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“Do I want to know?”Just as quickly, she answered herself.“Tell me.Would New Eden have to fortify itself?”
“I don’t think this planet has the resources that anyone with nefarious intentions would want, not to mention its isolation.This entire sector of the galaxy is largely ignored, anyway.Each planet and station operates individually, without a central government.”
“Are there places with them in place?”
“Elsewhere in the galaxy, none this remote.It’s simply too large and sparsely populated.”
As he said the words, a memory shard resurfaced—Rhys kneeling on the ground, hands bound behind him.The shadow of a black-suited male loomed over him, face hidden by a helmet.Rhys could see his own face in its reflective visor, revealing the image of a man who tried to remain stoic in the face of certain death, but whose lips twitched in barely suppressed terror.Distantly, he was aware of Hannah’s calling to him out of concern, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away from the scenario replaying in his mind’s eye.
He was watching himself die, again.Something about it said he wasn't observing the demise of his clones as he had before, but the original Rhys Hammond.
His breath hitched, and his internal sensors sounded alarms about an impending systems shutdown.He ignored them, forcing the memory to unfold.
It was as if he was trying to watch the scene underwater.Colors shifted and rippled and the sounds were distorted.It was difficult to focus on what he was seeing, but he waited, breath paused in anticipation.
“A coup,” the mysterious man in black said.“Hammond, what you’re describing is a coup.”
“We did not sign up for this program to be tortured,” Rhys heard himself say.Despite the abject terror that left a hard lump in his throat, his original’s voice was strangely calm.Rhys had the sense that his original had come to terms with his death and just wanted it to be over.The anticipation was the worst part.
“You signed up to do what you were told to do,” the man in black snapped.
“I was not brought on to this project for these reasons,” Rhys protested.“What you’re doing is inhumane.None of these people signed up for this.”His fright ebbed away as his voice rose in anger.“This wasnotthe original aim of the project.It...”
The man in black stripped off one of his gloves, revealing the same ports and bare electrodes embedded in the skin that Rhys had.He placed his bare hand on Rhys’s shoulder and squeezed.Electricity arced through him, his sensors flashing warnings about an impending full systems organic and cybernetic failure.
Everything went dark.The ground gave way beneath his feet, and he collapsed to the ground, scrubby grass and dirt meeting him as his body fell.
“Rhys!”
It took a few seconds for his systems to come back online and his lungs to resume breathing, even longer for his ears to register that it was Hannah screaming.He flexed his hands, then rolled over, half-aided by Hannah, whose tear-streaked face greeted him.“What just happened?”she sobbed.
He fumbled with his words.“I’m not.. I had a flashback.”
“You’ve never had one like that before!You were out of it for way too long!You passed out!”She hauled him into a sitting position.“What the hell kind of flashback was that?”
“I saw myself die.”Just saying the words made Rhys’s throat clog with emotion, like he had witnessed the death of a beloved family member instead of his original.In a way, he supposed his originalwasa family member, one who hadn’t had anyone to mourn him since his murder.
Her face softened.“Not again.”
“It wasn’t a clone,” he continued, steeling himself.“It was the original Rhys’s death.I’ve never remembered that before.He was murdered.”
“Weren’t some of your previous clones murdered?What a horrible thing to keep experiencing over and over.”She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“This was different.The original Rhys had much more agency than my clones did.He did something that his superiors didn’t like.”When he was sure he could do so without falling over, he stood up.Hannah helped him, not that he needed it, but he held on to her all the same.It felt good to touch her.It was even better that she cared about him.
“He led a coup,” Rhys said.He dusted himself off.“Or tried to.I don’t know if it was successful.”
Hannah’s eyes widened.“Maybe that’s why all of you are just cruising through space alone.You escaped something.”
Of course, they had.Rhys had suspected as much, even though it was never discussed among his brethren.“We don’t know what we ran away from.”
“It must have been successful.One of your clones must’ve managed to break free from whoever was holding on to you.There must be a way to remember that somehow.Maybe on your ship?”
That was doubtful.Rhys and the others could become a part of the ship when they wanted to.They would have been aware of every sensor, every computer command and encrypted byte in the vessel’s memory banks.Whatever had led them to wandering around deep space on the farthest edges of the galaxy wouldn’t be found on their ship.
But Rhys couldn’t keep having these flashbacks.They were getting more intense, the reactions more physical.He had no idea how his cybernetics would continue to handle them, nor how he could make them stop.
“Perhaps,” he said, knowing she was expecting an answer.He would have to consult his fellow cyborgs.As far as he knew, none of them had experienced what he had.He changed the subject, wanting to put her mind at ease.“Let’s go home.We’ll discuss this later.”
