#type: multi chapter

It shouldn’t still be rattling, you thought.

The Maginot had plummeted under the weight of greed and human ego to gouge a smoking wound into the soil of mankind’s home world. Gradually, you realized that the ship isn’t still spasming in its death throes. The one shaking is you. You don’t know how to stop—aren’t even sure you can.

Your mind plays the events of the final hours over and over. With every shuttering of your eyelids, you can see the way the Xenomorph had gone after Zaveri all over again. You weren’t sure if it was a mercy that you’d not born witness to her final moments. The noises had been so terrible. But maybe your mind is conjuring up an even greater horror than the nightmare that had actually transpired.

Voices drag you out of your looping spiral. You stir for what seems like the first time in thousands of years. Your body lights up with pain that had lain dormant as you twist and push at the metal grate that had kept you sealed away in your sanctuary. It clatters to the floor like the doors of a gallows. You drag yourself free. You try to stand only to get knocked down to all fours when your knee rebels—nerves twisting with fire. You don’t make another attempt.

Stinging with open scrapes, you crawl in the direction of the unknown voices.

The first thing you see when you drag yourself over the threshold of the specimen lab is the ship’s cat. His back is to you, and you think nothing of Johnny’s presence. He’s been a fixture off and on during your waking hours for the past six and a half decades. Looking away from him, you see legs. There’s three people in room, young, all wearing the same uniform. You open your mouth to ask for help but something twists strangely in your peripheral vision. Johnny has turned to face you. There’s something wrong with his back legs. He looks… broken.

His face seems to bubble and distort while blood clots in his orange fur. You stare, uncomprehending, until his eyeball pops free and dangles like a grotesque Christmas ornament against his cheek. It hangs there for a frozen moment before landing among the wreckage on the floor.

Without thinking, you lunge at the animal. The thing that had once been Johnny doesn’t fight you. The multi-pupiled eye stares intently at your face. Distantly, you’re aware of raised voices and bodies trying to cross to the other side of the room away from you and the overtaken cat. You ignore them, not daring to look away from the specimen that had been given the designation Trypanohyncha Ocellus.

“Please stay put,” you tell her, “Just… please.”

The creature’s eye dilates and contacts at your words, but doesn’t move to strike. All but holding your breath, you shakily get to your feet and carry T. Ocellus’s host body to an undamaged containment canister. You place your fingers in a cage around the eye socket, fingertips pressing firmly against the still intact orbital bone. The bulbous body of the alien presses wetly against your palm.

“Good girl,” you breathe and carefully slip the unresistant creature into the canister before locking it.

Unable to stand any longer, you turn and sink to the floor. Johnny’s body is cradled in your arms. The wall is inhospitable against your back. Somewhere by your head, one of the other specimens clatters against the reinforced glass of its prison.

A sensation like water trickling down your back trails over your spine. You struggle to make out the faces of the strangers now crowding around you, fear evidently having given way to curiosity. Blinking doesn’t clear your vision. You have the vague sense that they are talking at you. It reminds you of the time you had crouched with your ear against the wall, desperately trying to make out the words of one of your parents’ argument, but liquid rushing from the pipes above had drowned their voices down to an indistinct smear of language.

With a sensation like falling, you go under.

───※ ·❆· ※───

A firm hand on your shoulder drags you back to the waking world. You open your eyes to see a man down on one knee in front of you. His expression is blank, dispassionate, as his mouth moves. Johnny is no longer in your arms and there's a part of you that mourns the slight weight of his cold body.

You drag a noise from your throat in the effort to tell the man you can’t hear him. He doesn't seem to be dissuaded. His thumb presses harder into the breakable bone of your clavicle. The starburst of pain from the pressure makes something in your ears pop. Your hearing dials back just in time to catch the tail-end of his sentence.

“—r role on the ship.”

“I’m a science officer,” you manage. Something shifts about his expression, a softening of the lines around his eyes. Belatedly, you offer up your name.

“What—”

“She saved us from the thing in the cat,” pipes up a young man you haven’t seen before—he must have arrived with your would-be interrogator, “It was going to get Nibs.”

Around the man’s shoulder, you can see one of the strangers cross her arms. Her face is so rawly upset that you think she would protest in any other setting. It’s odd, you realize, how the only one to display truly adult mannerisms so far was the pale haired man.

He signs, accepting the interruption with the grace of someone who made an agreement with themselves to hang on to patience by only their fingernails if they must. His face relaxes into something more natural. He looks almost approachable like this.

“You are you?” you ask, voice hoarse.

Before he can respond, one of the others crowds in and jostles the hand the stranger still has on you. He doesn’t let go.

“He’s Kirsh, and I’m Smee. That’s Curly, Tootles, and Nibs,” Smee says, pointing at the others in turn.

Kirsh raises his eyebrows and tips his head. “There you have it… Can you stand?”

He eases back, letting you make the attempt to rock forward onto your knees in order to get upright. You have to suppress a yelp, turning it into a choked sound as you fight to not lose the ground you slowly make. Kirsh adjusts his grip. He wraps secure hands around the backs of your upper arms and all but lifts you upright. Your fingers catch on something underneath his sleeve. He has a port built into his forearm. He’s a Synth.

You might have recoiled once. There had been a time, years ago, where you might have been disgusted at what he is, but the only emotions you can dredge up is relief that there is no meat inside of him to be contaminated by the horrors you and your team had brought onto the Maginot and gratitude that his facsimile of humanity is bringing you comfort. He is careful with you as he guides you to one of the chairs not overturned in the chaos. You have to make an effort not to clutch at his arms when he withdraws.

“So fragile,” he murmurs when he lowers himself to examine your swollen knee.

Kirsh’s fingertips are too smooth against your skin. You know that if you were to take his hand in yours and tilt it to the light, there would be no sign of fingerprints. He had been painstakingly constructed, not born of a mother.

Under his scrutiny, you remember that your outerwear consists of nothing more than a thin-strapped tank top and a pair of pants. You had lost your shirt somewhere in the scuffle. Your boots had been tossed for fear that heavy steps would betray you to the creatures roaming the halls. Everything you still have on is some degree of filthy and ripped. Irrationally, you feel your face grow warm.

