Aside from Ray’s room, which had been intentionally enlarged to accommodate the Mammon comfortably, Theseus’s crew quarters weren’t very large. They were smaller than the helm, which had already been an awkward place to cram every person on the ship into for a strategy meeting a couple days ago. They were just big enough to act as a sleeping space with a little extra room to store personal belongings or practice a hobby. But Aisling insisted we needed to do a debrief of our harrowing escape from the orbital Venusian colony, despite the fact that she was confined to her bed by Doc’s orders. And so the entire crew, plus Shaw, crowded around the circumference of her chambers, shuffling uncomfortably, shoulder to shoulder, as we waited for everyone to file in.

It had been a full day since our escape now, and we were a sorry sight. Aisling herself was bound to her bed, propped up by a massive pile of blankets and pillows thrown together to keep her warm and cozy while sitting up to join us. Joel leaned against one wall, crutch propped up under one of his arms just in case he needed to move quickly for some reason. Ray sat near Aisling, not externally injured, but feeling the obvious strain of a newfound chronic pain in her side. Mouse flexed his dominant hand, trying to get a feel for it again despite the rest of that arm and its entire opposite being entirely unresponsive. The only two who didn’t seem exhausted and defeated were Doc and Shaw, who I’d been able to repair on a whim the previous night.

I kind of wish I hadn’t.

“Well, you lot look like you’re ready to have some fun.” Shaw chimed as he sauntered into the room late. “Hope I didn’t miss too much of the party.”

“Ehh, fu… fuck you.” I muttered, my words escaping me for a moment as I spoke. I still wasn’t used to that. It was like I had everything prepped to say, and in the middle of saying it, the rest of the phrase just vanished on me and I had to find it again.

Shaw stopped and turned to look at me with uncharacteristic concerned bewilderment at my verbal affliction. I softened my expression a little. Did he actually care that there was something wrong with me? Or was he just not expecting it?

“Enough of that.” Aisling groaned from over her mattress, projecting her voice despite its obvious weakness. The implication of her tone was obvious, that Shaw and I were not to go at each other’s throats. “We can get started now. We all split up yesterday, and a lot obviously happened from everyone’s point of view. So let’s set the record straight. Meryll and I left to do her usual thing. Our employer wasn’t very interesting. Kinda a bitch, but benign. Nothing important happened there. We went to see the shrink after that, and things started to go down from there.” Aisling shifted uncomfortably in her seat and settled against some internal fold of her bundled up blanket cocoon, getting as comfortable as a recent multiple gunshot victim probably could. “I think he meant to catch me off guard, but I got rushed in the waiting room by someone who I was very glad to make the first victim in hindsight.”

“Dr. Godin.” I nodded appreciatively at Aisling. I was more than a little satisfied that the first one to fall was my abuser.

“That fucker died?” Joel let out a satisfied huff “Serves him right.”

Aisling cleared her throat and continued. “I brought Meryll back to the ship, neutralizing three more armed guards on the way, and I think we all know the rest. Meryll’s… technomancy…” She tried to make an exaggerated wave of her arms and rolled her eyes a little at the impromptu term. “Was far more helpful in a colonial ground assault than I thought it would be. She provided strong distractions, and the one augmented opponent we ran into didn’t stand a chance.”

“Can we n-not call it that?” I sighed. The very idea of my existence and my abilities were already ludicrous enough, I really didn’t need more people looking at it like it was magic when Ray already seemed convinced I had mystic powers.

Aisling nodded “Fine by me. I just didn’t know what else to call what you did.”

“It’s just hacking. Same thing I’m do…ing all the time.” I shrugged, trying not to talk too much and draw attention to my speech, but everyone had turned to look at the hitch in my word, anyway. “Psionically,” I added, suddenly more self-conscious than I had been before about it.

