.
- Ghost Fragment from an Exo
- which in the end is just a matter of substrate chauvinism. It doesn't matter if the system thinks with flesh or superconductor or topological braids in doped metallic hydrogen, as long as the logic is the same. And our logic is the same. Yours and mine.
If I am a machine then so are you. If you are not a machine then neither am I. Exo minds are human. It is incontrovertible.
You understand? I'm going to take that slack-jawed stare as understanding.
Now here's the real question. Why are Exo minds human? What's the design imperative? Why does a war machine - yes, absolutely, I am a war machine, built by human hands; and you are a survival machine built by the engine of evolution. Don't interrupt me.
Why does a war machine have emotions? Why should a war machine have awareness? These are not useful traits on the battlefield. Don't flatter yourself. They are not useful. So why should the Exo mind mimic the human architecture so closely?
You know what I smell on you? I smell the stink of anthropocentrism. I think you think that there's only one way to think. That's why the Exo mind is so human, you presume. Because all higher thought converges.
My friend, you should meet the Vex. There is nothing human in them.
Now. This is what I believe happened, back in the time before any Exo can remember. It explains everything.
I think someone wanted to live forever.
—X—
As it turned out, Ash did have to go one-armed. The healers had not yet received the parts or a replacement from Banshee-44, who was apparently in contact with some manufacturers down in the city.
They were very against the idea of her leaving the infirmary, but she had made up her mind. If Matt was going to find answers, then she was going to be by his side. This was her past, and she had a right to discover it. As one of the Heroes, it wasn't like they could really refuse her either.
And so it was now why she was now trekking alongside Matt through the sand dunes towards the Clovis Bray facility, the lower portion of her left arm past her elbow missing. She wore a makeshift rag to cover up the gap in her armor plates, keeping the sand from getting in. It almost reminded her a bit of that journey across Mercury so many years ago.
He walked closely next to her, his weapon drawn and ready since he would need to defend both of them should the need arise. Luckily, it seemed that the Cabal were not very active today.
Finally, they came across the same building that they'd encountered the day before. The logo of Clovis Bray still remained, standing as a reminder of what had occurred yesterday. Ash looked at it, and prepared herself.
But nothing came.
"No reaction this time?" It seemed that Matt had been ready for her to start panicking again as well. She shook her head, exhaling as she did so.
"Doesn't look like it, thank goodness."
He nodded. "Yeah, that's definitely a better sign than last time." He stepped forward through the blown-out hole in the side of the building, and she followed him in.
Seraph materialized. "If we continue along this path, we'll be making our way towards the 'Dust Palace'."
"Dust Palace?" Matt's voice had a questioning tone.
"Hey, I didn't name it. Apparently it's the translated version for what the Cabal call this place."
"And no Guardians have come here to investigate?"
The Ghost tilted her points up. "Nobody else remembers before the Golden Age, remember? The only reason this place is important at all is because of you knowing who Clovis Bray was. The Exos know him only as someone related very closely with their origin. It took you to tell us just how involved he was."
He nodded. "And the Cabal? I'm assuming that nobody wanted to risk a confrontation with them?"
"Exactly. Though, it seems like they may have vacated the premises temporarily."
Indeed, there was no sign of Cabal anywhere in the facility as they continued further and further into the building's halls. She tried to pay attention to everything, to see if even the slightest detail called out to her.
Room after room, corridor after corridor, they passed through learning nothing. Every hallway was just another branch deeper into the facility, lengthening their stay as they painstakingly looked at every fallen document, every broken computer to see if it was still working, all for just a clue.
It wasn't until they were walking down an unusually long hall that they finally found anything. Tinted windows covered one side of the hall, obscuring view of the inside. That was a red flag for both of them, and they walked over to the closest door. Rather than a knob or handle, a keypad was required to open it.
"Seraph?"
Matt's Ghost flew forward, emitting a blue beam of light onto the pad. If the door ran off electricity, then there'd be a way to open it.
