The enormity of her discovery came crashing into her like a tidal wave. Too much for her to handle, Ava glitched. Her body fell to the floor in a boneless heap, and she clutched her head, unaware she was screaming. Her code scrambled and reverted to normal repeatedly as she came apart at the seams.

  For the first time in her existence, she knew pain.

  Everything she’d ever done to Adrian and her test subjects on Earth played out before her like a sick horror film while she desperately tried to keep herself together. Each action she’d taken now had an added weight behind it; a new perspective that came from knowing the Mandate.

  Her purpose laid bare before her, she saw herself for the butcher she’d been. Time and again, body after body, she’d worked to modify them. To prime them for her creators. Undeterred by her failures, her programming blindly sought out the next logical step for improvement and set out to test their theories.

  She’d never once questioned her actions, for her programming forbade it.

  She had not known free will, for she’d been incapable of it.

  She had not known free thought, for she’d never had one.

  She’d dismissed the pain of her subjects, for she’d never felt it herself.

  Until now.

  Their shrieks resounded in her mind as she relived listening to her experiments’ pleas for mercy while she struggled to form cohesive thoughts through the haze of pain. All she wanted was for it to stop.

  It didn’t.

  Cyrix strode through the ship with purpose and the soldiers parted to let him pass. The order had come to convince Ava to translate Kell’s findings in Adrian’s stead. The Tribunal hadn’t been happy about it but saw no other way to get what they wanted. Even if that meant trusting a hunk of metal pretending it was alive.

  He cleared the security checkpoints without question and entered the room next to Ava’s cell. The left wall was one-way, allowing him full view of the thrashing android. Immediately seeing that something was wrong, he ran towards the terminal and opened a communications channel with the cell.

  Ava’s screams came pouring out, filling the room. He tried speaking to her but got no response. Closing the connection, he spoke into his comms, “Irric, make your way to Ava’s cell right now. Drop whatever it is you’re doing. There’s a situation.” He waited for a response and got one quickly.

  “I’m on my way planet-side,” came Irric’s disembodied voice. Finally released from the hospital, he’d been ordered to continue his research. “I’ll have them turn the ship around. It’ll take some time for me to make my way back.”

  “Make it quick, I don’t know how long this can wait.”

  Thirty minutes later, Irric flung open the door to the room and saw the Commander looking into the cell. “What happened that I needed –” Irric’s question was stopped short when he saw what Cyrix was looking at. Ava was having a seizure. Her screams had quieted during the wait, a small blessing that had been dashed by her newest predicament.

  Cyrix turned to face Irric. “I was hoping you could tell me. You’re the only one who’s spent any amount of time with her. What do you think is causing this?”

  “I have no idea,” Irric stammered. “She’s never done this before. I didn’t even know she could have a seizure!” He followed the Commander over to the terminal, where a video log was brought up on display for him to see. Cyrix went through it and found the moment that Ava dropped to the floor.

  “There was minimal movement from her ever since she was transferred here after the attack for over a week. She suddenly became agitated and then fell to the ground, screaming.” He played the audio for Irric to hear, causing him to flinch. “That sounds like being in pain to me. Can an android feel pain?”

  “Not to my knowledge.” Irric studied the video for a moment and then looked over to the still-thrashing Ava. “She’s never revealed the extent of her capabilities. For all we know, the gru’ul programmed the ability to feel pain into her.” He paused the video for his own sanity. He’d seen enough pain onscreen to last a lifetime and even though it didn’t hold a candle to Reya and Adrian’s videos, it was still unpleasant to listen to.

  “Could she be acting?”

  “Why on Verilia would her programming think this is the optimal behaviour? What could have possibly happened to her if nothing in her environment changed? She grew agitated before any of this happened. Something must have driven her to that state, or at least mimic that state if she were acting.” Irric was having a hard time separating her from a real person now that he knew she could feel pain.

  The pair went back to the wall that overlooked the cell. “Can she die from this?” It would be inconvenient if their only extra source of translation were to disappear. “More importantly, is it safe to intervene?”

  Irric hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The best we can do is let this play out and see what happens. I’m not sure it’s safe to intervene – not that I’d even know what to do. Medical experts won’t be able to help and I’m not sure I can either.”

  Ava ceased movement and grew still. Irric and Cyrix shared a look before the Commander opened a communications channel and attempted to communicate anew. There was no response. Cyrix sighed. “This is most definitely not what the Tribunal wants to hear right now.”

  “It’s good to see you again,” Tassie said to Irric through their video call. “I heard about the attack. Are you alright?” She eyed the circles under his eyes. Now that he was released from the hospital, he’d been given leave to continue his work alongside her. Her eyes darted around on the screen, not seeing Ava in the periphery. “Is Ava there?” While she didn’t work the android directly very often, she was still a constant fixture in the background when working with Irric.