The white-haired man neglects to comment on the biological tangle he must be picking up on. Instead, he speaks in a level voice. “Smee, go to the cargo hold and assist Wendy.”

“But—”

Kirsh glances skyward, “Go.”

The young man lets out an exaggerated sigh. His shoulders droop dramatically and he lets his arms dangle at his sides like a puppet with its strings cut. He slumps out of the room.

Again, you’re struck by how childlike everyone but Kirsh seems. It’s uncanny but it’s enough to divert your attention. With the receding tide of embarrassment, you shiver. The latent heat of the crashed ship is doing nothing to combat the way your body wants to forfeit. You wrap your arms around yourself, fingers digging into the soft tissue of your biceps.

“There’s one of the adult specimens on the loose,” you tell Kirsh.

He does not seemed to be bothered by this information. “It’s dangerous, I suppose?”

“Very.”

He hums and straightens up. With perfunctory gestures, he dusts off his knees. It seems as though he’s done poking around your myriad of injuries.

“Where are we? I mean, where did the Maginot land exactly?”

“The USCSS Maginot crashed into Prodigy City, a metropolis located in the Prodigy owned Earth-region of New Siam. The vessel is currently located in the basement levels of a commerce tower with residential floors in the lower levels.”

Your throat goes dry and you have to close your eyes against the sting of your tear ducts. The population density is worse than you had dared think when Dinsdale had broken the news in the mess. How many will lose their lives over Yutani’s project before all is said and done?

“Who is Prodigy?” you ask woodenly.

Kirsh’s response is immediate. You wonder if he can sense your need for distraction. Probably. Morrow had an uncanny ability for reading emotion and he was less artificial. “The Prodigy corporation was founded by Boy Kavalier in the year 2110. A little after your time.” He pauses, then continues, “You have been in space a very long time by human standards, haven’t you, Officer?”

“Sixty-five years.”

“The world has changed in your absence,” he acknowledges.

You’re sure it has. You are not the same person who boarded the Maginot in 2055 as you are now so it stands to reason that the world you have finally come home to would not be the same either.

Your eyes feel heavy with the weight of all that you’ve experienced during a trip that should have taken four months but instead had taken a mere handful of hours due to the uncontrollable speed with which the ship had raced towards Earth. You can’t help but shiver again. It wracks your body so strongly that your teeth clatter together like a wind chime.

Kirsh cocks his head in the same way that you’ve caught him doing. It must be an unconscious reflex when he’s processing. Strange, that Synths can have mannerisms just like a human. You wonder if he knows he does it and if he resents what could be considered a flaw. You don’t know him well enough to ask.

“Shock is a behavior exclusively limited to animals,” he remarks.

You give him a twist of your lips, not quite a smile but close. You can’t manage anything more. “Normally the whole hairless ape thing isn’t so bad but…” you shrug.

He raises an eyebrow, a smile of his own teases the corners of his mouth. Before he responds, something changes. His eyes grow distant. That same detachment you’d witnessed when you’d first opened your eyes settles back over his face. It strips the human out of him.

Kirsh presses a finger to the implanted comm link behind his ear and speaks in an even tone. “Yes… Yes, I remember. I am on my way. Stay right there.”

His gaze flickers to the others in the room.

“Tootles, Nibs, Curly.. stay and make sure this room remains secure. I am leaving for a moment.”

He ignores their protests and focuses back in on you. You don’t argue when he gives you your order of “Stay. You are under Prodigy jurisdiction now.” Besides, where would you even go? Any effort for escape would only end up disastrous. You’re injured and Yuanti would see your head roll for the failures of the Maginot’s crew.

No, you decide, it is far better to sit in this uncomfortable chair and wait for Kirsh to get back. He had not been unkind. Perhaps you could still scratch out a life if you cooperate with Prodigy.

next chapter -»

Footsteps and the rattling of wheels on metal casters betray Kirsh’s return. He strides into the room but he is not alone. Personnel spread out from behind him—remoras flanking a shark. They set themselves upon the specimens with silent indifference. While they work, the Synth comes to stand at your side. He rests his hands on his narrow hips, shoulders curved inwards. Despite the almost vulnerable slant to his body, his affect is one of measured distance. A casual observer.

You study the proceedings with him. It gives you a strange feeling to watch the creatures that you had bled for and that your team died for be taken away as if they were toys being removed from the room of a grounded child. You look away, turmoil in your throat, and examine the still machine on your right. He does not react to your scrutiny, though you’re sure he must be aware of it. He must be aware of a great deal of things.

The children, as you had discovered, had been eager to share truly too much information about themselves and Prodigy to you the moment the Synth had left the room after declaring you company property. You weren’t truly a stranger after that, just a family member they hadn’t properly met. They had been even more excitable when you had walked them through catching the escaped tick. Curly in particular had glowed with a quiet pleasure under your praise. All of them seemed to be starved for acknowledgment.

You wonder if Kirsh knows they think of him as a parental figure. The David units were still so new when you were a child that you remember the protests about letting Synthetics be a mentor to the youth based on their lack of humanity. Now, there’s one fulfilling the duties of a responsible caretaker to a bunch of terminally ill kids placed in undying artificial bodies of adults. There’s a joke in here somewhere.

Under your watchful gaze, Kirsh stiffens. You would have missed the tightening of his artificial muscles if you hadn’t been paying more attention to him than anything else in the room. He shifts to the side, blocking your view of the recovery team. His back raises and falls with the mechanical process of his inorganic lungs. The tension does not fade.

“Take them to the aircraft. Load them,” he says to the figures now standing by with your life’s work slotted into place.

A flash of movement catches your eye and your gaze flickers to one of the stowed containers. T. Ocellus stares back at you. Her pupils have merged into one dark abysses. She raises a tendril and taps the fibrous appendage against the glass. You blink at her, uncomprehending. She repeats the gesture, adjusting to tap in the same direction as heavily insulated men begin wheeling her and the other specimens out of the ruined lab.

You turn in the direction she had indicated and see the twisted corpse of Johnny laying on one of the rolling instrument tables where he had been placed after being taken from your unconscious arms. Beside you, Kirsh is instructing the children to walk with the asset personnel to the landing zone.

