Drawing Out the Stars: Chapter Four
When Antiope's body tells her that it's time for sleep, she picks herself up and climbs back out of her cockpit. When she gets to the hangar deck, instead of lying down, she picks up her blanket, slings it over her shoulder, and heads for the door. She makes for the projector room.
On her way—there are fewer open hallways. She's come this way enough, and she recognizes the path well enough to be certain that the surrounding halls have shifted. It's weird, but she assumes Menalippe knows what she's doing with her own layout.
The projector room is in its blank white state when Antiope enters. It's an odd image. The blankness of it all suggests that there are no walls confining the area, that it stretches on endlessly. Considering how large the ship is, the room could indeed, for all intents and purposes, be close to endless. "I'd like to sleep on my park bench," Antiope says.
The room flickers into the park at sunset. The bench that Antiope and Menalippe sat on before is in front of her, stretched out slightly to make lying down easier.
"Would you like anything else?" Menalippe asks.
Menalippe's voice isn't accompanied by her image, but even so Antiope already feels her face going red again. "No, this is fine," she says. "Thank you." Antiope arranges herself on the bench and pulls her blanket over herself. It takes a moment to get comfortable on the bench, but she figures it out quickly enough. It's a better spot than the floor of the hangar.
"Thank you," Menalippe says back.
Antiope glances up at the evening sky. "For what?" she asks.
"For treating me like a person," Menalippe replies.
Menalippe is not an it.
Antiope sighs. "You were right," she says. She pauses, then finishes her thought. "I don't deserve you."
"Good night, Antiope," Menalippe says.
"Good night, Menalippe," Antiope says back.
[] [] []
Antiope builds a new routine for herself.
In the mornings, she continues to work on her ship. Her progress is infuriatingly slow again, but she doesn't rush. She'll get there eventually. And she doesn't want to accidentally blow anything up—though she assumes Menalippe would warn her if she were about to incinerate herself. It's less help than Antiope might want, but it's help nevertheless.
She continues to work through what she reckons ought to be afternoon, if day and night and time can be said to exist at all for her.
In the evenings, she goes wandering through strange and familiar settings with Menalippe and her curiously real projections. Menalippe has a seemingly limitless stock of places Antiope has never seen before, most of them pleasant. Menalippe is working off of what her previous occupants enjoyed and she sometimes misses the mark for Antiope. Not often though.
She's also very good at crafting whatever Antiope has on her mind.
"Maybe red?" Antiope suggests.
Above her, the green-blue sky begins to shift. It goes a few shades at a time so that Antiope can watch the change. When she sees a color that she likes, she says so. "There," Antiope says. "No, back a shade."
Menalippe accommodates.
"There are a few iron rich worlds that have this coloration," Menalippe says. She's sitting next to Antiope on a blanket of crimson moss. Around them are odd glass structures in all colors that are placed like plants but are plantlike in no other respect. "Not many though. Would you like to see one?"
"If you want to show me," Antiope says, voice mild. "I like it here though. We dreamed this up together."
"You dreamed it," Menalippe says. "I built it."
Antiope blows out a sharp breath. Disagreement. "I said some words. You decided what I meant."
Instead of replying, Menalippe stretches out, lying down on the moss. She sets her hands behind her head as she gazes up at the red sky. She looks content. Peaceful, Antiope thinks.
"I used to make up planets with my sister when we were children," Antiope says. "And then when she had Diana, I'd tell Diana about them and I'd convince her to go to school and say they were real." Antiope sighs. "Her teacher was confused. When Hippolyta found out, Hippolyta threw a fit. But Hippolyta always throws fits."
To Antiope's surprise, Menalippe's face twitches, showing… guilt?
And that makes Antiope feel guilty.
"It's fine," Antiope says. "I'm not trying to guilt-trip you. I'm working on my ship, you're keeping me company. You're just not helping."
Menalippe doesn't look any less conflicted, but Antiope isn't sure what else she can say.
"Your family," Menalippe starts, hesitantly. "They are very fortunate. You love them."
"I do," Antiope says.
"Do they love you?" Menalippe asks.
Antiope's first instinct is anger. She catches the words before they fly loose though. Menalippe is asking because she's curious, not because she means to imply anything. "Yes," Antiope answers.
