Theseus

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.”

“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.