I shifted my arm experimentally, sliding it cautiously across the bed cover to test my sensitivity. Bearable. I pushed my hands down against the bed and sluggishly sat myself up, my head still rushing from movement in open air. "T-Time," I groaned, my voice still hoarse.

"Sixteen minutes, fourty-eight seconds." Doc said flatly, then smirked at me. "You're trying to skew the numbers, aren't you? You are not ready to be awake yet."

"I'm f-fine, really." I tried to swing my legs over the edge of the bed and the sensation of dragging my ass across the paper cover made me want to throw up. I leaned over and heaved, my vision spinning. Thankfully there was nothing but bile in my stomach.

Doc rushed up to my side and guided me down onto my back again. "Five more minutes, Meryll. You're not in a race," he scolded. "You seriously have zero respect for your own body, do you?"

I groaned, letting my eyes slip closed again as I tried to shake off the sharp sting of Doc's hands on my sides. "I have re...spect for that b-body." I muttered, doing my best to gesture up at the ceiling.

I watched Doc through my sensors, doing a double take between me and his hand terminal. He gave a sneer that I didn't like before he grabbed his chair and rolled it up next to me. "Meryll..."

His voice was still grating. Okay, yeah, he was right. I wasn't ready yet. "What?" I groaned in defeat.

"Are you experiencing... I don't think I have a better word for it, but dysphoria for your human body?"

That was a good question. Did I hate my human body? Maybe a little. It kept taking me through this hellish experience, every day. No matter how acclimated I was to enduring it, it was still painful. My body was fragile, small, and vulnerable. It gave me cryptic nightmares about my hidden past every time I fell asleep. One day, it would fail me for the last time, and while I certainly wasn't expecting to live to my natural lifespan given my lifestyle, I'm not so naive to think that clones are made to live as long as natural-born humans anyway.

It wasn't like there wasn't anything good about being human. It was certainly easier to express my affection for Ray. Food was great as long as it wasn't disgusting slop packed as tightly as possible into gross powders. But I always felt so much more right loaded into the core module. Other than a couple glaring positives, I pretty much hated the experience of being human.

"No?" I ventured, then shook my head. Why was I lying? "Y-Yes. I don't know. It's com...complicated."

He sighed. "I'm not really sure why I asked, it's not like we can do anything about it." He tapped something on his terminal, no doubt logging this revelation for posterity. "But you realize why I find that at least a little alarming, right? You're the first case of something with a psychology to speak of to regularly use a core module. What if it's causing some kind of personality drift?"

I snorted. "You th-think Theseus is ma...king me want to be m-more Theseus?"

He hummed, mocking consideration. "Good way to put it, actually. Yes."

Huh. I had to think about that. Did I really care if it was? Not especially. My working memory literally started inside the core module. In a way, the person I had become was born in that void. Theseus was grafted into my brain. I was the ship, and the ship just felt more appealing than being my human self alone in most cases. "I guess I-I'm okay with that."

"I should have figured as much," Doc grumbled and slid back to his place at the biometrics terminal.

We sat in silence for a few minutes before I tested my arm again. It was more than just bearable, the sensation was negligible. I sat up much more quickly, opened my eyes and stood up, taking a couple experimental steps in place before I moved on. Things still felt unsteady; they always would after a day-long dive. It would be another half hour at best before I actually felt normal and confident moving in this flesh. "Is it that b-bad, if I want to j-just be Theseus?" I said as I walked up to the terminal, leaning over it to speak to him eye to eye.

Doc shook his head. "I mean, kind of? You can't, for one. Whether you're in the core module or not, it's still what's up here that's doing everything," he poked me in the forehead, and I recoiled back a step. "Twenty minutes, sixteen seconds. Put some clothes on, you weirdo."

I guess he had a point there. I might feel far closer to Theseus when I was in the void, but the hardware running everything was still my brain. It was a little disappointing to think about how reliant I was on this body to act as a conduit to my larger self. I sighed and picked up one of the less offensive-feeling towels we owned, drying myself the rest of the way off before gathering up my discarded clothes from behind the core module.

Doc called to me, "I'm just concerned that this is turning into an unhealthy obsession. Or even addiction."

"Then I'll g-go to starship re...hab." I scoffed. It got a snort out of him, at least.

It had been three days since we left Io. I had just put us into orbit around Europa, and I wanted to spend the night with Ray before she and the rest of the ground team started the exciting part of the mission. I wasn't worried I wouldn't get another chance; after all, I trusted Lily when she said no one on the crew died. I just wanted to give Ray a good reason to come back safe.

