Why did this keep happening? Well, not this in particular. Strangulation via a mech was an item that hadn’t been on Hoxley’s checklist of potential fatalities. Here it was though, mercilessly squeezing its way to the top.

A prim, sing-song voice sounded from behind him, “Now, now. Keep those weapons lowered, they’re as offensive as they are pointless. Even if one of you could slip into that mech, I would have plenty of time to snap this lanky little infernum’s cervical spine.”

The mech’s fingers tightened around Hoxley’s neck. His heart hammered in his chest, and he could feel the prominent pulse of his carotid artery against the vice-like pressure. A thought drifted in from beyond the panic. The mech’s grip, while strong, was incredibly fluid. There was no robotic jerkiness to the movement. It was almost like a person was strangling him. The thought added an eerie layer to the deadly situation and he hated his brain for thinking of it.

“And if his life isn’t reason enough to disarm, well…”

A cacophony stirred to life somewhere behind him. Hoxley’s eyes swiveled in their sockets, but could only make out the white glow of floodlights pouring over the building. One of the crew—he couldn’t tell who over the noise— spat out a word. “Gunship.”

Any ideation of a daring rescue died with the word. This person, or whatever bits of them had been combined with the mech, could gun the crew down in an instant. Like many things in his life, this felt unfair. They had fought off Vaelor, killed a giant nightmare beast, and captured Zenith’s brother, only to be ambushed by some jackass in a gaudy suit of armor. Hoxley angrily kicked backwards the mech, which hurt his foot. Now both his feet hurt.

“I’m sorry,” the mech said, “did you wish to interject?”

Hoxley attempted to call the mech operator a “golden asshole,” but it came out as “Aguggh!”

“Yes, compliance would suit your crew very well, my horned friend. Now, you’ve likely surmised that I would have killed you if that was my objective. The reason, as my former colleague might have mentioned, is that you are worth more alive than dead. Some of you, anyway.”

Many of the crew shot glances at Buddy, who looked as confused as she was irate.

“Who are you?” Buddy asked.

“Charlie, please. The neurotechnician went to great lengths to replicate by voice. You don’t recognize your dear friend, Simon?”

At that, a panel slid open on the golden armour. Hoxley beheld the pilot out of the corner of his eye. Within the clear container of the mech’s chest floated the lumpy mass of a brain, lit from below in green light. Nerves splayed from the spinal cord, connecting to receptors that disappeared into the bowels of the machine.

“The construct lacks my charming smile,” Simon said, panel snapping shut, “but it gets the job done. You didn’t leave me much to work with.”

“I ripped your brain from your body?” Buddy said, aghast.

The mech shifted with a mechanical whine, and Simon’s tone lost most of its jovial edge. “Whatever game you’re playing, I’m uninterested in participating. You’re very lucky that Ward wants to deal with you personally.”

“Who is Ward?!” Buddy asked, exasperated.

“Enough of this,” Simon said, shaking Hoxley like an angry toddler with a doll. “The human, the halfling, and the robot will disarm and board the gunship.”

“Why them?” Buddy asked.

“Bounties,” Sturdy answered. “This guy is in the guild. Remington wants Adam, probably Odybrix too. And BOB…”

The sentence trailed off. For a moment, Hoxley wondered if Sturdy was going to confess his own involvement with and BOB. Likely, the Lendaren Crop. operative was mulling why his own people had put out a bounty on his quarry. Hoxley also wondered how much blood was still reaching his brain, because his vision was starting to blur at the edges.

“Smart fellow. At least one of you isn’t playing dumb,” Simon said. “Chop, chop, now. I think your friend is starting to go limp. Click yourselves into those restraints onboard the ship.”

Adam reluctantly removed his weapons and scooped up Odybrix; she looked like a child, disappearing in the bulk of his arms. As the three of them marched onto the vessel, Adam shot Zenith a look. Even half conscious, Hoxley registered the meaning, “be ready.” That meant a chase, a breakout, and another fight. If he weren’t dying, he would have groaned in frustration.

“Good,” Simon said. “Now, this is the point where I would normally betray your trust and mow the rest of you down, but my bribe to the Gemheart authorities was not grand enough to permit wanton acts of murder. I asked. So, go on about your business, and, if you should contemplate a pursuit, please note that your soft and bleedable friends are in my possession. Ta-ta!”

