Everything was black. So very black, but not black. There was simply nothing, a very un-black nothing. Even my own understanding didn’t make any sense, but it was the first thing I was aware of since Nicole had pressed a needle into my arm, and I had quickly grown very drowsy. The happy floaty feeling was gone, torn away as soon as it had lulled me to sleep.

  I knew what had happened. I had fainted. Or I was unconscious. Whatever the word was. I trusted Nicole enough to put me into a strange sort of nothing sleep. But now that I was alone in my own head, I remembered why I did not like this at all.

  I could feel myself breathing, very slowly and quietly, all around. I tried to suck in a deeper breath, to get a proper lungful of air, but my body wouldn’t respond.

  Bam, nothing. Nothing but an ambient warmth, and my own thoughts for company. How long would I remain like this?

  Frustrated, I rolled over. Nervous energy made me restless. Except I didn't roll over. I couldn’t have. Yet I felt movement. A strange sliding, textured gliding, which left me even more confused. I couldn’t even feel my body, let alone move.

  Then I finally felt something. A strange rhythmic vibration. I strained, trying to listen as if that was ever intentional. Just faintly, I could… feel it.

  Pat pat.

  Pat pat.

  Pat pat.

  A heartbeat? The baby! I could hear the baby because all my other senses were quiet. No, that couldn’t be right.

  The tapping was moving. It reminded me of someone knocking on a wall. But that made absolutely no sense either.

  I would have groaned in frustration, but I wasn’t capable of that right now. Then I was being moved, clamped down upon in the strangest of ways. It was dizzying. I did not remotely like whatever that was. Enough was enough. I wanted to wake up.

  Please…

  I reached out, looking for anything. I was supposed to count. Nicole had said 30 seconds. It felt like more than 30 seconds. I really wanted to wake up now.

  I squirmed. Searching for an escape, wrapping around—

  My eyes fluttered as light seared back into me. I clawed myself up, grabbing onto Nicole as she hovered over me.

  Nicole held me firmly while I caught my breath. “What happened?” She finally asked.

  “Nothing,” I huffed. “I was stuck in that empty place again. I felt a-a tapping maybe. Like a tap tap, tap tap, tap tap. Is it the baby? Is he dead? I can’t remember the last time he kicked.”

  “Considering the strain on your body… it would not surprise me,” Nicole sighed.

  “He’s really gone, isn’t he?” I asked, eventually. Too sweaty and dizzy to muster any grief at this news.

  “Forget the baby,” Nicole replied flatly. “Humans breed like vermin. Tobias is more than capable of getting an heir from someone else. Your life is far more important.”

  “No, no, I can’t just forget the baby,” I snapped, anger bubbling in my chest. “That’s the whole reason I am his wife,” I added, energy draining from me just as quickly, my voice breaking. “Without it, I have nothing.”

  Nicole had no response to that. Simply pulled out more crumbled nutrient brick. “Eat,” she demanded simply. “Without your life, you have nothing.”

  So overwhelmed by conflicting emotions, the only thing I could do was grab the baggy and do as she ordered. It tasted exactly as it looked, a strange property I had never come across anywhere else. It looked utterly unappetizing, but it was food.

  “Do… Do you know what’s wrong?” I asked around a mouthful of paste.

  “Perhaps,” Nicole nodded, looking up at the closet door. “Let’s go for a walk. I need to think, and you need sunlight.”

  The last thing I felt up for was going for a walk. But neither really did I want to stay in the closet. “Okay,” I smiled, taking her hand as she helped me up.

  The mask dug uncomfortably into my cheek, which I did my best to fix as we exited the airlock and shuffled down the stairs onto the beach. The other shuttles had been arranged in a semi-circular formation, creating a sort of makeshift encampment around the beached bridge. I pulled my jacket tight around myself, the ocean wind biting.

  Nicole limped alongside me, able to keep pace thanks to my own inability to move quickly. What a pair we made.

  People bustled about. A handful of small empty crates had been piled up. A man waved at us as we walked by, easily distracted from his task of trying to roll a large red log somewhere. The others he was with said something to him, and he hurried to help.