Staying in the moment was proving a bit challenging, though. The orbital range around Europa was busy. Thousands of ships circled the planet, no doubt drawn by Foundation's announcement as well. It made me feel claustrophobic, having to stick to such a strict orbital formation to avoid invading another ship's designated orbital region. Aisling had said it was a good thing; the crowd meant no one was going to pick us out among all the others. I almost wished the captain would decide this was too risky just so I could get out of there.

Dressed again, I waved to Doc as I passed him, running my fingers through my hair to pull out as many of the tangles as possible. I was thankful it was naturally straight and fairly manageable, but the reality of being submerged for a large portion of my life meant that it took a little bit of preening to keep it from becoming a mess. And it felt nice when I was just getting to the very edge of sensory sickness.

I heard Collins and Lily talking inside the makeshift hospital room that had become the former captain's guest quarters as her health improved. She still needed equipment to help her get around, but she was getting better by the day. She no longer needed assistance using stairs. I think she must have inspired Lily, as well, because she had evidently been showing more progress herself since Doc had started administering their physical therapy together. The two were becoming closer. I had no idea if it was genuine or if Lily was enthusiastically inserting herself that far into the con now that she had such a specific, if tangential, role in it.

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At least she was maintaining her story masterfully. Aisling had been right, she employed her practiced memory very well putting her token knowledge of starship management to use. Collins likely didn't think she was a very good leader, but Lily knew enough that Collins couldn't deny what Lily was.

It was strange to know that Lily was so good at this kind of subterfuge, though. In my nightmares, Lily was a savior, the only powerful force of good in a world of suffering; the only thing allowing me to cling to the shred of my sanity that remained. In reality I saw her more as a fragile advisor, carefully orchestrating events from behind the scenes rather than directly being a part in them. Perhaps she had grown a lot in the last six months, when she was a completely broken girl who couldn't trust herself to do anything. Or maybe I just underestimated her.

I couldn't help but wonder if she'd used these improvisational wiles on me before. I shook my head and smiled. I trusted her more than that. And besides, it wasn't so long ago that she was so flustered by a vision right in front of me that she emotionally broke down for several days and insisted on the truth of the matter, that she couldn't tell me, rather than coming up with an elaborate story. I wasn't even sure she could lie to me. We were too close for that.

I stepped through the cargo bay bulkhead and looked down on Mouse, sitting in the middle of a series of open floor panels, his hand terminal linked by wire to one of the artificial gravity panels. He still had a perplexed look on his face. The cargo bay was much taller than any of the other rooms on the ship, so while the size of it was solved by simply installing more panels to control over the area, the verticality was proving to be an unanticipated problem. I could even sense from the second floor catwalk that I felt unusually light. The old system felt just a little floaty everywhere, so I hadn't really noticed the disparity before.

Mouse, of course, wanted to find some kind of solution to this inconsistency, and had made it a bit of a pet project of his to further examine how they work and try to determine a way to tweak them himself.

"It's n-not even that bad, M-Mouse," I called from up above, leaning over the railing. "Way better than it was."

Mouse grumbled back, "Should have ordered another set for the catwalk."

"That'd c-cost twice as much!" I started walking down the stairs and paid deliberate attention to my steps as they became heavier, trying my best not to stumble down. "Ser...Seriously, it's not th-that big a deal."

Mouse turned his head and glared at me. "Collins stumbled on them. If Lily starts walking again and she uses those stairs, she's going to fall down."

I was taken aback by that. I guess if someone wasn't used to walking, they could have trouble there. Maybe it was a safety hazard. "Not f-fair, using her against m-me," I mumbled, walking up to take a closer look, and then recoiling when I got near him as my stomach turned over.

That gave him a little bit of a mischievous smile. "I have this one turned up way higher. Testing something."

It turned out that stepping between two wildly different gravitational fields was more than a little disorienting, and I decided not to try that again. "W-Wow. I'm gonna have to learn to int...erf-face with those. M-Might be good ag-against boarders."

Mouse stopped whatever he was working on for a moment, tilting his head and staring at his terminal with his brow furrowed. "Huh..." he grunted, before resuming his tweaking.

I left him to his devices and slipped into the mess hall, catching Ray just as she was turning on the stove. I smiled and skipped up to her side. "Hey Ray," I slammed into her side and hugged her, knowing well by now that my slight weight wasn't be enough to shift her an inch.