“Follow them. Smee and Slightly are already on board with Wendy. Go straight there.”

With a pained expulsion of air, you get to your feet. Your knee threatens to buckle under you but you manage to grab one of the sheets used to cover dissected specimens. Struggling, you cross the scant distance and cover the cat with the cloth. The white fabric wicks up the coagulating blood and rust-colored stains bloom across it like ink into water. You tuck in the edges, a final goodnight.

Kirsh clears his throat—an unnecessary action for a machine—and speaks. “My employer has informed me that you will be coming with us to the island for further study of the alien creatures.”

You turn around to look the Synth in the eye. “Your boss is going to get everyone killed at the location he’s having them taken. It was a mistake to capture them in the first place.”

“Fear cannot be the ruling class in the endeavor for scientific enlightenment. Reason distinguishes man from animal.”

“Well, I am an animal and I am very much afraid. I have seen firsthand what happens when you don’t treat them with an appropriate level of caution.”

He tilts his head. You stand still as he narrows in on the shrouded bundle before dragging his stare sideways and upward to rest on your face. “You are quick to agree to your biological shortcomings.”

“And you are quick to claim no similarities. You were made in our image after all.”

That struck a nerve. His lips grow thin and his eyebrows reach for the stars. There is a long silence before he nods, making his peace with your words. Amusement catches the corners of his mouth.

“You are more fascinating than I might have assumed,” he murmurs.

Abruptly, you have the distinct sensation of being an insect pinned to a microscope slide. You don’t have a response.

Kirsh offers one hand to you, palm upwards. Not allowing yourself to think too hard about it, you take it. His fingers tighten just enough to lock you in place while he raises his unoccupied hand to investigate the exposed span of your ribs where your tank top had ripped during the commotion. Gooseflesh erupts over your skin at the attention, tempered only by the burn of his printless fingertips passing over a barely sealed cut.

“They were looking at you,” he comments, “That was not conducive to their assigned task. It was… inappropriate.”

Exhaustion makes you cranky. “Great. I got enough of men gawking after being around Teng for six and a half decades.”

His head tilts, telegraphing a question. You sigh. “Teng was the navigation officer. He would jerk off to the woman in cryo.”

“How crass... Did he receive punishment?”

“The security officer did say he wouldn’t get his pay didn’t knock it off, but the whole thing was treated like a joke. Boy’s club, you know.” Anger feels hot on your tongue.

There’s a sound of acknowledgement from Kirsh, and then the Synthetic is removing himself from your space. You feel cold in the absence of the warmth you hadn’t even realized he was radiating. His hands find the snaps connecting the top half of his jumpsuit to the bottom. With ease, he undoes his shirt buttons and pulls the long-sleeved garment off.

Alarmed, you try to form the sentence to ask him why the hell he’s getting naked in the very recently vacated lab, but the words keep getting stuck on the way out. Your face might as well be on fire. Right now, you would be the easiest target a Manumala Noxhydria has ever had.

Without a word, he offers the shirt to you. You take it, feeling unsteady. It fits loosely over your shoulders and the sleeves extend past the balls of your thumbs. Kirsh is far larger and broader than his lanky form suggests. Something about this newly won fact makes your stomach flip and you avoid looking at his bare arms. The exposed port in his forearm looks almost obscene in this low, flickering light. It is perfectly sized for curious fingers.

As if driven by muscle memory, Kirsh reaches out and cuffs the sleeves to reveal your hands. It’s even clearer than before that he has been a caretaker for a while. No wonder the kids view him as a parental figure. You don’t think that’s his directive though—playing dad for a bunch of adolescents who had become artificial parodies of their original selves.

Whatever his true purpose, whoever had made Kirsh had been meticulous. He’s flawed—speckled with human imperfections and lined with age you’re sure he has not existed through. He could be five months activated or fifty years.

“Thank you. I—” you stop yourself and give him a small smile. You think it might be the only genuine one you’ve had since the grim reality of the Maginot’s cargo set in.

“You’re welcome.” There’s a strange expression being played out across his face, toying with the lines etched into his forehead. He is intent on you, so much so that you want to squirm under the scrutiny. Like a lantern shuttering, it’s gone. You might as well have imagined it for the traces of it that remain.

“Now,” Kirsh says, offering his hand to you for yet another time, “Come.”

Again, you take it. He leads you through the broken body of the only place you have ever truly called home. The others had been desperate to return to Earth, lamenting the passage of every month spent onboard, but you had found solace in the endless, glittering sea. You had not left anything or anyone behind worth coming back for.

A lifetime seems to pass while you escape the twisted wreckage. The only thing keeping you sane is the firm grip that the Synth keeps around your hand. The familiar is turned alien from the destruction. Once free of the ship and into the cavernous maze of the tower, there was a moment where you wanted to give up and lay down to meet your own extinction next to a corpse partially trapped under fallen concrete. The body was already tagged, It would have been so easy to keep her company until the removal teams came to clear the site.

Kirsh seemed to recognize your weakness and forced you to keep going. Now, the tears you’ve been trying to bite back are making a sluggish escape. He is polite enough to not comment, merely anchors you as you fail to lift your ruined knee high enough and stumble over debris. The others have gotten so far ahead that you no longer hear the echo of their passing. You could strangle yourself with your own guilt and self-pity for taking so long, for being damaged, for being a part of Weyland-Yutani’s endeavor. So much for the indomitable human spirit.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The sunlight on your face is unexpected and abrasive. You stop in your tracks as it threatens to burn your eyes in their sockets. Kirsh stops alongside you, allowing himself to be tugged into stillness. If he weren’t a Synthetic, you’re sure that you would have bruised his hand with how hard you have been holding onto him.

Despite the dizzying bursts of color cascading across your vision like the paraffin wax and carbon tetrachloride mixture inside a lava lamp, you look up at the sky in wonder. It has been sixty-five years since you’ve felt the touch of organic light. It’s almost enough to distract from the pain that has settled into the very fibers of your being. The sensation of it is so different from the SAD lamps. You close your eyes, reveling in it as the salt from your tears dries across your cheeks.

