🌘

You decide to leave this to the specialist and follow Akiko’s lead. You feel her shield surround you--you can almost feel its texture on the air around you. Its phase is inverted, facing inward, blocking the strong emotions you can’t help but project as she lets go of your hand and tries to compose herself.

“It’s futile, Akiko,” Counselor Xi signs. “I could tell the moment you walked in. You concealed it well, impressively even. But Aydan has a lot to learn.”

You glance over at Akiko. She signs nothing. Her message is clear, a technopath doesn’t reveal information willingly.

“You’re lucky it isn’t my job to enforce academy regulations, and that it is my job to keep secrets,” Xi signs. “You better teach him to be more careful though.”

“Understood. Thank you, counselor.” Akiko takes your hand again and hurries you out of the room. Once the door closes behind you, you’re alone.

With her inverted shield still surrounding you, she pulls you toward her and hugs you tight. Still holding onto your hand, she wipes tears from her eyes and looks toward the exit. “Let’s get out of here,” she signs.

You follow close beside her out into the colony. It’s the middle of the night at the moment, and the soft starlight floating on the garden ahead of you feels almost æthereal. You turn your head to verify the spin direction and decide you’re probably on the surface. It’s harder and harder to tell.

At sunrise, she stops along the garden path. She gestures to the bench nearby, and you understand--you both sit down.

“So, do you want to talk about it?” she signs.

“No, but, I can see how well that’s been going for me so I will anyway,” you sign. “What we saw, or relived together in a way...it was the night my little brother, Alexei, disappeared. I’ve probably mentioned it before.”

“I figured that much out.”

“And it was...it was my fault. I ran away from home that night, and I took him with me,” you sign.

“Why did you run away?” she signs.

“It was the day I found out about my contract, my destiny from before I was even born. They always told me I was going to grow up to be a technopath, and they always gave me terminals and devices and encouraged me to learn, talked about the company and its wars but I didn’t really understand, it was all so distant to me then, just little stars out in space.

“When I found the contract, it all suddenly made sense, everything they ever said or did was leading up to that eventuality. I was born to be a weapon for the company. Their firstborn autistic child, it was right there in the contract. My moms profited greatly from that deal, it was why we lived in such luxury, why they held such prominent positions in the company.

“I was scared...I didn’t know what I wanted, this was all just decided for me before I even existed. It felt so...wrong. Even though I now know this kind of thing isn’t that unusual for military companies. At the time, I just wanted to run away. Anywhere. Even though it was the dead of night and I had nowhere to go. But I realized, even if I did get away somewhere, Alexei was just like me, and they would just choose him instead. I couldn’t let that happen just because I wanted to run away. So, I took him with me.

“And just like you saw, it was a horrible mistake. We could have both died out there. But I didn’t care, because at the time that seemed better than dying out in space in some war. Instead, I lost him. It was just like that, a big crowd came between us, and afterward, he was nowhere to be seen. Nobody ever found him. At least, not that I was ever told. He was just gone.”

She wraps her arms around you, and you lay your head down on her shoulder, crying. Sitting back up for a moment, you continue. “My mom Yelena found me, alone, delirious, hypothermic. I remember wishing she hadn’t, that I’d just died there instead. She was really mad, but not like other times. She was just...cold. She and Ælita were completely focused on the search for Alexei, and just kind of shut me up in our house for a while, alone.”

“That sounds really hard,” she signs, radiating a comforting aura between your empathic programs.

“So, I just kind of gave up. I took responsibility for it by accepting my fate, I guess, and not trying to fight it. I just did whatever people told me I should--except when it came to gender, the only thing I could really express myself through. That was a whole other issue. The company culture is rather traditionalist. But here I am just giving you my whole life story suddenly...”

“It’s okay, Aydan, I’m here to listen,” she signs.

“Well that’s about all there is to tell. It all led me here to Translunar Academy, where I met you, and ÆON and Zeta and all my friends, so I don’t regret that. But that night, years ago, I regret that a lot,” you sign, wiping tears from your eyes.

“Were you able to get some kind of closure from our ætherwalk?” she signs.

“Maybe. I think I learned something important. The only way to help you to take back control of our headspace was to let go of that regret, for a moment, let go of Alexei, and the past. No matter how I feel about it, it happened. I have to live with that mistake, but I have to move on with my life.”

“That’s true,” she signs. “I could probably learn something from that too.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” you sign.

“I was so scared, Aydan,” she signs. “When Anko was synced with you, and I couldn’t get to you...I never wanted you to see that side of me. But now you have, now you know what’s inside me, what I still can’t control, no matter how much I tried to banish him completely.”

“I think I came to understand him well, while we were synced,” you sign.

“I’m so sorry, Aydan, I didn’t want you to have to know him,” she signs. “I’m afraid of him, what he might do if he ever took control like that. I don’t want him to hurt you, Aydan, I never want to hurt you.”