Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(53)
“I don’t know what that is.” The mech curls into one corner and flops down, just like the exhausted child he appears to be. He hugs the severed hand to his chest.
“Your name,” Abel says gently. “What is your name?”
“I’m Simon Michael Shearer,” the mech announces automatically, as though called upon in school. His fear and disorientation remain strong. “Why are there things in my head? There are thoughts in there I didn’t think.”
Shearer. Gillian’s surname is now Shearer. She lost a child some months ago. The information filters through Abel’s mind, combines with his knowledge of Mansfield’s obsession with immortality and his and Gillian’s hopes for organic mechs, and delivers a conclusion that radically changes the situation: This can only be Gillian’s son, Mansfield’s grandson. Simon, not Burton Mansfield, is the first individual to have his consciousness resurrected in a mech body.
Abel is looking at the only other mech in the entire galaxy who possesses a soul. Every other day of his existence, Abel has been totally unique—and he knows better than most that to be unique is, in some sense, to be alone.
He’s not alone any longer.
Empathy floods his emotional capacities, and he holds out one hand. “It’s all right,” he says gently. “You’ve changed, Simon. It takes a while to get used to changes. But I can help you.”
Simon trembles, afraid even to hope. “Can you get all the weird thoughts out of my head?”
That must be how his childish mind interprets data input. How different is a human brain from a mech one? What feelings are the same, and which have changed? Abel longs to know the answer to these questions, but Simon is not yet in any condition to answer. “I can’t remove them,” Abel says, “but I can help you understand them. Focus them.”
“But I want them gone!” Simon shoves himself up to his feet. He’s on the verge of tears. Abel takes another step toward him, only for Simon to skitter backward, stumbling on his chubby, childish legs. “Make them stop!”
“I would if I could.” Abel can do nothing for this child but exist alongside him. At least Simon will never endure what Abel endured; he will never be alone.
“You said you could help!” Simon shouts, and he lifts the hand up, as if to throw it at Abel. It wouldn’t be much of a projectile, but it’s the only weapon the little boy has.
“Watch it!” Riko gets between Simon and Abel, even though protection seems unnecessary. “Just calm down, and—”
Simon shoves Riko, hard. Harder than any human child could. She flies across the room, hitting the wall solidly before slumping down semiconscious.
At the sight of what he’s done, Simon makes an anguished cry that seems to pierce Abel through. The child doesn’t understand his own body or his own mind. He is in a world literally and figuratively upside down.
Before Abel can stop him, Simon runs out again, escaping deep into the wilds of this crashed ship.
To pursue or not to pursue? Abel must remain here. Riko’s the only member of Remedy who is loyal to him at this point; if he goes running through the Osiris without her, other members are likely to fire on him. He badly wants to help Simon, but he can’t do that by being destroyed or disabled.
Abel will set things right with Simon, but that has to wait.
Instead he goes to Riko’s side, where a brief examination reveals she isn’t injured beyond being winded and stunned. But as he checks her over, part of his brain plays another thought on infinite loop: I am not alone. I am no longer alone.
Captain Rushdi Fouda of the Remedy fighters has only an honorary title. Within 3.2 minutes of meeting the man, Abel has determined that Fouda’s never been in military service. He enjoys the idea of command more than the reality—and surely whatever preconceived idea Fouda had of leadership looked nothing like this: control over only isolated pockets of a crashed ship on an unfamiliar world. The Osiris might as well be a city under siege, with certain streets and neighborhoods barely held, others destroyed, others hostile.
Nor is Fouda eager to welcome a mech into his ranks.
“It’s like I told you, Abel’s no ordinary mech,” Riko insists. She puts one hand to her forehead for a moment, wincing.
Although Abel determined she suffered no traumatic brain injury from Simon’s attack, she’s nonetheless had a headache for roughly the past eight minutes. It occurs to him to wonder about the toxicity zone he flew through on the way to the Osiris; exposure to such elements would certainly harm humans in short order, and a headache could be the first symptom. However, given that everyone else seems fine, Abel surmises that the dangerous zone is far enough away, and that the air filtration aboard the Osiris must still be functioning as adequate protection against any effects at distant proximity.
Riko continues, “Abel rescued me and Ephraim Dunaway from prison.”
“Dunaway,” Fouda sneers. He is a wiry man, sinews showing through leathery skin. Faint lines tracing a pale pattern along his face and neck. “One of the moderates. Your good friend.”
“We tried to find common ground, yeah.” Riko’s cheeks flush with anger. “The point is, Abel got us both out.”
“He’s a mech.” Fouda gestures at Abel the way he might indicate some mess that needs cleaning up. “In the end, that means Burton Mansfield controls him.”