It takes Kirsh’s voice softly saying your name to bring you crashing back down to the ground all over again. You turn to him, spell broken.

“They’re waiting on us,” he says.

“Right,” you agree and let him take you into the crowd bustling around the loading area.

They are loading the last stretcher onto the waiting aircraft.

Around you, the voices of dozens of men rise and fall. Some of them speak directly to Kirsh, others to each other. You are numb to it all. The specimens and hybrid children have already been sorted into their places, which only leaves you and the Synth who has become a comforting presence on a planet that is no longer for you.

“Go take a seat,” Kirsh requests.

He releases your hand. It tingles as it becomes only yours once more. There is an urge inside to give into blind animal panic and cling to him. You swallow it down and hold onto yourself for stability. Your nails bite into your arms through your borrowed shirt. You can’t move.

The Synthetic’s knuckles press into the curve of your back, nestling against the vertebrae. He applies enough pressure to coax you into taking an unwilling step forward. He does not let up after the small amount of progress and your second foot drags itself forward.

“Keep going.” He pauses and with a level of familiarity that should make you cringe, leans over your shoulder. His chest brushes against your back. In barely more than a whisper, he adds, “I will be there shortly. Speak to no one else.”

His breath against the side of your neck is warmer on your skin than the sun had been after stepping out of the darkness lit only artificial light. The Synth’s thumb brushes over your lower back. It’s not quite a caress, but it is a flustering simulacrum of a fond gesture all the same. To escape the cluster of feelings forming a Gordian knot underneath the protective plate of your sternum, you listen to him and board the craft.

You’re greeted by the sight of two stretchers wedged into the narrow aisle. One contains the body of what must be another transhuman child if the age and presence of white fluid are any indication. The second inert body is that of a human. The messy redness of organic tissues and fluids is a dead giveaway. You shudder, squeezing your own arms. Despite wanting to quit on the way to your next place of captivity, it is a miracle that you weren’t crushed into a bloody puddle or on a stretcher yourself after getting passed over by the specimens that had been on the Maginot.

You gingerly drop into a seat in the corner by the aircraft’s door. Most of the children are withdrawn into their own minds and don’t pay any attention to your presence. Smee is the only one inclined to make noise. He sways back and forth making quiet popping noises with his lips but trails to a stop when he notices your presence. He nudges the boy sitting next to him.

They’re too young, you think.

The two boys stare at you with wide eyes that only grow wider when Kirsh steps on board and sits at your side. You are grateful for the barrier that he creates between you and the others. You don’t have any energy left to give.

The aircraft takes off with a roar and a stomach-dropping lurch off the ground. Your eyes squeeze shut. This sensation of being airborne is so unlike the controlled propulsion necessary to move a vessel in space that it makes you nervous.

Giggling and the shushing coming from deeper in the craft draws your lids back open. Slightly is pushing Smee’s hand off his mouth while they whisper to each other. You catch broken snatches about a shirt and parents and love. Slightly catches his friend in the ribs with his elbow and they dissolve into wrestling. The others ignore them. It must be a common occurrence.

Oh, right, you realize. You’re still wearing Kirsh’s shirt.

Risking a glance at him, you discover that his eyebrow is raised, but he does not appear to be upset. You drop your gaze before he notices you watching him. It was a mistake. Your eyes snag on his arms, and you finally allow yourself to look.

In the crisp light of the aircraft, you appreciate how solid the Synth appears to be. Morrow had had a translucence to his enhanced arm. The mechanics were readily visible underneath the silicone skin. It’s strange how someone—something—entirely Synthetic could appear more real than a human with augmented components blending with their biological form.

Sagging further into your seat, you let yourself fold into the corner. Your head rests against the wall. Even if he would be more comfortable than an inhospitable sheet of steel, you weren’t so presumptuous as to lean against Kirsh. You surrender yourself to a restless doze.

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A persistent hum is the first thing you become aware of. The droning pitch sparks the bone-rattling fear that you hadn’t made it off the Maginot after all—that you had started to die slumped against the wall and your fading synapses had conjured a dream of someone who had come to save you. Lungs tight, you bolt upright and nearly collide with a woman who had been leaning over you.

“Easy there, dearest,” she soothes and flutters birdlike hands over your shoulders. She pats you and you stare at her in bewilderment. The room is so blindingly white you have to squint.

“What happened? Why am I…?” you ask, gesturing to the room at large.

She smiles at you and settles into a nearby chair. “You didn’t wake up when the helicarrier landed, poor thing. Kirsh handed you off to the medical team and asked that I stay with you until you woke up after your surgery. He had to speak with Mister Kavalier.”

“My… surgery?”

“They had to put a plate in there, but you’re all patched up,” she says with a gesture at your leg.

Feeling another jolt of panic, you fumble for your knee. It feels only a little tender to the touch. It is no longer an angry, swollen mass that threatens to leave you on the floor if used. You sag back against the pillows. Something similar to relief wells up. It’s almost enough to quell your anxiety. It’s quickly trampled by the faint memory of a serious brown eyes set into an unsmiling face and the sensation of weightlessness.

“When you say Kirsh handed me over to the medical team… what do you mean?”

You don’t miss the way she narrows in on you with a sparkle in her eye. She leans forward in her chair. Bald-faced curiosity is evident in her voice as speaks. “Oh, he came down the ramp with you tucked into his arms as nice as you please. It surprised us, you know, that he was so thoughtful. As you’re aware, fully Synthetic beings are not designed to feel emotion, but h—”

“You are awake. Good.” cuts in a bland voice from the door. “The founder of Prodigy would like to meet with you.”

Mortification sits hotly over your chest and burns its way up to your cheeks. You twist yourself to the edge of the bed and let your feet touch the floor. You’re stopped before you can make an attempt to rise. With a click of her tongue, the stranger eases the intravenous catheter free from the back of your hand.

“You could let the girl rest, Kirsh.”

“I can’t, Dame.” Real or not, frustration tightens the words into a bowstring.

With a cotton ball and bandage securely lashing it to the puncture left in your skin, the woman—Dame—lets you get to your feet. Your body instantly wants to collapse in on itself. You feel yourself start to drop back onto the mattress despite your efforts to remain upright. The sensation of a hoard of insects pinching at the flesh of your legs has your fists clenching. You must have been inert for longer than you’d assumed if your nerves have to adjust so viciously.

