“Wait, Meryll. It’s me.” A voice broke through the static before I could reach for my thruster controls and made me hesitate. It was my own voice, but it was easy enough to tell from its weight and tone who it really was. Lily. The image slowly started to clear up. “It’s... just me.”
Lily was sitting in what looked like a small cockpit, well-lit, new and sleek in its compact design, and she looked different. Way different. The metal band around her head was gone, and I could see lines of scar tissue where the prongs that had been stuck into her head had been removed. Not only that, but on the right side of her face, just above her ear, a small triangular plate sat, threaded into her skin, and I stared at, transfixed at what it meant. That was a neural implant.
She had a gentle smile on her face and she looked a little less tired than she was the last time I saw her. She reached forward and picked up the camera, turning it around slowly in a circle before setting it back down on a surface in front of her. “See? Just me.”
I stared at her for a few more moments, trying to make sense of it. She had been implanted. That meant she was a machine core. Or at least, she was capable of being a machine core. A ship core. But she wasn’t in a core module or I wouldn’t be able to see her like this. ‘You escaped?’ I sent along the feed, guessing she had a channel prepared to receive my text like last time.
She gave a nervous smile. “I... may have taken advantage of some circumstances that let me slip away for a while.” she gave a weak chuckle. “I don’t know if ‘escaped’ is the right word... they’re still expecting me back. We’re not on a time limit or anything, though. They have no idea where I am, and it’ll be weeks before they’ll call me insubordinate, but I’m way off course from where I was supposed to be. I needed to talk with you, Meryll. Not as a Foundation asset. As a sister. No tricks. No one watching.”
‘You’ve been augmented.’ I got right to the point. Before anything else, I needed to know why she had a neural implant.
Lily reached up and frowned as she tapped the metal plate on her head. “Yeah. After your performance, I decided...” She closed her eyes and winced. “My handlers... decided that we needed to begin outfitting a ship with an Arthausen unit immediately. And since the psych monitor is already so large, I was chosen to be their test subject. They’re probably installing it into what I guess is going to be... my ship, already.” She gave another nervous laugh.
So she hadn’t grafted a ship to herself yet. But she was going to be a ship core. Because they wanted to use her against me. Or in place of me? I didn’t know their intentions, and I honestly didn’t care to. They were using her either way. ‘How did you find me?’
“Right. You don’t remember what we can do. They wouldn’t let me tell you before. Our psychic resonance becomes far more powerful than a normal clone’s because we have a psyche behind us. Like how Cassandra can move things by thinking about them, Grace can manipulate electrical energy, and Tara...” Her words trailed off for a moment and I watched her eyes glaze over as her mind wandered somewhere else, like she’d suddenly remembered something... Then her sad smile returned and she continued like nothing happened. “They call what I do precognition. I don’t know if that’s exactly right, but I can see... glimpses.” She shook her head. “I-I can’t completely explain it, but sometimes I just see things that are yet to come.”
I couldn’t believe it. Accurate fortune telling was probably the wildest speculation I’d made about how Lily was finding us, but at least according to her, that’s exactly what it was. She could see the future. How were we supposed to work against that? She probably already knew where we were going. Not only that, but presumably, all of my sisters had psionic abilities just as insane as this was. ‘You’re telling me you just knew I would be here? Does Foundation know?’
Lily shook her head. “I wasn’t being monitored when I got this one. And it doesn’t work like that. I can’t change what I see. If I try, it won’t happen. I saw us meeting here. Just you and I having this conversation over a wrecked ship. There was no one else. If I had brought Foundation, then you wouldn’t be here. It wouldn’t have happened. Or I guess it would be as likely to happen as it normally would be? Which is to say, it wouldn’t happen.” She gave another weak laugh. “Completely improbable.”
Oh. She could see the future, but she was powerless to change what she saw. Or perhaps she was making these events happen herself by arranging arbitrary circumstances? It was hard to say where the causation was. Either way, regardless of the seemingly supernatural nature of it, she could only prevent or facilitate futures she saw, not alter them. Perhaps her ability wasn’t as powerful as I assumed it to be. ‘Is that why I was only attacked by two ships when we last met?’
“I only saw two of our fighters in my vision. If we had brought a greater force, you would have been somewhere else. And I didn’t see the outcome, only that we met there. We assumed two ships would be enough to subdue you. I couldn’t have imagined you would have won.” She glanced to the side, her expression growing concerned. “Umm... the surviving pilot... she’s okay, by the way. Her ship had to be retired, but she wasn’t even injured.”
The image of the one that implicitly definitely didn’t survive crossed my mind and I let out a silent sigh into the lubricant. ‘That’s good.’
“Yeah...” She seemed uncomfortable until she changed the subject back to her ability. “I-I don’t see everything perfectly. Just bits and pieces. Sometimes they conflict, sometimes I understand so little about what I see that it’s not very useful. My handlers and I have to sort through everything and determine what futures we should try to make happen and what ones to avoid from context clues... I’m sorry I had to attack you. I really thought that approaching you there would be the best shot at getting you back...”
