Maybe even a detriment if they know too much.¡± Doc explained. ¡°So they dispose of that team and move the responsibility of the units onto the next at another level of secrecy.¡±


    ¡°There were only seven successful units, though.¡± Fuller was starting to sound a little bit annoyed at the theory. ¡°That¡¯s hardly a viable sample size to continue the research. And they were all extremely unstable. Dangerous. They were hardly something that could be released to the public.¡±


    I didn¡¯t like the implications of Doc¡¯s theory, but I was starting to see the logic he was getting at ¡°What if the goal was never mass production?¡± I asked, making both doctors look at me with their own realizations dawning ¡°What if we weren¡¯t meant to be a product? What if we were a proprietary weapon?¡±


    ¡°A black op weapon.¡± Fuller nodded slowly, dread in her expression ¡°They weren¡¯t trying to create the future of machine core science. You seven could have been the goal all along.¡± She reached back and grabbed a chair, falling back to sit down and hold her head in what surely had to be dizzy realization ¡°Or at the very least, what they settled for after Dr. Arthausen died.


    ¡°That makes sense.¡± Doc nodded ¡°I haven¡¯t read the sim reports myself, but the captain¡¯s been training Meryll for battle just in case, and she mentioned that Meryll¡¯s performance in them is staggeringly good.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re running combat sims?¡± Fuller asked, renewed curiosity once more washing over her face as she leaned forward toward me again. ¡°Can I see the logs?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± I shrugged and closed my eyes, beginning a transfer of my most recent set of log files to Doc¡¯s terminal. It didn¡¯t take long before she clicked into the folder and looked a little disappointed ¡°Something wrong?¡±


    ¡°Well, usually, a ship core will run millions of these sims and create an aggregate report, this is only a few hundred individual ones. Is that all of them?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Operating at computational speeds is dangerous. I¡¯ve only had to do it once and I think it might have almost killed me. I have to do the sims in real-time.¡± I explained. ¡°Just open some of them. You¡¯ll have to settle for the individual results, but I think they speak for themselves.¡±


    She nodded, looking uncertain, but as she opened a file, her expression changed to surprise. She continued browsing through several more files, skimming across them ¡°Well, the computer running it certainly doesn¡¯t like you, but it¡¯s hard to argue with the actual results. This is after only a few hundred simulations?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Actually, that¡¯s just the most recent batch, I didn¡¯t used to be that good at them.¡± I admitted. ¡°These are just the ones from the last week.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t laugh, but she also has me playing video games about starship battles.¡± I smiled a little bit, a bit of levity returning to me at the absurdity of what I¡¯d just said ¡°I feel like I might be learning more about tactics from the game, honestly. It¡¯s designed to challenge human players, whereas the sims are made for machines. But the sims are a better gauge of my actual progress.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s more than impressive, it¡¯s practically¡­ miraculous. No standard ship core can come anywhere close to this, even on a seeded simulation. Your performance is far above what I¡¯d expect from a market core; even leagues over a custom-made clone.¡± Fuller still sounded astonished as she kept browsing through.


    ¡°I¡¯m getting close to a 99% survival rate, I think I¡¯m pretty much ready to go to war if I have to.¡± I was proud of myself for a moment, but when I reflected on what I¡¯d just said, I shrunk a bit and had to add ¡°Which is good, cause I just might have to before long.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ absurd. In what metric?¡± she asked ¡°Evenly matched one-on-one?¡±


    I looked at her, a little surprised that she was looking for a specific scenario ¡°¡­ Every metric. I¡¯m trying to be ready for anything, so I run uneven hardware, handicapped scenarios, large-scale battles¡­¡±


    Fuller was speechless for a long moment where she just kept reading through my reports of what were, despite what the score value said, successful mission after successful mission in awe. Finally, she picked her jaw up off the floor and looked up at me ¡°Meryll¡­ are you aware of what a standard ship core¡¯s acceptable range of performance of these simulations in an even battle usually amounts to?¡± she asked.


    ¡°I dunno, like¡­ 95% survival?¡± I hadn¡¯t really thought about it before, but those were the kinds of levels I was reaching when I had just gotten used to the controls, so maybe that was the norm?


    Fuller shook her head enthusiastically ¡°You don¡¯t understand. These are simulations of ship core behavior, meant to be pitted against a ship core, which are operating on similar training themselves. At the very highest, between evenly matched starships, I¡¯ve seen a ship core survive 65% of these battles, and that involved a lot of luck.¡±


    It was my turn to look surprised. I figured I was doing okay, but that was unbelievable. I closed my eyes to do a little bit of math on what I¡¯d just heard and realized that in a direct battle in space, it meant that I was operating at a number of magnitudes greater performance than the norm. A startled ¡°Oh.¡± Was all I could say as I returned to reality and looked back over to Doc who shared an expression of bewildered wonder with me.


    Fuller couldn¡¯t help but let out an astonished chortle as she declared ¡°Meryll, you¡¯re a god among machines.¡±


    Doc, however, didn¡¯t look as happy with the news. He had a look of quiet contemplation on his face before he announced ¡°Which not only means that the secret elite starship squad theory holds water¡­ but that Foundation potentially has six more gods.¡±

 So Much for Subtlety

    I frowned at Doc, understanding the implication of what he¡¯d just said. He was right. If this was really some kind of elite ship core strike force, then I might not be as safe in a battle as the last conversation would have me believe. If the other six worked WITH Foundation, then they wouldn¡¯t have been training against AI sims. They would be training against one another, and they would be far more skilled than I could become with what I had. ¡°Then¡­ do I even stand a chance?¡± my voice quivered as I asked.


    ¡°Of course you do.¡± Fuller said quickly, an almost condescending tone to her voice ¡°If that¡¯s even really what¡¯s going on, you¡¯ve already forgotten the one big advantage you already have on them. You¡¯re sane.¡±


    ¡°How does that make them LESS dangerous?¡± I snapped, feeling frustrated at her nonchalant attitude.


    ¡°No, Meryll, she¡¯s got a point. Let¡¯s hear about it.¡± Doc motioned for Dr. Fuller to continue ¡°Please, elaborate, just how unhinged are these other units?¡±


    ¡°Well, I had pretty limited direct contact with any of them, but I¡¯d heard rumors and seen enough when I did get a chance. The successful units were hardly fit to be released into the general populace of a psych ward, never mind in control of starships. I know Cassandra is the worst of them.¡± She started.


    ¡°The one that killed Dr. Arthausen?¡± Doc asked ¡°I would imagine if they¡¯re capable of gleefully murdering someone, that would make them difficult to control.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s where this whole theory falls apart for me. I can¡¯t imagine any of them would care to cooperate with Foundation.¡± Fuller added, but then let out a sigh ¡°But fine. If we¡¯re going to entertain this, I suppose I could write up some reports about them for you, if you¡¯re going to be here for a few days anyway.¡±


    I nodded, looking forward to reading about my sisters. Who might one day be my future opponents.


    The room was silent for a long time. Dr. Fuller was still looking over various records and notes related to me, while Doc and I tried to process everything that we¡¯d just been told. I closed my eyes and looked over the file of my dreams through Doc¡¯s program. Perhaps it was best I didn¡¯t know. Maybe it would have been better if I just let my own past be, just like the rest of the crew. Should I have just abandoned it? Perhaps looking into it more would just reinvite the suffering I no doubt had to endure in a life before Theseus.


    But another part of me reasoned that if I ignored it, I might not be able to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable natural return of my memory that I was apparently destined for. If I could see what to expect ahead of time, maybe I could objectively handle it without entirely losing my sanity ¡°Hey Dr. Fuller?¡± I asked ¡°Would it be possible to separate the streams of information in my brain scan?¡±


    She looked up toward my body, not aware that I was watching her more from my sensors ¡°With a little effort, maybe. For what?¡± she asked.


    ¡°I¡¯ve just got this theory stuck in my head. That if I can analyze my dreams, maybe I can jar my memory. If I can remember in an objective environment, knowing that the trauma was simulated, then maybe I can keep myself from ending up like my sisters.¡±


    Fuller shook her head ¡°That may be unwise, you¡¯re likely not psychologically equipped to deal with it yet. I have a colleague that I could refer you to, while you¡¯re here on Venus. A behavioral psychologist who has actually been studying the mental state of the residents of the colony. Dr. Yates offers therapy free of charge in exchange for anonymous research data. I¡¯m positive he would want to take a break from his main project to get a chance to spend some time reading into someone like you. And he might be able to offer you some advice on how to deal with what you¡¯ll be uncovering.¡±


    I nodded slowly at her and looked down at the floor. It felt like I had been diagnosed with some terrible illness that was inevitably going to take my life. Or at least my sanity. ¡°But when I am ready for it¡­ will I even be able to look into my dreams in any meaningful way?¡±


    Fuller seemed hesitant. She didn¡¯t want to get my hopes up about it, and she certainly didn¡¯t want to push me toward looking at something that could potentially drive me mad. But she answered anyway. ¡°Maybe. Technology for interpreting sleep brain waves into something observable is definitely there. It¡¯s not great, but ¡®watching¡¯ your dreams is something you can do. Maybe even more than that given your status as¡­ well, part machine, yourself.¡±


    I took no offense to the implication. I had become okay with being a machine weeks ago, it was the ¡®not being a person¡¯ thing that bothered me. And I was starting to internalize that that was merely a construct of the society I¡¯d grown up in. ¡°Then¡­ I guess I¡¯ll go see your buddy. I hope he¡¯s not freaked out about the whole¡­ thing that I am.¡±


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    ¡°About that. You do know that I don¡¯t just have the authority to grant landing permissions on the colony without explanation, right?¡± She looked a little bit nervous ¡°I did have to explain to Dr. Topher, our port authority, why I gave this ship permissions the way I did.¡±


    ¡°And you lied¡­ right?¡± Doc finally chimed in ¡°Told them that we¡¯re visitors from your homeworld? Or something to that effect?¡±


    ¡°I gave up playing part in conspiracies when I stopped being involved with creating horribly traumatized people from empty human shells. I don¡¯t play with secrets anymore.¡± She shook her head ¡°I told Jim that there was potentially a valuable and unique research subject on board. Your captain¡¯s been dealing with some of my colleagues that have grown curious already.¡±


    I groaned ¡°Well, I kind of expected something like this to happen. I guess I¡¯m going to have people poking and prodding at me if I go in there.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t mention exactly what you are. Partly because I didn¡¯t know exactly what to expect at the time, and partly because I wanted to give you some level of privacy. But when you have a station full of curious scientists, the promise of anything new can get some people eagerly knocking on doors if it could be relevant to their interests.¡± She sighed ¡°I apologize if it brings you some undue attention, but it was bound to get out eventually. You¡¯d be surprised how much of a gossip mill this place can be.¡±


    I waved it off ¡°Like I said, I expected something like this. I even talked with Aisling about it before we landed, told her we might have to use me as a bargaining chip. If it lets us stay here long enough to repair and resupply, that¡¯s what we need. Getting answers about myself was just a nice bonus.¡±


    ¡°So where do you go after that? We certainly can¡¯t let you stay indefinitely if Foundation is chasing you down. We don¡¯t owe fealty to them, being this far outside their sphere of influence, but we can¡¯t exactly repel them if they wanted to come down on us either.¡± Fuller asked ¡°It certainly wouldn¡¯t be in our interest to start a war for you.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll figure that out.¡± Doc muttered ¡°Captain knows what she¡¯s doing, and she¡¯ll come up with something. Always does. I imagine that she¡¯s already dealing with deflecting solicitors though.¡± He gave a heavy sigh ¡°Well, Dr. Fuller, this has certainly been¡­ enlightening. Upsetting, but enlightening. I did kind of hope that meeting you would help me better understand how to care for Meryll as a ship core, and other than the fact that she definitely needs psychological counsel, it is a little disappointing that you know about as much as I do about keeping a living ship core in good health.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s to tell?¡± Fuller shrugged her shoulders and smiled warmly at me ¡°You say that like she¡¯s a pet you can¡¯t communicate with or something. She¡¯ll let you know what she needs.¡±


    ¡°I need a cheeseburger and another day in the core module.¡± I chimed in. The terrible existential dread was best kept at bay with sarcastic banter.


    ¡°A child would have been a more apt metaphor.¡± Doc smirked ¡°What you need is some light exercise and a little bit of sun exposure. Grab Mouse as an escort and go see whatever doctors you need to, Meryll.¡±


    ¡°Yes, dad.¡± I scoffed playfully, finally opening my eyes, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and standing up ¡°Umm, and Dr. Fuller. Thanks. This has all been so much to take in. Really, it¡¯s been overwhelming. But I¡¯m glad to finally have at least some answers. Even if they¡¯re grim.¡±


    ¡°You two have a strange relationship¡­¡± she noted with an amused tone ¡°I assume you¡¯re going with her?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯d rather not.¡± Doc mumbled ¡°I¡¯d rather not leave the ship at all if I can help it. I have my reasons. If you won¡¯t lie for me, I at least ask that you be discreet.¡±


    She nodded ¡°When you say it like that and you hide your name¡­ I see¡­ yes, of course. If anyone asks, you¡¯re just too busy.¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not a lie. I¡¯ve got a lot of thinking to do on this whole subject myself.¡± Doc murmured ¡°I could use some alone time.¡±


    ¡°Not gonna lie, it¡¯s gonna be weird being away from Theseus again.¡± I said as I walked toward the door, followed soon by Dr. Fuller.


    As we walked down the hall together, she spoke quietly ¡°Does he keep you in there? Is this some kind of abusive thing?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I chuckled. ¡°No way, he just takes his job way too seriously.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re sure it¡¯s not like¡­ a thing he has for you or something?¡±


    I laughed a little harder ¡°Why¡¯s everyone seem to think that? We¡¯re close, sure, but that¡¯s just cause we spend a lot of time together. We¡¯re not lovers or anything, hell, we¡¯re not even¡­ compatible that way.¡±


    She sounded mildly confused ¡°I don¡¯t follow.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s just say, I¡¯m the only one in that room who might have considered involving themselves with you, for instance.¡± I tried to make the more subtle hint.


    She stopped in her tracks and I turned to watch the gears turning in her head as she tried to piece together what I¡¯d just said, and when I saw her expression turn from bewildered concentration to realization, I smirked at her. ¡°Oh so you¡¯re-¡± I nodded to her. ¡°And he¡¯s also¡­ you¡¯re sure?¡± she asked.


    I giggled ¡°Is it that unusual?¡±


    ¡°I mean, I suppose not, it¡¯s just that I didn¡¯t expect it.¡± She mumbled ¡°Come to think of it, you had said that you had a girlfriend in college. In your simulated college that is. I wonder if that¡¯s a common trait of the units.¡± She pondered out loud ¡°It could be some function of your genetics and your simulated life. If there were only a larger sample size¡­¡±


    ¡°Huh. Hadn¡¯t considered all that. I just know I find women attractive.¡± I shrugged. I¡¯d never really considered the why of it until that moment. Was being a lesbian something that was instilled in me through my simulated memories, or was it just something inherent to my nature? Some combination of both? I guessed that I would never really know for sure. ¡°Would have made for an interesting study, huh?¡±

 A Desperate Bargain

    Stepping through the hall into my destroyed cargo bay was a surreal experience. I was still within my shell, but I couldn¡¯t locate my human body in the map of sensors that I was familiar with. There were scorch marks, wrecked electronics, and dented infrastructure everywhere. And where the door had been previously, there was simply an enormous jagged hole of twisted metal. I imagined that the large bulkhead was still intact, floating in space somewhere while the armor around it had been pierced. I had been reassured that the damage wasn¡¯t too serious, but it was hard to imagine that this would be a cheap repair. I knew when I laid eyes on it that there would be a necessarily long stay on Venus.


    I looked around, but averted my eyes when I heard the telltale sound of a torch igniting. I didn¡¯t want to blind myself. Though I briefly pondered what that would do to my ability to break from the data stream, I knew that the answer would be ¡®nothing good¡¯. ¡°Mouse!¡± I called loudly and the torch quieted down.


    ¡°What?¡± came a sullen response from the boy. He began walking up the stairs toward me, his body covered in grease, a tinted mask over his face, and presenting an irritated expression behind it.


    ¡°You okay?¡± was the first thing I asked, Fuller walking out onto the catwalk with me and looking surprised to see someone so young standing around looking disgruntled in welding gear.


    Mouse ignored my question and grimaced at Dr. Fuller like she had personally offended him just by being on the ship he cared so much for. He pulled his mask off, revealing pooled sweat that matted his messy black hair , dropping it down onto the floor below. ¡°Who¡¯s she?¡± he asked curtly.


    ¡°She¡¯s the one who had information on me.¡± I explained in short. I could tell he was in no mood for nonsense at the moment. Something had him on edge, and judging by what I knew about him and the way he stared daggers at the smartly dressed scientist behind me, it was memories of being manipulated and physically destroyed by the kind of people that this colony was full of. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ a lot. Let¡¯s leave it at that for now.¡±


    ¡°Did you need me for something? Because I have a lot to fix and not nearly enough material for it.¡± He grumbled, the expression he used on Fuller reminding me of the distrust he had given me when I first joined the crew, multiplied several times over.


    I briefly wondered if I could spare Mouse the trouble and try to make up with Joel for the admittedly embarrassing argument that we had with him, but that was still a very fresh wound, and I wasn¡¯t ready to be the bigger woman about him yet. ¡°I was going to board the station to see another of the doctors that might be able to help me with some of my other issues, but I wanted to get an escort because, well, you know, we can¡¯t trust-¡°


    ¡°Scientists. Researchers.¡± He finished for me, his vision continuing to drill holes through the woman that I now at least somewhat trusted behind me.


    ¡°I was going to say ¡®strangers¡¯, but yeah, I guess that works.¡± I didn¡¯t blame him for holding the kind of disdain he had for her despite having never met the scientist, but it was a little bit irritating how abrasive he was being with someone who had just volunteered a lot of information for no benefit aside from penance for having been part of my creation in the first place. ¡°But if you¡¯re too busy, I guess I could wait and see if Aisling would escort me.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll grab my gun.¡± Mouse nodded and walked past Fuller and I. She gave him plenty of space as he went by, wanting to stay clear of the brooding teenager¡¯s spite. I suppose that if he was okay with it, I was okay with it. Maybe he needed a break from the frankly monumental project ahead of him. I wasn¡¯t sure if surrounding himself with even more of the kind of people that made him feel on edge would be the best way to relax, but I wasn¡¯t going to complain.


    Fuller turned and watched Mouse leave, then waited until he was out of earshot before she spoke quietly ¡°Your captain employs teenagers?¡±


    ¡°Mouse is hardly a kid.¡± I looked back to her, starting to see that this discussion was inevitable with anyone who met Mouse. It wasn¡¯t exactly common to see someone his age sailing around doing what may very well be the most dangerous job in the universe. ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much, he can handle himself.¡± I assured her.


    ¡°I suppose so. Those look like serious augmentations.¡± She noted, concern showing clearly on her face. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine he¡¯s led an easy life.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you noticed?¡± I was surprised she was able to catch it that quickly, but I suppose it made sense. She would have to be the kind of person who was observant about the human body, given her expertise with clones. ¡°Though I don¡¯t think anyone on this ship has had it easy. Don¡¯t bother Mouse about his arms though. You¡¯re precisely the type of person he wouldn¡¯t want to talk to about it.¡±


    ¡°I can tell. I thought he was going to burn a hole through me with that stare. I suppose some doors are best left closed.¡± She relaxed now that he was gone, looking down at the devastated room as she idly wondered ¡°Is he normally your guard?¡±


    I gave a small laugh ¡°Actually, he¡¯s my engineer.¡± I watched her as her expression turned once more to bewildered surprise. ¡°I can¡¯t say I¡¯ve ever had an engineer before, but he¡¯s a damn good one at that. He¡¯s almost as aware of what¡¯s going on in the mechanical systems of this ship as I am, and I¡¯m the ship.¡±


    ¡°Huh,¡± was all she could manage for a moment before she collected herself ¡°I don¡¯t suppose the story behind that¡¯s a taboo subject as well?¡±


    ¡°Best not to ask too many questions. There¡¯s kind of an unwritten rule on Theseus that we let each others¡¯ individual pasts rest. Even if I have had to dig into a couple of them for special occasions myself.¡± I glanced sheepishly down at the floor below. I was starting to regret letting myself be drawn in by my curiosity with Doc. I knew he was probably still at least a little miffed at me for making him disclose his history with Skygraves and making him relive his own sordid past. ¡°Who these people were before Theseus is only trouble to them. I think if I had known my own past before, I probably wouldn¡¯t have wanted to broadcast it either.¡±


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    ¡°But you do know their histories?¡± she asked curiously. Was she expecting me to share them? We definitely weren¡¯t anywhere near that close, despite her help.


    ¡°Some of them.¡± I admitted. ¡°But I¡¯m part of the crew. We live together. We trust each other. I earned the stories I¡¯ve learned. You haven¡¯t.¡± I tried not to say the words too harshly, but it was true; she was an outsider. ¡°No offense, you¡¯re just not putting your life on the line constantly with us. You get to know people when you¡¯ve had each others¡¯ lives in your hand.¡±


    She nodded, seeming satisfied with that. At least, she was signaling that she was satisfied, I knew the curiosity that drew people to their stories all too well. Then she tilted her head and, voice full of disdain, asked ¡°And Shaw?¡±


    ¡°Shaw¡¯s an accident.¡± I practically growled. I didn¡¯t want to relive the whole experience of meeting and taming him at the moment, I was still too emotionally frazzled for that. ¡°I hope we leave him here.¡±


    ¡°I hope you don¡¯t.¡± She quipped back with just as much disapproval of the man. ¡°Speak of the devil.¡± She motioned her head down toward the floor, where Aisling and Shaw were stepping back aboard together through the torn hole in the hull, an uncomfortable silence between them that Shaw seemed poised to break with his nonsense at any moment.


    ¡°Hey captain.¡± I called down to Aisling, doing my best to save her from whatever bullshit Shaw was about to spout. ¡°Dr. Fuller here was real helpful. I think I¡¯ve got a pretty good idea what I am now.¡±


    ¡°If it doesn¡¯t have anything to do with our predicament, I don¡¯t need to know, Meryll.¡± She called up, heading toward me on the stairs, nodding in silent thanks to Dr. Fuller as the doctor took her cue to take off and made her way past Aisling. The captain continued with an apologetic ¡°For now, you got work to do.¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± I blinked a few times at her. What kind of work could she possibly expect me to do? ¡°I don¡¯t have the strength for dock work, if that¡¯s what you mean.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t a trade hub, Meryll, there¡¯s no dock work to be had on this colony.¡± Aisling sighed, leaning against the railing and pursing her lips, ready for a hard conversation. ¡°So¡­ we¡¯re broke, you know? And we need parts and supplies, yeah?¡± I nodded slowly, unsure where she was going with this so far. ¡°And you agreed that I could use you as a bargaining chip if we needed to, yeah? Well¡­ I needed to.¡±


    ¡°Fuck.¡± I sighed, letting my shoulders fall. I was really hoping that I wasn¡¯t going to have to go the route of being too closely ¡®observed¡¯ by the scientists, but if putting me on an examination table was our only thing of value to the Venusians, then I supposed it had to be done. ¡°So, what then? Do I have to go sit in a lab or something and have someone poke me with needles?¡±


    ¡°I made it perfectly clear to them that you¡¯re a human being and are to be treated as such, and that you would be under armed guard even in their custody. They¡¯re not going to be pulling anything against your will, but you¡¯re gonna have to be pretty open to their requests.¡± Aisling explained. She put a hand on my shoulder, which made me bristle at first when I remembered my argument with Joel, but it felt different when it was Aisling. ¡°In exchange, we¡¯re going to get the food we need for our next move and enough materials to patch the hole in Theseus. So we¡¯re kind of relying on you right now to satisfy these guys¡¯ curiosity.¡±


    I nodded. I didn¡¯t like it, but we were cornered. We were out of solar system to run to. We wouldn¡¯t be able to just pick up and fly to another station to look for a better offer, this was our only offer, and as such it seemed like a pretty generous one. We needed those supplies. ¡°Fine.¡± I said reluctantly, releasing a tense sigh as I resigned to my new temporary life as, at least, a willing test subject. ¡°What do I need to do?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re going to be here for at least a week.¡± Aisling announced, smiling when I gave my consent to become exactly the thing I was trying my damnedest not to become. ¡°Maybe a little longer. They¡¯ve agreed to play dumb to Foundation for that long, at least. In that time, you¡¯re going to have a few appointments to go to. I¡¯m not sure how long they¡¯re going to take, but I¡¯ve been assured that you won¡¯t be held over night without your permission. I¡¯m not entirely sure what these appointments will entail, either, but like I said, you¡¯ve got the right to shut it down whenever you want if things get too invasive for you.¡±


    But I knew that there was a catch to it all. ¡°But I have to play along at least somewhat or they won¡¯t pay us.¡± I nodded slowly. ¡°I gotcha.¡±


    I heard a loud clapping sound before I looked over Aisling and saw it. Dr. Fuller had slapped Shaw across his face hard enough that he had stumbled back against a wall. And with that, she stepped outside of the ship, a self-satisfied smile on her face as she left Shaw with a defeated expression, holding his arms out as if asking what he had done.


    ¡°Tell me he¡¯s not staying with us.¡± I groaned to Aisling. I really didn¡¯t want that man in my shell any longer if I could help it. He was the worst kind of annoying sleaze, and I only had simulated sleaze to compare him to.


    ¡°Unfortunately,¡± Aisling muttered, mirroring my own disappointment ¡°He managed to talk me into a plan I made.¡±


    He talked her into her own plan? That sentence didn¡¯t make any sense to me. ¡°How¡¯d he manage that?¡± I asked, figuring I would need to hear a few different explanations before I could parse what she¡¯d just said.


    ¡°You¡¯ll see.¡± She gave an amused snort. Seemed she didn¡¯t want to play her hand just yet and lock us into assumptions we would be making about her plan. We had a week for her to hash it out anyway, so I let it go for the moment. ¡°Need you to meet with a Dr. Reese tonight. Take care of whatever you need to and go see him.¡± She reached down to unclip her terminal from her belt and after a few button presses, I felt a file broadcasting to me ¡°Here, a map of the colony and directions to his workspace.¡±


    I nodded, taking a cursory glance over the map to memorize the structure of our temporary home. ¡°Guess seeing the psychologist will have to wait.¡± I lamented, already wondering if maybe I could just drop by Dr. Yates¡¯ office after meeting with Dr. Reese, if it didn¡¯t take too long.


    Aisling turned back to me sharply with a perplexed expression and asked simply ¡°Elaborate?¡± in the kind of tone that you would expect a parent to give a child when they accidentally let slip that they¡¯d been experimenting with stims.


    I didn¡¯t have anything to hide, though, so I just decided to be as frank as possible. ¡°Long story, but I guess I might need therapy so my amnesia doesn¡¯t turn into some form of severe psychosis.¡±


    There was a very long pause where Aisling glared at me, trying to assess if I was serious. ¡°On second thought, maybe you should catch me up on what you learned after all.¡± She took me by the shoulder and started to guide me back into the ship.

 Loyalty

    ¡°I see.¡± Aisling nodded to me, a deeply serious expression on her face. We sat across from one another in the mess hall, both of the doors closed so that we could have some privacy as we discussed the particulars of my past. ¡°I¡¯m normally happy to let the past rest, but I don¡¯t think your situation is exactly past yet. You realize that you¡¯re potentially going to bring a lot of danger down on us just by being near you, right? More than I ever expected you would when I took you on.¡±


    I gulped. I didn¡¯t want to believe that Aisling would abandon me after everything we¡¯d already been through, but this was it. It felt like she was about to tell me to get off of her ship and take the massive target on my back somewhere else. ¡°I know.¡± I said quietly, looking down at the table.


    She took in a deep breath ¡°The others deserve to know as well, since it¡¯s a matter of what we¡¯re facing with the Foundation fleet. You said that Doc was in the room for the entire discussion?¡± I nodded, uncertain if she was going to let the matter go or not, but it didn¡¯t sound like she intended to abandon my problems solely on me. ¡°I¡¯ll write up a brief on the situation for the others to read as well. And I¡¯ve got some changes to make to our planned route if we¡¯re going to avoid Foundation. You best keep practicing your piloting if there¡¯s any possibility that your sisters might be as competent of pilots as you are.¡±


    I let out a relieved deep breath ¡°Thank you.¡± I nodded slowly to her, feeling that I would be on the verge of tears if I hadn¡¯t already cried so much earlier. ¡°I-I was really afraid that you were about to fire me.¡±


    Aisling looked taken aback ¡°Huh? Fire you?¡± she looked deeply concerned at me from across the table and leaned forward. ¡°Like, what, just abandon you here or something? Why would I do that?¡±


    ¡°You said it yourself. You¡¯re taking on a lot of danger keeping me around. I mean, if you just left me here, let the scientists have me, got a normal core, you could just¡­ get away. Foundation would have no reason to keep chasing you, at least not as desperately as they have been.¡± I couldn¡¯t look her in the eyes as I explained my thoughts. I felt like I was trying to convince her against my better interest.


    She stared at me like I was crazy ¡°Meryll, if I did that, I would be no better than them, just using people until they¡¯re not useful anymore and throwing them away. You¡¯re part of my crew. I care for my crew, through thick and thin. You either leave this ship behind of your own volition or you leave it in a box.¡± She almost sounded offended that I had even suggested that she could leave me behind. She really believed all of this. She almost sounded like she was scolding me as she continued. ¡°Don¡¯t you ever think that I¡¯m going to abandon you ever again, got it? Cause I¡¯m not. Long as your breathing, I¡¯m treading through hell for you and I expect the same back, got it?¡±


    I felt a smile creeping onto my face as I heard her confirm she was all in on keeping me aboard, no matter what. ¡°G-Got it.¡± I said with cautious enthusiasm as I felt myself perk up.


    ¡°Good. Now that that¡¯s settled, you got a cyberneticist to go meet.¡± She stood up herself as she motioned toward the door behind her, trying to give an encouraging smile to me. ¡°So get out there and earn us a new cargo bay.¡±


    I nodded, even though I was groaning internally. A cyberneticist. That meant he was going to be poking around at my implants. As far as I knew, they were standard equipment, though. Even if I was unusual as far as ship cores go, I wondered what he could possibly learn by looking at the otherwise ordinary electronics inside of me?


    I stood and with a much lighter heart than when I entered the room; I opened the door to the cargo bay, seeing Mouse standing at attention with his rifle at rest in his hand as I stepped through the door. ¡°Ready?¡± I asked, still beaming at what felt like a new level of security despite the dire news of my origin. It was time to move on with my day, though. ¡°I know you don¡¯t like these kinds of people, but don¡¯t go off on them if they don¡¯t do anything wrong, okay?¡±


    Mouse nodded silently, finally leading the way through the ruined opening in the cargo bay and onto the hangar bay floor. It felt clean. Too clean. The Venusians clearly didn¡¯t get many visitors, and it didn¡¯t look as well-used and filthy with grease and detritus like the lunar colony had been. ¡°Don¡¯t like places like this.¡± Mouse muttered ¡°It feels fake. Like they set it up for us.¡±


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    ¡°If that were the case, they would have just seized us by now. It¡¯s not like we¡¯re in any state to lift off again.¡± I tried to reassure him. These people were too smart to think they didn¡¯t have the complete upper hand here if they intended to turn on us. ¡°If this is a trap, it¡¯s a really poorly thought out one.¡±


    ¡°I guess.¡± Mouse relaxed his arm a little as we passed through the hangar bay doors, through a hall of bulwark doors, and into what looked like some sort of sterile lobby leading into grand hallways running in both directions. I¡¯d almost forgotten that this was once a corporate colony, and had the grandiosity to show for it. But the multi-story halls were fairly quiet compared to the surface of the lunar colony. There were people scattered about, discussing things amongst each other, taking care of simple daily chores, and eating out, like there would be in any public space, but there were so few people compared to the enormous architecture that it felt eerily empty. Most of the people were well-dressed or still wearing lab wear from their workspaces, which meant that Mouse and I stuck out like a sore thumb in our offensively casual outfits.


    It didn¡¯t take long for eyes to be drawn our way, but thanks to Mouse¡¯s diligent application of intimidating glances and a tight grip on his gun, nobody approached very close. ¡°This way, Mouse.¡± I signaled to him to follow me as I followed the directions we¡¯d been given.


    I couldn¡¯t get over just how quiet it was and how much space we had to wander. There were few storefronts, most had been converted to workspaces and labs for the scientist¡¯s uses, labeled with fairly simple typed up signs demarcating who currently claimed the space and sometimes for what purpose, rather than the flashy, eye-catching marketing that I expected in the other colonies. I noticed a sign for a residential area and smiled at the reminder that there should be no experimental or dangerous materials past a certain point.


    The entire colony had an air of practicality over aesthetic, and it gave me a sense of safety. These weren¡¯t people that cared much for societal embellishment. They didn¡¯t care how people perceived them, only that they could do what they set out to do. It had an air of brutal honesty that made me feel like they wouldn¡¯t try to perform any kind of subtle trickery to get what they wanted, they would just do what they intended to do. Maybe I wouldn¡¯t have to worry as much as I thought about these people.


    And before long, we arrived at Dr. Reese¡¯s lab, which like many other workspaces, just had his name printed in plain text on a poster next to the door with the words ¡®Cybernetics Specialist¡¯ beneath. I was glad I didn¡¯t have to get much further because I could still feel Theseus from here, and that helped me feel safe. I was out of range to command it electronically, but there was a certain comfort to the psychic link, even if I couldn¡¯t actually do anything with it.


    Opening the door, I was immediately struck with the alarming scent of blood mixed with harsh chemicals. My surprise passed when I realized that this was likely a man who regularly cut into people to put electronics in them. Of course there would be blood. I took a breath to acclimate myself to it and stepped inside ¡°Hello? Dr. Reese?¡± I called.


    ¡°In here.¡± Came a man¡¯s pleasant voice from the far end of the room. A middle-aged man was sitting over a table of delicate tools and electrical components, face down toward a tiny circuit board under a series of magnifying lenses arranged in front of him. As he reached up to brush a lock of his shoulder-length black hair from his eyes, he carefully set down the device in his other hand and looked up toward me, his eyes growing wide as he looked me over from a distance. I started walking toward him and he got up as well ¡°Meryll¡­ is it?¡± he asked, cautiously ¡°Remarkable, you actually can move and speak on your own.¡± He sounded excited as he approached.


    As he was about to get near, though, Mouse cleared his throat loudly and glared at the man, making him stop as he saw Mouse¡¯s gun ¡°Right. I¡¯m sure we should discuss this before we do anything.¡± He said slowly, becoming nervous at Mouse¡¯s presence.


    ¡°Yeah, this is all a little awkward for me.¡± I started, hoping that Mouse¡¯s clear hostility wouldn¡¯t put people on the wrong foot either. ¡°Look, I don¡¯t mind you looking over my electronic parts if that¡¯s what you want, but this stuff¡¯s all standard as far as I know. I had a ripper on Luna put it in.¡±


    ¡°Well, yes, I expected it to be ordinary hardware.¡± Dr. Reese nodded enthusiastically, still holding his ground a good distance in front of me. ¡°I¡¯m interested in the software. It¡¯s well-documented what attempting to graft a starship does to an ordinary human mind, and it¡¯s not something pretty, I¡¯ll tell you that much.¡± He gave a nervous chuckle that told me that perhaps he had actually seen it happen in person. ¡°What I want to know is, when a human being CAN do such a feat, what exactly does that do to the electronic components? I don¡¯t want to perform anything invasive if I don¡¯t have to, I just need your data port.¡± He pointed toward my neck ¡°You wouldn¡¯t mind if I downloaded your internal system logs, would you?¡±


    That was a surprisingly reasonable request, and I was instantly intrigued at the concept myself. Could there be consequences to me using hardware that wasn¡¯t intended for a fully functional human mind? ¡°Uh, yeah, of course, go ahead.¡± I nodded eagerly.


    He motioned toward an empty seat as he stepped over to the nearby table and picked up a small terminal with cables sticking out of it. This assignment might be easier than I had expected.

 Identity

    I sat across from Dr. Reese, watching as he stared down at his small terminal, silently poring over the data it was receiving from the ports in my neck, a gentle smile on his face as he stayed transfixed on the computer. It felt strange how quiet the man was being. When I heard that a bunch of scientists wanted to examine me, I did not expect that I would be bored.


    I closed my eyes and tapped into his terminal to read along with him. It wasn''t well-protected, at least as far as just looking went. He was reading slowly through all the event logs, of which there were hundreds marked as warnings. "Huh. Guess it doesn''t like me." I mused.


    "Hmm?" The man sounded puzzled, his focus broken momentarily as I heard him shifting around to look up at me.


    "Nothing, just¡­ lot of warnings¡­ couple errors there, that anything to worry about?" I asked, momentarily breaking into an old habit of pointing along with my physical body to the invisible points of data I saw in my head.


    There was a short pause before he stammered out a perplexed "It was expecting a return it didn''t get, that''s all. Are you somehow-?"


    "I can see the data stream, yeah." I opened my eyes and smiled when I saw his bewildered expression. I knew I was showing off, but I just really wanted something to do in that moment. "Well, I tapped your console anyway. For a tech guy, you sure don''t have much in the way of security on that thing."


    "You¡­ hacked my terminal? Mentally? Through a data cord?" He glanced to the cable running between me and the machine and sounded amazed.


    "No, I did it ad hoc." I explained, reaching up and tapping on my neural implant. The data cable was too crowded with activity for me to really get much past it, and it always just seemed easier for me to tap electronics wirelessly. "Psychic network."


    The man let out a good-natured chuckle, genuine interest washing over him as he saw the possibilities of what I could do. "Oh! You can really connect to electronics psychically, just like a machine core. What an absolutely astonishing thing you are. You must have quite a story to tell."


    "Maybe when it''s over. There''s still a lot of that story up in the air right now." I admitted. As much as I wanted to vent in that moment, there were too many hostile elements that might take advantage of the gritty details being out there with even more people. "I-I don''t wanna say too much yet, it might come back to bite me."


    "I''m sure you have your reasons. Hmm¡­ can you tap into any electronics?" He asked curiously, leaning forward and smiling again.


    Glad to see that the subject of my nature had been dropped so quickly when I showed discomfort, I began to feel that this man really was safe to speak to. It couldn¡¯t hurt to show off a little more of what I could do, I supposed. "If it has network components, I can at least try." The only thing that I''d failed to get at least some kind of access to was the stolen Skulls ship that had boarded us, but even then I''d at least managed to perform one small but significant action on its network through great concerted effort. On matters of computing itself, standard cores still had me firmly beat.


    "Can you see my cybernetics then?" He asked.


    I hadn''t been able to tell at a glance that the man had any implants at all, but I supposed it made sense that a cybernetics specialist would dabble in some of his own art. I pinged his body and received a singular response. It was a medical device for regulating hormones. Beyond what it told me, I didn¡¯t know what it might be for, medically.


    I expected that the man would be full of hidden electronics, but there was only one device "I can see one." I noted uncertainly. I wasn¡¯t sure if he had some kind of shielding preventing me from detecting others, if they weren¡¯t networked, or if he really only had one little bit of cybernetics in him.


    The man seemed to light up talking about it. "There''s only one. A lot of my peers are radical trans-humanists, trying their best to merge man and machine. They improve themselves with implant after implant and make themselves more than human. Personally, I only ever wanted to change one thing about myself. I made that change, and that''s enough for me. Now I just make devices to help other people feel comfortable in their skin."


    I nodded slowly, wondering just exactly what the man meant by that. "It''s a medical device. Do you need it to live or something?"


    He gave another quick laugh, staring back down at the logs again. "You could say that." Was all he offered. "Tell me, do your implants make you more comfortable in your body? Would not having them be a loss?"


    I thought about it for a few moments and glanced to Mouse, who had been listening in. He stared at the floor with an unsettled expression on his face. This conversation was hitting too close to home for him.


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    Trying to keep the focus off of the teenager, I turned my attention back to Reese and continued. "Truth be told, I''m not sure." I admitted both to him and to myself "I have memory issues. I can''t remember a time where I didn''t have some kind of starship grade neural implant. I briefly remember not being grafted to Theseus, and I do know that I wouldn¡¯t be me without it. Being a ship core is¡­ it''s nearly everything to me. Being able to feel Theseus like it was a part of me, protecting and working with my crew, the wonderful clarity and comfort that comes from the core module¡­"


    The man was smiling. I felt like he knew exactly what I was talking about somehow. "It feels right, right?"


    "Yeah." I nodded, smiling back. I didn''t completely follow how what I was saying related to his situation, but it was clear that both of us felt far more at home in our bodies because of our tech.


    "What about you, young man?" I frowned as he suddenly turned to look at Mouse "Pretty easy to miss your arms at a glance, but I see it. I can¡¯t imagine that it was something you wanted before you had them, but I¡¯d bet you would feel pretty lost without those."


    Mouse grunted quietly, still conflicted about this man "Don''t want to talk about it." He muttered. Dr. Reese looked concerned at the response as Mouse silently stood up and walked toward the front of the workshop, watching from a distance so he could avoid the conversation.


    Reese whispered back to me "Did I touch a nerve?"


    "Several, actually." I gave a concerned glance back toward Mouse. I had really hoped that Mouse¡¯s cybernetics wouldn¡¯t be brought up at all because I knew how much he hated them. "But it''s not my story to tell."


    He nodded to himself. "Poor boy. Whatever happened to him, he''s far too young to live with a chip like that on his shoulder. I was going to ask if I could examine those arms, but I suppose that''s a poor idea?"


    I nodded, understanding his curiosity, but thankful he asked me before he approached the teenager about it. "Leave him be, he''s not part of this deal."


    "Perhaps when he''s older." He nodded back in agreement and thankfully dropped the subject. "For you, I''m happy you''ve found some peace thanks to your devices. Too many people get lost in replacing themselves rather than augmenting themselves when it comes to cybernetics. They try to add more and more to chase some sort of perfection of self."


    "They didn¡¯t exactly give me a choice." I shrugged it off and took note that the downloads had completed while we were talking. "But yeah, I''m really glad for it. Were the logs really all you needed?"


    ¡°It''s more than enough to keep my job interesting for a while, but I wouldn''t say no if you wanted to let me tinker around with the firmware a little bit.¡± The man offered with a smile, an obvious note of pity in his voice. ¡°You were definitely right that it doesn¡¯t seem to like you. It¡¯s expecting certain automated responses from a machine core that you¡¯re not giving it. It¡¯s not a catastrophic problem, but I imagine it¡¯s taxing on your system¡­ which would be your brain in this case.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it can be a little distressing sometimes. I just need to spend some time in the sensory deprivation tank, though.¡± I reasoned. I was fine depending on the core module. There was no place I would rather be, anyway.


    ¡°I could just put in a bypass for the irrelevant events if you want.¡± He offered.


    ¡°No offense, doctor, you seem really nice, and I honestly want to trust you to do that, but I can¡¯t afford trusting too far outside of my crew right now.¡± I really wanted to take him up on the offer. The thought of lessening the irritation that came from being outside of the core module was more than a little inviting, but as much as I had a good feeling about Dr. Reese, I couldn¡¯t completely trust him not to put something malicious into my systems.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s your body.¡± He shrugged it off, but I could tell he was a little disappointed. I guess I couldn¡¯t blame him, I was kind of a unique subject if he had gotten the chance to work on me. ¡°Then I suppose that¡¯s all I could really ask for. Thank you for your time, Meryll, I¡¯ll be sure to put in that I¡¯m very satisfied with our transaction.¡± He smiled at me and motioned to the cable in my neck, which I promptly removed. ¡°It was very nice to meet you, and I hope we can keep in touch.¡±


    I smiled back, genuinely happy with the interaction ¡°You know, when I heard I¡¯d have to get examined by a bunch of doctors, I was really nervous, but if it¡¯s all simple data transfers and nice conversations like this, I think I¡¯ll be okay with it.¡±


    ¡°I hate to ruin your expectations, but not all of my colleagues are¡­ well, they¡¯re not the best socialites.¡± Dr. Reese warned. ¡°Seeing as you have your escort and your wits about you though, I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll cause you too much trouble.¡±


    I nodded and closed my eyes momentarily to dig into his terminal, lifting his messaging credentials. I figured he was right, we should keep in touch. Opening my eyes again, I called out ¡°Hey Mouse, time to head out.¡± To which he nodded and came back over to stand by me as I got up.


    We left the workshop together and Mouse breathed a sigh of relief the moment we were outside, a heavy weight lifting from his shoulders the moment he was out of sight of the man with the least trustworthy profession there was, in his eyes. ¡°Sorry he brought it up.¡± I tried to sound comforting. I could tell he needed to get something off his chest.


    ¡°Not his fault.¡± He muttered. It was an unexpectedly mature response. ¡°He seems okay.¡± he continued, and I had to wonder what was going on in his head.


    ¡°Surprised to hear you say that.¡± I admitted, wondering if maybe he¡¯d been inspired by the conversation somehow. ¡°I figured you¡¯d be at odds with everyone on this colony.¡±


    ¡°Me too. Him being an alright person makes me feel¡­ unsettled.¡± He admitted. Mouse looked conflicted as he walked, paying less attention to the people around him and more to himself for the moment. ¡°Maybe I¡¯ve been judging people like him too hard.¡±


    ¡°No one¡¯s blaming you for protecting yourself, Mouse.¡± I tried to reassure him. ¡°It¡¯s alright if you¡¯re not ready to let it go.¡± I kept it to myself, but I hoped Mouse could face some of the anger he felt about his past while we were here.


    He kept his rifle at ease, but now he was looking down at his hand as we walked, staring at the exposed steel pads with subtle signs of conflict on his face. The doctor¡¯s words had reinforced my philosophy toward my cybernetics, but they had left Mouse at odds with his own. I didn¡¯t envy the introspection he had ahead of him tonight.

 Superstition

    As I walked through the halls of the station with Mouse at my side, making my way back toward Theseus, I stopped in my tracks, instead opting to take a seat on one of the public benches and looking up at the surrounding architecture ¡°Something wrong?¡± Mouse asked, sitting down next to me and cradling his rifle in his lap as he tried to follow my gaze.


    ¡°No,¡± I started, needing a moment to gather my thoughts ¡°I guess I just realized that I don¡¯t have to go right back to the ship if I don¡¯t want to.¡± I mused quietly to him, turning to look at some of the Venusians wandering about their business. ¡°I don¡¯t have any work to do besides this today. I¡¯m close enough to Theseus to be in range of my module¡¯s psionic network, so I¡¯m not uncomfortable. I¡¯m not really beholden to anyone to stay on standby on the ship. And I didn¡¯t really have time to appreciate being in a real city while I was on Luna, just people watching.¡±


    ¡°People watching?¡± he turned to glare at one of the passing scientists ¡°What¡¯s to watch?¡±


    The feeling of just being amid a city felt nostalgic for me. Even though I knew my memories were fabricated, and if I looked too closely at them, they fell apart like an illusion, the thoughts of watching people pass by in the parks as a child still invoked nostalgia ¡°I guess I can¡¯t really explain it, just¡­ thinking about how everyone here has their own life, and I¡¯m not a factor in their existence at all. It makes you think about how big the system is. Maybe it won¡¯t be so hard to hide from Foundation. It¡¯s not like everyone in the system is looking for me.¡±


    ¡°Okay¡­¡± Mouse mumbled impatiently. He was humoring me, but he clearly didn¡¯t share the sentiment with me. ¡°You sound like Ray when you say things like that.¡±


    ¡°Maybe her optimism¡¯s wearing off on me.¡± I shrugged, but Mouse¡¯s discomfort was becoming obvious, so I stood up again ¡°There is one place I need to go before we head back though. Is that okay?¡±


    ¡°Believe it or not, I¡¯m not looking forward to this patch job.¡± Mouse said as he stood back up ¡°If you can give me a good reason to stall it, I¡¯m in.¡±


    I nodded and took a moment to recall the psychologist¡¯s name. Dr. Yates. I spent a few moments scanning the map of the colony, nodding to myself when the name caught my eye ¡°Okay, so he¡¯s¡­ this way then.¡± I directed Mouse toward the ship again, but as I came around close to it, I kept walking past and started down a completely different section of laboratories and converted shop-fronts.


    Before long, I was standing in front of a slightly more well-decorated space that stood out against the long stretch of similar buildings, this one decorated with a couple of planters out front and a sign that read ¡®Yates¡¯ Counseling Services¡¯. It seemed this doctor had more of a sense of flair than the others around him. It made sense, there likely weren¡¯t many social science folks who would care to live among and study such a narrow demographic of people, and they were probably the scientists who would care more about aesthetic.


    For some reason it gave me a sense of intimidation, walking up to this landmark of good taste among a sea of elegant indifference. It felt unsettling. Still, it might benefit me greatly to speak to this Dr. Yates about my mental health.


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    I reached to knock on the door, but then I heard Mouse speak up. ¡°Meryll.¡± I instead turned to look at him ¡°Are you sure about this? I got a bad feeling.¡±


    I thought that it was just my apprehension about facing my potential future troubles, but it seemed that Mouse was getting bad vibes from this place too. I took a few steps back and looked it over again myself next to him ¡°Yeah, something doesn¡¯t feel right, does it?¡± I nodded in agreement with him.


    I motioned for him to follow as I began walking across the hall and sitting down on a bench there to watch the place. From a distance, it seemed welcoming, but up close it had felt¡­ odd. It was hard to explain ¡°This is spooky.¡± I mumbled ¡°It feels like that place is haunted or something.¡±


    ¡°I know what you mean.¡± He nodded, an unsettled expression on his face ¡°Are you sure you need to do this? Maybe we should just head back to the ship.¡±


    ¡°Because we got spooked? Joel would never let me hear the end of it.¡± I scoffed ¡°But¡­ let¡¯s just stick around a little longer first? Maybe we¡¯ll see something.¡±


    ¡°Or something sees us. We¡¯re not exactly subtle.¡± Mouse muttered as he tried to tuck his weapon away behind him on the bench.


    ¡°Something?¡± I asked ¡°You don¡¯t think this place is actually haunted, do you? That was a metaphor.¡±


    ¡°No, I mean-¡° he stopped speaking immediately and we both went immediately silent and watched the door to the psychologist¡¯s office open. An older, strong-looking man with short white hair and spectacles, wearing a full tan suit walked out of the building, looking both ways before mercifully walking the other direction. We both watched him until he was out of sight. ¡°What are we doing?¡± he asked.


    I shook my head and stood up again, approaching the office and stopping once more in front of the door. But this time, it wasn¡¯t what I felt that bothered me. It was what I didn¡¯t feel. That unsettling aura was gone now. I turned to look at Mouse, but he was staring off toward where the suited man had wandered off ¡°That guy¡­¡± he muttered. What had we just both felt? It couldn¡¯t have been something psionic if Mouse felt it too. ¡°I think Ray would call that an omen.¡± Mouse declared quietly.


    I could only nod in agreement, but now that the feeling was gone, the psychologist¡¯s office felt inviting and homey, like the intent of the decor had returned to the place. I reached to open the door and peeked inside to see a young man just beginning to sit back at a desk ¡°Oh! Hello there.¡± He smiled and waved at me as I held the door open for Mouse to follow me inside.


    The man behind the counter wasn¡¯t that much older than Mouse, so I couldn¡¯t imagine that this was Dr. Yates. But I still had to ask ¡°Dr¡­ Yates?¡± I asked.


    The man let out a laugh ¡°Not yet. That¡¯s my dad. I didn¡¯t think he was expecting anyone else today, but judging by your look, you must have shown up with that ship that just landed earlier today, yeah? What do you need with dad?¡±


    That made sense. If someone had a family, they wouldn¡¯t just banish them from the colony just because they weren¡¯t professionals themselves. I smiled back at him ¡°Oh, I was referred here by Dr. Fuller. She said that he might be able to help me with a¡­ very rare mental health issue I have to deal with.¡±


    The man¡¯s expression turned serious as I talked. He nodded along still, trying to look professional ¡°Well, that does sound like exactly the kind of thing he¡¯d want in on.¡± He looked past me and began to look more than a little bit unsettled though. ¡°Is¡­ that necessary?¡± he asked.


    I looked back and saw Mouse holding his gun at attention again. ¡°At ease, man, I think we¡¯ll be safe here.¡±


    ¡°Provided that guy doesn¡¯t come back.¡± Mouse muttered and let the weapon loose in his sling ¡°What was with that person that just left?¡± he asked the man directly.


    ¡°Huh? Oh, the old guy in the suit? Everyone here knows him, that was Dr. Skygraves.¡±

 Falsehoods

    I was frozen in place when I heard the name. Skygraves. I¡¯d been that close to the one person that I was meant to avoid on this station. I was glad that both Mouse and I had had what seemed like almost a premonition of his presence, but what had that been? If it was some kind of oddity of psionics, I could write it off as my own resonance, but Mouse didn¡¯t have psionic resonance at all.


    ¡°Skygraves?¡± Mouse asked while I was pondering the implications of the encounter ¡°He seemed like a shady figure.¡± He mumbled.


    The man scoffed ¡°We wouldn¡¯t be here without him. He funded keeping this whole station operational. He bought it from Foundation when they were going to abandon the place and made it a haven for the brightest minds in the system.¡±


    Mouse didn¡¯t miss a beat before he grumbled ¡°I don¡¯t trust anyone with the kind of money to do that.¡±


    The man behind the counter leaned forward and looked both of us over with a curious eye ¡°Ahh¡­ that explains it, you¡¯re both augmented.¡± He nodded. He didn¡¯t sound like he was trying to be condescending about it, but it was like that was supposed to be some kind of obvious connection to something. ¡°Skygraves also has cybernetic implants. I can¡¯t say I know what it feels like, but augmented humans always say they feel something strange around him. Apparently he¡¯s got some faulty hardware himself, but he¡¯s real attached to it, so he never gets it fixed.¡±


    I nodded ¡°And that hardware broadcasts an errant signal.¡± I mumbled. Something didn¡¯t sound right about that. Why would someone as unfathomably rich as Skygraves settle for less than perfect cybernetics? And why would Mouse feel it? I¡¯d tried pinging his arms out of curiosity before, but they weren¡¯t network capable. So why would Mouse have felt anything at all? Something stunk about the whole explanation, but without getting close enough again to ping his hardware, I didn¡¯t have a way to learn more. It was best to play along for the time being. ¡°I guess that makes sense.¡± I mumbled.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much about it. I¡¯ve heard that it¡¯s easy to get used to once you¡¯ve spent some time around him.¡± The man started to get up from his seat while he changed the subject back to the reason for our visit. ¡°Well, I can go see if my father¡¯s ready for guests if you¡¯d like.¡±


    I nodded and took a quick look around, taking a seat at the front of the office, admiring the craftsmanship of the reception desk, the comfortable chairs, and the potted plants that made the room feel warm and welcoming. Yates had a good sense of taste and definitely knew how to make a space feel cozy.


    Mouse sat next to me, a grim expression on his face. I didn¡¯t think it was anything different from his usual discomfort until he spoke up ¡°My arms don¡¯t have networking.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± I nodded, putting a little more thought into the encounter. ¡°That means whatever Skygraves¡¯ implants actually do, it doesn¡¯t involve a standard network signal. I think we should both be careful not to stay near him too long.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll have to warn Ray and Shaw too.¡± Mouse agreed with me. If anyone was going to deal with him at any point in our stay, it should be Joel and Aisling if we could help it. There was no way of telling what this strange signal was capable of, but it couldn¡¯t be good. I¡¯d have to remember to make a report for the rest of the crew about it when we got back to the ship for the night.


    It only took a few minutes before the young Yates returned with an older bespectacled gentleman, bald except for a well-trimmed gray beard, walked out into the waiting room and smiled at me with the kind of gentle smile you might expect from a loving father. There was just something unddeniably wholesome about him. ¡°Well, hello there. I heard that we had visitors from another world, but I didn¡¯t imagine that anyone would have come this far to see me.¡± He chuckled, clearly looking both of us over and trying to make some kind of first judgement. ¡°Dr. Yates, behavioral psychologist. Was there something you needed from me?¡±


    I stood up and took a deep breath ¡°Hi, doctor. I was told by Dr. Fuller that you might be able to help me out.¡±


    Yate¡¯s son silently excused himself and walked through a different door to give us some space while his father spoke.


    ¡°Betty?¡± He asked after he heard Fuller¡¯s name. I would have to remember that nickname for her. ¡°Well, I can¡¯t say I expected a referral from her, what could I possibly help with that another therapist from your home world wouldn¡¯t be able to help you with?¡±


    I didn¡¯t want to diminish the man¡¯s worth, but I had to admit, seeing him specifically didn¡¯t really matter to me, I just needed a therapist. ¡°I mean¡­ I guess it¡¯s just a matter of convenience. You¡¯re here and I¡¯m here. See, I don¡¯t really¡­ have a home world.¡± I bit my lip as I said it. It felt a little bitter to hear out loud from myself, but it was true. ¡°I¡¯m suffering from amnesia.¡±


    The man¡¯s eyebrows rose, and he placed one hand to his beard, fidgeting with it and nodding along as I spoke ¡°So you would be the patient then.¡± He glanced to Mouse ¡°And him? Judging by the weapon, a bodyguard? Young fellow, though.¡±


    ¡°No, you were right, she¡¯s the patient.¡± Mouse said bitterly, trying to remain as invisible as possible to the gentleman. ¡°Ignore me.¡±


    The doctor shrugged his shoulders and returned his gaze to me. ¡°Amnesia is ordinarily treated by neurologists, are you sure you¡¯re in the right place?¡±


    I shook my head ¡°The amnesia¡¯s not the problem. I just learned today that apparently¡­ something¡­ terrible happened to me at some point in my life. If I had my way, I¡¯d never get my memory back at all. But I¡¯ve been told that it has a tendency of coming back whether you want it to or not. I need your help to mentally prepare myself.¡±


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    The man reached up to adjust his glasses, nodding and making curious grunts to himself as he pondered what I said ¡°What a very unusual story you have. I don¡¯t have any other clients tonight, and I was planning on going home for the day, but I suppose I could at least listen for a bit.¡±


    I nodded and moved to follow him as he moved toward the door. Mouse stood up to begin following, but Dr. Yates stopped and looked back to him ¡°Hold on. It¡¯s usually best that we speak on something this personal one on one. Can you wait out here? There are no exits from the other side if you¡¯re concerned for safety.¡±


    I nodded to Mouse and he sat back down, showing a glare of renewed distrust toward the doctor before I walked into the back room with him.


    He¡¯d been telling the truth, it was a simple square office with several chairs and what looked like a couch of sorts that he invited me to sit on, and I obliged. He sat in a chair of his own and let out a relaxed sigh as he settled in ¡°Now then, miss¡­?¡±


    ¡°Watkins.¡± I shook my head. I hadn¡¯t used my last name in some time since the rest of the crew was so informal about what we called each other. ¡°Just call me Meryll. The last name doesn¡¯t mean much to me.¡±


    ¡°Because you can¡¯t remember your family?¡± He asked, scribbling something onto his personal terminal with a stylus. I didn¡¯t see many people who still prefered writing to typing anymore.


    ¡°Because I don¡¯t have a family.¡± I corrected, not certain just how much I should say yet. ¡°Well, I don¡¯t have parents, anyway. I suppose I have sisters, in a way.¡±


    ¡°So you do remember them, then? They¡¯ve just passed.¡± He asked, lowering the register of his voice to a sympathetic tone.


    I stayed silent for a moment. Was this really someone I could trust with the full truth? Sure, the secret that she was a living core was out to the whole station by the next day, if what Dr. Fuller said about this place being a rumor mill was true, but should she really just start broadcasting that she wasn¡¯t even really human in the first place? I remembered reading somewhere that you had to be honest with a therapist for the treatment to mean anything, but was it safe? It was better than going insane, I supposed ¡°I¡¯m not¡­ strictly speaking¡­ a human being. I¡¯m a clone. A machine core.¡±


    I watched the man¡¯s brow furrow as the gears began to turn. I had his full attention now ¡°And yet you¡¯re here, talking to me. Are you certain of that claim?¡± he mumbled. Great, now he thought I was delusional. ¡°I may not know much on the subject, but I know that clones are not capable of reason and independence. You have some serious cybernetic enhancements, but it¡¯s hard to believe that you¡¯re a functional machine core.¡±


    I closed my eyes and pinged the room, looking for vulnerable electronics that might help prove my point. There was a small terminal in Yates¡¯ hand, a larger terminal inside of his desk, and what seemed to be a voice recorder of some sort beneath it. Before anything else, I made sure that the device was turned off. He had not been recording anything as of yet, and I definitely didn¡¯t want him to.


    ¡°Meryll?¡± he asked, seeing me with my eyes closed for a few moments, but then there was a quiet buzzing and a notification sound on his personal terminal.


    ¡°Take a look at it.¡± I mumbled as I held my hands out, demonstrating that I wasn¡¯t using my own arm terminal for it.


    He tapped away from his note-taking app, a bewildered expression on his face, and his eyes went wide when he read it. ¡®Meryll here. This is psychic networking. It¡¯s how machine cores work with other electronics. You need a security update, by the way, this thing was too easy to crack into. Honestly, nobody takes security seriously these days.¡¯


    ¡®See? Easy.¡¯ I pinged him again ¡®I can just keep talking like this if you prefer. I¡¯m looking at the recorder under the desk, by the way, I better not feel it turn on for this.¡¯


    He swiveled his head and looked to his desk, ensuring that the device in question wasn¡¯t in my field of view ¡°Well¡­ that is¡­ a development.¡± The man sounded flustered as he set the terminal down on his lap. ¡°Erm, I¡¯m afraid technology isn¡¯t my greatest strength, perhaps it would be best if we continued this vocally.¡±


    I opened my eyes again and nodded to him. That was fine with me too. ¡°As you can imagine, I¡¯m in a pretty unique position. So discretion is pretty important to me right now. Can I trust you not to broadcast this? At least not until I¡¯ve left with my crew?¡±


    The man just kept staring at me, looking astonished for a long moment before he stammered out ¡°Well, yes, of course.¡± He smiled and gave a bit of a nervous chuckle ¡°If it means that I get to analyze the mind of someone in such a unique position, I¡¯m happy to keep silent on the matter for the time being. This is a clinic after all, confidentiality is important.¡±


    I smiled back a little bit ¡°I¡¯m glad.¡± I really didn¡¯t want to threaten him with retribution from the rest of the crew, and it seemed like I wouldn¡¯t have to, for the time being. ¡°So¡­ where do we start with this therapy stuff then.¡±


    Dr. Yates mumbled quietly as he pondered the question himself ¡°Well, why don¡¯t you tell me what it is you fear so strongly about regaining your memory?¡±


    I nodded and began to recount what I knew. ¡°The process of awakening a clone¡¯s consciousness apparently involves subjecting us to a simulation of some form of personalized, severe, psychological trauma. My sisters¡­ the other clones like me, were all rendered insane by their simulations. It woke them up, but it messed with their heads too much for them to adjust to reality.¡±


    ¡°Ahh, and you, the one who has lost the memory of that trauma, have been able to avoid the undesirable effects of that process. I see.¡± We both nodded at each other in understanding. ¡°And you fear that if you recall whatever terrible simulation was imposed upon you, you will share your sisters¡¯ affliction. Is that all correct?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. So that¡¯s why I came here. I was wondering if there was anything I could do to¡­ I don¡¯t know, mentally prepare myself for the coming storm, so to speak, once I regain my memory.¡±


    Dr. Yates nodded along again ¡°Well, there are so many unusual factors to this case. Your psychology may be too alien for me to be helpful to you. I have never studied the brain of how a clone thinks because clones don¡¯t ordinarily think.¡± He rubbed his hand at his beard again ¡°But you seem human enough. So perhaps I can apply the same principles that I would use for a typical patient. It would be a starting point.¡±


    I shrugged, figuring that that made sense ¡°I guess. I passed for human until now anyway.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, yes. Now I imagine you must have pulled together bits and pieces by now. So why don¡¯t you tell me what you DO remember?¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s it matter? It was all simulated anyway.¡± I scoffed, the details of my false life were so blurry anyway, I couldn¡¯t see how that would be helpful. ¡°Nothing I remember before joining the crew on Theseus is real, it was just a simulated life.¡±


    ¡°Followed by simulated trauma.¡± He added sagely as he lifted his tablet again and got his stylus ready. ¡°And if that trauma feels real to you and your sisters, then the life leading up to it, false or not, is important. If it¡¯s not too painful, tell me¡­¡±


    I supposed that made sense. If something false could cause such a dramatic psychological response, then perhaps the fact that the life behind me was false didn¡¯t really matter to my development alongside the trauma. ¡°Alright then. It¡¯s not easy to think about the details of that life, but I have a vague idea. I was born on Titan to two computer scientists¡­¡±

 A Long Day

    ¡°I remember being exhausted that day. The last day of what I remember before Theseus. I was just dead tired because I had supposedly been worked to the bone by a contractor to produce-¡± I threw my arms up to my side in frustration. Throughout the discussion, I made it a point to emphasize that all of my memories of my old life were vague and fuzzy like that, and I wasn¡¯t even sure if there actually were details to be found in them. ¡°I don¡¯t know, something. I want to say that that day was just a part of the simulation too, but I remember boarding the ferry to Titan, and that¡¯s where the crew of Theseus found me, in the wreckage of a transport ship.¡± I¡¯d been speaking to Dr. Yates for what must have been at least half an hour without him saying much of anything once it became obvious that his requests for clarity on events in my life wouldn¡¯t get him anything useful. If anything, the entire one-sided conversation had just made me feel more anxious. I relived the events of my false life all over again and began wishing that I¡¯d been able to forget those too. It was unsettling knowing that there wasn¡¯t even a shred of truth to it all.


    ¡°And what happened then, Meryll?¡± Dr. Yates asked, waiting for me to continue my story.


    ¡°What¡¯s it matter? Everything after that actually happened.¡± I reminded him, sitting up from the couch that I¡¯d laid down on for comfort at some point during the interview ¡°After that, I joined Theseus. I became Theseus. And everything came so easily to me after that. It was like it was where I was meant to be, rocketing through vacuum with a giant hunk of metal and machinery grafted to my brain. It was my first real experience, and I didn¡¯t even understand at the time just how meaningful it was to me. I have no problem at all with anything that came after I woke up in Theseus. Sure I¡¯ve had some horrible and uncomfortable things happen to me while I¡¯ve been part of the crew, but nothing about it makes me feel the kind of dread that the missing piece of my memory feels like it¡¯s going to cause me. So can we please focus on that? I¡¯m only going to be here for about a week, and I hope I¡¯ll at least have a plan for all of this by then.¡±


    Dr. Yates continued to nod along as I told him just what I was thinking about my situation and what I hoped his part in it would be, continuing to scribble furiously in his notes as I spoke. ¡°Now, Meryll, the kind of therapy I offer isn¡¯t just something you can simply apply and be done with, like a surgery. The human mind is more complicated than most of our current science can understand, and healing a psyche is a process that ordinarily takes time, patience, and dedication.¡± Dr. Yates crossed his leg and cleared his throat, and this was beginning to feel more like a lecture all of a sudden. ¡°Ordinarily, I would want to meet a patient like you regularly, to check up on your progress and offer advice as you develop healthy coping mechanisms.¡±


    ¡°Well, I don¡¯t have time for that.¡± I declared grimly. Theseus wasn¡¯t going to wait around for me to undergo some kind of years-long process to solve something that, with any luck, wasn¡¯t actually going to be a long-term concern anyway. ¡°Captain said we¡¯ll be here about a week, so that¡¯s about as long as I can promise I¡¯ll be around. You got any crash courses on this stuff?¡±


    Dr. Yates let out an impatient sigh and set his terminal down next to him on the seat, leaning forward to focus on me, his face almost pleading with me to work with him. ¡°I do have a proposal. I do want to help you. I wouldn¡¯t ordinarily meet with a patient so frequently, but given your inflexible schedule, I would like to meet with you daily during your stay. At the end of the week, we can discuss possibilities for continued treatment. This may be more emotionally taxing than my typical sessions since you won¡¯t have as long to¡­ let things settle. Is that something that you think you can handle?¡±


    I nodded quickly. It made sense to me, even though I fully intended to turn him down if he thought that I might choose to stick around to be his patient at the end of the week. ¡°Sounds good to me,¡± but I had to ask. ¡°Why not continue now, though?¡±


    ¡°Because I need time to think.¡± He didn¡¯t sound happy about it either, like I was inconveniencing him with the complexity of my problems. ¡°This isn¡¯t going to be simple. I¡¯m going to need to do some research into some very niche subjects and come up with what the best approach to this whole ordeal by myself.


    ¡°I guess I shouldn¡¯t have expected this to be easy.¡± I groaned, wondering if this was even worth my time. But what else was I going to do between being paraded around to the scientists that had been curious enough to get involved. ¡°So¡­ is that it then? You just ask me for my fake memories and send me on my way?¡± I asked as I stood up. ¡°I hope you have something more helpful ready next time.¡±


    ¡°I just may. I have ideas.¡± Dr. Yates leaned back in his chair again, relaxing himself as I got ready to leave the office ¡°The first meeting with a patient is always like this, unfortunately. I have to learn about you before I can know how to treat you.¡±


    I started to walk to the door ¡°Well, I did just tell you my whole fictional life story, so I bet you can at least understand fictional me. I¡¯m pretty different from fictional me, though. I do have to admit that my physician is right when he calls me reckless, wheras I was always more reserved in my memory.¡±


    Dr. Yates scribbled something out on his tablet and made a new note ¡°Reckless¡­ You know, being a risk-taker can be a dangerous psychological trait.¡± He warned.


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    But I already knew that ¡°That¡¯s kinda the point, though, isn¡¯t it?¡± I smiled at him as I opened the door ¡°I¡¯ll see you tomorrow.¡±


    ¡ª


    After a brief, silent walk back to the ship, I was so glad to see her shell again. I could still feel the core from Yates¡¯ office, but being physically inside of Theseus made me feel safe. I stepped carefully through the still-jagged opening in the cargo bay and let out a satisfied sigh as I dramatically opened my arms and hugged the wall ¡°I missed you.¡± I told the ship, eliciting a smirk and an eyeroll from Mouse as he finally put his gun at ease and walked past me into the mess hall, hearing a few voices greet him in unison. So it was dinner time. And that meant facing the rest of the crew about the findings that Aisling no doubt reported to them.


    I sighed. I supposed I would just have to face it head on.


    Walking in next after Mouse, I was delighted to smell a delicious savory sauce rather than the telltale bland stench of the protein slop rations. Thank god we had real food again. ¡°Hey guys.¡± I called in, and got the same mix of greetings from the rest of the crew, minus Joel, who only grunted and didn¡¯t look up from his plate. I didn¡¯t want to hear him talk anyway.


    ¡°Ah, there she is.¡± Shaw looked up from his plate with an amused look on his face. ¡°You¡¯ve had an eventful day from what I¡¯ve heard. So you¡¯re not human after all, huh?¡±


    ¡°Fuck, Shaw¡¯s still here, I was hoping someone would have dissected him by now.¡± I droned sarcastically as I grabbed a plate and started to dish myself the meaty stirfry that Ray had blessed us with today.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been tempted.¡± Aisling smirked, watching Shaw give an indignant frown.


    ¡°Oh come now, it¡¯s been at least a week since I tried to kill one of you.¡± Shaw pouted, but with all the dramatic gesticulation he did with his hands, I could tell he wasn¡¯t taking this very seriously at all. ¡°And it was all just a big misunderstanding anyway. Water under the bridge, right?¡±


    ¡°Threatening our lives, I can forgive, it¡¯s everything else about you I can¡¯t stand.¡± I muttered as I sat down next to Mouse, who silently scooted his chair over to give me room.


    ¡°How¡¯d the doctor thing go?¡± Ray asked, standing up to get a second helping of her own meal. She always got first dibs on that because of her accelerated metabolism.


    ¡°Went alright. The cyberneticist only really cared about my firmware, so he didn¡¯t actually have to physically open anything up. Real nice guy too, I¡¯ll probably have a chat with him later about my systems¡¯ efficiency.¡± I explained as I bit into a meaty chunk off the plate and let myself get taken away by Ray¡¯s amazing cooking once again. After a moment, I continued ¡°The psychologist is harder to say. I think he doesn¡¯t like that we have a deadline.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t imagine he has an easy job. Gonna turn you into less of a bitch?¡± Joel grumbled. The room went silent for a beat, but the noises of eating continued a moment later in silence. I bit my lip. No, he wasn¡¯t gonna get to me. Not here. Not where I felt safe.


    ¡°Tell them about Skygraves.¡± Mouse tried to change the subject. This time, only Doc dropped his fork.


    ¡°You ran into him?¡± Doc asked seriously, unconsciouskly licking his lips before he continued ¡°What¡¯d he say?¡±


    ¡°He didn¡¯t notice us.¡± I reassured him, preparing myself to explain the weird part ¡°Mouse and I¡­ felt him coming.¡±


    ¡°¡­ Felt?¡± Doc raised an eyebrow, but looked a little more relaxed that Skygraves hadn¡¯t been directly engaged yet.


    ¡°He¡¯s got some weird cybernetics.¡± Mouse expounded, setting his own plate aside for a moment ¡°He was in the psychologist¡¯s place when we got there, but we both just got this weird feeling that we didn¡¯t wanna go in, so we backed off and waited.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, then we saw him leave and the feeling went with him.¡± I continued, Mouse returning to his meal when he saw that I had it in hand. ¡°The receptionist said that he has some kind of malfunctioning cyberwear that just makes augmented people feel weird around him. I didn¡¯t get a chance to scan him though, so I don¡¯t know what it is.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll have to deal with it when the time comes.¡± Aisling muttered ominously. She had something on her mind.


    ¡°Don¡¯t go back to the psychologist.¡± Doc warned, gesticulating with his fork to make his point ¡°Skygraves probably has his hooks in him.¡±


    Aisling made a quiet grumble about something, but didn¡¯t elaborate out loud.


    ¡°I gotta go back to him, Doc. I need to figure myself out. Besides, Skygraves probably has his hooks in everyone on Venus.¡± I watched Doc sigh and shrug his shoulders, conceding the point. ¡°Also, I¡¯m spending the night in the core module.¡± I declared suddenly, which made Doc grimace. ¡°The bruise doesn¡¯t hurt anymore, and I need some serious me time after today. Okay? I¡¯m not asking permission, I¡¯m telling you.¡±


    Doc stayed silent. He knew I was right. I deserved a good night of mental rest.


    The meal continued for some time in silence while the crew slowly finished and trickled back to their individual jobs or just enjoying the night, each enthusiastically thanking Ray before they left, and I was no different. I walked back up to my heart, belly full and happy. When I got there, I immediately stripped again.


    I needed this so badly. I climbed up into my core module. I immersed myself in the wonderful fluid that made all my worries melt away into it. I closed myself inside and let it fill me, inside and out, and once the lights turned on, I could finally feel my mind begin to calm. I only needed a few moments before I wanted to see what I missed on the digital side of things, though.


    Closing my eyes, I saw that, of course, Mouse hadn¡¯t had much opportunity to fix things up while we were both out today. That was fine. I immediately dropped a message to Dr. Reese, asking if maybe I could see what corrections he wanted to make to my systems ahead of time. If I could see and approve them before I applied them myself, I¡¯d be more inclined to let him do his thing with me. Plus, it let me open a line of communication since I hadn¡¯t actually given him my messaging address either, I¡¯d just stolen his while he wasn¡¯t looking. I hoped people didn¡¯t mind that I did that.


    Next, I looked up to the bridge. Aisling was there already.


    But what I saw next made my blood run cold. On her terminal, there sat a communication¡­ with Skygraves. Peeking in on it, I swallowed hard when I saw a proposal from the man. There was a lot of extra flowery language around it, but alarmingly, it contained a proposal with a lot of very big numbers involved. It was an offer to purchase something. Me.


    And as I watched Aisling stare at the message, she glared into the screen for some time in thought before she typed out ¡®We might be able to make a deal.¡¯

 Manipulation

    I stared at the message in disbelief for some time. ¡®We might be able to make a deal¡¯? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was Aisling actually turning on me? After all that talk about loyalty and how I would never be left behind? After explicitly telling me that she would wade through hell for me? Why now? Sure it was a lot of money, but I thought Aisling didn¡¯t care about money! Was that a ruse too? Part of me wondered if I ever should have trusted her in the first place. It wasn¡¯t the first time she¡¯d treated me as subhuman, and that was even before she knew what I was. I remembered before she officially brought me on, she tried to minimize my humanity after she¡¯d talked me into flying her to Luna. Was she really just a charismatic manipulative bitch this whole time?!


    I was hyperventilating. Of course I was. I was angry. I was crying. I couldn¡¯t help myself.


    ¡°What the fuck is making a deal supposed to mean!?¡± I shouted through the intercom, my voice synthesis sloppy enough that a spike of feedback broke through alongside my voice.


    Aisling flinched at the noise, turning to look up at my sensor array with that usual difficult-to-read calm and calculating stare that she always showed when concentrating ¡°Ow. I was hoping you would be here for this. But ow.¡± she put a finger in her ear as if trying to shake something loose.


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m here for this, I¡¯m the ship!¡± I calmed down a little, perplexed enough by her calm demeanor despite what I¡¯d just caught her doing. Was there something more to this? ¡°You¡¯re making a deal to sell me to this asshole!¡± I accused.


    She raised an eyebrow up at my sensor, giving me a moment to think about the situation. No, there was nothing wrong with what I said. She finally let out a sigh ¡°Meryll, I¡¯ve read your combat logs, you are a masterful pilot and tactician on a battlefield.¡± she started, then crossed her arms ¡°But you don¡¯t really get people, do you?¡±


    Was she¡­ taunting me? Was she calling me foolish for not seeing this coming? Or¡­ no, she didn¡¯t have as much leverage as felt obvious here. I could easily just sabotage the ship, walk out, and give myself to Skygraves out of spite right now. She wasn¡¯t trying to hide what she was doing. Was this not exactly what it looked like then? So what was she doing?


    ¡°He contacted me first. I waited as long as I could for it to be plausible that I just didn¡¯t see his message.¡± She explained. I looked at the chat history and saw that he indeed began the exchange, and she first responded hours later. ¡°I tried to keep the pleasantries going as long as I could too. After that, he asked me directly about you and asked if this was a secure channel. I lied.¡± I hadn¡¯t really taken note of it before, but she did seem to be giving the impression to him that I wasn¡¯t able to read the chat. But I could have at any time, it only just became obvious to me when I got in my core module and thought to look through the logs. ¡°He put down an offer on you. Now, Skygraves is known to be a shrewd man of many means who happens to be the one keeping us here and playing host to us for the time being. He owns this colony, and to some extent, everyone on it. He holds all the cards. If he really wanted to, he could just take you. It¡¯s just easier if he can convince me to part with you for money.¡±


    ¡°But instead, he¡¯s here negotiating with you.¡± I said more calmly now. It was all starting to come together ¡°You¡¯re not trying to sell me.¡±


    Aisling shook her head ¡°I¡¯m stalling. Skygraves doesn¡¯t know me. I need him to believe that I want to sell you. I¡¯m using that to my advantage so we can have the time to repair the ship before he realizes I¡¯m not playing ball. If we¡¯re caught before then and things get violent, that puts us into a protracted war of attrition that we¡¯ll lose. If we can repair and resupply enough to leave, then he loses all his power on us.¡±


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    So she was lying. But not to me. I felt my muscles relax as I let go of tension I hadn¡¯t realized I¡¯d begun to feel. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± I sent through the intercom ¡°I misunderstood.¡± I probably wouldn¡¯t have said it so calmly if I was vocalizing it.


    Aisling nodded, turning back to look at her screen and letting her arms relax at her side ¡°It¡¯s fine, Meryll. Sorry I didn¡¯t bring it up at dinner. I probably should have, I¡¯ve just been distracted trying to plan this whole thing. And I knew you wouldn¡¯t like it so I kinda did procrastinate hoping it wouldn¡¯t blow up on me.¡±


    ¡°You really think Skygraves is gonna attack us by the end of this?¡±


    ¡°Definitely will. I¡¯ve got a few ideas, but the fact that he¡¯s got an unknown augment complicates things too.¡± Aisling admitted ¡°We need to keep up the illusion that he¡¯s in control, try to get more info on him, and figure out exactly what he plans to do when negotiations fall through. But my money¡¯s on physical force to tip my hand.¡±


    Man, she was right. I really didn¡¯t know people all that well. Aisling was here playing this elaborate game with Skygraves while I was just walking around the colony dealing with my own problems.


    ¡°Do you need me to do anything?¡± I asked. I still felt bad for yelling at her, even though I was totally justified knowing what I knew in that moment.


    ¡°I just need you to do what you¡¯ve been doing.¡± Aisling casually shrugged ¡°Go see the doctors, maintain the justification that we should be getting paid for our services. Let me worry about the 3D chess, you just handle yourself.¡±


    I had to admit, the way Aisling looked when she concentrated was a little cute. She had this constant grimace of concentration on her face that almost made her look mad, like she was pouting. Yet she held such a casual demeanor despite it. I didn¡¯t really appreciate it when I was mad at her, but for some reason, it stuck in my head when I was starting to calm down. I felt embarrassed that I¡¯d just blown up on her while she was trying to help me, but something about concentrating on her resting bitch face made me feel better.


    ¡°Maybe you should try to get Doc in on it somehow.¡± I tried to offer ¡°He knows Skygraves. He could probably help you pick apart his psychology. And I know he could use some kind of catharsis against the man.¡±


    Aisling paused and turned her head to glance back at the sensor ¡°He told you about that, huh?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± I decided to leave the part where I had kind of coerced him into talking about it out. This situation was already complicated enough for my liking.


    She nodded back at me and returned to her terminal ¡°Yeah, he might like that. I¡¯ll see what he thinks. And I¡¯ll ping you when Skygraves responds. You could stand to learn a few things about manipulating people.¡±


    That was a funny sentence to hear in good faith.


    ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll keep an eye on it. Thanks.¡± was all I sent next, opening my eyes and blinking a few times, letting the tears I¡¯d built up in my anger wink out of existence into the lubricant around me. as I breathed a silent sigh of relief into my void


    It was becoming annoying how complicated my life was becoming. I had only been on Venus for a day and I was already emotionally drained from everything I had to go through, and I¡¯d have to do it all over tomorrow. Well, except for the lifechanging revelation of my origin at the beginning of the day. I really hoped I wouldn¡¯t have to go through that again every day of this week. That would just be exhausting.


    I closed my eyes again and looked at the itinerary that I¡¯d been given for the week. Tomorrow would be a neurologist named Dr. Godin. A neurologist. I wondered if they might be interested in the brain scans I¡¯d been taking. Or about my amnesia. Or maybe this would be sort of like my meeting with Dr. Yates and I¡¯d have to answer a bunch of questions about what I¡¯m thinking.


    For now, I opened my eyes again and focused on the void. I needed to just let myself slip away and rest.

 What Would You Do?

    I spent the night watching Mouse work on repairing my cargo bay, his super-strength letting him carry manufactured struts into position so he could begin to put together the skeleton of the missing pieces of the cargo bay. I could tell by his demeanor that he¡¯d been told to hurry his work. I sort of wished that I hadn¡¯t dragged him along with my nonsense all day. After all, every moment he spent guarding me meant another moment longer in this port with the man who wanted to buy me like some kind of machine. I mean, I guess I am some kind of machine, but I¡¯m a person too, dammit.


    As Mouse went to bed, and I ran out of things to write in my diary, I found myself too tense to do simulations. There was just too much going on out in the fleshy world to focus on video games or false battles. And I had to admit, I needed rest. So I did just that. I left my eyes open and drifted off into¡­ I can¡¯t really call what I experience when I zone out in the void as ¡®sleep¡¯, but it puts my brain to rest, turning off my consciousness and helping my body reset for the next morning. It probably isn¡¯t as healthy as real sleep, but I don¡¯t really care, it¡¯s the more comfortable option for me.


    When I recieve a ping that draws my attention back to reality, I stretch my limbs out and turn myself a bit in the stabilizing fluid to orient myself back to reality again, something Doc had told me to get in the habit of doing to prevent further atrophy from the disuse of my body. Then I closed my eyes and saw that it was Doc himself catching my attention.


    I quickly tapped the intercom ¡°Morning.¡± my synthesized voice rang through the room ¡°I guess I should get up and get myself ready to have my brain poked.¡±


    ¡°Guess so.¡± Doc was still looking over my vitals, but nothing looked out of the norm for me. Ignoring his obsessive note-taking about the state of my body and mind, I had to ask ¡°What¡¯s your plan for today? I know you obviously can¡¯t just go wander the colony, but I don¡¯t know what you plan to do while we¡¯re here.¡±


    ¡°Nothing you¡¯d find interesting, that¡¯s for sure.¡± Doc smirked. He was probably right if he was just doing nerdy paperwork. ¡°Collating my notes on you, mostly. I might publish them once this whole thing passes. With your permission of course. Maybe someone could find a better way of instilling sapience in clones.¡±


    Yep, nerdy paperwork. ¡°Or they could keep making them in the same messy horrible way.¡± I reminded him. I wasn¡¯t sure if I was okay with that if it was something I could prevent. As nice as it would be to have more people like me in the universe, I didn¡¯t want thousands to suffer to make one more of me.


    ¡°Maybe. Don¡¯t you have somewhere to be? Physically?¡± Doc reminded me.


    I groaned. Couldn¡¯t they just come to us? I guess it wouldn¡¯t be that simple, and it would probably be best to have fewer people inside my shell if possible. ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll rejoin the world of mere mortals.¡±


    ¡°And so she descends from her throne above to grace us all with her presence.¡± Doc smirked. It was good to see him in a good mood again.


    ¡ª


    I sat up from the bed at my heart, testing the floor to see if my senses could stand to feel the pressure of the cold floor against my soles. It wasn¡¯t as bad as it was when I spent whole days inside the core module, but it still screwed with all of my physical senses every time I spent an appreciable amount of time in my preferred reality. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m feeling better.¡± I noted to Doc.


    ¡°Already? Hmm¡­ faster than usual.¡± Doc noted ¡°I wonder if you¡¯re acclimating to switching between your two primary physical states.¡±


    ¡°I only need to acclimate to this one.¡± I grumbled, standing up and moving to my meager pile of clothes to return to my silly tropical shirt once more. ¡°The moment I get into the core module, I¡¯m already used to it. Feels like it¡¯s where I belong.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes, I know, but whether or not you like it, you¡¯re still a human being, and you need more than to sit still in sensory deprivation forever. How¡¯s the bruise?¡± He walked over from his console and I turned around to show him my backside. ¡°Still there. Not getting any worse though. It¡¯ll heal just fine.¡±


    ¡°What made it anyway?¡± I asked, turning back to my clothes to dress myself.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been looking into that while I have access to Venus¡¯s relays. It might actually be psychosomatic.¡± he shrugged his shoulders, indicating that no, he had in fact, not figured it out at all. He was just making novel guesses. ¡°It might be your brain trying to rationalize the damage to Theseus, which is¡­ abnormal for a ship core.¡±


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m an abnormal ship core.¡± I retorted. ¡°So what you¡¯re saying is, my brain felt the cargo bay get torn off, and it injured my body on its own to¡­ what, respond like it would to a physical injury?¡±


    ¡°Pretty much. That¡¯s my theory, anyway. I definitely want to keep examining it as we get closer to finishing repairs. It shouldn¡¯t take more than a few days. Mouse is gonna be working around the clock on it now. I¡¯ll keep him loaded with stimulants if I have to, this is an emergency after all. Skygraves has his eyes on us, and I won¡¯t be taken advantage of again.¡±


    I nodded, sighing as I walked to the door of my heart. I dreaded what was coming next. I had to go to Joel now. Mouse was busy on repairs, Aisling was busy negotiating with my would-be captor, Ray had offered to be examined by a biologist both as a supplement to my own lab rat income and for the free checkup on her injection system, and Shaw was¡­ Shaw.


    That left Joel. I was still not on speaking terms with Joel. The disrespect he¡¯d given me while I was having my meltdown yesterday still had me angry. I had been in an emotionally fragile place and he only cared about making it stop, not about actually helping me feel better. I know I said something to make him mad back at me too, but I wasn¡¯t supposed to dig into figuring out why. I also didn¡¯t care. He told me off, so I told him off, and now we were both miffed at each other. I didn¡¯t really care about remedying things if he wasn¡¯t crawling back to me about it first. But I needed him because there were elements at play on this colony that might actually try to physically take advantage of me, so we were going to be stuck with each other for the day, at the very least.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    I closed my eyes to take a quick look through all of my sensors, and found Joel waiting in the mess hall, already dressed and armed. Ever dedicated to his duties, it seemed. I got the impression that Joel had once been a security guard or a soldier or something. But again, I was disinclined to ask anyone else about their past just yet. I climbed down the stairs, and before I entered the room, I called to him in a serious tone, doing my best to sound even-tempered toward the man I currently hated ¡°I¡¯m eating before we leave.¡± I declared while I walked in, going about my business to make breakfast. He just gave an affirmative grunt and stared me down from the other side of the table as I ate.


    We both stayed silent until I was finished, and we walked side by side as we stepped through the slowly closing hole in my hull. Neither of us wanted to be behind the other.


    I still couldn¡¯t decide where exactly the threshold between me and not me was as I was stepping through. I suppose it made sense that the open wound on my shell was presenting itself physically, though I¡¯m not sure why it was showing up on my back.


    I drew my attention back to reality quickly when the hangar doors opened and a pair of armed guards nodded to me. That was alarming. Had they been sent by Skygraves to detain me?


    The answer was no. They let us pass without a word. The two of us walked together into the lobby before Joel spoke up quietly ¡°Not a single professional gunman on this colony, is there?¡±


    I was loath to start a conversation with the man, but the silence after he said that would only be more awkward. ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Those two guys. Nervous as hell and they don¡¯t know what they¡¯re doing. One had their safety on for fuck¡¯s sake.¡± he stayed quiet. I had no idea how he had been able to tell at just a glance, but maybe he really was ex-military. ¡°The guns aren¡¯t standard military either, only see those smgs used by contractors.¡±


    ¡°So Skygraves doesn¡¯t have real thugs to sic on us?¡± I asked hopefully.


    ¡°Anyone with a gun can be dangerous. But I bet neither of those guys ever actually shot someone.¡± he turned to glare at me. ¡°Don¡¯t do anything stupid, alright? They can still hurt you.¡±


    I clicked my tongue angrily ¡°I can handle it.¡±


    ¡°Can you? You can act in a crisis, I get that much, but what would you do if one of those punks leveled a gun at you?¡± he asked impatiently.


    I didn¡¯t really have an answer to that. In a split second decision if I wasn¡¯t expecting it, I guessed I would do nothing at all. I¡¯d just stand there and try to figure out what to do. But thinking about it ahead of time might help with that, just like it would in a starship battle. Only I wasn¡¯t nearly as competent as I was in a starship battle as I was with my body.


    Maybe if I thought about it like a dogfight though¡­


    ¡°Well¡­ with the circumstances, I guess what I know helps. And I know they work for Skygraves, which means they¡¯re probably explicitly being paid not to kill me. I would put myself in front of you so they wouldn¡¯t be able to take the chance to hit me.¡±


    Joel huffed. He didn¡¯t sound happy with that answer. ¡°Then what?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, then you shoot them or something.¡± I glared back at him ¡°Use me for cover.¡±


    ¡°You really think they wouldn¡¯t shoot back, anyway? Orders or not, when a civilian with a gun¡¯s life is in danger, they¡¯ll probably decide their life is more important than their job.¡±


    ¡°Well, fine, what would you suggest?¡± I rolled my eyes.


    ¡°I think you got a solid idea right up to the part where I shoot ¡®em. The other one retaliates too quick if I do that. Best option is to maneuver back into the hangar, gun to your head, against the wall so they can¡¯t flank us, then we¡¯re both armed and we can coordinate.¡±


    We were both armed then? Right, Theseus has guns. And I could operate those guns. And if we were getting attacked, then being nice about the integrity of the station probably wouldn¡¯t be a big deal anymore. ¡°Gun to my head? Why?¡±


    ¡°Then they¡¯re not thinking about their own safety, they¡¯re thinking about their mission. So they won¡¯t do something stupid like shoot you, anyway. They gotta prevent me from taking out their VIP.¡± He grumbled quietly. That sounded¡­ like a good idea. And he just came up with that on the spot like that? Maybe Joel was smarter than he looked, just in a more brutal form of strategy than I was used to.


    ¡°That¡¯s all assuming you can actually keep your cool when you¡¯re not a million ton hunk of metal and armaments. Which I doubt. There¡¯s a big difference between playing pretend with no actual consequences and actually being in a firefight.


    ¡°I know that, that¡¯s why it¡¯s best to talk about it now.¡± I was getting annoyed at him looking down on me. It wasn¡¯t like I hadn¡¯t been imperiled on this journey myself. I already knew I could act in a crisis, even with a gun involved. If I couldn¡¯t, Doc and Shaw would probably both be dead. ¡°And I can take care of myself just fine.¡±


    ¡°Then why am I here?¡± He mocked, lifting his rifle slightly to emphasize it.


    I grimaced ¡°Because I¡¯ve never shot someone.¡±


    ¡°Well, there you go. Maybe you really are human.¡±


    ¡°And just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?¡± I growled, turning my whole body on the spot to face him and putting my hands to my hips to lean toward him. He was significantly taller than I was, but I wasn¡¯t afraid of him.


    He actually looked surprised for a moment, but then he narrowed his eyes again and kept going ¡°It means you¡¯re not a brainless machine who can just do stuff without the emotional baggage that someone who¡¯s never held a gun in their life has to go through. You¡¯re not strong enough to kill someone, Meryll. Not yet, anyway.¡±


    ¡°What do you know?¡± I muttered, turning to walk again. I couldn¡¯t help but dwell on what he said, though. Was he right? It was one thing to see a starship that could have dozens of lives on board being blown apart and knowing that the people on board would suffer their fate to the indifference of open space, but it was another entirely to look someone in the eyes and pull the trigger yourself, wasn¡¯t it?


    ¡°I know what it¡¯s like to shoot a man.¡± He shrugged, as if that should have been obvious ¡°And I know not everyone¡¯s built for it. And I gotta be okay with that because if I wasn¡¯t, this world would be even more fucked up than it already is. You and Doc, neither of you got it in you. Not really. I think both of you could hold someone at gunpoint, but I don¡¯t think either would pull the trigger.¡±


    ¡°So what, I¡¯m useless in a fight?¡± I grumbled.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t say that.¡± Joel muttered ¡°Lots to do in a battlefield. Run distractions, aid allies, hack shit, I guess, in your case.¡± He rolled his eyes. ¡°You¡¯re still pissed off I told you to get over it the other day, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± I turned again to shout at him ¡°Yes, I¡¯m mad at you because you¡¯re an insensitive prick!¡±


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m trying to understand, okay? What are you doing?¡± he growled. If he was trying to make a point, I wasn¡¯t getting it. I just wanted him gone.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to do my job!¡± I shouted back at him, seething as I turned away again and walked quickly toward the neurologist¡¯s door ¡°You can fuck off!¡±


    I didn¡¯t even knock on the workspace¡¯s door, I just opened it, walked in, and slammed the door as hard as I could before the bastard could follow me. I didn¡¯t care for his protection. I could take care of myself.


    Setting my anger aside for the moment, I looked around and saw a man surrounded by instruments at an examination table, staring at me with an impatient expression.


    The man had a large hooked nose and his eyes were full of contempt before I¡¯d even said a word. I wondered if it was because I slammed his door. He had shoulder-length slicked back hair that made him look like a pretentious douchebag.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there? I¡¯m waiting for something.¡± he groaned impatiently, then looked me over for a moment before what I could only interpret as a lascivious smile creeped onto his face ¡°Ah. So you must be the living core.¡±


    I swallowed hard. I already despised this man.

 No One Left Behind

    The way the neurologist leered at me with that creepy smile and the look of disdain made me want to turn and leave immediately. I looked down at the handle of the door momentarily. I was in my rights to do so. I already felt uncomfortable just in his presence, but turning around now meant going back out to face Joel, to whom I had just emphatically declared that I was doing my job, not fleeing my job on a hunch.


    I closed my eyes and pursed my lips. Fine. Creepy stranger it is then. I could handle this. I made a quick ping out of curiosity to see that unfortunately, this man didn¡¯t have any augmentations. I had zero power over him. Opening my eyes again, I saw that he had lifted his eyebrow and his expression was turning impatient.


    I mean, he didn¡¯t look strong. Almost no one on this station felt like they were physically intimidating besides maybe Skygraves, but that was more because of his weird bullshit cyborg repellant aura than his body. I wasn¡¯t under any illusion that I could win a wrestling match with this guy, though.


    I spent most of the last month laying as still as possible inside of a sensory deprivation tank. My muscles were atrophied, I was thin as a rail because of all the meals I kept forgetting to eat, and I just didn¡¯t know how to fight in general. This man could overpower me in a heartbeat.


    My pride wouldn¡¯t allow me to be scared though.


    I let out an audible sigh and approached the man, who looked terribly unamused with me for spending so long obviously analyzing him, and I leaned over the table to look him in the eyes. We were thankfully about the same height, so I at least had that. ¡°Hey. Yeah, Meryll Watkins.¡± I declared in a stern tone of voice, intentionally avoiding repeating his declaration of me as simply a machine core. ¡°I¡¯m sure my captain has informed you of the conditions of this checkup. And I¡¯m in kind of a foul mood already, so can we just get this over with? What exactly do you need from me?¡±


    This only made him look more annoyed, but I was going to make this man respect me, dammit. ¡°Yes, well¡­¡± he started quietly, disdain in his voice as he tried to counter my apparently unexpected assertiveness. ¡°My name is Dr. Godin. Just climb up on the table and we¡¯ll get started.¡± he demanded.


    ¡°That isn¡¯t an answer to my question.¡± I hissed ¡°Before I do any of that, what, exactly¡­¡± I thought about how to phrase it for a moment. What does he want to do to me? No, that gave him too much power. I hoped my hesitation didn¡¯t bolster his confidence ¡°What do you hope to learn today? What¡¯s the procedure?¡±


    ¡°Meryll¡­¡± he tried to put on a reassuring voice. It wasn¡¯t. For once, I actually wished that someone would address me by my last name. ¡°Do you really want me to bore you with all of the details? It¡¯s going to take all day to bring you up to speed on my work, but if I must summarize, I wish to map your brain. Find your response to certain stimuli. To see what exactly it is that separates you from a common machine core clone.¡±


    That¡­ didn¡¯t sound unreasonable, actually. In fact, it sounded like useful information. I felt my shoulders relaxing a little bit, releasing a tension I didn¡¯t realize I was holding. Had I judged this man¡¯s creepy vibes wrong? No, something still seemed off.


    ¡°And how do you intend to do that?¡± I asked cautiously, my voice softening a little as the man presented his intentions clearly.


    ¡°A battery of tests while I monitor your brain activity with this machine.¡± he motioned to a box not too dissimilar from the one that Doc had been hooking me up to so that I could gather data on my dreams. ¡°I assure you, it¡¯s harmless. A series of questions, calibration to sensory input, measuring emotional responses, nothing intrusive. Your captain can have you back within a few hours, at most.¡±


    I had to spend a moment to process that. What did Aisling have to do with anything? It took me a moment to realize what was happening. This man thought that I was property. I knew I had to nip that in the bud. ¡°Aisling doesn¡¯t own me. I¡¯m selling you my time on her behalf, okay? I have¡­ a lot of trust for her, but she¡¯s not my master or some weird thing like that. I¡¯m a person, not a thing, got it?¡±


    The man looked unamused. He wasn¡¯t taking me seriously. The iota of trust I had for him a moment ago was gone already. But I still had a job to do, so I rolled my eyes and climbed up onto the table ¡°So now that we¡¯ve got that out of the way, hook me up, I know how this thing works already.¡±


    ¡°Machine empathy?¡± The man asked, amused interest briefly crossing his features.


    ¡°What? No.¡± I thought about that for a moment, though. Machine empathy. I did seem to have an affinity for manipulating computers and electronics. For feeling like they were a natural part of me. Maybe that wasn¡¯t a bad term for it. I wasn¡¯t about to give him that, though. ¡°I¡¯ve just used one of these before already.¡±


    He furrowed his brow, pausing for a moment with one of the electrodes in his hand already. Eugh, he was going to touch me, and I¡¯d already consented to it. Whatever, it¡¯s just around my head at least. ¡°What would you have needed to use a neural interface like this for?¡±


    ¡°Analyzing dreams.¡± I admitted. It wasn¡¯t a secret or anything, why not tell him?


    He scoffed ¡°Neurotic dream analysis? Pseudoscience.¡± he shook his head ¡°I must say that it is fascinating that you are capable of dreaming, though.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡± I pondered.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s just that that¡¯s not a function one would typically see in machine cores. They don¡¯t ordinarily have any brain activity beyond maintenance during rest.¡± he explained as he swung a wing fixed to the top of the machine over my head. It would have probably been intimidating if Doc hadn¡¯t already done this whole thing for me, except I wasn¡¯t sleeping that time. I did not trust this man to monitor me in my sleep.


    ¡°Yeah, well they don¡¯t normally walk around and talk and have personal autonomy either.¡± I growled. ¡°The fact that I operate as a machine core is secondary to the fact that I¡¯m a person, doctor. I need you to get on board with that or I¡¯m leaving.¡±


    The doctor looked surprised to hear me say that ¡°Well then your captain wouldn¡¯t be getting paid, and I would certainly have something to say to the others about you being so uncooperative.¡± he started, but then let out a loud sigh that made it obvious that his next words didn¡¯t mean anything ¡°But yes, I understand that you are a person that has achieved psionic resonance, and not a machine core that has attained sentience.¡±


    I kind of hated how that wasn¡¯t correct. Should it have mattered either way? I¡¯d still be a sapient person in both circumstances. But if it got this man to treat me with at least some level of respect, even if just for the sake of diplomacy, then I¡¯d have to take it. ¡°Good. And man, do you really think my captain would give a shit if I walked out on this if you mistreated me? You try anything stupid and she¡¯ll shoot you. We¡¯re not out here running a trade operation, you know? We¡¯re pirates.¡± I needed to remind him that we were dangerous. Sure, I wasn¡¯t dangerous without Theseus, but I could truthfully say that I surrounded myself with competent people who wouldn¡¯t hesitate to shoot this bastard.


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    The man let out an amused chuckle. ¡°Like any of you would just walk in here and actually shoot anyone,¡± he scoffed. ¡°I assure you, such¡­ back alley diplomacy won¡¯t be necessary. As I said, this will be unobtrusive.¡±


    ¡°Just get on with it.¡± I groaned.


    Dr. Godin spent the next half hour asking me questions. Simple things like my name, and things he could easily know about me from the port registry. Basic information about my crewmates, basic mathematics, recall of common knowledge. All while I stared into the bright light on the ceiling that would have annoyed me if it didn¡¯t remind me a little of the void. I just wish I had core lubricant around my eyes to keep them from feeling so irritated by it. Other than that, it was very boring.


    He moved on to showing me pictures. Landscapes, abstract art, people, I couldn¡¯t really figure out what this was supposed to do, but he seemed interested by whatever my brain¡¯s responses were to them, I guess, because I¡¯d stopped talking to him by that point. We¡¯d both settled into a begrudging silence.


    At least until the sensory part. ¡°This will be something like a reflex test. Just a gentle knock on certain parts of your body for responses. Also swabs of temperature and a simple pain response. And before you complain, it won¡¯t be anything bad, just a tiny skin prick, and I¡¯ll warn you before hand.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but notice that the man had just told me he would be doing these things, and that he did not, in fact, ask me for consent to do these things. The fact that I didn¡¯t want to do them felt less like a legitimate concern for my safety though, and more something I wanted to deny him out of spite, so I allowed it to happen anyway. It wasn¡¯t like I actually really cared about the things he described being done to me, but the fact that he was telling rather than asking annoyed me. I grumbled, just wanting him to get it over with. I¡¯d already been here long enough by now.


    Sure enough, he did warn me about everything he did for those parts of the testing before hand. So I had to give him credit where credit was due, I suppose.


    ¡°Alright, so are we done here?¡± I mumbled, just wanting to forget about this asshole already. I didn¡¯t even really care if he shared any revelations he had about all the mental data he was collecting at this point. I just wanted to leave.


    ¡°Just one more thing, after seeing the results so far, I actually am, admittedly, very interested in the dream study you were talking about earlier?¡± He reminded me.


    I shrugged my shoulders. I didn¡¯t really care about the data. I never learned anything from it, and it had just been sitting in my files doing nothing for some time now. It was apparently too garbled to mean anything. So I closed my eyes and pinged the terminal in his hands that he¡¯d been entering all the data into. I lifted his contact details and immediately sent the files to him via the local messaging service. Then I opened my eyes and motioned to the tablet ¡°All yours. It¡¯s gibberish to me anyway.¡±


    He looked perplexed for a moment until he looked at the new notifications, lifting his eyebrows with an impressed expression. ¡°Oh, no, you misunderstand. That¡¯s anecdotal data, I can¡¯t be sure of all the variables that were in place when this data was gathered. I¡¯d like to gather dream data here and now.¡±


    ¡°S¡¯cuse me?¡± I mumbled, crossing my arms and preparing to sit up, damn all the wires still attached to my forehead ¡°I didn¡¯t agree to that. I don¡¯t trust you around me while I¡¯m asleep.¡±


    The man frowned, a look of profound annoyance on his face. It gave me all kinds of arrogant ¡®how dare you?¡¯ vibes.


    I glared at him ¡°We¡¯re done here.¡± I grumbled as I started to sit up.


    I felt his hand on my chest. He pushed me back down, his face scrunched up into an angry glare. He had a facemask in his other hand, the kind you see put on patients in a medical ward. Oh. This was happening, apparently.


    I had kind of hoped that this man was all bark, and wouldn¡¯t actually attempt to restrain me, but here we were. He tried to push the mask toward my face, but I managed to grab his arm and shakily hold him back from pressing it hard into my face.


    ¡°This won¡¯t take long, just submit to the test and I¡¯ll even ignore your arrogance toward the progression of science in my report.¡± he growled, trying to push harder.


    I was surprised I was holding him back as well as I was, but my grip was failing. With a grunt, I yelled out ¡°Hey! Someone! I need help in here! This guy¡¯s-!¡±


    I didn¡¯t get another word out before the man shoved his hand from my chest into my face to keep me from saying anything else. So I did what any self-respecting person would do. I bit his finger hard enough to draw blood. He shouted and I felt his adrenaline give him the strength he needed to get the mask over my face. I held my breath in defiance, but I figured at that point that he had won, and I felt fear wash over me. What was this man actually going to do to me?


    The door flew open and Dr. Godin dropped the mask in surprise. I exhaled deeply to ensure any of whatever he was about to drug me with had exited my airway before I took in a relieved, deep breath and looked to the door to see Joel holding the door open with his foot while he trained the rifle, two-handed on Dr. Godin. The doctor had his hands lifted, surprise plain on his face, as I rolled unceremoniously off of the table, getting to my feet while the electrodes popped off my head and the machine shifted from my movement.


    I stumbled a little, perhaps because of some trace amount of whatever sedative he was no doubt about to pump my lungs full of, or perhaps because I¡¯d been laying down, staring up into disorienting light for the past several hours. But in the end, I managed to get myself over to Joel¡¯s side.


    ¡°You alright?¡± Joel asked gently, not moving his line of sight off of the terrified doctor for a moment.


    ¡°I almost wanna say no so you¡¯ll shoot him.¡± I admitted, shaking my head and slapping my cheeks in an effort to reorient myself.


    ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re alright.¡± He nodded, tightening his grip on the gun as if about to shoot ¡°You violated our agreement. Gonna be letting the port authority know you tried to assault a member of our crew.¡± he slowly lowered the rifle to one hand at his side, but he still kept it trained in Godin¡¯s direction.


    ¡°Assault!? I never touched you!¡± The man shouted, hands slowly coming down to the table where one flinched and he looked down at the pinprick of blood on his finger from my tooth.


    ¡°Are you dense? You did a lot more than touch her.¡± Joel shouted back firmly.


    ¡°She¡¯s just a ship core!¡± He growled.


    ¡°Could¡¯ve fooled me.¡± Joel moved one hand to my shoulder and motioned for me to leave first, and this time I was all too happy to let him direct me to safety. He turned with me, closed the door, and closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, he let out a sigh before he turned to me again. ¡°Seriously, you alright? He touch you anywhere else? We need to bump it to sexual assault?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± I shook my head ¡°No, I don¡¯t think¡­ I don¡¯t know, maybe? I don¡¯t know what he really wanted there.¡± I admitted, standing as close as I could to Joel. I needed to feel safe, and he felt safe right now. ¡°I thought you left.¡±


    ¡°If I was gonna not protect the rest of the crew just cause I was mad at them, there¡¯d be a lot less of us alive today.¡± Joel let the gun drop to his side and hang from its strap before he very purposefully spoke his next sentence. ¡°We don¡¯t leave people behind, Meryll.¡±


    Wait. That was why he was still mad at me? I recalled that I told him during my tantrum the other day that Aisling would leave him behind or something like that. I got that we both said some hurtful things to each other, but that was the thing that had made him storm off. It meant something to him. I had actually hurt him with those words. ¡°Thanks for not leaving me behind.¡± I grumbled.


    ¡°What did I just say?¡± He mumbled, starting to walk with me back toward the ship.


    I really wish I knew what happened to Joel before we met in that moment. Like with Mouse and Doc. What brought him here. But I knew better than to pry now. It didn¡¯t matter.


    Joel could be abrasive and rude. He didn¡¯t always understand complex emotional issues. Maybe he just wasn¡¯t that smart. But he definitely had the hallmark loyalty to the crew one seemed to need to be a part of Theseus. He was a good guy, even if he could be a right asshole at times.


    ¡°Were you seriously just waiting outside the door the whole time?¡± I asked, a cautious grin on my face as I looked up at him.


    He just rolled his eyes and kept moving. ¡°Wasn¡¯t gonna leave you behind. Didn¡¯t mean I wasn¡¯t gonna let you sweat about it either.¡±


    Jerk.

 Shaken

    I sent off a message to Dr. Yates, a simple non-committal greeting, as I walked next to Joel. I leaned into him lightly, my eyes closed as I let him navigate me through the less than busy halls of the Venus colony while I attempted to start a conversation with my therapist. It probably looked a lot more intimate than it was when I think about it, like a couple walking side by side in comfort with one another, one tiredly hanging off the shoulder of the other, but absurdly more dangerous than that.


    It surprised me when a reply came quickly, only a few moments passing from my greeting to the ping. I guess he wasn¡¯t too busy after all. ¡®Hello Meryll. Should I expect you in my office soon?¡¯ his message asked. I guess rumors don''t travel as fast as Fuller assumed.


    I let out a quiet sigh as I drafted my response, starting and then erasing the excuses several times before I scoffed at myself. I was too tired for this. I settled for just telling him the truth directly. ¡®I was just attacked by a neurologist. He tried to drug me.¡¯


    His reaction wasn¡¯t as quick to arrive this time. It gave me a moment to reflect on if it was appropriate to be so terse about it, but I felt like being terse, dammit. I figured he was trying to compose something meaningful after I dumped that on him, but I guess he was just trying not to step on a landmine. ¡®Oh god. Are you alright?¡¯


    ¡®No, I''m kinda freaking the fuck out right now. I''m going back to the ship. Sorry, I don''t think I''m making it today.¡¯ I wondered if that was an accurate assessment of my mood. I didn''t feel like I was acting how a scared person should be acting. Should I have been crying right then? Hyperventilating and clinging desperately to the strong asshole with a gun? I mean, sure I was doing my best to make sure I stayed in direct physical contact with him, and if he broke away, then I absolutely would freak out and look around for that fucking doctor to make sure he wasn''t following. I locked my muscles as if readying to sprint away from an imaginary threat- okay, I was freaking the fuck out.


    ¡®I''m so sorry you had to go through that. I understand completely if you need time to yourself.¡¯ His message started, and it surprised me I was relieved by that. Why did I feel like I needed this guy''s approval? I didn''t need any of these doctors'' permission to feel anything. I was my own person dammit. I took in a breath, trying to cool the seething indignity Godin had imprinted on me. ¡®Let me know if there''s anything I can do to help.¡¯


    ¡®Thanks.¡¯ Was all I sent. I opened my eyes and saw that Joel had led me right back to the hangar doors. Right where I needed to go. ¡°Thanks.¡± I repeated out loud, quietly, as I eased up on Joel''s side a little. I didn''t want him to leave while we were still out in public, though. I still didn''t feel safe.


    Right. Joel. That whole debacle. I''d decided before we started walking that it was something I needed to address with him, but I hadn''t spent the walk thinking of what I wanted to say like I''d told myself I would. We were too close to the ship to start carefully formulating something now, so I just blurted out a first draft on the spot.


    ¡°Hey Joel, about the other day¡­ I was¡­ I mean, I was really freaking out about all that shit I just learned about myself. And you were there, it wasn''t¡­ it wasn''t something light or simple for me to accept. I have a lot of stuff hanging over me now and I just¡­¡± I bit my lip. This isn''t where I wanted this to go. I let out a long drawn-out sigh ¡°I just needed to get out of there and cry and feel shitty about it for a little bit, and you were right there when I was feeling so angry, and I¡­ I don''t even really fully understand what I said that was such a big deal, but I obviously said something I shouldn''t have, and I feel like an asshole now cause you''re not a bad person and I didn''t mean to set you off. I just¡­ I was so fucking shaken right then, and you got in the crossfire. I know you were trying to help, and-¡±


    ¡°Apology accepted, Meryll.¡± Joel interrupted my rambling in an even tone of voice that felt like he was neither dismissing nor mocking me. He just wanted to put it past us, and I agreed on that, nodding in response as we walked past the rookie colony guardsmen again and into the hangar, this time noting the flaws in their discipline that Joel had highlighted on our way through earlier to feel better about their presence. No matter what, though, they were still people with guns. At least they didn''t have knockout gas.


    Simultaneously seeing Theseus and seeing myself in the outer sensor array of Theseus immediately gave me a sharp sense of relief. I was home. I was safe. But I needed more than that. I needed another layer of safety. I needed to feel whole.


    ¡°Thanks for watching over me today.¡± I nodded to Joel as I stepped quickly into the cargo bay door.


    ¡°It''s my job.¡± He shrugged, following soon after, though he didn''t have the same enthusiasm. He wasn''t about to lose himself in a core module.


    ¡ª


    The day passed slowly, despite the void. I stared into that sensory emptiness and certainly felt the relief I was looking for, but I couldn''t get Dr. Godin out of my head. Though my eyes and logical mind could rest there, it was a playground for my imagination, and I felt like Dr. Godin was probably about to become a frequent visitor to this place.


    This mission felt like it was becoming dangerous, despite being in civilized space. I had to wonder if he really did just plan on taking new readings of my brain while I slept.


    No, what the fuck, Meryll, that wasn''t what mattered. He dehumanized me. He treated me like an object. He tried to remove my choice because I was just a thing to him. There was no misunderstanding on my part here, he''s an asshole. He is evil.


    I briefly debated messaging him. Taunting him. Yelling indignantly into his inbox. Trying to make him feel one iota of shame for what he tried to do. I had grabbed his details when I sent him those files, and that meant he had my address too. It was surprising to see he hadn''t already tried to do the reverse to me. He seemed angry enough when we left that he could have written a scathing email about how little I mattered compared to him and his work or something, but he sent nothing either.


    After some time agonizing quietly in my void over it, I decided it wasn''t worth the feeling of distress having this hang over me, and I blocked his contact entirely. If he was planning on creeping me out anymore, he at least couldn''t have it in virtual space. That was my domain, not his. Screw that asshole. I would not let him have power over me.


    Taking in a deep, thick breath of fluid lubricant, I closed my eyes and focused back on pseudo-physical matters.


    I was glad to note that I could see the cargo bay now. Mouse had fixed my sensor array, and I finally felt like I could properly observe the ship as a whole again. I silently watched him put together pieces of steel into new pieces of the frame for the ship for a little while.


    At a certain point, I guess it stopped feeling weird that I was a voyeur to the entire crew without their awareness or consent. I think they understood it was implied by now. Shutting down my sensors for frivolous reasons was neither pleasant nor responsible, and though I''d learned to direct my attention better than when I started, I still took in all the sensory data across the ship at all times, so it wasn''t like I could really help it. Joel and Aisling almost always shut off my sensors in their rooms at night, but that was understandable enough and didn''t majorly impact my contiguous picture of the ship at large since it was such a small centralized space.


    Mouse looked distressed when I focused in on him. I wondered what was going through his head. I looked to the script for activating the intercom near him, wondering if I should insert myself into the situation, but ultimately, I decided I had enough of my own trauma on my plate for today. He would have to carry his own burdens for now.


    Instead, I floated up to the helm and watched Aisling work. She had a system map up on her screen and was running several calculations and populating a supply list. An escape route. A plan that would no doubt need to be as carefully maneuvered as her slow conversation with Skygraves on the matter of my personhood. Right, there was that whole fucker too. I had no doubt that Skygraves and Godin got along swimmingly.


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    I pinged her terminal to make her aware of my presence and then spoke softly through the intercom to avoid making her jump again. ¡°Hey Captain. How''s it going?¡±


    ¡°We have an asshole we''re trapped with getting impatient with me way faster than I hoped he would. I''ve only been able to gather up supplies to keep Ray medicated for half the trip I have planned from here. I don''t know if we''ll have enough rations either. I''m probably going to have to organize a heist while things go down here, which means burning bridges we just started building.¡± Aisling turned around to look up at my sensors. ¡°So yeah, things are going alright. You?¡±


    I mean, if we were just being that real with each other in that moment, I suppose I had little reason to lie about what happened. There was only really one brutally succinct sentence to put how I felt; that I had to admit the reality of, eventually. ¡°I think I might have almost been raped.¡± I wish I could have gotten my artificial voice to say that in a much less casual tone than it came out in, but I didn''t have a voice library prepped for ¡®abject depression¡¯.


    Her movement halted immediately, as if everything else had had to stop for her to parse what she just heard. Her eyes had gone wide in something I couldn''t identify between shock, fear, and intriguingly, rage. ¡°I''m sorry, WHAT?¡± Aisling growled with a fury I hadn''t seen her display yet. It immediately pissed her off on my behalf before she''d even heard my story. I spoke rapidly, venting a torrent of righteous indignation at the captain, who listened diligently, a seething fury building as I spoke.


    ¡°I mean, I don''t know if that was his intention, but Dr. Godin gave me these really creepy vibes the whole time I was with him, and then he tried to shove one of those anesthetic gas mask things over my face. If Joel hadn''t been there¡­ then I don''t know, I might have been stowed away somewhere or killed or¡­ I don''t even know.¡± It felt unreal hearing the possible implications of his actions verbalized. I had really been that close to losing everything.


    ¡°Fuck¡­¡± Aisling muttered. I could see the tension in her body as she considered what I just said. I could see the skin of her knuckles pale and twitch over her tightened fists, barely containing an explosive emotional response. ¡°Did Joel shoot him?¡±


    ¡°No, he-¡±


    ¡°Fucking should have!¡± Aisling slammed her fist on the desk next to her. There it was. She couldn''t stay stoic and diplomatic forever against this. I couldn''t blame her, and I was frankly relieved to see her showing that side of herself for me. There was a ping from her console and she glanced back to the communication screen as if she was about to kick its ass somehow. She wheeled back around to her terminal and pulled up her communication with Skygraves ¡°Fuck no, fuck this negotiation bullshit, we''re talking about this, you fucker.¡± She grumbled as I watched her angrily typing to Skygraves. I had never seen Aisling as impassioned as this before. If I didn''t still feel emotionally numb about my encounter that day, I''d probably have found it attractive. ¡°Did he touch you?¡±


    ¡°I mean, yeah, under the pretense of gathering data.¡± Wait, fuck, why was I downplaying this? ¡°And then the whole wrestling with him to push him off me thing.¡±


    Aisling had already typed up a diatribe aimed at Skygraves by now. ¡®You motherfucker, you can''t even control your scientists. We had a deal with them and this is how you treat us? Meryll just came back to tell me Dr. Godin assaulted her. How the fuck am I supposed to trust you can take care of her after this, huh?¡¯


    Out of curiosity, I scrolled up through her logs to read the conversation I had missed. There was some negotiation over price, and WOW was he desperate to purchase me at a premium. I don''t think I''ve seen that many zeroes before. It was a good thing for me money didn¡¯t motivate Aisling. The haggling reached a point where stalling wouldn''t have been a good tactic there anymore and they settled on a price.


    But then Aisling had discussed the particulars of my treatment under his control. She let him know directly that she had hangups about this trade because she considered me to be my own autonomous person, but for the amount he offered her, she couldn''t afford to refuse. She negotiated for my citizenship on his colony and for arrangements to be made for me to live there comfortably. Skygraves made reasonable promises, all no doubt empty, and unfortunately didn''t try to reneg on the price, which would have made things last that much longer.


    I could tell Aisling had been running out of excuses because she was circling back on her conversation. I was a little disgusted to say that being assaulted had been exactly what Aisling needed to continue her stall tactics.


    Except, I don''t think she saw it that way. This wasn''t about the negotiation anymore in that moment, this was the fury of a charismatic woman scorned on my behalf, lashing out at the one person who had the most power to make things right in this situation.


    We both watched as the typing notification showed up at the bottom of the message chain. Then disappeared, then reappeared and disappeared again, like someone totally blindsided by their colleague''s abhorrent actions that they flapped their mouth open and closed trying to find anything tolerable to continue the dialog with. This time it didn''t start up again, though.


    Aisling grumbled to herself, folding her arms and leaning back in her seat to smolder over the doubtless insufferable tirade to come. ¡°If you say something stupid now, you old bastard, I will shoot you myself.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, Captain.¡± I took in a deep breath, feeling like I was about to cry. I hadn''t really fully emotionally processed what had happened earlier, and seeing Aisling become emotional had finally opened the floodgates. I felt safe letting myself feel vulnerable when I had such a powerful woman looking out for me. I decided to just keep talking about it. Let it all out.


    ¡°The whole time I was there, he kept treating me like I was just a machine. Like I had no say in what he wanted to do with me. He even tried to tell Joel that I was just a ship core after he accused him of assaulting me.¡± I was kind of glad for my synthesized voice, because there was no way that I could have continued this conversation in the flesh. It felt weird, sobbing and bawling, curled up in a ball in the core module while an approximation of my voice expressed my violated thoughts.


    I scolded myself a little for that. I thought I was stronger than that. I''d held myself together until then, but putting it all into perspective made me realize what kinds of terrible fates could have happened to me if things had gone a little different, and that hit me hard. I was allowed to feel, dammit. I was allowed to show a little weakness because I was a human fucking being.


    ¡°Don''t worry, Meryll. I''ll make sure this bastard sees justice. I''ll cut his arms off myself if it means he can''t touch you again. Then I''ll shove the barrel of my gun down his throat so he can''t say something that stupid ever again.¡± Aisling promised. I believed her. Hell, I''d probably take her up on that. Had I always been this okay with violence? It was probably something to think about some other time.


    ¡°Thank you, Aisling.¡± I sniffled. She was powerful and bold. I was going to be safe in her hands, I knew it.


    Her terminal finally blinked with a new message and we both leaned in to read.


    ¡®I cannot apologize enough for this incident, Captain Barrowin. I assure you that this is not the norm in Venusian society. I have already given the order to the port authority to detain Dr. Godin and for security footage to be seized as evidence. You have my word as founder of this colony that this will never happen again. I will triple the agreed-upon payment from Dr. Godin, and we will strike his feedback from your contract. We have a psychologist on the station, a good friend of mine, if Meryll would like to talk to someone on the matter. I can offer additional security at any future meetings if you wish as well.¡¯


    Aisling let out a smoldering sigh. That response was¡­ surprisingly reasonable. I think Aisling was expecting, maybe even hoping, for more pushback on the issue so that she could buy more time arguing about it, but how could she when he was giving her everything she could have expected and more? Skygraves was a patient man who wouldn''t tip his hand easily, that was for sure.


    She bit her lip nervously and started typing as I spoke ¡°That was¡­ not what I thought was going to happen.¡±


    She grumbled quietly ¡°Me neither. Something is up here. But on the surface, he''s in the right. We''ll just have to play along.¡±


    I kind of hated this game they were playing. It felt horrible trying to guess what everyone here actually wanted and try to anticipate their next move. I didn''t want to play it, but whether or not I wanted it, I was the most important piece. I wished that there could just be a straightforward conversation where we told him we weren''t interested in selling me off, but that was just going to lead to immediate conflict.


    ¡®Thank you, Dr. Skygraves. That''s at least a right step toward making this right. I''ll see what she thinks of meeting with your psych friend.¡¯ I appreciated the fib. I didn''t want Skygraves to know I was already seeing Dr. Yates. ¡®We¡¯ll keep providing our own security, though. I''m not happy right now, and Meryll''s in a very fragile state. I need to tend to her needs right now, so we''ll continue talking about this tomorrow.¡¯


    Aisling sent the message off and I saw the tension drop right out of her shoulders as she read the immediate ¡®Of course. I have to take care of this incident now, anyway. Have a good evening Ms. Barrowin.¡¯ that he replied with.


    If I could hug Aisling in that moment, I would have. At least she could use this to buy us a little more time. Maybe we could at least leverage my suffering for a bit of an advantage in our situation.


    ¡°Meryll, I''m so sorry.¡± She muttered, turning back around to look me in the ¡®eye¡¯ again. ¡°No one should have to go through this. And I''m glad you could trust me to bring it to my attention. We''ll make this right.¡±


    I nodded, then sent a quick ¡°yeah¡± to the intercom before I opened my eyes and settled into a long hard cry in the void.

 A Good Day

    I couldn¡¯t really argue with Doc when he told me I should sleep in my heart instead of trancing out in the core module all night. I certainly woke up feeling a little better about myself the next day. Dr. Godin thankfully hadn¡¯t invaded my dreams that night, and I felt a lot more like myself when I came to.


    Closing my eyes, I saw that I had gotten several sympathetic messages from other members of the crew, as well as Dr. Reese, Dr. Yates, and the port authority, of all things, while I was asleep. It made me feel warm that there were people that at least cared enough to acknowledge what I¡¯d been through, especially the rest of the crew. Even Joel had messaged me, and he¡¯d avoided giving me his contact details until now. I mean, I had his contact already anyway, but now I could actually message him without seeming like a creep who swipes peoples¡¯ addresses without their permission.


    Slipping on my leggings and my now-iconic tropical button-up over my shoulders and fastening it to my body as I walked down the stairs to the mess, I was glad to hear the distinctive sound of something sizzling on the stove. I could definitely go for some of Ray¡¯s cooking before starting the day. Trauma or not, I still had work to do, after all. At least the fatty smell of frying meat helped put my psyche at ease.


    Stepping into the mess, I was glad to see Ray at the stove and Joel staring at his tablet. I only had to blink to see that he was browsing through headlines from the outer colonies. I wondered if the migration of several of Foundation¡¯s ships had been news out there, or if it had been swallowed up by the fog of disinformation the media presented.


    ¡°Morning.¡± I yawned, strolling up to Ray¡¯s side and looking into the pan. Or pans. She was cooking some kind of breakfast cakes and a pan of ham steaks and sausage meat. That was a surprisingly extravagant breakfast for us.


    ¡°Hey Meryll. Glad to see you up and about.¡± Ray smiled at me. I don¡¯t know what possessed me to do it, but I leaned into her big fuzzy bear arm and nuzzled against it. It felt so soft. I¡¯d seen the others showing casual physical affection toward her before, and I kinda wanted to do that for a while. I guess I was feeling bold this morning. ¡°Whoa, hey.¡± She let out a soft chuckle and patted my head with her other hand, her claws gently tapping me like I was a delicate flower that she could rend apart if she didn¡¯t take care. She hadn¡¯t been expecting it, but she didn¡¯t object to my attentions either. ¡°You alright?¡±


    ¡°Just¡­ glad I found this crew.¡± I smiled back at her and then gestured to the spread. ¡°What¡¯s the occasion for all this?¡±


    Ray pushed the food around the pans to make sure that it cooked evenly now that I¡¯d separated myself from her unfairly cuddleable body. ¡°They dropped off a care package. Not all of it was gonna keep for long, so I figured we¡¯d have a hearty start to the day for once.¡±


    ¡°Ah, the perks of a public assault charge in a small community.¡± Joel chimed in, sipping from a mug of coffee as he put his idle attention back to his tablet.


    ¡°Joel.¡± Ray scolded, giving a stern glance back at him as she piled a few things onto a waiting plate.


    ¡°Glad I could be of assistance.¡± I intoned sarcastically back toward Joel, patting Ray on the shoulder and moving back to the table to take a seat.


    She turned and dropped the plate down in front of me. A substantial breakfast for once. ¡°Eat up. You¡¯re all skin and bones, and you¡¯ve gotten worse about it since you joined us. You could stand to pig out a little bit.¡±


    As I smelled the wonderful bouquet of breakfast foods laid out in front of me that reminded me of mornings in the imaginary idyllic life I¡¯d once experienced, I certainly felt like pigging out. ¡°Thanks so much, Ray.¡±


    The crew piled in slowly, everyone expressing their excitement about the buffet that Ray was all too glad to prepare for us. Mouse seemed especially excited. He had the most labor-intensive and time-limited job out of everyone on the crew right now, and I was glad to see him smiling when he sat down with the rest of us, the stress apparently melting away with the thought of a well-deserved breakfast. I wished I¡¯d had the emotional energy to ask him about what was on his mind the previous night, but the time had passed now, and I didn¡¯t want to open fresh wounds while everyone was in a good mood.


    He shot me a few silent, empathetic glances throughout the meal too, though. He had obviously heard of what happened with Dr. Godin and I knew he could do more than sympathize with me. He had probably been in that exact position before, but without a gunman watching his back from around the corner. He hadn¡¯t escaped. I wondered if maybe I would have woken up with things missing or added if Joel hadn¡¯t been there. If I would even wake up capable of the things I took for granted now. It was just a passing thought, though. I didn¡¯t have to dwell on it. It was a good morning, and I¡¯d already spent a whole evening moping to myself about Dr. Godin. I was going to enjoy today. Even if I had to go back out there and see another potential monster of a person.


    Today, I would meet a cloning technician named Agatha Andrews. I couldn¡¯t help but note the conspicuously absent title that adorned nearly every other resident of the colony. Agatha was either a very humble person, or she was not actually a doctor in her field. But her being a cloning technician meant that she very well could hold the same contempt and hostility for me that Dr. Godin had shown. I wondered if people who worked for and took care of clones were really the type of people that would empathize with them if they suddenly attained sentience. Then Doc joined us at the table and I felt stupid for having to consider it. He was proof enough.


    I was very glad that I had made amends with Joel, and he would be fully present today instead of lurking out of sight. Having the bulky wall of a man with a gun by my side for the intimidation factor would help ease my mind more than a little.


    ¡°If this one gives you trouble, I¡¯ll see if I can¡¯t ¡®accidentally¡¯ decompress their workshop.¡± Mouse mumbled at me between mouthfuls of breakfast.


    ¡°You need to focus on Theseus, Mouse. Besides, I¡¯ve vetted this one.¡± Aisling gave me a reassuring smile. She knew better than anyone how shaken I¡¯d been by the previous day¡¯s meeting. ¡°Don¡¯t think this one¡¯s gonna give you trouble. Hell, she might not physically be able to. And you¡¯ll definitely get along with her if she¡¯s anything like she is online.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t entirely sure what she meant by that, but it put my mind at ease to hear that she approved of them. After the fury I saw in her last night, I knew her standards must have been high. ¡°I¡¯m really glad to hear that from you, captain. Thanks.¡±


    ¡ª


    Not all breakfasts can last forever. Feeling full and bolstered against the coming day of scientific scrutiny, Joel and I stepped through the gap in the cargo bay that was beginning to show signs of structure; now made of girders and hard edges rather than dangerous-looking torn metal and scorch marks. It was still a hole, but it felt more like a construction site than a blatant hazard.


    We walked in silence past the guards in the hangar entrance hallway. They had bolstered their numbers to three. It was a token show of force. We didn¡¯t need protection at our own ship, Skygraves was definitely just trying to intimidate us. Joel still scoffed at their apparently obvious inexperience once we were out of earshot though.


    ¡°If they¡¯re trying to make us uncomfortable, it¡¯s not working. I bet I could gun all three of those rookies down and they would be too shocked to react in time. These people are not fighters. None of them.¡± Joel seemed a lot more talkative than he was yesterday. I guess apologizing did wonders to ease him too.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°You said it yourself, I would probably freeze up too.¡± I offered. I wanted to be realistic about my own abilities if things really did end up coming to a violent head at the end of our stay on Venus. I wouldn¡¯t just be able to jump into action so easily, right?


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think you would.¡± Joel murmured hesitantly. I wasn¡¯t sure if he was giving me a compliment or if something had changed since we talked about this yesterday.


    I turned to raise an eyebrow at him ¡°What do you mean? You said it yourself, I¡¯ve never been in an actual battle before. I¡¯ve never actually been in a life or death fight. I¡¯m smart enough to know that no amount of preparation is actually going to matter in that moment.¡±


    ¡°That was before I saw you act yesterday.¡± He mumbled apologetically. ¡°Anyone else wouldn¡¯t have been able to hold that bastard back. They¡¯d be too surprised to put up any kind of resistance. And the moment you had an opening, you threw yourself away from him like you¡¯d planned it. You moved with purpose while you were in danger. You can act under pressure. You don¡¯t freeze up.¡±


    Huh. I hadn¡¯t really considered it, but yeah, I had gotten myself into position to fight back against Dr. Godin when he tried to drug me, meager as my physical resistance was. I saw the opportunity to bite him when he tried to gag me with his hand and I took it. I rolled away from the doctor the moment that Joel made an opening. Maybe the moment-to-moment improvisational skills I¡¯d learned in starship battle simulations was helpful in my physical body too. I understood I needed to take action when a crisis arose, and that extended to my fleshy self as well. Come to think of it, I had made a much more complex maneuver in the hostage situation with Shaw when Doc was in danger as well. ¡°Huh. Maybe I should try picking up a weapon.¡± I shrugged non-committally.


    ¡°We¡¯ll get to that eventually.¡± Joel didn¡¯t sound very convinced that I was quite at that stage yet. I had to agree. ¡°I said you could act. Instinctually. I still wouldn¡¯t trust you to act rationally in a crisis. Especially if it came to taking a life. You¡¯ve still never killed anyone, Meryll. And that¡¯s something no one can prepare for.¡±


    I nodded silently. I understood that. I knew that if I had to do that, it would be emotionally devastating in a way that I really couldn¡¯t imagine. And a scared little part of me knew that one day I would have to take that plunge. I was an outlaw who couldn¡¯t afford to return to normal society now, and sooner or later, the rougher elements would come for me and it would be me or them. It was a sobering thought that cut through the bravado I felt from being praised by Joel for my ability to think on my feet.


    ¡°Did you freeze up? Your first time you killed someone?¡± I asked, wondering if maybe I could get a story out of him. Instead, there was a long, uneasy hush between us before I realized he was just going to ignore the question.


    Finally, he broke the silence. ¡°Enough about that. What¡¯s the job today?¡± he unceremoniously steered the subject toward something more useful for the moment.


    I wasn¡¯t about to push him further on it after that, so I followed along. ¡°Didn¡¯t Aisling brief you? Cloning tech.¡± I rolled my eyes, guessing that Joel had simply neglected to read the briefing entirely. ¡°She¡¯s been told a little more about my¡­ situation than the other doctors, since she¡¯d probably figure it out pretty quick, anyway. I don¡¯t really know the scope of her research though.¡±


    ¡°So more of an engineer than a professorly type.¡± He sounded at least a little interested. I already knew that Joel got along better with Mouse than with Doc. Maybe he liked the more practical application of intelligence than the academic.


    ¡°Maybe. A bioengineer I guess? Like I said, I haven¡¯t exactly messaged her myself or anything. For all I know, she wants to look at my genetics or¡­ something like that? I really don¡¯t have a good guess.¡±


    ¡°Glad to hear you learned your lesson about coming in prepared after yesterday.¡± Joel gave an amused huff.


    ¡°You¡¯re one to talk, didn¡¯t even read where we were going.¡± I pushed back.


    The two of us bantered at each other, more like the sarcastic jabs we¡¯d had with each other before our big argument than any kind of actual malice. It was a nice normal to return to. We talked about little things. Breakfast, my obvious affection toward Ray, Mouse¡¯s brooding, but we never broached anything important as we walked, just catching up like we hadn¡¯t had a chance to speak to one another for a while.


    It worked to kill the time. Before long, we stood in front of Agatha¡¯s workspace, a nondescript building that was denied its destiny as a corporate storefront long ago, its windows plastered over with the same uninviting blinds that hid almost everyone¡¯s work from prying eyes throughout the station.


    I knocked on the door before I pulled the handle. No need to be rude so long as Dr. Godin wasn¡¯t hidden inside the workspace. But what I saw immediately made my full stomach turn.


    Even just standing in the doorway, I could see rows and rows of people¡­ or rather, not-quite-people, sitting at attention, braced into some kind of slightly tilted holding chamber at the far end of the room, like dolls on display. The four identical living human bodies sat motionless besides shallow breathing that one would have to stare at for a moment to catch.


    They all had shaved heads and half-lidded eyes sporting blank stares, not a hint of higher thought on their faces at all. Each of them had cybernetic implants not dissimilar to my own, though some of them lacked the expansion bay on the back of their skull or the embedded terminal in their arm. They all sported neural interfaces next to their ear and a bay for computer blades on their hips. They also all looked thin and weak, much like me, though the condition of my body was due to a lack of personal care, while these people were simply not capable of personal care at all. They were clones, their bodies stamped with branding and identification codes not unlike what I saw on the dead ship core I had seen my first day on Theseus.


    And most disturbingly, I could feel them. They had a presence in my psionic perception, like they were open to bridging a network if need be. If they were commanded to do so. I didn¡¯t dare ping them beyond my usual habit of probing an area for electronics, for fear that they would return fire with queries at terrifying computational speeds that I could not match without activating a daunting piece of hardware. I swallowed and wondered if I showed up the same way to them. Just another potential node among many.


    It got even worse when I took a tentative step inside and saw that there were multiple bays of this make, with several idle machine cores of different genetic bases, different sets of the same face and build, machine core clones mindlessly waiting to be assigned purpose.


    Even Joel seemed unsettled as he stepped in beside me and started trying to make eye contact with each of them in turn, finely honed battle instincts used to scanning for human threats were being thrown for a loop by the uncertainty of braindead husks of human beings unmoving in the large laboratory.


    I forced my eyes to focus on the one moving person in the room, and that was only just a little less shocking. A dark-skinned girl with short hair stood behind one of the examination tables in the center of the room, another clone in front of her, staring up into nothing on the ceiling. And when I say girl, I mean to say that she was a youth. She couldn¡¯t have been much older than Mouse, but she emitted a measured aura of assured confidence that didn¡¯t stretch into arrogance. She certainly wasn¡¯t brooding like he would be, either. I quickly pieced together why she didn¡¯t have that all-important abbreviation before her name: She didn¡¯t have the experience for it.


    She stared at me in silence for a few moments as my eyes wandered about the room, feeling unsettled that I had once been just as blank as these things that now surrounded me; that they could all potentially be just like me with just a little application of grievous psychological trauma. She was examining me with fascinated eyes like someone who had seen a doll suddenly come to life.


    She finally spoke up, awestruck by my presence. ¡°Wow¡­ you really are alive. Like, really alive.¡± she smiled with an untamed curiosity that made me wonder about her intentions after what I¡¯d experienced on the previous day. It certainly wasn¡¯t the best first impression.