An arm catches you before you fully lose your progress. Kirsh draws you upright with a steadiness that nearly lifts you off your feet altogether. There is nothing else to do but settle into the circle of his arm. His hand tucks neatly against your uninjured side, coaxing you into using the length of his body for additional stability. You give in with a sigh and lean against him. The mass of artificial meat and skin covering his lateral thoracic wall is suitably yielding underneath the press of your cheekbone.

“Thanks,” you tell him, avoiding Dame’s incredulous stare.

“You are welcome.” His tone is entirely devoid of emotion, but he too doesn’t look at the woman.

Kirsh steers you out of the room with a speed that makes you grateful for the rubber grips on bottoms of the socks you had woken up in. Without them, you think you would be getting slid across the polished floor rather than managing wobbly steps. Behind you, you hear Dame let out a faint “Well then!” before the door slides shut.

The hallway is of the same design as the medical room—impersonal and too-white. Already, you can tell this place has more in common with a gilded cage than anything truly meant to be a home. It must be hard on the kids, growing up in an environment like this. They should—

You stop that line of thought. You can’t afford to have misplaced maternal feelings. They are not your responsibility and will never be.

“Any specifics about your boss that I should be aware of?” you ask, needing something else to mull over in your mind.

Kirsh’s arm tightens around you in an almost human gesture of discomfort. He fails to respond. You let the silence drag on for a few more mismatched steps, but the foreign sensation in your operated upon knee prompts you again to seek something to distract yourself with. The phantom insect activity hasn’t dissipated, only localized.

You take a breath. “Kirsh, please.”

His words come immediately. Easily.

“Boy Kavalier has perceived himself to be intellectually unmatched from the age of four. His vices are ego and immaturity. You might find him difficult to… entertain.”

“Oh, how nice,” you say. Privately, you think that Boy Kavalier sounds just like every other tech developer that thought he touched Godhood and decided to form a corporation about it.

Kirsh takes you around a corner and you see the first sign of the outside world since you’ve woken up. Fading sunlight streams through large windows set in the inhospitable walls, and the sight of it demands your attention the same way emerging from the wreckage had. No matter how long you spend on this planet, you think you will always be in awe at the star that holds the earth with such warmth.

The Synth comes to a stop in the final square of natural light. You turn to him in silent question and find that he is already looking down at you.

“I will be unable to protect you once we are in front of him.”

He separates from your side only to place himself in front of you. He stands in the gloom beyond the sun-drenched floor, leaving you crowned alone in the sun’s glory. You feel unsteady, unmoored, without the supportive brace he had provided. He reaches for you and lets his fingertips brush over the top of your shoulder as a warning before his palm presses against the side of your neck.

You swallow hard—your throat trying to buck the thumb resting on the swell of your trachea. His fingers are a firm pressure below your hairline. Like this, you might as well be one of the Maginot’s specimens, but yet, you don’t feel a rising tide of fear. You are calm.

“I don’t—” you try.

“If he were to order me to do it, I would have to crush your neck,” he interrupts softly. His fingers tighten minutely as demonstration then relax. “He is fickle and he is dangerous. You warned me to not underestimate your creatures. Do not underestimate mine.”

“I won’t," you promise.

Despite your assurance, he still doesn’t let go of you. In the barest touch of the sunlight, his irises shine. They remind you of a jar of honey—real honey—you had seen once, years ago, before you had left the orbit of Earth. The seller had kept that little jar behind glass—it had been worth more money than your life. But the warm, amber hue under the light had drawn you in just as Kirsh’s eyes are now.

“I know it’s not your directive to protect me. However this goes is how it goes, and I will not blame you for any of it,” you say, pausing to wet your lips, trying to articulate what you want to say. You find your words, and add, “You… you have been kind to me and it has been a long time since anyone has truly bothered.”

Blindly reaching up, you place your hand over Kirsh’s. The Synth tilts his head as your fingers brush over the prominent lines of his extensor tendons before working under his palm to ease his hand down between your bodies. You hold onto him. This is the first time you’ve touched him without his prompting.

“Fascinating,” he says, hushed.

The lines around his eyes deepen and he appears to be waging a war inside of himself. Before you can ask him anything, his face smooths into stagnant indifference. He slips free of your too-human grasp and moves a few feet down the coolly illuminated depths of the hallway to stand in front of a closed door.

When he beckons you to follow, you obey. You hide your limp, preparing yourself to have an unaffected air in front of his boss. You nod back at him when he raises an eyebrow. Waiting won’t make you any more ready to deal with a corporate dickhead. Boy Kavalier will just be another in long line of them you’ve had the misfortune to interact with.

Kirsh taps one of the buttons by the door with a single finger and the metal sheet slides out of the way. Without a word, the Synth steps through the doorway and, just as silent, you follow in his wake. You distance yourself from your own emotions and settle into the same impartiality one would expect of a Synthetic.

You find yourself in a strange room. Synth parts are displayed like a game hunter’s trophies along one wall. Opposite of the unmoving silicone faces, is a needlessly convoluted desk system with white Lego blocks scattered across one surface. The chair between the two tabletops making up the desk turns abruptly.

The young man sprawled arrogantly over the seat throws something in your direction. You manage not to flinch or shy away behind the rigid form of Kirsh standing a mere step or two ahead of you and to the right. A ball rolls against your foot, hitting softly against your sock-clad toes. You bend and pick it up. It is an insubstantial weight in your hand. You decide to take a risk and toss it back to him. He catches it out of the air with a snap of his wrist.

“I’ve been told it would be a mistake to throw you off my island. I can’t say I see why. You look perfectly, ordinarily, abso-fucking-lutly boring.”

“She protected your assets and is familiar with the specimens,” Kirsh reminds, long-suffering. There’s a hard edge to his voice that you haven’t heard before.

Boy Kavalier lets out a mocking trill of a laugh. “Soooo… You’re telling me you didn’t do your job. You’re supposed to be better than a man, right? So. Uh. Why not just—” He clicks his tongue hard against his teeth. “—do what you're told?”