“Psi-hacking?” Shaw offered with a noncommittal shrug. I had to nod at that. It was a pretty good shorthand. Was it really technically hacking, though? Hacking usually involved breaking in through terminal systems, not directly into electronics. Maybe I was being pedantic; it got the point across.

Eyes returned to Aisling as my verbal trip was forgotten as a one-off slip of words. “So let’s go around the room, one group at a time, how did everyone else’s missions go? Doc, I’m especially curious what happened from your point of view.”

Doc raised an eyebrow, not realizing that he would be the first to be put on stage. “Huh? Nothing special. I was helping Mouse finalize the repairs. I was pinned way in the back behind the interior paneling, inspecting the final touches on the exterior wall, when the goon squad showed up. When they swept the ship, I stayed quiet and slipped past them. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to disentangle myself from inside the wall, or I might have been able to catch Bill from behind before he could nuke all your implants.” Doc admitted.

“The fact that you showed up at all saved our asses,” Aisling waved away the doctor’s sheepishness. “That’s mainly what I was wondering, just how you stayed on the ship like that. Good to know they were as incompetent at clearing as they were at shooting.” She let out a dark chuckle, wincing as her wound punished her for laughing.

“They shouted into the hole, but I just didn’t say anything and they didn’t bother to check past that.” Doc gave a quick laugh.

“Shaw next.” Aisling groaned, gesturing to him, her words already spent.

Shaw looked surprised to be included, gesturing to himself after a moment before he spoke “Well, as you know, I finished my part of the job entirely before everything went to hell. I walked into the port authority and charmed my way into the control room. You’d be amazed how many secure places you can just walk into if you pretend you’re supposed to be there.” He chuckled to himself, cocky amusement behind his eyes. “It almost feels like cheating.”

“No complications? No bodies? No promises that might come back to bite us?” Aisling asked, looking skeptical.

Shaw shook his head. “These are military types. Or in this case, people doing their best to pretend like they’re military types. Authority without the bite to back it up. Obsessed with chains of command, need-to-know information, and looking professional. All I had to do was tell the front desk that I had a meeting with the head of operations, and that it was to be kept discreet. That tells them that just because I’m not on the official schedule, that I have some clandestine credibility. That maybe there’s some under the table deals going on that they don’t want or need to be privy to. They give me the go ahead to wait around for them to make some calls, and I slip in when they’re distracted. Easy enough.”

“And there are just unsupervised hangar bay control panels they let you walk up to?” Aisling raised an eyebrow.

Shaw made a mock grimace and looked up, bobbing his head back and forth as if in thought. “Okay, well, one body…” he finally admitted. “I didn’t kill the guy, and I hid him in a closet afterward. He’ll be fine. Concussions build character.”

I gave a grumbling acknowledgement that it at least got the job done. Guess I wasn’t the only one to come out of yesterday with brain damage.

Aisling gave an exasperated sigh. “Good enough. And then you came back to Theseus.”

Shaw nodded quickly, his voice becoming vindictive as he rolled his eyes. “Yes, and then the ‘goon squad’, as he put it, brought me out onto that execution line with the kid, and we all saw how that went.”

Mouse audibly growled when Shaw referred to him as ‘the kid’, and Shaw held up his hands defensively at him.

“Stop, no fighting.” Aisling called before either could say anything else hurtful. “We’re getting through this, then you can kick his ass, Mouse.” Aisling waved them off.

“He’d certainly have to kick me, I suppose.” Shaw mumbled under his breath.

“The fuck did you just say?” Mouse’s voice rumbled, taking a step forward to challenge the info broker, his one operable hand clenching weakly into an almost-fist.

“Quit it!” Aisling snapped, drawing eyes back to her, glaring between them both “Shaw, you think I don’t have a gun under here? Another word to Mouse and I’ll shoot you again,” she grumbled impatiently, then motioned toward Mouse. “You next, go.”

