Eve turned us around so we could watch what was going on with Leisure-53. From however many miles away we were out in the dark vacuum, we could see hundreds of rooms jettison into space—being used as escape pods for the first ti in Glorva Corp history. We watched as Eve’s biomass-netting slowly lost its hold on the station as it started breaking apart, with explosions erupting all around the paradise-core.
“Can you sense if our friends made it out safe?” I asked Eve.
She nodded, “Yes, I shoved their shield-ball into a nearby room right before my biomass-structure lost its stability. Uinda and Densdor are dead, but I could feel Zyno was still alive before my senses pulled away, however it’s not looking great right now.”
“Shit, we should try and find them and etup sohow; can you sense them out in open space like this?” I asked.
But Eve didn’t respond—she didn’t say anything for several silent monts.
“Evie are you okay?”
Eve turned back to Gamma-12’s remains to see hardly anything was left, just a small cloud of black dust floating in the endless vacuum.
“Evie talk to .”
Eve took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, “I’m having a difficult ti keeping my promise to you, Adam.” She told seriously.
That shiver of fear ran down my spine again, “What are you talking about?”
Eve turned back to look at the fleeing escape pods—my view always dependent on which way she was facing, “I don’t want to take away your freedoms, but it would be so easy to disappear with you right now. No one would be able to find us, not the researchers or their agents—no one in the entire Empire would ever even know we existed. I could take you beyond frontier space, outside the territories of the Empire; we could wait out the Predazoan containnt mission for a few hundred years—we would be like ghosts to them.” She reasoned.
“Co on Eve, think this through, you know what that would do to us.” I insisted.
Eve chuckled and shook her head, “I know, you’d be mad at for a cycle—maybe a few. But you’d forgive in ti; I’d be your sweet little Evie, I would dote on you and spoil you—you’d try to resist, but in the end you would give into once more. Of course, I would feel bad about it, and I’d spend years making it up to you, but we both know it would all be for the best—for our future together.”
“And just like that we’d be back where we were all the cycles ago, all the progress we made destroyed as you would destroy my trust. Eve, you promised you wouldn’t override my will like this.” I insisted.
“Like I said Adam, I’m finding it rather difficult to keep that promise when our future is open before us; the emptiness of space is our path to freedom.” Eve said softly.
There was a small part of that would be okay with running away, forgetting about the Empire and all their machinations. But what if this one broken promise was just the start? What if we started down this path and it led to changing how I lived, then how I thought, and eventually Eve would have total control over , and I’d lose everything that makes human; I would be consud by her.
No, I wouldn’t lose myself in Eve, I would remain human—I would resist her once more.
“Eve, the failsafe, there’s no way the Empire doesn’t have so hidden backups or maybe a way to track—”
“I know how we can circumvent that problem too.” Eve interrupted.
My instinctual fear faltered for a mont at her confession, “Are you serious? How?”
Eve sighed, “You won’t like it, but it would free us completely.” She gestured to herself, “I would need to discard my accumulated biomass and turn it into a new core. Unfortunately, that would revert back to my most primitive self—like the form when you first found . With a new core I’d have a new body and even a new mind, aning I’d lose all my old mories; this version of myself would be destroyed to be replaced by a completely new one.”
I really wished I could shake my head now, “If you destroy yourself and lose all your mories, who’s to say what would happen with the new Eve; what if you’re completely different, without your adorable personally? What if the new you doesn’t even love with ?”
Eve nodded, “I told you before I will always love you Adam, no matter how often I’m reborn or remade, that is a core part of my being. The old Evie you know would be gone forever in a way, and the new Eve would unfortunately be a little different; she might not be as dorky, might not be as fun, but she might be more loving and more understanding, you might co to find you would have no reason to fear the new Eve.”
“No, no fucking way, I would never want to take that chance.” I insisted.
Eve chuckled again, “It would still be Adam, just a different version of . Think of all the mistakes we made along the way early on in our relationship, you could avoid all that, raise right this ti; make into whatever you want to be.”
“Oh, not that bullshit again.” I nearly shouted.
“Please Adam, look at it from my perspective; a life untethered and unbound, free to explore the universe, live any lives we might wish. Yes we’ll have to make sacrifices to get there, but don’t you think that freedom would be worth it?”
Eve talks about freedom, and yet here she is just about ready to take away mine. She’s trying to convince , break down my resolve so she won’t have to take control, but her sacrifice alone would make refuse, forgetting the Empire and the mission and everything else.
“Eve, you really think it would be so easy to start up again? What would you do for biomass? You need human biomass if you want to have human DNA in your core, and there’s no way we could go back to Earth while we’re hiding out from the Empire.” I reasoned, trying to get her to see it from my perspective.
Eve held up one of her armored hands to halt my protest, “We’d follow Gamma-12’s example there; you would have to feed a small sampling of your cells everyday—blood I would imagine. It would take ti of course, but eventually I would consu enough human biomass from you alone that would allow to remake my core to how I am now, and then you would have your true-form Eve once again.”
I was already horrified at the future Eve was proposing, but that idea took it a step beyond anything I thought she would even consider, “Eve, what the fuck? You would turn into your food source, are you kidding ?”
