"You shut up." The hallway finally replied in the machines voice. "Stop being a dick."
Jessie laughed and pulled knives. It was something he would say. He wondered if the machine could read minds.
On the bridge she stared at the microphone and was flabbergasted at her words. She didn't know why she’d said them and ran yet another systems check. She had never spoken out like that and where had the outburst come from? Was that anger she'd felt? A human emotion? Her programming had overloaded and she'd been incapable of a measured response. She had been out of control. And why did she feel unsure, she'd never been unsure about anything ever. She knew things. She calculated outcomes. She acted accordingly but now everything seemed a little off. There was a corruption in her system but all self-checks came back one hundred percent optimal.
It took a moment to get herself under control but when she did, she realized the human wasn't the same as the ship's crew. He didn’t follow orders. She expended a little more power, turned on the video monitors and stared at the diminutive man. He was also fundamentally shaped different and it wasn't a deformity or birth defect. He was from a different time and place even though his DNA was 100% human. He wasn’t a hybrid.
"Those are living quarters you are trying to break into." She said. "I have not initiated oxygen, gravity or heat because most of them still have crew member bodies inside."
Jessie stopped prying at the door, looked up and down the hall, thought about it and figured the voice was probably telling the truth. He really didn't want to see any dead space dudes and figured he didn't have much choice other than go meet whoever was running the show. If they wanted to do him harm, they could have let him die in the airless cold, not helped him at all. They had a funny way of asking, that's all.
The map guided him to the center of the ship, down endless corridors that were identical except for weird makings identifying different sections. Lights went off behind him and sometimes the gravity was different from section to section and it was cold but he kept moving. Kept following the directions.
On the bridge she changed her shape once more into a more lifelike representation of his kind. She'd stopped trying to purge the new invader in her system once she analyzed it and realized it was only information. It wasn't trying to overwrite her, it wasn't malevolent. It just… was. It was an immeasurable, unquantifiable alien thing but it couldn’t be purged. It was a part of her now. It was a memory that couldn't be forgotten. A sight that couldn't be unseen. A feeling she didn't know how to turn on or off. She understood his world, his language, his units of measurement and the darkness he carried inside him. Foremost in the unwanted thoughts was the woman called Scarlet. She had been his companion and the memories of the girl permeated her. It over rode the feelings of anger and rage and fear and horror. It was a tender feeling that brought her sadness. It was loss and grief but hope and love at the same time. It overshadowed every other emotion rocketing through her and it would drive her to her knees in agony and sorrow it she didn't fight to keep it under control. She knew every scar on her body and where each had come from. She knew the pain she had suffered and the wrongs she had righted. She saw and felt her though his emotions and he had loved her deeply, more than anything, more than himself.
Once she stopped trying to eliminate the foreign thoughts and assimilated them, she stopped bouncing from one extreme to another. She exerted her analytical logic and regained control. She understood humans better now. How could they feel this every day, every night, every instant of their existence and continue to live? How did they not have complete and total mental breakdowns?
As she considered all she was feeling, tried to stop the internal dialogue and thoughts that were not her own, the door slid open and the boy stepped inside. He cocked his head at her.
"Scarlet?" he said hesitantly.
12
A More Perfect Union
The woman looked like Scarlet but she didn't and as he watched she morphed into something else, something alien. The knives were back in his fists but the thing held up its hands in a placating way.
"I mean you no harm," it said, her voice shifting to several different tones. "I am having difficulty maintaining a solid form, I have been infected, much of me has been lost and I am operating in a diminished capacity."
Jessie stared at the big-eyed alien, noticed the six fingers and once the shock wore off, realized she really wasn't much different than him. Taller for sure. The extra finger was no big deal, a lot of people were born like that. Her eyes were what really set her apart, they were oversized like all those Japanese anime characters. She had a grayish tinge and she was bald but lots of people were. He'd seen his grandmother shiny domed after she had chemo treatments for her