‘Are you still going to try to get me to come back?’ I asked.
“Well... yeah.” She admitted. “What else are we supposed to do? Meryll, I haven’t seen any future where you don’t...” She hesitated for a moment, then looked away from the camera. “I mean... I don’t see any... good future where you don’t.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, and suddenly, Lily’s desperation for me to return made a lot more sense. She was trying to protect me from something she saw. She was trying to prevent a potential future. One in which something terrible happened to me. ‘Do I die?’
She brought her arms up to hold herself and leaned over, still looking away from the camera. “I’m tired of seeing those futures, Meryll... I’ve seen your lifeless body too many times. In so many different ways. I can’t... I can’t let that happen, and if you keep resisting like this, I’m so afraid that they’re eventually going to see one of those futures as... acceptable losses. And I will have shown them what they needed to make it happen. It will have been my fault. You’re the only person in this world who’s ever really cared for me, Meryll. And I care about you. I can’t be responsible for your death. I don’t want to see you die. So please, that’s why you have to come back with me.”
So that was what this was all about. She did see me die. And this was all a desperate attempt to avert that future. ‘You could just not go back to them.’ I offered.
She shook her head. ‘That doesn’t tend to end well for either of us." She gave a nervous chuckle. “I’ve thought about it. Now would be the best opportunity. I’m going to be part of a ship after this. I won’t exactly be able to sneak off anymore. This would be my last chance to break free. To run. But they catch up to me. They bring me back. I know they do. I’m not as... ruthless as you, Meryll. Whatever made you lose your memory changed you. You’re stronger now. You can... take a life.”
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‘When I need to.’ I sent the message quickly, letting my feelings on the subject pour out of me. ‘That wasn’t easy. I didn’t want to do it. I still wish I didn’t have to do it, and even though I know I’ll have to do it again, I keep hoping that I won’t have to. I cried a lot that night, and if it weren’t for my crew, I think I would have done something awful to myself. But I would do it again, and I will do it again to defend myself and my crew. I’ll probably cry again and again, but I would rather face those emotions than surrender to Foundation. I will kill for my freedom, and you can bet that I’ll die for it.’
Lily still refused to look into the camera. She let out an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t see you saying that, but I thought you would, anyway. There’s really no convincing you.” She smiled sadly, barely suppressing something that sounded like a sob. “Don’t worry, there’s really no trap this time. I am alone. I’m not going to attack you. I just hoped I could convince you...”
‘And I hope I can convince you. You don’t have to go back to them. You don’t have anyone holding you back from just... not returning to them. The things you see aren’t set in stone, right? You said it yourself, you see lots of things that don’t come true. So let’s take the future into our own hands and decide for ourselves what’s actually going to happen.’
As she read my words slowly, I saw a little bit of tension disappear from her shoulders and I watched something shine in her rheumy eyes as she went. Then she looked right into the camera and muttered, “But it’s futile, isn’t it? You really think you can fight fate itself? You think I could?”
‘Why not?’ I smirked to myself. If it meant continuing to be Theseus, to spend every day in this beautiful void, to spend all my time cutting through this sea of stars, and continuing to be who and what I truly felt I was meant to be, I would fight whatever nebulous concept tried to stop me. And I felt enough of a lost kinship with Lily to know that if she would go along with it, I would do it so she could feel the same as well. ‘You don’t have to do it alone. Come board Theseus. We can talk face to face. You can come with us. You can join our crew.’
Her eyes went wide and her jaw slackened slightly. She looked genuinely surprised. “W-What?” She stammered.
‘Yeah. I’ll have to coordinate it with the captain, but that’s what we do. Theseus takes in outcasts like you and I. People with nowhere they belong, with the whole universe against them. We survive together and protect each other because we know what it’s like to have no one else. If any other ship had found me out there, I would probably already be back with Foundation. Maybe something did change me when I lost my memory, but my crew are the people who made me strong enough to fight for what I believe in and stood by me even if I’m attracting trouble. And I know they’ll accept you too, if you’ll join us. We’re family.’
Lily stared at the camera, frozen with her bewildered expression for a long time. Minutes passed in silence as she read and reread my words. Finally, she composed herself enough to stammer out the words “Meryll... I... I’ve never seen a future where I... join a pirate crew... I don’t even know if that’s a possibility.”
That was... surprising. That seemed like an obvious possible conclusion to us meeting like this to me. But it did present a good logical hook to bring her in. ‘And that means none of the futures you saw where I die can happen if you do so, right? It throws a monkey wrench into it all. It lets you write what happens next for yourself.’
She stared in silence for just a little while longer, her gaze eventually drifting down and her posture relaxing slightly. “This... new you... You really like to disrupt the status quo, don’t you? You even make it sound so... inviting. Even after all I did, you would still invite me to be with you now? They would accept me?” She shook her head. “No, I can’t. I have to go back eventually, they’ve got... they’ve got the world that makes sense to me. I know, I know, it’s just a simulation, but it’s... all I really have to look forward to.”