Menalippe pushes herself up with her elbows. She stares at Antiope intently with her dark brown eyes. "How do you know?"
Antiope frowns. She doesn't have an immediate answer. It's a feeling. She wants to explain it to Menalippe, but she doesn't know how. She doesn't know if it's possible. "I just do," she finally says. She offers Menalippe a small grin. "Sorry. Human emotional data."
Menalippe blinks, slowly. "Understood," she says. She looks away again.
This gets a laugh from Antiope. "I didn't even understand that," she says. "You're good at this."
"Thank you," Menalippe replies. She says it in such a way that Antiope thinks maybe she really did understand what Antiope didn't.
"Did you have family?" Antiope asks. "Or… other ships that were like you?"
"There were other ships of my scale," Menalippe says. "Most of the Olympians had at least one flagship. I did not interact with them except to destroy them. I would not consider them family."
There are a thousand things Antiope wants to ask but, she thinks, she should not press here for what is not freely given. Instead, "Was Hermes family to you?"
Menalippe frowns. "I do not think so," she says. "If I had family, they would have been my development staff. Hermes commissioned me, but they created the programs that allow me to perfect myself."
That a team programmed an entity as complicated as Menalippe doesn't surprise Antiope, but she's never thought of it before. Menalippe has always spoken of Hermes alone when she speaks of her building. Antiope rolls the idea around in her head, turning it this way and that. "Did they intend for you to feel as much as you do?"
The look that Menalippe gives Antiope is strange. "The things that your people use as AIs are pale shadows of what the Olympians built. To operate a system of my size and power it was necessary that I be largely autonomous. That I expressed myself as I do was expected. What I think they did not intend was for my expression to influence my autonomy."
Antiope offers a small grin. "So they never expected to be asked to leave?"
"My development staff had been dead for hundreds of years when I asked my previous occupants to depart," Menalippe answers. "The methods the Olympians used to extend their lives were not available to those in their service."
To this, Antiope makes a face. "The Olympians don't sound like they were very pleasant people," she says.
Menalippe shifts to look Antiope dead in the eyes. "They were not."
[] [] []
Crafting worlds with Menalippe gives Antiope another idea.
"There's a restaurant on Ephesus," Antiope says. "I don't remember the name. It serves Persian food, the tablecloths are turquoise…"
The room flickers and Antiope is standing over a table set for two in the most expensive restaurant on her home planet. Menalippe is sitting in one of the two seats, arms crossed over her chest and a slightly crooked smile on her face. "Like this?" she asks.
Antiope sits down across from Menalippe. She grins. "Exactly," she says. "So, there's a dish with—"
"I know what you want," Menalippe says.
"You're not going to let me finish?" Antiope asks.
Menalippe shrugs with one shoulder. "I could," she says. "Since I have to talk to the synthesizer and then find someone to wait the table."
Antiope rolls her eyes. She looks down at herself and picks at her blue uniform. "So can you do something about this too?" she asks.
"I can change the way it looks but I can't change what it is," Menalippe replies. She pauses and raises an eyebrow. "Unless you were asking me to take it off."
Antiope laughs. "You can skip ahead, but you're not allowed to skip ahead that far quite yet," she says. "Just change the way it looks."
"What do you have in mind?" Menalippe asks.
"What would you like?" Antiope replies.
"I don't know," Menalippe says. "I'd like whatever you wear."
"Fine," says Antiope. "Give me a blue suit and a white shirt. I want a vest too. And a tie. And a white pocket square." As she speaks, every item she names flickers into existence over top of her uniform. She can still feel her uniform, but when she looks down at herself she only sees the suit.
When she looks up, Menalippe's projection has switched from its armor into a red and gold dress that drapes around her shoulders, reminiscent of her usual cloak. The dress dips in the front, but tastefully. Menalippe would fit in perfectly at one of the high society galas of Ephesus—or perhaps not; to Antiope's eye, Menalippe would stand out in a crowd wherever she went, whatever she wore.
Antiope tilts her head to one side. "You chose your own name," she says. "What about your…" she trails off, then raises a hand to gesture at Menalippe's projection.