The urge to defend Kirsh rises in your throat. You swallow it down. No good would come of it it, you already know.

“She was there when I was unable to be during the survey efforts of the crash site.”

“Right, right…” He waves a bare foot dismissively at the Synth before pointing the appendage in your direction. You struggle to keep a frown off your face. “Now, you. Your little specimens. What does dear old Yutani want with them?”

“What do I get in exchange for my information?” you ask instead.

A bald man that you hadn’t noticed standing by Kavalier starts forward. Indignation is written over his features. There a similarity in the facial characteristics between him and the founder of Prodigy that makes your empty stomach curdle. He can’t be the young man’s father—not really—the movements are too precise in a way that only a Synthetic could preform.

Boy Kavalier waves him off. He lowers his legs and curls forward, bare feet on the floor. There is a mocking hunch to his posture that only serves to stoke the heady cocktail of worry and irritation that you are trying to resist drinking from.

“How about this. How about you tell me what you know and if it’s good enough, we’ll reward you.” It’s not said as a suggestion, but you’re not foolish enough to agree to a flimsy handshake deal.

You don’t feel too pressed to grub at the floor for whatever crumbs Kavalier is willing to toss out. If your negotiations fall through, you’ll just crawl back to Yutani and plea sabotage and kidnapping—technically the truth, even if you had gone with Kirsh willingly. However, you’ve already decided you’d much rather prefer an alternative to that particular option. Begging things of capitalists leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

“It’s good enough. More than good enough. I’ve studied and worked with those specimens for years. That research was done with Yutani’s specifications in mind. I had to be sure they would be suitable for her goals. I want a written and signed statement—legally binding—guaranteeing my immunity and protection for when Weyland-Yutani finds out that I broke my non-disclosure.”

A sharp inhale and an even sharper, “Kirsh!” from the Synth’s boss breaks through your proposal. You ignore that someone else is being reprimanded for your own unwillingness to appease, and continue speaking.

“Prodigy and its CEO will acknowledge all responsibility for my actions, of course.”

“The answer is no. Who the fuck do you think you are?” he demands.

His face is a tight mask of barely suppressed rage. An unpleasant, red flush is creeping up his knobbly Adam’s apple. He reminds you distinctly of a petulant teenager about to have the kind of tantrum they should have outgrown years ago. He's only missing the acne and the overpowering scent of body spray.

You smile, feeling a bruise pull across your cheek. “The only living expert.”

No one in the room moves as Kavalier all but trembles in silence. You’re suddenly glad that you had mentally declared your life forfeit the moment it was discovered that Dinsdale’s body had given birth to a monster. You don’t think Kirsh will be cruel when he wrings your neck like a fowl being prepared for dinner. It will be quick and mechanical. He might even say something nice to you as he does it. There’s no violent horror in going by his hands—only a quiet one.

“You know what,” Boy Kavalier says suddenly, color receding, “let’s go see these creatures.”

In front of you, Kirsh’s shoulders drop marginally. His posture is that of quiet relief. In response, you feel your own body give up some of the tension it had dug its fingernails into. He pivots and reaches for you as the only other human in the room gets up from his chair. Seeking familiarity, you rock forward as if to meet Kirsh halfway. His hand clamps around your upper arm and without allowing you another breath, the Synth all but drags you out of the room and into the hall.

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Too tight, you think, then follow it up with another thought. Is he afraid for me?

Your knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss the possibility outright. After all, Kirsh is a Synthetic. He does not contain the hormones or those pesky little innate chemical machinations of the brain to be classified as anything close to being organic.

Even a Cyborg is far cry from the machine still gripping you like you might be ripped away from him if he lets his artificial carpals ease up from where they’ve settled themselves on your bicep. His thumb brushes back and forth over your skin beneath the privacy offered by the sleeve of the scrub shirt you’d been given in your unconscious state.

That tender gesture serves to give you pause, casts doubt on your dismissal of his theoretical emotions. There is no logical reason he should be engaging in this behavior. You would be just as cooperative without it. You know what the reality of your situation is, so… why? Why continue the attempt to provide you kindness knowing that you’re already caught?

“I’ve heard too much about you,” Boy Kavalier states from his position at the head of the pack.

Unwillingly, you focus your gaze at him. You try to not look below his knees. While the bald Synth and Kirsh both wear shoes, you and Prodigy’s owner are more archaic in your lack of footwear. Every flash of Kavalier’s dirty feet unsticking themselves from the glossy floors of the hallways makes you want to throw up the nonexistent contents of your stomach. The little boy act gets more off-putting with every minute you spend in his company.

“Nothing bad, I hope,” you respond, hoping that you’re keeping your tone light. Kirsh doesn’t increase the pressure of his grip, so you must not be too off the mark.

“I wish it were. That would make sense. But no, you’ve got my Lost Boys and my Synth eating out of your hand. Metaphorically, of course,” he tacks on. Even without seeing his face, you know he’s sneering.

“I can’t imagine that’s true. The kids, especially, really look up to you. They were hoping to make you proud with their work on the Maginot,” you offer.

It galls you to be so complimentary, but some of the tension lessens. Kirsh’s boss is putting less force behind each footfall, at least, until he suddenly takes off into an awkward sprint without a word. The other inorganic man lengthens his stride to accommodate.

“What?” you grumble under your breath and move to hurry after them, but Kirsh is an anchor attached to your arm. You’re forced to maintain your leisurely pace. It’s just as well. You’re sparred from having to reveal the lameness in your leg.

Ahead of you, Boy Kavalier and his bald shadow step through the doors of an elevator. The young man gives you a wave and the doors close, leaving you and Kirsh in solitude. As soon as they’re out of sight, Kirsh tugs you against him. You lean into the support of his side with relief.

“You’re doing well.”

“Your boss is a dick,” you reply, barely more than a breath.

You feel more than hear his laugh. The machinery inside of him does a complex series of motions to produce the novel sound. With how close you are to the Synth, you can make out a mechanical whirr underlying his mirth. It’s strangely soothing, you decide. It takes you back to late nights spent alone pouring over some piece of equipment or another in the Maginot’s lab. You had had many quiet victories there in that solitude.