‘Lily, you didn’t do anything to us. Foundation did. They used you. That’s all they do is use you. They keep promising you that you can return to that simulation, that they’re the only ones who can help you forget about this shitty existence, that they’re making for you by the way, but do you ever actually see a future where they even let you have that?’
Her face sagged and she looked tired as she spoke. “I... always hoped I could make that future happen anyway... But how did you know I’ve never had that vision?”
I hesitated for just a moment. Telling her meant putting Fuller in the spotlight, and it meant shattering the one anchor she had holding her together emotionally. The only thing she looked forward to, as she put it. But I’d already started down this path. I just had to bet that this would work. I pulled up Fuller’s file on Lily and sent it along the feed to her. ‘We met with a former Arthausen project scientist. She’s the one who told me what I am, and warned me about the rest of us. She gave me a personal file on each of you, and this is yours.’
I watched her interacting with the terminal in front of her and beginning to read, her expression becoming increasingly concerned as she went on. Before she finished, I had a message ready. ‘Not only do they not intend to put you back into that virtual reality, they physically can’t. They’ve even been lying to you about that this whole time. They’ve been using you with the promise of a reward they can’t give you.’
She stared at the words in horrified silence, her expression gradually tensing up all over again. She reread both my transmission and the file several times over, her eyes clearly fixated on particular passages as her demeanor grew more and more frightened. But she didn’t cry.
‘It’s okay, Lily. Let it out.’ I sent those words from Aisling that did so much for me. It snapped her attention up, but she didn’t look like she was ready to let her emotions go.
“It’s not okay.” She shook her head. “This... whole time?” She was barely able to squeak out.
‘She didn’t even know I was part of the project before we met, so she must have left before then. So yeah, they’ve known they couldn’t do it this whole time. I only looked into the file after our last encounter, or I would have told you then.’
“So I’m... I’m stuck in this world...?” She whimpered quietly, still in a state of shock.
‘I’m sorry, Lily. This is the real world. It’s the only one you’ve got. There’s nothing for you back with Foundation. So join us. We can make the most of what we do have. We can still live a satisfying life. I can show you how amazing things can be with real friends on the outside. I can show you why I’m fighting so hard for this.’
Her eyes drifted slowly down again, and I could see she was on the verge of tears. Hints of anger and frustration showed through her countenance while her world’s fragile walls collapsed around her. “Thank you for showing me this.” She was desperately trying to hold a neutral tone. It sounded forced. “I... I have a lot to think about.” Her exhausted voice cracked as she reached forward. And suddenly, the line went dead. The feed turned black. And she was gone. I waited several minutes, watching the data stream for some sign of comms activity. Nothing. I sent out a scan to local space. Nothing. The ship she’d hijacked hadn’t come near enough for me to spot her. Had I done the wrong thing, showing her that file? She deserved to know the truth, but now I wondered if it was too much for her to bear.
My heart ached. I wished I could hold her hand and be a shoulder to cry on for her. But she was gone. I couldn’t help someone who didn’t want to be helped. Perhaps she would contact me again after she’d wept the pain away. But for now, I felt her absence far more profoundly than that of my displaced compartment.
I sighed into the lubricant. I couldn’t keep this to myself. Brooding alone wasn’t going to solve anything, and it would be a bad idea to keep what just happened a secret. I turned my attention inward and retreated to my heart to see Doc leaning over his terminal, pondering questions of his own. I tapped the intercom and just put it out there. “I just spoke with Lily.”
Doc lifted his head to look at the sensor, then did a double take. “Excuse me? Meryll, are we under attack?” He asked urgently, quickly pulling himself to his feet.
“No. It was just Lily. No Foundation. She escaped them. At least physically.” My synthesized voice didn’t properly portray the sadness I meant to express in those words. “She just wanted to talk. There’s nothing incoming. There’s no trap. It was just Lily, on her own.”
Doc didn’t relax in the slightest, holding tight to the edge of the large biometrics terminal at his station. “You’re positive?”
“Yes. I tried to convince her to stay, but she left after I showed her Fuller’s file. She’s probably still sitting just outside of scan range. Probably crying. It was upsetting for her.”
He loosened his grip and dropped a bit of his tension, but he stayed standing. “That’s... a problem. It’s a problem that she found us, you get that, right?”
“I know, I know. She told me how she’s doing that, by the way. And some more about our sisters. It’s concerning. I don’t think she’s going to go back to Foundation now, though.” I anxiously sent another ping to the surrounding area and sighed into the void when it again returned nothing. “I invited her to come with us.”
Doc raised his eyebrows and made an interested hum. “That’s not really up to you... but I doubt Aisling would object if we could take the right precautions.”
“I just hope she contacts me again soon. I can’t imagine what’s going through her head right now. She’s in a lot of pain.”