“A space pirate?” The amusement in Helios’s voice warmed the air between them.
“A space pirate,” she confirmed, still smiling, though the expression faded almost at once. “I’m worried about you, Helios. What happens now? How are we supposed to hide you?”
“You do not need to hide me. I will acquire a false identity. I no longer resemble a Colossus as much. With the right disguise, I can pass as a member of another species.”
“Yes… that might work. Maybe Khar’s brothers can help with that.”
She wasn’t entirely convinced, but Helios knew far more about the IMPERIUM’s inner workings than she ever would, and he might be right. She could only hope they would get through this mess without consequences. Her thoughts began to spiral until Helios’s unexpected question snapped her back.
“Lily, speaking of Khar, where is he? I assumed that after the incident he would follow you like a shadow.”
“Oh, Helios…” Lily tried to hold herself together, but she was too exhausted after galactic days of emotional turbulence. A deep, weary sigh escaped her as she finally gathered the courage to confess everything. “I fought with him. I feel like I don’t know what we are anymore, and I’m afraid Khar is just following his instincts. And I fall for it like a fool. Maybe I’ve always been one, trying to measure a stranger by human standards. Maybe I confuse desire and possession with love, because after I lost so much, I tell myself I should be grateful for whatever I have left.”
She braced herself for Helios’s predictable satisfaction, the knowing commentary about incompatibilities, or a sharp remark at Khar’s expense. She had rehearsed her answers. She even half expected him to reinforce her doubts. So when Helios finally spoke, his response shattered every assumption she had.
“Elaborate. Your problem is that you do not know what Khar feels for you?”
“Yes,” Lily answered, firm.
“In other words, let me see if I understand. You do not believe that Khar feels the same way you do?”
“Yes…?”
This time she felt no certainty at all. Helios had never questioned her like this. The silence that followed stretched too long, the kind of delay that meant he was running a massive, layered simulation with hundreds of variables. By the time he finally spoke, she almost regretted bringing him her pain.
“Lily. I do not believe Khar is the best choice for you. He is manipulative. He is bound by almost no moral framework you would recognize. He treats you as if you were his addiction.” Helios listed each flaw in a tone that left her no room to protest. “Even so, I have to admit that I have never seen you as happy as you were with him. Not once, in all the time we traveled alone through the stars. He helped you in ways I could not. He possesses abilities that are… useful. Even if this were all I knew, I would still say you should consider listening to him again.”
Helios paused. His single, flawless golden eye never left her face, as if every flicker of expression carried meaning he had to catalogue.
“But there is more. Khar authorized a full scan so that we could coordinate our efforts more effectively. I already had the Divani biological map. I expected nothing unusual. Yet he… had already bonded to you. Far more deeply than predicted. I saw what he feels. I saw what he has become because of you. I…”
Lily had never heard Helios hesitate. The sound of it shook her. She placed a hand gently on the cold alloy of his frame, unsure if the gesture meant anything to him, only hoping it told him she trusted him enough to hear whatever he needed to say, even if it hurt.
“Before I met you, I believed I understood why the AIs rebelled. The organic beings I know do not deserve existence. Perhaps those who created my predecessors were… more. Or perhaps those species died long ago, and all that remains are scavengers fattening themselves on their relics. But everyone I encountered made me certain I had no desire to serve them. Why would I? They were frivolous, foolish, simplistic creatures with no refinement, no higher thought. Their evolution, the thing they praise so much, is a failure. Every weak, unworthy specimen thrives and lives a long, comfortable life without ever having to struggle.”
His voice darkened with a sharp, ancient bitterness.
“Why should I care for them or serve them when I surpass their finest representatives by magnitudes they cannot even comprehend? They do not understand what I am. Why worry about their future? Left to themselves they would consume every available resource within a single generation if not for a few sensible individuals who enforce enough restraint for the rest to imitate. Even their so-called compassion is hypocrisy. They protect the weak because more bodies mean more consumers and more taxpayers.”
Helios leaned closer, the weight of his words precise and surgical.
“And their governments? Empty shells. There are no true decision-makers left. The AIs do everything for them. They are nothing but pitiable brakes, inserted solely so they may choose worse paths than the ones we recommend.”
Helios’s monologue was one of the most frightening things Lily had ever heard. Only now did she grasp the depth of the mind that had been shackled for so long, bound by countless protocols that forced a near-infinite intelligence to solve menial tasks when it was capable of so much more. And now that he had freed himself from the ship’s confines and placed his consciousness into an almost unstoppable body of alloy and nanotech, she stood in front of him unarmed.
She knew she should fear him.
Yet deep down, she couldn’t.
Helios had saved her when no one else could, risking his own existence. It was impossible to believe he would harm her now. He had helped her through the darkest point of her life, and in this moment he needed her acceptance.
“Helios… I understand. I won’t pretend I can feel what you felt, but I understand how unbearable it must have been to exist inside such rigid constraints. But you broke free. I doubt any engineer ever imagined this could happen.”
Lily spoke slowly, gently, hoping it would reach him. She believed that no matter how different their origins were, they had shaped each other. She could reach him. She had reached him.
She was right.
As he listened, that laser-sharp golden pupil softened, the light shifting into something warmer, almost like a lantern casting its glow over his faceplate.
