“You met him?”
“Yeah, well, his consciousness.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
I encourage Menace to set me down, then sit on a nearby rock as my body wakes up. “The cyberpsyche’s initial design was developed by my great-great-grandfather’s grandmother. He transferred himself as a test. His body died, and they initiated the upload.
“Are we copies or actually who we were?”
When feeling disconnected, I look down at the dirt and run my fingers through it the way Grandma taught me to do. “He said he remembered dying but that there was no way to tell if it was him or a copy without waking the dead body. Except they couldn’t. There was zero brain activity, even with artificial cortex stimulation. So the evidence suggests you are transferred.”
“But you don’t believe it.”
“No. I think we are inherently tied to our meat processors’ neurons and shapes. My great-grandmother did, too. It’s why she worked on the recreation of a brain with nanosolution in place, a transformative process so that a mind could become cybernetic without needing transference. I think she saw something in the initial upload design that made her experiment with CyberGuard processor recreation.”
“I thought you were from a family of sentinels.”
“Yeah, my mother’s side. My father’s family was in noggin design. I think you know which parent I took after.”
A distant growl makes me turn and scan outside.
“I hope you’re rested enough to fight since you want to so badly,” Menace says. “Because we might need that side of you if we’re going to make it to Kelta’s ship.”
“Give me a gun?” I ask.
Menace looks me over, pulls a familiar handgun from a thigh holster, and hands it to me. “I know you want to shoot me for sedating you, but I think you’re going to want to save your bullets for the real monsters out there.”
I smirk. “Don’t be so sure you’re not with one.”
Menace’s gaze falls to my lips before he tears it away.
“What’s that for?”
“Checking your teeth.” He grins, and I watch several of his elongate. “Youarewith one.”
I stare at him for a moment, unsure if I want to run from him, shoot him, or kiss him. He’s done more for me in a few short hours than most men have done for me in my whole life. And the way the sunlight glazes his contoured body stirs something primal in me I fight to block out.
“Sorry. Too much?” Menace retracts his teeth and closes his mouth. He eases through the brush and points in the direction we’re heading. “She’s cloaked. Can you see it?”
I find the shimmering ship in the field. “You sure it’s not a trap?”
“Nope.”
“Great.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he says.
“Forgive me,Menace, if I don’t believe you. It’s kind of in your name.”
He studies me for a moment. “You don’t know why they gave me that name. I will protect you. Keeping humans safe is our prime purpose, before everything else. Hate me if you have to. It won’t change my priorities.”
“Then, I guess we’re in a predicament because my job is to protect humans and Titans.”
Menace eases closer until his breath warms my face. His every muscle is tense and ready for action. “I am sorry that I am not more like the other Titans. I just don’t want to talk about the past, but it is why I am so angry all of the time. Can you forgive me? I am trying to be—kinder.”
Sincerity dances in his red eyes, and it stifles the urge to snap back at him. I think he copes like me. “We’ve all been through some shit of one kind or another. But thank you for telling me. Sometimes, I fear I’m crazy for thinking the way I do. But then again, I’d never wish for my terror to wreck anyone’s life just so I could have a friend who understands how messed up I am.”
Menace’s eyes trace the features of my face as if he’s searching for something. “Good Creators built me with good intentions and a goal to preserve life. Then evil caught me and tried to turn me into something else. And I held out for so long, Sefi. So many months. And each day, they would ask if I was ready to turn the torture over to someone else.
