Chapter 6 Evo #2
“Eon senses and manipulates electromagnetic radiation through space. We ghost when we contact one another. We phase through things because I replicate the properties of what I sense through conductive surfaces. I can literally become basically anything. Otherwise, I am just stardust in humanoid form. No, I do not know what that is.”
Rebel runs a hand through his hair and paces.
Poppy>>Local: Hangars won’t open, so we’re dropping off Titans for manual override.
He turns back to me and points a finger at my chest. “You hesitate, people die. It doesn’t matter if you trust yourself, if others trust you.
If you have a chance to save a life that would otherwise cease to exist, you take it.
It doesn’t matter what you are. It matters what you choose to do with the skills you have. Have I made myself clear?”
“This isn’t like you.”
Rebel glowers at me. “You can take on any form. Any. Form.”
“And?”
“You are the only one of us who can become human again.”
I’m not sure, but I think he’s jealous. He shouldn’t be.
“Wearing the suit and becoming human are not the same.”
“You know what I mean.” Rebel growls. “Do you really hate humans that much?”
“CSP is human. They betrayed us. I do not hate those not CSP, but sometimes it is hard to tell. I have mixed feelings. And I hurt many of them. CSP I willingly killed. The others were not my choice. Most humans, either way, freak out when I turn into something else.”
He waves his hands between us. “Stop. You are the link between Titans and humans. You are Titan, yet you adapt. You are the key to Titan fertility, with a source power different from the rest of us. You were not created in the same lab or by the same engineers and techs.”
I scan my core, looking for a recording of my Creation, but I find nothing except vague steps.
I cannot remember my Creator, the Mother that helped me when I was a hotskin.
I only remember my first assignment clearly and Mother Besha for a brief time on Titan, talking with me about my skills.
But I cannot confirm that she Created me, where I was assembled, or any of the CyberTechs who helped.
Rebel swears a blue streak and throws his hands in the air.
“For fuck’s sake, Evo. You were designed to learn, to absorb, to adapt, and to be the one who teaches us when the Creators are gone.
Well, they’re fucking gone! And you’re out here, but you’re not here.
You’re stuck in your head, overthinking shit! ”
“I would give anything to be like you, to be a normal Titan,” I retort. “You don’t know what it’s like to be hacked.”
“Oh, I don’t?” Rebel mashes the button on my helmet, opening it, then reaches inside, and grabs me by the throat.
Rebel>>Evo: Force Download of Medical files predating Solcrue capture on Hyperion.
His synthskin feeds data into mine. My muscles twitch with faster impulses.
A stripe crawls up my chest and down my back, one like all Medic units have.
But it is the flurry of recordings of humans and Titans that Rebel arrived too late to save that burrows deepest in me.
And then I see him in the Creator’s lab, repeatedly getting reprogrammed.
He won’t stop. He never listens when we’ve called time of death. He is rebellious. Restart him again. He must obey, or more will die. Quris, the maniacal Creator that Menace and Sefina recently killed, hovers in the background of the memory.
“Tell me,” Rebel growls. “That withholding life-saving care is not the same as dealing death. And I was made to do it thousands of times before Mother Besha rescued me from my hell, named me Rebel, and got me on the ship off of Titan! You think that guilt didn’t nearly destroy me, too?
And I couldn’t save her, the one who gave me this chance! ”
Rebel bares his teeth at me, red eyes burning with rage.
“Get over yourself! More will die if we do not take this chance to get in there and help! Trust yourself or don’t.
I don’t give a damn! Nobody does! All we need is Titans to do their damned jobs!
Otherwise, we’re just handing the Solcrue a win. And fuck them!”
The door slides open, and Diesel walks in. “We’re docking in the ha... Rebel!”
Rebel jerks back from me, rolls his shoulders, and lifts his hands. His cheek twitches like he’s holding back what he really wants to do. “I’m sorry. This new body has...anger issues.”
Diesel, a barrel-chested power generation unit much larger than Rebel, steps around him and regards us both with caution.
Rebel is right. I’ve become lost in feelings like a human since I was freed of the programming, and it has made me lose sight of my priorities.
“Just had to clear some things up,” I reply.
“Okay, well, uh...” Diesel hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Aera wants you, Evo.”
I push off the wall and ease around Rebel, who’s still fuming, but I don’t think it’s me he’s upset with. So I stop. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Brother. I thought I was alone.”
Rebel’s fury fades into weariness. “It is not easy to remember it. I usually block it out. But if I let it consume me, then it renders me unable to do what I am good at and what the innocent need me to do.”
His pointed glance at me solidifies his intent.
I nod. “Something I need to work on.”
Pain hides in his eyes. I can see it now.
I return to my normal self, his contact fading from my synthskin, and cross the hallway into the med bay. “Aera? You wanted me?”
Aera eases herself upright and laughs weakly. Her eyes are open now, wide enough that I can finally catch their stunning color, like the sky of a terran world. “Yeah, I do.”
The sultry way she says it makes my ultromotor skip a pulse.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“As much as it can be. What can I do for you?”
She pats her pockets. “My chip... Have you seen it?”
I pull it out of a pocket in my armor. “Fell out of your hand after I gave you the booster, and you fell asleep.”
She reaches for it and stops. “It glows for you?”
I look down at it as I place it in her palm and shrug. “It glows. I do not know what it is.”
“That’s...” She flips it over, studying it. “I don’t understand.”
“I take on properties of what I touch. Perhaps it is a residual resonance through my armor that it picks up from you.”
“What?”
The transport bumps gently. I steady Aera as her body rocks on the bed.
Poppy>>Local: We are inside, but the hangar is offline and depressurized. No sealscreen available.
“Aera needs a suit.” Atomizer tosses one in at us.
I catch it and open it up for Aera. “You really should stay on board, but I imagine there are people you want to check on.”
She lets me help her into the suit and pockets the chip in an exterior pouch. “This is really loose.”
“You are very thin.”
She looks up at me with a light smile. “You are not.”
My brows pinch upward. “I am the size I was designed to be.”
She huffs a breath in disappointment. “I’m just glad they designed you the way they did. Tall, muscular, durable, don’t need oxygen, food, or heat. Just light. You never have this problem.”
The way she says it makes me think she doesn’t like being human.
I seal her in her suit while she watches me. “We are all unique, but that does not make any one of us more important than the others. Humans are the reason we exist. You are part of the human machine that gave us second chances.”
When I’m done, Aera takes my gloved hands in hers and closes her eyes. “Thank you, Universe, for bringing this Titan to my rescue and for his willingness and eagerness to help and bring balance.”
“Who are you talking to?” I ask.
She looks up at me. “No one. Just the energy that is in all things.”
It is odd that Rebel can hate me so much and Aera can feel the opposite. But it is all just experience-based. If Rebel knew how I am drawn to Aera and if she knew what I had done in the past, they would not think what they do about me. He would not think I hate humans. She would hate me.
I cannot let her learn the truth. I must protect her and her colony at all costs, even if that means shoving down this growing desire to stay close to her so deep inside that it turns to dust like the rest of me.