Theseus

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.

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?”