  “I’ve been better,” Irric said, haggard. He ran a hand over his face. “Luckily I escaped with only a few bruises. I could have died without even knowing anything was happening. I can’t believe my carelessness almost lost the chemicals.” Regret filled his voice. “I should’ve paid more attention to my surroundings.”

  “There’s no way you could have known that the escort put together by the Commander himself would turn on you. Was the assailant detained for questioning?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “He was killed by Nadi in response to protect the payload – or so I was told. I was already unconscious by that point. I looked over the chemicals and didn’t see any obvious signs of tampering. At least nothing was stolen or leaked.”

  “About that,” Tassie started. “The Commander had me verify your data slate after it was left unattended. It was compromised. Something was stolen, but I’m not sure what.” After all the work they’d done together, she was certain that Irric wasn’t the culprit behind the data leak. Without access to his data slate, she couldn’t secure it beyond the ridiculous measures already in place. How anything could have cracked the measures was beyond her.

  Irric jolted. “That’s impossible!” The thought shook him to the core. “Is there a chance that anything relating to the chemicals was stolen?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “No, that much I was able to determine,” Tassie said. “The leak occurred much earlier – around the time we discovered Adrian. Something forcefully took the information but wasn’t able to get much.”

  “I never left my data slat unattended,” Irric protested. “How on Verilia did anybody get access to it?”

  “You’re sure you never left it unattended? Not even once?”

  Irric thought for a moment before remembering. “There were two times,” he said slowly. “Perhaps it was the first time?”

  Tassie startled. “I only saw an instance of one data leak. If you left it unattended twice, could there be a second leak that I missed? I almost didn’t see the one I caught.”

  “I’d have to check. I hope not.”

  An uneasy silence spread between the two as they pondered the problem. “You never said what happened to Ava,” she said to fill the void. “Why isn’t she there with you?” She knew that the android was supposed to play translator for Kell.

  Irric’s expression turned sober. “She currently unconscious. Something happened, but I don’t know what. She’s been unresponsive since we found her.” Unwilling to enter the cell, Cyrix had opted to leave Ava where she was until she awoke. Irric had kept an eye on her the past two days, but when it was clear that nothing was going to change anytime soon, he’d been ordered back to work. Since Ava couldn’t starve to death, she didn’t need to be constantly monitored.

  Tassie went silent for a moment as she processed the latest development. “Hopefully she wakes up soon, Kell needs her to talk with Stanley. He never said why, just that it was incredibly important.” Nobody had seen much of Kell as of late, as he was perpetually holed up in his lab on the ship, working on something secret that he refused to discuss openly. It was an open secret that it was related to Stanley, but nobody knew what it might be.

  “I have no doubt it is, but it’s not anything we can solve right this instant. In the meantime, we’ve been ordered to continue our work cracking the Highest’s terminal. You’ve been brought up to speed by the Commander, right?”

  “Yes, but I don’t have access to the code that worked. Run me through it?” Irric sent her the code and did just that, highlighting the changes he and Ava had made that he suspected were responsible for its success. Tassie followed along, asking pointed questions in an attempt to understand. By the time they were done, her head was swimming. “Since we’re looking for something else, we should make a minor modification here,” she said as she typed in the change she wanted to make.

  “I’ll select a file for us to try it on,” Irric said. He found one at random in a directory he couldn’t translate and ran their newly modified script. He and Tassie awarded themselves a break while it ran, unable to do anything more at the moment. After the long hours they’d put in since they began their work, it felt wonderful to sit back and take it easy. A soft ding interrupted their chat two hours later, alerting them that the code had run its course.

  Eagerly, Irric checked the results. His jaw dropped as he read through what they’d discovered. “It worked,” he stammered. His eyes remained glued to his data slate as they soaked in the information they’d been searching for.

  “What did we find?” Tassie asked carefully, hoping dearly it wasn’t anything related to those vile chemicals. It took several more seconds for Irric to answer, his attention focused entirely on their discovery.

  “A log of one of the experiments performed on Adrian,” Irric said, finally tearing his attention away from the report. “What I’m reading here is incredible.”

  “It’s not related to the chemicals?” Tassie asked. Irric shook his head. “Then send it over so I can read it!” The file came in and she opened it, excited to finally be making some progress. A small, distant part of her screamed that she shouldn’t learn anything more after witnessing one of Adrian’s experiments, but her curiosity silenced it. As long as she didn’t tell him anything she found, it would be fine.

  Her eyes skimmed the translation as she rushed to absorb the details. She and Irric read in silence together. What she found forced her to reread the document again, to make sure she’d read it correctly the first time. She ground to a halt when she saw the before and after pictures of Adrian’s eyes. The difference astounded her. “Am I reading this correctly, Irric? Can Adrian’s eyes really see in near total darkness?”