The vice-grip released all at once and Hoxley fell to the ground. He gasped in a sharp, reflexive breath as Zenith rushed to his side. The blinding floodlights of the gunship passed over them as it ascended into the heavens. Hoxley’s oxygen-starved brain couldn’t adequately articulate how he was feeling, so he settled on three words.

“Fuck that guy.”

“We will,” Zenith said.

—

“Sturdy, secure Harlow and the dealer,” Zenith commanded, striding onto the Sunrunner. “Buddy, you’re on nav-scan. I want to know what vessels broke atmo in the last forty minutes. Prioritize smaller, well-equipped ships. If this bounty hunter is from the guild, his ride is going to be fast and deadly. Hoxley, I want you tracking Vaelor’s tracer. He’s priority two.”

The rush from the battlefield to the ship was a jumbled blur of frantic bodies, obscenity-laden oaths of vengeance, and flashing street lights. When Ozzy had informed the crew that the Sunrunner dropship would have taken an hour to deploy and reach them from the drydock, Zenith promptly dismissed the pick-up with a “fuck that.” The military-grade mechs had redundant systems and rebooted quickly after the EMP blast. Harlow’s mech was biometrically locked, so they threw his limp body back in the cockpit to activate it, then added Zenith as an operator. From there, Zenith and Buddy flew the damaged mechs to the dock, clutching the wind-beaten crew and captives in their mechanical arms.

“Ozzy, hail the Terror,” Zenith said, leaping into her cockpit seat. The AI gave a clipped confirmation and Zenith punched open a hidden compartment on the underside of the flight instruments. A rattle and clunk announced the items inside: an auto-pistol and a small pill bottle labelled “Focusan.” Her position on performance enhancing drugs was that they were a crutch for lesser pilots. They helped with concentration and reaction time, but there was a cost. The boost to your focus came at the expense of tuning out everything else in your brain. You could better manage a difficult flight, theoretically, but forget why you were flying in the first place. After a brief inventory of the physical and emotional toll of the last hour—day, week—she popped the lid open. She needed to be alert, and coffee wasn’t going to get her head where it needed to be. Sorry BOB.

“This is Kron of the HWS Terror,” the orc said, his naturally jovial tone gone. “Your ship’s AI says there’s a situation.”

“Yes,” Zenith said. “Three of our crew, including Adam, have been taken captive.”

“Vaelor? If you hit him with a tracer just transmit the signal code.”

Zenith hesitated. Kron was here on orders to kill Vaelor and retrieve whatever he had stolen. Putting a mission from the Grolvar high warlord on hold wasn’t a small ask. He’d be within every right to refuse to help them and carry on with his task.

“Not Vaelor,” she said, choosing honesty, “a bounty hunter.”

“Well, that’s a problem,” he said.

“I know you’re here to catch-“

“No time for pleading,” he said, dismissively. “You’ve allied yourselves to a Grolvar cause, and we look after our allies.”

“Thanks Kron,” Zenith said, sighing inwardly.

“Have you tracked the ship? He asked.

Buddy chimed in, “Maybe. I’ve got two possible hits: A corsair with no visible armaments and a newer thruster system, or a custom vessel—a little bigger than a caravel and well-armed for its size.”

“The second one,” Zenith said, certain it was their mark. “Has it jumped yet?”

“Noo,” Buddy said, drawing out the word.

“Okay, set a course for intercept,” Zenith commanded, blowing past the hesitance in Buddy’s voice. “We need to hit it fast and get out of here before Gemheart sends ships after us.”

“So, we can’t do that. Hit it, I mean,” Buddy said. “It looks like it rendezvoused and docked with another ship about ten minutes ago. Sending coordinates to both of you.”

“Oh,” Zenith said.

“Oh,” Kron said. “This should be fun.”

—

Some things defied expectation. Maybe a boilerplate fiction novel impresses you so much that you can’t get the scenes out of your head. Or perhaps a person you’ve come to accept as immutably timid performs an act of insane bravery. The opposite could be true, too. Your favourite author could release something that made you think they suffered a brain injury. Or the aforementioned timid individual goes berserk, picks up a rifle and starts shooting anything that moves. What presented itself to Adam didn’t fall into those polarized examples of defied expectations.

