My sister’s words echoed through my mind as my focus returned to the all-important document I had tasked myself with evaluating. How could they not? She had basically told me that she had seen exactly what it is I’m capable of, something that had agonized me from beyond the edge of my shredded memory. And she was unable to give me a hint at it. At least not any more than she already had. Even though Lily’s precognition prevented her from revealing what she knew, that didn’t prevent me from trying to suss it out for myself.

  Before her talent interrupted her, she’d blurted out that I didn’t need my cybernetics. But that didn’t make any sense to me. Everything I did with psychic networking was interpreted through my neural implant. My entire perception of the digital world required it as an extrasensory organ of sorts. It was like telling me that I could hear without my ears or breathe without my lungs.

  I needed to bounce ideas off someone smarter than me. I tapped the intercom in Isabelle’s room. It didn’t matter if I was interrupting Doc’s flow; I needed him now.

  Doc was standing over Isabelle’s body, extracted from the nearby secondary core module that we’d had to cram roughly into a double room in the crew quarters.

  It was always strange seeing her in the flesh. She was somehow paler than I was, other than the scattered pitch black rectangular tattoos along her thigh, neck, and arm where the serial and production markings ordinarily marked mass-produced machine cores. A short mop of black hair drooped behind her on the table she was laid across, probably approaching the length that it would need to be shaved down for ease of maintenance. Her cybernetics mirrored my own: A small triangle of metal around her ear that betrayed the neural implant, a large casing at her hip, and a biometrics monitor screen on her arm. They were different brands from mine, but there was a certain degree of standardization in core parts that made them almost the same. I knew from experience that she also had a psychic damper behind her head.

  What always made me uneasy, though, were her eyes. She was completely still on the table, staring up at the ceiling, eyes half-lidded and unfocused like she had no muscular control of them, glazed over with nothing behind them. If she weren’t breathing with an unnatural shallow steadiness, it would be hard to imagine that she was alive. I wanted to see what was behind that blank veil. I would wake her up.

  For now, though, I was focused on myself. “Doc, I have a problem,” I finally spoke up.

  Doc gave a quiet, annoyed grunt while he added something to an IV feed sticking into Isabelle’s arm. “Need more psychological analysis?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not about the file. Lily gave me some insight about something, and I wonder what you might think.” I started. “Has there ever been a case of a machine core operating without a neural implant?”

  His brow furrowed. To be fair, it was a very weird question. “Of... course not? That’s what allows a core to operate as a bio-computer. You should know that better than anyone. What’s going through your head, Meryll?”

  I gave a frustrated sigh. “Lily and I were discussing my psychic talent. She threw out this theory that I didn’t need the implant to operate in the digital space. Then she had a vision, suddenly got really freaked out, and immediately dismissed the whole concept. She must have seen something.”

  Doc set his hands down beside Isabelle and looked up at the sensor array with a concerned focus. It felt like he was staring into my eyes, trying to determine what was happening in my brain. “Do you think she was right?”

  “I have no idea! It doesn’t even make sense if she is, but psychic talents don’t make sense, so that makes sense!” I paused because I needed to stop that train of thought before it went way too far off the rails. “And if she’s trying to backpedal after having a vision, doesn’t that mean she is right?!”

  “It could also mean that she saw something that made her need to make you think she was right.” Doc almost sounded amused by the twisting logic as he returned his attention to Isabelle and lifted up one of her legs, manually stimulating her muscles.

  I hated how much sense that made. “Precognition is some confusing bullshit.”

  “Sure is.” Doc muttered. “It’s not like we can just remove it to test that theory. It’s not something that’s easy to disconnect, it’s attached to your brain. While the unit can be removed and replaced now that the neural pathways are in place, I certainly won’t do it. You experienced my handiwork once already, and I’m sure you’d agree you don’t want me trying to play ripper again.”

  “I trust you with a lot of things, Doc, but you’re staying away from my implants.” I remembered my initial cybernetics installed by Doc. It was hard to forget the debilitating side-effects that made me operate sub-optimally in a dive and regularly sent my body reeling when I tried to get out of the core module. They made my life as a human being a confusing hell until I got them replaced on Luna. “But maybe I’ll see if Agatha can make a house call once we’re back in the inner colonies.”

  He gave an amused huff. “Getting shown up on my surgical expertise by a kid.”

  “If you let her hear you say that, she’ll probably do it for free just to show you up.” I chuckled.

  Doc stayed silent for a moment as he continued gently manipulating the clone on the table, clearly distracted as he pondered my issue as well. “What would it mean if Lily was correct?”

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  I shrugged. I wasn’t really sure, actually. “Not much. I guess I could keep operating if my implant was damaged. Means I could have been hacking stuff when I was in Foundation custody, but I was too fucked up to focus on much of anything back then anyway, so that’s not implausible.”

  “At least they still don’t know what you can do, either,” Doc offered.

  I guessed I wasn’t going to get anywhere on it with Doc, either. I’d just have to keep thinking about it. “Thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you, at least.”

  He applied a dab of a liquid bandage to Isabelle as he removed her IV. “I’m just as curious as you are, now. Let me know if you get any ideas.”

  I nodded to myself and stepped back from Isabelle’s room. I wasn’t any more enlightened than I was before about myself, but I’d considered some new angles. If Lily was correct, what else could that imply? My head hurt.

  What was I doing? Aisling would be back in a couple hours, and she was going to want me to give her something to work with in her interrogation. I needed to focus on evaluating this document. I pulled it to the forefront of my focus again, doing my best to ignore the nagging curiosity of my own mind.