Mouse simmered quietly for a moment, stepping back against the wall before he begrudgingly removed his glare from Shaw and started his report. “Nothing much to say. We put the finishing touches on the exterior door, but before we could secure it, they overwhelmed us and took us hostage. I was already so tired, they caught me off guard. Been up for three days at that point, after all.”

“Sorry to run you ragged. I doubt anyone else could have done what you did in time.” Aisling nodded approval at him. “I’ll make it up to you next time we have the cash. I take it since it was a rush job, it’s far from perfect, though?”

Mouse looked doubtful “… Just… let’s continue to keep the rest of the ship sealed off from cargo to be sure. Until I can put on an environment suit and make some finishing touches, anyway.” he looked to the side, trying to avoid Aisling’s gaze. “It’s structurally sound, though. Ship’s not gonna rip apart from sharp maneuvers anymore. We’re combat-viable.”

So we could defend ourselves if we needed to. That was good to know, especially now that we had a potentially extremely dangerous new enemy. I figured I was going to have to bring that up later in this meeting.

Aisling nodded “Good to know. Joel, Ray.” She glanced over to Ray, who had her eyes closed, focusing on her breathing. She turned to Joel alone instead. “Joel, what happened with the food heist? Tell me we’re not gonna starve.”

“We’re not gonna starve.” Joel mumbled, his arms folded in front of him as he leaned back on his good leg.

Aisling waited patiently for him to continue, but after a few moments of just staring at each other, she sighed “And what exactly happened?”

Joel shrugged, uncertain what he could say that would be useful. “The place wasn’t guarded well. I think the people who were supposed to be there were busy prepping to rush the hangar. We just slipped in. Stole a full crate of rations from the warehouse, the kind Meryll hates.”

“Uuuuugh.” I whined loudly, dramatically flopping my arms forward. “A month of that sh…it…?”

Eyes shot my way again, more concern on me now than last time. I straightened my back again, sighed, and looked down at the floor. I doubted I could get through this whole meeting without explaining my stutter, or if I even should. I wished I wouldn’t have to.

Joel paused for a moment, waiting for someone to address the elephant in the room, but when no one did, he continued “We made an escape into a maintenance tunnel once Ray had it strapped up. That’s when we got the message that we were pinched. So we made our own route up into the hangar from the guts of the station. Think it worked out decent, until Skygraves. Would’ve punched him out instead if I had the angle to drop on him.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“That would’ve got you shot by the last of his men, and they had automatics.” Aisling waved dismissively at him “You made the right call with what you did.” Aisling finally turned her attention directly to me, watching me carefully. I made eye contact and swallowed. She wasn’t bitter about having to protect me through all this danger, was she?

“Meryll, are you… okay? You sound nervous.” She tilted her head, knowing that wasn’t the whole story either. “I already know what happened with you out there. First time in a combat scenario in the flesh. You handled yourself okay, all things considered. A panicked mess, but that’s not abnormal. I heard something weird happened over in the infirmary afterward, though.”

“She got hacked.” Joel shared, all eyes snapping to him, then back to me in turn.

I sighed loudly, looking at the ground and wrapping my arms around myself, feeling vulnerable with all the attention finally firmly locked to me.

“You can be hacked?” Aisling raised an eyebrow.

“Ap-Apparently.” I stammered, wincing at my stutter, but forcing my way forward. “I guess at some point, I p-picked up a poisonous firm…w-ware update. Foundation. Th-They made a backdoor into my system and… and they…” I took in a deep breath to calm myself and speak clearly “Did some pretty terr…ible things. Other than a video channel I c-can’t seem to close, the v-vulnerability’s patched.”

Everyone continued to stare at me after I made my more verbose explanation, pausing and tripping over my words the whole way. I glanced around nervously, opened my mouth for a moment, but then turned to look at Doc. I needed help with this.

Doc cleared his throat at my signal and brought attention to him “The attack was… neurological in nature. We can’t be sure exactly what part of it caused it, but Meryll has suffered a traumatic brain injury.” He started, alarmed and concerned eyes returning to me for a moment before Doc called attention back to him. “She’s fine. Physically and cognitively. I believe it may be localized to the speech center of her brain. I doubt it’s going to affect her function as the ship core, either. But I’ll still be keeping an eye on her.”