The bounty hunter’s ship was weird. There was no other way to put it. The corridors were panelled like a modern home. Adorning them were an assortment of trophies. Not the kind of trophies one would historically associate with bounty hunting—teeth, heads, et cetera—but collectibles. Guitars, framed autographs of film stars, models of vintage spacecraft. The one that really caught his eye was a chunk rock labelled “Last Remnant of Kolok.” If what the words were insinuating were to be believed, that was a piece of the prime planet of the Kolokarian system. A system reduced to radioactive oblivion 150 years ago by the first—and only ever once used—nova bomb.

“You have a discerning eye,” the bounty hunter said. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a historian, muscly chap that you are.”

Adam wasn’t inclined to prattle with his captor, but BOB engaged with the usual enthusiasm.

“Your collection is both exceptional and eclectic! Did you gather these items before or after your brain was separated from your body?”

“After. The real money only really started coming in after our mutual associate blew a hole through my chest.”

“I detect a hint of melancholy!” BOB said.

“Yes, well, losing one’s body does put a drag on enjoying life. Though, with certain adjustments, I’m making do.”

“You regret escaping your flesh prison?” BOB asked.

“It was less of an escape and more of a defenestration. You’re a charming little robot, has anyone told you that?”

“No! But I have always assumed as much!”

“A shame I need to hand you over to Lendaren. They’re probably going to strip you down wire by wire.”

“Do not worry! I am already plotting our escape and your demise!”

The bounty hunter laughed at that.

The ship lurched and the prisoners staggered. Adam felt a twitch as Odybrix stirred in his arms. Her breathing was shallow, but the blood around her nostrils and ears was drying. It was a small bit of good news that his friend wasn’t actively bleeding, but he couldn’t tell how badly she was hurt.

“Apologies for the sudden movement. I don’t wish to tarry on Gemheart. Not my kind of planet. I’ve had the ship’s AI set a course to one of my clients.”

“My friend needs medical attention,” Adam said.

The mech loomed closer to Adam and positioned an optic lens over Odybrix, “Overloaded her psionics by the look of it. Manufacturers do a poor job describing what psionics feel like when you push them. It’s like having your head locked in a slowly tightening vice. Only the vice is electrified. Poor thing.”

“So, we need to get her to a doctor. She’s not worth anything to you dead.”

“Oh, she is, actually. Less than alive, but not by terribly much. Bounties have ratios based on the client’s need. You are worth much more alive. Not to worry though, I’m sure the client will have a medical facility aboard their ship.”

“She’s not going to last that long,” Adam said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, don’t sell her short. I’ve read her dossier. Tenacious little thing. Besides, you won’t wait long. My client is in orbit.”

A sense of foreboding filled Adam’s head like plume of smoke. Remington had found them. And quickly. Before he had a chance to ask which ship was in orbit, Simon shoved them into a room and locked the door.

Odybrix stirred again, mumbling like she was in a dream.

“Ody, it’s Adam,” he said, feeling a mixture of hope and worry at the sound of her soft voice. “I’ve got you.”

“I…I,” she said in a whisper.

“You’re going to be okay. BOB and I are here with you.”

“I need…”

“What do you need?”

“I need… whiskey.”

—

“How bad is it?” Zenith asked.

“Pretty bad,” Buddy said, uncharacteristically grim.

“That’s an understatement,” Sturdy said with his usual grimness. “The ship has an array of eight heavy plasma cannons, two lightning javelins, two torpedo launchers, and a heavily integrated laser defense system.”

“Like I said, pretty bad,” Buddy said.

“We’ll have to fly in after Kron engages,” Zenith said slowly, digesting the dire tactical readout.

“You’re planning on entering a firefight with that thing?” Sturdy said, trying to keep a level tone. “It’s a frigate. A top-of-the-line frigate by the look of it, and I guarantee that they’ve got surprises hidden from our scans.”

“If they do, so be it. We’re in and out after Kron gives us an opening.”

Sturdy pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed as if explaining something to a child for the twentieth time, “Look, I know you want to get our people back, but it’s going to take one—maybe two torpedoes to rip the Sunrunner’s shield and hull to ribbons.”

“Combat AI checking in,” Hilde said brightly, “One torpedo for the shields, certainly. One to two for catastrophic hull breach.”

“We’ll be too close for them to use torpedoes,” Zenith said dismissively.

“And if we’re too close, the laser system will rip us to shreds in seconds.”

“Incorrect,” Hilde said, “I estimate, given adequate power diversion and individual pilot ability, we would have three minutes and forty-five seconds.”