“Some find him charming,” Kirsh offers.

“Guess I’m not ‘some’”, you retort, glancing up at him only to find him openly smiling.

His teeth are a brilliant white. They border on being too perfect. It only adds to the uncanny, not-quite human appearance of him. It would be a pity if whoever was responsible for them didn’t have a side hustle in cosmetic dentistry. You could imagine some rich man would pay a lump sum for veneers of similar quality. You have to look away before you say something else to prolong his amusement—to keep him looking down at you like he’s feeling something real.

The elevator arrives. Kirsh adjusts his grip and together you step through the door. It exactly matches the design you’ve seen of the building thus far, only with the added bonus of an obnoxiously prominent camera positioned to point directly into the faces of its passengers. You make sure to keep what distance you can from Prodigy’s employee under the scrutiny.

Head lowered away from the prying digital eye, you ask, “Who is the other Synth?”

If Kirsh is surprised that you had recognized what the fourth member of your divided party is behind the human facade, he doesn’t show it. He merely presses the last button on the panel. In a dizzying free-fall, the elevator descends. Your stomach flips with the sensation and you stumble slightly. Kirsh’s fingers tighten. There is no chance of you colliding with the floor. Not with how closely he has been safeguarding you.

“He is Atom Eins. He is one of Prodigy’s make,” he supplies.

“Aren’t you?”

“No.”

You don’t have the time to process the significance laid within that one word. The elevator doors open, and Boy Kavalier is blocking your exit with his lanky body. His personal Synth is out of sight. Prodigy’s CEO is tossing that damnable ball from hand to hand. The slap of it between his palms wants to set your teeth on edge—molars grinding themselves into dust, but you remain impassive. The anticipatory smirk falls from his face. You could clap your hands together at his disappointment.

Without a word, he turns with a flourish of over oversized clothing and moves down the hall at a walk. Kirsh’s hand gives a squeeze—a silent command to follow. Your disjointed group barely goes more than a few yards before coming to a stop next to Atom. He jabs at the control panel. The door unpressurizes with a familiar hiss as it slides open to offer a glimpse into the darkened room within.

It is strategically lit. The creatures look alien to you in this new environment. Their bodies are strange, undulating shapes in the harsh spotlights. Your long-held fascination with them has been poisoned with trepidation. You’ve gotten a full taste of what they are truly capable of. Speculation has turned into fact and the confirmation had some with a steep price.

“They’re just animals,” Kavalier announces, arms spread wide in sprawling disapointment.

Finally, Kirsh releases his hold on your arm. Even as he moves a few steps in front of you to form a shield against the contents of the laboratory—against the increasingly petulant young man in the center of the room—you can still feel the ghost of his artificial fingers on your skin. It’s almost as though he has branded you. If you were to lift your sleeve, it would be strange to not see the trace of his hand beneath it. You resist the foolish urge to look, and instead keep your eyes fixed on Boy Kavalier.

He moves into a pool of light. He’s zeroing in on the exposed Xenomorph eggs and you feel yourself go rigid. Horror floods your stomach and crawls up your throat like an infection as you realize that its too cold in this room. The heat signatures of anyone living are going to be homing beacons.

Kavalier is wholly unaware of this.

The other human leans over one of the eggs. It starts to unfurl, inviting its prey to peer closer at the manumala noxhydria nestled within the leathery confines. Dinsdale’s acid-melted neck flashes in the back of your mind. It’s all you need in order to act.

You reach for Kirsh. Your fingers dig into the synthetic tissue of his bicep—a mirror of the way he had held onto you. He turns to look over his shoulder at you, where you’re now all but cowering behind him in the effort to use him to mask the warmth of your body. Too many signs of life, and the eggs will spread open to unleash their contents on their unsuspecting victims.

He raises his eyebrows, forehead creasing, at your obvious distress.

“The creature in the egg—the facehugger—is going to attach itself to him to implant an embryo. It’s unsurvivable. He’ll die,” you manage around a throat gone thick with nerves.

At your explanation, Kirsh whips around in time to see long, pale fingers parting the lips of the egg. Boy Kavalier doesn’t move, entranced. The bald Synth stands nearby to watch the proceedings with polite indifference. Neither of them are concerned.

Kirsh lunges across the room. His arm forms an iron band across Kavalier’s chest and he bodily forces him backwards. Atom Eins protests and reaches his own hand out for their boss. The white-haired Synth ignores him and drags his squirming cargo past you and out of the room entirely. You cut off Atom and risk taking a flailing foot to the shin as you follow right behind them to make your own escape from the brewing situation. You hadn’t been plucked out of the Maginot just to die in a lab by the doings of its contents.

Kirsh releases Prodigy’s golden boy only to be met with a slap across the face courtesy of Atom. His head snaps to the side, but no redness rises to the surface of his artificial skin. You twitch, reflexively warning to cover your mouth at the disrespect. He had been stricken like one might reprehend a dog they weren’t particularly fond of.

“What—” Boy Kavalier starts, worming his way around Atom. He shoves a finger into Kirsh’s face as he takes on the role of the owner rubbing the canine’s face into their own mess. “—the fuck was that?”

“She warned me that you were in imminent danger, and I confirmed her information. There were two men on the Maginot who died as a result of contact with the specimens inside of the eggs,” he explains. His voice is steady, unruffled.

How? You wonder. How had he had the time to survey the downed ship to discover how Dinsdale and Bronski had died? You suddenly remember the port you’d seen on his bared forearm. He must have pulled the ship’s records while you were unconscious dead weight against the wall.

Boy Kavalier turns on you with wild eyes. There is a flush violently streaking over his pale face. Every emotion is telegraphed in the bones of his body and displayed openly on his features. He emotes with the raw indulgence of someone who has never had to hide in adulthood. You almost envy him.

“Those things killed my crewmates. They did not kill me. They are just animals, yes, but to think you can tame them is hubris,” you tell him. You don’t mention that your survival is due to pure luck. Anyone can get lucky. Being a personally fortunate individual isn’t sellable to someone looking for a candidate with a skill.

