CHAPTER FIFTEEN ~ Within
"A lie is a dance that won't let you stop.
Soon you will tire.
Soon you will fall."
Renu; Nyan messiah
CY 201
^~*~^
Andromeda's corridors were once again filled with the familiar faces of her crew. "It was just like being
asleep," Andromeda's AI persona told her Captain. "...and then waking up to find someone has rifled
through your things," she finished. She was under orders to stay in 'sleep mode' while the engineering
team checked over her systems, an experience she didn't particularly enjoy. Rommie was looking
pleased to be reunited with herself. She liked her independence, but every away mission she always felt
like she was somehow incomplete.
"Well, it's all over now," Dylan declared. He stood on the command deck with Rommie and Trance,
feeling very much at home. "Are all the crew onboard?"
"All crew present and accounted for," Andromeda replied dutifully.
"Set a course for the Ferran system."
^~*~^
Harper had gained come focus since arriving back on Andromeda. His aim was to discover exactly what
Lane had done to him - how she got inside his head and tried to drive him to the brink of insanity. First
things first, he needed to prove she didn't die on Autriva with the others. He spent hours scouring
through the data archives from the attack. Seeing as Andromeda kept memory logs of every single data
byte she could possibly collect, it wasn't an easy task.
It was late in the night when he finally discovered what he was looking for. A small section of the data
reading from just before the attack. A small unidentified vessel left the planet minutes before Andromeda
opened fire.
*That ship could have been Lane's* Harper thought, then kicked himself for not realising earlier. *Of
course she survived! What reason did she have to stay after catching up with me?*
"So you figured it out, huh? Took you long enough." It wasn't the real Lane Farrow, but the one inside
Harper's head. The real Lane couldn't be onboard - Rommie would have detected her.
"You're alive. Then why hide? Why not just come out and shoot me, there must have been plenty of opportunities?"
"For a long time I wanted to kill you," Lane mused. "Then I realised this would be more fun."
^~*~^
Beka approached the machine shop, to check up on Harper. He had been so silent since the verdict was
announced that she barely noticed his presence - which was not common with the usually larger-than-life
engineer. She had been thinking about Trance's warning; 'if he keeps shutting off like this we'll never get
him back'. Beka didn't want that to happen. They had been through too much together.
^~*~^
Harper could finally see what Lane was doing to him. Real, hallucination or whatever else she might be,
every decision she had forced him into taking had just dug his hole even deeper.
He made a decision. He had to tell someone. He had to explain everything, and who better than the one
person whose trust he could still count on? The one person who never stopped believing in him, even
when he was acting like a total screw-up. Beka.
"What do you think is going to happen if you tell her everything?" Lane asked with disdain. "Do you think
she'll forgive you?"
"I don't care, it's her choice," Harper replied. "She deserves the truth."
"You're not doing this for her, it's for you. You're just a self-indulgent little freak. That's all you ever were,"
Lane hissed, contempt raging in her eyes.
"Well maybe I don't wanna be that person anymore!" Harper shouted. Lane wasn't going to talk him out
of this. Beka could save him.
Lane moved closer to him. She spoke clearly and coercively. "All that will come of this is more pain. She
will not accept it. She will not forgive you. You will break her heart."
^~*~^
As Beka neared the machine shop she heard a conversation going on. Standing right outside the closed
door, Beka could hear the voices more clearly and something made her freeze, in all senses of the word.
Chills coursed through her body and she stood motionless listening to Harper. Just Harper. There was no
other voice. He was clearly talking to someone, but no-one was talking back.
"Harper?" she said as she entered the room. Harper visibly jumped.
Beka quickly scanned the room. There was no-one in there.
"Who were you talking to?"
"What? Oh, uh...myself. You know me, I can't shut up for a second," he laughed nervously.
Beka saw small pill bottle on the table and picked it up. They were Harper's suppressants. It wasn't as
incriminating as the syringes would have been, but he still wasn't supposed to be taking them.
"What are these?" Beka asked.
It was now or never. "They're suppressants. I've been taking them since the Autriva attack," Harper told
her. It had been so long since he had answered a question truthfully. "I need help Beka. I've never
needed it so badly."
Beka stared at him with an expression impossible to define. After an eternity of silence she replied;
"You've done nothing but lie to me since we first met. I can't help you. I don't think I even know you anymore."