Sturdy shot a glance at the nearest camera and scowled, “Less than four minutes to eject ourselves from the Sunrunner, board a vessel, fight through its sec-staff, find three prisoners, and return to the ship.”

“Yep,” Buddy said.

“That’s right,” Zenith echoed.

“You’re all insane and we’re going to die,” Sturdy said.

Hoxley’s stepped onto the bridge, rubbing the bruises around his neck, “As a strong advocate for staying alive, I come with marginally good news.”

Zenith spun around in the cockpit to face him, “What have you got for us, Hox?”

“That ship is going to screen all incoming communications, so it would normally be impossible to reach our people.”

“They would have been stripped of comms anyway, right?” Buddy asked.

“Yes, definitely, but what about something they can’t strip away? They would have checked BOB’s internal comms array and disabled it, but there’s something they overlooked,” Hoxley said triumphantly, “BOB’s a coffee machine.”

“A little reductive,” Zenith said, “but go on.”

“You can send wireless notifications to them to prepare orders. To anyone looking at the data, it would just look like normal background info. BOB’s model is common enough that they have one on board, so coffee orders don’t get filtered out.”

“How do you know they have one on board?” Zenith asked.

Hoxley smiled.

 —

The sight of the RC emblem emblazoned on the bulkhead twisted Adam’s gut. They had found him. Despite the seemingly unknowable destination and the cosmic distance, they had found him. The likely scenarios unspooled from tangle of his thoughts. They had stolen two sets of coordinates from Illias McIntyre’s datastores. The locations should have been known only to the Sunrunner crew and Vaelor. All the more so because Remington annihilated Levisia station, preventing any chance of that data being retrieved.

What did get out, according to Sturdy, was a bounty on all their heads—a parting gift courtesy of that thuglord they took out. It wasn’t impossible that McIntyre also had a killswitch. If the datastores were monitored by an AI, it could have put two and two together and slapped the coordinates on the bounty. Following that thread, the Remington flagship picked up the bounty info, strapped it to miniature mass reversion engines, and sent it to the fleet ships closest to those coordinates.

Adam registered the weight of Odybrix on his back. She was conscious, barely, and had begrudgingly accepted the piggyback ride—an option only slightly less distasteful than being dragged along by their golden captor. She’d have called the unfortunate series of events unlucky. No, what was unlucky was the stylized symbol beneath the RC emblem. An eye atop a staff, surrounded by a pair of twisting snakes. A research vessel. His mother’s ship.

BOB chimed as they were marched toward a lift.

“Everything alright, BOB?”

There was no response for several seconds before BOB blurted, “White hot chocolate, Earl grey small, Red apple spice, Espresso, Mochaccino, Oolong tea, Vanilla latte, Iced coffee, Non-dairy misto, Gingerbread latte!”

“What?” Adam asked, accompanied by a confused grunt from atop his back.

“Pardon, yes, I am operating at standard!”

“Yeah, sounds like,” Adam said as the mech’s arm ushered them firmly into the elevator.

The doors closed with a whirr and the floor pushed up into Adam’s feet as the lift ascended. He knew all the vulnerabilities of this ship and could plan an escape better than anyone else who had the misfortune of being detained here. Unfortunately, his mother knew that he knew. And given how ruthlessly meticulous Millicent Hargrave was, any RC knowledge that Adam might exploit would be pre-emptively dealt with.

“You’re tensing up,” Odybrix whispered in his ear.

“It’s a tense situation,” he replied.

“Not really; nobody has any guns. Except for the glorious golden nob.”

“I can hear you,” Simon said. “I’m always listening.”

“Oh, so you’re a creep too,” Odybrix shifting to stare at the mech.

“I-why bother. You’re out of my hair in a few minutes anyway.”

“Do they make toupees for gross floating brains?” Odybrix asked, innocently.

“Oh, how I wish you were worth as much dead…”

A muffled voice bled through the doors as they reached the end of the ascent. The smooth baritone contrasted harshly with a clipped, all-business tone—his mother.

“All assets have been secured.”

“Come now, Milli. Is that any way to refer to your boy?”

The conversation was lost to the din as a pair of armed bridgemen held Adam’s party in the vestibule before the bridge.

“Wait here,” the man on the left commanded, “The overseer will be with you shortly.”

Staining to hear, Adam picked up the voices once again.

“-deviation from his predicted trajectory.” That was his mother.

