I sent off a message to Dr. Yates, a simple non-committal greeting, as I walked next to Joel. I leaned into him lightly, my eyes closed as I let him navigate me through the less than busy halls of the Venus colony while I attempted to start a conversation with my therapist. It probably looked a lot more intimate than it was when I think about it, like a couple walking side by side in comfort with one another, one tiredly hanging off the shoulder of the other, but absurdly more dangerous than that.

It surprised me when a reply came quickly, only a few moments passing from my greeting to the ping. I guess he wasn’t too busy after all. ‘Hello Meryll. Should I expect you in my office soon?’ his message asked. I guess rumors don't travel as fast as Fuller assumed.

I let out a quiet sigh as I drafted my response, starting and then erasing the excuses several times before I scoffed at myself. I was too tired for this. I settled for just telling him the truth directly. ‘I was just attacked by a neurologist. He tried to drug me.’

His reaction wasn’t as quick to arrive this time. It gave me a moment to reflect on if it was appropriate to be so terse about it, but I felt like being terse, dammit. I figured he was trying to compose something meaningful after I dumped that on him, but I guess he was just trying not to step on a landmine. ‘Oh god. Are you alright?’

‘No, I'm kinda freaking the fuck out right now. I'm going back to the ship. Sorry, I don't think I'm making it today.’ I wondered if that was an accurate assessment of my mood. I didn't feel like I was acting how a scared person should be acting. Should I have been crying right then? Hyperventilating and clinging desperately to the strong asshole with a gun? I mean, sure I was doing my best to make sure I stayed in direct physical contact with him, and if he broke away, then I absolutely would freak out and look around for that fucking doctor to make sure he wasn't following. I locked my muscles as if readying to sprint away from an imaginary threat- okay, I was freaking the fuck out.

‘I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I understand completely if you need time to yourself.’ His message started, and it surprised me I was relieved by that. Why did I feel like I needed this guy's approval? I didn't need any of these doctors' permission to feel anything. I was my own person dammit. I took in a breath, trying to cool the seething indignity Godin had imprinted on me. ‘Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.’

‘Thanks.’ Was all I sent. I opened my eyes and saw that Joel had led me right back to the hangar doors. Right where I needed to go. “Thanks.” I repeated out loud, quietly, as I eased up on Joel's side a little. I didn't want him to leave while we were still out in public, though. I still didn't feel safe.

Right. Joel. That whole debacle. I'd decided before we started walking that it was something I needed to address with him, but I hadn't spent the walk thinking of what I wanted to say like I'd told myself I would. We were too close to the ship to start carefully formulating something now, so I just blurted out a first draft on the spot.

“Hey Joel, about the other day… I was… I mean, I was really freaking out about all that shit I just learned about myself. And you were there, it wasn't… it wasn't something light or simple for me to accept. I have a lot of stuff hanging over me now and I just…” I bit my lip. This isn't where I wanted this to go. I let out a long drawn-out sigh “I just needed to get out of there and cry and feel shitty about it for a little bit, and you were right there when I was feeling so angry, and I… I don't even really fully understand what I said that was such a big deal, but I obviously said something I shouldn't have, and I feel like an asshole now cause you're not a bad person and I didn't mean to set you off. I just… I was so fucking shaken right then, and you got in the crossfire. I know you were trying to help, and-”

“Apology accepted, Meryll.” Joel interrupted my rambling in an even tone of voice that felt like he was neither dismissing nor mocking me. He just wanted to put it past us, and I agreed on that, nodding in response as we walked past the rookie colony guardsmen again and into the hangar, this time noting the flaws in their discipline that Joel had highlighted on our way through earlier to feel better about their presence. No matter what, though, they were still people with guns. At least they didn't have knockout gas.

Simultaneously seeing Theseus and seeing myself in the outer sensor array of Theseus immediately gave me a sharp sense of relief. I was home. I was safe. But I needed more than that. I needed another layer of safety. I needed to feel whole.

“Thanks for watching over me today.” I nodded to Joel as I stepped quickly into the cargo bay door.

“It's my job.” He shrugged, following soon after, though he didn't have the same enthusiasm. He wasn't about to lose himself in a core module.

—

The day passed slowly, despite the void. I stared into that sensory emptiness and certainly felt the relief I was looking for, but I couldn't get Dr. Godin out of my head. Though my eyes and logical mind could rest there, it was a playground for my imagination, and I felt like Dr. Godin was probably about to become a frequent visitor to this place.

This mission felt like it was becoming dangerous, despite being in civilized space. I had to wonder if he really did just plan on taking new readings of my brain while I slept.

No, what the fuck, Meryll, that wasn't what mattered. He dehumanized me. He treated me like an object. He tried to remove my choice because I was just a thing to him. There was no misunderstanding on my part here, he's an asshole. He is evil.

I briefly debated messaging him. Taunting him. Yelling indignantly into his inbox. Trying to make him feel one iota of shame for what he tried to do. I had grabbed his details when I sent him those files, and that meant he had my address too. It was surprising to see he hadn't already tried to do the reverse to me. He seemed angry enough when we left that he could have written a scathing email about how little I mattered compared to him and his work or something, but he sent nothing either.

