Theseus

“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?”

“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.