Kirsh swoops in on the coattails of your statement. “As I have mentioned, she is the only… human survivor. She has insight that we cannot gain without our own prolonged trial and error.”

You have to school yourself to not react. Security Officer Morrow must have survived. Kirsh had just let you know in an indirect manner, but why? You know that the cyborg had let Zaveri die but— The realization hits you. Kumi will be after the creatures and he will be furious over your betrayal. His loyalty to Yutani is far more concrete than your own allegiance could have ever dreamed of being.

“As you are well aware. We do not have time to waste,” Kirsh adds into the tense silence.

Boy Kavalier exhales through gritted teeth. Then he smiles as though nothing unpleasant had ever transpired. The abrupt change is unsettling.

“Fine.” he says to the hallway at large, refusing to look at any one of you. “I’ll have a document drawn up. Congratulations, Kirsh. You’ve finally gotten your own pet. Just promise to feed it, and take it for walks, and make sure it does its tricks or it’ll have to go to a nice home in the country.”

The artificial man smiles wanly at the implied threat to your life. There’s a tension in his neck that pulls the gesture into something more akin to a closed-mouth snarl. Despite the victory, he does not convey relief.

“Thank you. She will be adequate for my needs.”

“I hope so,” Boy retorts and snaps his fingers at Atom.

The Prodigy Synth doesn’t follow the young man to the elevator. He looks at Kirsh. Disapproval is clear in the lines of his forehead. You get the strong impression that he would like very much to strike your only supporter for a second time.

“You forget yourself, Kirsh. Sometimes I fear that you lose sight of what you are and are not,” he says lowly.

Kirsh responds with a slow tilt of his head. When he speaks, a manufactured sorrow coats his voice. “On the contrary, I am very aware of my own intentions. I apologize if your processors are unable to account for methodologies other than what you are spoon-fed. In the future, I shall endeavor to provide a complete briefing of every aspect so you may follow along with accuracy. It would be unfortunate if you came to the wrong conclusion.”

Your face moves without permission, and you can’t help but wonder who had been responsible for Krish’s creation. He is simply so unlike anything you had been told about Synthetics or their behavior. He is too… nuanced—complex.

Down the hall, Boy Kavalier impatiently shouts for Atom to come to him. He lingers for a moment longer, attention shifting to you. If anything, his forehead lines deepen further in disgust as he takes in your bedraggled appearance. You force yourself to not shift under the scrutiny and meet his eyes evenly.

“Toys get broken,” are his parting words. Yet another cryptic threat. You’ve had your fill of them for one day.

You are left alone with the white-haired Synth in ringing silence. At your side, Kirsh rests his hands on his hips. He stands with the posture of a man who knows that he will have to humor you, so you let one of your many questions escape.

“Is it pity?” you ask so abruptly that it is almost rude. Kirsh doesn’t so much as blink.

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Curiosity.”

You frown. “I thought that Synths weren’t made to have desires or emotions.”

“Curiosity is not an emotion.” He sounds sure of himself.

“It’s a feeling—a state of being,” you return, equally confident.

Kirsh falls silent. There’s a smile working at the corners of his mouth as he looks down at you with a tilted view. The fondness traced across his manmade features lodges a shard next to your heart.

“I was created to observe and to learn from my observations. Over time, I have learned to behave in a way that grants me more information to process. And you… You have given me much to think about.”

The shard digs deeper, making itself known with viscous intent. You fight not to acknowledge it.

“So, you can learn emotions!” you blurt out in the bid to distract yourself from your own, “Animals also have to learn. We’re not born knowing how all feelings work. Sure, some are innate, but others have to be cultivated.”

“You are attempting to humanize me?” He says it with no small amount of disapproval.

“No! No. Just trying to understand. I’m curious about you too, you know. Synths weren’t like you back before I was assigned to the Maginot.”

You find yourself looking away from Kirsh. Your face is burning with the admission of your own interest. It was one thing for a highly sophisticated machine to say something so off-the-cuff, but for you… well. Humans tend to have layers to their words.

“Ah, but there are not many others like me. Not anymore.”

Kirsh is not at all what you thought he was. He’s something other—something incredibly dangerous in the eyes of the Five. No wonder Boy Kavalier has placed him in his collection.

“You’re adaptive?” you venture.

The faint smile splits into a perfectly spaced grin. You had put the clues together and the Synth was—to humanize him as he’d said with no amount of scorn—visibly delighted. “Yes.”

Your knowledge on Synthetic history is foggy. Your attentions had been solely focused on the biological. But, even with your incomplete recollection, constructs like what Kirsh is claiming to be had been a product of the Weyland Corporation before the merger with Yutani. The old man had simply gone too far in the quest for the perfect simulacrum. He had been condemned for blurring the line between man and machine in a muddled, senseless mess fought with unresolvable emotion. Yutani had evidently not been too much of a shackle if Kirsh exists with modern technology. He is not merely a reskinned David unit. He is something new.

An adaptive Synthetic playing caretaker for human children made into machines turns Boy Kavalier’s entire operation into even more of a tangled web. No wonder Atom Eins seemed so frustrated during your brief interaction. If he is the only wholly standard, inorganic being operating in this facility, his programming truly might not be able to comprehend the scale of the situation. Your decidedly made-of-meat brain matter is barely able to wrap itself around the numerous ways this could blow up in a matter of months if not weeks or even days.

Kirsh’s eyes glaze over. The sudden lack of sharp awareness draws your attention away from your thoughts. He grows distant as he listens to a remote voice. His gaze clears and you feel the full weight of his attention again.

“Your contract is ready for review. I will have you look it over while you eat,” he says.

He offers his hand to you, and like the times before, you take it and find comfort. Kirsh guides your hand to the crook of his elbow. As your weight shifts to lean on him, you have to bite back a moan of relief. You hadn’t fully realized the strain you have been inflicting on your repaired knee until he had given himself over to support your body once more.

“You do know that I’m not actually your pet right?” you ask, thinking back to the snide remark from Prodigy’s manchild of a CEO.

“Not all animals are meant to be owned, but they do often require care.”

You mull over his words for a moment as he escorts you towards the elevator. Something about them pokes at you. You realize why.

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“Then perhaps you asked the wrong one.”

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