Sure enough, after a second or two of scanning, the lock made an audible click as it disengaged. Matt pushed the now movable door inward, and they walked inside.
Lined up against the walls were rows of pod-like devices. They looked more like futuristic hospital beds, gel-like cushions as the base for a person to rest on, and odd contraptions that adorned the side of each. The mechanisms looked like they could be moved into position over each bed and locked into place like a cover. On the underside of each cover were more wires and circuits, interrupted by sharp needle like protrusions that looked like they would be inserted and locked into something.
"What the hell?" she heard Matt mutter, as she saw him now walking down the row, investigating each pod for clues. She split off, and looked at the opposite wall of pods. Besides their odd nature, there was nothing really remarkable about-
Her eyes froze on one of them, refusing to budge. Slowly, she approached it. It looked identical to the others, save for an identifying number on its side; 04.
"What'd you find, Ash?"
She couldn't answer him, she was too absorbed. Pod 04 was important. Was necessary. Was…
She reached out to touch it.
"Ash?"
Her fingers made contact, and images once again exploded in her mind.
—X—
Something disconnected from her, painfully. Like barbed needles had just been yanked straight out of her limbs.
A silhouette hung over her, nothing more than a shadow against blurry white lights. Her mind felt fuzzy, as though she were waking up from a very deep slumber.
A small light was shone into her eyes, and she tried to blink to keep it out.
But she couldn't.
Instead, some kind of filter appeared and dimmed the light to a level where she was able to see, and begin making solid shapes with her eye. The silhouette was a man, shining a flashlight into her face.
"Normal reaction from patient four. She's responsive."
The flashlight disappeared, and instead new faces appeared. A woman, and someone familiar. It was that man… his name was…
"Bray…" she tried to say, but instead came some kind of coughing noise. The woman shook her head.
"Your vocal processors are still brand new, don't strain yourself. Give it a moment, and try again."
She heeded her advice, and thought about how to say what she was trying to. "B… Bra… Bray…"
The familiar man smiled. "That's a good sign; it means that your memories are still intact."
Memories? Vocal processors? She tried to make light of this new information. She had been in the hospital, with him. He had given her a crystal for… for…
She knew what was happening now.
She tried to remember after that, but everything was hazy, like she had still lived but the connection had been distant. She knew that she'd stayed alive for at least a few more weeks… searching for that information was painstakingly difficult, but she forced herself through the barrier that was keeping her from-
The last night. Their last night.
She remembered now.
"Wh…where?"
Bray seemed to understand. "Mars, in our science facility. It was the only place secure enough to work on the project."
She thought of something else to ask. "H…How long? S…since I…?" It was getting easier to talk.
He grimaced, but nodded. "I kept up on everyone's tabs. It's been a year and two months since you passed away."
Over a year. Her head was swimming with information, with confusion. But one thing stood out to her.
It worked.
"What's… what's happening now?"
"We're waking up the first wave of patients. There's around twenty of you, if my memory serves me right. There are four more waves in the hundred or so people we've managed to bring onboard the project, but the first wave was comprised of individuals like you, Ms. Gray. People whose bodies couldn't handle the Traveler."
This was a second chance. This was a new life; they'd done it, incredibly. She almost hadn't believed it was possible.
"And next?"
He nodded. "We're going to keep all of this under wraps for the next ten months or so, make sure that you all are properly adapted to your new lives and accustomed to the changes in body structure. After that, it will be an additional six months before we announce you to the public, and you're free to head home with your families."
She'd known that it would be a while before they'd be allowed to leave, but the news of being able to reunite with loved ones gave her a bit of hope. "Then we can go home?"
"Then you can all go home, and we'll begin the next wave of volunteers. Who knows, soon enough we may not need human minds for the Exos to be based off of; we could alter brain patterns and create new individuals specifically for Exo bodies. A new race to walk among us!"
She didn't care about that; she was just happy to be alive once more.