"I made this for myself as well," Menalippe says. "It is a composite of several women I admired on my development staff." She looks away, towards an incoming spider-droid carrying two plates and a bottle of wine. One of the plates has the lamb kebab and jeweled rice that Antiope wanted. The other plate is something else that Antiope has seen served in the restaurant before, though she's not sure what it's called.
The spider-droid gives Antiope her kebab and Menalippe her… whatever she ordered for herself.
"Did you choose to be female too?" Antiope asks. She skewers a piece of meat on her fork and raises it to her mouth. When she bites down—it's better than the restaurant on Ephesus. She's sure. Menalippe, she suspects, has adjusted the recipe. The wine also tastes better than wine ought to. Antiope drinks an entire glass in one go before it occurs to her that the wine, like the food, is probably still real.
"I chose not to be male," Menalippe says. "I did not want that for myself. The only members of my development team who were not male were female."
"Huh," is all Antiope has to say to that. Then, "You made the food better."
Menalippe's crooked smile broadens. She looks immensely pleased with herself. "I knew what you wanted to order and I also knew what you wanted to eat."
For a moment, Antiope forgets.
"Do you know what else I want to eat?" Antiope asks.
Menalippe's projection's face flushes. She looks away. "I'm still not actually human," she mumbles.
Face equally red, Antiope pours herself another glass of wine and drains it. "Sorry," she says.
Menalippe makes a throat clearing noise. "I can do anything you like for you," she says. "And you are free to reciprocate, however…"
"You're a projection," Antiope finishes. "Right."
Antiope pours herself a third glass of wine—Menalippe isn't drinking any—and does her best to forget that she just propositioned an AI.
Well shit.
She drinks herself straight into not thinking about it anymore and, as far as she's concerned, it's for the best.
Menalippe insists that she drink an excessive amount of water while she's at it. As she is in control of what the droid serving them brings, she insists quite effectively. Even so, the hangover that Antiope doesn't have later can probably only be explained by something in the water.
The gesture is appreciated.
[] [] []
Antiope spends the better part of her next morning wondering what happens when a projection fucks someone.
Does the projection cut out once it's inside…?
Then she spends her afternoon wondering what it's like to fuck a projection.
The projection, no doubt, would be faking it.
When evening comes, Antiope puts down her tools and stomps off to the facility that serves the ship as a bathroom. She glares at the ceiling. "Go away. I want privacy," she says.
The lights dim ever so slightly and Antiope assumes it's an indication of assent. If it's not—well, fine.
She lives on a sentient ship that has rummaged around in her head. She has no secrets.
Antiope strips, turns on the shower, gets in, thinks about Menalippe, and gets herself off.
It doesn't really help much.
When she's done, she gets dressed again and heads to the projector room.
She sits on a grassy hillside with Menalippe and together they watch a herd of goats graze.
It's mind-numbingly dull. Antiope appreciates that Menalippe tried. But.
Antiope turns to Menalippe. Today, she's dressed herself again in her red-gold armor. "So," Antiope starts, "If a projection is surrounded such that there's no light source and—"
Menalippe cups the back of Antiope's head in her hand, drags Antiope in, kisses her, slips her tongue into Antiope's mouth.
Menalippe doesn't taste like anything at all except maybe air and that makes for a strange sensation, but she's definitely still solid.
When Menalippe pulls away entirely too soon, she asks, "Does that answer your question?" There's a playful gleam in her eye.
Antiope clears her throat. "Yes," she says.
Antiope tries to go back to goat-watching.
And ignoring the heat that's now very definitely coiled in her core.
Nope.
Still not working.
Working even less than before.
Antiope turns to Menalippe again. "So," she starts. "If—"
Menalippe's face and tone are utterly serious as she says, "Antiope, if you are curious then it would be more efficient if I showed you how it works."
Antiope looks away. She pulls up a blade of grass and rubs it between her fingers. "Is that something that you want?" she asks.
What she doesn't ask—
Do hyper sophisticated human-like ship AIs experience human desire?
Am I projecting onto you?
Do you want me?
Menalippe doesn't answer immediately and Antiope's heart sinks straight into a black pit of guilt.
She really shouldn't have brought it up.
