“Got it,” Ribos says, distracting me from the wilted way my friends leave us behind. “Looks like you have torched nanos in your solution.”
He opens up a zoomed-in version of nanosolution and all the tiny machines floating in the viscous liquid. “See here.” Ribos runs a finger along a stream of motionless, dark units. “You found the virus and burned it from your system, Brother. These are not quite Titan nanos.”
Ribos brings up a comparison of the two and points out the variations on motor systems, cores, fuel cells, and things I’ve never heard of. “Can’t say how they operated. I’ll have to talk to Esthi and see if she can crack one open. For now, I’m going to put you on a filtration system to remove this dead weight from your blood.”
“Isolated, Ribos,” Evo states. “Just in case.”
“Eon relayed your hesitation to be connected to Mother. I don’t blame you,” Ribos remarks.
Ribos rolls a cart out of the wall and changes out the tubes in Evo’s body for a set on the larger device. Evo’s dark nanosolution drains through into the humming machine and pumps back into him in a navy blue hue. “That looks better.”
“Feels better.” Evo closes his eyes and sighs.
“Can you hold your shape, Brother?” Ribos asks. “I would like to assist with the colony. This will take a while. An hour or more.”
Evo tilts his head. “Yes. If I cannot, I will disconnect myself or I will summon a closer Brother.”
Ribos steps back. Evo’s shoulder slowly ripples in the shape of Ribos’ handprint.
“Holding.” Evo breathes out in a controlled manner.
“Understood.” Ribos slips past him and starts for the door.
“Thank you, Brother. Rebel was dissatisfied with my status.”
Ribos stops in the doorway and looks back. “I spent years buried in a glob of starship fuels, fearing I would never see anything else again. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re dying alone in the dark, to blame yourself, to work through a milliondifferent scenario variations, hunting for a detail you could’ve changed. So while Rebel asked because of your condition and Chaos asked because of what Aera is and how you have Bonded to her, I wanted to help because I didn’t want you to feel like no one gives a shit about anything but your performance. We were humans once...with souls. I don’t think they ever really left.”
I’m starting to think, they still have them. It’s interesting, watching Titans interact now that they’re free. Before, they seemed so driven by rules and missions. Now, they’re driven by the same, with a bonus of community and respect for one another that they can actually display and enjoy.
Ribos and Evo seem to reach some sort of understanding, and Ribos leaves. But even when he’s gone, Evo won’t look at me.
“So… You’re basically stardust?” I ask, half-teasing.
“Stardust?” Evo arches a brow and smiles a little to himself as he checks the system filtering the CyberTitans’ version of blood.
“Sparkly galaxies and stars and shit.”
He chuckles shyly, and it’s wild to see such a monstrosity of a Titan, all power and muscle and deadly potential, finally smile and do so with humility. “I guess you could say my brother and I were modeled after space. He got the void. I got the opposite. So yeah, I guess…stardust.”
“What does that feel like?”
He looks up at me, eyes shining. “I was not always like this. I started out as a standard Titan. Eon was, too. But when they introduced the skills packages: nanotoners, nanosolution, memory cores, and dermal shift grid, we went through some pretty…awful transitions.
“Our Creator didn’t use standard parts. We were made from something they sourced in space. Or it was contaminated from space. I honestly don’t really remember, which is odd for a Titan to say. We either have a recording or we don’t. But thetransformation has fragmented the memories. There are pieces, but that’s it. Same with Eon. Our Creator didn’t work with the rest of the team.”
He shifts his shoulders like he’s uncomfortable.
“Are you cold?” I ask.
Evo releases a short breath. “Never. And you don’t have to stay if, you know, you want to go hang out with the other females or your friends.”
“I’ve spent most of my life fighting with men. I am more comfortable with you.” But really, I just don’t want to leave him. He didn’t leave me. And the idea of him sitting alone in here like he’s sick and broken just doesn’t make me feel good. “You’re way more intriguing, anyway.”
Evo smiles and shakes his head. “Do not compliment this mess.”
“Hottest mess I’ve ever seen.”
His head snaps up. Evo’s expression slides through confusion to doubt, a twinge of hope, and ends on denial. “If you hadn’t ended up in Omega Force, what would you have done with your life?”