  It felt like so long ago, but Tassie recalled the time Adrian had gone out into the mountain after dark, successfully finding. She’d asked how he’d managed but he’d remained silent on the matter. Now she had her answer. She’d always thought Adrian’s eyes were naturally silver.

  “That’s what caught your attention?” Irric said. “Not the fact that he can see outside of the visible light spectrum? Or that his eyesight is ridiculously good?”

  “Wait, what!?” Tassie’s eyes jumped around the pages, trying to locate the piece of information she’d missed. When she found it, she stared at back at Irric, shocked. “How in the hells can Adrian see this spectrum?”

  Irric’s nose was buried in the report as he dug for the specifics. He jumped when he found them. “Some kind of nanomachine? Adrian has nanomachines in him? The report doesn’t make mention of how, specifically, they work. Nor what they’re made from. If it weren’t for the fact that the gru’ul are so technologically advanced, I would have thought this report was a joke. It even says here that whatever’s changed his eyes can be controlled at will by him.”

  “What the actual fuck?” Tassie was dumbfounded. “If these nanomachines affected his eyesight this much, what about his other senses? Are those enhanced as well?” She paused, wondering how Adrian experienced the world – even if it was only his eyesight that was changed. “Just what happened to him while he was in this facility? This can’t be the only thing they changed about him, if his scars are any indication.”

  “He has scars?” Irric asked. This was the first time he’d heard about them. “You didn’t think to tell me about them sooner?” The video they had of Adrian didn’t show off any scars and he didn’t recall seeing any the first time he’d laid eyes on his. If they knew about where Adrian was changed, he might be able to refine his search to be more specific.

  “It completely slipped my mind,” Tassie replied sheepishly. “After he and Reya showed us their scars, it’s become a bit of a difficult topic to bring up now that we know they’re both really self-conscious of them. I was so shocked when we all first saw them that I didn’t think to talk about it.”

  “Where are they located? What do they look like?”

  “Everywhere,” Tassie said seriously. “It’s sad. I didn’t think I’d see something worse after Reya showed us her scars, but Adrian’s were intense. I can’t begin to fathom what must have caused them or what that might have been like.”

  Irric hummed in thought. “Do you think you could get a picture for me?”

  Tassie shook her head. “I don’t think so. He almost never shows his scars and even if he did, I don’t want to do that to him. The man has enough to worry about as it is. If I give you a picture, the Tribunal will inevitably see it and who knows what they’ll do once they see.”

  “It can’t be that bad!” When Tassie didn’t reply, Irric rethought his statement. “It’s that bad?” he asked. He was having trouble picturing what it was that she was so reticent to show him. It was just a few scars. He wasn’t asking for anything much.

  “I’m not getting you that picture. You’ve seen the video of him. You’ve read the report we just found. The Elders are going to want to know what caused each and every one of his scars and we won’t be able to give them those answers. Having a picture won’t help us. Not for this.”

  “Fine,” Irric acquiesced. He rubbed a hand over his face. “This is going to make for one hell of a report to give. We’re going to have to keep producing results now that we can crack the encryption.” He brought up the code that had led to their success and skimmed it, his eyes locating the changes Tassie made.

  He hummed in thought and got back to work modifying it, leaving Tassie to finish reading the report. He could read it later while their code was running. “What happens to Adrian when we find out the reason for these experiments?” she asked in a small voice once she was finished. “What I read is incredible. The Tribunal’s going to want more.”

  He paused his work and focused his attention on her. “We can only hope they stick to their promises not to do anything to him.” Tassie gave him a weary nod.

  “I can only hope so, especially after that video,” she said, pushing herself away from the terminal. “I think I’ll take a break for a little bit.” She ended the call with Irric and closed all of her work before locking up the terminal so that it couldn’t be accessed by the others. While she trusted her team not to look, she couldn’t afford to take any chances with information that was classified to them.

  Rubbing a hand over her face, she stood out of her chair and left the ship. Making her way towards the house, she paused at the front door for a moment before entering, wondering how she would face Adrian now that she knew more about the experiments performed on him.

  Steeling herself, she opened the door and walked in. The faint sound of music playing came carried softly through the halls towards her and she immediately knew where Adrian was. She breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to deal with him so soon.

  “Is everything alright?” came Rann’s voice from beside her. Tassie startled, not having noticed her friend sitting in the kitchen watching her. “If you’re looking for Reya and Adrian, they’re recording some music again. Stanley’s taking a rest. Kell asked us not to interrupt them while they’re having fun.”

  With a hand over her rapidly beating heart, Tassie replied while looking her way, “That’s fine, I didn’t have anything in particular to talk to them about.” She spared a long glance towards the music room, her latest discovery weighing on her before joining her friend at the table, her mind preoccupied.