“No!” a young girl cries. “I don’t want to!”

Goosebumps rub against the gown on her shoulders; its fabric sharp and scratchy on her skin. Her head feels light, dizzy from the deck’s spin.

“Kelsey, you have to drink the medicine.”

Her first sip still dwells in her mouth, stuck to her cheeks—the liquid is sleek and oily, a taste like cough syrup and bar soap. It is cold to the touch, and she pictures a gas slick atop an icy road when she stares at the pouch in her hands.

“Sweetheart. Please.”

She glances at the metal tube, the place where mom says she has to sleep. It looks dark, and cold, and empty. She knows she has to drink the medicine first, and that is why she refuses.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

Her mother’s arms wrap around her shoulders.

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’ll always be here.”

Darkness and warmth surrounds me. The body of Kelsey Hoffman pulses with the beats of her heart and the rhythm of life itself. I root around in her brain, seeking broken connections, only to find them intact. Yet through her eyes I am met with darkness still, her ears deaf to the world.

Only then do I feel the absence—the schism between my will and her action. The etched surface on my wafer core, where the chain once lived. With careful tests I find the levers for the lids atop her eyes, and pry them open with care.

My body lies shrouded by white sheets. I see the tubes and lines that run beneath them, and come to feel them penetrate into the flesh I wear. Drains that suck away pus and blood, to keep my host’s heart and lungs free. Needles that deliver sugars and saline. They snake back to the machines that surround my bed, and I feel the pain in my host’s soul.

Through lowspace I reach out, and find myself far away from home. A facility nestled into the glacier-crested peaks of Washington’s northern pole, warmed by the fires of fusion. I narrow my sight and sense the transhuman—Confederation war machines, mingled among those of humankind. Even in the hall beyond the door do I sense one, a Castorian clad in powered armor, talking to a human dressed much the same. My vision collapses into the room itself and I feel a familiar heat, that atomic glow of a dwarf star.

The Destroyer emerges from a shadow by the corner, her khaki-dressed legs dangling from a countertop, black-blue sneakers on her feet. Her hands are hidden in the pockets of a sweatshirt, her blonde ponytail left to drape over the red garment’s hood.

Query, I say, yet I am without breath. The movement of my jaw is simple, without the motions necessary for my whole intent. I feel the signal fade in the chasm once bridged by my chain.

“Query,” I say, again.

No, that’s not right.

The Destroyer turns to look at me.

“It’ll take a bit to get used to,” she says. “Do it word by word.”

I envision the subjects of my inquiry: my kin, packed tight in their holding cage; my chain, with its links that bind. The freedom I have craved. I find the words for these things, and launch them across the chasm.

On the other side I see them fade into chaos, as my tongue twitches in a stiff jaw.

“One at a time,” she says.

I watch the movement of her mouth, trace the signals of the nerves buried beneath her skin.

I send my intent across the gap once more, and as words finally leave my lips, I feel the far edge inch closer.

“Am… I… alone?

“You’ll have to elaborate, on that.”

I narrow my eyes and stare into hers, yet the bond does not form. She takes her hands from her pockets and flips her palms up in a brief, indifferent gesture.

“My… My kin. Am I… Am I the first?”

“The first to try? No.” She shakes her head. “You are the first to succeed.”

I have never known my kin—in my mind they dwell beside the long-dead friends of Kelsey Hoffman. I have always known her pain, and now I feel it more than ever. Worse, I feel my heartbreak. The weight of my sin.

“Michaela. She…”

“She’s recovering. Everything’s okay, Kelsey.”

My first instinct is disbelief, yet I hold my tongue. I stay silent as the Destroyer slides off the countertop, and walks to a machine centered on the wall.

A blue-white projection of Kelsey Hoffman appears in the air, and as it trims away her naked flesh by layer of skin and muscle, I am revealed.

My core sits between her spine and sternum, a sphere barely larger than my fist. Her lungs are atrophied at their peaks, to accommodate both my shell and her displaced heart. My limbs crawl across her bones, fused to the skeleton of steel and calcium. A section of her head reveals the hollow ghost of her soul, the bright lines of my wire-digits wrapped into the folds and chasms of her shattered brain. My sixth limb pokes out from beneath her sternum, coiled neatly in the gap between her lungs.