“You know I marvel at your intellect, but you would no sooner predict my course than his. Regardless of how well you engineered him.”

The other voice was familiar, and it evoked an unusual mixture of respect and fear in Adam. But, wait, were they talking about him?

“The boy’s gonna slip the chain every now and again. What matters is that he’s monitored.”

“Yes sir. I’ll see to that.”

“See that you do, Milli. I’ll be in touch.”

With a jolt of recognition, a name was given to the voice. Cuthbert Remington. The Remington. CEO of the biggest corporation in the galaxy. But how was he speaking with Adam’s mother? Remington was thirty-thousand lightyears away on Lone Star. And, more unsettlingly, what had he meant by “engineered?” The string of internal questions was abruptly cut short when the bridgemen pushed the group forward.

His mother turned from a holographic projector and took them all in with a harsh glance. Adam hadn’t been away from her for long, but she looked the same as the day he left: blonde hair tied in tight pony tail, pristine white lab-coat that she seemingly never changed out of, a finger tapping on her dataslate indicating that she was thinking about something—the finger was always tapping. She wore glasses, not to correct any visual deficit—she had the best bio-augmetics money could buy—but to have two additional screens to receive data from. The furrowed scrutiny of her features vanished when her eyes surveyed the wreck that was his body.

“Adam!” She yelled, running to him. The expression of worry seemed entirely foreign to her face, creating unfamiliar little creases on her skin. “What happened to you?”

“Hi mom,” he said, biting back the ingrained urge to refer to her as ma’am. “The burns are from weapons’ fire and explosions. The piercing and slashing wounds are from being eaten and regurgitated.”

Her demeanor shifted abruptly back to its normal, chilly disposition. “If you’re well enough to debrief, you’re well enough.”

Her hand balled into a fist, and for an instant, Adam thought she was going to hit him. She had never struck him in the past. If she ever had a reason to be angry with him, criticism was her preferred method of punishment. Which normally felt worse than any injury he’d receive on duty. Now though, she had a real reason to be upset.

The hand relaxed and she turned curtly, saying, “Come.”

The group started following, but Millicent halted at the sound of the mech’s heavy footfall.

“Not you, bounty hunter. Your work is done. Leave.”

There was a pause, then Simon said, “Very well madam. Pleasure to be of service. Come on, robot.”

Adam felt a surge of panic at the thought of being separated from BOB. They had just reunited. If Simon left now, there would be no way to trace him. BOB would be as good as dead.

“No,” Millicent said, cooly. “The robot stays.”

“Madam, this robot is an unrelated bounty. I will be returning it to my client.”

“No, you won’t. I’m aware of Lendaren’s little renegade AI, and I will be retaining it for study.”

A tense silence filled the bridge. Adam became acutely aware of Odybrix’ breath on his neck. She slid off his back, registering the peril they’d be in if Simon started shooting. If a firefight broke out, she’d be better off low to the ground.

“You misunderstand madam,” Simon said, a dangerous edge forming in his voice, “This robot’s acquisition is under another contract. We have strict rules regarding bounties, and they will not be broken today.”

“The misunderstanding is yours. I am not asking that you break your contract, I’m taking the robot from you.”

The gears in the mech whirred, readying for a fight. Adam took a single step to the left, preparing to grab Odybrix and throw her out of the line of fire. A series of rapid flashes bloomed around him, halted his movement. When his vision settled, a dozen glowing spheres surrounded Simon.

“Individuals in your profession are familiar with a large number of armaments, correct?” Millicent asked, undisturbed at facing down a fully armed mech with a psionic brain inside.

“Yes,” Simon said gratingly.

“You stay informed about the latest weapons, defense systems, et cetera. Allow me to introduce something that has yet to come to market. The twelve spheres floating around you are linked to my neurological hardware. Inside each is a microscopic antimatter engine similar to what you would find on a star ship. They are capable of projecting antimatter in tight beam. The penetrative potential is enough to overwhelm all but the densest shield arrays. I believe you are familiar with the larger version.”

Every screen on the bridge began displaying a video of the Levisia station in its last moments. The cannon from the RCS Baronet cut through the station’s shields and hull like they were paper.

“One of my lab assistants calls it The Death Ray. Would you like a demonstration?” Millicent asked. When Simon didn’t reply, she continued. “As far as Lendaren is concerned, you will have failed in the execution of your contract, not betrayed them for a competitor. I have added a thirty percent bonus to each of the contracts you have fulfilled for me today. Take the money and go. Now.”