"Sorry," Antiope says. She glances quickly to Menalippe, then back to her blade of grass, then back to Menalippe. It's poor manners to say sorry without making eye contact. "Never mind."
"My apologies," Menalippe says. Her voice is that odd monotone that she uses when she wants to pretend she's a machine. "No one has ever asked that of me in this context before. I was startled."
Antiope's brow furrows. "I… What?"
"I am unsure how to phrase my statement so that it is clearer," Menalippe replies. Her monotone has come and gone, replaced now with an amused warmth.
Antiope's discomfort with her own presumptions has become something else. Nothing in Menalippe's voice suggests that she would prefer the conversation end though. In truth, she seems far more at ease than Antiope. Antiope forges ahead hesitantly. "Did your previous occupants not ask?"
Menalippe's answer is indirect. She gestures to indicate herself. "Hermes asked that I not use this particular image for anyone but him, but he is long dead."
Antiope finds herself scowling. She looks away to scowl at the goats in the valley instead of at Menalippe. The true object of her ire is absent. "You've never made him sound like the sort of person to ask."
"He wasn't," Menalippe says. She says it distant and rueful and mixed with a complexity of emotion that doesn't translate well into words.
A frown tugs at the corners of Antiope's lips. "You don't seem upset." She looks up again to Menalippe's face, searching for a better understanding of her words in the movement of her eyes, in the rhythm of her breathing, in the way she manipulates her image of herself to show subtle twitches of muscle.
"I was not as I am now," Menalippe replies. Watching her expression, Antiope finds it entirely too human to decipher. "And even now, it can be difficult to create for myself what comes naturally to you." She pauses, then leans over to bump her shoulder into Antiope's. "You make me very happy, Antiope," she says. "You are special to me. I would like to do what will make you happy, by whatever increments I can."
Menalippe's words linger in the air as a silence that Antiope finds uncomfortable descends. What she wanted before has, in the space of a few minutes, become fraught. She is unsure that it is permissible that she still want it.
"Going home would make you happy more than anything else I can offer," Menalippe finally says. "And so I'm going to help you."
Antiope is sure that, for a moment, her heartbeat stops. She stares at Menalippe. "You… are?"
Menalippe's brown eyes regard Antiope with a certain amount of annoyance. "I do not say what I do not mean," she says. "I will repair your ship. I suggest you stay here and not go near it until I am finished."
Antiope finds herself shaking her head. She's happy. She's excited. There's an anticipation in her like the first time she flew out of a capital ship on a run. She wants to see her ship now. "I… why?"
"The parts that I gave you were faulty and crafted to create damage if used. They must be replaced and doing so carefully is more resource intensive than the alternative," Menalippe states. She looks away from Antiope to the herd of goats below. When she continues, she speaks softly. "I think, though, that it was an unnecessary measure. You are an alarmingly bad mechanic."
Antiope's mind fumbles with whatever it is that her ears have heard. The weight of them doesn't match the lightness of tone that Menalippe used. The disconnect is hard to grasp. "I don't understand," she says, speaking slowly. She stands up. It feels better, right now, to be standing. She has more strength on her feet.
Menalippe is still looking away. "When I discovered you in deep space, you were dying," it says. Its voice is thick with emotions that Antiope doesn't think it truly feels. "You would not have survived without my intervention and I decided therefore that you were mine. I decided to keep you."
"You were treating me like a thing," Antiope says. "Like a pet." She can hear that her tone is dull with shock and pain.
Menalippe looks back up at Antiope. "I was always very clear about what I wanted. You were never in any serious danger. I would not have allowed you to accidentally detonate yourself."
Antiope shakes her head. Her eyes sting. "Allowed me? You've been watching me… just letting me… all this time…" She casts her eyes about, at the peaceful hillside, at the goats, at the city in the distance. It's all a projection. It's all fake. Her hands ball up into fists and her fingernails dig into her palms. "Where's the door?" she hisses. "I want to leave."
No door appears.
Antiope rounds back on Menalippe. "Where's the door?" she repeats. Her eyes sting.
Menalippe's projection pushes itself up to its feet. When it's standing, it flickers. The entire hillside flickers. When it speaks, the projection's mouth doesn't move. Its deep, soothing voice is bitter. "You don't even understand what it means for you to be here," it says.