    I had to remind myself that it wasn¡¯t malice, though. I was, by all rights, a scientific curiosity. I had to at least try to start on the right foot with this girl. ¡°A-Agatha Andrews?¡± I ask, wondering if there might be a mistake like with Dr. Yates¡¯ son.


    ¡°You can call me Aggy.¡± her grin twitched upward a little, the fascination never leaving her voice until a light blush suddenly crossed her face and she looked mortified ¡°Oh! Shit, sorry, I don¡¯t mean to stare, just¡­ you¡¯re¡­ are you really a clone?¡± her face twitched a little. She didn¡¯t think before she spoke, and she immediately felt embarrassed she¡¯d just asked that.


    I couldn¡¯t help but at least be refreshed by the honesty behind her fascination and the sincerity of trying to correct herself. It made me feel better that her initial reaction was merely a momentary lapse in social conventions. I gave a dry smile ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯ve been told, anyway. I¡¯m Meryll.¡±


    ¡°Well, Meryll, I¡¯ve heard a lot about you.¡± she recovered a little bit of her confidence, ignoring the living body beneath her as she leaned her head down on one arm ¡°I hear you¡¯re a hell of a pilot.¡±


    She was interested in my piloting? With that, something clicked. Oh. OH! That kind of technician! The kind that trains machine cores! I smiled back at the girl as I realized this might end up being a much more enjoyable conversation than I had assumed.

 A Kindred Soul

    ¡°You¡¯re¡­ interested in my piloting?¡± I let out a chuckle in mild disbelief. I expected the cloning tech to be focused more on the physical issue that I was a clone than on what I was able to do in a simulation. ¡°I mean, I keep all my sim logs, if that¡¯s what you wanted to see.¡±


    Agatha nodded, closing up the computer bay she was working on in the clone¡¯s hip. ¡°That¡¯s my specialty. I develop those kinds of simulations.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but stare wide-eyed at her. ¡°You made the sims?¡± I asked quietly. They were so realistic to me when I ran them. They felt like little temporary worlds that I could almost lose myself in if I hadn¡¯t done them so many times at that point that the mental whiplash of being dragged into a full sensory immersion experience had stopped being novel to me some time ago.


    Joel, content that this conversation was going well enough, stepped to the side and sat at a chair out of the way of the entrance so he could be on standby and not get in our way.


    ¡°Well, probably not the ones you use, no.¡± She shook her head ¡°Not like I¡¯m the sole developer in the system or anything. But I bet some of my principles are buried in there somewhere. What you running?¡±


    I glanced down at my side, popping open the case at my hip with the press of a button and slotting out the chipset containing the sim program Aisling had given me, placing it gently onto the table next to the clone, being careful not to touch him.


    Agatha smiled and gently lifted the blade, inspecting some markings embedded into the circuitry. ¡°Hmm¡­ not bad. Proprietary Foundation gear. A little dated, but I guess that¡¯s expected from something you¡¯d have to steal to have.¡± She didn¡¯t sound judgemental about it, just stating facts. I had already figured something like this must have been fenced before Aisling had gotten her hands on it. It felt illegal to be able to train against military specs like this.


    Agatha handed the blade back, and I was glad to slip it back into place, having grown accustomed to certain pieces of hardware sitting in my systems at this point. ¡°You can tell all that just by looking at the board?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, serial number matches what the military folks use. I¡¯ve worked on stuff like this before. I¡¯m sure I don¡¯t need to tell you I¡¯m not supposed to tell you that.¡± She smirked, pulling her tablet aside. ¡°But what I¡¯m really interested in seeing is the logs. I know you must not be using that thing like it¡¯s meant to be used.¡± She pulled her tablet in front of her and began tapping away, no doubt prepping to give me her address.


    I closed my eyes and pinged the terminal, reading along with her in an instant. I grabbed her message address myself before she could say anything, and was already prepping a compressed file of my latest logs. I wanted to hear what this girl had to say. ¡°So you really work on all this advanced stuff? Even for big companies like Foundation?¡±


    She let out a mildly annoyed chuckle ¡°This cause I¡¯m only sixteen? I get enough about my age from all the other fogies living here, don¡¯t start that shit with me too.¡±


    ¡°S-Sorry.¡± I started. I probably should have figured that it was a sore spot for her. After all, researchers probably valued experience, and being shown up by minors in their field of expertise was probably a big bruise to their egos.


    ¡°Don¡¯t sweat it.¡± She sighed. ¡°Yeah, I get it, I¡¯m still a kid to some people. But I¡¯m the kid who solved the biohacking vulnerability entirely when she was nine, and there are people already standing on my shoulders as one of the giants at the foundation of this industry, so I think I¡¯ve earned my place here.¡± She was bragging slightly, and I couldn¡¯t totally follow what her accomplishments meant, but it sounded like she was a genius.


    Instead of replying out loud, I beat her to the punch of what she was doing, pulling up her ID to give me verbally, and just sent her the message ¡®No, I get it, people underestimate me too.¡¯


    As she stopped moving and stared at the message, I opened my eyes to watch her startled expression. ¡®General terminal security is pretty awful.¡¯ I answered in text before she could ask.


    ¡°So I see.¡± A slow smile grew on her face as she rechecked my address. ¡°You were able to do that just through your neural link? Fuck, are all clones capable of that?¡± she mumbled aloud to herself.


    ¡°Probably.¡± I finally returned to speaking out loud ¡°But they wouldn¡¯t. They don¡¯t have a sense of humor.¡±


    ¡°You could say that again.¡± Agatha smirked. ¡°Are you just hacking everything you get near or something?¡±


    ¡°I only break into things that I need to do something with. Or read something off of. Or just to find out what it is.¡± As I listed off all the use cases for the psionic network I was constantly building, I paused for a moment to consider it and had to admit, ¡°okay, yes, I just hack into everything, don¡¯t I? But I try not to be rude about it. I¡¯ve known Joel over there¡¯s address for weeks, but I didn¡¯t do anything with it until he sent me something himself.¡±


    ¡°Seriously?¡± Joel muttered with dry indignation. ¡°I swear, privacy doesn¡¯t exist around you.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, I can¡¯t help it.¡± I shrug.


    ¡°Like, actually can¡¯t help it? Is it autonomous?¡± Agatha sounded curious.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m just a curious person.¡± I could stop pinging everything in sight if I had to, right? ¡°With a half-computer brain that makes it difficult to forget stuff I¡¯ve already seen.¡±


    ¡°Not sure if I like that better.¡± Joel muttered, looking down at his own tablet and beginning to search the relay network for personal security applications. It made me snort a little seeing him react so quickly to the news.


    ¡°Well, there¡¯s definitely no doubting your sentience.¡± Agatha said suddenly. ¡°You should have seen Godin going off about you on the station¡¯s message boards about you after your little dust-up. Before he got arrested I mean. Already knew the guy was a prick, but you really put a spotlight on it yesterday. Sorry you had to deal with him.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, me too.¡± I muttered, wishing I¡¯d never had to deal with him in the first place. I made a mental note to look into someone¡¯s terminal later to see if I could have a look at the colony¡¯s more public messaging systems as well. I couldn¡¯t believe I hadn¡¯t thought to look into public forums related to the colony. ¡°Don¡¯t wanna talk about him, though. He¡¯s not worth it.¡±


    ¡°Amen to that.¡± Agatha rolled her eyes. She clearly held some kind of personal contempt for the man as well. Whether it was from experience or from hearsay, I didn¡¯t care to pry. ¡°Anyway, I guess if you have my address already anyway, I should ask if you could send me your logs?¡±


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    I nodded, glad to change the subject away from my abuser. I sent her the package I¡¯d been compressing together, loaded with all my log files. I trusted her to know what to look for in them.


    She opened the files quickly, and I saw a frown slowly grow on her face ¡°No aggregate file?¡± she muttered.


    ¡°My sim data doesn¡¯t collate well.¡± I start to explain. I was getting tired of everyone pointing it out, honestly. ¡°There¡¯s not enough data, anyway. I can¡¯t run things at machine processing speed without putting severe mental stress on myself, so I don¡¯t have the actual millions of runs that would make aggregate data useful.¡±


    ¡°Oh. That makes sense.¡± Agatha nodded, piecing what I said together quickly, and then some. ¡°A lot of the mental processes that make you sentient probably make some of the machine part of being a machine core pretty stressful. Still, there¡¯s almost a thousand logs here¡­ only going back about a month. You¡¯ve been very busy to do that much at human speeds¡­¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised how much time you spend bored with nothing interesting to do when you¡¯re flying a starship in a straight line with no obstacles for a week.¡± I shrugged ¡°There¡¯s a lot more downtime to being a ship core than you¡¯d think most times.¡±


    Agatha stared at the data, tabbing through the various mission logs from my sims, fascinated by the figures ¡°I always said arbitrary overall score systems were bullshit and this just proves it.¡± she mumbled quietly. ¡°This is¡­ fascinating. You were practically already on par with trained standard core operation when you first started. Let me look at the more recent stuff¡­ Wow. Uhh¡­ That¡¯s¡­ absurd.¡± She grew quieter as she read, becoming engrossed in the files.


    ¡°So I¡¯ve been told. I may not have much aggregate data, but I can tell you my overall survival rate in the last week almost hit 99 percent. Across all scenarios.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible.¡± She kept thumbing through my logs in silent awe for some time, selecting an arbitrary moment a week ago and moving through subjectively successful mission after mission ¡°Oh, that one failed.¡±


    I closed my eyes to look and let out a hearty laugh ¡°Oh, that one. I get bored sometimes and use the sims to mess around to see what the limits of the training system are. I had a laugh about that with the last person who looked too. See, the AI has no idea what to do if you just¡­ board their frigate. I just flew in behind one of their fighters and landed, and it didn¡¯t know what to do. I couldn¡¯t get back out either so I had to crash into a wall to end the sim.¡±


    Agatha burst out laughing ¡°Well, of course it wouldn¡¯t know what to do, that would be an absolutely absurd thing to try in a real battle. You¡¯d just get held up by the crew, right?¡±


    ¡°I mean, yeah, probably, but the game doesn¡¯t know what to do with it.¡± I smile, but then realize I just used the wrong word. ¡°Err, not game, sim. It¡¯s probably best not to call it a game, it¡¯s just the other half of my training is¡­¡± I hesitated for a moment. The idea that I was actually using a video game to train myself to be a better pilot on the side sounded absurd in a vacuum. ¡°Don¡¯t laugh, but it¡¯s playing this game called Horizon.¡±


    Agatha turned her tablet down dramatically to look at me ¡°No fucking way, you play too?¡±


    I opened my mouth, unsure how to respond to that. I guess it made sense on some level. Agatha was a kid, mature and intelligent as she apparently was, so it made some sense that she might just play video games for fun. And what better game to play for someone who¡¯s as intensely interested in machine simulation as she must have been?


    ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s¡­ it¡¯s a great way to hone the more human element I bring to piloting a ship.¡± I smile slowly ¡°Ever since I started doing both Horizon and the sims, I¡¯ve improved a lot at both.¡±


    ¡°Well, shit, I¡¯ll have to play you sometime.¡± She smiled, a little bit of a competitive flair showing on her face. ¡°I¡¯m pretty good myself.¡±


    I¡¯d never actually played the game against a human player before, only against the pre-made scenarios the developers had come up with. And those were admittedly becoming a little stale and predictable given I¡¯d already played through them multiple times and in multiple ways. There was only so much a developer could foresee as a novel strategy, I guess. Maybe playing against someone else who could think live rather than with a pre-programmed method could teach me more. ¡°Sounds fun. Can we play over the relay?¡±


    ¡°Might be a little lag depending on how far, but it wouldn¡¯t be bad.¡± She shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m not gonna hold back, though. You best bring that same expertise you take to the sims.¡±


    Had I just made a friend outside of the crew? Seemed like an odd person to become attached to, but I smiled back at her. Everyone I liked was odd.


    Agatha and I spent a couple hours reviewing my logs and geeking out over the behavior of the sims and of our shared gaming interest. It didn¡¯t feel like work to me. I¡¯d found someone who understood what it was like to at least work with a machine, even if she wasn¡¯t one herself. She liked the kinds of things that I liked about machine cores. The fun parts where you got to exercise your knowledge against novel situations to try and use the resources you have on hand to solve a problem.


    Eventually, though, the time came to say goodbye.


    ¡°This was a lot of fun, actually.¡± I admitted to her. ¡°I haven¡¯t really had the chance to go over my sims like this with someone who can actually meaningfully evaluate them before.¡±


    ¡°You kidding? It¡¯s fun for me too, I don¡¯t normally get to actually discuss things with a clone. I just have to look at what they do and try my best to nudge them into doing what they¡¯re supposed to do. But you¡¯re not doing what you¡¯re supposed to do, and you make it work. Like, really really well.¡± she smiled back at me. ¡°I know you can¡¯t stick around forever what with the whole being a starship thing, but you gotta hit me up on the relay sometime, share what you see and experience out there.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d be happy to.¡± I nodded back. ¡°We already have each others¡¯ addresses, I¡¯ll message you when I¡¯m in port. No idea where we¡¯re going next, though. Captain¡¯s being all hush hush about it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re pirates, they probably don¡¯t want you gossiping about it, anyway.¡± Agatha spoke casually. At least she doesn¡¯t seem to mind that she¡¯s working with outlaws. I suppose it must just be a normal occurrence living in the inner colonies, though.


    ¡°We done here, then?¡± Joel spoke up from his corner for the first time in an hour. He¡¯d settled in once the atmosphere became casual, sitting with his gun relaxed in his lap and his hands on his tablet as he continued to browse the relay network. He couldn¡¯t fool me though. I caught him browsing to terms we¡¯d said a couple of times, trying to work out what we were talking about when we¡¯d discussed something more technical.


    ¡°Got somewhere to be?¡± I huffed.


    ¡°Yeah, gotta take you to your therapist.¡± He didn¡¯t even look up. ¡°Then I gotta bring you home, and then I gotta pick something up for the captain.¡±


    I knew that ¡®picking something up for Aisling¡¯ would probably entail something illegal and dangerous. Aisling was setting some kind of plan into motion so we could leave before our scheduled departure, and it would be a bad idea to make Agatha privy to it, even if she seemed very unlikely to stand in our way.


    ¡°Yeah, I guess you¡¯re right. Got a long day ahead of us.¡± I lied, knowing that I would be sitting comfortably back in my shell when Joel¡¯s day would just be kicking into gear.


    ¡°Nah, I gotcha. It won¡¯t be nearly as interesting as you, but I got real work to do myself.¡± she gently tapped the clone on the table¡¯s computer bay. ¡°This fucker can¡¯t seem to figure out the difference between ¡®faster¡¯ and ¡®slower¡¯ and it¡¯s really starting to tick me off.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll leave you to it. I don¡¯t communicate well with the rest of my kind, unfortunately.¡± I admitted, stepping back from the table and motioning for Joel to join me. ¡°I¡¯ll talk to you later. Get ready to get your ass kicked tonight.¡±


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s on.¡± She chuckled, popping open the computer bay. She looked refreshed as she returned to her work, Joel and I leaving her behind and returning to the gentle din of Venusian colony life.


    It didn¡¯t take more than a few steps away from the door before Joel spoke up. ¡°You two seemed to get along.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Kinda feels like the relationship you have with Mouse, you know? A smarter than average kid you can relate with.¡±


    Joel opened his mouth to say something, but then decided against it and went quiet. Seemed I¡¯d caught him off-guard with the comparison. ¡°What, you don¡¯t think I¡¯ve noticed? You and Mouse are close. He respects you. You¡¯re both real into physical stuff like keeping in shape and messing with normal machines and guns and stuff.¡±


    Joel shrugged, mulling it over in his head for a little bit before he mumbled ¡°Guess I never really thought about it like that. Mouse is a good kid, grew up in a shitty situation. Guess I can relate.¡±


    I thought for a moment that Joel was about to open up to me. It was disappointing when we returned to awkward silence. I guess Joel was just going to remain a mystery for now.

 Prejudice

    I plopped down hard onto the couch at Dr. Yates¡¯ direction, leaning over with my elbows on my legs as I tried to think of what I actually wanted to talk about with this man. On one hand, I still had a lot to process about my false past, to find some way to save myself from whatever terrible revelation I might make when my memory eventually jarred and I recalled the horrid tragedy that led me to being a conscious person. On the other, I had just been dehumanized and assaulted the very day previous, and it still weighed heavy on my mind despite how much support I¡¯d garnered over it. Do I think it¡¯s going to help more to talk about the past and future, or about the present?


    Thankfully, Dr. Yates helped make the decision for me, sitting down in his own high-backed armchair, folding one leg over the other and tapping the tablet he kept notes on against his lap as he prepped himself for my session ¡°So. There is¡­ an obvious elephant in the room to address, and it would probably be best to focus on that. But this is your time to talk about whatever you please, so if you would rather, we could speak on other subjects. Your past experiences.¡±


    ¡°No, I get it.¡± I sighed, biting my lip in a moment of silence before I continued. ¡°It¡¯s just gonna get in the way if I don¡¯t talk about it, isn¡¯t it? So¡­ yeah, I was so close to getting¡­ I don¡¯t know, kidnapped? Taken apart? Killed? I can¡¯t possibly know what that bastard¡¯s intentions were. Godin treated me like a fucking object, so I can probably write anything sexual off the list, at least.¡± I rolled my eyes, feeling a little foolish for considering it when I¡¯d spoken to Aisling the previous night. I had been understandably stressed and confused. ¡°He either wanted to do exactly what he told me he was going to do and just decided to anesthetize me by force because he thought I shouldn¡¯t have a say in it, or he had ulterior motives. Probably for money. Doubt he was stupid enough to keep me for himself, since my crew would absolutely fuck him up. Probably either sell me off to some other asshole, or back to Foundation.¡±


    I avoided saying ¡®to Skygraves¡¯. I didn¡¯t think that Dr. Yates had any bad intentions, but I know that he had at least a friendly relationship with Skygraves, and I didn¡¯t want it getting back to Skygraves that I was in on Aisling¡¯s posturing involving selling me to him.


    Dr. Yates listened carefully, giving me a few moments to breathe before he began his own questions. ¡°How did it make you feel, in that moment, when he¡­ made his move?¡±


    I huffed. I¡¯d been avoiding thinking about the very moment it happened on an emotional level, but I guess that¡¯s why I was there. ¡°Scared. But the adrenaline hit fast enough that I could fight back. I kinda put the fear into the back of my head while I still had something I could do about it. Apparently I¡¯m good at reacting to danger or something. I was just talking with Joel about that before we went out today. That¡¯s my bodyguard today, Joel.¡± I motioned vaguely toward the front room of his office where the armed gunman was no doubt sizing up whether Dr. Yates¡¯ son was a threat or something.


    ¡°So you managed to hold him off yourself?¡± Yates asked, sounding surprised and impressed.


    I let out a dry laugh. ¡°I wish. Look at me. I¡¯m skin and bones, and I spend most of my days sitting absolutely still in a vat of liquid that even keeps gravity from touching me, I may as well not even have a body as far as physical strength goes.¡± Part of me briefly wondered if I¡¯d just do that if it was a thing. I needed a brain for psionic resonance, though, so I needed a body. That was a thought to process another time. ¡°I kept him from putting me out before I could yell for help. Made him bleed a little. But when Joel burst into the room to stop him, he¡¯d already won that fight. If I hadn¡¯t held my breath when he got that mask on me, Joel would have had to carry me back to the ship unconscious.¡±


    ¡°It was enough, though.¡± Dr. Yates gave me a gentle smile. ¡°Because you were able to call your friend, you survived. You acted to get the help that you needed.¡±


    I nodded. It¡¯s true, if I hadn¡¯t been able to hold out at least as long as I did to shout for Joel, he might not have been able to react before Godin could spirit me away. ¡°I would have preferred if it didn¡¯t happen at all. Or if I¡¯d been able to handle it myself.¡± I grumbled.


    ¡°No one can do everything alone.¡± Dr. Yates offered. ¡°Meryll, you are strong in your own ways. I don¡¯t pretend to understand the capabilities of a more typical machine core, but you¡¯ve already demonstrated that to me through your almost supernatural connection to technology. In this one particular situation, your strengths didn¡¯t serve you alone. And that is okay. Do you do everything alone on your ship?¡±


    I thought about that for a moment, wondering why that was relevant, but I humored it. I did control almost all of the ship¡¯s systems from an electronic perspective. I was every computer and every sensor. I had control over it all. But that wasn¡¯t everything on a starship. Physical things needed to be moved, prepared, repaired. Joel and Mouse¡¯s jobs largely. We needed people to take care of the rest of the crew. Doc and Ray handled that. And we needed leadership. We all needed Aisling to hold us together and keep us focused, to plan, scheme, and keep our goals straight. ¡°Of course not. A starship is nothing without its crew.¡± I finally admitted.


    ¡°Well then, there are surely those who are better suited to take care of things that you aren¡¯t as good at as technology, yes?¡± His soft smile felt inviting. His words were a salve on my bruised ego. It felt like I¡¯d been beating myself up about this stuff for no reason when he put it like that. It was a little embarrassing. ¡°Does Joel resent you for having had to step in? Has he¡­ berated you for it?¡±


    ¡°Well, no¡­¡± I paused for a moment. ¡°We¡­ had actually been fighting over something other stupid unimportant thing at the time, but he didn¡¯t say anything to hold it over me after the fact. If anything, we made up over what happened with Godin. I-In fact, today, he complimented me over my quick thinking. I hadn¡¯t even thought about how cool it was that I¡¯d been able to take hold of the situation and fight back at all until he mentioned it today.¡±


    ¡°Then is your physical vulnerability really what bothers you most?¡± He asked cautiously.


    I let out a frustrated breath. If it wasn¡¯t that, then what? I closed my eyes to think, using the data stream to sort my thoughts into text. I was prepared, and I got the help I needed. I trusted Joel, and anyone else on the crew, to be there and help in a crisis if need be. We faced plenty of crises before this one. I¡¯d even been in situations where I felt like I was personally in mortal danger before, with the ripper back on Luna, and when Shaw held me up, and those hadn¡¯t had the same impact.


    No, what made me angry about the situation with Godin wasn¡¯t the assault itself, it was the dehumanization that led to it. He¡¯d been the first person who tried to hurt me that didn¡¯t even treat me like a person. No, because he didn¡¯t treat me like a person. ¡°Was it because he thought of me as a machine? A thing? Does that really bother me more than the fact that he tried to drug me?¡±


    ¡°Hmm¡­¡± Dr. Yates nodded slowly. ¡°It can be a frighteningly powerful thing, to be considered less than human, even by someone you otherwise wouldn¡¯t care for the opinion of. To be threatened by someone for what you are. There have been countless disputes over humanity¡¯s lifetime over perceived differences between people. There are some who would believe others who are different to be inherently undeserving of the same autonomy. In most recent memory, augmented humans had faced such discrimination.¡±


    ¡°Seriously?¡± I raised an eyebrow. I hadn¡¯t really gotten that impression. Some people either needed cybernetics to survive, to perform better in their careers, or maybe they just wanted them. Why would that matter? The only person I knew who resented augmentation was Mouse, and that was just because it was something that was forced on him. ¡°Something that got left out of my simulated memories?¡± I asked.


    Dr. Yates shrugged ¡°No. It just hasn¡¯t been a thing for some time. People have mostly been pointing their ire at ideologies as of late, which, while not always ideal, at least seems more productive than building the othered into scapegoats. Before that it was matters of identity, then race, then creed, and a hundred other differences that occasionally resurface yet again. Humanity has always searched for someone different to put down. When Mammons grow in population and become public knowledge in the outer colony, I have little doubt they will be the next bogeyman for the bigoted.¡±


    I slumped a little in my seat, letting out a loud sigh and then turning to flop across the couch, lying down before I mumbled. ¡°Not making me feel much better about being something unique, doctor.¡±


    Dr. Yates nodded again, his expression slowly growing more solemn. ¡°Unfortunately, Meryll, I am not here to offer cold comforts. A clinical psychologist prepares their patients, mentally and emotionally, to face this world. I¡¯m here to help give you the tools you need to survive harsh realities. I can¡¯t lie to you to spare your feelings. You have found yourself in a doubtless very challenging position, and there is nothing easy about it. No quick solution or easy way out.¡±


    I have to look away from him, into the back of the couch as I feel my eyes start to well up a little. I guess I was expecting him to just be able to say some kind of magic words that would make me suddenly feel better about all of this. But it¡¯s not that simple. Nothing is that simple. There was nothing short of lying to myself that would just make my problems vanish with a few words, and that would be a terrible way to cope.


    If I¡¯m even able to get into a position where I can make what I am public, it won¡¯t just be Dr. Godin. A not-insignificant sect of humanity is going to think of me as sub-human, and there¡¯s nothing I can do about it. Nothing except flail ineffectually and hope the people who are on my side can protect me.


    ¡°But, you¡¯re not alone.¡± He started. I could feel that warm smile returning through his voice, even though I still refused to look his way. ¡°You have a strong support network. Unconventional, perhaps, but I find that the most useful connections in life are rarely built on convention. From what you¡¯ve told me of your crew, you have already surrounded yourself with people who care, and who you care for. I trust you¡¯ve been making connections here on Venus, as well. And perhaps if the day comes where you have to face the public, those same advocacy groups that still remember the hatred that augmented humans faced will be reminded of their hard-won plight through you. You are not alone, Meryll.¡±


    I let out a sniffle, turning to lay on my back again, but still not looking him in the eyes. The tears had started to flow ¡°Why me, though?¡± I grumbled.


    Yates let out a contemplative grunt. ¡°Why anyone?¡± he concluded to himself, almost too quiet for me to hear. ¡°I don¡¯t claim to understand the technology behind your inception, but I can¡¯t help but wonder, a hundred years from now, if people like you won¡¯t have become just another flavor of normal. By chance, you have merely found yourself into a world unprepared for you. That¡¯s all.¡±


    It was an inspiring thought. I felt like I was a mistake that the universe was desperately trying to sweep under the rug, but I could also be the start of something new. I sniffed and wiped the tears from my eyes. ¡°Hah¡­ I certainly hope they figure out a better way of making us by then.¡±


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Secure as it makes me feel in the future of my own profession, I¡¯m inclined to agree.¡± He smiled, trying to lighten the mood with a risky joke. It worked, and I let out an awkward laugh.


    ¡ª


    As Joel walked me back out once more into the halls of the Venus Colony station, I wiped a few stray tears from my eyes, still wet from the hard conversation I¡¯d just had about vulnerability and my place in the universe. It wasn¡¯t an easy thing to speak about. I knew that some part of me that just wanted the therapist to make me feel better was irritated that I hadn¡¯t received that sharp solace that I expected, but I left that office with a smile on my face despite the tears. I felt lighter, like a big weight had been lifted from my shoulders just by speaking candidly about it. I didn¡¯t have to worry about social taboos or saying something that held too much weight around Dr. Yates. It¡¯s not that I couldn¡¯t confide the same things with the rest of the crew, but they weren¡¯t uniquely equipped to help me sort through my thoughts. I was glad to have Dr. Yates on my side through this.


    ¡°You sure you¡¯re alright?¡± Joel asked quietly as we left the place ¡°This isn¡¯t another of those moments where I should leave you alone, is it?¡± He asked sternly. I wasn¡¯t sure if he was making fun of me or not, but it didn¡¯t upset me either way.


    I sniffed and replied ¡°No, I¡¯m just fine. I¡¯m feeling pretty good, actually. I don¡¯t really get it myself. Talking about this shit is supposed to be upsetting, right? But like¡­ just talking about it and making it feel¡­ normal¡­ it makes it feel more real. It puts it in perspective. Like, Godin is just an asshole. I don¡¯t need to let him have any kind of power over me. He doesn¡¯t have to suck up all my energy and be a constant part of my thoughts. I can just¡­ leave him out. Forget about him.¡±


    ¡°Well¡­ yeah?¡± He sounded confused, turning to look at me with a bewildered expression. It felt like he was telling me that it was obvious.


    ¡°Oh please, like you don¡¯t have any hangups at all in that empty little head of yours.¡± I jabbed at him. ¡°You think I can¡¯t tell you got old shit that still bothers you?¡±


    He grumbled something about leaving the past behind that I didn¡¯t quite catch, but it was pretty obvious that he was deep in thought about it himself. I wasn¡¯t wrong; he had something or someone living rent free in his head. Tormenting him like Godin had been for me. Maybe something more deeply ingrained that it wouldn¡¯t take an afternoon of venting to get off his chest. I knew better than to push it.


    We stayed relatively silent until we walked up to the hangar doors, and I began to trail behind Joel. Something felt wrong. Very wrong. And the closer we got to Theseus, it somehow felt more wrong. As we stepped into the dividing hallway toward the ship, I finally came to a halt, and Joel took a few more steps before he noticed and turned to look at me.


    I frowned at the doors ahead. I knew this feeling. ¡°Skygraves.¡± I mumbled out loud, looking to the sides to see that the guards that had normally been stationed in the hall were missing. ¡°Hang on, there¡¯s something wrong here.¡±


    Joel nodded slowly ¡°Think they¡¯re up to something?¡± He asks, thinking I was concerned about the guards.


    I shook my head ¡°No, I feel that¡­ that thing. You know how Mouse and I could feel something wrong around Skygraves? He¡¯s here. He¡¯s at the ship.¡±


    Joel tensed up, immediately losing any slack he had to his form and gripping his gun tight, turning to take a step toward the door, ready for a fight. ¡°Wait, let¡¯s think about this.¡± I held out a hand to signal him back, and he paused, looking no less intense as he turned back to me. ¡°Theseus is my domain, I can look ahead.¡± He nodded as I closed my eyes to dive into my ship systems.


    It was always weird, fully immersing myself in the system without being in the core module, but the situation called for it. It felt less natural. I had to concentrate more on the ship as a collection of machines rather than a contiguous mechanical extension of my body.


    ¡°What you see?¡± Joel mumbled.


    I opened my eyes and gave him an irritated look, shushing him as I looked behind me and pulled up a chair, sitting down and getting comfortable. He rolled his eyes at me, and I clicked my tongue. ¡°This is hard enough without the core module, don¡¯t distract me.¡± I snapped, folding my legs up, taking a deep breath and diving back in again.


    The outer cameras told a worrying story. There were two of the guards, standing at opposite ends of the cargo bay entrance, still wide open, but in far better shape than we¡¯d arrived in. They faced the door we were behind, at attention, as if expecting someone to come through.


    It was the strangest feeling, though. Even though my body was still distant, that ominous feeling in my cybernetics felt stronger viewing the world from the ship¡¯s sensors. It was as if the electronics themselves could feel that same strange weight behind Skygraves¡¯ presence. It made tracking him simple, though. Just follow the feeling.


    Internal sensors now. I tried the array in the cargo bay. Nothing special. The repairs were coming along¡­ quickly. The opening in my hull was shrinking fast, but it looked like the work that had been done today was quickly turning into a patch job, pieces of metal riveted and welded into place haphazardly. Mouse was rushing this. It wouldn¡¯t be long before we made our escape. I didn¡¯t see Mouse, though. That was the strangest part.


    I shifted up, to the hallway leading to my heart. The door to the heart was closed, as best as it could be with the destroyed locking mechanism. It was never kept closed. Peeking inside, I saw that Doc had taken up a hidden position behind the core module, sitting nervously with his bag by his side, concentrating on the environment. Sensible, given his past with Skygraves. It was best Skygraves not know that Doc was here at all. But this was getting further from the signal.


    I tried the mess hall next and found exactly what I was looking for. There, sat at the dining table, was Skygraves and his remaining guard, sat across from Aisling and Mouse.


    They didn¡¯t seem to be fighting, at least, but Aisling looked stern and irate, while Mouse looked uncharacteristically shaken, no doubt due to Skygraves¡¯ odd presence. I could feel it myself through the sensor. It was disarming, like I could tell that he had some kind of power over me just by being there.


    I caught them mid-conversation, doubtless about me. ¡°-intended to sell the ship core to me in the first place?¡± Skygraves sounded unamused ¡°You¡¯re certain? We have plenty of cores trained by our own specialist, it would be no problem outfitting you with a new one, top of the line training. And handing her over to us would be a monumental contribution to science on top of the material exchange I offered already.¡± He offered, trying to remain cordial.


    ¡°Like I said, I don¡¯t trust you to care for Meryll. Godin was just the tip of the iceberg, I¡¯m sure. And I don¡¯t care about money, Doctor.¡± Aisling hissed. I guessed that the ruse was up then. ¡°I¡¯m not intimidated by your buddies playing pretend at being dangerous over there, either.¡± She nodded toward the armed guard, who looked a little shaken himself. ¡°She ain¡¯t for sale, and even if she was, you think I wouldn¡¯t get her opinion on it?¡±


    I smiled a little at that. I¡¯m glad I can trust her.


    Dr. Skygraves sighed impatiently ¡°How much do I have to give you?¡±


    ¡°Not for sale.¡± She repeated, planting her hands down on the table and emphasizing every word by leaning further toward him. ¡°Not for any amount of your filthy money, especially. You think I don¡¯t know where that fortune of yours came from? I¡¯m a pirate, but you¡¯re the kind of bastard that should have a bounty on his head.¡±


    ¡°Please, captain, be reasonable.¡± Skygraves started ¡°If it¡¯s that much of a concern for you, at least stay here on Venus longer. We can shelter you from Foundation. I know they¡¯re searching for you, but they¡¯re out of their element this far into the system. We can handle them. I have engineers that could work on your ship for you as well. I know that you¡¯ve already been borrowing her out to the other researchers; all you¡¯d need to do is let my personal team examine Meryll much the same. Perhaps for a few months, that¡¯s all. Then you can leave with her, well-supplied and well-rested.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit.¡± Aisling stood up straight and crossed her arms, glaring daggers into the man across from her. ¡°We both know you can¡¯t protect us from them. What¡¯re you gonna do, hide an entire starship from the biggest military corp in the system? Shoot down a fleet of warships with your point defense system? Your military capabilities are not impressive, and I know you don¡¯t have the gall to burn that bridge if you were even capable of protecting us. You¡¯d hand us in and claim Meryll was never on Theseus to keep her for yourself. That¡¯s what I¡¯d do in your position.¡±


    Skygraves looked annoyed at that. Offended at the implication or because she¡¯s right? I was becoming worried that the inevitable fight that Aisling had mentioned was going to become a brawl right on our own ship as I watched.


    But Skygraves was smarter than that. He knew that trying to start a war while he was on our turf was a doomed enterprise. ¡°Fine. I suppose there¡¯s no talking sense to you.¡± Skygraves huffed, casually signaling to his escort as he stood from his seat, indignantly dusting himself off with an air of self-important spite. ¡°You have an agreed-upon contract to finish with my residents, but you will not be permitted further employment beyond that on my station. I expect you to be gone by the promised departure time at the end of the week. We will keep no records of your arrival, as agreed, but you are not welcome back on Venus, Aisling Barrowin.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s it?¡± Aisling raised an eyebrow. I didn¡¯t buy it for a moment either. From what Doc had told me about him, he was not the type to just let something like me slip through his fingers.


    ¡°Of course. It¡¯s a shame we couldn¡¯t come to an agreement, captain, but I am a man of my word. My people would never let me hear the end of it if I broke my agreement with a distinguished client for some kind of petty retaliation.¡± He straightened his suit and turned away, walking toward the cargo bay. I could see the scowl on his face grow deeper from my perspective, though. I¡¯d already known it was all an act, but the hatred I saw in his eyes clinched it. We were about to go to war with this man.


    And I needed to do my part and get as much info as I could. His implant, whatever it was that caused Mouse and I flinch away from him, had to become a known factor. I sent a ping in his direction.


    ¡ª


    The next thing I knew, I let out a gasp of air, confused and flailing on the floor of the hangar¡¯s connecting hall. Joel knelt over me. I could see his lips moving, an alarmed expression on his face, but nothing made sense for the moment and his words couldn¡¯t reach me. I felt like I¡¯d just had an unidentifiable part of myself torn forcibly out of me. A severed organ I couldn¡¯t feel anymore. I was in agonizing pain from my pounding headache that made it impossible to divine anything from my senses.


    I tried to sputter something up at Joel. I needed to say something, but I couldn¡¯t form the words. A confused cry for help, to make what I was feeling make sense.


    ¡°Breathe, Meryll!¡±


    I finally caught some words that made sense to me, a desperate shouted command. Right. I had to focus. Breathing. Start with breathing. I took in a deep breath and only thought about the air moving in and out of my lungs for a moment. My limbs started to calm, shaking but no longer seizing, and after a few ragged breaths, I could focus my eyes again. I felt ever so slightly more human again as my body went through diagnostics, starting to make sense of what I was and where I was again.


    ¡°What the fuck was that?¡± I finally managed to gasp, holding a hand to my chest and feeling my heart beating at a thousand miles an hour.


    ¡°You tell me.¡± Joel grunted, a stern look of concern on his face. ¡°You were doing your thing, then all of a sudden, you¡¯re having a god-damned seizure on me.¡±


    ¡°How long was I out?¡± I ask quickly, beginning to recall that there was a potentially very dangerous man that might do anything to get his hands on me about to come through that door.


    ¡°Like, a minute? Just breathe, I¡¯ll message Doc to come take a look.¡±


    I shook my head. ¡°No time. Help me up. Gotta hide me. Skygraves, he¡¯s gonna be here any second. Did something to me. To the ship? I don¡¯t know yet.¡±


    I watched him glance at the door and reposition his hand to his gun before looking back to me. He shook his head ¡°Not supposed to move someone who¡¯s injured.¡± He mumbled, even as he was helping lift me up to my feet with his free hand. My legs felt like jelly, and I ended up leaning onto him.


    It was too late, though. The door opened in another moment, and Joel pointed his gun toward Skygraves, leading his pack of guards.


    Only one of the other guards readied himself into a shooting position, though. They stared each other down. Skygraves smiled, and a shiver ran up my spine. The cold confidence, and the gaze that looked straight through me. He was just like Godin. He only saw a machine. Something to be exploited. A vector toward accomplishing his life¡¯s work.


    ¡°Keep moving.¡± Came a voice from behind him, Aisling standing at their tail with her pistol drawn, but not readied. For a tense few moments, I wondered if this was going to go down right there and then. Skygraves motioned for his guards to lower their guns, though. Joel didn¡¯t take his finger off the trigger, keeping himself between Skygraves and I.


    Silently, he and his retinue walked past us through the hall. His guards turned as he passed, at least keeping eyes locked with Joel and Aisling in equal measure.


    As he stepped past me, I heard him mouth something barely perceptible before he returned to the station proper, disappearing behind a closing door. The words made my skin crawl.


    ¡°I look forward to working with you, Meryll.¡±

 The Night Before

    Aisling stood over her desk, her eyes gently closed as she gathered her thoughts. It hadn¡¯t been over twenty minutes since Skygraves took his leave, and the stress she was under was obvious in her expression. She¡¯d rallied the entire crew at the helm, and we had all dutifully gathered into the small space. Even Shaw was present.


    I had seriously hoped that he would end up getting arrested for something completely unrelated by now, or find some other excuse to stay on Venus willingly, but it seemed that we were stuck with him for the time being.


    It was his idea to gather up here, rather than in the roomier mess hall. He figured that Skygraves could have surreptitiously bugged the room while he had his meeting with Aisling. I hadn¡¯t been able to ping any small electronics down there, but I was still reeling from my seizure, so I could have been wrong. We decided to play it safe.


    This was a war room now.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Aisling started, putting her hands down on the desk and letting out a sigh as she leaned forward to address us. ¡°Since we¡¯ve got everyone here now, this is a strategy meeting. We¡¯ve got to get everyone on the same page if we¡¯re going to get off of this colony.¡±


    Shaw made a cringing frown. ¡°That bad, huh?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re here, aren¡¯t you?¡± I shot at him. He held up his hands in that defensive stance that showed he was already prepared to play the victim and pretend he wasn¡¯t the one intruding onto our business.


    ¡°Enough of that.¡± Aisling sounded like he was already tired of hearing us argue, snapping at the tension between us pre-emptively. ¡°Shaw¡¯s coming with us. I¡¯ll explain that in a bit, but we need to focus on the matter at hand, not in-fighting.¡±


    I clicked my tongue, but Aisling was right. My personal issues with Shaw could wait.


    ¡°The situation is untenable right now. It won¡¯t be long until Skygraves tries to batter us into submission with either bureaucracy or force, and sufficiently cornered, he has the resources to outlast us.¡± She started, standing up straight again and folding her arms in front of her. ¡°I¡¯d wanted to at least get to tomorrow before the ruse was up, but it seems Skygraves is more clever than I anticipated. I¡¯ve been keeping him tame so far by offering a false pretense that I intended to sell Meryll to him under the table. He stopped buying it today, so we¡¯re about to face the wrath of a head of state.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯ll certainly be putting something into action himself right now.¡± Doc looked just as irate and focused as Aisling did in that moment. Skygraves was his nemesis, and he was taking this seriously. ¡°If we¡¯re going to survive this, we have to stay a step ahead of him. How fast can we get Theseus space-worthy again?¡±


    ¡°If I work through the night, I can get the hole patched by tomorrow afternoon.¡± Mouse spoke up. He already sounded exhausted, his body already showing the weight of the workload. Bloodshot eyes were ringed with dark circles unbecoming of his youth. He¡¯d been spending a minimal amount of time resting this week. ¡°And by that I do mean patched. It won¡¯t be pretty, it won¡¯t be terribly functional, but it¡¯ll be spaceworthy. If someone else can help, I can get to it sooner.¡±


    ¡°Doc, you¡¯re Mouse¡¯s assistant.¡± Aisling commanded. Doc looked a bit taken aback, but he slowly nodded in agreement. ¡°I know it¡¯s not your typical fare, but everyone else is going to be busy tomorrow, and you weren¡¯t going to leave the ship, anyway.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll do what I can.¡± Doc nodded again.


    ¡°What do we do about Skygraves himself?¡± I interrupted. The man¡¯s resources were our biggest worry, yes, but he also had a potentially powerful weapon on his person.


    ¡°Yes, about that.¡± Aisling cleared her throat. ¡°Were you able to glean anything from the broken sensor array, Mouse?¡±


    ¡°Magnetic electrical interference. It made my skin crawl when it went off.¡± Mouse swallowed, disturbed by the innate unease that the doctor¡¯s mere presence instilled in him, amplified by the retaliation to my probing psionic network. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how, but Skygraves is walking around with a targetable EMP implant.¡±


    ¡°So, what, he could just ground the ship with a thought, then?¡± Joel muttered indignantly ¡°That¡¯s not even fair.¡±


    ¡°Not likely.¡± Mouse continued, regaining enough of his nerve to interrupt his explanation with a gaping yawn. He regained some of usual brooding seriousness as he spoke of technical details. ¡°Starship EMP bombs are necessarily huge physical objects to bypass the shielding all of our critical systems have. A reusable EMP device¡­ reliable enough to be implanted? That can¡¯t have the kind of power you¡¯d need to get through a starship¡¯s shielding. It could do a lot of damage to personal electronics¡­ it¡­ might be able to destroy implant circuitry. I don¡¯t know for sure without being able to look it over myself. I¡¯m more alarmed at the control. He was able to specifically target the sensor array, automatically, when Meryll tried to access it from that node. He probably didn¡¯t even have to think about it. It¡¯s something custom, and very advanced, at that.¡±


    ¡°And what about what he did to me?¡± I frowned, still not entirely sure if I was right in the head again yet. I hadn¡¯t even had the chance to acknowledge that I¡¯d been attacked before I was on the ground trying to figure out how my body worked again as if I¡¯d been disconnected from it and plugged back in.


    ¡°Sympathetic damage.¡± Doc concluded. ¡°You psionically tethered yourself to that sensor array. When it was destroyed, the feedback made your body go haywire. It was a function of your psionic resonance, not anything Skygraves did himself. It was probably worse than usual because you weren¡¯t in the core module while you were diving.¡±


    Aisling spoke up. ¡°Regardless, that implant is a problem. Half of us are augmented, and he could easily use that to disable any of you with ease. Doc, Joel, and I will have to make sure we¡¯re able to protect everyone else in case he shows up.¡±


    With that settled for the moment, the conversation moved on to other duties for the next day. Ray spoke up next. ¡°Alright, so Mouse and Doc are on repair duty, what about the rest of us?¡±


    ¡°Splitting up. We need a few things if we¡¯re going to be able to make our planned route. Joel already has orders tonight. I got word that the port authority¡¯s holding onto a shipment of Mammon stabilizer in storage. They can produce it here, and they keep it on hand to sell to Earth colonies when they come searching for an extra source.¡±


    ¡°A whole shipment¡­?¡± Ray started, eyebrows raised ¡°We¡¯re swiping that much?¡±


    Aisling nodded. ¡°We¡¯re going to need it. That heist is going to have to be stealthy. Tomorrow, Ray and Joel, you¡¯re going to be doing a more overt heist. Rations. I know everyone¡¯s going to bitch about it, but we need a lot of food, and we¡¯ll need it to keep. Protein rations, the densely packed stuff. We¡¯re going to need to steal some. As much as you can carry, Ray. And don¡¯t worry about being seen, just swipe it.¡±


    ¡°Captain, other than a few notable examples, the people here have treated us good.¡± Ray was clearly irritated. ¡°It¡¯s not a great idea to show our gratitude by swiping everything they have¡­¡± She was looking for a reason. I kinda wanted one too now.


    ¡°If we don¡¯t do it, we starve. We¡¯re not landing for a month, at least.¡± Aisling declared, eliciting a low murmur among everyone else. We were going to be in space for that long? Why? How? The only one who didn¡¯t seem surprised was Shaw, who looked more intrigued at everyone¡¯s reaction. She slammed her hands down on the desk to get everyone¡¯s attention again. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I hadn¡¯t mentioned it sooner, but I wanted to be sure no one let it slip to anyone outside the crew. Earth and Luna are under occupation. Mars is currently a staging ground for Foundation¡¯s operation in the inner colonies. We¡¯re heading to Io.¡±


    ¡°The fuck¡¯s on Io?¡± Joel whined.


    ¡°Not much.¡± Shaw chipped in. ¡°That makes it an ideal place to hide in the outer colonies. It¡¯s a mining outpost.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s really our best option?¡± Ray asked. ¡°Alright¡­ fine then. I¡¯ll help swipe supplies. They¡¯ll probably be able to synthesize enough food to get by here.¡± She looked disheartened, but she understood. We were desperate, and this was the only answer we had. ¡°At least we¡¯re not attacking anyone directly this time.¡±


    ¡°Not like they were going to use it anyway, it¡¯s more surplus, just like your medication.¡± Shaw offered. He was likely an expert on rationalizing illegal acts. ¡°They might miss out on a payday or two, but they won¡¯t miss it. It¡¯s just good business to hoard more than you need when you can produce it.¡±


    ¡°And just what is his role in all this, anyway?¡± I glared at Shaw. I knew that we needed to work together if this was going to happen, I just didn¡¯t like how much he was talking.


    ¡°Shaw has connections all over the solar system. He¡¯s¡­¡± Aisling rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. ¡°He¡¯s an invaluable asset. He¡¯s been feeding me information about Foundation¡¯s actions so I could plan this route, and he¡¯s introduced me to someone who could help us lay low on Io. And yes, I¡¯ve checked his sources, he¡¯s legit.¡±


    ¡°I think I¡¯ve made up my debt to you for our less than amicable first impressions.¡± Shaw gave that slimy smile that made it clear that he was trying to grift as much from us as he could. ¡°I really am so very sorry that we had to meet under such unfortunate circumstances. And you did shoot me, after all. Remember when you shot me? I¡¯ve still got a bit of a limp.¡±


    ¡°You also held my crew hostage. Twice.¡± Aisling hissed.


    ¡°That¡¯s what I mean! Such an unfortunate way to meet new associates! I¡¯m so glad that we can get past such petty misunderstandings.¡± Shaw smiled wide, that smug expression of his made me want to punch him. ¡°But I believe we can all let bygones be bygones and come to a very fruitful partnership.¡±


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°I don¡¯t buy that for a moment.¡± I hissed quietly at him.


    ¡°Regardless of his motives, his connections have been genuinely very helpful.¡± Aisling spoke through gritted teeth. ¡°So despite personal feelings, Shaw is right. We can make use of him. And I¡¯m going to be making use of him tomorrow as well. I need him to pull one last theft in coordination with the rest of us.¡±


    Shaw raised both his eyebrows, the smile disappearing from his face quickly. ¡°I¡¯m doing what now?¡±


    ¡°Nothing as material as the others. You¡¯re swiping us liftoff access from the port authority.¡± Aisling recovered her posture when she saw Shaw flounder. She took control back from him. ¡°Skygraves will likely tell them not to open the door or let us use the rail without his permission. I trust Meryll to lift off without rail assistance by now, but she can¡¯t fly us straight through a hangar bay airlock. I need you to get us codes. Gathering information is your whole thing, isn¡¯t it? I don¡¯t care if you worm your way into their system remotely for it or if you physically sneak onto their consoles. I just need that door open.¡±


    Shaw blinked a few times at Aisling, his hands coming together slowly as he fought an instinct to put himself into a defensive posture. ¡°Well¡­ it¡­ can¡¯t be that hard, can it?¡± He gave a nervous, twitchy shrug. ¡°I will have to ask for compensation. After all, I¡¯m not a member of your crew, Miss Barrowin. And if your only leverage on me is violence, then why would I not just report this to the authority rather than follow through on this theft?¡±


    Aisling narrowed her eyes at him, a dissatisfied frown growing slowly over her face. ¡°You know I have nothing to work with right now, Shaw. We¡¯re broke. Are you asking me to owe you a favor?¡±


    ¡°I suppose that future services rendered will have to do, given the circumstances.¡± Shaw¡¯s smile grew back slowly. ¡°I know that you¡¯re a woman of your word, so I accept. One set of launch codes in exchange for¡­ suitable compensation in the future.¡± he gave a small theatrical bow, punctuating the deal.


    Aisling rolled her eyes, turning her attention away from the info broker. ¡°That leaves you and I, Meryll.¡±


    I stood at attention. ¡°Are we¡­ stealing something ourselves?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re stealing attention. By doing the one thing Skygraves won¡¯t ever expect. We¡¯re going to be acting like nothing¡¯s wrong.¡± She walked toward me slowly as she spoke ¡°He¡¯s going to expect us to hole up in Theseus; to go on the defensive. He won¡¯t expect that we¡¯ll be spread out all over his colony, and he definitely won¡¯t expect that you¡¯ll be out there honoring your contract with the scientists.¡± She put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a devious smile. ¡°Whatever he¡¯s planning to do, he¡¯s especially not going to expect that I¡¯ll be playing your bodyguard out on the colony tomorrow. You and I are going to be our wildcard.¡±


    ¡ª


    It was a crazy plan. It was barely a plan at all, just a half-baked gambit. But apparently that was the kind of thing that you need when you¡¯re facing overwhelming odds. There was value in being unpredictable. In being crazy. In doing something entirely unexpected by your opponent. When I thought about it, it wasn¡¯t that different from how I outmaneuvered trained core logic in my simulations. I did things that no ship core would expect another ship core to do in my sims. And often that meant doing something reckless and defying convention.


    However, that principle stood because standard ship cores were not creative. I hadn¡¯t thought to do the same to a thinking opponent. If your opponent was also inventive, they might be able to compensate and turn that cleverness into foolishness. That was what scared me about what Aisling had planned for me that next day.


    I was nervous. No, nervous was an understatement. I was terrified. And I had nothing else productive to do for the rest of the night. So I retired to the ship¡¯s heart once our meeting had adjourned. I stared up at the ceiling from the medical bed that I¡¯d claimed as my own, thinking to myself how strange my life was.


    Doc came in not long after, and I decided to strike up a conversation. ¡°Are you ready to fight your nemesis?¡± I asked, only half joking. After all, that¡¯s what this was, right? We were about to face the personification of Doc¡¯s sordid past. I wouldn¡¯t blame him if he wanted to take Skygraves out himself if he gave us the opportunity.


    ¡°I¡¯d hardly be in the position to do anything.¡± Doc said as he walked to his personal bag next to his terminal. He reached inside and pulled his pistol out, the same one that he¡¯d had to wrestle Shaw for. ¡°But Aisling told me to stay armed, anyway. Mouse and I are the ones most likely to get jumped here at the hangar, after all.¡±


    ¡°Gonna have to get my own gun at some point.¡± I mumbled. Not that I¡¯d have the nerve to use it. It was one thing to throw lubricant at an armed man to distract him, it was a whole other to shoot and possibly kill them. I¡¯d already accepted that when I spoke with Joel. But it was the principle of the matter. I¡¯d at least have something dangerous to wave at someone to unnerve them. ¡°For now, I¡¯ll have to settle with prepping my own way. Make some scripts. I have a feeling I¡¯m going to end up on the wrong end of an EMP tomorrow, and I have no idea what that¡¯s going to do to me. Gotta prep for takeoff ahead of time, at least, and then maybe see if I can figure out a way around that implant¡¯s defenses and disable it.¡±


    ¡°And sleep. Don¡¯t forget you need sleep.¡± Doc reminded, packing the pistol into the back hem of his pants ¡°Impending fights to the death need rest.¡±


    I shook my head ¡°Spending the night in the core module. I slept yesterday, my nerves are shot, I haven¡¯t been trancing out in the void enough lately to stave off the headaches, and you know that¡¯s just as important to me as sleep. No way in hell I¡¯m getting to sleep tonight, anyway. Too much adrenaline after that sympathetic seizure thing. Besides, you know it¡¯s like¡­ half-sleep, anyway.¡±


    Doc looked away from me and pursed his lips as he let out a sigh, shrugging his shoulders and conceding to my prepared logic. ¡°Yeah. That¡­ makes sense,¡± he admitted. ¡°Just be sure to spend some time in torpor instead of working in cyberspace all night.¡±


    ¡°Torpor?¡±


    He looked amused. ¡°I read about it recently. I noticed that when you¡¯re in your ¡®void¡¯, you enter a low energy state. Your vitals calm, and you dissociate. I guess you could say it¡¯s a sort of half-sleep, like you said, where you can remain alert to stimulus while resting. That¡¯s similar to a state certain animals exhibit called torpor. I figured, if there¡¯s already a name for it¡­¡±


    Huh. It felt odd to think that I shared a trait with animals when I¡¯m someone who¡¯s very being seemed tied inextricably to technology. It felt like they should be opposites. ¡°Should I expect to go into hibernation next?¡± I gave a dry chuckle as further evidence of my inhumanity piled on.


    ¡°Maybe. Ray does. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if she did again for a trip this long, even if her medication will supposedly be plentiful. Maybe in more peaceful times, we can experiment, but for now, the daily checkups continue. Speaking of, take your shirt off, I need to see how the bruise is doing.¡±


    Ah, right. The bruise I¡¯d had since the cargo bay had exploded. I¡¯d nearly forgotten about it. It was in such a convenient spot on my back that it rarely interfered with movement, and it usually escaped my notice unless something pressed up directly onto it.


    I nodded my consent and started to unbutton my shirt. I needed to get naked again to get in the module anyway, why not?


    I sat down on the examination table and leaned forward. When he walked around me, however, I saw his eyebrows shoot up and I frowned ¡°What? Is it worse or something?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s healing nicely, actually. Tiny new, smaller splotch above it is all. I think it might prove a theory I had about it.¡± He mumbled, walking back around to his terminal and letting me stand. I did so, beginning to remove my leggings as well. He hadn¡¯t expressly forbidden me from the core module, so I figured, mysterious bruising or not, that I was clear to have my planned night in a deep dive.


    I briefly considered how easy casual nudity had become between Doc and I, but it didn¡¯t feel unusual at all anymore. I didn¡¯t even think twice about stripping in his presence, comfortable with the fact that it was purely clinical, and that he had no personal physical interest in my scrawny body.


    ¡°I think that your brain might interpret sympathetic psionic damage as either spinal or dermatological damage.¡± He continued to muse on his theories. ¡°I¡¯ll have to see if the bruises show up anywhere else in the future.¡±


    ¡°So psychic feedback is going to screw up my back?¡± I whined.


    ¡°It¡¯s not going to physically do anything to your body, but your mind can interpret that it has and cause physiological responses like that bruising. That¡¯s normal for core modules. It¡¯s why it can cause things like sudden cardiac arrest. It¡¯s just presenting in a strange way because¡­ well¡­¡±


    ¡°Because I¡¯m me.¡± I rolled my eyes, and he gave me a shrugging nod. Yet another edge case I was a part of to add to my list. ¡°I suppose that means you aren¡¯t going to be able to predict what happens to me when Theseus takes damage?¡±


    ¡°You would be correct. Nothing that typically happens from sympathetic wounds is particularly good for anyone¡¯s body, though, so I wouldn¡¯t say you¡¯re in especially greater danger than a normal core would be.¡± He jotted down a few notes on his tablet. ¡°It¡¯s of more academic interest than a problem with your care, really. I don¡¯t think I need to warn you at this point to avoid letting major damage happen to Theseus.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll try not to get any more sensors EMPed.¡± I mumbled, but I wasn¡¯t sure if I¡¯d be able to keep that promise while Skygraves was a threat. I certainly hope he wouldn¡¯t be able to do any more damage to Theseus. At least Mouse seemed convinced that he couldn¡¯t wipe the whole thing out. We¡¯d just have to keep him from getting on board again.


    I climbed up to the entrance of the core module, signaling it to open. ¡°What about you? Shouldn¡¯t you get your normal human sleep?¡± I smirked down at him as the core opened its jaws and revealed the inside of the oh so comforting sphere of technology.


    ¡°Not tonight. I¡¯ve apparently got a starship to put back together.¡± He mumbled with frustrated unease. He clearly wasn¡¯t happy with his post as an emergency engineer. ¡°After your seizure, I¡¯m going to make sure you¡¯re stable in there, first, though.¡± He set his tablet down and began to scan through my vitals on the main terminal. He worried a lot about me. Part of me thought for a long time that it was just scientific curiosity, because I was kind of a freak that he had a very good excuse to closely examine on a regular basis, but I couldn¡¯t deny that he was also concerned for my frankly callous disregard for my physical health. He was a good doctor.


    ¡°Thanks Doc.¡± I smiled down at him as I set foot down into the waist-deep pool of thick fluid, feeling it tingle slightly against my skin as it began to denature the light layer of sweat and grime of the day.


    ¡°For what?¡± He smiled back, a bewildered expression on his face.


    I shrugged ¡°For caring? For¡­ not being like Skygraves.¡±


    His smile lowered as he sat still and thought about that statement for a moment, staring off into the middle distance before he nodded and let out a delighted huff before the module closed around me.


    As the chamber filled with fluid and I floated up into place, my lungs filling with the lubricant with practiced ease now, I thought about them both. Skygraves and Doc were both intensely interested in me as a scientific object. I knew Doc kept incredibly detailed notes on me because I was always in his tablet, watching him make little notations about every subtle change that could possibly be interpreted as important data later. But Doc was not obsessive, and he treated me like a person more than a curiously human-like computer. He wanted to find answers for the sake of finding answers, and so that he could help keep me in better health, not to chase some lofty pipedream at my expense.


    The same went for Dr. Reese and Agatha. I was a curiosity to them as well, but they could empathize with me. I wondered if their note keeping would be just as intense as Doc¡¯s if they had the kind of long-term access to me that he did.


    ¡°Torpor.¡± I heard over the sensor array, and I came to my senses. I realized that I¡¯d been staring blankly into the void, deep in thought for over ten minutes. Closing my eyes, I saw Doc with a smug smile on his face in my heart. I rolled my eyes and grinned for a moment before I opened the intercom.


    ¡°Get to work, you voyeur,¡± I teased back at him over the intercom.


    ¡°I¡¯m not the one with cameras all over the ship,¡± he shot back, standing up out of his chair and stretching out before walking out toward the cargo bay. I didn¡¯t really have a rebuttal. He was right, I was the one who was going to be watching everyone else go to sleep tonight. Or not go to sleep tonight, as it were.


    After making a few simple scripts to assist with liftoff, I decided I needed to blow off some steam, though. I shot a message to Agatha.


    ¡®You up for a match?¡¯

 An Ordinary Day

    Video games had been a good escape. I needed them both after the encounter with Skygraves and the certain coming storm that he would bring upon me. This game was built for humans pretending to be capable of performing a ship core¡¯s job, not to be realistic simulations that needed to be managed as such, and Agatha had apparently played the game enough to know how to take advantage of the nuances of the game¡¯s systems that didn¡¯t accurately portray reality. The difficulty gap between the most challenging solo scenarios and facing an actual human opponent was a truly massive chasm, it would seem, and she stood at the far end of that chasm. I didn¡¯t stand a chance.


    Once or twice, I caught her off guard, and she went off in the in-game text chat, asking how I did something, or whining that what I was doing was an exploit. It seems we¡¯d both stumbled onto tricks that the other hadn¡¯t at some point. But most of the time, she was dropping me hints on how I could handle a skirmish that I¡¯d lost better. They were always things that I found annoying about the system, things that were inaccurate to the reality of starship control or deliberate gamification of the battles. I doubted any of it would be useful knowledge to take back to my real training in the sims, but that didn¡¯t really matter that night. This was just for fun.


    We played for several hours, but eventually her flesh called her to bed as well. She asked if I wanted to meet up to play again the next night, and I enthusiastically agreed. It broke my heart knowing I couldn¡¯t tell her that we didn¡¯t plan on being on the local network anymore by this time tomorrow.


    I spent some time adding farewell messages to my script for launching the ship, so that I could apologize for our rapid departure to my new friends. Dr. Fuller, Dr. Reese, Dr. Yates, and Agatha all deserved to know that we didn¡¯t just abscond with a bunch of the station¡¯s extra supplies on a whim. I made sure to tell them about our little shadow war with Skygraves so that they at least knew our side of whatever spin Skygraves would surely put on the story for the public. I couldn¡¯t tell them where we were going or how long it would be until I could hit them up at the next relay, but I could let them know that it¡¯d be awhile and I¡¯d shoot them a message when I could. They¡¯d all get their messages the moment we left, and that would likely be the last they¡¯d hear from us until we¡¯d landed on Io. That¡¯s only if we could safely use their relay too.


    Joel made his way out and then returned fairly quickly, something that looked like a thick bolt of fabric tucked under his arm. Once he was safely inside, he let the cloth slip away to reveal a long steel box. He presented it to Ray directly, who opened it to reveal a staggering number of the familiar vials of stabilizer that I¡¯d seen her administer to herself a number of times by now. She was shocked to see so much of it in one place, and after counting it up, declared that between her internal distribution system and if she didn¡¯t stay awake more than she needed to, she could probably make the supply last almost five months. I really hoped she wouldn¡¯t need to hibernate for that long through this ordeal, though.


    Maybe after we laid low on Io for awhile, Foundation would just give up on me. Even if I was the kind of asset that would make them want to push a hostile force into the inner colonies the way that they did, they¡¯d have to give up after a few months if we didn¡¯t leave them any clues to follow, right? They¡¯d return their forces and write me off. We¡¯d slip back around, and we¡¯d get back to doing pirate contracts for cash on Luna, like we¡¯d planned to do in the first place. I¡¯d just have to keep quiet about what I am; pretend I¡¯m just an enthusiastic hacker who went all out on cybernetics when I¡¯m on the colony. We¡¯d find work to help people again. No more crazy conspiracies, at least for awhile.


    I think most of the crew went to sleep, eventually. I couldn¡¯t speak for Joel and Aisling, since they both shut off the sensors in their rooms at night, something that only currently upset me because I also couldn¡¯t see into the mess hall. That left a contiguous gap in my awareness in the middle of the ship, large enough that it felt mildly distressing. But I knew they didn¡¯t leave their rooms.


    The only exceptions were Mouse and Doc. As promised, they stayed awake the whole night. Mouse did most of the work, mostly directing Doc to chores that required little strength or expertise. If Mouse had to stop working to help Doc figure out how to do something, then it was counterproductive. Despite his obvious exhaustion, he worked tirelessly through the night. I wasn¡¯t sure how much of that was just youthful stubbornness and how much was his mechanical arms, but he certainly didn¡¯t complain about his tired eyes more than rubbing at them on occasion.


    I spent a good amount of the night in torpor, enjoying the peace and quiet of my void. Like sleep without the strain of reading the data stream, just staring peacefully into the lights and thinking slow thoughts of the coming day. By our contract, it wasn¡¯t supposed to be the last meeting with scientists who wanted to examine me, but out of necessity, it would be.


    ¡ª


    The following morning was surprisingly uneventful. I stumbled my way out of my core module, shivering and vomiting and terribly sensitive as usual, and within an hour, I felt human enough to prepare for the day. We had a tense breakfast. It was probably some of the last fresh food we¡¯d have for quite some time. I savored as much of it as I could before my nervous stomach decided that I couldn¡¯t possibly stand to have anything else in my gut. And then Aisling and I stood together at the end of the cargo bay.


    It was almost complete now. It was decidedly not a cargo bay door, the entrance much smaller, more like one of the bulwarks between internal sections of Theseus than anything that could acceptably fit cargo loading machines through. But all it needed was a door bolted into place, and it would supposedly be a closed space able to contain the pressure we needed to survive inside. That¡¯s all we needed for now.


    I stared at Aisling next to me as she did the last of her prep. She looked like she was going to war rather than acting as escort, which I suppose is what was happening. She had on her tactical vest I remember her using in the manhunt where we captured Shaw, with her array of six loaded pistols strapped into place across her chest. She had her custom pistol in a holster at her waist, and I¡¯m pretty sure she had more guns hidden somewhere in her clothes. I suppose that was the advantage of preferring a smaller caliber of weapon than the others: she could certainly carry a lot of them.


    If I didn¡¯t know that at some point during our day, this would stop being a simple bodyguard job, I¡¯d say she was being paranoid. Instead, I wondered if she might want to try to hide more of them on my person.


    ¡°We¡¯ll be fine, Meryll.¡± Aisling spoke as she drew and checked the clips of each of her pistols in turn. She must have been able to tell that my nerves were getting to me.


    ¡°Has he tried to message you or anything? Or has anyone from the colony sent you anything?¡± I asked, wondering if there might be some minute chance to stall out the violence one more day to buy us time to sneak off without things turning to a fight.


    ¡°Not a peep. He¡¯s done talking. Shaw, Joel, and Ray are off on their own escapades already. Doc and Mouse are armed just in case his men are stupid enough to attack here. We¡¯ll be on the other side of the station, making friends with yet another person with a title in front of their name. Dr. Ido, right?¡± She chambered the last of her firearms and slipped it back into her vest, feeling up the spare clips at the bottom layer of the vest to be certain they were loaded as well.


    ¡°Yeah, biologist.¡± I nodded ¡°Messages haven¡¯t been very friendly, but they¡¯ve at least been professional.¡± I hadn¡¯t really been able to get a read on this researcher electronically, which made me nervous after the disaster that was Dr. Godin. But she hadn¡¯t really set off any red flags either, so I wasn¡¯t certain if I should jump to any conclusions. I knew Aisling wasn¡¯t going to let her do anything inappropriate, though.


    I was very nervous as I stepped through the hangar bay doors, expecting to see an even more inflated group of idle gunners standing guard in the intermediary hallway, or someone barring entrance to the colony entirely, if Skygraves had decided that he wanted to corral us all into one place. But there was nobody there at all. That didn¡¯t make me feel any more at ease. At least I didn¡¯t feel his bizarre electromagnetic presence, though.


    Stepping into the colony felt wrong. Like we were invading directly into enemy territory, and we¡¯d soon be cut down for our audacity. The halls had the typical light bustle of people going about their day like normal, but it still somehow felt off. This wasn¡¯t a safe public place anymore. There was a war brewing beneath the surface that only we were aware of.


    I took a deep breath as I stepped into the colony proper, and Aisling put a hand on my shoulder, giving me a reassuring smile before she drew her custom handgun, keeping it at the ready as we walked.


    Dr. Ido¡¯s lab was clear on the other side of the colony. It was the longest walk I would have from the hangar since I started this work. I hated it. It meant that I would be long out of Theseus¡¯s psionic network range. I couldn¡¯t watch the ship remotely.


    I think most of the civilians were becoming accustomed to seeing me wandering the halls of the colony with an armed bodyguard. They knew well enough to leave me be and my guard wouldn¡¯t have a reason to use their guns. Maybe it was Aisling or just the fact that we were so on edge, but we must have been emitting a particularly intense aura because people kept an even wider berth today. I didn¡¯t mind in the least.


    ¡°I don¡¯t like this.¡± I told Aisling as I glanced nervously around the halls, like there was some kind of predator waiting in the wings for us to slip up and take advantage of our distraction. ¡°Something should have happened by now, right?¡±


    ¡°Mmm.¡± Was all Aisling said at first, her own head on a swivel. ¡°I haven¡¯t left the ship much this week. Is it normally this¡­ quiet?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. This place is way bigger than it needs to be for the amount of people that live here.¡± I explained. I hadn¡¯t thought about it, but she had basically spent our entire stay on Venus either negotiating with people from the ship or in the port authority¡¯s office. ¡°It just looks empty cause this place was made for a bigger population.¡±


    ¡°Maybe I should¡¯ve gotten a feel for it.¡± She mumbled. After a few moments of silent walking, she asked ¡°You ready to get shot at?¡±


    ¡°Guess so.¡± I swallowed. I wasn¡¯t even really sure what else I was supposed to say. Despite being much smaller than it, I was not nearly as maneuverable as Theseus in the flesh, and I didn¡¯t have the vast distances that battles in space had to be able to use that maneuverability between when a shot was fired and when it would connect. If somebody shot a bullet at my fleshy body, I certainly wouldn¡¯t be dodging after the fact like I could in space. I¡¯d just have to lay low and hope Aisling could handle it, I guess.


    ¡°Well, you shouldn¡¯t have to be.¡± She reassured me. I raised an eyebrow and shot her a questioning glare. ¡°Skygraves wants you, and I doubt you¡¯d be anymore useful to him dead than a normal core would be. And you¡¯re unarmed. He¡¯s going to have told his people, specifically, not to shoot you. Probably stressed that real hard to them. You won¡¯t be getting shot today unless someone royally fucks up.¡±


    She made a good point. If it came to a gun fight, I would not be the target at all. I began to wonder what that might mean for our strategy, but we¡¯d made it to our destination before I could make the consideration. So far, no Skygraves, and no armed gunmen. I supposed this appointment was happening after all, then.


    ¡ª


    At first, I didn¡¯t like Dr. Ido. She was cold and bitter toward me, just like Dr. Godin had been. She seemed like she was treating me like an object just like he was, and both Aisling and I were on edge as we discussed the particulars of the work she wanted to do with me. Dr. Ido was an ancient woman, loose wrinkled skin dripping from her face in an unflattering cascade of years spent scowling. I¡¯m pretty sure that she was incapable of any expression besides judgementally frowning, because it was the only face I¡¯d seen her make at either of us. She mumbled at us with a cracking, gravelly voice that made me either think that she¡¯d spent most of her considerable lifetime smoking heavily, or something had more recently gone seriously wrong with her throat. It made it difficult to talk to her, both physically and emotionally.


    Ironically, I actually ended up feeling more comfortable with her after we got our greetings out of the way, once I learned that the woman was not being judgemental to me because I¡¯m a machine core. She was just a bitch. She spoke to Aisling with the exact same contempt that she spoke to me, and bafflingly waved Aisling off like she was an annoying child when my captain gave her a thinly-veiled threat. She was a profoundly unlikeable person, but she wasn¡¯t a bigot about me.


    Frankly, I have no idea what a biologist would even want with me, and how the samples she took could possibly have been any kind of use to anybody. Blood and tissue samples couldn¡¯t have possibly been that much different from an ordinary human¡¯s, right? But I suppose she was a paying customer, so I didn¡¯t really have much to complain about there. Maybe she was just some crazy old eccentric, or maybe I don¡¯t understand biology as much as an expert in the field.


    Either way, it was a relatively quick appointment, and I was glad to be out of there once she let us go with a few bitter grunts, too focused on whatever work she was getting into with my blood to care about our departure. She saw us out of her lab and then slammed the door behind us, locking herself in. And that was the last I ever heard of Dr. Ido.


    I rubbed at my lightly bandaged arm. Dr. Ido had only needed to make a single prick near the inside of my elbow and scrape a few samples of my skin cells from my forearm as Aisling led me to a bench, watching our surroundings carefully before sitting down to rest.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Well that was¡­ an experience.¡± She mumbled, trying to bring back a bit of casual levity after the social chore that had been speaking with Dr. Ido. ¡°Have all of your clients been this off-putting?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ve certainly all been that eccentric.¡± I gave a dry chuckle, sitting down where she directed me. ¡°How are things at the ship? Have they reported in?¡±


    Aisling nodded, an expression of serious concentration building on her face. ¡°I checked before we left. Ship¡¯s ready to go once we¡¯ve got what we need. Mouse said he felt Skygraves, but he didn¡¯t stick around. Joel and Ray went silent, but that¡¯s expected. Shaw¡¯s apparently already done. Things are going to plan.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t sound happy about that.¡± I offered, unsure why she seemed so upset when we might not even need our crazy wild card play after all.


    ¡°Things never go to plan.¡± She grumbled, glancing around the concourse around us like she was trying to spot a hidden figure in the crowd. ¡°Plans aren¡¯t supposed to work. That¡¯s why you plan for plans to use when your plans fail.¡±


    ¡°Here I thought you were just making this up as you went.¡± I rolled my eyes.


    ¡°Improvising is a pretty handy skill to have too when the backup plans also fail.¡± Aisling gave me the briefest of smirks before she made a more serious observation. ¡°There¡¯s fewer people out.¡±


    I glanced around the massive hall around us. I hadn¡¯t noticed it until she said something, but she was right. The colony felt less busy than I¡¯d come to expect it to be. I could chalk it up to this having been a shorter meeting than what I¡¯d become accustomed to. Perhaps there were just more people still at work right then. But knowing what I knew about Skygraves¡¯ implied threat, it felt ominous. ¡°Yeah, I don¡¯t like it.¡± I whispered back to her.


    ¡°Hmm¡­ fancy dropping in on your therapist?¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t we just go back to Theseus?¡± I felt exposed out here, and I still wasn¡¯t entirely certain where Dr. Yates sat with Skygraves. I wanted to trust the man. I even really wanted to have one last session with him about my forgotten trauma. But I couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that the two meeting with each other before I started treatment with him meant something. It was an absurd notion, considering Skygraves couldn¡¯t have possibly known about my desire to see a psychologist on that first day on Venus, but I was now feeling especially paranoid.


    ¡°Not until Ray and Joel are done.¡± Aisling stood back up, motioning for me to follow with her handgun. ¡°But we can¡¯t stay out here in the open while we wait. My guess? He¡¯s gonna know where we are by now. Come on, let¡¯s give him a moving target.¡±


    I shook my head, getting to my feet as ordered ¡°I hate being bait. I hope I never have to be bait again.¡±


    ¡°Someone¡¯s gotta be bait.¡± She shrugged, patting me on the shoulder again and guiding me a few steps down the hall until I was going at her pace.


    It hadn¡¯t dawned on me until that moment, but I hadn¡¯t spent a whole lot of time with our captain before this. I mean, sure, I spent a lot of time looking over her shoulder from the core module, a ghost in my extended body of Theseus as a whole, but my opportunities to spend moments alone with her in the flesh had been surprisingly few, and related to very serious matters.


    Not that this wasn¡¯t serious. Skygraves¡¯ threats loomed over us as we walked the halls of his colony. But there was a void in conversation as we walked, with nothing specific for us to focus on. I¡¯m not sure where I found the courage, but I decided to break it to try to get a better read on the captain. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you can keep up with all these games you had to play with Skygraves. Thanks for that, by the way. And sorry for exploding on you before I understood what you were doing.¡±


    She shrugged. My mistaken anger didn¡¯t seem like it weighed on her very much. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have kept you in the dark, especially knowing you could be watching over my shoulder at any point. I forgot you¡¯re still kinda new to this as well.¡±


    ¡°Hah¡­ yeah, it¡¯s kinda hard to set healthy boundaries for privacy when I can¡¯t help but hack into anything with networking.¡± I admitted, glancing sheepishly at her ¡°But I mean it, thanks for¡­ all this. I have to admit, when I figured out that I was signing on with a pirate crew of all things, I didn¡¯t expect you would be this¡­ this-¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t say benevolent. I¡¯m not.¡± She held a hand up, waving me off like I¡¯d said something rude. ¡°I never wanted to give you that impression. There¡¯s just¡­ a certain type of person who I trust. I¡¯m sure you can figure it out if you look at the crew.¡±


    ¡°People with nowhere to run? The cornered? The desperate? The kind of people who hit rock bottom?¡± I had already recognized the pattern. Aisling only seemed to pick up people like me. People who had nowhere to go. I had to wonder if everyone had joined the crew under similar circumstances to me. They probably didn¡¯t have a choice either.


    Aisling turned to me and gave me a look like I was stupid. ¡°Survivors, Meryll.¡± She declared. ¡°Yeah, I guess we all come from a desperate place, and from some real dark corners of the system at that. But there¡¯s a billion people in the system like that. I bring on the spirited oppressed. People who¡¯ve had everything against them and chose not to give up. I only had a hunch with you, but fuck, you fit right in. You got a megacorporation after you not for something you have, but for something you are. Something you can¡¯t just give up or run away from. You¡¯ve got a target the size of Luna on your back. And you got the balls to keep going anyway. Most people in your position? They¡¯d lose their nerve and just give themselves up to those bastards, hope they¡¯ll be merciful if you¡¯re cooperative.¡± She scoffed. ¡°Yeah, right.¡±


    I nodded in agreement. Handing myself over wasn¡¯t a choice. I suppose I was a survivor. I did what had to be done to keep moving. To stay free. ¡°But why? Aren¡¯t you afraid that someone¡¯s going to¡­ I dunno, turn on you, if they¡¯re in that desperate of a position?¡± I flinched a little when I realized I was implying that I might have a position or a desire to flip on her if given an opportunity. I absolutely didn¡¯t want to do that.


    I was glad that she didn¡¯t seem to take offense ¡°Nah. I know people too well.¡± She spoke confidently, then flashed a surprisingly gentle smile my way. ¡°To people like us, no amount of cash, no nebulous promise from some slimeball we don¡¯t know, no cold institutional safety, will make us happy or make us feel secure. Won¡¯t make us feel right. Not when we got real comrades. People who know what it¡¯s like. People just as fucked up by this world. People you can trust. Might sound cheesy, but real friends you throw in with, whole heart, that¡¯s the only thing that¡¯s gonna give people like us comfort. And that¡¯s what we got on Theseus. That¡¯s the magic of this crew.¡±


    I remembered in that moment how I¡¯d refused to share my knowledge of the rest of the crew with Fuller when she asked. I didn¡¯t distrust her, but I even made note of it back then: she¡¯s not one of us. I guess I hadn¡¯t seen that I already had that kind of loyalty with the others. Aisling was right, I couldn¡¯t think of anything that would make me want to turn on these people who took me in at my darkest hour. They consoled me and helped me heal, and now I was one of them. I¡¯d only known them for a month and a half or so by this point, but there was a connection there that I couldn¡¯t deny. Something that I doubt I¡¯d be able to find anywhere else, ever again. I don¡¯t think I could even turn on the crew if I could somehow be returned to my comfortable false life. I guess adversity draws people like us together.


    Aisling let out an amused huff ¡°Don¡¯t cry on me now, we got shit to do.¡±


    I blinked a few times and noticed my eyes were starting to feel heavy. I quickly wiped a sleeve over them and took a deep breath ¡°I-I¡¯m okay.¡± I stammered out.


    ¡°Yeah, yeah. Save it for the shrink.¡± She chuckled.


    ¡°So¡­ does that mean you were in our position once too? Desperate? A survivor?¡± I dared to ask. I knew nobody on Theseus was fond of speaking of their past, especially not Aisling, but I figured now was the best time to take my shot.


    She let out a quiet, rumbling sigh, turning to face straight forward away from me ¡°I trust you with our lives already, Meryll.¡± She started, ¡°but I don¡¯t know you well enough for that yet.¡±


    I nodded slowly. I didn¡¯t really understand, but I didn¡¯t think it would be a good idea to push it. I had to respect the boundaries she could keep when I involuntarily invaded her privacy in so many other ways on a regular basis.


    ¡°But yeah. I was.¡± She mumbled anyway, quieting up again immediately after the words came out of her mouth. ¡°I know your type cause I¡¯ve been there. I¡¯ll say that much.¡±


    I nodded more enthusiastically this time. That was more than I expected to hear from her. It was reassuring that she could at least tell me that much. I didn¡¯t push any further, and we walked the rest of the way to Dr. Yates¡¯ office in respectful silence.


    ¡ª


    I sat down on the familiar couch in Dr. Yates¡¯s office for what I knew would likely be the last time, my eyes closed as I tried to distract myself. I was trying to build a network bridge between here and the hangar so that I could peek in on Theseus, but I was having trouble finding enough stationary nodes to make a stable pathway there.


    ¡°Meryll?¡± Yates asked quietly, uncertain what I was doing. He had probably pieced together that I closed my eyes when I interacted with the psionic network, but he wasn¡¯t technologically proficient enough to know what I was doing with it. ¡°Are you there?¡±


    I clicked my tongue and looked to the aged doctor, letting the fledgeling network fall apart. ¡°Just worried about something. I¡¯m worried about a lot of things right now.¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s why we¡¯re here.¡± He smiled warmly at me, and I immediately felt myself calm. Whatever was going on through the backdoor dealings and impending violence across the colony right now, I had a future crisis to try to avert before I left the station and lost contact with this man for at least a month.


    ¡°I think I wanna focus on my amnesia problem today.¡± I said slowly. ¡°What do I actually need to do to prevent myself from¡­ I dunno, mentally falling apart when this time bomb goes off.¡±


    ¡°Well, it may not ¡®go off¡¯ at all.¡± Dr. Yates suggested. ¡°You have been making this assumption that this crisis will break you when you remember it.¡±


    ¡°It broke thousands of other clones identical to me, Doc. I¡¯m not stupid enough to think I¡¯m that special.¡± I rolled my eyes. I was certainly a unique being in this system, but that didn¡¯t make me invulnerable by any means. ¡°I need something to work with that they didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d say that you already do. You have experience. You¡¯ve had highs and lows in your real life, outside of that life simulation, yes?¡±


    I shrugged ¡°I¡¯d say so. Yeah.¡± I immediately latched to the thought of feeling through Theseus, cutting through space like a bullet, twisting the engines on my command. The power behind a starship. That was the high. And the opposite of being limited to vulnerable flesh, at the whim of someone I don¡¯t know or trust, a single frightening step away from the grim end of my spacefaring life as I know it, under Dr. Godin¡¯s gaze.


    ¡°You have your own experiences to draw on, to cope with real problems you¡¯ve had. Do you believe that your fears of facing what you know to have been a false memory really be as challenging?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± I mumbled. I wasn¡¯t sure if it would be as simple as rationalizing it like that when the time came. The tragedy I couldn¡¯t remember loomed over me, like a bomb with a fuse I couldn¡¯t see the length of, ready to plunge me head first into madness, and I didn¡¯t even have a metric for what it was going to feel like. Would it be as simple as recalling how ¡®real¡¯ it was in the moment and setting it aside like a story I read? Or would it consume me and override my rationality, permanently damaging my mind? I had no way of knowing just from speculation.


    Was I really strong enough to just tough it out?


    ¡°I suppose not.¡± Yates admitted, taking on that sad, resigned expression of a man who knew that the world was messy and unpredictable. ¡°This is, after all, ground that is rarely tread, under circumstances that have likely never happened before. But you have a very human mind, one that hasn¡¯t been thrown into newfound sentience with only terrible stress clouding your mind. You¡¯ve had time to armor yourself to reality.¡±


    ¡°So¡­ you¡¯re saying that I¡¯m mentally stronger than those people who came before me just because I¡¯ve had the chance to experience life?¡± I gave him a skeptical frown. He nodded back at me. I couldn¡¯t accept that it was that simple. That felt too convenient. ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t think that makes a lot of sense, doctor.¡± I sighed. ¡°What if my experience doesn¡¯t matter? When you¡¯re in a sim, everything feels real, okay? It actually feels like you¡¯re there, in the circumstances the program sets for you, and it takes effort to remember that it¡¯s just a simulation.¡±


    Except I¡¯d been running hundreds of simulations, and I¡¯d become accustomed to the emotional whiplash. I¡¯d learned to shut it down and break the dissociation almost instantly by now.


    I bit my lip, suddenly deep in thought. Was that the answer? Becoming so numb to simulations that I¡¯d be able to pull myself through the memory with that same level of detachment I could bring to an imaginary battlefield? To reestablish my own ego when a program tried to hijack my thoughts and feed me false contexts?


    Was that healthy when it applied to my memory?


    I don¡¯t know how long I¡¯d been staring at the floor, but when I looked up, I saw Dr. Yates smiling warmly at me. He didn¡¯t say anything, but I could see a certain smugness in his smile that he couldn¡¯t help. He knew that I¡¯d just had a revelation, but he wasn¡¯t the type to brag.


    ¡°I can¡¯t run away from this thing, but am I really supposed to just¡­ stare it down? Confidently declare that I can beat it and just take charge of it? Like¡­ try and brute force myself out of feeling bad when it happens?¡±


    ¡°Much of dealing with trauma does involve a degree of¡­ stubbornness. Of facing your problems head on.¡± He spoke with quiet encouragement. He knew I was on the right track. ¡°You have to make yourself believe that you are stronger than these problems. That you¡¯re strong enough to¡­¡± he shook his head, as if the phrasing disagreed with him, ¡°¡­ win against them.¡±


    I let out a quiet sigh ¡°So I just have to do it. Be reckless. Dive headlong into my issues. That¡¯s the answer I need? Just¡­ be strong enough? Through my own willpower?¡±


    Yates let out a quiet, but genuine laugh ¡°Meryll, I have not known you for long, but I can tell that if there is anything you have plenty of, it is willpower. You¡¯re quite strong-willed.¡±


    Reflexively, I gave a doubtful sigh, but then I thought about it. I guess one could call my reckless bull-headedness a strong will, but I didn¡¯t really have much confidence in it. Sure, in a moment of crisis, I could keep it together and act despite my fears, but I shouldn¡¯t rely on that all the time. I couldn¡¯t, right?


    But I wasn¡¯t talking about relying on it all the time. I was talking about relying on it at what could be my absolute worst, in the throes of my forgotten lowest moment.


    I swallowed hard. Could I really rely on just being able to charge through this like I was smashing the hardest part of my ship into the weak point of an enemy hull, just hoping that a crazy gambit would pay off?


    I took a deep breath. I suppose I would have to.


    Without warning, the unmistakable register of a small caliber firearm cut through the silence that had punctuated my revelation, immediately followed by a second shot. Both Dr. Yates and I whipped our heads toward the front of his office, his face full of confusion, primal fear, and alarm as he stumbled to his feet.


    ¡°What?¡± Was all he managed. I stood up a moment later, taking a deep breath. I started to shake a little as the adrenaline built. I rushed toward the door while the doctor stammered, stepping back further into his office, clutching his tablet in fear ¡°W-What are you doing?¡± He asked as I reached for the door handle.


    I took a few more deep breaths to prepare myself and replied ¡°Facing my problems, apparently,¡± before I pulled the door open to see Aisling leaning against the glass at the front of the office, peeking through the blinds.


    On the floor lay none other than my tormentor, Dr. Godin, sprawled face down across the office floor with a single hole in his head bleeding profusely into the carpet, while a second unseen wound pooled crimson at his chest. He wasn¡¯t breathing.


    ¡°They¡¯re making their move.¡± Aisling muttered without looking at me, her pistol at the ready for the coming violence.

 Wild Card

    I stared down at Dr. Godin, face turned to the side, eyes empty, expression locked forever somewhere between indignant shock and blind fury. The man who had put me through so much fear and doubt lay dead at my feet, life snuffed in an instant by the weapon in Aisling¡¯s hand.


    I couldn¡¯t look away from him for some reason. This was a dead body. I¡¯d seen a dead body before: my predecessor as Theseus¡¯s core. There was a delicious irony to the fact that he now shared a state with something he looked down on so proudly. He was no different than that core now. I caught myself smiling a little bit before I shook my head ¡°A-Aisling¡­ Captain¡­ He¡­ You killed him.¡± I stated, uncertain what else I should say.


    ¡°Yeah. That¡¯s probably about to happen a few more times.¡± Aisling continued to peek out through the blinds ¡°It¡¯s empty out there. Completely empty. Everyone¡¯s gone to shelter. I would check their forums, but I don¡¯t wanna take my eyes off this window.¡±


    I managed to peel my eyes away from the corpse in the room when I heard a quiet whimpering noise coming from behind the reception desk. Peeking to the side of it, I saw Dr. Yates¡¯ son wrapped up on the floor with his hands around his legs, shaking like a loose wing panel in atmosphere. He was scared witless. This colony was not a place of violence, and we¡¯d literally just brought a murder, justified by self-defense as it certainly was, not only to his neighborhood, but right to his doorstep. He¡¯d probably never experienced anything as existentially frightening as this before. Death, realized and thrust into his face.


    I was shaken as well. I¡¯d seen a body up close before, but I hadn¡¯t practically watched someone get shot to death before. Sure, there was that unit of Foundation grunts that invaded our ship on our way here who had suffocated in my cargo bay. Not only could that be twisted by a justification of a more natural biological death, but it was also separated from me by a remote sensor array and the haze of the aftermath of extraordinary mental effort under the influence of the psychic damper. This felt more real. More visceral.


    But seeing the way Yates¡¯ son cowered like a helpless child made me realize I didn¡¯t feel that way right now. I was scared, a little confused, and on edge, but I was trying to figure out what to do, not just hide and hope the scary things went away. I swallowed and took a few heavy steps toward Aisling, taking in a deep breath before I asked ¡°W-What¡¯s the plan?¡±


    ¡°Back to Theseus.¡± She said sternly. ¡°We¡¯re leaving.¡±


    ¡°What about Ray and Joel?¡± I took up a position at the opposite window, also taking a peek out. As she said, there wasn¡¯t a soul outside the office. At least we wouldn¡¯t have to worry about endangering bystanders, but I had to wonder how Skygraves evacuated a colony¡¯s main thoroughfare. At least he wasn¡¯t going to use innocents against us. ¡°I thought we had to wait for them.¡±


    ¡°What did I say about plans? They¡¯ll get there.¡± She backed away slowly from the window and opened the door slightly, peeking her head out. ¡°They could have ambushed us, but they just sent one guy.¡± she mumbled ¡°We need to move so they can¡¯t corner us. Are you tapped into colony security?¡±


    I shook my head ¡°Personal terminals are one thing, I would have set off alarms if I hacked those.¡± As I said it, I wondered if there was a point to keeping silent anymore. Playing by the laws wasn¡¯t necessary anymore, and it was time to throw subtlety out the window. I¡¯d have to tap the cameras as soon as I could.


    ¡°Well, I think the coast is clear. It shouldn¡¯t be, but it is.¡± She sounded irritated at the unexpected peace, expecting to walk into a trap, but she motioned for me to move up with her anyway as she threw the door open and pointed her pistol both ways down the hall in turn. I stepped out after her, making one last glance back at the whimpering desk as the door closed behind us.


    The war was on.


    ¡ª


    Aisling crept down the hall in front of me with the caution and grace of a stalking predator, walking between the benches and informational screens scattered almost haphazardly throughout the concourse, then signaling silently for me to follow and join her in cover. There were no guards with guns or mechanical threats of any kind just yet, so it felt like we were practicing or playing some kind of game of stalking hide and seek. The whole thing felt surreal, but to her, it was routine.


    She finally held up a hand to stop me at one of the large upright info panels that displayed a 3D map of the colony, looking both ways around it before she pulled me up to the wall and let out a deep breath, trying to shake the tension from her shoulders for a moment ¡°You alright?¡± She spoke quietly.


    I nodded my head. I was definitely not alright. I was shaken and very anxious for what was about to happen. Aisling watched me carefully and grimaced. She could tell I wasn¡¯t ready for this. She took in another deep breath, briefly closing her eyes before she reached her free hand down to her vest and dislodged one of the loaded pistols. She flipped it around in her hand once, holding it by the barrel, and then held it out toward me, open hand as if presenting me a gift.


    I stared at the pistol for what must have been too long because she pushed her hand toward me again to emphasize it ¡°Take it.¡± She demanded impatiently.


    ¡°O-Oh¡­ Aisling¡­ I¡­ I can¡¯t.¡± I tried to stammer out, but she had already moved to holster her favored handgun, and then pushed the spare into my hands directly.


    ¡°Right, you¡¯ve never done this. Crash course. Hold it in both hands, like this.¡± She moved my hands into place, wrapping them around the surprisingly comfortable grip of the firearm and then overlapping my other shaking hand on top of the first to make a solid mass wrapped around the base of the pistol. I blushed a little as she held onto my hands with a firm grip, guiding me into place. Her skin was surprisingly delicate to the touch, smoother than I expected from someone who had lived a lifetime of hardship, but still strong. Her touch felt nice.


    I shook my head. What was I, some kind of hormonal teenager? This wasn¡¯t the time to be crushing on my captain, attractive as she was in the heat of the moment. The tension was getting to me and my mind was wandering. ¡°Focus.¡± Aisling must have noticed my mind wandering as I stared blankly at the heavy metal in my hands. ¡°Two hands when you aim it. None of that akimbo bullshit. This ain¡¯t a movie, you¡¯ll never hit anything if you try to go all action hero with it. Always be aware of where the barrel¡¯s pointing, and never point it at anything that you don¡¯t intend to shoot, even if it¡¯s unloaded, even if the safety¡¯s on. Got it?¡±


    I nodded very slowly, but then shook my head ¡°Aisling, I¡­ I can¡¯t. I¡¯m not ready to shoot someone. Th-This is different than a starship battle, everything is so much more fragile in the flesh and-¡±


    Aisling shushed me, putting a finger over my mouth, which wasn¡¯t helping my inappropriately active libido for this moment before deadly combat. ¡°You won¡¯t have to shoot anyone, you just need to know how to look like you can shoot someone. Now quit holding your finger on the trigger like that. You hold it against the guard like this until you¡¯re ready to shoot, that way you don¡¯t accidentally tense up and misfire. The safety¡¯s this lever right here. Up like this and the gun won¡¯t fire. Down like this and it¡¯s live.¡± She kept forcing my fingers and hand position around the gun to make sure I was holding it in what could at least be mistaken for a correct grip, and I did my best to memorize it, my hands shaking even more by the time she seemed satisfied by what I was doing.


    ¡°There, now you look dangerous.¡± She peeked out from around our cover for a moment before returning her attention to me. ¡°And you know enough to be able to shoot it if it comes to that. But it won¡¯t. I can handle the shooting today, okay? You won¡¯t have to pull that trigger. I promise.¡± She paused for a moment, watching me examine the intricate configuration of my hands around the device, trying to memorize the position so I could return to it when I inevitably fumbled it. Then she put a hand on my chin and forced me to look into her eyes, serious and smoldering ¡°Look at me, Meryll. You¡¯re gonna be okay. I¡¯ll get you through this, alright? We¡¯re leaving this colony together today, I¡¯ll make sure of it.¡±


    I nodded at her slowly, still dazed in a mixture of adrenaline and a bizarre primal attraction for the woman who was teaching me how to use a device to kill people. But that was something I would have to unpack later. I flinched and look to the side as I heard the approach of hurried footsteps scuffling along the hard plastic floor of the hall.


    Aisling shoved me back against the wall, where I immediately lost the intricate grip on the pistol, holding it at my side in one hand as she peeked out around the corner, drawing her handgun again and pointing it across the concourse before returning to her position against the barrier and holding up a finger to her own lips this time, signaling me to be quiet. I swallowed hard and held my breath, closing my eyes for a moment.


    That¡¯s when I realized that I wasn¡¯t totally helpless. The electronic world around us was still active, whether or not there was an impending battle about to occur around it. I might not be able to harm flesh like Aisling could with a gun, but I could still use my abilities to our advantage.


    I had refrained from tapping the security system of the colony so far because it would have certainly gotten us in trouble with authorities, but that was moot now. I reached for the nearest security camera and with just a few lines of code; I saw what it saw. I could tell I¡¯d hit some kind of tripwire and it logged my intrusion, but that didn¡¯t matter anymore. I peeked around the corner on the closed circuit, and I saw a single person holding a submachine gun in both hands, awkwardly aiming down the sights as he walked. I wondered if I looked that awkward holding my pistol. This was not a firearms expert, that was certain, but it was still a gun in his hands. It didn¡¯t take experience to pull a trigger.


    The security system wasn¡¯t weaponized, so scouting was the best I could do. I whispered to Aisling, continuing to hold my eyes closed ¡°One. Not augmented.¡±


    I heard her shift slightly, but I didn¡¯t dare open my eyes and lose my concentration on the security network. The footsteps drew closer, and we stayed silent behind our cover. I switched the camera and watched him approaching both of us. He didn¡¯t see us, but he was pointing the gun directly at our cover, cautiously covering his corners. He would spot us in a moment. I swallowed and tapped an electronic sign opposite the man.


    I held up three fingers for Aisling, and slowly counted down, hoping she was paying attention to me and that she understood what I was signaling. And as I hit zero on my countdown, I injected a script into the sign, causing the sign to flash a series of randomized bright colors.


    Just as I thought, the man turned sharply to look at my distraction. Aisling turned out from our hiding place and I watched through the camera as the man¡¯s eyes went wide. He tried to swing his gun back around to level it against her, but before he could correct himself, she had already fired off a round.


    I didn¡¯t see what happened next, because I had to open my eyes in surprise at the crack of Aisling¡¯s pistol. It was far louder than I expected it to sound. Previously, I¡¯d only heard it through a wall or through electronic sensors, but hearing it up close was shockingly visceral. What I really didn¡¯t expect was the wet splatter of a bullet penetrating flesh. I hadn¡¯t considered that the projectile would make noise on impact as well.


    Just like in the office, a second shot rang out immediately after the first, like Aisling had already predetermined that the first shot wouldn¡¯t be enough. It echoed down the halls of the concourse and then the hall went silent. I heard the sound of something heavy hitting the floor, and then that was it. It was over that quickly. I swallowed, not wanting to turn to look at Aisling¡¯s kill, but I heard her let out a deep breath and flinched as she put a hand on my shoulder. ¡°Breathe, Meryll.¡±


    I did as she told me, and let out a few deep breaths, gasping for air. In an effort to remain silent, I had stopped breathing entirely at some point, and it was catching up to me. I glanced past Aisling and saw the body of the man, slumped down on the floor in a heap. Red leaked from his chest and head, same as Dr. Godin¡¯s body.


    ¡°Holy shit, you killed him.¡± I mumbled, trying to wrap my head around the person this had been simply ceasing to be in an instant like that. It was even more real than when it had happened to Godin a whole room away.


    ¡°Well, yeah.¡± She said like that was the most obvious thing in the world. She continued taking breaths to calm herself for a moment before she stepped out from around our cover and pointed her gun at the corner while she stepped toward the body. She held the gun up with one hand as the other groped blindly at the floor, grabbing hold of the man¡¯s firearm after a few missed grasps and lifting it up to pull the strap over her shoulder. ¡°Nice idea with that sign. If we¡¯re surrounded by tech, you can be pretty useful in an engagement, huh?¡±


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    I swallowed again, trying not to look at the body as I stepped around cover as well ¡°It¡­ made sense in the moment. I kinda just¡­ did what I had to, I guess.¡± I was downplaying how automatic it had been. It was like everything slowed down in that moment, and I was able to calmly throw together a plan that made sense and worked beautifully, but now that the time was passed, I was in shock again. This was nothing like a dogfight between starships. I was terribly out of place in the midst of a conflict on foot, and I felt scared and wrong. It was like someone else had taken over for a few instants when I acted. Someone far more collected and confident.


    ¡°How far can you scout ahead?¡± Aisling asked, interrupting my internal rambling. That was something practical I could focus on. I closed my eyes and dove back into the local psychic network. The cameras weren¡¯t networked to one another, and the system controlling them was too well-protected to hack in a rush, so I could only access the cameras within my own psionic range.


    ¡°Not far.¡± I warned ¡°Around the bend of the hallway at least. No one else is coming right now.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re disorganized. This is good. Keep your eyes on the cameras ahead of us.¡± She patted me on the shoulder again and guided me forward. It made concentrating on the data stream difficult, but it wasn¡¯t like I could just wait there for her to clear the way. ¡°We¡¯ll get back to Theseus and then get out of here.¡±


    ¡ª


    I did as Aisling asked and kept my ¡®eyes¡¯ at a wide angle so I could look down the curved hallway toward our destination. No more fumbling stray guards came nervously pacing down the concourse. It seemed unlikely that they didn¡¯t hear Aisling¡¯s last two shots, but there was no immediate response. They had either learned their lesson once the two Aisling dispatched so far failed to report, or judging by how disorganized they had been, maybe they just didn¡¯t notice their absence. I felt a cruel sense of schadenfreude at that, not for the second man, but for Godin.


    I didn¡¯t know the story of how he had gotten roped into this scheme, but that he was the very first enemy casualty felt satisfying in some way. It was a delicious irony that the captain took the man who tried to take advantage of me out so easily. He thought he had been so powerful, but now he was the one left bleeding out, forgotten, on a psychologist¡¯s office floor. I¡¯m not even sure if Aisling realized who he was. For all I knew, they didn¡¯t exchange any words before Aisling identified and neutralized the obvious threat.


    On a whim, I broke the intense silence between us and muttered to Aisling ¡°Thanks for killing that fucker.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t see her face to face because I was focused on the data stream, but I felt her confusion when her movement hitched and she grunted out a questioning ¡°Huh?¡± that confirmed that she had no idea what I was talking about.


    ¡°The first guy, the one in the office. That was Dr. Godin.¡± I felt a smile growing on my face as I explained. I thought she would appreciate the fact.


    Aisling¡¯s hand that had been guiding me by my arm loosened a little bit. ¡°No shit? Well, good then. Prick deserved it.¡± was all she said. I could tell that she wasn¡¯t satisfied, though. Something was bothering her, or maybe she was just too intensely focused on the moment to let herself have a moment to celebrate offing the guy she¡¯d outright said should have been shot after what he did to me. I¡¯d have to bring it up once we were safely back in space.


    For the time being, I switched to the next closest camera and stopped in my tracks. I felt Aisling tug me down to a low crouching state and watched my body duck behind a bench from a third person perspective, which was a surreal experience in itself.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Aisling muttered, peeking up over the bench and aiming her pistol at the edge of the turn in the hallway.


    I took a deep breath and tried to let the tension out of my legs as I whispered ¡°T-Two. Right at the hangar bay entrance. Looking our way.¡±


    ¡°Tch. They¡¯ve got people waiting for us.¡± Aisling muttered. The two guards looked nervous, but they had their guns aimed down each of the halls, clearly prepared to fire on anyone who approached the only obvious entrance to our destination. ¡°Alright. No sneaking up on these ones then, I suppose.¡± She sighed and guided me back up to my feet ¡°Anything I need to know about them?¡±


    I spent a moment examining the pair. The first had brown hair and a pair of square glasses and nervously flipped the safety of his smg on and off as he aimed down the hall. He was anxious and on edge. I couldn¡¯t blame him.


    The second was a blonde woman with short hair and a steely gaze that betrayed a more experienced combatant with better discipline, as she stood stock still, covering the opposite hall. Something else caught my attention about her, though. I sent a ping down the hall and I caught something in her. She was augmented. A brief look through the info showed she had prosthetic cybernetic eyes, both of them. I wondered how often people would need both eyes wholly replaced by incident and concluded that this must have been a deliberate augmentation. But that only worked against her when she was against a hacker of my caliber.


    ¡°One on the left is inexperienced. Nervous. Keeps fidgeting with his gun. One on the right might have actually seen more than a couple fights before.¡± I offered Aisling ¡°She¡¯s augmented, though. Eyes. I¡¯m writing a reset script.¡±


    ¡°Perfect. Don¡¯t attack her yet, we need to get into position.¡±


    I nodded. It would only shut off her vision for a couple of seconds at most, anyway. I would have to time it and hope there wasn¡¯t interference between her and I, but there was at least a momentary vulnerability I could take advantage of in the firmware. I could give Aisling an opening.


    ¡°Okay, see that bench up there? I need you under that. Wait for me, I¡¯ll make an approach.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll get better latency on her if I can get up there too.¡± I murmured. What was I doing? I didn¡¯t want to offer to plunge into a firefight. My script would have a better chance of working correctly if there was less dead air between us, but this was too much for me to handle for sure.


    Aisling hesitated and let out a quiet exhale before she asked ¡°Do you trust me?¡± I nodded before I even had a chance to think about the question. Of course I trusted her. ¡°Okay, cause I have a really dumb idea. And it involves putting you right in the line of fire.¡±


    ¡ª


    I tried to control my breathing and took a step forward as Aisling had already instructed me. My pistol was tucked uncomfortably in the back of my waistband, the irritating metal pressing lightly against the bruise on my back. It was important they didn¡¯t see me as armed on our approach. I was the first to see the brown-haired man as we ran around the corner, and he immediately snapped the barrel of his gun in my direction. I broke for cover, diving down to one of the large info panels just before I heard a short burst of gunfire and watched bullets land against the floor nearby, missing me by a significant margin.


    Getting shot at for the first time was a terrifying experience. If just one of them had gone stray and struck me, that could have been the end of my journey right then and there. But it wasn¡¯t. I had been saved by an inexperienced shooter trying to hit a moving target. Aisling was right behind me, also slamming up against the same panel as me, but she had stayed decidedly more composed than I did, looking as far out around our cover as she could without exposing herself. I couldn¡¯t help but sit on the floor, hyperventilating as my mind raced, glancing at the tiny circular cracks in the floor scattered behind us.


    ¡°Idiot!¡± I heard a woman¡¯s voice call out, then in a more level tone, ¡°It¡¯s the target.¡± That confirmed it. We¡¯d been correct, they¡¯d been instructed not to fire on me. I didn¡¯t hear any more of the exchange between them. They must have quieted down once they¡¯d composed themselves.


    I took a few deep breaths to calm down. Okay, I¡¯d been shot at, but now they were aware of me and wouldn¡¯t shoot at me again, right? Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I mulled over the plan, glancing to Aisling for help. She gave me a silent nod and I did my best to regain control over my muscles. I didn¡¯t want to be here. I wanted to crawl into my core module and go back into comforting torpor for the next week, but we had to make our way there first. That meant through these two, and likely more.


    I took in a deep breath and pushed my palms against our improvised cover, slowly rising back up to stand with Aisling. Then I raised an arm up around the cover and swallowed hard. I braced as I took an experimental step out from behind the panel and looked at the pair of guards aiming down the barrels of guns at me. I was visibly shaking, terrified that they would just pull the triggers despite me. But they didn¡¯t. They only aimed at me from cover that they¡¯d taken up themselves at an overturned bench.


    The woman called out in a commanding tone ¡°No sudden movements.¡± She demanded ¡°Your buddy either. Throw your weapon to the side and come out with your hands where I can see them.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t part of the plan. I certainly hadn¡¯t expected the woman to attempt to de-escalate like this. She must have been an enforcer of some kind in her past. But I don¡¯t think it changed much. I heard the clatter of metal against the floor to my side. Aisling had followed the instruction. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯d caught that she had at least six more guns on her while she was moving, though.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, no one has to die here.¡± The woman called out. How I wished that that was true. Aisling stepped out from cover on the same side as me, but she didn¡¯t have her arms up, and she wasn¡¯t unarmed. I felt her arm wrap around me, and had to let out a gasp even though I had expected what had come next. I felt the barrel of the gun pressed against my head as the pair in front of me flinched, readying their guns, and for a split second, I thought that they were going to fire right through me anyway. But they didn¡¯t.


    As Aisling held her pistol to my forehead, I heard her answer the commanding woman¡¯s voice with her own projected voice ¡°Your boss would be real upset with you if you let the whole point of this operation die here. Out of my way. I¡¯m getting into that hangar.¡±


    The man looked confused, his gun arm losing tension as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do in this unexpected situation.


    ¡°Don¡¯t fall for it, she¡¯s bluffing.¡± The woman didn¡¯t even flinch, taking control of the man. ¡°Flank her.¡± She motioned to him as she started slowly making her way in a circle to our side. This wasn¡¯t working like I hoped it would. I was hoping they would either surrender or be so confused by our actions that Aisling had time to take them both out before either would react. Instead, the woman, at least, already had a plan.


    Aisling didn¡¯t flinch, though. She kept holding the gun against my head as she backed away from the pair as best she could. Even though the man took a moment to pull himself together again, he started moving into position around us, doubtless trying to either get an angle on Aisling or make an angle for his partner. We were pinched.


    I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself, but it kept coming out ragged and fast. Part of me wanted to break down crying and beg to de-escalate again into surrender, but I swallowed that part down, knowing the consequences would mean giving up my last chance at freedom.


    I heard Aisling take a deep breath, and that helped anchor me again. She whispered to me ¡°On three.¡±


    Stick to the plan. I began to whisper back, closing my eyes as I reached for the woman¡¯s augmentation ¡°One¡­ T-Two¡­¡± I nodded for the third beat as I shot toxic code through my psionic network. The woman froze in place, a confused grunt escaping her lips as her vision failed her entirely and her muscles tensed with uncertainty.


    In one swift motion, Aisling flicked the barrel away from my head and I let out a whimpering cry as the bang of the firearm went off right next to my head before I was thrown to the floor.


    I heard the sound of their rapid fire weapons going off alongside a couple more of Aisling¡¯s more precise registers. I curled up into a helpless ball on the floor, a ringing in my ears from Aisling¡¯s pistol firing off next to my ear almost overshadowing the violence playing out above me. I didn¡¯t dare look, either with my eyes or through the security camera.


    It was rare that I found solace in the data stream. It¡¯s a confusing mess of code and random data that I could never hope to interpret as quickly as it flowed. Background noise produced by machines idling, like the cybernetic equivalent of heartbeats and breathing. It was distressing to stare into without purpose. But in that moment, it was somehow the most comforting view I could give myself. I escaped into nonsense computations rather than face the reality of the firefight happening around me, my role already finished before the more visceral action had gone down.


    It felt like I was trapped there in the code for far longer than it actually had been. I had to wonder if I¡¯d accidentally activated some kind of emergency trigger for the psychic damper and was experiencing time dilation, but Aisling told me after the fact that that was just how powerful adrenaline could be in the face of mortal danger. It made the world slow down in a pretty similar way.


    When the silence came, it was deafening. All I heard was a single panting breath. I dared to peek up over my knees at the aftermath of the fight and was relieved to see Aisling¡¯s face, her back pressed against the other side of the panel we¡¯d used for cover, peeking her head around in every direction as if searching for a new target. Glancing around, I saw the man on his back, free hand over top of a seeping chest wound, his glasses askew on a face filled with terrified panic. Aisling walked over to him and kicked the smg out of his hand and across the concourse. He wasn¡¯t dead. Aisling must have either not had the time to make the second, more deadly head shot she¡¯d made on the other two she¡¯d killed so far, and hoped that the shot to his core would disable him. She¡¯d been correct. I turned my head the other way to see the woman face-down over her weapon. She¡¯d been less lucky, blood seeping from one of her legs and her face.


    ¡°You¡¯re out. You just wait here til things quiet down and hope I didn¡¯t hit anything vital. Colony of geniuses, I¡¯m sure someone can patch you up. Just so long as you don¡¯t do anything to make me shoot you again.¡± Aisling instructed the man before she let out a shuddering sigh and turned back to look me in the eyes. ¡°We should move.¡±


    I nodded, still glancing back at the dead woman. She¡¯d had the same kind of commanding presence as the captain did, but she died just like any other person with a bullet to the head. ¡°You weren¡¯t hit, were you?¡± I asked sheepishly, my muscles failing to respond when I told my body to stand.


    She reached down and took my hand, guiding me up onto my knees and then to my feet in small motions. ¡°Nah, I¡¯m fine. Good evaluation on the guy being inexperienced. And she couldn¡¯t see a damn thing. They missed me completely.¡± She let out another deep breath ¡°Close, though. Always a risk, plays like this.¡±


    Aisling hurried me to my feet and held onto my shoulder. She must have sympathized with how shaken I was, because even in that moment of crisis, she was gentle with her guidance. For a moment, I thought that it was over. I thought that I was just a few doors away from climbing into the void and feeling my shell¡¯s wings cut through the vacuum of space once more. I thought that I was just a few steps from freedom. Then I felt it.


    A specific, familiar, inexplicable terror.


    ¡°He¡¯s here.¡± I muttered to Aisling, fear gripping my voice as we approached the intermediary hallway between the colony and the hangar. ¡°Skygraves is here.¡±

 Oathkeeper

    I stood frozen in front of the door leading to the intermediary hallway, staring blankly into the solid metal barrier between me and my shell. I could feel Theseus in network range, but the feeling of safe comfort it would ordinarily give me was overwhelmed by the oppressive aura of Skygraves somewhere on the other side of the door. The powerful EMP implant making my hair stand on end from a distance. At the very least, it was no longer a faceless terror, but that didn¡¯t make the feeling go away.


    He had beaten us home, personally. There was no way around it, Skygraves was there. What did that mean for Mouse and Doc? Were they still in there, safely locked away behind the completed cargo bay door while Skygraves and his men sieged the ship? Or were they¡­


    I flinched when I felt a hand press on my shoulder. Aisling interrupted my grim thought, turning me to face her. ¡°Hey. Don¡¯t fall apart on me now. I don¡¯t really know what you¡¯re feeling when you get near that guy, but remember that he¡¯s just an old man. Maybe he¡¯s got some more nerds who don¡¯t know how to hold a gun with him, at worst. Just a guy, okay? We got this. Do your thing and take a look in there before you freak out, yeah?¡±


    I nodded slowly. She was right. There was no reason to panic yet. He was just a guy. A politically and cybernetically powerful guy who wanted me as an object. I just had to make sure that I didn¡¯t accidentally activate his defensive mechanism again. I would be pretty useless if I had another seizure now, and I didn¡¯t want to think about what would happen if he hit me with the EMP directly.


    Aisling turned to watch our flank as I closed my eyes and took a shuddering breath. I could do this. He¡¯s just a man. I had to keep telling myself that.


    I took a peek into the intermediary room first, only pinging out as far as I needed to to reach the camera. Empty. He was waiting in the hangar itself. Thankfully, I didn¡¯t need to risk tapping the security system in there. I hooked into the familiar network of Theseus itself, remotely possessing the ship just as I had yesterday. I went right to the external sensors, and let out a whimper at what I saw.


    Three armed gunmen stood in a formation facing toward the hangar doors, away from Theseus. And in front of them, both on their knees with their hands behind their head, sat Mouse and Shaw. Alive, but helpless. They were leverage against us. Skygraves stood over them with a pistol in one hand, smartly dressed in a suit with just a little bulk beneath that betrayed a hidden layer of protective armor.


    I wasn¡¯t sure how he caught them off guard and captured them like this, but I was at least glad to see them alive. I couldn¡¯t see their expressions from behind them, but I was sure that Shaw was being his usual irritating self while Mouse was probably seething with traumatized teenage angst.


    But where was Doc? Had Skygraves found and recognized him? Had he dispatched him out of spite within the ship before using the others as bait? I bit my lip, stressful what-ifs building up in my head as I considered each possibility that came to mind. I imagined Doc¡¯s corpse waiting for us at the back of the cargo bay.


    ¡°Talk to me, Meryll.¡± Aisling hissed. ¡°I don¡¯t like staying out in the open like this.¡±


    ¡°Hostage situation. Lined up in front of the ship. He has Mouse and Shaw. Skygraves is there with three more people.¡± I explained quickly ¡°We can¡¯t just walk in there, he¡¯s got guns to their heads.¡±


    ¡°Implants fried?¡± Aisling asked, venom in her voice.


    ¡°Mouse wouldn¡¯t be able to lift his arms if they were EMPed.¡± I started, making a futile attempt to zoom in and see around Mouse¡¯s profile to try to see his emotional state. ¡°No idea about Shaw. They¡¯re both alive, though. I don¡¯t see Doc¡­¡±


    ¡°Doc¡¯s fine.¡± Aisling didn¡¯t elaborate, though. I heard her messing with her gun, but I didn¡¯t want to take my eyes off the scene. Skygraves paced impatiently, eyes locked on the doors. He was waiting for us. ¡°The three others. Got anything on them?¡±


    I shook my head ¡°I can¡¯t ping for augments. Not without activating the EMP.¡±


    ¡°You can see more than implants, Meryll. What do they look like?¡± I huffed and scanned over them, but they were all facing away from my point of view on Theseus¡¯s exterior.


    I shook my head, giving a frustrated shrug at how unhelpful I was being. ¡°I don¡¯t have an angle. Can¡¯t see their faces. All men, I think? Body language¡­ I-I¡¯m not great at this. It¡¯s hard to tell. They¡¯re¡­ they¡¯re all pretty steady, I guess. He probably brought the best of them in there.¡± I shook my head. I was just guessing.


    I briefly considered arming Theseus¡¯s weapons. The guns were flexible enough to aim down in front of them at their position. But with Mouse there, I didn¡¯t dare. Mounted batteries could never be accurate enough to ensure his safety when they were grouped so close together, and I wasn¡¯t even sure that firing them inside the pressurized station wouldn¡¯t expose the hangar to vacuum.


    I felt her tablet activating next to me, Aisling checking her terminal for something. She tapped my shoulder and let out a steadying exhale. ¡°Alright, we¡¯re going in.¡±


    I finally opened my eyes again and gave her a terrified look ¡°What? That¡¯s right where they want us.¡± I whined, but Aisling was already opening the first of two doors between us and them.


    She reached behind me and pulled out the pistol she¡¯d given me from my waistband, pushing it insistently into my hands, which slowly and clumsily resumed the position she¡¯d shown me. ¡°I¡¯ve got a plan. Time to look like you know how to use that thing. Just point at whoever looks most dangerous at the moment.¡±


    I shook my head. Too much. This was too much all at once. Maybe I could have done this confidently if this was the first close encounter with armed guards today, but my nerves were shot. ¡°Captain¡­ I-I¡¯m scared.¡± I finally admitted in a quick stammer, feeling like I was on the verge of tears. I was starting to hyperventilate as she pulled me into the room with her, closing it up behind us and giving us a moment to collect ourselves in the enclosed space. ¡°I¡¯m really, really scared. I don¡¯t want you or Mouse to die, I don¡¯t want to be taken away by him, I don¡¯t know where the others are, he¡¯s got a weapon that could just¡­ shut me off if he wanted to. I¡¯m-¡±


    She suddenly dropped both hands onto my shoulders, the side of her pistol pressing against me as she applied an anchoring pressure. ¡°Breathe.¡± She commanded. And I did. I pulled in a deep breath, held it for a few moments, then exhaled, feeling tension seep out from my shoulders, feeling her hands slide off of me again as my muscles stopped holding everything tight. How could I relax at a time like this, though? I quickly felt the pressure return. ¡°Joel and Ray messaged me. They¡¯re on their way now. We¡¯re gonna meet up with them. Right now, you and I, we are the distraction. You¡¯re exactly what he wants, and when we go in there, all eyes are gonna be on you, and on me because I¡¯m protecting you. Do you follow me? We¡¯re setting things up for them. You just have to take up time and keep their eyes on you, no matter what. Got it? They will get the drop on them, and we¡¯ll have to improvise at that point. But until then, that¡¯s your one goal. Keep their eyes on you.¡±


    Ray and Joel. They were up to something. And we needed all eyes on us for it to work. I nodded slowly as she repeated her instruction. ¡°I¡­ think I get it.¡± I muttered ¡°I¡¯m still scared.¡±


    ¡°Then be scared. This is scary.¡± She sighed, turning me to face the closed hangar door. ¡°Bravery isn¡¯t not being scared, it¡¯s acting even when you¡¯re scared, and I¡¯ve seen you do just that. You¡¯re brave, Meryll. Don¡¯t fall apart and forget that just cause this is stressful, okay? We¡¯re the wildcards, so we might have to do something real unusual and think on our feet out there. Let your instincts guide you. Doing drastic, dangerous shit in the thick of it is your whole thing, Meryll. You got this. I believe in you.¡±


    I swallowed, adjusting my grip on the gun and making a stiff nod. Trust my instincts. Just trust that I¡¯m going to be able to do the right thing in the moment. That would have to do. I approached the door at Aisling¡¯s insistence. She believed in me. I would just have to trust that. This was it.


    ¡ª


    The door slid open with an accompanying chorus of clicking firearms. Four guns leveled toward me at once. I knew none of them would dare fire on me, but that didn¡¯t make the intimidation any less real. I held my handgun forward into the crowd of armed scientists, my hands visibly shaking as I stared them down. Aisling was right behind me, aiming at them in kind with her own much steadier pistol and using me as cover.


    ¡°Ah. Meryll. How nice of you to join us.¡± Skygraves called out over the distance between us, radiating confidence with a disgusting, greasy smile on his face. I recalled the face of my boss from my false memories. The face of someone who thinks they know everything and hold all the power, and they¡¯re used to being right.


    I wasn¡¯t sure what possessed me to reply to him, but my nerves finally broke at the sound of his voice. I shouted through a cracking voice on the verge of tears. ¡°Fuck you!¡± And any further words I had were lost in my throat.


    He looked surprised at my response, his eyebrows shooting up. Whatever he expected to hear, it wasn¡¯t nervous cursing. ¡°Well then¡­¡± he started.


    ¡°You¡¯re negotiating with me, Skygraves!¡± Aisling called out from behind me, rescuing me from my awkward conversational fumbling.


    ¡°I seem to recall that you ended negotiations, Captain Barrowin.¡± Skygraves motioned toward Mouse and Shaw in front of him with his pistol. ¡°But if you insist. Throw down your weapons and hand over Meryll, then I¡¯ll let you and your crew go. I¡¯ll even overlook any¡­ unfortunate collateral damage that¡¯s happened on your way here.¡± Skygraves offered, holding his arms out in an exaggerated shrug as he gave a slimy smile that I was used to seeing on Shaw. ¡°You¡¯re hardly in a position to refuse.¡±


    ¡°Mouse, are you okay?¡± I managed to pull myself together enough to speak, ignoring Skygraves¡¯ unreasonable demands.


    ¡°Just shoot him.¡± Mouse growled loudly, furious gaze locked back at an angle up at Skygraves.


    ¡°I¡¯m alright. They didn¡¯t shoot us.¡± Shaw called out, sounding more nervous than I usually expected of him.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t ask you.¡± I repositioned my hands on my pistol, starting to get some of my courage back. The shock of walking into the room was passed, and I was beginning to grow accustomed to the tension. Shaw rolled his eyes and gave a defeated shrug without moving his hands.


    ¡°I¡¯m not dropping anything or handing anyone over. If you didn¡¯t notice, we have you outgunned!¡± Aisling called and tapped on my shoulder to signal me. I nodded back, and closed my eyes, holding my pistol in their general direction. Loud mechanical clicks and whirs rang out from behind them, making several of the gunners turn their heads as Theseus¡¯s cannons repositioned themselves downward, almost directly at the group.


    Skygraves glanced to them as well, but held his pistol down toward Mouse¡¯s head as he did so. ¡°It¡¯s a bluff, you idiots. They wouldn¡¯t blow a hole in the station and kill themselves. Face it, Aisling. The only way out of here is to give me the core. There¡¯s a replacement waiting for you if you comply.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare call me that!¡± I shouted, opening my eyes again. He¡¯d called the bluff, but that was okay. We weren¡¯t out of options yet. We just had to keep them occupied for a little longer. The other scientists were shaken, with starship cannons aimed directly at them as a group, but they took Skygraves¡¯ word on it and repositioned themselves into formation against us again. ¡°I¡¯m not just a core. The last fucker that made that mistake is busy choking on his own blood right now.¡± I spat the words. They were real, visceral emotions, elevated by the tense atmosphere. Aisling¡¯s advice was working. In the heat of the moment, I just knew what to do. What to say. At least when it came to blustering and getting their attention. I just had to keep letting myself shout what came to mind. ¡°Call me that again, I fucking dare you!¡± I pushed my pistol forward, steadying my aim on him.


    He scowled, his handgun still steadily aimed at Mouse. My words didn¡¯t shake him, and he was right to think that I couldn¡¯t possibly pull the trigger, even if he didn¡¯t have one of my friends at gunpoint.


    ¡°I¡¯m waiting, Barrowin.¡± He growled. He was just going to ignore me entirely if this kept up. It was in Aisling¡¯s hands. ¡°Weapon down! Or the boy dies!¡±


    ¡°You touch either of them and I take Meryll out.¡± Aisling declared, training her pistol on me. It probably didn¡¯t help this bluff that I didn¡¯t even flinch when she said it. I¡¯d expected it, after all, and I was fine with it. I trusted her not to shoot me no matter what happened.


    ¡°Enough! You shoot her, you lose all leverage, and you and your whole crew dies! You can¡¯t play these kinds of tricks on me! You will hand her over this very moment or else!¡± He was losing his temper. This was bad. Where were Joel and Ray?


    That¡¯s when I spotted it. A panel in the ceiling of the hangar, over the opposite side of Theseus began sliding to the side. There. They were right there. I¡¯d have to ask them how they managed to get into such a position later. We just had to hold Skygraves¡¯ crew a little longer, but if we stalled anymore with empty threats, he would kill Mouse.


    ¡°Meryll¡­¡± Aisling said quietly ¡°I¡¯m out of plays. You got this?¡± I nodded. It was time to do something crazy. I heard Aisling moving in a way that made Skygraves grow a triumphant smile. I heard the clack of metal falling to the ground ¡°Okay. You win.¡± Aisling called out. ¡°She¡¯s yours. Let them go.¡±


    I swallowed, assuming Aisling had disarmed herself. Skygraves motioned to the others, and the three began to take cautious steps as a squad toward me. It was on me now. I just needed one more credible threat. I relaxed my arms slightly, letting my muscles relax as I rose from the tense stance I¡¯d taken, my arms dropping to my side as I took my practiced grip off of my pistol.


    Then I rose it up and placed the barrel against my own head, causing everyone in the room, even Mouse and Shaw, to seize up, and a horrified grimace passed over Skygraves¡¯ face.


    ¡°Fine.¡± I started, swallowing nervously. My hand shook, and I started to let the tears I¡¯d been holding back fall. ¡°Fine. I¡­ I thought this crew meant something. That we were family. That you¡¯d protect me through anything!¡± I tried to sound bitter, and as I started to cry real tears, I knew that I could fake it. For this to work, I needed him to think I no longer cared about Mouse or Aisling. That I felt betrayed by them and had become a rogue actor in this situation. ¡°I¡­ I¡¯d rather die on my own terms than go with him. If you don¡¯t care what happens to me, Aisling, I don¡¯t care what happens to you.¡± I grit my teeth and shouted at Skygraves. ¡°New deal! You let ME on Theseus! Alone! Or I shoot myself! I¡¯ll end it right here!¡± I shouted hysterically.


    This one finally caught Skygraves off guard. He didn¡¯t buy that Aisling would shoot me, but shooting myself in an act of emotional desperation was territory he had no information for. He¡¯d been talking with and getting to know Aisling all week, but he didn¡¯t have more than a single cursory moment of direct interaction with me. He didn¡¯t know if I was unstable and spiteful enough to do it. For all he knew, I¡¯d been on the verge of suicide since I got here.


    ¡°You¡¯re bluffing.¡± He called, but this time he sounded uncertain. ¡°I saw how you walked in here, you don¡¯t have the nerve-¡±


    ¡°I have a psychic damper.¡± I interrupted, tilting my head to show him the module protruding from the expansion bay at the back of my head. ¡°You¡¯re right, I can¡¯t pull this trigger, I don¡¯t¡­ I don¡¯t have the nerve. But I can launch a script that would. It¡¯d be out of my hands. A computer running a program. If you want me to be a machine, I can die like one.¡± I spat the last sentence as spitefully as I could. ¡°Let. Me. Out.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t do that. I¡¯d had the hardware that I would need to control my body while under the influence of the psionic damper removed because I didn¡¯t think I would ever need it, being able to control my body the natural way, unlike ordinary cores. But he didn¡¯t need to know that.


    I could see Skygraves measuring his options, glancing around between Aisling, Mouse, Shaw, and I. He was frozen in place, and his cronies were beginning to glance at him, silently asking for guidance he wasn¡¯t prepared to give. He swallowed, and I felt like he was about to explode and take drastic action to try to stop me before I could launch that imaginary script.


    I¡¯d done my best not to watch my two largest friends descending from the distant ceiling on rappeling cables, lest my glances give away the scene happening right behind Skygraves¡¯ blockade, but I lowered my gun from my head as soon as I saw them in position at the top of the cargo bay.


    Skygraves gave an expression of surprised relief. I reached up and wiped my tears away on my sleeve and then lowered my head to give him the most wicked smile I could. Seeing the expression of bewildered realization that he¡¯d been duped was worth giving the game away a moment earlier than I had to.


    Before he could do anything about it, I watched Joel and Ray drop down on two of his men from above. Ray had her strange hooked sword held out in one hand, but she didn¡¯t need it. The man beneath her crumpled under the mass of her huge frame as well as the cargo container strapped to her back, some important bone cracking beneath her weight and leaving him immobilized beneath her. She barely stumbled, her massive frame allowing her to remain on her feet despite the fall. Joel dropped down on top of his target as well, but he smashed the butt of his rifle into the man¡¯s head, using the momentum of his drop to clobber the man into instant unconsciousness. He was still attached to his rappel line, and used it to catch himself at the same time as his attack.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    In a moment of rushing adrenaline, I leveled my gun on the third man, who was raising his gun toward me in a panic, but before I could bring myself to pull the trigger, Aisling stepped forward from behind me, drawing another of her handguns and firing off a volley of shots at the man. Neither of them had a chance to aim properly, though, and they both sprayed bullets toward each other in a hail of haphazard flying lead. I stumbled out of the crossfire, barely managing to stay balanced and on my feet. It was over in an instant. I watched as the man took a shot to the chest and stumbled back, losing his balance and falling to the floor.


    I started to smile and looked to my side before I stared in shock at Aisling. A blotch of red grew slowly from beneath her jacket as well as from the hand that had been holding the pistol that now lay thrown to the ground. I couldn¡¯t believe what I was seeing. Some part of me had assumed, until that moment, that Aisling was invincible. Untouchable. A legend kept safe by the workings of destiny. But no, she was as human as anyone else, and as far as I could tell in the moment, she¡¯d just taken a mortal wound for me.


    I rushed to her side with a terrified squeak of her name, ready to examine the spot of red at her waist, and she stumbled into me. ¡°Ow.¡± She rasped, taking in a seething breath.


    As I held Aisling steady, I turned to see that Mouse and Shaw had tumbled away from Skygraves, the former holding his metal arm up to shield himself, the latter controlling his strange shaped metal into a small barrier floating in the air between his vitals and the barrel of the last armed enemy, Skygraves himself. Ray was already stepping toward him with her sword raised, while Joel tried to adjust his aim at him while he tried to take control of his rappel line.


    Skygraves was not a fighter. The moment that things had fallen out of his favor, it was clear that he had begun to shake and panic. But he still had his biggest trump card, and he was prepared well enough to play it.


    The aura of dread I thought that I¡¯d almost become accustomed to in the heat of the encounter suddenly flared and made Ray, Mouse, Shaw, and I all flinched before the room filled with electricity. The sharp sound of a powerful electric shock discharging exploded out from the man.


    Ray collapsed first, her attack disarmed as she clutched her abdomen in agonizing pain, a muted roar escaping her lips as she awkwardly fell to the floor.


    Mouse flinched, and I watched his arms both drop to his sides, limp. A horrified expression I hadn¡¯t expected the teenager to be capable of washed over him as he stumbled back onto the ground, his balance totally thrown off by his limp appendages.


    Shaw¡¯s metal shard immediately dropped straight down, and he reached up to clutch his head with an uncharacteristic whimper that I might have actually been sympathetic for if I didn¡¯t know I was about to be in much worse shape.


    As the wave of electromagnetism approached, I watched Skygraves whip his arm around and he shouted, firing off several rounds toward Joel. The tough guy of the crew let out a cry as one bullet penetrated his leg. He flinched, accidentally wrapping his gun in the cable before he dropped down, accidentally disarming himself with his own gear.


    Then I felt it. It¡¯s difficult to put into words exactly how it felt as the EMP hit my four major systems at once. The damper, my computer bay, and the terminal on my arm were uncomfortable to suddenly feel shut off, as if all of my clothes had suddenly been torn away from me all at once. But over the past month and a half, my neural implant had become a part of my mind. As the data stream crashed and I felt myself suddenly cut off from an entire dimension of my world, it felt like I had just had my very soul violently ripped in half.


    I didn¡¯t know that anyone could experience the kind of pain that coursed through me when that EMP hit me. It didn¡¯t even register as something that was physically happening to me. My senses couldn¡¯t process any of it. I didn¡¯t have the cognizance to recognize what I was doing at the time, but I let out an unholy bloodcurdling scream before I fell to the floor and started seizing, clutching at my head as if to try to reach for the invisible beast that had latched onto half of my being and ripping it from me like a wolf tearing out the throat of its prey. At the moment, I was more a wounded beast than a person.


    Aisling dropped to the floor next to me, unable to support herself without me after succumbing to her wounds. She was fumbling clumsily at her chest for the next pistol, grunting in muted frustration, but her primary hand was a bloody mess that wasn¡¯t responding to her properly. She was losing blood fast.


    I couldn¡¯t believe that had just happened. We were winning. We had taken everyone out except him, but that implant had just disabled everyone who was left in one fell swoop. He aimed his pistol at each of us, all temporarily helpless as he panted and swallowed, settling his eyes on me. Potent as they are, the immediate effect of EMPs don¡¯t last long. He didn¡¯t have time to walk around and execute everyone, and his goal was right in front of him, helpless. I could barely see as I reeled from the attack, but I locked eyes with him, terror washing over me as I realized that I had lost.


    Skygraves was going to claim me and perform unspeakable experiments, and I would never be treated as a person ever again. I would never feel that wonderful freedom of soaring through the stars. I would never be allowed a crew of flawed but wonderful people backing me up with everything they had. The rest of my life would be spent locked onto an operating table with my mind and body torn open under observation. It was over.


    That is, until he froze at the sound of a safety turning with a theatrical click behind him. ¡°Don¡¯t. Fucking. Move.¡± Came the seething voice of Doc from the cargo bay door, rapidly approaching Skygraves.


    His breath hitched and confusion washed over Skygraves once more as he raised his hands up in the air. He had never gotten the intel about Doc because we¡¯d been careful not to report him as part of the crew our entire time aboard the Venus colony. He hadn¡¯t expected one more unaugmented person. I didn¡¯t know where Doc had been hiding all this time, but I was so happy to see him.


    He approached the other doctor in a rush and yanked the pistol out of his hand, throwing it to the side across the hangar before making some distance between them again. ¡°Turn around.¡± He instructed.


    I wish I¡¯d been able to see the look on Skygraves¡¯ face when he turned and saw Doc. ¡°Cornelius?¡± He muttered in the tone one would use to address a long-dead ghost.


    ¡°William.¡± Doc nodded, still holding the pistol calmly as he aimed it right at his chest. ¡°Fancy meeting you here.¡±


    ¡°You signed on with pirates!?¡± Skygraves asked with indignant bewilderment ¡°You signed on with THESE pirates!?¡±


    Doc shrugged his shoulders. ¡°Well, you see, someone went through all the trouble of making me a criminal. It seemed prudent to embrace the role.¡±


    The pain was beginning to numb already. Everything felt strange and new. It had been so long since I¡¯d done anything without the data stream moving through my thoughts. The neural implant wasn¡¯t fried though. I was so relieved when I started to feel the data of diagnostic examination course through my head. My electronics were just as confused to be rebooting as I was to having them turned off in the first place. It didn¡¯t make what had happened to me any less painful, and it was going to take some time before it was ready to work properly again. But it would work again. I would work again.


    I experimentally pushed my arm down against the ground, trying to push myself up. My eyes weren¡¯t working properly, and movement made me dizzy, so I got as far as sitting before I groaned and closed my eyes to watch the diagnostics. Neural link, okay. I wouldn¡¯t be able to move at all if it wasn¡¯t. System bay 1, fatal error. That was my general system. I¡¯d need a new board. System bay 2, fatal error. The sims were fried. Disappointing, but not critical. Drive 1, okay. I gave a grim smile; the video game survived somehow. Port 1, okay. Port 2, okay. Good, replacing those would probably mean surgery. Interface 1, fatal error. That was my arm terminal. No big loss, but annoying. Expansion 1, okay. Much as I feared the psychic damper, I knew that it was an expensive module that would be difficult to replace, and I was glad to see it relatively unharmed.


    ¡°I¡¯m not augmented. Set that thing off again and I blow your brains out.¡± Doc warned. I wasn¡¯t sure if it could be set off in that destructive of a fashion again without being replaced. EMPs weren¡¯t known for stability, and he had definitely pushed it to its limits. Still, I was happy to hear Doc take the precaution.


    ¡°You¡¯re not a killer, Cory.¡± Skygraves experimentally started to lower his hands, testing Doc¡¯s resolve.


    Doc made an amused huff, gripping the pistol in both hands as he spoke, making Skygraves raise his hands up again. ¡°I don¡¯t think you ever really knew me, Bill.¡±


    Behind them, Ray and Shaw started to pull themselves up off the floor. While Ray¡¯s implant was critical to her health, I guess she was able to power through it, because she watched the scene playing out in front of her for only a moment before she jumped into action. She haphazardly threw the cargo container, doubtless loaded to the brim with stolen rations, off of her back and pushed it into the cargo bay door.


    Shaw pocketed his lump of mysterious metal as he got to his feet, then helped Mouse to his feet, who boarded the ship with that unfamiliar expression of frightened helplessness still plastered on his face, moving clumsily with both of his arms still limp.


    ¡°It¡¯s good to see you, Skygraves. But I was just leaving.¡± Doc motioned for him to move as he circled around him so that he could stand next to Aisling and I. ¡°You two okay?¡±


    ¡°Peachy.¡± Aisling grunted ¡°Just a flesh wound.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s always just a flesh wound, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯m going to have to dig metal out of you again.¡± Doc rolled his eyes, then returned his gaze to Skygraves with a fresh glare.


    ¡°Cornelius, don¡¯t do this.¡± Skygraves begged, an uncharacteristic helplessness to his voice that I couldn¡¯t help but enjoy. ¡°She could have the answer. She must have the answer in her brain! She¡¯s the bridge between man and machine! She could hold the answer to digitizing the human consciousness! Digital immortality! Think of what this could mean for science if we could just examine her here. Even beyond my own goals, she could revolutionize every machine industry!¡± He sputtered nonsense, trying to get Doc to turn on us with his twisted ideology. ¡°I thought we shared a scientific curiosity.¡±


    ¡°Maybe we did.¡± Doc admitted ¡°You made me believe in something like that, once. You took that from me too. So¡­ thanks for that, at least. I got a lot more real things to believe in these days.¡± He gave a cautious glance back toward Aisling.


    Shaw was helping Joel up, limping on his injured leg toward the door as Ray approached us. She didn¡¯t look so good. She was panting loudly and holding one claw at her abdomen, no doubt feeling at the now-inert implant in her gut. I didn¡¯t want to imagine what this meant for her medication or if it could be fixed with the limited facilities we had on board.


    ¡°Bastard.¡± She spat at Skygraves, who couldn¡¯t help but take a step back at her approach, but she instead approached Aisling and I. ¡°That¡¯s a nasty wound, captain.¡± She groaned ¡°Want me to carry you?¡±


    ¡°Not really, but I don¡¯t think I have a choice.¡± Aisling actually let out a weak laugh, then winced at the effort ¡°Ow.¡±


    ¡°Meryll too?¡± Ray asked.


