Thomas hadn’t moved, still standing in the center of the bridge like the universe’s most reviled martyr. He stared out the window, at the ethereal twilight of a world far better than the one he’d known. In the shadows, he could see his dead mother shaking her head forlornly before she vanished in the rising noise of Sebastian’s footsteps.
“Has he left?” Thomas asked dully, still clutching his bottle.
“You had no right to do that.” Sebastian hissed, snatching the bottle from his grip.
He squared his shoulders and faced the angry captain. “I had every right. He was my brother.”
“If you had just waited a few more days, it would have solved itself!” Sebastian threw the bottle down in a flurry of amber liquid and scattering glass.
“And he would have what? Gone on living, thinking he was a dead man brought back to life? Gone on believing someone was awful enough to do that to him without any regards to what he wanted?”
“Yes! That’s not such a bad thing. Not when he’s still human.”
Thomas snorted. “Human. Right.” He ran a hand over his face. “He would have figured it out eventually. Dad had to keep going back and rewiring his memories. By the way, where are those vials he was taking? I haven’t seen them.”
“They were broken in the raid.” Sebastian said. “Androids don''t need medicine to live. Do you know what was in them?"
Thomas shrugged, turning back to the window. "No idea, but I know they were important. Guess it doesn’t matter now."
“Dammit,” Sebastian ran a hand over his shaved head, “this is not the way I would have wanted him to find out.”
“You already knew.” Thomas realized, turning back to him, grief warring with fury in his eyes. “Since when?”
“That’s not important right now. I need to find him. Could you...if I can restrain him, could you make him forget? Rewire his memories?” He felt sick just saying the words.
“No. I won’t.”
“He was so upset.”
“Nothing he feels is real. It’s all the product of wires and synthetics.”
Sebastian clenched his fists. “He’s real enough, and he didn’t deserve this. There are better ways of dealing with your grief that don’t involve hurting others.”
“Woah. What’s going on here?” Kenan asked as he, Lyra, and Brie stepped inside, their arms laden with snacks and stuffed toys from the fair.
“Like how?” Thomas ignored them as he took a step toward their captain. “Sending out flares whenever I start missing him? Building another robot in his likeness and pretending he never left? Or maybe I should just run away like you did.”
Sebastian looked away from him to the curious stares of his crew. “Rowan’s father didn’t break the law. Instead, he created an android that looks and acts like his son.”
“So Rowan’s not Rowan?” Kenan asked, dipping a hand into a bag of snacks.
“No.”
“It must be difficult not knowing who you are.” Lyra went over to Thomas and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry. You have lost your brother twice.”
“Don’t apologize to him!” Sebastian snapped. “He’s the reason we’re in this mess.”
“I’m sorry,” Thomas said sarcastically, “but I don’t recall being the one who created this monster.”
“He’s not a--”
“Why didn’t you stop him?” Brie interrupted, stepping between the two men. All eyes looked to her. “You keep saying it’s your father’s fault, but why did you never put an end to this before?”
“You think I didn’t want to?” Thomas snapped. “That I didn’t try?”
“I don’t think you did.” Brie said lowly. “Oh, sure, you protested. You argued. Maybe you even tried to push your father away from his experiments, but in the end, you let him carry on with them. You wanted your brother back, and when you saw it wasn’t him, you ran away and let others deal with the mess.”
“Of course I did!” Thomas snapped. “He was my little brother; of course I wanted him…” Tears ran down his cheek, his eyes distant. “I found him, right after he did it, and I keep asking myself ‘why,’ but you can’t get answers from the dead. So when Dad showed me what he’d done, showed me what appeared to be Rowan alive and well, what was I supposed to have done? What would you have done if it’d been your brother?”
Brie’s eyes were a cold and unimpressed obsidian. “I would have shot him again.”
“Hey, not to interrupt,” Kenan said as he tapped a button on his phone, quickly depositing his armload into his chair, “but I just got an alert from the garden. Someone’s standing too close to the yateveo.”
Lyra’s eyes widened, and they hurried off for the garden, Sebastian close behind. The only one who didn’t follow was Thomas who remained on the bridge, staring at the glittering glass on the floor. “Oh, Thomas.” His mother’s voice called to him from the shadows. “None of this is your fault.”
He felt her ghostly touch on his shoulder but brushed it off. “I wanted him back too.” He whispered to no one. “I wanted him back too!”