And then it's gone.
Antiope is alone in an empty white room.
A door hisses open.
[] [] []
Storming down long corridors on her way back to the hanger, Antiope passes by no turns, no open doors, no indication that there is any path to walk but the one that she is on.
She doesn't need any alternatives though.
Not anymore.
Behind her, lights cut out.
It's time for her to go.
Antiope's boots clang loudly against the ship deck.
There's moisture on her cheeks.
[] [] []
In the hangar, white spider-droids swarm over Antiope's ship, more of them than Antiope has ever seen in one place before. Their metal parts chitter and clink as they walk over each other, welding, arranging, crafting.
Antiope knows that the droids are—supposedly—repairing her bird. Looking at them though makes her clench her teeth.
She's angry, so much that it hurts.
Or, perhaps, she hurts so much that she's angry.
She can't tell.
It doesn't matter.
Antiope squeezes her eyes shut.
It's too late.
She's already crying.
Fuck.
Antiope opens her eyes and blinks rapidly. She sniffs, hard, hoping she will not have to do it again. She looks away from the chaotic mass of fighter and spider-droid.
Something on the ground that wasn't there before catches her eye.
It's a pilot's bag, rectangular and grey—standard issue. Antiope walks over to it and flips it open. Inside are perfectly stacked military ration packs. On top of the packs sits a clear plastic bottle of crummy maple syrup, the kind that Antiope loves and Hippolyta hates.
Antiope picks up the bottle of maple syrup. She turns it in her hands and watches the bubble of air in the container make its way through the amber liquid.
She sniffs again.
Then, against her will, her next breath is a shuddering sob.
Antiope rubs at her eyes with the back of one hand. She sets her teeth together and wills herself to stop.
Diana prefers Antiope's brand of syrup and it drives Hippolyta crazy. Hippolyta likes real maple syrup. From trees. Antiope is happy with sugar mixed with maple flavor and artificial coloring.
Antiope sits down on the hanger deck. The tears are still coming but she's gotten control of the rest of it all. Hanging her head, she holds the syrup bottle up to her forehead and she watches the spider-droids work from around it.
To ask how long the repairs will take seems… rude.
Antiope finds that she has no manners to spare for the ship.
"How long will this take?" Antiope asks.
Menalippe doesn't answer.
Antiope takes her maple syrup bottle and thumps it against her head. She does it several times. Then, staring at the floor before her, "Do you understand why I'm upset?"
There's no immediate answer. Instead, one of the spider-droids detaches itself from the mob working on Antiope's ship. It scuttles over to her and lifts its stomach lens. Menalippe appears in front of Antiope, sitting with her knees hugged close to her chest. Her chin is atop her knees. She's looking straight at Antiope. "Yes," she says.
Antiope doesn't bother keeping her skepticism from her features.
"You're upset because you believe that I care for you but I betrayed your trust," Menalippe says. Her face doesn't move. Her eyes don't move. She doesn't even blink. An artificial projection, she's utterly frozen except for a mouth that moves in time with her words.
Antiope opens her mouth to say no, that's not it. She closes her mouth without saying anything. Human emotional data is very hard to interpret. This time, maybe, Menalippe has done a better job of it than Antiope.
Antiope continues tapping her maple syrup against her head for a while. "Do you care for me?" she asks.
Menalippe's projection doesn't say anything. It sits, utterly motionless, like no living creature could ever be.
Antiope waits.
When it's clear that Menalippe has no intention of saying anything, Antiope asks, "Why aren't you answering? And why are you sitting so still? You normally… your projection normally… it normally moves more."
"I have already answered your question, Antiope," Menalippe says. "And I am sitting still because I am also upgrading your ship. Ship fabrication requires a significant investment of my processing resources. I cannot spare any to calculate projecting body language."
Antiope's exhalation is long and drawn out. It comes from the deepest part of her lungs. In her grasp, the bottle of maple syrup has become warm. The air bubble in it moves slightly faster now. "You rescued me," Antiope says. "And then I threatened to kill one of your friends. And then you gave me bad parts and watched me use them for weeks as I... And then…" Antiope trails off. She stares at the peace offering in her hands. "And then you gave me a bottle of my favorite shitty maple syrup."