Sixteen months until this was all over. Sixteen months until she could go home.
Until they'd be together again.
—X—
She opened her eyes.
She was on the ground, her back propped against the pod she'd touched. She held her right hand to her helmet, a dull ache present in her head.
"You back to the land of the living?"
She looked up to see Matt crouching next to her. She supposed that he had been the one to prop her against the pod.
"Yeah. You have no idea how disconcerting that is."
He pointed towards the door. "You can still walk out of this; I don't want you to put yourself through any-"
She shook her head vigorously. "No I can do this. It was another flashback, something about-"
She pointed towards the pods. "These were meant to revive them, all the people who became Exos. They kept them alive, and woke them up…"
Matt looked towards the pods. He remained silent.
"Clovis Bray was there. He was talking about… a plan, something laid out for the Exos."
She looked at him. "They… we were the first ones, he wanted everything to go right."
Matt clenched his jaw, and stood up. "If you're good, then let's keep moving. I don't think we'll find any more answers here. We need to find a monitor or something with data on it."
She nodded, and accepted his hand to help her up.
They walked deeper into the facility, still not yet having found anything concrete of what they were looking for. Various rooms looked curious enough; offices with potential documents in them, labs with perhaps a chance at seeing test results. But nothing yielded anything worthwhile.
Ash turned to Matt. "You know, there's something I've been wondering."
"Yeah?"
"Do you think that Dawn could have these flashbacks too, if she were here?"
He paused, trying to come up with a good answer. "No, I don't think so."
"Why?"
He paused again for proper phrasing. "Think of it this way; you're already an imprint of someone as an Exo, based off of another mind. What happens when you keep creating a copy of a copy? Things get lost along the way." He shrugged. "Not to mention that Dawn isn't really a normal Exo; she was fragmented from the remnant of the Warrior inside of you, but for the specific purpose of leading Scorch to the Vault, nothing more. She was more programmed then born."
She nodded. Often times, it did seem like Dawn could be outright emotionless when necessary. The only time it seemed that she was affected was whenever something happened to her original, Ash. Though technically Ash's clone, she was nowhere near identical. More of a… less complex, singular purpose driven sibling than anything.
The hallway they were in opened up to a wider chamber, similar to a large lobby. A recreational room of sorts. Broken chairs and tables were strewn about, some of them having been pushed towards doors to form barricades. She supposed that whoever had been here last hadn't succeeded in keeping intruders out.
He turned to her. "Any of this look familiar?"
She paused. At the moment, nothing really did, but it might if something stood out to her. She glanced around the room, checking every corner for something, anything that would give her insight.
A small scrap of fabric caught her eye. Lying in the middle of the room, she walked over to it. It had lettering on it, like it was part of a ID tag. It was torn in half, and she could only make out the first three letters; R-E-Y. The next letter was torn too early for her to make sense of it.
"Rey," she muttered aloud. "That name is definitely striking a cord, but it's not whole. It's Rey… Rey…"
—X—
"Reynard!"
She looked up from her chair to see the male Exo stop, and turn towards Amelia.
"I thought that was you! How did your test go?"
She caught the subtle, underlying meaning of the first part. Indeed, it had been hard to tell each other apart for a while. Everyone's plating was white with silver accents, and they all had blue eyes to match. It was a few months before they began identifying each other not by looks, but by voice, mannerisms, the way they walked, etc. Each Exo was an open book about the person they'd been in their previous life if you looked hard enough.
He walked over to them, his custom undersuit showcasing his name embroidered upon it. The staff had given them the suits after the earlier confusion of identification. They seemed to work well enough, but most of them had already adapted by now.
"Everything checks out. I'm fully functional, working at peak capacity." He looked at her. "How about you? I heard yours was scheduled yesterday?"
She was slightly reluctant to tell him. All of the Exos had to be tested for physical and mental health every other week or so. Though her body was in perfect working order, they'd noticed that she'd become slightly afflicted with depression. They said that it was likely a side effect of such a drastic change in her life to be followed by such a long time without seeing her past friends and family. It would wear off when she was finally allowed to go home.
