Chapter 25 Roxi
The dampeners brighten with blue light. When Fracture’s pieces abruptly levitate and shudder, I realize it was like a jumpstart for him.
Shit, shit. Shit! I quickly dial back the intensity, and his pieces calm. They hover in the light and very slowly begin to move, reorienting themselves and repositioning.
“Well, he’s not dead,” Vandal states, coming in to check on our progress.
Siphon grumbles as he slumps on a neighboring bed. “Looks like it’s going to take a while. Ash is asking for a chance to look. So I’m going to trade out with him.”
He disappears, and a short time later, Flashbomb walks in.
“Ooh, that’s Fracture?” Flashbomb peers into the chamber at the lazy cloud of irregular black glass that hovers inside. His eyes light up with communication. All the Titans do.
“Will someone let me in on your secret gossip?” I ask. “I’m feeling left out.”
“Just sharing the best memories we have of him,” Castor offers. “Fracture never hesitates to help others.”
“He’s kind even when we’re a little awkward,” Flashbomb adds. “It’s weird being on the other side, looking in this time. I hope it works.”
I motion to him and draw him into a hug. It’s clear to me that he was much younger when he died as a human for Omega Force. His heart is still innocent, and he is still eager to please. “Thank you again for sharing what was probably not a good memory.”
Flashbomb nods and steps back. “It was the most scared I have ever been in this husk.”
“You saved his life.”
Flashbomb steals one last look at the recuperation chamber and Fracture’s realigning cloud, and returns to the cockpit.
“Fracture is often one of the first to run into battle.” Armor leans against the wall.
“He has the heart of a Relic but the skills of a Rogue,” Nix says. “None of us Relics disaggregate or liquefy. Shifter might ratchet into pieces, but he doesn’t come apart. I can’t even imagine how mind-shattering that must be.”
Siphon, who’s returned, swats him in the side. “Right now?”
Nix smirks as he shrugs. “Fracture would find that funny. And he’s not dead, like Vandal said. So bite me, Vamp.”
“I might. Don’t tempt me.” Siphon curls a lip as his teeth elongate. “I am hungry.”
I tilt my head toward the door. “Why don’t you all go see what we’ve got for food? Fracture isn’t going anywhere.”
“There was a crate of rations in the main corridor,” Castor teases.
“Sorry. I just needed something fast,” I admit.
“It’s alright. I’ll clean up,” Castor replies.
“Thanks.”
Castor leaves with the others.
I take a seat beside Fracture’s chamber and rest a hand on the glass, hoping he can find a way to pull himself together enough that I can install a new core aligner. I’m already working on a materials list of what I think it will require.
Hours pass, and I decide to dig into the tablet Vandal stole. Castor stops by when he sees the screen. “Is that…accurate?”
I scrub a hand in my hair. “Yes. CSP has thirteen new bases. From what we gathered, a lot of people from Earth Minor have been siding with CSP and the SIP program.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I am, and I’m not. This is part of their plan, the Solcrue.
They separate those of us who fight from reaching those who can’t, the ones not involved in the past war.
They teach them that we abandoned them. They change their perception, beliefs, and internal dialogue with subliminal messaging and chewing away at them one little bit at a time. They brew hatred.”
“But it’s misplaced.”
I take in a deep breath. “Castor, humans are inherently flawed in a lot of ways, but the biggest is in the desire to survive. We believe safety is important. So perceived safety with the enemy seems like a good idea over struggling daily with our own kind.
“We haven’t been there for them lately. We have good reason. But the Earth Minor humans don’t know that because they don’t have communication from us.
“So they listen to the only thing they get. The Solcrue feed them a constant stream of lies and stories to the point that it saturates society and becomes the only thing that the people know. So of course they believe it because no counterarguments have been presented to provoke them to question what they’re being fed. ”
“Do you really think humans lack the ability to question truth and reality without alternatives presented?” Castor braces himself in the doorway as the ship tilts.
I nod. “I don’t like admitting that, but it isn’t easy to question what we believe because it suggests that we might have made mistakes or fallen for lies.
It disrupts concepts of safety and dumps us into a new and unpredictable world.
And no one likes reentering the trial and error phase unless they’re a fucked up Creator. ”
“You are not…” Castor pauses. “What you say.”
