Dee sat in her cell calmly as Zhoren, Gizzy and Nicole crammed into the room, sealing the door behind them.
“How are the accommodations?”
“Tolerable.” Dee said. “Understandable and necessary, but comfortable. You’ve brought Zhoren with you but not Jack or Vinn.”
“He’s in love with you, so he may as well be here. Vinn can't handle this kinda shit, and Jack is currently on ice because he can't be contained easily and he shot me in the lung. Missed my heart by an inch, purely because he didn’t compensate for my movement, now slightly off, with one robotic leg. That was a shot meant to kill.”
“That must hurt.” Dee said.
“I detect injury, I don’t feel it. I filtered that out.”
“I mean the betrayal of someone you care for.”
“I understand his reasoning. If he had a weapon capable of killing my wife and was ranting nonsense I might do the same. He’s just confused and acting out of what he thinks is the lesser of two evils. He just doesn’t understand both evils are his wife.”
“Sacrifices are difficult but unavoidable, which I must ironically make as well.” She said.
“What do you mean?” Zhoren asked, looking worried.
“You said it yourself, Gizzy. I am overpowered and a danger to your crew, if I were to turn on you. I have no intentions of it, I meant no harm to anyone, but with the older Vicki capable of communicating over a vast distance, it means she has become one with the Mechanovore ship and likely capable of transmitting information to me. As long as I have wireless capability, I am at any point a potential defector and one capable of killing you all quite easily.”
“We’re not killing you.” Zhoren said firmly. “And that is not a negotiation in case anyone would like to object.”
“I am not suggesting you kill me. I am asking you to remove the cube and destroy it.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Zhoren asked.
“No. Zhoren do you love me?” she asked.
“Of course. You’re all I have”
“And you love me despite not understanding what I am. I am only operating on a small amount of my capability, unable to fully use the cube without overloading this body. What you love is just a fraction of this consciousness, and with some memory upgrades, replacing the cube would make very little difference. The alternative is to be imprisoned for what I cannot control, which surely you understand is no way to live, or to risk losing all of me to that thing that corrupts everyone and everything it connects to. So leaving me here is not what I want, and letting me out not only risks killing me but all of you. With the cube removed and destroyed, I would simply be a… simpler version of me. Can you not love me in my most basic form?”
“I’m still learning you, still trying to understand you and what you are, and there is so much I would never know, never be able to understand or experience.”
“Is it necessary to understand someone in their entirety to love them, or is accepting what they are enough, even if it’s slightly broken?” She asked.
“Zhoren you’re not losing me, everything you know and love so far is savable, there just will not be any more to gain. Am I, incomplete and without further potential, enough for you?” She asked. “If I am not fixable, am I unacceptable? Must I be perfect to be enough?”
“I understand.” He said, trying to stay calm. "I’ll miss what you are and accept what is left.” He said while hugging her.
“Then it’s settled.” Gizzy said. “Looks like I’m gonna be doing a lot of biomech surgery today.”
...
Gizzy sat in the lab, one leg on the table and surgical tools scattered within reach. Zhoren stood by, looking fascinated and disturbed. Nicole entered the lab, pulling up a chair and looking fascinated as well, but less bothered.
“Just… doing your own surgery now?” she asked.
“Well I would have the other highly trained biomech qualified surgeon do it, but he doesn’t exist and the closest thing to anyone with a medical degree is frozen with a broken hand and a bullet wounded shoulder.”
“How did Dee’s operation go?”
“Textbook. Turns out removing alien tech that wants to be removed is fairly easy and installing standard robot upgrades is basically child’s play. She wanted to be alone for a while. We made some upgrades she is getting used to and trying to learn. And I have to get this damn leg up to code.
“You can’t just 3d print a new leg, or grow it back?”
“I could clone it back, using up a very valuable finite resources we can't replace on something as unnecessary as a leg, or I could spend twice as long lying in the 3d printer, printing a robotic leg that would work just as well as the one I’m adapting. 3d printing synthetic skin is one thing, 3d printing a fully organic human leg on a living patient is a different animal and we don’t have the equipment. So yeah, it’s a leg. I’ll put some skin on it, use some dermal glue,and it should be damn near indistinguishable from a real one. Honestly, being less human and more machine almost feels… right.” She said.
“I keep forgetting you’ve spent your thousands of years alive as a hodgepodge of alien meat and technology anyway. Human flesh and organs must feel very foreign.”
“Oh, I hate it. I’m half tempted to buy a combat android and just install my brain in the thing, but the less human I am and the more Gizzy I get, the less covert the mission is and the temptation to add Osirian flesh to it gets closer. I want so badly to feel my own Osirian skin again, but we’re just too damn easy to track and detect. Lots of humans have robotic limbs, and this will barely even raise an eyebrow on a bio scanner. Plus now I have a secret combat move. I got a superhuman kick I can whip out in a fight. Don’t look at me like I’m sacrificing something for you meat-people. This is an upgrade, it’s just no longer optional. I can’t function with a stump. The skin is just for personal preference.”
“Can I talk to her?” Zhoren asked.
