I walked into Collins’ room behind Aisling this time, along with Shaw, Doc, and Joel, who all looked on with a much more relaxed air than the last time we’d each made contact with the former captain. She glared at all of us regardless of the more friendly parade, though I saw her eyes drift to me a few more times than the others. Curiosity over my state of being?

  After a moment of us settling into the room in silence, she growled, “Need witnesses for an execution?”

  “Actually, we’re done with that act,” Aisling led, throwing her arms open. “You passed with flying colors.”

  Collins quirked an eyebrow and stared at her with an expression of deep distrust. “Excuse me?”

  “My name is Captain Aisling Barrowin. I can now formally welcome you aboard Theseus without all the pretense.” She pulled a chair up and sat down on it backwards, with her arms rested over the back. She made sure to stay more than an arm’s reach distance from her. “I may have told a little fib. Wasn’t sure where exactly your loyalties lay yet, so I orchestrated a little show to see how you’d react if a screw put you on the spot. Gotta say, I am a big fan of the enthusiastic self-sacrifice.”

  Collins’ expression didn’t become any less tense, but her anger had clearly been turned immediately to analytical confusion. “I’m... not under arrest?”

  “Lady, the effort we’d need to get you arrested would probably get us all killed,” Joel smirked.

  “We’re not resistance, but you could say that we’re... sympathetic to the cause.” Shaw spoke up next. “After all, if they stabilize that region, they’re a stone’s throw from Luna.”

  Collins furrowed her eyes again, and took a moment to speak up. “You’re pirates,” she declared with an almost accusatory tone.

  “And you’re a smuggler, at the very least,” Aisling shot back. “We’re hardly enemies. I’d put us under the same label of ‘lawless anti-corporate hellions’. Sorry about the deception, but I think you’ve more than proven you’re not going to go and sell us out for no good reason.”

  Some of the tension seemed to release from Collins’ body, but she wasn’t off her guard yet. “Give me some proof. Show me something that tells me this isn’t just another ploy.”

  Aisling tilted her head, frowning slightly. “First of all, I have no actual interest in whatever information you may or may not have on the Martian resistance. Good on you, keeping that to yourself. Second of all...” She reached into her jacket and produced her tablet, tossing it into Collins’ lap and making her flinch. She slowly turned to look at the tablet and her eyes softened a bit more at it as she stared at the photograph and details that followed. “My bounty sheet. Take it as a sign of trust. A mote of truth in the charges, but I’m sure you know how inflated they tend to be.”

  Collins scrolled down on the tablet, but didn’t seem especially comforted by what she was reading. Still, it hammered home the point. “You’re either fantastic at manufacturing official looking documents, or you’re unbelievably dangerous.”

  “Don’t see why it can’t be both.” Shaw shrugged. “Suppose I could manage it if I took some time on it.” We all turned to him at once with a wall of unimpressed looks. “What? I thought we were being honest now.”

  Aisling cleared her throat and turned her attention back to Collins. “Right. We are. I would appreciate some reciprocation on that front, though.” She held her hand out with her palm up. “The shiv?”

  Collins flinched, her eyes opening wide and darting to the side for a moment. “Shiv?”

  “There’s a piece of the handle on your bio monitor missing. You’ve been sharpening it against the back side of the bed since last night. Don’t blame you, since you didn’t know what was actually going on, but I hardly think there’s a need for it now that you don’t need to go out in a desperate blaze of violent glory. We’re on our way back home soon, and I don’t see why we can’t drop you off on the way. So no need for that.”

  Collins hesitated for a few tense moments of silence before she reached slowly back under her pillow and produced a small chunk of broken plastic that hadn’t been rendered very sharp at all yet, but was clearly being shaved down to a point. She looked down with a hint of shame and tossed it to the floor at Aisling’s feet. “Okay, fine. I’d have gotten beaten or worse for that if you were corporate,” she grumbled. “So what’s your angle?”

  Aisling smiled, then turned to me. “Thought you said it was a weapon already, that’s hardly ready to kill someone.”

  I shrugged, “I-It looked sh... sharp from the sensor.”