Rowan stood before the yateveo, the black branches writhing on the ground as they began to wake. “Rowan! What are you…” Sebastian stopped at the sight of copper-colored tears rolling down the android’s cheeks and the gun shaking in his grasp. “Stay away from those trees. Come back over here. Please.”
“Stay away from me!” Rowan cried. He pointed the gun at Sebastian. “Did you know what I was this whole time? Did you?”
Sebastian held up his hands. “Rowan, please, I think you’re malfunctioning. Let us help you.”
“Be careful.” Kenan said, peeking around his captain. Louder, he called, “don’t be an idiot! Those trees could kill you.”The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’m already dead.” Rowan said. He tossed the amulet at Sebastian who flinched away. The unblinking eye in its center glittered in the fluorescent lights. “It doesn’t work on robots apparently.”
“No, it doesn’t. Thank God.” Sebastian took a step forward and noticed Brie fall farther back into the shadows, her own gun in her hand.
“Stay back!” A shot rang out, and Sebastian grunted as the bullet pierced his shoulder. “The trees were right.” Rowan said, horrified by the blood dripping down Sebastian’s shoulder. He moved as if to place the gun against his own head but hesitated halfway, the gun trembling midair. “I am a monster.”
“You’re not.” Sebastian said, clutching his wounded arm and placing himself in Brie’s line of sight. “You’ve never been a monster. Even though people have done monstrous things to you. You are not what they’ve made you.”
“I’m not anything.”
“You are to me.”
“How can I trust that when you’ve been lying this entire time? When the last time you said I meant anything to you, you left me.” Rowan took another step back, closer to the whispering trees. Too close. “Tell me you didn’t know. Tell me--” He shrieked when one of the black branches snapped around his throat and jerked him back against the tree trunk. The gun clattered harmlessly to the ground. “Let me go.” Frantic green eyes landed on Sebastian as more branches wrapped around the struggling young man, stilling his panicked thrashing.
His breath came in harsh bursts, breaths he didn’t even need, but he still felt suffocated. Bound hands twitched, trying in vain to claw the branch from his throat. “Let me go.” His voice came out pitifully small.
“Never.” The tree hissed in his ear. The trunk opened to reveal thick teeth and a large, slimy tongue that darted out to taste its prey. Rowan tried to cringe away but failed. Panicked eyes met Sebastian’s.
“You can’t eat him.” Kenan protested, shocked. “He’s not even human.”
“If it does, you can’t bring me back this time.” Rowan’s voice broke. He might not have been human, but he still didn’t want to die.
“I didn’t know what you were. Not at first.” Sebastian called out as Lyra crept out from the shadows behind him, a jar of glittering sand held in her hands. He moved forwards, cautiously, towards the trees. “I’d been away, remember? I knew you weren’t acting like the Rowan I remembered, and everyone else was acting different. Like there was some secret. Some skeleton hidden under everyone’s beds. I put the pieces together later. I swear I never wanted you to find out this way.”
“You could have told me.” Rowan’s voice hitched as he took in another shuddering breath.
“And hurt you like this? Watch you fall apart, knowing I caused it? What kind of choice is that?”
“Lyra, now!” Kenan shouted from somewhere to Sebastian’s right, and Lyra threw the entire jar of sand into the yateveo tree’s mouth. It released Rowan immediately, tossing him onto the ground, as it coughed and spluttered, terrifying teeth gnashing against the taste.
Sebastian darted to Rowan’s side and dragged him as far away from the tree as he could. The tree grew quiet, its branches laying back on the ground as it took on the form of a normal tree once more. Rowan gasped for breath beside him, shaking in a way that was completely unnatural for him. Hesitantly, Sebastian reached out a hand to touch Rowan’s injured arm, the one he had cut open less than an hour before. The light caught the metallic wound in just a way that it revealed a scuffed and eerily familiar number on the metal.
Sebastian grabbed the arm and tilted it towards his eyes, ignoring Rowan’s faint protest. “AI172NEO” He froze as he remembered a blonde boy on a red dirt planet in the middle of nowhere. He heard the boy ask if he was alright, but when he blinked, Rowan’s concerned face came into view instead. “Sebastian?” Rowan asked cautiously.