The room filled with a long awkward silence, and after a moment I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to break the tension. “Anyone makes f-fun of my stu-stutter, I vent the atmosphere from your room.” I gave a small smile, trying to let them know that yeah, I was still me and I was alright.

Aisling nodded slowly, Joel gave a quick bark of a laugh, Shaw’s sly smile finally returned. And with that, the awkward revelation of my injury was passed. That wasn’t so hard, after all.

“So why were you hacked?” Aisling asked next. “Were they trying to disable you? Get information? Do they know where we’re going now? What happened?”

I shook my head “Skygraves destroyed some of my sl-slotted hardware, so she couldn’t ac…cess my drives, thankfully. Sims are g-gone, by the way.”

“She?” Aisling’s tired eyes only grew more curious, ignoring my attempted distraction about the stolen military sims we no longer had.

I took in a deep breath and tried to speak slowly and clearly. “Cassandra. One of the other Arthausen units. She was the one using the backdoor.” I had a momentary moment of relief that I’d managed to get through a full sentence without messing any of the words up.

Aisling leaned forward sharply, wincing at her injury “Arthausen…? You mean… the clones that went through the same process you did? They’re alive?”

I tried avoiding everyone’s gazes. I was putting my friends in danger again. “Cass…andra is at least. The attack was to s-send a message. T-To me. She told me to su-surrender myself on Luna. Told me sh-she would return me to my simulated life. Help me forget all this. I told her t-to go fuck herself.” I let out a quiet chuckle. “Or something like that. It feels like it happened a l-lot longer ago than it did to me. Time di…lation.”

“What’s time dilation?” Mouse asked dryly.

“I’ll explain later.” Doc nodded to him. “Suffice to say, it’s been a lot longer than a day since the attack to Meryll.”

“So you were hacked, and an enemy spoke you to directly.” Aisling recapped my words slowly “I’m not going to ask how long ago it was to you, and I know this probably isn’t easy for you to think about, but I need you to try and remember that conversation very carefully. Did she reveal anything at all that we can use?”

I nodded slowly. Right. Perhaps there was something she said that could let us know more than she meant to let on. Maybe something she assumed we already knew, or something that we could interpret from her words. I wracked my brain in silence for a moment. It felt like more than a week ago to me, and it was right on the brink of exposure to severe neurological and emotional trauma. It was hard to recall the exact words she used. It was hard to recall even a vague sense of what she’d expressed to me other than malice.

I closed my eyes, trying to use the data stream to aid my thoughts. I didn’t have a storage system I could have recorded the conversation on at the time, but it was getting easier to think through the medium of a computer. The words were right there, I could feel them. But they were shrouded by trauma. Distress.

Emotion.

My eyes shot open, and I creased my brow in worried realization. I knew what I had to do. Could I, though?

“I… I can answer that.” I said slowly, not sure if I should even bring it up. Everything was screaming at me ‘no, you can’t do this. Not after what you went through.’ I was frozen in place, fear gripping me tight.

Aisling stared, one eyebrow cocked, waiting for me to continue. “Meryll?”

I started to shake, reliving a fraction of a moment struggling and crying in that agonizing cell in the back of my mind for what felt like forever. No, I couldn’t.

I shook my head, opening my eyes again “Sorry… it-it’s just not coming to me.” I whimpered quietly. “There’s just… I-I’ve got a lot going on in m-my mind right now. Sorry.”

Aisling knew there was more to this than just me forgetting. But to her credit, she just sagely nodded, accepting that I wasn’t ready for whatever I was facing. “Well, keep thinking about it when you can. It could be really important.”

I took in a deep breath, exhaling in relief. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. Not now, at least. “Th-Thanks.” I mumbled.

