As the captain of the ship escorted me down the stairs from my heart... or rather, the ship's heart, I couldn't help but feel unsettled. It felt like I was inside of what I still saw as my own shell, but it felt foreign. Like a phantom body part. I hadn't fully synchronized with the ship, and it was unsettling to be in a place that was simultaneously so familiar and so unfamiliar at the same time. I wasn't sure at the time why I kept thinking as if the ship belonged to me somehow. It felt like it was a part of me, but it was just a ship. It certainly wasn't my ship either. It was a pirate vessel in Foundation space. Whatever being in that chamber had done to me, it was becoming more and more unsettling by the moment. I had to get off of this ship.

I took in the environment around me. The scratches on the walls. The scuffed flooring. The feel of the crisscrossed metal stairs on my feet. I felt so heavy, and it bit into my feet as I went down. The meager paper sheet I held around myself helped me keep my decency, but it did nothing for the chilly environment outside of the core room. Part of me longed to return to it. To be immersed in the liquid once more and to continue scouring the ship in my mental space. I wondered if all people adopting cyberware for the first time felt this calling to the machine they'd been a part of.

"You got a lot on your mind?" Aisling asked, looking up at me and waiting at the bottom of the steps. I had stopped walking at some point and was staring off into the middle distance, the metal pressing hard into my bare feet as I reached with my free hand to grab hold of the railing.

"Sorry." I mumbled, beginning to move again "I... don't know what to think right now. There's a lot of things making me uncomfortable."

"Like the fact we're outlaws?" the woman asked, not a hint of malice in her tone "I can get that. You spend your whole life under corporate thumbs and they give you the wrong idea about how things really work out here in wild space." she chuckled "People need things done that the big bosses don't always like. All we do is capitalize on it."

They did always portray pirates as these sort of over the top cartoonish villains in the big colonies. It did always seem dramatic. They probably weren't 'evil' so much as people who hadn't had the same kinds of advantages I'd had and were driven to desperation. As I walked toward her, I nodded "Yeah. They... don't always treat everyone fairly. That's for certain. But I meant... I'm unsettled by how my mind's taking the cyberware. I keep feeling like I'm a part of this ship and that it's a part of me. I almost want to..." I shook my head. It was probably best not to tell her that. "Never mind. I just... I wanna go home, that's all. I can pay you for transport."

"We'll talk about that in the mess." she reassured me by gently guiding me by the arm. I smiled back at her. She really didn't seem like a terrible person, especially compared to the two others I'd met so far.

As I walked into a room with a low ceiling and a work table bolted to the floor, I saw a small kitchen that rivaled some of the cheaper hotels I'd stayed at in size. Two rusty coil burners and a mini-fridge. There was at least a sizeable pantry for dry goods, but it looked like it'd almost been picked clean. She had said that they'd been stranded for some time, after all. I couldn't help but feel like the room was slowly etching its way into my memory in just the same way that it had been while I was in the core. It must have been my imagination, though, I wasn't connected anymore.

At the far end of the table sat what looked to be a small, gaunt teenage boy flanked by Joel and Doc, his face covered in grease and wearing overalls filled with tools. He had a surly look on his face and was glaring daggers at me. He was judging me. Harshly.

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"Mouse don't trust easy." Aisling whispered in my ear "Don't hold it against him." she walked forward and asked the trio "Where's Ray?"

"Shut herself in again. Think she's still mad at you." said Joel.

Aisling clicked her tongue "Right well, guess you'll meet her later if you're still around." Aisling gently shoved me forward, up to the table. What had she meant by that? "So what do we do about the stowaway then?"

"Stowaway?" I muttered nervously, reminding her what I was doing here "You kidnapped me and performed illegal surgeries against my will. I'm willing to overlook that because you saved my life, but really? Stowaway?"

The crew each looked me over like I'd spoken out of turn and I couldn't help but shrink back. I didn't have any leverage here. I figured I should probably just stay quiet since I was probably really just a bargaining chip to them.

"Airlock." Joel said simply, a word that made me shiver.

Doc glared toward him "Aside from being barbaric, that wouldn't be much help to our situation."

"Would make the food last longer." Joel argued.

"Besides that, she's a medical marvel. An actual, full, thinking human being that survived being grafted to a spaceship. I'd like a chance to study her and find out what gave her such mental resilience."

For the first time, Mouse spoke up, his expression turning to something more akin to wonder "Wait... she was IN the core?"

"41% of the way integrated." Aisling nodded and moved to join the others on their side of the table.

"That's so cool!" Mouse exclaimed, looking at me with hardened eyes turned slightly softer by a veiled curiosity, and most certainly, an interest in engineering.

"Don't solve our problem though." Joel muttered.

"That's why we're here." she sat down across from me and motioned for me to take a chair. I cautiously moved forward and did as I was told "I have a proposition." she folded her hands and looked at me with a deadly seriousness she had held back before "We're stranded. Without a core, we got nothing. Ain't no corpo rescue wagon coming. No one's gonna magically airdrop us a core. We're outta miracles. We work with what we got, or we starve."

I nodded. I think I knew where this was going, but I remained quiet. "Here's my proposition." she continued "As soon as we're able, we fly you to the nearest independent port. You go take a new transport back where you came from, go back to your cozy life while we pick up a new standard core. Everyone goes on with their lives, no one worse for wear. You can even keep Doc's little... additions. No charge." she held her hands out "No strings attached. You go back to your boring little comfy life, and you never hear from any of us again."

It sounded like a good deal, but I knew what she was about to add to her terms as well, so I simply asked dryly "And what do I have to do in return?"

Aisling pursed her lips and bobbed her head a little bit as if she was considering it "In return, you gotta be my ship for a little while."

The silence hung in the air for a moment, her crew looking at her, surprised "You... want to put her back into the core?" Doc asked "It may have been a fluke, there's no telling if she'll survive this time."

"Sounds like a win-win to me." Joel chuckled.

Mouse remained silent, clearly uncertain if he should feel excited or appalled at the suggestion.

"Okay." I felt the word spill quietly from my lips before I even had the chance to consider it "I'll do it. I'll... be your ship core. For now." I was shivering, thinking of going back into that void with the very real chance that I wouldn't be able to come out again, but the call couldn't be ignored. I didn't know if it was the machinery messing with my head or if something else drew me back to it, but I couldn't just keep ignoring how I felt. I WANTED to finish grafting this ship to my mind. To become a part of it. Maybe once my curiosity was sated, I could return home with an interesting story to tell. I swallowed. Or maybe something would go wrong and I wouldn't be able to make it back home. Either way, I was certain that it needed to happen.

Aisling was the only one who didn't look surprised at my quick acceptance of her terms "Okay then! We have a deal." she clapped her hands together and smiled wide at me, immediately making me wonder if I'd just put my life in the hands of a sly predator.