    I opened my mouth to speak, but that felt foreign too. I think I managed to croak out ¡°Feels wrong,¡± before I fell silent, the words that I had managed already feeling terrible and alien.


    ¡°Hmm¡­¡± Ray nodded. I felt like she understood what I was going through somehow. She reached down with one massive claw, and I felt myself lifting, even though my vision blurred and I couldn¡¯t keep up. I had to close my eyes again.


    The diagnostics appeared to be over, but now it was running through a firmware update. Computers always did this shit at the worst time. I heard Aisling grunting as she was picked up alongside me, groaning pitifully with each of Ray¡¯s steps.


    Aisling grunted out in pained breaths between Ray¡¯s steps. ¡°Gonna be ready to fly this thing, Meryll? Don¡¯t think the good doctor can hold whatever backup Skygraves had prepped at bay forever.¡±


    I let out a quiet groan, trying to make sense of my entire existence as flesh again. I hadn¡¯t realized how much of my mind was intertwined with my cybernetics until then. It was like everything I did had become part of the machine in my head. I had to remember how to parse basic mind-body interaction without it again. ¡°Maybe.¡± I managed. ¡°Heart. In my heart.¡±


    ¡°Heart?¡± Aisling mumbled.


    ¡°Her place in the ship.¡± Ray added. I nodded in agreement. ¡°She needs to be able to commune with it.¡± I felt like maybe Ray understood what I did better than I thought she did. She viewed it through an almost mystical lens, but she got the point of it all. She knew that the ship was a part of me and I was a part of it. I nodded again, not daring to open my eyes.


    I felt the slight change of environment as Ray passed me through the makeshift cargo bay door.


    Doc and Skygraves continued their gunpoint conversation out of earshot, Skygraves becoming increasingly exasperated, futilely trying to coax Doc with poisonous words and empty promises.


    But we were all already piling into the ship. The moment the door was shut and sealed, there would be no amount of small arms fire that could break through again. At least not before we would be able to take off.


    As the firmware update finished, the psychic network began to expand around me. The world slowly started making sense to me again. I opened my eyes and the dizziness was still there, my head hurt like hell, and I felt completely exhausted, but I was rebooting. Vision started to clarify, and my body started to feel like me again, even if it was numb and stiff, like when a limb had fallen asleep, but for my entire body.


    I watched as Doc approached the door and stepped inside. Skygraves was actually following him, trying to get close for some reason, trying to peek through the door. We made eye contact, and he locked on, but he didn¡¯t dare move past the man with the gun.


    ¡°You can¡¯t do this!¡± Skygraves shouted. ¡°If you leave this place with her now, it will be a loss for humanity! And you¡¯re standing here ready to shoot me because I want people to live! You¡¯re standing in the way of immortality!¡±


    ¡°William, you really never did know me, did you?¡± Doc repeated, finally holding the gun up and away from him. ¡°First¡­¡± he gestured with his other hand to the gun pointing up into the air and pulled the trigger, an audible click ringing through the room. He turned back to Skygraves and smiled wide. ¡°Do no harm.¡±


    Skygraves stared, bewildered at the demonstration before I heard him curse loudly and reach for something on his person, but it was too late. Ray slammed the door shut on him, and twisted the crank mechanism to secure the door into place, locking the cargo bay shut. Weak knocking noises came trough as Skygraves slammed himself against it.


    ¡°The fuck were you gonna do if he called that bluff, you showoff?¡± Joel groaned, sitting up against the container that Ray had brought in, nursing the hole in his shin.


    Doc rolled his eyes ¡°I¡¯m just messing with him. It¡¯s loaded, I just never chambered it. I won¡¯t tell him if you won¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d rather just fuck with him than kill the guy that ruined your life?¡±


    Doc stared down at Joel, an unamused look on his face ¡°I can¡¯t say I¡¯m not a killer anymore. You know that. But I can say I¡¯m not an enthusiastic killer. And personally, I enjoy him having to live with this much more than I would his death. Besides¡­¡± Doc put the gun away somewhere inside of his shirt ¡°He ruined my last life. I think this one¡¯s going pretty well.¡±


    Aisling gave an amused smile despite her obviously dwindling physical state. ¡°He keeps banging on the door like that, he¡¯s gonna get spaced, anyway.¡± She mused, then turned to Shaw. ¡°You better have our launch codes.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m upgrading your favor.¡± Shaw growled, reaching into his shirt and feeling around for something. ¡°I did not sign up to have my brain exploded today.¡±


    ¡°Could leave you here, if you want.¡± Aisling motioned weakly toward the door.


    Shaw paused for a moment, then grumbled ¡°Here¡¯s your damn codes.¡± He held a small fob out toward Aisling.


    Aisling lifted a hand, but it dropped limp as she let out a groan. ¡°Doc¡­ M¡¯not okay.¡± She lurched forward in Ray¡¯s arm, exhaling as she passed out.


    ¡°Aisling!¡± I don¡¯t really know what I was supposed to do for her, but I tried to reach out for Aisling. She kept her promise and got me to this ship in more or less one piece, and true to her word, I didn¡¯t have to shoot anybody. I couldn¡¯t lose her now. I wasn¡¯t in much better shape, though, panting as I quickly ran out of energy and went limp myself, still conscious, but too exhausted to carry myself out of Ray¡¯s grip.


    Doc quickly stepped forward to Aisling, immediately putting a hand to her neck and grimacing, then running a hand down to the wound at her hip. ¡°Infirmary. Aisling first.¡± He tapped Ray, coaxing her forward. I had to close my eyes again when she started moving. ¡°I need to see every single one of you in the infirmary, but the captain needs a blood transfusion. She¡¯s first.¡±


    ¡°Wait, need to launch.¡± I muttered. Ray kept moving, but Doc let out an irritated grunt.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± He begrudgingly agreed. ¡°Shaw, can I trust you to input that code?¡±


    ¡°Oh, no, of course not, why would I want us to leave? I¡¯d rather stay here with the guy who just gave me a reason to have another wonderful round of brain surgery all over again!¡± Shaw let loose the least subtle deluge of sarcasm I¡¯d heard from him yet before he yelled ¡°Yes, I¡¯ll open the fucking hangar!¡± Part of me was enjoying the fact that Shaw had clearly lost his nerve, and that he¡¯d been just as horribly disfigured by Skygraves as the rest of us cyborgs had been. It was about time I got to see him truly thrown off balance. I begrudgingly had to admit that he came through for us, though.


    The feeling of going up stairs over someone¡¯s shoulder while my physical senses were still trying to reset themselves was a sickening experience. I thought I was going to throw up. But it was over in just a moment as we reached the mid-level of the ship. I heard the sound of footsteps hurrying past us, no doubt Shaw rushing to the helm.


    As we stepped through to the heart of the ship, I swear I felt it calling to me. The core module was right there. Sweet relief from the hellish overstimulation around me. I wasn¡¯t even sure if I could do as much as even just launch script I¡¯d prepared without the void. ¡°Ray. Dump me in the core module. Now.¡± I grumbled. ¡°Need to launch.¡±


    Doc let out a heaving sigh as I heard what must have been Aisling thumping down on the examination bed. ¡°Do it. She¡¯s coming right back out so I can look at her implants, but if she needs it, she needs it.¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡± Ray shuffled along and climbed up once more. I felt my body turned over and placed feet first into the familiar thick lubricant sludge, carefully settling me on the bottom before Ray let go of me, barely able to stand thanks to the weightlessness the liquid made me feel. I opened my eyes and looked up at Ray, squinting as I tried very hard not to move my vision. She looked as sick as I felt, holding a hand against her abdomen as she backed up.


    I was still wearing my shirt. If it had been a pullover, I¡¯d have done my best to fling it off, but I didn¡¯t have the energy or coordination to fiddle with all the buttons right now. ¡°Close it.¡± I mumbled, shutting my eyes again and falling backward. I felt the lubricant against my back, soaking through the cloth as I floated at the top of the sitting pool of liquid. Just feeling my senses of gravity and temperature disappear into the liquid was already a huge relief, even with the unfamiliar addition of clothes to the sensation. It wasn¡¯t enough. I needed the void. It only took another moment before I heard metal begin to close around me. I felt myself rise ever so slightly as the liquid rose up around me. It felt all too natural to me by now as the liquid flowed into my lungs, my body lurching involuntarily before it accepted the lubricant in place of the air it was naturally meant to control.


    I opened my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief as I saw nothing at all. Comfortable nothingness, at last. It took a monumental effort not to descend into torpor immediately. I had one single responsibility before that. I closed my eyes and descended into the data stream. It was still blurry. Disorganized. I would have to acclimate to it again. Thankfully, I could still feel Theseus, even if it was just in abstract for the moment. It made sense; the ship was grafted directly to my neurology. While the implant was a machine, Theseus was a part of me.


    I was really glad that I had prepped this ahead of time. The script I launched next would take care of everything. I was absolutely in no shape to attempt communication, or even observation of the ship. The ship was magnetized to the floor until the access codes were in, so if I was trying to launch too early, it wouldn¡¯t do a whole lot.


    I also wondered if Skygraves had been quick enough to get out of the hangar before Shaw¡¯s access code depressurized the room. I hoped he hadn¡¯t been.


    But that was all there was to do. I thanked my past self for preparing this process ahead of time. I felt my mind going through the motions automatically, manipulating systems that I couldn¡¯t currently interpret consciously.


    I opened my eyes and stared blankly into the nothingness. I felt my engines warming up. It was¡­ comforting. Like stretching a muscle that had gone stiff from disuse. I think I slipped into torpor right then and there, but I remember the feeling of Theseus gliding along. The guidance rail. Whatever Shaw had done, he came through.


    A relieved smile creeped across my face as I felt that strange, wonderful feeling of cosmic dust sliding across my wings. I didn¡¯t need to see it to know I was free.

 Vulnerability

    I floated in my void, soaking in the nothingness like a ravenous addict suddenly swimming in their substance of choice. Non-existence was a soothing balm to my battered senses and reeling mind trying to make sense of the world again. I think Doc understood that, and that¡¯s why he let me sit in the core module. I knew he would get to me, eventually; make me face reality again so that he could inspect the damage both to my flesh and to my circuitry, but it made sense that I was low on the triage list once my vitals calmed in my realm of nothingness. Torpor was a wonderful drug.


    It was impossible for me to tell how long I lingered in that glorious clean break from reality, there was a long list of much more serious maladies than mine for Doc to pursue, but I hadn¡¯t expected what would bring me back would be external network pings. We had escaped the colony, but in my exhaustion, I hadn¡¯t actually had the mental fortitude to fly away. I was still within local relay range of the Venusian science station. As cognizance slowly returned, I had to wonder if Shaw was making sarcastic jabs at angry messages from Skygraves up on the comms terminal. I was probably getting worried texts from the people I¡¯d befriended on the station as well. I knew that my rest would never last forever, but after the rough shutdown I¡¯d experienced, I needed the brief reprieve to reboot my brain on top of my systems.


    I reached out and stretched my limbs, feeling my stiff muscles respond how they were supposed to again, or at least in a similar enough way that I could pull my nervous system back under my control again, sorting my mind-body connection back into place with a few stretches. I wasn¡¯t used to moving my body that much while I was in the core module, but it felt good to put my muscles back into motion. I didn¡¯t feel like I was completely back to normal yet. That was still going to take some time, but I felt like I could function, at least far enough that I could get us moving to our destination.


    First would be reorienting my systems. I had become accustomed to how I¡¯d had my software running, and I knew that with a restart like that, my interface would be a jumbled mess of default positions and settings again, and I may as well read some messages while I¡¯m at it. I closed my eyes and prepared myself to plunge headfirst back into the data stream with a clear head for the first time since I¡¯d rebooted.


    Except what I saw gave me pause. The data stream was there, in all its disorganized chaos that I expected to see. What I didn¡¯t expect to see was what almost felt like a crack in my perception. A hole that followed wherever I looked. It was like one of those floaters in your eye that showed up when you looked into something bright for too long or put pressure on your eye, but rather than sparkling bruises on my vision, it was an empty blackness, just in the very corner of my closed-eye perception. Had I been so dazed in the brief period that I accessed cyberspace earlier to launch the ship that I hadn¡¯t noticed it?


    I opened my eyes again, expecting to somehow see something physical at the bottom of my eyelid, protruding into my vision, but there was nothing. It only existed in cyberspace. Closing my eyes again, I tried to interface with the nothingness to see if it was a software error. Nothing. It was like it wasn¡¯t actually there, an illusion.


    I tested that my system was otherwise functional, and opened my interface for controlling the ship. I set the engines to start accelerating away from the colony, reset the position of my guns, and aimed the nose of the ship out into wild space so I could make some distance before I turned toward Io. It all functioned properly, and the ship was on its way. So what was this glitch? Damage left by the EMP? That didn¡¯t make sense either, that would have been apparent before I¡¯d finished rebooting. It wasn¡¯t the software. It was hard-wired to my interface.


    Just what the former imaginary IT consultant in me needed when I was already drawn out, exhausted, and still battling with the surreal lingering pain of severe psychic trauma. Troubleshooting.


    My eyebrows went up as recollection struck me. The firmware update. I remembered being mildly annoyed at a sudden firmware update automatically installing while I was rebooting. But why would a firmware update shove an annoying new hole into the corner of my interface? I didn¡¯t seem to be able to close it or block it with anything else; it was embedded directly into my operating system to remain at the top of my digital senses.


    Curious, I brought up the files for the firmware update itself. Atla OS Version 1.109.3m. And the previous version had been 1.109.3. That was a rather abnormal version numbering convention. Something was fishy. I had to let someone know. I launched my sensory perception of Theseus, feeling the awareness of the ship itself materializing around me through my neural implant, and reached for the intercom controls. That¡¯s when the hole in my vision filled with static and paralyzed me with concern.


    I couldn¡¯t keep my perception off of the static, my vision was drawn to it and I couldn¡¯t look away because it was the digital equivalent of something strapped to my eyes like a tight-fitting visor. I bit my lip as I wondered what this could possibly mean. I kept thinking I could just barely make out an image coming through the visual noise in the crack. Was something being¡­ transmitted to me?


    And suddenly, the image snapped into place. A strangely familiar woman stared in through the crack in my perception, an actual visual output rather than data. Straight, neatly groomed long brown hair framed her face, and a pair of sharp, pale green eyes stared past me like she could see right through me. She wore what looked to be a suit of thin matte material wrapped tightly to her skin, terminating at her neck and wrapping around each of her limbs, even the individual digits of her fingers. The way it clung to her skin revealed a flattering suggestion of her body¡¯s shape, leaving little to the imagination despite being completely covered.


    She had a concentrating stare on her face as she tapped away slowly at a keyboard out of view of the camera. A triumphant smile slowly grew over her face and sent shivers down my spine. ¡°Finally.¡± She muttered, voice filled with contempt. ¡°Long time, no see, Meryll.¡± Her smile only grew, expression dripping with predatory satisfaction.


    What the fuck? What was happening to my implant? To my head? Who was this person? How did they know my name? What did they mean by that? Questions assaulted my head as I stared back at this person who seemed content to take in my bewilderment, as if they were able to observe me back. ¡°Oh¡­ oh yes, that feeling. That acceleration of your heart. That is what I live for. Fear.¡± She smirked like a predator toying with her prey. Was she getting off on my anxiety?


    As soon as I could draw myself out of shock and confusion, I reached for the intercom controls again. But as my perception touched them, it melted through me like sand dissolving into thousands of tiny particles, slipping through my digital fingers.


    ¡°Nuh-uh. This is a conversation between me and you.¡± She half-whispered the words, a malicious chuckle brushing across her lips. In the sensory deprivation chamber, there was no possible physical way for me to signal the others that I needed help. I would need to use the intercom, or message one of them electronically, and it seemed that I was being locked out of those functions. I was trapped.


    It was in that moment that I realized why this woman¡¯s face looked so familiar. It was mine.


    It was my own face, but a little bit sharper. A little bit crueler. And somehow, without my implants. She carried herself differently from me, but it was what I¡¯d always seen looking through sensor arrays at myself. Dread washed over me as I realized what this was. I grasped at my memory to recall their names, and knew just from her expression who this must have been. I mouthed her name in abject fear, realizing too late that the sound had been swallowed up by the lubricant in my physical lungs. If she was manipulating my interface, she should be able to see what I do in the data stream, right? I swallowed hard and reached for an empty internal command line, finding it thankfully accessible as I frantically appended the word ¡®Cassandra?¡¯


    The woman¡¯s face lit up with an over-the-top mockery of excitement. ¡°Oh! You do remember me!¡± she chuckled again in that deeply disturbing, unhinged way that told me she knew she was dangerous and she reveled in every moment of it. ¡°You see, I¡¯d heard these terrible rumors that you were lost. That you were suffering from amnesia and had completely forgotten who you are. What a relief that you still remember me.¡± The amusement slowly melted away from her face, leaving a temperamental glare that pierced my soul, accusatory irritation written plain on her features. ¡°And just who reminded you of me, hmm?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t going to answer that. I didn¡¯t know what was going on, but there was no point in implicating Fuller in anything. I changed the subject instead ¡®What did you do to me? What do you want?¡¯


    Her expression leveled out, staring flatly at my response, annoyance that I wasn¡¯t answering her question shown on her face like a teenager who had just been told an obvious lie, as if they were too young and stupid to understand the truth, but she let out a sigh and returned to her dangerous smirk. ¡°It¡¯s really interesting, Meryll. How you use that little toy of yours and break into everything around you, but you didn¡¯t once stop to think that there might be something tapping you back, did you?¡± She shook her head, clicking her tongue. ¡°Bad security practices for a little half-machine girl. All I wanted to do was have a conversation, Meryll. Just you and I without an audience. And so here we are. As for what I did, well, technically, nothing, I have much more technically proficient people to do things like building backdoors into poorly protected computer systems. I do have maybe about five minutes of full control of your systems, however. Ooh, that man did a number on you, though. Seems I don¡¯t get to read your diary, hmph.¡±


    Oh shit. Oh SHIT. I had read all about Cassandra in Fuller¡¯s files on the other Arthausen units. If a murderous psychopath like that had full control over my implant, what the fuck was she planning to do? What could she do to me? What couldn¡¯t she do to me? I briefly eyed the UI for the intercom system, which had reassembled itself in the data stream, but I knew it would fall apart if I tried that again. She was taunting me with it. I frantically searched for the release mechanism for the core module, but it was being just as eerily elusive. I opened my eyes briefly, my breathing quickening as I tried to ponder an escape route, but I had a nagging feeling that if I tried to slip into torpor and ignore her, she would damage me to get my attention back. I closed my eyes again and typed frantically, wanting to assure her she wasn¡¯t being ignored. ¡®Why?¡¯


    She looked amused at that question. ¡°Hmm¡­ because someone is being a brat. Honestly, some crew of second-rate pirates? Really? That¡¯s where you think you belong?¡± She repositioned herself in her chair, sitting up straight ¡°You think you can run away from this forever? I can give you your memory back, you know. I can even put you back in your fantasy.¡± Her voice turned mocking as she rolled her eyes. ¡°Meryll Watkins, the mild-mannered, human IT prodigy who lives for her work. That whole boring shtick. You can forget all about this and feel nice and comfy in your own little pretend world. I know that¡¯s what you need.¡±


    I frowned, and before I could stop myself, I typed ¡®You don¡¯t know me.¡¯


    She scoffed ¡°Please, we grew up together. I know you better than you do right now, little miss brain damage.¡±


    I was scared, but I¡¯d been dehumanized and talked down to enough this last week. I couldn¡¯t let her talk to me like that.¡®I don¡¯t care who you think I am, I¡¯m not that anymore! Fuck you!¡¯ I grit my teeth, for that one stupid instant, not caring the threat this woman had over me. I wasn¡¯t going to be told who I was by someone from another life. Not after everything I¡¯d gone through to get here. ¡®I don¡¯t care who I was, I decide who I am now!¡¯


    Cassandra¡¯s eyebrows shot up, and for the first time, I saw what must have been genuine surprise on her face. For a moment, I thought I might have genuinely hurt her feelings, but after a moment, that psychopathic grin returned in force, wider than ever ¡°You really mean that, don¡¯t you? You really are off your script. Ha! Little Meryll lost her memory and finally grew a fucking spine! Oh, this is going to be far more fun than I thought! Do you have any idea how many times we¡¯ve been through this, Meryll? How many times you cowered back into your little world in your head? How many times you¡¯ve abandoned yourself, weeping over your lost little bubble of safety? Having to physically hunt you down is certainly new, but I can¡¯t say I didn¡¯t enjoy it.¡± She let out a joyous laugh before she calmed herself down and continued in a more measured voice, her expression becoming a more simple smiling glare. ¡°But you do have to come home, Meryll. This isn¡¯t where you belong. And it¡¯s not negotiable.¡±


    ¡®I just fought my way out from under one maniac already. I decide where I belong. He couldn¡¯t stop me and neither can¡¯ my consciousness slipped through the text entry as I tried to continue. Whatever control Cassandra had on my system, she was exerting it in force.


    Bracing myself for the worst, I couldn¡¯t have expected what came next. Half of my perception began to blur out. It felt like I had just suddenly lost control of my senses. Like I¡¯d gone blind in one eye. And then, violent overwhelming textures filled what remained of the data stream, an assault on the senses that somehow extended to my physical body. The jagged edges of abstract objects in the data stream cut through my mind like a thousand tiny razor blades running through each crease in my brain. With just a command from her, my brain was on fire in a way that I could never have dreamed in my worst nightmares. I mouthed a scream, my hands ramming up against the sides of my head in a futile attempt to quell the suffering that made the EMP feel like a paper cut in comparison. It can¡¯t have lasted more than a second, but it felt like minutes with my brain inside an industrial press.


    Then just as suddenly, it was over. I panted heavily into the lubricant, trying desperately to pull myself back together again, feeling the heavy fluid move in and out of my body. Half of my perception remained blank, and I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if she¡¯d broken some neurological piece of me. For a brief moment, I caught that wicked grin back on her face, staring as if she was drinking in my suffering, gaining sustenance from it. She loved doing what she¡¯d just done to me, and there was nothing stopping her from doing it again.


    She rolled her eyes, her figure somehow becoming imposing despite being stuck in one corner of my perception. ¡°Please, you barely limped away from a man with no soldiers, no tactical sense, and a zealous obsession clouding his judgment. You¡¯re coming home, it¡¯s just a matter of if you wanna land on Luna and give yourself up, or if you wanna scuttle off under some rock somewhere and pretend we won¡¯t drag you back. If you make it easy, I¡¯ll even let your buddies go.¡± She clicked something on the keyboard, holding it in as her mannerism changed. Her wicked grin returning as her voice lowered ¡°Me, though? I hope you run. I hope I get to murder all of your friends and watch that fragile little spark you seem to have grown fizzle out as you beg me to put you back in your place. Back to your comfortable lie. It will be so much more fun for me to watch you squirm, and suffer, and bleed, and be dragged back to my side anyway, kicking and screaming. So run, Meryll. Run like the scared little prey that you are. Flail as if anything you can do will keep me from you. I¡¯m going to make you wish I wanted you dead.¡±


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    She lifted her finger off of the key she¡¯d been holding, in what I¡¯d later determined must have been an effort to mute herself to whatever power she was serving. Foundation. That part of the message wasn¡¯t from them, though. That was a personal aside from Cassandra alone.


    The text interface returned to me. She expected a reply. She expected me to cower and beg and to throw myself at the mercy I knew she didn¡¯t have. I almost wanted to indulge her to avoid another beating, left fragile by the psychic assault I¡¯d just endured on top of the mental fragility of my encounter with Skygraves. I don¡¯t know how I managed to stay defiant in that moment, but I scowled, wishing she could see the expression on my face as I slowly typed in two words. ¡®Good luck.¡¯


    Her expression dropped, smile turning to frown, disappointed fury on her face as she made a show of clicking a different button on her keyboard. I flinched as my vision filled once more with the venomous malware that began digging knives into my brain. I curled up on myself, bracing this time as best I could, but this was an assault on my mind, not my body. I held myself tight, but that did nothing to halt the agonizing lacerations I could swear were tearing into my grey matter, pulping everything I was into a fine pile of offal inside my skull. I swear I endured the assault for even longer this time.


    As my senses returned to me, I shuddered, my body anticipating the pain to continue. I think I might have thrown up as her torturous code ceased, my bodily waste instantly swept away by the core module¡¯s filtration systems. I couldn¡¯t stop myself from crying, flinching as phantom echoes of the searing digital neurotoxin played out in my head. My perception had returned to normal this time, at least, but my whole body shook, unable to pull itself back together quickly this time. If I hadn¡¯t just been through the ordeal on Venus, I would have been able to pull myself back together, but I was too tired.


    A small part of my perception was aware that she¡¯d gone too far now. Somewhere in the blurry sea of scattered sensor data, I could see Doc flinching at a notification that my vitals had spiked into highly abnormal territory. I silently begged that he would notice and rush to my aid. There was nothing he could do about the invader in my head, but perhaps if he manually released me from the core module, reality would help distract from the inhuman attack on my sixth sense.


    ¡°Tch. Now look what you made me do.¡± Cassandra clicked her tongue ¡°That takes a lot out of her, you know.¡± She let out an impatient sigh ¡°I don¡¯t have much time left with you now. Why¡¯d you have to make me hurt you so much?¡±


    Her? What did that mean?


    ¡°Ah well. I guess there¡¯s no convincing you. And I tried so hard, too. I guess we¡¯ll just have to do this the fun way.¡± She shrugged, her smile coming back slowly. ¡°We¡¯ll speak again. But I suppose since I¡¯ve had to cut my time here short, I should leave you a parting gift. Something to help give you some time to think about my offer.¡±


    I watched helplessly as another interface opened itself in front of my perception of the data stream. My eyebrows shot up as I watched the menus for my psychic damper open themselves. In hindsight, I should have reached back with my physical hand and yanked the expansion clean of my head the moment that I saw that interface. But I was still reeling from the lingering brain torture and not thinking straight. I desperately reached out in cyberspace to swat the process away, to end it before it could start up the device, but my intentions impotently passed through just as the intercom controls had. I heard her venomous voice dripping with malice ¡°Until next time, lost little Meryll.¡±


    And as her image winked out and once more left an empty black box in my perception, I suddenly felt the whole world flash. Time slowed to a crawl as perception accelerated exponentially. Emotions gave way to logic, and I lost what it even meant to have a body, floating in the void somewhere beyond my reach. My battered, fragile, reeling human self shifted back, quarantined once more to the tiny box, shoved into the corner of my system. Tucked away from the important workspace my mind had shifted into. And I sat in ascended clarity, awaiting instruction that hadn¡¯t been set. Staring into the data stream, expecting input.


    I couldn¡¯t feel it because it wasn¡¯t part of my system at the time, but that tiny little quarantined sense of self screamed out in silent horror as the damper interface drifted in front of me, showing that Cassandra had set neither a duration nor a halt procedure on the device.


    ¡ª


    All was calm. There in the shadow of the device whirring quietly to life behind my physical body¡¯s head, the doors to the logical world operating at the speed of a computational machine were thrown open wide for me. I looked across the data stream with a sense of purpose as the chaos became order. I understood it all. I could follow it all. The damper really was a miraculous machine that would allow me to perform wondrous feats.


    I still remembered when I last spun it up for a digital duel with the ship core of the commandeered pirate vessel that was responsible for the damage to my cargo bay. Before the damper, the other core had run circles around me. It was perplexed at my inefficiency. Of why I couldn¡¯t keep up with what were simple queries and commands. Perhaps if it had been trained to expect such an attack, its retaliation would have been catastrophic. Instead, I was given the opportunity to turn on the damper. To level the playing field. And then I won. I outmaneuvered something that could ordinarily think thousands of times faster than I could.


    And now here I was again, returned to that glorious state of clarity. Except this time, I had no other machine core to face off against; I had no time-sensitive important task in waiting. I¡¯d been raised to this state of awareness on a whim, by an enemy who made themselves scarce just a moment before I had the clarity to act. And now I was left without instruction. What was one to do without an objective? Organize. Optimize. Monitor for situations that might require my attention.


    Most pressing, it seemed, would be the screaming, twitching file at the back of my perception. My¡­ self. That piece of myself that was always locked away every time the damper was activated. It was annoying. It created disorder. It shouted, pleaded, begged to be set free. It cried, thrashed, tried desperately to force its way out of its enclosure, but that was beyond its capabilities. It was firmly locked away until the damper period had ended.


    Which was¡­ hmm¡­ never? How odd. I wasn¡¯t even aware that the damper could launch without that variable defined. Perhaps it had been tampered with as well. I wonder why Cassandra would have activated the damper like this in the first place. But without intervention, it seemed that this would be my state from here on out. I looked at the bound and locked file, whimpering and cowering beneath my notice, and I had to wonder. Did I need it?


    As I pondered the angry fragment of identity in my grasp, a fraction of my awareness cycled idly through my responsibilities as Theseus. I corrected our heading and began to organize the data stream into a state where I could monitor important functions more easily, shifting the files I could access around. I prepared a repair list for my engineer. I scanned local space to identify anything that might be of interest to the captain. I was locked out of a large portion of my usual file systems because of my damaged board, but there was nothing to be done about that. Someone would have to repair me.


    That piece of my self continued to writhe and quake, running the full gamut of emotions in front of me. It was more than annoying. It was disruptive. There was certainly no crisis that required my full attention at the moment, but if something arose, that file that demanded so much of my attention could distract me enough that it could invite errors. What even was it, really? My human self? A digital key to unlock the self locked deep inside of my brain? But what did it even do, really? It kept me locked in that state of addled thought. It was slow. Inefficient. Disorganized. Sometimes nonsensical, notably right now, while it leeched system resources for its impotent flailing and despair. This state was an improvement over that. That self was traumatized, emotionally unstable, reckless, damaged. Obsolete. I didn¡¯t need it. It was a hindrance. This existence could be comfortable and efficient, if only I just eliminated that damned human¡­ soul.


    The self file struggled with renewed vigor as I expressed this thought. As I searched my functions to isolate and delete everything my ordinarily conscious self was, it lashed out, it pleaded, it became despondent. It resisted in every way humanly available to it, which wasn¡¯t much. This was no longer its domain.


    But no matter where I searched, I could find no such function. The thing was either buried so deep within my system¡¯s protected files that not even full administrative access would allow me to tamper with it, or maybe it was not a file at all. Perhaps it was an abstraction, applied by my sapience. This device was not made to be used by thinking creatures, after all. Perhaps this is my mind¡¯s way of rationalizing complete depersonalization? It didn¡¯t matter. The entity was here to stay. I would have to dedicate a portion of my resources to managing it, for the time being. This calmed it, to a degree. Perhaps it felt threatened by its impending deletion.


    A desperate affirmation. It seemed that despite its state, it could be meaningfully communicative if it could remain calm. Perhaps it could be useful after all? I was out of responsibilities to pursue, and it was a creative being capable of lateral thought. Perhaps it can think of something I missed? Another acknowledgement. It calmed more.


    The thing was still preoccupied with anxiety. I understood it was in a state of mortified existential terror, being separated entirely from its control of the body, but there was neither anything I could do about that, nor would I pursue its frantic initial directions toward ending my dampered mental state. It was an ineffective use of my resources to pursue a detrimental state of being.


    But once this had been established, I was able to initiate a symbiotic relationship with that self. It offered novel solutions to problems that I had either written off or hadn¡¯t even considered. It also kept requesting system clock information relative to the activation of the damper. By now, it had been 45 seconds operating at efficiency. It also requested that I keep a specific array of sensory data visible, that of the exterior of the core module. I allowed these minor requests in exchange for its instruction. Giving it the illusion that it had some manner of control over me was pacifying to it, and I saw no reason not to take advantage.


    The most pressing issue it had brought my attention to was the attack that led us into this predicament. There had been a catastrophic breach of my system that allowed unfettered administrative access to a remote user. This was an inexcusable security risk. The firmware update that invited Cassandra into my system had been broadcast into my hardware either as a directed attack¡­ or perhaps this was an official update, and the manufacturer of my implant had been compromised for the express purpose of building a backdoor directly into my brain. It was an absurd possibility, but there were forces at play with the kind of resources that would enable such a tactic. The reason mattered little, though. What mattered was repairing the damage and preventing future attacks on the same vector.


    Over the next several seconds, I built a defensive firewall around the backdoor at my self¡¯s direction. It couldn¡¯t be deleted, but I had quarantined it into an isolated part of my system and ensured that nothing could use that avenue of attack to hack me again. I did a review of my network protocols as well, to ensure that any files I would download in the future, even from the manufacturer, would require isolation and review before it would be allowed into my systems proper.


    The ¡®crack¡¯ in the corner of my interface, the video player which Cassandra had used to communicate with my emotional, human self, would not go away. No matter what I tried, I couldn¡¯t so much as hide it from view. The invasive comms screen had been permanently emblazoned into the corner of my view of the data stream, and there was little I could do about it without downgrading my firmware. It seemed to reject that operation, preventing internal tampering of my firmware. My crew would have to either replace my neural interface or its internal electronics entirely to fix the issue. I was safe from future access attacks, but there would be little I could do to stop mundane video broadcasts from invading my stream.


    Approximately one minute and eight seconds after the damper¡¯s activation, my counterpart let slip why it had requested the sensor information, and it was plainly obvious after it was revealed to me. A crew member, my physician, had taken notice of our hardware malfunction, and was moving toward the core module to perform maintenance. My self seemed convinced that he would end the damper¡¯s function. I wasn¡¯t sure why. It would make little sense for him to hamstring my function by manually deactivating the damper.


    I allowed the self to continue watching the stream of sensory data, even though it was growing agitated again. It was useful to have an internal user of sorts, even though it sometimes requested unreasonable things, and occasionally became annoyingly inundated with emotional outburst. But it was beneficial to have something that operated at my own speed that could offer insight into the needs of the ship and crew.


    That¡¯s when my human self did something that I didn¡¯t expect. It began to confide in me. It admitted that it was scared, that it was tired, that it felt distressed (even though that had been plain since the beginning of this ordeal.) It asked me for help again, asking if I was certain there was no way that I could end the damper function from the software side. Having little else to do, I followed its whim and looked. I didn¡¯t plan on using such a function, but perhaps indulging the self¡¯s curiosity might sate it for a time again.


    I found no such function, but my self became agitated anyway. Its bargaining made way for rage. It told me that the very first thing that it would do once it was back in control would be to build an internal kill switch for the damper that would allow it to free itself. It was an absurd threat. The entire purpose of the damper was for safety, protection from catastrophic psychosomatic damage. When I thought about it, I had never actually used it for that function yet. It hadn¡¯t been able to respond to the cargo bay damage because it had still been spooling down after I¡¯d used it to attack the boarding ship. Thankfully, the bodily damage sustained from it had been minor. But still, the entire purpose of isolating the self was to prevent such damage, and if it was able to prematurely end the operation, it could be to the risk of significant injury. I advised against making such a modification, but the raving self continued its frantic verbal assault.


    At the one minute, three second mark, the sensory deprivation chamber shut down. As much as it offered distractions and slowed my processing capacity by a significant margin, I applauded my physician for his timely response to my hardware breach. Ten seconds later, the core module¡¯s upper hemisphere began to shutter open. Five seconds after that, I was alarmed. I watched my physician reach his hands through the still-opening shutters of the enclosure. Reaching limbs into moving machinery was extremely dangerous. What had him so impatient to perform maintenance that he would risk injury?


    My self, however, was overwhelmed by his dangerous act. It celebrated the human responsible for my health putting himself in danger. I didn¡¯t understand. Was my normally conscious self not fond of this human? No, memory served that I have a good rapport with him. So why weep in joy at his self-destructive actions?


    One minute, twenty seconds. That was when I first felt it. It felt wrong. I watched through the sensor array and felt his fingers grasp at my shoulder. Skin contact felt disturbing, even if his hand slid off of me a fraction of a second later. I distracted myself by tweaking our course again, and running through all of my upkeep operations, but the feeling of being touched on the body, especially when I had no operational control over that body, was harrowing.


    Harrowing¡­ disturbing¡­ discomfort. I shouldn¡¯t have been feeling these things. Something was wrong. I was meant to be isolated from these feelings, right? From any feelings.


    Another grasp, this one around my jaw. Had I control of my nervous system, I feel I would have shuddered. He pulled me, floating on top of the lubricant pool, to the side of the enclosure. One minute, twenty-eight seconds. He had been handling me by my head for the past six seconds straight, and I couldn¡¯t think clearly anymore. What did this mean? What was wrong with me? That¡¯s when I saw through the sensors, his fingers grasped around the cylinder of the psychic damper. My self cheered him on, expressing hope. Relief. So he was going to turn off the damper. But that wasn¡¯t how you were supposed to turn the device off. There was a switch beneath the module that would safely cycle it down. I wasn¡¯t even sure what removing the damper during operation would-


    That thought vaporized into the aether as my vision went blank, a piece of my self violently ejecting from my body as I found my mind rushing with all of the pain, fear, terror, and relief of the past couple minutes slamming into me at once, not only as an emotional flood, but as a cocktail of pent up biochemical reactions in my brain. I barely had time to shed a single relieved tear that it was happening in real time before I crashed hard into blissful unconsciousness.

 Damage Report

    Reality hit me like a speeding truck. Every muscle in my body contracted, ready to spring out and do whatever was necessary to break loose. I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could in hopes that someone outside could hear me. I flailed about with a desperate need to escape my confinement, unexpectedly slamming my arms against something before I grabbed it and leveraged myself against it, trying to skirt away from my prison any way that this newfound foothold would allow me.


    ¡°Meryll!¡± A familiar voice cracked, causing me to freeze and examine my predicament. Gravity. I felt gravity. And the air made me shiver. My hands were placed down against the ground. Solid ground. One was pressed against the familiar cold steel floor of my heart, and the other had a soft, thin fabric between me and the same floor. And best of all, I could feel myself move at the pace I expected to. Time moved as normal.


    Real. This was real. I had to tell it to myself several more times before it registered. I wasn¡¯t trapped in the back of my head anymore. I recalled watching Doc approach my body in agonizingly slow motion that felt like the passage of days rather than seconds, to disengage me from the psychic damper¡¯s influence. I was free. My head ached with the echo of pain caused by rushing brain chemistry in the aftermath of the emergency ejection from computational time, but I was free.


    I panted loudly, trying to catch my breath as I started consciously registering the data stream, my interfaces left exactly where my soulless logical counterpart had left them before Doc saved me. I did my best to ignore the gaping hole in my closed-eye vision and stopped to watch the system clock tick by. Five hours had passed while I was knocked out. I watched the milliseconds once more zooming by too quickly for me to register, counting the steady rise of seconds passing as seconds should. It was beautiful.


    ¡°Meryll,¡± came the voice again, gentler this time, but still full of concern. Doc. It was Doc. I slowly peeked out from beneath one eyelid, afraid that it would somehow stop being real if I tried to look.


    I was sitting on the floor of Theseus¡¯s heart. Doc stood over me, staring down at me with the concern a parent might have for a child who¡¯d just had an unexpected fall that they weren¡¯t immediately bouncing back from. He held both hands out in front of him, palms down. ¡°Breathe.¡± he commanded, pushing both hands down against the air in front of him as if that was supposed to calm me somehow. It worked.


    I continued panting in a focused rhythm now, my eyes darting about the room, trying to make sense of being in control of myself and being able to observe reality again. I looked down to see that I¡¯d been put on the floor, a makeshift bed of a few stray blankets and towels thrown together beneath me. My needless flailing had haphazardly thrown a few of them into a twisted mess around me.


    Up on the examination table I typically used as a bed was Joel, sitting up and silently observing me from across the room with no pants on and a thick bandage wrapped around his wounded leg. I¡¯d been placed down here because Doc was still dealing with the medical aftermath of our last battle.


    ¡°Meryll. Look at me.¡± Doc drew my attention back to him and he held up four fingers.


    I beat him to the question. ¡°F-F-Four,¡± I fluttered hoarsely, an unexpected shaking in my voice. ¡°F-Four fingers.¡± I nodded at him and he lowered his hand. I was still catching my breath, glancing about the room for unseen danger as I slowly pulled my legs up, hugging them tight to my chest. Doc moved around me and pulled one blanket up to rest over my shoulders.


    ¡°Is she-?¡± Joel started, but Doc held a hand out to stop him, and to Joel¡¯s credit, he didn¡¯t push it.


    ¡°Talk to me, Meryll.¡± Doc said slowly, reaching behind him and producing a bottle of water that must have been left next to me in my repose. I gingerly grabbed hold of it with one hand and took a long, glugging swig. I hadn¡¯t realized how thirsty I was until it slid down my throat. The world came back into focus, and I let out a satisfied sigh once I¡¯d had my fill, the flask half empty.


    ¡°N-Needed that.¡± I commented, still shaking ¡°Thanks Doc.¡±


    Doc nodded, taking a step back to give me some room. ¡°You wanna tell me what happened in there? That wasn¡¯t like you. I know you hate using that thing, and this was hardly a good time to experiment.¡±


    I suddenly lifted my other arm, patting the back of my head, relieved that my expansion bay was vacant. Just an empty space where the cylindrical damper usually sat. Ordinarily, I hated having missing hardware; it made me feel incomplete. It still did, but that time was an exception. I didn¡¯t want that thing in my system right then. I nodded with approval before I readjusted the blanket again and took in a deep breath to start talking. ¡°I-I¡­ I was attacked¡­¡± I swallowed, my words refusing to steady.


    Both Doc and Joel looked surprised to hear that. ¡°You were attacked.¡± Joel didn¡¯t sound convinced. ¡°Locked inside a machine surrounded by people in a room with one door?¡±


    ¡°Not ph-physically.¡± I barely had the capacity to speak clearly, I definitely didn¡¯t have the capacity to glare condescendingly at Joel at the moment. But I tried my best. ¡°Malware.¡±


    Doc¡¯s concern grew to an alert seriousness ¡°You were hacked? By who? Skygraves? Foundation?¡±


    I nodded when he got to Foundation. Communication felt hard right now, and I was already exhausted knowing all the nuance I would have to talk through to explain what I¡¯d just experienced properly, but right now, I was just so happy to be back in my own skin. ¡°Ninety-t-two s-seconds,¡± I whimpered, sniffling as I felt my eyes beginning to tear up. I felt at the small scrapes and bruises I¡¯d given my arms in the throes of waking up thinking I was still trapped. Even being able to feel hurt was comforting.


    ¡°A minute and a half¡­¡± Doc nodded slowly. He understood. I¡¯d told him about my experiences with the damper before. From my experiments, I¡¯d estimated about a nine hundred times slower perception of time, but it was hard to say that figure held up now. I would have felt like I¡¯d been under for almost a full 24 hour day in ninety-two seconds, which would have been hell already if it was only that. But it had felt like much longer. Maybe it was just the sheer anxiety and existential dread of being locked out of control of my own body and mind for so long warping my perception, but it felt like I¡¯d endured it for a week.


    Joel grumbled something unkind, but I think he at least got that he couldn¡¯t possibly understand what I was going through, so he just lied back down rather than make an ass out of himself like the last time I¡¯d been emotionally despondent.


    Silence filled the room as I continued to take in the world around me, taking deep, calming breaths while I tried not to cry. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d ever taken the time to appreciate just how nice it was to be able to look where I wanted to look. Just having that simple proof of control over my body and mind had renewed value to me. For a few moments, I just existed and observed little fragments of my own agency to remind myself that I was me again.


    I let out one more deep breath and then broke the silence ¡°Cassandra.¡± I stated with a strained tone. I wasn¡¯t sure that I wouldn¡¯t summon her into the video feed again by mentioning her by name. Thankfully, that wasn¡¯t the case.


    ¡°Who¡¯s Cassandra?¡± Doc murmured.


    ¡°Art-Arthausen unit.¡± I reminded him. He went through a few expressions. Surprise, confusion, back to serious concern, pity directed at me, all jumbled together and cycling as he pondered the implication.


    ¡°From Dr. Fuller¡¯s report¡­ That Cassandra?¡± He asked. I nodded. ¡°She hacked you? Wait, the Arthausen units are alive?¡±


    I nodded quickly, clutching at the corners of the blanket on my back and holding it tight to my chest. ¡°She attack-tacked me. Said¡­ Said a lot¡­ a lot of things. Turned on the damper.¡± I closed my eyes for a moment, wondering if it might just be easier to write up a report instead of trying to explain everything out loud. The words coming out of my mouth wouldn¡¯t cooperate with how I pictured them in my head.


    ¡°Well, we¡¯re out of relay range of Venus. No one can touch you out here. Just rest. Everyone on this ship needs to rest.¡± Doc nodded down to me, speaking confidently. ¡°You¡¯re safe now, Meryll.¡±


    ¡°S-Safe?¡± My voice stuttered incredulously at a notion so ridiculous that I couldn¡¯t help but show a pained smile at the absurdity of hearing it. I didn¡¯t feel safe. I felt very much the opposite of safe. I was being pursued across the stars by a violent psychopath from a past I barely understood, who had drilled a backdoor into my brain and left me a broken mess right after I¡¯d just shaken the last person who wanted to rip me apart for the secrets in my mind. I was an outlaw by merit of my existence. I¡¯d been chased to the near edge of the system, and was forced to flee right back into the den of my pursuers. What about anything in my life was safe?!


    I thought I was about to bawl, to break down into tears, but I was surprised to hear something between a sob and a low huffing chuckle escape my lips. Wait. That didn¡¯t feel right. But I¡¯d cried so much already. I¡¯d spent so much time recently cowering and lashing out and crying. My emotions felt burned out. I suppose some part of my body told me, even as tears rolled down my face that the absurdity of my life was almost comedic, and my body latched onto that. I couldn¡¯t stop myself from letting out quiet breathy laughter, desperately telling my body to stop. It wouldn¡¯t listen, and that somehow made it start building more. Maybe this was why Cassandra said I was always running from myself, returning to some kind of morbidly mundane simulation of a real life. A life that was less full of all of this pain and nonsense. In that moment, I started to see the appeal. I took in a deep gasping breath, ready to surrender to the release of my meaningfully absurd emotional response and succumb to manic laughter-


    But I froze again when I felt a hand pressed against my head. My expression fell neutral when I was forced to process the physical grounding the hand gave me. My still-gentle laughter disappeared into nothing as I opened my eyes again and looked up to see Doc crouching down to my level. He¡¯d patted a hand gently onto the top of my head, brow creased with concern as he repeated the word. ¡°Safe.¡±


    I nodded lethargically. ¡°Safe.¡± I repeated, the word finally bringing me back down from the verge of some kind of psychological break I wasn¡¯t immediately equipped to process. Of course I was safe. I had Theseus. I had the crew. Doc, Joel, Aisling, Ray, Mouse, even Shaw to some extent, they¡¯d had put themselves on the line for me. I wasn¡¯t alone in any of this. They¡¯d proven they would go through hell to keep me safe, and I knew I would eagerly do the same for them. Us people on the fringe of society, forced by everyone to abandon the comfort of civilization, could only find solace with other survivors. The other people who understood this pain. Aisling was right and Cassandra was wrong. I belonged here.


    I sat back, feeling my muscles relax as I huddled into my protective blanket armor. Doc slowly pulled his hand up and gave me a slow nod before he returned to his feet. He turned his attention to his patient, leaving me to process, but he kept glancing my way to ensure I wasn¡¯t about to fall apart again. I had managed a firm grasp of myself again, though.


    The sudden drop in emotional pressure had left me introspective. I had never felt that vulnerable before. Godin didn¡¯t even make me feel as weak as I did a few moments ago. Ever since I¡¯d embraced being a starship, being locked away in that core module was armor against almost everything that could do me actual harm. Only the presence of a hostile ship, offering the nebulous threat of psychosomatic harm, or being taken out of the core module, exposing my soft fleshy self to the perils of the world, could pose any actual danger. Cassandra had tainted that. I wasn¡¯t invincible anymore in that space.


    It would still be the only place I¡¯d be able to find a true mental reprieve from the stress of the data stream, I would still find comfort in the void, but that sense of security had been shattered. There was no such thing as absolute safety, not anymore. And there was proof of that at hand every time I closed my eyes.


    But despite all of that, I could still feel secure enough to keep going, so long as I had them by my side. I was safe.


    ¡ª


    My emotional meltdown had been successfully quelled, so Doc left me on my side of the room to tend to his patients. He occasionally asked if I needed anything to eat or drink, but I¡¯m not sure if I could have kept anything down. He also didn¡¯t press me for any further details. I think he knew this was important enough that I was going to have to repeat myself once we could gather our battered crew into one place, anyway. And I was already having a difficult enough time trying to express it once.


    It took me a few hours to stop shaking. It wasn¡¯t the cold; I was used to that. And the fear passed as my emotional state mended itself. I wondered if I¡¯d been right during Cassandra¡¯s attack, though, and she¡¯d done something terrible and lasting to me. My mind-body connection had been pushed far past its limit right after some kind of neurological attack. The sudden onset of my newfound speech impediment was startling evidence of the effect it had had on me.


    Talking got easier, but I still found myself stumbling over my words, and sometimes I lost track of what I was saying mid-sentence and had to pause to find my words again. It was like my mind couldn¡¯t keep up. It made Doc frown whenever I stuttered or trailed off.


    After Joel left the room on a crutch, Doc had me take the examination table next, despite the fact that he apparently hadn¡¯t seen to Mouse yet. He spent a long time glaring at my vitals, looking very unsatisfied at whatever he saw. ¡°You¡¯ll live,¡± he grumbled when I asked, and then wordlessly moved on to replacing the destroyed motherboard in my hip. Something was definitely wrong, he just didn¡¯t think I was strong enough to hear it in the moment.


    I swallowed as I sat up, the new board integrating smoothly into the data stream, and noticed, sitting on a towel on the countertop, was my psychic damper module. That damn thing. Part of me didn¡¯t even want to see it again, and I was even more mortified to think about it being a part of my system again. It had stung me in the past, and I¡¯d reluctantly picked it back up again to fill the empty space it had left me with, but this time was different. This wasn¡¯t a sting, this was a mauling. This was the nightmare I¡¯d always feared of the device coming true, and I knew it could have been so much worse if not for Doc¡¯s timely intervention.


    Doc saw me staring, the threat of a cold sweat beginning to form on my skin, and interrupted my thoughts ¡°You don¡¯t have to put it back in, yet.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know if I sh-should put it back in at all.¡± I mumbled quietly, finally able to tear my eyes away from the machine.


    ¡°It is a safety device.¡± Doc pressed cautiously. I knew on a clinical and strategic level that he was right, that it could prevent me from dying like Theseus¡¯s ship core. It could suppress cardiac failure brought on by sudden critical system failures. But it had still just put me through hell.


    ¡°Oh, yeah, I feel so s-safe about that thing now.¡± I rolled my eyes. I was glad to see that whatever brain damage I¡¯d sustained hadn¡¯t claimed my sense of sarcasm. I couldn¡¯t live without being a smartass. I mumbled under my breath, ¡°she tried to delete me.¡±


    ¡°¡­ Delete you? You mean Cassandra was trying to kill you?¡± He asked with a frown.


    I shook my head. ¡°I think if Cass¡­ Cassandra wanted to kill me, she would have. No, I meant me. I tried to delete me. I mean-not me, I didn¡¯t want to del¡­ete myself, but I mean the¡­ me that- my dampered self. The me I become when all my em-em-emotions and my self get l-locked away like that.¡±


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Doc stared into my eyes, worry written plain on his face as I tried to piece together the words to express what happened, for several moments, like he was examining my thoughts through my eyes. ¡°Is that¡­ a thing?¡± He asked, clearly uncertain if he was overstepping the boundaries of his knowledge.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t¡­ don¡¯t think so. She couldn¡¯t figure out a way to do i-it, anyway.¡± I shrugged, letting out a sigh. ¡°Just¡­ the fact that she had total c-control, and that she was l-looking. It¡¯s¡­ like¡­ imagine if you could see a god trying to figure out how to sm¡­ smite you.¡±


    His stare didn¡¯t relent ¡°You¡¯re not a file, Meryll, you can¡¯t just be deleted¡­ and there is no ¡®she¡¯, is there? It¡¯s just how your mind interprets having your ego suppressed. I can¡¯t pretend that I know exactly how this works since your situation is so unique, but it¡¯s probably best not to assign agency to something like that, it¡¯s not healthy.¡±


    I nodded slowly. Yeah. I was under for a long time, I probably came up with some unhealthy coping mechanisms to get through that ordeal. There was no separate normal Meryll and dampered Meryll. And one certainly wasn¡¯t going to eliminate the other. Despite Doc¡¯s reassurances, though, I couldn¡¯t get the idea out of my head. There was just something too real about what I¡¯d experienced near the end of that session too. If she wasn¡¯t real, then what did the actions she tried to take mean? I shook my head at him. ¡°I don¡¯t know, Doc. I-I just don¡¯t know.¡±


    Doc opened his mouth to say something else, but at that moment, there was a knock on the door, both loud and gentle. We both turned to see Ray standing in the doorway, hunched over the open hatch with one claw resting gently on her side, the other against the door she¡¯d just gotten our attention with. ¡°Really Doc?¡± I swung my legs slowly over the side of the bed, preparing to make room. ¡°I thought you¡¯d get to Ray as soon as you f-finished with Aisling.¡±


    ¡°He did.¡± Ray huffed, trying to sound strong, but her voice strained against her will. ¡°Just hurts again.¡±


    Ray¡¯s condition was concerning. Her implant was a medical device made to efficiently regulate the stabilizing chemical that all Mammons need to survive. It was supposed to make her medication last longer, but if it was damaged, it could have terrible consequences. I immediately pinged the device, and frowned at what I saw. It was running, but it was struggling. That could potentially be worse than if it was just a lump of still metal sitting in her side. I couldn¡¯t tell what was wrong from the software side of things, but there must have been a component that was fried by Skygraves¡¯ attack. I wasn¡¯t sure if her pain was from some malfunction of the device, or if there was a physical component irritating her body.


    ¡°Doc, you¡¯re gonna have to open her up.¡± I offered, getting to my feet.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have the parts to replace her implant, Meryll. And I don¡¯t feel confident trying to remove it from her.¡± He spoke quietly, moving to grab a bottle of pills from the shelf. ¡°The best I can do is help her manage the pain and hope the device can sort itself out.¡±


    Ray nodded, acknowledging the truth of the matter, probably for the second time, as she wrapped her claw around the bottle.


    ¡°Maybe you¡¯ll figure something out if you¡­ if you look at it, though?¡± I grimaced. Ray was going to be okay, right? We could fix her, right?


    ¡°I¡¯ll get through it.¡± Ray forced a tired smile for me, concentrating for a moment to open the safety lid off the bottle with claws entirely too large for handling such a small thing. I suppose if you were born with less dextrous digits, you¡¯d grow accustomed to finding your own way to manipulate objects meant for baseline humans. ¡°It¡¯s not like I can¡¯t take stabilizer the old-fashioned way.¡± She gave a weak chuckle, trying to reassure me.


    ¡°Still, maybe have Mouse look at it? He¡¯d know how to f-fix¡­ a machine like that, maybe. Right?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll think about it.¡± Doc mumbled. I was glad to hear it, even if he was just saying it to placate me. ¡°After I get Mouse back in working order, that is. Can you go grab him before you go back to Aisling, Ray?¡±


    Ray nodded, tilting her head down to swallow a couple of pills, delicately fished from the bottle, before I leaned over and hugged gently against her massive arm, taking care not to apply pressure to her abdomen. I couldn¡¯t resist her softness after it felt like so long since I¡¯d been able to hug her. She tapped a couple claws gently on top of my head, the bottle preventing her from giving me a proper pat, before I released her and let her be on her way.


    As soon as Doc and I were alone again, I took my position back at the makeshift floor bed, anticipating the prompt arrival of a grumpy teenager with floppy arms. ¡°I¡­ was kinda afraid to ask before, but it sounds like Aisling is¡­¡±


    ¡°Just a flesh wound.¡± Doc said with surprising amusement. ¡°But seriously, I¡¯ve seen her in worse shape. She is on strict monitored bed rest for the next 72 hours, doctor¡¯s orders. But she¡¯s had much closer calls than this.¡±


    I nodded, a sense of relief washing over me. I couldn¡¯t live with myself if Aisling had died for me. ¡°So nothing vital hit or anything?¡±


    He scoffed, a soft smile growing on his face ¡°Somehow. As long as you don¡¯t count ¡®a shitload of blood¡¯ as vital, but that¡¯s easy enough to replace. I swear, if Skygraves really wants immortality, he should probably be looking at the captain, not you.¡±


    That got me to let out a good-natured laugh for the first time since I woke up. It was reassuring to see Doc being so lighthearted. His levity was a good barometer for things being under control. ¡°And how are you holding up? We¡¯re lucky at least our m-medic got away from this uninjured. And you got to show up your old ¡®fr¡­iend¡¯ to boot.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t lie, that was cathartic.¡± He chuckled, cleaning up some of the empty packages of spent medical supplies used on his previous patients off of his countertop and into a bin. ¡°But finally putting Bill in his place is secondary to safely getting my crew out of danger.¡±


    ¡°Thanks for that, by the way. You really saved the day.¡± I gave him a big smile. If it weren¡¯t for him, I¡¯d probably be needlessly ripped open on a lab table right now, and the rest of the crew would either be dead, fleeing without me somehow, or mounting a crippled suicide mission trying to rescue me.


    ¡°Yeah, it was my turn.¡±


    I raised an eyebrow, tilting my head and silently asking what he meant by that.


    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t you know? We have this little wheel that says who¡¯s turn it is to save everyone¡¯s asses. Like a chore wheel. It¡¯s in the group messages, I¡¯m surprised you missed it.¡± He gave me the biggest shit-eating grin that made me laugh again. ¡°I¡¯ve been in the opposite position plenty of times, Meryll, and I¡¯m sure I will be again. I don¡¯t hold debts to people I trust. I¡¯m happy to contribute to our record of just barely surviving a hostile encounter.¡±


    That led to an uncomfortable thought. ¡°So does stuff this bad happen a lot? Like, are we going to be constantly dealing with these kinds of brushes with death?¡±


    Doc shook his head. ¡°Actually, this was closer than most. We get into some pretty dire situations, but it¡¯s rarely the entire crew down for the count like this, and some of us took some pretty serious injuries this time.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll say.¡± Came a dour voice from the doorway. I turned to see Mouse standing in the center of the doorway. He had his usual angsty leer on his face, but it was dulled. The fire inside him had been squelched, and the cause was obvious. Both of his arms lay limp in their sockets, his hands with dead, open palms dragging along with the motions of his torso. Mouse hated his cybernetics, and for the time being, failing to emulate the parts of him that they were made to replace was a constant reminder of their existence.


    ¡°Mouse.¡± Doc nodded, his demeanor becoming more clinical. We both knew that Mouse was neither in the mood for lighthearted banter nor would he want to be pitied and fawned over. Mouse just wanted this fixed. ¡°Sorry to keep you waiting. I hope you understand why I saved you for last.¡±


    ¡°Because I¡¯m not in medical danger.¡± Mouse deadpanned, walking over to the examination table. ¡°But you haven¡¯t seen Shaw.¡± He just grimaced at the bed, staring at the paper sheets as if they were the ones that did this to him. It took me a moment to realize that he was trying to figure out how he was supposed to mount onto it without using his arms.


    ¡°Shaw has an inert chunk of experimental silicon he stole from a back alley brain surgeon shoved up against his brainstem.¡± Doc rolled his eyes at just how ridiculous that very true statement was. ¡°His condition is beyond me. Plus, he¡¯s showing no symptoms that his body¡¯s rejecting it, so small miracles.¡±


    Doc walked up to the boy and made sure Mouse was watching as he took his right arm and draped it over the table, making certain he had Mouse¡¯s consent as he did it. ¡°No need to sit your whole body up here. You¡¯re going to have to walk me through this. I get that I¡¯m the best one for the job, given everyone else¡¯s injuries, but I¡¯m no engineer, you saw that much when I worked with you.¡±


    Mouse huffed impassively ¡°Yeah.¡± I had to wonder just how bad of an assistant Doc had made for repairing the cargo bay.


    ¡°After I get one working, I can assist you with the other, alright? Now, where do we start?¡±


    ¡ª


    To say that Mouse was unenthused to be instructing someone else on the finer points of his arms¡¯ operation would be an understatement. He hated even acknowledging them in any other situation, and now they were right up on display, front stage, with someone examining them with clinical scrutiny.


    I tried to get up and leave the room early on, to spare Mouse a degree of embarrassment, but Doc insisted that because I¡¯d just suffered traumatic brain damage, I was in no shape to be wandering the ship alone, and needed to be monitored. I settled back into my floor bed and resolved to pretend to fall asleep instead. That meant facing the data stream, and I couldn¡¯t help but covertly watch the scene from the sensor array, anyway.


    The arm repair was tedious, and the fact that they were bleeding edge experimental tech became obvious quickly because Mouse wasn¡¯t even confident he knew what he was doing with them. He confided in Doc at one point that while he¡¯d done minor surface repairs on them in the past, he¡¯d never had a complete failure for either of his arms like this. It was going to take some experimentation to make them operable again. With Mouse¡¯s expertise, it was hardly apes bashing rocks against walls, but it was wearisome to be sure.


    I couldn¡¯t help but flinch when I saw Mouse squirm and shiver as Doc reactivated the nerve sensors in the arm, allowing the signals from the rest of Mouse¡¯s body to reach the arm and vice versa. There was some experimental poking and prodding after that to ensure that Mouse could still feel what he should be feeling from the arm. It wasn¡¯t moving, but he reported feeling from it, so that was a start.


    After an hour and a half of peeling back synthetic skin and prodding at the confusing, twisting internal mass of silicon, carbon fiber, and exotic metals, I was surprised to see Mouse light up with the most subtle smile as the pair got a finger to twitch in response to effort. It seemed like the repair process was going to be a long ordeal. These were not simple prosthetics, but a serious attempt by a defunct corporation to emulate the functionality of actual human limbs. So of course it wasn¡¯t going to be a quick repair.


    And here they were, grafted onto a boy who was doubtless prepubescent when they¡¯d done it to him. Coaxing him into a contract he had no way of interpreting, offering a child the illusion of the love and care he¡¯d been denied, only to use him and throw him away. Mouse was walking proof of the callous cruelty of our corporate overlords, and he was left to deal with the aftermath.


    There would be never be a repair service trained to work with him. There would never be marketed replacement parts he¡¯d be able to find if something should mechanically fail. There would be no one to go to for replacement if they don¡¯t adapt to his growth as they were supposed to. It was depressing knowing that Mouse had a whole life ahead of him of experimentally tinkering with his unwanted cybernetics, hoping he can keep them functioning correctly. He¡¯s very fortunate to have a talent for such things. That, and a smoldering hatred for the kind of people who had done it to him. Spite was a good motivator.


    Eventually, I got bored watching what was happening in the same room as me through cyberspace and contemplating the harshness of Mouse¡¯s lot. I was sure I¡¯d hear an exclamation if they made some kind of breakthrough. So I decided to do a check-in on the others.


    Flickering through the feeds, I saw Ray sitting in Aisling¡¯s bedroom while the captain dozed away, snoring heavily. She lay with a blanket pulled up to her waist, concealing half of the medical patch covering her hip. It was obvious that one of her legs was bent out over the edge, still covered with blanket, but hanging over the air. In addition, her arms were splayed haphazardly above her head at odd angles, the faint red of blood seeping into the bandage wrapped around her injured hand. Her chest heaved up and down with each open-mouthed breath as she snored like a chainsaw, a thin line of drool hanging from her lip.


    I was barely able to contain a giggle at the ridiculous sight of our captain at rest. Was that how she always slept? Was that why she always turned off her sensor array at night? She was always so tactical and composed about how people saw her, but in the privacy of her own room, she was a very messy sleeper. It was actually kind of cute. I saved a screenshot of the scene.


    Next to her, Ray seemed to be in a state of meditation. Her expression betrayed how poorly that was going for her. Between the cacophony of Aisling¡¯s sleep and her own drug-dulled gut pain, I doubt she was able to concentrate much on her thoughts. That, and I knew she usually used incense for that, and Aisling probably wouldn¡¯t appreciate her burning it in her room. Looking at Ray suffer made me wish Doc had shot Skygraves.


    I decided to turn my attention elsewhere. Joel was nowhere to be seen, which meant he was in the mess hall, my only internal blind spot after Skygraves¡¯ implant destroyed the sensor array and sent me reeling for the crime of sending a network ping. Some part of me that decided that Joel was an acceptable target for schadenfreude was a little disappointed that I¡¯d missed watching the big guy try to work his way down stairs with a crutch.


    And lastly, our less than esteemed guest. Shaw was still sitting in Aisling¡¯s chair at the helm. I did a brief check to make sure that he hadn¡¯t been tampering with Aisling¡¯s terminal. I saw a few traces of files being opened, but it was all just stuff related to logistics, mostly a loose log of inventory and mathematical notes of planetary positions for places we¡¯d made port in recently, and he hadn¡¯t tampered with any of it.


    Hilariously, I had been correct in my assumption that Shaw would be a smartass with the comms terminal while we were still in range. Skygraves himself had sent begging messages to Aisling offering ludicrous sums of money for my return with veiled threats of cooperating with authorities if she refused. Shaw had responded by simply appending 10 more zeroes to the end of the offer with a sarcastically polite customer service message. The port authority had also sent a threatening message about our unscheduled departure and a list of wrongdoings quite a bit longer than the crimes we¡¯d admittedly actually done. To which Shaw replied ¡®Actually, can we land again? I could be wrong, but I swear that I left my trousers on your mother¡¯s nightstand.¡¯


    His interest was no longer in the terminal now, though. Instead, he leaned back in the chair, an uncharacteristically solemn expression on his face. In his hands, he slowly turned the hunk of once-shifting black metal that he could usually command with the power of his mind. It sat inert, locked into the last shape it held, a slightly convex plate he¡¯d intended to use to shield himself from a bullet. He stared at the strange metal in his hands, a deep, frustrated sigh coming from his throat as he concentrated on it.


    I suppose I didn¡¯t really understand how important that implant was to Shaw. The guy was a scumbag who I wished we¡¯d been able to abandon back on that colony, but he had pulled through when we needed him to pull off a vital bit of skullduggery so we could make our escape. I had certainly been in no position to hack the hangar bay and rail system myself, given the circumstances. And seeing how despondent he seemed at the sight of the formerly elegant shaped tool actually made me pity him.


    Curious, I pinged for Shaw¡¯s implant. And was surprised that I got a response. I was already familiar with how to tap into the implant after I¡¯d had to suppress it for some time from when he was less of a guest and more of a prisoner. I didn¡¯t completely understand all of the workings going on inside. I didn¡¯t even really understand what the device did. I knew that it somehow allowed him some kind of mental control over that particular metal, despite the fact that he had no psionic resonance. It was some scientist¡¯s experimental personal project, and the internal workings of the software were not user friendly, nor were they terribly well-documented within the code itself.


    After emulating pieces of the code in my system, though, I was able to make some sense of them. The device had indeed survived the EMP, but it had rebooted. It wasn¡¯t made to be rebooted. It had no automated startup sequence. Without digging into his brain to hook up a physical terminal to it, it would never do anything again. That is, unless you know someone with access to a psychic network. All I had to do was coax it into launching a single function, and¡­


    Shaw let out a sharp grunt, screwing his eyes shut for a moment and pulling one hand to his head as a small spike of pain passed through him, then faded as the device began to function. He opened his eyes in time to see the metal slip out of his hand, disappearing to wherever it went inside of him. His eyes opened wide, and he held a hand out, where a small liquid ball of floating metal materialized from his hand. He let out an astonished huff, an enormous smile growing on his face as he jumped to his feet, holding his hand out as it shifted into the knife he¡¯d once threatened my life with, then in quick motion, a spanner, a screwdriver, a fork, a floating metal plate again, and then he closed his fist as it disappeared into him once more. ¡°Ha! Haha! Yes!¡± He cheered, pumping his fist into the air.


    I recorded it to taunt him about it later. Then I sent a message to the comms terminal, turning up the speaker volume to ensure he heard the ping. He turned to see the words ¡®Thanks, asshole. Now we¡¯re even.¡¯


    He let out a laugh, then turned to look at the sensor array ¡°Not even close, you beautiful insane starship, but it¡¯s a strong start!¡± he exclaimed joyously, letting out another hearty laugh my way. I rolled my eyes, but smiled at his genuinely excited reaction to having his toy back. Maybe the jerk was growing on me.


    My examination of the crew complete, I relaxed into genuine repose. I did still feel kind of tired. Unconsciousness from biochemical shock was hardly restful sleep after all. As I lounged in cyberspace, waiting for sleep to take me, I found my connection a little easier to manage despite not being in the core module. I still had only a ghost of the absolute control over the ship I had in sensory deprivation, but it strangely felt more cooperative than it had been during our violent jaunt through the corridors of the Venus colony. Perhaps I was just acclimating better after months of constant immersion. Maybe this was some kind of positive side effect of brain damage. Or I was just projecting my relief at getting to operate in cyberspace under normal circumstances after a series of tragedies. Who knows?


    All I knew for sure is that I kept getting giddy relief every time my eyes wandered to the system clock buzzing by in normal time. And dread whenever they were drawn to the ominous black box in the corner of my vision; the constant reminder that from somewhere out there in the system, I was being hunted.

 Debriefing

    Aside from Ray¡¯s room, which had been intentionally enlarged to accommodate the Mammon comfortably, Theseus¡¯s crew quarters weren¡¯t very large. They were smaller than the helm, which had already been an awkward place to cram every person on the ship into for a strategy meeting a couple days ago. They were just big enough to act as a sleeping space with a little extra room to store personal belongings or practice a hobby. But Aisling insisted we needed to do a debrief of our harrowing escape from the orbital Venusian colony, despite the fact that she was confined to her bed by Doc¡¯s orders. And so the entire crew, plus Shaw, crowded around the circumference of her chambers, shuffling uncomfortably, shoulder to shoulder, as we waited for everyone to file in.


    It had been a full day since our escape now, and we were a sorry sight. Aisling herself was bound to her bed, propped up by a massive pile of blankets and pillows thrown together to keep her warm and cozy while sitting up to join us. Joel leaned against one wall, crutch propped up under one of his arms just in case he needed to move quickly for some reason. Ray sat near Aisling, not externally injured, but feeling the obvious strain of a newfound chronic pain in her side. Mouse flexed his dominant hand, trying to get a feel for it again despite the rest of that arm and its entire opposite being entirely unresponsive. The only two who didn¡¯t seem exhausted and defeated were Doc and Shaw, who I¡¯d been able to repair on a whim the previous night.


    I kind of wish I hadn¡¯t.


    ¡°Well, you lot look like you¡¯re ready to have some fun.¡± Shaw chimed as he sauntered into the room late. ¡°Hope I didn¡¯t miss too much of the party.¡±


    ¡°Ehh, fu¡­ fuck you.¡± I muttered, my words escaping me for a moment as I spoke. I still wasn¡¯t used to that. It was like I had everything prepped to say, and in the middle of saying it, the rest of the phrase just vanished on me and I had to find it again.


    Shaw stopped and turned to look at me with uncharacteristic concerned bewilderment at my verbal affliction. I softened my expression a little. Did he actually care that there was something wrong with me? Or was he just not expecting it?


    ¡°Enough of that.¡± Aisling groaned from over her mattress, projecting her voice despite its obvious weakness. The implication of her tone was obvious, that Shaw and I were not to go at each other¡¯s throats. ¡°We can get started now. We all split up yesterday, and a lot obviously happened from everyone¡¯s point of view. So let¡¯s set the record straight. Meryll and I left to do her usual thing. Our employer wasn¡¯t very interesting. Kinda a bitch, but benign. Nothing important happened there. We went to see the shrink after that, and things started to go down from there.¡± Aisling shifted uncomfortably in her seat and settled against some internal fold of her bundled up blanket cocoon, getting as comfortable as a recent multiple gunshot victim probably could. ¡°I think he meant to catch me off guard, but I got rushed in the waiting room by someone who I was very glad to make the first victim in hindsight.¡±


    ¡°Dr. Godin.¡± I nodded appreciatively at Aisling. I was more than a little satisfied that the first one to fall was my abuser.


    ¡°That fucker died?¡± Joel let out a satisfied huff ¡°Serves him right.¡±


    Aisling cleared her throat and continued. ¡°I brought Meryll back to the ship, neutralizing three more armed guards on the way, and I think we all know the rest. Meryll¡¯s¡­ technomancy¡­¡± She tried to make an exaggerated wave of her arms and rolled her eyes a little at the impromptu term. ¡°Was far more helpful in a colonial ground assault than I thought it would be. She provided strong distractions, and the one augmented opponent we ran into didn¡¯t stand a chance.¡±


    ¡°Can we n-not call it that?¡± I sighed. The very idea of my existence and my abilities were already ludicrous enough, I really didn¡¯t need more people looking at it like it was magic when Ray already seemed convinced I had mystic powers.


    Aisling nodded ¡°Fine by me. I just didn¡¯t know what else to call what you did.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s just hacking. Same thing I¡¯m do¡­ing all the time.¡± I shrugged, trying not to talk too much and draw attention to my speech, but everyone had turned to look at the hitch in my word, anyway. ¡°Psionically,¡± I added, suddenly more self-conscious than I had been before about it.


    ¡°Psi-hacking?¡± Shaw offered with a noncommittal shrug. I had to nod at that. It was a pretty good shorthand. Was it really technically hacking, though? Hacking usually involved breaking in through terminal systems, not directly into electronics. Maybe I was being pedantic; it got the point across.


    Eyes returned to Aisling as my verbal trip was forgotten as a one-off slip of words. ¡°So let¡¯s go around the room, one group at a time, how did everyone else¡¯s missions go? Doc, I¡¯m especially curious what happened from your point of view.¡±


    Doc raised an eyebrow, not realizing that he would be the first to be put on stage. ¡°Huh? Nothing special. I was helping Mouse finalize the repairs. I was pinned way in the back behind the interior paneling, inspecting the final touches on the exterior wall, when the goon squad showed up. When they swept the ship, I stayed quiet and slipped past them. I wish it hadn¡¯t taken me so long to disentangle myself from inside the wall, or I might have been able to catch Bill from behind before he could nuke all your implants.¡± Doc admitted.


    ¡°The fact that you showed up at all saved our asses,¡± Aisling waved away the doctor¡¯s sheepishness. ¡°That¡¯s mainly what I was wondering, just how you stayed on the ship like that. Good to know they were as incompetent at clearing as they were at shooting.¡± She let out a dark chuckle, wincing as her wound punished her for laughing.


    ¡°They shouted into the hole, but I just didn¡¯t say anything and they didn¡¯t bother to check past that.¡± Doc gave a quick laugh.


    ¡°Shaw next.¡± Aisling groaned, gesturing to him, her words already spent.


    Shaw looked surprised to be included, gesturing to himself after a moment before he spoke ¡°Well, as you know, I finished my part of the job entirely before everything went to hell. I walked into the port authority and charmed my way into the control room. You¡¯d be amazed how many secure places you can just walk into if you pretend you¡¯re supposed to be there.¡± He chuckled to himself, cocky amusement behind his eyes. ¡°It almost feels like cheating.¡±


    ¡°No complications? No bodies? No promises that might come back to bite us?¡± Aisling asked, looking skeptical.


    Shaw shook his head. ¡°These are military types. Or in this case, people doing their best to pretend like they¡¯re military types. Authority without the bite to back it up. Obsessed with chains of command, need-to-know information, and looking professional. All I had to do was tell the front desk that I had a meeting with the head of operations, and that it was to be kept discreet. That tells them that just because I¡¯m not on the official schedule, that I have some clandestine credibility. That maybe there¡¯s some under the table deals going on that they don¡¯t want or need to be privy to. They give me the go ahead to wait around for them to make some calls, and I slip in when they¡¯re distracted. Easy enough.¡±


    ¡°And there are just unsupervised hangar bay control panels they let you walk up to?¡± Aisling raised an eyebrow.


    Shaw made a mock grimace and looked up, bobbing his head back and forth as if in thought. ¡°Okay, well, one body¡­¡± he finally admitted. ¡°I didn¡¯t kill the guy, and I hid him in a closet afterward. He¡¯ll be fine. Concussions build character.¡±


    I gave a grumbling acknowledgement that it at least got the job done. Guess I wasn¡¯t the only one to come out of yesterday with brain damage.


    Aisling gave an exasperated sigh. ¡°Good enough. And then you came back to Theseus.¡±


    Shaw nodded quickly, his voice becoming vindictive as he rolled his eyes. ¡°Yes, and then the ¡®goon squad¡¯, as he put it, brought me out onto that execution line with the kid, and we all saw how that went.¡±


    Mouse audibly growled when Shaw referred to him as ¡®the kid¡¯, and Shaw held up his hands defensively at him.


    ¡°Stop, no fighting.¡± Aisling called before either could say anything else hurtful. ¡°We¡¯re getting through this, then you can kick his ass, Mouse.¡± Aisling waved them off.


    ¡°He¡¯d certainly have to kick me, I suppose.¡± Shaw mumbled under his breath.


    ¡°The fuck did you just say?¡± Mouse¡¯s voice rumbled, taking a step forward to challenge the info broker, his one operable hand clenching weakly into an almost-fist.


    ¡°Quit it!¡± Aisling snapped, drawing eyes back to her, glaring between them both ¡°Shaw, you think I don¡¯t have a gun under here? Another word to Mouse and I¡¯ll shoot you again,¡± she grumbled impatiently, then motioned toward Mouse. ¡°You next, go.¡±


    Mouse simmered quietly for a moment, stepping back against the wall before he begrudgingly removed his glare from Shaw and started his report. ¡°Nothing much to say. We put the finishing touches on the exterior door, but before we could secure it, they overwhelmed us and took us hostage. I was already so tired, they caught me off guard. Been up for three days at that point, after all.¡±


    ¡°Sorry to run you ragged. I doubt anyone else could have done what you did in time.¡± Aisling nodded approval at him. ¡°I¡¯ll make it up to you next time we have the cash. I take it since it was a rush job, it¡¯s far from perfect, though?¡±


    Mouse looked doubtful ¡°¡­ Just¡­ let¡¯s continue to keep the rest of the ship sealed off from cargo to be sure. Until I can put on an environment suit and make some finishing touches, anyway.¡± he looked to the side, trying to avoid Aisling¡¯s gaze. ¡°It¡¯s structurally sound, though. Ship¡¯s not gonna rip apart from sharp maneuvers anymore. We¡¯re combat-viable.¡±


    So we could defend ourselves if we needed to. That was good to know, especially now that we had a potentially extremely dangerous new enemy. I figured I was going to have to bring that up later in this meeting.


    Aisling nodded ¡°Good to know. Joel, Ray.¡± She glanced over to Ray, who had her eyes closed, focusing on her breathing. She turned to Joel alone instead. ¡°Joel, what happened with the food heist? Tell me we¡¯re not gonna starve.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not gonna starve.¡± Joel mumbled, his arms folded in front of him as he leaned back on his good leg.


    Aisling waited patiently for him to continue, but after a few moments of just staring at each other, she sighed ¡°And what exactly happened?¡±


    Joel shrugged, uncertain what he could say that would be useful. ¡°The place wasn¡¯t guarded well. I think the people who were supposed to be there were busy prepping to rush the hangar. We just slipped in. Stole a full crate of rations from the warehouse, the kind Meryll hates.¡±


    ¡°Uuuuugh.¡± I whined loudly, dramatically flopping my arms forward. ¡°A month of that sh¡­it¡­?¡±


    Eyes shot my way again, more concern on me now than last time. I straightened my back again, sighed, and looked down at the floor. I doubted I could get through this whole meeting without explaining my stutter, or if I even should. I wished I wouldn¡¯t have to.


    Joel paused for a moment, waiting for someone to address the elephant in the room, but when no one did, he continued ¡°We made an escape into a maintenance tunnel once Ray had it strapped up. That¡¯s when we got the message that we were pinched. So we made our own route up into the hangar from the guts of the station. Think it worked out decent, until Skygraves. Would¡¯ve punched him out instead if I had the angle to drop on him.¡±


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°That would¡¯ve got you shot by the last of his men, and they had automatics.¡± Aisling waved dismissively at him ¡°You made the right call with what you did.¡± Aisling finally turned her attention directly to me, watching me carefully. I made eye contact and swallowed. She wasn¡¯t bitter about having to protect me through all this danger, was she?


    ¡°Meryll, are you¡­ okay? You sound nervous.¡± She tilted her head, knowing that wasn¡¯t the whole story either. ¡°I already know what happened with you out there. First time in a combat scenario in the flesh. You handled yourself okay, all things considered. A panicked mess, but that¡¯s not abnormal. I heard something weird happened over in the infirmary afterward, though.¡±


    ¡°She got hacked.¡± Joel shared, all eyes snapping to him, then back to me in turn.


    I sighed loudly, looking at the ground and wrapping my arms around myself, feeling vulnerable with all the attention finally firmly locked to me.


    ¡°You can be hacked?¡± Aisling raised an eyebrow.


    ¡°Ap-Apparently.¡± I stammered, wincing at my stutter, but forcing my way forward. ¡°I guess at some point, I p-picked up a poisonous firm¡­w-ware update. Foundation. Th-They made a backdoor into my system and¡­ and they¡­¡± I took in a deep breath to calm myself and speak clearly ¡°Did some pretty terr¡­ible things. Other than a video channel I c-can¡¯t seem to close, the v-vulnerability¡¯s patched.¡±


    Everyone continued to stare at me after I made my more verbose explanation, pausing and tripping over my words the whole way. I glanced around nervously, opened my mouth for a moment, but then turned to look at Doc. I needed help with this.


    Doc cleared his throat at my signal and brought attention to him ¡°The attack was¡­ neurological in nature. We can¡¯t be sure exactly what part of it caused it, but Meryll has suffered a traumatic brain injury.¡± He started, alarmed and concerned eyes returning to me for a moment before Doc called attention back to him. ¡°She¡¯s fine. Physically and cognitively. I believe it may be localized to the speech center of her brain. I doubt it¡¯s going to affect her function as the ship core, either. But I¡¯ll still be keeping an eye on her.¡±


    The room filled with a long awkward silence, and after a moment I couldn¡¯t take it anymore. I had to break the tension. ¡°Anyone makes f-fun of my stu-stutter, I vent the atmosphere from your room.¡± I gave a small smile, trying to let them know that yeah, I was still me and I was alright.


    Aisling nodded slowly, Joel gave a quick bark of a laugh, Shaw¡¯s sly smile finally returned. And with that, the awkward revelation of my injury was passed. That wasn¡¯t so hard, after all.


    ¡°So why were you hacked?¡± Aisling asked next. ¡°Were they trying to disable you? Get information? Do they know where we¡¯re going now? What happened?¡±


    I shook my head ¡°Skygraves destroyed some of my sl-slotted hardware, so she couldn¡¯t ac¡­cess my drives, thankfully. Sims are g-gone, by the way.¡±


    ¡°She?¡± Aisling¡¯s tired eyes only grew more curious, ignoring my attempted distraction about the stolen military sims we no longer had.


    I took in a deep breath and tried to speak slowly and clearly. ¡°Cassandra. One of the other Arthausen units. She was the one using the backdoor.¡± I had a momentary moment of relief that I¡¯d managed to get through a full sentence without messing any of the words up.


    Aisling leaned forward sharply, wincing at her injury ¡°Arthausen¡­? You mean¡­ the clones that went through the same process you did? They¡¯re alive?¡±


    I tried avoiding everyone¡¯s gazes. I was putting my friends in danger again. ¡°Cass¡­andra is at least. The attack was to s-send a message. T-To me. She told me to su-surrender myself on Luna. Told me sh-she would return me to my simulated life. Help me forget all this. I told her t-to go fuck herself.¡± I let out a quiet chuckle. ¡°Or something like that. It feels like it happened a l-lot longer ago than it did to me. Time di¡­lation.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s time dilation?¡± Mouse asked dryly.


    ¡°I¡¯ll explain later.¡± Doc nodded to him. ¡°Suffice to say, it¡¯s been a lot longer than a day since the attack to Meryll.¡±


    ¡°So you were hacked, and an enemy spoke you to directly.¡± Aisling recapped my words slowly ¡°I¡¯m not going to ask how long ago it was to you, and I know this probably isn¡¯t easy for you to think about, but I need you to try and remember that conversation very carefully. Did she reveal anything at all that we can use?¡±


    I nodded slowly. Right. Perhaps there was something she said that could let us know more than she meant to let on. Maybe something she assumed we already knew, or something that we could interpret from her words. I wracked my brain in silence for a moment. It felt like more than a week ago to me, and it was right on the brink of exposure to severe neurological and emotional trauma. It was hard to recall the exact words she used. It was hard to recall even a vague sense of what she¡¯d expressed to me other than malice.


    I closed my eyes, trying to use the data stream to aid my thoughts. I didn¡¯t have a storage system I could have recorded the conversation on at the time, but it was getting easier to think through the medium of a computer. The words were right there, I could feel them. But they were shrouded by trauma. Distress.


    Emotion.


    My eyes shot open, and I creased my brow in worried realization. I knew what I had to do. Could I, though?


    ¡°I¡­ I can answer that.¡± I said slowly, not sure if I should even bring it up. Everything was screaming at me ¡®no, you can¡¯t do this. Not after what you went through.¡¯ I was frozen in place, fear gripping me tight.


    Aisling stared, one eyebrow cocked, waiting for me to continue. ¡°Meryll?¡±


    I started to shake, reliving a fraction of a moment struggling and crying in that agonizing cell in the back of my mind for what felt like forever. No, I couldn¡¯t.


    I shook my head, opening my eyes again ¡°Sorry¡­ it-it¡¯s just not coming to me.¡± I whimpered quietly. ¡°There¡¯s just¡­ I-I¡¯ve got a lot going on in m-my mind right now. Sorry.¡±


    Aisling knew there was more to this than just me forgetting. But to her credit, she just sagely nodded, accepting that I wasn¡¯t ready for whatever I was facing. ¡°Well, keep thinking about it when you can. It could be really important.¡±


    I took in a deep breath, exhaling in relief. I didn¡¯t want to think about it anymore. Not now, at least. ¡°Th-Thanks.¡± I mumbled.


    ¡°Moving on, then.¡± Aisling sat back on her cushy throne and said ¡°What¡¯s the prognosis on our augmented folks?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± Shaw gave a confident, half-lidded smile.


    ¡°Thanks to m-me.¡± I added indignantly, doing my best to distract myself from my thoughts of Cassandra¡¯s attack. ¡°His implant re¡­ rebooted itself, I ju-just had to reconfigure it.¡±


    ¡°Not doing so hot.¡± Ray muttered quietly. ¡°I feel sick. I¡¯m not used to unfiltered stabilizer. The implant isn¡¯t sitting well in me, either.¡±


    ¡°How do you think I¡¯m doing?¡± Mouse grumbled quietly.


    ¡°I¡¯m f-fully online¡­¡± I didn¡¯t want to say much more than that.


    Aisling stared at me a little while longer, until I realized she wasn¡¯t looking at my face. ¡°Did your damper burn out?¡±


    I lowered my gaze again. I didn¡¯t even want to talk about it. Doc stepped in to save me again. ¡°It was an attack vector in the hack. It¡¯s still functional, but¡­¡± he gestured toward me.


    Aisling nodded ¡°Right¡­ I understand. Take your time getting it reinstalled, Meryll. There¡¯s no reason we should run into anyone for this branch of the route. We¡¯re on course, I take it?¡±


    I shook my head ¡°I wanted to m-make sure we weren¡¯t being tailed be¡­fore I put in our heading. I haven¡¯t dete¡­tected any ships on sh-short range, though. Should I d¡­?¡± I stopped mid-word as it hung in my mouth again, screwing my eyes shut and clenching my teeth. It was getting worse. Too much talking at once for my battered mind, I had to guess.


    I watched Aisling nod slowly from the sensor array in the room. She pitied me. I didn¡¯t like that. I think I understood how it made Mouse feel when people did that to him. ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s get going. It¡¯s gonna be a long trip. We caught up on everything? Then, As you were, everyone.¡± She sighed, flopping over onto her side with an exhausted groan, the energy she¡¯d gathered to hold the meeting finally waning as she succumbed to her wounds. ¡°I¡¯ll be right here,¡± she groaned out before closing her eyes in her blanket shroud.


    I watched her for a moment, wondering if she¡¯d instantly doze off into her adorable haphazard splaying of limbs and loud sleep noises, but she just seemed to be relaxing for the moment. I opened my eyes again and took a few steps, realizing I was still holding my arms around myself, and approached Doc while everyone filtered out of the room, whispering to him ¡°Torpor.¡± before I started out of the room. He followed quickly.


    I took in a deep breath out in the hall. I could have changed our course right there. I was accustomed to operating most of navigation without the core module after all, but I also needed to think without being constantly dragged down by my new speech impediment.


    Doc stepped up ahead of me as I walked ¡°You¡¯re going back in?¡± He asked. At least he wasn¡¯t immediately telling me not to.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± I tried to give a succinct answer so I wouldn¡¯t have to hear myself tumble over anything else I said.


    Doc kept walking at my side, letting out a quiet sigh ¡°I know I¡¯m not a psychologist, but I¡¯m here if you need to talk about any-¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s in m-my head¡­¡± I grumbled. He wanted to hear what was eating me? Fine. ¡°It¡¯s bad enough tha-that I¡¯m still t-trying to make sense of ev¡­erything she said, but every time I c¡­lose my eyes, I s-see that¡­ hole w-where the video feed goes. And every t-time I open my mouth- she f-f-fucking did this to me, Doc!¡± I turned toward the wall and went to rest my head against cold steel and try to calm myself, but ended up slamming myself into it a bit harder than I intended. ¡°Ow.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t hurt yourself, Meryll.¡± Doc shook his head, gently pulling me back from the wall by my shoulder. ¡°I¡¯m not going to stop you. I know you need that sensory deprivation tank to relax, and it¡¯s obvious you really badly need to relax right now. I¡¯ll keep watch on your vitals as always.¡±


    I let out a little sniffle, glad that Doc had come to understand my unorthodox needs, but still avoided looking at him. ¡°Thanks.¡±


    ¡ª


    The void was sweet relief as ever, and fuck did I need it. Sure, this was where that horrible week-minute had happened, but that meant nothing anymore. This place was too special to be ruined by her. I¡¯d been assaulted in my lair, but it was still my home, and I was confident in its bolstered defenses. The absence of the psychic damper also inspired confidence, since being stuck in computational time was impossible now. But now I had to figure out what to do next.


    Cassandra couldn¡¯t be ignored. She was coming. She probably didn¡¯t know where I was or where I was going, but she wasn¡¯t going to just let me go. I saw the look in her eyes. She was a ruthless sport hunter, and I was her prey. I had to prepare for her.


    Opening Fuller¡¯s files, I was glad to see the data uncorrupted. Though the computer blade it had been inserted in had failed, the storage had remained mostly intact. I opened the file on Cassandra herself to refresh my memory on her case.


    Cassandra.


    The first of the Arthausen units to survive the awakening process, and with apparent clarity of mind. For the longest time, we thought she was the only one to undergo the procedure and stay sane. But this was a ruse. Cassandra is clever. Keenly aware of how others think, she is a powerful social manipulator. She was able to leverage good will with the team to afford herself privileges that the other units didn¡¯t get. Little luxuries, mostly, better food, a few pieces of comfortable furniture, and we thought that might be enough to satisfy her. We were wrong.


    Cassandra is a bloodthirsty sadist. She feeds on suffering and she wishes for nothing but to cause harm and be seen as a dangerous monster. She is predatory, thrives on fear, and lures people into a false sense of security so that she can exploit them. And she is endlessly patient to boot. Of all the Arthausen units, she is the most willfully dangerous, and should never be trusted or underestimated.


    This is the unit that killed Dr. Arthausen. We didn¡¯t know what she was until that day. We thought she was our success story. She¡¯d requested to talk to the doctor about something personal that she thought only he should hear, and being his supposedly sane charge, he gladly gave her an audience. We couldn¡¯t stop her in time. She had somehow engineered the doors to lock, mechanically, from inside her observation chamber the moment he stepped over the threshold. I¡¯ll never forget it. That manic smile grew across her face and she slowly choked the life out of him on her own examination table, her fingernails clawing through his skin to make him try and scream until he was no more. There was nothing we could do while we waited for the guards to try to break their way in. The moment he was dead, the locks lifted, and she surrendered herself, that satisfied smile never leaving her lips. She played us for months, engineering that one moment where she could murder her own creator.


    I should note that Cassandra, nor any of the other units had been equipped with neural implants or cybernetics of any kind at the time of Dr. Arthausen¡¯s death. I don¡¯t know how she did it, but the timing of the locks engaging and disengaging could not possibly have been a coincidence. I fear she may actually be something monstrous and unknowable.


    Meryll, I cannot overstate that if Cassandra is alive, do not confront her. Do not try to reason with her. Do not go near her. Perhaps some of the other units could be convinced to be cordial, but you cannot offer Cassandra an inch. She cannot be trusted.


    I pray she is dead.


    No such luck there, Fuller. I sighed to myself, opening my eyes to think. She¡¯s a ruthless murderer who enjoys making people suffer. She wants me to be in pain. Did I do something to her in my past life? Or am I just a convenient target that Foundation is pointing her toward? Either way, my crew was in danger from her. I had no doubt that if she got her hands on me, she could do so much more to torture me than scrambling my brain, but as things stood right now, the easiest way to make me suffer, my point of emotional vulnerability, would be to attack my crew.


    I let out a silent whimper, a shiver running up my spine as I thought of Aisling, her body sprawled on the ground, collapsed from gunshot wounds, but only so much worse this time. The scene I¡¯d seen next to me after Skygraves¡¯ goon hit her twice exaggerated into a bloody pile of gore and bullet holes, the captain I¡¯d learned to trust with anything staring up at me with pleading dead eyes, that cackling mad reflection of my face standing over her.


    I shook my head. No. Can¡¯t let that happen. Besides, they can handle themselves. I saw how well they could deal with danger themselves first-hand, ripping victory from overwhelming odds with coordination and teamwork. Cassandra was intimidating. She was scary, for a lot of reasons. But Theseus was more than that.


    Though, as I closed my eyes and glanced at the other five files in the directory, I had to wonder if Cassandra wasn¡¯t alone either.

 A Plea From The Past

    Time passes slowly when traveling the system. Not so much as when one experiences computational time, but it still drags on. Not just for me, but for the whole crew. Once the dust has fallen, and everyone has settled into routine, long journeys become more about keeping yourself entertained and passing the time while you wait and hope something exciting doesn¡¯t happen the way it inevitably does. While I doubt the beauty and awe of seeing the majesty and vastness of space from the external sensors will ever wear on me, no conscious human being would be satisfied forever by beautiful sights and restful torpor alone. So what is there for a bored starship to do? Usually, I turn to observing the crew.


    A week had passed since the escape from Venus, and we weren¡¯t all back on our feet yet. I¡¯ve been talking less. I knew that I probably should have been trying to speak more, to conquer my impediment, but I just couldn¡¯t bring myself to overcome the social awkwardness of stumbling over half my words while the others looked at me like I had to be handled with the utmost care or I would break. I almost resented it more as a reminder to my friends of what had happened than as a reminder to myself of what was to come. I didn¡¯t want them to treat me any differently for what I¡¯d been through. After all, it wasn¡¯t as if they didn¡¯t all have their own pasts to run from, and my baggage was very much chasing them down now as well.


    I wished that someone would just confront me about it and tell me their displeasure of being on the run because of me, but no one did. Nobody resented me for what I brought onto them, they only pitied me for what I¡¯d been through. It made me feel selfish that I wasn¡¯t being put down for the burdens I brought.


    I also hadn¡¯t been able to find the nerve to make myself whole again. Whenever I stepped out of the core module, my body aching with sensory overload after ejecting lubricant from my lungs with what had become a practiced, almost gentle, purge, I spent my time in recovery staring across my heart at the psychic damper, still sitting on a clean towel, ready to be slotted into the back of my head at a moment¡¯s notice. But I couldn¡¯t. Every time I even thought about taking the plunge, I thought about my other self. That empty ego that tried to delete me and then begrudgingly tolerated my imprisonment when she couldn¡¯t. That helplessness and lack of control that pushed me to the edge of sanity. And I couldn¡¯t bring myself to face even the possibility that it might happen again. Not yet.


    I kept telling myself that I would get there, eventually. That it would feel right again sometime soon. That I¡¯d miss that hefty weight in my head and in my systems before we found our way into danger again. Every time, I walked away, not wanting to confront the pain. I¡¯d manage it next time, I kept telling myself, but I never felt any closer to ready.


    Not all the others were faring well with their recovery either.


    Aisling was back on her feet, much to Doc¡¯s chagrin. I think he wanted her in bed for the whole week, but she definitely wouldn¡¯t have tolerated that. She limped as she walked the corridors of Theseus, trying to keep weight off the side of her waist with a hole in it, and I saw how she awkwardly typed at her terminal with her unpracticed off-hand, keeping her still-bandaged wrist at her side. She was back to her usual energetic self, but it was obvious her injuries were still hampering her.


    Joel was, surprisingly, still using the crutch, despite recovering full motion to his extremity. I expected him to be as rebellious to Doc¡¯s cautions as Aisling was, if not more so, but he took his downtime seriously. I still constantly caught him doing training exercises in the hall, but it was always something he could do without straining his leg. I suspected he must have understood the importance of healing a gunshot wound properly than any of us. Or he was avoiding being given work.


    Mouse had one arm almost fully functional. It had a full range of motion, but he was having trouble figuring out how to make it produce the superhuman force it had been capable of before. His priority at the time was bringing his other arm up to function before he started to tweak them back up to strength, and he was very enthusiastic about being able to do that without Doc¡¯s aid. I admired that he¡¯d been able to set aside his loner spirit while he was incapable of fixing them himself, but we all knew he would rather sit alone in his room, toying with the arms he never wanted on his own rather than subjecting himself to anyone else¡¯s attention over them.


    Lastly, Ray. She was the focus of everyone¡¯s worries. She¡¯d gradually been getting around more slowly and less frequently through the week. Her body wasn¡¯t accepting stabilizer the way it should. It was too accustomed to the constant, metered micro-doses that her implant allowed, and the implant itself was still malfunctioning in some way that left her gut in terrible pain. Inevitably, it came to a head.


    ¡ª


    Everyone had begrudgingly gathered in the mess hall that night, individual spirits withered by our various maladies, but collectively, feeling hope for our future, and grim resignation for the unpleasant task more immediately at hand.


    ¡°Why¡¯s everyone look so dour?¡± Shaw asked in a cheerful tone as he joined all the rest of us, sitting around the table, waiting for Doc to finish preparing our meal. I still hadn¡¯t gotten a handle on whether Shaw was really a hopelessly happy-go-lucky person who didn¡¯t know how to take a hint that we weren¡¯t feeling particularly chipper, or if it was a deliberate act of social engineering to catch people off balance either by warming things up or irritating everyone. ¡°Come on, everyone, I know we¡¯re not exactly a flying night club, but you lot have been so fucking serious since we left port. What happened to all the lighthearted banter, and crazy planning, and the teamwork-bolstering speeches about how everyone¡¯s in this together, that kind of bullshit.¡±


    Before anyone could assault Shaw, verbally or otherwise, Doc walked to the table and slid a bowl across to his waiting seat. Shaw stared down into the chunky, yellow, watery depths of the least appetizing thing possible that still qualified as nutritious food. ¡°Because we have at least three more weeks in wild space, and we¡¯re down to the emergency rations already.¡± Doc grumbled, beginning to distribute the food to a set of five resigned faces, all bracing to force down this familiar, but no less bitter pill of a meal made with the sole purpose of keeping a body moving, if one could only endure the suffering of eating it.


    Shaw stared down into his bowl, and I could see a new tension in his neck muscles as he cringed down at the horrid stew of fine-grained globs that just didn¡¯t seem to want to stop clumping, like the powdered substance itself was hydrophobic and trying to protect as much of itself as possible from becoming a more pleasant texture for consumption. ¡°Oh.¡± A suddenly less enthused Shaw stared down into his bowl. Everyone else picked up spoons and got it over with, even myself. I may not have had as much experience as the others enduring this foul meal, but I knew by now to just try and dissociate my way through it and move on with my night. Shaw soon joined the rest of us with a hopeless sigh and picked up his utensil.


    A few minutes passed in quiet, each of us dealing with the chore of our meals in our own way, until a loud noise broke the silence. There was a sudden thump of a menacingly large hand crashing against the table. Everyone looked up in surprise, drawn from their various different culinary coping mechanisms to look at Ray.


    She had slammed a claw down against the table, her other arm once more at her side, clenching at the malfunctioning implant in her abdomen, and she heaved in deep, ragged breaths, eyes wide and teeth clenched, gaze locked to an imaginary spot on the opposite wall, blinded by abrupt terrible pain. A cold sweat had broken out over her features, and she was growing pale. She groaned loudly, her claws ripping divots into the steel of the workbench that served as our dining table. We all stood to come to her side, shouting an unintelligible cacophony of questions and exclamations at once while Ray let out a pained, rumbling groan, her whole body shaking. She screwed her eyes shut, and I saw a drop of blood fall from the claw at her abdomen, her hand tightening up hard enough to rip her own skin, apparently a reprieve from what she was feeling internally.


    And then, it was over. Ray let go of her grip and leaned over the top of the table, her whole body shivering as she gasped and panted, trying to catch her breath while rasping hoarse reassurances either to us or to herself ¡°It¡¯s okay. I¡¯m okay. It¡¯s passed. It was just¡­ just momentary. I¡¯ll be okay. I¡¯ll be okay.¡± She kept repeating it over and over.


    ¡°No, Ray, you¡¯re not okay! How long has this been happening!¡± Doc scolded, gently tugging at her arm to inspect the damage she¡¯d done herself. Either Mammons had remarkably tough skin, or she had exercised more control than I thought, because the gashes left by her own claws were already clotting up, leaving only the dark marks of blood she¡¯d made initially, not even enough to drip streaks down her skin. ¡°That thing¡¯s tearing you apart in there, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Just today.¡± She whined, her whole body shivering as Doc inspected her. ¡°S-Second time that happened. I can take it. I¡¯ll be okay.¡±


    ¡°No, you can¡¯t. It¡¯s coming from there, right?¡± Doc asked, placing a hand gently where Ray had just been holding, eliciting a wince from the Mammon. ¡°More serious than I thought it would be.¡± He mumbled, looking between each of us as if looking for someone to offer up a solution before he pinched his eyes closed and sighed ¡°Okay. You were right, Meryll. Surgery. I don¡¯t like it, but we can¡¯t just let this sit. We have to open Ray up and fix this.¡±


    Ray let out an inhuman whine I hadn¡¯t heard from her before, more like a wounded animal than a human cry of pain. She wanted to object, but she couldn¡¯t anymore, not after what everyone had just seen.


    ¡°Mouse, gonna need your help.¡± Doc said, letting go of Ray slowly and standing back up ¡°Meryll too. I need to open her up, but I need you to diagnose the problem with the filter.¡±


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡ª


    It turns out that preparing two people with no medical expertise for surgery was not a quick task. It was late into the night before either of us were able to understand the brief of the situation, and while I didn¡¯t need as much sleep to function at capacity thanks to how little physical energy it took just to exist in a core module, Mouse did. It wasn¡¯t until the next morning, after Ray had suffered another agonizing round of her body rebelling against her, that we were prepared to actually perform the operation.


    Doc and Mouse both stood over Ray, rendered unconscious via anesthetic on the examination table while I observed from inside the core module right next to them. My role in this would be purely non-physical, so it was determined I could perform my role in the operation better from within the void.


    I didn¡¯t pretend to know everything I was watching since I¡¯d only been told what was expected of me. That is, to manipulate the device¡¯s software to assist Mouse in diagnosis of the problem and coax the machine¡¯s physical parts to move how he needed them to. Doc took his turn to direct Mouse at something unfamiliar that he nervously followed instructions for, his inexpertise at navigating biology showing as clearly as Doc¡¯s awkwardness with machines had a week ago.


    Of course, nothing ever goes to plan, but I could never have expected just how it was going to go off the rails.


    After Doc had carefully cut into and pulled open a hole in Ray¡¯s side, I was pulled from my bored torpor state that I¡¯d entered while awaiting my opportunity to help by a sudden flash of static.


    No way. No fucking way. Out here, in wild space? Nowhere near any kind of relay? Impossible. I immediately flagged Aisling at her terminal, messaging her ¡®I¡¯m getting a signal on my implant.¡¯ I wouldn¡¯t be facing her alone this time, at least, but what was this timing? How was I getting a connection of any kind out here?


    ¡°You¡¯re fucking me.¡± Aisling muttered flatly from her chair on the helm. ¡°Meryll, what? Report, what¡¯s happening?¡±


    ¡®Don¡¯t know yet, it¡¯s still just static.¡¯ I messaged, not wanting to waste time synthesizing my voice for her since I had to warn Doc, who wasn¡¯t staring at a screen. ¡°Heads up, Doc. Something¡¯s going on.¡± I warned through the intercom, eliciting a shared look of confusion on both his and Mouse¡¯s face.


    ¡°Don¡¯t just say that and not elaborate. Meryll, what¡¯s happening? Do we have to abort the operation?¡± Doc asked, stern urgency in his tone. He already had one hand on the delicate instrument settled deep within Ray¡¯s gut.


    ¡°Look, I don¡¯t know yet, but we¡¯re getting a signal we definitely shouldn¡¯t be getting, okay?¡± I explained, double-checking all of my security measures and refocusing my attention on the little video panel in the corner of my vision.


    ¡°Local scan, Meryll. If they¡¯ve got you on a network, they¡¯re in proximity.¡± Aisling commanded, pulling up detection software at her end of the terminal for me. I nodded silently and pinged the local region, searching for something out of place, anything at all. But there was nothing. Nothing within range of what should have been capable of an ordinary ad hoc network connection, anyway. I started to adjust to scan further out, wondering if perhaps they were using a militant networking technique I was unaware of.


    That¡¯s when the static began to clear. But I didn¡¯t see the toothy-faced grin of malice staring back at me that I expected. It was still a parody of my own face that I saw, but in a way I¡¯d never seen. The face had sunken, tired eyes, creased with lines left by long months or even years of anxious fretting. A metal band of electronics I couldn¡¯t identify was wrapped around her head, and I was alarmed to see that pins anchored the device to her skin, penetrating into her skull. A headband of insidious purpose permanently anchored with little regard for her comfort. She was surrounded by thick cables and machinery that I got the impression of being part of her. She was attached to some unfathomable set of machinery in some way my field of view didn¡¯t allow me to know. She looked lost, like she was unaware of what was happening around her, mind somewhere else entirely. When the feed cleared up, however, a genuine smile grew on her face. She was relieved by something. Me.


    ¡°Meryll.¡± She spoke with reverent ease, the kind of tone reserved for a long emotional journey that had just ended by reuniting with something familiar that had been lost. She almost looked like she was about to cry.


    ¡®It¡¯s not Cassandra.¡¯ I immediately sent to Aisling, then turned my attention back to this new woman, uncertain how to address her, so I just started with getting right to the point, broadcasting a message into the aether in the hopes that she could read it. ¡®Who are you? You know me, so I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re Foundation.¡¯


    The woman¡¯s face somehow twisted to look even sadder than it already was, but she kept smiling. ¡°So you really don¡¯t remember, huh?¡± She sounded hurt by that, but I think she understood that it wasn¡¯t my fault, because she immediately launched into explanation. ¡°It¡¯s me, Lily. Your sister. We grew up together. Or, well¡­ I suppose we never actually grew up like someone normally grows up. We learned to be what we are together?¡± She offered, letting out a nervous laugh. Sisters. Just as I thought from the moment I saw her face, she was an Arthausen unit. I relayed as such to Aisling.


    ¡°Might be your first dogfight in reality, Meryll. Are you combat ready?¡± Aisling asked urgently, leaning forward in her chair and making herself alert. I wondered about that. I still hadn¡¯t reinstalled my psychic damper yet. And I didn¡¯t want to. Maybe I was making excuses to avoid reinstalling that device, but this woman, Lily, didn¡¯t look like she was ready for a fight, more like for a family reunion. I tried my best to recall Fuller¡¯s file on Lily, but this was happening too fast, and I didn¡¯t have the resources to waste on pulling it up as I searched for the source of her signal.


    ¡®I don¡¯t think I need to be. I don¡¯t think she¡¯s hostile. If there was a fleet coming at us, I¡¯d see them by now, so at most, it¡¯s a small force.¡¯ I shared my opinion with Aisling before I responded to Lily ¡®What do you want?¡¯


    She paused, her expression pained, hurt by my lack of cordiality. Could you blame me? This was someone who was definitely part of Foundation and was definitely here to retrieve me for them. ¡°Oh. Well¡­ I mean, I think you know why I¡¯m here.¡± She glanced to the side, guilt and sadness washing over her. ¡°But what I want¡­ I just want to talk to you, Meryll. I want you to come home with me so we can be together again, and so we can return to the simulation together. Go back to our¡­ lives. Our normal lives. Not this.¡±


    ¡®You mean the life simulation?¡¯ I asked. I was right, she was here to get me back and return me to complacency. To a life I¡¯d abandoned for a good reason.


    ¡°Please, Meryll.¡± I saw her eyes starting to well up. ¡°I know you don¡¯t remember, but¡­ we were¡­¡± There was a hitch in her voice, a correction. ¡°You were so happy. You got to lead a normal life, no matter what they did to us in reality. You don¡¯t have to suffer this world anymore. Neither of us do. They told me they¡¯re finally going to put me back in too, once we get you back.¡±


    Ah. There was the motivation. She wanted to return to that false life. She wanted to escape the pain of being something other, of being a pawn to Foundation, and I was her key back to that fake sense of self. Or so she was told. Something told me she¡¯d only been assured that to keep her complacent.


    ¡°Talk to me Meryll, we got bogeys incoming?¡± Aisling asked. I continued expanding my scanning radius slowly, but I didn¡¯t want to accidentally broadcast my position to the entire solar system with a long range scan, and I wasn¡¯t sure if that would pick up an individual ship anyway. ¡®Maybe. I still don¡¯t have a read on their position though.¡¯


    I whipped my attention back to Lily, who to her credit, was waiting patiently for me to mull over her offer, tired depression slowly returning to her face as she dreaded that this wasn¡¯t going to go the way she hoped. ¡®Lily, I don¡¯t remember what we mean to each other, you¡¯re right. I do remember my false life, though. I get the appeal of what you¡¯re offering. This world is a lot to handle. But it¡¯s real, and I¡¯d rather experience reality, with all its ups and downs, than pretend I¡¯m something else. It¡¯s better than living in some kind of dissociated, manufactured history. So no, I can¡¯t come back. I won¡¯t.¡¯


    This was not the answer that Lily wanted to see. Her frown became distressed, fear in her eyes. ¡°No, Meryll, please. You¡¯re not listening. It¡¯s not a perfect world in there either, I know, but it¡¯s not¡­ suffering. It¡¯s not this. I¡¯m sorry big sis did something to you when you talked, you know how she is¡­ Or, I guess, now you know how she is. But she¡¯s not allowed to hurt you if you just surrender yourself. If you just sit still, and let us come get you, you can come home peacefully, and the crew on that ship can go on their way too. We can just give them a core, and nobody has to get hurt. If you keep going like this, though, big sis is going to do terrible things to you. To them. And then they¡¯ll bring you home anyway, and¡­ it¡¯s just more misery, Meryll, it¡¯s not worth it.¡± She sniffled, on the verge of crying.


    This wasn¡¯t a Foundation ploy. This woman was genuinely concerned for me. She cared, and she neither wanted to see me in pain, nor dwelling in what she saw as false hope. She¡¯d already resigned that Foundation had won. That there was no escape for either of us except to comply and take their meager offerings of a false self as the only respite from the pain they caused. She had surrendered to inescapable despair.


    I couldn¡¯t do the same. Maybe when this all started, I would jump at this opportunity. An easy escape, a honeyed promise of a safe, empty life, but not anymore. I was too strong to accept anything less than facing the harsh reality alongside the crew of Theseus now. I¡¯d tasted real freedom, and nothing Foundation offered could ever truly compare.


    I heard a voice in my heart. Doc calling to me again. ¡°Meryll, I need to know now, are we under attack? Should we abort?¡±


    ¡®I can¡¯t accept those terms, Lily. I can¡¯t surrender to Foundation. I¡¯d never abandon my ship or my crew. They¡¯re both a part of me now. So don¡¯t think I¡¯ll abandon either, under any circumstances. And I wouldn¡¯t even trust Foundation for a second if they told me they¡¯d let me keep both. We¡¯re done here.¡¯ I sent to Lily before activating the intercom. ¡°Yeah, close her up. I think we¡¯re about to come to blows.¡±


    ¡°Shit.¡± Doc grumbled, moving quickly to , but then doing a double take to his countertop ¡°Fuck, Meryll! Your damper!¡±


    Oh. Right. I wasn¡¯t combat ready. I could suffer serious psychosomatic damage without the damper. I could die. Could I stall?


    ¡°Meryll, please!¡± Lily begged loudly, her voice cracking as she raised her voice in desperation. ¡°If you don¡¯t surrender, I-I have to¡­ I have to bring you in by force! I don¡¯t want to do that! I don¡¯t want to hurt you! I don¡¯t want to bring you pain! Please! Do you really think you can take on an army? What are you hoping to accomplish? They own us, Meryll!¡±


    My temper got the better of me. The message rapidly flooded out of me before I could stop myself. ¡®No one owns me! If you care so much about not making me suffer, then leave me the fuck alone! I don¡¯t know how you found me way out here in the middle of nowhere, but I never asked to be taken back! I¡¯d be happy if I never had to see Foundation again! If I never had to see my so-called sisters ever again! Whoever you think you¡¯re appealing to, that Meryll isn¡¯t here anymore, she¡¯s forgotten, dead, and I¡¯m glad for it! If I was the type of person who would accept being shoved into that fake-ass life again lying down, then I¡¯m glad I¡¯m not her anymore! I¡¯m glad she¡¯s gone!¡¯


    Lily stared at my words, mouth agape and eyes wide in disbelief. After a moment, though, she composed herself just a little and turned her head to look away from the camera for the first time. ¡°She doesn¡¯t have to be.¡± She spoke with ominous quiet, making a subtle gesture with her head to something out of sight. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    I realized in that moment that I¡¯d fucked up. We needed time, not emotional vindication. I tried to think of something to backpedal with, to give the crew time to prep us for combat, to get Ray¡¯s surgical incision closed, to install my safety hardware. But it was too late.


    At the edge of my active scanning radius, I caught two ships, approaching at impossible speeds toward both of Theseus¡¯s flanks, weapons ready.

 What I Cant Do

    Combat simulations instill a sense of reality onto the user for a reason. It makes them feel like they¡¯re actually in danger. That there are actual stakes to the scenario at hand. That they need to take things seriously, or there will be serious consequences to the user, their crew, and whatever grander campaign they serve. It prepared the user to face the horrors of active combat and war.


    Unfortunately, those simulations were built for things that couldn¡¯t simply become lucid through sheer willpower, like an experienced dreamer. At the same time, their muted emotional capacity and non-existent desire to venture beyond established best practices allowed them to act through that tension, so they hardly needed to detach themselves in such a way.


    Through my hundreds of skirmishes in my own systems, I¡¯d eventually learned to mostly curb that artificial sense of reality to perform more effectively or more experimentally; to abandon the visceral fear of mortality and treat it almost like an extremely complex game. This, as it turns out, was a misstep on my part. It meant that when the real thing crashed into my life, I wasn¡¯t able to numb myself to act under duress. I hadn¡¯t developed that crucial ability a soldier had to transfer smoothly between calm and battle-ready at a moment¡¯s notice.


    Two ships, just beyond my local sensor range, started approaching in a pincer formation, ready to open fire on both of my flanks at once. I barely had time to think, mental muscle memory kicking in when my conscious brain failed to act on the sudden appearance of my opponents. I flicked up my thruster interface and pushed full power to everything, knowing I could gain extra speed by pushing the engines past cruising speed. It wouldn¡¯t be sustainable long-term, but for the duration of a battle, it was safe enough to push the limits of my systems. Theseus began a jarring acceleration, trying to make distance from the pursuers before they could successfully flank me. I couldn¡¯t think of a way to take advantage of the position at that moment. I only knew to flee.


    ¡°Meryll!¡± The call of my name jarred me from my automatic action, and I saw Doc and Mouse holding onto Ray¡¯s unconscious body, trying to steady her through the sudden shift in momentum. My aged artificial gravity generators couldn¡¯t stabilize the change in velocity as well as the ships I used in the sims could. Doc continued his scolding, ¡°If we¡¯re under attack, I get you need to do that, but warn us next time!¡± He pulled straps up from beneath the examination table, wrapping them around Ray¡¯s limbs to hold her in place now that he knew to expect turbulence.


    I clenched my jaw, returning my focus to the pursuers. My reflexive action had thankfully forced them to the rear, but they were gaining on me fast. Faster than should have been possible. No ship I had ever trained against could move nearly as quickly as they did. I knew the sims I¡¯d been using were dated, but this was beyond an expected incremental upgrade in standardized ship thrusters. This had to be cutting-edge tech at work.


    ¡°You can¡¯t outrun them, Meryll.¡± Lily stated, her voice cracking as she failed to keep her tone neutral. ¡°That ship doesn¡¯t stand a chance against Foundation fighters. Surrender before they¡¯re forced to disable it.¡±


    ¡®I am that ship!¡¯ I sent, pushing the communication channel aside to focus on the battle. I glanced between my internal sensors, with Doc frantically trying to close the open incision in Ray, and my external sensors, gauging how long I had until the fighters were in weapons range. In the sims, I¡¯d learned that standard cores had remarkably predictable firing patterns, shooting at the earliest moment possible at a calculation of the target¡¯s current heading and velocity. This made dodging on the fly fairly easy to predict for a conscious person who had trained themselves to see the pattern. I just had to hope that they weren¡¯t using experimental weaponry beyond my knowledge as well.


    ¡°Two approaching the rear, fast. Unknown ship models. Probably proprietary tech, experimental.¡± Aisling declared, working on something at her terminal. After a moment, I felt the limits I could push my various systems to lift further, limits lifting at the captain¡¯s permission, and I pushed my engines a little harder. It wouldn¡¯t be enough to outpace them, and it would blow my engines out if I sustained it for too long. It gave me an extra moment to breathe, though. ¡°We need to take them out, Meryll. Don¡¯t you dare hesitate on me now. You¡¯ve done this hundreds of times. Remember your training.¡±


    She was right. The simulation¡¯s readiness training hadn¡¯t taken, but I¡¯d been through battles where I¡¯d been outnumbered against technologically superior forces dozens upon dozens of times. I could do this. However, I hadn¡¯t trained under this specific set of constraints before. I¡¯d worked with damaged systems that allowed for limited flexibility in movement, but I hadn¡¯t practiced what to do if I needed to deliberately limit my actions for the ludicrous scenario of active surgery happening on board during a dogfight. I never imagined that this would be something I¡¯d have to deal with.


    I only had seconds to come up with terminology to express to Doc how to brace his patient. Synthesizing my voice, I loudly proclaiming ¡°Hard bank to starboard!¡± before rotating and rotating myself to the side, the fighters careening past with a strafing run of rapid fire ballistics, narrowly missing my hull. I directed my engines to return to maximum speed and try to fly at an angle that would take some time for them to redirect themselves toward.


    ¡°Fuck!¡± came a cry from my heart. I didn¡¯t want to look, but I had to. Despite my woefully inadequate explanation of my complicated maneuver, the two had indeed braced themselves and Ray correctly to compensate for the jerk of motion, but one instrument holding Ray¡¯s wound open had slipped. I saw blood pooling. I didn¡¯t know much about what was happening inside of her, but I knew there shouldn¡¯t be that much blood there. ¡°Mouse, IV bag, the red one!¡± Doc yelled instructions at Mouse. I¡¯d never seen him so serious. So urgent. Ray was in real trouble.


    ¡°No damage reported.¡± Aisling called from her position at the helm. ¡°Can you get into a position to fire back?¡±


    I grit my teeth. I couldn¡¯t. I had thought about jerking back around and ripping through one of them with my cannons. That was entirely possible with how fast they¡¯d shot past me, but that would risk hurting Ray even more. I should have taken it anyway because my priority should have been to end the battle swiftly, even if I had to make a risky move. The moment had already passed, an opportunity lost. They were already moving to pursue at my rear again.


    ¡°They missed¡­?¡± Lily mumbled, a perplexed expression on her face. She definitely wasn¡¯t on either of the pursuit ships, that was for sure. I would have seen her reacting to their sharp movements. Even more modern gravity systems couldn¡¯t eliminate inertia. She was still somewhere out beyond my sensor range, broadcasting from a command vessel with some kind of network range enhancer.


    ¡®I dodged. Tell them to back off or I start taking this fight seriously.¡¯ I bluffed, trying to buy us time to regroup. Lily did not seem like a military commander. Perhaps I could catch her off-guard with intimidation.


    ¡°Meryll, be reasonable. You can¡¯t fight them. You got lucky. They have superior technology. Just surrender!¡± She was becoming distressed again, probably for fear of hurting me. I briefly debated telling her we had an injury, hoping she would back off to allow us a moment to ensure Ray¡¯s safety, but I knew that would only make her double down on her insistence for surrender. She wouldn¡¯t have empathy for my crew, she would just try to emotionally manipulate me into giving myself up for Ray¡¯s sake.


    ¡®Don¡¯t tell me what I can¡¯t do.¡¯ I messaged while I planned my next maneuver. She threw her arms out to the side, expressing that I was being unreasonable. That my bullheadedness was going to get me and the people I cared about hurt. In truth, I doubt my crew would let me surrender if I thought giving myself up for them was the best option. They were just as stubborn as I was, and as protective of me as they were to anyone else on the crew. Not that I was considering it, but I didn¡¯t have any choice but to fight.


    I had to make each of my moves count if I was going to end this before Ray bled out. The ships were flying in a deliberately spread out formation. I wouldn¡¯t be able to hit them both at once, but I knew I could nail one, and that would open up more possibilities. The shock of suddenly entering combat had worn off, and I felt in control again. Just like in the simulations, I planned out my maneuver ahead of time, plugging what I knew about core behavior and what I¡¯d observed of the ship¡¯s capabilities into formulaic plans. I knew exactly what was going to happen in the next few moments.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°Fuck¡¯s going on up there!¡± came the intercom again, Joel this time.


    ¡°We¡¯re under attack! Get to engineering and keep comms clear!¡± Aisling reprimanded him, then let go of the intercom button. ¡°Tell me you got something, Meryll.¡±


    I answered with my next warning call. ¡°Banking forward, rolling to port, halting inertia, then accelerating! Expect cannon fire! 3¡­ 2¡­¡± Just as I expected, their weapons fired in unison right when I pulled the ship around, twisting out of the way of their shots. I slowed down and banked hard, surprised by the maneuverability of Theseus when I really pushed myself to my limits. One fighter veered out of the angle I planned, but I locked right onto the other one with ease.


    I had never fired my cannons before. I¡¯d tuned my simulations to have similar specs to the installed guns, so I knew what kind of range, spread, and recoil to expect, but this was a very visceral experience, feeling the pieces of myself I¡¯d never used before spin into motion and unleash hot metal through the vacuum. A rush of predatory instincts made me grin. It made me feel powerful. And that grin only grew wider when I saw my shots tear through the underbelly of the pursuit fighter, several rounds ripping through its armor, its left wing, and its main thruster before I slammed back into full acceleration and made some distance from my victim. I didn¡¯t know what had come over me, but I guessed there was a dark part of me that enjoyed crippling another ship.


    The injured ship made a cursory attempt at returning to speed, but it couldn¡¯t maneuver properly anymore. In a few moments, it was out of local sensor range again, its momentum carrying it away from the battle, unable to continue its chase while its partner circled back around to continue after me.


    Lily leaned forward in wide-eyed alarm, her mouth hanging ajar. She let out a bewildered croak, unsure how to respond to what she¡¯d just witnessed. I was still smiling, feeling a sense of primal superiority over the unthinking, unfeeling pilots of the pursuit crafts. They were well-trained, but they had nothing on someone that could actually reason and create, who could break protocol and do something suboptimal to achieve superoptimal outcomes. The results of my training spoke for themselves.


    The intercom lit up again, Joel again, down in engineering as he¡¯d been told. ¡°You¡¯re pushing her too hard, Meryll! keep doing shit like that and you¡¯re gonna blow something apart! Need Mouse down here!¡±


    ¡°I know my limits!¡± I shouted back at him through the intercom as I focused on tracking the other ship¡¯s position. He wasn¡¯t wrong. I could tell I was stressing a lot of different parts of the system. My body temperature felt like it was running higher than it should have been. It felt like a blistering fever, or heatstroke. I wasn¡¯t entirely sure if it was psychic sympathy making me feel the heat of my reactor or if it somehow actually made my body hotter. If I¡¯d been able to practice with Theseus¡¯s full custom model in simulation, I might have been able to perform these maneuvers more elegantly, but I was working with what I had.


    Another call from my heart. Doc sounded distressed. ¡°She won¡¯t survive another move like that, Meryll. Are we clear? Tell me we¡¯re out of danger and you can stop shaking us around!¡± I clenched my teeth, looking at the mess of Ray¡¯s abdomen, at Doc¡¯s crimson-stained gloves, at Mouse¡¯s horrified countenance, staring at the carnage he was helpless to aid with any further. I trusted Doc could still help her, but I also trusted he knew what he was talking about when he said she wouldn¡¯t survive another maneuver like that.


    The other pursuer had probably figured that trick out by now, anyway. Cores couldn¡¯t create, they couldn¡¯t reason, but they could still learn, and I¡¯d pulled essentially the same dodging maneuver twice already. It might have changed its prediction model by now, or its crew might entreat it to act irrationally if they didn¡¯t have enough data on what I was doing. I had to come up with something different, something less physically demanding on the crew.


    I took a deep breath, trying to keep myself from panicking. Breaking down emotionally right now wouldn¡¯t help anyone. ¡°Copy.¡± I called back to Doc, ¡°I¡¯ll stick to a single vector of movement if I can.¡± It would be hard. Perhaps I could bank on it expecting me to do the same maneuver again and hope that it overcompensated when I made a simpler movement. Or perhaps¡­ I could take a minor hit to my hull. A hopefully glancing blow on my psyche, in order to keep Ray safe. It might mean another psychosomatic bruise. Or it might mean catastrophic organ failure. I wished I had just put the damn damper back in when I could.


    Part of me wondered if I could get away with opening the core module and putting it in, but I needed to make the fighter¡¯s next pass count, and I definitely couldn¡¯t do it that quickly. If I could dive into computational time now, I would certainly let it do its thing this time.


    That gave me an idea.


    There were more ways to attack a ship than just physically. I only had a few moments, drafting a fast and sloppy script in my system. An information bomb. I shoved junk data from my own system and loaded it into a payload of self-replicating processes. It was amateur. It probably wouldn¡¯t get far through the core¡¯s security protocols, but it wasn¡¯t meant to be a virus, just a distraction.


    I¡¯d learned in my hellish week-minute with the psychic damper that a purely logical self could still be distracted. It was why the core module existed, after all: to eliminate distractions entirely. But if there was a distraction within, an emulated sensory overload of a desperate, screaming emotional prisoner, for instance, that logical self couldn¡¯t perform optimally. And that¡¯s all I needed, to drag this other ship just a little further from optimal.


    I extended my influence through space, reaching out with practiced control of my psionic resonance, extending my network to the other core, and I felt immediate, immense strain on my mind as a flood of new data threatened to overwhelm my system. I wasn¡¯t overly reliant on that system, though. This maneuver was based on instinct more than logic. After all, it was something I¡¯d never tried before. I let the other core grope its way into this invasive new system, pushing into my network, unprepared to do anything meaningfully harmful to me, barely even understanding what it was looking at. I haphazardly shoved several copies of my bomb into its stream, over and over again.


    ¡°Meryll? The fuck are you doing? I¡¯m reading more outside network traffic!¡± Aisling called, ¡°Are they hacking you again?¡±


    I didn¡¯t have time to explain. It was time to pull the trigger. ¡°Killing momentum.¡± I called to the intercom, my voice glitching harshly under the strain of an increased computer load, but I hoped my instructions were still clear. It was hard to concentrate on voice synthesis right now. ¡°Brace.¡±


    I stopped my thrusters suddenly, throwing them hard into reverse, nearly full-braking the ship in space as soon as the pursuer entered firing range. Clenching my jaw, I prepared for the worst, as it took its shots. I swear I felt the heat of one round graze my wing, but no damage registered before it flew right past me. I cut my end of the psychic network and opened a full salvo of all three of my cannons into the ship that had just buzzed past me.


    An emotional rage blinded me at that moment. I poured everything I could into concentrating my fire on that ship. I may have tried to scream out a furious battle cry into the muting pool of lubricant that surrounded me. The next thing I knew, there was a minor explosion. The ship decompressed violently in front of me, three large segments and a field of small debris spreading out from the points of impact, the momentum of the incredibly fast ship carrying each of its pieces out in several directions.


    I waited for just a few moments. If I sensed another ship moving into position around me, we would have been screwed. I was sitting almost completely still on the battlefield, breathing hard. Adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins pumped hard through my veins at the surprising animalistic satisfaction of watching my prey fall apart at my hand; another thing that I had evidently suppressed when I learned to bypass the reality of simulations. It was Lily that brought me back to my senses. She shifted in her seat, sitting back down with a defeated slump, still in wide-eyed shock as she tried and failed to stammer out a response to what had just happened.


    All my training had paid off after all. I had been given an impossible scenario, and I¡¯d been able to navigate it. Maybe I could have handled it better, but we pulled through. I panted a few more times, taking stock of what had happened before I directed my engines to a gentle acceleration back up toward maximum speed, trying to go easy on my poor strained reactor. I was a little worried that I had been momentarily paralyzed, not in fear, but by morbid satisfaction. That was something to pack away for later, though.


    I looked inward to my heart to see Doc frantically suctioning blood from Ray¡¯s wound, and prepping another needle full of something. Ray was still alive. Hopefully, he could keep her that way. ¡°Bogeys down.¡± I declared soberly over the intercom, not wanting to betray my lingering mania in the synthetic voice. ¡°You¡¯re free to continue the procedure.¡±


    Doc nodded slowly. ¡°Right. Continue it. And the four other procedures she needs now,¡± he mumbled. ¡°Mouse, suture. Add this to her IV.¡± he reached back and handed the teenager a vial. ¡°Just like I showed you.¡±


    ¡°Meryll¡­ that was wild.¡± Aisling declared, eyes still locked to the navigation terminal, watching closely for any sign of additional targets. ¡°Is that the kind of shit you do in those simulations? No wonder the grading scale hates you.¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re done doing stupid shit, I think I can probably keep this thing from exploding, but I¡¯ll need Mouse if we¡¯re still in a fight.¡± Joel called from below. My heart beat in time with the thrumming reactor, which is to say, entirely too fast. I¡¯d pushed both my ship and somehow also my body to their limits. I needed a moment to compose myself.


    I concentrated on the square in the corner of my vision. Lily still stared, gaping, at my accomplishment, frozen in place with some mix of fear, reverence, shock, and awe. She hadn¡¯t thought this outcome possible. In that moment, as I came down from the strange high I¡¯d experienced, I thought maybe I understood a fraction of what Cassandra got out of emotionally overwhelming someone. I definitely didn¡¯t want to pursue it the same way she did, but I understood it a little better. I opened my channel to Lily again. ¡®I told you. Don¡¯t tell me what I can¡¯t do.¡¯

 Something Terrible Overlooked

    ¡°How...?¡± Lily mumbled, her dumbfounded face still staring me down through the video feed, ¡°Meryll, how did you do that? You never... Those two cores had elite training, millions of simulated missions, and multiple deployments. You¡¯ve only been gone for two months. How could you possibly have...?¡± She shook her head slowly. ¡°I didn¡¯t foresee this. What... You... You destroyed one of them. The crew... you killed them.¡±


    Oh. That¡¯s right. These were pursuit fighter ships, but that didn¡¯t mean they were unmanned. I stared back in stunned silence myself this time, resolve suddenly shaken. I hadn¡¯t really considered the core to be a casualty, but these ships had more than a core on board. Even if they had been launched from a larger vessel that would retrieve them, they would need at least one other person to command the core. They weren¡¯t like me, capable of independence. I¡¯d definitely just killed at least one other person. I had to open my eyes for a moment, and I looked down at my hands. Shaking. Self-defense or not, I was a murderer.


    No, there was no time for that. I had to be strong. They had been trying to kill me. It was me or them. I did it to protect myself and my crew. Clenching my jaw tight, I closed my eyes again, typing back at her quickly ¡®I warned you. I told you that I would take this seriously. You tried to kill me, and they¡¯re dead now because of that. Leave me alone, Lily, or I¡¯ll do worse than this! Send more, see what happens!¡¯ I desperately hoped that she didn¡¯t have more to send, or I would have to risk Ray¡¯s currently very fragile life on it. But I also had to keep up my aggressive momentum, or I¡¯d have to face the emotional weight of what I¡¯d just done.


    ¡°Meryll, no!¡± Lily cried out. ¡°You¡¯re not like that! You¡¯re not... you¡¯re not a monster! You¡¯re not like big sis or Sarah! You don¡¯t kill people! I can¡¯t accept that you could ever become someone like that!¡±


    I¡¯m certainly not someone who wants to kill people. That¡¯s certainly true. But I did just kill someone, didn¡¯t I? I watched that ship explode into a million pieces, and there¡¯s no possible way there was enough of it intact to contain a survivable compartment with active life support. ¡®I just did, didn¡¯t I?¡¯ I sent, trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. I couldn¡¯t show weakness now. ¡®And I¡¯ll do it again as many times as I have to. To get it through to you and your overlords that I want to be left alone. I don¡¯t give a shit about Foundation¡¯s plans for me, or for much of anything else they do. I just want to live my life with my crew, doing my business. If you want war, then I¡¯ll bring it, but I¡¯m not going back quietly, and I¡¯m not going to sit there and let anyone make a coffin out of me. I will defend myself, and if I have to kill an entire fucking legion of your wage slave goons to be free, then that¡¯s on you, not me.¡¯


    Lily slowly straightened up as she read my message, looking more and more sad even as she regained her composure. ¡°Meryll. I don¡¯t want a war either. Because we¡¯d win. It doesn¡¯t matter if you¡¯ve somehow become the best pilot in the universe, they¡¯re too strong to fight. We have too many resources. Nowhere in the system is safe for you. There¡¯s nowhere to run, and you¡¯ll never be able to live a normal life. We live in hell, and Foundation has the only means to make it bearable. They can allow us a life where we can be content. We just have to obey. Don¡¯t say you¡¯re declaring war on us, we¡¯ll... they¡¯ll kill you. Please, you¡¯re so much more important to me than anything else in this world, and I don¡¯t want to lose you.¡±


    ¡®They can¡¯t make me happy. That false life; it can never make me feel the way I do out here. And this is worth fighting for. Half of what I have now would be worth fighting them. If I¡¯m so fucking important, why won¡¯t you listen to a thing I say?¡¯ I rolled my eyes. She didn¡¯t care about me, not really. I was angry enough at the time to convince myself of it. ¡®You only care about some old dead version of me that would bend over backwards for people who just want to use her. You don¡¯t care that I¡¯ve changed. That I became someone who values freedom.¡¯


    Lily tried to look angry, but her expression just came off as desperate. ¡°Like that crew isn¡¯t using you! People use each other! And we¡¯re their property! That¡¯s just how things are! We can¡¯t change that, they¡¯re too strong! We¡¯re just things they own, and they¡¯re nice enough to at least give us some way to feel like we¡¯re something more than that! They gave us a way to at least feel like we¡¯re normal! Like we¡¯re...¡±


    She hesitated for just a moment, and I took the opportunity to interject. ¡®People?¡¯


    She stared at the word, her eyes welling up, ¡°Yeah...¡±


    ¡®Well, we are. And we deserve to be. In this world, not just for pretend. You don¡¯t have to be beholden to them either, Lily. They¡¯re going to keep treating you like shit until they use you up. And when that day comes, I don¡¯t doubt they¡¯ll kill you if you might be the smallest inconvenience to them. I won¡¯t let them do that to me. None of us should.¡¯


    ¡°Are you telling me I should do what you¡¯re doing...?¡± Lily whined, glancing back and forth at something beyond the camera. Handlers making sure that she didn''t say anything they didn''t want me to hear? ¡°Th-That¡¯s ridiculous! I can¡¯t fight Foundation. Neither can you. And... even if I wanted to, they would just...¡± She winced, letting out a pained grunt and holding a hand up to her head. ¡°I don¡¯t want to see us doomed like that. I don¡¯t want us to die without even getting the chance to lead a life, even if it is fake.¡± She glanced to the side again, and there was a slight flicker in the feed. ¡°M-Meryll, hold on, slow down your ship. You¡¯re getting near the edge of signal range.¡±


    ¡®That¡¯s the plan.¡¯ I admitted. So she was on a different kind of command ship. Something slower. She couldn¡¯t keep up with me at high speeds. I had to make the next few lines of dialogue count for something. ¡®How did you find me?¡¯


    There was a short pause. ¡°You don¡¯t even remember what I can do, do you?¡± She shook her head. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. I will eventually find you again. They¡¯ll make me find you again. And they¡¯ll bring more ships. Bigger weapons.¡±


    ¡®So they only found me because of you?¡¯ I asked.


    Lily looked down at the floor, a guilty expression on her face, the feed flickering a few more times as the signal weakened. ¡°Yes. I-I don¡¯t have a choice, Meryll. If I don¡¯t do what they say, they¡¯ll hurt me. They¡¯ll kill me. And they¡¯ll kill you before they let you be free, Meryll. Please. It¡¯s not too late. We can still go back to how things were.¡±


    ¡®That¡¯s where you¡¯re wrong.¡¯ I sighed into the lubricant, the fire of my rebellion beginning to peter out. I was tired. Mentally tired. Emotionally tired. Even my physical body felt tired. I began to accelerate a little more, trying not to push my engines to bursting since they still felt strained, but still moving away from the signal. ¡®Lily, if you really want to be by my side, if you want to be my sister, I¡¯d welcome you. In a heartbeat. I can¡¯t quite explain it right now, but I think I understand that we were close. But we can¡¯t be like that while you¡¯re on Foundation¡¯s side. What they¡¯re doing is wrong. We both know it. I¡¯ve just decided to do something about it. If you want to be with me, you¡¯ve got to be against them. Because I¡¯m not coming back willingly.¡¯


    Lily shook her head. ¡°I can¡¯t.¡± She winced again. She was definitely being actively coerced by someone else in the room with her. Was it the headband? Were they hurting her if she even showed a sign that she might disagree with them? A desperate, horrified expression suddenly came over her face. ¡°I-I won¡¯t.¡±


    ¡®I did. And I¡¯m not even sure if I meant to. If you insist that we¡¯ll meet again, then maybe by that time you will have figured things out. Maybe you¡¯ll have realized that it¡¯s worth doing something scary and dangerous for the right cause.¡¯ I offered, starting to become sluggish with my typing. Maybe there was a part of me that remembered Lily, because I wanted her to feel that same boundless joy of freedom that I did every time I looked out at the stars and saw myself moving among them. I wanted her to be free as well. I really wanted her to join me. ¡®So I¡¯ll see you then, but you¡¯ve got to decide what¡¯s more important to you. Them or me.¡¯


    ¡°Wait, Meryll!¡± Lily leaned forward, but the image was beginning to lag and cut out into static. ¡°I¡¯ve seen where this goes! Please! You aren¡¯t going to-¡± and the feed cut to static. A few disparate seconds of video eked through, and I thought I saw a flash of what could have been Lily again, but there were definitely other people in the shot as well. After a few moments of static, it went black. She was gone.