The whirring sounds in the mech grew quiet. Simon turned and tromped off to the lift without saying a word.

“Your mom doesn’t fuck around,” Odybrix whispered.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“You must take after your dad.”

Do I even have a dad? The question ate at him, despite the dire situation.

“Saunders, Adaman,” Millicent said, addressing two bridgemen, “take the halfling to the dock. She can have an early start on her rehabilitation by taking an ion scrubber to the portholes on the ventral hull. Place the robot under guard in the maintenance closet until I can examine it.”

“Yes ma’am,” the pair said in unison.

“She’s injured,” Adam said, pleading. “And, she’s got psionic overstimulation syndrome. She needs a medic.”

Millicent’s face could have been made of granite for all the care it conveyed. The bridgemen had paused briefly before deciding that they should carry out the order. They halted again when she spoke. “Have a nurse meet you at the dock with a one cc injection of Mylinam, and two RegenX tablets.”

It was a small concession, but his mother rarely gave an inch when she had set her mind to something.

“Great, unpaid labour. Already feels like I’m back on Lone Star. At least the drugs are free,” Odybrix said, dejectedly.

“And place a psionic inhibitor collar on her,” Millicent added.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’ll get us out of this,” Adam whispered.

Odybrix and BOB were hauled away by the bridgemen, leaving Adam alone with his mother. She stepped away from him and turned her attention to a large holographic display. A readout of the floating orbs she had deployed against Simon appeared. She let out a nearly inaudible “hmm,” and the projection of a keyboard appeared in front of her. Adam took a cautious step forward and inhaled, steadying himself.

“I’m sorry that I left without telling you,” Adam began. “I knew that if there had been an argument, you would have won it, but it was something I felt I had to do.”

While still typing, she said, “Abandon your career, obligations, and your mother to pursue revenge against someone who had never been in your life?”

“The decision wasn’t logical, it was emotional. I needed to know who he was to better understand who I am.”

“And have you come to any conclusions about that?” She asked, adjusting her glasses.

“I thought I had. Being,” he grasped for a way to say it without sounding offensive, “away, has taught me a lot about life outside the corp. I’ve got a wider perspective, about people, myself, and how the galaxy works. I’ve put myself under more pressure than I had ever experienced in sec-ops. I’ve fought mutants, battled mechs, survived gas chambers, and I’m still standing.”

“All that from meeting your father?”

“I haven’t found him yet. And after overhearing your conversation with Mr. Remington, I don’t know that I ever will.”

Millicent stopped typing and the holographic keyboard disappeared. She faced him, and asked, “What was it you heard, Adam?”

“That I’m engineered.”

Her expression horrified him. She looked as if she were appraising research data. As if she were determining whether a project could move to the next phase or be scrapped. He felt sick.

“That’s correct, Adam,” she said flatly.

His hands shook as he asked, “What does that mean, exactly?”

“You were created using select genetic material and heavily modified to create a purpose-built metahuman.”

“Metahuman?”

“You have enhanced strength, cognition, and adaptability. And superb hearing,” She added.

“What was my purpose?” He asked, fearing the answer.

“To be my son.”

The answer was not what he was expecting. It was so far off the mark that he thought she must be lying. But his mother had never lied to him or anyone else, until now. If there was something she didn’t want to say, she just wouldn’t say it. If she had something to say, she would never sugarcoat it.

“There is more to the project, of course, but fundamentally, you were engineered to be my child.”

“So, the select genetic material is yours?”

“Yes, along with one other sample.”

“My father? Why would you use some guy from Hearthlight for the experiment? Why did he agree to it and then leave when I was a kid?”

Millicent sighed, “An element of the project involved memory implantation. You never had a father. You never had a childhood.”

Adam stepped back. His head was reeling. The stream of blunt answers hit him harder than the monster they fought on the roof. He had a sudden giddy thought that he would have been better off in the stomach of that monster.

“I was never a child?”

“You were fully matured when you were activated on 3473.”

He processed the date in disbelief, then yelled, “I’m three years old?!”

“Yes. And until now you have been the ideal son. Your…departure from my projections was unexpected,” she said, intoning mild irritation. “However, I have been reminded that rebellion is a natural stage of development.”

“What is natural about any of this!? I’m a lab-grown human with false memories. Most of my life is a lie!” Adam shouted.