A smile barely touches my lips. “No, it’s totally normal to mutilate ourselves to test something, to be reborn in labs when our tests go fatally awry, and then do it all over again.”
“For a greater good. Look at what you built.” Castor lifts a hand toward the cell where Fracture is very slowly pulling himself back together. “What I don’t understand is how humans can want us, especially a Creator like you.”
“I am not above Titans, Castor. No one is. But I think Titan Creators do view their creations like their children, even though you were all full-grown when you came to our labs. I see myself as having a different role in the same war. I can’t fly through a vent in a million pieces and reassemble myself or knock down Solcrue like a bowling ball.
I can secure your telenet and design shielding for ships. ”
“Right, but…” Castor looks at Fracture’s bed. “How can humans love metal and synth beings like us?”
I shrug. “I don’t care that you’re synth. You have emotions that make you as human as any of us.”
“Did they know? The Creators?” Castor has charred marks on his armor from taking pulse fire. His hands are dirty, and grease taints his carbon fiber hair.
“I don’t know if it's my place to say it, but that is my understanding. We did not develop this program on a whim. And before I was born, they were working on Titan designs, trying to find a way to make us immortal. The research just got repurposed for the war efforts, a way to bring loyal soldiers back to battle and preserve humanity.”
“But there are so few female Titans.”
“They all went down with their ships, Castor. You know that.”
“It seems disproportionate.”
I nod. “It could be that there were more who did not survive transference and hotskin stages.”
“Could there be more out there? Lost on another Flamberge?”
“Maybe. I wasn’t a Titan Creator. I don’t know what their contingency plans were. I just built systems that were added to your husks, ships, and guns.”
Castor chews a lip and hums a note in thought. “Well, Fracture or Obsidian, whoever he ends up being, is lucky to have your care. Might just be the luckiest Titan alive.”
“Pretty sure that’s me,” Armor boasts, lifting a sandwich he’s just bitten into. “That officer, whoever he was before Obsidian shredded him, had stocked up nicely. I can’t remember the last time I had fresh food. I really like planet food.”
I laugh. “You and Kraken would’ve gotten along well.”
“Speaking of decommissioned Titans…” Castor hooks a thumb. “You want to take a look at the storage room, see how many we snagged? It won’t unlock for me or the others.”
Getting up, I rest a hand on Fracture’s chamber. “I’ll be right back.”
I follow Castor and Armor to the stairs and descend into the belly of the ship.
The door requires a security code and access that was, no doubt, the captain’s private knowledge.
The tablet I have doesn’t show any access information.
So I break in the old-fashioned way by taking Armor’s knife, prying open the screen, pulling it out, and hot-wiring the door.
When the lights switch on, we all stand frozen in the hallway.
Even Armor pauses his chewing. “Heaven help us. There have to be hundreds.”
Castor walks down a row with a vertical rack of cores suspended in wires like trophies. “Ray, Meteor, Piercer… There’s every model in here: WreckTanks, BloodCyphers, Relics, Rogues…”
“CyberGuards.” Armor walks to a glass case containing a larger core that glints in the spotlight. “How did they ever dig that out of you, big Brother?”
I hug myself as I walk the rows. The vast majority of them look like they could be salvaged and put into fresh bodies if we could ever build so many again.
A few are damaged and might be able to be repaired.
Some are beyond salvageable with names I can’t even read.
Seeing their charred and dented core housing is like watching them die all over again.
I know they were once beautiful machines, more durable and stronger than any human or Solcrue. And seeing them like this…running my fingers over the charred metal…makes me hate CSP so much that I curl up a hand in rage. I want to punch something, rip out the enemy’s heart.
“Fuck CSP.”
Castor and Armor look over at me.
“Fuck them, all of their games, their torture… CSP deserves the same brutal end that I will deal the Solcrue.”
Armor walks toward me, iridescent eyes flashing. “They captured Joey.”
I turn around.
“He’s in a cell. After Evo was hacked, Medic Ribos has started building anti-corruption nano systems. He targeted and removed the bloodtracker from Joey. They are ready on Ravenger III and waiting for you.” Armor grins. “Whenever you’re ready.”