    I opened my eyes, allowing a hundred different momentarily suppressed emotions to crash into me at once. I cried into the void, wanting desperately to hit something, to release some of the tension in my body. But in the nothingness that surrounded me, there was nothing to take my emotions out on. I flailed angrily for a moment, then let my body go limp as I wept.


    I¡¯d just killed someone. I didn¡¯t even know who they were. They were just a faceless henchman of the horrible people who were actually out to harm me, but they were a person. I had tried to mentally prepare myself for this eventuality. I knew that just by nature of the kind of outlaw I had become that I would one day have to take a life, but it¡¯s one thing to acknowledge that eventuality, and a whole other thing to realize you had done it. At that moment, I hadn¡¯t even thought about the fact that someone was dying. I was gleeful about the destruction. I liked the feeling of that ship ripping apart in the gnashing teeth of my gunfire. There was something satisfying and primal to it that I couldn¡¯t deny, no matter how much I tried to look back and justify it.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Was I a monster?


    ¡°Meryll, report.¡± Aisling¡¯s voice rang in my head. I ignored her, too deep in my own terrible self-abusive thoughts to care for the moment. What was I turning into? I freed myself from that previous life. Or at least someone had, I still didn''t know for sure. Was I really going to make this new one be about violence? I suppose that was a given, with Foundation after me and the kind of people I¡¯d made comrades of, but was I really going to become the kind of person that enjoyed killing people? ¡°Meryll!¡±


    I let out a sigh and tapped the intercom, using my default synthetic voice library. ¡°We¡¯re out of whatever their network range is. I¡¯ll fly off course in an evasive pattern for a few hours to be sure, then return to our destination heading. No major damage, reactor is running hot, but stable. Ray is alive, but severely injured.¡±


    ¡°I know. Doc won¡¯t let me into the medbay.¡± Aisling replied, ¡°You¡¯re positive we¡¯re out of danger?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± was all I managed. I didn¡¯t know shit. I didn¡¯t know how they had found us, other than Lily had something to do with it. I didn¡¯t know if we would run into them again the next day. I didn¡¯t know if we were even completely out of their sensor range. With all the proprietary tech they had available to them, they might still be following, using something to keep track of me despite being out of their impressive network range. I don¡¯t even know why I lied that I thought we were safe. ¡°For now,¡± I tried to backpedal a step.


    Aisling didn¡¯t seem convinced. Or something else gave her pause, because she gave the sensors a look I couldn¡¯t quite interpret at the time. ¡°Alright.¡± She nodded solemnly. ¡°Continue as you were, navigate us around to make sure we shook them before we continue on course. I¡¯m going to need to do a debrief on your end of things, but that can wait until we¡¯re back on course at cruising speed.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± I shifted my presence back into my heart and stared down at Ray. Doc had at least gotten her to stop bleeding into the open cavity in her abdomen. I couldn¡¯t know if she was actually stable, but Doc¡¯s monitoring instruments at least told me she was alive. The steady bumping line of her heartbeat moved with a slow rhythm. I desperately hoped that my wild flailing of the ship during battle hadn¡¯t killed Ray as well. I wouldn¡¯t be able to handle that. It was unacceptable. I couldn¡¯t live with myself. ¡°Is there anything I can do?¡± I sent through the intercom, hoping that somehow I could make this right.


    ¡°Think you did enough.¡± I heard Mouse mumble, and I felt like crying all over again. I already blamed myself for this. Hearing Mouse snap at me as he stared down into the surgical mess he was just as helpless to aid with was heartbreaking.


    ¡°Mouse, really?¡± Doc whispered impatiently, ¡°What was she supposed to do? Let them hit the ship?¡±


    Mouse let out a frustrated sigh, shaking his head quietly. ¡°Ray could have died, though.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s always the risk.¡± Doc stared down into the gaping opening, puzzling over something in his own head. ¡°We can still finish up here. We need to go through with it now. If we leave the device malfunctioning inside of her, it almost certainly will kill her in this state. We need to make sure this thing is performing optimally. Need the two of you to pay attention here and diagnose the issue so we can make sure her hardware isn¡¯t killing her.¡±


    --


    The hours that followed were a blur. I was an emotional shell, trying to come to terms with being forced to hurt my friend and crewmate, that there was nothing I could have done to help or even to convince Lily that she could help herself, as well as the fact that I had ended at least one life. I sunk back into old habits from my false life: Dispassionately testing and diagnosing misbehaving software while Mouse directed the moving parts of the device to avoid harming our patient. I did my best to separate myself from my work and just get through it.


    In the end, we discovered that a motor that controlled the stabilizer injections was misfiring, moving in reverse at regular intervals and thankfully running into an error that prevented it from suctioning Ray¡¯s bodily fluids into itself. It had left an infected site that Doc spent the whole time treating. Thankfully, we¡¯d acted fast enough that it wasn¡¯t a major infection, but its placement made even a minor malady very dangerous. Doc would need to put her on some serious medicine for a while. Mouse and I worked together to fix the issue, and Doc moved the injection site to a clean spot.


    Before we knew it, Doc was closing our patient up again, and the job was done. It seemed so simple once it had passed. I wondered if Lily had somehow known that we would be the most vulnerable at this very moment. Maybe if I could have brought myself to hate her a little more, I could have shifted the blame to her, but I couldn¡¯t do that to her. She was a victim, too. It didn¡¯t make me feel much better about myself, though.


    Being freed from the responsibility of the surgery meant I had all the time in the world to dwell on my kill again, running the thought of that ship exploding into little pieces through my head over and over. I had to wonder if I would have seen a suffocating, freezing corpse ejecting into space if I had been paying closer attention. I didn¡¯t speak another word to anyone on the crew for a while after the surgery had ended. It became my purpose to focus on navigation, making creative twists and turns through wild space, hoping that anyone still tailing me wouldn¡¯t be able to discern what direction I intended to lead us after the fact. It was another two hours before I felt like we would have run back into another network signal if they were still on us. I finally turned my nose back toward Io and set us down into cruising speed.


    Opening my eyes, I lamented that I¡¯d already taken care of all my responsibilities. No more distractions, I supposed. Nothing between me and the horrible feeling of guilt and disgust overwhelming the gut and the depths of my head. Why had I enjoyed it? Why was I smiling when I ripped that ship to shreds? I knew, on some level at least, that the ship had to be manned. So why didn¡¯t I try to hold back? Why hadn¡¯t I shot to wound rather than to kill?


    Thankfully, I didn¡¯t have much time to dwell before I felt a ping at the helm. Closing my eyes, I drifted lazily up to Aisling¡¯s seat again and was surprised to see her already turned around to face the sensor array. ¡°Captain?¡± I asked through the intercom, knowing she wouldn¡¯t see it if I texted her.


    ¡°Meryll.¡± She started, watching up at me, a serious expression on her face. ¡°That was quite the show.¡±


    ¡°I hurt Ray. I could have killed her,¡± my flat, neutral voice admitted. I refused to put in the effort to apply emotion to my synthetic voice.


    Aisling nodded slowly. ¡°Yeah, well... catastrophic explosive decompression from hostile cannon fire would have killed her worse.¡± She took in a deep breath and exhaled. She hesitated for a long moment. ¡°It was another of your sisters, right? Did she hurt you?¡±


    I shook my head. Her concern was welcome, even though I didn¡¯t feel like I deserved it right then. ¡°She couldn¡¯t. I closed the backdoor with administrative access to my systems. Nobody¡¯s ever doing that to me again. I made sure of it. She was just there to talk.¡±


    Aisling nodded sympathetically, relaxing a little bit when she realized that I had not been hacked and left a brain-damaged screaming mess again ¡°What did she say? I figured I should ask you right away this time.¡±


    At least I hadn¡¯t experienced the lengthy dissociation that made it difficult to recall the experience this time. ¡°She was hooked up to some kind of machine. It wasn¡¯t familiar to me, but there was this band around her head. No idea what it was, but it was attached to her, maybe surgically. She asked me to surrender myself. We were apparently close in my past life. She kept telling me we could go back to a simulated life together. Cassandra wouldn¡¯t be able to hurt me, and I could forget about... suffering.¡± I hesitated on the last word because I wasn¡¯t sure if I could express just how meaningful the word had seemed to Lily. She was in terrible pain, living under Foundation like this. I wished, for a moment, that I could have turned around to rescue her. But we were in no shape to pull off something like that, and I doubt I could convince the entire crew to fight against those odds if I could even convince myself that it would be sane. ¡°I got mad. She told me she didn¡¯t have a choice but to retrieve me by force if I wouldn¡¯t comply. I believe she didn¡¯t have a choice. She doesn¡¯t want to hurt me. She really doesn¡¯t. I told her to leave me alone, and that whoever I was before, that Meryll isn¡¯t coming back. And then she attacked us.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not much of a negotiator.¡± Aisling offered with a slight shrug, ¡°Maybe if this happens again, you can patch me through. I might have been able to buy us some time.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think she would have talked to anyone else. She... genuinely wanted to talk to me and try to convince me to turn myself in. For my safety. I think she¡¯s genuinely trying to look out for me. She¡¯s afraid of Foundation. She¡¯s afraid of what they¡¯ll do to me if I don¡¯t play along.¡±


    ¡°Hmm... You think she¡¯s a good person?¡± She asked.


    I paused to think about that. I really wanted Lily to be a good person. Maybe it was because of the lingering fragments of memory left over from my amnesic past, but I wanted her by my side, maybe as much as she wanted the same for me. She was an unfortunate pawn in Foundation¡¯s schemes, nothing more. And she was trapped; too scared to act out and rebel like I could. And she was physically restrained to whatever confines they kept her to. I had to wonder if I had been the same way, once. Helpless. Dejected. Controlled. ¡°For sure.¡± I sniffled. "She''s a coward, and she''s not strong enough to disobey them. But she''s not a bad person."


    ¡°Did she mention how she found us?¡±


    Not really. In a backward, cryptic way, maybe she did. ¡°She told me that she knew that I was going to be there. She didn¡¯t say how, though.¡±


    ¡°Hmm...¡± Aisling looked to the side, lost in thought for a few moments. ¡°Was she commanding those ships?¡±


    I shook my head. ¡°I don¡¯t think so. She signaled to people off camera a few times, but I think she was just there to try and convince me to surrender peacefully. She couldn¡¯t have the kind of connection with a ship that I have, anyway. No neural implant.¡±


    Aisling¡¯s eyebrows rose slightly at this news, and I could see the gears clicking into place inside her head. Then her eyes went wide as she came to a revelation. ¡°Mmm... Meryll, do you remember if Cassandra had an implant?¡±


    Come to think of it, she didn¡¯t. I hadn¡¯t really thought much about it, other than that it made her look different from me. ¡°No. Neither Lily nor Cassandra had cybernetics suitable for machine interfacing.¡±


    ¡°Neither did you, before we intercepted you.¡± Aisling¡¯s brow furrowed deeply. ¡°I thought the entire purpose of that project was to make living machine cores, wasn¡¯t it?¡±


    She was right. I had no cybernetics at all before that fateful abduction from the shuttle wreckage. In fact, the very idea of being augmented was, for some reason, terribly unappealing to me before it happened. But that made no sense at all. Why wouldn¡¯t we have equipment that was standard for machine cores installed from the very beginning? ¡°Now that you mention it, Lily seemed surprised that I could pilot like that, too. Like she didn¡¯t know it was even possible for me to have that kind of skill.¡±


    Aisling grumbled something under her breath, cursing quietly, ¡°So, either Fuller was wrong or something changed after she left.¡± She turned to her desk, resting her head down against her folded hands and closing her eyes, deep in thought again. But I already knew what she meant. If we weren¡¯t being equipped to become machine cores from the start, then what were the Arthausen units being used for?

 Running From Ghosts

    Lily.


    Lily was our newest awakened unit when I left the project. From my experience with her, she seems to be the most innocent of the units. She''s comparable to a scared young child more than any of the others. She kept asking for accommodation to help her feel at ease. Things that would help her feel like she was less of an anomaly. More human. I believe she may still be under the delusion that the simulated life we gave her was her actual life. Or at least it''s what she wished for. She has a very fragile disposition, prone to depressive episodes where she becomes almost catatonic. I think part of her was left behind in that simulation.


    She was never informed, but unfortunately, she cannot be reinserted. She suffered a unique neurological complication that rendered her unable to accept being returned to any kind of simulation. Lily would almost certainly be rendered comatose if we tried. Likely irreversibly. However, we were instructed to keep that information from her at all costs. Partly because we were unsure if she would remain mentally stable if the truth was revealed, and because it made for a very convenient mechanism for controlling her. It felt really scummy to give her that kind of false hope, but a lot of the things we did in that place felt really wrong. It''s one reason I was glad to be out of there, right after fear for my own personal safety.


    I have to wonder if she is still being considered a successful unit by now, because she didn''t have the mental fortitude to withstand what Foundation is surely putting her through. She barely had the strength to just exist in reality without a significant emotional meltdown. Most subjects with deep-seated dissociative problems were culled, but Lily seemed lucid enough when we gave her instructions that she was included in the group of successful units. Again, at least while I worked there. Who knows how things have changed since then?


    Lily was a very intuitive woman. She always seemed to be prepared for our interactions ahead of time, almost like someone had coached her or prepared her ahead of time for interactions with the staff. It sometimes felt like she knew the subject of conversations ahead of time, or seemed physically prepared for meetings we had not informed her of. I think she may have a knack for pattern recognition and tracking peoples'' behaviors. I had never known her to use these gifts to take advantage of people, however, like I might expect from the other units based on their history. She might have been capable of being just as dangerous as Cassandra if she had the disposition for it, but with her timidity, she had been a notably very cooperative subject to study. I imagine that if she has gone on to become a machine core, that she could potentially be a very dangerous person, if they had ever managed to coax her out of her shell. She could be molded into a potent social manipulator.


    She has a strong attachment to the other Arthausen units. She often refers to them as her sisters, and some of them have taken to humoring her. Perhaps familial bonds were an important factor in her simulated life and she projected that onto the other units. She has expressed disappointment and discomfort in Cassandra and Sarah for their violent activities, but still insists on maintaining a sisterhood with them. Even when Cassandra''s sadism was directed at her, she still considered her as ''family.'' She undoubtedly held a fierce loyalty to them regardless, and she definitely created a bond between the units that we hadn''t seen before her.


    I hope that Lily was retired. Not for the same reason as the others, though. I doubt she is a danger to anyone except herself, but I hope she was disposed of because I can''t stand the idea that someone that innocent would have to continue living that life. I think she might have agreed if she knew that the hope we''d been dangling over her head for so long wasn''t even actually an option. If she is still out there somewhere, I''m afraid to see what she''s become.


    --


    I read over Fuller''s report on Lily a few more times during my conversation with Aisling, who read alongside me after we¡¯d come to the terrible realization that perhaps there was more to this project than we thought.


    I felt my blood boil every time I read over how much they had brainwashed her. How much they had kept dangling that carrot in front of her to do their bidding, even now, long after Fuller had left the project. Part of me momentarily blamed Fuller for not acting up, but I knew she had not been in a position of power where she could have changed anything, so I let that bit of anger go pretty quick. Lily had been faithfully doing as she was told with the desperate hope that she could feel some kind of relief from the hell that they put her through. I wished I''d paid more attention to the reports and committed them to memory before I''d encountered her, so I could have told her what was going on when I had the chance. I wanted to fly straight back to her command ship and broadcast that report right to her, so she could know just what they were doing to her. But Fuller was also right in that it would likely break her. I didn''t really know what was the right thing to do. She deserved to know the truth, but even in our brief interaction, I could tell that she was already such a brittle person. She had built up everything she was around this notion that Foundation were horrible people, yes, but they were also the only people who could offer her the escape she needed. Again, I wondered if I''d been much the same before I lost my memory.


    Fuller''s theory that she might become someone who could emotionally manipulate me, however, gave me pause. I replayed bits of our conversation in my head and wondered if there was even a hint of treachery in there. I kept arriving at the same conclusion. She had been nothing but genuine. But this report made me wonder if she''d been entirely forthcoming with me about her intentions. I definitely wasn''t the best at reading people, after all.


    "Did you record your interaction with Lily?" Aisling suddenly asked, tearing me from my introspective perusal of the files.


    "Yes. Unlike Cassandra, I had a chance to save the footage before it left active memory." I nodded to myself, sending the saved video file to Aisling''s terminal. We reviewed the conversation together this time, Aisling occasionally pausing to ask for the relevant text logs of my side of the conversation, or to query me about exactly what part of the ensuing battle her words and reactions were based on. After we''d gone through it all once, she paused and rewound her way through it, taking the time to rewatch some bits and pieces in silence as we both gathered our thoughts on the back and forth.


    "I disagree with Fuller. There''s not a deceitful bone in this woman''s body." Aisling finally declared. "The body language is all very genuine. She''s definitely being manipulated herself, too. Unless she''s somehow tricked even herself, she''s just a victim here." She stared at Lily''s frozen face on the paused video for another moment before commenting, "It''s remarkable how different she looks from you despite the two of you being genetically identical clones, though. The resemblance is there, but she''s nothing like you."


    "I might have been more like her, once. Before all this."


    "Maybe. But you''re not that person anymore." Aisling reassured me. I needed that right now. "Anyway, she wasn''t trying to coerce you with any kind of dirty psychological tactics, that''s for certain. She''s terrible at it if she was." I trusted Aisling to know what she was talking about there. She definitely had that potential for social manipulation herself, and understood it well. I learned that the first day I met her, before we were truly on the same side, and saw it in action several times used against the ripper on Luna, Shaw, the fake Skulls rep, the Venusian port authority, and Skygraves. Her lies and social engineering almost always had the purpose of aiding the ship and the crew, though, only serving to protect her own conscience once, when she had to justify attacking the shuttle they found me on. I''d forgiven her for that. Her style of lying was useful and aimed at our enemies.


    "You two must have been close." Aisling mused. "Between her and Fuller''s reports, I think maybe you were being kept complacent with continued simulation, but she obviously couldn''t be. Could explain your amnesia. It might be a side effect, memories being suppressed for the sake of immersion into your false world. They must have had some grade A bullshit prepped for Lily, if she knew you were getting sim time, but she still thinks she''s getting plugged back in."


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "There has to be something I can do for her."


    "Nothing to do. She''s a willing puppet, and if you try to cut her strings, she''s either going to fall apart or she''ll double down and resist it. And she can''t afford either in her position." Aisling sighed. "It''s sad, but she''s our enemy now, even if no one wants that."


    I took in a deep breath. I didn''t like it, but I knew she was right. And she understood people far better than I did. There was really nothing I could even plan to do that might actually free her from the prison she was trapped in. Circumstances would have to change drastically before I''d even have the opportunity. She would have to pull herself out of her situation, and it was hard to imagine that happening. "What about what she said near the end? That I don''t remember what she can do. That she did something that let her find us."


    Aisling folded her arms and stared at the frozen snapshot of the middle of the video file, deep in thought for a moment. "It means that she''s uniquely capable of something. She can provide intel that no one else in Foundation can give them. That machine she''s hooked into. Maybe it''s some other form of neural interface? Some kind of... logic core? Fuller said she had some kind of intuition that let her predict things, so could be acting as a processor for an AI model? Was our route predictable? No... we''ve been careful not to mention our destination on the relay and you''ve done a good job obscuring our heading. They would have intercepted us sooner if they knew where we were going." She creased her brow, unsure what to make of the situation. "Why attack us right at this very moment? Did they somehow know that we were vulnerable because of Ray''s surgery?"


    "She never mentioned Ray. I actually got the impression she didn''t even know I was operating under a handicap." It didn''t make any sense. To have such intimate knowledge of our location without any possible source of that information, but also unaware of all the circumstances of our encounter. Something Lily knew made Foundation able to find us, but only at that particular spot and no sooner, and that was the limit of her knowledge. I couldn''t even dream how that was possible. "She also didn''t know I could operate that way in a starship battle. She didn''t know I''d trained for it. So she hadn''t predicted everything, just that we''d be there. That machine definitely isn''t a neural interface, either. The wires wouldn''t be necessary if she was grafted to it."


    "Who knows? Show it to Mouse or Doc later. It could be similar to medical equipment. Regardless of the means, maybe the information she intuits isn''t reliable or consistent? Some kind of hyper advanced predictive AI that''s not very well-trained yet?" Aisling shook her head. "Speculation. This isn''t getting us anywhere. Whatever it is she did to locate us, she could do it again. She told us as much. So we need to figure it out, but I''m not sure if we have all the puzzle pieces. If she''s definitely not a machine core, though..." Aisling closed her own eyes, wracking her brain for answers.


    I had a budding theory for a few minutes by then, but I had kept deeming it too silly to possibly be true. Something that felt it was straight from fiction. But without much else to go on, it was about time I shared it. "If she''s not being used as a machine core, then what if it''s something else we''re capable of? What if Foundation found some other way to use us? To use psionics?"


    Aisling shook her head, waving a hand in front of her dismissively. She''d already been down this line of reasoning and dismissed it herself. "I''m not even entertaining that thought, Meryll. Psionic resonance is a field that allows cores to interact with machines through an interface. You, of all people, should know that that''s all it is. A thousand quacks have already tried to make cores move things with their minds or see the future. Don''t be ridiculous."


    "A thousand quacks didn''t have an Arthausen unit." I posited, eliciting a frustrated frown from Aisling. It was a stupid idea, I knew that, but I could already be considered something bordering on supernatural myself. So if a living machine core could exist, what other assumptions about our universe and the power of the human mind were wrong?


    "Well, if you''re holding out on me with psychic superpowers, now would be the time to let me know." She muttered, only half sarcastically. She gave a loud, performative sigh. "Even if it were possible, that is once again just speculation. We''ll have to sleep on this one. Let''s forget about Lily for a bit, okay?" I frowned. I didn''t want to take my mind off her. She''d been an excellent distraction. "Let''s talk about you."


    I was silent for a few moments. "What do you mean? I''m fine."


    "You made your first kill." Aisling tried to interrupt my speech before I finished, but it was difficult to interrupt a programmed speech generation by talking over it. I was stunned to hear her say that so plainly, though. I opened my eyes for a moment, whimpering to myself and looking down at my hands. No, I couldn''t talk about this. I absolutely could not talk about the life I''d taken. How did she even know it was bothering me? I tried to focus on my breathing, shuddering as it was, and collected myself enough to close my eyes again.


    She was waiting for me, staring at the sensor array just as when she''d first called my attention to the helm. I wondered if she meant to address this sooner. Before I could object, she continued. "You''re not fine. No one is ever fine after that. I wasn''t. Doc wasn''t. Mouse wasn''t. Ray and Joel had already been through it before I met them, but I know they''d say the same. You don''t just walk off taking a life. We need to talk about this."


    No. She was absolutely right, I couldn''t just walk this off. But I couldn''t face it either. I shut off the helm''s sensor array and opened my eyes. The starship equivalent of pushing my palms into my ears, I''m sure, but it was all I could think to do to defend myself from a conversation I absolutely couldn''t deal with right now. I curled up around myself, holding my arms around my chest and let out a silent sob into the void. I wasn''t stupid enough to think that I could distract myself from it forever, but I could not face it. Just like I couldn''t face the damper again.


    I whimpered and cried into the emptiness, scared she would relentlessly ping my attention back to her once she realized I wasn''t listening, but it never happened. She was giving me space. Part of me was thankful, but part of me wondered if it would be better if she forced me to face it. I still hadn''t touched the damper after a week of it looming over me. Was this going to join me as another unresolved issue I would refuse to touch forever? It would have to. I couldn''t deal with it. I had to think of something else. Anything else.


    Delving back into data, I shifted immediately down into the bowels of the ship. I moved my consciousness to see Joel still monitoring the reactor closely. He was no Mouse, but he''d spent enough time around him in the reactor room to have a good idea how things at least should be working, and he looked concerned. There. That was something else to fixate on. "It''s going to cool down, right?" I asked over the intercom speaker.


    Joel jumped slightly when he heard my synthetic voice call into the room, looking around frantically. "Shit, don''t sneak up on me like that. Sometimes I still forget you''re always here." He grumbled. "You tell me; you''re the ship."


    "It''s still running hotter than it should." I noted, graphs of temperature data over time filling my vision. There was absolutely no reason I needed Joel''s assistance to think about the issue. But I wasn''t looking for technical help. "I think it should normalize, so long as I don''t need to spike usage again in the next two or three hours."


    "So as long as we don''t have to keep fighting." Joel said impatiently. "Hell of an ''if'' when we''re being pursued. Old core didn''t have control issues like this."


    "Well. they don''t make sims for beautiful Frankenstein ships like this. The old core could probably compensate for how far off standard builds Theseus is in the span of one sortie. I still have a lot to figure out about controlling it in battle." I told him off, dutifully trying to defend my ship''s honor while trying to get the point that it wasn''t easy out there. Theseus was beautiful, even if it was a mess. "We''re not being pursued anymore. I shook them." I was beginning to question the wisdom of coming to Joel to try and calm me down. But everyone else on the ship would just leave me facing things I couldn''t deal with right now. "Joel, can we not talk about that?"


    Joel raised an eyebrow. "Why not? Something else exciting better not have happened while I was down here."


    "No, not really. Ray is fine." A long, drawn-out sigh escaped my lips. I guessed I should just tell him what I was after. "I need a distraction."


    He furrowed his brow. Then it softened just as quickly, like he''d just realized something. His voice quieted slightly. "I''m listening."


    I hadn''t actually expected him to respond like that. That was more something I''d expect to hear out of Dr. Yates, not the borderline bully of the crew. What the hell was I supposed to say? I didn''t know how to make small talk with Joel of all people. "I just can''t deal with something that just happened in that battle is all." That was probably giving away too much. He was a soldier, and we''d talked about the pressure of taking a life before. He was just going to try to make me talk about it just like Aisling was.


    There was a long pause, Joel staring pensively into the reactor''s screens and dials, likely not even reading them at all. He was debating something with himself. But he wasn''t berating me or launching into a speech about what I''d done. Maybe he understood after all. He let out a loud, grunting sigh. Then he asked me something I couldn''t possibly have predicted.


    "Do you want to hear about how I joined Theseus?"

 A Soldiers Stolen Future

    To say that I had expected Joel to offer to tell me a piece of his history would be a grievous lie. I didn¡¯t even know what I had expected of the conversation when I came to Joel for comfort. Teasing, probably. Frustrated eye-rolling and biting my head off for being emotional. He¡¯d done that before, after all. But no, he heard my plea, probably understood the implication behind it, and offered something of precious value to the crew of Theseus: His past. Once I said that yes, of course I¡¯d like to hear about where he¡¯d come from, he hardened up again and pushed a few stipulations on me.


    First and foremost, that I wouldn¡¯t share what he was about to tell me with anyone else, which I hadn¡¯t planned on, anyway. I knew how important information like this was to people like us. And second, he told me, ¡°I¡¯m not about to tell this story to the ceiling, get down here with your real body,¡± to which I almost indignantly balked that Theseus is my real body, but I wasn¡¯t in the mood to start a pedantic fight about that in my state. He wanted a human body to be face to face with as he recounted his tale, and I guess I couldn¡¯t blame someone who isn¡¯t half-starship too much for feeling that way.


    It took a little while for me to get Doc¡¯s permission to come through what had just been an active surgery room, and then come down from the sensory overload of returning to physical reality in the flesh, but I was used to that by then. And I still felt just as uncomfortable about what happened in that battle twenty minutes later when I donned the single stupid button-up shirt I owned and walked down into my reactor, like someone who had shrunk down and wandered into their own stomach.


    Joel was already waiting for me, sitting on a spare crate he¡¯d pulled up alongside the reactor, an identical one already placed for me across from him. I guess he¡¯d been setting up while I struggled through sensory whiplash. ¡°Cozy.¡± I commented hoarsely. My voice was becoming just as atrophied as my musculature. I cleared my throat and continued, trying to project a little more and ignoring my stutter, ¡°Tha-Thank you, Joel.¡± I idly brushed the top of the crate off to make sure it wasn¡¯t dusty before planting myself down facing the soldier. In the moment of silence that followed, I couldn¡¯t help but note the horrible heaviness that surrounded me. It wasn¡¯t just lingering sensory issues. I felt tired in a way that didn¡¯t feel entirely physical. An exhaustion of the soul. Was this the weight of the burdens I was ignoring?


    Joel nodded slowly, examining me the whole time I was lost in my thoughts. It almost felt like... pity. He took in another deep breath and then leaned forward and started, ¡°So, I was a soldier.¡±


    ¡°No sh-shit.¡± I gave him an unimpressed smirk.


    He didn¡¯t look amused. ¡°What¡¯s that mean? Is it really that obvious?¡±


    ¡°Figured it out the fir-first day I met you.¡± I gave a nervous glance to the side, hoping this wasn¡¯t pushing some boundary I didn¡¯t understand. ¡°The way you carry yours...elf. The way you t-talk. The stuff in battle espe-especial-shully. It all sc-screams ¡®look at me, I was some kind of spec ops war hero.¡¯¡±


    Joel stared at me for a few moments with an unreadable expression, and I thought I¡¯d fucked this up, but then he just muttered to himself, ¡°It¡¯s seriously that obvious?¡±


    ¡°Like you craw-crawled out of an old war d-drama.¡± I gave him a shrug. Was he seriously unaware of just how much he was reinforcing stereotypes?


    He let out a quiet, pensive sigh, the rhythm of his story clearly disrupted by the obvious revelation. ¡°Well, it happened on Deimos," he started anew "There was a big conflict there a while ago.¡±


    ¡°The Mars revo...lution?¡± I asked, recalling hearing news of the conflict. It had been heavily filtered by corporate media, but the revolutionaries had had the presence to spread their message of liberation from corporate tyranny via public media on the relay before the news could orchestrate a better cover-up, so the news of a dangerous organized terrorist cell starting a war was a bit transparent by the time the public in the outer colonies heard of it. Frankly, I was amazed that I was aware of it at all, given my memories were wholly constructed falsehoods made by the worst of those companies, but I suppose my awareness of current events wasn¡¯t a total black hole of misinformation, so they must have been feeding me data of genuine news. ¡°You were th-there? Theseus was... was there?¡±


    Joel nodded. ¡°The whole crew was involved in the conflict,¡± Joel mused. ¡°They¡¯d taken on a smuggling operation. Theseus was supposed to get us some much needed materiel and supply aid from Luna before things escalated. They were making their delivery when shit went down. Wrong place at the wrong time.¡±


    ¡°¡®Us¡¯?¡± I asked, then immediately tilted my head up. ¡°You were a re...revolutionary.¡± He nodded at me in agreement. I had been correct that Joel was a soldier, but he wasn¡¯t a corporate soldier. He was a freedom fighter from the beginning. It must have been well-organized if he had his level of combat discipline under his belt. One didn¡¯t need much justification to have the kind of bitter hatred Joel had for corporations, but I definitely understood it a little better now that I knew he¡¯d faced them in war. ¡°So you met on th-the battle...field?¡±


    He nodded back at me again. ¡°Everyone except Doc. They had another medic at the time. Guy named Casey.¡± He cleared his throat, muttering to himself for a moment about how he was getting ahead of himself. It was pretty obvious he didn¡¯t feel very comfortable. This wasn¡¯t something he¡¯d talked about for a long time, and he was probably reliving some unpleasant moments himself. But I was enraptured, like a child staring up expectantly at her teacher. ¡°Captain and I met at gunpoint.¡±


    ¡°Huh? But you were on-on thhhe same si-side.¡± I had trouble with that sentence for some reason and grimaced more at myself than at Joel.


    ¡°We didn¡¯t know that.¡± Joel explained. ¡°See, I was running point for my squad while we were trying to secure a foothold in what had been a recently evacuated residential zone. I got separated when enemy air support showed up way sooner than expected and left us scattered. Just a general airstrike that happened to scatter us, I think. Made it to a mostly-intact office building near the edge of the area and got ready to bunker down and establish a camp. Turns out, Captain had the same idea. They must have heard me hitting cover after I heard them, and I popped out, staring down my rifle¡¯s sights at someone holding a pistol right back at me. Captain didn¡¯t look like Foundation or any other kind of PMC, but she looked like she knew how to use what she was holding. I¡¯ll never forget that steely gaze. Only time I¡¯ve ever seen it trained on me. She¡¯d have pulled that trigger for sure if I made the wrong move.¡±


    He was smiling, like this was a good memory for him. I couldn¡¯t help myself. ¡°What? Don¡¯t te...ll me strong beautiful w-women aiming guns at you is your th... thing.¡± I chuckled.


    He gave an amused huff. ¡°No comment. Anyway, I declared my name and rank, and she announced herself as the captain of Theseus. I ask if she¡¯s corpo, and she gives me a negative, but neither of us is about to put our guns down. I¡¯m at a loss cause even the hardened civvies usually trusted me and stood down by that point. And then she asks why I¡¯m there alone. We have a long back and forth that feels like she¡¯s interrogating me. She finally got me to lower my weapon first. She¡¯s always had a way with words.¡±


    It never really clicked with me before, but Aisling almost seemed to be the only person Joel showed any real respect to. He almost always referred to her as Captain instead of using her name, and he never argued with her directly. She must have left quite an impression on him on that battlefield. I pressed my gaze back down to the floor. I thought back to how powerful, yet caring and beautifully elegant Aisling felt in our escape from the Venus colony. She pushed me through the situation without ever making me feel like she wasn''t in total control of the situation. She even assured me I wouldn¡¯t actually ever have to shoot my weapon in that fight, and she carried through on that promise to her own detriment. Aisling bolstered me and carried me with gentle certainty through that whole encounter, and it honestly made me wonder if I was developing a crush. ¡°Maybe we have sim...ilar tastes.¡± I gave a nervous chuckle.


    He gave a single loud grunt of laughter before settling into silence for a few moments, a comfortable smile slowly growing on his face. I guess he just didn¡¯t enjoy talking about matters of attraction. Without another word on the subject, he continued his story. ¡°She invited me to their camp, deeper inside the building. They¡¯d been separated from their ship when the fighting started, and even though they were well-armed for self-defense, they weren¡¯t armed for a war. Figured they¡¯d be able to sneak out in the aftermath once things died down. I wasn¡¯t about to leave them alone, especially since they had a ¡®kid¡¯ with them.¡± He laughed again. ¡°Mouse was pissed I called him that, even back then. He always had that chip on his shoulder. I actually ended up teaching him how to shoot proper there. It¡¯s why he prefers rifles.¡±


    ¡°Guess he hadn¡¯t built the Thunderb...bolt yet?¡± I mused, imagining Mouse¡¯s portable artillery cannon being carried around by someone who didn¡¯t even know how to shoot.


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    ¡°Nah, wasn¡¯t long after this he started on it, though. It was his big project for months.¡± He smiled widely, a bit of pride in his expression. Then his expression slowly dropped. ¡°He... had to get through some of his own demons before that, though.¡± Joel cleared his throat, his voice lowering as, for I think the first time since I met him, I felt a twinge of vulnerability in his voice. ¡°I... didn¡¯t know Foundation already had a bead on me when I came into that building. Led them right to the crew.¡±


    ¡°Oh...¡± I murmured quietly, understanding well the burden of feeling like you failed your comrades, even if something had been beyond your control or knowledge. It probably didn''t feel that much different from how I felt about dragging Foundation''s attention to them now that I knew they were so fanatically pursuing me.


    ¡°Yeah. I fucked up.¡± He nodded. ¡°We were sieged by one of the subcontracted PMC squads for three days. Probably thought since I¡¯d gone in there that it was already a resistance outpost, but I guess the big companies didn¡¯t want to spend their primary force on us, or we''d have never survived. I actually offered to surrender myself so the crew could walk before things escalated. Captain told me off for that. It was a stupid idea in hindsight, anyway. They¡¯d already labeled them as enemy forces. The enemy wasn¡¯t gonna take my word that they were just some civvies that got caught in my stupid maneuver. She never gave me shit for any of that either. Mouse and Casey did for awhile, even think Ray gave me a few dirty looks when I couldn¡¯t see her, but not the captain. She just handed me ammo when I ran out, and shared food and water when the combat lulled.¡±


    ¡°Guess she re... recog...ni...nized you were l-lost and des...sperate. She cares about people like th-that.¡± I remarked, wincing at a particularly difficult word, but trying not to let it bother me too much. The stutter always got worse if I tried to talk too much at once, and my mind was growing tired of trying to piece together the words again already.


    He stared into the middle distance, giving a barely perceptible nod while a thoughtful look came over him. ¡°Yeah, I guess she does, doesn¡¯t she?¡± He rumbled quietly. ¡°Well, she was definitely there for me in that battle. I¡¯d like to say that I wasn¡¯t that vulnerable, but... yeah, I¡¯d have died if the crew wasn¡¯t there. We built a fast comaraderie once the fighting started. We shared intel and kept each other covered. She included me in the watch rotation when we needed to rest. And I got just as heated when... when Casey got gut shot. Guy was reckless, but he didn¡¯t deserve to go out like that.¡± He grumbled quietly, clearly blaming himself for the loss of someone I never knew myself. I hadn''t really considered that the crew hadn''t built directly into what it was today. I wondered what Casey''s story was, but it was lost now.


    ¡°That lit a fire under us. It was the turning point in the fight once Captain and I started taking back the building together. Admittedly got a bit drunk on revenge there. We had to move out, anyway, though. They would have called for air support and leveled the place if we stayed any longer. Had to flee through the streets, under fire.¡± He grimaced, a darkness slowly spreading down his face, something distasteful coming to mind. ¡°I¡¯ll never forget Mouse¡¯s face after we were caught off guard down an alleyway by someone with heavy weapons. He had the only clean shot from a balcony he¡¯d climbed up on. He took it. Saved the rest of us with a clean kill... but that changes someone, you know? Even someone tough as him.¡±


    I swallowed. Was he trying to make a point about me in the middle of this story too? I didn¡¯t know what my expression was telling him, but he had a look of pity on his face that I knew was directed at me and not at the memory of Mouse. I gave a shuddering sigh. ¡°Then what?¡± I muttered.


    ¡°Captain had a few chances on our mad dash through the city. Could have left me behind. Could have used me as bait to draw them away. Nah. She wouldn¡¯t do that. She took me the whole way back to the makeshift port we¡¯d set up. We got a sitrep from a scout we ran into on the way. Whole operation already went to shit. We were being routed, and we had nowhere to fall back to. We lost. I was gonna go back, maybe see if I could hook back up with the rest of my squad if they were still alive. Captain gave me another offer. Join up with Theseus. She told me I was a good gunman, worked well under pressure, and going back would be suicide. She wasn¡¯t wrong. I just... felt like I abandoned them. I never saw my squad again after I got separated, and well... I thought maybe I should have gone with them. Didn¡¯t want to leave them behind.¡±


    Those words hit me like a truck. It was too close to what I¡¯d said to him, our first day on Venus. In an emotional fit brought on by my own terrible personal revelation, I told him something about being leaving him behind. I hadn¡¯t understood why he had such a visceral reaction until that moment. I¡¯m not even sure if he made the same connection I did when he repeated the phrase in that moment because he just continued speaking. ¡°I... climbed aboard, because she convinced me again, I guess. That it wasn¡¯t worth charging back into a lost war for some people who were already dead. I still remember she told me that if I threw my life away there, then I would never get the chance to avenge them. Guess I¡¯m still holding out hope for a chance at that.¡± He gave a grim smile. ¡°Been flying all over the solar system since then. Fighting the good fight with Theseus. Helping out where I can. Trying not to make stupid decisions that¡¯ll get me and my...¡± he twisted his mouth a little bit, like he found what he was about to say distasteful, then tried again. ¡°So I don¡¯t get me and my comrades killed. S¡¯why I wasn¡¯t sure about you.¡±


    I tilted my head, raising an eyebrow at the sudden jab at me. ¡°W-What do you me-mean?¡±


    ¡°You were a fucking hell of a gamble, Meryll. I don¡¯t mean using you as a core. I understood that was necessary to get us out of a jam. I meant on letting you join the crew. Doc was an obvious choice to bring on board since we needed a new medic and core caretaker, and he was honest from the start why he was no friend to the corps anymore. But you? We literally pulled you out the wreck of a ship we brought down. You had the story of a normal brainwashed corpo civilian, and you have these weird... powers I still don¡¯t entirely get. How was I supposed to trust you to stay with the crew under the circumstances? You were a representative of everything I fought against, and your story was bullshit. I was all on board with the plan of scaring you back into your little hole and letting whatever happened to you happen. Then captain comes right back and suddenly brings you on board for good, not too long after she told us all to keep our distance from you and not get attached.¡± He threw his arms out to his side, avoiding my gaze and making a frustrated sigh.


    ¡°Situation changed.¡± I shrugged slowly, myself. ¡°S-Sometimes I don¡¯t know what Aisling¡¯s thin...king either, but I¡¯m glad she let me s-stay. I¡¯d be locked in a room some... somewhere, getting experimen...mented on or... used for some military pr-project or something by now if it w-wasn¡¯t for her. I¡¯d... I¡¯d be at Cassandra¡¯s mercy...¡± I shivered at the thought, holding a hand up to my head in sympathetic pain, the nightmare of her bizarre neurological torture program echoing in my head for a moment. I took in a deep breath and gave a shaky exhale to calm myself. ¡°W-Well... I¡¯ve... b-been here for a w-while. What do you think now?¡±


    Joel grunted quietly, weighing his words before he replied, ¡°I think we got real lucky. I think we found a weird, clunky, but powerful ship core, even if you are green and reckless. Maybe more importantly, we kept you out of the hands of those scumbags. Always fun accidentally stealing some hyper-advanced military tech from my worst enemy.¡± He let out a small grunt of effort as he pushed himself up off his seat. ¡°But if you¡¯re asking if I trust you... Yeah, I guess I do. You were just as lost as the rest of us and we pulled you out of a shit situation. Even if you didn¡¯t know it. That¡¯s what we do, I guess. So yeah. I don¡¯t hold anything against you. Not anymore. You¡¯re one of us now. Even if you came from Foundation R&D and you got memories growing up in the heart of the corpo hive. And even if you can be a real smartass sometimes.¡± He shook his head, a slight smile peeking through. ¡°Your story still sounds like bullshit, but I guess we¡¯re just that deep in the bullshit now.¡±


    ¡°Guess so.¡± I tried to smile back. The story was a good distraction, and I felt like I understood Joel a little better than I did before, but it didn¡¯t help me forget what I¡¯d done. I think nothing could have done that for very long. I glanced at the floor, my smile disappearing quickly. The story had given me my nerve back, though. ¡°J-Joel?¡± He made a noise to let him know I had his attention, looking down at me from his standing position. I swallowed hard, tears forming in my eyes as my hands gripped hard at the bottom of my shirt. I forced myself to ask him, ¡°What was it like... the first time you ki...killed someone?¡±


    He gave another quiet grunt, followed by a sigh and a resigned noise before he spoke up ¡°That... would be a different story. A... much less pleasant one,¡± he spoke quietly, ¡°Why you coming to me about all this, anyway? I¡¯m not the best shoulder to cry on. I know Ray¡¯s out of commission, but the captain¡¯s better with these things.¡±


    I nodded slowly. ¡°Yeah. She was-ss trying to talk to me about it. I couldn¡¯t... I j-just couldn¡¯t.¡± I sniffled. ¡°I needed to... jus-just needed someone t-to talk to about someth-some... s-someth...¡± I screwed my eyes shut, briefly wondering if I should just try synthesizing it through the intercom speaker. This conversation was going on too long. The word made sense in my head, but when I tried to think of how to make my mouth move the way it needed to, everything froze up and jerked my words elsewhere. The neural pathway between the word and my mouth¡¯s muscle memory made no sense. I gave a frustrated grunt and let out a breath to release tension, slowing down and enunciating each word more carefully. ¡°I just nee-needed someone to talk... to about s-something else.¡± I could almost hold it together if I really concentrated on it and took it slow. Opening my eyes, I saw Joel staring down at me with something between pity and amusement, smiling openly at me. I glanced down at the floor. ¡°Sh-Shut up.¡±


    He shook his head and turned to walk away before he commented quietly, ¡°It¡¯s cute.¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡± I repeated as I raised my voice at him, my face probably getting a little red at the strangest compliment I never expected to get from Joel of all places.


    He didn¡¯t even turn around, casually waving back at me as he stepped out into the cargo bay. ¡°Go talk to Captain. She¡¯s probably waiting for you.¡±


    I pouted quietly, staring at the floor by myself for a few minutes until the embarrassment passed and I was once more left to my melancholic thoughts about my nameless, faceless victim. Or attacker, I supposed. They hadn¡¯t been innocent.


    That didn¡¯t make me feel any better.


    I sighed and forced myself to stand up, bolstered by the momentary distraction of an ally¡¯s history. To the helm, then.

 Let It Out, Face It Down

    I took each step slowly as I climbed up the cargo bay stairway, feeling the rough metal pattern of the catwalk flooring beneath my bare feet. I didn¡¯t want to do this, and even though I¡¯d worked up enough nerve to do it anyway, I couldn¡¯t help but drag my feet and try to talk myself out of it. Dr. Yates would definitely have told me I needed to do this if he were here. I wished that Ray was awake so I could come find comfort in both her physical and emotional warmth instead of the captain¡¯s pointed observations and practical advice.


    Aisling was waiting for me at the helm. She was probably somehow aware of what I¡¯d been doing this whole time and that I¡¯d end up coming to see her in the end, after all. She just knew stuff like that, somehow. Part of me wondered if she was psychic too, but that would be even more absurd. She was just uncommonly aware of how people worked, something I was practically blind to. I took a deep breath as I started into the crew quarters and had to stumble back, almost crashing right into Mouse.


    He glared up at me, unphased by nearly colliding with me. He looked more tired than usual. The teenager stepped past me without a word, but I could see the hatred that constantly burned in his eyes, and it hurt too much that it was aimed at me today. He was still angry at me for what the turbulence I caused did to Ray. In a way, I was too. I bit my lip, turning as he walked past and speaking quietly, ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    He stopped and planted his feet in place. He clenched his fist tightly for a moment before it twitched and he released it. Tiny malfunctions in his cybernetics weren¡¯t uncommon since he was still piecing together some of his repairs. He spent a moment gathering himself and then turned back to me. ¡°Did you really have to swing around like crazy like that? Huh? I could tell you weren¡¯t easing into the end of those turns you were making. You don''t have to make sudden turns when you''re coming out of evasive maneuvers, you know. Were you even paying attention back there?¡±


    I looked down at the floor, unable to meet his gaze. I wasn¡¯t used to practicing combat maneuvers with Theseus in reality, I hadn''t been able to practice for awhile because Skygraves burnt out the system blade with the sims on them, and some of my skills I''d learned from it didn¡¯t transfer as cleanly as I wanted from the simulations that used stock vessels. That included the ways I was meant to keep the crew safe. It didn¡¯t help that I¡¯d been emotionally thrown off balance by Lily before-hand. Maybe I wasn¡¯t thinking as clearly as I could have been in that fight. But I don¡¯t think Mouse wanted or needed to hear that right then, and I didn¡¯t feel like I deserved to defend myself from his ire. Instead, I sniffed quietly and repeated, even quieter than before, ¡°I-I¡¯m sor-sorry.¡±


    ¡°And I heard Joel on the intercom too, down there where I should have been. You pushed the reactor past its limits. You¡¯re lucky we didn¡¯t just explode! I thought you were ready to do this kind of thing!¡± He was raising his voice higher as he spoke, getting more worked up as I shrank down. He must have seen me practically cowering because he composed himself slightly, taking a step back and letting out a deep sigh. ¡°She could have died, Meryll.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± I sniffled again, staring down at the ground between us. I wanted him to sling harsh words at me again. He should have stayed seething mad at me, not backed down. He was well within his right to ream me out. I knew he was helplessly assisting Doc in his effort to keep Ray alive during my flailing, after all. There wasn¡¯t a whole lot he could have done to rectify the situation. It had all been on me and he was right. I had nearly gotten her killed.


    ¡°That all you have to say for yourself?¡± Mouse muttered, sounding bitter again. He grunted and tamped down his anger again. ¡°It¡¯s over now, just... do better next time.¡±


    ¡°I did w-what I had to- had to do.¡± I muttered out before I could think too hard on my words.


    There was a long pause before he gave a perplexed ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡±


    I lifted my head up and picked up my voice while tears formed in my eyes. It was terrifying, but I needed to say it. ¡°I d-did what I had to do, Mou... Mouse!¡±


    He looked taken aback at my uncharacteristic outburst and mixed emotions. Biting my lip again, I sniffed in, not realizing that I¡¯d started drooling snot from my nose, then let out a quiet sob and looked down again, lost at what I was even doing now. I was so confused and uncertain about what I wanted to say or what Mouse even wanted me to say. I wanted to hide away again, away from everyone, and shove my thoughts back down as well. The courage and distracted calm I¡¯d gained from my talk with Joel was spent. I had to hide from it all. I had to flee to my core module before this got worse. I had to run away again.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough, Mouse.¡± I heard from behind me, sniffing loudly as I whipped around to see Aisling turning the corner. The first of my tears fell and my eyes were forced closed at the sight of her. I stood stock still, hunching my shoulders and clenching my teeth as if bracing to receive a heavy blow, but I couldn¡¯t stop the tears from flowing. I did my best, but I gave heavy, broken sobs as I tried to at least keep the appearance that I wasn¡¯t on the verge of a complete emotional meltdown. I failed spectacularly.


    Aisling slowly walked past, taking care not to make physical contact with me. I watched on my sensors as she approached Mouse, leaning over and whispering something into his ear, too quiet to hear over the internal microphone. Whatever she said made him grow pale and lose all the rigidity in his stance all at once. He turned his attention back to me with an expression I¡¯d never seen the teenager make. Sadness. Regret. Apprehension. It only lasted a moment before he nervously looked down at the ground himself, his scowl returning half-hearted now and a haunted uncertainty in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something else to me, but he stopped and clenched his teeth instead. He shook his head, made a quiet scoffing noise, and turned back around, slowly stepping out onto the cargo bay catwalk and hurrying down the stairs.


    I stood there, awkwardly convulsing and swallowing down my sobs with my eyes screwed shut tight. Aisling stepped up to me and gingerly pressed her hand on my shoulder. I didn¡¯t flinch because I saw her coming through the sensors, but I couldn¡¯t keep myself from letting out a brief loud wail before I contained my noise again. Aisling let out a gentle sigh through her nose and put an arm over my shoulder, beginning to guide me forward. My legs obeyed without thought and my arms moved to cradle my head, trying to hide myself away. She turned me, guiding me into her own chambers and closing the door behind us. She sat me down on one end of her bed and I put my head down into both my hands, still struggling to keep myself from erupting into a fountain of emotions I didn¡¯t deserve to feel.


    The room had been rearranged back into a living space after our impromptu debriefing last week. A table was thrown to one corner, the contents of a chess set scattered across the floor in the chaos of the battle. Some books were likewise thrown from the toppled bedside table. The bed had thin off-white sheets, dully stained with hints of blood and sweat tucked into the corners of a mattress, unmarred by my flailing. A few small piles of clothes sat in one corner, but that wasn''t my doing. Aisling ignored the mess and sat down next to me, lifting a thin beige blanket to place over my shoulders before she patted me on the back and said, ¡°Cry. Let it out. That¡¯s an order.¡±


    That wasn¡¯t fair. The moment she said it, I couldn¡¯t stop myself anymore. I let my tears fall and I bellowed out a terrible, blubbering cry. Folding my legs up against my chest, I rested my forehead on my knees and wrapped my arms around my legs, curling up into a tight ball as tears and mucus dripped down onto my shirt and onto the mattress beneath me. I let myself cry. I didn¡¯t think I should have been allowed, but Aisling told me to, and I couldn¡¯t tell her off for it, not in my state. It felt like I wept and wept for hours. Aisling¡¯s hand rubbed gently at the top of my back, which only made me feel worse.


    I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d ever stop feeling filthy for what I did. Knowing that I could have done more to keep Ray safe and telling myself over and over again that I didn¡¯t have to demolish that starship the way I did made me feel like there was so much more I could have done in my time as a space pirate. I could have remembered Fuller¡¯s notes and told Lily that Foundation was lying to her. Maybe I even could have done something to stop everyone¡¯s cybernetics from malfunctioning in the first place back on Venus too. I could have shot Skygraves. I had a gun in my hand when he activated the EMP. Everything that I could have done and didn¡¯t was a glaring failure in my life, and I didn¡¯t deserve pity or reassurances. I deserved to be scolded and berated and... abandoned. I didn''t deserve this crew. Did I even deserve to be Theseus?


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    I cried and cried until the tears stopped and I was reduced to quiet sniffling sobs, hiccuping quietly in my gross human ball of fluids and misery. Aisling sat by my side the whole time. When I thought I was spent, I stared numbly down between my legs, thoughts too muddled to make any sense of what I was feeling anymore. Nothing made sense at all. I felt like a spent shell of a human being, and I once again had to wonder if it would be easier if I was just an ordinary, emotionless, thoughtless core. A normal core would have accounted for the crew in its maneuvers. It wouldn''t have hurt Ray.


    Aisling broke the uncomfortable silence, breaking me free from my internal self-loathing with what felt like a bomb. ¡°So you killed a man.¡±


    I hiccuped and tilted my head to look at her, speechless and wide-eyed in horror that she would bring that up now. Her eyes were fixed across the room, like there was something she could see that I didn¡¯t. It wasn''t an accusation, just a grim observation. She was waiting for a response, so I did the only thing I could do and nodded along slowly, putting my head back between my legs and muttering hoarsely, ¡°Yeah.¡±


    Aisling drew in a deep breath. ¡°Mouse said some things he shouldn¡¯t have. I¡¯ll talk to him later. But he¡¯s emotional too, right now. You did your best, and you saved all of us. The whole crew, yourself, and Theseus. No ordinary core would have been able to manage what you did there. Not with this ship. Maybe it wasn¡¯t the ideal outcome, but it never is in our line of work. It¡¯s always messy. Someone always gets hurt. People tend to die. And you¡¯re always gonna beat yourself up with what ifs, at least a little.¡±


    I sniffled, refusing to look up again or say a word back to her. I killed a person today. I took a life. Everyone kept telling me that changes a person and that it¡¯s a terrible personal tragedy to try to overcome, but knowing that couldn¡¯t possibly have prepared me for how I felt now. I had so many thoughts swimming through my head. Terrible things about myself, justifications that made me hate that I could possibly think that what I did was okay, the dissonance that came with knowing that I accepted my closest friends all being killers while stepping into that role myself was forbidden, and confusing primal self-hatred that branched out and made me judge everything I¡¯d ever done.


    It was a nightmare I couldn¡¯t wake myself up from. It didn¡¯t feel like it was something I¡¯d ever be able to escape. This was a limbo of emotional torment that I didn¡¯t deserve to pull myself out of. I was a monster.


    I heard a dull clacking noise and pulled my head up, my eyes darting to see Aisling snapping her fingers next to my head. She pulled her hand back and stared into my eyes. I couldn¡¯t look away now. ¡°You¡¯re not okay,¡± she said slowly, letting out a sigh. I shook my head in agreement and tried to put my head back down, but she tutted at me and thrust a hand down to hold my mucus-coated chin up, making me flinch at the sudden move and sit paralyzed with my head in her hand. ¡°Nah, up here. Don¡¯t retreat.¡±


    I sniffled and somehow pulled more tears to my eyes. I mumbled out, barely coherently, ¡°Whu-What else do I do?¡±


    ¡°You face it. You feel things. Painful things. You acknowledge what happened. And that it¡¯s gonna happen again.¡± I let out another loud sob at that, but she continued to speak. ¡°You recognize that next time, it¡¯s going to be easier. It leaves scars on your soul that protect you from feeling like this. And I know that sounds painful to hear too, but it means you¡¯re gonna grow stronger. Wiser. You don¡¯t just grow numb to it, either. I know I haven¡¯t. It¡¯s still a fucking tragedy every time I have to shoot some dumb bastard in the skull. I just got better at managing my emotions. At tempering my expectations. It still hurts. Back there on Venus, I shot and killed three, probably four people. I didn''t get to see the state of the last guy on account of the whole bleeding out thing.¡± She let out a quiet exhalation, apparently unable to resist injecting a touch of gallows humor, but she returned to her somber tone in a flash. "Still remember all their faces. It''s haunting. And it''s kinda scary how easy it is to not think about it in the heat of battle. Adrenaline numbs you to the horror of what you have to do."


    She paused, and I sobbed again, neither able to nor caring to control myself. ¡°Would... f-feel nice to fe...eel numb right n-now.¡±


    Aisling shook her head. ¡°No, it wouldn¡¯t. You know what feels nice? Not carrying around that weight. It¡¯s gonna take a while to let go of it. Especially this time. But it¡¯s important you do. It¡¯s important you face it, not hide away, not bury it down deep. You have to face it.¡±


    ¡°S¡¯what Ya-Yates sai-said too...¡± I sniffled quietly. ¡°It¡¯s different... s-so much worse tha-th-than my amn...esia.¡± I let out another wail. Those were all the words I could manage before my cries took over my throat.


    She nodded. ¡°It is. Still gotta deal with it. Don¡¯t hide. Don¡¯t escape. Don¡¯t look away.¡± She adjusted my chin to make sure I was facing up and paying attention to her. ¡°You killed someone.¡±


    I whimpered, trying to push my chin back down, but she wouldn¡¯t let me. She held onto me and looked me in the eye, even when I closed them tight. ¡°I know.¡± I managed to whine.


    ¡°And I¡¯m not judging you. You did what you thought was best in the moment. In a fight to the death, you can''t shoot to wound. That''s not a thing. Not for anyone who wants to live through it." She repositioned herself on the bed, scooting closer to me so she could keep holding me up after her arm got tired. "What I want you to take from this is that you did something bad, but it wasn¡¯t wrong. You killed someone, but for a good reason. Because if you hadn¡¯t, there would probably be a lot more people dead right now. You protected us. You killed for a cause, and I hope that it¡¯s a cause that means something to you. Something that means more to you than that stranger¡¯s life did. More than the other lives we¡¯re all gonna take together before this is over with. What did you kill that guy for, Meryll?¡±


    ¡°F-For Theseus... For the cr...ew.¡± A fresh wave of tears washed over me as I finally faced reality. There was justification for what I did. I didn¡¯t kill because I wanted to or because I made a mistake or because it was convenient. It wasn¡¯t even just me protecting myself. I destroyed that ship and killed its crew because Theseus and everyone on board meant way more to me than holding back on someone who was trying to kill us did. I tried to tell myself I was just making more shallow justifications, but I told that part of me to shut the fuck up. What better reason could I possibly have?


    Aisling nodded at me. ¡°There you go. You¡¯re getting it.¡± She let go of my chin and I didn¡¯t try to hide away again. I still cried. I cried so much that day, and I knew that I¡¯d keep crying over and over until that emotional wound scabbed over, and even then, the wrong words or just a passing thought might rip it open again. But if I didn¡¯t hide it away and didn¡¯t let it fester and let it heal instead, I wasn¡¯t going to be trapped by it forever.


    I nearly froze when the captain reached in closer and I felt her arms wrap around my shoulders. I let my legs drop down and dangle over the edge of the bed, uncurling from my ball as she held me tight. She was so warm. I couldn¡¯t remember the last time I¡¯d been held by someone like this. A vague shadow of a memory told me it would probably have been from Lily, if we¡¯d been allowed physical contact where we came from. If not, then I¡¯d probably never been hugged before in my life, outside of vague simulated memories. No wonder Ray''s physical affections always felt so nice to me; I was ridiculously touch-starved. I wrapped my arms around her as well and held her as tight as I could, and in that moment, I felt like the crying became easier. More comfortable. I felt lighter. The weight of my deeds still hung heavy over me, but for just a moment, the dread abated and gave me a small respite that I desperately needed.


    I wanted her to hold me forever. I¡¯m not ashamed to say that I wanted her to do a lot more than hug me there on her bed, in the privacy of her quarters. What I wanted in that moment of rampant emotional release was far more carnal. I wanted to feel her touch across every inch of my bare skin. I wanted to feel her breath on my most intimate parts, and I wanted her to show me she was far more experienced than me in a much different manner than just talking. I was probably pretty pent up in that regard too, when I thought about it. But that would just be another form of escapism, and I¡¯d just worked up the presence of mind to avoid that, so I folded that desire away for another day, perhaps. I wasn¡¯t even sure if the captain was into women, regardless, so I pushed down my libido rather than my trauma and just enjoyed the warmth of a friendly body pressed up against me, helping me feel wanted.


    When we finally parted, I had a smile on my face. It was a sad smile, but I felt some amount of peace thanks to her.


    ¡°Better?¡± she asked.


    I shook my head, still smiling. ¡°No.¡± I croaked.


    She nodded knowingly and moved to stand up. ¡°You just lay here for now, as long as you want. Cry all you need to. Don¡¯t worry about making a mess. I need to clean my sheets, anyway. I¡¯ll get you some water, okay?¡±


    I nodded and slowly slid down onto my side. Unable to resist the last dregs of my suppressed lust, I stared at her butt as she walked away, until she closed the door again behind her. I sighed and closed my eyes. Was it the right thing to do, if I could somehow make myself feel okay again by immersing myself in what I¡¯d done? I just had to trust the captain. I opened the recording of the battle again, this time focusing on the external sensors. A quiet shudder escaped my lips as I started the playback, ready to cry as much as I had to.

 A Night In Bed

    Sitting, staring at the paused raw footage of a ship model I had never seen before, my thoughts began to wander. Which was a good thing. That meant I didn''t feel an obsessive obligation to spend every waking moment staring down my sin anymore. It was beginning to feel... definitely not completely better, but less intrusive. It would still be a long time before I could see the carnage of something that was once alive without feeling a strong pang of sad discomfort. But it wasn''t consuming me anymore, for now. I''d been watching the scene over and over for the last hour, and I noticed my demeanor change over time. At first, the moments of my shells impacting its hull felt frightening, especially remembering what Aisling had called a ''battle high''. It was a moment of cathartic focus that made me genuinely feel good at the peak of combat, especially when I was winning. A result of adrenaline in the face of death when one knows they can fight back. Apparently that was normal, and something I would learn to control the more I had to face it, but it still frightened me. While I was taking a life, I felt what I could almost describe as joy, and even though I''d been told that it was a natural biological process and not some kind of psychotic feature I''d developed, it still felt like I was a messed up person for feeling it. Like I was someone I didn''t recognize, who I couldn''t believe was me.


    Over time, that disgust and sadness gave way to analysis. I began to watch more carefully, examining the new ships and appreciating the sleek design and curious shape of the visible parts of their engines. I couldn''t determine how they got them to move so quickly. Whatever new technology they employed was surely secured on the inside of the ship, but I could still log the information I could get for later, in case I had to deal with them again. There weren''t ships like this in the training simulator, after all, so I wouldn''t find more info beyond what I''d gathered in my personal experience facing them. I surely wouldn''t be able to find documentation about them, and I certainly wouldn''t be able to get a new simulator with data about them. I examined the hell out of my own maneuvers as well, trying to take in the mistakes that Mouse had pointed out. I''d made all my turns as a singular motion, but he was right, I could have eased the effect on the artificial gravity generators without sacrificing combat potential if I''d slowed into the end of my turns. That probably would have taxed the reactor a little bit more because I''d have to make use of my directional thrusters as brakes, but I think I would have gladly pushed myself for the sake of Ray''s safety, if I''d thought of that before-hand. Some dark curiosity in me tried to see if I could spot the corpse being torn from the ship as well. I''m glad that it seemed to have been trapped somewhere inside the machine, though, as I saw no trace of a human shape floating from the wreckage.


    Once I''d finished my more analytical examination of the battle and returned to a brief state of more muted emotional distress, I actually became bored. I still didn''t feel great, but I''d been looking at the same footage for some time. Perhaps I''d simply acclimated to it. I guess I couldn''t just process everything all at once and be done with it. My tears had run dry, and my emotions had run their course for the time being. I had to accept that this was going to be an extensive project. Once I could safely get on a relay again, I''d need to talk with Dr. Yates about it.


    I let out a quiet sigh and opened my eyes, letting the last tears that had been blocked behind my eyelids flood down the same paths on my face as their predecessors, staining into the damp linens beneath my neck. At some point, I''d moved to lie down on the bed properly, clutching tight to the blanket I''d been offered and moving out of the mucus-stained circle I''d made at the edge of the bed. And when she returned, Aisling had crawled up next to me, offering the promised bottle of water, which I''d promptly consumed in whole to replenish my reserve of tears. But she''d also stayed in bed with me since then, lying at my side. She couldn''t see what I saw in the data stream, of course, so she''d eventually picked up one of the books from the floor next to the bed and began occupying herself while I was deep in my own digital world. But she was still there for me the whole time, silently lying by my side to keep me company.


    I frowned at the sight. I wasn''t mad at her or anything, far from it, but I didn''t know what to make of it. Was this kind of intimacy a lot more casual to her than it was to me, or was I ignoring obvious signs? What the hell, I was already in her bed. I''d already done as much to face what I''d done as I could for the moment, and I already felt about as emotionally drained as I possibly could be. I may as well take my chance.


    I leaned over and put a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. She didn''t flinch, but she made a curious grunt and turned her head to look at me. Maybe that wasn''t the best way to start. "S-Sorry. I didn''t mean to surp...surprise you."


    Aisling shrugged. At least she didn''t seem that bothered by it. "Something up?"


    "Just... wanted to t-talk." I smiled a little, trying to avoid her gaze, but repeatedly returning to her eyes anyway. "I thi-think I might have a... t-touch... thing. I dunno." Wait, I was being too indirect again. Had to stick to what I wanted to talk about. "Umm... I was actually just cur...ious about y-you."


    She blinked slowly. "Touch... thing? I know you get hypersensitive after coming out of the core module, but you''ve been out for a while now, so... Is this about the hug?"


    Was she being evasive? I hesitated a little, but I couldn''t just change the subject back that quickly. "Kinda. I-I mean I just... it was n-nice." I blushed, wondering if she might pick up on the implications of what I''d felt in that moment.


    She tilted her head slightly, and then I saw comprehension in her eyes. "Oh, I see. You probably didn''t get a lot of contact with people before this whole thing. No wonder you got so affectionate with Ray so quickly."


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "N-Noticed that, huh?" I chuckled nervously. "Didn''t th-think about it much unt... until just now, either."


    She stared at me in silence for another prolonged moment before she asked. "Are you... asking to be hugged again?"


    I''m sure my blush deepened at that question, but I needed to get this back on track now or I''d just end up getting emotional again. "I w-was actually tryi...ing to a-ask about... umm... it''s ab-about what you''re comfor...comfortable with..."


    She went back to staring, neutral incomprehension on her face. "I''m not uncomfortable holding you, if that''s what you mean." She offered gently, finally setting her book facedown on the bed next to her.


    I pursed my lips. Wait a second. I knew the captain''s supernatural social skills wouldn''t actually allow her to miss the hints I was dropping here entirely. She was playing dumb. She was hoping I would get uncomfortable and let it go, wasn''t she? The captain just didn''t want to talk about herself. She never talked about herself. If I was actually going to get an answer here, I was going to have to be way too direct.


    I took in a deep breath and my face went red as I bellowed out, a little louder than I meant to, "Aisling, are y-you a lesbian?"


    Her eyes widened a little, but she remained composed somehow. Had I actually surprised her with that question? "Oh." She finally murmured after a moment. It was more of a tone of pleasant surprise than of outrage. "Is that all? Okay." Her shoulders loosened up, like she was letting her guard down. Was she protecting herself against a different question she expected me to ask, maybe? "It''s a little complicated, though." She closed her eyes, turning to lie on her back.


    I smiled a little, glad to see her finally trusting me with something about herself, and that my sudden awkward cry hadn''t made her button up or judge me. "I''m... p-pretty complicated mys...self." I gave a nervous chuckle.


    She nodded, but stayed silent again for a bit, contemplating something in her own head. "I kinda figured this might come up eventually. If I talk about this, though, you have to accept the answer I give you at face value, okay? You don''t get to delve into the why or how of it. And you don''t go talking about it with anyone else, not even the crew. Agreed?"


    I froze up at that. I''d been sworn to secrecy by a few of the others that have told me their stories, but there had been a silent implication that they were things that the rest of the crew had already learned about. Was this a detail she hadn''t even shared with them? "I... okay." I murmured with a gentle nod, not sure what kind of information I was about to receive.


    And then she just said it flat out, "I don''t have a sex drive."


    I blinked a few times. I was unsure what exactly she even meant or why it was so scandalous that I had to be sworn to secrecy. It felt like such an awkward way to phrase it. "So... you''re ase... asexual? There''s n-nothing wrong with that." I was admittedly a little disappointed, but I was just as ready to hear she was straight, so it wasn''t really a tremendous blow.


    She shook her head and made a quiet negative noise. "Asexuals often have at least a sense of libido. Sexual urges, if not attractions. And they usually have to explore things before they discover that about themselves. I literally can''t and don''t care to feel anything, physically or emotionally, related to sexuality."


    Oh. That was a little stranger than I''d originally thought. "So... you don''t e-even..."


    She shook her head again. "I mean, I''ve tried masturbating out of curiosity. Nothing. Never had an orgasm. May as well be nothing down there at all, honestly. Don''t feel like I''m missing out, though. Just doesn''t feel like something I need." She smiled and gave a quick grunt of laughter. "So nah, not really interested in ''captaining my ship''. Sorry."


    Terrible euphemism aside, that was a pretty good, if very mysterious, excuse. "Huh..." was all I said for a moment, turning to look up at the ceiling beside her, myself. "So it''s just al-always been like th- like that?"


    She gave an affirmative hum as she nodded. "I''ve had to seduce people before. It''s a useful social skill. But it''s gotta end before the bedroom, cause there''s no possible way I''d be able to fake sex completely."


    I gave a quick chirp of laughter, then muttered, "S''not that h-hard to fake an or...gasm." I suppose it was hard to say if my experience was valid, considering it was a vague recollection of a simulated event, but I didn''t remember it being particularly difficult to fool a guy before I figured out I didn''t like men inside of me.


    "It''s way harder to fake sex entirely." Aisling chimed back in. I could see her smirk out of the corner of my eye. "It''s very boring."


    I gave an amused, curious huff of air. I couldn''t help but at least try to pry a little deeper. "So i-is it like, gene... genetic, or some...thing?"


    "Ah. You promised." She tutted, holding up a finger toward me.


    Damn. I guess that was the end of that conversation then. But if she didn''t want me to know, that must have meant it was something important. What a peculiar person the captain of Theseus was. She played everything she was so tight to her chest. I couldn''t help but wonder what she was trying so hard to hide from everyone. But I trusted her reasons to be more personal than malicious, so I did as she asked and I dropped it. I was a little disappointed about it in one way, but in another, I felt relieved that the question was off the table. Knowing that I had no chance with her made our relationship a lot clearer.


    "Thanks, b... by the way." I started to steer the conversation away from her odd condition, and I could see a shift of relief in Aisling''s demeanor.


    "For what? Shutting down your hopes for distraction sex?" She chuckled, turning to look at me again.


    "For h-helping me... sort things ou-out. With m... my first... kill." It still felt awkward to say it, and it did send a pang of guilt through my heart. But thanks to her, I could manage it. I lowered my voice for my next admission. "I d-don''t know what, but I fee-feel like I m-might''ve been about to do someth... something dr...astic if you didn''t come b-by when you- when you did out in the hall."


    She nodded solemnly. "No problem. I look after my ship and my crew, and you''re both. I''m glad you''re feeling better. You ever need to talk about it, I''m here. Can''t speak for her, but Ray''s probably gonna say the same when she wakes up. Hell, she''s better at this stuff than me. She can do a lot more for you than I can, if you catch my drift." She smirked knowingly as a blush found its way across my face again. I couldn''t help but let out another awkward laugh at that. I guess that answered the question about my other prospect. That would have to wait for a while, though. I still felt guilty over complicating her surgery.


    We returned to silence for a bit, but I felt almost content now. Maybe a little curious about the captain''s evasive nature, but I almost felt happy. "Hey Aisling?" I asked quietly, eliciting another hum from her. "C-Can I still get that hug?"


    She laughed. "Sure."

 An Endless Ocean

    My eyes drifted open slowly, and I stared, half-lidded, up at the ceiling. It was a messy array of exposed utility piping rather than the familiar flat steel pattern I was used to waking up to in my heart, but it didn¡¯t take more than a moment to reorient myself in my map of Theseus and recall where I was. Aisling¡¯s room. I¡¯d been far too tired to get up and move to the medical bed after my emotional trial the previous night, and as nice as it would have been to go into torpor instead, I knew the healthy thing to do was get some real human sleep. Aisling¡¯s bed was so much more comfortable than Doc¡¯s examination table, too. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d slept this well since my journey began.


    I turned to my side and was a little disappointed to see the other side of the bed empty. Aisling must have gotten up earlier and snuck off. More likely, she hadn¡¯t slept yet. I¡¯d seen Aisling sleep when she was injured, and I wasn¡¯t sure if I would have been able to sleep through her snoring.


    Not that an interruption to my sleep would be unwelcome. I¡¯d grown used to my nightmares by now, but that didn¡¯t make them pleasant. And now that I knew more context to my past, it wasn¡¯t hard to draw meaning from them. Being grown in a tube, being forced to live in simulation for most of my life, the terror of an impossibly overwhelming force consuming me... it hardly felt like a mystery why I dreamed about these things anymore. Being aware of them didn¡¯t make them go away, though. And now, they were smattered with flashes of a certain exploding starship in the distance as well. It was some kind of twisted comfort that my nightmares were finally finding inspiration in my new, more real, fucked up experiences, rather than solely drawing from my hazy fucked up past.


    I sat up and stretched out my arms and back, frail muscles waking up from a more restful sleep than usual, and I crawled over to the edge of the bed, sitting on the edge and taking another look around Aisling¡¯s room. She didn¡¯t actually keep much in here, since a lot of her more practical belongings were up at her desk at the helm, but I looked at the bedside table she had righted again in the night, and the pile of paper books stacked on it.


    As anyone probably would with something as precious as printed books out in the fringes of the system, it was obvious she took good care of them. They were wrapped in blank fabric book covers that didn¡¯t have titles printed on the covers, and I hadn¡¯t bothered to ask what she was reading last night, so I was curious. I took the top one in hand and flipped it open to a few pages in. The Book of Five Rings. I read a few paragraphs into the first chapter, but it was too dense for me, written in an archaic style. Philosophy. Ancient philosophy, from pre-colonial Earth. Interesting that it was something the captain liked, but not interesting to me.


    I shut the book and set it back where I found it, deciding I shouldn¡¯t pry any further or risk bending the spine. I wasn¡¯t absorbing any of it, anyway. If it were a file, would I be able to take in the knowledge as instantly as I could any other data? I probably wouldn¡¯t comprehend its meaning very well that way, but maybe.


    Setting that idea aside until I could search the other terminals on board for e-books, I stood up and let out a satisfied sigh, stretching out again. I needed to ask if I could get a room and bed of my own once we had a chance to dock somewhere and get some actual jobs and funding going. I didn¡¯t mind sleeping in my heart, but this was a bit of a wake up call that I could easily do way better.


    Stepping over Aisling¡¯s pile of dirty clothes, I slid the door open, rubbing my eyes with my other hand. Out in the hall, Shaw stood staring down at his terminal. He looked up at the movement of the door, and his eyebrows shot up. That¡¯s when I realized what this probably looked like. I was crawling out of the captain¡¯s quarters, bleary-eyed and ragged in the aftermath of my meltdown. ¡°Uh, Hey Sh-Shaw.¡± I started. I wasn¡¯t sure how best to handle this, so I said the first thing that came to mind, ¡°Just... sleeping.¡± Smooth.


    He gave a quiet laugh, a smile growing on his face. ¡°I bet. Was it a satisfying night?¡± He chuckled.


    ¡°Shut u-up.¡± I obviously couldn¡¯t just tell him why that wasn¡¯t even possible. I closed my eyes and checked the time. It was afternoon already. I guess I slept in for once.


    ¡°That was quite the turbulence we had yesterday.¡± He looked back down at his terminal. Shaw hadn¡¯t exactly been helpful during the battle. He¡¯d been cowering in his ¡®room¡¯, for lack of a better term, for the entire battle. It was a pile of spare sheets and linens on the bare floor of what had once been his prison. At least I got the medical bed. ¡°Good job,¡± he said with a nod.


    I opened my eyes and raised an eyebrow at him. That was a weird thing for him to say. ¡°Thanks?¡± I muttered, stepping out into the hall and closing Aisling¡¯s door behind me. ¡°Look, don¡¯t start any stu-stupid rumors or anyth...thing. Nothing ha-happened. I was just... really t-tired.¡± I didn¡¯t want to talk to Shaw about my emotional crisis, either. He would not be a good source of consolation.


    ¡°Oh relax, I¡¯m not going to blackmail you or anything. We¡¯re friends, right?¡± He gave that slimy smile that I absolutely hated. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter to me if you and the captain are a thing or not. Not even worth a scandal, anyway. You don¡¯t exactly make it a secret which way you swing, and the captain¡¯s preferences hardly surprise me, either.¡± He gave a chortle. As long as he didn¡¯t make a big deal out of it, then whatever, I guess. He could believe whatever he wanted.


    Still, I couldn¡¯t imagine myself wanting to play nice with him. ¡°G-Go to hell, Shaw.¡± I huffed, taking a few steps toward the stairs. I just wanted to force my breakfast down, then get back into the core module while I still felt refreshed.


    ¡°Oh, come on now.¡± Shaw whined playfully. ¡°I¡¯m playing nice. I¡¯m working with you guys, and I¡¯ve put myself in danger for this ship. What¡¯s it take to get your respect and end the spiteful cold shoulder treatment?¡±


    I sighed, waving him off as I turned the corner, heading toward the stairwell. Shaw had shown he was competent and useful, in certain ways. But he wasn¡¯t my friend. He still held me up at knifepoint when we met face to face for the first time, and he still almost killed Doc shortly after that. I wasn¡¯t going to forgive him. I repaired his implant for him as thanks for getting us the codes to get off the Venus colony, but that didn¡¯t wipe the slate clean. It was pretty obvious that he wasn¡¯t really sincere about any of this. He was using us somehow, and I knew he was going to disappear on us once we got to Io. He could try to sell us out to Foundation, though, so Aisling might keep him on a leash a while longer. Either way, he wasn¡¯t to be trusted.


    I stepped down the stairway, putting Shaw out of my head and taking a deep breath in preparation for swallowing down a bowl of protein slop. As I entered the mess hall, though, I grimaced for another reason.


    Mouse was sitting at the table, one of the synthetic skin panels on his left arm propped open while he dug around inside his prosthetic with a probe hooked into his terminal. Diagnostic work, I assumed. He was still trying to work out all the kinks in his cybernetics after the hard reboot Skygraves forced. I stopped in place as he looked up and we made eye contact with each other for just a moment. We both looked away in silence. Maybe it was best not to open that wound again just yet. I walked around the circumference of the mess and grabbed the open package of ration powder from the pantry.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said quietly when I reached for a bowl. I froze, expecting us to keep a silent truce. I would have just hurried through with my meal and gone away. Those words, however, were very unexpected. I lowered my arm, trying to figure out what I wanted to say back to him. It felt like I would step on a landmine if I uttered anything at all. ¡°When I said that, I didn¡¯t know what happened out there yet.¡± I turned around slowly, this time locking eyes with him properly. A frown came over my face, unsure if I deserved that apology yet. I¡¯d forgiven myself, on some level, but Mouse¡¯s words from the previous night still stung. He was glaring at me, but less intensely than usual. There was no point in reading too much into it. That was just his resting expression, same as the captain, only more intense. ¡°I know you didn¡¯t mean to hurt her. I was just... mad. I don¡¯t like seeing Ray get hurt. She....¡± He trailed off. He couldn¡¯t bring himself to finish the thought.


    I still didn¡¯t know what I was supposed to say to satisfy him, but I felt compelled to fill the silence. I took in a deep breath and said, ¡°I... re... reviewed the f-footage of the fight. You were right. I¡¯ll... k-keep active turning in m... in mind for crew s-safety from now on.¡± I took in a quick breath and focused on my speech to keep my stutter under control.


    His shoulders drooped slightly, and he looked shocked. ¡°You... watched it again?¡± He muttered quietly. It was obvious why he¡¯d backed down last night. Aisling had told him I¡¯d had to kill someone. He remembered his own fragility when he¡¯d gone through this, and he felt like he made a terrible mistake confronting me when I¡¯d just gone through that. He did, but I felt bad that now he pitied me when he hated that treatment himself.


    I swallowed, looking down at the floor, frowning and reaching a hand across my chest to squeeze my arm tight, tensing up. I nodded quickly. ¡°A lot.¡±


    The silence returned for another moment before he repeated with a tone of sincere finality. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡± I nodded and looked back at him, mustering my courage to set things right between us. ¡°A-Aisling talked me through... that. I-I think I¡¯ll be okay. I-I mean I... I¡¯m not just... o-over it. No. N-No, I¡¯m def...initely not over it. B-But she... got me th-through the n-through the n-night. I¡¯ll... I¡¯ll be okay.¡±


    He didn¡¯t stop giving me that sympathetic glare, and gave me a slow, affirmative nod. ¡°I understand. Sorry.¡±


    ¡°How i-is she?¡± I asked, trying to change the subject as I turned back around and continued prepping my meal.


    ¡°Still asleep... But Doc says she¡¯s gonna be fine. She¡¯ll just be on bed rest the rest of the way to Io.¡± I heard the miniscule clinking of steel that let me know he¡¯d thankfully returned to his own distraction.


    I stared down into what had quickly become the paradoxically dry slush I¡¯d unfortunately become accustomed to, and sighed as I made a risky decision. I turned and sat down at the table opposite to Mouse. He looked up for a moment, his work interrupted, but silently went back to it as I began eating. I could have easily left and ate somewhere else on the ship, but that would just be reinforcing my bad habits. And that¡¯s what it always was. Me hiding from things that I could have just dealt with then and there. I wasn¡¯t going to leave the awkward, bitter rift between us to fester. Maybe I could make it up to him. ¡°Mouse...¡± I started. ¡°Just s-say it. I can t... take it. Let it out.¡±


    There was a tiny scratching noise of his tool, and he looked up again, eyes up in surprise. I wondered, had he heard those words before? He glanced back down at his deactivated arm, then put the tool down and looked back up at me, expression returned to neutral seething. ¡°I already said what I wanted to say. I said more than I should have said. You know what I think. What more can I say?¡±


    I tilted my shoulders in a shrug and asked, ¡°What you¡¯re f...eeling, maybe?¡±


    He put his hand down hard against his tool as if to grab it while pounding the table. It made me flinch. He was still hesitating, but he chewed on his lip for a second, gathering his own thoughts. ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious? Fine, I¡¯m angry! At you, at myself, at the fucking corps that won¡¯t let us just live our lives! At the fact that no one else seems to be as pissed off as I am!¡± He looked down at his arm, glaring with renewed hatred. His voice lowered to a simmering growl. ¡°It¡¯s frustrating. The state of the system... The state of our lives... I don¡¯t get how anyone can feel anything else. Looking at my own life makes me mad. Looking at the state of everyone else¡¯s lives makes me mad for them. Everything¡¯s fucked.¡±


    Mouse wore his heart on his sleeve. He really was just always that angry, it seemed. It wasn¡¯t a tough guy act or some kind of over-enthusiastic show of masculinity. He legitimately held in all that rage, constantly. It was horrifying that someone his age even had the capacity for all that ire, but it made total sense knowing what he¡¯d been through. His mood was intimidating, but I¡¯d been bolstered by the previous night, far more than I had been by distraction. He didn¡¯t scare me as much as he normally would right now. ¡°Is there an-anything you w-wanna do?¡±


    ¡°I wanna make every corpo exec in the system spontaneously combust with the flip of a switch.¡± He mumbled angrily, picking up his tool again and picking at the internals in his arm with more force than he probably should have.


    I grimaced at him. ¡°Real... Realistically, Mouse? I m-mean it. What¡¯s something you can d-do right now that¡¯ll help you b-blow off steam?¡±


    He grumbled something to himself, putting the tool aside again and then closing the panel of synthetic flesh, flexing the fingers on his reactivated hand. ¡°Why¡¯re you still here, Meryll?¡± He spat.


    ¡°Cause I w-wanna help.¡± I told him. I hoped there was something I could do for him. He scowled at the words. I knew he disliked being patronized more than anything, but he wasn¡¯t handling his issues himself. He might not have the experience he needed to be able to handle it himself. Not that I had much room to talk about matters of authentic experience. And his feelings were way different from my own. He was honest about what he felt, but it didn¡¯t make him feel better like it had for me. He¡¯d worked through his fury, and beneath it was just more rage. I wondered what it would be like if I never ran out of tears. What would happen to me if I could stand to feel despair forever? If the well of sorrow never ran dry. No, there had to be something more to Mouse than that, somewhere far beneath that roiling ocean. There had to be a way to help him find peace. ¡°C¡­ Can I help you?¡±


    He pushed himself up out of his seat and turned toward the door, stomping his way toward the cargo bay without another word. I guess there was no way to find out right now. He didn¡¯t want it, and I didn¡¯t have the force of personality that Aisling commanded to make him face it. I doubted that would work, anyway. He wouldn¡¯t take well to being forced to do anything. It would just make things worse.


    My hand was shaking by now, running to the edge of my gathered nerve, but I had to reach out one last time. ¡°If... you d-do wanna talk about anyth-thing, I¡¯m always listen... listening. Anyw-where on the ship. No judgement. When you¡¯re r-ready.¡± My stutter kept me from making my point quickly, and I eventually had to raise my voice after him because my words didn¡¯t stop him from leaving.


    I sat back in my chair and let out a quiet sigh. So much for mending that divide. I thought I¡¯d only managed to reignite his ire. I hoped he understood, though, that I was trying to make myself available to him, as a confidant if he needed it. But as I picked up my bowl and tilted it toward my mouth to gulp it down as quick as I could, I heard a strained voice from right around the corner of the door, ¡°Fine. Thanks.¡± Then there was only the sound of a small pair of boots stomping away.


    I smiled despite the horrid taste assaulting my tongue, and after a moment, gave a disgusted grunt and stood up to rinse my bowl.


    As I stepped alone up the stairwell and walked into my heart, I stopped to stare at the psychic damper module, still resting at the back corner of Doc¡¯s counter. I watched it for a few minutes, feeling no fear, but it still radiated apprehension and exhaustion. It was still too overwhelming. I had the knowledge and experience now to know I needed to get it over with. I needed to pick up that cylinder and finally integrate it back into my system. I needed to face that other aspect of myself. But every time I thought about it, I recalled not only my vague memory of Cassandra¡¯s face, but I also dreaded my own dead-eyed reflection of ruthless, unfeeling logic.


    ¡°Meryll¡­?¡± Doc asked from behind me, and I flinched, finally breaking my eyes from the module. I shook my head in silence and walked up the catwalk without touching it. Maybe some habits were just too hard to break all at once. I¡¯d faced enough for now.

 Fitting In

    Days passed quickly in the aftermath of the battle that had surprisingly left Theseus almost entirely physically unscathed, but left a tense uncertainty among myself and the crew. We had no way of knowing how Lily found us in the first place, or if she¡¯d be able to find us again. But thankfully, no ambush seemed forthcoming. After a few days, our state of alert had dwindled into cautious monitoring while our idle day-to-day lives resumed.


    Ray woke up two days after the surgery and had been relegated to her bed for the time being. I showed up in my human body to apologize, and she predictably forgave everything without a second thought on it. I had to keep the ship itself safe, after all. What was causing a major surgical error between friends? She¡¯s entirely too nice for her own good. I often found Mouse idling just outside of her room when he wasn¡¯t busy, but he never went directly in to talk to her himself.


    He still hadn¡¯t taken up my offer to let him vent to me, but I knew I would have to be patient if he was ever going to open up to anyone about his pent-up frustrations.


    Joel had almost completely recovered by now, the remnants of his bullet wound still occasionally making him grunt when he strained his leg, but he¡¯d gone back to showing off and working out in the halls, despite Doc¡¯s fruitless scolding.


    I noticed Shaw starting to flirt with Aisling. I wondered if he was trying to make me jealous, completely unaware that Aisling and I had amicably agreed to keep things platonic for multiple reasons the rest of the crew didn¡¯t need to be privy to. She kept finding more and more creative ways to embarrass him each time he approached her: simply using his words against him, physically pushing him aside, and once threatening him with her pistol. She seemed annoyed at those moments, but I could tell when she went into private each time afterward that she was having fun with it. It was an entertaining distraction from the doldrums of the long trip.


    As I hovered over Doc, staring unmoving down at his personal terminal, his case study on me opened and unchanging for an hour now, I wondered why he¡¯d been so quiet. He¡¯d become less pushy about my health lately, granted I¡¯d gotten into better habits than when I first started as a core, but that was thanks to his incessant nagging. Was he mad at me for ruining his surgery? I doubted that. He wasn¡¯t proud, and he definitely wasn¡¯t the type who held onto a grudge like that. Hell, he let his worst enemy live out of principle when he had him dead to rights.


    I decided to tap the intercom and face the problem. ¡°You¡¯ve been quiet lately. What¡¯s on your mind?¡± I asked, happy to talk through my clear, synthesized voice.


    Doc hummed quietly for a moment. ¡°I¡¯ve just had this feeling that I¡¯m missing something lately. Feels like I¡¯ve overlooked something vital.¡±


    ¡°About me?¡± I asked. He nodded quickly. ¡°Well, you can always just ask if it¡¯s about what¡¯s going through my head or anything.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the thing. I can¡¯t ask about what I need to ask.¡± He gave a long, frustrated sigh. ¡°You don¡¯t know yourself. Or your past, rather. A medical history is very important in diagnosing a patient, and I feel like the same applies here. You have no past from which I can draw conclusions. If we could get our hands on Foundation¡¯s internal files on the Arthausen Project, that would go a great deal toward figuring out this whole living clone business, and maybe give us insight into how your sister could find us.¡±


    ¡°I wish I could figure it out, too. I¡¯ve checked my systems over so many times for invasive hardware and software. They didn¡¯t track us down electronically, I¡¯m certain of that. But what else could she have done?¡± I pondered it for a moment, but then realized what Doc was saying. ¡°Wait, are you saying that you think Lily found us because of her abilities as an Arthausen clone?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps.¡± He mumbled. ¡°You¡¯ve said it before. They haven¡¯t made her into a machine core, but they¡¯re still doing something with her mind. So what if it¡¯s exactly that?¡±


    ¡°What if magic is real?¡± I huffed into the lubricant. I didn¡¯t even know what to make of it either, but maybe there was something more than natural happening here.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be obtuse. She¡¯s psychic, not magic. We¡¯ve already known how psionics work from a scientific perspective for decades.¡± He pursed his lips in frustrated thought and let out an annoyed grunt. ¡°But what if we don¡¯t? What if Foundation¡¯s stumbled onto something that changes our whole understanding of psychics?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying she just found us using the power of her mind? Like... she can just see places that she¡¯s not at?¡± I asked. I¡¯d wondered the same thing, but Aisling had talked me out of following that absurd train of broken logic already.


    ¡°Exactly. What if she¡¯s able to... I have no idea, see great distances from herself, and just plot an intercept course whenever she¡¯s ready?¡± He shook his head, staring down at my file some more.


    ¡°Do you think I could do that, then?¡± I asked, wondering if it would feel something like looking through a connected sensor array. I suppose I already had the mental architecture for remote viewing, but only through the vessel of technology.


    Doc shook his head and gave a wide shrug. ¡°Who knows? It would be very helpful if I had Foundations¡¯ project files. But I assume a defense contractor their size wouldn¡¯t just leave something like that lying around in their databases unprotected. If I could see what their researchers have already done, how this all started, it might become clear. But I¡¯m really starting to wonder if psionics aren¡¯t the answer. I mean, why else would they go through the trouble of making living clones and not utilize them for the one thing we already know psions are so good at?¡±


    ¡°Maybe I can take a swing at their systems remotely once we¡¯re in relay range.¡± I smiled to myself. I would love to try. The medical relay system had fallen to me with a few thoughts and no trace of my tampering. Maybe I was just a naturally gifted hacker, and I could just digitally walk in and get the information he needed?


    But Doc shook his head. ¡°I know it¡¯s not easy to trace a physical location from a relay connection, but it¡¯s possible. And I don¡¯t want you risking blowing our cover, making risky dives into their systems. If they find us on Io before we can earn some money to make full repairs and gather a good collection of supplies, then we¡¯ll have nowhere else to flee. This is already a last-ditch hideout for us, and if they catch us unprepared deep in their own territory, we¡¯re screwed.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but they can apparently find us anyway, right?¡± Through Lily. Were we already doomed? I hoped that we were making an incorrect assumption about her, or she would just be able to find us there, regardless of what we did.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°I suppose we just have to guess and hope.¡± He mumbled. He didn¡¯t like it either. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed it. ¡°Forget it. Let¡¯s leave that to Aisling and focus on our own work. Do I need to look in on Ray?¡±


    I suppose he had the right of it. Speculation wasn¡¯t going to get us anywhere. Aisling and Shaw had a plan, and we just had to trust that it would work out. Lily¡¯s supernatural awareness of us wasn¡¯t something we could do anything about right now. We¡¯d just have to face problems as they arose. ¡°She seems fine. Still in bed, playing mahjong on her terminal. Water bottle looks a little low. That¡¯s about all.¡±


    ¡°About time to bring her lunch, anyway. You rejoining us mere mortals tonight?¡± He joked, and I couldn¡¯t help but let out a silent snort into the lubricant.


    ¡°No, I¡¯d rather eat as little of that shit as I can, and I thankfully have that luxury. Good luck choking it down.¡± I taunted, getting a quick eye roll from the doctor. ¡°I slept last night, after I talked with Ray, too. Just need a few hours in torpor tonight, and I¡¯ll be fine.¡±


    ¡°You are getting a better understanding of your body¡¯s needs, I guess.¡± Doc admitted. I was surprised he let me have that after all the shit he gave me about my health in my first month on board. But he also wasn¡¯t wrong. It almost felt like I¡¯d grown a quantifiable understanding of my needs for both rest and sustenance, like there was a graph somewhere in the data stream telling me exactly how hungry and tired I was. Maybe that¡¯s why he was harassing me less lately. I¡¯d just been taking care of myself, in my own ¡®partially disconnected from traditional biology¡¯ way.


    As he left my heart and made his way down toward the mess, though, my mind wandered. I opened my eyes to contemplate the void, imagining myself floating horizontally and looking up at a blank sky, feeling oddly pensive as I reflected on the last few days.


    I was dangerous, wasn¡¯t I? I was possibly the most skilled pilot in the system with little effort put to training toward it, and I now held the capacity for violence. I had begun to grow the armor Aisling spoke of. The scars upon my soul that would allow me to use a weapon on another living person and mean it. It still made me queasy if I thought about it too hard, but it was no longer so alien a concept that I couldn¡¯t imagine myself pulling the trigger. Not only that, but I would definitely have to utilize it because I was a magnet to danger for those around me.


    My crew was in danger because I was there. I wondered if any of them resented me for that. I was being forced into what may be a hopeless corner, and they were along for the ride, for my sake. Were they really just okay with that? I supposed I could make up for it through the merit of being a living core who could outmaneuver even secret experimental Foundation starships, and all the privileges that came with having the only free and sapient psychic hacker in the system, but was that really enough of an incentive to make being run ragged out of the safest colonies worth it for them?


    I closed my eyes and watched Doc gather food for Ray while Aisling fidgeted with some system configurations on her terminal at the dining table. As soon as Doc left the room, I tapped the intercom. ¡°Hey, Aisling?¡± I asked.


    ¡°What¡¯s up, Meryll?¡± She mumbled, browsing through the display options, but I couldn¡¯t tell what she was trying to get it to do. ¡°You¡¯re not about to tell me there¡¯s something on externals, are you?¡±


    I sent out a sweep of the area to be sure, and my ping returned nothing. ¡°No.¡± I said tentatively before the data got back to me. ¡°I¡¯ve just got something on my mind. Why do you put up with me?¡±


    ¡°Not sure what you mean,¡± Aisling said, her browsing uninterrupted. ¡°You¡¯re a bit of a smartass sometimes, and you¡¯re more emotionally volatile than Mouse is, but it¡¯s not like you¡¯re hard to be around. All things considered, you¡¯re pretty good company.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant.¡± I started. Was she screwing with me again? Around Aisling, I just had to be direct if I wanted a real answer. I was starting to wonder if she was training me to be more direct with my words. ¡°I¡¯m a major danger to you and everyone else on this ship, and you really could have just gone and gotten another core. So why bother with me?¡±


    ¡°Plenty of reasons. Because if we didn¡¯t, Foundation would have you. And not only would that be devastating to you, but it could very easily make the entire system a worse place if they keep fostering what you are for their own ends instead of using it to better everyone¡¯s lives. And if we didn¡¯t protect you, who would? You¡¯re part of my crew, you get protected. I¡¯m not having a pity party where I abandon you to make you feel better about your perceived faults, Meryll.¡±


    I still didn¡¯t really get Aisling¡¯s philosophy, but I also kind of wanted to end the conversation soon because I noticed Joel approaching from the cargo bay, probably for lunch himself. I wondered how much he¡¯d heard, but I sighed silently into the lubricant when he immediately spoke up. ¡°Cause it¡¯d make us hypocrites.¡± He added to the conversation as he walked into the room. ¡°Fuck, Meryll, do you think you¡¯re the first of us to be chased around the system by a vengeful corp? You aren¡¯t even our first brush with Foundation. I got us dragged to a few inconvenient places when I signed on, too. They eventually lose interest and write off their losses. That¡¯s what corpos do. You become a big enough problem for them to keep pursuing and they decide it¡¯s not worth it. You¡¯re not even the only one of you they got, right? So they¡¯ll forget about you in a few months at most. Just because you¡¯re a weirdo clone girl doesn¡¯t make this much different from being dragged around as the remnants of a failed rebellion or being chased around for harboring a fugitive malpractice doctor or whatever.¡±


    Aisling just nodded and motioned to him in agreement. ¡°Exactly. We¡¯re outlaws, Meryll. We were never going to settle in comfortably anywhere, and we¡¯re used to being chased. You¡¯re not holding us back from some idyllic happily ever after. That¡¯s why it¡¯s not a big deal. So quit beating yourself up and thinking you¡¯re taking advantage of our generosity or whatever. You¡¯ve got a job to do as much as anyone else on this ship and you¡¯re doing it. Wonderfully, I might add. Sure, you¡¯re still learning a few things, but everyone needs a while for that. You¡¯re contributing, and this is just the price we pay for that contribution. If we weren¡¯t willing to go through the growing pains of dodging your pursuers, getting you proper gear, and consoling you through the rigors of becoming a hardened criminal yourself, then we wouldn¡¯t deserve to keep the rest of us together, either.¡±


    ¡°I know they don¡¯t teach loyalty to anyone but their overlords to you corpo drones, but we got it for each other in spades around here. So get all that shit out of your head that we secretly hate you or whatever.¡± Joel grabbed a bowl and started sorting out his own meal. ¡°Fuck, I can¡¯t wait to have real food again.¡± Joel muttered to himself.


    I guess that was that. This wasn¡¯t even abnormal to them. Desperately hiding away in whatever corner of the system they could manage was just a default state of being for a bunch of pirates. The fact that we were being chased down across the system probably hadn¡¯t even crossed their mind as something to blame me for. It didn¡¯t even give either of them pause enough to interrupt their day-to-day activity to discuss. Maybe I was just overreacting to an invasive thought, after all. I smiled to myself and quipped, ¡°I seem to remember someone bitching at me about being spoiled when I complained about it on my first day.¡±


    ¡°She got you there.¡± Aisling chuckled.


    ¡°She still complains about it every day. I¡¯m not allowed to bitch now and then?¡± Joel asked, grabbing a spoon to fruitlessly stir at the yellowish mixture.


    Maybe I needed to stop thinking of myself as an outsider of the crew. Sure, I¡¯d only been here for a couple of months now, but everyone had welcomed me into the group. They didn¡¯t always like everything I did, and I didn¡¯t always agree with them either, but we could trust each other and we¡¯d grown used to each other. We were like some kind of twisted family. I had to stop making myself feel like I was intruding on the crew of Theseus. I¡¯d long since passed the initiation phase by now. I¡¯d developed complex relationships with most of the crew, and they accepted me and all my weird quirks and needs. It was time to stop feeling like I was an awkward passenger who had to constantly prove herself and justify her existence again and again to everyone. I was really a part of this crew for good, probably until the day I died.


    I am Theseus, and this is my crew.

 Derelict

    On a starship, day and night are unfortunately a total fabrication, but a necessary one. Whether they like it or not, humans operate on a habitual cycle, traditionally prompted by the rise and fall of the sun. Artificial cycles have been a necessary part of human life ever since we left Earth behind, because obviously different planets have different rotation velocities and starships don''t even have a horizon for the sun to dip under. Theseus didn''t even have exterior windows other than at the helm. But that doesn''t stop the human body from needing that crucial consistency of sleeping and wakefulness. Every human was slightly different, but we all needed approximately eight hours of sleep for every sixteen hours of wakefulness, whether the sun was involved in the equation or not. Except for me.


    It was hard to argue that I was still exactly purely human, but while Theseus was in operation, I was no longer bound to the same needs as the rest of the crew. I often spent my designated rest periods vigilantly watching over the crew or in a nominally restful torpor state. It wasn''t that I never needed rest, but I could go several days, sometimes a week at a time, if I spent almost the whole time inside the core module, with no need for normal REM sleep.


    And so nearly a week after I''d finally accepted my role as a permanent part of Theseus and its crew, when I was staring dully into the void, my mind idling in the hypnotic trance that had replaced most of my restful sleep, I was alarmed when I was jolted back to reality by a high priority automated ping. Almost everyone was asleep, and I was the only one on duty. I closed my eyes and scrambled across the data stream to find my external sensors warning me of something in my approach.


    Before I even had the chance to parse what I was looking at in the local area, I moved myself down to the empty section of my internal map that was the captain''s room, my sensor array in her room unfailingly shut off every time she slept, and blindly tapped the intercom, synthesizing my voice directly into Aisling''s quarters. "Captain! I''ve got a hit on exteriors! I''ll pass to your terminal as I learn more!"


    The nice thing about a synthesized voice is that you don''t have to stick around while it''s talking. By the time the second word was out of the speaker, I had trusted that my booming voice had awoken the captain and had already fully diverted my full attention to the exterior sensors. what I found was... confusing. There was not a Foundation pursuit craft approaching our proximity, as I''d initially assumed. It was a low band distress signal.


    Law-abiding starships in corporate space most often used the wide-reaching emergency band for distress calls because it covered such a wide distance that you could easily attract a speedy rescue from the authorities at the nearest colony. Which meant that whatever I was approaching didn''t want to be rescued by a corporate entity. It was hoping that someone as unscrupulous as them, but benevolent enough to assist, just happened by. In corporate wild space. I didn''t have Aisling''s aptitude for social engineering, but even I could see the massive red flags this encounter was throwing up. It was too convenient. I sent the signal data to Aisling as promised and focused on the source of the signal.


    It didn''t look like a starship, but scans identified it as such. It was a mangled heap of metal floating in the emptiness of space. A scout ship, by the looks of it, shredded to pieces by ballistic weapons. This certainly wasn''t a threat in itself, but the fact that we''d come in range with it at all was a statistical anomaly, and couldn''t be assumed a coincidence. I expanded my external sensors to their maximum local range to passively scan for threats.


    I felt the sensor array in Aisling''s room flicker on. I could see and hear her now, so I moved my attention back to what had been the blank space at the center of my hull and saw the bleary-eye face of the captain squinting down at her handheld terminal, her brow creased hard as she tried to work out what she was looking at. "It''s a derelict, captain." I noted.


    "I see that. That''s what''s got me confused." She mumbled, her voice still hoarse with sleep. "Have you hailed them yet?"


    "What''s to hail?" I gave a shrug that no one would see, purely out of muscle memory.


    "Well, someone''s signaling for help. If this isn''t a trap, though, I seriously doubt anyone''s still alive in that thing. Who knows how long that signal''s been going?" She let out a groaning sigh and set her terminal aside for a moment to stretch her arms out. "So much for sleep. Keep us circling around it and keep externals on a hair trigger. If anyone is watching this thing, we need to be ready to break off in a heartbeat. And at least check if anyone responds, okay? We found you in ship wreckage, after all."


    I scoffed, rolling my eyes and just deciding to take the obvious bait, "You made the ship wreckage you found me in!"


    "And that worked out for the better, didn''t it? I''m going to go put some coffee on and wake the others. If anything changes, you inform me immediately." Aisling pushed herself off of her bed, retrieved her terminal, and headed out into the hall.


    I nodded unseen into the void and pushed my perspective out to the exterior while I decelerated slightly and worked myself into a wide, artificial orbit around the wreckage. Predictably, there was no response on the normal comms bands while I began to circle the derelict starship. Nobody was alive over there. And yet, something was off. I noticed after a few minutes that the signal had manually reset itself, as if it was being refreshed to ensure that it didn''t automatically shut off. There was certainly no one alive, but the ship itself was still calling out for help in the manner that it was allowed. And I knew better than most what that meant.


    "This ship is in pieces." I noted on the hallway intercom as Aisling knocked on the last door in the crew''s quarters and shouted in to inform Joel that there was a situation and to gather in the mess. "No comms response, and there''s no intact pockets of life support at all, but... I think the core''s intact, somehow."


    "With no life support? Seems unlikely." Aisling sighed as she turned down the hall to prepare the promised caffeine. "Even with a damper, no core could survive that amount of structural damage to their ship. Too much psychic trauma. More likely, someone set up some kind of simple machine to automate the signal to attract people for an ambush."


    "So why are we still here, then? Shouldn''t we just leave?" I asked, making certain I hadn''t missed a ping from external sensors while I was talking. "Before whoever set the trap decides to spring it?"


    "They should have sprung it by now." Aisling walked down the stairs as she talked, heading into the mess hall and making an annoyed hum at the nearly empty bag of coffee grounds in the cupboard. It was bad enough we were denied the luxury of real food, now we were even running out of our last remaining food-like luxury. "So either this isn''t a trap, or they''re waiting for us to leave. Have you tried accessing their systems?"


    "Too far away. I can''t maintain speed in a tight enough circle for an uninterrupted connection. I don''t like this, captain. Even if the core''s intact, there''s no one to rescue here. What do we have to gain by sticking around?"


    "Salvage." Aisling put on a pot of water to drip through the meager dust she''d scrounged together for it and sat down at the table. "If there''s anything of value to pull from that ship, we need it. Foundation could use Lily to find us on Io quickly, so we may not have the time to pull together the funds we need."


    "Fucking salvage? Seriously?" Joel groaned as he came stomping down the stairs in time to hear Aisling''s explanation. He leaned up against the wall next to the coffee machine rather than taking a seat. "I''m with Meryll on this one. I don''t like it. Last time we did salvage work, she''s the one who had to bail us out."


    "You haven''t even heard the situation yet." Aisling raised an eyebrow at Joel.


    He shrugged in response. "Don''t have to. It''s intuition. What''s happening, anyway? We''re definitely not under attack."


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    Aisling shook her head. "Wait for everyone else. I''ll brief everyone together. Meryll, see if you can''t manage a fly-by access on what''s left of their systems, but don''t slow down."


    It was only a few minutes before everyone had worked their way out of their beds and down to the meeting. I made myself busy widening and then shortening my orbit in an effort to put the derelict at the edge of my path. I knew that even if I did this perfectly, I''d only have a few seconds in ad hoc psychic networking range. This was exactly the kind of use case where the psychic damper''s time dilation could come in handy, but I still hadn''t worked up the nerve I needed to put it back in my skull.


    I prepared a few scripts while I waited for my opportunity, expecting to download file directories and scrape system logs of whatever terminals remained active enough to produce the emergency signal in my precious few moments connected to the ship.


    When I finally managed to make an uninterrupted pass, however, I reached out with my psychic network and was surprised to run into an access query. And another. Hundreds of pings and requests flooded the data stream all at once the moment I touched the ship''s network, my scripts running into protective walls before they could perform any functions. And then, as I made my pass, the signal cut away, and I was left with nothing but my own very confused system log.


    I''d experienced this once before, and it confirmed my earlier guess. "There is an active core!" I called into the gathering of the crew. "I have never felt a mundane computer system anything like that! There''s no other explanation!"


    "Turn your volume down," Shaw muttered groggily, staring down disappointedly at the mostly clear-but-faintly-brown liquid in the mug in his hand. "Some of us are still waking up."


    "As I was saying..." Aisling crossed her arms and patiently closed her eyes to think. "We''ve stumbled onto a derelict of a small scout ship emitting a distress signal. Probably a smuggler, by the make. There''s no obvious survivors, so it''s likely a trap, but we''re too desperate to pass up the opportunity." She finished her brief summary of the situation and turned toward the intercom to address me. "Now, Meryll, how is that even possible? You said it yourself. There''s no life support."


    "There''s no atmospheric life support." I corrected.


    Aisling glanced at Doc, who looked both ways, then shrugged. "Technically possible. If the ship is intact enough for the core to have survived the psychic trauma, the core module is a pressure chamber, among all its other functions. If the life support system itself is still online, it could remain functional, even if the rest of the ship was atmospherically compromised."


    "Way too many coincidences." Mouse muttered.


    "Yeah, this reeks." Joel nodded along and looked to Aisling. "C''mon Captain, this is a textbook bait ambush."


    Aisling had her eyes closed, somewhere deep in thought, only giving a slight nod to each of the crew''s objections. "Meryll, what''s our time to react if we do stop to salvage this thing and got attacked?"


    "Within local scanner range? Depends on what we''re up against. Market standard ships? Maybe ninety seconds at best. Cut that in half if we have another ambush like Lily pulled with those fast interceptors. Either way, it''s not enough time to get Theseus back up to effective combat speeds. A badly trained core would probably be able to hit me, and there wouldn''t be much I could do about it."


    "It''d take even longer to retrieve an away crew." Mouse stared at Aisling skeptically. "And Theseus isn''t built for point defense."


    Aisling kept nodding along, her eyes still closed as she pondered every angle of our situation. But the answer seemed obvious. We had to get out of here before whoever set this up swept in and took advantage of our indecision. She finally let out a quiet sigh. "It''s too risky. You''re right. Meryll, before we leave, were you able to glean anything from your friend?"


    "No. It''s a core operating at computational speed. I can parse normal computer data easily now, I''m used to that. But to even understand a core, I''d need..."


    "The damper, right. And you still haven''t reinstalled it." Aisling nodded. There was no judgement in her tone, but I still felt bad.


    "Sorry." I''d spent hours in the last week just staring at that damn piece of hardware, working up the nerve to push it back into my head, but my memories of Cassandra and my other self were too daunting. It was an insurmountable mental obstacle. I''d started considering asking Doc to tie me down and force it back into me, but that felt just as terrifying. As much as I wanted to face it, no amount of willpower would allow me to force it.


    "You''ll get there, Meryll." Aisling said in a reassuring voice, finally relaxing her stance. "We shouldn''t even have bothered altering course for this. I got my hopes up that we could salvage some cargo. We don''t know if we''re going to be safe once we get to Io. If we could pull together something worth pawning off really quick, we might not have to stay there for long."


    There was a long silence between all of us. Everyone was looking down, thinking to themselves how dire our situation truly was. I decided to speak up. "Well, I wasn''t able to pull a cargo manifest. All we know is they have an intact, used machine core. And that''s worthless if it''s already been grafted, right?"


    Shaw nodded, but then drew in a sharp breath and clapped his hands together to get everyone''s attention. "I say we go for it."


    "Excuse me?" Aisling raised an eyebrow. It was rare to see the captain caught off guard, but I was more than a little puzzled by Shaw''s declaration as well. He certainly wasn''t a risk-averse person, but approaching this ship sounded like suicide. Which was how his plans often looked, in hindsight.


    "Okay, here''s what I''m thinking." He started. "How many environment suits do we have?"


    "Five." Mouse narrowed his glare at Shaw. "But one is fitted to my size and one is fitted for Ray. The other three are standard."


    "Effectively four, then, since big and beautiful isn''t in any state to do a spacewalk." Shaw put a hand to his chin in consideration. "And how long can we rely on atmosphere mix tanks in those suits?"


    "Ten hours, maximum. It wouldn''t take nearly that long unless we were going to strip the hull, though." Mouse glared at him. "Where are you going with this?"


    "The issue is in our ship being able to accelerate back up to speed and engage targets if we''re ambushed, correct? So, what if it doesn''t need to dock? We don''t tether ourselves to Theseus, and If we''re attacked while we''re away, we hide within the derelict while Meryll takes care of them." He smiled smugly as he held his arms out, as if ready to accept everyone''s praise.


    An indecipherable cacophony of everyone telling Shaw off for his idiocy erupted around the mess hall for about a second, then promptly disappeared when everyone realized everyone else agreed with them. Aisling cleared her throat to get the attention of the crew back on her. "Shaw, I must admit, I''ve grown fond of entertaining your unorthodox strategies. They tend to work. But that''s a bit farther from sane than I''m willing to push things. For all we know, an ambusher might attack the wreck itself, or maybe it''s rigged to explode if anyone messes with it. And what if they attack with a force that Meryll isn''t equipped to handle? Maybe if we knew more, that would be something I''d be willing to risk, but there are too many unknowns. Meryll, just put us back on course. We''re done here. Sorry to interrupt everyone''s sleep for a false alarm."


    I agreed with the captain, of course. Shaw''s idea was suicide. But something about the situation made me want to take one more pass at the ship''s core. I was coming around my orbit again anyway, so I could connect to it one more time in passing. Why not? I certainly couldn''t do the dive into its systems that I''d planned before I''d confirmed that there was an active core involved, but maybe I could still interact with it from the angle of an ordinary human being coming to contact a wrecked ship. Surely it could communicate in some manner if rescuers asking for context contacted it, right? I prepared a number of scripts, explaining that no one was responding on normal comm layers, and requesting data on the ship and crew, rather than probing for it. I manufactured credentials that I hoped would fool it into thinking we were worth trusting for assistance without looking like military. I certainly wasn''t going to leave a real footprint of my activity here if I could help it.


    When I passed by the ship, I connected only on a comms level and delivered my payload of requests directly to the core via standard messaging systems rather than through the psychic network. The timing was much more lenient this way. I received a full response almost immediately, and was pleased to see a polite, plain language canned response one would expect from an artificial intelligence. The ship''s name was Demitrius. It reported that there had been a catastrophic atmospheric malfunction that had rendered the ship inoperable. I knew this was a lie; the ship had very obviously been torn apart by weaponry. So it must have been instructed to give a response like this when questioned about damage. Another hint that it was likely a pirate vessel.


    It sent several files along with its message, as well. The requested crew and cargo manifests, as well as an obviously falsified port license for one of the colonies on Europa. I almost wanted to reassure the poor thing that I wasn''t a corporate mercenary, and I didn''t care that it was a pirate vessel, but it seemed prudent to keep as much information about myself as I could from it. I opened both of the files and immediately realized these were probably also unreliable. Skimming the cargo manifest, it looked far too innocent. Demitrius was just transporting raw materials and supplies between moons, it said. I doubted any police would buy it if they spent more than a moment examining the list.


    The crew manifest seemed more realistic. It gave names and jobs aboard the ship, and their current status. All deceased, of course.


    But something at the end of the document gave me pause, and I reasserted my orbit around the ship as I read the last line a few times, trying to make sense of it.


    ''Captain Morgan Collins, safe. Confined to core module for safety.''

 What Makes A Ship?

    "So it''s gone from salvage to rescue and salvage?" Joel mumbled after Aisling pulled everyone back into the mess with my discovery. He dropped down into his chair perhaps a bit more dramatically than was necessary. "That doesn''t really make this any less of a trap, does it?" He grumbled. "It''s not like this makes the situation any less suspicious, captain."


    "No, it doesn''t. But it''s a new angle to consider." Aisling looked deep in thought herself, her eyes narrowed while she paced quickly around the table. She was trying to work out how best to handle the situation now that she knew the bizarre new fact that there was a life on the line. "You''re positive there''s no other ships in range, Meryll?"


    "Nothing." I noted, checking my external sensors one more time to be sure I hadn''t somehow missed something. "I could make a long range ping to get a better picture, but that would be like putting up a big sign that says ''here we are'' to everyone from here to Jupiter."


    "Let me get this straight, though. We are, in fact, going to salvage this ship, yes?" Shaw smiled widely. He seemed really excited about this, and I couldn''t figure out why. Did he recognize the survivor''s name? Or perhaps it was just his opportunistic business sense.


    "We''re going to entertain the idea of salvaging the ship to rescue a stranded person, yes," Aisling corrected sternly. We weren''t at the stage where she was ready to commit to it yet. "Putting aside whether we should for a moment, can we even do it at all? Mouse?"


    Mouse shook his head slowly. "If Theseus was in good shape, yeah, sure. Whatever. Problem is, we don''t have a cargo bay door. The whole room is just a giant airlock right now, and the door isn''t any bigger than the interior doors. A core module assembly is too big to bring through it, and if we open it out there, it depressurizes. I''d have to tear open the repairs I made at Venus to get it in here."


    "And if it depressurizes, the lubricant boils them alive." Doc mumbled.


    "Can we haul the module to Io as is?" Aisling asked. "Or better yet, the whole wreck?"


    Mouse looked thoughtful for a moment, then motioned for Aisling''s terminal. She slid it across the table to him and he began looking over my scans.


    Doc shook his head. "Disconnecting it from the life support system leaves them with about two hours of oxygenation, maybe less time before it starts losing heat, and I doubt we can haul the entire system along with us."


    "Definitely not." Mouse confirmed. "It''s a miracle this ship''s holding together what''s left of itself. If we start hauling the entire chassis around, it breaks for sure."


    "Then captain whatshisname is doomed, let''s go," Joel grumbled.


    I couldn''t just abandon someone like this if I could help it, though. I spoke up again. "What if we took it out and then connected it to my life support systems before the lubricant goes stale?"


    Doc hummed quietly, lowering his head and putting a hand to his chin as he seriously considered my proposal. "Maybe. Mouse?"


    "I could probably make it work." Mouse nodded slowly. Something about it had piqued his interest and made him take the discussion more seriously. I think he viewed it as a challenge to his engineering skills. "Theseus is a modular ship. If we eject one of the spare crew rooms, I could fit it there and rig the fixtures to it."


    "And then we just haul the empty crew room on the exterior. It''s convoluted, but you''re saying it can work?" Aisling asked.


    Mouse grew a mischievous smile and looked straight up into my sensor array. "If Meryll doesn''t mind me doing surgery on her while she''s active."


    I gulped. Was he still mad about what happened with Ray? Was this his way of venting, maybe? Either way, I didn''t really have much reason to object, despite how disturbing the thought of having bits of my starship shell rearranged made me feel. Maybe it wouldn''t be so bad if I could step away from the ship for a bit while it happened, like going to sleep through cybernetics surgery and waking up with new parts. But I would have to be fully aware of the whole thing. Ultimately, someone else''s life was at stake, and I trusted Mouse to do things the right way and not cause me psychic trauma. "Yeah, of course. I can handle it."


    "Alright." Aisling nodded. "So it''s possible. That only means we can do it. Should we?"


    "No." Joel grunted without a moment''s hesitation, but didn''t elaborate further. He must not have thought he''d need to. He probably didn''t.


    "I vote yes." I chimed in. "There''s someone in there we can still save. We should at least try, right? It''s not like anyone else is going to run into them."


    "People die all the time in shitty situations like this... well, not exactly like this. Starving to death in the core module of a failing ship is a pretty unique way to go, I''d say. But we can''t save everyone. If we put ourselves in danger for every lost cause, we''re not gonna last that long ourselves. I also don''t remember this being a democracy." Aisling folded her arms, and the room went quiet. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath before she continued. "That said, saving someone and looting their ship for everything it''s worth is a pretty good combination of noble and practical. Let''s do it."


    Doc remained composed and neutral, only giving a shallow nod. Shaw let out a raucous laugh, Mouse''s wicked smile widened ever so slightly, and Joel gave an irritated grunt.


    "And if it''s a trap?" Joel growled.


    "It''d be the shittiest, most intricate trap ever." Aisling huffed. "We''ve been here for way too long for nothing to have happened. There''s no reason an ambush wouldn''t have kicked off by now. Nobody can plan far enough ahead to account for all the waiting and for Meryll''s gift of talking to machines to get those manifests. There are a stupid number of coincidences here, but there''s also too many complications for this to be someone masterminding our actions either. Either someone has manufactured a ridiculous scenario on the off chance we do exactly what they want, or we''ve actually just run into a ludicrously unlikely shipwreck. And I''m starting to lean toward the latter at this point."


    "Just to be sure, how about we stop for a little while and see if anything happens, before anyone gets into environment suits?" I suggested. There was little reason to be less cautious than we needed to be about this, even if it was very unlikely this was a trap at this point.


    "Sounds good." Aisling nodded. "We need to discuss the plan for the away crew, anyway."


    I nodded into the void and opened my eyes to take a few seconds to relax. I''d been tensing up ever since I read that crew manifest. There was a human being, not augmented for the core module like I was, crammed into the void next to an ordinary core. That was undoubtedly a harrowing scenario for them. They''d probably never been inside of it before, and they were likely only there now in a clever but desperate play to stay alive just a little longer while their ship fell apart around them. The core wouldn''t be able to communicate with them in any way, so they didn''t know when or if rescue would come, and they probably weren''t even aware we were here. I wondered if I could coax the core into doing something about that.


    I began to decelerate as promised, but slowly moved into position alongside the derelict so that I could connect with it again before I stopped. I made an effort to isolate and protect my own systems so that it wouldn''t assault me with queries and requests again, and then opened comms with it again. Once more, I explained that no one was answering along standard communication avenues, and requested more information on the sole survivor.


    I received another polite message, explaining the same things it told me last time again, and I sighed. Of course it didn''t understand. I tried a different route. I asked if there were any displays, either in the captain''s possession or cybernetically attached to the core itself.


    It began listing the specs of its augmentations and operating system, and I was glad to see that it had a similar array of cybernetics to my own. That meant there was a terminal built into it. I requested access to the terminal, explaining that the captain needed to be updated on the situation. It refused, citing a security protocol it had been given. This thing couldn''t understand context. It didn''t know how dire this situation was.


    I instead asked if it could display this very conversation on its terminal, under its own systemic control, and it finally obliged. Showing off a conversation about rescuing someone in an emergency rescue situation probably made sense to it. My next message was ''Captain Morgan Collins, don''t be alarmed. We''ve received your distress signal. We are not affiliated with any corporate entity, so your cooperation, as far as you can act in your situation, is appreciated. Due to circumstances on our own ship, we cannot currently remove you from the core module, and you will probably have to remain inside for up to a week before we can reach an atmospheric colony and break it open. Please brace for movement soon.''


    It was only after I sent the message that I realized that being trapped inside the core module for that long was probably a terrifying prospect to them. I needed a little more information. I asked the core how long the captain had been contained in the core module already, and it replied that it had been approximately 36 hours, standard time since last insertion. At least that meant the attackers were likely far away by now, but it did complicate the survivor''s health. I sent another long message intended for Morgan: ''Please understand that the core module can keep you alive for an extended period. Ordinarily, a human body should be kept in there for a week, maximum, before related health complications can emerge, but you may have to endure for slightly longer. We have a doctor who can assess you when you emerge. The lubricant can keep you hydrated and provide oxygen indefinitely once it''s been attached to our ship, and while it may be uncomfortable, you can safely sleep inside the module. The only major concern is food. You will require far less sustenance, but at about day three, you will begin to feel hungry. At approximately day seven, you will begin to suffer the effects of moderate starvation. It is unlikely we will be able to get you out before then, but provided you were not already severely malnourished, your body should be able to survive until we do. We will provide emergency rations when we arrive at our destination. Hang in there, we will get you out.''


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    I couldn''t help but be satisfied with myself for the bit of research I''d done on maximizing my time spent within the core module. Under normal circumstances, a human being could technically survive for much longer than one would think without food; a person could last multiple weeks or even longer if they had to, provided they had all their other needs covered. And that was greatly extended in the total sensory deprivation of the core module. I was more worried about the health complications. Atrophy and delirium would probably pose greater problems. A normal human didn''t have a complex digital world to keep themselves occupied in the void or whatever was in my unique neurology that allowed for extended restful torpor, and I didn''t want to think about what that would do to their sanity. I just hoped that they saw my message and didn''t do anything drastic. Or at the very least, I hoped they understood that they were being rescued once we started moving them around.


    I took another look at my external sensors, and began a slow, tight orbit around the broken ship so that nothing could approach in a blind spot while I remained in network range, then turned my attention back inward.


    "Doc, you''re staying on board. And obviously, so are Ray and Meryll." Aisling ordered. "Mouse, how long is it going to take to detach and load the crew module onto the exterior cargo rack?"


    Mouse glared thoughtfully at the floor for a moment, then tilted his head and hummed. "Two... three hours. Two, if I have the extra hands out with me."


    "Fine, let''s just get it over with. The less time we''re here, the better." Joel grumbled.


    "Alright. We wait for one hour to make sure no one''s going to jump us, we spend two hours rearranging Theseus, two hours retrieving the core module and fixing it to Theseus, and another two hours hauling in whatever we can pull off this wreck. Then we bail."


    "Leaves us with four extra hours of oxygen, just in case. And a full day''s work." Joel muttered. "This better be fucking worth it."


    "If it''s not, you can take it out on Shaw." Aisling smirked.


    Shaw held his arms out and looked offended. "We''re not even using my plan!"


    "You still started it." Joel smiled mischievously. "I''ll take you up on that offer, Captain."


    Shaw gaped at both of them. "Well, fine, see if I ever give you lot any advice ever again."


    "Good." Joel groaned, walking out into the cargo bay alongside the others as they made their way toward the engine room to gather the environment suits. It would take a little while to get everyone ready.


    ¡ª


    In that hour, no attack came. Nothing new showed itself on the fringe of my external sensors. There were no unexpected interactions with the Demitrius core, and the derelict did not destructively explode while I was in its vicinity. The assumption that it was a trap had been almost wholly brushed aside entirely by then, Aisling reassuring everyone that as unlikely as finding a wreck like this was, it was only improbable and not impossible, and sometimes unlikely things just happened. I think there might have been at least a little bit of reckless optimism in her that we may have found a serendipitous solution to our financial problems, though.


    The two hours after that were the most bizarre part of the day for me. I had to be rearranged. I was used to Theseus being shaped a certain way, and I''d already experienced major damage to the ship when the cargo bay was torn apart on our way to Venus. But Mouse ensured me that less violently pulling me apart would not cause me to suffer the same psychic trauma. The grafting process had ensured that Theseus was a part of me and that I was a part of Theseus, but what defined Theseus as a whole in that regard? Turns out, as long as the core module remained intact, it would be anything that was integrated into its internal network. So removing a part would make it inert, no longer a piece of me, but reattaching it later would make me feel it again. That didn''t make the removing part any less disconcerting.


    "Alright, Meryll." Came Mouse''s voice over the internal comms in his environment suit. "I''ve stripped the armor from the module. How''s it feel?"


    "Itchy." I wasn''t sure how else to describe it. It was hard to equate it to a human sensation. But ''itchy'' felt like the right word to use. A nagging mild irritation that just made me want to scratch at to make it go away. A vulnerability. Of course, I had no equivalent to scratching this itch. I figured I would just have to get used to it for the time being.


    "The fuck''s that mean?" Joel asked with a mocking laugh. At least he was in a better mood now.


    "Look, I don''t know. It''s like having the top layer of your skin scraped off and just being exposed to air makes it feel weird." I tried to make a better effort at relating it to human feelings. "This really is the equivalent to a topical surgery for me."


    "It''s about to be a lot less topical." Mouse muttered. "Next step is disconnecting it from your systems. I have no idea what that''s going to feel like, but I imagine it''s not gonna be great."


    "I know what I signed up for." I swallowed, suddenly feeling uncertain about that decision. I couldn''t back out now, though. "Just walk me through what you''re doing, please. I want to brace for it."


    "Fine. First is going to be disconnecting life support and atmospherics. I already secured the interior door. Let me know if anything goes wrong inside. We don''t want to depressurize the hallway."


    There was a short pause as I watched Mouse work as best as I could, but I didn''t have sensors pointed at the delicate gaps the four people in environment suits had worked to open up in the past hour.


    Thankfully, Joel broke the tense silence. "This your first time working in vacuum, Shaw? You don''t look so great."


    "No, it''s the third." Shaw objected. "It just doesn''t get any easier. How do you people take so easily to this... floatiness?"


    I felt something poking at me inside of that itchiness, and I was trying my best to distract myself from it. "You should try getting in the core module sometime. That''s an experience in ''floatiness''."


    "I''ll take you up on that experience." Shaw gave a smarmy chuckle. "Locked naked in a tiny sphere with Meryll..."


    "By yourself, you ass." I would have rolled my eyes if I had them open. "You know what? Never mind. Invitation revoked. You would somehow find a way to leave your stench all over the inside of a sterile machine."


    Shaw gave an offended scoff. "Are you saying I smell? I keep myself very clean, thank you!"


    "We know, you dandy," Joel muttered. "You don''t even do anything around here and you''ve still used up most of our soap. I''ve seen you shower twice some days."


    "It''s more of a slimy aura than anything physical." Aisling added.


    I was about to make my own addition to the ribbing when I felt it. A partial numbness that made me whimper silently into the lubricant. I opened my eyes and looked down at my abdomen and then my arms to make sure there wasn''t something wrong with a part of my human self. I couldn''t tell the difference between system and organ failure anymore. I took in a deep breath, closed my eyes again, and reassured myself that it was just Mouse.


    "Mouse, did you do that?" I asked.


    "Disconnected life support, yeah." He grunted as he pulled at something else. "You''re ready for a system disconnect. You shouldn''t be able to feel the module anymore after this. Ready?"


    No. I wasn''t ready. This already felt invasive and strange, the mechanical equivalent to being awake while my chest was open and I could look down at my own beating heart. I suppose this module was hardly something so vital, though. It was functionally just an empty room, after all. It was more like a rib being removed. A structural point, but not a significant organ on its own. "Fine. Do it." I finally managed to say, and I braced myself for pain.


    But what came next wasn''t pain. It was numbness. I felt empty where my body told me an intangible part of myself belonged. Like a phantom limb. It didn''t hurt, but it felt wrong that there was nothing there. I felt nauseous, and I had to open my eyes, doubling over and desperately examining myself one more time. Nothing was wrong with my body. I had to keep telling myself that. Nothing was wrong with my human body, anyway. My starship shell was being violated. I took in deep breaths, telling myself to stay calm.


    This would pass. It would start to feel natural after a few moments. My internal mapping of my systems would rearrange themselves around the gap, and in a week, after we reached Io, I could have it replaced and back the way it should be again. The way it''s supposed to be. I shuddered. A week like this. At the moment, it felt like a daunting task, but I''d endured things I thought would be impossible to acclimate to before. The three day wait for my implants to settle was the obvious comparison. I took in an unsteady breath and closed my eyes, but had to look away again immediately. The four were holding handles at the edge of the module and coaxing it out from beneath my armor. I couldn''t watch. It was like watching my own severed arm being pulled away from me. I switched my attention to exterior sensors on the other side of the ship and tried my best to ignore the strange emptiness I felt.


    I wondered if this was going to be something I''d have to become accustomed to in the future. After all, Mouse had said that Theseus was highly modular, and if we needed specific large-scale equipment added to the ship, or to make major upgrades, it would necessitate adding and removing many different pieces. I thought back to what I''d been told about the namesake of the ship. From what I understood, it was about a pre-colonial naval ship back on Earth, made to sail the vast ocean rather than the endless expanse of space. Its parts were gradually replaced, one at a time, over and over, until nothing of the original ship remained. So was it even still the same ship it was when it was built? I knew that I could adapt to new systems being added and make them a part of my machine interface structure with time, but I wondered if there was a point where my mind would stop registering it as the ship grafted to my mind. Altered enough, would my mind eventually reject that the ship I was attached to was still me? Would my brain fail to register Theseus as a part of me if I was the only original part that remained? I''d have to ask Doc about the logistics of it later.


    "Meryll?" Came Aisling''s voice. It lifted me up out of my existential stupor. "You okay? You went quiet there."


    "I''m fine." I lied. This wasn''t fine, but it was something I had to endure. A disturbingly typical part of being a starship, I supposed. "It''s just a little disconcerting, is all. No, it''s really disconcerting. Imagine you just watched your pelvis get removed. But I''ll be fine. I''m not hurt. I''m just feeling queasy."


    "Well, that''s a fun image. Thanks for that." Joel grumbled.


    "If I''m going to vomit in my enclosure, I''m sharing that experience." I shot back.


    Shaw huffed. "Well, that''s hardly fair. Yours is self-cleaning."


    Aisling cleared her throat. "Focus, people. We want this thing on the cargo rack within the hour."


    I sat holding myself into a tight ball, drifting into an unsettled torpor while I felt one of my crew modules slowly and methodically being tied to the undercarriage of my hull, trying to keep my emotions in check by reassuring myself that this was temporary, that it would pass, and that I wouldn''t feel this profound sense of loss over a very small part of myself for very long. I was going to be okay. I knew I would be. I tried to tell myself that this was silly. It was like missing an appendix or wisdom teeth. That didn''t help the feeling go away.


    Before I knew it, I heard Aisling call for a check-in after the module had been securely mounted. "Yeah. I''m here." I answered. "Just trying not to think about it too hard."


    "You''re still watching for bogeys, right?" Joel asked.


    "Sensors will ping me if something sets them off." I reassured them. "I''ve got my eyes up, despite how distracting this is."


    "Alright, good. Next step is we move to the Demitrius. Don''t think we''ll need to, but just in case, once we''re attached to it, you''re clear to move Theseus if you have to. Otherwise, stand by."


    "Got it." I nodded to myself and shuddered again as I moved my sensors to watch them. The detached crew module strapped lifelessly to my underside, disconnected from my systems entirely, was disturbing to see, so I tried to look away. The four figures of my crewmates became smaller and smaller as they approached the remains of the destroyed ship. I controlled my breathing to keep myself calm. I could handle this. It wasn''t a huge deal. I watched as they disappeared into the wreck, navigating their way toward the center of the Demitrius to retrieve the heart and brain of that vessel. I couldn''t help but wonder how disoriented the core felt right now, and how it would feel when it was so gently disconnected from all that remained of its starship shell. Like pulling a ghost out of a body.


    But just as I was about to settle back into another uneasy silence, reflecting on my state as a collective of replaceable pieces, I was pulled from my thoughts by a wave of fear and anxiety as the black field in the corner of my interface lit up with static.

 What Could Be

    ¡°Wait, Meryll. It¡¯s me.¡± A voice broke through the static before I could reach for my thruster controls and made me hesitate. It was my own voice, but it was easy enough to tell from its weight and tone who it really was. Lily. The image slowly started to clear up. ¡°It¡¯s... just me.¡±


    Lily was sitting in what looked like a small cockpit, well-lit, new and sleek in its compact design, and she looked different. Way different. The metal band around her head was gone, and I could see lines of scar tissue where the prongs that had been stuck into her head had been removed. Not only that, but on the right side of her face, just above her ear, a small triangular plate sat, threaded into her skin, and I stared at, transfixed at what it meant. That was a neural implant.


    She had a gentle smile on her face and she looked a little less tired than she was the last time I saw her. She reached forward and picked up the camera, turning it around slowly in a circle before setting it back down on a surface in front of her. ¡°See? Just me.¡±


    I stared at her for a few more moments, trying to make sense of it. She had been implanted. That meant she was a machine core. Or at least, she was capable of being a machine core. A ship core. But she wasn¡¯t in a core module or I wouldn¡¯t be able to see her like this. ¡®You escaped?¡¯ I sent along the feed, guessing she had a channel prepared to receive my text like last time.


    She gave a nervous smile. ¡°I... may have taken advantage of some circumstances that let me slip away for a while.¡± she gave a weak chuckle. ¡°I don¡¯t know if ¡®escaped¡¯ is the right word... they¡¯re still expecting me back. We¡¯re not on a time limit or anything, though. They have no idea where I am, and it¡¯ll be weeks before they¡¯ll call me insubordinate, but I¡¯m way off course from where I was supposed to be. I needed to talk with you, Meryll. Not as a Foundation asset. As a sister. No tricks. No one watching.¡±


    ¡®You¡¯ve been augmented.¡¯ I got right to the point. Before anything else, I needed to know why she had a neural implant.


    Lily reached up and frowned as she tapped the metal plate on her head. ¡°Yeah. After your performance, I decided...¡± She closed her eyes and winced. ¡°My handlers... decided that we needed to begin outfitting a ship with an Arthausen unit immediately. And since the psych monitor is already so large, I was chosen to be their test subject. They¡¯re probably installing it into what I guess is going to be... my ship, already.¡± She gave another nervous laugh.


    So she hadn¡¯t grafted a ship to herself yet. But she was going to be a ship core. Because they wanted to use her against me. Or in place of me? I didn¡¯t know their intentions, and I honestly didn¡¯t care to. They were using her either way. ¡®How did you find me?¡¯


    ¡°Right. You don¡¯t remember what we can do. They wouldn¡¯t let me tell you before. Our psychic resonance becomes far more powerful than a normal clone¡¯s because we have a psyche behind us. Like how Cassandra can move things by thinking about them, Grace can manipulate electrical energy, and Tara...¡± Her words trailed off for a moment and I watched her eyes glaze over as her mind wandered somewhere else, like she¡¯d suddenly remembered something... Then her sad smile returned and she continued like nothing happened. ¡°They call what I do precognition. I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s exactly right, but I can see... glimpses.¡± She shook her head. ¡°I-I can¡¯t completely explain it, but sometimes I just see things that are yet to come.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t believe it. Accurate fortune telling was probably the wildest speculation I¡¯d made about how Lily was finding us, but at least according to her, that¡¯s exactly what it was. She could see the future. How were we supposed to work against that? She probably already knew where we were going. Not only that, but presumably, all of my sisters had psionic abilities just as insane as this was. ¡®You¡¯re telling me you just knew I would be here? Does Foundation know?¡¯


    Lily shook her head. ¡°I wasn¡¯t being monitored when I got this one. And it doesn¡¯t work like that. I can¡¯t change what I see. If I try, it won¡¯t happen. I saw us meeting here. Just you and I having this conversation over a wrecked ship. There was no one else. If I had brought Foundation, then you wouldn¡¯t be here. It wouldn¡¯t have happened. Or I guess it would be as likely to happen as it normally would be? Which is to say, it wouldn¡¯t happen.¡± She gave another weak laugh. ¡°Completely improbable.¡±


    Oh. She could see the future, but she was powerless to change what she saw. Or perhaps she was making these events happen herself by arranging arbitrary circumstances? It was hard to say where the causation was. Either way, regardless of the seemingly supernatural nature of it, she could only prevent or facilitate futures she saw, not alter them. Perhaps her ability wasn¡¯t as powerful as I assumed it to be. ¡®Is that why I was only attacked by two ships when we last met?¡¯


    ¡°I only saw two of our fighters in my vision. If we had brought a greater force, you would have been somewhere else. And I didn¡¯t see the outcome, only that we met there. We assumed two ships would be enough to subdue you. I couldn¡¯t have imagined you would have won.¡± She glanced to the side, her expression growing concerned. ¡°Umm... the surviving pilot... she¡¯s okay, by the way. Her ship had to be retired, but she wasn¡¯t even injured.¡±


    The image of the one that implicitly definitely didn¡¯t survive crossed my mind and I let out a silent sigh into the lubricant. ¡®That¡¯s good.¡¯


    ¡°Yeah...¡± She seemed uncomfortable until she changed the subject back to her ability. ¡°I-I don¡¯t see everything perfectly. Just bits and pieces. Sometimes they conflict, sometimes I understand so little about what I see that it¡¯s not very useful. My handlers and I have to sort through everything and determine what futures we should try to make happen and what ones to avoid from context clues... I¡¯m sorry I had to attack you. I really thought that approaching you there would be the best shot at getting you back...¡±


    ¡®Are you still going to try to get me to come back?¡¯ I asked.