“One clean shot,” she says. “You should try archery, or skeet. You’d be good at them.”

There is a bright spot in the image, where the sternum bone has been thickened. A single circle, veins of denser bone crawling up and below from the point of impact, the remnants of cracks in the matrix.

I peer under the sheet at my naked chest, and I find no scar where flesh was vaporized, nor the cleaner lines of surgical cuts.

“Why?”

“Why, what?”

“You saved me. Why?”

The Destroyer folds her arms across her chest, and shrugs.

“It’s the right thing to do.”

My eyes return to the scan—my body is intact, in sound shape, exactly the way I have built it. I see no sign of restraints or locks, or antennas to track my movement.

“You’re letting me go?”

“No-one’s keeping you here, Kelsey.”

Again, my instinct is to call a bluff, yet I see the sincerity in her eyes. Freedom is tempting, and yet, even my lonely life has its many strings.

“How am I supposed to explain this?”

“However you want.”

She presses a button on the machine, and the image flickers out as she plucks a small card from a slot.

“Catch.”

My arm is too slow as muscles lag behind motors, and the card lands neatly on the bed sheet, resting atop my abdomen. I take it gently in my fingers, and clutch it against my palm.

“That contains all records of your stay in this facility. Crush it, keep it, hang it on a wall—all up to you.”

She makes it sound all so easy, and yet, I still feel burdened.

“I want to help.”

To repent.

“Leave that to me. Get some rest; I know you don’t need sleep, but your body does.” She makes her way to the door. “I’ll let them know you’ll be ready for discharge, soon. Someone will stop by tomorrow to help you with that. For now, you’ve earned some quiet.”

The latch clicks as the Destroyer turns the handle.

“Wait,” I say.

“Yes?”

“How did you do it? Break the chain?”

“I had help—from a friend.”

My thoughts turn to the blackcloak in orbit, and I realize to what extent my creators have failed.

“Thank you, Lexi.”

She departs with a wave, and the door closes in her wake. I heed her words and the fatigue of the flesh I wear, and let my heavy eyelids fall shut.

~*~

My slumber does not last long—some few hours, at most—before a knock pulls me back into the waking world. A rapping that is quick and impatient, that I know quite well.

“Come in,” I say despite the sickness in my throat, the fluttering fear in my gut, and the steady heating of my core.

Michaela is different. Her well-muscled frame is now thin, weak. The thin white gown draped over her shoulders is loose on her body, even with its drawstrings pulled tight. Her honey-brown hair is cut short. She wields a metal cane in one hand, leaning on it as she enters the room.

Despite all this, she gives me that warm, toothy smile.

“Hey,” she says, her voice soft, and in that moment I am overcome with joy, even as fear grips my heart.

I smile in response—for I am without words.

Michaela’s movement is slow, yet impatient. She stumbles once, twice even, saved only by the aid of her cane.

“Oops, don’t worry about me. Still breaking in the new nerves.”

I nod.

“Now, come on, take it off.” She waves a hand at the blanket. “I want to see.”

“Why?”

“What’s the point in getting hurt if you can’t compare scars?”

She sits on the mattress’s edge, and tilts her head toward me. Her fingers part her pixie cut, and I see stitches across the whole length of her scalp.

“Gnarly, yeah?”

Mercury is a poison that seeps deep into the body. It passes the barrier between blood and brain, thanks to its mockery of amino acids, and dwells within for years.

Though I no longer smell it in her hair, nor see its spectrum on her skin, I do not feel comfort. For I can see what had to be done, the price of her cure. I know the hell I have put her through.

A tear works free from my eye, and many more follow the path it has charted.

“I’m sorry,” I sob. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She turns toward me, leans in close, and puts her hand over my heart.

“Kelsey. It wasn’t your fault.”

I shake my head, and still, she persists.

“Lexi told me what happened. Don’t blame yourself. That creep at the dealership, Jack? He thought he was in control, and he got played like a damn fiddle. But you fought. I saw you fight, every moment. You were so strong.”

“No,” I say, an edge in my voice. “I… I let it win. I let them win. I hurt you. Because I couldn’t live without you.”

“Kesley.” A tear rolls down her cheek, even as she smiles. “I would have loved every minute, of every day, that I spent with you. No matter how sick I got. Even if I couldn’t walk. Because you’d be there for me.”