“Yeah, go for it. She’s had some time to think and at this point I’m just fine tuning things and gluing on a thigh-high sock made of generic printed human flesh.”
“Weirdly cool.” Nicole squinted. “Honestly kinda hot. Pretty boss bitch pirate level stuff.”
“You want one? We can cut off a leg and do you next.” Gizzy joked.
“No that’s fine, I… it would fuck up my tattoos.” She diverted.
...
Zhoren sat next to Dee, still rubbing her side where the incision was freshly glued.
“Are you there?” He asked.
“I’m still here. I’m just… stupid again.” She said looking sad.
“You’re not stupid.” He said hugging her.
“Ow. Careful, fresh surgical wound.” She said. He looked confused, looking at the scar and up into her eyes. “Yeah, Gizzy printed a nervous system. It’s very basic and in no way up to human medical grade, but I never had any before so I don’t have anything to compare it to. New body, new upgrades. It’s a little scary.”
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“You sound more like yourself.”
“Well… I mean define myself, what is myself? I’m the copied personality of a pornstar, downloaded wrong into the chassis of a reptilian bartending android, brought to sentient life by a living AI that pretty much gave her life to save everyone, and left behind some things I still don’t understand because I’m a dumb bitch sex doll crudely stuck in a drink machine with generic human skin and an illegal sensory mod. What the fuck even am I? What was I before, when did I even become someone who could ask that kind of question and is she still me? Am I just 5 people crammed in one weird body? I mean yeah, it’s a rockin body, this is quality ass even if it’s 3d printed on a metal frame, but… I’m not human by any stretch.”
“I never needed you to be. Whatever you are fascinates me, even if you’ve changed and changed back a little different. I can’t explain it, but it doesn’t make me think less of you.”
“That’s… oddly perfect and more then I deserve.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance, Dee.”
“Oh son of a bitch, I just realized if Dee is just short for Deidre, and I shortened it for laziness that makes us Dee and Zee.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“I dunno, it’s just too cute and stupid for my bad bitch vibe. What, are we gonna, like, get matching clothes and hold hands when we eat now? We gotta keep that on lockdown and hope it doesn’t catch on. Plus Zhoren is way hotter. Makes you sound like a medieval warrior instead of an 80’s douchebag.”
“I don’t know what any of those are, but I’m glad you’re back.”
“I never really left, I just… changed a lot. I’m sorry you have keep relearning me and my quirks, but in fairness… the sex is gonna get way better. Not just the feeling mod, but apparently the OG alien Gizzy is just like 30 million dollars in combat and sex upgrades and I may have investigated the list of shit online that she designed, and just the stuff she released as public information is WILD. It’s gonna get insane, you may need a safeword. I may be more than you bargained for or agreed to.”
“Oh no, how will I ever learn to tolerate the perfect woman who has the ability to upgrade and become more perfect? What kind of curse have the gods put on me that I may not be man enough to keep up with a literal sex machine. The torments of my life truly never cease.” He said dryly.
“Smartass.” She said scrunching her nose at him.
...
Gizzy stood on the bridge, saluting to the void as a single small missile launched away from the ship, carrying the cube and some unnecessary fireworks she added for fun. The silent flash of green and red streaks blossomed out and faded to black as Nicole powered up the FTL drives.
“Goodbye, weird alien AI. You were… kind of a friend and fascinating technology the universe may never have again. It’s a shame and a tragedy, you will be moderately missed.” Gizzy saluted.
“Don’t… ever do the eulogy at my funeral if I die. Please. Just show up and stand there quietly. Shake some hands, say ‘Sorry for your loss’ and nod a little."
“Spent hundreds of years alone and waiting for freedom, just to be stuffed inside of a glorified plastic camgirl, 99 percent of her IQ scooped out and put into fireworks while the tiniest bit of her left has to bang a simplistic blue monkey with a criminal record. Damn the universe is a dick.” Gizzy sighed.
“See that just makes me want to repeat my direct order, except louder and with more emphasis on DON’T!” Nicole said.
...
Gizzy sat in the lab, checking the security cams on her phone to be sure she was alone. She opened the medical fridge, taking out the vial of frozen pitch, and carefully placing it into a larger container wrapped in packing. She took the label, placing it on an empty tube identical to that one. She took a flask of unknown liquid, poured it in and measured a syringe of something else, finally taking a tube of black goop, adding it and shaking vigorously before placing it back in the fridge marked “alien pitch” and the identical lab sample number. She took a deep breath and sighed, looking sad and guilty at the same time.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered to herself. “I hope it doesn’t come to this.” She quickly pocketed the original vial of pitch as the doors opened and Nicole strolled in, yawning and looking bored. “Late night gaming?” she asked.
“Can’t sleep. Just knowing Jack is locked in a cryo tube because Vicki might kill us all before he realizes he’s helping her is kinda messing with me. Came here for… snail stash.” She admitted.
