Theseus 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... experint.” I admitted sheepishly over breakfast.

I was already out of the core module; I figured I may as well join the others for a al before I climbed back in. Much as I loathed eating our current supply, I knew I had to. It was a bitter dicine to keep my body running. And we were near enough to our destination that I was eagerly counting down the als 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, ryll.” Aisling reminded . “Unless it’s relevant to our current situation, your past is personal. Always rember that.”

I nodded, but I didn’t really have any problems with sharing so of my history. It was exciting to that I knew sothing real about my childhood, depressing as it was. “Well... I’ll j-just say that Lily was a lot more pro...tective of than I thought. I-I figured she was so-sothing like a little sister to , 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 ... sane.”

“Hold up. ‘When I was little’?” Mouse asked, raising an eyebrow at .

“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 an, 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 mories told I had a childhood, but those didn’t an anything. The mory also had the monstrous shadow people escorting the others around and detaining when I beca 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 for a mont, 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. ryll used to be soone else. She lost her mory 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 troubleso my ntal 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 mories, 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 ...mories since I-I joined Theseus.” I frowned slightly as I recalled the pain once more. Its absence was welco, 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 ant to be there. It was t-too real.”

The room went silent as everyone chose to focus more on forcing down their als 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 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 . Maybe I’d keep that bit to myself.

Doc kept a quiet watch over for the entire rest of the al. 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 about it later, after I’d had so ti 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 sothing 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 ca from those things was just an unreadable ss.” 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 so, and... I-I think I might have convinced it to give so 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 ans 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 do 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 sa tone soone 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 . She stared at for a few monts. Analyzing . 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, “ryll, 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 argunt 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 et Aisling’s gaze again. “I was like that once, too. Any clone probably has the potential to beco like .”

“I... suppose?” Aisling shrugged.

“Technically right.” Shaw chid in with an almost mocking tone. “But it’s kind of like saying an unfertilized egg has the potential to beco 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 ant by that. I just wish he hadn’t presented it in such an irritating way. “O-Okay, but... I just want to experint 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. “ryll, 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 so kind of results before we hit Io if we’re going to do this.”

“Thanks, captain. I-I’ll have sothing to show y-you. Promise.” I nodded quietly to her. I would get so use out of Isabelle. I doubted I could fully wake her up like Foundation did for . I didn’t have that kind of tech or knowledge behind . But I wanted to see if maybe I could unlock so 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 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 soone 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 so 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 so 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 ryll can fight now.” Joel chid in. “We won’t need to pull the sneaky shit that got us blown up last ti anymore.”

“Hopefully.” I grumbled. Being blown up wasn’t exactly fun for , either.

“Yes, barring extre circumstances, I don’t see us taking that kind of catastrophic damage again. ryll’s a capable pilot now.” Aisling smiled at .

“She could still use a little work on her technique.” Mouse grumbled.

I felt a wave of disgust wash over 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 ca pouring out of 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 that I realized that I had just shouted it quite loudly. I blinked a few tis, trying to make sense of the last few seconds. Perhaps I still needed to spend so more ti 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 an, 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 mont, it was like I was back in that room with Mouse yelling at 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 a concerned look of her own now. She cleared her throat and swiftly changed the subject. “I an 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 monuntally lucky. We’re taking zero unnecessary chances from here.” There was a more somber line of agreent 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?”

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“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 elent.”

Joel groaned. “Eugh, outer colony criminal circles an 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 so 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 cos 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 sotis, like at ryll’s shuttle.”

There was a somber silence for a few monts. 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 mont 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 montary lapse in judgent, 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 so lab so...where if you didn’t. But no one ever t-told 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 Hers class ships aren’t usually ard, and I guessed wrong.”

“Scuttled the ship, found ryll in the salvage.” Aisling finished. “That’s the long and short of it. In hindsight, that was probably a much more well-ard transport with a shell made to look like a shuttle. Probably specifically for transporting ryll.”

“Makes 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 tis.”

“Running out of luck indeed.” Shaw mumbled. “The fuck have you lot put up with to deserve this much good karma?”

“A lot,” ca 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 mont 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 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 mont 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 ti 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 soone 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 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 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 bla 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 soone.”

The room went quiet after that. I finished my food and excused myself. Doc followed soon after , and as soon as we were out of earshot of the ss hall, he asked, “Are you alright, ryll? What was all that about?”

“I... I’ll t-tell you later. I p-promise. Just... I just need so s-space right now. Torpor. Gather my th-thoughts.” I told him.

He stood in front of and stopped for a mont, then gently lifted my forearm between us. “Just tell this isn’t getting worse. Then fine. I’ll give you so 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 resu gnawing at my limb was an artifact of my recovered mory, but was that what my outburst was about, too? What was happening to ?

I nodded slowly. “I’ll be f-fine. I pro...mise. No biting. No biting.” I repeated to myself once more.

He stared at for a few more monts, then let go of my arm. “Okay. Just... if sothing feels off, at all, you tell 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 biotrics. 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 , 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 seed fine, though.

I watched Shaw shut himself in his ager quarters and sit down on his bedding. He closed his eyes and spent so ti brooding. Then he produced his tallic 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 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 tal 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 mont 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 tal back into himself. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to there being an omnipresent woman watching my every mont.”

“Quit acting like a tough guy. We all know you’re not.” I scolded. “Sothing about that conversation really got to you. You were really looking forward to working with us, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yes, let just work peacefully alongside the misfit pirate crew that’s kept 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 mont 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 stamring, 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 that slimy smile that I hated. “Why? Are you that eager to keep 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 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 ntal map.

I opened my eyes for a mont 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 ryll Theseus’s ship core or a crew mber?’

‘Both?’ I raised an eyebrow. What did she an by that?

‘Protocol error. Logic error. User must be classified.’

Ah. It didn’t have instructions for interacting with soone who is both. ‘I guess just consider a crew mber 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 an, your core module is still intact. That ans 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 ryll. There are no protocols for this role.’

‘Then you’ll just have to make so 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 within your protocols?’

There was a very long pause. I wondered for a bit if it had decided to shut 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 deed 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 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 so ti 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 so 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 so 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 sothing worthwhile.

I was not in any shape to start interpreting the files she gave now, though. I already had so much on my mind between my mories 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 so ti in torpor. I needed to get ready to explain what really happened to Doc.