"What are these?" Beka asked.
Harper came back to reality. His mind had taken him to see a possible outcome of his confession. Lane
was right, it would break Beka's heart.
Instead of the truth, he answered with yet another lie. "For the infection," he explained, and took the
bottle from her. He wasn't strong enough to hurt her again. "Gotta finish the whole lot, then presto-chango, I'm all shiny, new and flu-free."
Thoughts that Beka didn't want to have rained in her mind. It was perfectly reasonable that the doctor
would give Harper some medication for the flu, but there was something that had been nagging and
picking at her since she had witnessed it - the look in his eyes. She had first seen it when he was
testifying. A terrible spark that she had only seen when she had Harper had first met. When he was a
junkie trying to ditch his habit.
Every fibre of her being repelled the notion. She didn't want it to be true. It couldn't be, not her Harper.
Not after so long. But what if she accused him of something, and it wasn't true? Their friendship had
survived Harper's attempted suicide and murder. It was now more fragile than it had ever been. Could it
survive such an accusation? It was decision time, and denial finally won the struggle and overtook her
doubt, pushing it deep down and putting it safely under lock and key. Harper was already under enough
strain, he didn't need accusations flying at him, especially from the one person he needed to trust him
right now.
"Okay," she accepted. "So what are you doing?"
"Just, ah, checking out what those Commonwealth monkey-boys did to Andromeda," Harper invented. It
was probably what he would be doing if his mind hadn't been chemically altered.
"Well, when you're done Trance says she wants you to go to med-deck and get checked out. You know
how she is," Beka mentioned, and then she was gone with so many things left unsaid.
Harper would eventually tell her everything, and when that time came he was going to make damn sure
Beka got a reason. Lane was the one who orchestrated this entire situation, and he was going to work
out exactly how she did it.
^~*~^
Syla walked through the ship, her nerves on edge. Though she wore a Commonwealth uniform, it was
nothing but a facade. She walked confidently in the hopes she would not be noticed.
"You..."
Syla froze. Luck, it seemed, was not smiling upon her. The Captain of the ship had seen her. She was
done for.
"I'm sorry, I thought I knew everyone's name onboard, are you new?" he said.
Syla was washed with relief. Hunt had done all the work for her and given her a way out. "Sir, yes sir.
Recent transfer. Crewman Gold," she introduced, picking the first name that entered her mind.
"I won't forget it," Hunt said, smiling. "Carry on."
Syla did just that.
^~*~^
Rommie was enjoying being back together with her other self. They were talking, though not out loud, of
everything the other had experienced in their time apart. Rommie was pleased to find that not much had
been changed or reported out of working order by the Commonwealth engineering teams. She suspected
as much.
It had only been forty-five minutes, but the sweeper stopped its scan. It was not, however, because the
scan was complete. It was because it had uncovered something. Rommie's artificial brow furrowed in
confusion. There was most definitely an error.
Yesterday her data logs had recorded everything perfectly up until 1712 hours. Up until that point she
was in the hotel, then suddenly she was outside in the street. It was there she had found Harper after his
attack...and apparently taken his wallet by accident. Of course, that part she didn't remember...something
just didn't add up.
"What is it?" Andromeda asked her avatar.
"I'm not sure yet," Rommie replied, and decided to check her memory store for any irregularities. Hidden
deeply in a backup archive was a file. Curiosity was a trait not specific to humans, and knowing the file
shouldn't be there pushed her to open it.
All the information it contained came to her within a hundredth of a second, but comprehending it would
be another matter. Finding Harper in his room. There was blood, an attack....and the drugs. It was like a
terrible, crushing dream that wasn't meant to exist.
There was just one problem - she didn't dream. And if the images she was witnessing weren't dreams,
they had to be memories. It was all devastatingly clear now. Harper didn't have Trisentian flu, he was
using drugs. He almost killed a dealer, then tricked her into thinking it never happened. The deactivation
code was what hurt the most. She had trusted Harper with her very existence and he had betrayed her.
"What's wrong?" Andromeda's holographic self appeared beside her avatar, prompting her for an explanation.
Rommie's eyes were full of hurt. To anyone who didn't know better, she looked perfectly human. She
looked sad, and replied quietly. "Everything."
^~*~^
End of chapter fifteen
Next chapter: Surrendering