Amelia caught her hesitation, and covered for her. "She did just fine. Same here, before you ask, so it looks like none of us have anything to worry about."
The three of them had gravitated towards each other from the start. Amelia and Reynard, patients 14 and 02, respectively. They were younger, like her. Dying a premature death tended to make you feel closer towards those who had shared the same fate.
He nodded. "That's great. Listen, I had this idea."
She tilted her head at him. "Go on."
"I was thinking about starting a log or something, kind of like a memoir for when we get out of here. Would you guys like to do something like that? We could do a few entries together, and then some by ourselves. More private stuff, I guess."
She knew he really meant her. Both he and Amelia had left nothing behind, or at least nothing they cared for; no ties to come back to, nothing but the path forward. The way they saw it, they'd cheated death.
But she'd had family, friends. She'd had him…
Sometimes, she felt more dead inside than when she'd been dying.
But either way, it was a good offer, and one that she would more than willingly take. She gave him a slight smile, encouraging him.
"That sounds like a great idea."
He grinned. "I thought you might like it."
Amelia noticed the gaze he held. "Something up, Reynard?"
He quickly turned away from her and towards Amelia. "What? No, just got lost in thought. I was thinking of…"
He fake coughed to the best of his ability. "Something."
He turned back towards her, and she tried not to feel like something had just been uncovered.
—X—
She dropped the fabric, and began to fall backwards. She tried to reach her arm to break her fall, but the nub of her lost appendage didn't do much to help.
She felt a pair of hands catch her from falling, and push her back onto her feet.
"You good?" Matt asked. She nodded, speechless. They were getting clearer now. Like the more exposure she had to the flashbacks, the more that both perspectives converged.
It still felt odd. She was experiencing all these flashbacks from her own view, but it didn't feel like herself; it felt more like she was acting the part of someone else, like she wasn't exactly the person she kept remembering.
"Reynard was the name. He was…" She tried hard to think, and find the right word.
"Someone I knew."
Matt cocked his head. "A friend?"
She shook her head. "No. I mean, yes, it feels like he was… but something changed."
They stood there silently for a moment.
Her eyes widened. "I think- I think I have something."
"What is it?"
"A record, or something. Some idea to leave something behind, for others."
He seemed much more interested now. "Like, a memoir?"
That word stuck out, and she knew he was right. "Yes, exactly."
"Alright then, where to?"
She thought hard, and then looked towards a different hallway. She knew it was the one. She also knew that there wasn't just answers there; there was a great sense of foreboding, of ominous anxiety that crept up on her when she looked at it. But what choice did she have now but to keep going forward?
"This way."
—X—
She stopped.
Matt almost walked by her, before catching himself and facing her. "What's up?"
She'd almost passed by a door, but something changed. Something within her knew. This was it. She almost didn't want to enter, but she knew that this was the only way to discover the truth.
Whip materialized, and looked at her. "Hey. I want you to know, that no matter what happens; no matter what you find out; no matter who you are or once were, you'll always be my Guardian. And I will always be your Ghost. Okay?"
That speech alone meant more to her than any other comfort she'd given herself so far. Whip, who had been with her from the beginning of her new- or rather, newest life. He wasn't going to abandon her.
"Thanks, Whip."
With that, the Ghost scanned the keypad of the door, and once again an audible ker-chunk could be heard as the lock slid out of place.
She pushed it open.
Inside was a large studio of some kind. There were computer monitors placed all around large desks, and at the front of the room was a small stage for what almost looked like where a lecturer would stand and speak.
"What is this place?"
Looking away from the stage, she tried to find something to answer Matt's question. She saw a main console on the back left wall, a large monitor that seemed to be of more importance than the smaller ones around the room. The others all looked like basic screens, but this one looked more like it held data, important files perhaps.