  “What are they doing?” I asked Nicole.

  “Log cabin,” Nicole supplied.

  “Oh right,” I nodded.

  “Tobias has the strongest working on shelter. We need to return to the Euphorion as soon as possible, but only a skeleton crew will be taken on the shuttles to transport as much as possible back,” Nicole continued.

  “Good,” I nodded. “That’s good.”

  “Yes, it is. Though I fear not soon enough,” Nicole grimaced. “Heat functions differently in a vacuum. Direct sunlight will very quickly begin to superheat everything onboard without power to control the temperature. The longer they wait, the less will be salvageable.”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I sighed, crouching down to touch tall, stringy grass. The stalks made my fingers tingle.

  “What would you like to talk about?” Nicole asked, wiping lubricant from her face.

  “Lady Barrick!” A familiar voice called.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Stephan hurried over, tucking his hat under his arm. “I heard you were ill. It’s good to see you up and about.”

  “You’re alive?” I smiled. “That’s wonderful. When you were not on the bridge, I assumed you were dead.”

  “No, no, much alive,” he laughed, giving Nicole a casual salute.

  “Lieutenant,” Nicole nodded in response. She was difficult to read at the best of times, though she seemed to put effort into body language with me. Something that I now realized must have taken an awful lot of effort. Now that we had been interrupted, she was back to her well… robotic self.

  “How are you feeling?” Stephan asked, turning to me empathetically.

  I did my best to put on a convincing smile. “A bit better today. Though it might just be the morphine talking,” I laughed.

  Stephen gave me an odd look but didn’t press whatever faux pas I had made. Great.. I managed to keep my groan to myself.

  “What are you up to?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Oh, well, we’ve been divided up,” he explained. “I’m working on Shuttle Two now. Making sure she’s ready for the flight back to the Euphorion.”

  “All the best with that then,” I nodded, sparing Nicole a glance. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your work. But I have the janitorial closet of the bridge all to myself. I hope you will drop by for something. We have extra stale nutrient bricks.”

  Stephan laughed, putting his hat back on. “Of course. It was good to see you, Lady Barrick.” With that, he trotted off.

  “Sorry,” I told Nicole.

  “For what?” She frowned.

  “You were kinda ignored,” I blinked.

  Nicole nodded. “Yes. And I prefer to keep it that way.”

  “Oh… okay then,” I nodded, making a mental note that Nicole was perhaps a little shy. I never would have suspected.

  “I have a possible diagnosis,” Nicole added quietly. “Shall we sit over by the water?”

  Dread coiled inside me. “Yeah. Okay,” I replied. We made our way back towards the bridge and up onto a large rock overlooking the sea. We were shaded by the tall, fuzzy red tree near us.

  Nicole helped me sit. “May I touch your lower back? I would like to attempt to confirm something.”

  I nodded, anxiously pulling my hair into a bunch to get it out of the way. Nicole slid onto the rock behind me, sliding her fingers under the hem of my shirt. I shivered in response.

  Her hands were warm. That was something that always surprised me about her. Sometimes I could swear she wore a real person suit over all her machinery stuff.

  “Does this hurt?” She asked, pressing her palms to the base of my spine.

  My gasped hiss was its own answer. She trailed her hands up my spine, prodding gently. The whole thing was painful and uncomfortable, but I remained still for her.

  “Okay,” Nicole hummed, pulling her hands away and adjusting my jacket back into place. “Now, keep in mind this is only one possibility based on possible evidence. I cannot confirm anything. I might be wrong.”

  “I trust you,” I said with a chuckle as Nicole scooted over to sit beside me on the rock.

  “I am grateful for your trust, but it does not make my ability to guess any more accurate,” Nicole smiled.

  “No,” I rolled my eyes. “I mean, you’re the smartest person I know. Have some faith in yourself. If anyone can guesstimate what’s wrong with me, it’s you.”

  “Well… this is the most likely explanation given the simulations I ran with the data I have available,” Nicole admitted. “So… until equipment is successfully scavenged… I suppose I am as correct as possible.”