For an instant, Adam felt embarrassed that someone might overhear the conversation, as if this were some deep personal secret that was his alone. Then he wondered how many of his mother’s staff already knew. If Millicent felt moved by his distress, her austere features didn’t show it. Still, the fact that she went on explaining meant something. She wasn’t one to bend over backward to get someone to understand.

“You have all the skills and characteristics that those memories would create, real or false. More specifically, your bioengineering allowed you to unconsciously assimilate information and develop neurological pathways indistinguishable from true expertise. Your brain should still have this ability to some extent.”

Adam was vaguely aware that his mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.

“Come,” she commanded, walking over to a terminal alcove and dismissing the bridgeman.

Adam followed reluctantly, feeling there was no way to stop the ride he found himself on. Uttering a verbal passkey, she summoned a series of info panes into the display. On them were biometrics, progress notes, evaluations, and a multitude of other information. Millicent stepped aside, motioning to the chair in front of the console. He stared at the screen; it was a window into himself. One with answers to questions he never knew he had. Battle had wracked his body, exhaustion beckoned him to find rest, but he took the seat; he needed to know.

His life, his creation, unspooled from the displayed. Fifteen years of research and development sprang into view with the twitch of his fingertips. He was engineered, yes, but it was so much more than that. Every facet of him—his spacefaring childhood, his trouble sitting still, his need to please, his calm under pressure—was all planned from the outset. There were metrics for grading the actions he took post “birth” and charts for how those actions aligned with expected projections—ninety percent accurate, until now. They tracked his diet, how much he exercised, how long he spent in the washroom. They estimated how attracted he was to the people around him through heat scans measuring the flush in his face. There was even a passage noting that, given the data, he was unlikely to be attracted to his mother.

He tabbed away from the personal aspects of himself, if only to flee from the feeling that he was staring up at the microscope that had analyzed his entire life. The page he landed on was labelled “AXDM72 – Gen, Augs, Caps.” A number spun up to a stop at the corner of the tab indicating over fifty-thousand pages. He scanned the index and found a summary of what they had done to his body. His years, his real years, made more sense in the context of his enhancements.

He outperformed every sec-officer in fitness trials, his tactical engagements suffered the least casualties, his marksmanship set internal records, it all lined up to the augmentations. His muscle fibers were smaller and more densely packed, designed to individually be as strong as a regular human’s, but significantly more powerful as a unit. His brain posessed thirty percent more sulci and gyri than average, allowing for more neural connections and higher cognitive capacity. Beyond the overt signs of his engineering were more subtle genetic changes. His immune system was tailored so that he would likely never get sick. His blood had unique platelets that stemmed wounds nearly as fast as they were made.

It struck him that Jim should have known all this and told him. Hadn’t he scanned Adam when they came aboard the Sunrunner? But Adam never had need of any serious tests. His blood was never analyzed because he wasn’t ever in need of testing. Even now, he could feel the burns and punctures on his body numbing, healing.

When he pulled away from the screen, his mother said, “you are exceptional.”

“I’m a science experiment,” he growled back.

“I have put more care and consideration into you than any parent in the galaxy ever has with their child. You are my greatest creation. I love you for all that you are and all that you will be.”

The word stuck him with the sudden impact of a bullet to the chest. He tried to hold on to the anger—the indignation at what she had done, but it was spilling out of him. Not once in his life had his mother told him that she loved him. He’d told himself, or at least he remembered telling himself, that it was who she was. Cool, analytical Millicent. Pragmatic and stoic to a fault. Yet now that she said it, he couldn’t find any insincerity in the word. She meant it.

An alert chimed as he sat there dumbfounded, and Millicent tapped at the console, bringing a video feed.

“Still,” she said, her voice heavy with reluctance, “some lessons must be taught regardless of our feelings.”

The feed was from a ceiling camera located in the loading bay. Two guardsmen towered over Odybrix as she pulled on a pressure suit. One shoved an ion scrubber into her arms and the other locked a tether on her back. With the wave of a hand, the bay doors groaned open. A blue shimmer cascaded between Odybrix and the void as the containment barrier became permeable. The guardsmen shoved her through the shield and into space.

“Why are you showing me this?” Adam asked, dread pulling at his heart.

“Lieutenant,” Millicent said, addressing the bridge officer at the helm, “cut her oxygen and take us out.”