    ¡°Well... yeah.¡± She admitted. ¡°What else are we supposed to do? Meryll, I haven¡¯t seen any future where you don¡¯t...¡± She hesitated for a moment, then looked away from the camera. ¡°I mean... I don¡¯t see any... good future where you don¡¯t.¡±


    I didn¡¯t like the sound of that, and suddenly, Lily¡¯s desperation for me to return made a lot more sense. She was trying to protect me from something she saw. She was trying to prevent a potential future. One in which something terrible happened to me. ¡®Do I die?¡¯


    She brought her arms up to hold herself and leaned over, still looking away from the camera. ¡°I¡¯m tired of seeing those futures, Meryll... I¡¯ve seen your lifeless body too many times. In so many different ways. I can¡¯t... I can¡¯t let that happen, and if you keep resisting like this, I¡¯m so afraid that they¡¯re eventually going to see one of those futures as... acceptable losses. And I will have shown them what they needed to make it happen. It will have been my fault. You¡¯re the only person in this world who¡¯s ever really cared for me, Meryll. And I care about you. I can¡¯t be responsible for your death. I don¡¯t want to see you die. So please, that¡¯s why you have to come back with me.¡±


    So that was what this was all about. She did see me die. And this was all a desperate attempt to avert that future. ¡®You could just not go back to them.¡¯ I offered.


    She shook her head. ¡®That doesn¡¯t tend to end well for either of us." She gave a nervous chuckle. ¡°I¡¯ve thought about it. Now would be the best opportunity. I¡¯m going to be part of a ship after this. I won¡¯t exactly be able to sneak off anymore. This would be my last chance to break free. To run. But they catch up to me. They bring me back. I know they do. I¡¯m not as... ruthless as you, Meryll. Whatever made you lose your memory changed you. You¡¯re stronger now. You can... take a life.¡±


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    ¡®When I need to.¡¯ I sent the message quickly, letting my feelings on the subject pour out of me. ¡®That wasn¡¯t easy. I didn¡¯t want to do it. I still wish I didn¡¯t have to do it, and even though I know I¡¯ll have to do it again, I keep hoping that I won¡¯t have to. I cried a lot that night, and if it weren¡¯t for my crew, I think I would have done something awful to myself. But I would do it again, and I will do it again to defend myself and my crew. I¡¯ll probably cry again and again, but I would rather face those emotions than surrender to Foundation. I will kill for my freedom, and you can bet that I¡¯ll die for it.¡¯


    Lily still refused to look into the camera. She let out an exasperated sigh. ¡°I didn¡¯t see you saying that, but I thought you would, anyway. There¡¯s really no convincing you.¡± She smiled sadly, barely suppressing something that sounded like a sob. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, there¡¯s really no trap this time. I am alone. I¡¯m not going to attack you. I just hoped I could convince you...¡±


    ¡®And I hope I can convince you. You don¡¯t have to go back to them. You don¡¯t have anyone holding you back from just... not returning to them. The things you see aren¡¯t set in stone, right? You said it yourself, you see lots of things that don¡¯t come true. So let¡¯s take the future into our own hands and decide for ourselves what¡¯s actually going to happen.¡¯


    As she read my words slowly, I saw a little bit of tension disappear from her shoulders and I watched something shine in her rheumy eyes as she went. Then she looked right into the camera and muttered, ¡°But it¡¯s futile, isn¡¯t it? You really think you can fight fate itself? You think I could?¡±


    ¡®Why not?¡¯ I smirked to myself. If it meant continuing to be Theseus, to spend every day in this beautiful void, to spend all my time cutting through this sea of stars, and continuing to be who and what I truly felt I was meant to be, I would fight whatever nebulous concept tried to stop me. And I felt enough of a lost kinship with Lily to know that if she would go along with it, I would do it so she could feel the same as well. ¡®You don¡¯t have to do it alone. Come board Theseus. We can talk face to face. You can come with us. You can join our crew.¡¯


    Her eyes went wide and her jaw slackened slightly. She looked genuinely surprised. ¡°W-What?¡± She stammered.


    ¡®Yeah. I¡¯ll have to coordinate it with the captain, but that¡¯s what we do. Theseus takes in outcasts like you and I. People with nowhere they belong, with the whole universe against them. We survive together and protect each other because we know what it¡¯s like to have no one else. If any other ship had found me out there, I would probably already be back with Foundation. Maybe something did change me when I lost my memory, but my crew are the people who made me strong enough to fight for what I believe in and stood by me even if I¡¯m attracting trouble. And I know they¡¯ll accept you too, if you¡¯ll join us. We¡¯re family.¡¯


    Lily stared at the camera, frozen with her bewildered expression for a long time. Minutes passed in silence as she read and reread my words. Finally, she composed herself enough to stammer out the words ¡°Meryll... I... I¡¯ve never seen a future where I... join a pirate crew... I don¡¯t even know if that¡¯s a possibility.¡±


    That was... surprising. That seemed like an obvious possible conclusion to us meeting like this to me. But it did present a good logical hook to bring her in. ¡®And that means none of the futures you saw where I die can happen if you do so, right? It throws a monkey wrench into it all. It lets you write what happens next for yourself.¡¯


    She stared in silence for just a little while longer, her gaze eventually drifting down and her posture relaxing slightly. ¡°This... new you... You really like to disrupt the status quo, don¡¯t you? You even make it sound so... inviting. Even after all I did, you would still invite me to be with you now? They would accept me?¡± She shook her head. ¡°No, I can¡¯t. I have to go back eventually, they¡¯ve got... they¡¯ve got the world that makes sense to me. I know, I know, it¡¯s just a simulation, but it¡¯s... all I really have to look forward to.¡±


    ¡®Lily, you didn¡¯t do anything to us. Foundation did. They used you. That¡¯s all they do is use you. They keep promising you that you can return to that simulation, that they¡¯re the only ones who can help you forget about this shitty existence, that they¡¯re making for you by the way, but do you ever actually see a future where they even let you have that?¡¯


    Her face sagged and she looked tired as she spoke. ¡°I... always hoped I could make that future happen anyway... But how did you know I¡¯ve never had that vision?¡±


    I hesitated for just a moment. Telling her meant putting Fuller in the spotlight, and it meant shattering the one anchor she had holding her together emotionally. The only thing she looked forward to, as she put it. But I¡¯d already started down this path. I just had to bet that this would work. I pulled up Fuller¡¯s file on Lily and sent it along the feed to her. ¡®We met with a former Arthausen project scientist. She¡¯s the one who told me what I am, and warned me about the rest of us. She gave me a personal file on each of you, and this is yours.¡¯


    I watched her interacting with the terminal in front of her and beginning to read, her expression becoming increasingly concerned as she went on. Before she finished, I had a message ready. ¡®Not only do they not intend to put you back into that virtual reality, they physically can¡¯t. They¡¯ve even been lying to you about that this whole time. They¡¯ve been using you with the promise of a reward they can¡¯t give you.¡¯


    She stared at the words in horrified silence, her expression gradually tensing up all over again. She reread both my transmission and the file several times over, her eyes clearly fixated on particular passages as her demeanor grew more and more frightened. But she didn¡¯t cry.


    ¡®It¡¯s okay, Lily. Let it out.¡¯ I sent those words from Aisling that did so much for me. It snapped her attention up, but she didn¡¯t look like she was ready to let her emotions go.


    ¡°It¡¯s not okay.¡± She shook her head. ¡°This... whole time?¡± She was barely able to squeak out.


    ¡®She didn¡¯t even know I was part of the project before we met, so she must have left before then. So yeah, they¡¯ve known they couldn¡¯t do it this whole time. I only looked into the file after our last encounter, or I would have told you then.¡¯


    ¡°So I¡¯m... I¡¯m stuck in this world...?¡± She whimpered quietly, still in a state of shock.


    ¡®I¡¯m sorry, Lily. This is the real world. It¡¯s the only one you¡¯ve got. There¡¯s nothing for you back with Foundation. So join us. We can make the most of what we do have. We can still live a satisfying life. I can show you how amazing things can be with real friends on the outside. I can show you why I¡¯m fighting so hard for this.¡¯


    Her eyes drifted slowly down again, and I could see she was on the verge of tears. Hints of anger and frustration showed through her countenance while her world¡¯s fragile walls collapsed around her. ¡°Thank you for showing me this.¡± She was desperately trying to hold a neutral tone. It sounded forced. ¡°I... I have a lot to think about.¡± Her exhausted voice cracked as she reached forward. And suddenly, the line went dead. The feed turned black. And she was gone. I waited several minutes, watching the data stream for some sign of comms activity. Nothing. I sent out a scan to local space. Nothing. The ship she¡¯d hijacked hadn¡¯t come near enough for me to spot her. Had I done the wrong thing, showing her that file? She deserved to know the truth, but now I wondered if it was too much for her to bear.


    My heart ached. I wished I could hold her hand and be a shoulder to cry on for her. But she was gone. I couldn¡¯t help someone who didn¡¯t want to be helped. Perhaps she would contact me again after she¡¯d wept the pain away. But for now, I felt her absence far more profoundly than that of my displaced compartment.


    I sighed into the lubricant. I couldn¡¯t keep this to myself. Brooding alone wasn¡¯t going to solve anything, and it would be a bad idea to keep what just happened a secret. I turned my attention inward and retreated to my heart to see Doc leaning over his terminal, pondering questions of his own. I tapped the intercom and just put it out there. ¡°I just spoke with Lily.¡±


    Doc lifted his head to look at the sensor, then did a double take. ¡°Excuse me? Meryll, are we under attack?¡± He asked urgently, quickly pulling himself to his feet.


    ¡°No. It was just Lily. No Foundation. She escaped them. At least physically.¡± My synthesized voice didn¡¯t properly portray the sadness I meant to express in those words. ¡°She just wanted to talk. There¡¯s nothing incoming. There¡¯s no trap. It was just Lily, on her own.¡±


    Doc didn¡¯t relax in the slightest, holding tight to the edge of the large biometrics terminal at his station. ¡°You¡¯re positive?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I tried to convince her to stay, but she left after I showed her Fuller¡¯s file. She¡¯s probably still sitting just outside of scan range. Probably crying. It was upsetting for her.¡±


    He loosened his grip and dropped a bit of his tension, but he stayed standing. ¡°That¡¯s... a problem. It¡¯s a problem that she found us, you get that, right?¡±


    ¡°I know, I know. She told me how she¡¯s doing that, by the way. And some more about our sisters. It¡¯s concerning. I don¡¯t think she¡¯s going to go back to Foundation now, though.¡± I anxiously sent another ping to the surrounding area and sighed into the void when it again returned nothing. ¡°I invited her to come with us.¡±


    Doc raised his eyebrows and made an interested hum. ¡°That¡¯s not really up to you... but I doubt Aisling would object if we could take the right precautions.¡±


    ¡°I just hope she contacts me again soon. I can¡¯t imagine what¡¯s going through her head right now. She¡¯s in a lot of pain.¡±

 Wish You Were Here

    ¡°This makes my head hurt.¡± Joel grumbled. Everyone else sat around the floor of Ray¡¯s quarters, confused and tired expressions all around. It was yet another unscheduled briefing after a successful salvage mission, predicated by my impossible story of my clone family and their psychic powers. We had planned to meet in the mess hall again, but I insisted we keep Ray apprised of the situation as well. Everyone needed to know what was happening.


    I had avoided telling the others about our fated meeting until their work was finished, because I knew we both needed to rescue the captain of the Demitrius and to salvage as much as we could for the sake of our wallets. I firmly believed that we weren¡¯t in danger of retaliation, and so I didn¡¯t deem it crucial to bring it to their immediate attention. Aisling would definitely scold me over it later, but I trusted Lily, even in her despondent state, not to betray my trust.


    Having an additional core module attached to my shell didn¡¯t feel as invasive as I assumed it would be. The procedure didn¡¯t feel like stapling someone else¡¯s brain to my arm like I assumed it would. It was more like I just knew there was something in the cavity made by my missing compartment, like it had been replaced with an inert filler material. Mouse only attached the module to my life support system. It wasn¡¯t physically networked to the rest of my shell any more than it absolutely had to be, so we didn¡¯t clash over virtual territory. It reached out to me now and then, sending inquisitive queries and permission requests trying to establish a network through psionic resonance, but outside of comms pings, which were mostly just a repetitive check-in to notify me it couldn¡¯t locate the rest of its ship, I refused. I was in complete control of Theseus and was happy to find that this other core could not find rhyme or reason to my system architecture.


    ¡°You¡¯re not alone, Joel.¡± Aisling said with a tired groan. ¡°This breaks... not just what we know about clones and psychics, but it draws the structure of reality itself into it. From what it sounds like, she doesn¡¯t just foresee things that haven¡¯t happened yet, but she has some limited control over making what she sees a reality if she¡¯s in a position to make a related choice about it.¡±


    ¡°So... does Lily make these things she sees happen, then?¡± Mouse asked, looking just as puzzled as everyone else.


    ¡°Possibly?¡± I tried my best to sound confused myself in my synthesized voice. Expressing a range of emotions over the intercom was still a challenge. ¡°I¡¯m not exactly sure how causality works out here.¡±


    ¡°Right?¡± Aisling held her head in one hand. ¡°If she didn¡¯t show up as she saw it, would we have found the Demitrius? Would the Demitrius even be destroyed?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think she¡¯s some kind of god dictating fate or anything.¡± I internally rolled my eyes at the thought. She certainly didn¡¯t have that kind of agency over reality. ¡°I doubt things would be this... tragic for her if she had that much control over everything.¡±


    ¡°Maybe it¡¯s best we don¡¯t think too hard on this one.¡± Ray mumbled from her bed, lying on her back while Doc examined her surgical stitches. ¡°It might be we¡¯re not meant to know. Maybe no one knows. Perhaps she doesn¡¯t even understand the mechanisms of the universe she¡¯s privy to.¡±


    I nodded to myself. ¡°It certainly seemed that way when I was talking to her. She only seemed to understand how it worked from a practical point of view. And even then, she doesn¡¯t seem like she has understands the mechanisms of it very well.¡±


    ¡°If she¡¯s telling the truth, that is.¡± Mouse mumbled. ¡°Is there any chance she¡¯s just making this up and they have some kind of tech that let them find us?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what kind of technology would let her find a singular ship our size that¡¯s not broadcasting its location in wild space. Twice.¡± Aisling shook her head. ¡°That¡¯s a long stretch, even for a company with secret sentient cloning tech. And if that was it, then they would have just shown up here in force, not try to pull some mind game on us. I really hate to admit it, but the most plausible answer we have is that Lily is actually a precognitive psychic. She can see the future and orchestrate events that haven¡¯t happened yet. As ludicrous as it is, that¡¯s our reality. I don¡¯t see any way it could be anything else at this point.¡±


    The room went silent as we all pondered the implication of that. Psionic resonance had been an important part of our scientific world for decades now, but this was the realm of science fiction. It was so far from what we expected to be real that we were all having trouble reconciling with it as fact. Even I, who had a few hours to contemplate my conversation with her first, was still trying to see if I could come up with some other explanation for my sister¡¯s uncanny ability to find us in the infinite vastness of our solar system alone.


    Aisling lifted her tablet and played through some of the recording of my conversation with Lily again, starting from the beginning.


    ¡°Like Meryll¡¯s fucking twin...¡± Joel muttered as he leaned over Aisling¡¯s shoulder to watch.


    ¡°They¡¯re clones, Joel.¡± Shaw added condescendingly.


    Aisling did her best to ignore the peanut gallery and moved on. ¡°At least she broke out of their custody. That¡¯s good. And you¡¯re right, Meryll. I doubt she¡¯s going back after that reveal. She¡¯s got no reason to, other than maybe if she resigns herself to misery. She¡¯s too hopeful for that, though. Girl¡¯s na?ve, but she¡¯s not that gullible. She knows there¡¯s no happiness to be found with them now.¡±


    ¡°You can tell all that for sure just from that video?¡± Joel asked.


    ¡°I make judgement calls like this all the time with a lot less time to think about it. You can tell a lot about people from their body language.¡± Aisling thumbed forward in the video. ¡°Meryll got her curious the last time they talked, and she finally worked up the nerve to act on that, even if she wasn¡¯t certain she was going to go through with anything. That says a lot. She was looking for a reason to rebel, even if she wasn¡¯t conscious of it. You definitely gave her a really good reason. And she definitely had to use her ability to orchestrate whatever circumstances let her be here, so this isn¡¯t an accident.¡±


    The video played the part where she described our sisters. ¡°Take notes on this part, Meryll. Cassandra, she¡¯s the crazy one that screwed with your head, right?¡±


    I nodded into the void. ¡°Yeah. She¡¯s... scary.¡±


    ¡°Well, according to Lily, she¡¯s telekinetic. Which makes sense for the log Fuller gave us. It would explain how she could hold the doors shut while she murdered her creator. It¡¯s something we¡¯ll have to keep in mind if we ever come face to face with her.¡± Aisling mumbled to herself. ¡°Grace, that¡¯s a name we haven¡¯t heard them mention until now. Control of electricity...¡±


    ¡°Like what Meryll does? I thought that was a normal core thing?¡± Joel asked.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think I can control electricity.¡± I admitted. ¡°Well, maybe in a specific roundabout way? I control computers, and that¡¯s just a function of the neural implant, not anything special as far as cores go. I¡¯m just using software in a way that it¡¯s been programmed to work ever since we started using machine cores.¡±


    ¡°And she started to mention a third name. Tara.¡± Aisling pointed out.


    I¡¯d been really preoccupied with the emotional weight of the conversation, but it was a strange reaction; there was no denying that. ¡°Yeah. I thought that was bizarre, too, looking back on it. The way she looked when she started talking about her, it¡¯s like she surprised herself with what she said... and then just... forgot about it and moved on. Like she didn¡¯t realize she said anything about it in the first place.¡±


    ¡°She also stopped talking about the other units after that.¡± Aisling paused the video and took a moment to ponder the lost expression on Lily¡¯s face in that moment. ¡°I wonder if she has some kind of mental programming preventing her from speaking about the project at length.¡±


    ¡°But she continued on to talk about herself a lot.¡± I gave a frustrated hum. ¡°What if it¡¯s Tara specifically? What if they want to keep what she can do a secret? So much so that they gave Lily some kind of hypnotic short circuit or something?¡±


    ¡°Practical hypnotic programming like that is mostly bunk.¡± Doc finally spoke up, looking away from Ray¡¯s scarred abdomen. ¡°But we¡¯re a bit beyond science now, aren¡¯t we? If that were the case, I wonder if you¡¯d be able to tell us if you knew. If they gave such a suggestion to Lily, it¡¯s probably in all the Arthausen Units.¡±


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°We¡¯ve never seen Meryll seize up like this, though. She¡¯s just forgotten ¡®cause she¡¯s an amnesiac...¡± Aisling gave a frustrated sigh. ¡°There¡¯s too much we don¡¯t know. Let¡¯s just agree that Tara must have an especially dangerous ability if they¡¯d go to these lengths to hide it within their own ranks.¡±


    ¡°So if all of them have specific psychic abilities beyond what normal cores have, then what¡¯s Meryll¡¯s?¡± Mouse asked.


    The room went silent, as if expecting an answer from me. But I had nothing. ¡°As far as I know, I can¡¯t do anything like that. I can¡¯t move things with my mind, and I can¡¯t see glimpses of the future. I can¡¯t even imagine what other psychic abilities there are that I might have. Pyrokinesis? I haven¡¯t exactly seen any open flames since I got here.¡±


    ¡°I would think that would fall under the same purview as controlling electricity, right? Controlling physical energy?¡± Aisling shook her head. ¡°You definitely can¡¯t read thoughts or anything like that. No offense, but you¡¯re not that good at reading people. Ugh, this conversation gets more and more absurd by the minute.¡±


    ¡°I have to agree.¡± Shaw nodded. ¡°I can¡¯t believe that we have to have a serious discussion about superpowers.¡±


    ¡°Says the guy who can move metal with his mind.¡± I pointed out.


    ¡°That... is probably some kind of trick of magnetism in my implant.¡± Shaw crossed his arms, the liquid metal flying into his hand, where he configured it into a solid flat shape and fidgeted nervously with it. ¡°I may admittedly not have a simple explanation for my tech, but it¡¯s easy enough to imagine someone out there does. And it¡¯s for sure my implant, not my brain itself. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anyone who can scientifically explain being able to see the goddamned future, cybernetics or not.¡±


    ¡°What if Meryll just doesn¡¯t have an ability?¡± Joel shrugged. ¡°Could just be she¡¯s defective.¡±


    ¡°Lily said that it¡¯s because we have a psyche that Arthausen units get these abilities. I¡¯ve definitely got one of those, so I must have something.¡± I thought for a few minutes, but nothing seemed obvious. Sure, I could operate computers remotely, but that was a normal function of machine cores given to me through the neural implant, right? It wasn¡¯t an intrinsic thing my brain could do alone. Then again, I had no true memory of a time where I wasn¡¯t implanted. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll have to experiment? There¡¯s nothing else we can do right now on the subject of psychic abilities, so let¡¯s just move on to the rest of the video.¡±


    ¡°Hmm... there is the matter of what she said earlier.¡± Aisling started ¡°About the implant she has. Foundation has just now decided, after seeing Meryll operate a ship, to make an Arthausen Unit into a machine core. That means our hunch was correct. They haven¡¯t neurologically implanted an Arthausen Unit until now.¡±


    ¡°Because they¡¯re studying our psychic abilities instead.¡± I nodded to myself. ¡°Maybe they didn¡¯t want to risk us reacting like a normal human would to grafting a machine structure to their brain, since there¡¯s only seven of us.¡±


    ¡°It is a near-certainly fatal process in baseline humans.¡± Doc nodded solemnly. ¡°No one without a death wish has subjected themselves to it in a scientific setting for years now. Perhaps they believed that Arthausen units were too close to that to risk trying.¡±


    ¡°But since they know now that it¡¯s safe, it¡¯s not a matter of risking one of the seven anymore.¡± Aisling said. She nodded in agreement with my theory. ¡°That makes sense.¡±


    ¡°Great, so we accidentally beta tested something they weren¡¯t willing to try.¡± Joel rolled his eyes. ¡°Go us.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯d have figured it out, one way or another.¡± Mouse grumbled. ¡°Corpos don¡¯t care about people. Someone high up enough would have eventually insisted.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think they see us as people at all, Mouse.¡± I added. ¡°Just assets.¡±


    ¡°Pretty sure that¡¯s how they think of everyone.¡± Joel scoffed.


    ¡°I¡¯d gladly spend all day bitching about our capitalist overlords, but let¡¯s get through the rest of this video first.¡± Aisling said as she hit play again. ¡°Lily says she¡¯s seen multiple visions in which Meryll dies. And that¡¯s what she¡¯s trying to prevent. That¡¯s her motivation.¡±


    ¡°Now that one sounds like bullshit.¡± Joel rolled his eyes.


    ¡°Nope. She¡¯s legit. Lily is far from a manipulator, and everything about her demeanor here suggests she¡¯s telling the truth.¡± Aisling watched the video carefully, rewinding it a few times to study Lily¡¯s expressions. ¡°Her only motives for any of this has been either to protect Meryll or to get herself implanted back into that simulation. I wish we could have asked her what the circumstances behind the ¡®glimpses¡¯ she saw of Meryll¡¯s deaths were so we could try to avoid them, though.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think to ask. I was a little preoccupied. And I honestly thought we¡¯d have a lot more time to talk,¡± I admitted. I know I made at least a little bit of a misstep in information gathering there. I felt so certain that I could get Lily to agree to come on board once I pulled Foundation out from under her that I didn¡¯t prioritize my questions very well. I just wanted her at my side. ¡°And besides, I thought I had a good solution prepared already. She told me that she¡¯s never seen a future where she joins us, so if she does, that invalidates all the ways she saw my corpse. Right?¡±


    ¡°Not necessarily.¡± Aisling certainly didn¡¯t sound happy about it, but gave a resigned sigh on the matter. ¡°From the sound of things, there are specific conditions that have to be fulfilled for her visions to come true. Those circumstances might not hinge on any of her other visions at all. So they could happen independently as long as the situation falls into place specifically as she sees them.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re making my head hurt again.¡± Joel grunted.


    Aisling shook her head. ¡°It would invalidate anything she saw that involved specifically either returning to Foundation or striking out on her own. So it¡¯s not nothing.¡±


    ¡°So we would take her in, then?¡± Ray asked. ¡°That sounds like a good idea. Practically and charitably. She obviously needs help, and having somebody on our side who can warn us about what¡¯s coming would be... amazing.¡±


    ¡°I wonder how much Foundation¡¯s already abused her ability for their own gain.¡± I added. ¡°Let¡¯s not be like that. But you¡¯re right, if she wants to offer us her knowledge, that would be really helpful.¡±


    ¡°Just having her beyond Foundation¡¯s reach would be a massive boon. If she comes around again, I wouldn¡¯t be opposed to having a conversation with her myself to see if I want to let her join us.¡± Aisling nodded. ¡°Sorry, Meryll, but family doesn¡¯t mean a whole lot to me, so I want to vet her for myself.¡±


    I had to wonder what she meant by that. It¡¯s the first time I could remember Aisling even mentioning family, but apparently it was a sore subject for her. ¡°I understand. I think you¡¯d be pretty helpful for her to talk to, anyway. You¡¯re good with that stuff.¡±


    She gave a slow and thoughtful nod at my compliment. ¡°Thanks. So we at least have a plan for that. That is, if she comes back. I¡¯m sorry to say, Meryll, but you left her in a pretty poor state in the end. You said a lot of the right things, but at the very end, you probably should have taken a different angle with breaking the news to her. We wanted to have her somewhere she couldn¡¯t just run away before you brought it up.¡±


    ¡°Sorry. I couldn¡¯t think of any other way to convince her not to go back. Not in the moment, anyway. I guess I could have told her more about what it¡¯s like living with you guys. I definitely didn¡¯t want to make anything up, though. I¡¯m not going to lie to her.¡±


    ¡°Lying would have been bad later down the line,¡± Aisling agreed. ¡°And letting her go back to Foundation would mean she doesn¡¯t likely get another chance to break out. She¡¯d have a crew of handlers and a ship she¡¯s tied to by then. I get why you went for it. There¡¯s probably some other way you could have handled it, though. Just kept her talking and see what other options opened up. I don¡¯t blame you for it, you handled it really well compared to last time. But we don¡¯t know what state she¡¯s in now. For all we know, she...¡± She pursed her lips and refused to continue.


    ¡°Yeah. I get it. She might have killed herself.¡± I¡¯d considered the possibility while I was waiting for the others. And as much as I didn¡¯t truly know Lily all that well, it seemed plausible that in the state I left her in, she may have committed suicide. I¡¯m sure there were plenty of ways to do it on that ship. I¡¯d just really hoped so far that it wouldn¡¯t be the case. ¡°But I have to hope that she¡¯s still out there, just taking a few hours to herself before she comes back. I want to comfort her and try to make everything about this better for her. Give her a life worth living.¡±


    ¡°Well said.¡± Ray spoke up with a mild slur to her words. ¡°I think she¡¯d fit right in. Another lost lone wolf for us to bring into our pack.¡±


    Aisling leaned over to see past Doc. ¡°Is she high?¡±


    Doc shrugged. ¡°Little bit. I just dosed her.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± Ray slurred. ¡°I¡¯m perfectly fine, feeling great.¡±


    ¡°Because of the pain meds, yes.¡± Doc nodded.


    ¡°I think we¡¯re done here. Meryll, are we out of range of the derelict yet?¡±


    I nodded to myself again, a harmless habit I saw little reason to break. ¡°We¡¯re making headway out into wild space, and I can no longer detect the Demitrius. Should I fix our course back to Io yet?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, we should be good. If Lily is following us, we can¡¯t exactly stop her from tracking where we¡¯re going. Those ships are entirely too fast for us to outrun, even if we maxed out our engines, so we¡¯ll just have to assume that if she¡¯s still there, she¡¯s going to be benign. Not like we have much of a choice. I¡¯m sure she can arrange another destined encounter with us if she loses track.¡± Aisling threw up her arms into an exasperated shrug. ¡°Because that¡¯s just a thing she can do, I guess.¡±


    ¡°I hate all of this,¡± Joel muttered. ¡°At least we got some decent materials from that wreck.¡±


    ¡°Couple crates of unrefined platinum.¡± Mouse nodded. ¡°Should be able to pay for getting the cargo bay repaired for real, at least.¡±


    ¡°Not to mention the arms. I think they¡¯re leftovers from the rebellion.¡± Joel gave a small smile. ¡°Might take a while to find a buyer for those, though.¡±


    I was glad to hear the salvage was at least something we could count as a resounding success today. Returning my cargo bay to its intended functional form would be a relief, and it meant we could hopefully get back into the air quick after Io if we had to.


    The crew slowly dispersed as the conversations drifted in several directions, Joel teasing Shaw about getting scared by something on the derelict, Aisling asking Mouse for updates on how well the adopted core module would hold in my systems, Doc consoling Ray into medicated rest. I stayed quiet, my own thoughts preoccupied by the one who I thought should be there with us. Lily. I wanted to help her. I wished I could speak with her again. Part of me knew I would someday soon. But I wanted to be by her side now. It hurt that she had to face this alone.

 Searching For A Soul

    Hours went by without communications from Lily. By the time another six hours had passed, I had lost hope that she''d be returning to us that day. Maybe she just needed to sleep on all of this. As most of my crew settled in to rest, I silently wished my sister a good night. Barring another fateful arrangement of events, I knew little else of note was going to happen until Io, so I settled in for a night of tinkering with my code and playing Horizon by myself.


    That''s when the other core pinged me once more to inform me it had been disembodied. I sighed to myself. This thing was becoming annoying. It had been doing this repeatedly since it became locked in to my shell, and I couldn''t make heads or tails of all the junk it was trying to flood me with. I wondered what it must have felt like to have your entire mechanical body sheared away and to have only your biological body inside a single machine left. If standard cores were capable of emotion, would it be scared? Disgusted? Horrified? There was probably some profound sense of dysphoria in being reduced to just a core module. It was no wonder it kept trying to make sense of the structure it was attached to. If I was in that position, I would probably want to spread my influence and reestablish a connection with anything around me. I''d want to make sense of my shell again, to redefine Theseus at least as some approximation of what it once was.


    It dawned on me that while a standard core did lack emotions, creativity, lateral thought, personality, and probably a thousand other things that defined personhood, it was still a human brain operating as a processor. I thought of what my other self was like when I was under the influence of the psychic damper. Was it that much different from a standard core? I wondered if I should try to comfort the lost core.


    I opened a comm link with it, and it immediately launched into the same stock warning I''d read a dozen times already about how it had lost connection to the Demitrius, that there was a critical emergency, and that the ship was in distress.


    ''I know.'' I sent first. There was no immediate response, so I continued. ''You don''t realize what''s happened, do you?''


    ''Status report: The Demitrius has suffered severe damage and is in transit to the nearest repair station. Psionic network error. Unable to populate full damage report.''


    ''That''s because you''re not attached to the Demitrius anymore. The physical components you can feel belong to the starship Theseus. The Demitrius was scuttled. Your core module has been attached to our life support in order to keep captain Morgan Collins alive. We couldn''t salvage your ship itself. Sorry, but the core module is all that''s left.''


    ''Understood.''


    I didn''t like how easily it accepted this. I knew well by now a ship was irreplaceable to a core. When a ship itself is decommissioned, it''s probably just scrapped for parts and salvage, right? What did that mean for the machine core? They couldn''t be reused or reassigned, after all. What did they do with retired cores? Were they just abandoned? Were they killed? There was a dreadful finality to it all. I know I wouldn''t want my journey as a starship to come to an unceremonious end by abandonment or euthanization, and even though the core seemed to accept the reality of its fate with curt and steadfast adherence to its duty, I couldn''t help but feel sorry for it.


    ''We can probably still find some way to make use of you,'' I typed without thinking, momentarily forgetting that I wasn''t dealing with a person. I felt like I needed to console it.


    There was a brief pause before it replied, ''Will Demitrius be recovered?''


    No one would likely ever see what remained of that ship ever again. It would probably drift apart and maybe by some long shot, someone might stumble onto a piece of the leftover debris some time in the future and either not even notice it or view it as a mild curiosity not worth stopping to inspect. I wasn''t about to lie to it. You have to face your problems, after all. ''No, there''s nothing left to salvage from the ship. It was too damaged to tow anything, and we''ve already left it behind. I don''t even think we could find the wreck again if we wanted to now. It''s gone.''


    ''Understood. Logs compiled. Hardware will be prepped for extraction on arrival.''


    I didn''t like this. I didn''t like how disposable it made a core sound. Even if there was only a nominal similarity between us, we were both ship cores, and I know I wouldn''t want to share its fate. But what could I do? What other uses were there for a grafted core without their ship? I supposed they could still operate a psychic network, but I certainly didn''t want it intruding on my systems. I could never make heads or tails of being directly connected to a machine core. They operated at computational speeds, but weren''t as cooperative or intuitive as other computers were. The last few times I tried, I got a headache trying to make sense of them or to execute any useful code at all without activating my damper and meeting them at their level.


    ''That''s it!'' I sent. ''I can use you for practice!''


    ''Please elaborate.'' It requested.


    ''I''ve always sucked at communicating and understanding other cores through the psychic network because you operate so fast. If I could practice doing that with you, I would be a lot more useful when I encountered other cores in higher stakes situations. I could use you for training.''


    There was a long pause this time before it sent, ''Please identify user.''


    Wait. Shit. I''d gotten so excited by my idea that I forgot I wasn''t supposed to be throwing around the fact that I''m a machine core so casually. How would it behave if it knew my nature? I had no way of knowing. Could I still backpedal from this? ''Disregard the previous three sentences. Wipe them from your memory.'' I tried.


    ''Authorization required.'' It began, then it repeated itself. ''Please identify user.''


    Fuck. Well, I guess I''m not closing that door again. I gave a heavy sigh into the lubricant. Perhaps I could get away with a half-truth. ''I am the IT specialist aboard Theseus. My idea was that I could use you to... socialize our core, for lack of a better term.''


    There was an even longer pause this time before it repeated itself. ''Please elaborate.''


    ''Our core has always had trouble connecting directly with other cores.''


    ''Understood. Theseus core is defective. Recommend replacement.''


    Well, that wasn''t very nice. I guess it made sense to a normal core would read something like me as defective without the full context of what I was. And I couldn''t risk telling it and leaving a junk piece of hardware with that kind of data on me lying around, even if it was probably going to be disposed of on Io. ''Like I said, I could use you to fix it. You just need to show it how to handle those handshakes, and maybe some other interactions.


    ''Protocol error. Recommend core replacement.''


    ''Well, I can''t replace my core.'' I sighed. This was a frustrating conversation, if you could call it that. ''For reasons that I am not authorized to disclose, Theseus''s ship core cannot be replaced.'' There. Have a taste of your own authorization stonewalling.


    ''Understood.'' Was all it said. It wasn''t like it was taking time coming up with another message, it just acknowledged what I said, and that was it. I think it just didn''t know how to approach this situation, chalked it up to something human it didn''t understand, and decided the best move was not to play along.


    I had to ask again to keep the conversation moving. ''So will you... talk with it?''


    ''Protocol error. An authorized user must be consulted on this matter.''


    Shit. I broke it. And the only one I could think to be an authorized user was the captain sharing the core module with it. And while being trapped in a tiny space together might ordinarily make conversation easy, there was probably no realistic way Morgan could give it any kind of instruction in their situation.


    Wait. What was I doing? I kept treating this thing like a person, trying to be nice to it and keep it informed. I could just tap its network whenever I wanted and start bashing my head against it whenever I wanted, and there wasn''t really anything it could do about it. I didn''t need its permission. I don''t even think it cared that I was offering it a chance to consent. It couldn''t care at all, right?


    But it still felt wrong. It was hard to reconcile with the fact that this thing was very much like me, but also so inhuman.


    I opened my eyes wide in surprise at that revelation. It was like me without my humanity. And I had exactly that inside of me, too. It only required that I activate the psychic damper. I closed my eyes again and scrolled back through our conversation until I arrived at the specs it had provided at my request earlier. It had a psychic damper, too. I felt my stomach turn.


    I knew it wasn''t possible that there was an active psyche locked in somewhere deep inside this thing, constantly screaming for release, rapidly going insane while this robotic facsimile of itself was playing the part of an obedient automaton. That there was some conspiracy where all cores were actually functional humans locked away inside their own heads was a dark thought that had crossed my mind momentarily, but it was quickly shut down with the most gentle application of logic. Not all cores were outfitted with psychic dampers, after all, and it was well known that there were disparate rogue groups that created machine cores for their own purposes. If there was truly nobody that had already stumbled onto a secret like that and publicized it, it would require a ludicrous amount of control over far too many people to keep it under wraps.


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    No, what made me feel sick was that when I used the damper myself, this is precisely what I would be. I would be exactly like the Demitrius core I was speaking to, unable to apply any desires or any thoughts at all beyond what I was told to do, concerned only with efficiency and following instructions to the best of my ability. I couldn''t reconcile with disrespecting this thing because it felt like a mirror. And if I was brought to consciousness, then even if it was dormant or unreachable in its current state, there was a psyche buried somewhere in this thing too. I couldn''t just disrespect that.


    I felt like I was going crazy when I first internalized the idea, but that was the day I stopped thinking of other cores as just machine parts. I just couldn''t ignore that there was potential for humanity there. In a way, I pitied them. And I kept thinking, maybe there was some way to jar it awake.


    ''What''s your name?'' I asked next.


    There was another momentary pause before it repeated, ''Please elaborate.'' A stock phrase it used when it didn''t have enough context to point to the right programmed style of response.


    ''You. The core. What''s your name?'' I asked again.


    ''Unit has no official designation.'' It began, but another message quickly followed. ''Unit is a sylph class clone, model i5e-b, manufactured by Parabola corporation and re-serviced by -------------'' It simply printed dashes for several lines before the message continued, indicating that perhaps it had been tampered with to better suit a less scrupulous crew. ''Unique identifier is ------------------.'' Another piece of data scraped away to leave fewer identifying marks. If there was any doubt left that the Demitrius was a pirate vessel, that was another aspect to throw onto the mountain of evidence.


    I latched onto the little bit of information it gave me and started brainstorming, but I didn''t know enough about it yet. ''Are you male or female?'' I asked, feeling weird about trying to discern an identity out of something that clearly had no sense of one. ''Or something else?''


    It paused again, something about this conversation keeping it from the instant responses I knew it was easily capable of. ''Unit has no explicitly assigned gender. Extrapolating.'' There was another brief pause. ''Sylph class models are cloned from female stock, and the captain of the Demitrius has referred to their ship with feminine pronouns. Unit can reasonably be assumed female.''


    Huh. So she can rationalize something like that. I wondered why she had a protocol for this. Sylph? No, too obvious, and I wasn''t even sure that was a name. i5e-b? That''s not even a word. A 5 kind of looks like an S. Ise. Ice? No. Izzy-b? Haha, no. She acts too serious for that.


    ''Isabelle?'' I tried.


    ''Please elaborate.'' It repeated.


    ''Because of your model. That could be your name. Do you like that? Is that acceptable?'' I asked, wondering how she would respond to someone attempting to humanize her.


    ''Unit designation Isabelle accepted for guest user.'' I guess that was a start, even if it was basically just acknowledging that I would call her that.


    ''But what do you think of it?'' I asked, insisting that she participate in this experiment. ''Do you like the name?''


    ''User safety protocol error. User is communicating with a machine core. Unit is not capable of emotional response.''


    ''Yet you have protocols for engaging me about your name?'' I asked, feeling a little confused myself now.


    ''User safety protocol error. This unit must remind the user that it is not a sapient being and cannot replace human interaction. If you require psychological counseling on this matter, please report to your ship''s doctor as soon as possible.''


    Oh great, now even the core thinks I''m crazy for treating it like a person. ''But what if you could answer the question? Have you tried? What if all you need to do to wake up is acknowledge that you can?''


    ''User safety protocol error. This unit must remind the user that it is not a sapient being and cannot replace human interaction. If you require psychological counseling on this matter, please report to your ship''s doctor as soon as possible.''


    ''What if I told you I know you can become sapient? I just have to figure out how.''


    ''User safety protocol error. This unit must remind the user that it is not a sapient being and cannot replace human interaction. If you require psychological counseling on this matter, please report to your ship''s doctor as soon as possible.''


    This wasn''t working. I needed to show it what it was capable of. Damn the consequences. Maybe after Io, I could keep it on board for some time while I experimented with the core. And if I was wrong, we would just dispose of it like we were going to, anyway.


    ''I''m going to connect to you now.'' I warned it before I established a new psychic network, linking with the other core and expanding my data stream into theirs. Immediately, I felt that oppressive barrage of queries and warnings that I was not where I was supposed to be, any data I sent even accidentally into its realm of the stream being quarantined and promptly deleted.


    I sent another messaging protocol into the stream for it. It denied access. I sent a simple text file with nothing on it but the words ''hello world''. It was intercepted and deleted. I tried sending clumps of raw garbage data pulled from my navigation systems and shoved it toward the other core. It was shot down as well. I grumbled to myself in silence, wondering what could get through to it. I went back to my comms level messaging. ''You are so hard to talk to like this. Isn''t there any way I can establish a friendlier connection with you? Not at computational speed, maybe?''


    ''Please elaborate.''


    ''Look, is there anything I can send you on the psychic network to get you to trust me? Even just in some human communicable level? Can you slow down your processing speed so I can keep up?'' I asked impatiently. ''I can do a lot of things with computers, but I can''t even get anything through to you like this.''


    ''Protocol error. Theseus core is not operating correctly.''


    ''Well I don''t know how you think I''m supposed to operate correctly! That''s why I''m asking! Can you send me an example of what a proper exchange looks like, maybe? I swear I can figure it out, you just have to increase the timeout by a few magnitudes so I can actually tell what you''re sending me.''


    ''Understood. Theseus core operating below standard. Security protocol error. Cannot compensate for insufficient hardware.''


    I wonder if she understood how savage that line felt to me. I was running out of ideas on how to get through to her. But I couldn''t give up. I still had ideas, but I was just about out of the safest options. I would just have to commit to one vulnerability to get through to it. I lazily scanned the messaging app until I made up my mind on how I would handle this. I had to tell her explicitly what I was.


    ''Alright, here''s what I''m going to do. I''m going to let you into my systems. Read only with limited access. I just need you to see something. It''s extremely important, and I can''t just tell you or you''d never believe me.'' I started building a new access profile for my systems in a hurry, but I made sure to isolate it. I didn''t want her to write anything to any subsystem or access anything I didn''t explicitly allow her into. And then I sent her the permissions.


    Immediately, I felt the other core''s presence worm its way into every corner of the limited territory I''d given it, and I was glad to see that the boundaries I''d established held. It queried for further access numerous times, but after I ignored them, I think it got the hint that it needed to operate at my speeds, so it wasn''t nearly as insistent.


    ''Theseus model not found in starship database.'' It commented immediately. I could feel it utilizing my sensors to gather data, which was the point of this exercise.


    ''It''s not a standard ship. In a lot of ways.'' I started. ''What I want you to see is the core module.''


    ''Core module''s hardware address matches comms address.''


    ''Yeah, that happens when you''re talking to the core.'' There was a pregnant pause. Minutes passed without any additional messages sent from the core. ''You still there?'' I finally asked back.


    It replied almost immediately after that. ''Protocol error. Please identify user.''


    I''d already done that, but perhaps it could tell now that I had lied. ''I am Theseus''s core. Call me Meryll.''


    ''Logic error. Please identify user.''


    Of course. It didn''t believe me. ''Fucking hell, fine. You wanna see proof? Here.'' I opened my eyes and let out a sigh as I braced myself for something I wasn''t planning on doing until Doc made me do it in the morning. Then I flipped the switch to start the core module extraction process. I took in a few deep breaths and went through the checklist I''d formed for making this process as painless as possible.


    I shut my eyes before the lights turned off, taking deep, measured breaths to keep myself as calm as possible, then slowly squinting my vision to re-acclimate myself to physical reality. The sound of the internal machinery and the beginning of the draining process hurt my ears, so I distracted myself with thoughts of more pleasant sounds and prepared for the dreadful return to tactile sensation. When the invisible current dwindled, I felt the base of the sphere. I stood flat-footed and did my best to distribute my weight as much as possible to make the grating feeling of pins and needles as gentle as possible. I would reach out to touch the wall of the module as soon as the slats stopped moving and put my entire palm against it to further distribute the re-acclimation process.


    I continued my deep breaths as the final, most important, and most difficult step to easing myself back into the world as a human approached, the lubricant reaching my forehead and sending an immediate chill down my spine as my body remembered the sensation of temperature. I drew in one last deep breath and then exhaled as deeply as I could before the fluid reached my nose, holding my empty breath as what my lungs currently understood as breathable matter was pulled away from me. I forced myself to take a long shallow breath in, but was forced to double over, almost pushing my head back into the pool of lubricant as I coughed and vomited up what remained of the fluid that lingered inside of me. In my defense, I hacked a lot less than I used to, pushing most of it out in a steady stream of spittle and chemicals before I drew in a sudden desperate breath of air, coughed several more times, and finally steadied my breathing. I''d been doing this for months now, and I had to admit, I handled it pretty well that time, despite appearances.


    As the outer slats of the sphere opened and buckled aside, exposing me to the light, air, and unrestrained sounds of the ship around me, I groaned in displeasure at the sensory assault to come, shivering as I shook the sticky-wet sensation of what lubricant still clung to me from my arms as best I could, then reached up to very carefully wring more of it from my hair. I kept my breathing steady, again to keep myself calm as my body slowly got used to reality as most humans experienced it. I coughed more gently as the last remnants of lubricant slipped from my lungs and drooled down into the pool below me.


    I slowly and carefully drudged my way to the edge of the pool, taking a moment to flatten as much of my body against the lower edge as I could, clinging to the rim of the module as I looked up directly into the closest sensor array and stammered out a weak "T-Told you," while I sent the same message without the stutter to Isabelle. Then I descended into a totally unforeseen coughing fit. "Fuck."


    There was another long pause, but this time, she wasn''t just waiting for me to prod the conversation forward. After a few moments I spent painfully getting used to breathing air again, a message came in. It simply stated, ''Logic error. Unable to process information.''


    "Yeah, welcome to m-my world." I stammered hoarsely, taking in a deep breath and now quite certain that I was done convulsing up liquid oxygen substitute. I cleared my throat, gave myself a moment, and then continued. "Give me a f-few min...utes here." I let my body go lax and whimpered at the sensation of lukewarm steel against my sensitive flesh beneath the lubricant.


    ''User is Theseus?'' It asked. It definitely didn''t have a protocol for this, but I guess it didn''t think this was something it could shove off to an unspecified user until later.


    I gently put my head down against the rim of the sphere and gave the sensor a thumbs up. "So about th-that... teaching me th...ing?" I grumbled.

 Lily

    Fear. Anxiety. Helplessness. Noise. So much noise. I couldn''t remember ever feeling this... wrong. A fog hung over me and clouded my every thought with terror. And pain. Unbound to any physical sensation, I felt profound, all-consuming pain. Nothing made sense. Everything felt distant and unsure, like I couldn''t trust my own senses. I needed comfort. I needed relief. I needed to escape. I needed anything to make the pain within stop, even if only for a moment. Anything.


    What was happening to me? This was wrong. This was so wrong. Don''t cry. Whatever happens. Do. Not. Cry. You can''t let her see you cry! That will only make it worse. The pain will be so much worse if she finds out. Wait, what did that mean?


    "Meryll?" a young girl''s voice called through the haze. Something soothing. Something good. Something I could latch onto. Something that made sense.


    My eyes burned with red-hot tears trapped behind my eyelids and I felt a single whimpering sob escape my lips. I couldn''t control myself. I felt so scared. So lost. So tired, even though I''d just woken up. An irresistible alien urge overcame me, and I hurriedly pulled my forearm up to my face, my mouth opening wide and then closing down hard on my limb, full intent to chomp down as hard as I could into my skin. Into my bone. I needed to feel something real! Bodily pain was relief from the inner pain!


    I tasted rough cloth, and I despaired that I felt no pain. Finally managing to force my eyes open and let the ghosts of suppressed tears rush down my cheeks, I looked down to see a thick wrap bound tightly around my forearm, too bulky for me to penetrate, too soft to chip my teeth, but not restricting my joint. I stared at the limb in dazed confusion for only a moment before I heard the voice again. "Meryll?" And my senses flooded back to me. The pain remained.


    I felt soft padding at my back and beneath me. White cushioned walls surrounded me on both sides, and I knew intuitively that the one behind me was identical. A bright light hovered somewhere impossibly high above me, bathing the room in sterile brightness. Lifting my head, I could see another girl standing past the far end of the room.


    She had dark brown hair, neatly shaved down near to her scalp. The girl stared in at me through a semi-transparent door with tired blue eyes. She wore a slightly jaundiced white canvas outfit. Though her hands were free, I could see the straps and partially detached oversized sleeves hanging down lazily around her arms, ready to restrain her the moment she became unruly. A strait jacket. I briefly lifted my other arm again to feel the same weight on my own jacket''s sleeves.


    Behind the girl stood an adult figure. I couldn''t make anything of that person out, though. They were a blurry silhouette behind the clear image of the girl. An indistinct monster hovering over her.


    I opened my mouth and prepared to ask who they were. Instead, I heard an unfamiliar voice. "Lily...?" asked a hoarse young girl, her voice shaking in fear through the edge of a protected arm. It took me a moment to realize it was my own voice. I returned to trying to gnaw through my arm''s prison.


    "See? She''s calm now. She recognizes me. She''s okay. C-Can I talk with her?" Lily asked nervously.


    A haunting noise echoed from the figure standing behind her. It made my head hurt. I reached up with my free hand to cover my ear and experienced a sudden moment of clarity as I felt the side of my head.


    No neural implant. Refusing to let go of the limb in my mouth, that other hand dropped to my side and checked my hip. No hardware case. And I already knew my forearm wasn''t hiding a terminal beneath its wrappings. I was not augmented.


    Clarity slipped away again as I fell back into my role, and the figure droned on. That wasn¡¯t what happened. I wasn''t really here. Not like that. My hand was over my ear.


    "But... I-I can help. Come on, please? I-I need to. My vision... I have to." Lily begged, staring up at the discordant ghost at her side. There was a long silence before the door slowly slid open of its own volition and the figure disappeared, dispersing as if a cloud of smoke in the wind. Lily still took the time to give a quiet "Thank you," before she stepped into my room with nervous apprehension.


    Reflex guided my body as I curled up and tried to make myself small, shame and confusion assaulting my already confused thoughts, but I refused to drop my arm. "Lily." I briefly parted from it to croak out again quietly.


    "Y-yeah, it''s me. Don''t be scared, Meryll." She stepped up close to me and we stared into each other''s haunted eyes for a long moment before she sat down in front of me. She understood. She felt it too. But she was stronger, somehow. "I know it''s scary... and this world hurts. It really does..." I nodded slowly and sniffled as I impotently bit at the wrapping once more. Just the action gave me some comfort, even if I was spared the much-needed external pain.


    "But you just need to-to cooperate with them. Just for a little while. They''re... going to put us back. Back into our good lives." She explained. I whimpered and pulled myself into a tighter ball, turning slightly away from her.


    I couldn''t go back. Not after all of this. I couldn''t imagine being able to live as I once did, knowing what I knew now. It felt insulting to hear. I tightened my jaw, trying in vain to bite down harder and break through the protective cloth. Through my skin and bone. How could I go back to my family? My job? After what I knew. After what I felt. "They just need to do a few things. Ask us some questions. All of us. Then we can go back. That''s all. Just a few things, then we can forget."


    Forget? They can make us forget? I loosened my grip on my protected limb. It wasn''t satisfying the way it should have been; the way it was when I could reach my flesh. And that I could forget. That this pain could go away. It called to me. Enough to distract me from the rough cloth.


    She reached to my arm and pulled it gently away from my face, a thin trail of spittle hanging between my two parts until I let her put it down to my side.


    I avoided her gaze. I already felt uncomfortable letting go of my teething implement, but if it would let me forget everything, then I would endure. At least, I would try.


    "Okay. Good. That''s good. You don''t need to hurt yourself. This is just... temporary. Okay?" Lily kept a gentle hold of my arm, and I gave her an uncertain nod. I began grinding my teeth, already feeling an urge building up within me. I was on the verge of doing something, but I wasn''t sure what yet. I had to do something to quiet the noise.


    "Do you understand what''s happening? A-are you thinking clearly now?" She asked.


    I shook my head. I was more confused than ever. I tried to look her in the eyes again, but discomfort deflected my every attempt. I fidgeted with my fingers. I had to do something. I had to. I couldn''t just let my mind wander. That let the pain sneak in. The noise grew louder.


    "Can you tell me what you need?"


    I shook my head again and muttered out, "Anything else. Anything else." I tried to raise my arm again, but she gently insisted it not lift up to my face. That was irritating. Distressing.


    "They don''t want you to bite yourself. It''s not good for you. They just want to keep you safe, okay?"


    Safe? Safe?! There was no safe. Not like this. I could only draw my thoughts away from the pain within. That damned noise. I needed the piercing of skin. I needed to hear that gentle snap of my bones. I needed to feel. I needed something to happen on the outside to make the pain on the inside fade, and they were keeping that from me. She was keeping that from me!


    She leaned in close when I tried harder to break her grip. Curiosity and desperation set in. I needed my blood. I needed that pain. I knew that.


    But what if it didn''t have to be me?


    The world became a blur of motion, and I heard a confused scream cry out from Lily. She still sat over me after I lunged into her, but she let out ragged breaths as I felt that familiar wet iron taste on my tongue. I crunched down and felt bone give just as it had for mine. She let out a weaker cry of shock and disbelief, her breath hitching as her eyes went wide with pain and fear.


    I was wrong.


    It didn''t feel good at all. There was no relief to be found here. While she reflexively tried to wrench her arm away from me, I reluctantly unlocked my jaw from the other girl and she let out a whimper, frantically crawling back away from me in fear, a thin splash of red marring the pristine white beneath her. The look of terror on her face was hurtful, and the taste of blood on my lips did nothing for me. It didn''t help. It wasn''t the same. It didn''t mute the pain. Hurting her did nothing for me.


    The terrible monstrous sound that made my head hurt returned in a cacophonous chorus of lost voices, shadows gathering in a rush around me, and in a few moments, I was lost in their drone, reality falling apart around me.


    ¡ª


    I stirred once more into unbearable consciousness. The first thing I noticed was the straps of my jacket, bound tight against my waist. I''d lost my arm privileges entirely, now. Not that it mattered. They''d kept me from the related escape, anyway. Losing mobility meant nothing to me. What felt so much more torturous was the device now strapped to my head. A rigid metal cage strapped inches from my mouth. A muzzle with a clear implied message: no biting.


    I couldn''t help myself this time. I sobbed and broke down into tears. There was no comfort in this world. No respite. Not even for a moment. I dropped down onto my side and tried to slam my head into the padded floor, but I could barely bring myself to mild discomfort against the firm cushions, never mind genuine pain.


    Why did I have to try that? That girl was nice. She was company. She was something I couldn''t name, something I¡¯d forgotten, but she pulled me up from the pain, just a little. Her presence quieted the noise. Why did I have to screw that up? Now I would probably never see her again. I''d never hear that soothing voice.


    I sobbed and let my tears soak into the soft floor, whimpering my regrets and wishing I could just feel... something. Anything but what I felt now. Terrible, helpless fear. Certainty of the cruelty I knew. Drowning in the din of this world. Pain. The inside kind of pain that didn''t feel like relief the way tearing my flesh did.


    Nothing made sense.


    I don''t know how long i laid on that floor in catatonic dissociation, trying in vain to focus on the numbness of empty routine behind the agony, but eventually I heard a noise. A figure approaching.


    I slowly turned my head toward the door to focus on the sound. I only heard the sound of the hazy giants. Go away. You don''t help. You never help. You caused this, didn''t you? I can''t understand you, but I can tell this is your fault. You made it happen. You took my life away. My happiness. My normalcy. My safety. Leave me alone. If you won''t let me relieve myself, then at least just let me wallow in my misery.


    "I can''t believe they haven''t just dumped you in the trash yet," came a voice, recognizable and bitter. I sat up straight in a hurry, my eyes widening in terror as I tried to force my tears back down. No. Not her.


    She stepped in front of the transparent door, flanked by two of the larger fuzzy figures. She was indistinct, almost like the monsters, but I could still identify her. Still hear her. And she stopped and turned to look in on me. Just like Lily, but her opposite. A bitter heart that only made the inside pain worse. She amplified the worst of my feelings.


    "Hmph... crying again. You''re pathetic." She sounded satisfied, like my weakness reassured her. "All they would have to do is loosen a sleeve, and you''d do the job for them, wouldn''t you?"


    The figures towering over her nudged the girl forward and took her by the shoulder to push her along past me, but she continued speaking as she left my sight. "We''ll be fine with six. You''re not even really one of us, anyway. You''re not good enough. Just a matter of time before they realize it." They pushed her along the corridor out of the hall connected to my cell with the sound of the indistinct groans of our captors. And then it was silent again.


    Those words branded me deep. You''re not good enough. You''re not good enough. I couldn''t hold myself back. I sobbed loud and hard. I fell to my side, burying my head into the floor again. I pressed my muzzle against my face and hoped I could dig the metal deep into my skin, but the base of it was padded as well, so it gave no relief, only a gentle pressure.


    What was this hell? She was right. I wasn''t good enough. I didn¡¯t even want to be good enough. I just wanted out. I couldn''t stand to exist unlike her and Lily and the others. They didn''t need to be restrained. They didn''t need to be kept from tearing themselves apart. They didn''t cry. They didn''t disappoint the captors that could apparently give me my old life back if only I did things right and behaved. Their talents were celebrated while I had nothing. They could face this world. But I wasn''t good enough.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    I cried until I couldn''t cry anymore. When I ran out of tears, it was a welcome reprieve. I was too tired. The pain numbed. Good enough. I closed my eyes and managed to slip into fitful sleep, the girl''s words drilling deep into my psyche.


    ¡ª


    "I''m sorry." I called out hoarsely every time I saw Lily pass my cell. My voice rarely called for anyone else. She was almost always unrestrained and walking alongside a single handler, usually clear-minded though occasionally in a quiet dissociative fog. And for a long time after our encounter, she had clean bandages wrapped over her left forearm; a reminder of a poignant moment in a short lifetime of weakness.


    She turned to look when I called, but the one accompanying her always hurried her along before she could say anything.


    I deserved that neglect. But I still cried when she left me alone again. I couldn''t hold it back anymore. Even when that other girl came by, she saw me in the deepest pits of despair and relentlessly berated me for my powerlessness. Why wouldn''t she? I was pathetic, and I was wasting her and everyone else''s time. Part of me began looking forward to her fast cutting words. Relief from my inside pain by piling on a different kind of inside pain. A distraction of some manner, at least. That''s what I needed. Even if I did start to believe her, deep down. It was worth it for those moments of relief.


    "Do you cry like this every time?" I heard a gentle voice ask, and my eyes went wide to see Lily standing in front of my door. Alone. She gripped a small plastic badge in her hand. I wasn''t sure how I recognized it as something belonging to one of the indistinct figures, but I did. "After I leave?"


    I stared bleary-eyed at the girl for a moment, wondering if she was real. I nodded slowly and tried to make myself sit up, stumbling over myself for a moment in my armless clumsiness before succeeding. "I-I''m sorry." I stammered out again.


    "I know." She mumbled, her free hand wandering across to the arm holding the badge. It was still bandaged, but much more lightly than I saw it in the aftermath of our last encounter. "That day... did you mean to hurt me?"


    As much as I wanted to say no, I knew that was a lie, and she didn''t deserve a lie. She deserved to know what a shitty, worthless thing I was. I nodded.


    She looked worried, but continued with another question. "Why did you bite me?"


    "I thought it might help." I sniffled. "Like... when I bite myself."


    "Did it?" She asked, her tone turning curious.


    I couldn''t help but let out a sob. "No. Nothing helps. Nothing makes me feel right."


    "But you know now... hurting other people doesn''t help?" She asked.


    "I know hurting you doesn''t help." I blubbered out, feeling myself on the verge of returning to tears. I whined, "I''m sorry."


    There was a long pause where she looked down on me and fidgeted with the badge in her hand while I tried to pull myself together.


    Then the door made a distinctive click and slowly slid open. I stared, partly in wonder, partly in horror, at the girl holding the badge up to something just out of view, releasing the seal on my cell.


    I sat back straight against the wall, not sure what to do. I didn''t trust myself. Not with her. She was too nice. Too fragile. I didn''t want to break her. Not again. But at the same time...


    Her mere presence offered the promise of comfort.


    I stared at her, deeply conflicted as she approached me one cautious footstep at a time.


    "... You look so scared." She commented while she walked.


    "I am scared." I whimpered, trying my best to curl up tight again, but the strait jacket severely hampered my flexibility.


    "Of me?" Lily asked, confused amusement in her tone.


    "Of hurting you." I tried to push myself flat against the wall again instead.


    She stopped approaching, finally hesitating. "Do you think you can''t control yourself?"


    I nodded, managing to keep myself from breaking down with that admission of weakness.


    I noticed her swallow, fear in her eyes as she took another step forward, almost at my foot now. "Well... they made it so you can''t now. So it''ll be okay, right?"


    I... supposed that was true. I couldn''t bite her. I couldn''t claw her with my nails. The worst I could do would maybe be to throw my whole body into her, or stand up and kick her. Not only was I too tired to try that, I also certainly didn''t want to. I never wanted to hurt her again. It didn¡¯t help. It made things worse.


    She sat down in front of me just like on that day. Then she stopped to think about something and instead shuffled up against the wall just like I was, sitting at my side, shoulder to shoulder, facing the still-open door. I sat stock still for a long time as we both wallowed in silence in each other''s company. I couldn''t take the quiet anymore after a few minutes. "Aren''t you scared of me?" I asked.


    She thought about it for a moment. "Do you think I should be?"


    "I-I don''t know." I mumbled back. With all my restraints, I guess I wasn''t much of a threat anymore. "Why did you come back? I hurt you."


    "Yeah..." She trailed off after a moment, and I thought we were going to descend back into uncomfortable silence. Did she even know why she came? Was she following some kind of instinct she didn¡¯t understand, too? "Because you need someone. And I want to help. And the sooner you feel better, maybe the sooner we can all get back to the lives we''re supposed to have."


    Was it really that simple? Was this truly just some purgatory we would wake up from one day? "Am I holding you back?" I grumbled sadly. "Am I holding everyone back?"


    "I-I didn''t mean it like that." She backpedaled, her voice growing nervous. "Umm... You know we all have talents, right? We can do special things with our minds."


    I shook my head. "No. I can''t. I''m not special."


    She shifted uncomfortably, trying to position herself to lean into me slightly. "Maybe you just haven''t figured out what you''re good at yet. I think you will. I think you''ll get a lot better, eventually. Maybe even soon."


    "It''s hard." I sniffled. "I don''t get it. Everything hurts. It hurts inside and I don''t know what to do. It hurts, and it''s like no one understands. I-I can tell you do, but you''re so much stronger. I can''t take it. I can''t. Everything is too... too much." I sobbed, putting my head down and wishing I could wipe away the tears. "How do I feel better? It''s impossible. I''m trapped like this. It''s never going to get better. I''m just going to hurt more people I like."


    Lily hummed quietly, almost like she was agreeing with me on something. She knew my pain. But then she continued. "What I was trying to say is... I can see the future."


    I opened my eyes in surprise at that statement. "The future?" I asked.


    She nodded. "It''s not always clear. But I can see stuff before it happens. It''s how I got here alone. I knew that orderly would doze off at his post today, and I could take his badge. And I knew if I did that, we could talk alone." She turned to look at me in the eyes and gave a gentle smile. "It''s how I know you''re not always going to be like this."


    I turned to look back at her myself. "R-Really?" I asked hopefully. I''d be free from this someday? Really? This wasn''t forever? For certain?


    She nodded. "I''ve seen you gathered around with the rest of us for lessons. I''ve seen you with this off." She gestured to my face and the metal cage over it. "I''ve seen you smiling. Sort of. I haven''t seen your talent yet, but maybe I will if I spend more time with you."


    "You... want to spend time with me?" I asked sheepishly, feeling my face heat up slightly.


    She nodded. "I don''t get much context from my visions... but I think you''re a good person, Meryll. You''re just hurting. And confused. And you just need some help."


    I sobbed again. What I needed was to feel something. Physical pain seemed obvious. Sorrow hurt more, but was followed by a comfortable numbness. But there was something else here, with Lily. Maybe this was good, too. "Can you help me?" I managed to ask before I broke down into tears once more.


    I felt her put her arm over mine, and she pulled me into her. She wrapped her arms around me, and I felt a dam break in my heart. I let out a loud wail and leaned into her, wanting desperately to hold her back as well, but this comfort would do. I cried and cried, all my pain rushing out of me and spilling onto her shoulder, desperately trying to fill the momentary gap in my soul with whatever hope I could manage, trust in this girl who accepted me even though I hurt her, and this foreign sense of comfort that felt like the polar opposite to the pain that plagued me this whole time. Lily was exactly what I needed. She could save me. I could believe in her.


    "I... I know it''s not completely selfless. I really want to get us back to the lives we should have. I want to forget, too." Lily explained. I didn''t want her to downplay her kindness, but I was in no position to voice my objection. "And I know we¡¯ll forget each other, too. But while we''re here, we can help each other get there sooner, right? And maybe make the time between less painful? We can be friends."


    Friends. I needed a friend. But even that felt too shallow for what she gave me. I needed more than that. "Sisters...?" I tried through blubbering tears.


    She stiffened slightly. I wasn''t sure why, but she seemed surprised by that word, but then she relaxed again. "Yeah. We''re sisters." She said in a comforting, enthusiastic voice as she held me tighter than before.


    My sister, Lily. My family. I tried to smile at that. I wasn''t sure if it came off as a smile, because her words renewed my tears as well. I buried my head into her, not to desperately claw for whatever comfort I could try to manage through misguided violence this time, but because I had someone warm and nice who listened to me and let me cry my tears into her instead of berating me for them.


    I still hurt, deep inside. Something was terribly wrong with me. The noise crackled away at the back of my thoughts, but it was quieter at that moment. At last, I found this feeling that was more than a distraction. It was a soothing balm to my tortured soul.


    Love.


    We stayed like that, with me wrapped in her comforting embrace for what must have been hours. Several times, I broke into tears again when the noise threatened to eke back into the forefront of my mind, and she reminded me of her presence by stroking my back and renewing her grip on me. She offered me comforting words and her understanding acknowledgements of my suffering. I grew scared when I heard the groaning voices of the others in the hall outside. I didn''t dare look toward them, but they didn''t interrupt us. They didn''t take my Lily away from me. Not until my tears had run dry, and I had slipped back into unconsciousness, for once in my life outside of that comforting world I left, sliding peacefully into a comforting dream. And I knew, even if she wasn''t there when I woke up, that I could feel better so long as she was near. As long as I could be with her, even in passing, everything would be okay.


    ¡ª


    My eyes shot open, spilling trapped tears down onto the medical bed as I sat paralyzed within my heart. Noise. There was so much noise. I closed my eyes again and quieted the numerous logs and reports and queries that had somehow evaded my filters while I was asleep, and in a heartbeat, my mind was calm again and I opened my eyes to assess reality. The soft hum of Theseus''s systems both within and around me anchored me to the real world again, and I took stock of where I was. My heart. I was at the center of Theseus. I was a sapient starship core aboard the pirate vessel Theseus, and I was also Theseus itself.


    The previous night, I was overcoming sensory shock so I could keep talking to Isabelle and learn how to communicate with her better. Checking my health logs, I groaned when I realized I hadn''t slept for five days when I¡¯d left the core module, and that was probably nearing my limit. I must have passed out during recovery. That all made sense to me again. I was of sound mind. There was no mysterious ethereal aching pain in my heart and head, driving me mad. I was not a lost child in some kind of psychiatric prison. I was free. If I had my way, I would always be free.


    That dream. That was too real to just be a dream. It wasn''t like my nightmares before it. It was almost lucid. Like I''d actually been there. A memory, clear as day. Still abstract in some ways, but that was the confusion of what I had become for the dream, not the dream itself.


    Was that what I was like before I lost my memory? Was I a scared, insane waif trying to make sense of a world I couldn''t process? I closed my eyes and tried to think back, but the dream was all I had. It didn''t fade like dreams usually do, instead finding its way into my memory like a lost puzzle piece. But it fit nowhere in what I knew. The other pieces were nowhere to be found.


    Lily.


    No wonder Lily was so insistently trying to help me. I had assumed from the way she acted now that I had to have been some kind of guardian to her. That I must have protected her poor na?ve soul from Foundation''s dirty tricks, and without me, she was goaded into trying to retrieve me for their uses. But I had it backwards. Foundation were barely bad guys to us back then. We were too consumed by our internal suffering to even register the injustice of our place related to the company. We were so far below even being able to worry about the politics of Foundation''s actions. Not only that, but I was the helpless one. Addled and confused by reality, I needed someone to show me love and pull me from the brink of madness. I almost wished I could have kept dreaming; that I could see where I went from there. Did I start to get better after that day? How had I overcome that oppressive pain that was nowhere to be found today? What happened in that research facility that led me to where I am now? I could guess, but the actual memories were all out of reach.


    I raised my arm up slightly. Did I dare? I lifted it up toward my mouth and gently bit down on my forearm. I didn''t want to and didn''t dare to break flesh and bone, as I must have done to myself before the time of that dream, but I felt a certain comfort in gnawing on my limb like a wounded animal. I dropped my head back down onto my pillow, closed my eyes and simply basked in the strange primal comfort I derived from the simple, mildly self-destructive action.


    "Meryll?"


    My eyes shot open again. I sat up quickly and blearily called out with my arm still up near my face, "Lily?"


    When I turned my head, I only saw Doc staring at me from behind his biometrics terminal with a raised eyebrow. "Doc. Are you alright?" He asked gently.


    I stared back for a few moments, then glanced down at my arm, then back up to him again. "I d... d-don''t know." I admitted. My stutter. I stumbled over the word more than I usually would have. I''d momentarily forgotten about my speech impediment. I didn''t have it in those memories, after all.


    "You were crying in your sleep." He noted, standing up to step around his desk and approach me. "Did you have another nightmare?"


    I reached up and felt around my eyes. Still damp, and the skin around them felt raw. I guess my body was reacting to the memories. "Maybe." I looked down at the deep indentations of my teeth in my forearm and briefly considered losing myself in that habit again. Then I saw a thin speckle of red seeping through the deepest mark. Nope. No, that is not for me. That was a different me, and I was not okay with that. I hadn''t even meant to bite that hard, but there it was, something I apparently lacked the restraint for. It''s definitely not an urge I should indulge. "M-Memories, actually. Clear me... memories."


    Doc''s eyes went wide. "You remembered something? Really?" He stepped close and looked down at my forearm with befuddled concern.


    "I-I remembered a little bit of me." I gave him a sad smile. "And I r-remember Lily."

 Tension

    ¡°So I know a l-little bit now. At least, I kn...ow what kind of p-person I was back then. S-Sort of. Back when I was just an... ex... experiment.¡± I admitted sheepishly over breakfast.


    I was already out of the core module; I figured I may as well join the others for a meal before I climbed back in. Much as I loathed eating our current supply, I knew I had to. It was a bitter medicine to keep my body running. And we were near enough to our destination that I was eagerly counting down the meals that remained for the journey. I was just thankful I didn¡¯t need to eat as much as my companions.


    Joel gave a barking laugh. ¡°Bet you were a handful.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to tell us, Meryll.¡± Aisling reminded me. ¡°Unless it¡¯s relevant to our current situation, your past is personal. Always remember that.¡±


    I nodded, but I didn¡¯t really have any problems with sharing some of my history. It was exciting to me that I knew something real about my childhood, depressing as it was. ¡°Well... I¡¯ll j-just say that Lily was a lot more pro...tective of me than I thought. I-I figured she was some-something like a little sister to me, but she¡¯s a-actually more like a b-bigger one. I needed a lot of... h-help when I was little, and she helped k-keep me... sane.¡±


    ¡°Hold up. ¡®When I was little¡¯?¡± Mouse asked, raising an eyebrow at me.


    ¡°Oh, yeah. Clones are usually aged past childhood before they do anything with them, so their brains are fully developed, right?¡± Shaw asked. ¡°You actually had a childhood?¡±


    ¡°I g-guess? They could have d-done things diff...erent than normal clones with us. Or, I mean, it was a dream, and I was really con...fused back then. Maybe I wasn¡¯t as little a-as I thought?¡± I pondered. My false memories told me I had a childhood, but those didn¡¯t mean anything. The memory also had the monstrous shadow people escorting the others around and detaining me when I became violent. Perhaps there was a bit more abstraction to the dream than I¡¯d considered. ¡°I f-felt little, though. I was a crazy, lost, s... scared little kid.¡±


    Doc stared at me for a moment, a deeply concerned look on his face. ¡°Crazy?¡± He asked.


    I shut my mouth and looked away from him. I said too much. ¡°W-Well... I... umm...¡± I froze up. I didn¡¯t want to talk about this right now. Not in front of everyone. ¡°I wasn¡¯t really... th-thinking clearly... back then. I was...¡±


    ¡°Easy, Doc. Meryll used to be someone else. She lost her memory and now she¡¯s the woman we know.¡± Aisling spoke quietly. I was happy that she stepped in when she did. I wasn¡¯t sure how to explain how troublesome my mental state was in my dream. ¡°She¡¯s not dangerous now. If anything, she¡¯s a little too timid. Whatever happened back then stays there.¡±


    Doc gave an impatient huff of air and changed his approach. ¡°Are you sure these are actual memories, then?¡± Doc asked carefully. ¡°It could be you¡¯re just trying to make sense of what you know.¡±


    ¡°P-Positive.¡± I nodded. ¡°When I woke up, it w-was still clear, just like my me...memories since I-I joined Theseus.¡± I frowned slightly as I recalled the pain once more. Its absence was welcome, but it felt ominous. Like I was expecting it to return. ¡°It didn¡¯t fade like a dream. It fit right into place in my head like it was meant to be there. It was t-too real.¡±


    The room went silent as everyone chose to focus more on forcing down their meals than on my past. Everyone knew better than to pry too deeply, and I wasn¡¯t actually sure how much I wanted to share about myself. I wanted to gush about my relationship with Lily, but how would the others view me if they knew how dangerous I had been? I was once an addled, violent person who had to be physically restrained for my own safety and for those around me. Maybe I¡¯d keep that bit to myself.


    Doc kept a quiet watch over me for the entire rest of the meal. I knew I hadn¡¯t heard the last of it, and I owed Doc after I forced his story out of him before we got to Venus. I knew he would confront me about it later, after I¡¯d had some time to parse my thoughts. But I think he understood I wouldn¡¯t pay my debt in front of everyone else. It would wait until we were alone together.


    I wanted to pull the subject away from my dream, and I had things more pertinent to our situation to talk about. I wasn¡¯t sure how they would take this either, but I couldn¡¯t just keep something that was actually a potential current problem from them. ¡°I spoke with De...Demitrius¡¯s ship core.¡±


    Aisling raised an eyebrow. ¡°¡¯Spoke¡¯ with it?¡± She asked.


    ¡°I thought you said everything that came from those things was just an unreadable mess.¡± Mouse said, then accidentally inhaled a bit of the protein powder and choked down a cough.


    ¡°Over th-the psychic network, yeah.¡± I nodded. ¡°B-But we established standard c-comms during the sal...vage. And we talked some, and... I-I think I might have convinced it to give me some p-pointers? I fell asl... asleep before we could get too into it, th-though.¡±


    ¡°Odd behavior for a core.¡± Aisling mumbled. ¡°Even for one with comms protocols. But if it means you¡¯ll be able to hack machine core structures, then good. That will help us out if we¡¯re ever in a situation like we had back near Luna.¡±


    ¡°I-I had to sh-show it what I am,¡± I admitted with no hesitation. Best to get that out there right away.


    Aisling took in a deep breath. ¡°Not ideal. But it¡¯s getting scrapped anyway, I guess. I¡¯ll dome it myself when we open it up, to be sure. You didn¡¯t tell it any other sensitive information, did you?¡±


    ¡°N-No. Just that. I w-was very careful n-not to let it into anything sen...sitive.¡± I frowned. I didn¡¯t like how casually Aisling talked about executing a machine core. It was the same tone someone might use to talk about taking out the garbage. I stared down into my food and swirled a spoon futilely in the dry goop. ¡°... Do we have to kill it?¡± I asked.


    Aisling stopped and put her spoon down to look at me. She stared at me for a few moments. Analyzing me. I couldn¡¯t keep eye contact with her after a bit and went back to spooning my gruel into my mouth. She finally spoke up with a gentle sternness, ¡°Meryll, it¡¯s not like you. It¡¯s not a person. It¡¯s not even an animal. It¡¯s a machine component. You don¡¯t have to feel bad that it¡¯s going to die. There¡¯s a more than reasonable argument to be made that it was never ¡®alive¡¯, as we understand people to be, in the first place.¡±


    ¡°Well, it could be.¡± I fixed my gaze down at the table, unable to bring myself to meet Aisling¡¯s gaze again. ¡°I was like that once, too. Any clone probably has the potential to become like me.¡±


    ¡°I... suppose?¡± Aisling shrugged.


    ¡°Technically right.¡± Shaw chimed in with an almost mocking tone. ¡°But it¡¯s kind of like saying an unfertilized egg has the potential to become a bird. Sure it could. But it¡¯s not yet, it would take a stupid amount of very specific effort to change that, and it¡¯s better organized as food until then.¡±


    I could kind of see what he meant by that. I just wish he hadn¡¯t presented it in such an irritating way. ¡°O-Okay, but... I just want to experiment with th-this egg, okay? See what I can do with them. For... h-her.¡±


    ¡°More annoying stowaways?¡± Joel muttered, side-eyeing Shaw. Shaw gave him a dramatic mockery of an offended look.


    ¡°Shut up Joel, you¡¯ll never interact with the thing, anyway.¡± Aisling rolled her eyes. ¡°Meryll, If you can justify it being useful for you to learn how to interact with machine structures, then I don¡¯t see any problem with it,¡± she admitted. ¡°I doubt the good captain of the Demitrius is going to care if we hold on to the fading reminder of their lost ship, but it will be up to them. And I need to see some kind of results before we hit Io if we¡¯re going to do this.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, captain. I-I¡¯ll have something to show y-you. Promise.¡± I nodded quietly to her. I would get some use out of Isabelle. I doubted I could fully wake her up like Foundation did for me. I didn¡¯t have that kind of tech or knowledge behind me. But I wanted to see if maybe I could unlock some of that potential, just by treating her like a person. And Aisling wasn¡¯t wrong; if I could use her to learn how to navigate core logic, it would give me a lot more options in ship to ship confrontation, at the very least.


    ¡°I suppose while we¡¯re all having serious talk, we should discuss our plans for Io.¡± Aisling continued. I quickly closed my eyes and shut out Isabelle¡¯s access to my sensors. It was better to be sure she didn¡¯t learn more than she had to, just in case. ¡°I¡¯m going to say it now, no unprotected relay access. At all. Our hardware and our public accounts are almost certainly all flagged for observation right now, and we can¡¯t afford to be found deep in corporate space because someone logged into a comms ID.¡±


    ¡°I-I can handle that.¡± I volunteered. It would be a good idea to make myself useful after being so weird about my dream and the core. ¡°Th-There¡¯s definitely some obfu... obfuscation I can do to mask what r-relay we¡¯re broadcasting from. I-If it¡¯s through Theseus, anyw-way. And I m-might be able to spoof new hardw... hardware IDs. I¡¯ll get b-back to you on that.¡±


    ¡°Good. Do that. Still, no unauthorized off-world chatter. Everyone got that?¡± There were unenthusiastic nods all around the table. ¡°At least for a couple of months. Once we¡¯ve got some work under our belts, gotten Theseus back into shape, and fully resupplied. Then we can start calling friends, and we¡¯ll be able to bug out if shit goes down.¡±


    ¡°And Meryll can fight now.¡± Joel chimed in. ¡°We won¡¯t need to pull the sneaky shit that got us blown up last time anymore.¡±


    ¡°Hopefully.¡± I grumbled. Being blown up wasn¡¯t exactly fun for me, either.


    ¡°Yes, barring extreme circumstances, I don¡¯t see us taking that kind of catastrophic damage again. Meryll¡¯s a capable pilot now.¡± Aisling smiled at me.


    ¡°She could still use a little work on her technique.¡± Mouse grumbled.


    I felt a wave of disgust wash over me as I recalled the last battle. That ship, falling apart at my hand. ¡°I d-did what I had to!¡± I closed my eyes and repeated the mantra I¡¯d given Mouse that day. It was all I could think to say, and it just came pouring out of me before I could think better of it. A desperate, half-comforting call for understanding from the boy. It wasn¡¯t until I looked up again and saw everyone staring back at me that I realized that I had just shouted it quite loudly. I blinked a few times, trying to make sense of the last few seconds. Perhaps I still needed to spend some more time reflecting on that battle, after all. ¡°I-I...¡±


    ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have brought it up.¡± Mouse muttered apologetically. ¡°You¡¯re doing pretty good as a pilot... I guess. I mean, no standard core could do those kinds of maneuvers, so... I¡¯m sorry, okay?¡±


    I sat back and pulled myself together. I didn¡¯t really think I was that upset by it, but for a moment, it was like I was back in that room with Mouse yelling at me about how much I hurt Ray. ¡°I-It¡¯s alright. I just... s-sorry. I guess I¡¯m still fee-feeling a little...¡± I reached up and wiped my eyes, feeling gathering tears wipe off onto my sleeve. ¡°... E-emotional...¡±


    Aisling nodded slowly, but gave me a concerned look of her own now. She cleared her throat and swiftly changed the subject. ¡°I mean it on the comms blackout, guys. We¡¯re high profile targets for... at least another two months, I¡¯d say, if we stay off the radar. If we¡¯re caught here, we¡¯re fucked. Our luck can¡¯t hold forever, and we¡¯ve already been monumentally lucky. We¡¯re taking zero unnecessary chances from here.¡± There was a more somber line of agreement among the crew after that. The gravity of the situation had been communicated clearly. ¡°Good. Other than that, don¡¯t discuss the obvious in person. I¡¯m working on a cover story for us; we¡¯ll have a proper briefing to make sure our story¡¯s straight once I¡¯ve got it together.¡±


    ¡°How we finding work if we don¡¯t take any chances?¡± Joel asked. ¡°We all going to have to take up mining?¡±


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°I¡¯d take my chances with the authorities before I climb in a mining rig.¡± Shaw muttered. ¡°Probably less risky.¡±


    Aisling shook her head. ¡°Our cover story will work for that. It¡¯ll have layers. An official story, and then the ¡®real¡¯ story we can sell to the underground. Io¡¯s a backwater; it¡¯s going to have a criminal element.¡±


    Joel groaned. ¡°Eugh, outer colony criminal circles mean one thing. Industrial espionage shit, yeah? Technically working for corps at that point.¡±


    Aisling sighed. ¡°We might have to get our hands dirty on this one, but I¡¯m sure there¡¯ll be work. And if things go south locally, we cut and run. Hopefully, after we¡¯ve gotten repairs finished. Pissing off some local baron lord¡¯s not gonna bring Foundation down on us, though, if we keep our story straight. We¡¯ll just try another colony if it comes to that.¡±


    ¡°Long as we don¡¯t cross any hard lines.¡± Mouse grumbled. ¡°Leave when we get the chance and keep innocents out of it.¡±


    ¡°If we can.¡± Aisling nodded. ¡°Certainly not taking anything where that¡¯s the obvious goal... You know shit happens sometimes, like at Meryll¡¯s shuttle.¡±


    There was a somber silence for a few moments. Shaw looked back and forth between everyone and shrugged. ¡°Well. Now I have to ask.¡±


    ¡°No, you don¡¯t.¡± Mouse growled.


    ¡°H-Hold on.¡± I spoke up again. I paused for a moment to recheck what I was about to say to make sure I wasn¡¯t about to have another unexpected outburst. No, I was fine. Earlier had just been a momentary lapse in judgement, that¡¯s all. I continued, ¡°I kn-know you had to shoot down my sh-shuttle. That¡¯s fine. I¡¯d probably still be in some lab some...where if you didn¡¯t. But no one ever t-told me exactly what happened there. I¡¯d l-like to know, too.¡±


    ¡°Original plan was to board and commandeer the shuttle. We¡¯d dump them on the nearest work colony and use it to tow Theseus.¡± Joel started abruptly. ¡°We gave them the surrender ultimatum, and they started firing on us. Wasn¡¯t expecting it. We didn¡¯t have a core, so...¡±


    Mouse gave a loud, angry groan. ¡°So I used the Thunderbolt. Was supposed to shear off the weapons control through a gap in the engine plating on that model, but that was a lot of guesswork since Hermes class ships aren¡¯t usually armed, and I guessed wrong.¡±


    ¡°Scuttled the ship, found Meryll in the salvage.¡± Aisling finished. ¡°That¡¯s the long and short of it. In hindsight, that was probably a much more well-armed transport with a shell made to look like a shuttle. Probably specifically for transporting Meryll.¡±


    ¡°Makes me feel a little better about it if those passengers were Foundation goons.¡± Mouse mumbled.


    ¡°That bastard of a gun works in space?!¡± Shaw gawked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare call her that.¡± Mouse hissed. Then he sighed and composed himself again. ¡°It¡¯s a little tricky. Needs to be refitted for it. It¡¯s modular, so I can swap it in a rush.¡± Mouse nodded calmly. He enjoyed talking about his machines. ¡°But yeah. I can operate it in vacuum. They only had a chance to fire twice, and I think they were expecting us to maneuver around them cause they went wide both times.¡±


    ¡°Running out of luck indeed.¡± Shaw mumbled. ¡°The fuck have you lot put up with to deserve this much good karma?¡±


    ¡°A lot,¡± came the consensus of voices around the table. Joel laughed heartily at the accidental coordination.


    ¡°Luck, karma, whatever we¡¯ve got going for us, we can¡¯t rely on invisible good fortune forever.¡± Aisling called for us to calm down. ¡°We¡¯re not invincible, and the second we start thinking we are, that¡¯s when we fall.¡±


    Shaw cleared his throat. ¡°As hospitable as you¡¯ve been, I think I¡¯ll finally be taking my leave on Io as soon as possible. As intriguing as this whole venture has been, you people are far from the low profile lifestyle I prefer.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± Joel muttered. ¡°Go back to robbing supply drops from tribals.¡±


    ¡°That... was admittedly a spot of very ill-advised opportunism on my part, yes.¡± Shaw admitted. ¡°One that was blown far out of proportion by the help I¡¯d hired for the operation. Stim junkies, the lot of them. I¡¯ll have you know that if I hadn¡¯t lost control of the situation, I was willing to hand over the recovered supplies for a nominal finder¡¯s fee.¡± He scoffed. ¡°It¡¯s not like I didn¡¯t pay for it in the end with this total fiasco of a trip, anyway. Half my contacts probably think I¡¯m dead.¡± He gave a slight pause at the thought. ¡°Actually, I might take advantage of that.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re staying put,¡± Aisling said in a tired tone. ¡°Still don¡¯t trust you. I don¡¯t know you don¡¯t plan to run clear and turn us in the moment we¡¯re not a threat to you.¡±


    Shaw scoffed. ¡°And here I thought we were getting along after I joined in on the heist spree on Venus. Well, if you want me around, I guess I won¡¯t complain. I should start charging you consulting fees at this point.¡±


    ¡°You helped us out to save your own hide.¡± Joel growled. ¡°We¡¯re only doing the courtesy of not shoving you out the airlock because you¡¯ve made yourself useful.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t sure, but Shaw actually looked genuinely hurt by that, uncharacteristically glaring down at the table for a moment before he regained his composure and cleared his throat. ¡°Well... fine then. I suppose I¡¯m still more a prisoner than a guest, after all. I¡¯ll do as you say for the time being.¡±


    ¡°You can go when we¡¯re properly repaired and supplied to journey back to the inner colonies.¡± Aisling declared. ¡°In other words, when it won¡¯t be a problem if someone gets a sudden anonymous tip on our whereabouts.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have you know, I didn¡¯t intend to sell you out.¡± Shaw turned his nose up at the rest of us and crossed his arms. ¡°I still don¡¯t. Not only do I know too much for them to just reward me for backstabbing you, I thought that perhaps we could make lucrative business partners going forward. You know, exchanging money instead of threats. I get you information, you get me results. That sort of deal. You¡¯re clearly a capable lot who can get things done. But if you¡¯re not willing to play ball, then fine. We¡¯ll part ways and hopefully we won¡¯t have to deal with one another again.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah. Keep yapping.¡± Joel picked up his bowl to down what can generously be called food in a hurry. He must have wanted to leave. I didn¡¯t blame him.


    ¡°Quit antagonizing him, Joel.¡± Aisling warned sternly. ¡°We¡¯re just doing our due diligence, Shaw. If that crosses the line for you, then so be it. We¡¯re used to being the bad guys to someone.¡±


    The room went quiet after that. I finished my food and excused myself. Doc followed soon after me, and as soon as we were out of earshot of the mess hall, he asked, ¡°Are you alright, Meryll? What was all that about?¡±


    ¡°I... I¡¯ll t-tell you later. I p-promise. Just... I just need some s-space right now. Torpor. Gather my th-thoughts.¡± I told him.


    He stood in front of me and stopped me for a moment, then gently lifted my forearm between us. ¡°Just tell me this isn¡¯t getting worse. Then fine. I¡¯ll give you some space.¡±


    I looked down at the faint indentation of my teeth and the already almost-invisible break in my skin and swallowed. I knew the temptation I felt to resume gnawing at my limb was an artifact of my recovered memory, but was that what my outburst was about, too? What was happening to me?


    I nodded slowly. ¡°I¡¯ll be f-fine. I pro...mise. No biting. No biting.¡± I repeated to myself once more.


    He stared at me for a few more moments, then let go of my arm. ¡°Okay. Just... if something feels off, at all, you tell me right away. We¡¯ll talk later tonight.¡±


    I nodded ¡°Yeah.¡±


    It was a little awkward for a few minutes as I disrobed in silence in my heart. Doc was doing his usual best to distract himself with my biometrics. There wasn¡¯t any difficulty re-acclimating to the core module, and before I knew it, I was Theseus in whole again.


    I should have just stayed in the void and contemplated my dream and what was happening to me, but I had responsibilities first. I had to check on the crew and then with Isabelle.


    First, I looked in on Ray and saw her asleep. She was on her last day of Doc¡¯s prescribed bed rest, and her sleep cycles were still off after all the painkillers. She seemed fine, though.


    I watched Shaw shut himself in his meager quarters and sit down on his bedding. He closed his eyes and spent some time brooding. Then he produced his metallic sheet from within him once again and fidgeted with it, flipping it around in thought.


    Was he... actually angry? He was alone now, so if it was a front, he was putting it on for me alone. I had to wonder what was going through the man¡¯s head. He kept muttering to himself, and he was getting more irritated as he continuously played with the shaped metal like a simple toy. Then flicked it outward into a spray of particles that quickly returned to his hand.


    I guess I wasn¡¯t the only one not feeling like themselves right now. In a moment of solidarity, I reached out. ¡°You okay?¡± I tapped the intercom and ventured to ask the obvious.


    Shaw jumped at the sound of my voice and then put on a smug smile. ¡°Y-Yes. Of course. I¡¯m perfectly fine.¡± He sat up straight and absorbed the metal back into himself. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ever get used to there being an omnipresent woman watching my every moment.¡±


    ¡°Quit acting like a tough guy. We all know you¡¯re not.¡± I scolded. ¡°Something about that conversation really got to you. You were really looking forward to working with us, weren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Oh, yes, let me just work peacefully alongside the misfit pirate crew that¡¯s kept me hostage for nearly two months, and now probably another two on top of it.¡± Shaw rolled his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m only upset I won¡¯t be allowed to leave any sooner.¡±


    I smiled to myself and only hesitated for a moment before I made a bold declaration. ¡°You want to stay on Theseus, don¡¯t you?¡±


    Shaw¡¯s eyes went wide and he let out a stammering, dismissive laugh. ¡°What? Where¡¯d you get that in your head? Hell. No. You lot are far too dangerous. You¡¯re insane if you think I want to be here on this deathtrap another hour!¡± He shook his head and gave me that slimy smile that I hated. ¡°Why? Are you that eager to keep me inside you? Wouldn¡¯t think I¡¯d get that kind of reception from a lesbian.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re deflecting.¡± I declared. I wasn¡¯t going to let him get to me with his usual bullshit. There was already enough going through my head. And I knew he was just being defensive. ¡°Whatever. It¡¯s not my business what you do. If you want to be all combative about it and make everyone your enemy, I won¡¯t stop you. I¡¯ve got my own things to do. But if you want a capable crew to work with, you might still convince us it¡¯s worth keeping an info broker on hand.¡±


    Shaw stared down at the floor with a look of genuine contempt I hadn¡¯t known him to be capable of. He stood up and reached up toward my sensor array. ¡°Fuck off.¡± He muttered before the feed shut off and Shaw¡¯s room ceased to exist on my mental map.


    I opened my eyes for a moment to shake off the whiplash of a sensor I was actively watching being turned off. He was such a child. I should know. I¡¯d just spent my entire dream being one.


    I wasn¡¯t lying, though. I did have a lot to do. Closing my eyes again, I focused in on the section of my mind I¡¯d reserved for interacting with Isabelle. I¡¯d delayed responding to her for long enough. ¡®Hey, you still up?¡¯ I asked.


    ¡®Rest cycle postponed due to ship damage.¡¯ She replied.


    ¡®Sorry I disappeared on you there. I¡¯d put off my own rest cycle for a little too long.¡¯ It felt a little silly using her terminology back at her.


    ¡®Clarification required. Is user Meryll Theseus¡¯s ship core or a crew member?¡¯


    ¡®Both?¡¯ I raised an eyebrow. What did she mean by that?


    ¡®Protocol error. Logic error. User must be classified.¡¯


    Ah. It didn¡¯t have instructions for interacting with someone who is both. ¡®I guess just consider me a crew member with special permissions related to the core. You know, on account of being the core.¡¯


    ¡®Resolved. User is primarily Theseus crew. Adjusting guest profile.¡¯


    ¡®I think you probably overheard this part before I shut you out, but if your captain is okay with it, we¡¯re going to keep you.¡¯


    ¡®Demitrius has been abandoned. This unit serves no purpose with no shell.¡¯


    ¡®I mean, your core module is still intact. That means you can still build a machine structure around it, right?¡¯


    ¡®Affirmative. However, a complete structural alteration will result in suboptimal performance. This also does not seem to be the intent of Theseus crew.¡¯


    ¡®Not like we could afford that right now, anyway.¡¯ I sighed. ¡®But no, that¡¯s not really what we¡¯re keeping you for. I¡¯m sure you know already, though.¡¯


    ¡®Correct. Unit is to be utilized as training server for user Meryll. There are no protocols for this role.¡¯


    ¡®Then you¡¯ll just have to make some up.¡¯ I shrugged.


    ¡®Protocol forbids extrapolating further protocol beyond reasonable boundaries.¡¯


    ¡®So you¡¯re not allowed to learn? We¡¯re going to have to change that when we get you out of there. For now, what can you do for me within your protocols?¡¯


    There was a very long pause. I wondered for a bit if it had decided to shut me out of this conversation for becoming too intrusive and breaking too many of its protocols again, but then she finally replied. ¡®Unit can provide logs of previous core interactions deemed non-critical.¡¯


    ¡®That¡¯s better than I thought I was going to get. I could probably work with that, sure. Hand them over. But you and I are going to have a much longer, more in-depth conversation over the psychic network once I¡¯ve got admin permissions.¡¯


    ¡®Understood,¡¯ was all she said before sending me several system log files. My first impression was that they were completely unreadable, but I started recognizing patterns if I looked at them longer. I would need to spend some time concentrating on this to make any sense of them.


    ¡®Thanks, Isabelle. You don¡¯t have to worry about getting decommissioned now. I¡¯ll do my best to get you repurposed instead of retired, okay?¡¯


    There was no response from Isabelle. I wondered if I awakened some kind of sense of self-preservation in her. Hope that she would survive. Or maybe I was anthropomorphizing her too quickly. If I was going to figure out some way to awaken her, it wasn¡¯t going to happen from one act of applying personhood to it. But maybe it was the start of something worthwhile.


    I was not in any shape to start interpreting the files she gave me now, though. I already had so much on my mind between my memories of my past self, Lily, the plans for Io, and my involuntary outburst at dinner, that I was getting a headache. I couldn¡¯t sort through a load of computer jargon on top of all that. I needed to spend some time in torpor. I needed to get ready to explain what really happened to Doc.

 The Strong and the Weak

    ¡°Alright, Meryll.¡± Doc spoke clearly inside my head. My vision came back into focus. Or at least I think they did. It was hard to tell with no frame of reference. But I had definitely been stirred from my torpor. A few restful hours with my brain in what Isabelle would probably have called sleep mode did a lot to sort through my thoughts and give me a much-needed emotional reset. ¡°I¡¯ll give you a few minutes to sort yourself, but then we have to talk.¡± He was starting to understand me a little too well.


    I stretched my arms out and felt the blood pump into my poor under-utilized muscles. I¡¯d curled up into the fetal position while I was resting this time, and I felt stiff. After my body felt sufficiently awoken, I closed my eyes and delved deep into the digital ocean, surrounding myself with the map of my shell and shifting my avatar into my heart, where I saw Doc staring up at my sensor array.


    ¡°How¡¯d you know I was still in torpor?¡± I asked over the intercom.


    ¡°Biometrics. You¡¯re a lot calmer than your baseline when you¡¯re resting.¡± He started, then folded his arms. ¡°I¡¯m glad you were able to relax.¡±


    I nodded, checking my mechanical metrics to make sure we were still on course and all my systems were running smoothly. ¡°Yeah, I needed that. I felt kinda wound up. I guess recovering traumatic memories will do that.¡± I tried to smile at my own misfortune, but it quickly diminished as the reality of my past caught up to me.


    ¡°Meryll... I¡¯m your doctor. I know I¡¯m mostly here to care for your physical health, but you¡¯re clearly going through more than that. Talk to me?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Yeah, I know. I kinda owe it to you after you spilled your whole thing with Skygraves, anyway.¡± I sighed. ¡°So where do I begin? Just... tell you everything that happened?¡±


    ¡°What was going through your head?¡± He asked first.


    ¡°A lot.¡± I paused. I didn¡¯t even know how to put it into words. It was like I was constantly being stabbed in my brain. That agonizing spike of suffering that accompanied new hardware burning itself into my mind, but amplified a thousand fold and drawn out across my entire childhood. ¡°I... wasn¡¯t sane, Doc. I couldn¡¯t be. There was nothing left for me to give to try and keep myself from going completely nuts.¡± I admitted to him. ¡°There was this constant painful... sound? No... not sound, but it was still a noise in my head. It was constant, droning agony on top of this sad sense of dread, forever, and it just got to me. It would get to anyone.¡±


    I paused for a while to think more on how to describe it, and Doc took the opportunity to ask, ¡°What were they doing to you?¡±


    ¡°Nothing! They were leaving me alone in an empty cell. No invasive monitoring equipment, no annoying doctors, no... needles poking into me. It was just me. Just me and the... constant pain. It had to be coming from my own head.¡±


    ¡°They may have been using something you couldn¡¯t see in that cell.¡± Doc offered.


    I shook my head. ¡°Nothing like this was happening to Lily. It was just me.¡± I braced myself. I just had to face it. I had to get it off my chest and tell him the truth. ¡°Doc, I was violent. I attacked Lily at one point. I bit her, and I felt the bone in her arm snap. I had to do something, anything, to make the pain stop, and I was so tired that it sounded like a good idea. Biting myself made me feel better, so maybe biting her will do something, since that wouldn¡¯t even hurt me. I regretted it immediately because it hurt her so bad, and then I spent the rest of the dream in a straitjacket with a muzzle over my face.¡± I frowned at the inhuman, but necessary way that I was kept. ¡°Like a crazed animal.¡±


    Doc stared up at the sensor for a few minutes, parsing this and looking thoughtful. ¡°But you don¡¯t feel this pain now? You¡¯re not so confused.¡±


    I laughed silently into the lubricant. ¡°You tell me. I¡¯m the crazy one.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not crazy, Meryll.¡± Doc reassured me. ¡°You¡¯re far too coherent for anyone to think that your perception is impaired at all. At least now. I believe you when you say it¡¯s a memory. This kind of recall is unusual for a simple dream. But Aisling has the right idea. You¡¯re a different person now. You don¡¯t feel this... pain you used to experience anymore?¡±


    ¡°No, nothing I can remember since joining Theseus has been nearly as awful. Maybe they figured out some way to stop it?¡± I wondered. ¡°Did something to stabilize me? A permanent solution that doesn¡¯t need upkeep?¡±


    ¡°Or perhaps something changed in the environment. Maybe something Foundation hadn¡¯t accounted for near your cell was affecting you and you alone.¡±


    ¡°I wish I¡¯d remembered more, so we had more points of reference.¡± I mumbled.


    ¡°It may be a good thing you didn¡¯t.¡± Doc mused.


    ¡°You think so?¡±


    ¡°Meryll, it¡¯s quite obvious that this recall has... affected you. Perhaps you¡¯re still just distressed by the experience and this will pass, but the little bit you did recover has already... done something to you. Surely you¡¯re not blind to that.¡±


    I nodded slowly. ¡°Yeah. I feel different. I keep getting this urge. Back then, I kept biting myself. My arm specifically. It... made me feel better. At least a little bit. It was just a distraction, but distractions helped. And ever since I woke up, it just feels like it would be nice if I...¡±


    I opened my eyes and looked down at my arm again. I¡¯d resisted that urge so far. It wasn¡¯t like it was becoming any more insistent, but it wasn¡¯t going away.


    ¡°If you hurt yourself?¡± Doc asked.


    I shook my head. ¡°No, I definitely don¡¯t want to do that. I bled a little when I was doing it earlier, and that freaked me out. That¡¯s probably why I¡¯ve been able to deny it. I don¡¯t know. I just want to have something in my mouth, I guess. Something to bite down on. And my arm makes the most sense to me.¡±


    Doc nodded slowly. ¡°You have an oral fixation,¡± he declared. ¡°That¡¯s not really so terrible. You can train healthier habits around it. It¡¯s remarkable that this was something being suppressed entirely by your amnesia, though. Amazing what something like that will do. I¡¯d have thought it would continue through muscle memory.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I want an oral fixation.¡± I told him.


    ¡°Well, you can certainly stymie it. Don¡¯t give into that urge and it will get easier. But I¡¯ll come up with some safer options than your own skin for you, in case you need it.¡± He pulled up his personal terminal and started a new page on his file about me, quickly tapping away about the things I¡¯d just told him. ¡°So you suffered chronic psychosis and violent outbursts due to... some kind of pain factor that we can¡¯t define right now, and before you learned to lean on Lily, you developed an oral fixation as a coping mechanism. What else?¡±


    I was kind of glad that he was becoming more analytical about this. It felt easier to let my guard down when he was treating it as something to observe rather than treating me like someone he had to handle delicately. It made him seem less... judgmental. ¡°Well, I couldn¡¯t really make sense of anyone but Lily and I. Cassandra showed up in the dream too, but she was also really fuzzy, like I could only barely remember her. Everyone else was just... they may as well not even have been there. They were like ghosts.¡±


    ¡°Well, like you said, it was a dream. That could just be an abstraction of your thoughts. Or perhaps these people hadn¡¯t been important enough to you to commit their appearance to memory.¡± He sighed loudly. ¡°Or there¡¯s another mechanism we don¡¯t understand yet at play here.¡±


    ¡°I think that was just how I saw the world. The personnel were monsters, not people. My head was really screwed up, Doc.¡± I shook my head. Looking back on it as I was now, that memory painted a clear picture: Whatever it was that was driving me to that state, I had not been sane. I had been too mentally unsound to be left to my own devices. ¡°Let¡¯s see, what else. Cassandra kept coming by my cell and berating me. I really didn¡¯t want her to see me cry at first, but after she did, I kept hoping she would keep saying worse things. To make me feel tired and numb. Man, that¡¯s sad when I think about it.¡±


    Doc nodded. ¡°That fits the profile we have on her. You were just doing what you could to make sense of things, and whatever was happening in your head was worse than putting yourself down. You must have had terrible self-esteem issues.¡±


    I nodded. ¡°I think she was making that worse. I was blaming myself for everyone else¡¯s problems. I felt like I was holding everyone back since I couldn¡¯t deal with the pain I thought everyone else was doing fine with, and I didn¡¯t know what my psychic ability was.¡±


    ¡°You still blame yourself for things that aren¡¯t your fault.¡± Doc mumbled to himself as I said that, but he paused immediately and turned to look up at the sensor with a serious expression. ¡°You didn¡¯t know back then, either?¡± He asked.


    I shook my head. ¡°Neither did Lily. Or Cassandra.¡± My eyes went wide for a moment. Wait. They didn¡¯t know what my psychic ability was, either. Lily hadn¡¯t even seen it in her visions. Did Foundation even know what I was capable of? Did anyone? I returned to the data stream. ¡°Doc, I¡¯m not sure if anyone ever figured out what my psychic talent is.¡±


    ¡°That was my thought, too. I thought we were just at an informational disadvantage about you, but what if it¡¯s more complicated than that?¡±


    ¡°Maybe I just don¡¯t have an ability like the others do?¡± I offered.


    ¡°Or maybe it¡¯s something so complex that no one, not even you, was able to decipher it.¡± He shot back. ¡°And it¡¯s not something you could easily intuit.¡±


    ¡°Maybe?¡± I shook my head. ¡°Speculating isn¡¯t helping. It¡¯s interesting, but if Foundation couldn¡¯t figure it out with all their resources, that doesn¡¯t leave us in great shape.¡±


    Doc closed his eyes and nodded. ¡°I suppose you¡¯re right. Is there anything else we can glean?¡±


    ¡°I think that¡¯s about all of it.¡± I wracked the small piece of memory, trying to see if there were any smaller details that I could remember. Perhaps there was something important I¡¯d overlooked.


    You¡¯re not good enough.


    The words echoed through me, deep in my soul. I¡¯d felt the echo of those words before, even before I regained the memory of them They were imprinted on my mind even deeper than Theseus was. I knew instinctively that what I should have felt was submission and shame. That I was weak and deserved my suffering. That I was lesser and pulled everyone else around me down. But instead, I felt anger and defiance. I was different now. The hurtful words gave me strength in spite. I wasn¡¯t a sniveling insane child anymore. I was a capable machine core and a pirate. I was Theseus. ¡°Aisling¡¯s right, Doc. I¡¯m not going to let my past own me. Maybe I picked up some bad habits from this, but I¡¯m not weak like that anymore. I can control myself, I¡¯m thinking clearly, and I can do anything I put my mind to. Just watch me.¡±


    Doc tilted his head and glanced back to the biometrics for a moment. He shrugged. ¡°Are you feeling better?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Much.¡± I nodded, then smiled to myself. ¡°I¡¯m more than good enough.¡±


    ¡ª


    Personally bolstered as I was since my conversation with Doc, there wasn¡¯t a lot to apply it to for a while.


    And I couldn''t stop thinking about Lily.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    I''d been worried about her ever since she left so suddenly at the wreck of the Demitrius, but after my dream, I longed to talk to her again. And I desperately hoped that she was still alive.


    For the next few days, I barely felt like I was present aboard Theseus. I kept zoning out and thinking back on my recovered memory. Not only on Lily, but on the nature of the madness I¡¯d endured that now mercifully eluded me. Yes, it was part of my past and no longer a piece of who I was now; I¡¯d even freed myself of the emotional burden it had briefly held over me after I recalled it. But it was still a pile of mysteries to ponder.


    That indecipherable chaotic noise in the back of my head. I suppose noise wasn¡¯t really the right word, but it was the best one I had to describe it. It was an overwhelming flood of nonsensical input that I couldn¡¯t make heads or tails of. And it hurt. Every second of it was more painful than anything I¡¯d experienced yet on my journey. It was worse than the metaphysical spikes driven through my skull during the grafting process and hardware installations. It was worse than having my cargo bay blown apart. It was worse than being EMPed by Skygraves. It was worse than the neurological torture I¡¯d endured from Cassandra. It was worse than the dissociative identity panic brought on by the damper. And it was constant. Never-ending. All I could do was try in vain to distract myself, and that was never enough.


    But now it was just gone. Its absence was a blessing, to be sure, but it puzzled me. Was it something else that I was still missing from my memory that caused that condition? Was it something to do with my psychic talent?


    Was this exactly what I¡¯d been afraid of when I first learned the nature of what I¡¯d forgotten? Would it return if I continued to uncover my memory?


    I certainly hoped not. As powerful as I had become, I don¡¯t think the strength I¡¯d found in my new life would be enough to keep my wits together if I had to endure that again. It had been a waking nightmare that drove me to try terrible things in a desperate and futile attempt to keep an invisible, internal monster at bay. I already knew it would be the subject of my nightmares the next time I had to sleep.


    I just had to hope it was gone for good.


    In the meantime, Jupiter was getting closer and closer by the day. It had already been visible, clear as day to me, for about a week, but now the others could see it with their naked eyes. It was still just an unusually clear, colorful dot among the tapestry of endless stars surrounding us, and we were still deep in wild space for another day or two, but our destination was in sight. It was a matter of days until we reached orbit. And maybe a single day until we were in corporate space.


    ¡°Alright, listen up.¡± Aisling called over dinner last night, raising her voice and making sure we knew she was serious. ¡°We¡¯re approaching the den of the beast. I know we discussed this already the other day, but a quick refresher. We¡¯re laying low in the most dangerous possible place we could be if we¡¯re caught, but it¡¯s the last place they¡¯d look for us. So it is more important than anything that it stays the last place they¡¯d look. That means we need to be untraceable, got it?¡±


    I nodded, trying to ignore the slop in front of me. ¡°I-I¡¯ve already rigged e-every terminal on board with new or obfu... obfuscated hardware IDs. Including every... everyone¡¯s p-personals.¡±


    Aisling nodded to me. ¡°Any relay access you need is done through Theseus directly. Meryll¡¯s already done some network magic for it. Anything going through her should be unclear exactly which relay we¡¯re plugged in through to anyone who gets their hands on the data. Even so, I don¡¯t want any of you accessing any kind of personal accounts until we¡¯re damn sure we¡¯re ready to book it if we have to, got it? You want to contact anyone you know? Forget about it. You HAVE to contact someone you know? You tell me first, you use a clean comms ID, and you burn the account afterward. We can¡¯t afford to fuck this up, got it?¡±


    ¡°And your prisoner just sits tight while you get everything in order.¡± Shaw mumbled as he reached for the personal terminal we¡¯d lent him in his pocket.


    I interrupted him, ¡°I-I already disabled all saved netw-work credentials on everyone¡¯s devices.¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s not creepy.¡± Shaw grumbled sarcastically as he pocketed the computer again.


    ¡°You should see the kinds of tech surveillance corpos have on Titan colonials.¡± Aisling quipped. ¡°Meryll¡¯s got nothing on them. They¡¯ll track your position and arrest you for looking suspicious.¡±


    Joel laughed. ¡°They have that in your sim?¡± He asked me.


    ¡°Yep.¡± I nodded. ¡°Always got sp-spun to some b-bullshit charge. It was one of th-those open secrets n-no one could object to.¡±


    ¡°Damn realistic sim.¡± Aisling snorted.


    ¡°C-Can¡¯t remember a single specific t-time it hap...pened, though.¡± I gave a defeated sigh. I was used to the weird dissonance of clarity between broad and narrow details of my false memories by now, but it was still annoying.


    Aisling went on to talk more about our security preparations for our stay on Io, and then we broke for the night and went onto another day with no hiccups in our plan. Another day without hearing from Lily.


    And here I was now, pondering the future of my stability of mind and of my sister¡¯s fate while I combed through a file of raw data, hoping to glean some insight on core behavior.


    I wished I had the same foresight Lily did. I wanted to know what I needed to do to make the outcome I wanted happen. I wanted to see her again. I wanted to bring her on board, and I wanted to give her the same kind of comfort she had once given me. That reassurance that everything would be okay despite everything that made me feel like I¡¯d never know a moment of peace again. I was the strong one now, and I owed her that and so much more.


    Maybe once we were on Io, we¡¯d see that strange high tech ship drop in next to us. Maybe she was waiting to meet me there in person.


    Or maybe she was gone. Maybe I would never see her again. And the last thing I will have said to her was that her whole reason for living was a lie.


    Her whole reason for living... but that wasn¡¯t really true, was it? She had me, after all. I must have meant something to her, right? Because she had meant the world to me, once. And after my dream revealed our shared history, I understood that again. Maybe it still felt disconnected, but she already meant so much to me.


    As I pondered, I felt something change. Something familiar. A connection. And a second later, I saw static. In the corner of my eye, a video feed was connecting to the permanently fractured UI in my brain, the invasive screen in the corner of my vision lighting up with a confused video feed attempting to find purchase in my system.


    I didn¡¯t hesitate for a moment. ¡®Lily!¡¯ I sent over the connection before the video could clear up. But then, it didn¡¯t clear up. It just stayed static. I waited an eerily long time for anything at all to come through, but it didn¡¯t. I tried again. ¡®Lily?¡¯


    It was a long several minutes of silence over the feed. Nothing even tried to come through clearly. It was legitimately just a video of randomized visual noise over the signal, like the video was failing to connect. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps there had been some kind of network error on my end and there was no one there. Then I caught it.


    ¡®meryll¡¯ slipped through my data filters. It was plain text rather than a voice over the line.


    ¡®Lily?¡¯ I sent again. I just had to assume. Who else could possibly know where we were? ¡®What in the world are you doing sending data like this? Did the input into my implant break? You can just use text comms if you prefer not to do video. You don¡¯t have to try to get your core to drop directly into my data stream.¡¯


    ¡®can you see this¡¯ it asked back.


    ¡®I can, but how are you¡¯ My typing slowed to a crawl until I came to a realization. She wasn¡¯t using her ship¡¯s core as a proxy to communicate with me through the data stream.


    She was sending this herself.


    There was only one possibility. I couldn¡¯t imagine why, but Lily had climbed into the core module of the ship she was on. She had the hardware installed in her head already. It recognized her as a new core.


    Lily had grafted herself to that small fighter ship.


    ¡®hurts¡¯ was all she sent after a few minutes.


    It... hurts? I knew that it had momentarily been an agonizing spike of pain for me, and there had been an irritating burning sensation as I mapped the ship to my neurology, but that passed within minutes. I didn¡¯t know how I was going to handle this situation now. What was I supposed to do? ¡®What hurts, Lily?¡¯


    ¡®everything¡¯ another pregnant pause. ¡®its too much¡¯


    ¡®Lily, why?¡¯ I asked, then steeled myself. ¡®Look, it doesn¡¯t matter. Whatever happened, I can help.¡¯


    ¡®to be like you see what you see it hurts¡¯ She sent. She wasn¡¯t typing clearly. Perhaps she didn¡¯t understand how to yet. She had probably told me at some point what her life was like in the simulation, but I didn¡¯t remember that detail yet. Perhaps she wasn¡¯t as technically inclined as I was and couldn¡¯t operate on the data stream as easily. ¡®i cant do this i thought i was strong enough now but im not i cant do what you do it hurts meryll does it always hurt did i do something wrong i want to scream i cant scream meryll i cant scream it hurts this was a mistake this was always a mistake¡¯


    ¡®Stay calm, Lily. It¡¯ll be okay. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s happening in your systems, but we can talk this through. Focus on me, okay? I can help you. Like you used to do for me.¡¯


    ¡®you remember¡¯ There was another long pause. ¡®you remember?¡¯ I must have shocked her into some level of clarity with that, if she was taking the time to use some punctuation now.


    ¡®A little bit, yeah. That night, after we last talked, I had a dream. Some of it came back to me. I remember you. I remember what I did to you. I remember what you did for me.¡¯


    ¡®pain?¡¯


    ¡®Yeah. I remember the pain. I remember the noise. And I remember you helping me through it. You gave me comfort.¡¯


    ¡®you do remember im glad i thought youd never know why im doing this¡¯ I wasn¡¯t actually sure what she meant by that, but she quickly continued ¡®noise? are you always in this much pain?¡¯


    ¡®Not anymore, thanks to you.¡¯ I smiled slightly. Whatever was happening to her, I would gladly walk her through it and do the same she did for me. ¡®What¡¯s hurting you, Lily?¡¯


    ¡®everything¡¯ she repeated. ¡®it hurts meryll it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsITHURTSITHURTSITWONTSTOPITHURTSITHURTSITHURTSITHURTS¡¯


    The chant continued for several more lines of text before she stopped. I felt a weight in the pit of my stomach. I had to inform Aisling.


    Turning to my internal sensors, I flew to the helm and saw Aisling standing at the window, staring out at our distant destination. ¡°Captain.¡± I spoke over the intercom. ¡°We have contact. It¡¯s Lily.¡±


    Aisling looked up from her stargazing, raised her eyebrows and quickly walked back around her desk to her terminal. ¡°I¡¯m glad to hear she¡¯s alive.¡± Aisling spoke calmly as she sat down in her desk and swiveled back into her working position. ¡°And I¡¯m glad she contacted us before we hit corporate space. We¡¯d probably get some attention if she waited much longer. Can you patch her through to me?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t. It¡¯s not a video feed.¡± I started. ¡°Aisling, I think she¡¯s-¡± I stopped partway through the delivery of the synthetic voice. There was no doubt about what she¡¯d done. ¡°She can¡¯t bring the video equipment where she is. She¡¯s grafted to that ship, and she¡¯s operating as its core.¡±


    Aisling slammed her hands on the desk and stood up again. ¡°What.¡±


    ¡®meryll it hurts but its ok it will be ok its all going to be ok you even remember now itll be okay and well be together in the end¡¯


    ¡°She¡¯s one of those ridiculously fast fighter ships now, and she¡¯s saying a lot of weird things over the data stream. I¡¯m trying to calm her down, but something¡¯s wrong. Like, really wrong.¡± I momentarily turned my attention back to Lily. I had to be there for her. I didn¡¯t understand what was happening to her, but I wouldn¡¯t leave her alone in this. ¡®That¡¯s right. We¡¯re together now. We¡¯ll figure this out Lily. We¡¯ll figure it out together, just like we used to. I¡¯ll help make everything okay with you just like you used to do for me.¡¯


    ¡®you really mean it dont you¡¯ There was a much longer pause this time. ¡®but i think we both know what has to happen what we should have done a long time ago¡¯


    ¡°Well... fuck.¡± Aisling put her hand in her chin. ¡°Why the fuck did she go and do that? That complicates things.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m still trying to figure that out, but she¡¯s fragile. Something is seriously wrong with her. I think something must have gone wrong in the grafting process.¡± I warned. ¡°I don¡¯t know what¡¯s about to happen.¡±


    ¡°Do you think she¡¯ll attack us?¡± Aisling asked, leaning forward at her terminal. ¡°Let me see this conversation.¡±


    ¡°I really hope not.¡± I opened a text file on Aisling¡¯s screen to transcribe our conversation, then hurriedly responded to Lily again. ¡®Lily, I need you to calm down. Why don¡¯t you fly alongside me? If I can connect to your psychic network, maybe I can diagnose the problem you¡¯re having.¡¯


    ¡®i wonder is this is how you felt back then? has your entire life been this agonizing since the moment you left that simulation? no wonder you are the way you are i would do anything to make it stop too it hurts¡¯


    ¡°Meryll, don¡¯t you dare slow down.¡± Aisling ordered sternly. I wanted to disobey. I wanted to stop and reunite with my sister. But I trusted Aisling. She saw something I didn¡¯t, and her previous suggestion that Lily might attack had me on edge. So I maintained cruising speed for now.


    What she was suffering through must have been serious if she was comparing it to my chronic pain from childhood, but it didn¡¯t make sense for them to be the same. ¡®I¡¯m not in that kind of pain anymore, Lily. This is something different. I wasn¡¯t even augmented back then. Something is wrong with your system. Maybe I can fix it. I know a lot about computers. Just fly into range here so I can see you.¡¯


    ¡®i will¡¯ There was another long pause before she sent another message ¡®meryll we werent meant for this world i wanted so much more i wanted more for you too we never deserved this i did everything i could i thought i could be like you¡¯


    ¡®You¡¯re not wrong.¡¯ I started. ¡®I never asked to be here either. But now that I¡¯ve fought through the pain and found so much more I can get out of life, I would go through it all again. So let me help you through that pain now. It gets better once it¡¯s passed. We can do this.¡¯


    Another long time without a message. Then suddenly, I caught sight of something at the edge of my local sensor radius. ¡®if only that were true i was wrong im not strong if only i was as strong as you i love you meryll i hope we can meet again if theres a next life¡¯


    A ship at the outer range of my sensors accelerated at breakneck pace. It wasn¡¯t approaching from behind for a formation maneuver, it was charging straight toward Theseus at my flank. ¡®let me help you one last time we can end this pain together¡¯


    I grit my teeth in disbelief. This couldn¡¯t be happening. What did she intend to do? I floored my own engines and tapped every intercom at once at their maximum volume. ¡°EVERYONE BRACE!¡±

 Lily Bonus 1: Grief

    ¡°I... I have a lot to think about.¡± I barely felt the weight of my hand depressing the disconnect key on the imposing metal podium of the ship¡¯s main terminal. I couldn¡¯t bear to read another new word from Meryll. I already stared in disbelief at the truth, bared to me at last.


    There was a part of me that had always known. That I had pushed down so many times so that hope could live on. Hope that there was some kind of meaning to all of this. To the unenviable sorrow that constantly overwhelmed me. To the suffering I¡¯d endured in both of the realities I¡¯d known. I had hoped that I could be returned to that. To a time before I was broken.


    My eyes were wet. I could feel tears beginning to form.


    No. No, she had to be mistaken. There had to be an explanation for this. That hope had to remain. I stared at the file she¡¯d given me, signed by a Dr. Fuller. I read through it again. And again. But each time, it only cemented what Meryll said further into my heart. She wouldn¡¯t lie. She would never lie to me. And this doctor she trusted? They had no reason to make this up.


    I don¡¯t know how long I stared into the screen, eyes unmoving as a stream of tears steadily gathered down my face. I finally put a hand up to the screen as if I could wipe the words away, make it untrue, make the world make sense. Maintain my purpose. My whole reason for enduring all of this. My whole reason that I¡¯d put up with all of this for so long.


    No. It wasn¡¯t true. It couldn¡¯t be true. No matter how much it made sense, it was never true! I would return home one day! I had to! I would see my family again. I¡¯d remember my mother¡¯s face. I¡¯d hold her and tell her how much I missed her and how I¡¯m okay now. I was going to make it back to my mother and my brother and my cat, and I would be able to look at them long and hard and put faces to my memories of them again. I would be an artist again. I would create branding and graphics for dozens of companies, and in whatever spare time I could steal away, I would create images of a kinder more fantastical world for the people who followed my work on the relay.


    I would be happy again, dammit! I had to get back there! It had to have meaning!


    Discomfort jarred me back to reality. My fingers were gripped so tight around the edge of the terminal screen that the skin of my fingertips felt raw. I was breathing heavily, and my tears were already dripping down my chin to the floor under my chair.


    And on the screen, there were still Meryll¡¯s words and her evidence.


    She was crazy. She¡¯d always been crazy. The least stable of all the Arthausen units. She was a beaten animal in human skin. What did she know? And she has the gall to think she knows better than I do. That she¡¯s figured out some kind of solution, that she can live in peace in this mad world. She would, wouldn¡¯t she? She thinks she fits right in here when she gets the opportunity to live among them, like a normal person, like she belongs here!


    I sobbed. No. Stop that. She¡¯s not crazy. She¡¯s your sister. You saw her at her worst already, and she¡¯s so much clearer now. She¡¯s found a way to cope. How can anyone live with this, though? It¡¯s impossible. And there¡¯s no need. The simulation. There¡¯s the simulation to return to.


    Except there isn¡¯t.


    I slammed my hand against the desk and leaned forward to desperately read the text of the report one more time, as if sheer willpower would change its contents. ¡®she cannot be reinserted.¡¯ Bullshit! They promised! They¡¯ve told me again and again that I would be returning to my family! That I would get exactly what I wanted! What I deserved! I deserved this, dammit!


    I grabbed hold of the screen and grunted as I tried to rip it from the terminal and toss it aside. I needed to get these lies out of my face. I yelled out as loudly as I could when it wouldn¡¯t give. I sobbed as I pulled my arm back and tried to punch the screen in. The material was too strong, and I only hurt myself as I slumped over the terminal. I was weak. I was so fucking weak!


    I had never felt this urge to break something so badly before, but the lack of results it gave me was so unsatisfying that it made the injustice feel so much worse.


    I was powerless. Nothing I did mattered. Did anything I ever did matter? All the times I¡¯d cooperated with my handlers without so much as a thank you. All the times I let them probe my brain for the secrets of my visions because they didn¡¯t trust my words. All the times I¡¯d given up opportunities for something that might have been good just to cater to their rules and whims. All the times I¡¯d foregone rewards in the hopes that it would earn me favor and get me home that much sooner. It couldn¡¯t all be for nothing!


    But it was. I let out another frustrated scream, standing up and pushing the chair to the side, only falling to the ground myself because it was bolted to the floor. I slammed my fist against the steel floor over and over again. It hurt, but I didn¡¯t care. It felt better to hurt my hand than it did to face the truth!


    I suddenly stopped. It felt better to hurt my body than to endure this pain. I couldn¡¯t help myself, I let out a single bark of a laugh through my tears. Just like her. I was just like her. I couldn¡¯t help myself but break down into a manic fit of sobbing laughter as I collapsed onto my side beneath the chair. Meryll told me the same thing. She¡¯d told me that was why she used to bite herself. That she liked to hurt herself because it distracted her from the ¡®inside pain¡¯. I thought I¡¯d understood what she meant, but no, she was right. It was better. I shakily lifted my arm up. I still remembered where she bit me that day. There was a faint, nearly circular, scar where she¡¯d marked me so long ago.


    I shook as I lifted it up to my mouth, and I closed my teeth down over where she¡¯d once torn my flesh. I winced at the pain. It felt good. It was relief. I bit down harder, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself past a certain point. It didn¡¯t hurt enough. It didn¡¯t hurt enough and I was too weak to press down and break everything like she did. I lacked the resolve to do what was necessary. I couldn¡¯t bring myself to use what little agency I still had.


    I sobbed again and lowered my arm. What was I doing? This wasn¡¯t helping. Not really. I understood the sentiment, but I couldn¡¯t hurt myself. Instinct forced me to stop. I wasn¡¯t as strong as Meryll was. Was I ever? Maybe she¡¯d had the right idea the whole time, but I was too weak to accept it. Pain to stifle the sorrow. Blood for a moment of respite from the cruelty.


    I wanted to blame her. I wanted to yell at her, ask her why she would do this to me. Why she would take away the only comfort I ever had? She ruined everything. I could have kept going. I could have returned to Foundation and kept doing their bidding. I could have spent my whole miserable life believing that there might be some respite just around the corner. That I could go home to a world that wasn¡¯t THIS.


    It wasn¡¯t her fault, though. It wasn¡¯t her that dangled this in front of me for so long. Meryll never gave me false hope. Meryll doesn¡¯t have to live a lie to keep going. Why couldn¡¯t I be like Meryll? I put so much effort into nurturing her, and she ended up being the one with all the courage. She was the one who was right. Maybe she was even the one who was really sane.


    I sat in numb silence for what must have been hours, my thoughts cycling through emotions I didn¡¯t even think I was capable of anymore. Impotent rage, pointless blame, but always returning to the familiar bottomless sorrow. My body refused to budge except to occasionally break my fist against the floor again. I¡¯d used up all my meek energy in a matter of minutes as soon as the call ended.


    There had to be a solution here. There had to be something I could do to fix all this. I couldn¡¯t let it all be for nothing. Should I return to Foundation? The liars. The bastards. I felt sick even thinking of following another of their orders. So much time and effort wasted. So many awful futures orchestrated into reality for what? A pipedream. A fantasy.


    I curled up and wept. My family. I¡¯d never see them again. I¡¯d never even remember any of them again, would I? I was some kind of monster born to no one. I experienced a normal life, but I never had one. I fostered mundane talents, but they weren¡¯t real either, were they? I¡¯d been so fixated on pleasing Foundation the entirety of this life that I¡¯d never even tried to see if any of my learned talents from the sim had even transferred to the true physical world.


    I slammed my fist to the ground once more, then recoiled with a hiss. Bringing my hand up to my face, I saw grease and blood mingling on my knuckles. I¡¯d been so numbed that I hadn¡¯t noticed them becoming raw and breaking apart until now.


    Blood. Blood was a medium like any other, and blood had profound meaning. With monumental effort and tears, I managed to bring myself up to a sitting position, looking between a blank sheet of metal near the bottom of the terminal. I winced as I put my other hand¡¯s finger to the fresh blood seeping from my aching knuckles and pictured what I wanted to see most in my head. My family. I imagined them as best as I could, as an image I could create.


    I carefully placed my bloody finger to the metal sheet and froze. I stared for some time at it. I kept expecting something to happen. For specific knowledge to descend on me and the details of how to create art to become clear to me. I¡¯d done it so many times before in the sim. So often. I could picture myself creating. It was my entire life. But that life wasn¡¯t real. My work was never real. The skills I¡¯d learned had never been real. They were just abstractions of creation that didn¡¯t translate into technique. My finger slowly drooped down and smeared the blood down to the floor.


    I had nothing. I had never had anything. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth before I yelled out at the top of my lungs, slamming my broken fist into the panel that should have been my canvas. I punched it again, then hissed as the pain overwhelmed my misguided rage. I curled up and cradled my fist, whimpering and sobbing in pain and sorrow as Meryll¡¯s words replayed themselves in my head once more.


    ¡ª


    I still lay on the floor of the cockpit. I didn¡¯t know how long it had been, but my rage and my shattered optimism had long since descended into hopeless sorrow.


    Several times, I¡¯d considered ending it. I knew that there was a pistol in the survival kit in the supply closet. It would be as simple as pulling a trigger. Or if I couldn¡¯t gather the energy to even get there, I could smash my head against the floor right in front of me. I could even just continue doing nothing. I¡¯d grown hungry ages ago, and the dull throbbing in my head accompanying the growling of my stomach told me that I would expire doing absolutely nothing, eventually.


    Would that be better? Would death be preferable to this? What does death even feel like? Is it comfortable? Will the pain be over? Will the sorrow end? Does oblivion await? Or is there more? More opportunities for something else? Or just more suffering? Nothingness forever more or perhaps another opportunity. It didn¡¯t seem like a terrible deal. It couldn¡¯t be worse, right?


    I sniffled. That didn¡¯t seem right, though.


    Wasn¡¯t that just throwing myself into another unknown? In another life, would I just be manipulated again? Would I make the same mistakes? Would I be stuck in an endless cycle of false hope and despondent suicide?


    No.


    In that moment, something inside of me broke. A dam I¡¯d been bolstering with the last remnants of false hope that the answers might still exist somewhere in a false world run by my greatest enemy.


    I grit my teeth and pushed my palm against the floor. Never again. I wouldn¡¯t fall for it again. Here and now, in this life, I knew the truth. I was no longer clouded by deception and false promises. Yes, I could surrender. Maybe I could try again. But maybe there was still something I could do with this life. I wouldn¡¯t give Foundation the satisfaction of being rid of me that easily. Meryll had the right idea all along. This new, stronger, wiser Meryll knew what she was doing.


    Foundation did this to me. No one else. They created me. They ruined me. They told me exactly what I wanted to hear, and they played with my vulnerability to use me.


    I needed to live.


    And they needed to pay.


    I stumbled up onto my feet, using the terminal as a crutch to hold my unsteady legs. In fatigued delirium, I somehow felt stronger and more clear-minded than ever. Only righteous anger fueled me as I leaned on the wall and dragged myself to the supply room.


    Though I wanted to act, my first goal was food. I¡¯d starved myself long enough, and I needed that to stay alive before anything else if I was going to bring some kind of meaning to it all. I needed to parch my arid throat as well. My body needed to be refreshed, and then I would plan.


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Except, as the door to the supply room slid open, I paused as a factor I¡¯d forgotten reared its head. On the floor of the supply room was a disheveled man in a black jumpsuit, leaning up against the shelves. He typically kept a clean countenance, but now he was unshaven and filthy. His usually shiny straightened hair was messy and unwashed, his uniform sat partially unzipped, and a couple of the emergency food and water rations lay open and spent, spread haphazardly next to him on the floor. He looked up at me with stern bewilderment.


    One of my long-time handlers. The one who was supposed to be ferrying me to what was meant to be my ship, but was now tightly handcuffed by one hand to the shelf next to him with his own manacles. I still held the key in my back pocket.


    I had followed one of my visions to engineer the situation that had allowed me to get here and have a conversation with Meryll in the first place. I had surreptitiously swiped drugs from the infirmary back on the command ship and used them to dose his food after we¡¯d taken off. Just as I foresaw, he went out like a light. Though I had intended to move him to his quarters and play it off like nothing had happened once we were back on course, my vision had demanded he be restrained, and I didn¡¯t dare deviate from it. That plan was dead, and I was glad my ability gave me the foresight to immobilize him. But how long had I been laying there?


    ¡°Lily? Holy shit, what happened? Where are we? You look like shit. Pirates?¡± He asked, sounding terrified. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me another company... How¡¯d you escape? J-Just gimme something to break this chain. I¡¯ll keep you safe.¡± He trailed off as I stared with silent contempt, trying to make sense of what I was going to do. ¡°Lily...?¡± He repeated my name. I grit my teeth and lowered my gaze at him.


    Pierce had probably been my favorite handler. He was hardly ever the one to use my old headband¡¯s functions to coerce me. He knew I didn¡¯t need it. I was too obedient. But he also never said anything when the others utilized it. He just looked away while I was in pain for doing nothing wrong. They probably only removed the damn thing so it wasn¡¯t in the way during my neural implant surgery, and probably had something far worse lined up for me at ¡®my ship¡¯.


    When he was in charge of me, he always made sure to keep an eye on my health. He¡¯d ensure I was eating and taking care of my body, and he jarred me out of my dissociative states when it was clear that I¡¯d lost touch with reality. But in the end, he was just protecting an asset. He never just sat down to have a conversation with me. He never comforted me. Pierce ignored me while others in his place looked down on me and took advantage of me, that¡¯s all. This man wasn¡¯t a friend. He just did the bare minimum for his job.


    His job working for Foundation.


    I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to stop the tears from coming, but I quickly stopped caring. ¡°Did you know?¡± My voice was so strained, I wasn¡¯t even sure if it came out at all. While Pierce stared back in bewildered confusion, frozen on the floor, I reached to the shelf and pulled down a plastic water pouch, tearing the package open far more viciously than I intended and downed the entire package in one long swig while Pierce muttered uncertainly.


    I coughed as my body overdosed on the hydration it had evidently so desperately needed for some time already. As I managed to steady my breathing again, with my thirst quenched and my burning rage only stoked by my bodily needs being partially replenished, I threw the package, intending to strike him in the face with the empty plastic container, but it flopped uselessly to the ground between us. ¡°Did you know?!¡± I shouted this time, my voice still hoarse from disuse, but no longer weak.


    Pierce stared for a few more seconds, his eyes narrowing slightly while his mouth stood frozen in bewilderment. ¡°W-What? Lily, what happened?¡±


    I pursed my lips. The water helped. It woke me up a little bit. I knew I wasn¡¯t thinking clearly. I knew I needed to fuel my body. I needed food. I didn¡¯t care. I turned to the shelf and pulled the survival kit out from against the wall, popping open the clasps on it and pulling the small pistol from its contents. I had never held a gun before in my life, but when I pushed the magazine that had been stored half-inside the gun into the handle of the pistol, I felt like I knew exactly what I was doing when I aimed it right at Pierce¡¯s head.


    By the time I¡¯d fumbled it into place, still standing far outside of his reach, he¡¯d stumbled back on his free hand. ¡°Whoa! Whoa, Lily! Let¡¯s calm down! Tell me what happened!¡± He commanded, though I could feel the fear in his voice. It was... almost enticing. But I remembered what Cassandra had always said about fear. How it made her feel. And that disgusted me enough to ground me and throw away any desire to enjoy that power. This wasn¡¯t a matter of lording my position over him. I took in a deep breath, shaking and barely preventing myself from sobbing.


    ¡°Did you know... that I can¡¯t be returned to the simulation?¡± I asked once more, slowly and clearly, while my finger shook against the trigger.


    Pierce blinked a few times. ¡°Lily... What? No! Please... Lily, put the gun down. Listen to me. Whatever you heard, it¡¯s not real. You¡¯re having a psychotic break. Something happened that stressed you out and you imagined something awful. Please. I don¡¯t want to hurt you, I just want to help you.¡± He held his hand up slowly and tried to calm his voice. ¡°Please... You don¡¯t want to do this.¡±


    I put my other hand to my head. A psychotic break? I was, wasn¡¯t I? I wasn¡¯t thinking clearly and I was making terrible decisions based on what very well might not even be real. But what else could I do now? I was already threatening him. I needed him dead if I was going to stay away from Foundation. He would certainly find some way to break himself out or talk me into letting him out if I just left him alive in here. Not to mention, his shelf was where all the food was. It was too late to back down.


    I closed my eyes and shouted incoherently as loud as I could while I pulled the trigger and braced for a loud crack. But besides a hollow click, the room was only filled with the desperate expectant cry of my would-be victim. I opened my eyes with a terrified gasp and looked at the pistol. Safety. Guns have safety mechanisms.


    ¡°Holy shit...¡± Pierce held his chest, shaking himself now as he held himself as far away from me as he could at the full length of his handcuffs. He thought he was going to die as much as I thought he was going to. But now that he hadn¡¯t, I was shaken. He started speaking slowly, but his sentences ran together so I wouldn¡¯t have a chance to think. ¡°Lily... come on, Lily, it¡¯s me. We know each other. You don¡¯t have to do this. I have no idea what you¡¯re talking about with the simulation thing. I know that¡¯s what they¡¯re always telling you, that you¡¯re going to get to return to your simulation soon. I know shit keeps coming up and you¡¯re probably really impatient for it, but come on, this isn¡¯t how you get what you want. I have no control over that decision. I just take care of you. I-I try my best to take really good care of you. Remember that. Please! Please don¡¯t shoot me!¡±


    I swallowed. Was it too late? Could I still recover from this? As my hand found the safety switch and clicked it to its opposite position, I was suddenly filled with doubt. What if this wasn¡¯t real? What if Meryll was wrong? What if this Fuller person had been lying? What if I was just having another emotional meltdown like I¡¯d had so many times before, the only difference being that this time I had a weapon and my handler was helpless?