“I’m alright.” Sebastian replied. He stared into those green eyes and gave a little laugh, shaky with relief. Before he could brush Rowan away, or pull him closer, Rowan had already launched himself into Sebastian’s arms, sobbing into his uninjured shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He cried, tightening his grip to the point of almost pain.
“Rowan…” Sebastian sighed and ran a hand down his back, steadying him. “I keep sending out flares, hoping you’d see them and remember.” Rowan stiffened in his arms, but Sebastian didn’t let him pull away. “I thought I’d lost you, but you’re still too far away, Neo.”
Rowan jerked back, eyes searching Sebastian’s and found an answer he didn’t like. “You were never in love with me, were you?”
“No, I was never in love with Rowan.” Sebastian admitted easily. “But you’re not him.”
“Then, who am I?” Rowan bit out as he tried to stand, to walk away. A steel grip encircled his wrist and tugged him back to the ground so he was kneeling beside the space captain.
“You asked me for honesty.”
“And this is honest?”
“The Rowan I remembered never wanted me to be honest.”
“I--h-he liked lies?”
“He liked less pain.” Sebastian stared at his hand still attached to Rowan’s wrist before releasing him. “When he died, I swear I could feel it a galaxy away.”
“Who’s Neo?”
Sebastian winced as the rest of his crew now having moved closer turned to stare at them, their eyes wide. “No way.” Kenan breathed. “You didn’t.”
“That’s how you knew.” Brie said and stared at her gun in horror.
“Maybe now’s not the best time for this conversation.” Sebastian said as he wiped a tear from Rowan’s cheek.
“Androids don’t cry.” Rowan remembered, wiping at his own face.
“Not usually, no.” Sebastian stood and helped Rowan to his feet.
“Not a chance.” Brie blocked the exit. “You’re going to tell us exactly what’s going on. No more lies. No more hiding. Or I’ll dump you both out here now.”
“Fine, fine.” Sebastian glanced at Rowan and explained, “Neo was an android I dated before. He was destroyed in a raid on his home planet, but I managed to save his personality drive.”
“The A drive.” Rowan said, pulling it from an old memory he wasn’t even sure was his.
“That’s it. I kept it for awhile before I found out about a young inventor who might be willing to help.”
“Rowan.”
“Yeah. He was delighted to, loved a challenge.” A sad smile graced his lips. “He told me he’d help me get Neo back even if it was the last thing he ever did.” He turned to Rowan. “You have to understand. I wanted him back so much, it hurt. I wanted to go back into my memories and take him with me. I did love Rowan in a way, and we did have some good memories together, but not like…” He swallowed and looked at his crew. “Not like that.”
“We thought you were moving on.” Kenan said softly. “That that’s why you kept wanting to visit Rowan, why you wouldn’t shut up about how brilliant he was. You dragged us halfway across the galaxy just to rebuild your boyfriend!”
“You think it worked?” Rowan asked. Green eyes stared in amazement at the lettering on his arm. “I don’t remember being anything other than what I am now.”
“I mean, it probably did, but we need to talk to Thomas’s dad and figure out exactly what he did. Not to mention, we need someone to repair the damage done recently.”
“He broke me.”
Sebastian shook his head. “You’re not broken. Just slightly damaged. That we can fix.”
“No, I mean, he took me apart.” Rowan pulled his hands apart, digging through his memories. “With a hammer. I remember. He must have been upset with me.”
Brie swore and looked away. “Perhaps we should leave him in prison, after all.”
“Tempting, but I don’t think Rowan would like that too much.”
“The dead one or the robot one?” Kenan asked. “Or should we call you ‘Neo’ now.”
“I don’t remember him.” Rowan said softly.
“Stop it.” Sebastian said. “We’ll figure that out later. Come help me convince Thomas to get his father out of prison.” As he passed Brie, he reached out to take the gun from her. “Thanks for not shooting him.”
“You were in the way.” She rolled her eyes. “And I’m more inclined to shoot you now. After everything we’ve been through…” She shook her head.
“I know. I never meant for things to be this complicated.”
“You should have just trusted us.”
Lyra walked over to Rowan and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. She made a small sound at the sight of his damaged arm and took off her bandana. Her snow white hair fell around her shoulders in messy tangles as she wound the pink bandana around his arm.
“Did you guys like Neo?” Rowan asked, watching her. “I mean, was he nice?”
She smiled as she knotted the bandana tightly. “He was you, and he was family.”