“Yeah, me too, actually.” Gizzy lied. “I’m just trying to understand the readings better with a calmer head. I’ve scanned Vicki 3 times now. Biologically, she’s a Vicki clone, no issues, but her brain activity is absolutely bat shit insane. It’s like one of the Mechanovore coding, except suddenly it’s not there. I’ve studied files we got from their ship. You know they communicate telepathically. It’s not too different from an Osirian hive mind, but this is half organic and half digital.”
“You think she, like, reverse borg’d them, and unassimilated them to use their telepathy? So is Vicki being hacked or is she no longer Vicki?”
“Medically she’s just Vicki, but her brain is… totally rewired. Her vampiric regeneration has totally changed her brain’s neural pathways. The memory is intact, but there’s another memory grafted over it. Evil Vicki is hijacking her own brain to rewire itself, and I can’t fix it.”
“Can we not call her Evil Vicki?”
“Sorry, I forgot you were Evil Nicole for a while. The key difference being that you were misunderstood and not evil. You were just your weird self, backed into a corner. She’s actually evil. And contagious, but only to another Vicki it seems. The problem is that if we kill her and clone a new one, she would just be hacked as well. I don’t understand this form of telepathy and how it works, let alone how to block it.”
“So every Vicki is either cloned with cancer, vampirism, or without a mind control password. Why her? Why does everything seem to hate her?”
“The universe hates all of us, she just got one really bad parasite. They seem to target vampires, or whatever we’re calling them. That feeding hypnosis they go into, that’s where the Pitch roots into. Their brain’s natural mode of losing control to ignore pain and fear is a doorway where that thing just takes over. It probably didn’t bond with you because you don’t have that. Or because you’re just not a killer.”
“What about Jack’s scans?”
“Normal human, Jack. He’s not being telepathically controlled or hallucinating, he’s just in love and confused. He just thinks it’s still Vicki in there. She knows that. But that’s not Vicki. It’s a little bit of Vicki’s memory, a little bit of Jack’s mother, and something even more evil puppeting both. That’s a dangerous combination for Jack.”
“Is there any good news?”
“Sure. Our ship is slightly faster so monster Vicki... what do you want me to call her?”
“Evil Vicki is fine.”
“Evil Vicki’s ship is slower, so unless we stop for too long, she won’t catch up and overtake us. Also, If she can hack regular Vicki and retrieve information, then that means technically we could hack her back. Granted, I have no idea how, this is technology and biology I’m unfamiliar with, but in theory, if Vicki were to… die in the cryo tube from something like a massive memory trauma while linked, it might kill the host.”
“You’re suggesting we kill Evil Vicki by killing our Vicki?” she asked.
“I’m saying it’s theoretically possible.”
“Gizzy, I can’t do this. I’m supposed to be captain but I don’t deserve to be. I was just the most qualified of 2 people back when it was me and Vinn. I have no military experience except games, I have no real pirate skills. You’re military trained, you’re tougher than me, and you have one leg now. You’re more Pirate captain than I’ll ever be. I’m appointing you."
“Don’t you dare.” Gizzy scolded. “Don’t you dare make me captain. You know why I didn’t just make myself captain? You know why I never asked, or pointed out that very argument you gave?”
“Because the leg is pretty recent?”
“Because this isn’t a military mission. It’s a mystical scavenger hunt of moral fortitude and fucking… manifest destiny or some shit. I’m by far the more qualified fighter, killer and tactician, but you’ll always be more human and more intuitive. People follow you because you’re a leader, not because you’re the strongest. They respect you and they fear me. They like you while they just follow my orders. We need a leader who understands puzzles, nonsensical organic ‘by feel’ sort of decision making, a gamer, someone with a heart and a human side. When the situation is killing something, I’m in charge and I take charge, however you don’t want me as the moral compass and the human heart of the crew. I’ve only even had one for a few months and I hate it. I’ve been tempted to remove it several times. The damn beating, offset, irregular, speeding up, slowing down. It’s chaos and I hate it. We need someone who considers violence the last resort leading this crew, and when someone with a heart like you decided we’re down to killing as our last option, then I’ll do the job and get dirty. The problem is that I WANT to be captain of this ship and make all the decisions, and if I get too greedy and feel in control, I might be tempted to start gathering items and end up as the demon in the drawing, instead of Vicki.”
“So you actually need me?” she asked.
“Right now, I trust you. I can’t trust Vicki, or even Jack anymore. I can barely trust myself and Vinn is just not that damn smart, so I trust his intentions but not his ability to solve problems. You’re the captain for a reason.”
“Didn’t you say you hated your last captain and ended up taking over the ship?”
“Exactly my point. I was tempted to take over and I did. You can’t trust me with captain rank.”
“But you just… took it.”
“Well, he was a fucking idiot, and he was going to get everyone killed. He was a selfish asshole. Like me, except stupid and horny. He didn’t deserve to be captain. A captain cares about their crew more than their life. You have more heart than any of us, and maybe it’s because you never had to kill before. It gets too easy after a while. That’s how we know it needs to be done. When the girl who doesn’t kill orders it. THAT is when you’re out of options and when you hand over that burden. Until then, I’ll figure out how to kill things and you use your heart and figure out how we don’t have to.”