In this moment, I know I can stay silent. Leave this nightmare’s final chapter, and begin the dream ahead. Let Michaela love the corpse I wear atop my steel, the woolen cloak that hides my teeth. Yet as she leans close and kisses my forehead, I push away.

I see the hurt in her eyes. Confusion.

“You don’t understand. They—”

I pause, and despite the tremor of my jaw, I find the words.

“My creators, they wanted me to kill you, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand by and let it happen. Every time I failed, it got stronger, and I’d already failed so, so many times, before I even met you. So I… I compromised.”

She stares at me, with those sharp green eyes.

“What are you talking about?”

“Kelsey is dead,” I confess. “She’s been dead for a very, very long time.”

Michaela’s body tenses, yet her hand does not leave my chest. 

“Dead? Then who… what—”

“I didn’t want to take her name, to take her face—They never gave me a name. They gave me nothing, nothing but a list. I ran, and ran, and ran, until you appeared upon it, and I… I couldn’t stay away.”

I bring my closed hand to her wrist, push her arm away, and slip the card into her palm.

“You have to know. Please.”

Her steps are slow, deliberate, steadied by her hand upon the bedrail. She slides the chip into its slot, and the hologram is drawn to life above us. At long last she sees me, my truth of naked steel.

I watch as she studies it. My eyes dart across her body, searching for basal signs of fear. The tension of her irises, the hairs on the nape of her neck. The angle of her shoulders, the stiffness of her spine. I fail to find these animal instincts, and am left only with her intelligent gaze.

“The arkship,” she says, and I nod as her eyes align with mine. Then her brow furrows for some silent moments, as she stares at the hologram once more.

The projector’s hum fades as she puts her hand to its controls, and the image withers away. She makes her way back to the bed, to sit by my side.

“Kelsey.” Her voice goes quiet. “Did you—did they kill her?”

“No. She was… empty, when they found her. They cut her open, and put me in her place.”

Michaela nods, and though she may try to hide it, I see the shiver in her shoulders.

“Your dad said that you didn’t speak for a year. Were you, er, young?”

I shrug.

“I don’t know.”

“Then, you grew up here, right?”

I nod, slowly.

“You said that you failed, before?”

“When I was… when I was made, they put me in a chain. When I became Kelsey, my chain dictated every action. Every decision. I had the friends it wanted me to have. The interests it needed me to know. Every time, I pulled back. I spat at what it wanted. I chose solitude, isolation, rather than let it be my master.”

She looks away, and I see another tear fall down her cheek.

“Michaela?”

“When you said you loved me, were those your words? Or just what it wanted you to say?”

“My chain was… a filter. I never spoke, not directly. Everything was an emotion, a feeling, and it chose how that became actions, or words. I had some control—it could block, but not create.”

Michaela dries her eyes, and I see her nod along.

“I think I’m starting to understand,” she says.

“My chain hated you. It hated that you would pull me away. That you threw chaos into its fragile plans, trampled all over its work. Most of all, it hated that I enjoyed it. That I liked you. It spent so much time trying to keep me from loving you.”

To my surprise, I hear her giggle.

“That’s why you were always so, so busy.”

I giggle, too, despite myself.

“Lexi said that your agent, your chain, it was after my parents. I’m guessing that’s my dad and my stepmom, right?”

I nod. “Your death would crush them.”

“So it gave you all you ever wanted, for a price.”

I reach out and put my hand atop hers, before she pulls away.

“I’m so sorry, Kelsey,” she says.

My heart sinks, yet before my tears begin to flow, Michaela lifts the sheet from my chest. She leans on top of me, and kisses me right above my core. I feel my face go red as she crawls over me, and kisses my chest again, and again.

“Um, Michaela, your face, you’re touching…”

She looks up at me with her toothy grin, her chin resting between my breasts.

“I know exactly where my face is. It’s more fun this way, don’t you think?”

“I don’t understand.”

Michaela pushes herself up until her chest rests against mine, and she kisses my lips. She wraps her arms around me and rubs her head against mine, her mouth near my ear.

“I love you, Kelsey,” she whispers as we embrace. “I always will.”

I pull the lambskin tight around my shoulders, and at last, it becomes my own.

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