Chloe says most people forget their childhoods to make more room in their Morpheus chips for important adult things. I wonder what else I’ll be expected to discard someday, when I take over the monarchy—when my mother is long gone but her ghost’s lingering weight drives me to accept the title.
“Lie down.” Ednit gently eases me back on the table with soft, careful hands. He’s so good at being a paragon of health that it’s almost infuriating. Only the best for the Daylands heiress, I suppose. I can smell fresh, minty toothpaste on his breath. He straightens the collar of his white coat. “Do you still experience unpleasant subconscious Morpheus chip malfunction?”
My face burns. That’s one way to saywhack-ass dreams, I suppose. I’ve been having nightmares whenever I close my eyes for … well, a long time. But I don’t talk about it anymore, not unless I have to. Not even to Aspect, whose simulated concern nevertheless makes me feel guilty for sharing the imaginary horrors in the first place. The nightmares worry Chloe. She worries enough, and when she worries, my life’s options narrow to a medical needlepoint. “Yeah, I am.”
Ednit clicks restraints around my wrists, ankles, and throat. “For your safety, Kori.”
“Of course.” I’m quite used to my mother and her lackeys enforcing unwanted restrictions for my safety. What’s a cuff while I’ll be asleep anyway? I don’t have it in me to protest. But my heart gallops in my chest.
“The exam will be quick. I only need to confirm the functionality of your Morpheus chip. As always, it will be performed remotely, but it is best done while you are thoroughly unconscious.” Ednit reaches for a long, thin needle. “I am going to give the injection now.”
I laugh dryly. I haven’t slept in ages; I avoid it like Chloe tells me to avoid distracting relationships, and idle time, and most everything that makes me happy to be a person. I should really consult the Dreamgiver Devotees or the Old Seekers eventually, consider the wisdom of bothspirit and science regarding my troubling dreams, but thinking about them for too long gives me a headache.
I’d rather stay conscious for as long as I can. It’s easy in a world without nightfall, which means that when I can get away with ignoring the digitally omnipresent hourglass, I get more done than anyone else in the commune. And no one notices if I conduct another Morpheus Market smuggling run when I’m presumed to be asleep.
I regard the syringe. It hovers over my wrist. “Go ahead, Ednit.” I close my eyes.
Exhausted to my bones, I’m gone before the needle pierces skin.
I fight sleep like a grappler in the ring, condemned to death in a public spectacle, but there’s no one to observe my subconscious struggling. So my mind, detached, floats like a corpse abandoned to deep space. Unreachable. Undone.
Visions split like fractals against the back of my eyelids.
Faces don’t form correctly in my sleeping state, but I think the shimmering outline of a person, hovering nearby, is my mother. I know that militantly shaved curve of blond hair, the relentless gaze of those deep-brown eyes, even when I fail to truly see them.
I’m lying supine, stomach up, staring into nothing. I can’t feel the bed beneath my back. I can’t feel my lungs; it’s like I’m not breathing at all. I smell antiseptic, cloying, choking.
Where am I?My voice seems to come from someone else. My tongue tastes like salt, swollen against the roof of my mouth.
My name is Chloe, my mother says, her warm fingers brushing my forehead.Do you remember me, Kori?
A rogue shard of certainty pierces my consciousness. I try to jerk upright, but metal restraints pin me to the bed at my wrists, my ankles, my throat that’s closing up, swallowing my voice.
I wake, sweat-soaked, on Ednit’s examination table, jerking as much as my restraints will allow, my head slamming back into a pillow I don’t even recall Ednit placing on the exam table. I boomerang back into my body. My neck aches, despite the restraint below my chin. Numbly, I try to reach back to tighten one of my braids, which slipped loose from its pins with the sudden motion—but my hands remain locked.
“Welcome back, Kori.” Ednit’s minty breath shakes me fully awake.
“Hello,” I mumble through the sleep haze.
“Your Morpheus chip is as functional as it has ever been. I made some minor quality-of-life adjustments to ensure ongoing positive results, but you needn’t worry about your capacity for memory.” Ednit flashes a smile nearly whiter than his coat. “You will be a well-educated, fully optimal leader of the Daylands when your time comes.”
“Lovely.” I meant to inject some semblance of enthusiasm into my voice, but it sounds more like I accidentally stepped in something squishy while speaking. “Can I go?”
“I’ll walk you out. Where to?”
“Charon.”
Ednit arches a disapproving eyebrow. “I hope you don’t plan on launching it anytime soon. You ought to take it easy for a while, recover from the sedative.”
“Oh, I will.” I lurch to my feet, ignoring the delicate spinning of my vision. “I like to sleep aboard my ship. More privacy that way.”
“Really.” Ednit sounds utterly unconvinced.
“If more dayfolk had starships, I think it would be a common practice. I’m very blessed to be the monarch’s daughter. I have so many things that the laypeople do not.”
Ugh, I hate the sound of my own voice, donning this pompous air of superiority, but I have to convince Ednit so that he convinces my motherI’m still a rule follower to the letter. Not the sort of girl who buys unassigned memories in the market, let alone installs them into a mech.
In reality, I need to get back to the Morpheus Market ASAP, this time with more focus on my own mission: a new sphere for Aspect. If I can convince Ednit and Chloe that I’m asleep, all that’s needed is to set Aspect’s tracker to stationary mode, reporting that I am in fact unconscious onCharon, and I’ll be home free. Worst-case scenario, if someone in the records department notices thatCharonand Aspect were logged as leaving the settlement, I can weave some story about wanting natural sunlight when I woke, having put the ship into autopilot on a safe loop.