"Didn't expect you out so soon," she said, pulling her arm tight around my whole body and lifting me slightly off the ground. "Is someone actually starting to like joining us in reality?"

"For you." I buried my head into her side, holding her as hard as I could. The fact that she could hold me so much tighter than I could without even trying was a strange comfort. "B-But it's still real wh-while I'm diving, you know."

She let go and pat my head. "I know, it's just easier to say than 'Welcome back to the physical world as experienced by your human body.'"

I scoffed, "Yeah, that's a m-mouthf...full."

"In the best possible way of saying this, you two are insufferable," came Shaw's voice from the far end of the dining table. I hadn't noticed him, too transfixed on Ray when I entered the room. I closed my eyes and watched him from above as he stared down at his terminal, concern on his face. Tapping into it, he had blueprints, screenshots of news articles, photographs of city streets, and loads of other material related to the upcoming mission. I'm sure Aisling's terminal looked similar.

"H-How's it looking? Are we g-green yet on the miss...ion?" I asked. He only gave an incoherent, frustrated, rumble. It wasn't like Shaw not to use his words. Maybe this wasn't going to go off, after all. "Sh-Shaw?" I drew his attention again.

"Oh. Perhaps. I am juggling quite a few factors at the moment. I'm not sure exactly how I want to approach a few things. Will we be passing over the site tonight?"

"Yeah," I nodded, reaching up in front of me to pass a spoon Ray was reaching for. "Need s-surveil...lance photos?"

"If you don't mind." Shaw's voice lilted, returning to his usual chipper, annoyingly cocky tone. "I need to see the current state of the landing site, the outside of the convention center itself, and a wide range of the spaces between, in case we need to reroute our path. Show me what those external sensors can really do, hmm?"

"I can p-probably get dec...ent fidelity," I said proudly as I calibrated the external sensors facing Europa, zooming in down to the surface to pinpoint various rock formations out past the edge of the colony. It would be a few hours before I could get a clear shot within the city. "N-Not enough to read t-text off a s-screen, but sh-should be good enough to nav...navigate by."

"Well if it was that good, we wouldn't need to go down there ourselves, would we?" he chuckled, pushing the terminal away and looking up at us. "Now, what will be our potential last meal this time?"

—

The photos were easy to get to Shaw. I thought I was going to have to take several angled pictures, but by some luck, my position in orbit had been shunted by a large carrier, pushed right over the target where I could take clear top-down shots of the streets between the landing and mission sites. I sent them off to Shaw and Aisling, and returned my focus to where it belonged: The giant beautiful woman in bed next to me.

"D-Do you ever get scared? R-Right before a big op l-like this?" I asked, opening my eyes and holding tight to the arm that rested over me.

"Of course," she said confidently. "There's a lot on the line. You say that like you haven't been part of a dangerous op before."

I nodded. "M-Most of the big import...ant engagements I've b-been involved in so f-far have been spon...taneous. They surp...rised me. S-So I haven't h-had the chance to feel this..."

"Anticipation?" She asked, gently rubbing at my side, sending a tingle through my spine when I felt her claw-tips scratching lightly against me. I nodded in response. "We planned out plenty of dangerous missions while we were on Io."

"N-Not *this* dangerous." I grumbled. "If it w-weren't for Ais...ling and Shaw being g-genius planners, and Lily's p-powers saying we'll be f-fine, I'd th-think this was suicid...al."

Ray tightened her grip on me. "If it's really that dire, I trust Aisling will call it off. But you're not wrong. This one does feel... heavy."

"Maybe it's j-just cause it's Foun...dation," I muttered. They were the boogeymen that made me and definitely wanted me back. The empty faces that haunted my dreams. "Maybe... they'll be l-less scary if we can pull th-this one off."

"Make them less the invincible monsters they seem like?" She nodded. "Perhaps. We've bested them before, though."

"We es...caped them before..." I argued. "This w-will actually be us f-fighting back."

"I think saving your sister from their clutches was already a massive blow." Like she was handling a toy, she pulled me up on top of her, and hugged me tight with both arms, smiling down at me as she spoke with a confidence that dared me to disbelieve her, "They'll never take you back."

I couldn't help but smile back at her, letting her handle me however she wanted. She made it clear that she was the one in control here, and I liked it. I could trust her with my well-being. "Yeah," was all I needed to say, resting my head against her and drifting off.

Maybe I wasn't comfortable in my body, but I felt safe.

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