  “Exactly,” I smiled. “Now lay it on me, Doc.”

  “Do you know about the unique biology of xenocytes?” Nicole began.

  I shook my head. With Tobias, I would have felt embarrassed and guilty for being ignorant of something he expected me to know. But Nicole wouldn’t judge me or grow upset; she would simply explain things to me so that I would be more knowledgeable in the future.

  “Okay, this is not the most accurate explanation, but I think it will be the most useful for understanding what I have to say…” Nicole said. “Xenocytes are a sort of organic synthetic.”

  “But we’re human,” I frowned.

  “Your base genome is that of a human, which is why legally they can say that,” Nicole nodded. “So they take the human genome and modify it, depending on the subtype they desire.”

  I nodded along with a squint. It was entirely beyond me, but even simplified, it still almost was. Okay, maybe it was a little embarrassing. But I really was trying.

  “For example,” Nicole paused. “In your case, they focus on fixing the minor glitches in human biology that make reproduction difficult. Making estrus more visible, increasing sexual dimorphism for wider hips and larger breasts, shifting focus away from muscle and size to instead energy conservation and fat storage. Etcetera. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so,” I nodded. The examples definitely helped.

  “Good. Now, these things would have wildly destructive effects in the wild; there is a reason humans eventually evolved in the way they did,” Nicole continued. “However, xenocytes are artificially created. Their genetic material is unimportant, and all subtypes are sterile as a precaution. It’s a bit more complicated with recessive genes when it comes to Uxors, but that’s unimportant right now.”

  I must have looked confused because Nicole paused for a moment.

  “Essentially,” Nicole hummed, wiping lubricant from her face. “If xenocytes were able to pass down genetic information or were able to rebel, it could lead to serious problems. Got it?”

  “Yup,” I nodded. “Hence implants? To prevent us from rebelling, like you did?”

  Nicole smiled. “Exactly. However, there is no real distinction between the mind and body. Whereas I have hardware, the machinery that exists in space, and the software that I run, biological organisms do not have this separation.”

  I groaned. There was another layer to all of this. “Can you just tell me what's wrong with me?” I grimaced. “I really appreciate you trying to explain everything, but I am struggling to keep up, and I think the morphine is wearing off already.” I wasn’t sure if I had ever seen Nicole look dejected before. “Sorry,” I added. “I just… can’t handle it… all right now.”

  Nicole was silent, long enough that I began to squirm. She glanced out at the ocean and then back to me. “I am… anxious because I do not want to be right.”

  “The revelation that I'm dying isn't exactly new,” I tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out right.

  Nicole gave me a sad smile. “To create a xenocyte, a genetically modified body is grown with limited brain capacity. It is then implemented with various receptors that are capable of releasing… They put machines in the skull to adjust thought and behaviour. Finally, a mind is grown separately, and taught need to know information before it is implanted near the spine.”

  I stared at her with disbelief. “I have two brains?”

  Nicole nodded. “One to control bodily function, and the other is your actual mind. Desynchronization occurs when these two systems stop functioning as one, like a transplanted organ being rejected. This, I suspect, is why you retain some degree of consciousness when you are… unconscious.”

  I shook my head, reaching up to feel my skull as if that would provide answers. “And this is killing me?”

  “Your… second brain is quite enlarged. It is growing rapidly. Your immune system is fighting back. There is a war in your body being waged for resources,” Nicole went on. “What I suspect you have is a hypothetical form of brain cancer.”

  “Cancer,” I muttered, digging my fingers into my scalp sharply. At least it was an answer. “Wait, how can cancer be hypothetical?” I frowned.

  “Because when I did research into this, I never came across any mention of brain cancer post desync,” Nicole sighed. “But none of the xenocytes were monitored long term. All were… disposed of shortly after incidents of rebellion. An oversight on my part, I should have considered other potential consequences. I am truly sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, it was this or nothing,” I said, feeling strangely relieved. A bad answer was better than no answer. “Cancer is a… a bitch,” I huffed.

  “Yes,” Nicole agreed, looking out at the water. “I cannot think of a better way to put it.”