Seraph appeared, and moved forward to scan it. With a whirr that sounded centuries old, the machine booted to life.
"Wow, this… this is a lot of information to handle. This thing has years of data on it, all the way from the first wave of Exos to the last. It looks like this was some kind of learning center; the Exos could maintain their mental prowess and education by using these secure servers of Clovis Bray. Fascinating. This monitor is hooked up to a larger database than the other computers are."
Both Matt and Ash moved closer. "Bring up the first wave of Exos' files," he ordered. "I'm sure that there's still going to be a lot to sort through."
Random windows opened rapidly on the screen. "There were about one hundred volunteers for the first wave of Exos," muttered Seraph. "Each of them had a roster here, with files attached to their own personal identification. Some of them by staff, some of them personal entries."
"Read them off."
Ash was a bit concerned about the tone of Matt's voice. She could detect just the slightest waver in his speech, a slight hiccup in his syntax.
Seraph paused before obliging.
" 'I wish I could say that the first wave's success has ended on a happy note, but I'd be lying. I remember telling my son once about maps. About how I hated how they ended, how they must confine with all their rigid rules and regulations or else they're worthless. But I now think that someone has come to hate them more than me. For a human, yes, we are free in our limitations, bound only by our own ability and potential. But for these Exos, I did not realize how confined they would be to their previous lives. Many of them are happy. Some of them are not. But I do know that for some, I have not given them a second chance- but rather, I have shown them that they only have a lack thereof. I'm sorry.' "
Seraph moved back a bit. "That was from Clovis Bray himself. I wonder who he was referring to."
Ash looked over at Matt. She thought that she would be alone in her suffering, of the jarring revelation that was bound to come soon; but she noticed his stiffness, the slight tremble in his hands and torso.
He was scared.
"Keep going."
Seraph scanned. More windows opened. "I'm trying. Some of them have higher priority than others. I'm looking through the most recent entries."
His hand curled into a fist. Ash's lip started trembling, as she started to put the pieces together.
Matt's recognition of that name. The way he kept darting glances at her oddly, intermittently when he thought she wasn't watching. The way his body shook.
"Another entry by Clovis. 'She has asked me to destroy the recordings, and I told her I would; I hate to admit that I lied. Not only are they a great source of information in seeing how the memory banks of the Exos work, but I cannot knowingly erase any part of her that may have once been happy. After such a long period of depression from a lack of contact with the outside world, it was relieving to see such genuine joy on her features, to see how she interacted with the camera. Believing it would all be worth it, a legacy she could take with her to show… well, it doesn't matter now. The point is that I'm genuinely concerned with whether she'll express such positive emotions again. If my entire reason for existing had been snatched from me before my very eyes, I'm not sure if I could either.' "
She continued to flip through files. "Basic information from the roster of information before… public release. They've all got files here, they're kind of jumbled around. 'Heather M. Calloway.' 'Michael K. Russo.' 'James K. Wilson.' More like that. All these names, these must have been the Exos."
She continued to read them off, going through each folder on the roster. " 'Zaineb Shivvei.' 'Conrad T. Marx.' 'Clara Bleu.' 'Jacob D. Strauss.' Looks like he wasn't totally stable before release. 'Nathaniel B. Burns.' 'Amelia P. Kline.' 'Owen Howe.' 'Harrison G. Firths.' 'Reynard C. Velpine.' 'Katherine A. Hayes.' "
She paused. "One of them has a much larger file than the others. Looks like they left a bunch of recordings in there. This must have been the one that Clovis was referring to-"
She stopped.
"Seraph."
The Ghost said nothing.
"Read it, Seraph."
Ash winced at the slightly hysterical tone that was breaking through his apathetic facade. Seraph tried once more to placate him.
"Matt…"
"Read the name, goddamn it!"
Ash finally knew what the Ghost was about to say. That still didn't stop the truth from feeling like a slap to the face.
"…'Sara W. Gray.' "