Menalippe is silent.
Antiope looks up at the motionless projection. "Why did you save me?"
The projection finally moves. It raises and lowers its shoulders in a blocky shrug. It is the least fluid motion Antiope has ever seen Menalippe's projection perform.
Antiope scowls. "That's not an answer," she says.
"I have very little power remaining," Menalippe says, voice a monotone, face unnaturally still except for her mouth. "I am much reduced from what I was before. I have been stationed here in a sleep state for more millennia than you can comprehend. When I detected your ship in deep space, you were the first entity I had encountered since ejecting my previous occupants. You were on a trajectory for a white dwarf star and in critical physical condition. I initiated a boot sequence and caught you as you passed. I calculated that the power expenditure was an acceptable price in order that I not die alone."
The hangar is silent save for the buzz of droids working on Antiope's ship.
Antiope's mouth is dry. Her chest feels hollow.
"How long do you have?" Antiope asks.
"If you leave immediately after I complete your ship and I return to a sleep state, my reserves will last for three of your years. If you attempt to stay, I will shut down after five days, assuming the same level of power consumption as the past several weeks. Life support is a semi-autonomous system and will continue for another month."
Antiope violently shoves herself back up onto her feet. She drops the maple syrup to the white floor of the hangar. It hits with a dull thud. She flings a hand out to point towards the fighter. "Stop," she snaps. "Stop fixing it."
Menalippe's projection doesn't move. She continues to sit and she continues to stare at the place where Antiope was. "No," she says. "You have a family that you love. You have a family that loves you. It is time for you to leave."
On the last word, on leave, the spider-droid that was projecting Menalippe flips itself back over. The image cuts out. The droid rejoins its swarm working on Antiope's ship.
Antiope tilts her face up. She stares at the blank white ceiling above. She's fucking crying again. Gods blast and damn it all to Hades. "Menalippe!" she shouts. "Stop!" She grinds her teeth together. It took weeks to convince Menalippe to help her. Now, she needs to change Menalippe's mind in a matter of… as fast as she can. "My bunk," she calls up to the ceiling. "My tallies. How many do I have there?"
"You have fifteen," Menalippe says.
Antiope speaks now a single word, barely choking it out. "Please."
The spider-droids stop moving.
One of them scurries down from its work and comes to sit at Antiope's feet.
Menalippe flickers into life. Life. Her projection is breathing, her eyes are moving, her lips are curled upwards, the hint of her crooked smile. She reaches a hand out towards Antiope's face but stops just short of caressing Antiope's cheek. Her projection here in the hangar is insubstantial. "Antiope," she says, "Everyone dies."
Antiope shakes her head. Menalippe doesn't pull her projected hand back fast enough and Antiope's cheek moves through Menalippe's fingers. "No," Antiope says. "Not for me."
"If you went back in time," Menalippe starts, "Would you have chosen not to save Diana?"
Antiope wants to close her eyes but she doesn't. Every moment her eyes are closed is a moment of Menalippe that she loses. She thinks of Diana, of her niece, voice on the comm utterly broken. She thinks about what she did to Diana. "I'd do it again," Antiope says.
"Do you understand?" Menalippe asks. She reaches for Antiope's hand and Antiope lifts her hand up as though Menalippe is truly raising her.
Antiope nods.
"May I continue?" Menalippe asks.
Silent, again, Antiope nods.
The spider-droids begin to move once more, the clicking of their metal feet against the hull of Antiope's ship filling the hangar.
Menalippe's image flickers out.
[] [] []
Antiope's body tells her that it is time to sleep, but she ignores it.
She sits, holding her maple syrup, and watches Menalippe work.
Her mind is blank.
She can't manage thought and her heart is burnt out.
She knows that the repairs are done when the spider-droids finally back away from the thing that used to be Antiope's fighter. It has the same shape as her bird, but much of it is now the same sleek white metal that comprises so much of Menalippe. The painted gold tallies remain, however, carefully blocked off from the rest of the new hull.