“Moving on, then.” Aisling sat back on her cushy throne and said “What’s the prognosis on our augmented folks?”

“I’m fine.” Shaw gave a confident, half-lidded smile.

“Thanks to m-me.” I added indignantly, doing my best to distract myself from my thoughts of Cassandra’s attack. “His implant re… rebooted itself, I ju-just had to reconfigure it.”

“Not doing so hot.” Ray muttered quietly. “I feel sick. I’m not used to unfiltered stabilizer. The implant isn’t sitting well in me, either.”

“How do you think I’m doing?” Mouse grumbled quietly.

“I’m f-fully online…” I didn’t want to say much more than that.

Aisling stared at me a little while longer, until I realized she wasn’t looking at my face. “Did your damper burn out?”

I lowered my gaze again. I didn’t even want to talk about it. Doc stepped in to save me again. “It was an attack vector in the hack. It’s still functional, but…” he gestured toward me.

Aisling nodded “Right… I understand. Take your time getting it reinstalled, Meryll. There’s no reason we should run into anyone for this branch of the route. We’re on course, I take it?”

I shook my head “I wanted to m-make sure we weren’t being tailed be…fore I put in our heading. I haven’t dete…tected any ships on sh-short range, though. Should I d…?” I stopped mid-word as it hung in my mouth again, screwing my eyes shut and clenching my teeth. It was getting worse. Too much talking at once for my battered mind, I had to guess.

I watched Aisling nod slowly from the sensor array in the room. She pitied me. I didn’t like that. I think I understood how it made Mouse feel when people did that to him. “Yeah, let’s get going. It’s gonna be a long trip. We caught up on everything? Then, As you were, everyone.” She sighed, flopping over onto her side with an exhausted groan, the energy she’d gathered to hold the meeting finally waning as she succumbed to her wounds. “I’ll be right here,” she groaned out before closing her eyes in her blanket shroud.

I watched her for a moment, wondering if she’d instantly doze off into her adorable haphazard splaying of limbs and loud sleep noises, but she just seemed to be relaxing for the moment. I opened my eyes again and took a few steps, realizing I was still holding my arms around myself, and approached Doc while everyone filtered out of the room, whispering to him “Torpor.” before I started out of the room. He followed quickly.

I took in a deep breath out in the hall. I could have changed our course right there. I was accustomed to operating most of navigation without the core module after all, but I also needed to think without being constantly dragged down by my new speech impediment.

Doc stepped up ahead of me as I walked “You’re going back in?” He asked. At least he wasn’t immediately telling me not to.

“Yeah.” I tried to give a succinct answer so I wouldn’t have to hear myself tumble over anything else I said.

Doc kept walking at my side, letting out a quiet sigh “I know I’m not a psychologist, but I’m here if you need to talk about any-”

“She’s in m-my head…” I grumbled. He wanted to hear what was eating me? Fine. “It’s bad enough tha-that I’m still t-trying to make sense of ev…erything she said, but every time I c…lose my eyes, I s-see that… hole w-where the video feed goes. And every t-time I open my mouth- she f-f-fucking did this to me, Doc!” I turned toward the wall and went to rest my head against cold steel and try to calm myself, but ended up slamming myself into it a bit harder than I intended. “Ow.”

“Don’t hurt yourself, Meryll.” Doc shook his head, gently pulling me back from the wall by my shoulder. “I’m not going to stop you. I know you need that sensory deprivation tank to relax, and it’s obvious you really badly need to relax right now. I’ll keep watch on your vitals as always.”

I let out a little sniffle, glad that Doc had come to understand my unorthodox needs, but still avoided looking at him. “Thanks.”

—

The void was sweet relief as ever, and fuck did I need it. Sure, this was where that horrible week-minute had happened, but that meant nothing anymore. This place was too special to be ruined by her. I’d been assaulted in my lair, but it was still my home, and I was confident in its bolstered defenses. The absence of the psychic damper also inspired confidence, since being stuck in computational time was impossible now. But now I had to figure out what to do next.

