The next week went by in a blur as I settled into a routine. About every ten minutes, I checked on my heading and course corrected, then I would report the deviations to Mouse for him to see if he could correct it. We were mostly flying straight by the end of the second day, and the kid had warmed up to me considerably by then. Aisling said that he didn't trust easy, but he had an affinity for machines. And well, I was one.

I'd be lying if I said I worked as hard as I did at my old job, but the captain still complimented me on keeping on top of things. Seemed that pirates had a much healthier work ethic than I did, and multiple times throughout the trip, I found myself feeling like I was slacking off and not pulling my weight. But I started to relax when I noticed that everyone else was taking their time and still keeping up with their duties. Doc was a workaholic, but Aisling dropped by and chatted with him frequently, inviting him to play cards or some board game on their tablets called Gambit. Mouse spent a lot of time reading on his personal computer, and Joel spent entirely too much time working out in public spaces. It made me a bit envious that he could still push his body while mine was becoming more frail by the day, but I was confident that my spaceship was stronger than him any day.

Ray, however, I hadn't seen outside of her room. It seemed like all she did was sleep. I reported it to Doc, and he said that he'd spoken with her and she'd opted to go into a hibernative state. We were running low on her medication, and she'd opted to sleep through the journey to minimize her dosage and the risk of seizure. He commended her ingenuity in the face of a dire medical situation, but wished she had warned them instead of just disappearing like that, especially after she'd had some kind of altercation with the captain.

Everyone except Joel and Ray had opted to leave a note taking app open on their personal computers, should I need to get in touch with them, or even just to chat. They'd become accustomed to speaking to thin air and looking to their tablets for a response.

Every day, Doc pinged me to my heart and told me to prep for ejection. Every day it became more bothersome. I was beginning to feel out of place in my flesh. Naked. Well, more naked than when I was in the core module. Like I was missing part of my body. My limbs. Doc's getting worried. He thought I was losing myself. But I felt more like 'myself' than I ever had in my whole life. I belonged in that sphere. He had Mouse install an electrical switch so that I could release myself and even reinsert myself if he somehow became preoccupied. I hadn't used it for the entire flight. Still, I was a human being, and humans need things like food, exercise, and medical care, so the expeditions outside remained necessary, if bothersome.

Speaking of food, I really hoped that we could get something, anything fresh once we got to port. The strange protein slurry that passed as emergency rations made me want to gag every time I had to force it down. Aisling insisted that it's all we needed, but what I wouldn't have given for a steak in that first week. Or a cheeseburger. I'd have settled for an apple.

Once I'd gotten comfortable with the layout of the ship, I wandered it freely in my mental copy of it, watching the others move about whenever my sensors in an empty room were tripped, and responding to any pings on the local network if they needed me for something, to which I was usually happy to help. The presence of what was essentially a living ship was becoming normal for the others, and being that presence was becoming normal for me.

-—

"Last checkup before the lunar surface." Doc said, watching as I flopped my body over the side of the core module pool and spit up two lungfuls of lubricant. We'd found pretty quickly that it was easier to just open the top of the chamber to let me out, given that I was able to stand up and move on my own.

Wiping my mouth, I spoke hoarsely "Yippee."

"You're going to a colony you've never touched before, aren't you excited?" He asked as he looked over my body. The examinations didn't feel invasive anymore, just part of a routine. Crawling up out of my home, I wrung the goop out of my hair. I didn't think that I'd ever grow used to its texture when I wasn't fully immersed in it.

"I guess, yeah. I'm also going to be grounded for awhile." I muttered, flopping down onto the paper sheet of the medical bed "Ugh. Do we really have to do this every day?"

"Don't tell me you plan on staying in there while we're in port." He sounded concerned "Not even standard cores do that. You won't be so overwhelmed with data once most of the systems are off."

"Do I have to be turned off?" I groaned, turning my head to the side as he lifted one of my legs with his gloved hand.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He set me down and paused "I'm getting very concerned about that too. You keep talking like you really can't tell the difference between yourself and Theseus anymore."

"Gonna be honest, Doc, it doesn't really feel like there is one. And I'm getting kind of tired of pretending that that's a bad thing." I sat up, stretching as I started feeling some of my strength returning "I don't have anything to do outside of the core module. Nothing. So why would I leave it more than I have to, JOEL?"

"Because we all have port duties." Came Joel's voice from the hall. The sensor data was blurry, but the large man was hard to miss when I closed my eyes "You hear me or something?"