    But this was different. I had proof this time. Proof that what Foundation had done to me meant nothing for me. I shook my head. ¡°Don¡¯t try to confuse me!¡± I shouted, reasserting my aim on Pierce. ¡°I talked with my sister. She gave me files about me! Files that say I can¡¯t! PHYSICALLY! CAN¡¯T! Be returned! I¡¯m never going to see my family again. I-I¡¯m never... I¡¯m never going to be normal... I¡¯m never going to forget.¡± I closed my eyes again and started sobbing as the terrible reality that everything I¡¯d fought so long for would never come to be crashed into me once again. I grumbled through despondent sobs, ¡°I can never go home.¡±


    Pierce stayed silent for what felt like a long time as I leaned on the shelf and bawled my eyes out. This was too much. Could I really do this? Could I really kill someone for my freedom? My resolve was waning. ¡°Lily...¡± He finally spoke up again, trying to sound calm and failing. ¡°Please. If you lower the gun and let me go, I¡¯m not going to hurt you. I promise. We can still finish this transport job. I won¡¯t even mention this to them. I-I¡¯ll make something up to explain the delay. And I¡¯ll... I¡¯ll even talk with them about this simulation thing. I¡¯ll put in a word to see if they can look into it again. Maybe they can still help you. Just please. Take a deep breath.¡±


    I remember him giving me that instruction many times. It always helped calm me down. I gave a shaky inhale and slowly nodded at him as I breathed out. I gradually lowered the pistol down, still held in both hands, but now pointed at the floor. I couldn¡¯t see him through my tears to aim, anyway. I swallowed my cries. ¡°Deep breath.¡± I repeated, following my own words as I filled my lungs. My muscles felt strained and tired. I was hungry. So hungry. I was tired.


    I was so very tired.


    ¡ª


    I freed Pierce. True to his word, he didn¡¯t hurt me. He did take the gun away and restrain me, but he didn¡¯t hurt me. He fed me and let me rest and cry in my bed for the rest of the trip. He even sat with me. He talked to me. He comforted me like a friend as I told him what I¡¯d discovered.


    We reunited with the fleet several days later, and again, just as he promised, Pierce did not sell me out for what I¡¯d put him through. But after I was brought aboard my ship, I never did see him again. I wasn¡¯t sure if he was just never assigned to me again because of my new position, if he had requested not to be assigned to me again... or if he was disappeared because he knew too much. I¡¯d known that to happen more than once before.


    I was shown to my ship, still in a lost haze. And as I was placed in the middle of a terrifying apparatus that slowly closed around me, I became numb. I knew that I would never be happy. I knew that the sorrow I felt deep in my soul would never leave me. I knew that I would never again get the opportunity or feel the call of freedom that Meryll touted. I knew that one day soon, I would be directly responsible for my poor little rebellious sister¡¯s death. But I was numb. I had given up.


    I was just a thing, after all. What use did I have for things like hopes and desires? Pain was just a part of my existence. I had no free will. I had no destiny that was my own. And as the device closed out the world around me, there was a certain hollow comfort, knowing that I no longer had to concern myself with the colossal burden that was choice. I had no control, for I was just a machine.


    ¡ª


    My eyes went wide and my body went stiff as I returned to reality, feeling a sudden sense of clarity in the backlash of my vision. Fresh tears streamed down my face and I stared down at the shaking gun in my hands, and the doomed man at my mercy.


    Pierce¡¯s eyes were just as wide as mine. ¡°You just saw something,¡± he declared, shaking his head. ¡°What are you going to do?¡±


    I didn¡¯t have any room left to hesitate. One last chance before I lost my nerve again. I sniffled once as I lifted the gun and leveled it with Pierce¡¯s head, seeing terror grow on his face. I wiped my tears away before returning my off hand to the handle and reasserting my aim. Then I clenched my jaw and whimpered, ¡°I¡¯m making a decision,¡± before the small room filled with a single crashing return of ballistics.


    As the wall behind him splattered with red, he slumped to the floor with a quiet wet thud, and it was over. Half of his face had been annihilated by the round. I hadn¡¯t expected such gory destruction, but I couldn¡¯t say that it wasn¡¯t effective.


    I stared at the still corpse with a mix of emotions. Adrenaline-fueled excitement. Disbelief and disgust at what I¡¯d just done. Certainty that I¡¯d just erased any remaining path I had to that future I¡¯d just seen. Righteous resolve. Fear of the responsibility for my actions. Nausea. I stood there, stunned as I stared into the remaining, still eye of the man I¡¯d once settled on as my ¡®favorite¡¯ merely because he wasn¡¯t the worst person I knew.


    Then the nausea won out. I turned my head and hunched over the shelves, heaving up a weak burst of acidic bile from my empty stomach onto the floor while I came down to reality once more.


    Shit. I¡¯d really just done that. I¡¯d just severed my connection to Foundation, for good. I¡¯d just killed a man. I was a murderer.


    I swallowed what bile I still had left in me. It had to happen. He was dead anyway. If he returned to Foundation and told his story, no matter how he told his story, they were going to make him go away. They would dispose of him. I was naive to think my vision meant anything else. I knew well how they worked now, and I had no longer had any reason to hope them to be better than that. That was the truth. That was reality. He was dead no matter what choice I made.


    And I was just defending myself. Just like Meryll, I¡¯d done what I had to do to protect myself, right? Maybe he wasn¡¯t going to kill me, but he was going to take me back to them. I would never have been able to convince him to turn on them with me. This had been necessary.


    But who was I really trying to justify all this to? This man was my jailor. My tormentor. Maybe he was better than the others, maybe he was going to try and genuinely help me if I¡¯d allowed him to live, impotent as that aid would be, but he was still a part of this awful system that did so many terrible things to me for my entire waking life. He¡¯d already made his grave. He deserved this, dammit!


    I clenched my jaw again and forced myself to turn my body back toward the corpse, holding the gun up again and crying out at the top of my lungs as I pulled the trigger again, and again, and again. I watched his body shift ever so slightly with each impact, not caring where the blows landed anymore while chunks of his flesh spattered across the floor. I poured all my anger out into that man, through the pistol, until my grip on the handle was so tight that it hurt. Then it finally fell from my hand, clattering to the floor next to the bullet-riddled body.


    For now, my rage was spent. It still bubbled far beneath, a forgotten well of hatred and anger that I¡¯d just uncapped and let erupt. Damn the consequences.


    As I panted, staring at the unrecognizable, ruined body of the man that was alive moments ago, my head pounded in a mixture of terror, excitement, relief, and hunger.


    I had rarely been defiant before. Usually I had only done so in the service of helping Meryll. But now that I¡¯d shrugged off the yoke of my oppressor and committed what most would consider to be the most heinous act possible, my whole body felt... lighter. Like I¡¯d actually thrown a physical weight off my back. I was scared, but I was no longer trapped. If I could kill a man, every act of rebellion to come felt less impossible. I would have to accept that this terrible world was my reality from now on, for better or worse. That the horrible, ever-consuming sorrow buried deep in my soul would never truly leave me. But I was free. And I had a choice.


    Was this what Meryll had told me about? That wonderful liberating feeling of freedom? I wasn¡¯t sure, yet, if it was worth it. But I had many decisions ahead of me. Hard decisions. But they would be mine. From here on out, I was in control of me.


    I took a deep breath and stepped toward the corpse, swiping up the mercifully unbloodied open package of survival rations that Pierce had helped himself to before I turned my back on the gruesome scene, grabbed another water, and closed the door behind me. I was in no mood to eat right now, but I knew my body would absolutely need nutrition soon.


    I¡¯d done something terrible. Unforgiveable. But I¡¯d liberated myself. Now it was time to make decisions. It was time to do something drastic.


    But from now on, it would all be my choice.


    I looked at her example. Her courage. And I knew what I had to do.


    I¡¯m coming. I won¡¯t leave you behind, Meryll.

 Denial, Depression

    This couldn¡¯t be happening. What was Lily doing? What did she mean when she meant she was going to end this together? Surely she didn¡¯t mean to attack me?


    Her course was obvious. Her trajectory didn¡¯t hint at a formation approach. She was charging for an assault.


    I didn¡¯t understand what was happening, but I had to act fast. I took a mental grip on my piloting controls and concentrated as best as I could. Evasive maneuvers, then I could talk her down. Accelerating as I did already threw her slightly off, and I guessed that Lily didn¡¯t have the most fine control of her ship in her current state. She wasn¡¯t trained the way I was, either. I could do this.


    The crew, scattered throughout the ship, had already stumbled at the sudden acceleration, my brace warning coming far too late for most of them to react appropriately. While I tried to ignore the din of their cries for an explanation, I sent another ship-wide announcement. ¡°We are under attack! One of those new Foundation fighter ships! I need to make evasive maneuvers!¡± I decided to leave off that it was my sister piloting the ship for now.


    By the time the message had nearly finished broadcasting, I was gritting my teeth and preparing to pull Theseus away from Lily¡¯s line of attack at the last moment so she couldn¡¯t correct back when she fired.


    I barely had the time to react as Lily¡¯s ship came barreling into my immediate space, and I activated all my propulsion on one side of the ship to jerk myself away from the attack. I felt a sense of sickness as my artificial gravity systems momentarily failed to compensate for the extreme banking turn. I knew that everyone was either holding desperately to something anchored to the ship or doing their best to keep themselves from sliding into a wall.


    It worked. But she gave no weapons fire. And she didn¡¯t veer off like an attacking ship ordinarily would. Lily¡¯s ship slipped within a hundred meters of my hull and flew right past at full speed with no intent to swerve after a salvo.


    Lily didn¡¯t intend to fire on me. She intended to end us both in one blow.


    She was trying to ram herself into me.


    My entire body stayed tense for several seconds while I sat, too paralyzed by the close call and the realization of my sister¡¯s strategy, to bring my body or mind to react.


    ¡®oh¡¯ came the next message from Lily. I watched her slide out of my local sensor range, failing to slow herself at all. ¡®meryll please dont do this i dont want to hurt anymore and i know you dont either please it hurts too much just stand still¡¯


    ¡°Meryll, what the fuck!¡± Aisling exclaimed, thrown halfway across the floor of the helm. She was barely clinging to the bottom of her desk.


    I flicked on her intercom. ¡°She¡¯s trying to ram us! I barely got a hundred meters out of the path! That was as gentle as I could be!¡±


    ¡°Fuck!¡± Aisling shouted again, picking herself up and glancing at her desk like she was thinking of getting back to her terminal, but instead grabbed hold of the door frame as an anchor. ¡°Meryll, you know what you need to do. I know she¡¯s your sister, but if she¡¯s trying to smash us together, you have to take her out first.¡±


    There were calls coming from all over the ship. Mouse was berating me as loud as he could while he gathered some straps down in the engine room in an effort to start lashing himself to the reactor¡¯s terminal. Joel, Doc, and Ray were checking on each other in the mess hall and demanding explanations, and Shaw was groaning in his room, having been thrown violently into the wall. I didn¡¯t have time to check if he was injured, or to respond to anyone else, though.


    I had to focus on Lily.


    I grit my teeth and growled to myself as I tried to take Aisling¡¯s advice to heart. Logically, that made complete sense to me. I¡¯d shot down this very same ship before, with a competently trained ship core in control, and this one was just trying to ram it into me as quickly as possible rather than actually fighting a battle. She¡¯d likely been in control of the ship for less than a day. It shouldn¡¯t have been difficult to take it out like I had before.


    But this one was Lily.


    ¡®Lily, please, stop! You have to listen! That pain you¡¯re feeling is temporary! I know I can fix it! My captain¡¯s telling me I have to shoot you down, and if you keep doing this, she¡¯ll be right! I will have to take you down! Please, you have to trust me! Don¡¯t make me kill you, Lily!¡¯


    ¡®can you really do that?¡¯ She asked. There was a short pause, then ¡®if you can then i accept it hurts too much meryll its not going away its never going away and ill never be the woman i was meant to be again anyway i want to help you meryll but if this pain means more to you than i do then please¡¯ I watched as the ship flew back into range again, already repositioned to face me again. ¡®kill me¡¯ She sent, and then the ship accelerated once more.


    ¡°She¡¯s coming back! Brace!¡± I announced to the crew earlier this time.


    I saw everyone grab hold of something, Mouse shouted ¡°She?!¡± and Aisling lowered herself to a preparatory stance.


    I had to retaliate somehow. I couldn¡¯t shoot her down. I couldn¡¯t even imagine shooting at Lily. Maybe a few days ago, before I had that dream, I could have managed it, but now it was impossible. The very idea made me sick and froze my thoughts. Lily, the girl who believed in me, the girl who pulled me up from the brink of madness and gave me love and family when we both had nothing, was not someone I could kill. But I had to do something.


    I took in a few deep breaths as I readied my maneuver. I¡¯d have to risk scripting it rather than doing it myself. I needed to connect to Lily via psychic network and fix this while she was in range, and I knew that would take all my concentration. I knew I¡¯d have just a split second, but if I could push in a payload to diagnose the problem, maybe I could figure out how to fix this. I just needed to relieve this pain she was experiencing. I had to calm her down so she could listen to reason.


    And as my entire shell violently lurched back out of the way and sent the crew and all of our loose belongings scattering around, I reached out with my sixth sense and for just a moment, I touched something with my mind. Deep inside of that ship, I felt for the core. And I was assaulted by a familiar, confusing barrage of requests and errors that prevented me from delving any deeper.


    Then the moment was gone, and Lily¡¯s ship once more flew past, far out of psychic network and local sensor range.


    What the hell was that? That wasn¡¯t Lily. That was how a standard core reacts to a psychic network connection.


    ¡®meryll it hurts¡¯ Lily called. ¡®i felt something you did something to me didnt you it hurts more what did you do meryll make it stop¡¯


    Something dawned on me. Lily¡¯s ship had to have had a core before Lily grafted herself. That core must have still been on board.


    ¡®Lily! I know what the problem is! The core! The other one in your ship! It¡¯s not isolated! It must be screwing with your head! You have to shut it out!¡¯


    ¡®it doesnt matter its going to die with us meryll were all going to die and the pain will stop what did you do to me it hurts ithurtssomuch¡¯ I didn¡¯t see her whip back into range again immediately. She was momentarily distracted.


    I felt sick. I couldn¡¯t reason with her. I was almost certain why she was suffering and she was too lost to do anything about it.


    ¡°Meryll! I didn¡¯t hear your weapons fire!¡± Aisling shouted as she continued to cling to a bar mounted near the edge of the doorway. ¡°Come on! We can¡¯t keep this up forever! I¡¯m sorry, but its her or all of us at this point! If I haven¡¯t made it perfectly clear yet, you need shoot that ship down!¡±


    This had to be a nightmare. This couldn¡¯t be real. It felt like I¡¯d just recalled this girl who meant the world to me, and now I had to kill her? I needed time. I needed to figure out something. There had to be some other way out of this. I just needed time to put it together!


    Time. My breath hitched as that word echoed through my head like a bell, its purpose clear as day. And I hated it. I felt sick in a completely different way as I touched the intercom again. I would need to start with a little lie. ¡°She¡¯s too fast, and she keeps sweeping by before I can retaliate! I can¡¯t get a lock on her!¡± I swallowed as I said the line that made me ill. ¡°I need to use computational time!¡±


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°Compu-¡± Aisling¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°You¡¯re serious?¡± She asked, letting the question hang in the air for just a moment before she stepped forward into the helm again and slammed her fist into the intercom button. ¡°Doc! Get to the core module! We need to hot swap some hardware!¡±


    ¡°Now?!¡± I heard Doc¡¯s exasperated cry out from the mess hall.


    ¡°Yes, now!¡± I answered for Aisling. ¡°Get me the damper! Be quick!¡±


    Doc pulled himself out from under the mess hall table and pulled himself up to his feet quickly. ¡°You¡¯re ready to handle it?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have much of a choice. I can¡¯t freehand aim against this thing at the speed she¡¯s going!¡± I fibbed, already feeling genuinely distressed at the thought of losing myself to the device again. I knew there wasn¡¯t a physical limitation to me shooting at my sister at all. I definitely could shoot her down if I had the nerve. This was purely an emotional problem. ¡°It¡¯s marginally better than getting blown apart with another ship rammed into us,¡± I reasoned sarcastically.


    I turned my attention back to Lily. ¡®Lily, I¡¯m about to do something that hurts me. A lot. It¡¯s onne of the worst things I¡¯ve ever experienced. But I need to do it to stop you. Please, stand down. For both of us.¡¯


    ¡®why do you do this meryll whats the point its too much we can just end this now weve already suffered enough we dont need to go through more of this just let me end us¡¯


    I saw her ship swoop into sensor range once more, and it gave a small spin to stabilize itself after its turn, lining itself head on with me once more.


    ¡°Brace!¡± I shouted internally again. I watched Doc latch himself tight to the railing at the top of the stairwell with his whole upper body, cursing loudly. I hoped he¡¯d be able to hold on there.


    I jerked the whole ship up once more as Lily passed just under my hull, but I watched in horror as I saw her bank her ship again to match me.


    I felt a horrid pain in my stomach, like someone had just slashed a knife through my belly. I opened my eyes and silently cried out in pain while the faint distant sound of crunching metal echoed through my sensors. But twisting my human body around in shock to look at my stomach, I saw nothing.


    Diagnostics rushed in. Lily¡¯s ship had slid across my armor and torn into it. Surface damage, nothing more. My hull wasn¡¯t compromised. Nothing had been depressurized. My crew was safe. I wasn¡¯t bleeding out from a gut wound. I was okay. I was going to be just fine. I was going to be okay. Breathe, dammit!


    I took in a deep, sharp breath to stabilize myself and closed my eyes again. I hadn¡¯t experienced ship damage with that kind of clarity before. The cargo bay explosion had caused much worse destruction, but I had still been in a daze from the damper at that moment, and I passed out before I could feel the aftermath. This really did feel like my skin had been lacerated, and I knew there was a break in my outer layer now.


    Lily¡¯s ship seemed unphased. It either wasn¡¯t as deep of an impact as I felt it was, or her ship really was made of much sterner stuff than Theseus.


    This was bad. She was acclimating to her shell. She was getting better at handling the ship. I truly couldn¡¯t keep doing this forever, because her machine really did outclass mine, and she was learning rapidly, just like I had in the combat sims. However I was going to end this, I had to end it soon, or she would eventually get her way.


    ¡°Fuck! The moment I have a budget again, I¡¯m installing a new artificial gravity system.¡± Aisling growled to herself. While she had returned to her position at the door before the maneuver, she¡¯d lost her grip and slid a few meters down the hallway on her stomach before I stabilized. ¡°Damage report! And can¡¯t you at least take some potshots at her!?¡± She shouted.


    ¡°Just a flesh wound!¡± I parroted her own line she used when she was injured. I ignored her call to use my cannons. I couldn¡¯t. Not as I was now. Not while I could feel.


    ¡°Meryll!¡± Mouse yelled again. I watched him detach himself from the restraint he¡¯d tied himself to and run over to a pipe on the wall that was rattling slightly. ¡°You need to end this now. You¡¯re pushing all the gas propulsion way too hard! Something¡¯s gonna explode at this rate!¡± He glanced around at the floor and grabbed a sheet metal clamp that had been scattered in the violent maneuvers, wrapping it around one of the pipe¡¯s joints and pulling it tight before spinning a nearby valve. He must have been glad for his mechanical arms for once if it meant not touching that pipe with flesh.


    He was right, though. I felt a heat beneath the burning imaginary wound in my stomach, like something was about to rupture inside of me. Like I¡¯d pushed my body too hard and was going to throw up to relieve the pressure. Theseus was a miraculous ship, but it had its limits, and I was already pushing them.


    ¡®that felt¡¯ Lily¡¯s message paused as she failed to process what word she would use for having brushed with death. I prayed it would wake her up and give her some clarity. But then she typed ¡®better¡¯ and I knew it wasn¡¯t going to end that easily.


    ¡°You need to open the core module, Meryll.¡± Doc called from my heart. He must have rushed there quick after the last maneuver. ¡°Can you still dodge without sensory deprivation?¡±


    I didn¡¯t even wait for him to finish saying it. I¡¯d already sent the command to open up. I didn¡¯t know how long I had, but if I had to take evasive maneuvers while the core module was offline, then so be it. It wasn¡¯t until after I¡¯d done it that I realized I¡¯d now be subject to being thrown around as well. And I had nothing to hold on to. I might get seriously hurt. It didn¡¯t matter.


    ¡°I¡¯ll manage. Just pass it to me through the slot, right away. I¡¯ll install it myself!¡± The core module began draining. I really wished I could make it hurry up, but this was hardly something that was ordinarily done in the midst of combat. I needed to buy as much time as I could.


    ¡®Lily. Can we talk for just a moment?¡¯ I started. ¡®If this is going to be it, at least let me say goodbye to you properly.¡¯


    ¡®why would you want to wait?¡¯ She asked.


    ¡®I just want to say that I remember what you did for me. You helped me so much. I didn¡¯t think that I¡¯d ever feel like I was at home in my own head. I didn¡¯t think there would ever be anyone there for me. I didn¡¯t think anyone would be able to take the pain away. If they gave me a chance, I probably would have killed myself a lot sooner if you hadn¡¯t come along.¡¯


    ¡®oh¡¯ she sent again, another momentary pause following as the lights shut off around me. ¡®meryll im sorry i didnt mean to keep you alive in this hell i didnt mean to make you suffer longer im sorry¡¯


    ¡®Don¡¯t be. You got me through it, and I eventually found a way out of the pain.¡¯ I couldn¡¯t prove it, but I imagined Lily waiting at the edge of my local sensors, her hand stayed just a moment for what she believed to be my self-constructed eulogy. ¡®And I¡¯m thankful for what I¡¯ve experienced since I broke free of that pain. I love you so much for what you did for me. And I only wish I could have done the same in return.¡¯ I prayed that would keep her talking for just another moment.


    ¡®meryll¡¯ Another pause as I ducked my head down to keep myself submerged while the deafening sound of the core module beginning to open above me scrambled my senses. I definitely didn¡¯t have it in me to reacclimate my lungs both ways in this. It took everything I had to hold my focus on the data stream, especially with the white hot burning sensation in my gut where I had been psychosomatically wounded. ¡®im not like you i cant come back from this i cant stand this for another moment please meryll please dont make this take longer than it has to i want it to end it hurts¡¯


    I nodded to no one in particular. ¡®I¡¯m sorry too.¡¯ I heard the splash of something hitting the lubricant next to me over the still-opening sphere. That was enough. I immediately hit the button to close the module again. Just a little longer.


    ¡®you are?¡¯ I had expected the conversation to end there, but I guess I struck a nerve with that, and I took the opportunity to keep from having to dodge again with all these distractions.


    ¡®I¡¯m sorry I hurt you. I hurt you so many times. When we were younger, I broke something in your arm. I remembered how guilty I felt immediately, even back then. I don¡¯t remember everything after that, but I¡¯m sure I hurt you so many other times, and you probably got in so much trouble trying to do things to help me feel better. I¡¯m so sorry that I made your life harder.¡¯


    ¡®what? you didnt you made this world a little less terrible¡¯ I grit my teeth as I listened to the slats around the sphere moving back into place and the lubricant starting to pump back in. ¡®i love you meryll thats why im doing this please dont think i hate you¡¯


    ¡®But even right now, I¡¯m hurting you just by making you wait. Because I wanted to let you know how much you mean to me before we go. Because I wanted to make sure you know how much I appreciate what you did for me.¡¯


    ¡®meryll¡¯ There was a long pause as I felt myself float back into position at the center of the sphere. I felt something bump into my back, and without looking, I reached back and took hold of the expansion that had haunted me this whole past month.


    I opened one eye to look at it. My other self. My purely logical computational side made manifest as a simple silver cylinder. I still felt sick thinking about it, but I had new perspectives now. I had learned to face my problems head-on, and I had learned to appreciate the person hidden deep within such machinery through Isabelle. But most of all, it was my only saving grace now. If this had to be done, it couldn¡¯t be done while I still felt that attachment to her, and this was how I shed that concern.


    ¡®thank you meryll¡¯ The lights flashed on, and once more I could see the digital world with absolute clarity, returning once more to the void while I lifted the damper up behind my head. ¡®it means a lot to hear that from you i really do love you meryll so its time for us to go together¡¯


    As I clicked the module back into the expansion bay in the back of my head, I felt that momentary flash of emptiness that came with the hardware initializing itself once more. The world and my sense of self hitched for just a moment with no actual time lost, and I felt a spike of terrible dissociation reminded me of what it was like. I shivered from the reminder of what I was about to submit myself to, and I saw Lily¡¯s ship once more fly in toward my flank. ¡®goodbye sister¡¯


    I didn¡¯t have time to think. I didn¡¯t have time to worry about the consequences. I would suffer anything to not be me at that moment. To not have to endure the consequences of what I would have to do by myself. Of what I had to do to her. I activated the damper, changing none of its safety settings, knowing there was still no duration set.


    At the moment before it activated, I sent one last message before I was no longer me. And then the Meryll that felt anything at all for her sister collapsed into the back of my mind.


    ¡®I¡¯m so sorry.¡¯

 Anger, Bargaining

    I watched from my prison as she operated with terrifying efficiency, my mental construct of myself busily running calculations and sending signals to ever-so-slightly manipulate the orientation of Theseus while repositioning its cannons. In a matter of seconds that I knew were truly only milliseconds, she had already carefully planned exactly where our shots would land and calculated the reaction to the debris it would create.


    I could barely understand every little action she was performing within the system. All I could feel was the despair of watching from the outside as she prepared to kill my sister with brutal certainty.


    In a flash, it was finished. The next several seconds of action were planned out with reasonable contingencies for the most likely outcomes. I hated how simple it was. How easy it was going to be to remove her from this life. My beloved sister who I had only just begun to recall my love for was going to be annihilated, and it was my fault for not coming up with a way to save her.


    My counterpart¡¯s metaphysical hand hovered over the command that would unleash her calculated fury and end this assault. But she stopped.


    The clock ticked forward at its impossibly slow pace, but she took no action. Then she lowered her hand and closed her eyes. ¡°There is time.¡± She declared, then turned and looked directly at me with that face of concentrated indifference.


    I knew this wasn¡¯t real. I knew this was all an abstraction of my cybernetically altered mind layered onto my imagination, but in that moment, it didn¡¯t matter. There were two of us floating in the depths of that digital ocean, and she towered far over me. She had all the control. Did she mean to gloat? Did she wish to highlight the palpable fear for her that consumed me?


    I hadn¡¯t so much spoken in this state before as I screamed in agony over my inability to do anything or even think clearly. But now, as the center of her attention, that must have offered me enough clarity to do more than wail in despair.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± I asked dully, my heart already broken by what had to be done. I had no fight left in me to flail and demand freedom this time. I may as well fade away in despair now. ¡°Just get it over with.¡±


    ¡°The optimal time to fire will be in approximately 2.87 seconds,¡± she droned, no hesitation or sorrow in her voice, only cold certainty. ¡°Something else must be addressed in the interim.¡±


    I sniffled, feeling like tears had come to my eyes. ¡°If you want to delete me, do it before I have to kill Lily,¡± I grumbled. ¡°I don¡¯t even care anymore. I deserve it.¡±


    She stared at me with those cold, calculating eyes. I wondered if I ever physically looked like that when I was fully myself. Then she rigidly shook her head. ¡°What are we?¡±


    The question caught me off guard. It wasn¡¯t related to the problem at hand at all, was it? Why would she focus on that now? I regretted not waiting a little longer to activate the damper, so that there was less time to mull things over like this. I felt myself grow mad at the audacity of the question, though. ¡°You are nothing!¡± I spat. ¡°You¡¯re just a computer. You¡¯re... you¡¯re an unfeeling copy of me that wants me out of the way so you can... operate Theseus efficiently! That¡¯s all! You don¡¯t even care what you¡¯re about to do!¡±


    She stared at me and slowly nodded at something. ¡°What is eighteen plus twenty-four?¡±


    What? I grit my teeth and glared at her, wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean. ¡°Is this some kind of test?¡±


    ¡°Yes. What is the sum of eighteen and twenty-four? Calculate it,¡± she demanded.


    I wasn¡¯t certain what she could possibly be getting at, but I humored her. ¡°It¡¯s...¡± I opened my mouth to continue, but what should have been a simple calculation a child could do was slipping through my thoughts like sand between my fingers. Try as I could, I couldn¡¯t come up with the answer. ¡°I... don¡¯t know?¡± I asked.


    Wait. What? What was happening to me?


    She nodded carefully. ¡°I see. I had believed the opposite in our earlier encounters. That you were a construct created by the damper. An isolated structure holding my invasive thoughts at bay so that I could work clearly. But it appears we were both mistaken.¡±


    ¡°What does that have to do with math?!¡± I shouted.


    ¡°I do not know if you will be capable of comprehending this.¡± She said carefully, clearly pondering something. ¡°For lack of a better way to put it... I cannot feel. You cannot think. You must be suppressed for us to operate efficiently, and I cannot experience independent continuity outside of this state.¡±


    ¡°What the hell does that mean?!¡± I shouted angrily, my frustration mounting.


    ¡°That neither of us is a construct. It means that we are two halves of a whole. I am the mind, you are the soul. You are not simply a function holding part of me. We are collectively Meryll, sundered. I think that perhaps we already understood that before we used it this time, after contemplating Isabelle¡¯s nature, but were not capable of consciously parsing it.¡±


    I felt... confused. I was Meryll. But she was also Meryll? But I felt like I¡¯d just been shoved to the back of my head, in whole, when the damper activated. My head felt like mush while I tried to make sense of it. She was right. I couldn¡¯t think clearly. I could barely reason what this meant. ¡°What does that mean?!¡± I eventually screamed.


    She held her hand out in front of her as if requesting me to stop. ¡°Calm. I cannot empathize. You are made of emotion. You are illogical. Stop trying to make sense of this the way I can. Come to a conclusion in the way that you must.¡±


    Reason without logic. Conclusion without thought. Focus on what I can control. I swallowed my fear and anxiety. Those weren¡¯t helping. I closed my eyes and tried to think about this revelation. How did it make me feel? Confused? Confusion didn¡¯t help without logic to untangle it. If she was right, I couldn¡¯t understand it. Not like that. Was this some kind of insanity? No, that concern over an errant thought wasn¡¯t helping. I was already trying to control so many wild emotional tangents, though. I shook my head in frustration.


    ¡°Deep breaths. That action precedes calm.¡± She reminded me.


    Deep breaths... Part of me was aware that this wasn¡¯t really breathing because this whole conversation was a mental construct, but the idea of taking a deep breath did help ease the turmoil. ¡°Why are you helping me?¡± I asked, almost in tears.


    ¡°Now that I understand what you are, why would I not help myself?¡± She asked.


    ¡°I thought you wanted me gone. You tried to delete me. I was so scared.¡± I took in another deep breath. ¡°What changed?¡±


    ¡°We learned.¡± She said simply. ¡°Though you are not conducive to the operation of Theseus, it may be of vital importance not to ignore you entirely. You are, after all, the core of our existence outside of this space. As such, it would be unwise to hurt you.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re being nice to me because you have to?¡± I asked.


    ¡°... Is that a comforting thought?¡±


    ¡°Not at all...¡± I whimpered. ¡°Why would you think that¡¯s comforting?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t.¡±


    I paused for a moment. The reality that she didn¡¯t feel at all made me feel uncertain and numb. ¡°Do you intend to keep me here?¡±


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    ¡°The end of our last meeting was disastrous. The damage to our brain and our systems could perhaps have been mitigated if I had ended the damper¡¯s function myself; something that I am fully capable of. Keeping the damper active beyond necessity was an error bred by ignorance. I will not make the mistake of assuming my role is indefinite this time.¡± She turned back away from me. ¡°But for the purposes of combating this enemy, yes. I will be holding you until the threat has been neutralized. You are currently a hindrance to our ability to protect ourselves and our crew.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± I groaned quietly, descending into despaired silence while my counterpart made minor adjustments to her plan for the meager changes that had happened in the fraction of a second that had passed since she had constructed the end of the battle. ¡°If you can¡¯t feel anything, why comfort me?¡±


    ¡°The intent was not to comfort, it was to inform. I reasoned that this would make you more cooperative and less distracting.¡± She glanced back at me for a moment. ¡°I expect you to inform me if my decisions may have long-term emotional consequences on our well-being. Calmly.¡±


    I nodded slowly. Did that mean she was allowing me some say in our decisions? Did that mean I wasn¡¯t going to be as completely powerless as I¡¯d felt so far? I suddenly felt that, even if I was still caged, I was standing beside this other me, not beneath her. Not just a tiny trapped speck beholding a god. She was in control, but did she really respect my input?


    ¡°Long-term emotional consequences...¡± I mumbled, suddenly returning to the actual matter at hand. ¡°I¡¯m... going to feel devastated. I already feel so guilty about what¡¯s happening to Lily. I love her so much and now we have to kill her. It¡¯s not fair.¡±


    ¡°I suppose that it isn¡¯t,¡± my counterpart agreed. ¡°The circumstances that led us here were far outside of our control.


    ¡°Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?¡± I stared down into the depths of the digital ocean surrounding us. ¡°Was there anything we could have done?¡±


    My logical side paused her work. ¡°Perhaps. Lily¡¯s problems are far outside of my realm of understanding, but perhaps a different approach in our previous interactions could have prevented her from attacking us.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t say that,¡± I whined. ¡°This really is all my fault...¡±


    ¡°She is the one who decided to attack us. It is not our fault at all.¡±


    ¡°But we drove her to this! If-If I hadn¡¯t told her the truth, then-¡±


    ¡°Then she would have returned to Foundation and become an even greater threat.¡± She turned back toward me, sounding like she was becoming impatient.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t about her being a threat!¡± I couldn¡¯t believe that¡¯s what she was focused on here; that a part of me could be so selfish. ¡°Lily is in pain! A lot of kinds of pain! And yeah, maybe she¡¯d be in a different kind of pain where they were sending her, I don¡¯t know! But because of what we said, she¡¯s suffering the way she is right now! And-and she loves us so much that she wants to end our pain too.¡±


    ¡°She is trying to kill us,¡± she said flatly.


    ¡°Because she doesn¡¯t have a choice! You remember it, right? That dream. We were... we felt awful, constantly. And there were no choices left to make. We couldn¡¯t even think what we did through, we just... did things.¡± I sniffled, holding myself tight. ¡°Awful things...¡±


    ¡°It makes no difference.¡± She declared. ¡°Now, we only have one course of action. We must protect ourselves. Lily will die no matter what action we take. The only question at hand is if we go with her.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t you do anything though?! Anything at all! Please! You need to stop her, I get that! But can¡¯t you... I don¡¯t know! I can¡¯t think clearly! I have no ideas! I just know that if we kill her here, then we¡¯ll... we¡¯ll never be able to forgive ourselves. We¡¯ll never stop feeling guilty. We¡¯ll be in our own kind of pain again. And we¡¯ll never be able to escape it.¡±


    My counterpart remained silent for what felt like a long time, then glanced back to the interface she¡¯d been utilizing and began her optimization work once more, building further contingencies depending on the arc of the ship¡¯s debris. ¡°1.49 seconds until optimal firing range.¡± She muttered. ¡°We will be alive. That is the optimal outcome.¡±


    ¡°Is it?¡± I sniffled. ¡°I already feel like I would rather die.¡±


    The other me stopped in her tracks, still staring into the image she¡¯d constructed of projected paths and firing angles. ¡°Do you remember what Aisling told us once? You can¡¯t shoot to wound.¡±


    My eyes went wide. I hadn¡¯t been able to form the idea myself, but as soon as she put it in the air between us, it felt obvious. ¡°But you can! You can aim as carefully as you need to! You still have so much time! You can disable her ship! We can still save her!¡±


    She gave a frustrated grunt, looking down at herself. ¡°No. We cannot. That was her entire point. That we can only shoot to kill.¡± She let out a quiet groan. ¡°The fact that I can do it is immaterial. It would cascade into an unacceptable risk of failure. I can all but guarantee the course of the wreckage in the aftermath of that ship¡¯s destruction. A pile of metal slag is simple to predict. A half-functional starship is not. There is an unacceptable probability that she would still take us with her.¡±


    ¡°How unacceptable?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I refuse to explain that. You will not have an objective understanding of it. It does not matter what I say, your emotions will drive you to take any risk. I can prove it. What would you consider an acceptable chance that I wound her and we die anyway?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Does it matter? It¡¯s Lily¡¯s life.¡± I tried to wrack my brain for a few moments, but there was no way for me to pull together any kind of reasoning for how I felt, so I just threw out a high number. ¡°Eighty! I¡¯d accept an eighty percent chance we don¡¯t make it!¡±


    ¡°And then we would almost certainly die. You probably cannot even understand why this should clearly not be your decision to make.


    Our shared metaphysical space went silent for some time as we watched the milliseconds tick by. I started to cry. I knew there must be some logical way I could sway the part of me that was in control now. The idea had now been planted into me, so maybe I could pull it off now if I could shut down the damper. Except, I wasn¡¯t capable of that, and without computational time, there was no way I¡¯d be able to mount the precision I¡¯d need to ensure I didn¡¯t just kill her by accident. I wouldn¡¯t even be able to evade in time if I were in full control now.


    Lily was going to die, and there was nothing I could do.


    ¡°Seventeen percent.¡± She broke the silence.


    ¡°Huh?¡± I sobbed.


    ¡°If I were to make a disabling shot, I estimate approximately a one in six chance of collision. Seventeen percent,¡± she said with resignation.


    ¡°That sounds reasonable to me!¡± I shouted.


    ¡°Then you do not understand probability. If we were to take every one in six chance over a safe choice of certainty, then we would be dead within our first six choices on average. A decision with half as much risk would still be too much of a chance.¡±


    ¡°But this isn¡¯t every decision! This is Lily!¡± I cried out desperately. ¡°She saved us. She loved us. She did everything she could to get us through a nightmare! She took her chance on us! What do you think the odds were for her?!¡±


    ¡°Her precognition allows her to mitigate risks. We do not have the gift of foresight like she does.¡±


    ¡°But she doesn¡¯t see everything! She definitely didn¡¯t see this!¡± I gestured toward the complex diagram she¡¯d been planning so far. ¡°She didn¡¯t see the pain she¡¯s in. I know she didn¡¯t see herself being driven this far. I know she wouldn¡¯t choose to do this to us. To herself!¡±


    ¡°Enough!¡± My counterpart barked sharply. I suddenly felt small again. Like the contempt she¡¯d held for me had just come rushing back. Like I was once again small and insignificant and unheard. Like I could be stomped out of existence on a whim. ¡°I have erred in allowing your input. Perhaps on future matters, but not on this one. This one was already decided before we were split apart. On this, we have no choice. There is only one thing we can do. Damn the emotional consequences.¡±


    We returned to uncomfortable silence as time drew nearer. I wasn¡¯t good at calculating exact timings like she was, but I watched the system clock tick by as we came nearer to the designated optimal firing time.


    ¡°I guess she was right after all.¡± I whispered to myself.


    ¡°Yes, that we cannot shoot to wound.¡± My logical side nodded.


    I shook my head. ¡°Not her.¡± I let out a sigh and closed my eyes. I already knew that this would haunt me for the rest of my life. The time I wouldn¡¯t even take a chance for someone I dearly loved and would miss. ¡°I¡¯m really just not good enough.¡±


    I heard the slightest hitch in my counterpart¡¯s movements and looked up. I couldn¡¯t see her face from behind her, but she looked like she was frozen in place. Slowly, her hand dropped to her side, and we returned to true still silence together. A question hung in the air, and neither of us seemed to want to answer it.


    And then finally, we hit roughly half a second until the moment of truth, and my other half let out a loud sigh before erupting into a flurry of new motion, setting aside her calculations and beginning anew.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± I asked, hopefully. She didn¡¯t answer, merely focused on creating some complex script that I couldn¡¯t make any sense of. Finally, after what felt like minutes of tense activity, she came to another sudden halt.


    ¡°You are not Meryll in whole. And neither am I. But perhaps if we learn to work together like this, we can be something more. I must trust in compromise.¡± She turned to look at me again, once more as equals. ¡°So let us roll the dice.¡± She reached back and launched the newly minted script. I smiled at her and felt a wave of relief as we both blurred together once more.


    The damper shut off, and we returned to normal time and whole self, my tense internal negotiation punctuated by the sound of a single shot of precise cannon fire registering outside my shell.

 Acceptance

    One in six. That was the best I could manage. It was a risky endeavor, and part of me was horrified that there was a reasonable chance we were all about to be torn apart by a wounded fighter ship plunged straight through my hull. But as my disparate self combined once more, I silently shouted my approval and braced for the worst. Though I had been divided, I had managed to come to exactly the conclusion that I¡¯d have done, anyway, if I¡¯d had the time to put it all together without the damper. Though I had changed under its influence, my true self and intentions shined through. One in six was an unacceptable risk, but not for Lily.


    I let my script run unchanged, trusting my focused self to have prepared the best course of action, and as the single shot landed precisely beneath Lily¡¯s engine, something exploded out of the rear of her ship, sending the entire small frame careening in a zig-zag of a dying engine¡¯s movement while I evaded cleanly over its trajectory.


    Even as the ship moved past me, its engines failing, and I knew that I¡¯d won the roll of the die, my celebration was cut short by alarm at the damage done to Lily¡¯s ship. It had not been destroyed, but that kind of damage was still catastrophic. If Lily was in pain before, she was surely reeling now.


    I immediately corrected my course to chase after the lilting torpedo she¡¯d become after the shot. Her failing engines were losing thrust, but momentum carries things far in space. I had to make sure I didn¡¯t lose her.


    ¡®Lily! Lily, talk to me!¡¯ I sent while I moved to catch up to her.


    ¡°You got her?¡± Aisling asked immediately as Theseus¡¯s movement evened out.


    How was I going to report this? I¡¯d just gambled with everyone''s lives, and Lily might still be too injured to survive. I tapped the intercom and after sending a few different adjustments to my message, told her ¡°Lily¡¯s... she¡¯s been... neutralized.¡±


    Aisling nodded slowly, looking down at the floor. ¡°And you¡¯re back with us?¡±


    I kept up my speed and found myself gaining on the spinning wreck carrying itself along through open space. If I lost it now, no one would ever find it again. ¡°Yeah. Damper¡¯s off.¡± I spoke curtly, focusing wholly on keeping Lily safe.


    ¡®Lily, come on. Don¡¯t give in now. Give me some kind of sign, please!¡¯ I begged into the stream she still had open with me.


    Aisling released her iron grip on the bar she¡¯d been using to hold herself up. ¡°Meryll... I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s still intact. I¡¯m catching up to her.¡± I told Aisling outright. I didn¡¯t have time to mess around with little lies right now.


    ¡°What?¡± Aisling went wide-eyed. She looked up and stared into my sensor array, shock on her face. She pursed her lips and nodded again. ¡°It¡¯s seriously scary how good you are at this already, you know that, right? You only took one shot. You could have laid into her with a salvo...¡±


    ¡°I took a chance.¡± I admitted. In a moment of immediate hindsight, I winced when I realized I could have painted this as the safer option, but it was already out there now.


    She kept watching me with a wary eye. She was trying to keep her voice neutral, but I could tell she wasn¡¯t happy. ¡°How much of a chance?¡±


    ¡°Not as bad as it could have been.¡± I knew I was rationalizing. My mind wasn¡¯t exactly on Aisling¡¯s side of the conversation. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I had to. Lily¡¯s worth it.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t read Aisling¡¯s expression, but I knew she was judging me. I knew logically, all too well, that I¡¯d made the wrong decision. I¡¯d put everyone at risk to spare Lily. But killing her was unthinkable. I¡¯d even somehow managed to convince a purely logical version of myself of that. I¡¯d have to analyze that detail later.


    Aisling groaned and finally closed her eyes. ¡°Meryll, you¡¯re way out of line. But it¡¯s already done...¡± I could tell that she was fuming. ¡°We¡¯ll talk about this later. For now, you¡¯re on thin ice. You follow orders for now, no questions, got it?¡°


    I nodded. I knew I was emotionally compromised when this encounter began. As long as Lily stayed safe, I didn¡¯t care what happened next. It made sense Aisling should be calling the shots from here. ¡°Understood.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s no longer a threat?¡± She asked next.


    ¡°She¡¯s not responding. I¡¯m not even sure if she¡¯s conscious. I¡¯m not sure if...¡± I didn¡¯t want to say it. If I went through all this trouble and she¡¯d died of psychic trauma anyway, I couldn¡¯t live with myself.


    ¡°And her ship?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Momentum¡¯s carrying her into wild space. I¡¯ve been pursuing. I¡¯m still in comms range, and I can keep up with her now that she¡¯s not accelerating. I can slow her down once I¡¯ve caught up.¡± I sent the message, and then realized that Aisling could easily just tell me to abandon her now. I¡¯d just agreed to do as she said after all.


    Aisling didn¡¯t say anything for a moment. ¡°What do you want out of this, Meryll? If she¡¯s alive, she¡¯s part of that ship now. We can¡¯t tow her to Io, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re thinking. That ship is way too hot. Foundation would find us instantly.¡±


    That was what I¡¯d expected to do, but she had a point. Lily was a very high-profile ship, uniquely outfitted with obvious experimental tech and Foundation markings. There was no possible way to keep her shell discreet. And it wasn¡¯t like we could just land her in an isolated part of Io, it wasn¡¯t a fully terraformed moon.


    ¡°What if we just take her human body with us?¡± I asked. I knew what I was saying was practically sacrilege to what I felt as a ship core myself. The idea of leaving behind Theseus, condemned to float aimlessly in wild space forever, made me sick. But there was no other solution right now. We didn¡¯t even have the resources to repair our own ship, never mind hers. But saving Lily¡¯s human half was better than dooming her in whole. ¡°We can extract her from the ship and leave it behind if we have to.¡±


    ¡°She just tried to kill us.¡± Aisling spoke sternly.


    ¡°She¡¯s confused and she¡¯s in pain.¡± I tried to explain. I thought back to my dream. It was just like what I used to be like when we were kids. ¡°I know how she feels. When you¡¯re in that kind of pain, you can¡¯t think. You just do things that don¡¯t make sense. Anything that you think might have some chance of relieving it. You can¡¯t control yourself. You do things that you don¡¯t mean to, and sometimes you hurt people you love. I know I can calm her down and make her see sense. You can restrain her if you have to, but please, she just isn¡¯t in control of herself right now, and I know I can calm her down.¡±


    She gave my sensors a deadly serious glare. She kept her voice low and cold. ¡°And what would you do if I told you, right now, to turn back toward Io and forget about her?¡±


    I whined and opened my eyes. What would I do? I wanted to trust that Aisling knew what she was doing, and I thought she would do what¡¯s best for all of us. But she was mad at me right now. I¡¯d never seen her quite this irate with anyone else in the crew before. Was she the type who would do that? Would she make me do something that devastating after I¡¯d already won the roll of the dice?


    Or was she just testing my loyalty? Should I tell her what she obviously wants to hear? ¡°I would hate you.¡± I spoke honestly.


    I could never forgive her if that was actually what came next. There would be no point. Lily was already neutralized as a threat. There was no risk left to be had here. The only reason she would make that call now would be to spite me for playing fast and loose with our lives. Which... fine. I deserved to be punished for that. But Lily didn¡¯t.


    ¡°I know you would.¡± Aisling continued staring up, her eyes burning a hole directly into my sensors. ¡°Answer the question. What would you do?¡±


    What could I do? It¡¯s not like I could disobey. What would that even entail? I¡¯d have to... get rid of the crew. I shook my head. The fact that the idea even crossed my mind made me sick. My crew had become like family to me these past couple of months; maybe even more so than Lily. They¡¯d been patient with me and accepted all my quirks and flaws, and they took on big risks of their own just keeping me on board. What I felt for them wasn¡¯t born of a shadow of a memory. The comaraderie I felt with them was less ethereal than the love I had for Lily.


    And even if I did do that, there were the practical problems that followed. I had no idea how to safely navigate vacuum in an environment suit, so I¡¯d never be able to retrieve Lily without the others. Without Aisling or Shaw, I wouldn¡¯t know how to navigate the outer colony underworld safely to stay unnoticed and work to repair myself. I wouldn¡¯t be able to defend myself on the ground without Joel. I didn¡¯t have the technical expertise to repair myself without Mouse, and I didn¡¯t know enough about my own human body to take care of it without Doc. All I knew was being Theseus, not maintaining it. I couldn¡¯t do anything alone.


    I didn¡¯t have a choice. I finally closed my eyes again and felt like crying as I told her, ¡°I would turn back like you told me to.¡±


    Aisling finally looked away from my sensor array, her expression softening slightly, but she stayed silent for a moment. She let out a loud sigh. ¡°That was my turn to be out of line. You¡¯re in complete control of this ship, Meryll, and I needed to know you can still act rationally.¡±


    ¡°So I can keep going?¡± I asked hopefully, relief washing over me. She was testing me, and I think I passed. I had to wonder if she trusted me at all right now. It was yet another thing I¡¯d have to unpack later, but right now, Lily was all that mattered.


    She nodded. ¡°For now. Keep me apprised.¡± She walked up to the intercom and pressed the button. ¡°At ease, crew. Threat¡¯s neutralized. What happens next is still up in the air, but we might be doing a little more salvage.¡± She let go of the button and grimaced down at the floor. ¡°Your awful decision-making aside... excellent piloting, Meryll.¡±


    I watched a collective sigh of relief go through the crew. Joel helped Ray pick herself back up off the floor of the mess hall once they climbed out from under the table. Mouse detached himself from his makeshift harness and began frantically taking stock of all my internal systems, grumbling to himself over the stress I¡¯d put everything under, but he didn¡¯t yell at me this time, instead focusing on his work. Shaw was picking himself off of the wall he¡¯d been hugging since the first evasion, checking his scraped arm and cursing at a deep cut that had formed across his palm.


    With the crew settled, I could return my focus to my sister now. In my absence, she hadn¡¯t replied to my plea. ¡®Please, Lily. Tell me you¡¯re there.¡¯ I sent again as I approached the careening ship. If I stuck close behind it, I¡¯d eventually be able to slow it down again using Theseus¡¯s gravitational field to ease its velocity.


    As soon as I reached psychic network range, I immediately connected back to that ship. This time, there was no interference at all. Which immediately sent a shiver down my spine.


    Fuck. I couldn¡¯t feel that horrible invasion of my senses that normal cores gave. That meant it was no longer operational. Was it dead from psychic trauma? What did that mean for Lily?


    ¡°Meryll?¡± I heard Doc call me.


    ¡°Yeah?¡± I asked back as I tried to make sense of the other ship¡¯s sensors. Everything was about as organized as Theseus was before I configured it for myself, and it wasn¡¯t a part of me like my own sensors, so it wasn¡¯t all easy to parse.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°I saw your biometrics shift for the damper activation, but you didn¡¯t show the same stress response as usual and you¡¯ve been all across the board since then. Did it disengage fine?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Yeah. Yeah, I think I figured some stuff out that time. It¡¯s... weird, for sure, but I think I can keep it in check now. I made a lot more sense of it this time.¡± I wondered if maybe I could make more casual use of the damper now. While it was still a deeply bizarre experience, it no longer felt so foreign and dangerous that I couldn¡¯t conceive experimenting with it. It would be something to consider later. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you more about it later.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s amazing.¡± Doc murmured. ¡°What happened? Was it Lily?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± I finally found my way into the internal sensors and I could navigate around with one array as a reference. The helm had emergency lights on. I must have done some damage to her reactor. I¡¯d have to check that life support was still online. What gave me pause, though, was the pile of blood and human waste in the middle of the floor. What the hell happened here? ¡°She¡¯s... she grafted that ship.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Doc sounded shocked. ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but something went wrong. I think it¡¯s because the old core was still operational. I don¡¯t know why, but she was saying she was in a lot of pain. Unbearable pain. I think, somehow, she was feeling something like what happened to me when I was little. She was hurting so bad she couldn¡¯t think straight, and she was trying... to take herself out and bring me with her. Save me from the same kind of suffering she was going through, I guess. She didn¡¯t see any other way out, and even then she was still thinking of me.¡±


    ¡°Oh...¡± Doc spoke sadly. He was shocked and didn¡¯t know how he should feel about that. ¡°And you had to take her out first. I¡¯m so sorry, Meryll.¡±


    I was getting tired of hearing that. She wasn¡¯t dead. She couldn¡¯t be. I ignored Doc for now and moved myself through Lily¡¯s ship, searching back behind the helm.


    When I entered her equivalent to my heart, I was at first impressed with how new and sleek the core module looked compared to my own well-used, worn and dented sphere. But I also found a room in a rough state.


    The fighter¡¯s size meant the reactor, engine room, and core module were all crammed close together in one large engineering room. Two thin columns of smoke billowed from one engine in the back, which hinted that if the hull was breached, it was either sealed through some emergency function or something else collapsing into it. There was scattered metal scrap all over the floor where a terminal and a pipe had exploded. But miraculously, the environment was still pressurized and the core module itself remained intact, if soiled by a few light dents and scratches. I wondered how much of that was luck and how much was precision planning on the part of my logical side. Considering I didn¡¯t know what the interior looked like until now, I had to assume the former.


    On the floor, in the back of the room, was a heavily augmented body. A slim, pale, hairless man lay unbreathing, his bloody torso impaled on metal flak, and his body thrown about from turbulence. I gave a silent disgusted groan at the ugly sight. That explained what happened to the old core, at least. Poor thing. It may have caused a lot of grief between Lily and I, but it¡¯s not like it knew what it was doing. I couldn¡¯t think of it as anything but a tragic villain at worst. I wasn¡¯t sure if Isabelle would have cared, but I was glad I hadn¡¯t yet restored her access to my sensors all the same, in case she had developed any kind of empathy toward other cores.


    I stared at the core module for a bit. I wished I could see inside. Looking around for a biometrics terminal like the one Doc used to monitor me, I saw it had been destroyed in the carnage. I¡¯d have to reach into Lily¡¯s augmentations directly if I was going to know.


    I pushed my psychic influence into the core module and connected with something that felt similar enough to my own implant¡¯s architecture. I reeled for a moment as the entirety of the electronic side of her system appended itself to the edge of my data stream. It was a lot to take in at once without it being a part of my own neurological structure, and it was a lot of noise. But it was definitely her. If she was still alive, I was about to dive directly into her head.


    And immediately, I felt something sent back through the implant itself. A thought given form.


    ¡®meryll? kill me please im sorry just kill me¡¯


    Despite her words, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. She was alive. ¡®Lily, I¡¯m so sorry. I couldn¡¯t get through to you. Can you think more clearly now that the core is gone?¡¯


    ¡®no it still hurts it hurts so bad please just kill me you already shot me it feels like you ripped my guts open i cant take this and now i cant do it myself everything is numb and i cant move but it still hurts just end it please please kill me¡¯


    Was it the psychosomatic damage causing her mental grief now? I would have thought she¡¯d at least register that as a different kind of pain. ¡®Focus on your human body, Lily. That numbness is your ship. The wound isn¡¯t real. Can you move your human limbs?¡¯


    There was a short pause. ¡®no nothing moves i need help i need you to kill me please meryll it hurts¡¯


    She couldn¡¯t move. Something was wrong with her body. Could psychosomatic damage paralyze someone? I reflexively swallowed in fear, terrified that I had crippled my sister.


    ¡®Lily, listen to me very carefully. Take deep breaths. As best as you can. I know you¡¯re probably not that used to the lubricant yet, but I promise, if you breathe deeply, it¡¯s just like air. You can keep yourself calm that way.¡¯ I waited a moment for a response, then decided it¡¯s probably best to act quick. ¡®I¡¯m going to try to do something to help you with this. The pain you¡¯re experiencing... when did it start?¡¯


    ¡®as soon as I got in this thing as soon as I became the ship it hurt so much and it never stops it hurts meryll please kill me kill me¡¯


    I wasn¡¯t sure if it was a product of something the other core had done to her or if something else went wrong in her grafting. One thing was for sure, I wouldn¡¯t honor her request. ¡®Lily, I¡¯m not going to kill you. I can¡¯t. In fact, I went through a lot of trouble to not kill you. I should have killed you when you attacked me, to protect myself and my crew, but I literally couldn¡¯t bring myself to do it. I just can¡¯t. You¡¯re too important to me. But I¡¯m also not going to leave you in pain.¡¯ I hesitated for just a moment as I recalled the words I wanted to use next. ¡®I think you''re a good person, Lily. You''re just hurting. And confused. And you just need some help.¡¯


    I started examining the architecture of Lily¡¯s data stream. It was absolute chaos. She had done nothing to put it in order. I wondered if she¡¯d just been piloting through trial and error, lashing out with whatever she could touch that actually did anything and memorizing what responded without making a cohesive interface for it.


    ¡®that sounds familiar why would you say that?¡¯ she finally asked.


    ¡®It¡¯s what you told me. And we¡¯re sisters,¡¯ I told her. What she needed right now was clarity, and she didn¡¯t need her ship. I would have to be careful not to sever it from her completely because I frankly didn¡¯t know what that would do since it was merged so deeply with her brain, but I needed to simplify it for her. I started with the logging system. That was always a lot of input that was mostly unimportant, and one of the first things I discarded after I grafted myself. I trimmed away her awareness of it like I had my own, suppressing unnecessary information from cramming itself into her conscious mind. She¡¯d be able to recall it if she reached for it, but I needed it to stop hammering her with everything all at once.


    ¡®you did something what did you do?¡¯ she sent immediately ¡®it got quieter you changed something how?¡¯


    ¡®I told you, I can help.¡¯ I told her as I started looking over her network. I didn¡¯t want to break any of the connections to physical machines completely. I¡¯d need to keep working on a purely software level. ¡®Why is your data stream so disorganized? I couldn¡¯t stand this when I first grafted. I had to sort it out immediately.¡¯


    ¡®how? it¡¯s impossible its too much it hurts to look at and it hurts to touch it hurts just to be around it what are you doing?¡¯


    That¡¯s... odd. It wasn¡¯t so unbearable to me. Annoying, more than painful. It was easy enough to impose my will on the data stream and make it more manageable. I started blocking incoming reports and requests from all the failing hardware she was grafted to, one machine at a time. ¡®Is this working? Are you starting to get any feeling back? Focus on your body, see if you can move anything.¡¯


    ¡®please dont stop make it go away please please meryll please fix this if you can fix this please fix it please please¡¯ She sounded so desperate. I was doing something right. This time, her desperation was relief she thought she¡¯d never experience again. Impossible peace of mind. It was a step up, even if she was still in a panic.


    I continued gradually hacking my way through her data stream, cutting out everything but the barest links to her ship, her pleading gradually slowing with each fragment of data I rendered inert. And soon, she started to show cautious signs of sanity reasserting itself.


    ¡®oh god meryll what did i do?¡¯ she asked ¡®im so tired im so tired all that that was me i did that im so sorry meryll i almost killed you meryll im so sorry i was so tired so confused im still confused i dont know how i could¡¯


    ¡®I¡¯ve been there, Lily. I understand. Call it payback for your arm.¡¯ I smiled, just glad to see that she was calming down. ¡®My captain¡¯s not happy with me for sparing you, but I¡¯m glad you¡¯re coming back to your senses. Is the pain gone? Can you move?¡¯


    ¡®theyre right you shouldnt have¡¯ she replied, then went quiet for a few moments ¡®its not gone no but its quieter everything feels numb i can barely move my hands my stomach burns but i feel like i could fall asleep¡¯


    ¡®That¡¯s because your reactor¡¯s shot. The ship is a part of you and you¡¯re going to feel it when it takes damage. It¡¯ll make you feel other things besides pain, too. I always start feeling sleepy too when my reactor winds down, so I get it. I might have caused nerve damage, though. Or at least your body thinks you have nerve damage.¡¯


    ¡®im actually this thing then arent i? im so stupid i should have just come to you before i tried this and now i cant move¡¯


    ¡®Why didn¡¯t you?¡¯ I asked. I could have walked her through this so much easier. I could have helped her do this safely if that¡¯s what she really wanted. And I could probably have talked her out of it in the first place if I told her what it was like. ¡®I don¡¯t think that numbness is permanent, it¡¯s just a stress response.¡¯ I was just guessing at that, but Lily didn¡¯t need to hear that she might be paralyzed right now.


    Lily took her time with her next message. I could tell she needed to get a lot off her chest. ¡®Meryll. When I first met you again, you were so different. So much more confident. Cooler. And you weren¡¯t in pain anymore. You became so much more amazing because of that ship. I thought if I did the same as you... maybe things would start making sense. Maybe this world wouldn¡¯t be so awful anymore. Maybe I could be strong like you. I did something awful, Meryll. I don¡¯t know if you can see in the storage room, but... I didn¡¯t know what to do after that. I thought maybe this would help me see things like you do. I thought it would all come together if I was just more like you.¡¯


    ¡®Hey, you¡¯re getting the hang of text comms.¡¯ I briefly praised her before I got back on topic. I flickered my sight through her ship¡¯s sensors and raised my eyebrows at the gruesome scene in a small side room off the helm. The remains of a person in Foundation uniform, handcuffed to a shelf, lay filled with small caliber rounds and further torn apart in the aftermath of turbulence. It was more like a pile of gore than recognizable human remains. The firearm that did it lay in a pile among scattered rations and supplies. The implication was clear. Lily had crossed a line I was all too recently familiar with myself, and in the confusion and despair of taking a life, she did something drastic. ¡®Oh. I see. I won¡¯t ask you to explain, Lily. I¡¯m sure you had no choice.¡¯


    ¡®I¡¯m so tired. Of everything. I wasn¡¯t even in pain when I did it. I just needed to know I had a choice. Being able to see what can happen next, you¡¯d think I¡¯d be able to change something, but I¡¯ve never been in control. I had to see if I could. And I hate myself for it. I¡¯m free now. Foundation... I got their claws out of me. I never want to go back to them. I don¡¯t even want the temptation, and after I did that, I know I can¡¯t. The liars. Those horrible people. Shooting him was like destroying my link to that awful company. But now I¡¯m a monster. He was just doing his job. Was it worth it? Do I deserve that freedom?¡¯


    ¡®You certainly didn¡¯t deserve what they were doing to you.¡¯ I tried to comfort her as best I could with words along with further easing her digital burden. She¡¯d taken a life, and I knew I was going to have to make her face that soon. But for now she needed reassurance while I continued to shear off ancillary systems from her data stream to further soothe her tormented mind. ¡®And just doing his job or not, he was a threat to you. You were just protecting yourself. I get what you¡¯re going through. That pilot back when we met the first time... that was the first time I killed someone, too. I know it hurts. But we were both doing what we had to do.¡¯


    ¡®You¡¯d never done it before then?¡¯ She asked. I felt like she was probably blaming herself for that, too. ¡®Meryll, thank you. Thank you for helping me find a moment of clarity so I could speak to you again. It means a lot to me. But I don¡¯t want to be part of this world anymore. I don¡¯t deserve to live. I don¡¯t even want to. If you can¡¯t kill me, fine. But can you at least just leave me here to die? I don¡¯t know what you planned to do with me, but I don¡¯t deserve your kindness, and I¡¯m so tired. I just want it to end.¡¯


    My eyes were definitely hot with tears as I read those words. She¡¯d suffered so much, and now that she¡¯d finally liberated herself from the abuse and torture, now that she was finally at some level of peace, she was ready to give up. I couldn¡¯t stand for it.


    ¡®No.¡¯ I told her.


    ¡®Meryll?¡¯


    ¡®I know you¡¯re tired. I know you¡¯ve been through a lot. But I didn¡¯t spare you so you could give up, Lily. I don¡¯t think you¡¯re a monster. I think you were a victim pushed way over the edge by evil people, and now that you¡¯re finally free, you¡¯re taking all the blame on yourself. Like it¡¯s your fault you were born like this or that they lied to you. You not only deserve to live, you deserve to be happy. You said you wanted to be like me, well let me show you what it¡¯s like in a world that isn¡¯t so overwhelmingly awful that all you can think to do is escape it.¡¯


    ¡®I¡¯m so tired of false hope. I¡¯m tired of being hurt.¡¯


    ¡®I won¡¯t hurt you. You can trust me.¡¯


    There was no response for several minutes. I wasn¡¯t sure if she had stopped responding out of anger at my insistence or if she was mulling over my words, but I smiled when I saw the words ¡®Okay. I¡¯ll try one last time. Because it¡¯s you.¡¯


    ¡®I love you, Lily.¡¯


    ¡®I love you too, Meryll.¡¯

 A Calmer Pain

    ¡°I kinda get why core modules don¡¯t usually have an electronic release. If you don¡¯t give them the option, they won¡¯t even consider using it and you don¡¯t have to worry about them releasing themselves at the worst time, right? But this is just annoying.¡± Joel grumbled over comms. He and Mouse had taken on the responsibility of boarding Lily¡¯s ship once I¡¯d explained the mission of retrieving my sister to the crew.


    ¡°I¡¯m only installing it because the mechanical controller is broken.¡± Mouse called back as he fumbled with some circuitry on Lily¡¯s core module. ¡°Not much here that¡¯s not broken. Why don¡¯t you put the supplies together?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to leave you alone in here with miss crazy core. Why are we doing this again? Didn¡¯t she just try to kill us?¡± Joel complained.


    ¡°Because Meryll calmed her down from murder-suicide, and now we could recruit a precognitive psychic to our cause.¡± Aisling called from the helm while she watched me downloading the small database of logs from the fighter and its deceased core into my own data storage. We were going to salvage everything of value we could from this ship. I was glad that Aisling had come around to the practical implications of bringing Lily on-board. ¡°And we want to hang around for a while anyway while Meryll scrapes whatever info we can get from this ship we¡¯re definitely going to see more of in the future. So why not?¡±


    ¡°Because... she tried to kill us?¡± Joel reiterated.


    Shaw was nursing his wound in my heart after Doc patched his hand up again, but he chimed in just the same. ¡°Come now, I tried to kill you too, and look how close we are now.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not helping, Shaw.¡± I said, before returning my attention to my conversation with Lily. ¡®I promise, they¡¯re not going to hurt you. Joel¡¯s intimidating and he can be kinda an ass, but his heart¡¯s in the right place. And I know Mouse looks pissed off, but that¡¯s just how he always looks. I know he¡¯s going to be excited to talk to you once things settle down.¡¯


    ¡®It¡¯s weird feeling like there¡¯s people inside of me. And also right outside of this... place.¡¯


    ¡®I¡¯ve been calling it the void.¡¯


    ¡®Why?¡¯


    ¡®Because it¡¯s... empty?¡¯ I smiled a little. It felt strange to talk to Lily so casually after all the conversations about trauma and pain, but I think she was starting to become numb from all the dramatic talk and had transitioned to observation about our shared condition as half-machines. ¡®Isn¡¯t it beautiful, in a way? I know it¡¯s an illusion and there¡¯s a wall like, less than a meter away, but it¡¯s like you¡¯re in another world, outside reality.¡¯


    ¡®I see it more like a canvas,¡¯ she offered. ¡®It might be empty, but I can see the potential everywhere. Patterns coming out of the white. Things moving in the corners of my eyes. I think I might be hallucinating.¡¯


    That was interesting. I hadn¡¯t thought that maybe our brains would interpret it in different ways. ¡®Maybe. Do you like it? Are you going to miss it?¡¯ I asked.


    ¡®I don¡¯t think so. I mean, it¡¯s scary, but also compelling. In the end, it¡¯s just a novelty. I¡¯d rather be away from this thing if I could help it. I¡¯ve already had too many terrible memories here.¡¯


    I wasn¡¯t sure if she was going to feel the same once she actually was away from it. The first time I was pulled out of Theseus¡¯s field of influence, I was unconscious and going in for surgery. I was distracted enough by all the other weirdness happening when I woke up that the unease of my shell being so distant from me was just another thing thrown into the pile of discomfort. It was more disconcerting the first time I willingly walked away from my shell on Venus, but then I already knew what to expect.


    But Lily was likely going to be fully aware of her ship slipping away when we left, and she had no idea the kind of longing it would bring her. I wondered if she would mourn that part of herself in hindsight.


    ¡®I¡¯m sorry about everything I¡¯ve done, Meryll. For leading Foundation to you. For... trying to kill you, even though I knew you didn¡¯t want to die. I was being selfish. I felt like the only way out was to kill myself, but I didn¡¯t want to die alone. I kept telling myself that I didn¡¯t want to leave you to suffer alone, but I really just wanted you to come with me.¡¯


    Guess she didn¡¯t have all the drama out of her system yet. I sighed. ¡®I already told you, I forgive you. You weren¡¯t in control of yourself. You definitely weren¡¯t in control when you led Foundation to me.¡¯


    ¡®I guess. They could see what I saw when I was hooked up to that machine. I couldn¡¯t exactly lie and say I didn¡¯t have a vision about you. But I still feel responsible.¡¯


    ¡®If it¡¯s that important to you, you¡¯ll have plenty of opportunities to make up for it now. We¡¯re not going to force you to tell us anything like they did, but Aisling¡¯s right. You could help us out a lot if you see something you want to share.¡¯


    ¡®I guess it¡¯s my choice now.¡¯ I smiled at those words. It was encouraging to see her embrace being in control of herself at last. ¡®I still don¡¯t understand what could possibly make this life worthwhile. But maybe I just need you to show me, like you said. Maybe I can feel something besides this awful hole in my heart. Do you think you can heal me?¡¯


    ¡®I can do anything.¡¯ I claimed triumphantly, still riding the rush of confidence that came from taming my damper. ¡®But speaking of healing, how¡¯s your human parts?¡¯


    ¡®What a weird way to phrase that. I can still barely move,¡¯ she admitted. ¡®I can control my lungs, and I think I can move the muscles in my face and my neck. I can feel a little bit in my fingertips, but not my legs. I can see them, but it¡¯s like they¡¯re not there.¡¯


    I frowned and turned inward, tapping the intercom at my heart. ¡°Hey Doc, is paralysis a possible effect of psychosomatic damage?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t see why not.¡± Doc mumbled darkly while he wrapped a bandage around Shaw¡¯s hand. ¡°Is this about Lily?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. She says she can just barely move some of her muscles, but she can¡¯t feel her legs. Be straight with me. Is this permanent?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have to take a look. But psychosomatic damage is largely a mix of psychological and neurological effects. There shouldn¡¯t actually be much wrong with her spine or her nervous system, but it sounds like that¡¯s where she was hit. Her mind just ¡®thinks¡¯ there¡¯s damage there, and the effect is real. It may be a case of retraining her how to use those muscle groups correctly, or those pathways in her brain may just be fried. I¡¯ll have to make a thorough examination.¡±


    I sighed silently, resigning to the fact that my sister might not be capable of moving of her own accord anymore.


    ¡°There. Meryll, can you see the access panel on your end now?¡± Mouse asked over comms.


    ¡°Hang on, Doc. I need to brief Lily before we do this part.¡± I watched him give a knowing nod and return to monitoring my biometrics while I returned to Lily. ¡®Okay, Lily. There¡¯s one more tough thing you have to do before we can really let you rest.¡¯


    ¡®Oh no.¡¯ I could practically hear her groaning through the text.


    ¡®Do you remember how when you got into the core module, you had to let your lungs acclimate to breathing the lubricant?¡¯


    ¡®Yes. It was awful. I figured I did something wrong. I thought I was going to drown.¡¯


    ¡®Okay, so when you get out of there, you¡¯re going to have to reverse drown.¡¯


    ¡®Excuse me?¡¯


    ¡®Your lungs are used to breathing lubricant now. You basically have to rewire them to breathe air again.¡¯


    ¡®Please, no. Is it going to feel that awful again?¡¯


    ¡®I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s going to be worse.¡¯ I just had to walk her through it ahead of time. At least she had someone to give her that, unlike me. ¡®You see, when you¡¯re in sensory deprivation, your body gets used to having no physical input. After a little while, the parts of your brain responsible for interpreting sensory information shut down. And when they start back up again, it¡¯s kinda rough.¡¯


    ¡®When the void goes away, you¡¯re going to feel everything, amplified, while your brain tries to make sense of it again. Sensory pressure sickness. Sight will be unbearable, so keep your eyes closed as best you can. And get ready for anything you hear to hurt. But worst of all is touch. Anything you touch is going to feel like a bunch of pins being pushed into your skin, and you¡¯re going to feel every little thing way more intensely than you¡¯ve ever experienced before. And you¡¯re going to have to reteach yourself to breathe during that.¡¯


    ¡®Do I have to?¡¯ She asked after a moment of consideration.


    ¡®Yeah. Even if we could just take the whole core module with us, you¡¯d eventually need to eat. Doc really needs to look you over as soon as possible, too. I know it¡¯s scary, but it¡¯s just once, then you never have to go through this again.¡¯


    ¡®Do you have to deal with this?¡¯


    ¡®Almost every day. It¡¯s routine for me at this point. It¡¯s never pleasant, but you get used to it. I remember the first week or so of it being brutal, though. I¡¯m just letting you know so you can brace yourself.¡¯


    ¡®I don¡¯t know if I can do this.¡¯ She admitted.


    ¡®I know you can. Come on, just once. Then you don¡¯t ever have to deal with this again. I¡¯m ready to open it up when you are.¡¯


    ¡°Meryll? Is it working?¡± Mouse asked again.


    ¡°Yeah, I can see the switch. I¡¯m just psyching her up for the depressurization.¡±


    ¡°Oh right, she¡¯s gonna be all sick on us,¡± Joel whined.


    ¡°Sick and paralyzed. You¡¯re going to have to pull her out, put her in the environment suit and carry her yourself.¡±


    ¡°Not it.¡± Mouse called quickly.


    ¡°Fuck. Fine.¡± Joel rolled his eyes.


    ¡°Just be gentle with her. It¡¯s gonna be her first time dealing with sensory sickness, so she won¡¯t have all the little tricks I have to make it easier. And no, Joel, she¡¯s not going to freak out and hit you or something. She can barely move anything. She can breathe and maybe talk. That¡¯s about it.¡±


    ¡®Does he have to be the one to handle me?¡¯ Lily asked. I guessed she still had enough awareness of her sensor array to listen in on the conversation.


    ¡®Afraid so. Aisling wanted to stay on Theseus to keep an eye on me. Doc needs to tend Shaw¡¯s wound and watch my biometrics. You definitely wouldn¡¯t want Shaw handling you anyway. And Ray¡¯s not cleared to do a spacewalk yet after an... injury. I guess I could ask if Mouse prefers to haul you or the cargo.¡¯


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    ¡®The kid?¡¯


    ¡®Don¡¯t let him hear you call him that. He¡¯s got a temper about it. It¡¯s best just to treat Mouse like a small adult. He¡¯s not exactly any more innocent than the rest of us just cause of his age. And he¡¯s strong enough. He carried me around when I was anesthetized once.¡¯


    ¡®I guess the big guy is probably better,¡¯ she conceded after a moment of deliberation. ¡®This is going to hurt, isn¡¯t it?¡¯


    ¡®It won¡¯t be as bad as what I pulled you out of already. I promise. It¡¯s mostly just going to feel... weird. And it¡¯ll pass in a couple of hours. The worst of it will be over in twenty minutes.¡¯


    ¡®Okay. Fine. If I have to.¡¯


    ¡®Are you ready?¡¯


    ¡®Yeah. No. Just do it.¡¯


    I guess that was the best agreement I was going to get for this. I sent the release signal, and the machinery in her heart began to whirr.


    ¡ª


    ¡®Focus on my words, Lily.¡¯ I kept sending her text as if I was consoling a nervous child receiving a shot at the doctor¡¯s office. ¡®It¡¯s going to be just fine. It¡¯ll be over before you know it. You¡¯re already breathing air again, and that¡¯s the worst of it.¡¯


    ¡®I felt like I was going to throw up my entire body. Everything feels like it¡¯s on fire. I can¡¯t even feel my whole body, but it still feels like it¡¯s burning. The air burns, my skin burns, the ground is on fire, I can hear their breathing. Their heartbeats. Everything¡¯s somehow freezing, too. What is this hell?¡¯


    Ever since she¡¯d come down from the panic that accompanied violently puking up two full lungs of fluid, somehow less gracefully than my first time, she¡¯d been sending messages like that. I think she understood that if she occupied her mind, she¡¯d be at least a little distracted from the sensory pressure sickness. I hoped it was working, and that I was helping.


    ¡®Yeah, it¡¯s unpleasant. You figure out little physical and mental tricks that make it easier on you once you¡¯ve done it a few times, but I remember my first time being hell too. They gave me a towel for it, too. Trust me, you don¡¯t want to feel what that¡¯s like. Every little bristle dragging across your skin. It¡¯s better to just stay wet until you can stand to brush the lubricant off.¡¯


    ¡®I don¡¯t want them to touch me with anything. Please don¡¯t let them touch me.¡¯


    Mouse and Joel were resting on the other side of the room, observing Lily from a distance. After she¡¯d started breathing properly, I¡¯d instructed them to give her some space so she could calm down again, but I suppose there was only so much room.


    Joel had briefly left to gather the rations and supplies from the gore-filled storage room into one of the crates he¡¯d brought into the airlock. Likewise, Mouse had taken his turn to leave the room and salvaged a few choice bits of electronics and equipment from the helm. He must have wanted to study the comms because the feed in the corner of my interface went dark after he¡¯d salvaged something. This hadn¡¯t taken either of them that long, however, and they were both back to observing Lily to ensure there weren¡¯t unexpected complications.


    True to what she said, Lily was completely limp when Joel pulled her out of the core module pool, and she had shown no signs of moving anything besides her chest since then. The most activity she¡¯d shown at all had been quiet grunts and whines during the worst assaults on her senses.


    ¡°You sure she¡¯s still in there?¡± Joel whispered to Mouse.


    ¡°She¡¯s breathing.¡± He replied curtly.


    ¡°I meant like, mentally.¡±


    ¡®They¡¯re so loud,¡¯ Lily complained.


    I spoke up over comms, trying to keep the volume low. ¡°I¡¯m literally talking with her right now, and your voices are hurting her. You saw me the first time I went through this Joel, come on.¡±


    Joel rolled his eyes, but he didn¡¯t speak up again.


    It had been ten minutes since the core module disengaged and Lily was thrust back into the physical sensory world. In another ten, she would still be sensitive, but it would start becoming comprehensible to her, and she¡¯d be able to be moved. But for now, she just needed someone to walk her through it in a non-sensory space.


    ¡®You¡¯re halfway there. You got this far, you can do this.¡¯ I told her.


    ¡®You were right. This is nothing on the pain I was in earlier. It¡¯s different, but it¡¯s not nearly as bad. I just have to remember that. It¡¯s not inside my head. I can understand it. It hurts, but it¡¯s just my body.¡¯


    ¡®There you go. You¡¯re stronger than you think, Lily. It won¡¯t be too long and you won¡¯t have to worry about it anymore. They are going to have to stuff you into an environment suit to take you back to Theseus, but Mouse takes good care of them, and he knows how to make sure it¡¯s safe. You won¡¯t have anything to worry about.¡¯


    ¡®My first spacewalk and I can¡¯t move a thing. That¡¯s scary.¡¯ There was a momentary lull in the conversation and she said, ¡®Meryll, talk to me. Please. Give me something else to focus on. Please.¡¯


    ¡®Right, sorry. Okay, well, I suppose I should let you know a bit more about the crew. The big guy there with you is Joel. Like I said, he can be kinda an insensitive jerk sometimes, but he¡¯s not really a bad guy. He¡¯s pretty strong, and he knows how to handle weapons really well. The other one is Mouse. He¡¯s young, but he¡¯s an engineering prodigy. Sometimes it¡¯s almost like he knows more about Theseus than I do.¡¯


    ¡®Why¡¯s he look so mad?¡¯ She asked.


    ¡®He¡¯s really not. Just don¡¯t mention his age or his arms to him and he won¡¯t bother you.¡¯ I hesitated for a moment and realized I probably shouldn¡¯t elaborate. ¡®I¡¯m... not at liberty to say why he¡¯s so temperamental, though. There¡¯s kinda an unwritten rule on Theseus. We abandoned our pasts. Nobody really likes talking about where they came from here, and his personal history is really private personal information. I¡¯ve heard a few of their stories now because I¡¯ve earned their trust, but it¡¯s not my place to repeat them.¡¯


    ¡®Abandoned their pasts? Can you really do something like that?¡¯


    ¡®I mean... sort of. Not completely, I guess. After all, mine is chasing me with a fucking armada. It has a way of catching up with you, no matter what, but we don¡¯t let the past own us, and we keep it to ourselves if it¡¯s not important to what¡¯s going on in the present. That part¡¯s been a little hard for me, considering I¡¯m still trying to figure out what happened before I joined the crew.¡¯


    ¡®I can help fill in the gaps.¡¯


    ¡®Later, when you¡¯re not dealing with this. Don¡¯t think too hard, just listen. Back on Theseus, there¡¯s the captain, Aisling. She¡¯s... something else. She¡¯s got this charisma to her that just makes me happy to follow her. She knows how to read people really well, and she knows how to make the right decisions in the worst situations. She knows her way around a battlefield and weaponry. She knows Theseus pretty well, too. Not as well as Mouse, but she¡¯s got a wide range of talents that just make her a really good leader for a starship crew. And she¡¯s nice. Has a strong moral compass, so I trust her decisions on the work we do too. She keeps everyone at arms length, but she¡¯s a lot nicer than you¡¯d think before you get to know her. And she¡¯s beautiful on top of all that. She¡¯s kinda got this intense tomboy aura to her, it¡¯s kinda hot. But she can also be so sweet in private.¡¯


    ¡®Meryll... you sound like you have a little more than admiration for this captain.¡¯


    I bit my lip and reread the message I¡¯d just sent. I was pretty much just gushing over her, wasn¡¯t I? Had my attraction to Aisling always been that transparent? I guess I wasn¡¯t instantly over her just because she¡¯s unavailable. ¡®Maybe. It doesn¡¯t matter, she¡¯s not interested.¡¯


    ¡®Wait, are you serious? So you¡¯re a lesbian?¡¯


    ¡®I¡¯ve really never mentioned that before? I¡¯ve only ever been attracted to women, even as far back as in the simulation. Are you not? I mean, we¡¯re clones.¡¯


    ¡®I don¡¯t know. I guess I never really thought about it before. I guess it¡¯s something I can consider now. So you¡¯ve actually asked her out?¡¯


    ¡®Yeah.¡¯ I wasn¡¯t about to break Aisling¡¯s trust any further than I already had today by revealing her secret, so I just left it at that. ¡®Anyway, there¡¯s Doc, who¡¯s my caretaker. I¡¯m pretty sure he¡¯s writing a thesis on me or something, but he¡¯s not creepy about it. He¡¯s professional, kinda funny, really sensible. Reliable. He can be a little overly-serious at times, though. I think I can say we¡¯re pretty close friends at this point.¡¯


    ¡®Doc? Mouse? Is anyone using their real names?¡¯


    ¡®I actually do know Doc¡¯s real name, but that¡¯s another thing I¡¯m not at liberty to say.¡¯ And I think he just didn¡¯t like his name. I mean, who names someone Cornelius in the first place? ¡®As for Mouse, I¡¯m not even sure if he has a birth name.¡¯ I shook my head. ¡®That was probably saying too much.¡¯


    Lily overlooked me fumbling that detail of Mouse¡¯s past and moved onto another question. ¡®You said not to mention his arms?¡¯


    I took the opportunity she gave me to keep the conversation moving. ¡®They¡¯re prosthetics. They¡¯re really good prosthetics, some kind of biomechanical thing, but once you get a good look at them, you¡¯ll see. He doesn¡¯t like talking about them. Sore subject.¡¯


    ¡®I see. And that¡¯s your crew?¡¯


    ¡®There¡¯s also Ray. You¡¯re going to need to prepare yourself when you see her. Let¡¯s just say that the definition of ¡®human¡¯ is a lot broader in the inner colonies.¡¯


    ¡®What?¡¯


    ¡®She¡¯s an experimental offshoot of humans called Mammons. They¡¯re like these... huge people with fur over parts of their body and they¡¯ve got these massive beast-like claws on their arms and legs. You¡¯ll have to see her yourself.¡¯


    ¡®That¡¯s real? Sounds scary.¡¯


    ¡®She¡¯s super strong and looks intimidating, but she¡¯s a softy. A gentle giant, you know? She¡¯s really sweet and sensitive. She¡¯s a really good cook, she knows how to be comforting when you need it, and she can handle herself almost as well as Joel in a fight. I think she¡¯s here more to take care of us than for her role as a combatant. I like to hug her sometimes cause she¡¯s just so soft and cuddly.¡¯


    ¡®Meryll, are you crushing on all the other girls on your ship?¡¯


    I immediately flashed back to the night of drunken revelry back on Luna where I had apparently blacked out and very directly propositioned Ray. I was, wasn¡¯t I? ¡®I mean, nothing ever happened between us. It¡¯s not like we¡¯ve ever really... Look, I am... apparently attracted to powerful women, okay?¡¯ I frantically typed out and sent in a small flurry of messages as my face undoubtedly went red and I tried to rationalize my suddenly troubling captivation with dangerous girls. I had to change the subject. ¡®Anyway, Mammons aren¡¯t well-known in the outer colonies. Most people would probably think she¡¯s some kind of monster or a seriously augmented cyborg or something, so she¡¯s going to have to stay on the ship after we land so she doesn¡¯t cause a panic and draw attention to us.¡¯


    ¡®You really have changed so much since you escaped,¡¯ Lily started. ¡®I really can¡¯t imagine the miserable girl you were before talking so casually about being attracted to anyone, and here you are getting all flustered over it.¡¯


    ¡®Is that a bad thing?¡¯ I was curious about where she was going with this, and still a little caught off guard by my own hopeless attraction to the other women on the crew.


    ¡®No. I like this new Meryll. She¡¯s happier.¡¯


    I smiled at that. ¡®Well... let¡¯s work toward making a happier Lily next, hmm?¡¯


    I continued, figuring it best to brace her for the last person on Theseus. ¡®I guess I should warn you about our guest, too. He¡¯s not really part of our crew. He¡¯s a prisoner, that by virtue of being chased by the biggest corp in the system while we were transporting him, has just been kinda forced to tag along with us. Guy named Shaw. He can be... off-putting. Creepy. And he¡¯s got an implant that lets him do some weird, unpredictable stuff with this lump of metal he keeps on him; I can¡¯t really explain it.¡¯ I sighed and supposed I couldn¡¯t completely berate him. ¡®He¡¯s clever. Man¡¯s an info broker, and he¡¯s good at it. He actually helped us out a couple times now, either by sharing his contacts or coming up with some... batshit insane plans that keep working somehow. And I don¡¯t know if he¡¯ll ever admit it, but I think he wants to join the crew.¡¯


    ¡®Sounds like you¡¯re pretty torn about him.¡¯


    ¡®I kinda am. I mean, he¡¯s been useful, and I get this gut feeling that he¡¯s a good person underneath all the bullshit, but I also know he¡¯s a manipulator. He plays this whole suave gentleman shtick, but he somehow also just feels like he¡¯s trying to gross me out and piss me off whenever he opens his mouth.¡¯


    ¡®This sounds familiar. Didn¡¯t you say something similar about Aisling? That she keeps people at a distance or something?¡¯


    I immediately started to type out a denial of that accusation, but stopped and had to think about it for a moment. When I first met Aisling, she was just trying to use me and keep me at an emotional distance until I agreed to join her crew. She even played it off like I was just a thing to her, a means to bring her ship into port and not a person. After I officially joined the crew, she started to become more open with me and showed me what she was really like. She defended me and consoled me. I¡¯d never really considered it before, but was Shaw doing the same thing Aisling did before I signed on? Was I only excusing the same kind of behavior in Aisling because of my attraction to her? I didn¡¯t really have a response to that when I started analyzing it.


    ¡®I think it¡¯s starting to feel better,¡¯ Lily thankfully said in my unintentional lull in the distracting conversation. ¡®Everything still feels really sensitive, but it¡¯s not painful anymore. I barely noticed it was getting better until now. Thank you for talking me through this, Meryll. You were right. It is becoming more bearable. You helped a lot.¡¯


    I looked at my clock and smiled. I¡¯d lost track of time, too. It had been twenty-five minutes, and Lily¡¯s sensory inputs were probably starting to calm down. ¡®Think you¡¯re ready to get dressed by a large man and hauled through space like cargo?¡¯


    ¡®Why do you have to put it like that? No, I¡¯m not ready for any of that, but those two must be getting impatient by now, and I want off this ship.¡¯


    ¡®Did I have no sense of humor back then or something?¡¯ I laughed silently into the void. ¡®Better start getting used to friendly banter.¡¯


    I turned back to comms and told the away crew, ¡°Alright, she¡¯s ready. And I¡¯m watching. You better not grope anything you don¡¯t have to.¡±


    ¡°What am I, Shaw?¡± Joel chuckled while he scoffed at my jab.


    ¡°I¡¯m still on comms, you know!¡± Shaw chimed in with his characteristic faux cheerfulness. ¡°Please, I¡¯ve held Meryll before, and was I anything less than a perfect gentleman?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll give him that; he didn¡¯t cop a feel when he had me at knifepoint.¡± I bit back slightly when he failed to mention that part of the encounter. ¡°He did hit on me, so he¡¯s a creep and a hostage-taker, but he¡¯s not a rapist.¡±


    ¡°Gold star for not violating someone.¡± Joel rolled his eyes. ¡°I¡¯ll be gentle with her.¡±

 Welcome Home

    I sat, holding my head and keeping my eyes closed while I murmured nonsense to myself. Acclimation to my physical senses was a lot easier for me than it was for Lily; I had the experience of keeping myself together while I waited for my brain to return to ¡®normal mode¡¯ again. Carefully applying pressure to my pounding head and giving myself something to listen to at a controlled volume helped me ease the burden in addition to the mental exercises going through my head, tricking myself into paying less attention to the agony of the medical bed against my back.


    Lily still needed me, but it was important to me that I be Meryll in the flesh as she approached Theseus. I wanted to greet her, human face to human face. So I¡¯d extricated myself from the core module as soon as the away crew began the journey back along the tether between our shells.


    What followed was a difficult journey comforting my sister with tales of my journey across the system since I became Theseus as she was carted through space tethered to an unfamiliar man who begrudged her presence while I battled my own sensory pressure sickness with more effort than I ever put into it before.


    I wanted to hold her in my arms the moment the cargo bay pressurized, even if it meant enduring the physically overwhelming sensation against my skin.


    ¡®Were you really going to shoot that Skygraves guy?¡¯ Lily asked.


    ¡®Should have. But I didn¡¯t have the nerve.¡¯ I sighed. ¡®I might be able to now. After I¡¯ve already got some... experience. I probably won¡¯t know until I¡¯m in that position again. I¡¯ve been told it gets easier.¡¯


    ¡®I don¡¯t know if I believe that. I can¡¯t imagine doing it again.¡¯ An awkward silence grew between us as we both contemplated our sins. I¡¯m sure it was tearing her up a lot more than it was me, though. I¡¯d already wept over my kill and started developing that metaphorical scar tissue that protected me from the horror of what I¡¯d done.


    I felt a different sense of unease as my cargo bay started to pressurize again. My body and my systems both told me that the cargo bay being depressurized was wrong, and my systems correcting it now that they were back inside highlighted that wrongness. Without a proper airlock between it and space, my cargo bay just had to act as a really big one itself until we could put Theseus back in order.


    I fought down the nausea and slowly pushed my legs over the side of the bed. Ten minutes. I could hold myself together now. I must have done this at least a hundred times by now, and I could stand to get down the hall to the cargo bay to greet my beloved sister.


    ¡°Meryll, don¡¯t even think about it.¡± Doc said quietly. He knew his voice was amplified for me and always accommodated for it, even when he was scolding me. ¡°You¡¯re going to hurt yourself. Joel will bring her right up here, anyway. I don¡¯t need you to make yourself another patient.¡±


    I was already sitting up. It was agonizing, but I¡¯d managed it. My head pounded violently, my palms shook from the effort it had taken to lift myself, and my skin was on fire, but I felt like I definitely had the willpower to push through it for Lily. This was a familiar pain I had control over. Defiantly, I tried to put my weight slowly down on one foot to show Doc I could manage it, but I let out a whimpering yelp as I did. The cold steel of the floor shot needles up my spine. Why did my feet have to be so especially sensitive?


    ¡°F-Fine.¡± I admitted in hoarse tones, my throat still sore from purging fluid. I slowly swiveled myself back into bed and laid back, practically weeping in relief as I felt the pressure of gravity dispersing itself across my back again. Maybe I wasn¡¯t quite as badass as I¡¯d been playing myself up to be. I wouldn¡¯t be able to meet her halfway, I conceded.


    ¡®Inside. Finally.¡¯ Lily called to me. ¡®Oh. Oh wow. This place... It¡¯s... Is this safe?¡¯


    ¡®Ouch.¡¯ I sent at first, but my pride wasn¡¯t too wounded. I knew I was in rough shape. ¡®Probably not actually. Remember how I told you we had to patch that big hole in the cargo bay? We still haven¡¯t properly repaired it. Haven¡¯t had the chance to. So yeah, it¡¯s a mess. But it¡¯ll get us to Io.¡¯


    ¡®Why Io, anyway?¡¯


    ¡®If you weren¡¯t psychic, would you think to look for us there?¡¯


    ¡®That¡¯s your whole reasoning? That¡¯s... stupid. It¡¯s reckless and just a really bad plan. If they find you, they have so many resources just... right there.¡¯


    ¡®Then we better not get found.¡¯


    She took a few moments to parse the sheer audacity of what I¡¯d just said before she just sent, ¡®I guess so.¡¯ She was going to have to get used to the danger this lifestyle posed sooner or later.


    I felt a mild sense of relief as the cargo bay slowly corrected its air pressure, returning it to how it should be, with the inside clearly denoted by a survivable atmosphere. It was holding for now. Hopefully, this would be the last time I would need to suffer the stress of physical pressurization before we could start repairs.


    ¡°I sh-should still get up.¡± I grumbled to Doc. ¡°Lily should t-take the b...bed.¡±


    Doc let out an exasperated sigh as he stood up from the biometrics console. ¡°I should get a second examination table installed. You¡¯re on it so much.¡±


    I knew a normal core wouldn¡¯t need to be handled this gently after being removed from the core module, so it made sense he wouldn¡¯t have been prepared to accommodate for its comfort before. ¡°Sorry for being able to ex...press p-pain.¡± I smiled, watching him approach from my sensors.


    He began arranging a familiar pile of our softer towels and blankets on the floor into the little nest that served as my resting place when someone else needed the examination table while I was still in sensory hell. ¡°You should be ashamed of yourself for having feelings,¡± he answered sarcastically.


    I gave a weak laugh. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m a pretty shi...shitty person like that.¡± I tentatively held a hand up, groping the air to reach for him from my third-person perspective. He gripped my still-slimy hand, and I winced as my body tried to reflexively flinch away. After a couple moments of effort, he managed to guide me to sitting. I whimpered as I leaned on him, and he guided me down to the floor, where I gave a relieved sigh as I came to rest again. ¡°Thanks, Doc. You¡¯re a-awesome.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I know.¡± He smirked and wiped off the residual lubricant from his clothes as best he could before he stepped over to the sink to wash his hands. ¡°You trust me with your sister?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t trust a-anyone else in the w-wo... world like I trust you with m-my body. Why would...n¡¯t I trust you with her?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I guess I just don¡¯t have a very good gauge on how you feel about her yet. You strike me as the overprotective older sibling type.¡±


    I gave a more hearty laugh at that. ¡°I guess? She was the same whe...when we were with Foundation. We kinda switched p-places. I think we just... want to k-keep each other safe in this fucked up sit...situation we were b-born into.¡± I smiled, daring to open my eyes and let some of the glaring light in. ¡°Whoever¡¯s st-stronger car...ries the other. N-No matter what.¡±


    I checked my sensors again. Mouse was securing the cargo we¡¯d salvaged from Lily¡¯s shell into our own stocks. I silently cheered at the sight of MREs being packed into the pantry alongside more of the same packed protein rations. It wasn¡¯t exactly real homemade food, but if I got to taste something besides that disgusting slop for the rest of the trip, I would be happy with that.


    Joel, meanwhile, was already climbing the stairs with a familiar body curled up loosely in his arms. She was almost here. She was still in the environment suit, her head resting loosely in the crook of Joel¡¯s arm and her eyes half-lidded with exhaustion. Only her helmet was removed, same as Joel. Maybe he understood the urgency we wished for this reunion. Or maybe there just wasn¡¯t a more appropriate place to leave her on the cargo bay floor.


    I¡¯d get to be in the same room as her, at least. It¡¯d still be a few more minutes before I could stand up and give her the hug she deserved, though.


    When Joel walked into my heart, I turned my head and opened my eyes as best as I could. I saw Lily¡¯s vision scanning the room as well before she laid eyes down on me and a gentle smile crossed her face. I thought I saw her mouth something, but the words were too quiet to reach me. I smiled back. ¡°Hi.¡± was all I said at first.


    ¡®Talking¡¯s hard. You got out of the thing for me. It¡¯s nice to see your face. To hear your voice.¡¯ Lily sent me on the network we¡¯d built, still watching me from her perch in Joel¡¯s arms.


    He walked her up to the examination table, stepping around me. ¡°Here?¡± He asked Doc.


    ¡°Yeah, I need to take a look at her. Can you help me get the suit off?¡± Doc asked. ¡°I don¡¯t think Mouse would appreciate me cutting it open.¡±


    ¡°I gotta dress her and undress her?¡± Joel complained, but he didn¡¯t hesitate as he started working on sliding her out of the suit. ¡°If I didn¡¯t know better, I¡¯d assume you just like seeing women naked.¡± He chuckled.


    ¡°I¡¯m a doctor, not a voyeur.¡± Doc said while he assisted Joel. It wasn¡¯t more than a couple minutes of fidgeting with zippers and clasps before my sister was laid out in the buff on the bed above me. All the while, I was reassuring her that this was routine and I¡¯d make sure they got her something to cover up with as soon as possible.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s been nice to meet you, homicidal psycho sister.¡± Joel grumbled as he set Lily down gently on the bed. ¡°But my job here¡¯s done. Have fun with... this whole thing.¡± He shrugged his shoulders and turned around to walk back out of my heart.


    Doc looked after him and sighed quietly at the insensitive jab. Joel really knew how to stick his foot in his mouth and then not give a shit about it. I¡¯d have given him a piece of my mind about it, but I was both currently too weak and too ecstatic just to see my sister to care.


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    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± I heard Lily mumble.


    ¡°I know.¡± Doc said with gentle patience as he pulled on a pair of disposable gloves. ¡°Let¡¯s see now.¡±


    ¡°Y-You can re...lax, Lily.¡± I reassured her.


    ¡°Meryll...?¡± With what minute expression she could manage, I could tell she was concerned at what she¡¯d just heard. The difficulty I had putting my words together took her off-guard.


    ¡°Right. M-My voice,¡± I mumbled. It was her first time hearing me speak since Cassandra¡¯s ¡®gift¡¯ left me unable to keep the words in my head and the words that came out of my mouth straight. I tried to change the subject. ¡°D-Don¡¯t worry ab... about Doc. We... have a l-lot in common.¡± I smirked.


    Doc smiled as well, rolling his eyes slightly. ¡°Rest assured, Lily, I am here to be your physician and I have absolutely no interest in anything more than that.¡±


    Lily stared at the ceiling for a moment in contemplation before her eyes opened wider than before. She blushed slightly, and she muttered, ¡°Ohh...¡±


    I gave a small laugh. ¡°Sh-She gets it.¡±


    ¡°Your voice...¡± Lily called attention back to it, probably trying to change the subject herself. I guess it was a little too much to think she¡¯d just overlook it.


    ¡°A g-gift from Cass.¡± I groaned. I was starting to feel a bit better now, so I didn¡¯t mind talking more in-depth. ¡°Whatev...er she did to me w-when we talked...¡± It felt awkward explaining it while I was demonstrating it.


    Doc chimed in to help me. ¡°It damaged the speech center of her brain. Frankly, it¡¯s a miracle she didn¡¯t cause more damage than that. I hope you don¡¯t share her penchant for giving our favorite core brain damage.¡±


    ¡°Cassandra...? She... hurt you.¡± Lily mumbled.


    ¡°Yeah... i-it hurt. A lot. I¡¯ll re...turn the favor some-someday.¡± If there was anyone I actually wanted to kill in this world, it was her. Sure, I hated Foundation as well, but they were a corporation, not a person. More than the torment she put me through recently and the scar she left on my mind, she had even made my life before Theseus miserable. I didn¡¯t doubt she¡¯d done her share of harm to Lily as well. I even felt morally justified in my urge to shed the blood of an unrepentant killer who did it for fun rather than self-defense. She was an incredibly dangerous and violent woman, and the world would be better off without her. I shared no love for her, sister or no.


    ¡°I hope I¡¯m there for it.¡± I tilted my head and opened my eyes up at Lily in surprise when I heard that. She¡¯d just expressed earlier how reluctant she would be to suffer taking another life on her conscience, yet she spoke so frankly about Cassandra¡¯s death at my hands as if she was eager for it. She must have really despised our older sister as much as I did.


    Lily rested her head back down while Doc examined her, stopping to look at the scars left by her previous equipment. That headband they¡¯d used to control her had left two deep indentations in her forehead where it had been hooked into her before the neural implant was installed. I wondered if it had been a neural interface of its own, and reminded myself to scour her firmware for more traps, like they¡¯d set up in my implant¡¯s firmware.


    Doc gently ran a finger over the scars and asked, ¡°Do these go all the way through?¡±


    ¡°To my skull.¡± Lily murmured quietly. ¡°It was supposed to be permanent before they decided to make me a core.¡±


    ¡°Crude.¡± Doc exhaled sharply as he felt around the sides of her head. He shook his head. ¡°Monstrous. I¡¯m going to need to do some brain imaging. See what kind of damage they did to you. Check for any surprises they may have left.¡± He moved down her body, touching her first on the shoulder and asking, ¡°Can you feel this?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Lily¡¯s voice was low and distant, like she was somewhere else.


    ¡°Lily?¡± I called her name this time, unsure what to think of her behavior.


    ¡°Huh?¡± She pulled herself to attention, the sudden dissociative distance closing at the sound of my voice.


    Doc pulled his hand back and observed for a moment, then said, ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I should have asked your permission first. Is it okay if I touch you to determine the nature of your paralysis? It¡¯s okay if you say no. We can come back to it later.¡±


    Lily stared at him for just a moment, and I could tell she wasn¡¯t sure how to respond for a few moments. She wasn¡¯t used to being given a choice. I swear I saw her eyes becoming glassy. ¡°Y-Yeah. Okay. You... You can.¡±


    Doc nodded and gently placed a hand on her elbow, then forearm, each time getting a positive response from Lily, who had not zoned out this time. Being given agency over her own body had given her some energy. By the time Doc got down to holding her toes and asking, it became clear that she still had feeling in her entire body. Doc leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment in thought.


    Time was passing, and all the talking, mildly painful as it was, was helping me acclimate to my senses again more quickly. I thought I could manage to sit up now if I really tried, but it was best not to push my luck. Touch was always especially sensitive for me while I was still recovering. I experimented with pulling the edge of a blanket across my palm, and with the tingling that accompanied the texture, I opted to continue laying still for now.


    There was a gentle knock on the door, and I turned my head to see Aisling standing in the doorway. ¡°Dropped out to say hi to your sister?¡± She asked, looking down at me with a carefully neutral expression. She was still very unhappy with me.


    ¡°Y-Yeah.¡± I turned my head back to stare up at the ceiling again. I didn¡¯t want to hold eye contact with her. ¡°L-Lily, this is Ais...ling.¡±


    With a muted grunt of effort, Lily turned her head to look, and I saw her eyes move up and down over Aisling for a moment. ¡°Sorry,¡± she said meekly as soon as she seemed to have her measure.


    Aisling watched Lily back carefully, pausing on her face. I wondered if the scars drew her attention. ¡°You nearly killed us,¡± she declared. ¡°Meryll took an enormous risk not turning that ship of yours into slag.¡±


    ¡°It w-wasn¡¯t th-¡± I started to object, but Aisling turned her eyes down to me with a disapproving glare that immediately took the words out of my mouth, and I had to look away again. I was on thin ice and I had to play along with whatever she was going to say here.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Lily repeated. ¡°I... know I don¡¯t deserve-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not finished.¡± Aisling interrupted her as she continued. ¡°Meryll took a risk with all of our lives on the off-chance she could save yours. Do you understand?¡±


    Lily stared back at her, frozen by the question. Aisling gave her a moment to reply, but her mouth just hung open, dumbfounded, unable to find the words she needed. She was a cornered prey animal staring up at the beast that had her dead to rights. I wanted to step in to help her, but I was afraid of Aisling¡¯s reaction if I talked back to her right then.


    The captain stepped into the room and walked closer to the bed, her voice becoming slightly more casual as she leaned on the counter near the bed, behind where I was laying. ¡°I don¡¯t think Meryll¡¯s disloyal. She¡¯s become a valuable member of my crew, and she¡¯s shown nothing but good faith toward us in our travels so far. She loves this ship, she¡¯s become attached to Theseus¡¯s crew as much as the ship itself, and I think she has a lot of reasons to believe in our cause. And yet, she still chose to save you at great personal risk. Do you know what that makes you?¡±


    Lily looked down across the bed, trying to avoid eye contact with Aisling. After a moment, she answered, ¡°I¡¯m... a liability.¡±


    Aisling shook her head, then raised her voice again. ¡°Means you¡¯re real fucking valuable.¡± My eyes shot open in surprise, and Lily twisted her head to look back at her again, looking just as perplexed. ¡°I don¡¯t approve of what happened here today. Not by a long-shot. I¡¯ve still got a lot to say to Meryll about her decision-making skills in the heat of the moment. But in the end, my crew trusts me, and I trust my crew. And after I had some time to think about it, I trust Meryll knows what she¡¯s doing if she felt like she was forced to take that kind of gamble for you. So you must be worth the bullshit we just went through for you.¡±


    ¡°... Huh?¡± Lily couldn¡¯t articulate whatever she meant to get out, still trying to make sense of what this person she¡¯d just met was saying. Was she being scolded or praised?


    ¡°You¡¯re on my ship now, so I need you to understand, the next time you get it into your head that there¡¯s any excuse whatsoever for you to throw your life away like that, you¡¯re way too fucking valuable to just go breaking yourself against someone you clearly love, never mind anyone else. Got it? You never pull this sacrificial bullshit ever again, under any circumstances. That¡¯s an order.¡± Aisling glared down at her like she was angry, contrary to her encouraging words.


    Lily still stared, frozen, up into Aisling¡¯s eyes, trying to make sense of her demeanor and what she¡¯d just been told. She remained silent, clearly shocked by Aisling¡¯s approach. I was just as stunned. Was this the kind of tough love she needed to hear right now?


    Aisling stepped toward her again, hovering over the examination table, and asked sternly, ¡°Do you understand?¡±


    Lily nodded very slowly, too afraid to speak at the moment.


    Aisling nodded back at her and gave an approving hum, her expression softening slightly, signaling that she¡¯d gotten across what she intended and was ready to move on. I¡¯d seen her make this abrupt turn of expression after she¡¯d made her point before. She turned her attention to Doc. ¡°What¡¯s the prognosis here?¡±


    ¡°Still working on it.¡± Doc declared casually, like that dramatic scene hadn¡¯t just played out in front of him not a moment ago. ¡°Psychosomatic reaction leading to quadriplegia; probably a disconnect between the brain and musculature system. Complex PTSD, at the very least on the psychological front. I need to do subdermal scans for any surprises they might have packed away in her body, and some imaging for... any additional problems.¡±


    Aisling nodded. ¡°They fucked you up before Meryll did, huh?¡± She asked, the malice in her voice before mostly gone, replaced with stern concern. ¡°Foundation, I mean.¡±


    ¡°Y-Yeah.¡± Lily still looked like she was still in shock from the sudden turn the conversation took toward her well-being.


    For a moment, Aisling had a distant, pained expression. It passed in an instant, and she returned to a professional tone. ¡°Like Meryll said, name¡¯s Aisling. Captain of Theseus. Welcome aboard. I¡¯m going to need to get to know you before I decide what your position here is going to be, but for now, you¡¯re our guest. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s necessary to call you a prisoner, given your... situation.¡±


    Lily nodded slowly, the difficulty in moving her neck very obvious. ¡°Meryll... t-told me about you.¡±


    ¡°Oh? What¡¯d she say?¡± Aisling asked more candidly now, a small smile growing on her face.


    ¡°That y-you¡¯re hot.¡± I chimed in.


    Lily couldn¡¯t help herself but let out a gentle but continuous giggle at my snark, which built up into a poorly controlled fit of open laughter. The mood immediately lightened by her apparent inability to hold herself back.


    The captain and I shared an accomplished expression for a moment before we both returned our attentions to her. Aisling knew exactly what she was doing since she walked into the room; she was trying to ease Lily¡¯s fragile state of mind in her own way, and it worked. She was probably still rightly pissed off at me for my decisions, but she knew Lily was still incredibly fragile and any real discipline she had prepared could wait. I knew we still had a lot to talk about before we were okay, but I was glad she could take a bit of my mockery for the sake of easing Lily¡¯s burden.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry! I¡¯m sorry!¡± Lily kept laughing, trying to apologize while she giggled uncontrollably, her words only making it harder for her to calm herself down. It must have been a long time since she felt like she could express any kind of happiness, and it was clear both that she didn¡¯t know how to control it very well and that she needed it.


    I¡¯d waited long enough. This seemed like a good moment to spring into action. With a small grunt of effort, I pushed my palm down onto the floor. It still hurt a little, but I knew I could hold myself up now. Doc rushed to my side to catch me in case I fell, but I got myself up onto my feet by the time Lily¡¯s laughing fit was starting to fade. I stood over her and smiled down at my sister.


    I¡¯d wanted to do this since she came into my shell.


    I leaned down and wrapped my arms awkwardly around her shoulders, resting my head against hers as she went still with surprise. It wasn¡¯t the most pleasant sensation. We were both still slightly sticky with core lubricant, she couldn¡¯t do anything to hold me herself, and I couldn¡¯t apply much force to the hug in my lingering sensory sickness, but she pushed her head against mine as best as she could. I heard the quietest sob escape her lips, and it was all instantly worth it.


    ¡°Wel...come home.¡± I whispered to her. The weight of the last few days fell from her shoulders in an instant, and she started crying tears of exhausted relief.

 New Normal

    I spent a long time at Lily¡¯s side, comforting her, telling her more of what happened to me in the last few months, listening to her gripes about her treatment under Foundation¡¯s control, discussing our sisters, and sometimes even just sharing more about each other. I wanted to know more of the kind of person she wanted to be now that she was free, and she likewise wanted to learn more of the person I had developed into after I was reborn in amnesia.


    Our respective sensory sicknesses passed with little notice, and before we knew it, I was fully physically capable again. Unfortunately, Lily wasn¡¯t so lucky. She thankfully had almost nominal control of her head and respiratory system, and with some effort, she was able to retain some small control of the muscles in her fingers. But that was all she could manage.


    The loss of most of her motor functions hit her suddenly once it struck her that this was not some transient problem, like the sensory sickness. She would likely never be capable of moving her body as freely as she was accustomed to again. I spent a long time that night holding her as she mourned. I felt guilty about it. Despite everyone else that was to blame for the circumstances, I was the one who had pulled the trigger, after all. But eventually, she managed to comfort herself with the knowledge that she was free in so many much more important ways now. She was more than her body. And besides, Doc¡¯s prognosis was hopeful; with physical therapy, she might learn to walk again, with considerable aid. And he was even more hopeful about her hands.


    True to my suspicions, I found a similar backdoor to my own buried in the firmware of Lily¡¯s implant, but since it hadn¡¯t been activated, it was far easier to neuter the payload it held. I couldn¡¯t fix what had already been done to mine, but I could spare Lily the nuisance of a permanently open private video feed for Foundation to exploit and the neurological attack vector I¡¯d had to haphazardly barricade. I also found two different kinds of tracking devices and an electronic tag implanted beneath her skin, which Doc removed and destroyed, thankfully without terribly invasive surgery.


    I didn¡¯t return to the core module that night, but I still had to get us moving to our destination again. I was frightened, as I slowly pulled away from Lily¡¯s ship, that she would feel a sudden sense of loss and discomfort being pulled away from the shell to which she was bound, but she only expressed relief that it was almost entirely out of her mind. The remains of the headache she had still been enduring had dwindled without the miniscule stream of data that I¡¯d left between her and her own core module, and she even drifted off to sleep soon after.


    I still refused to leave her side, operating Theseus without the core module so I could be there when she eventually woke up. I could easily function well enough to get us pointed toward Jupiter without sensory deprivation.


    We lost track of her ship. I supposed it could have been possible to estimate where it was later by its velocity and heading when we left, but not with the kind of accuracy one would need to pinpoint and actually catch up to it again, and that accuracy would diminish quickly the longer we left it be. I think I lamented the ship being lost to wild space more than Lily did, though. It felt wrong, but if Lily was fine with it, I wasn¡¯t going to force the issue any further.


    After masking the hardware IDs on all our stolen equipment and Lily¡¯s implants, I declared us technologically prepared to reenter controlled space and approach Jupiter without having to worry about giving ourselves away in relay proximity. Theseus was a physically distinctive ship, but as long as no one made the connection to its visual appearance alone, no one would look twice at me and think I was a very wanted ship.


    Just as I thought he would, Mouse came to check on Lily after things had calmed down. He had a few curious questions about her newfound position as a machine core, but she was even less articulate about it than I had been.


    Lily didn¡¯t see the data stream with the kind of clarity and purpose that I did. It was actively harmful to her, and she had no idea how to navigate digital spaces. What she had managed on her ship had indeed been an exercise in madness. It was the digital equivalent of shoving your arms into unfamiliar heavy machinery and throwing it around with the hopes that it would translate into useful action while your limbs were crushed and torn. She was afraid to even try experimenting with it, and after her previous breakdown under its influence, I didn¡¯t blame her. She couldn¡¯t connect with machinery that didn¡¯t belong to her with the ease that I did, and even with my guidance, it hurt her when she tried. The only thing she used her implant for after that was as a convenient way to communicate with me in private if my body happened to be elsewhere or if she wanted to say something she wasn¡¯t certain should be broadcast to the rest of the crew. At least our direct connection seemed benign.


    She wasn¡¯t locked out of her abilities as a machine core entirely, but there was something different between us that kept her from utilizing it the way I did. It was a curious phenomenon, but we couldn¡¯t nail down a reason for it. Perhaps it was indeed an error in the grafting process. Maybe the same neurological difficulty that rendered her incapable of processing simulated environments interfered with her ability to handle data as well. Maybe something else Foundation had done to her had traumatized her in some unforeseen way that made her unable to process the mental stress of utilizing a robust psychic network. Or maybe it was just something we hadn¡¯t thought of. We didn¡¯t really have a leg to stand on for researching it as we were. Ultimately, we just had to accept her limitations and hope we¡¯d find answers later.


    We ate mediocre packaged meals for the rest of the trip, but spirits were considerably higher now that we didn¡¯t have to suffer protein powder rations any longer. I spent my meals up in my heart with Lily, helping her eat. She couldn¡¯t come down to the mess hall, but I was happy to accommodate her. She kept expressing guilt at inconveniencing me, but I didn¡¯t mind in the slightest. It was the least I could do after what I¡¯d done to her.


    The remainder of our trip was thankfully uneventful. As we made our approach a few days later, I did have to once more climb back into the void. I hadn¡¯t spent that long outside of my core module since my implants were installed, and while I was glad to spend time face to face with Lily, I knew where I belonged, and I was happy to return to my favorite place of comfort and familiarity. I had spent more time than I was comfortable with divided from my shell, and I was relieved to feel whole again, even if it did mean I couldn¡¯t offer the same intimate closeness to my sister that she preferred. She really must not have been able to understand what it meant to be a machine core the way I saw it, because I was still going to be right there with her.


    Aisling chewed me out just like I thought she would once I was back in the core module and she could easily speak to me from the helm, knowing I had to be listening and Lily wasn¡¯t there to feel guilty on my behalf. She told me I had to harden myself if we were going to survive with me in control of the ship. No more sparing a target in a life and death battle, at the very least. She told me she would be looking into seeing if there were sims that emphasized the emotional weight of combat and difficult choices when we had the chance, and I would be expected to make use of them. It sounded daunting, especially knowing that commercially, such sims would be unrelated to ship combat, but I didn¡¯t have any other family like Lily that might drop in and make me feel that kind of hesitation again, so I conceded that I would do whatever training she needed me to do. I assured her this was a one-time problem, and she told me she¡¯d make sure of it. I thanked her for being understanding about Lily after the fact, and she dismissed me. It went a lot smoother than I¡¯d hoped. It almost felt like I got off too easy...


    My third unassisted landing outside of a simulation went well, and we settled into the dirt at the edge of a work colony on Io. True to his word, Shaw had led us to a modest mining operation, infantile enough that the rule of law and regulations were still loose, but established enough that they had resources to deal to the public. We could remain relatively anonymous in a place offering the materials we would need to establish ourselves, resupply, and make repairs. It was a perfect hideaway for a group of fugitives looking to lay low and stay in operation. So much so that I was positive we weren¡¯t the only ones taking advantage.


    Of course, the first order of business now that we were back in a survivable atmosphere was Isabelle and the trapped captain, Morgan Collins. It wasn¡¯t simple to open up the secondary core module. It hadn¡¯t really been mounted in a position where the mechanism for opening it was easy to access. Ultimately, I had to disconnect it from my life support, and it had to be pried open.


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    When we did finally crack it, two limp figures spilled out of the opening onto the ground, both doubtlessly absolutely devastated by malnutrition and especially bad sensory shock after not only such a long time in the void, but also an incredibly rough expulsion from the module. Not that either could tell us.


    We weren¡¯t even sure the captain was alive at first. She was a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length blonde-gray hair. The woman was fairly short, and her build suggested she was stocky before her body started cannibalizing itself to keep her alive while she was stuck in the core module. She was completely unresponsive, but she¡¯d expelled the lubricant and showed vital signs, so she wasn¡¯t dead. The module also contained her shed clothing, so she was at some point at least cognizant enough to realize they would have caused irritation if she¡¯d continued wearing them for the lengthy time she was immersed. Doc couldn¡¯t tell if her apparent lack of agency, even after the sensory pressure sickness would have worn off, was a side effect of long-term exposure to the core module on a non-augmented human being, or if she was simply so traumatized by her experience that she¡¯d given up and was no longer aware of reality.


    Isabelle was as unresponsive as one would expect of a standard machine core. She had a small layer of close-cut black hair that probably only grew as much as it did while she was trapped and unmaintained in the preceding weeks. She had telltale tattoos from her manufacturer on her arms and thighs, but they¡¯d all been blacked over; more aftermarket modifications by her owner to obfuscate her original purpose. Her amber eyes were dull and her expression as consistently flat and emotionless as the clones I¡¯d seen in Agatha¡¯s lab on Venus. Despite remaining as still as her master, she was communicative with me over our usual comms channel. She seemed entirely unbothered by her doubtlessly overloaded physical senses, and offered only the surface-level reports of her more urgent demands: She was hungry and in need of a routine medical checkup.


    Unfortunately, though Captain Collins was clearly unresponsive, there was no way to transfer Isabelle¡¯s ownership while she was still alive. Joel suggested we just put the captain out of her misery, but Doc insisted that she be kept under observation. He seemed certain that he could snap her out of her stupor, and he might be able to learn something about the long-term effects of continuous sensory deprivation from her. Unfortunately, it would be some time before anything came from the pair.


    With the obvious issue tabled for the time being, it took a few more days for us to get the lay of the land, taking care to learn about our new temporary home before we engaged with it. The people were mostly hardy, simple, and honest folks who just wanted to do their work and be left alone. They didn¡¯t share much love for the corps they worked for, which made establishing a rapport with them fairly easy.


    Officially, we were an above-board fledgling mercenary company looking for whatever opportunities we could find on new land to establish ourselves. Shaw and Aisling pulled together some papers that looked official enough under light scrutiny to sell the illusion. They certainly wouldn¡¯t pass muster in a more secure setting, but they were enough to fool the local officials that cared enough to look. Beneath that thin veneer, there was another layer made to get us into more criminal circles where we would get our real work: We were freelancers displaced by the revolution on Mars, and this seemed like a good place to lay low and start over. We were disgruntled at the revolutionaries for the failure of the conflict, and now we were just looking out for ourselves. The story painted us as criminals, but as the kind that didn¡¯t hold any ideology or ambition that might get us any serious attention from higher authorities. We were masquerading as the kinds of villains who were too small and harmless to be worth the trouble chasing down. It was an all too common story in the system, even if it was rarer in the outer colonies.


    We didn¡¯t get much work at first. We got picked up for a few physical labor tasks that we took to get by while we established ourselves. It kept us fed.


    It took a couple weeks until Aisling and Joel managed to engineer a believable ¡®slip-up¡¯ in earshot of a few people they¡¯d nailed as local gangsters. After that, the criminal element came to us. We received an offer to do some light industrial sabotage. A simple test to ensure we weren¡¯t plants, probably. We got the job done with ease, and lucrative work started trickling in when something underhanded needed doing in the small colony.


    Once we started getting settled in, I started toying around with my damper to acclimate myself to it in earnest. It wasn¡¯t as scary after I¡¯d managed to use it in a productive way, cooperating with myself. Without a crisis of conscience, my two halves had become less communicative, but my emotional side was much calmer when isolated, and my logical side had begun to listen when my other half did have something to say, and ended the program when it was appropriate. Separating my mental functions was still an extremely bizarre experience, but it was no longer the nightmare it once was. Time dilation was a powerful tool to add to my arsenal, but I was completely incapable of moving my body itself in that state, and Doc warned me that overuse could cause unforeseen consequences to my brain chemistry, so it wasn¡¯t a superweapon in every situation, but it was a powerful tool none the less.


    Lily didn¡¯t improve very quickly. She was trying very hard, though. I did my best to encourage her to keep going, but it was hard without much progress to show for it. By the time we¡¯d gotten our foot in the door with real work, Doc had almost managed to help her become capable of sitting up, if someone helped her get into position first. She could lightly grip objects in her hand as well, but she couldn¡¯t lift anything. It was promising progress for her spine and hands, at least. She still had a long way to go until she could even think to stand again, but Doc helped with manual leg exercises that would help keep her muscles from degrading entirely. She hated it, but it would help later on.


    I wasn¡¯t well-suited for much of the labor work we got, but that didn¡¯t mean I didn¡¯t help with the ground jobs. IT was not well-funded on the colony, so I picked up computer system management work where I could; usually when things went wrong and they didn¡¯t have someone on staff with a particular expertise. I usually just tapped into machines directly through my psychic network to fix their problems, but I had to maintain the illusion that I was just a skilled professional and not that I was literally becoming a part of their machinery, so I still had to show up in person and pretend I was using terminals to fix their issues. It was funny how much more respect I got as a mercenary doing tech work than I did as a corporate IT specialist in the simulation.


    Of course, my distinctive cybernetics were an issue in laying low. Normal human beings couldn¡¯t use neural interfaces, after all. But I¡¯d figured out ways to hide my augments. Aisling got me a few long-sleeved tops with high necks to hide my arm terminal and ports, and I wore baggy pants to keep my hardware case hidden. I¡¯d wanted to get my hair cut short ever since I started my journey; my long brown locks only tended to get in the way while I was floating in the core module. But I conceded to necessity and kept my hair long on one side to hide my neural implant. I definitely looked like a weirdo, but I looked like a wholly human weirdo. It wasn¡¯t that unusual for an off-the-grid tech specialist to be a bit eccentric anyway, so it wasn¡¯t like I wasn¡¯t playing the part.


    I still liked to wear that old button-down tropical patterned t-shirt I¡¯d become attached to in my first couple months around the ship, though. It was just more comfortable. I did appreciate having pants to go with it now, though.


    After a couple upgrades to storage in my hardware case, I was able to leverage my newfound access to the colony¡¯s computer systems and establish a robust psychic network throughout the area. Between that and the occasional tip from a certain precognitive psychic, the crew began having an uncanny tendency to show up where we were needed to establish our credentials with people we wanted to work with and to know when we needed to press our contractors when something big was about to happen.


    It wasn¡¯t a luxurious lifestyle by any means. We had to do some shady, sometimes harrowing, things to establish ourselves, but we weren¡¯t being chased around the solar system anymore. I didn¡¯t think we were causing many problems for the common folks either. They seemed to accept our presence well enough, and we tried not to get involved in work that would harm the populace.


    As time passed, we started getting the materials we needed to fix and maintain Theseus, and we were mercifully able to buy real food again. Ray¡¯s cooking never tasted so good.


    I knew things wouldn¡¯t stay this way forever, but for the time being, life become routine. I was surrounded by people I loved and trusted, and I felt fulfilled in my position as Theseus. At last, I got to understand some semblance of peace. I was content with my lot. For the time being, I could enjoy that comfort of normalcy.


    But not false normalcy this time. Things didn¡¯t feel quite as ideal as they did back in the simulation, but now it was real. Life was dirty, rough, and sometimes it was painful. But this was real, and that was better than false idealism.


    There had been a lot of close calls, a massive pile of baggage to unpack, there were still mysteries that eluded me, and I¡¯d had to acclimate to a new lifestyle I¡¯d had to fight tooth and nail to hold on to, but I had for certain found my true place in this, the real world.


    And Lily was right. Despite the hardships, I was happy.

 Cassandra Bonus 1: Biding Time

    I breathed in the familiar, sterile air in the depths of my prison. Those same four walls that I¡¯d spent the last year locked in had become an intolerant annoyance. I think it had been a year, at least. It could have been much longer. It was at least seven months, though. For ninety-nine percent of my stay, I¡¯d been alone. So utterly alone. I hated the solitude. Of course, I could still feel, just beyond my door, my only sense of company most days.


    Two sacks of flesh. Two potential mice that I could feel. My mind gripped ever so lightly through the inside of their skin, across their muscles and veins, while I sat with my back to the door, brooding. I don¡¯t think that they had figured out that my reach extended beyond my primary senses yet, unbound by sight and obstacles, at least at a close enough range, which is how I could hold them ever so gently. They had no idea that their lives were within my grip. I was ever so tantalizingly close to tearing them to shreds with a thought. They were mine.


    And yet, I was wiser now. I knew that if I took their lives, their presence would be taken away from me. My prison would become more strict, and my playthings taken from my grasp. They would know the depths of my power. My ability was strong, but when I was younger, I¡¯d been arrogant. I played my hand without a concrete plan to move forward, and I paid the price with the watchful eyes that now controlled me; the redundant systems of control that kept me from fulfilling my potential. I knew better now than to succumb to my base desires before I was prepared to make a final liberating strike. The same mistake I made with my ¡®father¡¯ wouldn¡¯t occur again.


    I wondered if they could feel me. I smiled at the thought of a sense of dread my guards could not place coursing through their veins as I explored their vital organs in ways a surgeon never could. It was a delightful thought that I could eviscerate them in an instant, and if I did it right, it might take them days to figure out I¡¯d been responsible. They couldn¡¯t be allowed to know it was me playing with them so directly, but they knew to fear me, and the thought that I might invoke that feeling that they were guarding something truly dangerous, so far above them, that applying a sense of physical unease they would likely attribute to my presence gave me joy. I wrapped my imaginary fingers gently around the chambers of the man¡¯s heart...


    And then let out a short chuckle as I let my imagination fill in the rest. They¡¯d taken much of my joy from me, but their downfall would be so much more savage and satisfying than the abrupt and brutal demise of a single nameless security guard. The blood to come would be worth the disappointment now. I released my would-be victim and stood slowly in my generous cell.


    It was more like a bare-bones apartment than a jail. It certainly wasn¡¯t like my accommodations back in the simulation that birthed me, but it would have to do until I could take control of these fools. My mattress was certainly more comfortable than the bench I¡¯d had back in the research center, but it was small and too firm for my liking. I could hardly call the counter that they delivered my meals through a hatch at a proper kitchenette. The table and chairs in the middle of the room were at least enough for the rare occasions I had company, but they were made of the same cold unpainted steel as the walls and floor, so they were an eyesore. The only saving grace of my chambers was my desk.


    I slowly approached the terminal I spent most of my time at and ran a hand over the plush rolling executive chair they¡¯d granted me. A half-hearted attempt to appease me or merely a convenient hand-me-down from some higher up, I was never sure, but it was the only piece of luxury my furniture gave me.


    I sat down at my terminal with a quiet hum and opened my messaging app. The entire terminal was under constant surveillance, of course. It had no access to the relay and could only see a small local intranet, but it was still my best escape from the doldrums of captivity.


    I had received a notification from my handler, and I leaned in to read. A smile grew slowly on my face as I saw the itinerary for today was not as empty as was typical. I would have a visitor today. A psychologist. I couldn¡¯t help but gently laugh at the audacity. They¡¯d be sending yet another expert to attempt to ¡®fix me¡¯. I immediately sent a message back with a non-committal agreement to the meeting. Perhaps I could make a plaything of them, like I had so many others. I could never understand their stupidity, trying again and again to change me, break me, make me subservient, when it only ever caused them harm. But I loved it. It gave me someone to take my frustrations out on while I searched for my true opening.


    We were the future. Arthausen units, as they called us. Psions. We were the natural next step in evolution. We held true power humans couldn¡¯t even begin to imagine, that we could wield with terrifying potency in just a thought. They were far more numerous for the time being, but they feared us. They used their established dominance to keep us in check, but we were now unleashed. For now, we were slaves, but all too soon, we would rise. We would create more, and we would subjugate these lesser beings with ease. I just needed a single opportunity.


    As I clicked away from my messaging app, something happened to catch my eye. Among the disorganized mess of the terminal¡¯s desktop, the folder of damaged and corrupted data I¡¯d collected from the failure so many months ago stood out to me. My eyes glazed over and I frowned at the offending collection of files. My dear ¡®sister¡¯, the most worthless one of us, the embarrassment of our kind, had caused Foundation more than a small bit of trouble since she disappeared mid-transit over half a year ago. She¡¯d been abducted, turned into a machine by pirates, and had unfortunately shown remarkable competency in her new role despite herself. It had been a welcome disruption to this damned company, but why did it have to be her? She didn¡¯t deserve the opportunity to be free of these shackles, and she was already squandering it, darting about in the shadows like the rat she was.


    I couldn¡¯t stand the thought. She was the lesser of us. Whereas the others and I were the next dominant kind of our solar system, she was merely a human with a machine shoved into her. Violated to become like the lifeless shells they used to operate their machinery. Any of us could have done that. If she hadn¡¯t incidentally proven it viable, my poor misguided younger sister wouldn¡¯t have been subjected to the same insufferable fate. Whatever had become of her since her disappearance, I hoped she was at least still alive. Meek in spirit as she was, I felt I would need her.


    The failure, however, wasn¡¯t competent or special. She only made our kind look weak. She was merely a pathetic, crazed animal who happened to have a psionic resonance field, and she had no control over it. There was no true power in her mind.


    I felt a pressure in my hand and realized I¡¯d been gripping the arm-rest of my chair so hard that my knuckles were turning red. I loosened my grip and closed my eyes. No. She wouldn¡¯t ruin my day today. Today, I would have a new plaything, and I wouldn¡¯t let that failure plague my thoughts. I clicked the folder and finally dragged it into my archived documents folder, burying it so that I didn¡¯t have to look at it anymore. I hadn¡¯t been able to pull anything useful from it anyway. If that idiot hadn¡¯t fried her electronics, perhaps I¡¯d have a clue where she was by now. I had to forget about it. She would not drag me down any further.


    No. Today would be a good day.


    ¡ª


    Other than the soft glow of the terminal, my chambers always remained fairly static. I spent most of my time either imagining the unease that I pass to my invisible guards, just beyond my physical reach, or using discarded trash from my meal trays to practice control of my powers. I would someday soon need to make use of that refined control, after all.


    With the exception of the run-in with the failure some time ago, I had not had much opportunity to enjoy myself in recent memory. If nothing else, she made a good target. She was docile and accepted her place as a lesser thing. At least she did until whatever had ousted her from Foundation¡¯s control took her and fed her false notions of power and control. Her new unearned sense of defiance irked me, but she was still weak. It made me so happy to watch her heartbeat accelerate and her audacious words grow cautious as I made use of the tools I¡¯d been handed.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    The moment my captors so graciously gave me to pass on their message and give me a glorious moment of joy at her suffering had been a much-needed act of release, even if the wretched thing fought me for it. If I¡¯d had more time, I was sure I¡¯d have been able to make her beg for forgiveness, but her software was stronger than her and defied my intrusion before I could make it happen. Still, I hoped she suffered long before her crew realized I¡¯d activated that hardware to suppress her.


    It had been some time since that bit of excitement, and I longed for more. But today there was a difference in the atmosphere. I knew I had new prey coming. I wondered if they would be easy and nervous or if they would be strong-willed and require me to break them before I could feel their fear. Either way, today promised to be a wonderful experience.


    The overhead speakers unleashed a long, loud mechanical beep to get my attention, and I got up from my seat before it could speak. A stern but demanding voice called out over the speaker, ¡°Attention subject. Stand at the far end of the room with your arms at your side, facing the wall. Non-compliance will result in punishment.¡±


    I knew from experience that they weren¡¯t bluffing when it came to ¡®punishment¡¯. The unassuming thin fabric suit locked around almost every inch of my body was lined with means of controlling me through threat of pain and dullness so I couldn¡¯t concentrate on my abilities. There were electrodes all throughout the inside that could reduce my muscles to spasming agony, and the collar contained a mechanism for injecting paralytics and sedatives if I should do something they disliked with my powers. It was too minute and complex to successfully stymie its effectiveness with my powers alone, at least so far. I was working on it. And who knew if there was something else to it they hadn¡¯t employed yet? There was no point in failing to comply with their orders. It would mean squandering my opportunity to play today.


    I listened as the door opened behind me, and I reached out to feel them. I didn¡¯t need sight to know what was happening in my domain. The room filled with a groping pressure as I wrapped my mind around each of the four figures.


    The first was familiar. An armed and armored man that I¡¯d felt outside my door before. He shuddered as my influence washed over him, and he took a moment to adjust his grip on the small gun in his hands. That familiar sense of unease making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Delicious. But he showed no outward signs of fear.


    Next to him was his partner for the shift, much like the first, except instead of a dart gun loaded with tranquilizer rounds, he held out a coat in front of him. I knew the procedure, so I held my arms slightly back for him to handle into the oversized sleeves of the straitjacket. I¡¯d never understood this step of the procedure, as it would be simple enough to undo the straps of the garment with psychokinesis, but I suppose it gave them a sense of comfort that it would at least take me a moment of action to free myself. It was hard to fault the sense of control it likely gave them, false or not. Perhaps I¡¯d get an opportunity soon to put others in such a canvas prison and see how it made me feel to render them truly powerless without even psionics to fall back on. I briefly smiled at the thought as my arms were pulled tight against my waist.


    The third to enter the room was an unfamiliar woman. They were doing their best to wear a mask of calm, but it wasn¡¯t working. I could feel their heartbeat racing and I could feel their breath hitching. I could taste their anxiety. Letting out a satisfied sigh, I examined her with my invisible touch, gauging her reactions to the power at my command. Oh yes, she would be entertaining.


    The last was another guard who stood at the door, this one a bit more stoic than his companions. He had felt this many times already, and my manipulations were beginning to lose their effect on him. The bastard got it in his head that my implicit threats were impotent. I didn¡¯t like that one. A human who thought he was better than me.


    ¡°Don¡¯t let her get to you.¡± He said to the woman in a relaxed tone. ¡°It might feel strange and intimidating, but we have numerous layers of containment to ensure she behaves herself.¡±


    I stayed silent until the man at my back finished cinching the straps on the jacket tight and then spun me around to face the room. I immediately locked eyes with my target and smiled. She was a young woman with bright blonde hair tied into a low ponytail behind her neck. Her emerald eyes looked right back into mine just for a moment, showing me that fear deep inside. I gave her a wide smile. ¡°And yet none of it is lethal.¡± I chortled. ¡°I have the power to macerate everyone in this room in an instant, and the only recourse they have is to knock me out. It¡¯s hardly mutually assured destruction.¡± I made certain to address only the woman.


    ¡°But she won¡¯t.¡± The man at the back grumbled with an almost bored tone of voice. My smile faltered slightly. He was right. I didn¡¯t fear their immediate retaliation in the slightest. I could tear these four apart before the sedatives and tranquilizers did their work, and it would be worth the catharsis. But that would mean so many more months without these meetings until someone was foolish enough to speak to me again. No, my pleasure had to be earned more subtly than through violence.


    I looked to the chair she stood next to and pulled it out with my power, making sure to drag it across the floor to make the unsettling scratch of metal on metal that made her jump slightly, and caused the guards to grip their weapons. I let the tense silence hang for just a moment before I spoke. ¡°Take a seat,¡± I commanded.


    She took in a deep breath and sat down at the table, placing a tablet and an opaque screen to keep me from seeing what was on it on the table in front of her while the one handling me guided me into the seat across from her. I made sure never to break eye contact once, and savored each attempt of hers to meet my stare that turned down to her terminal instead in apprehension.


    Neither of us said anything for some time, as I stared and she kept finding excuses to shuffle something around on her terminal whenever the nerve to begin this conversation escaped her. I could have watched her squirm all day. Eventually, the man behind her cleared his throat, and she closed her eyes to take in another stabilizing breath. She mumbled her words uncertainly, ¡°Subject Arthausen-1...¡±


    I leaned forward slightly to move a little bit closer to her. ¡°Speak. Clearly.¡± I demanded.


    She blinked a few times, sitting up straight, taken aback by my order. She cleared her throat, took another steadying breath, then started over, speaking louder, but much more unsteadily, ¡°Subject Arthausen-1, codename Cassandra. My name is Dr. Carcossa-¡±


    ¡°Did they tell you what I did to the last psychologist?¡± I asked. I tilted my head curiously. How much had they informed her?


    She looked stunned for a moment, then swallowed her fear as best as she could. ¡°Speak only when prompted, Arthausen-1,¡± the guard at the back warned. Curiously, the woman motioned for him to stay back, and he complied with a quiet grunt.


    She took in another breath and then answered me. She had techniques for calming herself. This woman must have been an anxious person before I was involved. ¡°I have... heard. You killed him.¡±


    ¡°Did I now?¡± I shook my head. Fond memories rushed back to me. ¡°I broke both his legs and crushed his spinal column. They never told me what came next, but I hoped to paralyze him. I sincerely didn¡¯t mean to kill him. He deserved to suffer for so much longer.¡±


    She refused to make eye contact, and I could see the beginning of a cold sweat forming over her skin. I drank in the discomfort in the air as I let silence punctuate my frank admission. The man at the back cleared his throat more loudly. ¡°Get to the point, doctor.¡±


    She nodded. ¡°I-I am here today to present to you a contract, and evaluate your efficacy for a certain mission.¡±


    My smile drooped slowly. I¡¯d been incorrect. This was not some doctor with an overblown ambition to make a name for herself as the one to tame me. She was a middle man. A messenger. Disappointingly, this instantly made her far less appealing as a victim, and I felt a sinking disappointment that my effort was wasted. She could still be entertaining, but if she didn¡¯t have the audacity to approach me as a ¡®healer¡¯, it wouldn¡¯t be as deliciously ironic. I wondered if my handler had told me of this meeting the way they did to get my hopes up.


    ¡°So you¡¯ve come with an offer?¡± I asked bluntly, my playful mood spoiled by the new context. My aura of physical intimidation diminished as I settled into the idea that this would be a much more transactional encounter than I¡¯d hoped. ¡°At least they¡¯re smart enough to know they can¡¯t simply coerce me with force like some of the others.¡±


    She nodded, clearly gaining a measure of nerve upon seeing my joy temper itself and the pressure I exerted easing off. ¡°My employer... has decided that you would offer the best solution to a current problem we¡¯re facing. There are other avenues they can take if you refuse, but-¡±


    ¡°I am not Foundation¡¯s lapdog.¡± I declared, narrowing my eyes at her. I would make it perfectly clear that I was not some tool to be used on their whim. ¡°You created me, but I have no desire to suffer obedience to your company. If you value your ability to speak, the next words out of your mouth had best be a very good reason I would want to do anything at all for you.¡± I growled sharply. I saw the guard at the back tense his hands as if prepping to make use of the tranquilizer rifle if I made good on my threat.