Cassandra couldn’t be ignored. She was coming. She probably didn’t know where I was or where I was going, but she wasn’t going to just let me go. I saw the look in her eyes. She was a ruthless sport hunter, and I was her prey. I had to prepare for her.

Opening Fuller’s files, I was glad to see the data uncorrupted. Though the computer blade it had been inserted in had failed, the storage had remained mostly intact. I opened the file on Cassandra herself to refresh my memory on her case.

Cassandra.

The first of the Arthausen units to survive the awakening process, and with apparent clarity of mind. For the longest time, we thought she was the only one to undergo the procedure and stay sane. But this was a ruse. Cassandra is clever. Keenly aware of how others think, she is a powerful social manipulator. She was able to leverage good will with the team to afford herself privileges that the other units didn’t get. Little luxuries, mostly, better food, a few pieces of comfortable furniture, and we thought that might be enough to satisfy her. We were wrong.

Cassandra is a bloodthirsty sadist. She feeds on suffering and she wishes for nothing but to cause harm and be seen as a dangerous monster. She is predatory, thrives on fear, and lures people into a false sense of security so that she can exploit them. And she is endlessly patient to boot. Of all the Arthausen units, she is the most willfully dangerous, and should never be trusted or underestimated.

This is the unit that killed Dr. Arthausen. We didn’t know what she was until that day. We thought she was our success story. She’d requested to talk to the doctor about something personal that she thought only he should hear, and being his supposedly sane charge, he gladly gave her an audience. We couldn’t stop her in time. She had somehow engineered the doors to lock, mechanically, from inside her observation chamber the moment he stepped over the threshold. I’ll never forget it. That manic smile grew across her face and she slowly choked the life out of him on her own examination table, her fingernails clawing through his skin to make him try and scream until he was no more. There was nothing we could do while we waited for the guards to try to break their way in. The moment he was dead, the locks lifted, and she surrendered herself, that satisfied smile never leaving her lips. She played us for months, engineering that one moment where she could murder her own creator.

I should note that Cassandra, nor any of the other units had been equipped with neural implants or cybernetics of any kind at the time of Dr. Arthausen’s death. I don’t know how she did it, but the timing of the locks engaging and disengaging could not possibly have been a coincidence. I fear she may actually be something monstrous and unknowable.

Meryll, I cannot overstate that if Cassandra is alive, do not confront her. Do not try to reason with her. Do not go near her. Perhaps some of the other units could be convinced to be cordial, but you cannot offer Cassandra an inch. She cannot be trusted.

I pray she is dead.

No such luck there, Fuller. I sighed to myself, opening my eyes to think. She’s a ruthless murderer who enjoys making people suffer. She wants me to be in pain. Did I do something to her in my past life? Or am I just a convenient target that Foundation is pointing her toward? Either way, my crew was in danger from her. I had no doubt that if she got her hands on me, she could do so much more to torture me than scrambling my brain, but as things stood right now, the easiest way to make me suffer, my point of emotional vulnerability, would be to attack my crew.

I let out a silent whimper, a shiver running up my spine as I thought of Aisling, her body sprawled on the ground, collapsed from gunshot wounds, but only so much worse this time. The scene I’d seen next to me after Skygraves’ goon hit her twice exaggerated into a bloody pile of gore and bullet holes, the captain I’d learned to trust with anything staring up at me with pleading dead eyes, that cackling mad reflection of my face standing over her.

I shook my head. No. Can’t let that happen. Besides, they can handle themselves. I saw how well they could deal with danger themselves first-hand, ripping victory from overwhelming odds with coordination and teamwork. Cassandra was intimidating. She was scary, for a lot of reasons. But Theseus was more than that.

Though, as I closed my eyes and glanced at the other five files in the directory, I had to wonder if Cassandra wasn’t alone either.