  Collins’ eyes snapped to mine at that, bewilderment washing over her as I openly expressed using a machine function. I took a step back from the sudden attention, but she didn’t say anything directly.

  “So, now that we’re being all open and everything, do you mind if maybe my physician can look you over again?” She motioned to Doc. “He wants to give you physical therapy so you can get you back on your feet. I assure you, he’s qualified.”

  “Trained in a proper college on Titan,” Doc spoke up, trying to maintain a neutral tone. When Collins’ eyes furrowed at him again, he only smirked. “Let’s just say the lifestyle disagreed with me.”

  “You do have that look to you...” Collins muttered, the comment lighthearted, but her tone still rigid. “I don’t trust you people, but I’m not in much of a position to complain. You did... save me, I guess. And I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not fascists for now. No more questions about my operations?”

  “Keep it to yourself.” Aisling shrugged. “We don’t have any use for it. I don’t even think Shaw here cares.”

  He shook his head. “Not really. That kind of information is only valuable to militarists, and though I do love to make valuable exchanges happen, I’m not in the habit of working against my better interest. Please, keep Mars as independent as possible. That’s worth more than whatever short term gains I might rake in by selling out.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Info broker?” Collins asked, still looking dour. She scoffed, “And one with a conscience?”

  Shaw smiled and pointed at her with a pair of finger guns, “Nailed it in one. I’m not one to be tied down to a crew like this, just passing through as you are. Lovely sort to fly with once you’re past the ‘prisoner’ stage.”

  Ignoring that statement for now, she turned to look at Joel. “And he’s the muscle?”

  Before Joel could comment, Aisling gave an enthusiastic, “Yep.”

  He rolled his eyes at that, and gave a warm smile to Collins. “Gotta say, good to hear there’s still people fighting the good fight on Mars. Wish I could’ve stayed myself, but...” He looked about ready to say something else, but he frowned and just let out an exasperated sigh.

  Collins gave him an uncertain nod. Then she turned to me. “And her?”

  Aisling grew a wide smile. “Meryll is... special.”

  I fidgeted nervously with my hands as soon as she got to me, and smiled as it became my turn to play my part. “Well... I-I’m... I’m Theseus.”

  Collins looked surprised to once more hear the truth spoken so bluntly. It caught her off guard and she went silent again. She seemed conflicted, but eventually she asked outright, “So those messages I read on my core’s terminal...”

  I smiled at her, then brushed my hair back to show the neural implant. “Yeah. We h-have a lot in c-common.”

  She stared at my implant in disbelief, her mouth hanging open slightly as her expression quickly cycled through awe, confusion, and skepticism.

  “Meryll was a surprise for us, too,” Aisling chimed in. “Comes out for maintenance one day moving on her own and asking questions. A machine core with a soul.” That part wasn’t entirely untrue, if a little over-embellished.

  “No branding...” she mumbled, “Is it under its... her clothes?” The fact that she momentarily stumbled on a dehumanizing pronoun made me wince slightly, but I tried not to show it. At least she got it right in the end.

  Aisling shook her head. It was time to get the one remaining fabrication of my story out there. It was best not to let her know I was Foundation’s pet project. “She’s not mass produced. There’s this genius on Luna that made her. He was surprised by this, too. He’s working on replicating it. You know how slow things like that can go without corpo money, though. It’s especially hard while keeping the whole thing under wraps so the corps don’t try and steal the research.”

  “That’s... unbelievable.” Collins continued staring at me with rapt fascination. I eventually returned a concerned look to her, and she finally averted her gaze. “Ah. That’s... so she’s a fully... aware person?”

  I nodded to her. “Y-Yes. I-I know most peo...ple only see c-c-cores as machinery, but... I... would appreciate it if I w-was tre...treated like any other member of the crew, th-thank you.” I kept stumbling over my words, more than usual. I guess I was nervous. Who wouldn’t be in my situation?

  She nodded back to me slowly, then blinked a few times, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, that’s just... a lot to wrap my head around all at once. Ten minutes ago, I thought you were about to walk in and torture me, now you’re throwing a pile of existential crises my way. I thought consciousness and psionic resonance were incompatible.”

