Theseus

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.”

“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.

—

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.

—

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.”