  —

  Aisling pored over my notes on her handheld terminal with a look of casual curiosity. I’m not sure if she fully appreciated the series of technological miracles I had to pull off to acquire the information, but she at least seemed interested in what it had to say. She stood at my heart, Joel and Doc at her side as she considered my observations before heading into Collins’ room to see what she could get out of her. It was a strategy meeting of sorts to discuss the best way to approach her.

  I hadn’t finished the entire file yet; without time dilation, that would have been impossible in the span of hours. But I had been over enough of it to get a fair picture of the kind of person Collins was, including bits and pieces of her history.

  Captain Morgan Collins was a woman who’d led a long, difficult life despite only being in her late-30s. She’d entered the world of above-board mercenary work in her adolescence, once working for a large corporation that I hadn’t managed to dig up the name of yet. After at least a few years doing corpo dirty work, she’d grown a conscience and absconded with the Demitrius and her crew, who had since been aiding revolutionaries on Mars, most probably via smuggling operations.

  Isabelle had been in service for the Demitrius’s entire decade of experience as a pirate vessel, so I had a lot of material to work with in her records, and could piece together the bare bones of the ship’s history from context. That already gave some insight, but the purpose of the exercise had been to create a more robust psychological profile.

  In that, I had determined that Collins was a compassionate woman with a forceful personality, but a perpetually guilty conscience. She would go to great lengths in order to keep her crew safe, playing things relatively safe as far as their operations went, saving any daring gambits only for the sake of rescuing her crew members in dire straits. She valued loyalty, in both directions, doing good for the people under her command and trusting them to follow her lead. Overall, she gave the impression that she was a good leader and a decent person, by our standards. She had even imprinted upon Isabelle, not exactly treating her as a person, but still as an important part of her crew.

  I got the distinct impression that something from her past still haunted her; something that I didn’t have the information for. My best guess was that whatever had enticed her into the drastic act of commandeering a corpo ship and radicalizing its crew was something that had changed her. Yet she still felt she hadn’t earned her way back into the good graces of karma.

  Doc was the first to speak up. “Over ten years... That’s a long time for a machine core to be in service. I’ve noticed it’s a bit aged, but I didn’t expect that much. I’m surprised it’s in as good of shape as it is now.”

  “That’s what you’re taking out of this?” Joel grunted.

  Doc shrugged. “Sorry, I did maintenance on it today. It’s on my mind, that’s all.”

  I chimed in over the intercom, “I think the most important thing to take from this is that we can probably trust her not to do something awful to betray us, at least. I mean, we’re on the same side.”

  “We’re not on any sides. We’re freelancers,” Aisling reminded me, eyes still locked to her device. “The fact that we both appear to have the modern rarity of a moral compass isn’t a reason to assume we’re going to be buddies. It just means it’s a value we can appeal to. Maybe our goals will align, and if that happens, great. But I’m not holding my breath.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “She can’t do anything to us. She’s got nothing left.”

  “And that’s what makes her so dangerous.” Aisling finally looked up from my notes to address the room. “People with nothing left are desperate.”

  “And desperate people are unpredictable.” Joel added in a grim tone, turning toward the door. “She could do anything,”

  “A pirate captain that’s just lost her ship, entire livelihood, crew, and health in the outer colonies.” Aisling painted the picture for me and shrugged. “Sounds like the kind of position where one might be tempted to offload some information to some powerful people in exchange for a break, right?”

  “Even though that doesn’t fit her profile?” I asked, wondering if perhaps I was more trusting than I ought to be.

  “People act out of character in a crisis, Meryll. When you’re faced with a problem that doesn’t have a solution that aligns with your values, you could do anything. I think you should understand that better than any of us. You were having a conversation with Lily during our... altercation, after all,” Aisling slipped her tablet into her jacket and looked toward the door. “I’m willing to bet she wasn’t acting the sweet girl we know her for now.”

  “Okay, yeah, fair point,” I conceded with a sigh. “You ready for this?”

  “Yep. Remember, keep quiet. At most, you’re an AI assistant, and you don’t speak unless spoken to.” Aisling said as she walked to the door, Joel at her heel.

  “I know, I know.” I rolled my eyes at the comment. It still hadn’t been that long since I acted rashly and screwed up our last contract, so I couldn’t blame her that much for shooting me that warning, and I did have a penchant for sticking my foot in my mouth, but I still felt like she thought I couldn’t be trusted to do anything right.

  I watched the pair walk down the hall and turn to Collins’ room, pausing for a moment to confirm each other prepared, and then Aisling slid the door open. Walking in with confidence, she opened with an uncharacteristically professional, “Miss Collins, we need to have a chat.”

  Looks like Lily is going to stay tight-lipped on the matter for a while, and it's going to drive Meryll nuts trying to figure out what she was getting on about before precognition decided she's not allowed to know.

  Ah well. It's time to mess with a former rebel starship captain!

  Now, as discussed in the pre-chapter notes, it's finally time for the long-promised Patreon! Except I did a bunch of research on the subject, and the more I read, the more I thought to myself, 'Why the hell would I use Patreon over Ko-fi, it just seems way better in every way for both me and the readers.' So I now have a Ko-fi set up! Currently, there is a $5 tier that will allow you to read a full month ahead (four chapters) in Theseus, give you access to the advance discussion channel in the Discord chat, and give you a special color role there. Or if you enjoyed the story and just wanted to leave me a little tip to encourage me and help grow the story, commission art, and help keep my stupid body fed, that's fine too ^^ Even if you can't or don't want to be involved with that, I hope you continue to enjoy Theseus and any other works of mine you might follow.

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  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.