#medusans

Aha! A mystery! This was their wheelhouse, so to speak. Zero had loved solving mysteries their whole life. Curiosity fueled their every action. That was why they had ventured off of their homeworld in the first place, and why they had become distanced from the hivemind long enough to be captured. Curiosity may have been their downfall then, but now it would be their salvation. 

Now, how to protect everyone else from going insane at the sight of them? The red glasses appeared to help. And telepaths like the Diviner seemed to have an easier time of it. So how to get red glasses on everyone on Tars Lamora… or to make them all telepathic somehow? That sounded very complicated and in Zero's experience, mysteries often have a simple, elegant solution. There must be another way… 

It wasn’t until the Diviner opened Zero’s containment unit again that an idea began to form. While the Diviner used Zero’s visage to brainwash the newest captive, they tried to disassociate, to focus on anything else but the weapon they had become. 

Zero regarded the robotic creatures that flanked the newest recruit. The Drednoks were artificial intelligence, so they had no telepathic signature and had mostly escaped Zero’s notice until now. But, of course, they were not affected by seeing the Medusan’s form. They did not have minds, in the traditional sense, and so they could not go mad! But maybe, if Zero tried, they could communicate with the Drednoks much in the same way that Medusans communicated with the artificial intelligence that flew their ships.

Zero focused on the Drednok standing to their left. See what it sees, look through its eyes, they coached themselves. Suddenly, Zero was looking at, well, themself! The incandescent swirl of energy pulsed through the room and Zero felt the new arrival struggling against their - or, rather, the Drednok’s - grip. Zero had not expected to feel what the Drednok felt; had not even been sure that the Drednok could feel anything at all. But it could and they did.

Zero wondered if they could take it a step further and force the Drednok to move. They concentrated on the feeling of the arm struggling against them, the feel of the mechanical fingers as they imagined loosening their grip. A twinge in the thumb indicated the beginning of a movement… but then Zero felt their mind slammed back into their body as they were roughly shoved back into the containment unit, its opaque aluminum alloy sides cutting off the connection with the Drednok. 

But this was a start. There would be an indefinite amount of time before Zero was let out again. But when that time came, they would be ready. 

In their mind, Zero began to design a portable shield. One that would carry them out of this place, just as the Drednok’s metal skeleton carried them from place to place. The red glasses could be repurposed to make a viewport so that they could see out and the rest could easily be built from the scraps that lay all over the ground on Tars Lamora.