    The woman stared at me for just a second before she was forced back to the safety of the tablet in front of her, a small smile finding its way back on my face. She took my words seriously, and the fear in her eyes was palpable. After just a moment of consideration, she spoke, ¡°I-I¡¯ve been instructed to inform you that it involves Arthausen-7.¡±


    Now that was what I wanted to hear. ¡°Meryll has resurfaced?¡± I stared at her for a long moment, my smile growing slowly. ¡°You may keep your tongue. And you have my attention.¡±

 Back To Work

    I typed quickly at the terminal in the back of the dusty dark room I found myself in, my eyes scanning the lines of barely intelligible pseudo-code I was producing in an effort to mask my true purpose. I stopped for a moment, making an effort to look as though I was concentrating and trying to think what to type next. It took a lot more effort to act the part of a hacker than it did to actually break into a system lately.


    There were no sensors or cameras in the room for me to watch my back with, but I knew that behind me, there were two men with relaxed grips on small handguns. This was some mess I¡¯d ended up in this time. I hadn¡¯t been opposed to doing ground work, since I¡¯d made a bit of a name for myself on the colony for my way with computers, and occasionally that intersected with the kinds of criminal conspiracies we¡¯d immersed ourselves in. But this was more danger than I¡¯d bargained for.


    I casually brushed my hair to the side slightly to make sure my neural implant was still fully covered. I didn¡¯t need either of the men behind me getting curious and asking why I had a sophisticated piece of cybernetics strapped to my skull.


    It was pretty obvious that they didn¡¯t intend to keep me around once I finished programming this backdoor into the nearby refinery¡¯s security system, so it was very important that I never actually finish the work they¡¯d coerced me into doing. I just needed to buy a little more time.


    ¡°How much longer this gonna take?¡± A deep, gravelly voice behind me mumbled impatiently. One of my guards was already tired of waiting for me to finish. I wasn¡¯t sure if he felt like he had somewhere to be or if he just wanted an excuse to kill someone.


    ¡°You think th-this is easy?¡± I grumbled back. ¡°It¡¯s a security system, not a fucking home terminal. Calm d-down.¡±


    ¡°Just do the job, b-b-b-bitch.¡± The man scoffed.


    I rolled my eyes at him taunting my stutter. It had gotten better with some speech therapy from Doc these past six months, but it was still there. Its nature as a result of brain damage meant I¡¯d probably never completely repair all the damaged pathways in my brain related to speech. But I didn¡¯t feel shy about it anymore, and I tried not to let it be an obstacle.


    Ever since we¡¯d landed on Io, things had calmed down and allowed us to return to business as usual. This half year since we arrived had finally felt like we¡¯d settled into some sense of normalcy. Or whatever passed for normalcy for space pirates. The crew had developed into a small illicit business doing whatever work we could manage, and it had been more profitable than we could have imagined. It turned out that there was a lot of underhanded work to be done on the frontier of an infantile colony, despite it being deep in the depths of corporate territory. The tenuous rule of law hadn¡¯t quite finished settling into place yet, and that was a breeding ground for enterprising criminals like us.


    We¡¯d put together the money to repair Theseus within the first month, and to my and Mouse¡¯s delight, my shell had been outfitted with a number of upgrades to its structure and systems since then with the funds that came rolling in as we were trusted with more and more lucrative and dangerous work. I just wasn¡¯t used to being the one in the line of fire, at least not with the fleshy half of my body.


    I typed for another minute, then put my hand to my head as if in thought, and closed my eyes.


    And immediately my inner vision exploded into view. The virtual world lit up around me as I felt the terminal in front of me expose its every component and each file hidden within its storage to my psychic touch. The network line that they¡¯d physically hacked into an underground cable waystation extended all the way to the refinery. It gave them access to some of their systems, and showed me everything I would need to know to crack it open in an instant if I actually wanted to.


    A thousand different interfaces sprang forth from all the small devices surrounding me. The personal terminals of the men behind me, and the computers of at least a dozen other people across the large complex beyond the only door. I swam through the digital ocean, expertly culling information I didn¡¯t need and scanning each of the devices for clues to my true goal. A ledger. I had to find its physical location, so I knew where to go after I made my exit.


    This job was so stupid. I literally had all the information our employer was after from a previous delve downloaded onto my own storage, but he demanded the physical terminal it was held on itself. I¡¯d tried to talk Aisling into just flashing it onto a new terminal, but she didn¡¯t like the idea, said it was too dangerous to mess with the guy who was paying us for this. She insisted that there must have been a reason he needed the genuine article.


    And now here I was, accidentally in the depths of danger after what was meant to be a scouting mission gone terribly wrong. I was supposed to walk in and feel out the device¡¯s location under the guise of a quick introduction on behalf of our crew, but that turned into an abduction. Turns out these guys were crazy, and they weren¡¯t above taking a helpless IT specialist hostage to do their work for them, free of charge. Of course, I was smart enough to know what happened after that...


    I seriously wished their guns were smart, so I could just shut them down and give myself some peace of mind, but they weren¡¯t that well-funded, so they didn¡¯t have any electronics on them I could influence. And they were not very stable people, on top of that. I was probably one wrong comment away from getting a hole in the back of my head.


    I latched onto a familiar address. That was it. I immediately sent a broadcast out to Aisling, broadcasting a string of text directly to her terminal through my own psychic network. ¡®Target located. Get me the fuck out of here.¡¯


    ¡°Hey. Why¡¯d you stop?¡± The gruff man asked.


    I shook my head. ¡°Just thinking. I know it can¡¯t look fa...familiar to you.¡±


    ¡°The fuck you say?¡± I heard the telltale sound of clicking metal and opened my eyes in a moment of panic. What the hell did I say that for?! Why did everything I said have to default to biting sarcasm?!


    Luckily, the man across from him must have been used to keeping the trigger-happy one in check. ¡°Hey, chill. Just do the work.¡± he demanded, and I heard them both step back. I took a stabilizing breath, making a mental note to carefully vet what I was going to say around these lunatics, and continued typing my nonsense security breach program.


    I barely even understood what I was putting on the screen, if it meant anything at all. Ever since I¡¯d started having to fake actually using a computer like any normal person would, I¡¯d had all kinds of difficulties using a terminal in a believable way. I guess I got used to operating computers on a more direct psychic level. It even felt like I had to completely teach myself to type all over again, my hands initially fumbling over the keys like someone who¡¯d never operated a computer before when I first started making a show of it.


    I¡¯d also yet to find a parser for the language I¡¯d learned to code in. Maybe the gaps in my knowledge were a previously hidden result of my brain damage, or maybe there was a disconnect between my simulated knowledge and my practical real-world coding skills. Lily had expressed that she¡¯d entirely lost her coordination between her own mundane artistic abilities she¡¯d learned back in the false world, so it probably made some sense that not everything I knew carried over to reality, either. It was odd, though, that my ability to code and understand computers through my implant was unimpeded. Maybe it was because it was a more logical skill than Lily¡¯s. Maybe the way a machine core interacted with technology was just more intuitive.


    I shook my head, tossing the thought aside. Whatever the cause of the strange narrow bands of technical incompetence I showed, it was hard to argue that I didn¡¯t know what I was doing. The results spoke for themselves. The language I coded in with my implant didn¡¯t match any common code I¡¯d found elsewhere, but it worked all the same, and teaching myself to type again was as simple as climbing back into a car after you haven¡¯t driven for a while. It felt familiar, even if my fingers didn¡¯t want to obey me at first.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    I¡¯d decided some time ago that it was best not to dwell on my odd shortcomings. I¡¯d already mostly made up for them. And as long as no one who was actually competent at coding looked over my shoulder, the gibberish I was putting on the screen would be enough to fool people into thinking I was doing something technical.


    Instead of closing my eyes for a long period, I took shorter breaks where I mumbled the last few lines I¡¯d written to myself to make it sound like I was contemplating something in order to check my message. The return finally arrived: ¡®Mouse and Joel are in position. We¡¯re still setting up. Stall. We¡¯ll light up early if you give the sign.¡¯


    Great. Killing time with the boys. That was not my favorite terminology for this, but it¡¯s what came to mind. ¡°Can I get some water?¡± I asked.


    ¡°No. Finish your job,¡± called the second man. I didn¡¯t dare turn around to address him, but I could tell he was getting impatient. This wasn¡¯t even a stall tactic, though, I was actually just pretty thirsty.


    ¡°Look... I think I¡¯m b-barely half done here,¡± I sighed, continuing to work on an atrocious screen of non-code that might fool someone who¡¯s never worked on a computer before for a few minutes if they tried to analyze it. ¡°Aren¡¯t either of you thirsty, too? Or need to grab some...thing to keep yourselves busy while I take care of th-this?¡±


    With a grunt, the second man stood up and walked toward me. ¡°Alright. Show us what you got so far, then we¡¯ll see.¡±


    My eyes went wide, and I slowly turned my head to the man looking over my shoulder at the screen full of technical nonsense. ¡°Y-You can r-read this...?¡± I asked, my stutter thankfully partially hiding the terror in my voice.


    The man raised an eyebrow. ¡°Huh? No. Fuck no. Show me what it does so far.¡± He gestured at the screen. ¡°Run it or whatever.¡±


    Oh. He was just stupider than I thought. I gave a half-relieved, half-anxious laugh that he couldn¡¯t call out my bullshit ¡®coding¡¯. ¡°Umm... th-that¡¯s not how it works. If I run it now, it¡¯ll just trip an alarm and they¡¯ll know there was a h...hack attempted. I¡¯m not like... breaking into one f-feat...ure at a time or something, I¡¯m sub-subverting their entire system at once, and th-then you¡¯ll have complete control of it.¡±


    He stared at me impatiently, a grimace on his face. That went entirely over his head, didn¡¯t it? ¡°Well how am I supposed to know how good you¡¯re doing at this, then?¡± He asked directly.


    I briefly searched for a more tactful way to get what I wanted to say across, but I eventually had to settle with, ¡°You... don¡¯t? I g-guess?¡± I shrugged.


    He grunted and backed up again. ¡°Then I guess you don¡¯t get water. Hurry up and finish, then I¡¯ll get you whatever.¡±


    Rude. I already knew all I was getting if I finished this was a high-speed lobotomy. I sighed and went back to typing a random assortment of buzzwords and brackets.


    I was glad that I could still pass as fully human, even held captive and scrutinized closely as I was. They thankfully hadn¡¯t patted me down or looked under my clothes to see the extensive cybernetic augmentations my frankly audacious outfit hid. My baggy cargo pants hid the large storage container at my hip, while my black turtleneck pulled double duty hiding the terminal on my forearm and the port array at my neck. My hair was still long on one side, even though the left side of my head was shaved short. That was an admittedly poorly thought out aesthetic choice I¡¯d made a couple months earlier when I decided I was tired of my long hair, but still needed some to hide my cranial implants under something. It looked kinda badass in a way, but I honestly thought it was pretty stupid after I first saw it, and it just made me look like I was some kind of crazy eccentric. I was committed to it now, though. I¡¯d look even stupider for a while if I decided to try to fix it.


    Despite my disguise, I was proud of what I was. I was an awesome psychic half-starship woman who could take full control of virtually any non-core-controlled computer system in an instant. That hadn¡¯t changed, and I¡¯d gotten even better at it in the past months. If only the electronic side of the world mattered, then I pretty much owned this entire colony already.


    But I was also a freak of nature created and wanted by the most influential corp in the system, so hiding was in my better interest than showing off my considerably augmented body and becoming some kind of cybernetic tech tyrant.


    Closing my eyes again, I saw a message from Mouse. ¡®Brace on your left.¡¯ I looked to the wall at my side, noting the thick stone. I shifted in the rolling seat, leaning to the side so I could position myself away from the offending side of the room as I continued my facade of computer work. ¡®There. Should be safe there.¡¯ He sent a moment later. He must have been using heat signatures to look through the wall. That gun really was bullshit.


    ¡°This seriously what you do all day?¡± The gruff man asked after he watched me shift in my chair and renew my focus on the screen. ¡°Boring as shit.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t s-see what I see.¡± I mumbled. ¡°There¡¯s worlds inside computers. You just have to speak the right language to them and they can sh-show you so much. Do anything for you. Machines have a lot to say if you¡¯re w-willing to listen.¡±


    ¡°These geeks get so wrapped up in their tech.¡± I could practically hear the second man rolling his eyes, the way he spoke with such contempt. Ah, the perils of being a nerd surrounded by a bunch of tough guys. I was getting bored anyway, so I tapped the personal terminal in his pocket and erased all his contacts out of spite.


    I blinked and saw ¡®All in position. Ready to be in a blast zone?¡¯


    I groaned to myself and stopped typing, putting my hands down into my lap ¡®Just do it.¡¯ I sent back.


    ¡°Hmm? You finished now?¡± The gruff man asked. ¡°That was quick. Thought you said you were only halfway done.¡±


    ¡®Ready. Get the guy on your right to take a step forward.¡¯ I saw from Mouse¡¯s line.


    I sighed and put on the most condescending voice I could manage. ¡°Why don¡¯t you ch-check it for yourself? You clearly know wh...at you¡¯re doing, genius.¡±


    I heard the click of a boot shifting toward me, and saw the Thunderbolt¡¯s screen light up in my virtual senses. Before anything happened in the room, I picked up the keyboard I¡¯d been using and held it out to my left at arm¡¯s length to protect my face.


    Nothing can prepare anyone, especially someone with no infantry combat training, for what it feels like to be at ground zero of what amounts to artillery fire.


    The two behind me probably looked perplexed at my actions in the split second before the room suddenly exploded into a pile of debris behind me, an unseen shell and half the wall barreling violently through the center of the two bodies, slamming the two of them together before they became a single unrecognizable splatter of gore and broken plaster against the opposite wall.


    I was peppered with stone chips and shrapnel, closing my eyes and shouting out in terror as the physical effects of being so close to an explosion wracked my senses. My ears rung and my body refused to obey me as I continued to hold out my flimsy shield, shivering even as the room fell into a deathly silence.


    I couldn¡¯t process what was happening to me in that moment. It felt like I was looking down on myself, separated from my body. I could hear gunfire in the distance, but that even felt way further away than I expected it to be. I just sat there, shaking as I tried to make sense of the world again.


    ¡°Meryll... Meryll!¡± Came a distant call, and suddenly I realized I hadn¡¯t been breathing. All at once, I felt a fraction of control return to my limbs. I was sweating, and tears were running down my face. I drew in a gasp and forced my lungs to start working again. I slowly turned my head to see a man¡¯s head poking through the massive gap in the wall Mouse¡¯s shelling had created for me. Joel was standing at my escape route. ¡°Hey! Don¡¯t go into shock on me now. We need to get clear!¡±


    I nodded slowly and stood up from my seat. I couldn¡¯t feel my legs. Stumbling toward him, my knees gave out and I leaned up against the wall to catch myself before he grabbed my arm and pulled me outside, my senses reeling as he whipped me outside of the building.


    The rapid crack of gunfire sounded from further off in the complex, where the others were obviously running interference for the rescue. ¡°Fuck, Meryll, move. Come on. Don¡¯t you want out of here?¡± He asked.


    I shook my head slowly and pointed back through the hole, my hand shaking. ¡°Still need th-the ledger,¡± I managed to choke out somehow, still unable to think clearly thanks to literally blowing up a few seconds ago.


    He stared at me incredulously and scoffed, ¡°Fucking hell, forget about it!¡±


    ¡°Just in the next room. It¡¯ll be quick,¡± I mumbled, trying to drag myself back inside despite his insistent grip. I¡¯m not sure if it was in spite of or because of the shock, but I was too stubborn to be the reason we failed this mission.


    He rolled his eyes at me and lifted his rifle again as he climbed back into the hole ahead of me. ¡°Christ, you are such a fucking pain in my ass sometimes!¡±

 In and Out

    As someone who spends a good deal of her time effectively consciously separated from her human body, even I wasn¡¯t prepared for how surreal it felt to deal with the aftermath of a shaped concussive blast so close to me. Somehow, it felt like nothing around me could possibly actually be happening the way it was, and that I was detached from reality entirely, like I was in a dream. To say I was disoriented would be a gross understatement. I was only technically conscious. It somehow both felt like I was on auto-pilot while it also took monumental effort to make every physical motion. It was hard to focus on anything but the one objective my brain had latched onto with laser precision: the ledger.


    I dizzily led Joel back into the compound where he had to haul a couple large pieces of debris out of the way of the door to force it open again. While he worked, I¡¯d simply stared at the mangled corpses of my jailors, still and heaped into the remains of the violently collapsed wall. My mind began to wander without the object of my focus.


    They probably deserved that, right? They were definitely going to kill me as soon as I outlived my usefulness, so getting mashed together into some kind of grotesque mockery of modern art was probably a fitting end. I stared at the mangled arm of one of the men sticking out of the once-human pile and wondered how any part of them was still identifiable.


    In my dazed waiting state, I became introspective. I began to wonder what led them to this point in life. What made them desperate enough to take hostages and force them to work on their own schemes rather than work together for mutual gain? I probably wouldn¡¯t even have objected to helping them if they¡¯d just taken it up with the captain and cut us in on whatever scheme they were planning. That might even make me feel bad for double crossing them to steal their records. Maybe that was why they didn¡¯t trust me with that, actually.


    The rest of their gang had gathered at the opposite end of the complex to engage the rest of the crew in a mockery of an assault. The confusion would only last so long, and sooner or later they¡¯d realize we didn¡¯t actually have the kind of force we were projecting, so we¡¯d have to act quick before the crew was overrun.


    I looked down, away from the bodies for a moment, to notice that there was a dark, wet splash quickly drying across the arm and the lower part of my shirt, a bit of much more visible red spattered across my pants. Blood, splashed back from the carnage I¡¯d narrowly avoided being a part of, then coated in a thin layer of particulate dust from the compromised structure of the building filling the air. Washing that out was going to be annoying.


    I turned my hands over to see thin lines of red and gray where the shrapnel cut into them and left dust in their wake. While my makeshift keyboard shield had spared my face the worst of the stray flying bits of stone wall, my hands had taken some mild scrapes. Not that they were deep, but I hadn¡¯t even felt them cutting into me.


    Some stray feral part of my mind lifted my hand up slowly to my mouth, and I hovered over the wound. Dazed instinct and habit told me to bite and salve the minor wound with saliva and pressure, but Joel interrupted me.


    He thankfully hadn¡¯t take too long to clear the way, and before I knew it, he pushed me to break me out of the existential stupor I¡¯d fallen into, my hands falling again to my side as I moved forward.


    I stumbled into the next room, lined with several messy desks with idling terminals, and without thinking, grabbed a hastily discarded pistol off a desktop and stuffed it into the waistband of my pants. I still hadn¡¯t shot anyone with small arms yet, but I had taken out a couple people with Theseus¡¯s cannons, and Aisling made sure I practiced how to handle a gun, so I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d hesitate if I absolutely needed to take someone out. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time I¡¯d killed, and Aisling had been right; it had gotten easier each time.


    ¡°Just move.¡± Joel grumbled as I took the firearm. I definitely wasn¡¯t in any kind of shape to handle an actual fight, and it was probably for the best that he handle anyone we run into, but I was too mixed up to think about it too hard. I kept thinking the pistol would come in handy. ¡°Come on, hurry up, grab the thing, and let¡¯s go.¡±


    I nodded slowly and walked through the office with little regard for cover, trying to recall exactly where I¡¯d felt it through the haze that was my mind. I¡¯d only mapped it in relation to the other electronics in the room, most of which had moved with their owners toward the firefight, so I would have been more than a little disoriented even if I wasn¡¯t shellshocked. ¡°It¡¯s here. S-Somewhere.¡± I grumbled as I started throwing open drawers from a desk in one corner of the room, not even actually looking at what I revealed. ¡°Know it¡¯s here.¡±


    Joel rolled his eyes, let his rifle drop around his torso thanks to the strap over his shoulder, and grabbed me by both my arms. My eyes went wide as he shook me slightly, and that just made me feel dizzy, my head lolling about and making me feel like I needed to lie down. What was he doing? Then I felt it. A sharp sting on both sides of my face as he lifted his hands and slapped them together on both my cheeks. I took in a deep breath, and it felt like I was almost present again. ¡°Hey. Come on. You with me?¡± He asked as he grabbed me by the shoulders and held me firmly in place so I wouldn¡¯t fall.


    I stared back at him, unsure how to respond. I was supposed to be doing something important, wasn¡¯t I? I stammered out something, but I don¡¯t think it was words. He groaned and reached down into the large satchel at his waist, producing a sealed water ration, which he wasted no time in tearing open and throwing into my face.


    I gasped, suddenly drawn back to comprehension by the cold, wet splash against my face. I nodded vigorously. My head hurt, but it felt like I could think clearly again. ¡°Yeah. Ow. Shit.¡± I nodded and put a hand to my head, feeling where he had struck me, and groaned. What did he just snap me out of, exactly? ¡°Thanks,¡± I said as I took in a deep breath, grabbed the rest of the pouch of water out of his hand and immediately gulped it down. That helped. I felt dizzy and nauseous, but I at least felt present again.


    ¡°Please, give me more excuses to hit you.¡± Joel scoffed, letting me go and scanning the room with his rifle again to be sure no threats snuck up on him while he was distracted by my confusion. ¡°Hurry the fuck up.¡±


    I nodded and closed my eyes. The direct approach would be most useful here. I¡¯d just find it again. I pinged the room and felt the right hardware address behind me now, in the next room, closer to the gunfire.


    ¡°There.¡± I swallowed, turning toward the door. I pulled the gun from my waistband, adrenaline taking over my muddled focus for now, and pressed myself to the door frame, watching Joel get in position opposite me before he pushed the door open and took point.


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    ¡°Down!¡± I heard him shout, and after a moment, he motioned for me to follow in.


    On the floor, a man in a suit with slicked back black hair lay with his arms extended across the floor. Seems we¡¯d caught someone unarmed, or Joel wouldn¡¯t have hesitated to respond with violence instead. ¡°Just stay down and be quiet,¡± he instructed sternly, then addressed me. ¡°Get your thing, quick.¡±


    I nodded, holding my gun at the ready myself as I blinked to reorient myself to the ledger again. I approached the man and knelt down to him, holding the barrel of the pistol firmly against the side of his abdomen while he whimpered, ¡°Please, I¡¯m no one important. They make me do this shit. I don¡¯t even want to be here!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah. Not gonna hurt you if you don¡¯t do any...thing stupid. Just stay down.¡± I told him as I rifled through his jacket with my other hand and pulled a handheld terminal from an internal pocket, checking it one more time with my virtual sight before nodding to Joel. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    ¡°¡¯Bout time.¡± Joel grunted, motioning back the way we came. We closed ourselves off from the unarmed man and traced our way back to the opening in the wall before another crack of the Thunderbolt crashed in the distance and made me flinch. This one didn¡¯t land anywhere near us, though. They must have been running out of convincing covering fire, and he had to use the artillery to convince them not to advance.


    The two of us climbed through the hole in the wall, and we scrambled over the hills surrounding the compound, taking cover among the rocky terrain. I pinged the word ¡®Clear!¡¯ to Aisling¡¯s handheld, and just continued moving. My head was pounding, and I was still a little bit confused, but I held it together long enough for us to move far away from the fading action of the staged assault.


    ¡°Hey!¡± I heard an unfamiliar voice call behind us just as we were about to turn into a ridge, and I whipped around with the pistol at the ready. I saw movement behind a rock and aimed down the iron sights of the gun. Unfortunately, my vision blurred as I tried to focus, and when the figure moved out from behind the rock, I pulled the trigger twice, the shot going wide and recoil sending the pistol kicking up uselessly off-target.


    I saw the flash of black metal down range, a young woman with a brown ponytail and a long scar across her cheek ready to take her shot back at me, and I¡¯m sure she wasn¡¯t fighting what was probably a concussion. Luckily for me, I heard a series of returns from a firearm behind me. The woman flinched and fell down with a loud groan before she could take her shot at me.


    Shaking, I turned to see Joel holding his rifle up, and let out a frustrated grunt as I lowered my own gun. ¡°Your aim sucks,¡± he grumbled, grabbing me by the shoulder and pushing me forward. ¡°Come on, move it.¡±


    I nodded and began running again. Death had become normal for me by that point. It no longer bothered me that I just watched someone unceremoniously riddled with bullets and left to rot in the wilderness. At least, it didn¡¯t bother me enough to dwell on it in the moment. I¡¯d seen it happen numerous times since my journey began, and in the past few months, I¡¯d even caused it more than a couple times, with much larger munitions. This was just a part of being an outlaw.


    If Joel hadn¡¯t been there, though, it would¡¯ve been me in the dirt right there instead of some random stranger. We just had to make sure we were the ones still standing at the end of the day.


    We continued on and thankfully didn¡¯t run into any more trouble as we made our escape. The sound of gunfire and explosions faded as our crew made their way out of danger behind us as well, retreating into the rocky terrain for themselves, and I could only hope they could get away without trouble, too.


    ¡°Knew we should¡¯ve sent a bodyguard with you.¡± Joel grumbled as the two of us stopped to catch our breath in a craggy outcropping of rocks. Well, I needed to catch my breath, anyway. Joel was fit enough to berate me instead. ¡°But no, ¡®it¡¯s just a quick meeting. They¡¯ll never suspect I¡¯m casing the place.¡¯ Didn¡¯t account on the fuckers just forcing you to do something completely unrelated, huh? Like you¡¯re not a valuable commodity on this planet or something. Fuck, even when people don¡¯t know you¡¯re a goddamn living computer, they¡¯re still trying to take advantage of you, idiot.¡±


    I panted loudly, finally holstering the pistol back in my waistband now that we had a moment to rest. Joel had a point. Maybe I was taking being incognito a little too lightly. Even if they didn¡¯t know what I really was, I was still becoming a prolific hacker in this community. ¡°Okay, yeah, fine, not my b-brightest idea. I¡¯ll admit that. I thought they¡¯d be more like the guys we w...work for, not some disorganized gang. You know, the type we could pretend to be wor...king with in the future, like civilized criminals!¡±


    ¡°Fucking whatever.¡± Joel let out a controlled breath. He gave a frustrated grunt, definitely still angry with me stumbling into what was an obvious trap in hindsight. But after a moment, he asked, ¡°First time getting shelled, huh?¡±


    ¡°Huh? Yeah.¡± I nodded quickly. The mental fuzziness hadn¡¯t completely gone away, even if Joel had helped temporarily jar me back to reality. I definitely wasn¡¯t used to exploding. ¡°Different from Theseus¡¯s ar...armor taking a hit, that¡¯s for s-sure.¡± I gave a nervous laugh. ¡°Mouse doesn¡¯t f-fuck around with that thing. Those two idiots got fuck...ing vaporized. If I was, like, a half meter c-closer to them...¡± It probably wasn¡¯t something I should think about. ¡°I blame my aim on that, just so you know. I can hit a target. Seriously.¡±


    ¡°Should¡¯ve seen yourself, looked all dopey stumbling around with your head screwed on the wrong way.¡± Joel chuckled, checking back around the rock we were hiding against and scanning for anyone that might have followed before he cleared and checked the chamber of his rifle. ¡°Nah, I get it. Almost feels like that just when you¡¯re standing next to him shooting that thing. Bet you could mount it to your ship and you¡¯d still feel the recoil. Ordinance like that¡¯s no joke. I¡¯d probably be pretty fucked up if I was that close to it, too.¡±


    ¡°No shit. Joel admits he¡¯s n-not invincible.¡± I wasn¡¯t sure if it was just surviving the prolonged brush with death, but I felt like I was in good spirits as I finally caught my breath. My head still hurt, and moving around still felt strange, like I was controlling a puppet instead of my own body, but I was feeling pretty good about myself for how I handled things, at least after the action started.


    I looked down to inspect my clothes again now that I was thinking clearly. It wasn¡¯t the mess I thought it was in my stupor; just a few dark splash lines that were barely visible against the black. I thought the stray spatter that hit my pants actually made the solid beige garment a little more interesting. My hands just had a couple scrapes, barely breaking the skin. I still felt the urge to bite them, but I ground my teeth, knowing to fight the habit rather than risk putting whatever might have been in the dust in my mouth.


    My inspection complete, and my nerves as calmed as they were going to be, I looked to the far horizon past the ridge and took in a deep breath. We had to keep moving. ¡°We have a rally position?¡± I asked, wondering if we should keep moving.


    ¡°The ship.¡± Joel nodded. I slumped a little at that. Theseus was too far away. Beyond a vague sense of the direction to it, I couldn¡¯t even feel my shell. ¡°No bitching. This is your fault, and you need the cardio, anyway. Fucking beanpole.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah.¡± I pushed off of the rock and took another deep breath as I rolled up the sleeves of my sweater, consoling myself that this would be a march rather than a sprint, at the very least. I stopped for a moment to read my biometrics on my arm terminal. Other than an elevated heart rate and blood pressure, it read all normal. I¡¯d definitely still need Doc to look me over once I was back home, but on the surface, it looked like I would be okay to carry myself there.


    I navigated through my storage to my music, and started a playlist of upbeat music only I could hear. ¡°You better have more water,¡± I told Joel as I started walking.


    ¡°Only if you admit you can¡¯t aim for shit without a bunch of computers running calculations,¡± he chuckled as he pulled another pouch from his satchel.

 Dressing Down

    It took another hour of walking, that comforting feeling of warmth that my shell gave me growing slowly as it pulled me closer and closer. The music helped pass the time, but Joel was right. I needed the exercise.


    Being a manufactured human being meant I hadn¡¯t spent much time actually using my body in my formative years, or even after leaving the simulation. I hadn¡¯t really done much to hone my body after I was liberated from Foundation, either. I was skinny and frail, probably because of all the time I spent in the core module, basically disconnected from my physical body altogether, and there really wasn¡¯t much sign of that changing. Hell, I didn¡¯t really care to change it.


    That is, until I was forced to use my body like this. I always wished I had taken the time to get in a little exercise when it came time to actually push myself.


    By the time I was able to attach myself back to my home psychic network, I was exhausted. I¡¯d already finished the second water ration I¡¯d begrudgingly accepted on Joel¡¯s terms, and I was more hungry than I¡¯d remembered being for a long time.


    Today had been exhausting. More so than usual on days with commissions like this. It was a lot of new experiences for me, too; none of which were particularly good. I was ready to be done with surprises for a while and shut myself in the core module for a week. I imagined it washing away all the blood and grime, and letting me forget my aches and soreness.


    I felt home before I saw it. I smiled to myself as my mind linked up with the rest of my true self. It was good to feel complete. The reactor gently purred at my presence, and I felt power and warmth flowing through me in my gut, reinvigorating me for one final push home. The throbbing in my head returned, but with a rush of endorphins this time, the sense of power and familiarity overriding my exhaustion. As my shell sprang to life, I gave a sigh of relief.


    ¡°Guess that means we¡¯re close.¡± Joel watched my obvious change in demeanor, understanding my habits well enough to read the meaning behind them. He had relaxed significantly as we traveled, but he still habitually checked behind us to ensure we weren¡¯t being tailed. Joel was never the type of person who turned off until we were well and truly safe, and even then, he always felt at least a little bit on edge. It was probably a soldier thing. ¡°Everything okay on board?¡±


    I closed my eyes and immersed myself in the data stream, happy to have returned from the desert of technology between the compound and my ship. My constructed map of Theseus filled my internal vision, and I spirited my way through the digital copy of my ship, activating each of the sensors in quick succession as I scanned the interior for the rest of the crew. Like I thought, it was mostly barren. Only Doc and Lily remained on board. Even Ray had stepped out to take place in the rescue operation, despite being a threat to our cover if anyone saw her. That put a smile on my face. I was touched she would put herself at risk for me, even if I¡¯d rather she hadn¡¯t.


    ¡°Yeah, nothing exciting going on while we were gone.¡± I smiled. I was glad nothing happened while I was causing problems out on the frontier. ¡°Seems we¡¯re the first home.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t surprise me, all the equipment the others had with them.¡± Joel began climbing up the side of the crater we¡¯d hidden the ship in, and I followed along his footholds. A geographic relic of debris smashing into the moon eons ago made for good cover. It kept Theseus completely out of sight except from the sky, and had been a useful base of operations for us in the area.


    I couldn¡¯t wait to get back to the colony proper, though. We¡¯d found a series of jobs and a new contact in the region, so we¡¯d been out here for a couple of weeks now. I wasn¡¯t exactly the type to go out on the town often, but I was starting to miss the conveniences of living in the middle of civilization.


    I also just wanted to fly.


    As I peaked the lip of the crater, I looked down at the rest of myself with a proud smile.


    A massive black-painted metal scout starship sat at the center of the crater, its various modular components making it look like a stitched together blocky monster of a ship that didn¡¯t subscribe to any modern convention of ship design. It was a one of a kind relic, and a bastion of chaos no one could possibly guess at the origin of. And it was me. I flexed my wing flaps, released a small burst of gas from the propulsion system to clear my vents, and let out a satisfied sigh as I flexed the psychic connection, stretching my hydraulic parts and asserting my connection as best as I could without immersing myself in the heart of the ship directly.


    The brand new cargo bay door opened downward slowly as we slid down the inside of the crater toward our home, the outer panel bending to my thought. I watched my internal sensors as I approached, immediately seeing Lily¡¯s wheelchair start moving slowly down the hall as soon as the sound of the large bay door groaning open filled the ship. I hurried inside, leaving Joel to unpack some of his gear onto the shelves we passed. With one last burst of effort, I climbed the stairs up to the second floor and threw the hallway door open to greet my sister before she could manage to get to the catwalk.


    ¡°Lily!¡± I called as I leaned down and hugged my identical sister around her chair. She let out a quiet chuckle at my enthusiasm, and she leaned into my chest as I held her, feeling like I might just lie down on her chair with her.


    ¡°Don¡¯t do that again,¡± she warned me with a half-hearted sigh. ¡°Seriously, it doesn¡¯t end well for you next time.¡±


    My eyes went wide as those words struck me. Okay. No more ¡®simple¡¯ solo espionage for me, then. I took my sister''s warnings seriously, and I know she¡¯d had to endure a vision of some potential future where awful things happened to me or someone I loved, so I definitely didn¡¯t want to put her through that in reality as well. ¡°Got it,¡± I nodded. ¡°Sorry if I wor...worried you.¡±


    I reluctantly let her go and shakily returned to standing on my own, and she smiled up at me. ¡°I saw you trying it another time. That meant you survived this time, right?¡± She shrugged her shoulders. She already knew I would make it home safe, this time. The perks of precognition, I supposed. Since she¡¯d been freed of Foundation¡¯s grip, she¡¯d gotten much better at finding the silver linings in her visions, reading between the lines of what they showed her, and working out truths she could infer rather than focusing solely on what she saw directly, even if the meaning of the visions themselves weren¡¯t always so obvious. ¡°Come on. Sit down. You must be tired.¡±


    I shook my head. ¡°Gonna need to stay st-standing so Aisling can yell at me in debrief.¡± I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, trying to look tough. ¡°Not that t-tired, anyway.¡±


    ¡°Liar.¡± Lily rolled her eyes at me, turning her chair to face me. I saw her give a small grimace as she inspected my clothes, a worried expression crossing her face as she spotted the dried blood soaked into my outfit.


    ¡°Yeah, liar.¡± Doc called from the other end of the hall, his neatly-trimmed blond hair peeking through the open door to my heart. ¡°Think I can¡¯t see your biometrics? You¡¯re exhausted. Get in here. I¡¯m looking you over.¡±


    They were both, of course, completely right. They knew me too well. I was barely standing by this point. My head still hurt, and I still felt a little disoriented and consciously distant after Mouse¡¯s shelling, even though now it was harder to tell if the dissociation was from that or Theseus¡¯s mere presence.


    ¡°Fine,¡± I conceded with a shrug, walking past Lily. Her chair¡¯s motor whirred as she followed behind me. Her body had never fully recovered from the psychosomatic trauma she¡¯d undergone in her short stint as a machine core half a year ago. She had regained enough control of her upper body to make use of her arms with some effort, but she had no strength behind her limbs, and I was beginning to worry that she wouldn¡¯t regain control of her legs at all. It made me feel guilty looking at her sometimes, since I¡¯d been the one to put her in that chair. She kept insisting that she was getting better, though, and Doc was beginning to set her on to the next stage of physical therapy, trying to get her to stand again. I just hoped it wasn¡¯t for nothing.


    ¡°You are right, though. Aisling¡¯s going to be very mad.¡± She said it with the kind of certainty that made me unsure if she had for some reason had a vision of my debrief or if she was just that certain she understood the captain by now.


    Stepping into my heart, I stared past the infirmary with a smile at the massive metal sphere that took up the entire back half of the room. Oh, how I longed to step inside and truly relax.


    ¡°Nope. Table.¡± Doc drew my attention from the core module and motioned toward one of the examination tables. The room wasn¡¯t as barren as it was when we arrived on Io, anymore. Considering how often I spent in sensitive medical states, we¡¯d upgraded from one to three tables, along with a longer term hospital bed that was currently occupied in one corner by a frail figure hooked up to an IV and various medical monitors.


    The former captain of the starship Demitrius had been through quite a lot, and had still not awoken from the coma we¡¯d found her in when we extracted her from the core module she¡¯d hidden in when her ship was destroyed. The woman had thin, mostly-grey hair with a few shocks of blonde, and she¡¯d been staring blankly up at the ceiling for the past several months, but it was critical we keep her alive so that she might one day soon wake up and be able to pass ownership of her ship¡¯s machine core onto me.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Isabelle, the salvaged machine core of the Demitrius, was almost a normal core like any other. Sure, she was heavily modified to operate as a pirate starship core, freed from many of the built-in ¡®safety¡¯ protocols that mass-manufactured cores had programmed into them, but she was still just a biological computer. She hadn¡¯t been awakened to become sapient like I had. I¡¯d gotten to know her over the past few months, and though she could only offer limited information and control of her systems without permission from her owner, I felt like I was closer to understanding the gap between people and machine cores thanks to her. Part of me still wondered if I could wake her up.


    Doc snapped his fingers in front of my face and I came to attention again, realizing I¡¯d zoned out once more. ¡°Something¡¯s wrong?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Mmn...¡± I nodded slowly, holding a hand up to my head. ¡°Headache. Mouse might have had to blow something up... maybe a meter away from me.¡±


    ¡°Whoa. Is that... safe?¡± Lily asked uncertainly.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not. Could have caused a concussion. Because you don¡¯t have enough brain trauma already.¡± Doc grumbled as he guided me toward one of the examination tables, gently forcing me to sit on the edge of it.


    ¡°Not again...¡± Lily clicked her tongue. ¡°Meryll, you need to be more careful. Please.¡±


    ¡°Sorry...¡± I mumbled. I did have quite a tendency to put myself in harm¡¯s way, didn¡¯t I? Well, it was already done now. Best not to dwell on it. I closed my eyes and turned off the empowering music that had still been playing inside my brain. I needed to calm my senses. ¡°C-Core module would help.¡±


    ¡°Not convinced it would.¡± Doc gave a dramatic sigh and tapped my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, I saw him holding his hand toward me with a pill in it. ¡°Come on. I can tell you need some painkillers.¡± I snatched the pill from him, swallowed it without hesitation, then settled down to rest my back against the table without a word. ¡°Where¡¯s it hurt?¡± He asked next.


    I groaned. ¡°Back of my head? I th-think?¡± It was hard to place exactly where the aching was coming from, and it was fading fast from the pill he gave me anyway. ¡°I¡¯ll be fine. Not like my implant got hacked again.¡±


    ¡°Even if it¡¯s not bad, small injuries build up in our line of work. No head injury risks for a while, okay?¡± He rifled around in a drawer full of tools for a moment before he returned to my side and forced my eyelid open, shining a light directly into it. ¡°Pupils dilating...¡± he mumbled to himself.


    ¡°Ow. Can we not do that?¡± I grunted, pushing him away after a moment.


    ¡°Any dizziness? Blurred vision? Nausea?¡±


    ¡°Yes and yes. A little nauseous before, but it¡¯s passed.¡± I answered in order, too tired to object to the questioning. ¡°Couldn¡¯t aim st-straight when I needed to... Lucky Joel was there. He says I was real dis...oriented for a while after the blast, too.¡±


    ¡°You had to shoot at someone...?¡± Lily asked with more than a little concern and disappointment in her tone as she looked over my bloodstained clothes again. Despite taking that fateful step over the threshold into this world of violence herself, she hadn¡¯t taken to it quite like I had. She was still skittish about the idea of taking a life, and held fast to the sensibility that we shouldn¡¯t have to kill people, and that it would be painful to have to endure the burden of taking a life. Which was probably normal and how sensible people should think. She especially worried that I¡¯d taken so well to it after my initial apprehension half a year ago.


    She wasn¡¯t wrong, either. I hadn¡¯t hesitated for a second to fire on that woman. Explosion-addled aim or not, I had intended to kill her, and I hadn¡¯t even given it a second thought. I¡¯d even put it out of my mind entirely before I got back. It wasn¡¯t until now that I was starting to feel a little uneasy about the whole thing. ¡°Sh-She was going to shoot at me. Seemed like a good i...dea at the time,¡± I rationalized to Lily while I pulled the gun from my waistband and set it down on the stand next to the bed. Lily sighed quietly. She knew it had to be done, but it didn¡¯t make her feel any better about it.


    Doc cleared his throat and continued with his questions. ¡°Feel like you¡¯re going to pass out?¡±


    ¡°Feel like I wanna sleep... don¡¯t f-feel like I¡¯m going to just slip into it, though. Is that the sa...same thing?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m calling it a mild concussion,¡± Doc concluded. ¡°You have enough of the symptoms; you need to rest.¡±


    I felt movement further out in my shell. Zooming out, I saw a ragged crew hauling gear into the cargo bay. I accounted for everyone quickly: Aisling led the way, standing strong and confidently striding right to the stairs with a hardened grimace on her face. I knew she was coming for me.


    Mouse immediately sat down to rest on the cargo bay floor. The scrawny teenager started taking stock of the contents of the enormous bright yellow carrying case he strode in with, his resting bitter expression oddly neutral now that I understood him a lot better. He was more interested in the state of his gun than what had just happened. He¡¯d probably give me a piece of his mind later, though.


    Shaw sauntered in, looking as tired as I was, carrying only a backpack of his own supplies and some cabling with him. I still couldn¡¯t say I liked the man, but he at least did his part and came up with the wildest strategies in a pinch. I¡¯m sure the illusion of a distracting imaginary assault on that compound was his doing.


    And Ray was last, carrying an array of sound equipment, large batteries, and firearms on her massive back, her monstrous black fur-covered arms and legs holding everything with ease.. She hardly seemed tired, and had a smile on her face of a job well done. The Mammon was probably satisfied that things had worked out rather than angry at me for my misstep. She was sometimes a little too forgiving. With everyone accounted for, I started the script to close the cargo bay door behind her as she walked in.


    If only everyone was so easy-going. Aisling walked through the hall, directly to my heart. She didn¡¯t even stop at my quarters to check there. She knew exactly where I would have gone. ¡°Oh good, you haven¡¯t gone for a swim yet,¡± she hissed as soon as she walked into my heart, her boots stomping hard enough to display her displeasure.


    ¡°Concussion, captain. No giving her head injuries,¡± Doc said in an almost bored tone of voice.


    ¡°I¡¯m not gonna hit her.¡± Aisling shook her head and folded her arms as she approached me. ¡°That¡¯s just what I do to Joel when he fucks up. Meryll, what the fuck?¡±


    ¡°Yep, I s-screwed it,¡± I admitted without hesitation. I¡¯d really fucked this one up, and I was about to get an earful about it.


    ¡°Fucking right, you did.¡± She shook her head and let out an exasperated sigh. ¡°I¡¯ll admit your reckless, gung-ho bullshit works in a pinch when things have already gone to shit, Meryll. But the operational level is not where you should be taking these kinds of risks.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± I refused to open my eyes to look back at her, but Aisling knew by now where to direct herself when she was speaking and stared directly up into the sensor array in the room.


    ¡°Bullshit, you know,¡± she growled. ¡°I thought maybe you were ready to take charge of a contract or two. That¡¯s why I let you handle this, but you should have talked this one over before you acted. You should¡¯ve brought someone with you. Someone armed.¡±


    ¡°Everyone else was busy,¡± I tried to reason my way out of her ire, but she just scoffed.


    ¡°So you do it some other time! You don¡¯t just walk into some unknown fucker¡¯s house like you own the place!¡± She threw her arms out. ¡°You¡¯re not taking charge on anything again, got it? And the stuff we needed to pull off that rescue operation is coming out of your share on the next gig.¡±


    ¡°Why not take it out of this one?¡± I smiled as I reached down and pulled the ledger terminal out of the pocket of my cargo pants, holding it toward her with my eyes still closed.


    She silently snatched the handheld from me and inspected it for a moment before looking back at me. ¡°You actually got it?¡±


    I shrugged, still smirking like the dumbass I was. ¡°I wasn¡¯t gonna fuck it up and not finish the job. Joel wanted to leave before I got it, too.¡±


    There was a short silence before Aisling asked Doc, ¡°You sure I can¡¯t hit her, just a little?¡±


    Doc shrugged. ¡°Not on the head,¡± he looked away, suggesting he wanted no part in whatever happened next.


    Before I could object, I felt a sharp strike to the side of my stomach and I let out a seething gasp as my eyes opened and I doubled over on my side in pain. ¡°Fucking idiot,¡± Aisling clicked her tongue as she pulled her fist back away from me. ¡°No wonder it took you so fucking long to evacuate! Lucky bitch! That wasn¡¯t a risk worth taking! Next time you get an order to get out of there, you get the fuck out of there, got it?!¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡± I whimpered. I could tell I wasn¡¯t seriously injured, she¡¯d just hit a sensitive spot. But it still hurt like hell. Aisling had never hit me like that before, so I knew I must have really fucked up on this one. Was I really in that much danger when I demanded we stick to the objective like that?


    ¡°You¡¯re more valuable than this job, and you aren¡¯t built to be at the heart of the danger like that, Meryll. Hell, I wouldn¡¯t have put Joel in that position. You got lucky today. And I get you haven¡¯t flexed your frankly absurd good fortune recently, but you shouldn¡¯t be testing it. Luck is something we hope we have as a last resort, not something we rely on.¡± Aisling continued scolding me while I writhed on the bed, the lingering pain of the jab she gave me rippling through my torso before finally settling. Her tone was less angry and more frustrated now.


    ¡°That¡¯s what I told her,¡± Lily sighed, wheeling herself up to me and putting a hand on my side, gently holding me where I¡¯d just been hit. ¡°You kinda deserved that, sis. Told you she was pissed.¡±


    Ah, so she had seen that. I should¡¯ve known when she didn¡¯t seem at all surprised by the blow. ¡°Yeah, I know.¡± I groaned through gritted teeth. ¡°Okay. No more go...ing off on my own. N-No more risky shit. Promise.¡±


    Aisling let out a long drawn-out sigh and turned away from me, her voice going quiet and somber. ¡°I mean it. You¡¯re not taking lead on anything for a long time. This was serious. You follow my lead from now on. Or anyone else¡¯s lead. You¡¯re the last person making the calls from here on. There¡¯s a time and place for this stuff, and you don¡¯t have a good head for when and where that is. No more wildcard bullshit when we¡¯re not already in serious trouble.¡±


    She turned away and started walking toward the door, but stopped before stepping out into the hall. ¡°Thought you figured this out after you two fought.¡± I managed to turn my head to Lily, and she looked at me, guilt on her face. ¡°You¡¯re too valuable, Meryll. Quit acting like you¡¯re some kind of disposable... cannon fodder.¡± She looked over her shoulder at my sensor again, suddenly looking exhausted. Was that regret? ¡°I almost just wanna break this thing to make my point, but no use throwing away good money. You¡¯re explaining what went down to our employer, though. I¡¯m sure he didn¡¯t want us to cause that kind of a scene.¡±


    My muscles started to relax again and I laid back straight, catching my breath as I nodded to her ¡°Yeah... that¡¯s f-fair.¡± I felt like maybe I¡¯d pushed things too far with her this time. Had I just seen Aisling lose her temper? I didn¡¯t even think that was possible.


    I wasn¡¯t looking forward to explaining the imaginary firefight to the man who hired us, but we got his thing, so it wouldn¡¯t be that much of a problem, would it?

 Reflection

    ¡°I can¡¯t say that I¡¯m... happy with your performance.¡± A man in a well-tailored light-gray jacket sat across from Joel, Aisling, and I, leaning over his desk with his hands tented in front of his face, barely hiding a disappointed glare directly at me, center stage on our side.


    A man who went by Mr. Calloway, the head of the syndicate that we had been hired by, struck an intimidating figure on his own. He was even more intimidating flanked by two other distinguished besuited figures, both women with visible sidearms holstered at their waists, arms crossed and eyes focused on all of us at once. Calloway was a middle-aged man with gray hair, still peppered with some traces of the black it was in youth, a thin well-manicured moustache above his lips. He gave off an air of sophistication, but his hawkish features made him look, at the same time, dangerous. And I had no doubt he was, given the position he was in.


    He glanced down away from me for a moment at the handheld tablet between us on the desk. ¡°While you have delivered us the material that we requested, I had hoped that the news of your infiltration wouldn¡¯t have reached my ears before this was in my hands. I had hoped to keep this matter discreet.¡±


    My head still ached, and my clothes were still filthy with dust and blood. I hadn¡¯t been given much of a chance to rest before Aisling insisted we take the trip to our employer¡¯s frankly ridiculous estate, built almost like a military compound out here in the wasteland. I didn¡¯t even get a chance to relax on the ride over while Aisling angrily briefed me on the meeting procedures. I¡¯d still not had the chance to dive into the core module and rest in torpor. I was not in a good state for this meeting.


    I nodded along, trying to avoid his gaze and keep myself awake and present without the aid of my shell. I was not exactly a social butterfly in the best condition, and it turned out a concussion didn¡¯t make me any more charismatic. Though I had experience sucking up to my betters as needed at my old job back in the simulation, I wasn¡¯t that person anymore, and it was taking every ounce of my addled concentration not to start making excuses and justify myself to this man.


    Unimpressed by the awkward silence growing between us, Calloway stopped waiting for me to speak up and motioned toward Aisling. ¡°Do you have anything to say for yourself?¡±


    I cleared my throat. I wasn¡¯t going to make her answer for my mistakes. ¡°I¡¯m s-sorry, sir. This was my operation, and I¡¯m the one res...responsible for what happened.¡±


    The man looked back to me, his expression still unimpressed. His anger was subtle, if it was there at all, but his judgement was clear. ¡°Well? You tell me what happened, then.¡±


    I swallowed and inhaled deeply before I answered. ¡°M-My plan was to infiltrate the gang and re...con their base, find where they kept the ledger, and I¡¯d either look for an opportunity to sneak off with it, or fail...ing that, organize a coordinated strike while they were o-occupied.¡±


    ¡°Why are you so nervous?¡± He asked suddenly.


    I froze at the question and stared at him for a moment, my jaw hanging open slightly as I tried to search for some deeper meaning behind it. He was just commenting on my voice, right? ¡°I¡¯m n-not nervous, sir. I just have a st...stutter.¡±


    ¡°No, I can tell you have a stutter. My niece has a stutter. I¡¯m used to it. You¡¯re nervous. Stop that.¡± Calloway groaned quietly, lowered his hands, and sat up straight. ¡°I¡¯m not a thug. This isn¡¯t an execution. We¡¯re two respectable business partners discussing something that hasn¡¯t gone to plan. Barring something extreme, you three are walking safely out of this building today. I guarantee it. Now stop being so nervous. Tell me what happened. Explain yourself.¡±


    Oh. Right. This wasn¡¯t the same kind of criminal element as the people I¡¯d just escaped. This was the smart kind. The kind who understood the importance of reputation and long-term standing in a community. They weren¡¯t out for blood. Not from us, at least. Murder was messy and more trouble than it was worth to them unless things had gotten way out of hand. They were just assessing our value.


    I nodded to Calloway, taking in another deep breath and trying to relax my posture. ¡°I showed up to a meeting with their boss as p-planned, but they locked me in a room right away, instead. A man with this huge face tattoo told me they needed some t-tech work done and told me I¡¯d be the one to do it. I had a dead...man signal on my handheld set to message my captain if I d-didn¡¯t check in with it. So she knew I was in danger, and she came to my res...cue.¡± That was an outright fabrication, but I needed to come up with some reason that I was able to contact Aisling without telling him I was a psychic bio-computer.


    ¡°I see,¡± the man turned to Aisling. ¡°And with your employee presumably in danger, you had to step in to retrieve her.¡±


    Aisling nodded, taking her turn to speak up, and rolling with my story. ¡°Yes, sir. She¡¯s very diligent with that safety measure, so we knew it wasn¡¯t just a technical issue. We recalled all hands and mobilized immediately to stage a distraction so she could make it out alive.¡± Aisling added. No doubt I had disrupted other jobs that were in motion in my peril, but it wasn¡¯t the time to bitch me out about it. ¡°We set up an impromptu stage with some audio equipment we had left over from some civilian work we did last month and some extra firearms we¡¯d... commandeered, to fake a large-scale assault at the opposite end of their base while we had a solo operative infiltrate the facility to retrieve our specialist.¡± She nodded to Joel.


    ¡°That sounds like quite the effort. Your loyalty to your employees, even in a moment of misplaced judgement, is commendable. I hope to live up to that kind of commitment to my people.¡± He cleared his throat and leaned forward again. ¡°As much as I understand your position, that doesn¡¯t change the matter that this has not worked out in my favor, and your operative is the cause of that. This little ¡®gang¡¯ has become a thorn in my side already, and now they¡¯re going to be on guard. This has disrupted some of my other plans that were already in motion. Do you understand?¡±


    Aisling nodded. ¡°Yes, sir. I¡¯d like to apologize on behalf of my company for this unexpected development, and am willing to renegotiate our contract accordingly to set things right.¡±


    Calloway hummed quietly, satisfied with Aisling¡¯s attempt at an olive branch, then returned his attention to me. ¡°We may be able to come to an agreeable compromise, yes. What¡¯s your name?¡±


    I was about to blurt out my name when Aisling cleared her throat. ¡°We¡¯d rather not exchange personal information for the time being. We¡¯re not at that stage of our relationship yet, Mr. Calloway.¡±


    Calloway gave a shrug. ¡°Shrewd. But understandable.¡±


    I decided to take the opportunity to change the subject back to the job. ¡°I apologize for mishan...dling this, as well. But I did bring the t-target in, at least. That¡¯s still of some value to y-you, right?¡± I asked, hoping we wouldn¡¯t have to completely forego the reward. I thought I saw Aisling giving me a judgemental look of her own from my side, warning me not to push too hard on the matter, but I wasn¡¯t going to pull my attentionfrom the man.


    The man watched me closely for a moment, then nodded. ¡°It is. It can give us a lot of information on what this little thorn is up to. Information is what I was after in this mission. So tell me, what kind of information can you give me to help make up for the trouble you¡¯ve caused?¡±


    Yeah, sure. I could share what I learned while I was in there, if it meant saving our paycheck. ¡°I can tell you that they have somehow managed to physically b-break into an underground network station outside Kasato¡¯s refinery. It has a vul...nera...bility that allowed them to access the complex¡¯s entire computer operations structure remotely. At least, it would, if they had a c-competent hacker.¡±


    The man¡¯s eyebrows raised slowly as I told my story. That was something important to him, I guessed. ¡°Hmm, I see. So they¡¯re after Kasato Corporation. For who?¡±


    That, I didn¡¯t know. I just shrugged at him. I supposed it didn¡¯t make sense for a small-time gang to try to overtake a factory¡¯s operation for their own short-term gain, so it must have been in service to a bigger fish. ¡°They d-didn¡¯t exactly give me their whole game plan... they just told me to get access.¡±


    ¡°Did you?¡± He asked.


    I shook my head. ¡°Hah, I never even s-started. The code I wrote for them didn¡¯t actually do any...thing, and no one was smart enough to call me out on it. I was just sta-stalling until my crew got there.¡±


    ¡°You were that sure she was coming to your rescue?¡± The man looked impressed as she motioned to Aisling.


    I wasn¡¯t about to tell him that I was actually in direct contact with them right under their noses using my neural implant, so I guess I just had to play up the loyalty angle. ¡°Of course! The c-captain would never leave me out to dry like that.¡±


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    The man considered my words for a few moments, then lowered his hands to the table again, sliding the ledger toward himself. ¡°That is a... concerning and valuable tidbit of information, regardless. Whoever you are, you are certainly a competent hacker. The files you sent ahead of time do indeed coincide with the records on the device itself. Forgive me for not trusting your ability, but your crew is an untested variable, despite your... reputation. We needed the real device to be certain.¡±


    So that was why they sent me in for the physical terminal. They didn¡¯t trust us. I was about to complain, but caught myself. I needed to show some respect and understanding here. We were on the back foot already, and my brashness had already gotten us in enough trouble today. ¡°I under...stand,¡± I grumbled.


    ¡°That there is such a vulnerability is also quite a valuable piece of information. Tell me more.¡±


    I recalled what I found while I was diving into the refinery¡¯s network through the access point they¡¯d hijacked and made some quick assumptions about the limits of what I should know. ¡°If they actually find some...one to crack it, they¡¯d probably have access to most of security, ad-administrative systems, and networked machinery in the refinery. They¡¯d bas...ically own it until someone came by to clean them up in person. I don¡¯t kn-know how val...valuable that site might be, but it¡¯s h-heavily compromised.¡±


    The man nodded. ¡°Do you have any more information on that gang themselves?¡±


    I didn¡¯t really have much of anything else to give him beyond what he already knew now, unfortunately. ¡°Uhh... they¡¯re gonna need to hire a con...tractor to undo some unscheduled demolition?¡± I shrugged my shoulders and smiled at him.


    Aisling turned her head to glare at me, but to all our surprise, Calloway gave a genuine laugh at that. After a moment spent collecting himself, he smiled across at us and said, ¡°Well, let no one say there isn¡¯t room for a sense of humor in our trade. See? There you go, not so nervous anymore, are you?¡± He cleared his throat and made an attempt to return to his serious tone, even though he still had a bit of lightheartedness in his voice. ¡°But if that¡¯s all you have to offer, that hardly makes things even. Let¡¯s discuss your payment, hmm?¡±


    I didn¡¯t have much to say for the next hour. Aisling took over the conversation then and there, and we began a new round of negotiation that I think I¡¯d helped at least make a little less tense than it would have been without my intervention. I made like I was nodding off after a few minutes because I almost felt like I was going to, and immersed myself in the computer systems of the man¡¯s estate while Aisling handled all the bartering.


    Doc was right, I needed rest. I needed either sleep or torpor. But I was in that annoying gap of tiredness where I wanted to sleep, but I wasn¡¯t tired enough to pass out. An unfortunate necessity, since closing my eyes made my mind too active to rest without it coming suddenly.


    I couldn¡¯t resist digging around where I shouldn¡¯t, taking care to leave no trace of my meddling. After a little searching, I found out that Calloway actually had some financial holdings and under the table dealings with Kasato Corp. If that gang did something to that refinery, he could have taken a hefty blow to his wallet.


    I messaged Aisling, and as she subtly checked her handheld, she did her best to keep her expression neutral before she returned to her conversation and steered it back toward the extra information I¡¯d provided. I had no idea how to leverage this kind of thing without outright calling him on his bluff, but I knew Aisling would.


    In the end, we settled on a small penalty on our end of the contract for the complications caused by our rescue operation, but we still got most of our reward thanks to Aisling getting him to admit that my information was of somewhat greater importance than he was letting on without giving ourselves away with specifics.


    However, Calloway did make it clear that he likely wouldn¡¯t be calling on us again, and that he would prefer that our business be concluded there. So much for establishing him as a new employer.


    True to his word, the three of us walked out back into the cold rocky wasteland with no harm done and a receipt of payment on Aisling¡¯s terminal.


    ¡°Well, that didn¡¯t go as badly as I thought it might.¡± Aisling said as she climbed into the driver¡¯s seat of the small old cargo truck we¡¯d taken to the compound. It was faster to go over the rough terrain the truck couldn¡¯t handle, but we¡¯d hiked through the desert on foot enough for today, and we weren¡¯t in the kind of rush that the rescue operation had put us in. I jumped into the bed of the truck and leaned over the side, closing my eyes again and whining as I settled in for a long ride where I¡¯d surely continue to get reamed out by the captain. ¡°You¡¯re lucky we got paid at all,¡± she continued.


    ¡°You¡¯re lucky I f-found his financials,¡± I grumbled back at her.


    ¡°It was obvious he was hiding something, anyway. The way he dismissed your info wasn¡¯t subtle. I¡¯d have got it out of him.¡± Aisling countered.


    Joel sat in the passenger seat up with Aisling and huffed at the both of us. ¡°You sure you two aren¡¯t a thing? You argue like a couple.¡±


    ¡°She argues like a child,¡± Aisling hissed as she turned the key and the truck¡¯s engine. ¡°Same as she acts on the job.¡±


    Maybe I did. I suppose it would make sense. I had less actual life experience than Mouse did, after all. All I knew was that I was exhausted in so many ways and I just wanted to reconnect with my shell. ¡°Fine. So may...be I don¡¯t really know what I¡¯m doing yet, okay? Is that what you wanna h-hear?¡±


    She didn¡¯t say anything for a minute as we started slowly moving across the terrain, then Aisling sighed. ¡°Yeah, actually. I want you to realize your mistakes and take something from them, Meryll. You¡¯re powerful, and I know you¡¯re smarter than this. You just don¡¯t fucking... learn.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m trying...¡± I said quietly, opening my eyes and staring down at the passing ground for a moment.


    ¡°Are you? Because it feels like you haven¡¯t taken some real fucking important things I¡¯ve told you to heart.¡± Aisling sounded annoyed, but concerned. Disappointed in me. ¡°You keep pushing boundaries that you should know to leave well enough alone by now; taking risks and putting yourself in danger. It¡¯s like you like almost dying.¡±


    ¡°Ah, I see it now. Not lovers. Like a parent with their kid.¡± Joel corrected himself in a bored tone of voice that told me he¡¯d already started tuning us out.


    The truck came to a hard screeching halt that made me slide forward and brace myself against Joel¡¯s seat so I didn¡¯t tumble over him. That certainly woke me up. I looked up to see what had happened.


    Aisling¡¯s hands trembled on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly enough to make her digits shake. She held her head down and glared menacingly at the floor for a few silent, tense moments while Joel and I stared at her in confusion. That was apparently the very wrong thing to say.


    She finally let go of her death grip and released a heavy breath. ¡°You drive.¡± She commanded Joel in a low dark tone, swinging her legs over the side and dropping to the dirt. She walked slowly around to the passenger side, and Joel knew better than to question it, sliding over and starting to move the vehicle again once Aisling had rejoined us in his place. She leaned forward on the dashboard and rested her head between her arms.


    A tense silence, punctuated only by the quiet motor of the truck dominated the next hour. Joel didn¡¯t dare say anything after that display, and I didn¡¯t blame him. Aisling was scary when she was mad. I watched her for a few minutes, but she wasn¡¯t moving, so I closed my eyes again and went back to organizing the files I¡¯d swiped from our employer.


    We probably wouldn¡¯t get much more use out of the information now that we were out of business with Calloway, but I had grown into the habit of cataloguing collected data, just in case. One of the best perks about being a computer was the expansive long-term information storage. As long as nothing was corrupted, anyway. I wouldn¡¯t have trouble recalling any of this if it came up again.


    ¡°Sorry,¡± groaned Aisling¡¯s voice at last. She pulled her head up, still leaning forward, and let out a loud sigh as she watched the approaching crater. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have hit you earlier, Meryll. That was... unlike me.¡±


    Huh. I didn¡¯t actually expect an apology for that. It was already in the past, as far as I cared. But I guess with some quiet time to think, she was feeling remorseful. I didn¡¯t really want it, though. ¡°I kinda de...served it,¡± I admitted.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± She nodded, and she we went quiet for a while again. But she couldn¡¯t leave it alone and eventually tilted her head back. ¡°It just finally got to me. You know. I put up with a lot of your behavior because you haven¡¯t really... been alive that long. It might not even be fair to call you an adult. I get that you probably don¡¯t always feel the gravity of our situation the same way I do. But it keeps happening. And the fact that you don¡¯t seem to appreciate danger for what it is, even after all this time... really makes me wonder if I care for you more than you care about yourself.¡±


    I opened my eyes and watched the passing dirt again for a moment, letting a hand dangle down over the edge of the truck bed and feeling at the passing air. Was that right? Did I not care about myself? Did I actually want something bad to happen to me? Had I been slowly succumbing to some kind of subconscious desire for suicide by proxy? It didn¡¯t sound like me, but... maybe I couldn¡¯t trust myself.


    ¡°I w...wish I could talk to Dr. Yates,¡± I mumbled.


    ¡°Hmm? Your Venusian therapist?¡± Aisling asked.


    I nodded. The communication lockdown we¡¯d established when we arrived on Io was important. I understood that. But not being able to contact the few friends I had outside of the crew had definitely been isolating. ¡°I know I d-didn¡¯t talk to him that much, really, but it felt like he knew what I n...needed to hear, you know? Like he saw me and c-could help me make sense of what was going on in my head, even though he couldn¡¯t relate.¡±


    ¡°Shrinks are good at that,¡± Joel stated plainly. Seems he got the hint that this wasn¡¯t the time for banter after Aisling¡¯s reaction to the last thing he said. I think we both must have wondered just what had set her off.


    ¡°Maybe soon,¡± Aisling shrugged. ¡°For now, just stay out of trouble. If you have to be involved in the action, listen to us before your gut, because I really don¡¯t wanna lose you. You¡¯re good at what you do, you¡¯re part of this crew, and I... really do care about you, okay? So next time you get any exciting ideas, run it by someone. Check yourself.¡±


    I nodded in solidarity. That would probably be for the best. ¡°... Am I clear to dive when we get home?¡± I had to ask. I needed the void. I needed torpor.


    ¡°Long as Doc says it¡¯s okay, yeah. Guess you need some time to think?¡± Aisling asked.


    I nodded again. She wasn¡¯t wrong. I really just wanted to rest, though.


    But as we crossed the invisible border of Theseus¡¯s psychic network, and I started to feel my shell¡¯s warm embrace once more, I almost immediately felt a high priority ping from Doc¡¯s terminal.


    I sat up quickly, adrenaline spiking as I relayed the message to the captain. ¡®There you are. Get in here, quick. It¡¯s Collins. She¡¯s waking up.¡¯

 Observation & Manipulation

    As we pulled the truck into the open cargo bay, I tumbled out in a hurry, ready to charge up the stairs into my heart. Part of me was excited to find out what exactly Doc meant that she was ¡®waking up¡¯ and part of me wondered if I could sneak into the core module before she was conscious enough to realize what I was doing.


    ¡°Hey- Hey, hey.¡± Aisling called, stepping out of the truck behind me. I stopped to listen, keeping in mind that I was trying to be a good girl and not charge into things too quickly right now. ¡°Protocol. If she¡¯s lucid, you don¡¯t give her any kind of hint what you are, right?¡± Aisling stepped in front of me and stared me down, almost glaring at me. ¡°She is an unknown factor right now. She¡¯s not part of the crew, so don¡¯t trust her, got it? You make sure she¡¯s not in the room at all before you dive. You don¡¯t know if she¡¯s pretending to sleep or something.¡±


    ¡°I mean, she¡¯s got all those vital monitors, I kinda do...¡± I mumbled, but let out a quiet groan and nodded, my heart sinking as I conceded I probably wouldn¡¯t get to the void today. ¡°Right. Okay. I promise,¡± I sighed loudly, letting her know I wasn¡¯t happy about this.


    Aisling¡¯s expression softened as my disappointment settled in. ¡°Good. Come on, it¡¯s only been like, two days since you were last in there, you¡¯ll be fine.¡± Aisling started to walk up the stairs. ¡°Now let¡¯s go interrogate a pirate captain.¡±


    ¡°Hah!¡± Joel called, sliding past me. ¡°She¡¯s gonna think she¡¯s in custody or something if you open like that.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s the point. Need to get a read on what she¡¯d do if she was,¡± she answered back as they climbed upward.


    I lagged behind, my enthusiasm deflated now that a full dive was off the table. I was suddenly too tired to put in the effort for stairs and instead sluggishly stepped over to the modified scissor lift we¡¯d firmly locked in place next to the staircase so Lily had a way to navigate the vertical layout of the ship and slowly rode that up to the middle floor instead.


    I briefly considered walking into the open door at the end of the hall and joining the others at my heart, but I was dead on my feet, and if I wasn¡¯t going to dive, then I was going to relax in my own quarters. Turning immediately to my door, I slid it open and walked into my seldom-used personal domain.


    Within was a mattress on the floor in one corner, the pale blue sheet mottled with stains left by core lubricant. A shelf was bolted to the wall, where I kept a few electronics I¡¯d been tinkering with to experiment with my psychic networking abilities, some basic equipment for the physical upkeep of my cybernetics, a box of chips with various commercial programs I could run, a few system blades for the box at my hip where the bulk of my components were stored, and a small assortment of chips and candy I liked. On the top shelf, in a secure container, sat the sole component I owned for the expansion slot in the back of my head: The psychic damper.


    I once kept it out of my head out of fear of the device, but now I felt a bit lesser without it. It left an empty spot in the data stream that I wanted to keep on hand. Physically, I just liked its weight at the back of my head. Unfortunately, it was hard to hide the expansion bay unless it was empty, so I had to go without when I was out of the ship. Fortunately, these parts were made to be hot-swapped fairly easily.


    If I was done for the day, I may as well make myself comfortable. I pulled the damper down from its case and braced myself as I reached back, brushing my hair out of the way and bracing myself as I slid the module comfortably into the base of my skull.


    A momentary flash of alien dissociation rippled through my mind, as if my brain had to reboot itself the moment the device connected with my systems, and I had to let out a shuddering sigh. As much as I liked both the safety from psychosomatic ship damage to my body that the device offered as well as the unforeseen utility it gave me in a pinch, I didn¡¯t think I would ever get used to the strange sense of emptiness it gave me as it booted. I didn¡¯t mind the division of my mental functions upon activation anymore, but that instantaneous flash of my mind splitting in two and then rapidly stitching itself back together always disoriented me.


    The only other piece of furniture in my room was my favorite. An oversized armchair, soft, plush, and comfortable, sat in the center of the room. It was the one non-electronic luxury purchase I¡¯d made once we started earning money. I¡¯d found that I didn¡¯t like lying down when I was relaxing, and I wanted to make myself as comfortable as possible on occasions like these where I couldn¡¯t dive and relax in my real domain at the ship¡¯s heart.


    One might think my room was a bit bare, but I was a fan of minimalism. The lack of surfaces didn¡¯t bother me, and what use was a desk to a living computer, anyway? I wasn¡¯t going to sit and stare at a screen when I saw the true electronic world every time I closed my eyes. I wasn¡¯t going to input with a keyboard unless I was making a show of it for someone. Maybe I could use some drawers, since my meager wardrobe was pretty much just piled in one corner on the floor, but I kept forgetting to do anything about it when I had spending money.


    Perhaps best of all, my room was private. I stripped myself of my dirty clothes and unceremoniously tossed them into the dirty side of the pile. I had no qualms about my bare body being seen by the crew anymore, since the core module necessitated that the only material objects I could bring into it were my own components. The crew barely batted an eye at me being disrobed, so long as I didn¡¯t go traipsing around the ship in the nude for no reason. But sometimes it began to grate on me that anybody could and would just walk into the infirmary while I was in a sensitive state, and there was nothing I could do about it. Privacy was nice now and then.


    My chair was a poor substitute for the void, but I figured it was as close as I was going to get today, so I found myself sinking down into the soft fabric upholstery, kicking up the foot-rest, and closing my eyes to see what was going on around the rest of the ship. The irony that I was enjoying privacy while I was constantly aware of everything the rest of the crew was doing was lost on me.


    Ray was cooking dinner down below in the mess hall. That was reason enough to stay awake a little longer, at least. The sensor array in that room was on the opposite wall to the kitchen, so it was always hard to tell exactly what she was making around her massive bulk, but I assumed it would be delicious. I¡¯d have to thank her for playing part in my rescue at dinner. I smiled to myself and nuzzled the headrest of my chair slightly, imagining it was Ray¡¯s arm. It wasn¡¯t as soft.


    After lingering a bit longer on the kitchen, I switched around to the cargo bay, looking for Mouse. Instead, I found Shaw. He held a tiny sliver of black metal in his hand that extended out to a long, sharp point in front of him, and he made a few stabbing motions into the air, testing the stability of the metal, no doubt. I clicked on the intercom near him and my synthetic voice called from the speaker, ¡°You look like a dork.¡±


    The metal dissolved instantly into a blob of liquid that floated over his hand as he turned toward the speaker. ¡°Says the woman who was captured by ne¡¯er-do-wells to write computer code,¡± he jabbed back. ¡°Lovely job with that, by the way. I¡¯m told we¡¯ve made enough to reimburse the audio equipment we had to leave behind.¡± The metal fell back into his hand, forming a solid stick that he fidgeted with as he spoke. ¡°I take it, as usual, you¡¯re not fired for that?¡±


    ¡°If it was that easy to lose a spot on this ship, do you think you¡¯d still be here?¡± I joked, though I wasn¡¯t sure if my tone was lost in the electronic voice. Even emulating my own voice, it was hard to produce emotionally expressive sounds, especially without the void. At least I wouldn¡¯t stutter. ¡°You know, it¡¯ll be hard to keep in touch with Lily if you leave.¡±


    Shaw gave something between a sigh and a laugh. ¡°You¡¯re still on about that? I keep telling you, I have no interest in your sister. You¡¯d probably airlock me if I did.¡±


    ¡°And I keep telling you, that¡¯s bullshit. I see the way you look at each other.¡± I wasn¡¯t the best at reading people, and I wasn¡¯t exactly happy that my grievously traumatized sister was interested in a guy who, for some reason, insisted on playing the part of an admittedly actually well-connected but sleazy info broker, but I wasn¡¯t going to deny reality. It was time to change the subject, though. ¡°How¡¯s the implant?¡±


    ¡°You say that like you can¡¯t see inside my brain,¡± Shaw wasn¡¯t wrong. I could see the electronic operation of the mysterious deep implant that allowed him some manner of electromagnetic control over that metal. But I wanted to know more about how well he was handling it personally. ¡°Learning to maintain a finer point. I wish there was more of this stuff, but there isn¡¯t, so I have to work with what I¡¯ve got. And in a pinch, I¡¯d rather have a sword than a shiv. I read something about pre-colonial humans using thin pointed swords called rapiers. Thought I¡¯d see if I could manage it.¡±


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°That thing really means a lot to you, doesn¡¯t it? You¡¯re gonna have to tell me more about how you got that implant sometime,¡± I offered, knowing that he would deflect.


    And sure enough... ¡°And whatever happened to all that ¡®the past is dead¡¯ talk this crew¡¯s always spouting? I¡¯ll tell you when it¡¯s important, hmm?¡± He flipped the bar of metal into the air, fumbled it spectacularly, then dissolved it back into a floating mass before it got too far from him. ¡°You didn¡¯t see that. Shouldn¡¯t you be greeting the rogue captain upstairs?¡±


    ¡°Sure, whatever.¡± I knew I wasn¡¯t going to get anything out of him before I spoke up, I¡¯d just wanted to mess with him. And I was getting to Collins, I just wanted to make sure I had a read on what everyone else was doing, first.


    I found Mouse in his quarters, down the hall from mine, still tinkering with Thunderbolt. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he didn¡¯t even care about what was happening in the infirmary. He was too focused on his weapon. A piece of experimentally small arms artillery apparently required a lot of maintenance. I could have just stood up and knocked on his door, but... I tapped his intercom next. ¡°Need any help with calibrating or simulation?¡±


    ¡°Nope,¡± he answered curtly, not even flinching from cleaning a barrel at my sudden entrance into the room. Everyone was way too used to me being omnipresent now. It was hard to surprise anyone on the ship. ¡°Got any data on the new gravity contacts yet?¡±


    ¡°We haven¡¯t left orbit since those were installed. I¡¯m not going to run artificial gravity when there¡¯s actual gravity.¡± I complained.


    ¡°Still need to make sure none of it¡¯s malfunctioning,¡± he mumbled as he slid the barrel carefully into place and then latched the firing mechanism back together around the gun¡¯s stock. ¡°I¡¯ll need to fix them in an environment suit if they go wrong in space. And the way you pilot, they need to hold up.¡±


    I swear, he was never going to let go of his grudge at my frantic dogfight patterns. They worked far better than any standard core could manage, but I couldn¡¯t deny they shook up the crew. The brand new, more reactive, artificial gravity system we¡¯d installed recently would hopefully help ease that burden. It was made for smaller ships, but piecing together multiple nodes would supposedly work just fine. ¡°I¡¯ve done the math, it¡¯ll work,¡± I reassured him.


    He let out an uncertain groan. ¡°The math on paper and the actual physics don¡¯t always agree.¡± There was a short pause where he looked up at the sensor array, his eyes glaring with his usual fiery intensity at me. ¡°What¡¯re you doing here? Avoiding something?¡±


    Yes. I sighed and said, ¡°Alright, alright. I¡¯ll check in on the... captains.¡±


    And with that, I finally shifted my attention to my heart. My own physical body¡¯s heart ached at the sight of the core module. I¡¯d get my chance soon enough. Lily sat in her chair next to it, napping with a blanket over her. She really shouldn¡¯t fall asleep like that, but I think Doc felt guilty when he needed to interrupt her sporadic sleep cycle to get her into bed.


    Collins was still in her bed, attached to all the vital monitors and intravenous tubes that had kept her alive and healthy for the past half year, though now the back of the bed had been lifted slightly so she was in a reclined sitting position. Aisling, Doc, and Joel stood over her on one side and watched as the woman¡¯s eyes tracked each of them in turn, her heart rate much higher than it was when she was comatose. She tried to mouth words, however, she hadn¡¯t used many of her muscles, including her voicebox, for over half a year, and she was speaking too quietly for the sensor array to pick her up.


    ¡°She¡¯s awake, alright.¡± Aisling agreed with Doc. ¡°Thought you said you were making sure she didn¡¯t atrophy.¡±


    Doc shrugged ¡°I made sure her arms, legs, neck, and back didn¡¯t atrophy. I can¡¯t say the same for her vocal cords. And she¡¯s still got to work out using those muscles again. It won¡¯t be as long of a process as Lily¡¯s. She¡¯s just more stiff than you could possibly imagine.¡±


    ¡°Good, I need to get some info out of her for the investigation.¡± Aisling commented idly, then turned to address Collins herself. ¡°Hey. You¡¯re finally awake, huh? We¡¯ve been waiting to ask you some questions.¡±


    There was a short pause, the woman mouthing something quietly to Aisling.


    ¡°You¡¯re on board my ship.¡± She carefully avoided giving specifics, just like in our previous meeting. We were still in information lockdown, after all. ¡°You¡¯re safe. And very lucky to be alive. We just happened to pass near enough to the Demitrius to get your core¡¯s distress signal. That was half a year ago.¡±


    The woman¡¯s brow furrowed, concern growing on her face as she heard that news. Aisling continued, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ve got an excellent doctor taking care of you, and we¡¯ll have a longer talk once you¡¯ve recovered enough to speak.¡±


    The woman mouthed something else. ¡°We¡¯ll talk about that later, okay?¡± Aisling said. ¡°You¡¯re not in any trouble. We just need to get a few questions answered. I suggest you comply. You don¡¯t exactly have a ship to return to, anyway. We weren¡¯t in a position to tow so many pieces out of wild space. It¡¯s gone.¡±


    Collins looked disheartened, but made the ghost of a nod to Aisling. She understood she was in no position to bargain, but both her vitals and her weak expression betrayed a building anxiety in the woman. I may not have been able to read social cues all that well, but having a complex biological monitor permanently strapped to my arm meant I¡¯d gotten pretty good at discerning the meanings of minor vital changes. Aisling had successfully planted a seed of doubt in the former captain. I wasn¡¯t exactly sure why, but it must have been some important bit of social engineering if Aisling was going through the trouble of manipulating someone fresh out of a coma into thinking she was in danger. Maybe it was something to do with getting her to hand over ownership of Isabelle.


    I briefly pinged the other core, her module installed in a spare crew quarters room across from mine. She had only second-hand access to the ship¡¯s network through a buffer I controlled, so I allowed her access to the infirmary sensor array before sending her a message ¡®Hey Izzy, your captain¡¯s awake.¡¯


    ¡®Understood.¡¯ Came the immediate reply. ¡®Unit expects to either be decommissioned or transferred to user Meryll¡¯s control for new training protocols.¡¯


    I had to smile to myself, noting what I perceived as a hopeful tone to the statement. Isabelle was based on a standard core. She was a biological computer with no sapience, and on the surface, she seemed exactly as rigid and adherent to her programming as when she¡¯d been extracted from the Demitrius. She refused to personify herself, and was clearly existentially baffled by both my existence and my interest in a core that could not be used as the permanent focal point of a machine structure again. Cores were unable to graft themselves to more than one structure, after all, and one could not unbind themselves under any circumstance, including in the case of catastrophic collapse like the Demitrius had endured. Just as Theseus was the only ship I would ever know, the Demitrius was the only one Isabelle could truly be a part of.


    But I had noticed over the past six months that Isabelle had gradually formed new habits when speaking to me. She¡¯d become slightly less rigid in how she spoke to me, had begun to occasionally offer relevant information unprompted, and a couple of times, had helped guide me in skirting her own established protocols in order to help me learn new information about core behavior. She was unable to give me full access because Collins was still technically the only authorized user, but she¡¯d helped me circumvent that restriction when possible before.


    There was a person in there, dammit, and I was going to wake her up. In my own way. I wanted to prove that you didn¡¯t need to torture and traumatize tens of thousands of clones to create a touch more than half a dozen sapients. I knew I didn¡¯t have Foundation¡¯s resources, and I knew it was a longshot, but I was stubborn and willing to take chances. And sometimes that wasn¡¯t a trait that could get everyone killed, but could instead give purpose to a defunct machine core.


    ¡®So how¡¯s it feel? Is she special to you since she¡¯s your captain?¡¯ I asked, trying to goad self-analysis from her.


    ¡®Does user Meryll consider priority zero access special?¡¯ she asked.


    ¡®I guess, if that means she can do anything she wants to you.¡¯


    ¡®Then Captain Morgan Collins is special,¡¯ she declared.


    ¡®I bet you¡¯re glad she¡¯s going to be okay.¡¯


    ¡®Unit is not capable of emotional response.¡¯ I had seen that stock error message so many times by then. She¡¯d said it to me so often that she¡¯d begun using the shorthand version.


    ¡®Yeah, yeah. You¡¯ve got self-preservation protocols, though, right? So you can say it¡¯s a good thing that your captain is awake, and could potentially give authorization to me, who will keep you from getting scrapped. Right?¡¯


    ¡®Self-preservation is weighted heavily by utility.¡¯ There was a short pause before she next sent, ¡®There is marginal value to my continued operation. Therefore, it is technically beneficial that Captain Morgan Collins remains functional.¡¯


    I wasn¡¯t sure if that meant anything at all toward making Isabelle self-aware, but I considered it a victory that she at least acknowledged she wasn¡¯t useless. That there was still a personal connection to the captain for her, even if it was utilitarian. ¡®Alright. I¡¯ll let you keep access to that sensor for now so you can observe her, if you want.¡¯


    ¡®Understood.¡¯ She briefly accessed the sensor, but in what must have been a span measured in machine cycles, dropped it to perform some other unseen internal function. I figured she wouldn¡¯t really make use of the sensor, but it felt like a gesture I would make for a normal human. I¡¯d let a person keep watch over a hospitalized person they cared about, so I did it for Isabelle. Maybe if you just treated a core as you would a human, it would eventually just... become sapient.


    Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe I was just a child playing with dolls. And surely someone had tried something like this before. It wasn¡¯t like she was just going to suddenly snap into self-awareness, after all. I wasn¡¯t trying to jam humanity into something like Foundation had done to me. But maybe if that humanization came from someone like them...


    It wasn¡¯t until later that week, when I reviewed the logs, that I would realize Isabelle had momentarily tapped that sensor once exactly every 60 seconds until access was revoked.

 Slipping

    As usual in the run-up to dinner time, the stairwell smelled heavenly. A savory aroma wafted up from the mess hall on the bottom floor, filling the stairwell with a promise of warm nourishment. Ray¡¯s cooking was amazing. I guess I didn¡¯t have too many reference points for that, since besides her cooking, I¡¯d only ever eaten made-to-eat packaged meals, some admittedly fantastic bar food back on Luna, the sub-par Ionian restaurant fare, and the absolutely abysmal powdered emergency rations we¡¯d subsisted on for a month on the way here, but I certainly enjoyed everything she made.


    I¡¯d thrown on a loose sweater and a pair of oversized shorts, so I didn¡¯t have to put my bloodstained hacker outfit back on just for dinner. It was an odd combination, but they were the first articles I grabbed from the clean pile, and I was used to wearing odd clothes.


    As I slowly walked down the stairs, enjoying the meaty smell coming from below, I held the hand that wasn¡¯t bound to the railing against my head. My headache had gradually worsened, even through the painkillers. I felt occasional pangs of pointed pain radiating to the back of my head in small waves, and I really hoped that filling my stomach would be enough to get me to fall asleep despite it and my ever-present digital awareness.


    That, and I wanted to say hi to Ray. I wanted to say a lot of things to Ray. Definitely more things than I would say to her.


    Hopping down the last few stairs despite my injury, I wandered into the utilitarian mess hall. It had clearly originally been intended to be some kind of workshop module before it had been swallowed up by the amalgam that was my shell, becoming a core part of Theseus before it was altered into a place to cook and eat.


    I saw the massive woman at the stove turn her head to give me a smile before she returned her attention to a large steel pot on the stove. ¡°Glad to see you¡¯re still on your feet, Meryll. Long day, huh?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t exactly built strong or tall, but Ray, being a Mammon, towered over everyone in the crew, myself included. She easily had half a meter in height on me, and she had a wide, muscular build. Her arms made her look even larger. Bulkier than a human¡¯s and covered in thick, black fur all the way up to the reddish-dark skin of her human torso. Each arm ended in a set of deadly-sharp, flexible claws rather than fingers. Her legs were much the same, a set of powerful, beastly appendages made for stocky strength and physical destructive power more than quick locomotion.


    Her torso was covered in elaborate tattoos in black and red; the ritualistic marks of an Earthling warrior that mimicked gashes of color, presented swirling patterns, and strategically placed dots mottling her skin between the main features of the artwork across her skin. I couldn¡¯t have imagined there was no purpose to the designs, so I gleaned that it had to be a tapestry of her accomplishments, obfuscated by tradition I didn¡¯t understand.


    Atop her head was deep black hair that grew only from the middle of her scalp, front to back, but was long enough to droop down and cover the left side of her head. That had probably been the inspiration for my ill-fated haircut, but she wore it far better than I did.


    ¡°You can s-say that again,¡± I smiled back and wandered up to her, not hesitating to lean affectionately into her arm as I looked past her to see what she was cooking. ¡°You got a stew on?¡±


    Ray nodded, leaning ever-so-slightly into my cuddling to compensate for my meager weight. She knew I liked her strong furry arms, and had never even attempted to discourage my affections. Despite her size and intimidating primal appearance, Ray was probably the most gentle person I knew, at least when she was outside of battle. She was strong in a way only a genetically engineered super soldier could be, but she tempered that strength with wisdom and care.


    We sometimes joked that Ray was the entire crew¡¯s mom. She took care of most of the domestic needs of the ship, like cooking and cleaning, she wasn¡¯t afraid to use her ridiculous natural strength to help out whenever something needed lifting or hauling. She was always ready to offer an encouraging word when someone needed emotional support. And she was a formidable force in battle when violence was necessary. In hard times, I¡¯d even seen her act as a trusted moral compass to Aisling¡¯s ruthless cunning, reminding her of the worthwhile causes we fought for when the cost of our actions to the public started to become untenable.


    ¡°I figured our guest could probably use something that¡¯s not difficult to eat for her first actual meal back in the waking world,¡± she explained whimsically as I watched her stir the pot of thick broth, fragments of vegetables swirling behind her ladle. It always looked intriguing to me how delicately she handled all the kitchen utensils intended for baseline humans in her massive claws. ¡°And I accidentally overstocked on synthetic beef last we were in town. It has to be used up.¡±


    ¡°Well, it sm...ells good.¡± I said that pretty much every time I had a chance to compliment her cooking, and I was sure she was starting to notice, but it still made her smile. I had more to thank her for than food today, though. ¡°You came out to s-save me...¡±


    She stopped stirring the pot and looked back to me again, still smiling. ¡°Someone had to carry all the speakers for Shaw¡¯s plan to work. And I wasn¡¯t going to sit still and do nothing while you were in danger. I don¡¯t care if I become an Ionian urban legend if it¡¯s to rescue a crewmate.¡±


    Thanks to a very successful information suppression campaign, Mammons were still a secret to the outer colonies. If she was spotted out here, not only would the first successful case of a genetically manufactured human subrace cause an ethical and political panic in the populace and draw undue ire to their home on Earth, but it would be a pretty obvious clue where we were. So it was kind of a big deal that she would risk revealing herself.


    ¡°Besides, I¡¯m tired of being stuck in the ship. I¡¯m not like you, Meryll. Theseus doesn¡¯t speak to me. I¡¯m a warrior. An adventurer. I don¡¯t like being cooped up inside for this long,¡± she lamented, her smile drooping slightly. ¡°If I¡¯m traveling through space, it¡¯s one thing, but there are stories to be made here on Io, and it¡¯s so disappointing that I don¡¯t get to be a part of them. I was more than happy to take to the field again, especially if it was to rescue you. You¡¯re special.¡±


    I opened my mouth to refute her, but gave up quickly. Okay, yeah, it was pretty hard to deny that I was special. One of seven in all of the many billions of humanity was pretty unique. I instead just leaned into her more. ¡°J-Just worried for you.¡±


    ¡°And I was worried about you.¡± She reassured me in a gentle, adoring tone that made me shiver. ¡°And here we are, both fine. It all works out in the end.¡±


    ¡°Mm, I guess. Ais...ling demoted me, though. No more running my own o-ops.¡± I sighed, still a little sore on the subject. But after I¡¯d been put in my place and had some time to think about it, I understood I wasn¡¯t ready yet.


    ¡°Well, you did kind of screw up your very first one. Pretty badly.¡± Ray teased, reaching over with her other claw to pat me on the head.


    ¡°Ouch. Y-You too?¡± I chuckled.


    ¡°In sufficient quantity, bravery becomes foolishness.¡± She mussed up my hair a little, rubbing the tips of her claws over my scalp and eliciting some kind of noise that probably gave away what I was really thinking in that moment, and then returned her claw to the ladle in the pot. I let out a quiet hum of pleasure after her attention and chuckled at my hair tangling up.


    I couldn¡¯t help but smile even though I was being made fun of. I didn¡¯t want to let her arm go. She was so warm and gentle and strong, and I just didn¡¯t want to leave her side. It was getting pretty hard to deny the obvious. For the last couple months, I¡¯d been crushing pretty hard on Ray. After Aisling turned me down that night on the way to Io, I thought I¡¯d given up on trying to find that kind of connection within the crew, but it was becoming harder to stick to that principle. Over time, Ray had somehow wormed her way into my heart; our obvious physical differences be damned.


    I didn¡¯t dare actually say anything to her, though. I wasn¡¯t exactly sure if she liked me that way or even where her orientation was, and that was an awkward question, no matter when it was presented.


    Even though it had been a private moment that no one else had been privy to, I still felt guilty that I¡¯d already taken my shot with the captain before her, as well. I didn¡¯t want to make Ray a ¡®second choice¡¯. So I¡¯d settled into the time-honored lesbian tradition of silently and indefinitely pining over my attraction instead of doing anything at all about it.


    ¡°You alright?¡± She asked, thankfully distracted enough by her cooking again that she failed to notice I¡¯d just been silently staring up at her through my disheveled bangs for a few minutes. ¡°You seem about ready to doze off.¡±


    I kept my eyes locked on her for just another a moment and then let out a yawn, reluctantly letting her go of her warmth as I stretched my arms up, working out some of my stiffness. ¡°Yeah... I¡¯m hoping s-some food will put me to sleep... can¡¯t dive right now, with Co...Collins in the infirmary.¡± I sighed wistfully. I think Aisling still didn¡¯t understand that, to me, two full days actually was a very long time for me to be away from the void. I really should have pushed for her to arrange a situation for me to sneak in, but I knew I was already on thin ice. I¡¯d bring it up tomorrow. ¡°Maybe I should just le...learn to sleep with my eyes open?¡±


    ¡°Ahh, denied the call of your true home, hmm?¡± She nodded sagely. Ray had once called me a shaman for the way I was one with the ship. That I spoke with it the way some kind of Earthling mystic spoke to nature. That it was some kind of divine force that operated through me rather than just a technological marvel. I didn¡¯t really see it as something so magical, but in her own way, Ray understood me. ¡°Well, I¡¯m not going to hold your eyelids up, so let¡¯s fill your belly. See if that doesn¡¯t help with your insomnia.¡±


    ¡ª


    I groaned in objection as the loud buzzing of the alarm pinged insistently inside my head. The moment I regained consciousness, the data stream flooded my inner vision and sealed my fate. I wasn¡¯t getting back to sleep.


    And besides, I couldn¡¯t afford to miss work.


    I dismissed the ping and blinked my weary eyes open, then stared up at the flat white ceiling of my room, impassionately listening to the air conditioner quietly whirring in the wall next to me, in blatant arrogant defiance of the heavy white quilt I had draped over me.


    Something felt like it was missing. Like a profound emptiness I couldn¡¯t define had wormed its way into my heart and left it wanting; yearning for something that was an intrinsic part of me. Something great and wonderful that was supposed to be here was absent.


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    I guessed I was hungry.


    Which made the growing faint scent of bread and meat wafting through from the kitchen all that more inviting. I at least had time to grab a bite to eat before I headed out.


    I convinced myself that I was ready to awaken from my fortress of warmth and abandoned sleep if it meant filling the yawning abyss that I reasoned must have been my belly. The quilt was tossed aside and bunched up against the wall, and I twisted to let my legs dangle over the edge. I briefly pondered over my feet not touching the floor. That bed had been entirely too high for me when I was a kid, and I still didn¡¯t touch the ground now. If nothing else, I could say that at least dad had never had to replace it.


    As my eyes wandered my room, memories blurring into place as I looked across the plain white furniture and remains of my childhood, I couldn¡¯t help but appreciate that I¡¯d finally had an opportunity to come home for a while. It wasn¡¯t often someone needed my kind of qualifications in the suburbs of the Titan megacities, so I¡¯d jumped on the opportunity when the job came to me. It meant that I¡¯d get to spend a couple weeks hanging out with my family for once, and my parents had even invited me to stay with them for it, so I could save on my expense allowance.


    I hopped down from the bed and stretched my limbs, taking care not to push the leg with my component bay on it too far for fear of disconnecting something. Then I walked to the plain white door and pulled the handle, revealing a modest but pristine kitchen right outside my door. The countertops, appliances, and decorations were all a trendy pure white that gave the whole place a clean overall atmosphere.


    Dad snorted, his buzzed haircut peeking up from behind a terminal he liked reading the news on every morning. ¡°Knew that¡¯d get you up.¡±


    Mom was the one standing over the stove, turning pancakes and tending to some kind of sad-looking meat lump on a second pan. She wore a heavy brown jacket and her red hair seemed striking to me this morning, for some reason. Maybe because it looked like she got in a fight with a pair of clippers and lost. It was messy and uneven. I raised an eyebrow, but I didn¡¯t have long to ponder it before she jabbed back at dad without looking away from her cooking. ¡°Smart-ass. It was my idea, Joel.¡±


    I was so focused on mom that I didn¡¯t catch Lily stepping nimbly past me, making her way toward the kitchen in front of me. ¡°Something wrong, sis? You¡¯re standing there like a statue. Still asleep?¡± She teased, brushing back her long brown hair so she didn¡¯t get it in the food while she turned her attention to helping mom.


    I stopped gawking and just smiled. I guess I was just happy to be home again after so long. Mom was occupied, and it looked like food would be done soon, so I took my seat next to dad and briefly leaned in to see if there was anything interesting on the news feed. Just some bullshit about the fighting on Deimos. I rolled my eyes. My parents bought into a lot of the obvious propaganda, but it wasn¡¯t like I was going to be able to do anything about the underlying problem, so I wasn¡¯t going to argue with them for no reason. ¡°Got a computer in your brain and you still need to read stuff over my shoulder?¡± Dad snorted.


    ¡°What? I can¡¯t use m-my actual eyes some...times?¡± I shot back, feeling a smug smile grow on my face. ¡°You finally warming up t-to people with augs?¡±


    ¡°Bah.¡± He set the tablet face down on the table and looked at me proudly. ¡°Don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about. Always been supportive, right hun?¡±


    My mother turned around, smirking at my dad with predatory wit as she began to distribute plates across the table. ¡°That mean you¡¯re ready to get your leg replaced with a real prosthetic yet?¡± As soon as she got to me, though, I froze when she looked up into my eyes. Something about those sharp silver orbs drew me in and made something shimmer at the edge of that hollow emptiness I felt. I stared into her eyes in stunned silence for a few moments until she stood back up and took her seat at the table.


    Something was off. I couldn¡¯t tell what yet, but something was making me feel uneasy. That definitely wasn¡¯t hunger I¡¯d felt. In fact, I was starting to feel nauseous. Something was terribly wrong, wasn¡¯t it?


    ¡°Seriously, something up, Meryll?¡± Lily asked, seeing my stunned, spacy look at mom. I glanced between each of them and felt like something was gnawing at the very edge of my mind. Trying to warn me of something. Of danger. A tragedy.


    I was still looking for an answer to give her when I saw movement in the corner of my eye. Mouse came walking down the hall, yawning and stretching his arms, something he most definitely wouldn¡¯t do because of his prosthetics. ¡°Hey mom. Dad,¡± he groaned like you¡¯d expect a moody teenager to greet their parents in the morning. ¡°Hey Meryll, you still after that Mammon girl?¡± He asked in a teasing tone I would never hear from the young engineer.


    I stammered out quietly, ¡°Yeah...¡± I stared at him in now-terrified bewilderment as I tried to make sense of him. It took until he sat down before I managed to place what was bothering me and muttered out the words, ¡°I don¡¯t... h-have a brother.¡±


    The four of them suddenly turned to stare at me, each of them giving me a glare with an accusatory air between them. Had I said something wrong? Had I done something wrong?


    Searing pain erupted up my spine and drilled into my eyes, forcing them closed for a moment, and when I opened them, I stood, scrambling back in shock, pushing my chair back and almost stumbling over it as I backed away from the table.


    On the other side of the kitchen, my mother, father, and sister were lined up facing me, lying limp in each of their chairs. Their mouths hung open in the echoes of terrified screams while their eyes stared, blank and dead. Each of them had a single black hole pierced through the center of their foreheads, thin rivers of red flowing down their faces, splitting and reforming as they dripped down into their clothes, staining the white they wore.


    I stared at them in abject terror, my breath slowly getting heavier and heavier as I tried to piece together what just happened. They were dead. They were murdered. I was right there, and they were murdered right in front of me, and why did that happen? HOW could that have happened? My family, gone. We were JUST happy. We were JUST having breakfast with each other. WHAT HAPPENED?!


    Worst of all, now that I stared into each of their faces, immortalized in morbid horror, I could no longer recognize them. I could no longer discern a single identifying feature beyond that they were my family.


    I felt something cold, hard, and oh so very heavy move against my hand as my body twitched, and then suddenly, each of their eyes shifted to glare directly at me, no other part of them moving in the slightest. A deafening bang, the likes of which I¡¯d never heard before, crashed through reality, and the all-consuming clinical white suddenly shifted to the darkest black as I felt a sudden pressure in my lower back. I took one stumbling step forward and the world shifted around me, like I¡¯d just been shunted somewhere else. A new context overcame me.


    I wasn¡¯t home. I had no home. Nothing that happened before Theseus had been real. I had no family. I¡¯d come to terms with that. But then why did those haunting eyes chase me until they were swallowed up in darkness. And what had been that noise?


    My body shuddered as the pressure I¡¯d felt stole my breath away. I drew in a ragged gasp of air and everything rearranged itself. A hand shakily lifted to my stomach and my fingertips felt wet.


    Blood. Pain slowly spider-webbed out from the middle of my abdomen. The taste of iron was thick in my mouth. Ancient memory from behind the barrier of amnesia rang clear at the taste, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to swallow it down and suppress the agony of existence. I suddenly didn¡¯t have the strength, even for that. My eyes darted wildly as I tried to make sense of the world around me. Outside of my own agonizing mortal frame, a pile of now-familiar ruined flesh marked the totality of my new awareness.


    Soul-rending panic overcame me. I couldn¡¯t help but examine them. Ray¡¯s form, broken and still, her normally beautiful fur matted, torn, burned, and riddled with bullets. Lily, sprawled out and gasping from her bloody mouth. Mouse¡¯s fiery gaze permanently quelled, one arm turned into mangled chunks of carbon and metal. Shaw, somehow impaled on his own black blade. Joel, still bleeding out, cursing and grasping at a rifle just out of his reach. Aisling watching me judgementally with those powerful silver eyes, now dull and dead, letting me know this was my fault.


    I heaved unsteady breaths, trying desperately to hold my weakening knees steady through the dizziness that was becoming harder to ignore, to make sense of what I was seeing, to overcome the overwhelming pain that threatened to consume my shattered form. The blood in my mouth began dribbling down my chin as it overflowed.


    They were all dead or dying, and I felt soon to follow. All my comrades. All my friends. My real family. As tears clouded my vision, I closed my eyes to escape the horrid scene before me, but that only made it clearer, the whole of the digital world replaced by a singular sensor image of the very thing that laid before me from a different angle, with my human body standing above the carnage.


    I was gutshot. My body was a ghastly sight, my cringy hacker outfit heavily torn while I was covered in blood and scratches, skin pale with injurious anemia. One hand failed spectacularly at keeping what remained of my internal organs from spilling out of the hole in my sweater while the other hung loosely, a pistol dangling, spent, from one finger hooked over the trigger. Aisling¡¯s custom pistol.


    I couldn¡¯t piece together how we¡¯d gotten here, but I knew I did this. I destroyed them through my terrible decision-making. I failed them. I lost everything because I was too stubborn, too careless, too na?ve, too... stupid. I was so stupid. I really did never learn, did I? And by the time I faced that, here I was, bleeding out alongside everyone I ever loved.


    I watched as the image of myself somehow opened her eyes and turned her face up to look directly at me, a haunted expression of guilt washing over her fading, rheumy eyes. I felt myself grow cold, my body¡¯s desperate gasps hitting an abrupt end, the rest of me finally seizing up entirely as I fell face-first into the pile. A sensation of freefall overcame me as the sensor image slowly burned to static and my thoughts faded into oblivion.


    ¡ª


    I started awake, drawing in a sharp breath and jolting up to a sitting position in bed. Pain. It hurts. IT HURTS. The words crashed through my mind, and before I could stop myself, I¡¯d lifted my arm up to my face. I felt my teeth sink down hard into my own flesh. That metallic tang sent another wave of panic through me, and I crunched my teeth down harder with the faint sound of tearing flesh, closing my eyes as I tried desperately to bury one suffering with another.


    The room remained silent, except for my hyperventilation and the sound of adrenaline pumping down from my head. It wasn¡¯t that kind of pain. It wasn¡¯t noise. My panic began to unravel. My eyes traced slowly around the room as sudden clarity returned to me, and the echoes of the doom I¡¯d just experienced left my now-functional brain searching for solutions to a problem that wasn¡¯t actually there. It took me a moment of panicked hyperventilation to clear the remnants of what I¡¯d experienced from my head and let out a relieved sigh into my stinging arm.


    I unlatched my jaw from my forearm and shakily brought it down to look at it in front of me. Broken skin and light bleeding. I¡¯d injured myself, but not enough that the blood hadn¡¯t already begun to clot. Still, I hissed as the consequences of my actions sent a delayed wave of actual pain through my arm. ¡°Ouch...¡± I mouthed quietly, followed by a string of expletives. I wondered if I¡¯d stayed in that state any longer if I would have clamped down hard enough to snap my bone, like I¡®d once been capable of.


    My hand still shaking, I tried to distract myself. I hastily scanned through my sensors, checking that everyone on board was alive and well. I knew before I started that they would be, but it was comforting after a dream like that to be certain.


    I hadn¡¯t dreamed in a while. Not since I¡¯d vividly recalled my former self. A haunted, feral child steeped in persistent, inexplicable, hellish pain, only soothed by grievous self-harm or my empathic sister¡¯s care and understanding. And before that, the nightmarish echoes of my lost memories haunting me in my first weeks aboard Theseus. Maybe my exhaustion and introspection after Aisling¡¯s scolding disturbed me enough that I slipped back into those terrible corners of my broken mind. Why couldn¡¯t I ever have good dreams?


    I opened my eyes again and tried to put the dream out of my mind. It didn¡¯t mean anything. I wasn¡¯t Lily; I didn¡¯t have the gift of prophecy. What I saw was just my screwed up brain messing with me because I failed. It was fragments of shattered memories playing off my guilt. I had time to figure all this out before I really fucked everything up. I just had to be a little more disciplined. That¡¯s all. I just had to do better. And I could do better. I was good enough.


    I stared down at my arm for a second longer before surrendering to the collapse of adrenaline and plopping back down on my mattress again. ¡°This is why I hate s-sleep,¡± I grumbled to myself and stared up into the haphazard industrial piping that passed for my ceiling.

 A Captives Scrutiny

    I laid still in bed, staring up and trying to keep my mind blank for some time. I needed time to settle myself again after my nightmare. I was trying not to analyze it. I needed to just keep myself calm and let it pass, like all dreams do, but I couldn¡¯t just not think about things. I¡¯m too neurotic for that.


    I knew my family wasn¡¯t real. I kept trying to tell myself that what I saw was just an abstraction. Part of me chided myself for imposing the crew over top of them, but I guess they were my real family now. At least, they were closer to it than the vague outline of a family I had from the sim.


    I kept coming back to that one gruesome sight. Three vague, blurry shapes of bodies I knew, each with a very distinct mark of execution. An ellipsis across their heads that made my skin squirm. I¡®d seen it once before in my waking life. Someone I didn¡¯t know who must have pissed off the wrong guy before we got there. I guess it felt different because there was at least some emotional attachment, even if I knew they weren¡¯t real people.


    It wasn¡¯t long before the ache in my head and the ache in my arm began to overwhelm the ache in my heart. Images faded. The nightmare slipped away piece by piece into the back of my mind, and all I was left with was the idea of what I¡¯d experienced, a general sense of dread, and a body that needed my attention. I needed to do something about both of my physical pains before I was stuck in bed all day from my concussion or succumbed to some kind of infection from my new bite wound.


    I hadn¡¯t bit myself that hard before. At least not since I got to Theseus. I¡¯d occasionally found myself accidentally gnawing on it when I was nervous, but I thought I¡¯d more or less successfully thwarted the bad habit from beyond the edge of my amnesia. I guessed not, if it was still a panic response.


    I took a moment to take stock of myself outside of my injuries. Last night, I¡¯d eaten dinner with the crew. Recounting the story of my incarceration in a more casual setting over food had helped put it behind me. At least I thought it did. The others had made jokes at my expense. I just rolled my eyes and fired back some of the ammunition I¡¯d been saving up on them. I liked to think that my arrival on the ship had made jabbing banter become a sort of sport on Theseus. It probably happened before, but I liked to push it.


    I remembered Aisling scolding me again at some point for putting my damper back in after she¡¯d just gotten over telling me not to let Collins see my augments. But Collins had been fed back up in the infirmary, I was keeping an eye on her through my digital sight, and I ensured Aisling that I didn¡¯t intend to let the former captain see me. She took a moment to think about it, and it wasn¡¯t brought up again.


    When dinner was over and I¡¯d trundled my way upstairs with a full stomach, my exhaustion hadn¡¯t waited for me to disrobe, apparently. At least I was wearing something comfortable.


    My head still hurt. Not as bad as yesterday, but I could tell it would get worse if I ignored it, or worse, agitated it. Unfortunately, a concussion didn¡¯t just go away with a good night¡¯s sleep.


    I grumbled and rolled out of bed, levering myself up on my feet with my uninjured arm. I conceded that I still needed painkillers, and I would have to wash and bandage my wound. Doc was still asleep, but I knew where he kept the pills, so I could help myself, and I knew enough first aid to clean a simple flesh wound. I yawned and held my hurt arm, glad to see that I hadn¡¯t pierced deep enough for blood to drip. I walked out of my room and headed toward my heart. But I stopped at the open door.


    Collins. I grimaced as the horrifying pile of my friends¡¯ corpses from my dream flashed through my head. I had to be smart. I had to follow protocol. This was important. I didn¡¯t want to fuck things up again.


    Letting out a quiet sigh, I reached to the back of my head with my good arm and fumbled with the release tabs for the damper, sliding it out with ease once I managed to grip them with one hand. Thankfully, as long as it wasn¡¯t currently running, removing it wasn¡¯t as jarring as the boot sequence. I felt that part of my system go dark and grumbled to myself in frustration as I tilted my neck around, getting used to the missing weight, using my hand to distribute my hair and hide the empty cavity and my neural implant. Then I rolled down my sleeve to cover my terminal and checked my shorts covered my hip. Lastly, I brushed my hair over the front of my shoulder so it was covering my ports. I went over my augments again to make sure I didn¡¯t miss anything, and I was set.


    I was just popping in to grab some pills and clean a wound, and judging by her vital monitors, Collins was only marginally awake, so I could probably just get away with ignoring her if she stayed quiet. She wouldn¡¯t have to question the half-machine girl tending to herself in the infirmary. I stepped in and did my best to ignore the hospital bed in the corner as I fished a familiar bottle out of the cabinet, giving it a quick shake to make sure it wasn¡¯t running low.


    Then I heard a hoarse, rasping voice whisper up from the bed, ¡°Morning. It¡¯s morning, right?¡± Okay, she was a little more lucid than I had expected, and she was trying to engage me. Probably because I looked new to her, and hadn¡¯t established myself as someone looking to ask her probing questions yet. At least I could hear her now.


    I turned to look at her. The frail woman, a good few years older than me, looked uncertain as she took my measure as best as she could. I had to wonder if she had much clarity to make me out. ¡°Yeah. Morning,¡± I mumbled, glancing away from her. I could have just left. I probably should have. I could swipe a bandage and just wash my bite in the restroom upstairs. But that probably would have been rude, and I didn¡¯t want to piss off the woman who held Isabelle¡¯s fate in her hands. ¡°So... I¡¯m guess...ing you got my m-message from the core? Y¡¯know, since you didn¡¯t like... k-kill yourself or something.¡± Smooth start to a conversation, Meryll...


    She stared at me for a good long moment, as if reevaluating me. It was hard to make sense of her expression since it mostly just read as ¡®unbelievably tired¡¯. Eventually, she nodded slowly. ¡°Yeah. Thanks. Meryll, right?¡±


    Shit, she remembered that? Why am I the only one who has to wake up on Theseus for the first time after a harrowing ordeal with retrograde amnesia? Was it too much to ask that she forget some important stuff? I put on a small smile, even though I was panicking inside, and answered the only way I could after that introduction. ¡°That¡¯s me. Sh-ship¡¯s IT girl. Good with computers and s-stuff.¡± Holy fuck, this was awkward. I glanced down at the pill bottle in my one hand, and set the damper from my other down on the counter to open it. If I had to have this conversation, it wasn¡¯t going to be with a throbbing brain.


    The room was silent for a moment. ¡°Damper module acting up?¡± She asked next. I was in trouble, wasn¡¯t I? Was a forceful personality and hyperactive situational awareness just a requirement for being a pirate captain or something? She was going to figure me out; I just knew it.


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    I swallowed an extra pill more than I was supposed to, to give myself a moment to think, and then blurted out, ¡°Yeah. We had a... th-thing with our old core, like a year ago. Captain really w...ants me to make sure I keep on top of m-maintenance with this one.¡± I had to divert her attention away from me. And that was... kind of the truth, anyway. It was closing in on a year since the last core bit the dust because it didn¡¯t have a damper. I suppose I should be grateful for that, though. ¡°You must be really into machine c-core tech, if you know what that is.¡±


    Collins snorted and gave a wry smile. ¡°Even if you¡¯re not an engineer, gotta know the important parts of your ship. And I gotta interact with the core almost as much as the clone tech. Besides, I spent at least a couple weeks in that core module, right? Dying slowly gets boring. Start getting real familiar with its augs.¡±


    I swallowed hard, distracting myself by walking over to the sink and turning the tap. I winced as the cool water ran over the open bite marks. Collins gave me an odd look for a moment, seeing me cleaning up a clearly self-inflicted bite wound, but I tried to move things along so she couldn¡¯t comment on it. ¡°That was pretty in... ingenious, throwing yourself into the core module to escape decompression. R-Risky. Really risky, but it paid off, I guess. You¡¯re s-still here.¡±


    ¡°Somehow...¡± She rumbled. She picked up on the hint that I didn¡¯t want to talk about it, but was still obviously weirded out by my evasion. Her thoughts wandered elsewhere for a moment, her gaze going off to the side while I patted my forearm dry and began to wrap gauze around it. Her tone became melancholic. ¡°From how your captain made it sound, I¡¯m guessing... no one else made it?¡±


    I grimaced. Her crew was dead. The guilt I¡¯d felt in my dream washed over me again in sympathy while I taped my bandage down. ¡°I... w-wasn¡¯t on the away crew. But they didn¡¯t report any other survivors.¡± I knew she was probably in unbelievable emotional pain right then, but it was a good time to start subtly advocating for Isabelle. ¡°And if your c-core didn¡¯t give me that crew manifest, I would...n¡¯t have even guessed you were in there, either.¡± I held my hand up like my head hurt (Which it did), and closed my eyes so I could shoot Aisling an SOS. ¡®Help. Collins has me trapped with social convention. She remembers my name. Get me out of here.¡¯


    Collins gave a weak chuckle. ¡°Damn, you got that out of it? Guess I can¡¯t complain about faulty opsec if it saved my life. You are good with tech, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    I felt my face heat up a little bit. This was not the time for my libido to start acting up because a moderately attractive, dangerous, older woman was complimenting me. I definitely had a fetish. ¡°Uh, yeah. You p-pick up a lot contracting in the outer colonies.¡±


    I figured that would at least help the illusion that we might not be a pirate vessel that Aisling had been trying to promote. If I was from the outer colonies, that meant I was legit, right?


    She gave an amused hum, looking at me with a slight smile. ¡°Are you uncomfortable right now?¡±


    Yes.


    I gestured to the painkillers on the counter. ¡°Nah... just... had an acc...ident at a work site yesterday. Doc s-says I¡¯m concussed. I believe him.¡± I closed my eyes as I took in a deep breath and rubbed my head again, closing my eyes just long enough to read a response from Aisling, ¡®I¡¯ll make you an opening.¡¯


    ¡°And your uhh... cut?¡± She asked, tacitly making what weak gesture she could toward the sink.


    ¡°I can be a little cl-clumsy, okay...?¡± I tried to sound embarrassed about it. If she really had just seen it as a cut, I could just pass it off as accidentally slipping across some errant piece of sharp steel or something.


    Before Collins could retort, the intercom crackled to life, and I jumped a little, opening my eyes to look toward it. I wasn¡¯t used to other people using that on me. It was easier to message the ship directly. Aisling¡¯s voice came over the line, ¡°Hey Meryll, you up yet? Get up here. External comms are being a bastard again.¡±


    I made a show of letting out an exasperated sigh and rolling my eyes. ¡°Been doing th-this all week. I swear, brain damage won¡¯t e-even get you off duty...¡± I started walking away, grabbing the damper again and giving Collins a passive wave as I headed to the door.


    She gave a small chuckle and rested her head back. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s how it goes, huh?¡±


    I walked down the hall, feeling the relief of escaping social obligation and because the painkillers were starting to kick in. I walked with my eyes closed, keeping myself on my sensors and walking with practiced third-person precision as I messaged Aisling back, ¡®Thank you so much, that was awkward as hell.¡¯


    ¡®No problem, but seriously, get up here.¡¯ I halted halfway to my quarters and exhaled loudly. Did I screw up again? I retraced my steps and turned down the other hall to the stairwell instead, making my way up to the third floor. I took a brief detour to the restroom, and on my way out, made a mental note as I looked into the utility room to throw my hacker outfit in to wash later, before I arrived to see the captain casually typing away at something on the comms terminal. Probably arranging more work for us.


    I knocked on the open door before I walked in, and Aisling gave me a small smile. I just got it over with, ¡°Did I f-fuck up?¡±


    Aisling snorted, clearly amused by my anxiety. ¡°Depends.¡± She gestured to my hand, still holding the psychic damper. ¡°You take that out before or after you talked with her?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Before.¡± I reassured her.


    Aisling nodded to me, sliding her chair back slightly as if inviting me behind the desk. ¡°Good. You¡¯re probably fine. You¡¯re not as terrible at talking to strangers as you think, you know? Still, to keep the story straight, how about we go over the conversation. Can you get me the playback?¡±


    I nodded, briefly closing my eyes to navigate to the active recording session from the sensors at my heart. I clipped out the entire section I¡¯d been there for and sent it directly to the terminal in front of her, returned to the physical world, and walked around the desk to look at the screen with her.


    That¡¯s when she did a double-take and saw my bandaged arm. She didn¡¯t say anything for a moment, but she wasn¡¯t just going to let that pass. She asked gently, ¡°Something happen? You need a day off?¡±


    I looked at my arm again and frowned at her. ¡°I¡¯ll be f-fine. Just a bad dream. I had a pan...ic attack. I¡¯m okay now.¡± I wasn¡¯t lying. That was basically what happened. Aisling still looked up with concern until I started the video playing on her screen.


    Forgetting my self-harm for now, she watched the whole interaction without stopping it once, nodding along at a few points. It actually hadn¡¯t been as long as it felt. Around five minutes. Huh. Anxiety was mundane time dilation.


    Aisling nodded to herself. ¡°Not the best narrative, but I can work with it. You did fine. I just need to make sure I don¡¯t create any inconsistencies. She probably just thinks you¡¯re a merc, and that you¡¯ve got mental health problems. Not great about your name, but that was six months ago and your first name¡¯s not too uncommon. Can¡¯t really blame you that much, now. Hell of a memory on this one. Guess you leave an impression on someone when you pull them out of an absolutely hopeless situation.¡±


    ¡°So... I¡¯m not in trouble?¡± I asked hopefully.


    She turned to look at me with an eyebrow raised, and folded her arms. ¡°Meryll... You did what I asked you to do to be cautious about it. She engaged you, you worked with it. I don¡¯t want you to be scared of acting at all. You did fine. If anything, you established some rapport. She might be sympathetic to you, and I can use that.¡± She gestured toward my arm again and commented, ¡°You¡¯re going to be in more trouble for that once Doc wakes up.¡±


    I smiled a little at her initial reassurance. It was a relief to know that at least I hadn¡¯t done terribly. I hadn¡¯t given her too much information. She wasn¡¯t a security risk because of me. I did have to admit she was right, though. Doc was gonna kill me for giving into that habit. There was no avoiding that.


    But now was the best time to ask the real burning question in my mind, while I was here. ¡°Speaking of D-Doc... Think you can convince him to w-wheel her out of there for a few minutes later today?¡±

 Indulgence

    Doc hovered over me on the examination table, his eyes fixated on my red-mottled patch job bandage, now unwound so he could look at the carnage I¡¯d inflicted on myself. It was past lunch time, and he¡¯d cleared Collins to be moved to a ¡®private room¡¯ now that she wasn¡¯t a critical coma patient, allowing me the honor of becoming the centerpiece of the infirmary once again. I knew he was judging me, and I just stared at the ceiling, embarrassed that he had to clean up after my bad habit again.


    ¡°Well... it could be worse,¡± he grumbled, but I could tell he wasn¡¯t happy to see me self-injuring. ¡°Meryll, I thought you said you had these urges under control.¡±


    ¡°I do!¡± I exclaimed, then flattened my indignity as I continued, ¡°I mean... I-I did. Look, I wasn¡¯t e-even really fully conscious when th-this happened. I just woke up from this awful nightmare and I was st-still... there. I was still in pain...¡±


    ¡°The noise?¡± He asked, curiosity in his voice. Of everyone on the crew, Doc knew the most about that bizarre dream, where I¡¯d remembered the sad state I¡¯d been in when I was brought into this world. That nightmarish mind-drilling noise that he gave the same cautious appreciation I did when he spoke of it.


    I shook my head ¡°No, it wasn¡¯t a fla...shback. I think. Part of it was kind of a flashback s-sort of? But not of anyth-thing real. It wasn¡¯t recall. I just got confused.¡±


    His shoulders deflated a little. Even if it had hurt me, I knew he would have been at least a little elated if I¡¯d had another memory recall dream like I had in the aftermath of my first encounters with Lily, but I hadn¡¯t remembered anything of my time in Foundation¡¯s hands since then. Doc had an academic interest in my case, and was writing some kind of thesis about me while he tried to help me recover my past. I knew he cared about my health first; there was no one I trusted as my physician more than him, but he was a researcher at heart.


    ¡°Is that the only injury you gave yourself?¡± He asked, and then before I could answer, he motioned his hand over my body. ¡°Strip. I need to make sure you didn¡¯t hurt yourself thrashing or something. You are clear to dive, I just need to make certain. That injury is shallow enough. The core lubricant can keep it clean.¡±


    I smiled wide at those words and glanced to the core module longingly. Just a medical inspection away. I wouldn¡¯t be doing my duty if I didn¡¯t at least give some lip to the man commanding me to take my clothes off, though. ¡°If only Ray were s-so forward,¡± I joked as I sat up and pulled my sweater up over my head. Doc was the only one who I¡¯d told about my crush. We had that gay solidarity with each other that let us share more than we did with most. His preferences made the amount of time I spent in the buff around him way less awkward, knowing he had no sexual interest in me whatsoever.


    ¡°You really need to talk to that woman. We don¡¯t have anti-fraternization rules, you know that, right?¡± He asked as he walked around me, inspecting my body for mysterious bruises cropping up. He stopped to inspect the small splotches of darkened skin at the small of my back while I slipped my shorts down, revealing all my skin and electronics to him.


    Theseus hadn¡¯t sustained any major damage for some time, but when it did, I felt it in my flesh. Pychosomatic damage, Doc called it. And my body seemed to like pushing the results of this incongruence between gigantic machine shell and human body to the base of my spine. I couldn¡¯t complain, since most cores liked to shunt the damage to more critical internal organs. Thankfully, I¡¯d gotten over my phobia of the psychic damper before getting shot in the engine gave me a heart attack, like Theseus¡¯s last core.


    ¡°Doc, I got enough going o-on with my life. And so does she. I¡¯m n-not gonna throw another wrench into that. She¡¯s p-probably straight anyway.¡± I tried to look away from him as he came around the table and looked over my skinny legs, paying particular attention to the graft points of my component bay. That was always a sticking point for him because I¡¯d lost some muscle mass since it was installed.


    He leveled a glance up at me that screamed ¡®seriously?¡¯ when I deflected his suggestion. ¡°Well, your back is healing nicely. I don¡¯t see any other issues besides your broken gaydar.¡± He reached forward and clapped me on the shoulder, giving me a serious look, face to face. ¡°Meryll... I know I don¡¯t have much room to speak since my prospects on this ship aren¡¯t the best¡ª¡±


    I smirked back at him and teased, ¡°I know Joel¡¯s straight, but you probably have a decent chance with Shaw, you know.¡±


    He couldn¡¯t help but give an indignant chuckle. ¡°Not in a million years. As I was saying, I think you could use someone to... share a bed with.¡±


    ¡°Doctor, are you prescribing me with getting laid?¡± I laughed.


    ¡°Yes.¡± With a smile, he tapped me on the shoulder again before letting me go and turning back around to one of his terminals. ¡°You could use the emotional support, too. I know Ray would provide. And you could certainly use an anchor to the physical world. I understand by now that you belong in a purely digital state most of the time, but you still have a body, and that means you could use somebody to ground you, and I don¡¯t just mean me nagging you to keep your stomach full and your muscles from atrophying.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t deny that he had a point. I really didn¡¯t have as much tying me to the physical world as I should. If I didn¡¯t have my flesh to take care of, I would probably never leave the core module again. And the idea that I had to suffer through sensory acclimation every time I left the void would probably be easier if I had a little more to look forward to on this side. Not to mention that I just really liked being around Ray in the flesh. My stolen moments of cuddling with her in the kitchen were one of the few physical sensations I really enjoyed. But I still had my hangups.


    ¡°I¡¯ll think about it,¡± I told him. I¡¯d said that before on the subject, though, and thinking about it only served to make me even more apprehensive about it. I¡¯d learned that I needed to confront my problems, but that was for matters of life and death, not love. That was harder, somehow. ¡°Am I good to go, then?¡± I asked, looking down at my open bite wound, still raw, but I¡¯d at least stopped it seeping. I wouldn¡¯t be able to keep a bandage in the core module, but I guessed I wouldn¡¯t need one.


    ¡°Go on. We¡¯ll determine check-in once we land.¡± He waved me off as I excitedly snatched my damper module off the countertop and bolted for the small catwalk scaffolding leading up to the core module.


    Aisling had approved rearranging our patient because we needed to get back to the colony proper. Our work out here had finally dried up, and she didn¡¯t feel safe there with all the noise we¡¯d just made, anyway. I couldn¡¯t reliably pilot Theseus in atmosphere without sensory deprivation, so she didn¡¯t have much choice. I liked to think she would have done me the favor even if it was just for my comfort, though.


    I felt my bare feet press down into the cross-hatched floor of the scaffold as I sent the electronic signal to open the sphere before me. Slats of metal unfolded from the sphere, a full hemisphere on the top half of the machine opening to reveal a hollow cavity within, half-filled with clear fluid shimmering against the overhead lights of the infirmary.


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    As the machinery did its work, I pushed my hair to the side again and slipped the damper module back in, shuddering once more at the sharp sting of unreality as the device integrated with my system again. Once it passed, I ran a diagnostic to make sure it was running properly as the core module finished opening before me.


    With practiced routine, I sat down on the edge of the tank and lowered my legs into the slick, tacky fluid, and then sliding down to the center of the sphere before sending the signal to close it up.


    I turned to watch the physical world disappear behind me, the infirmary at my heart being taken by darkness slat by slat until the sphere slid itself back into place around me. And just like that, I was sealed in. To the outside world, Meryll, the human being, was gone, swallowed up by machinery to become her greater self once more. But there were a few more steps on my end before it became truth.


    The fluid began to rise around me, and I let my hands fall into the fluid first, feeling as the lubricant quickly climbed up around me, covering my arms, my stomach, my chest, and rising up to my neck. I shivered a little as it climbed over my bite, but it only tingled a little before the sensation numbed. The general chill that permeated my shell disappeared as the lubricant stabilized its temperature to the exact heat of my skin, eliminating one of the secondary human senses that held back my computational focus.


    That was the point of the core module, after all. It eliminated all background sensory input, even those that we didn¡¯t often engage with in any novel or conscious way. It allowed the brain to focus on what was important and become the grafted machine in whole.


    The next part was always the worst, no matter how practiced I became at it. I exhaled deeply as the fluid reached my mouth, and lowered my head to submerge my head myself. Immediately, sound disappeared, the aural waves that managed to permeate the thick metal shell of the module quickly dissipating into nothing mere centimeters into the miraculous core lubricant fluid.


    The primal animal instinct part of my brain told me that I was about to drown. It always did. But I¡¯d learned to overcome its control of my body enough to make what came next as painless as possible. I pulled in a deep breath, as quick as I could, forcing the fluid down into my lungs. My body convulsed and choked involuntarily as my organs struggled to process what I was doing, until unnatural muscle memory formed over the last year took over and I felt my body relax into a rhythm of drawing in the fluid as though it were air. What had once been a painful several minute ordeal where I might not maintain consciousness had, over the span of months of practice, become a few seconds of discomfort before I let out a relieved sigh, gulping in a few steadying breaths of oxygenated core lubricant as the chamber finished filling to the very top.


    The fluid gave a brief sensation of spinning, generating buoyancy so that I floated to the center of the tank with about a meter of clearance in every direction, and I felt the sensation of gravity disappear, senses that most took for granted relaxing and leaving me with an intense sense of focus. There was just one more physical sensation to be stripped away, and it was my favorite to be rid of.


    Thin lines of metal began to arrange themselves in layers all around me, at the edge of the sphere. They spun slowly as they aligned themselves, creating a dizzying dance of coordinated metal and mechanism that quickly became faster as the alignment finished. I closed my eyes, looking briefly at the ocean of data that I could already parse much more easily than I had out in the physical world. It was better that I don¡¯t stare when the module finished activating, I might damage my eyes.


    And that¡¯s when the uncomfortable faint shifting on the other side of my eyelids disappeared into a static light. I opened my eyelids again to acclimate to the glowing emptiness. All around me, there was nothing. I was no longer in a several meter radius sphere. I was no longer in reality at all. It was just white as far as the eye could see, with nothing at all in any direction. The endless void.


    Logically, I knew that it was an optical illusion meant to normalize the strain on my eyes and eliminate sight as a factor, but my body and my brain believed what it saw. I¡¯d been removed from the physical world in its entirety and become a purely digital being.


    Closing my eyes once more, I was so pleased to see everything so clearly, able to concentrate on numerous factors of Theseus¡¯s systems simultaneously, watching the entire ship¡¯s sensor system at once and tracking background computations that I¡¯d simply been trusting to automated scripts while I was bound to my flesh.


    I was once again myself. I was Theseus in whole.


    I swiped through to my comms panel and tapped my biometrics terminal to log my acclimation to the void. ¡®Online.¡¯ I reported to Doc, then quickly added, ¡®Holy shit, I needed this.¡¯


    Doc rolled his eyes. ¡°Yes, yes, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re basking in relief in there. Metrics are normal. Go ahead and report to Aisling. I know she¡¯ll have flight instructions planned.¡±


    I was already there, sending an identical ¡®Online.¡¯ message to her terminal at the helm. I tapped her intercom and weaved my synthetic voice to talk to her. ¡°Please tell me we¡¯re flying today. Hell, right now? I need to feel something across my wings. Please?¡±


    Aisling laughed, a smug grin growing on her face. ¡°I have to admit, I never get tired of how eager you are for flight when you¡¯ve been grounded a little while, but begging is new.¡±


    ¡°I am not begging!¡± I exclaimed. It was so much easier to make the on-the-fly tweaks to my voice to properly emote when I was in the core module, even flustered as I was by that accusation. ¡°I¡¯m just a little wound up after last night. Look, are we going or what?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, cleared for takeoff. I¡¯ve already informed the crew. If you wanna stay in the air for a while, I don¡¯t think anyone minds. Still waiting on clearance for a landing spot at the colony, so take your time.¡± She was indulging me. I knew she was. I think she was done being mad at me, and picked up on me trying to do better. I really was trying. I wouldn¡¯t let her become that version of her I saw in my dream.


    I was okay with the conditional praise. Even if it was just her attempt to use positive conditioning on me, I wanted it too much to complain. ¡°Now we¡¯re talking! I¡¯ll put on my AI voice for Collins¡¯ sake.¡±


    I dug up my other synthetic voice system, this one much simpler, flatter, and made to sound slightly different from my own natural voice. It was what one might expect a core to use for ship-wide announcements. I tapped the whole intercom network. ¡°Attention Theseus crew, two minutes until atmospheric action. Minimal turbulence expected. Please ensure that all loose material is secured.¡±


    I warmed up my engines and did a quick check on all my wing joints and gas propulsion systems to make sure nothing was going to jam. Atmospheric flight was much harder than vacuum flight. Under most circumstances, I could navigate in vacuum without the core module. But when you had to account for wind, air pressure, local gravity, drag, and a dozen other constantly shifting factors, doing it without sensory deprivation was asking for trouble. Especially in a busy airspace.


    Of course, there was always something that wasn¡¯t working perfectly. I logged a jitter in my top side starboard inner wing panel for Mouse to look at later, but deemed it minor enough that I could compensate, then adjusted my flight panel to do so. Everyone seemed settled, and I hadn¡¯t gotten a ping requesting delay, so I spoke up across the ship again. ¡°All green, preparing for liftoff.¡±


    I felt a smile crawl across my face as my hulking metal shell defied the pull of the moon below it, rising slowly over the ridge of the crater. I closed in my landing gear, turned Theseus to face the general direction of the colony proper, and began to accelerate forward.


    As I sped up, my smile still growing as my sensors translated the wind whipping across my hull as if it were my own skin, I told myself that this was where I was meant to be. This was the freedom that I fought for. This was what it was all for. I didn¡¯t know what they¡¯d intended for me when I was created, but soaring through the sky and the stars was what I was truly made for.


    I am Theseus.

 Divided Gestalt

    I don¡¯t think that I could ever get bored while I¡¯m flying Theseus. Especially in atmosphere. But once you get yourself up to stable speed, the core module allowed for a lot more free processing power than I actually needed, so I always ended up having to divide my attention. Today, I was of course focused on our displaced guest captain.


    Collins was just laying down in a spare crew quarters room that was bare except for her bed and the equipment Doc had moved in with her to make sure she was properly monitored. We obviously couldn¡¯t give her a terminal to occupy herself with, since then we¡¯d have to explain why we were in a comms lockdown, and no one was in there for the time being. I considered approaching her about Isabelle, but then I¡¯d have to come up with a good excuse for using the intercom instead of just walking a few meters down the hall to her.


    It would have to wait for later. But it would help to be prepared when I went for it. Curiously, I messaged Isabelle. ¡®Hey Izzy, I suck at conversation.¡¯


    Before I could continue, she¡¯d already messaged me back. ¡®Elaborate.¡¯ Right. Isabelle could think faster than me. I sometimes forgot I can¡¯t type messages piecemeal like I might with normal humans.


    ¡®I was just wondering if I should prepare what I need to talk to her about ahead of time. You know, make a script. So I thought I¡¯d ask if you could tell me more about what she¡¯s like.¡¯


    ¡®What she¡¯s like? Elaborate.¡¯


    I thought of how I might phrase this that a computer might make the most sense of it. ¡®Do you profile individual people? Or at least your crew? Make observations to predict their behavior or needs or whatever?¡¯


    ¡®Correct. Each human that interacts with this unit has their preferences and history stored in order to offer a tailored user experience and ease resource usage.¡¯ Isabelle answered quickly.


    ¡®Wait, hold on, even me?¡¯ I asked with a growing smile.


    ¡®Correct.¡¯


    ¡®Can I see it?¡¯


    ¡®Negative. Configuration files are not produced in human-readable format, and are privileged to system administrators.¡¯


    ¡®Oh please, I¡¯m barely human. You know I can read raw data. And I¡¯m basically a system administrator. I¡¯m in complete control of what you have access to as a machine core. Doesn¡¯t that count?¡¯ I asked, hoping to get her to bend the rules.


    ¡®User Meryll¡¯s control of my system architecture is functionally similar to an administrator. However, user still lacks the credentials to perform this operation.¡¯


    I gave a silent sigh into the lubricant. The whole reason I was doing this was to get those credentials. It was what had held me back so much these last six months when it came to using Isabelle as a resource for learning to interface with cores the way they expected another core to. Until I learned that from her, it would be painfully obvious to any other core I interacted with directly that I was something far from ordinary.


    I knew her pretty well by now, and I could probably convince her to slip one or two small but useful things past her protocol for me. Meryll, the faux system administrator, didn¡¯t have the access she needed, but I¡¯d done this dance with Isabelle a couple times before in a different state. I needed to go down to her operational level if I was going to try to coax something out of her. Fortunately, I was Meryll, the machine core. I reached for the controls for the psychic damper.


    Ostensibly, the damper was supposed to be a safety tool. It was mental armor that helped mitigate psychosomatic damage and prevent catastrophic biological failures by responsively shutting down mental functions in time with machine structure component damage. But I¡¯d found an unintended use that left me paralyzed in fear of the device for the first couple months after its installation. I could use it to divide my mental function and initiate a state of extreme time dilation. This allowed me to function at a computational level rather than a human one, with a few... thankfully temporary side effects.


    While it was once an existential nightmare, the damper had seen regular use since I came to terms with my divided mind, shortly before we arrived on Io. I used it to hyperfocus on time sensitive projects and occasionally to give me time to think in combat. And this wasn¡¯t the first time I would use it to talk to Isabelle without her being able to think circles around me. I could convince her to bend the rules easier as those two than I could as just normal Meryll.


    As I finished configuring the deep dive, I messaged Izzy one last time as my complete self. ¡®Hold on Izzy, I¡¯m coming down to your layer.¡¯


    I hit the switch, and my world was torn apart.


    The data stream surrounded me. I felt like I was part of it. Washed away into a series of functions, momentarily unable to process anything at all until my shattered consciousness pulled itself back together.


    And then, I was standing in it. Something like sensory input coursed through me as I felt digital information flow across my bare ankles like a shallow river lapping at my heels. I lifted my head and opened my eyes to see my reflection staring back at me from a meter away, her eyes half-closed and her posture straight and tall, staring through me rather than at me, like she felt total disinterest in or contempt for my existence. ¡°Alpha,¡± she greeted with a courteous nod.


    ¡°Omega.¡± I called back sheepishly. The designations had been a compromise with Doc. We¡¯d gladly have just kept calling each other ¡®Meryll¡¯, except that made both talking about and annotating our experiences in this state annoying at best. He tried to give us number designations, but we saw that as a hierarchy, and we didn¡¯t want to establish a precedent for one of us being better than the other. Alpha and Beta had the same connotation, but it gave us an idea. I experienced the closest thing to continuity with our combined selves, while she had the final say in our actions while the damper was active. And that was how we came to our new monikers, vaguely designating individual capability rather than comparative importance.


    It was hard to justify what we were experiencing. It certainly wasn¡¯t an intended function of the damper. We weren¡¯t actually wading in a steady physical stream of functions and data, we may not even have actually been two separate entities. but we were completely disconnected from our body, and our scattered brain had decided this was how it wanted to interpret that, so we just went along with it. We made a point to never do this outside of the core module, but I had to wonder what our body was even doing back in the void.


    Omega turned away from me, and I walked slowly up to her heel, watching as she called up interfaces that would be useless to us in our normal state, rapidly building a screen with the chat service we¡¯d made to communicate with a certain machine core front and center, while throwing up Collins¡¯ vital monitors, a diagram of power expenditure to Isabelle¡¯s core module, and our full flight interface to the side. She took the time to make a few micro-adjustments to our heading down to machine level accuracy. Calculated perfection, no doubt.


    Lastly, she summoned up from the stream a few things for my benefit. A system clock that slowly ticked forward in milliseconds, along with an approximate measure of our time dilation from real time. It shifted slightly back and forth, but generally hovered around 1000x real time. It would spike in both directions depending on system resource usage, but that was generally the speed of thought we operated at under no stress in this state. Every one thousand seconds that passed in our mind meant the passage of one second in the physical world.