  I gave her a smirk, closed my eyes and sent an audible ping to the tablet in Collins’ hands. She startled and looked down to see a system message in the center of the screen that said ‘Think again.’ I had made sure to put a hand into my pocket beforehand as Aisling had instructed. It wasn’t for anything practical, but it gave Collins a reasonable avenue of disbelief that perhaps I was controlling things another way.

  “Oh, that’s creepy.” Collins muttered to herself as she pushed the tablet away from her onto the bed.

  “Isn’t it?” Joel rolled his eyes. “Didn’t think as much about my privacy as I do now that I know there’s an actual person constantly watching my every move and not just a bio-computer.” He gestured up toward the sensor array at the top of the room as he was instructed to do. “I’ll show you how to shut them off later.” That part hadn’t been in the script.

  I opened my eyes again and pouted at Joel, “H-Hey, how would you like it if poked your e-e-eyes out? Cause that’s what you’re do...ing.”

  “I’m doing you a favor,” Joel crossed his arms and frowned. “I already know you don’t want to see what I’m doing when I’m alone in my quarters.”

  “Gross.” Aisling and Shaw said in unison. They turned to trade a look of annoyance and amusement before Aisling brought her attention back to Collins. “Anyway, as you can tell, this is a very sensitive matter, but something that we would be unable to hide from you for very long. Now that we’ve decided we don’t need to do anything too drastic about you, I thought it best that we be up front on the matter. I should say that Meryll’s sapience has proven to be a major boon in many ways since she ‘woke up’. She can reason and interpret situations creatively without user input. I’ve seen her in action, and the kinds of things she can do with this ship in a dogfight are nothing short of miraculous. Not to mention her affinity for effortlessly accessing smaller computers. I’m sure that we can agree that something of that magnitude could become a very, VERY big problem for all of us if she or her creator should fall into a corporation’s hands.”

  Collins froze up at the thought. It must not have occurred to her just what this kind of discovery could mean for military corps. “I... I understand,” she said quietly. “The last things Mars needs is for our enemies to have an edge like that. I’ll keep quiet on the matter.”

  Aisling stood up from her chair and gave a relieved sigh. “Then I think we have everything on the table. Captain Morgan Collins, I welcome you as a guest on my ship, until such time that we part. Be aware that we are currently in a communications lockdown. No broadcasting anything via relay; Meryll will make sure nothing gets through that shouldn’t. There’s a reason we’re on Io, after all.”

  “Wait, we’re actually on Io?” Collins recoiled slightly. “That wasn’t a bluff?”

  Aisling turned and quirked her eyebrow. “I’m not sure how long you were in wild space before your ‘incident’, but there is currently a military blockade over Luna. Foundation. We assumed the worst and fled here. By the time we got access to the relay again, we were already here, and found out it was just some big-headed show of force.”

  Collins gave her a concerned look. “Who hides from their enemies at their back door?”

  Aisling held up a finger to silence her before she turned around the corner from the open door. “Who looks for their enemies at their back door?”

  Collins shook her head. “That’s insane.”

  “Probably.” Shaw shrugged and turned to leave for himself, alongside Joel. “But it worked, didn’t it?”

  I chuckled as the door closed behind him, leaving just Collins, Doc, and I in the room together.

  Doc spoke up first, stepping forward and sliding the shiv across the floor with his foot. “Well, barring you holding onto any more dangerous implements you might want to show now, I’d like to do a more thorough examination now that you’re conscious, and see how you handle being back on your feet, so I know where to start.”

  Collins looked down at the tablet on the bed, still displaying the message. On a whim, I closed my eyes and erased the message, replacing it with a smiley face. “Haha, okay...” Collins looked away from it again with a nervous smile, seeming more than a little lost. “That makes sense, but why is she still here, then?”

  I tilted my head. “Oh, m-me?” I asked. “I ac...tually had s-some questions for you. About I-Isabelle.”

  sort of coming clean. They're still lying through their teeth, but they told her the big thing.

  Discord

  The Nothing Child. It's an urban fantasy about three reluctant college students and a shapeshifting alien monster thrust into a campaign to defeat an all-consuming horror from another world that they accidentally unleashed upon their city.