“Kori …?” Aspect’s voice is an uncommon squeak.
Against my better judgment, I take one of their hands between both of mine, lean close to their auditory processor, and command, in the firmest voice I can muster, “Stay close.”
Together, we step backward into the alleyway. One step from the crowd, two, three. The miasma of conflicting voices from the crowd steadily shrinks. Even the light from the competing booths dims, distancing. Everything tunnels. I keep my eyes firmly on the main market, ready to bolt back toward public view the instant it’s necessary, but even so, almost of their own accord, my legs keep carrying me farther back into this accidental wedge of space, farther and farther from the sales floor.
A secret place within a secret market. Only I could get myself into a jam this absurd.
“Further in,” the oil-slick voice says, somewhere close. “Further up, and further in.”
Back and back, farther and farther, my legs lead us. My heartbeat is an emergency siren, nearly splitting my rib cage wide open. I should have a hand on my heatshot pistol, but I can’t bear to let go of where Aspect’s metal fingers are squished securely between all of mine. Back and back and back. The market is a faraway smear of color. I know we’ve reached the complex’s wall only because it’s terribly cold when it presses against my back.
“Here,” hisses the voice, and if I squint, I can just barely make out the spidery outline of a person.
Hunched, slightly shivering, cowering even in the near darkness of this clandestine alleyway. Layers of mismatched clothes—deep greens, faded maroons, patches of yellow, and threadbare blue—conceal whatever anti-radiation gear they must be wearing underneath. It all grants them the appearance of a secondhand clothing shop come to life, bumbling about on its first day of improbable sentience.
“Your hand, darling.”
Aspect, ever courageous in the face of absurdity, pipes up, “The market—does not—sell hands.”
For an instant, I think my limb is indeed the price for whatever ware this stranger is about to offer. Then a shuddering gloved hand extends toward me, fingers pinching something tightly between them. “Open your hand.”
Barely breathing, I extend one open palm, the other still gripping Aspect’s so tightly that every metal joint digs painfully into my skin. A tiny rectangle drops into my gloved hand, somewhere between the size of a fingernail-sized Morpheus chip and a handheld credit card.
“You seek a memory, of another kind.” The voice is thick. It sticks to the inside of my skull, makes me want to gag. I swallow a surge of sick. “If you mean what you said, and I think most people mean the things they say, when they think no one else is listening, then that”—one gnarled finger taps the rectangle in my palm—“is my card.”
“You have nothing to sell?” My voice is a sudden, stubborn half snarl.
This feels, as strange as it all is, like the closest I’ve ever gotten to a special, specific, impossible memory—the kind that could bring Aspect into full awakening—and now all I have is a dusty gremlin’s business card?
“You, a stranger, haul me into an alley. I follow, against my better judgment. And the best you can do, for my taking this risk with my mech in tow, and with only a simple pistol to protect myself, is yourcard?” Iclose my fist around the meager offering, my voice rising despite myself. “Who are you? What’s your code name? Where is your license—?”
But all at once, there’s an explosion of thick white smoke. My knees sting; I’ve collapsed, coughing, retching. Actual sickness threatens at the cloying chemical smell that ensconces me—a terrible experience to have while wearing a sealed anti-radiation helmet. Darkness flickers across my gaze.
The next thing I register, Aspect is shaking me with all the force their mechanical arms can muster. Then straight-up kicking one knee into my gut. “Kori. Kori.Kori.KORI.KORI.”
Choking on a mouthful of spit, I come fully back to myself. With effort, I pull my body back up to standing. “How long …?”
But Aspect has already retrieved my comms tablet from my utility belt, wildly tabbing through its various applications with both hands until the digital hourglass appears. The sand is far emptier than it was when I arrived at the Morpheus Market. But if we hurry, we can still make it home before suspicions are raised.
“Home,” Aspect pleads. “Aspect takes Kori—home to the sands—before Kori’s maker—wants to unmake.”
Numbly, I feel for the Morpheus sphere at my belt, the one my mother requested. It remains nestled comfortably in my pocket. So, too, my heatshot pistol remains sheathed at my side. My credit card is where I left it. My armor is unbroken in any way, protecting me from Pagonian radiation. What did this gremlin want, if they didn’t even take anything? Their tiny business card lies discarded, just barely visible in the half-light, at Aspect’s feet. I must have dropped it after the smoke bomb. Gritting my teeth, I snatch the card up and pocket it before I can think better of the decision.
This strange, undeniably risky encounter can’t have been for nothing. If this card can open a path to Aspect’s awakening … that’s worth any risk. Scientific breakthroughs have never been made by playing it safe. No matter what happens next, I need to know that, giventhe opportunity, I was willing to try. I was willing to fight my good sense for a shot at something greater.
“Come on,” I say, nudging Aspect back toward the distant light of the still-teeming, never-sleeping market. “Charon’s waiting.”
Sure enough, Aspect and I are soon safely ensconced inCharononce again, my anti-radiation gear collapsing to smaller pieces at once. Somehow, despite Aspect’s eager bouncing on their metal toes, I manage to buckle them into the copilot’s seat. “And here you go,” I say, pulling their new sphere from my pocket. “One sea meat memory for the best mech I know.”
Aspect squeals. “Install now, Kori?”
A human can access a Morpheus memory and at least vaguely recall it later, despite the cognitive distance. Installation to their own internal Morpheus chip—a process that requires sedation and hands-on tinkering by a professional like Ednit—is only necessary to be able to access the fully detailed, lifelike memory at a moment’s notice, anytime, anywhere. But for Aspect, short-term memory is a precarious region in constant development. Another’s memory, experienced at a distance, dissipates almost immediately, like a wisp of fading smoke.
“I’ll install it back home,” I offer.
“Why not now?”
Because I am too tired to hold a conversation, and letting you watch this thing over and over instead of retaining it should keep you from pestering me with existential questions.“Because I said so,” I mutter, sounding like my mother and immediately hating myself. Nobody ever said that parenting an illegally semi-sentient mech would be easy, I suppose.