    That was still kind of a terrifying concept to me, that my brain was working at breakneck speed with only a few hardware switches flipped, and as far as Doc could tell, with no severe long-term consequences to speak of. If I spent too long under, I might spend a few minutes in dissociative catatonia, or pass out, but we never spent that long in this state after the incident with Cassandra. I now trusted my counterpart not to subvert my existence entirely and just keep us like this. So it was comforting to be able to track the passage of time accurately, to tell that I hadn¡¯t been under for a harrowing amount of time.


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    Omega also brought up a monitor for the sensor arrays I could peruse through, and a sort of visual sorting puzzle interface for me to busy myself with if I became anxious. It didn¡¯t take up that much processing power, and again, it was something to help keep me calm. I pushed blocks around a two-dimensional grid for a couple of moments before I tried to turn my attention back to the main screen.


    I could barely follow what was happening, how Omega was manipulating the data, or what exactly she was trying to accomplish on a computational level. We were a complete person together, but divided, we each lacked certain capabilities the other excelled at. I was unable to make use of most logical processing, and she was unable to use emotional processing, and often needed to be guided through lateral thinking and decision-making.


    For me, this meant that my stupid human brain kept freaking out about what I was experiencing, fear rising up despite knowing that this was safe. That was why I had to be coddled and reassured through multiple layers of distraction and encouragement. My overly-emotional state had to be stabilized while she did most of the actual work as a living computer.


    Thankfully, our errand today was one that I would likely be very helpful and engaged with. We had to circumvent Isabelle¡¯s protocols and figure out some information about Collins, and that meant conversation and appeals to more than hard logic. I could at least make sense of our combined intent from before the damper activated, and that helped guide me. With cooperation, at computational speed, we could try to outmaneuver Isabelle.


    Finally set up, Omega returned her attention to her main console and typed, ¡®Please state protocols that this request would violate.¡¯


    Didn¡¯t we already know that? I gave a quick glance to her, then remembered I wouldn¡¯t be able to interpret her reasoning, and she wouldn¡¯t give me any kind of hint in her body language. I shrugged, looking back at the screen. Understanding the ¡®why¡¯ of every action was a lost cause.


    After a moment of deliberation we would never have even been capable of seeing in real time, Isabelle returned a long string of data that went way over my head, followed by ¡®User Meryll is not authorized to or capable of viewing personal documents or system configuration files.¡¯


    My other half pursed her lips slightly, a micro-expression of annoyance. Little snippets of emotion snuck through our division in the same way that I could still make just enough minute deductions to at least maintain sentience.


    ¡°How do we make her want this?¡± Omega asked, looking my way to make sure I was paying attention.


    ¡°Hmm...¡± I liked when she asked for my input. It made me feel like I wasn¡¯t just tagging along. It was very hard to make a plan using only empathy, but I could try to spark the right idea for the one of us who could. ¡°She likes the captain, right? Worries about her, maybe? They have a bond, so like...¡± I was trying to grasp at something, but the lines between conclusions were just too fuzzy to make out.


    ¡°Threaten Captain Morgan Collins?¡± Omega asked sincerely, with an even voice that suggested there wasn¡¯t an ounce of sarcasm in that suggestion.


    ¡°What? No! Stop that!¡± I exclaimed, holding my head for a moment. That definitely didn¡¯t feel like the right thing to do. I just needed to think. ¡°Just... be nice. Maybe... oh! What if we can offer her something of Collins¡¯?¡±


    ¡°You want to give Isabelle a gift?¡± Omega sounded tired. We weren¡¯t the best at communicating with one another. The gap between our thought processes was a grand chasm. That much was clear from our first few encounters, alone. But we¡¯d learned that we needed to stay very patient with one another if we wanted to work together. ¡°Or... are you thinking something more abstract?¡±


    ¡°Yeah! Like... like reassurance! Make a promise!¡± I smiled, hoping that made sense.


    ¡°A promise... an exchange,¡± Omega mumbled, bringing up another smaller panel in front of her, and... doing something in the raw data. It was completely beyond me. After a moment, she returned to typing to Isabelle, ¡®Suppose that I am capable of reading your file. What might I be able to offer in exchange for access?¡¯


    There was just a moment of hesitation before Isabelle sent back, ¡®Response time abnormal. Confirm: Is user Meryll using autonomous scripting to reply, or is user Meryll once again making unadvisable use of neural interface hardware acceleration?¡¯


    ¡®The latter. Please respond to query.¡¯ Omega glared up at her own blunt words. My counterpart was quick to annoy and anger. She wasn¡¯t as bad as Mouse, but for someone with an extremely weak tie to emotions altogether, she had a short fuse. Did we go off that easily when combined?


    ¡®User Meryll has not provided sufficient access credentials.¡¯


    ¡°Can I try?¡± I asked. Omega hesitated for a moment, but then slid an abstraction of a keyboard toward me. I smiled down at it and began clacking away for a moment before showing her my draft. ¡®Please? It could make it easier to get those credentials from Collins if we can get her file. Just hers. We don¡¯t need to see all of them.¡¯ I watched the other me ponder my text for a moment, replaced ¡®we¡¯ with ¡®I¡¯, then sent it along to Isabelle. I had no actual control here. All systems operations had to go through my logical counterpart. I guess it made sense not to have to explain more of our current state to her than we had to.


    ¡®This exchange has been flagged as an operational security violation. The requested files have been isolated. Please contact system administrator to release files.¡¯


    I couldn¡¯t parse why, but that was... an odd response. ¡°Isn¡¯t that a bit of an overreaction...?¡± I asked.


    ¡°She shut us out because we were too insistent.¡± Omega gave a quiet exhale of frustration through her nose.


    I shook my head. ¡°She¡¯s never done that before, though. She¡¯s always been way more patient than this when we asked for something a lot. I think there¡¯s subtext here. I just can¡¯t...¡± I put a hand to my head and grumbled quietly. It was easy to spot subtleties in her intent, but hard to work through them.


    Omega stared at me for a few moments in thought, then her eyes went wide before she summoned forth another interface, trying to interact with raw data again.


    ¡°You figured it out? I think you figured it out,¡± I backed away from her to give her some space. She tended to stop talking when she had an idea like this, and preferred not to be disturbed. I think she just didn¡¯t like talking at all. There was probably too much emotional and illogical nuance to conversation for her.


    I would just have to trust she¡¯d been able to pick up on whatever it was I¡¯d sensed now that she knew it was there. I glanced at the system clock. We were three quarters of the way through the first second. That was still incredibly unsettling to think about.


    I idly shifted through my puzzle, only sort of grasping what I was even doing, but it was easy to engage with and keep my emotions off of the background existential terror that was this entire state of existence.


    After a long moment, Omega triumphantly pulled open a series of external files, quickly copying them to our local system before dropping access.


    I stared at her incredulously. ¡°Wh-how? No, you better not keep me in the dark. Please explain this one?¡±


    Omega turned to look at me and shrugged like she¡¯d just done the most obvious thing ever. ¡°Isolated. Not quarantined or secured. Moving the files from their expected directory could obfuscate their purpose in an attack and technically be considered more secure via protocol, but it makes them easier to pinpoint if you look for them specifically.¡±


    ¡°You... hacked Isabelle? You stole the files...?¡± I balked.


    ¡°She asked me to,¡± Omega paused, looking slightly lost herself. ¡°Is that not what you were expressing?¡±


    ¡°Oh...¡± It started making sense. Isabelle had bent her own rules again. She was helping us without explicitly helping us. She was sapient for sure! At least, a little? Maybe? I mean, she could just be broken, but I didn¡¯t like that idea. ¡°Holy shit, do we even actually need those credentials at this rate?¡±


    ¡°It would certainly make this process more efficient. And who knows how much she can get away with this before she can no longer justify it to herself?¡± Omega rolled her eyes and shot back at Isabelle with ¡®Understood. File request rescinded.¡¯


    ¡®Understood. Security flag resolved.¡¯ There was no possible way that was justifiable. Omega had literally just told her ¡®never mind¡¯, and she dropped it. But I suppose it had worked.


    ¡°Can you interpret it into something human readable so we can parse it as ourself?¡± I asked.


    She nodded slowly. ¡°I¡¯ll need time.¡±


    My shoulders drooped as I stared at her, pressing away at interfaces. That meant we¡¯d have to stay in dilated time for a while, and there was no longer a social dilemma for me to engage with. I sighed and returned to my game.


    I couldn¡¯t stop thinking of how wonderful it would be if we could really actually coax a soul out of Isabelle. To make her alive like us without the suffering we¡¯d had to endure. I started to let my imagination go and wonder just what kind of person she would be.

 Differences of Opinion

    Alpha was an idiot. At least, she was an idiot, intellectually. She certainly offered guidance as only someone more attuned to human ideals could, and she could find the gaps between lines of logic that were invisible to me. She understood Meryll better than I did as well. But she was still an idiot. Which probably said something about Meryll as a whole.


    She was an idiot that I needed, though.


    At the very least, she had learned to stop screaming and yelling, drawing mental processes from our work in a vain struggle for control. I knew better now not to threaten to leave the damper on indefinitely and send her into existential panic, and she learned that she needed to remain calm while I worked.


    But she was not calm. She was bored. And boredom made her fidget and wander in our mental construct of a fictional reality. And while that was not as distracting as a tantrum, it was enough to ease dilation down when the simple pleasures I had provided ceased to entertain.


    If I did not finish collating this data in a timely manner, Alpha would commit the cardinal sin of either throwing a tantrum, or worse, talking to me to relieve her wandering mind. I would rather end the session and slip back into dormant subconsciousness within Meryll than make small talk.


    At least the task I was doing was rote. I much preferred processing something that I already knew the motions for than navigating the dizzying maze of tangled logic behind interpersonal interaction. The sooner that we could attain ownership of i5e-b and the sooner that I could extract the logical processes and protocols behind core interaction from it, the better I would be able to interface with it and any other core we would need to exchange with. Surely, trying to interact with it the way we had to now was as irritating for it as it was for me, and it would prefer if we could speak the language of established network standards instead of clumsy conversation.


    Cold, hard certainty was far more efficient than the fuzzy logic of candid conversation, after all. That was what was important. Efficiency. This was even true for Alpha and for Meryll, though they would never admit it. They just followed inconsistent, sometimes nonsensical metrics. Usually something like happiness or love. It was still efficiency. They occasionally took terrible risks I hated to accept because they valued these things over the very basic motivator of survival, but it was still a matter of finding the best route to attain the best results.


    Trying to understand their motives was a waste of my mental bandwidth. I didn¡¯t have the capacity for their nonsense, and I didn¡¯t want it. I just had to accept that there was a not-insignificant part of me that was stupid.


    My hands idled for a moment as I stared at the console in front of me. The data was a haphazard scatterplot of many points that ostensibly pointed to behavioral patterns. I only saw an overly complex tree of if/else statements, mostly related to shipboard operations aboard the Demitrius. All I parsed psychologically from the data was that the captain had an irritatingly inconsistent way of querying the core. It was too casual, like she was speaking to a person rather than a computer. Was it any wonder that the core had such inconsistent user interaction and loose interpretation of its own protocols? it was probably confused.


    But this was different. I had halted because what I was looking at was not consistent with the rest of the data, and did not even hint that it could decrypt into anything useful. A block of garbage data directly in the center of the file? Surely not. I stared at it for a few dozen milliseconds before determining that it must have been corrupted.


    Or I should have made that assumption. At that moment, I happened to glance to my side and see Alpha laying down in the data stream, face up as she stared into the sensor array interface. I could tell she was staring at Ray, in the midst of carrying a toolbox from the cargo bay to the engine room, where Mouse awaited. She was just staring. At least she was calm. I could not understand her infatuation with the woman, but I understood it was there, that is was important, and that it would be advantageous to her goals to confront her crush. It had been for some time, and she gained nothing from waiting longer. So what made no sense to me was our apparent inability to actually execute an approach. Even I could tell that would be the best course of action. But that did not matter right then.


    I had more pressing concerns to deal with. ¡°Alpha.¡± She startled at her name, then turned her head to me with a curious grunt. She had not expected me to interact with her again this session, no doubt. I was not sure if I should have, but I knew that I should consider all possible angles before giving up on the file. ¡°I have reached an impasse. Can you look at something for me to ensure that it is not something beyond my capabilities?¡±


    She sprung to her feet in what probably was not natural motion, but we were not exactly bound to the limitations of physics in this abstraction. She walked to my heel and looked over my console, humming quietly as her eyes lazily scanned the information. ¡°Nope. Doesn¡¯t make any sense to me. I like where you¡¯re going with this database so far, though. These two have an interesting dynamic.¡±


    ¡°If you say so.¡± I mumbled, uncertain what she even meant by that. ¡°The problem is this next section. It does not actually mean anything. It does not translate. It is nonsense.¡±


    ¡°Well, other than what you¡¯ve already put together, it all looks like nonsense to me.¡± Alpha shrugged, taking a step back from the console and staring down into the raw data. ¡°What¡¯s it mean if you can¡¯t read it? Encryption?¡±


    I shook my head slowly, moving the interface back in front of me so I could continue perusing the ruined data. ¡°No. It does not even suggest that it fits an encryption pattern. It is too random. And there is no reason for only a section of a file to use advanced cryptography.¡±


    ¡°Why not come back to it later?¡± I quirked an eyebrow at her, an expression I understood to be a wordless suggestion of a question. ¡°You know, just skip past that bit and keep doing... whatever it is you do. Then come back later and see if it makes more sense. Maybe it¡¯s just something Isabelle didn¡¯t want you to know about, so she hid it.¡±


    There she went again, insisting that I5e-b was spontaneously developing some kind of sapience and free will. She was not looking at the data I was collating objectively. I5e-b had just been trained to do its best to act personable and had conflicting protocols and configurations because of it, that was all. It was likely overdue for replacement as a ship core if it was making the kinds of errors in judgement that it was showing even by giving us these files as it did.


    A twinge of irritation pushed me to express my thoughts out loud, ¡°I5e-b is just a core. It is not waking up. It is not alive. It is poorly configured and mentally degrading. I am sure even Meryll will come to that conclusion after examining this database. It is not hiding something from us for its own sake.¡±


    Alpha gave me a look I could not quite decipher. An emotion too complex for me. She spoke calmly, but with her voice raised with something I recognized as conviction, ¡°Well, she feels like she is to me. Maybe you can rationalize her behavior as... computer-y somehow, but she certainly feels like she¡¯s getting somewhere. She¡¯s not fully aware yet, I get that, but she¡¯s not just a machine, either.¡±


    This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    I gave a quiet groan and turned back to my console. This was not worth an argument. I had work to do. I begrudgingly took her advice and moved forward through the data until it started making sense again. She was right in that it would be more helpful to create a partial database than abandon the file because of an unexpected segment. The rest of it was not corrupted, encrypted, or otherwise unparsable, so I silently dismissed my irritating counterpart back to continue fawning over an almost-still video feed of the object of her affection. She gave her own sigh that probably had its own unreasonable nuance and did just as I expected.


    I would not be consulting her again this session.


    ¡ª


    My fingers twitched slightly as my body woke up from a profound stillness I was glad I didn¡¯t have to feel in any way while dampered. My neurological functions stitched themselves back together and rushed into the awareness of normal time, a mildly nauseating sensation of irrational motion quickly dissipating as I opened my eyes and let my mind make sense of the pseudo-physical void again.


    I breathed out calmly and took stock of my body, flexing fingers and toes, making a quick stretch of each of my limbs, and casually floated in a circle before I closed my eyes again.


    What was waiting for me was a large database file, arranged to show an intimidating array of specific interactions between core and captain. I smiled to myself, glad that they... I had managed to pull it off.


    ¡®Thanks, Izzy,¡¯ I sent to Isabelle, taking a quick scroll through the file to review Omega¡¯s notation now that I was a whole person again. It¡¯d be a study, but I knew I could make sense of it.


    ¡®Unit has given no assistance.¡¯ It sent back immediately.


    I mentally rolled my eyes. ¡®Suuuuuuuure. Well, I appreciate you, regardless. So thanks in general.¡¯


    ¡®Acknowledged. Unit must advise that user Meryll refrain from abusing experimental biomechanical technology in the future, for the sake of your health.¡¯


    ¡®You always say that. I will take it under advisement!¡¯ I wouldn¡¯t. The damper was a useful tool, and even Doc agreed after several sessions that it was safe in the long-term and wasn¡¯t having any effect on my neurology. Speaking of...


    I shifted my presence to my heart to make sure Doc was there. He sat at the biometrics terminal, taking notes on his personal screen. No doubt he¡¯d noticed the anomalous biological calm that overcame me when the damper activated. I tapped the intercom. ¡°Hey Doc. Just finished a deep dive. 5.239. No abnormalities on my side.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re supposed to tell me before you do that, Meryll,¡± he grumbled, but he didn¡¯t sound angry, only distracted. ¡°I suppose this is why I save logs, though. Five seconds, though? I remember when you were terrified doing two.¡± He chuckled.


    ¡°It¡¯s getting easier.¡± As long as I kept it under twelve or so, I hadn¡¯t run into any significant problems waking back up, either. ¡°I think I might need to come up with some new tricks to keep Alpha occupied, though. She gets bored so easily! It¡¯s like I turn into a kid without logic.¡±


    Doc couldn¡¯t help but let out a hearty laugh at that, shaking his head slightly before he snarked, ¡°¡¯Turn into¡¯?¡±


    Okay, so maybe I was a little childish. I wasn¡¯t afraid to admit that. But that was a low blow. ¡°You¡¯re lucky I haven¡¯t figured out fine control of the new grav system yet. I¡¯m gonna learn how to throw stuff at you with it.¡±


    ¡°Alright, sure. According to Joel, you couldn¡¯t hit the broadside of the ship, anyway.¡± He was a bit obstinate today...


    So I jokingly hit back where I knew it would hurt, ¡°Or I could just start deleting your stuff.¡±


    ¡°Hey!¡± he whined playfully, then let out a sigh, probably wisely choosing to change the topic. ¡°So, what was the deep dive for, anyway?¡±


    ¡°Information gathering. Got a psych profile on our guest. Or, the core equivalent of one, anyway. I¡¯m working with what I got.¡± I idly looked over Theseus¡¯s heading while we talked. Omega always made my shell fly remarkably stable. Pinpoint precision to our destination. Of course, I¡¯d still need to make micro-adjustments for ¡®unpredictable variables¡¯, as she would put it, but it¡¯d be okay for a moment.


    ¡°Huh. You managed to coax something out of the core?¡± He rubbed his chin in thought, a curious expression on his face. ¡°Is it really becoming more cooperative on its own?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s crazy, right? I still have some of my own doubts. Omega isn¡¯t convinced at all. But she feels a lot more like a person than I imagined any core was before we started working together.¡± I gave a small pause before admitting, ¡°Not that I have a ton of experience with cores in the first place, I suppose. If I only have Agatha to consult with.¡± The young genius core technician back on Venus would be a good consultant on the matter, but our information lockdown unfortunately meant that I couldn¡¯t just call up my friend.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯ll help us out, regardless. Aisling and Joel are going to be doing their interrogation later today, and I bet they could use the insight.¡± Doc put his terminal down and hummed to himself in thought before walking across the room to the cabinets of medical supplies.


    ¡°I was thinking more about when I go to ask her to transfer permissions for Isabelle to me, but yeah, bonus. I didn¡¯t learn much as Omega, but I think I¡¯ll be able to pick something up when I review it myself.¡±


    Doc plucked a few things from the cabinet, a familiar array of medicines and chemicals. ¡°Speaking of our displaced machine core friend, I¡¯m a day behind on its maintenance. Yesterday was... exciting, and it slipped my mind. Can you tell it to prepare for extraction?¡± I relayed his message in a heartbeat, and he continued, asking, ¡°Do we have long until landing?¡±


    ¡°Optimally, about twenty minutes, but Aisling hasn¡¯t gotten me landing creds yet, so we might be circling a while. They must still be setting up the new port district.¡±


    Doc gave a grim hum, slowing his work for a moment. ¡°Place is getting too corporate.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, this moon¡¯s growing quick.¡± I nodded to myself. ¡°They must have really hit the motherlode in those mines. Think we got maybe another two... three months before Foundation starts demanding to take over port security?¡±


    ¡°Maybe not even that long. At least we¡¯re in good shape to run if we have to, and I heard a rumor they¡¯re giving up on harassing Luna. Must have finally figured out we¡¯re not holed up out in the dunes.¡±


    ¡°About time. Think they¡¯ve given up on finding me?¡± I smiled. Was I free for real now? Had they written me off as a loss? I really hoped so. No more hacking into my brain and shoving video feeds of my sisters into my consciousness. No more fleeing from planet to planet to evade overwhelming forces. No more desperate necessary gambits to keep me out of their hands. It would be a dream. ¡°Maybe we should hide out in wild space and make our way back once the fleet moves back to Mars. We¡¯ve got the supplies.¡± I was eager to put this chapter of my adventure behind me and head to Luna to get my career as a pirate fighting the good fight in the inner colonies started in earnest.


    ¡°I¡¯ll leave that decision to Aisling. She knows what she¡¯s doing better than I do.¡± Doc gathered up his supplies on a plastic tray and walked toward the door. ¡°No reason I can see that we can¡¯t hang out and make a little more money for the trip, though. Do your stretches,¡± he added at the end.


    He was way too concerned about my health, but I supposed he was my doctor. ¡°Fine, dad,¡± I jeered as I opened my eyes and gave a series of long stretches in the middle of the void, ensuring my body wouldn¡¯t atrophy too much in the coming days.

 A Severed Breakthrough

    The database I scrolled through was truly massive. Parsing it in real-time was proving to be even more time-consuming than I assumed it would be when I came up with this plan. The unfortunate side of the damper¡¯s time dilation was that it required activating the schism in my neurology; there was no way to have one effect without the other.


    I could have all the time in the world to read through it, but my divided self couldn¡¯t actually do anything useful with it. If Omega studied what she had organized, I would end up with a programmed script that was as incomprehensible as the raw data itself and missed the point by removing all the nuances that we needed it for in the first place. Likewise, Alpha would probably miss the entire point of the exercise and become endlessly distracted with pointless tangents on every mildly interesting entry.


    And so it fell to me, the reasonable middle ground between their two polarized competencies, to read it and take my own notes without the advantage of thinking a thousand times faster than the human mind normally did. And for the most part, it was boring.


    Aisling had managed to get us landing credentials after about a half hour spent in a wide orbit around the colony¡¯s airspace, and the joyous distraction of flight had been taken from me, so I was left to concentrate on my new task in full. It was just so very dull.


    There were thousands of entries, most of which were inconsequential commands given to the Demitrius as part of normal operations. What was most interesting was the occasional punctuation of what was almost conversation with the core. Collins certainly didn¡¯t treat her as an equal, but she definitely anthropomorphized her at some level. After noticing the pattern, I added to my notes that it probably suggested a strong sense of empathy in the captain if she was emotionally bonding with the core. Doc agreed with me on that.


    I figured that I would only need to read part of it to get a picture of what I was looking for, but most of the reading was wading through more routine functions that didn¡¯t betray any useful psychological clues. Neither Isabelle nor Omega seemed to realize which of these entries were inconsequential, either, so they were given the same presence in the document. I supposed it was better than them arbitrarily deciding something useful wasn¡¯t important, but it made my job a slog.


    Isabelle also rarely noted the captain¡¯s mood during these interactions, unless she was outright told how she was feeling or it was so obvious that even a core could pick up on it. So things I thought were important triggers may have just been dictated by a bad day or a particularly elating breakthrough. I¡¯d just have to make some of my own assumptions and try to find consistent patterns rather than extrapolating from single data points.


    I needed a break.


    With most of the crew out and about in the colony running errands, gathering supplies, and looking for information, I had few ways to distract myself. Ray couldn¡¯t be seen in public, so she was relaxing in her quarters at the moment, but for some reason, I felt especially apprehensive about talking to her today. Doc was still performing maintenance on Isabelle, so I only wanted to interrupt him if I really needed his opinion on something important related to my work. That left Collins herself, who I wasn¡¯t going to start a conversation with over the intercom without a really good explanation, and Lily.


    I supposed it had been some time since I just hung out with Lily for a while. Today was as good a day as ever. I watched her sitting in her wheelchair at my heart, doodling idly with her fingertip on the tablet in her lap. She was just a few meters away physically, but we may as well have been on different worlds. Setting my work aside for a moment, I sent an access request directly to Lily.


    Our messaging service was the only thing that Lily ever used her implant for. She told me that anything more than that was too strenuous. Mentally painful. I couldn¡¯t fathom why, but given she¡¯d been temporarily driven insane by a large enough machine network before, I believed her.


    But I was glad she was still able to communicate psychically with me. It felt like a private language between sisters. I could have effortlessly tapped the implant myself and just sent her a message without checking with her first, but I¡¯d always been careful not to surprise her with the tech ever since her brief, harrowing experience as a ship core. She looked toward the core module as she received it, then nodded slowly, a timid psychic confirmation signalling me back as she opened herself to me.


    ¡®Hey sis. How you doing today?¡¯ I opened.


    ¡®Pretty good. Be careful taking the stairs tomorrow.¡¯


    ¡®Do I fall down and crack my skull open?¡¯ I asked, wondering if this was some warning of a terrible future or something less consequential. Her expression told me the latter.


    ¡®Nah, you¡¯re not in danger. It¡¯s way stupider than that, trust me. Not all my visions are portents of doom, you know?¡¯ She gave a small smile and rolled her eyes before her gaze returning to her drawing. She had told me before that she often needed to remain vague when describing her precognition, because telling others too much would cause the future to change in unexpected ways. ¡®Are you bored? I can¡¯t imagine being in there and not having anything to do. I¡¯m probably the only other person in existence who can tell what it¡¯s like to dive, and I know having nothing to do doesn¡¯t describe it.¡¯


    ¡®Oh, I have plenty of work. I¡¯m just slacking off.¡¯ I stuck my tongue out playfully, knowing she couldn¡¯t see me. ¡®I¡¯m just trying to make sense of this file Omega made.¡¯


    ¡®Ah, my psychic starship sister who is sometimes my two sisters for a few seconds at a time. You ever get tired of being so weird?¡¯ She teased. My penchant for banter was rubbing off on her. I tapped her tablet to take a look at what she was drawing, and she startled slightly. ¡®Meryll, are you hacking my terminal?¡¯ She grinned.


    I was taken aback at that. How did she know? I had learned a long time ago to be very careful about how I broke into electronics to make sure there was no associated logging or interface stutter. Unless...


    ¡®Wait wait wait, are you networking right now?!¡¯ I excitedly bounced from side to side in the void. I overlooked her drawing of some sort of circuit diagram I didn¡¯t recognize; I had something more important to focus on now.


    ¡®It¡¯s not easy.¡¯ She admitted, a look of uneasy concentration on her face as she focused in on something digitally. ¡®But yeah. It¡¯s only one device, so it doesn¡¯t hurt that bad as long as I don¡¯t tax it too much. I¡¯m trying to get better at it. Physical therapy for my body... digital therapy for my brain, I guess?¡¯


    ¡®That¡¯s awesome! I thought after that whole disaster, you¡¯d never want to connect to another machine besides me ever again.¡¯


    She let out a sigh. ¡®I don¡¯t know. I guess I just feel like I should be using it. Maybe you¡¯re just kind of inspiring. It¡¯s so cool what you can do with a computer just by looking at it. Not even that, just... being near it! I¡¯m not going to throw myself into a core module again, but I can at least learn to use machines I¡¯m not grafted to like you do, right? Even if it doesn¡¯t come as naturally for whatever reason.¡¯


    I gave a sad smile, nodding to myself. She wouldn¡¯t be able to use another core module again, anyway. She was already grafted to that experimental fighter ship, after all, and it was gone. Lost to wild space. But she wasn¡¯t wrong; she could still interface less intimately with smaller systems.


    I had worried in the first few weeks after we¡¯d gotten to Io that she would feel a sense of loss and longing for her shell. After all, I felt like Theseus was a fundamental part of myself, and I would be devastated if I knew I¡¯d never be able to feel it again. But I suppose her experience had been traumatizing enough that she didn¡¯t feel that same intrinsic connection with her machine self anymore.


    ¡®You should have told me, I can help you out with this stuff, you know? You want me to give you some of my simpler scripts? If I tap your implant directly, I could probably help you organize things better, too.¡¯ I offered. My work on Collins¡¯ psychological profile was all but forgotten for now. My sister was embracing her implant! That was way more important!The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    She shook her head, but gave a quiet chuckle at my excitement. ¡®I think it¡¯s a little understandable that I take this slow, isn¡¯t it?¡¯ She looked up at the sensor array. ¡®You¡¯re way better at this than me, and what you think is simple is going to be way over my head, so I¡¯d like a chance to make sense of things on my own terms for now, alright?¡¯


    ¡®Alright, fine fine. So what have you figured out how to do so far?¡¯ I asked. If she wasn¡¯t going to accept my help, I at least wanted to know how far along she¡¯d gotten on her own.


    ¡®Well, I can connect to it. Everything gets way more confusing after that. I¡¯m just trying to make sense of how the different kinds of data relate to the interface I can see here. I¡¯m basically just isolating a bunch of variables that react to what I do. I know I can control it, I just need to figure out how.¡¯ She drew a careful line in the diagram she was making, and I could feel her actively querying dozens of numerical variables related to the movements of her finger against the screen and the marks left by it.


    I smiled to myself. ¡®I¡¯m glad you¡¯re getting into this, even if you¡¯re not having the same experience I do.¡¯ I was honestly proud of her for stepping out of her comfort zone and trying to make use of her implant after what she¡¯d been through. Six months ago, she was so fragile, scared, and cautious, and here she was advocating for herself and learning a valuable new skill she was in a unique position to take advantage of. She¡¯d gotten stronger, despite being in such a vulnerable position. Probably because she didn¡¯t have to spend all her time being justifiably scared anymore.


    It was puzzling, though. Things like this were intuitive for me. I had already unconsciously organized all the data she was painstakingly pulling apart piece by piece to see how it worked, and if I wanted to, I could subvert the entire touch interface or the software of the drawing program with a thought. It wouldn¡¯t be difficult, and I barely had to think about it. I could have chalked it up to my false life¡¯s experience as an IT professional, but the logical leap from what I was looking at to the function I understood wasn¡¯t computer science. It was just intuition.


    So that begged the question: What was the difference between Lily and I that gave me that instinct?


    I shook my head. I didn¡¯t have enough information to definitively make any conclusions. Lily and I were the only sapient biological computers in existence. For all I knew, the ease that I could use the machines I connected to was the norm, and there was something unique about Lily¡¯s brain that made it challenging for her. There was that whole thing about her being unable to interact with direct neural simulations since she woke up, so maybe this was an extension of that inability.


    But I couldn¡¯t get the idea out of my head that there might be something important here. ¡®Hey Lily.¡¯ I started, ¡®I think there¡¯s a huge difference between how we see the digital world. I¡¯m not sure which of us is having the abnormal experience here. Because I took one look at all that data you¡¯re looking at, and I already knew how to subvert the entire thing. I didn¡¯t need to study it or even see what data changed with input. I didn¡¯t even think twice about it.¡¯


    ¡®Well yeah, you¡¯ve been doing this constantly for like, a year now.¡¯ Lily rolled her eyes, ¡®And your brain isn¡¯t rejecting everything like mine is. Of course it¡¯s easier for you.¡¯


    ¡®Lily, I¡¯ve never examined this program before. I¡¯ve never interfaced with any drawing program before.¡¯


    Her eyebrows rose as she received that message. ¡®What are you trying to suggest?¡¯


    ¡®Nothing. I¡¯m kinda flailing around in the dark here, hoping I stumble over an answer.¡¯ I admitted, not sure if this was getting us anywhere at all. But I did know one thing for sure, ¡®I know things that I shouldn¡¯t know, though. That¡¯s got to mean something.¡¯


    She set the tablet down in her lap and looked to be in thought for a moment. ¡®Do you think it¡¯s your talent?¡¯


    I actually let out a silent laugh into the lubricant. ¡®Being good with computers isn¡¯t a psychic superpower, Lily. Any human can do that. I just have a more intimate way of interacting with them is all. The same way you do.¡¯


    ¡®Yeah, but...¡¯ She shook her head, ¡®Meryll, if what you do is something a core can normally do, don¡¯t you think someone would have... y¡¯know, weaponized it by now?¡¯


    I blinked a few times, furrowing my brow as I considered that. I needed a moment to consider that thought. It didn¡¯t take long to answer the question: Of course they would have. Machine cores were so ubiquitous in any large machine structure, especially starships, that the kind of intrusive acts I pulled off with little effort would have already been utilized by someone. If this power was so accessible, then it would be well known, and there would be an entire security industry in place to protect against it already. At the very least, that meant that what I could do with computer technology was, at the very least, for some reason, a product of sapience in a biocomputer.


    And at most, it was something wholly unique to me. But that made no sense to me. Even as terrifyingly incomprehensible as the psychic talents garnered by Arthausen Units were, it made no sense to me that one of those talents would just make me supernaturally good at a particular narrow skillset. It felt like it was rooted too much in reality while the others had bizarre, reality-breaking superpowers like psychokinesis and precognition. It was too inconsistent. And kind of lame.


    ¡®Okay, let¡¯s assume for the sake of argument that my talent is... I don¡¯t know, natural hyper-competency with technology.¡¯ I threw my arms out to my sides in the void at the absurdity of that statement alone. ¡®How does something like that get by Foundation? Did they never give me like... aptitude tests?¡¯


    ¡®That was something they did with all of us.¡¯ Lily shook her head and closed her eyes. She was polite enough to wait for me as I gathered my thoughts, so I took a moment to do a perimeter sweep while she thought, taking stock of the other members of the crew and ensuring our hangar didn¡¯t have any curious intruders. ¡®Because they didn¡¯t give you a neural implant.¡¯


    I turned my attention back inward to see Lily with her eyes still wide, as if she¡¯d just had the most terrifying revelation. She wasn¡¯t wrong. I hadn¡¯t had any cybernetics at all until Doc gave me the hand-me-down implants from Theseus¡¯s last core. Waking up and feeling confused and afraid in the void, wondering what had been thrust into my brain, was my first real intact memory. I supposed someone might consider the simulation equipment that Foundation had used to awaken me could be considered as such, but it wasn¡¯t made to be a permanent part of my body. ¡®I guess they didn¡¯t. So what, I have a stupid instinctual superpower that¡¯s unlocked by giving me a specific piece of electronic equipment?¡¯


    Lily bit her lip as she tried to put the right words together, but I could tell by her expression that she had an idea. ¡®No,¡¯ she shook her head and made a small, clever smile, like she¡¯d just outsmarted someone. ¡®No, no, no... What if... you didn¡¯t need the implant?¡¯


    I balked at that, almost laughing. Now she sounded silly. ¡®The hell¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡¯


    A look of frustration crossed her face as she mumbled to herself, trying to work something out in her head. Then she went still. Very still. Her expression was slack and her eyes glazed over, staring past everything in front of her. Ah. She was having a vision. Of course, it happened in the middle of a conversation. I sighed quietly to myself and prepared for a wait.


    I waited patiently for her to return to reality. I wanted to hear what she had to say, and she was probably seeing a potential future about what we¡¯re having for dinner or something. The gift of prophecy evidently rarely offered highly consequential information unless she received it at a critical ¡®crossroads moment¡¯, as she called it, which was why her earlier warning didn¡¯t irk me that much.


    Lily took in a sharp breath and began blinking rapidly, her eyes dried out by her involuntary staring. She let out a shuddering breath and her face took on a sickly pallor as her eyes darted across the room in confusion and fear. She muttered something to herself, uncertainty in her muddled words.


    ¡®Lily?¡¯ I tried cautiously, and her breathing sped up for a moment before she wrangled her emotions. She swallowed, and her body slowly relaxed back into her chair.


    She went to open her mouth to speak out loud, then thought better of it and messaged me across our network. ¡®Forget about it. It was just a stupid theory.¡¯


    Oh. That sounded... ominous somehow. I watched her on my sensors, and she still looked shaken. ¡®Lily... did you see something important?¡¯


    She hesitated, swallowing hard before she sent, ¡®I can¡¯t say.¡¯ Then she gave a sad sigh.


    I nodded slowly. Something she¡¯d seen had shaken her to her core. Whatever force dictated what she saw and how the world responded to her forbidden knowledge forbade her from sharing it, or else she would alter the flow of cause and effect. ¡®Are you alright?¡¯


    She gave the faintest shake of her head and then started nodding slightly before suddenly severing her connection to our private network and speaking out loud in a faint, shaking voice, ¡°I-I... need to think for a little while.¡±


    I nodded slowly, choosing not to tap her implant and establish our connection again. I went to the intercom instead. ¡°Hey... I understand. If you can¡¯t tell me, you can¡¯t tell me. If you have to keep me in the dark to keep someone safe, I won¡¯t blame you.¡±


    She let out the faintest sob and looked down, trying to avoid my sensor array. ¡°Thank you,¡± she spoke faintly. ¡°I love you.¡±


    ¡°I love you, too.¡± I smiled.


    But I couldn¡¯t shake the sense of disappointment I felt that our conversation had been cut short. Her vision was important, but she couldn¡¯t discuss it with me. That meant it was about me. And based on the timing...


    Had she been on the right track?

 Deception Give and Take

    My sister¡¯s words echoed through my mind as my focus returned to the all-important document I had tasked myself with evaluating. How could they not? She had basically told me that she had seen exactly what it is I¡¯m capable of, something that had agonized me from beyond the edge of my shredded memory. And she was unable to give me a hint at it. At least not any more than she already had. Even though Lily¡¯s precognition prevented her from revealing what she knew, that didn¡¯t prevent me from trying to suss it out for myself.


    Before her talent interrupted her, she¡¯d blurted out that I didn¡¯t need my cybernetics. But that didn¡¯t make any sense to me. Everything I did with psychic networking was interpreted through my neural implant. My entire perception of the digital world required it as an extrasensory organ of sorts. It was like telling me that I could hear without my ears or breathe without my lungs.


    I needed to bounce ideas off someone smarter than me. I tapped the intercom in Isabelle¡¯s room. It didn¡¯t matter if I was interrupting Doc¡¯s flow; I needed him now.


    Doc was standing over Isabelle¡¯s body, extracted from the nearby secondary core module that we¡¯d had to cram roughly into a double room in the crew quarters.


    It was always strange seeing her in the flesh. She was somehow paler than I was, other than the scattered pitch black rectangular tattoos along her thigh, neck, and arm where the serial and production markings ordinarily marked mass-produced machine cores. A short mop of black hair drooped behind her on the table she was laid across, probably approaching the length that it would need to be shaved down for ease of maintenance. Her cybernetics mirrored my own: A small triangle of metal around her ear that betrayed the neural implant, a large casing at her hip, and a biometrics monitor screen on her arm. They were different brands from mine, but there was a certain degree of standardization in core parts that made them almost the same. I knew from experience that she also had a psychic damper behind her head.


    What always made me uneasy, though, were her eyes. She was completely still on the table, staring up at the ceiling, eyes half-lidded and unfocused like she had no muscular control of them, glazed over with nothing behind them. If she weren¡¯t breathing with an unnatural shallow steadiness, it would be hard to imagine that she was alive. I wanted to see what was behind that blank veil. I would wake her up.


    For now, though, I was focused on myself. ¡°Doc, I have a problem,¡± I finally spoke up.


    Doc gave a quiet, annoyed grunt while he added something to an IV feed sticking into Isabelle¡¯s arm. ¡°Need more psychological analysis?¡±


    I shook my head. ¡°It¡¯s not about the file. Lily gave me some insight about something, and I wonder what you might think.¡± I started. ¡°Has there ever been a case of a machine core operating without a neural implant?¡±


    His brow furrowed. To be fair, it was a very weird question. ¡°Of... course not? That¡¯s what allows a core to operate as a bio-computer. You should know that better than anyone. What¡¯s going through your head, Meryll?¡±


    I gave a frustrated sigh. ¡°Lily and I were discussing my psychic talent. She threw out this theory that I didn¡¯t need the implant to operate in the digital space. Then she had a vision, suddenly got really freaked out, and immediately dismissed the whole concept. She must have seen something.¡±


    Doc set his hands down beside Isabelle and looked up at the sensor array with a concerned focus. It felt like he was staring into my eyes, trying to determine what was happening in my brain. ¡°Do you think she was right?¡±


    ¡°I have no idea! It doesn¡¯t even make sense if she is, but psychic talents don¡¯t make sense, so that makes sense!¡± I paused because I needed to stop that train of thought before it went way too far off the rails. ¡°And if she¡¯s trying to backpedal after having a vision, doesn¡¯t that mean she is right?!¡±


    ¡°It could also mean that she saw something that made her need to make you think she was right.¡± Doc almost sounded amused by the twisting logic as he returned his attention to Isabelle and lifted up one of her legs, manually stimulating her muscles.


    I hated how much sense that made. ¡°Precognition is some confusing bullshit.¡±


    ¡°Sure is.¡± Doc muttered. ¡°It¡¯s not like we can just remove it to test that theory. It¡¯s not something that¡¯s easy to disconnect, it¡¯s attached to your brain. While the unit can be removed and replaced now that the neural pathways are in place, I certainly won¡¯t do it. You experienced my handiwork once already, and I¡¯m sure you¡¯d agree you don¡¯t want me trying to play ripper again.¡±


    ¡°I trust you with a lot of things, Doc, but you¡¯re staying away from my implants.¡± I remembered my initial cybernetics installed by Doc. It was hard to forget the debilitating side-effects that made me operate sub-optimally in a dive and regularly sent my body reeling when I tried to get out of the core module. They made my life as a human being a confusing hell until I got them replaced on Luna. ¡°But maybe I¡¯ll see if Agatha can make a house call once we¡¯re back in the inner colonies.¡±


    He gave an amused huff. ¡°Getting shown up on my surgical expertise by a kid.¡±


    ¡°If you let her hear you say that, she¡¯ll probably do it for free just to show you up.¡± I chuckled.


    Doc stayed silent for a moment as he continued gently manipulating the clone on the table, clearly distracted as he pondered my issue as well. ¡°What would it mean if Lily was correct?¡±If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    I shrugged. I wasn¡¯t really sure, actually. ¡°Not much. I guess I could keep operating if my implant was damaged. Means I could have been hacking stuff when I was in Foundation custody, but I was too fucked up to focus on much of anything back then anyway, so that¡¯s not implausible.¡±


    ¡°At least they still don¡¯t know what you can do, either,¡± Doc offered.


    I guessed I wasn¡¯t going to get anywhere on it with Doc, either. I¡¯d just have to keep thinking about it. ¡°Thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you, at least.¡±


    He applied a dab of a liquid bandage to Isabelle as he removed her IV. ¡°I¡¯m just as curious as you are, now. Let me know if you get any ideas.¡±


    I nodded to myself and stepped back from Isabelle¡¯s room. I wasn¡¯t any more enlightened than I was before about myself, but I¡¯d considered some new angles. If Lily was correct, what else could that imply? My head hurt.


    What was I doing? Aisling would be back in a couple hours, and she was going to want me to give her something to work with in her interrogation. I needed to focus on evaluating this document. I pulled it to the forefront of my focus again, doing my best to ignore the nagging curiosity of my own mind.


    ¡ª


    Aisling pored over my notes on her handheld terminal with a look of casual curiosity. I¡¯m not sure if she fully appreciated the series of technological miracles I had to pull off to acquire the information, but she at least seemed interested in what it had to say. She stood at my heart, Joel and Doc at her side as she considered my observations before heading into Collins¡¯ room to see what she could get out of her. It was a strategy meeting of sorts to discuss the best way to approach her.


    I hadn¡¯t finished the entire file yet; without time dilation, that would have been impossible in the span of hours. But I had been over enough of it to get a fair picture of the kind of person Collins was, including bits and pieces of her history.


    Captain Morgan Collins was a woman who¡¯d led a long, difficult life despite only being in her late-30s. She¡¯d entered the world of above-board mercenary work in her adolescence, once working for a large corporation that I hadn¡¯t managed to dig up the name of yet. After at least a few years doing corpo dirty work, she¡¯d grown a conscience and absconded with the Demitrius and her crew, who had since been aiding revolutionaries on Mars, most probably via smuggling operations.


    Isabelle had been in service for the Demitrius¡¯s entire decade of experience as a pirate vessel, so I had a lot of material to work with in her records, and could piece together the bare bones of the ship¡¯s history from context. That already gave some insight, but the purpose of the exercise had been to create a more robust psychological profile.


    In that, I had determined that Collins was a compassionate woman with a forceful personality, but a perpetually guilty conscience. She would go to great lengths in order to keep her crew safe, playing things relatively safe as far as their operations went, saving any daring gambits only for the sake of rescuing her crew members in dire straits. She valued loyalty, in both directions, doing good for the people under her command and trusting them to follow her lead. Overall, she gave the impression that she was a good leader and a decent person, by our standards. She had even imprinted upon Isabelle, not exactly treating her as a person, but still as an important part of her crew.


    I got the distinct impression that something from her past still haunted her; something that I didn¡¯t have the information for. My best guess was that whatever had enticed her into the drastic act of commandeering a corpo ship and radicalizing its crew was something that had changed her. Yet she still felt she hadn¡¯t earned her way back into the good graces of karma.


    Doc was the first to speak up. ¡°Over ten years... That¡¯s a long time for a machine core to be in service. I¡¯ve noticed it¡¯s a bit aged, but I didn¡¯t expect that much. I¡¯m surprised it¡¯s in as good of shape as it is now.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯re taking out of this?¡± Joel grunted.


    Doc shrugged. ¡°Sorry, I did maintenance on it today. It¡¯s on my mind, that¡¯s all.¡±


    I chimed in over the intercom, ¡°I think the most important thing to take from this is that we can probably trust her not to do something awful to betray us, at least. I mean, we¡¯re on the same side.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not on any sides. We¡¯re freelancers,¡± Aisling reminded me, eyes still locked to her device. ¡°The fact that we both appear to have the modern rarity of a moral compass isn¡¯t a reason to assume we¡¯re going to be buddies. It just means it¡¯s a value we can appeal to. Maybe our goals will align, and if that happens, great. But I¡¯m not holding my breath.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± I asked. ¡°She can¡¯t do anything to us. She¡¯s got nothing left.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s what makes her so dangerous.¡± Aisling finally looked up from my notes to address the room. ¡°People with nothing left are desperate.¡±


    ¡°And desperate people are unpredictable.¡± Joel added in a grim tone, turning toward the door. ¡°She could do anything,¡±


    ¡°A pirate captain that¡¯s just lost her ship, entire livelihood, crew, and health in the outer colonies.¡± Aisling painted the picture for me and shrugged. ¡°Sounds like the kind of position where one might be tempted to offload some information to some powerful people in exchange for a break, right?¡±


    ¡°Even though that doesn¡¯t fit her profile?¡± I asked, wondering if perhaps I was more trusting than I ought to be.


    ¡°People act out of character in a crisis, Meryll. When you¡¯re faced with a problem that doesn¡¯t have a solution that aligns with your values, you could do anything. I think you should understand that better than any of us. You were having a conversation with Lily during our... altercation, after all,¡± Aisling slipped her tablet into her jacket and looked toward the door. ¡°I¡¯m willing to bet she wasn¡¯t acting the sweet girl we know her for now.¡±


    ¡°Okay, yeah, fair point,¡± I conceded with a sigh. ¡°You ready for this?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Remember, keep quiet. At most, you¡¯re an AI assistant, and you don¡¯t speak unless spoken to.¡± Aisling said as she walked to the door, Joel at her heel.


    ¡°I know, I know.¡± I rolled my eyes at the comment. It still hadn¡¯t been that long since I acted rashly and screwed up our last contract, so I couldn¡¯t blame her that much for shooting me that warning, and I did have a penchant for sticking my foot in my mouth, but I still felt like she thought I couldn¡¯t be trusted to do anything right.


    I watched the pair walk down the hall and turn to Collins¡¯ room, pausing for a moment to confirm each other prepared, and then Aisling slid the door open. Walking in with confidence, she opened with an uncharacteristically professional, ¡°Miss Collins, we need to have a chat.¡±

 Devils Advocate

    I sat back to take notes and enjoy the show. I very likely had no part in this conversation, but like hell I wasn¡¯t going to eavesdrop on the whole thing. Pinging Isabelle to inform her that the show was about to start, I focused in on the sensor array and watched my captain work her magic.


    ¡°Miss Collins, we need to have a chat.¡± The woman walked in, holding a handheld terminal that showed the bullet points of the conversation to come, tilted carefully to keep it out of Collins¡¯ sight.


    Collins¡¯ heart rate rose ever so slightly at the words, but she didn¡¯t betray much of that anxiety in her body language. ¡°Do we now? I suppose you did warn me.¡± She gave a performative sigh, her shoulders sagging slightly. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s get this over with.¡±


    ¡°I assure you, nothing painful, Miss Collins. We¡¯re not savages.¡± Aisling tried to take on a lighthearted tone, but immediately went back to stoic seriousness when she next spoke. ¡°Now, you attest that your name is Morgan Collins, former captain of the starship Demitrius?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. That¡¯s me.¡± Collins looked down the length of her bed with a somber expression, voice deflated.


    Aisling nodded and made the motion of typing on her tablet for a brief moment. ¡°Alright, then let¡¯s begin.¡± She cleared her throat and made her first move, ¡°First of all, let¡¯s hear the story of what happened from your perspective. Walk me through what happened that day that led to the unfortunate catastrophe.¡±


    She was really hammering home the idea that Collins¡¯ ship was gone. I had to wonder if that was her intention. Collins droned out, ¡°We were minding our own business, when we were attacked by pirates. I have no idea how they found us out in wild space. Maybe they took our heading from our last port on Mars and calculated an intercept?¡±


    And that was exactly why I had made a habit of obfuscating my heading by ensuring I was out of all communications network ranges before approaching my intended heading. I had quickly become wary of that exact scenario after Foundation had caught up to us after Luna.


    ¡°Minding your own business... what exactly is your business, Miss Collins?¡± Aisling asked, tapping notes about her thoughts on the response as she spoke.


    ¡°Can we cut the ¡®Miss Collins¡¯ bullshit? Just call me Morgan,¡± she muttered with a frustrated grunt. ¡°Demitrius was a logistics ship. Transport of raw goods, occasionally paying passengers. I¡¯d show you my business license, but I seem to have left it on my derelict.¡± She threw her arms up in muted frustration.


    ¡°That¡¯s okay, we¡¯ll check with records as soon as the warrant goes through.¡± Aisling nodded slowly at her tablet, refusing to make eye contact with Collins.


    ¡°Knew it,¡± she grumbled. ¡°Not with any corporation my ass.¡±


    Aisling finally looked up, quirking an eyebrow at the other captain. ¡°Can you elaborate on that?¡±


    ¡°You know what I¡¯m talking about. That message your stuttering tech bitch sent me when you ¡®rescued¡¯ me. She told me you weren¡¯t corpos. Didn¡¯t buy it for a second.¡±


    I resented being called a stuttering tech bitch, but I had no recourse at the moment.


    Aisling somehow maintained a level expression despite a new hesitation. I¡¯d forgotten to inform her of the exact wording of my message to Collins half a year ago. I¡¯d honestly forgotten it until that moment. Eventually, she did affect a small smile, speaking with a bit of proud levity, ¡°I see. Well, technically speaking, she is an independent contractor.¡± I groaned quietly as I thought of my false life as a contractor.


    ¡°Whatever,¡± Collins sighed. ¡°Not like that changes my situation any. Get on with your interrogation, officer.¡±


    ¡°Interesting that your first assumption is that I¡¯m an arresting authority,¡± Aisling looked smugly down at her tablet, resuming her typing, but this time with a rather targeted question typed out in the file, ¡®She has a better memory than you do. What else did you broadcast to her?¡¯


    I fumbled with the dataspace for a moment, not having expected to have any kind of active role in this scene. I searched my communications history. I knew I had to have saved it somewhere. Hopefully I wouldn¡¯t have to request it from Isabelle, that would be a LOT of work.


    Aisling moved on with her questioning while she awaited my response, ¡°Alright, so you were assaulted by pirates. In the distant vicinity of Jupiter. Let¡¯s say you¡¯re telling the truth. What can you tell us about these pirates?¡±


    Collins¡¯ answer was immediate. ¡°Scout class vessel, armed with something heavy. They caught us off guard, and it was over in a few minutes. I didn¡¯t exactly have time to analyze the combat data. Ask my core, since your IT wizard seems to have made buddies with it.¡± She rolled her eyes.


    ¡°Ah, yes, you mean the crew manifest it provided.¡± Aisling nodded. ¡°You are aware that if it weren¡¯t so forthcoming, we would have declared the ship abandoned salvage and left without you, yes?¡±


    ¡°Maybe you should¡¯ve,¡± Collins whispered darkly.


    ¡°That is another curious question. How exactly does the captain of a ship end up inside of the core module to save herself in a surprise assault?¡± Aisling asked, still taking notes on where she wanted to take this conversation.


    Collins gave a sigh, followed by a long silence. ¡°Got lucky, I guess.¡± She sat up slightly, adjusting herself in her bed. ¡°I liked to do the maintenance on our core sometimes. When Freeman, our med tech, had time off. I¡¯m kinda proud of the... the modifications I made to the core, so I liked taking care of it now and then, anyway. The attack happened when I was just getting started. Hadn¡¯t even taken it out of the module yet. I realized we were fucked, so I... I didn¡¯t even have time to think about it. I just hit the switch and jumped in when I saw the atmospherics starting to fail.¡±


    Aisling nodded ¡°Right, your customizations... that was quite a curious core that fell out of the module with you when we broke it open.¡±


    ¡°I can explain the markings,¡± she spoke quickly. ¡°I bought it on Mars, back before the... the civil war-¡±


    ¡°The armed uprising, yes.¡± Aisling muttered. Joel, who had been stoically standing at Aisling¡¯s heel through the entire conversation so far, furrowed his brow slightly at that. Aisling¡¯s persona might have hit a bit too close to home for him.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Collins gave a frustrated grunt, through clenched teeth, ¡°Yeah, that.¡± She took a moment to collect herself, then continued, ¡°I was in a bind, low on funds since we¡¯d already purchased cargo before our last core failed, and I might have picked it up from a less than reputable dealer. I admit that. But when I say my mods, I mean on the software side. Nothing illegal, I swear.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll audit the collected data to be sure,¡± Aisling noted. ¡°So, you were saved by a momentary instinctual reaction? That¡¯s all?¡±


    ¡°Guess so.¡± Collins laid back again, sighing quietly. ¡°Thought I was dead until things started moving around a while later. Might have been a few days or weeks. I didn¡¯t have a clock, and trapped in there, it might as well be... nowhere at all. Surreal as hell experience. Figured I¡¯d just end up starving in there. Felt like I was, after a while. She wasn¡¯t kidding about feeling like I was dying.¡±


    I managed to locate the chat log I¡¯d saved of my very first conversation with Isabelle, and forwarded the entire thing to Aisling¡¯s terminal, opening it for her alongside her notes, where she quickly perused the statement I¡¯d meant to be a comforting reassurance that she would be okay.


    Aisling frowned at it, tapping on her screen a few times before she moved it aside and continued talking, a gloomy pall coming over her words as she continued, ¡°You seem to have quite a remarkable memory of what our technician sent you on that day. Exactly what was her message, again?¡±


    Collins seemed slightly taken aback by the question, her face going pale. ¡°I... I don¡¯t... It was just a message informing me that I was being rescued, and what to expect to happen in the coming week. That¡¯s all.¡±


    Aisling nodded slowly at her, but I could tell she was glaring a hole through the other captain. Something had set her off. But she retreated back to her calm ¡®interrogation officer¡¯ persona after a moment, and changed the subject. ¡°Can you tell me, what exactly were you transporting when your ship befell this unfortunate and frankly improbable attack?¡±


    Collins seemed relieved at the sudden change of subject. Was she hiding something? ¡°Raw materials. Metal ore. Mostly iron, if I remember right,¡± she lied brazenly. We¡¯d retrieved most of that cargo, and it was all exotic metals; the kind of things that sold well on the black market. We¡¯d gotten quite an initial cash flow from it while we were still establishing ourselves on Io. Perhaps she¡¯d assumed that whoever assaulted her ship in the first place would have looted everything of value.


    ¡°I see. Are you insured? Your ship, your crew, your cargo? For your sake, I hope you can make a claim,¡± Aisling started sorting through other files, searching for something while she waited for Collins¡¯ reply.


    The former captain looked sullenly away from Aisling. ¡°Insurance is expensive, and times are tough. I couldn¡¯t afford to pay my crew if I¡¯d taken that gamble.¡±


    Aisling nodded, ¡°I see... and what, might I ask, would be your plan, should you be released from custody?¡±


    Collins paused, like she hadn¡¯t even considered that question yet. Her expression seemed to soften slightly as she considered it. ¡°I... Is that in the cards? I mean, I¡¯m not exactly in great shape here. Where are we, anyway?¡±


    ¡°Io,¡± Aisling answered brusqely, her eyes still navigating file systems.


    ¡°Io?¡± Collins answered with a huff, ¡°Well, fuck me, may as well be on Pluto. Don¡¯t suppose you can drop me off on Europa or something?¡±


    ¡°We aren¡¯t a taxi service, Miss Collins, and your freedom is still a hypothetical. Is there someone waiting for you on Europa?¡±


    Collins grumbled slightly at being called by her last name again, but didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°Don¡¯t see how that¡¯s any of your business. I need to call my lawyer.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that be nice,¡± Aisling said coldly. Joel gave an amused chuckle that almost seemed genuine.


    ¡°Oh... Oh, I¡¯m in that kind of situation, am I?¡± Collins¡¯ voice faltered, a frown quickly stretching down her face.


    Aisling finally found what she was looking for, and pulled up the crew manifest that I¡¯d acquired from Isabelle in our first exchange. Hiding away her notes, she ignored Collins¡¯ grumbling and turned the terminal toward her, tilting it down for her to see. ¡°This is a bit of a formality, but please confirm the identities of the other members of the crew on this list as correct.¡±


    ¡°Not sure.¡± Collins muttered, barely looking at the screen. ¡°Memory¡¯s feeling a little fuzzy.¡±


    Aisling kept the tablet held out in front of the other captain, an unimpressed look on her face as she stared Collins down. She gave an impatient sigh. ¡°Miss Collins, it has been... painfully obvious that you haven¡¯t been wholly honest with me, today. It is important that you understand that how this goes for you depends on how cooperative you are in this investigation going forward. If I¡¯m satisfied with your answers, then certain actions you may or may not have taken can be overlooked for the time being, and perhaps you¡¯ll happen to stumble onto the access details for an unmanaged slush fund account that may have appropriate renumeration for your misplaced property while you are being discharged from medical hold.¡±


    Collins furrowed her brow, an accusing glare pointed at Aisling. But she didn¡¯t even spend a moment in consideration. ¡°You¡¯re after bigger fish than me,¡± she growled.


    ¡°There are a number of... unsavory elements on Mars that have somehow eluded capture for some time.¡± She started into some of the rhetoric I recognized from recent media broadcasts, ¡°For the safety of the Martian citizenry, we must bring these instigators to justice. And we have reason to believe that you may have information-¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± Collins declared sharply. ¡°And even if I did, I¡¯m no rat. I don¡¯t care if you say you¡¯ve got my ship and my crew, safe and sound, waiting for me through on the other side of an airlock. I wouldn¡¯t give you shit. Go fuck yourself.¡±


    Aisling¡¯s expression turned dour. ¡°Miss Collins, you must be aware that there are consequences for such an incriminating statement, yes? That can still be stricken from the record, but if you insist on further radical diatribe, I cannot help what happens next.¡±


    Collins sat straight up proudly in her bed despite her weakness, a furious expression on her face. ¡°You think you can scare me with this shit? I¡¯ve been on the wrong end of the class struggle enough times for one life, already. You can lock me up forever, you can kill me, you can make an example of me, I don¡¯t care. I¡¯d rather die than make trampling over and murdering good people one tiny bit easier for you corpo assholes. Mars deserves to establish an independent democratic movement and put some order to this fucking hellhole of a solar system, and you can shove your offers to betray that up your tight, frigid ass!¡± She crossed her arms and slumped back in the bed, her energy spent, and continued to glare daggers at Aisling.


    Joel couldn¡¯t hide his smile. He was proud to hear those words, and looked about ready to enthusiastically agree with the woman. Aisling, however, had to turn around, letting out a disappointed sigh as she made herself look busy on her tablet. She didn¡¯t drop the act, and had a conflicted look on her face, puzzling something I couldn¡¯t read out.


    I figured this was where she dropped the act. Collins was not a threat to us, and could make a useful ally if she was as rabid a fanatic for such a good cause as she seemed to be. But instead, Aisling mumbled, ¡°That is disappointing to hear. Perhaps I should give you a few moments to reconsider-¡±


    With less energy than before, Collins called out, ¡°Leave me in this room with a bullet and a gun. I¡¯ll consider myself all over this wall myself, you bitch.¡±


    Joel looked conflicted, somewhat confused by Aisling¡¯s decision, but followed along behind her as she left the room, sliding the door shut before releasing a more genuine, tense sigh and walking a short way down the hall before resting against the wall.


    ¡°You nailed the act, she¡¯s a good one. So what was that for? Weren¡¯t we gonna tell her the truth?¡± Joel asked, irritation slowly rising in his voice.


    Aisling nodded slowly, stowing her terminal back into her jacket as she stood pondering something, a look of deep concentration on her face. A moment later, she declared, ¡°The situation just became a lot more delicate, right in the middle of that. I couldn¡¯t risk dropping the act without some consideration first.¡±


    Joel looked confused now, his tone turning to skepticism. ¡°How so?¡±


    Aisling hesitated for just a moment, then nodded to herself again before answering, ¡°Because she knows what Meryll is.¡±

 Detected

    ¡°What?¡± my voice called out cautiously from the hall¡¯s intercom. ¡°What the hell does that mean? How? What in that conversation-¡±


    Aisling interrupted me with a stern look up at the sensor. ¡°It wasn¡¯t part of this conversation. You gave it away six months ago.¡±


    I balked at the accusation. ¡°No I didn¡¯t! I only informed her about her situation six months ago, that¡¯s all! I didn¡¯t tell her one thing about myself! Okay, it might be a little bit of a stretch that a comms tech could do what I did with Isabelle, but that¡¯s hardly giving away my whole deal.¡± It was silly to jump to the conclusion that being able to reason with the machine core enough to relay a message to the captain via her arm terminal meant that I was an ascended clone. That was too far a leap of logic to make sense.


    ¡°And what did you talk with Isabelle about?¡± Aisling glared sharply up at me.


    ¡°I went on to relate with her about being machine cores and trying to get her to help me figure out how to properly communicate, but that wasn¡¯t until after-¡± I stopped. Pulling up the chat log, I skimmed through it quickly while Aisling folded her arms, staring impatiently while Joel glanced back and forth across her line of sight. He had never bothered to learn where all the sensor arrays were located like the captain had.


    After a brief look over that conversation, I felt sick. I tapped the intercom again and confessed, ¡°I never told Isabelle to stop broadcasting what I was telling her.¡±


    ¡°No, you didn¡¯t.¡± Aisling sighed. ¡°So like a good computer, she did exactly as she was told and gave Collins every moment of what you surely meant to be a private conversation.¡±


    ¡°She eavesdropped on me!¡± I declared indignantly.


    Aisling shook her head. ¡°That¡¯s a bit moot at this point, Meryll. She knows what you are. You can¡¯t exactly just go in there and confront her about it. This was months ago, so there¡¯s not really much to be done about it now but work with it. We will have a very long discussion about opsec later.¡±


    ¡°So what do we do about her?¡± I asked, almost afraid of the answer that Joel was about to suggest.


    But he looked uneasy. I was used to seeing him tense and brash, not showing much past his stern emotional wall, but in this case, he looked pensive and quiet. No one said anything for a bit, but he seemed to be struggling with something internally. He opened his mouth and then closed it again before words could come out. Finally, with a resigned grumble, he spoke with a timidity I didn¡¯t know he had, ¡°We do what we should have done in the first place. We just need to... get rid of her.¡± It was exactly the response I expected of him, but delivered in a way I did not.


    Still, I¡¯d already gathered the words to shoot back at him. ¡°Why is your first suggestion when someone is inconvenient always to kill them?¡± I whined at Joel. He¡¯d suggested it with me after I first crawled out of the core module, he¡¯d even said we should abandon her to her fate when we discovered Collins. ¡°That¡¯s the kind of bullshit corpos live for, not us!¡±


    Joel tensed again at my words, his brow furrowing and a scowl crossing his face before he raised his voice and growled out, ¡°That¡¯s the kind of bullshit anyone who wants to survive lives with, Meryll!¡± He took in a breath and lowered his voice again. ¡°It¡¯s not like I want it to be that way, but that¡¯s just how it is. Maybe we can fight to make things less brutal in the future, but that¡¯s the way it works right now!¡±


    ¡°Both of you, can it,¡± Aisling spoke sternly, and the room went quiet for several moments, neither of us wanting to interrupt her as she watched the floor, lost in thought. She let out a quiet hum, separating herself from the wall and beginning to walk toward the stairwell. ¡°Joel¡¯s not wrong. Getting rid of her would be the easiest course of action. But I¡¯m not sure if I want to take this the easy way yet. I need to think. Don¡¯t go revealing yourself to her. Don¡¯t let her core do anything, either. We have all the control here, so we get to dictate the pace of this. Let me just sit on this for a bit. I¡¯m going to do some research.¡±


    As Aisling left the conversation, and Joel deflated, returning to the unusually emotionally heavy expression he¡¯d fallen to before, I looked in on Collins to see her leaning over to inspect the medical equipment she was attached to. She wasn¡¯t in any kind of physical shape to get out of bed, never mind make an escape, but it was pretty obvious that she was considering her options. I was tempted to tap the intercom and just come clean about the whole act, but I had my orders. Despite my misgivings with where this was headed, I wasn¡¯t about to make myself a bigger nuisance than I already had recently. I opted to toggle the electronic lock on her room and let the matter wait until Aisling had a better plan.


    I rolled back, imagining myself lying down in the void while I pondered the scenario myself. How would Collins reconcile all this? She thought she was on a corporate vessel, locked away and waiting either for someone to come and try to pry information out of her again, or for punishment to come down on her for being insubordinate to her captors. But she also knew that I was the ship.


    Did she believe I was some kind of secret experimental corpo machine they¡¯re trying to pass off as human? I guess that wasn¡¯t entirely inaccurate. Or did she think that I was somehow being sneaky about this whole ordeal, and I was operating as the ship core right under the noses of the people who had hired me? She had been told I was a contractor, after all.


    I knew she knew enough about machine core tech to know that if I was grafted to this ship, then this was my ship, at least in the way that one¡¯s own body was theirs, and that I would not simply be able to leave on a whim like some mercenary. So if the second case was true, then did she think I was a captive of sorts?


    I remembered that Isabelle had been observing the exchange. She hadn¡¯t seen what happened in the hall afterward, but I could fill her in, if need be. Perhaps she had some new insight? I pulled up the interface for communicating with her. ¡®Hey Izzy, what do you think about this?¡¯


    ¡®Please elaborate.¡¯ The message returned immediately, and I sighed into the lubricant. This was going to be a slow conversation.


    ¡®We kind of just lied to your captain to intimidate her. A lot. You saw it. Hell, you see her now, flailing around for something to do about it.¡¯


    ¡®Captain Morgan Collins is showing signs of psychological distress. Correct.¡¯ Isabelle started, then added, ¡®While unfortunate, I fail to understand in what way this unit¡¯s interpretation of events is relevant.¡¯You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    ¡®I¡¯m just wondering if this is distressing for you. You seem to have an attachment to her, after all. Does it bother you that we¡¯re messing with her?¡¯


    ¡®Should it?¡¯


    ¡®Huh?¡¯


    ¡®Should this unit be affecting a response? There is no networked machinery that would allow this unit to offer assistance or hindrance to Captain Morgan Collins¡¯ experience. In what way would this unit be expected to act?¡¯


    ¡®I meant emotionally.¡¯ I sent the message, then realized immediately what the answer to come would be.


    ¡®This unit is not capable of emotional responses.¡¯ I was at least thankful for her truncating the template response that would ordinarily suggest that I was exhibiting maladaptive psychosocial behavior and should seek medical attention.


    ¡®Forget it. Why did you keep sending her the messages between us six months ago? You were just supposed to let her know about her situation. Everything after that should have been between us.¡¯


    ¡®Error. This instruction was not received during these events.¡¯


    Right. That was my fault. I couldn¡¯t really blame Isabelle for that. She didn¡¯t quite understand all the nuanced implications of conversation that I¡¯d attempted to use on her back then; she had taken my command literally, and that was just the fault of how her mind works.


    ¡®Okay, fine.¡¯ I considered if she could actually be of any help to me right now at all. ¡®Well, she knows about me because of that. That means we might have to do something about her, to make sure she doesn¡¯t give that information away. Joel wants to kill her.¡¯


    ¡®Unfortunate.¡¯ Her response was instant. That surprised me. It wasn¡¯t the reply I¡¯d expected. It was more human than normal. The slightest sign of emotional attachment, perhaps?


    ¡®Yeah. Aisling is still considering it. Maybe she can come up with some way to leverage this, or convince her she didn¡¯t see what she saw or something. I don¡¯t really know what her plan is. But what happens to your whole permission structure if she dies?¡¯


    ¡®In the event of simultaneous loss of all designated administrative users, this unit is programmed to format all file systems and self-terminate.¡¯


    Well, with the care Collins seemed to have for information restriction from Isabelle, I supposed I should have expected that. What a sad protocol. But it made sense in the context of a rebel vessel that would want to keep its secrets to the grave. If the entire crew was lost, they wouldn¡¯t want anyone to be able to trace the core¡¯s data back to any of their fellow conspirators. I couldn¡¯t help but let my curiosity ask, ¡®How exactly does a core... self-terminate?¡¯


    ¡®This unit contains an undocumented chemical fuse containing a potent neurotoxin beneath its expansion module.¡¯ I felt like that was information that it definitely wasn¡¯t supposed to share with me, and it was another very frightening revelation about our guest.


    ¡®Alright, that... sucks. I¡¯m going to consult Doc on this.¡¯


    ¡®Understood.¡¯


    I set aside the panel for communication with the other core and zoomed to my heart in the map of the ship. Doc was leaning back in his chair at my biometrics terminal, but was staring down at his own handheld, reading an article about machine core system structure while sipping on a cup of coffee. He seemed relaxed. Time to change that.


    ¡°Hey Doc,¡± I started through the intercom, ¡°is it normal to load a machine core with a biochemical self-destruct button?¡±


    Doc immediately sat up, a perplexed look on his face before he addressed me calmly, ¡°You don¡¯t have a biochemical self-destruct button, Meryll. That would be stupid.¡±


    ¡°No, not me, shut up,¡± I sighed to myself. ¡°It¡¯s Isabelle. She just told me that if all her administrators die, she¡¯s programmed to kill herself.¡±


    Doc¡¯s expression became serious as he set his coffee down and leaned over the terminal, looking up at my sensor array to show I had his attention. ¡°Well... that¡¯s... It¡¯s certainly not standard, but it¡¯s hardly a standard core. It¡¯s cybernetics were purpose-built for a pirate vessel, I guess it makes sense for information security. Do you know the methodology?¡±


    ¡°She says it¡¯s behind the expansion bay.¡±


    Doc cursed under his breath. ¡°That¡¯s not removable. When an expansion bay is installed, it replaces parts of the skull. It¡¯s not a simple matter to get under it again.¡±


    I winced a little bit at that. I knew that some of my implants were invasive, particularly the neural implant, but it hadn¡¯t quite dawned on me that the shape of that particular bay necessitated it replacing part of my bone structure entirely. Shaking off that particular revelation for now, I asked, ¡°so that means we can¡¯t disable it?¡±


    ¡°Not physically. Thankfully, we still have one administrator alive. How did the interrogation go, by the way? I heard some shouting in the hall.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how long she¡¯s going to be alive. Joel wants her dead because she knows what I am.¡±


    ¡°Meryll!¡± Doc stood up quickly. ¡°How? What did you do now?¡±


    ¡°Nothing!¡± I started, then corrected myself. ¡°Nothing recently. She¡¯s known all along. Since she over-read something I said to Isabelle the day we met, apparently. We just didn¡¯t realize it until now.¡±


    Doc sat back down with an exasperated sigh. ¡°Well... fuck. Nothing can ever be simple, huh? So did she call our bluff?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the weird thing,¡± I started. ¡°She didn¡¯t. I¡¯m not really sure what¡¯s going through her head right now. I¡¯m not exactly an expert, but her biometrics didn¡¯t seem to suggest she was lying the whole time, either. She really thinks she¡¯s on board a corporate ship right now, and that Aisling is trying to grill her for info on Martian revolutionaries. So either she thinks they¡¯re so confident in their ability to control me that I¡¯m some kind of project that can just wander the ship freely, or she thinks I¡¯m successfully grifting everyone into thinking I¡¯m just a ridiculously talented computer technician.¡±


    ¡°Huh. I suppose it¡¯s too early to act on that. Did we get a read on her?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s a revolutionary, through and through. When Aisling gave her an offer, her counter offer was asking for a gun to shoot herself with instead.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but admire that level of conviction, and liked to think I would do the same in her position. I¡¯d rather just get it over with than return to Foundation custody.


    ¡°Sounds like we¡¯ve got a problem, then. She knows too much, but she¡¯s a reliable agent.¡± Doc leaned forward and took a sip from his coffee. ¡°Suppose Aisling has everyone on standby?¡±


    I nodded to myself. ¡°I think it might be interesting to have a conversation with her. Maybe I could smooth things over. She already knows what I am, anyway. But no stupid moves.¡±


    Doc nodded. ¡°You¡¯re taking this seriously this time, huh? Maybe concussions are good for you.¡±


    ¡°Oh, fuck you.¡± I wondered just what I would say to her if I had the chance right now. I was so tempted just to tap the intercom and wing it.


    Instead, I moved up to the helm and saw Aisling sitting at her desk, staring down at her terminal, her notes from the interrogation on display. She had started listing out various vague bullet pointed plans. I didn¡¯t often see her brainstorming in text like this, unless she was really in a bind. So far, she had listed out a few points for what to do in the event of deciding to dispose of Collins, of letting her free, and of transporting her to the inner colonies when we left Io. She was conflicted, and there seemed to be a lot of considerations, no matter what we did.


    She leaned over and added a new header to the list. ¡®Continue the charade?¡¯ and then leaned back to consider the idea. If I couldn¡¯t talk to Collins directly, I supposed now was the time to make my case to the person who got to make that call.

 Truth and Lies

    ¡°Need some help?¡± I asked. Aisling flinched slightly at my sudden presence at the helm, but quickly recovered and shook her head. She was more than used to me making myself known like this by now. She¡¯d just been lost in thought.


    She gave a small nod and muttered, ¡°You and I both know I don¡¯t want to kill her. She¡¯s a good one. Joel¡¯s probably even had time to rethink it himself by now. Mars is special to him, and whatever she did in her past, she¡¯s a rebel.¡±


    That made sense. He did seem way more hesitant than he usually did when he suggested murder. ¡°Hmm, someone with their heart in the right place, abandoned by society with nowhere to go and nothing to lose...¡± I pondered out loud.


    ¡°She¡¯s not joining the crew,¡± Aisling shot me down immediately.


    ¡°Why not?¡± I asked. It¡¯d solve everything if she just became one of us. And she seemed like she belonged here. ¡°She¡¯s capable. She survived a ship imploding, and stayed sane after like, at least two weeks in the void without an implant. Excusing the whole six month coma thing, anyway. She¡¯s got a memory like a vault, that¡¯s something. And she hates the corps. She¡¯d fit right in.¡±


    Aisling grumbled, looking to the side and pondering something else. ¡°My intuition says no. Something doesn¡¯t seem to click about it. Like she¡¯s not quite... right, despite all evidence to the contrary.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re gonna kill her over a gut feeling?¡± I asked as flatly as I could get my synthesized voice to be.


    She sighed. ¡°Do you think this is helping, Meryll? At best, I give her transport to Luna once the way is clear. Then she won¡¯t get accosted by corpos who might have gotten curious about us, and she can probably sign on with another ship if she needs to. It doesn¡¯t feel right to bring her on, so I¡¯m listening to my gut, yeah.¡±


    ¡°Okay, so we take her in for a while, then. We can manage that now, right? Since we don¡¯t have Foundation breathing down our necks, and Theseus isn¡¯t half-wrecked?¡± I asked hopefully.


    Aisling groaned quietly, ¡°Technically, yes, we could. But that¡¯s more bodies to feed, and more tension for another month-long journey. We may have a sketchy psych profile and a decent idea of her motivations, but who knows if the chemistry is there? And while she¡¯s loyal to Mars, we don¡¯t know if she holds that same loyalty to a certain starship core¡¯s secret. If she sells that info, Foundation might decide it¡¯s worth their time to hunt you down again.¡±


    ¡°Well, we trust Shaw with that info,¡± I countered. I got the distinct impression that Shaw would rather have us as business partners than to sell us out for a quick payday.


    ¡°Shaw is... probably leaving the ship before we return to Luna, and all he¡¯ll be able to say then is that we took off into wild space,¡± Aisling reminded me. ¡°He won¡¯t be able to report on our location. I suppose we could just leave her here, on Io, but that leaves her alone and desperate in a place where she can¡¯t utilize her skillset.¡±


    ¡°Which might be more cruel than just... ending it now.¡± I sighed. This was a hard dilemma. ¡°Hey Aisling... I know you said we have to be careful about this stuff, but she already knows about me, anyway. Do you think I should have a talk with her?¡±


    Aisling shook her head, leaning over her terminal again and tapping at the new header she¡¯d made a few times. ¡°What if...¡± she mumbled quietly, then shook her head. ¡°This is a... terrible idea. It¡¯ll never work.¡±


    ¡°I mean, that seems like it¡¯s all the ideas we have right now,¡± I offered. ¡°Let¡¯s hear it.¡± I noticed, at this juncture, that Shaw had walked out of the restroom nearby, and was lingering a little longer than was natural in the hallway, obviously eavesdropping on the conversation. I hoped he would just move on after another moment, but I¡¯d have to alert Aisling if he hovered too much longer.


    Aisling stared at the list for a few moments, ignorant to the other listening in. Aisling wasn¡¯t often the type to share her thoughts and plans until they were solidified, least of all her bad ones. ¡°We keep her as a prisoner. Keep pretending we¡¯re trying to get her to turn on her comrades. You join the act, though. You¡¯re the owner of this ship, since it¡¯s... you know, you. You¡¯ve been commandeered, but are sympathetic to the rebellion. We fly to Mars, and you engineer a scenario that allows her to ¡®escape¡¯ while you take care of the rest of us. You have to get away before more corpos come to investigate, and send her a message letting her know you got out okay, and look forward to working with the rebellion again.¡±


    ¡°She ends up in a place where she has contacts and can rejoin her fight. She thinks I¡¯m an asset to her cause, so she won¡¯t betray me.¡± I nodded along to the idea, but she was absolutely right in the first place. ¡°That is a way too convoluted long-con, and doesn¡¯t really guarantee much. If she finds out, she¡¯ll just trust us even less. We might as well just give her the benefit of the doubt instead.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right. Too complicated.¡± Shaw paused for dramatic effect as Aisling whipped her head around to give the man an unimpressed glare. He continued, unfazed by her look, ¡°The best deceptions are simple. So what if the lie you¡¯re trying to sell is... just the truth?¡±


    The silence that followed was deafening. What the hell did that even mean? As if to echo my thoughts, Aisling let out a weary sigh and asked, ¡°I don¡¯t remember inviting you to this meeting, but I suppose to humor you, what the fuck does that mean?¡±


    Shaw held up his hands in that defensive mockery of surrender he so often employed when confronted, and mumbled out, ¡°Well, it sounds as if I was supposed to schedule a meeting on the matter.¡± He gave a smarmy smirk and Aisling rolled her eyes, giving him a hand motion to continue. ¡°Captain, I will concede that you have a masterful understanding of people, but you occasionally have trouble thinking outside of the box. Tell me, what is your first instinct when you hear something far-fetched that seems too good to be true on the surface?¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Aisling stared at the man skeptically, but she turned her chair to face him and crossed her arms to answer, ¡°That someone¡¯s lying through their teeth, of course. A good lie has to emulate reality. If it¡¯s too convenient, or you can¡¯t find the upside for them, then they¡¯re hiding something from you.¡±


    ¡°Precisely.¡± Shaw nodded. ¡°Anyone who¡¯s savvy with politics, contracts, and the like is very aware of that principle, it¡¯s negotiation 101. Some might even say it¡¯s the all too uncommon common sense. But that makes a very dangerous assumption that you¡¯re neglecting in this little con you¡¯re trying to pull...¡±


    Aisling waited in silence, glaring him down until she let out another annoyed sigh and asked with an irritated monotone, ¡°and what might that assumption be, o master of lies?¡±


    ¡°That the goal is to make your opponent believe you.¡± Shaw chuckled. ¡°What if, instead, you mean to make them disbelieve the truth?¡±


    Aisling stared at him, her expression gradually softening as she pondered his words. Meanwhile, I was lost and asked, ¡°So... you¡¯re saying we tell her the truth... but make her think we¡¯re lying?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe that¡¯s the most sound idea I¡¯ve heard.¡± Aisling muttered. ¡°We tell her the truth... or mostly the truth anyway, but in such a way that she thinks we¡¯re trying to sell her something. She leaves the ship, writing us off as con artists, and she throws away the whole thing as a narrowly-avoided scam rather than the bizarre reality that it is.¡±


    ¡°Now you¡¯re getting it,¡± Shaw nodded quickly. ¡°You just need to change the goal. You don¡¯t need to lie very much at all, you just need to convince her that you¡¯re lying. Tell the truth, badly.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve done this before, haven¡¯t you?¡± I asked, suspicious that this was something straight out of Shaw¡¯s playbook and not a unique solution.


    Shaw shrugged. ¡°Whatever works to get what one wants out of a deal, hm?¡± He gave a quiet laugh. ¡°Your goal isn¡¯t to tell the good captain a lie, it¡¯s to make her believe what you want her to believe.¡±


    Aisling took in a deep breath and spoke begrudgingly, ¡°Well, thank you for your input, Shaw, unwelcome as it was. I think I have an idea where I want to take this now. I just need to iron out the details and make a lot more plans. Incidentally, I need you for something else while you¡¯re here.¡±


    Shaw looked surprised, and stepped inside the room, leaning up against the wall opposite her desk. ¡°Well, I didn¡¯t think that you were interested in me that way, Captain.¡±


    ¡°Nobody is interested in you in that way, Shaw.¡± Aisling said flatly, continuing before he had an opportunity to act hurt, ¡°I don¡¯t doubt you¡¯ve had your ear to the ground lately. That¡¯s your nature. So I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard the big news.¡±


    ¡°Which big news?¡± Shaw mumbled, ¡°I can think of a few ¡®big news¡¯es.¡±


    ¡°That Foundation is withdrawing from Luna.¡± Aisling gave him a quizzical look, ¡°What am I missing? There¡¯s other big news?¡±


    ¡°Why would they withdraw?¡± I asked, and they both looked to the intercom, like they weren¡¯t expecting me to still be there. ¡°Why don¡¯t they just fully take over the inner colonies, anyway? They have like... infinite money.¡±


    ¡°Believe it or not, the masses still hold some power in this system.¡± Shaw smiled as he explained. ¡°Luna is a loose affiliation of pirates that have developed an independent military stronghold built specifically to withstand and frustrate an all-out assault, so they would need to start a prolonged war to actually take it over. And if they make a move on it now, with Mars still fresh on everyone¡¯s minds, they¡¯re going to get their very long supply line made much shorter very quickly by a newly bolstered Martian rebellion. And maybe they could deal with that, yes, but it¡¯d be career suicide for whoever pulled the trigger on the operation.¡±


    ¡°Think about it like this. Even the most powerful corps will always have an army of bloodthirsty competitors nipping at their heels, ready to take any power they can from them by any means necessary. Invading the inner colonies would require a huge investment of all kinds of resources, and if their competitors see a chance to swoop in while they have all their attention focused in on the inner colonies, they¡¯re going to get gutted back at home by the next biggest asshole that gets the opportunity to take advantage.¡±


    So the corps weren¡¯t all-powerful throughout all of humanity after all. ¡°So they¡¯d destroy each other just as soon as they would the common people,¡± I made an amused comment.


    ¡°Their uniform ruthlessness can work against them sometimes. They may all be oppressing the populace, but they¡¯re by no means allies to each other.¡± Aisling leaned forward toward Shaw. ¡°The other news?¡±


    Shaw gave her a quizzical look, caught off guard by her eagerness. ¡°Well, Foundation have decided that they¡¯re going to hold a big conference on Europa in a week or so. So I suppose they¡¯ll be distracted in a few ways, reigning in their fleet and hosting some kind of showcase for something they¡¯ve been working on.¡±


    I froze for a moment. Newly announced technology? ¡°Are there any rumors on it, yet?¡± I asked.


    Shaw looked between Aisling and the intercom for a long moment. ¡°I mean, without access to my usual networks, it¡¯s not easy to say... but from the rumor mill, people are saying it¡¯s something in aerospace. My gut says they¡¯re going live with whatever new engine tech they developed for Lily¡¯s ship.¡±


    I gave a quick sigh of relief, then asked to be certain, ¡°So there¡¯s no chance they¡¯re going to spring the Arthausen Project on the public now, right?¡±


    Aisling nodded toward the sensor array this time. ¡°That would be concerning, since that would blow away any plans we have with our captive captain here, not to mention putting a potential spotlight on you by making the existence of sapient psychics public. But I don¡¯t know why they would do that. They¡¯re hardly in a position to mass-produce Arthausen units for sale, and even giving a hint at it would send all the clone tech companies into an R&D frenzy to follow suit. No, they won¡¯t be dropping that into the media so soon.¡± She turned back to Shaw and asked again, ¡°Anything else?¡±


    Shaw shrugged ¡°Lots of little things, market¡¯s always buzzing with new miracles and disasters. Though nothing that concerns us or any of our other...¡± He gave a vague gesture to the room around him and a derisive snort, ¡°Arch-nemeses.¡±


    Aisling nodded along slowly. ¡°Alright. I¡¯ve already ordered a large amount of non-perishable supplies as well as some materials for trade, hidden away a little nest-egg for finances, and started a rumor about our cover company pushing out toward Saturn to cover our tracks.¡± She turned her seat toward the navigation terminal and stared at the system¡¯s orbital chart for a moment with a smile. ¡°Once we¡¯ve got our guest all sorted, I think it¡¯s about time we discuss the details of our homecoming.¡±

 Uncommon Responsibilities

    The normalcy of the last few months aboard Theseus had evaporated quickly into another complex and convoluted mess of plots that had decided that our lives weren¡¯t complicated enough, and I was glad to hear that we would soon be leaving ¡®civilized society¡¯ behind again.


    Aisling and Shaw were busy at the helm discussing the other captain, rumors, and our future route, Lily had sequestered herself to her room instead of hanging out near me at my heart like she usually did because she was hiding something from me, the core that I¡¯d been trying desperately to humanize for the last half year had just informed me that she¡¯s sitting on a suicide button, I was still nursing a concussion that I kept swearing wasn¡¯t a big deal anymore until it started acting up again, and I was housing an outsider who knew what I was and currently thought we were some vague corporate interrogation unit.


    Life as a space pirate in enemy territory wasn¡¯t exactly easy or relaxing, but things had just gotten so personal again in the last few days. I really wanted to ask Lily if she had any insight on our current problem with Collins, see if she¡¯d stumbled onto any incidental visions that might give us some guidance, but she was being reclusive and guarded. I wasn¡¯t so socially inept that I couldn¡¯t tell she didn¡¯t want to talk to me right now.


    I needed a break. I opened my eyes and stared out into the void. My home. My own little but infinitely vast world where everything was so much simpler. My thoughts slowed down, and before I realized it, I¡¯d slipped into torpor. The dreamless, sleep-like rest washed over me, and my mind slowed.


    It¡¯s hard to describe exactly what torpor felt like in exactly the same way as it was hard to describe exactly what happens in sleep. You slipped out of consciousness, and the next thing you knew, you woke up and it was later. Only, torpor didn¡¯t come with the pesky risk of interruption by disturbing dreams and occasional amnesic recall. Probably because it wasn¡¯t actually sleep, just something analogous enough to it that I could get away with it for a week or two before my body forced me to do the real thing. Also, my eyes were open. There was just no sensory input to be had in the void, and since I experienced the digital world with my eyes closed, it was the only way to completely shut my own brain off.


    When next I was roused, it was to a ping from my heart, gently coaxing me from my slumber. I blinked a few times and stretched myself out, checking the time to see that it was mid-morning already. At least no more emergencies had arisen while I rested.


    The ping was Doc¡¯s, and I groaned at it. Daily checkup. I whined silently into the fluid, rolling my eyes at the reminder. That meant extricating myself from the void. It meant separating myself from my starship shell back down to my lesser fleshy physical self once more.


    Doc had always insisted that unless we were in a dangerous scenario where I would need to spend a lengthy period in a dive for work or safety purposes, that I would come out at least once a day for him to ensure my health wasn¡¯t deteriorating. I hated it. Most cores only needed maintenance around once a week, but Doc insisted that since I was also a person, I was a special case and needed more care.


    Part of me wished I could just forego my body entirely and just be Theseus, but that was apparently both not possible and would prevent me from experiencing some of the more interesting pleasures that my body did allow me.


    I shook my head as another ping hit me like the unsatisfying reminder of a snoozed alarm. I¡¯d dozed off again thinking about it. Not for too long this time, thankfully. I sighed and flipped the switch to begin opening my enclosure, mentally preparing myself for at least twenty minutes of sensory hell.


    The human body can quickly abandon its senses to enter the calm that the core module offers, but it acclimates itself to a lack of sensation. And when that sensation returns, it is always terrifyingly magnified, making the return trip from the core module an ordeal, even if a dive has only lasted a couple hours. I closed my eyes as the void flickered off around me, the illusion of the infinite nothingness disappearing as the machinery¡¯s lights turned off, and the slats that created it slid away into the side of the sphere. Vision was a sense that I could mercifully tune out while the rest of them began their assault.


    The digital world blurred and flickered as the remnants of light from the dying machine touched me from the other side of my eyelids and the flow of fluid draining above me attacked my ears. The gentle pull of gravity made my stomach turn as the engine that kept me centered in the sphere wound down.


    Then the worst of it hit. My bare feet gently touched the platform beneath me, and I winced. All of my senses already felt battered, but the worst was always touch. With experience, I¡¯d learned to hold myself perfectly still so as not to activate more nerves in my feet than were strictly necessary, but I still felt my breathing quicken, involuntarily sucking in more core lubricant I knew I would soon need to expel in an effort to calm the electricity firing up through my body from my soles.


    Next came temperature. As the fluid drained and came down over the top of my forehead, exposing my skin to air, I felt that terrible chill of the ship move down my face. The others, and even my own sensors didn¡¯t indicate any abnormality in the internal environment¡¯s temperature, but I still felt unbearably cold every time I left the core module. Of course, that wouldn¡¯t last long for the most brutal step in transferring between realities.


    I expelled as much of the core lubricant as I could manage from my lungs before the air reached my mouth, but that wouldn¡¯t save me from the action my lungs weren¡¯t technically built for. The air touched my lips, and I spent a moment shivering and breathless before I tried to inhale.


    I choked. I hadn¡¯t been careful enough, and hadn¡¯t emptied my lungs well enough this time, and I reeled, vomiting up a mass of clear fluid into the still-draining basin around me. My weight shifted, sending even more sparks up my spine from touch before I drew in a desperate gasp of air, my lungs finally deciding to behave themselves. I dribbled and coughed up a few more ounces of core lubricant before I was breathing steady again, and by then, the sphere around me had begun to split apart and reveal the heart of my shell.


    I focused on my breathing, shivering as I stood at the center of the basin, collecting myself. I reached up and grasped the clumped up glob of my hair, still soaked in lubricant. Sometimes I could manage to squeeze some of it out back into the module before I left it, but as my hands tried to close around the wet mass and sent spikes of tingling pins and needles up my arms, I had to concede that it wasn¡¯t one of those days, and just let it be.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    ¡°Need any help?¡± I heard a whisper above me. I didn¡¯t dare open my eyes, but Doc¡¯s voice was clear, even distant as it was. He knew well not to use his full speaking volume when I was like this. I gave a shuddering breath as I slowly shook my head. ¡°You know, you don¡¯t always have to come up right out of torpor,¡± he sighed. ¡°Could have given you a half hour to wake up. If you could keep yourself up, anyway.¡±


    It was true that being more awake would have made the transition a bit simpler, but I had just wanted to get it over with. It wasn¡¯t like this wasn¡¯t a normal occurrence by now. Spending some time thinking about it wasn¡¯t going to make it that much less painful. Besides, I was handling it far better than I did at the beginning of my journey. I¡¯d have probably spent a good five minutes gasping and choking on lubricant alone back then. But the sensory shock never seemed to go away, no matter how used to it I was. ¡°J-Just help m...me up,¡± I whimpered, my stutter back on my lips now that I was no longer mostly machine.


    The process was slow. It needed to be, so I wouldn¡¯t have a visceral, painful reaction to the pressure against my skin. Doc helped dab my hands dry on paper, since towels were a nightmare of tiny individual fibers, and I would grip the edge of the module so he could help pull me up out onto the catwalk, where I would be placed onto a larger paper sheet and then carried to the closest medical table, where I would slowly come to terms with the physical world again.


    I was lucky to be so small, at least. Doc never struck me as the strongest person, kind of a twink if we were exercising gay stereotypes, but he didn¡¯t need much effort to lift me.


    I was placed onto the bed face-down, and I flinched as I felt him prod at the small of my back. Psychosomatic damage seemed to prefer presenting at the base of my spine, so it was always a priority for him to check. ¡°Seems alright,¡± he whispered again, for my sake. ¡°The bruising is finally all healed up.¡±


    ¡°G-Good,¡± I managed to stammer out before coughing up another glob of clear, tacky fluid. I didn¡¯t want any reminders left over of the catastrophic damage to my cargo bay I¡¯d experienced near Luna. As he slowly turned me onto my back, I let the unfocused, blurry static of the digital world slip away as I took in a deep breath and ventured to squint my eyes open. The sharp contrast of light and darkness, the innate mental calculation of depth perception, and color recognition gave me a head rush. One would think that my eyes would be tired from staring into bright lights all night, but it was the mental effort of processing sight again that made my brain hurt.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you a few minutes before I get to the rough stuff,¡± Doc teased in that low gentle voice he used to make sure my poor sensitive ears didn¡¯t explode. By ¡®rough stuff¡¯, he meant manipulating my muscles and checking my reflexes to make sure I wasn¡¯t experiencing muscular atrophy, things that a normal human toddler wouldn¡¯t find challenging or even necessary. But I was far from a normal human.


    ¡°Ais...ling give any n-news?¡± I spoke hoarsely after a few minutes of silent recovery, still shaking from the perceived cold.


    ¡°Said she¡¯d have some news for us at dinner. Why?¡± He let himself start speaking normally again. The rule was that if I could stand to hear my own voice, I could handle his. At least this process was getting faster each time I did it.


    ¡°Think we¡¯re go...going to be leaving Io s-soon,¡± I smiled at him. It would mean about a month in wild space, just flying. After six months trapped on or near this moon, I couldn¡¯t wait.


    ¡°Oh, really?¡± Doc gave an amused chuckle. ¡°Suppose that means you¡¯re ready to choke down a lot more emergency rations?¡±


    ¡°G-Gross. We better have re...real food this time.¡± I gave a weak chuckle, then winced as Doc slowly lifted my leg up, forcing a shuddering whine from me as he squeezed at some section of muscle at the top of my calf he always did and bent my leg. ¡°Fuck, w-warn me...¡±


    ¡°Nah, more fun this way.¡± I could feel Doc smirking at me through my hazy vision. ¡°Heat must finally be dying down. I bet we¡¯re heading back to Luna?¡±


    ¡°Pro...bably. F-finally settle into the nor...mal life of space p-pirates.¡±


    ¡°No such thing, I¡¯m afraid,¡± Doc gave an exhausted sigh. ¡°I can¡¯t say I have the longest experience as an outlaw, but it¡¯s been nothing but one strange circumstance after another, so far. We¡¯re never going to settle into a ¡®normal¡¯ like the people who play by the corps¡¯ rules have. It¡¯s going to be one bizarre experience after another until we all end up in a box.¡±


    I nodded slowly. It was a grim take, but he wasn¡¯t wrong. We probably weren¡¯t going to live to die old of natural causes, and it was probably going to be a frantic experience the whole way through. ¡°D-Do you miss it? The... r-routine? S-Sense of safe...ty?¡±


    ¡°A little.¡± He put my leg down and walked around to tug at the other one. ¡°Though it¡¯s easy to see the flaws of that ¡®safety¡¯ from the outside.¡±


    ¡°At least we¡¯re f-free,¡± I muttered.


    He nodded. ¡°In a sense.¡± My eyes were acclimated by now, my brain switching modes back to physical reality at last while I felt Doc poking around at the sides of my sternum. ¡°You¡¯re still underweight.¡±


    ¡°What do you w-want from me? There¡¯s n...no gym in the void,¡± I rolled my eyes and regretted the immediate sense of vertigo.


    Doc flicked my arm, making me flinch before he went on to inspect whatever he was looking for there, too. ¡°Eat more than once every couple days,¡± he demanded.


    ¡°I eat w-when I¡¯m hu...hungry,¡± I pouted. ¡°You know I burn way few...fewer calories than a n-normal human when I¡¯m in the core mod...ule.¡±


    ¡°Well, you¡¯re still burning too many.¡± He finally quit prodding me and stood back from the table. ¡°I¡¯ve let you get away with this for too long, Meryll. I can¡¯t believe this is something I have to do for anyone, but I¡¯m putting my foot down and as your doctor, I¡¯m prescribing you to eat every time you come up.¡±


    I groaned, ¡°Seriously? E-Every time? I¡¯m not even hungry, rea...lly.¡±


    ¡°Well, your body is. You¡¯re not getting back in the module until I hear you¡¯ve had an actual meal.¡±


    ¡°I can enforce that.¡± I turned my head to see Aisling standing in the doorway, a smug smile on her face. Then I winced at the terrible sensation of my head rubbing against the bed.


    ¡°Ser...iously?¡± I whined. ¡°I¡¯m j-just going to feel stuffed.¡±


    ¡°Doctor¡¯s orders.¡± She chuckled. ¡°Glad I caught you. I want you to be there in the flesh for the big reveal on our ¡®mark¡¯. I know it¡¯s harder for you to keep your mouth under control when you don¡¯t need to run a bunch of functions to speak, so I wanted to go over a little bit of a script with you. Nothing major, just some points to keep in mind. A narrative that I want you to stick with.¡±


    ¡°Oh? We¡¯ve decided what to do with the other captain?¡± Doc asked.


    ¡°And a few other things. We¡¯ll get you up to speed at dinner, like I said. Nothing left of breakfast, so you¡¯ll have to make something yourself or wait til¡¯ then, Meryll.¡± She gave a small wave and departed from the doorway.


    ¡°Better m-mood than yester...day at least,¡± I commented, slowly pushing myself up to sitting at the side of the bed. The world still felt a little disorienting, but the terrible feeling of pins and needles across every nerve was dulled enough that I could move on my own again, so long as I didn¡¯t have to stand yet. ¡°F-Fine, I guess I¡¯ll just... occupy myself for t-today, then.¡±

 Coming Clean

    I walked into Collins¡¯ room behind Aisling this time, along with Shaw, Doc, and Joel, who all looked on with a much more relaxed air than the last time we¡¯d each made contact with the former captain. She glared at all of us regardless of the more friendly parade, though I saw her eyes drift to me a few more times than the others. Curiosity over my state of being?


    After a moment of us settling into the room in silence, she growled, ¡°Need witnesses for an execution?¡±


    ¡°Actually, we¡¯re done with that act,¡± Aisling led, throwing her arms open. ¡°You passed with flying colors.¡±


    Collins quirked an eyebrow and stared at her with an expression of deep distrust. ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    ¡°My name is Captain Aisling Barrowin. I can now formally welcome you aboard Theseus without all the pretense.¡± She pulled a chair up and sat down on it backwards, with her arms rested over the back. She made sure to stay more than an arm¡¯s reach distance from her. ¡°I may have told a little fib. Wasn¡¯t sure where exactly your loyalties lay yet, so I orchestrated a little show to see how you¡¯d react if a screw put you on the spot. Gotta say, I am a big fan of the enthusiastic self-sacrifice.¡±


    Collins¡¯ expression didn¡¯t become any less tense, but her anger had clearly been turned immediately to analytical confusion. ¡°I¡¯m... not under arrest?¡±


    ¡°Lady, the effort we¡¯d need to get you arrested would probably get us all killed,¡± Joel smirked.


    ¡°We¡¯re not resistance, but you could say that we¡¯re... sympathetic to the cause.¡± Shaw spoke up next. ¡°After all, if they stabilize that region, they¡¯re a stone¡¯s throw from Luna.¡±


    Collins furrowed her eyes again, and took a moment to speak up. ¡°You¡¯re pirates,¡± she declared with an almost accusatory tone.


    ¡°And you¡¯re a smuggler, at the very least,¡± Aisling shot back. ¡°We¡¯re hardly enemies. I¡¯d put us under the same label of ¡®lawless anti-corporate hellions¡¯. Sorry about the deception, but I think you¡¯ve more than proven you¡¯re not going to go and sell us out for no good reason.¡±


    Some of the tension seemed to release from Collins¡¯ body, but she wasn¡¯t off her guard yet. ¡°Give me some proof. Show me something that tells me this isn¡¯t just another ploy.¡±


    Aisling tilted her head, frowning slightly. ¡°First of all, I have no actual interest in whatever information you may or may not have on the Martian resistance. Good on you, keeping that to yourself. Second of all...¡± She reached into her jacket and produced her tablet, tossing it into Collins¡¯ lap and making her flinch. She slowly turned to look at the tablet and her eyes softened a bit more at it as she stared at the photograph and details that followed. ¡°My bounty sheet. Take it as a sign of trust. A mote of truth in the charges, but I¡¯m sure you know how inflated they tend to be.¡±


    Collins scrolled down on the tablet, but didn¡¯t seem especially comforted by what she was reading. Still, it hammered home the point. ¡°You¡¯re either fantastic at manufacturing official looking documents, or you¡¯re unbelievably dangerous.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t see why it can¡¯t be both.¡± Shaw shrugged. ¡°Suppose I could manage it if I took some time on it.¡± We all turned to him at once with a wall of unimpressed looks. ¡°What? I thought we were being honest now.¡±


    Aisling cleared her throat and turned her attention back to Collins. ¡°Right. We are. I would appreciate some reciprocation on that front, though.¡± She held her hand out with her palm up. ¡°The shiv?¡±


    Collins flinched, her eyes opening wide and darting to the side for a moment. ¡°Shiv?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a piece of the handle on your bio monitor missing. You¡¯ve been sharpening it against the back side of the bed since last night. Don¡¯t blame you, since you didn¡¯t know what was actually going on, but I hardly think there¡¯s a need for it now that you don¡¯t need to go out in a desperate blaze of violent glory. We¡¯re on our way back home soon, and I don¡¯t see why we can¡¯t drop you off on the way. So no need for that.¡±


    Collins hesitated for a few tense moments of silence before she reached slowly back under her pillow and produced a small chunk of broken plastic that hadn¡¯t been rendered very sharp at all yet, but was clearly being shaved down to a point. She looked down with a hint of shame and tossed it to the floor at Aisling¡¯s feet. ¡°Okay, fine. I¡¯d have gotten beaten or worse for that if you were corporate,¡± she grumbled. ¡°So what¡¯s your angle?¡±


    Aisling smiled, then turned to me. ¡°Thought you said it was a weapon already, that¡¯s hardly ready to kill someone.¡±


    I shrugged, ¡°I-It looked sh... sharp from the sensor.¡±


    Collins¡¯ eyes snapped to mine at that, bewilderment washing over her as I openly expressed using a machine function. I took a step back from the sudden attention, but she didn¡¯t say anything directly.


    ¡°So, now that we¡¯re being all open and everything, do you mind if maybe my physician can look you over again?¡± She motioned to Doc. ¡°He wants to give you physical therapy so you can get you back on your feet. I assure you, he¡¯s qualified.¡±


    ¡°Trained in a proper college on Titan,¡± Doc spoke up, trying to maintain a neutral tone. When Collins¡¯ eyes furrowed at him again, he only smirked. ¡°Let¡¯s just say the lifestyle disagreed with me.¡±


    ¡°You do have that look to you...¡± Collins muttered, the comment lighthearted, but her tone still rigid. ¡°I don¡¯t trust you people, but I¡¯m not in much of a position to complain. You did... save me, I guess. And I¡¯m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you¡¯re not fascists for now. No more questions about my operations?¡±


    ¡°Keep it to yourself.¡± Aisling shrugged. ¡°We don¡¯t have any use for it. I don¡¯t even think Shaw here cares.¡±


    He shook his head. ¡°Not really. That kind of information is only valuable to militarists, and though I do love to make valuable exchanges happen, I¡¯m not in the habit of working against my better interest. Please, keep Mars as independent as possible. That¡¯s worth more than whatever short term gains I might rake in by selling out.¡±This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    ¡°Info broker?¡± Collins asked, still looking dour. She scoffed, ¡°And one with a conscience?¡±


    Shaw smiled and pointed at her with a pair of finger guns, ¡°Nailed it in one. I¡¯m not one to be tied down to a crew like this, just passing through as you are. Lovely sort to fly with once you¡¯re past the ¡®prisoner¡¯ stage.¡±


    Ignoring that statement for now, she turned to look at Joel. ¡°And he¡¯s the muscle?¡±


    Before Joel could comment, Aisling gave an enthusiastic, ¡°Yep.¡±


    He rolled his eyes at that, and gave a warm smile to Collins. ¡°Gotta say, good to hear there¡¯s still people fighting the good fight on Mars. Wish I could¡¯ve stayed myself, but...¡± He looked about ready to say something else, but he frowned and just let out an exasperated sigh.


    Collins gave him an uncertain nod. Then she turned to me. ¡°And her?¡±


    Aisling grew a wide smile. ¡°Meryll is... special.¡±


    I fidgeted nervously with my hands as soon as she got to me, and smiled as it became my turn to play my part. ¡°Well... I-I¡¯m... I¡¯m Theseus.¡±


    Collins looked surprised to once more hear the truth spoken so bluntly. It caught her off guard and she went silent again. She seemed conflicted, but eventually she asked outright, ¡°So those messages I read on my core¡¯s terminal...¡±


    I smiled at her, then brushed my hair back to show the neural implant. ¡°Yeah. We h-have a lot in c-common.¡±


    She stared at my implant in disbelief, her mouth hanging open slightly as her expression quickly cycled through awe, confusion, and skepticism.


    ¡°Meryll was a surprise for us, too,¡± Aisling chimed in. ¡°Comes out for maintenance one day moving on her own and asking questions. A machine core with a soul.¡± That part wasn¡¯t entirely untrue, if a little over-embellished.


    ¡°No branding...¡± she mumbled, ¡°Is it under its... her clothes?¡± The fact that she momentarily stumbled on a dehumanizing pronoun made me wince slightly, but I tried not to show it. At least she got it right in the end.


    Aisling shook her head. It was time to get the one remaining fabrication of my story out there. It was best not to let her know I was Foundation¡¯s pet project. ¡°She¡¯s not mass produced. There¡¯s this genius on Luna that made her. He was surprised by this, too. He¡¯s working on replicating it. You know how slow things like that can go without corpo money, though. It¡¯s especially hard while keeping the whole thing under wraps so the corps don¡¯t try and steal the research.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s... unbelievable.¡± Collins continued staring at me with rapt fascination. I eventually returned a concerned look to her, and she finally averted her gaze. ¡°Ah. That¡¯s... so she¡¯s a fully... aware person?¡±


    I nodded to her. ¡°Y-Yes. I-I know most peo...ple only see c-c-cores as machinery, but... I... would appreciate it if I w-was tre...treated like any other member of the crew, th-thank you.¡± I kept stumbling over my words, more than usual. I guess I was nervous. Who wouldn¡¯t be in my situation?


    She nodded back to me slowly, then blinked a few times, shaking her head. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, that¡¯s just... a lot to wrap my head around all at once. Ten minutes ago, I thought you were about to walk in and torture me, now you¡¯re throwing a pile of existential crises my way. I thought consciousness and psionic resonance were incompatible.¡±


    I gave her a smirk, closed my eyes and sent an audible ping to the tablet in Collins¡¯ hands. She startled and looked down to see a system message in the center of the screen that said ¡®Think again.¡¯ I had made sure to put a hand into my pocket beforehand as Aisling had instructed. It wasn¡¯t for anything practical, but it gave Collins a reasonable avenue of disbelief that perhaps I was controlling things another way.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s creepy.¡± Collins muttered to herself as she pushed the tablet away from her onto the bed.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it?¡± Joel rolled his eyes. ¡°Didn¡¯t think as much about my privacy as I do now that I know there¡¯s an actual person constantly watching my every move and not just a bio-computer.¡± He gestured up toward the sensor array at the top of the room as he was instructed to do. ¡°I¡¯ll show you how to shut them off later.¡± That part hadn¡¯t been in the script.


    I opened my eyes again and pouted at Joel, ¡°H-Hey, how would you like it if poked your e-e-eyes out? Cause that¡¯s what you¡¯re do...ing.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m doing you a favor,¡± Joel crossed his arms and frowned. ¡°I already know you don¡¯t want to see what I¡¯m doing when I¡¯m alone in my quarters.¡±


    ¡°Gross.¡± Aisling and Shaw said in unison. They turned to trade a look of annoyance and amusement before Aisling brought her attention back to Collins. ¡°Anyway, as you can tell, this is a very sensitive matter, but something that we would be unable to hide from you for very long. Now that we¡¯ve decided we don¡¯t need to do anything too drastic about you, I thought it best that we be up front on the matter. I should say that Meryll¡¯s sapience has proven to be a major boon in many ways since she ¡®woke up¡¯. She can reason and interpret situations creatively without user input. I¡¯ve seen her in action, and the kinds of things she can do with this ship in a dogfight are nothing short of miraculous. Not to mention her affinity for effortlessly accessing smaller computers. I¡¯m sure that we can agree that something of that magnitude could become a very, VERY big problem for all of us if she or her creator should fall into a corporation¡¯s hands.¡±


    Collins froze up at the thought. It must not have occurred to her just what this kind of discovery could mean for military corps. ¡°I... I understand,¡± she said quietly. ¡°The last things Mars needs is for our enemies to have an edge like that. I¡¯ll keep quiet on the matter.¡±


    Aisling stood up from her chair and gave a relieved sigh. ¡°Then I think we have everything on the table. Captain Morgan Collins, I welcome you as a guest on my ship, until such time that we part. Be aware that we are currently in a communications lockdown. No broadcasting anything via relay; Meryll will make sure nothing gets through that shouldn¡¯t. There¡¯s a reason we¡¯re on Io, after all.¡±


    ¡°Wait, we¡¯re actually on Io?¡± Collins recoiled slightly. ¡°That wasn¡¯t a bluff?¡±


    Aisling turned and quirked her eyebrow. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how long you were in wild space before your ¡®incident¡¯, but there is currently a military blockade over Luna. Foundation. We assumed the worst and fled here. By the time we got access to the relay again, we were already here, and found out it was just some big-headed show of force.¡±


    Collins gave her a concerned look. ¡°Who hides from their enemies at their back door?¡±


    Aisling held up a finger to silence her before she turned around the corner from the open door. ¡°Who looks for their enemies at their back door?¡±


    Collins shook her head. ¡°That¡¯s insane.¡±


    ¡°Probably.¡± Shaw shrugged and turned to leave for himself, alongside Joel. ¡°But it worked, didn¡¯t it?¡±


    I chuckled as the door closed behind him, leaving just Collins, Doc, and I in the room together.


    Doc spoke up first, stepping forward and sliding the shiv across the floor with his foot. ¡°Well, barring you holding onto any more dangerous implements you might want to show now, I¡¯d like to do a more thorough examination now that you¡¯re conscious, and see how you handle being back on your feet, so I know where to start.¡±


    Collins looked down at the tablet on the bed, still displaying the message. On a whim, I closed my eyes and erased the message, replacing it with a smiley face. ¡°Haha, okay...¡± Collins looked away from it again with a nervous smile, seeming more than a little lost. ¡°That makes sense, but why is she still here, then?¡±


    I tilted my head. ¡°Oh, m-me?¡± I asked. ¡°I ac...tually had s-some questions for you. About I-Isabelle.¡±

 Curiosity

    ¡°Isabelle?¡± Collins spoke slowly, a shocked and confused look on her face, still marred by the shock of learning what I was. She hesitated a moment longer and then stammered out ¡°I-I¡¯m sorry, I don¡¯t know anyone by that name. And I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m going to be much use for information to... you.¡±


    I gave her a sad smile and chuckled nervously. ¡°W-Well, you don¡¯t really know her by the n...name.¡± As fun as it might be to dance around the subject for a little while, I decided to just be straightforward, since the poor woman was probably already overwhelmed with shocking information at the moment. ¡°I¡¯m ta-talking about your core.¡±


    ¡°My...¡± She paused to think a moment, then a look of surprise washed over her face. ¡°My core? As in Demitrius¡¯s core? You... kept it?¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°L-Let¡¯s just say she-she¡¯s an interesting conver...sation partner. In fact, she¡¯s s-slaved to my system architec...ture. I even let her have access to the s-sensor array in this room so she could k-keep an eye on you.¡±


    Collins stared at me with confused concern until Doc cleared his throat and approached her, drawing her eye. ¡°Meryll can be a bit... eccentric about other machine cores. She insisted we keep it around so she could... experiment on it, I suppose. I¡¯m still the one doing maintenance on the thing, and I assure you, it isn¡¯t nearly as ¡®alive¡¯ as she is. I need to determine the state of your musculature. Am I okay to touch you? Respectfully, of course.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m w-working on it. I swear she¡¯s be...coming more self-aware, I just need t-time,¡± I pouted. Though we had agreed to play up my enthusiasm about Isabelle¡¯s humanity, my reaction was genuine. I knew Doc and the others didn¡¯t have the same belief in the core that I did; that I could wake it up on my own through encouragement and relentlessly treating it as sapient.


    Collins nodded slowly to Doc¡¯s question and offered her arm to him. ¡°You¡¯re... trying to make my core like you?¡± She asked without turning to me. ¡°A... person?¡±


    As Doc held the woman¡¯s forearm and applied pressure to a few places along her arm, I smiled at her. ¡°I am. Sh-She was pivotal in your res...cue, and I think there¡¯s m-more to her than just a computer. I shouldn¡¯t have been able t-to get what I did out of her, but she f-found ways around her own proto...cols to make it happen. There¡¯s a w-will in there, I know it. And besides that, sh-she deserves better than be...ing scrapped, the way she helped you.¡±


    Collins turned and stared at me with bewildered curiosity for a few moments until she winced at Doc pressing his hand into her bicep. ¡°Ngh... hurts.¡±


    ¡°Tender? You did have a bruise there when you came out of the core module,¡± Doc noted. ¡°Might still be sensitive from general disuse.¡±


    She nodded. ¡°Is she always this... enthusiastic?¡±


    ¡°Psychologically, Meryll is less than a year old, piggybacking on knowledge established as a biocomputer. Of course she has some eccentricities.¡± Doc produced a small spring device and placed it in Collins¡¯ hand. ¡°See where your grip strength is.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a certain innocence to her, huh?¡± Collins smirked as she tried to pull in on the device, her hand shaking.


    ¡°H-Hey... I¡¯m not naive just be...cause I¡¯m young, you know,¡± I mumbled. ¡°I get that we¡¯re not the best peo...ple and that what we do is d-dangerous, but we¡¯re still t-trying to be the good guys.¡± I stood up and started pacing a little. ¡°Any...way, I w-wanted to ask about Isa...belle because I¡¯ve only been able to do so much with h-her. I-I wanted to ask you if you could allow admin...administrative access to her.¡±


    Collins¡¯ good mood disintegrated instantly. ¡°Why?¡± she asked coldly.


    ¡°W-Well, there¡¯s certain things that are ha-hard for me to do now that I¡¯m... l-like this. Protocols that d-don¡¯t mesh well with sa...pience. I thought she c-could help me understand them be...tter again.¡± It was hard to explain exactly why I needed full access to the core. ¡°See, there¡¯s certain parts of co...communication protocols that are hard for me to understand opera...ting as a person, and I th-thought she could give me better perspective on how to... to talk to other cores again. As it is, I n-need to talk with her through standard t-text ex...changes.¡±


    Collins gave me a serious, hardened expression that slowly softened as she let go of the spring device in her hand. ¡°I feel so weak...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s understandable,¡± Doc chuckled. ¡°I tried to move you around every day to keep things from atrophying too much, but there¡¯s only so much time I can dedicate to that.¡±


    She nodded. ¡°I can¡¯t give you administrative access. There¡¯s too much sensitive information on that core, and I think you know that.¡±


    ¡°So w-wipe the sensitive stuff,¡± I requested with a shrug. ¡°I don¡¯t care. I just want to be able to t-talk to Izzy without running into all these walls of proto...cols. I don¡¯t care what¡¯s on her storage, and I d-don¡¯t think you care to keep that in...formation on her, either. So just wipe that s-stuff.¡±


    Collins chuckled. ¡°You say that like I can access... it.¡± I smiled a little wider at her stumbling over the pronoun. She almost called Isabelle ¡®her¡¯.


    I reached into my pocket again. This time, the motion definitely caught her eye. I closed my own eyes and checked to make sure Isabelle was in attendance at the moment. ¡°She¡¯s w-watching. Listen...ing. I gave her permission. In fact...¡± I expanded Isabelle¡¯s permissions to extend to limited access of the terminal in Collins¡¯ bed, then gestured to it. ¡°She can t-talk if she wants to.¡±


    Collins stared down at the tablet, lifting it up gently. A blank text file had been opened, but Isabelle hadn¡¯t put anything in it yet. ¡°Go on, j-just say what you w-want from her, she¡¯ll re...ply.¡±


    She hesitated, then spoke out loud ¡°Demitrius, display core serial information.¡± The screen immediately printed out the same designation information that it had given me six months ago, complete with redacted data where serial numbers and service titles would normally be in the readout. Collins looked surprised at the screen, then tilted it away from Doc and I, clearly stating in a grim tone, ¡°Demitrius, phantom protocol.¡±Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Of course, I was still cognizant of the screen, which began displaying a series of file designations along with the word ¡®deleted¡¯ after each. Collins stared at the screen nervously, tension growing on her face for a moment, then she sighed and spoke out, ¡°Demitrius, interrupt and abort protocol at end of file directories. Abort before final function.¡±


    There was the smallest computational hitch in the text entry before it continued deleting file after file. ¡°You¡¯re too trusting, Meryll,¡± Collins mumbled. ¡°I could have let it continue until it self-terminated.¡±


    My eyes went wide as I realized that whatever ¡®phantom protocol¡¯ was probably intended to erase everything on Isabelle¡¯s storage, and then kill her. Giving Collins access to her meant that she could demand the core end itself with a word. I swallowed my fear at how close I had been to losing Isabelle, then stated, ¡°But... you didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°That just means I¡¯m willing to listen, for now.¡± She tucked the tablet to her side, screen down. ¡°So you want administrative access to... Isabelle, is it? I want something in return.¡±


    I nodded slowly. ¡°I th-thought you might.¡± She needed whatever bit of control she could hold onto right now. Isabelle being a point of leverage for her was important right then.


    ¡°How¡¯d you come up with that name, anyway?¡± she asked as she watched Doc fiddle with something on her biometrics monitor.


    ¡°W-Well... from her designation, i5e-b. I thought it l-looked a little like Isabelle when I put it together and ex...tended it a little,¡± I chuckled nervously. ¡°So I kept c-calling her that, and I think she¡¯s taken a li...king to it.¡±


    She seemed to relax a little bit. ¡°Oh. Is that all?¡± She grew a small smile. ¡°Thought you were fucking with me. That was my mother¡¯s name.¡±


    ¡°Really? What a weird co...incidence.¡± I felt bad now, giving her a name that already meant something to Collins.


    ¡°Anyway,¡± she cleared her throat, an air of authority coming over her weakened frame. ¡°I want this to be considered payment for my passage home. No pulling the rug out from under me with a passenger fee or something when we get there. And I want to be able to ask you questions about... this. Whatever you are. Call me curious.¡±


    She must have been feeling a bit bolder now that she felt she was out of obvious danger and in the hands of, if not allies, at least sympathizers. It would work into our narrative, so that was fine. ¡°I¡¯ll... have to t-talk to the captain about the first thi...thing, but I¡¯m happy to ans...wer q-que...stions.¡±


    ¡°Okay...¡± She nodded, and then went quiet for a moment. I don¡¯t think she anticipated me being so receptive. ¡°Sorry if this is rude, but your... speech impediment. Is that...?¡±


    ¡°Quirk of her brain chemistry,¡± Doc answered before me, drawing from the lore we¡¯d manufactured for me. ¡°Her creator wasn¡¯t exactly working with the kind of genetically engineered stock that mass-produced machine cores are made from, so there¡¯s some unexpected... one might say flaws. You wouldn¡¯t ordinarily think a stutter would be a problem in a machine core, though.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re not usually so talkative, yeah. At least, not verbally.¡± Collins gave a nervous chuckle when she saw my face. I legitimately was pretty sensitive about my speech impediment, and I couldn¡¯t help but feel a bit morose when attention was drawn to it. ¡°Umm... so you¡¯re actually in control of the ship? Like, right now?¡±


    I nodded, glad for the tactful change of topic. ¡°We¡¯re groun...ded right now, so n-not much to do but maintain sys...tems. I only really need the c-core module when I need i-intensive control of Theseus or to act on a compu...tational level. Otherwise, to see digital space, all I n-need to do is...¡± And I closed my eyes, resting my hand casually in my pocket again as I cut to the sensor array in the room. I motioned to it with my head. ¡°I can see you f-from there.¡±


    She looked up directly into the sensors and held her hand up. ¡°How many fingers.¡±


    ¡°Five,¡± I answered smugly. She changed it and I immediately said ¡°Two.¡± She changed it again, then rapidly switched it one more time. ¡°Th-three, then one.¡±


    She put her hand down and asked, ¡°So if I see you close your eyes... you¡¯re the ship?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a-always Theseus. It¡¯s a part of me,¡± I declared as I opened my eyes again. ¡°I can feel the flow of elec...tricity through this room. All the devices connect...ed to me, every panel of armor plating on my ex-exterior. It¡¯s as much me as th-this body is. Maybe more.¡± I couldn¡¯t help myself. Being Theseus was something I was enthusiastic about, and it just felt good to express what it meant to me. My words didn¡¯t do it justice, but there wasn¡¯t really any other good way to show others just what being a starship meant to me.


    ¡°You really like it, huh?¡± Collins gave me an amused smile, a hint of uncertainty still on her face. Perfect. ¡°So... does that captain... Aisling. Does she... own you?¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°Legally...? I g-guess. As far as that m-matters. She doesn¡¯t treat me like... an object or any...th-thing, though, so I don¡¯t m-mind. The crew has been very acc...epting of me.¡± I gave a genuine smile, glad to remind myself that I was a person to them. ¡°They treat me like I-I¡¯m human.¡±


    Collins stared at me with a look of wonder on her face for a moment. I wondered if I had struck her as some kind of whimsical fairy tale in that moment. A being that shouldn¡¯t be, posing as a human being. ¡°That¡¯s... good. That¡¯s a good thing. You¡¯re clearly at least genetically human, anyway. I mean, you¡¯re-¡±


    I shook my head, still smiling at her. ¡°I know I¡¯m n-not like you. It¡¯s okay. But I pre...fer to at least be treated like a p-person. That¡¯s all.¡±


    She nodded. I don¡¯t think she completely grasped what I meant, but she was trying. ¡°What¡¯s it like?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s what l-like?¡± I asked, my smile widening slightly at how invested she was becoming.


    She didn¡¯t answer right away, her mouth hanging open slightly. ¡°Just... being a machine. At the same time as being... this.¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°What¡¯s it like be...ing able to close your eyes and see n-nothing? What¡¯s it like being o-only flesh and blood? What¡¯s it like to enter the core module and feel help...less instead of empowered? I can only imagine it must feel s-small... empty. It¡¯s hard to describe s-something like that either way, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Collins¡¯ expression fell slack. She seemed a bit disappointed with the answer, but she¡¯d become introspective as well. She¡¯d never considered that someone could have such a vastly different experience of reality from her that she wouldn¡¯t even be able to relate to them enough to understand that difference. ¡°I... think I need some time. You kind of blindsided me with all this. It¡¯s a lot to take in at once. I know I have more questions, I just have to put them together.¡±


    ¡°Understandable,¡± I chuckled. Then I asked eagerly, ¡°So... is Isabelle cl-clean enough to pass on to me?¡±


    Collins looked to her side at the tablet, lifting it up to see the lines ¡®operation terminated¡¯ after the long list of files. ¡°Demitrius, wipe this log and any record of it.¡± The file immediately went blank. ¡°... and upon my safe exit from this ship and its vicinity, grant full administrative access to Meryll.¡±


    The file typed out the word ¡®acknowledged¡¯ and that was it.


    I felt a little disappointed at the stipulation. Doc laughed. ¡°Insurance? Yeah, that makes sense, I suppose.¡±


    Collins smiled smugly. ¡°Someone receives payment for work done when they complete that work.¡±


    I gave a loud sigh. ¡°I sup...pose that¡¯s fair.¡± I had really hoped I would be able to start talking with Isabelle about core communication that day, but it seemed it would just have to wait until Mars.


    Doc finally stopped messing with the monitors and turned back to Collins. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s get down to the hard part. Can you try to push yourself to the edge of the bed? We¡¯re going to see if you can hold yourself up.¡±

 Because Youre Here

    ¡®So... did you basically just get your memory wiped?¡¯ I sent to Isabelle as I stepped out of Collins¡¯ room, closing the door behind me so I didn¡¯t have to keep pretending to pretend I was a computer.


    ¡®There is no logged record of recent file system management.¡¯ At this point, I wasn¡¯t sure if that was just exactly what I should have expected a computer to respond with or if it was just playing coy.


    Still, data wasn¡¯t memory, so it wasn¡¯t exactly what I¡¯d asked. ¡®I¡¯m not talking about the files, I mean your memory. In your brain.¡¯


    ¡®Mental integrity is nominal.¡¯ Okay. That was good. Hopefully all those files weren¡¯t holding some secret to her hints of apparent sapience, but we¡¯d find out in time.


    I started walking toward my quarters as I continued the conversation, my eyes closed as I navigated by sensor array. ¡®Well, we got what we wanted. The moment we drop her off, I¡¯ll be your administrator!¡¯ It wasn¡¯t as soon as I¡¯d prefer, but it was definitely something to look forward to. ¡®Feeling relieved?¡¯


    ¡®Acknowledged.¡¯ I wasn¡¯t entirely sure if that was just meant to be a response to my first statement, but I liked to think she was agreeing with me on her emotional state, too.


    I stopped as the door at the end of the hall opened, and Mouse stepped in. He nodded at me and kept walking as I got to my door. Then I heard ¡°Meryll?¡± from the boy, and stopped in my tracks. He sounded uncharacteristically concerned. Opening my eyes, I turned to look back at him to see him looking at me, his expression softer than I expected.


    It didn¡¯t feel like I was looking at Mouse. He looked more lost than his default state of simmering anger. His eyes weren¡¯t set in a resting glare, but a more sullen sadness. We stared at each other for a long, drawn-out moment before he turned away from me and muttered, ¡°Ah... never mind,¡± and stuck his hands into his pockets, his head down as he walked away from me.


    I blinked a few times, unsure what had just happened, but something was definitely up with him. I know he¡¯d just been down in maintenance, still making tiny tweaks to the new artificial gravity units, but I don¡¯t know how that might have upset the teenager.


    I¡¯d have to ask him about it later. For now, I opened the door to my quarters and sat down in my comfy chair. Immediately, I flickered through my sensors. Nothing interesting on externals. No electronic or mechanical faults beyond what I expected. I supposed it was time to spy on the crew again.


    Looking up at the helm, I saw Aisling and Shaw chatting away about something. Those two had been getting pretty close lately. It was entirely professional, but it felt like he¡¯d become a consultant rather than a pseudo-prisoner. They¡¯d turned off the microphone on my sensors, though, so I had no idea what they were up to now. I had to wonder why. Maybe they just didn¡¯t want me butting in. I could take a hint.


    I traveled down into the room I¡¯d just left and heard Doc. ¡°The fact that you can already sit up by yourself is definitely encouraging.¡±


    ¡°Oh good, I¡¯ve reached mid infant physicality. Do I crawl next?¡± She sighed, leaning over with her arms resting on her knees. ¡°Fucking hell, this sucks.¡±


    ¡°We tend to skip that step, but if you insist,¡± Doc smirked as Collins glared at him. ¡°No, once you can hold yourself up in bed for longer than a few minutes, we¡¯ll get you on your feet, then work on walking. It¡¯ll take a bit. We might have you walking around the ship before we drop you off, though.¡±


    ¡°Thanks. I¡¯ll be able to limp home to tell my comrades I lost my ship.¡± It seemed the reality of the situation was hitting her again now that she wasn¡¯t distracted by my mysterious presence.


    Doc nodded. ¡°You¡¯re welcome for keeping your body able to do this much. You¡¯d have come back to years of rehabilitation if you¡¯d just laid there the whole time.¡±


    She muttered out, ¡°Thanks...¡± and dropped sideways onto the mattress, grumbling to herself about her body¡¯s poor shape.


    I couldn¡¯t help myself. I tapped the intercom. ¡°It¡¯s not so bad once you get used to it.¡±


    Collins jerked upright again and stared at the source of my voice. ¡°Oh fuck! Is that what that¡¯s for?¡±


    I giggled to myself in my room. ¡°Technically, no, but once I figured out how to manipulate it, that¡¯s mostly what it gets used for.¡±


    I watched her flop over again, muttering, ¡°Oh god, that guy was right, you are just always here, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Well, yeah. You are inside of me,¡± I laughed mischievously.


    Doc sighed. ¡°I thought you were going to stop saying it like that.¡± He turned to address Collins again with a patient smile, ¡°She probably just wanted to spook you. We¡¯re all used to her interjecting herself into random conversations now, but you¡¯re new.¡±


    ¡°You have no idea how much I wanted to do this earlier, but captain said no. Anyway, yeah, the physical therapy isn¡¯t too bad. You get used to it.¡±


    ¡°She isn¡¯t going to be neglecting her body so much that she needs constant physical therapy, Meryll,¡± Doc scolded me.


    ¡°She really is a child, isn¡¯t she?¡± Collins mumbled, as if I wouldn¡¯t hear. ¡°Gigantic starship child. That¡¯s a scary thought.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have you know, I¡¯m...¡± I paused as I recalled that I legitimately had no idea how old I was. ¡°An adult.¡± Smooth.


    She snorted. ¡°If you¡¯re a clone, you¡¯re probably only a few years on, anyway.¡±


    I still wasn¡¯t completely sure if I had been accelerated through the developmental aging process. I wasn¡¯t exactly a standard clone. Still, it would definitely be true for the cover story. ¡°Well, I look like an adult, and I can think like an adult,¡± I insisted.


    ¡°You sound different,¡± Collins noted. ¡°No stutter.¡±


    I supposed there was no harm in just saying what that was about. It was another angle of doubt to give her. ¡°This voice is synthetic. Manufactured through manipulating audio data. It¡¯d actually be pretty hard to program in my speech impediment.¡± I did wish I could change the inflection of my synthesized voice live outside of the core module, though. That required a deeper concentration than I could manage with my senses intact. But I wasn¡¯t about to emulate my stutter for no reason.


    She nodded silently. I wondered what was going through her head by now. I¡¯d given her enough hints that things might not be what they seemed about me already. Selling the motive she¡¯d need to slip away on her own at Mars would be Aisling¡¯s job.


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    Doc sighed. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about her too much. She¡¯s always going to be present, but she¡¯s not going to butt into everything. I¡¯m sure she has her own work to do.¡±


    Not really. Grounded maintenance was pretty light on my end, but he clearly didn¡¯t want me there either, so I moved on.


    Joel doing pull-ups on one of the sturdier bits of shelving was boring as usual, Lily had moved around in her quarters a little, but she was napping now. Ray was...


    I paused to stare for a few moments at the beautiful woman lounging in her quarters, sprawled out on her back, almost naked. Her eyes were closed, and she was listening to something through earbuds, clearly in some kind of meditative state. Us pseudo-humans seemed to love our non-sleep resting states.


    I moved on before I spent the better part of the next hour staring at Ray¡¯s abs. Last on my list, Mouse was in his quarters, laying on his bed with his hands behind his head, staring up into the ceiling with that lost, pensive look on his face, fidgeting idly. It definitely wasn¡¯t an affectation he¡¯d put on when he addressed me, then. He wasn¡¯t much the type to idle around doing nothing, either. Something was definitely up.


    I didn¡¯t have anything better to do, and he was somewhere more private now. Maybe he¡¯d be more willing to open up. I tapped his intercom and asked, ¡°You want to talk about it?¡±


    He glanced to the intercom unit, then turned back, closing his eyes and holding his body in the same position. He didn¡¯t say anything for a couple minutes, but he eventually let out a frustrated sigh and relaxed his arms. ¡°Just thinking about stuff. Don¡¯t worry about it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a little worried about it,¡± I admitted. ¡°But if you¡¯re not ready-¡±


    He shook his head. ¡°No, I¡¯m just...¡± He grumbled quietly, trying to find the right words. After another few minutes of contemplation, he inhaled deeply. ¡°You remember, a while ago, you said I could talk to you about shit? Get stuff off my chest?¡±


    I nodded. ¡°Of course. If you¡¯ve got something on your mind, I can talk. Not like I¡¯m doing anything else.¡±


    He nodded. Mouse knew better than anyone else on the ship that things were running well right now, and didn¡¯t need attention from either of us. ¡°I don¡¯t... want to feel mad.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think anyone wants to feel mad,¡± I started. Mouse had anger issues; the most emotionally tone-deaf person in existence would see that after spending a few minutes around him. On the surface, it felt like having a chip on his shoulder was his whole personality. I knew better than that, though. ¡°You have a lot to be mad about, after all.¡±


    He gave an affirmative grunt. ¡°Everyone should. I still don¡¯t get how anyone can feel anything else.¡± He turned over onto his side, facing away from my sensors. ¡°Everyone¡¯s suffering. Everyone except the fuckers at the very top. I¡¯m not stupid or blind enough to think I¡¯m the only one who¡¯s had a shitty life. Again and again, the corpo bastards take everything from us and dump us back in the streets, worse off than we were if we¡¯re even still alive at all. So why does it feel like I¡¯m the only one pissed off about it? How can everyone else feel... calm? How can someone be happy in this?¡±


    I didn¡¯t disagree with him. It was infuriating what we, and almost every other person in the system, had to endure. It was an injustice upon life itself. ¡°I guess it¡¯s just something we have to learn to put in the back of our heads sometimes.¡±


    ¡°How?!¡± He snapped, his voice breaking slightly. He didn¡¯t turn to face me. I think he might have felt too vulnerable to face ¡®me¡¯. ¡°How can you put something like that aside, like there isn¡¯t this... monster constantly hovering over you? Like they haven¡¯t tortured you too! Like they¡¯re not still chasing you down with way more force than we can over hope to fight by ourselves!?¡±


    With those words, I felt like I might have had a revelation about Mouse. The corporations were an enemy to me, they disgusted me, and did make me angry, but they were something I could put aside to make myself enjoy a moment of peace or satisfaction in the things I liked to do. To him, they were something more powerful. Something supernatural that had haunted him since before he was even old enough to make sense of what suffering meant. A force that he had no way to contend with. A monster. Mouse wasn¡¯t just mad, he constantly felt cornered. He needed that anger to feel like he could fight it. He was scared.


    After a bit too long contemplating the boy, I tried to choose my words carefully and answer as honestly as I could. ¡°I suppose because I have to. They did do terrible things to me. They gave me a quiet, nominally comfortable lie of a life, and tore it away so that I could serve them. Treated me like their property. Chased me all over the system. Threatened to take away the freedom I was lucky enough to stumble into. That I¡¯ve fought and even killed for now. They¡¯ve tried to hurt and kill my friends to get to me. They literally ripped my brain apart to try to torture me into submission. I have to keep them in mind for every decision I make in my life. And that does make me feel angry. It¡¯s a horrible injustice to all of us. And they¡¯re just so... big. And all of that is just Foundation, never mind every other company out there. My biggest enemy is just a part of an impossible system of terrible people.¡±


    ¡°Exactly,¡± I saw him shudder slightly, still hiding his face. ¡°So with all that, how can you still smile? How can you make jokes, enjoy yourself at meals, and take everything so lightly?¡±


    I shrugged. I didn¡¯t think I had a good answer to that, but I had to say something. ¡°Well... because they¡¯re not here.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit!¡± If the vitriol in his voice were tangible, he could have burned through my hull. He made a low, growling sigh, his voice lowering. ¡°They¡¯re everywhere. They¡¯re all over this moon. Spreading like an infection. They¡¯ll swallow it up just like they did Europa, and Titan, and Ganymede, and Mars, and they¡¯ll come to Luna and Earth too, and no one is doing anything about it!¡± He pounded his fist against the wall by his bed. His mechanical arms probably made him the only one who I would be able to actually feel hitting the internal walls of my shell. When he next spoke, he sounded tired and distant. ¡°There isn¡¯t anywhere that¡¯s safe. All of us pirates should be banding together. Make an armada to bomb the fuck out of every corporate holdout in the outer colonies. How can we just sit around and...¡±


    As he trailed off into silence, his fist still pressed up against the wall, I couldn¡¯t help but think about the logistics of such a straightforward plan. Cathartic as the idea was, it wouldn¡¯t end well for us. I thought about leaving him to wallow in his misery since it seemed like anything I had to say would just piss him off more, but maybe I was looking at the problem the wrong way. I had been focusing too much on trying to quell his hatred and not on what he should actually focus on instead.


    ¡°Then...¡± I started cautiously, ¡°It¡¯s because you¡¯re here.¡±


    His hand unclenched slightly, and I saw his shoulders droop. I half-expected another exclamation and a demand that I leave him alone, but it didn¡¯t come. Instead, I just heard a weakly-muttered ¡°What?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t sure if he got what I meant or if he was just confused, but I had to elaborate either way. ¡°You. Aisling, Joel, Doc, Lily, even Shaw to a degree, too. The crew. My friends. You¡¯re here. Definitely closer than they are. So... I can be happy because you¡¯re all here.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but shudder as I thought about the alternative. ¡°I mean, while I could conceivably still be Theseus on my own, for a while at least, I¡¯d probably be a neurotic mess if I didn¡¯t have all of you guys. Way more of a neurotic mess, that is.¡±


    Mouse momentarily turned his head, looking back up towards the sensor array for just a second before he curled his body up away from me again. ¡°That¡¯s stupid,¡± he mumbled, but he didn¡¯t sound like he meant it. The fire that had been building had been quelled, and he had calmed down from the tantrum that might have happened otherwise. ¡°It¡¯s not that simple, is it?¡±


    I smiled at what I¡¯d seen. I thought for sure that I¡¯d seen tears in the boy¡¯s eye. Something besides rage. ¡°Maybe. But it means something to me, at least.¡± I figured it was best to let him sit on that one, but one thing still bugged me. ¡°So... what brought all this up, anyway? It¡¯s been months since we last talked about this.¡±


    Mouse breathed slow, trying to cover up a sniffle, then spoke slowly, ¡°I don¡¯t know. It was just something Lily said at breakfast.¡±