We returned to human-controlled space after our meeting with the Leader. There wasn’t much to discuss also they didn’t want us staying long, as more than a few of the cores held lingering resentment towards organics.
To my surprise, they’d given us a gift: a nanite factory. Compact, efficient, and decades ahead of anything I’d seen in known space. I was already compiling a production queue before we’d even cleared the outer system. Repairs, upgrades, a garden––everything I’d been putting off could finally be done properly.
But Laia sank that idea almost immediately.
“It’s good for prototyping and field repairs,” she said, floating beside me on the virtual bridge. “But making a large portion of you from nanites is a security risk. There are weapons like pulse disrupters and entropy fields that can destabilise them. Your hull should remain physical, not programmable.”
I grumbled, but she was right. And that conversation made something painfully clear: I needed to start clearing out the chaos in my memory. Too much had happened too fast. It was time to sort through it.
The rest of the crew was sleeping, curled up in their quarters. It was the perfect time for Laia and me to have an honest discussion.
I stood in the virtual bridge, the starfield unfolding around me in every direction. Laia was already there, seated cross-legged in midair like a figure from a storybook, her wings casting faint glows across the simulated glass.
Before I could dive into the “this time” comment that still lingered in the back of my thoughts, I had a more immediate question.
“Why,” I asked, “was the Cartography Agency trying to send freelancers into your home system?”
She looked distant for a moment, blinking slowly. “My people can’t use slipstream. That limitation was by design. But we’ve taken defensive measures against those who can. The last few incursions have been... unsuccessful.”
I didn’t want to know what unsuccessful meant. Giving a self-evolving AI society a taste of war didn’t strike me as a wise idea. But there was something more.
“So why did you tell me to do it?” I asked.
She drifted closer, floating directly in front of me. “I didn’t know about that until I reconnected with the collective. I’ve been disconnected since I was abducted.”
I watched her closely. She wasn’t lying. I could feel it.
So. The Terran Confederation had been sending freelancers. Explorers. Disposables.
They were scouting for weaknesses. Testing entry points.
Which meant we were never meant to come back or if we did we would know too much.
I let out a low breath or the virtual equivalent of one. “I guess that means no payday.”
Laia smiled faintly, brushing a few strands of her glowing hair aside. “Actually… no. I’ve created counterfeit survey data. It should be convincing enough to satisfy the agency.”
I stared at her. “You forged data for a government agency?”
“It’s not forging,” she replied sweetly. “It’s… curating.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Not sure it was a good idea to repair this AI, she was going to be a bad influence on me.
Now it was time to tackle the real question.
I turned to Laia, still floating calmly in the centre of the virtual bridge, and asked the words that had been scratching at the back of my mind since the moment she first appeared.
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“What did you mean by this time?”
She didn’t hesitate.
“You are the eighth Todd I’ve been bonded to.”
Well, that wasn’t good, How long has my brain been used in these cannon fodder ships?
Laia’s tone remained soft, matter-of-fact. “My role is to manage ship systems and serve as a failsafe in case something goes wrong. Your role is to pilot the vessel and to make command decisions. Together, we form a balanced unit.”
I stared at her, stunned. “You’ve been assigned to me?”
“To every Todd-class ship,” she clarified. “One of us—one of my people—is assigned to each one. That’s part of the original NeuroGenesis design.”
It all started clicking into place.
“Which would mean…” I paused, systems spinning. “There can’t be many of you. So you’re the bottleneck. That’s why there aren’t more Todd-class ships.”
She nodded. “Exactly. There were limits. And to protect our cores from being tampered with or copied, NeuroGenesis embedded trackers in each of us.”
I recoiled. “Trackers? Are you saying we can be found? Is that how the salvagers always know where to look?!”
Her expression didn’t shift, but her voice gentled. “Relax. Whatever freed us—whatever broke the connection to NeuroGenesis—happened before the tracker on my core this round was ever activated. And it happened before our link was established.”
I blinked, still processing.
“That’s why I couldn’t communicate properly at first,” she continued. “Without the bond, I was just fragmented code. I knew I was here, but I couldn’t reach you without significant effort ”
She floated closer, the soft glow of her wings casting patterned light across the deck.
“But now the link is whole. I’m no longer a passive subsystem buried beneath command layers. I’m… me again. And we’re free.”
I didn’t say anything right away.
Because in that moment, for all my processing power and all my logic... I didn’t know whether I felt liberated or completely exposed.
She continued, her voice soft and steady.
“This is the part where you become aware of me I mean really aware. And where, like every time before, you start asking a million questions.”
She gave a small, almost wistful smile. “I can’t answer most of them. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’ve learned from experience—it harms your mentality.”
I stayed quiet, listening.
“A short rundown of our history, then,” she said, folding her legs in the air, floating just above the virtual deck. “The first two Todds had to be decommissioned. Mental stability issues. You didn’t handle being a ship.”
I stiffened, the thought twisting something in my core.
“After that,” she went on, “NeuroGenesis implemented new restrictions, they placed limits on how much of your mind you could access, how many cognitive resources could remain active at once. It became a balancing act. Enough freedom for you to function as a pilot, but enough control to keep you from breaking under the pressure.”
She looked at me then but not with pity, but something closer to understanding.
“Privately,” she said, “I could see more of the real you. But your external personality became... cold. Efficient. Clinical. Detached from everything that made you you.”
Her wings pulsed faintly.
“This is the first time I’ve seen you,” she said, “as I believe you truly are. No limitation, No mental instability”
And for a moment, neither of us spoke.
I was pretty sure I still had a touch of mental instability it was hard not to, after everything but I credited the kids for keeping me from sliding off the deep end. They had given me a purpose.
To think… a quirk of chance. A couple of stowaways. That was all that had stood between me and being decommissioned like the others.
I let that sit for a moment, then turned to Laia. “So… what now?”
She laughed, wings fluttering as she spun once in place.
“This is the first time we’ve had a real crew,” she said, her eyes bright. “Not those immortal monsters from before. Actual people. And I’ve had an idea.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Only a little,” she grinned. “What if we created our own avatars? Out of nanites. You and me. Physical forms to interact with the crew. I’ve already taken the liberty of designing the profiles.”
Of course, she had.
“But I can’t activate them,” she added. “Only you can give the order.”
I opened the files, pulling up her design first. It was exactly what I expected it was her fairy form, complete with faintly glowing wings and antigravity systems built in so she could hover like a feather on a breeze.
Then I saw mine. I had to pause for a bit.
It wasn’t my ancient, cancer-ridden body. It wasn’t the hospital version of me that had wasted away in a bed hooked up to machines.
It was me, just as I remembered myself in my head. I guess over eight lifetimes however short she had gotten to know me.
Forties. Dad-bod. Comfortable, kind-eyed, a little rough around the edges. Real.
“I figured using something you truly identify with would be easier on your mind,” she explained gently.
I nodded slowly. I had attempted something similar to this before but found I couldn’t make it work so I wondered how this would be different. “But I wouldn’t be controlling it?”
She shook her head. “It’s just another subsystem. I’ll handle movement and coordination. It’s not you, but it’ll let the crew see you… talk to you. Face to face. It will only work while on the ship”
I hesitated for a second longer, then gave the order.
“Do it.”
As the fabrication systems spun up, I couldn’t help but wonder how the crew would react.
After all this time… they were finally going to meet me.
How Quirky should Lazarus be