After some time agonizing quietly in my void over it, I decided it wasn't worth the feeling of distress having this hang over me, and I blocked his contact entirely. If he was planning on creeping me out anymore, he at least couldn't have it in virtual space. That was my domain, not his. Screw that asshole. I would not let him have power over me.

Taking in a deep, thick breath of fluid lubricant, I closed my eyes and focused back on pseudo-physical matters.

I was glad to note that I could see the cargo bay now. Mouse had fixed my sensor array, and I finally felt like I could properly observe the ship as a whole again. I silently watched him put together pieces of steel into new pieces of the frame for the ship for a little while.

At a certain point, I guess it stopped feeling weird that I was a voyeur to the entire crew without their awareness or consent. I think they understood it was implied by now. Shutting down my sensors for frivolous reasons was neither pleasant nor responsible, and though I'd learned to direct my attention better than when I started, I still took in all the sensory data across the ship at all times, so it wasn't like I could really help it. Joel and Aisling almost always shut off my sensors in their rooms at night, but that was understandable enough and didn't majorly impact my contiguous picture of the ship at large since it was such a small centralized space.

Mouse looked distressed when I focused in on him. I wondered what was going through his head. I looked to the script for activating the intercom near him, wondering if I should insert myself into the situation, but ultimately, I decided I had enough of my own trauma on my plate for today. He would have to carry his own burdens for now.

Instead, I floated up to the helm and watched Aisling work. She had a system map up on her screen and was running several calculations and populating a supply list. An escape route. A plan that would no doubt need to be as carefully maneuvered as her slow conversation with Skygraves on the matter of my personhood. Right, there was that whole fucker too. I had no doubt that Skygraves and Godin got along swimmingly.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I pinged her terminal to make her aware of my presence and then spoke softly through the intercom to avoid making her jump again. “Hey Captain. How's it going?”

“We have an asshole we're trapped with getting impatient with me way faster than I hoped he would. I've only been able to gather up supplies to keep Ray medicated for half the trip I have planned from here. I don't know if we'll have enough rations either. I'm probably going to have to organize a heist while things go down here, which means burning bridges we just started building.” Aisling turned around to look up at my sensors. “So yeah, things are going alright. You?”

I mean, if we were just being that real with each other in that moment, I suppose I had little reason to lie about what happened. There was only really one brutally succinct sentence to put how I felt; that I had to admit the reality of, eventually. “I think I might have almost been raped.” I wish I could have gotten my artificial voice to say that in a much less casual tone than it came out in, but I didn't have a voice library prepped for ‘abject depression’.

Her movement halted immediately, as if everything else had had to stop for her to parse what she just heard. Her eyes had gone wide in something I couldn't identify between shock, fear, and intriguingly, rage. “I'm sorry, WHAT?” Aisling growled with a fury I hadn't seen her display yet. It immediately pissed her off on my behalf before she'd even heard my story. I spoke rapidly, venting a torrent of righteous indignation at the captain, who listened diligently, a seething fury building as I spoke.

“I mean, I don't know if that was his intention, but Dr. Godin gave me these really creepy vibes the whole time I was with him, and then he tried to shove one of those anesthetic gas mask things over my face. If Joel hadn't been there… then I don't know, I might have been stowed away somewhere or killed or… I don't even know.” It felt unreal hearing the possible implications of his actions verbalized. I had really been that close to losing everything.

“Fuck…” Aisling muttered. I could see the tension in her body as she considered what I just said. I could see the skin of her knuckles pale and twitch over her tightened fists, barely containing an explosive emotional response. “Did Joel shoot him?”

“No, he-”

“Fucking should have!” Aisling slammed her fist on the desk next to her. There it was. She couldn't stay stoic and diplomatic forever against this. I couldn't blame her, and I was frankly relieved to see her showing that side of herself for me. There was a ping from her console and she glanced back to the communication screen as if she was about to kick its ass somehow. She wheeled back around to her terminal and pulled up her communication with Skygraves “Fuck no, fuck this negotiation bullshit, we're talking about this, you fucker.” She grumbled as I watched her angrily typing to Skygraves. I had never seen Aisling as impassioned as this before. If I didn't still feel emotionally numb about my encounter that day, I'd probably have found it attractive. “Did he touch you?”

“I mean, yeah, under the pretense of gathering data.” Wait, fuck, why was I downplaying this? “And then the whole wrestling with him to push him off me thing.”

Aisling had already typed up a diatribe aimed at Skygraves by now. ‘You motherfucker, you can't even control your scientists. We had a deal with them and this is how you treat us? Meryll just came back to tell me Dr. Godin assaulted her. How the fuck am I supposed to trust you can take care of her after this, huh?’

Out of curiosity, I scrolled up through her logs to read the conversation I had missed. There was some negotiation over price, and WOW was he desperate to purchase me at a premium. I don't think I've seen that many zeroes before. It was a good thing for me money didn’t motivate Aisling. The haggling reached a point where stalling wouldn't have been a good tactic there anymore and they settled on a price.