"Sensor array right above you." I noted "Why you eavesdropping on my checkup? Better not be trying to take a peek."

"Doc asked me to." He mumbled. I looked over to Doc with a raised eyebrow. He just shrugged his shoulders at me. How'd they manage that in a way I didn't hear about it? "You're going on shore leave with us, that's final."

"Who died and made you captain?" I grunted, letting my legs dangle weakly over the edge of the bed.

"Captain's orders, actually." Joel sounded satisfied with himself. "Every member of the crew's got chores while we're at every port. And you're a member of the crew, remember? No slacking."

I swallowed hard. I hadn't realized it, but a ship with such a small crew must have had to divide responsibilities more harshly while grounded. We needed refueling, restocking, external maintenance, and if we were going to get the funds for it, we would have to get some kind of work. I momentarily lamented that accessing my bank account would be an enormous red flag, or we would have been able to coast on my savings for a little while "Fine, what do I need to do?"

Doc spoke up this time "Well, you get a special job this first time. See, I installed your gear in a hurry. It's not in the best shape. It's used which is already a first point of failure, its not integrated as well either because you didn't get a chance to completely heal before you were put to work..."

"Doc's not the best ripper." Joel chimed in.

"It's admittedly not my specialty." He muttered back "What I'm trying to say is, I'm taking you to a specialist. He's a guy we can trust. He'll reinstall your electronics and add in some upgrades. The captain's also cleared me to use some rainy day funds to get you a psychic damper installed. It should help suppress your pain response and make sure you don't have a heart attack from losing a couple engines at once."

"So you're saying I have to leave the ship to get an upgrade? Well why didn't you just lead with that?"

"Cause we're taking you out to Shelby's after we're all settled." Joel chuckled "Best bar on Luna."

"I don't drink." I said impatiently.

"They cultivate their own beef." Doc added.

I grimaced. He was getting to know me too well "Fine! I'll take your stupid... field trip!"

"Outlaw life's not all about the ship, corpo." Joel taunted as he started to walk away "You got this from here, Doc."

I made sure his presence was gone from my the hallway before I spoke up "You thought you'd need him for backup or something?"

Doc shrugged his shoulders and bobbed his head, looking uncertain, then said "Look, you need an intervention. We really don't know how this core thing is supposed to affect you, but it really feels like you're trying to quickly throw away your humanity. Since we can't exactly send you to a therapist without revealing what you are, we opted to give you a fun night out while you recover.

I hesitated for a moment "While I recover?"

"You're not supposed to deploy a core until the cyberware's had 72 hours to set. It causes that scarring and messes with your biology in unpredictable ways."

I glared at him, anger and desperation starting to well up as I spoke quietly "Are you telling me that I'm going to have to spend... three entire days outside of my core module?" I growled.

He looked a little bit scared of me. He held his arms up "Well, you'll be unconscious for about the first 18 hours." He tried to sound reassuring "But after that, yes. You're going to have to eat, sleep, and breathe like a normal human being for that time."

I closed my eyes, wanting to think, but the data just flooded my mental vision and I had to look up again. "Doc... I-I..." I swallowed again. I had to plead with him "Please, I dunno if I can do that. It's too much! Being out here, I can barely stand it for an hour."

"The new gear will help with that somewhat. It's probably only as painful as it is because of my shoddy work." He admitted as he sat down on the bed next to me "I promise that we're going to do what we can to help you through this. Once you're out from under the knife, we'll all have a fun night together and you'll see it's not as bad." I tried to look away from him, feeling like I was about to cry again, but I felt him put his hand on my shoulder "I promise."

I sniffled "How can you promise me something like that? We don't know anything about any of this."

He stood up and walked around me, crouching down to look straight into my eyes "Because if it does get that bad again, I'm prepared to put you into a medical coma." He spoke softly to me "I can put you under for the whole three days if I have to, and you'll wake up safe and sound back in the core module, and I'll never try to force the issue again. Okay? I'll do that for you. But you gotta promise me that you'll at least try. Okay?"

I stared him in the eyes and I felt like I could trust his word on it, but at the same time, for some reason, I couldn't help but let out a little nervous chuckle "Thank you. I'd like that. I'll try."

He was starting to smile a little bit too "This is the part of the movie we'd kiss if we were straight."

I couldn't help myself, and let out an awkward sobbing guffaw, putting my palm in his face and pushing him away "Fuck off."