Eve shook her head quickly, “All this would be temporary until I could regain my true form. I would be in a vulnerable position just like I was back on Earth, and this would be the only way you could take care of while helping to facilitate my evolution.” She explained quickly.
“By drinking my fucking blood?”
“Would you rather I kill more humans again? Wouldn’t this be a better solution all around? Think of it, the new Eve would never even need to kill a human—she would be a completely innocent Eve who hasn’t killed anyone or anything. All your fears, your doubts, this would be a new life with a new Eve where we could be completely equal.” Eve clarified, sounding frustrated now.
“Eve, I’m not even going to pretend like I’d entertain any of these ideas—don’t you see how insane this all sounds?”
“To you! With your simple human mind, you can’t even fathom how long forever is—how much ti we have together. Yes, you’ll lose the Eve you knew for a year, but that will be nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of millions of years we’ll have together.” Eve snapped.
She was getting angry now, more than frustrated. I could hear the turbulent emotions in her voice; she was fighting and herself over all this, holding onto her promise while her instincts told her to take away and flee. But I wasn’t about to give in either.
“Eve, you told you love my simple human mind, the way I look at things—how I perceive the world around . You told before you wanted to protect you from yourself, to keep you human. Now more than ever you need to listen to ; we need to stay within the Empire and continue on with the mission.” I said in a much calr voice.
Eve growled and slashed a hand through the air, “You would be fine acting as so slave to a mission you don’t even care about? You jumped at the first sign of adventure and look where it’s landed us!”
Again, I tried to shake my head but couldn’t, “Eve, don’t you rember you were the main reason I signed on with the Predazoan containnt mission? Sure, I wanted adventure, and yeah I wanted a different life, but you were always my main priority. I fought them as best I could about the stupid failsafe, and yeah I screwed that all up, but every concession I made was all for your sake—for you, this Evie who I love and adore. And I don’t care if we have to live as slaves for a thousand years, I won’t sacrifice this version of you for anything!” I said firmly, putting all my rebellious human spirit into my words.
Eve drifted through the dark vacuum silently for a few monts, no reply or argunt at the ready. Finally, she turned away from the escape pods, looking out to the beautiful luminescent nebula, “You really love that much you would suffer through whatever the Empire has in store for us, be their slave and accept any punishnt, all to just keep this version of ?”
“Well let ask you now, would you sacrifice this version of so we could be free? Maybe I would have to die, leave my body floating out here in the vacuum of space for The Radiance to find, then they would think I was killed, and your failsafe took you with . But you could take so of my cells and clone , right? A new version of without the heart monitor, send that new and whatever primitive you is left and live however you want.” I reasoned.
“I would never do that!” Eve answered imdiately.
“And why not? It would still be , right? Just a new version of , maybe the new one wouldn’t be so dorky or fun, but maybe he would be more—”
“Alright, Adam, you made your point.” Eve growled, but I could see in her stance she wasn’t completely ready to relent yet.
I let out a tired sigh, “Evie, do you really, really want to break your promise with ? To steal my freedoms and live how only you want, forcing along for the ride?”
Eve sighed too, “No…” She grumbled.
All my fears and doubts were draining away rather quickly, almost as though I trusted Eve a little too much. I might’ve thought I handled her just a little while ago, but clearly she rebelled against all the while.
Well, isn’t that just like a human.
I chuckled to myself as I thought over what a wild ride Eve had taken on, and in just around a year now—Imperial or Earth, I wasn’t even sure.
“And what’s so damn funny?” Eve demanded, clearly not in the mood for humor.
“Just laughing at how human you are, and all the adventures we’ve been on. Honestly? I know our future is pretty unknown with how mission command is going to treat us moving forward, but we’ve lived a pretty good life so far, right?” I reasoned.
“I guess so…”
“And I know you say I don’t care about the mission at all, but fighting there with you—or inside you or whatever all that was, seeing your power, don’t you feel like we have a responsibility to use that power to help stop the rest of the Predazoans? I an look at all the damage Gamma-12 caused.” I said.
I couldn’t see it, but I was sure Eve rolled her eyes, “Alright Uncle Ben.”
I chuckled again, “And that makes you my Spider-Man.”
Eve let out a long, weary sigh, “I love you Adam, you know that obviously. Despite how silly you are, how reckless, how immature, how stubborn, how dumb—”
“Alright, let’s get back to the love part.” I huffed.
Eve chuckled at that, “But I really do truly and deeply love you, endlessly and unfathomably, I will love you beyond space and ti, here and now, forever and always.”
“I love you too Evie, and no matter what future awaits us, we’ll be there together.” I confird.
“Together.” Eve nodded.
She turned as though sensing sothing, and I saw a vague shimr in the blackness of the vacuum, and then suddenly it solidified into the form of one of our stealth vessels. It spun around in space and opened the bay door with so translucent forcefield working as an airlock.
Eve turned to , and I could just barely see her smile, “Ready to go ho?”
I smiled too, “So long as you’re there, anywhere is ho.”
Volu 3 End
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