But then Aisling had discussed the particulars of my treatment under his control. She let him know directly that she had hangups about this trade because she considered me to be my own autonomous person, but for the amount he offered her, she couldn't afford to refuse. She negotiated for my citizenship on his colony and for arrangements to be made for me to live there comfortably. Skygraves made reasonable promises, all no doubt empty, and unfortunately didn't try to reneg on the price, which would have made things last that much longer.

I could tell Aisling had been running out of excuses because she was circling back on her conversation. I was a little disgusted to say that being assaulted had been exactly what Aisling needed to continue her stall tactics.

Except, I don't think she saw it that way. This wasn't about the negotiation anymore in that moment, this was the fury of a charismatic woman scorned on my behalf, lashing out at the one person who had the most power to make things right in this situation.

We both watched as the typing notification showed up at the bottom of the message chain. Then disappeared, then reappeared and disappeared again, like someone totally blindsided by their colleague's abhorrent actions that they flapped their mouth open and closed trying to find anything tolerable to continue the dialog with. This time it didn't start up again, though.

Aisling grumbled to herself, folding her arms and leaning back in her seat to smolder over the doubtless insufferable tirade to come. “If you say something stupid now, you old bastard, I will shoot you myself.”

“Thanks, Captain.” I took in a deep breath, feeling like I was about to cry. I hadn't really fully emotionally processed what had happened earlier, and seeing Aisling become emotional had finally opened the floodgates. I felt safe letting myself feel vulnerable when I had such a powerful woman looking out for me. I decided to just keep talking about it. Let it all out.

“The whole time I was there, he kept treating me like I was just a machine. Like I had no say in what he wanted to do with me. He even tried to tell Joel that I was just a ship core after he accused him of assaulting me.” I was kind of glad for my synthesized voice, because there was no way that I could have continued this conversation in the flesh. It felt weird, sobbing and bawling, curled up in a ball in the core module while an approximation of my voice expressed my violated thoughts.

I scolded myself a little for that. I thought I was stronger than that. I'd held myself together until then, but putting it all into perspective made me realize what kinds of terrible fates could have happened to me if things had gone a little different, and that hit me hard. I was allowed to feel, dammit. I was allowed to show a little weakness because I was a human fucking being.

“Don't worry, Meryll. I'll make sure this bastard sees justice. I'll cut his arms off myself if it means he can't touch you again. Then I'll shove the barrel of my gun down his throat so he can't say something that stupid ever again.” Aisling promised. I believed her. Hell, I'd probably take her up on that. Had I always been this okay with violence? It was probably something to think about some other time.

“Thank you, Aisling.” I sniffled. She was powerful and bold. I was going to be safe in her hands, I knew it.

Her terminal finally blinked with a new message and we both leaned in to read.

‘I cannot apologize enough for this incident, Captain Barrowin. I assure you that this is not the norm in Venusian society. I have already given the order to the port authority to detain Dr. Godin and for security footage to be seized as evidence. You have my word as founder of this colony that this will never happen again. I will triple the agreed-upon payment from Dr. Godin, and we will strike his feedback from your contract. We have a psychologist on the station, a good friend of mine, if Meryll would like to talk to someone on the matter. I can offer additional security at any future meetings if you wish as well.’

Aisling let out a smoldering sigh. That response was… surprisingly reasonable. I think Aisling was expecting, maybe even hoping, for more pushback on the issue so that she could buy more time arguing about it, but how could she when he was giving her everything she could have expected and more? Skygraves was a patient man who wouldn't tip his hand easily, that was for sure.

She bit her lip nervously and started typing as I spoke “That was… not what I thought was going to happen.”

She grumbled quietly “Me neither. Something is up here. But on the surface, he's in the right. We'll just have to play along.”

I kind of hated this game they were playing. It felt horrible trying to guess what everyone here actually wanted and try to anticipate their next move. I didn't want to play it, but whether or not I wanted it, I was the most important piece. I wished that there could just be a straightforward conversation where we told him we weren't interested in selling me off, but that was just going to lead to immediate conflict.

‘Thank you, Dr. Skygraves. That's at least a right step toward making this right. I'll see what she thinks of meeting with your psych friend.’ I appreciated the fib. I didn't want Skygraves to know I was already seeing Dr. Yates. ‘We’ll keep providing our own security, though. I'm not happy right now, and Meryll's in a very fragile state. I need to tend to her needs right now, so we'll continue talking about this tomorrow.’

Aisling sent the message off and I saw the tension drop right out of her shoulders as she read the immediate ‘Of course. I have to take care of this incident now, anyway. Have a good evening Ms. Barrowin.’ that he replied with.

If I could hug Aisling in that moment, I would have. At least she could use this to buy us a little more time. Maybe we could at least leverage my suffering for a bit of an advantage in our situation.

“Meryll, I'm so sorry.” She muttered, turning back around to look me in the ‘eye’ again. “No one should have to go through this. And I'm glad you could trust me to bring it to my attention. We'll make this right.”

I nodded, then sent a quick “yeah” to the intercom before I opened my eyes and settled into a long hard cry in the void.