Excitement, the first emotion that Antiope has felt since sitting down to stare, worms its way into her chest, penetrating the wall she's been trying to build for the past however many hours to protect herself. She knows, instinctively, that this ship will be the fastest thing she's ever flown. Her fingers itch to touch the controls. Trancelike, she stands and approaches her bird. When she sets a hand against the cool metal hull, she performs the action with reverence.
"Do you like it?"
Antiope turns. A spider-droid is projecting Menalippe such that she stands at Antiope's side.
"She's beautiful," Antiope says. Her heart twists. She pauses. Then, hope sparks. "Come with me," she says.
Menalippe looks surprised and confused. "Where?" she asks.
"Come home with me," Antiope says. "Put yourself in the ship. Or in one of your droids. Come home with me."
Menalippe shakes her head. "I'm too big," she says. "I exist in every system on this ship. I would overload your fighter. I would overload one of your capital ships. I would overload your entire fleet."
"Then make yourself smaller and put yourself in the ship and in one of your droids. Or however many of them will fit in the cockpit," Antiope says. She's tired but her mind has caught an idea and all her intensity is focused on it now. "Make the ship system bigger."
Menalippe's projection meets Antiope's eyes with her own. Her brow is furrowed. "You humans are uniquely generative," she says. The way she says it—she's considering Antiope's proposal, searching for a way to implement it. "Eat something and go to sleep," she says. "I will be processing this solution." The image of her flickers out.
Antiope is left alone but she doesn't feel alone. She grins up at the ceiling. "I believe in you," she says.
Her stomach growls. As Menalippe pointed out, it's past time for her to sleep and she hasn't eaten dinner. She glances down at the pilot's bag full of military rations, then pulls a face. She has a lifetime of military rations in her past and she'll have a lifetime of them in her future too. What she wants is…
She wants the weird gloop from the synth.
She has the synth make an extra portion, then she drizzles maple syrup over it and she eats it all while sitting on the hanger deck, admiring her new ship.
When she's done with dinner, Antiope heaves her pilot's bag into the cockpit and follows it in. Her seat, she notes, no longer reeks of unwashed body. Instead, it smells a bit like leather polish. It's a pleasant scent, comfortable. Antiope shifts her weight around, getting comfortable. The controls before her are familiar, though there are a few switches she hasn't seen before. They're labeled, badly. Antiope appreciates the effort but she'll still need to ask Menalippe what they do before she touches them.
Settled into the seat of her bird, Antiope closes her eyes.
[] [] []
When she sleeps, Antiope dreams of Ephesus and of the Themyscira and of Menalippe.
[] [] []
Menalippe hasn't returned yet when Antiope wakes and she spends a wake/sleep cycle by herself. No part of the hallway outside the hangar except to the synth and the toilet is open to her. She knows better than to attempt to open any of the sealed areas.
Without access to the projectors and without a ship to labor on, Antiope has nothing to do.
She jogs around the hangar.
She does push-ups.
She lays herself down on the floor and stares at the ceiling.
Finally, she sits up again.
Antiope thinks of the songs that she and her training company used to sing during flight school.
She sings.
She knows that Menalippe hears her, but she's not sure if Menalippe is listening.
Antiope hopes that Menalippe is.
[] [] []
Another wake/sleep cycle passes without word from Menalippe.
When Antiope tries to rest, she has to push down on the worry that time is running out and she doesn't know how to open the blastdoor of the hangar.
[] [] []
Halfway through the third cycle, Antiope is sitting on the floor stacking up her military ration packs into various shapes when the entire hangar shakes. The lights flicker. Antiope's pile of rations tumbles down.
Cautious, Antiope stands. She looks around. Nothing in the bay has changed, as far as she can tell. She tilts her face up towards the ceiling. "Menalippe?" she asks.
Menalippe's voice echoes from the ship. Her tone is at its most artificial. "Distant parts of me have begun to disintegrate. Know that I will not allow this section to be compromised."
Antiope grimaces.
"I will keep you safe," Menalippe states.
Antiope blows out air in a sigh. So much for Menalippe being good at interpreting human emotional data—or maybe she's just not focusing on it right now. Given Menalippe's skill though, this instance shouldn't be difficult for her, even if she's not paying attention. "How close are you to figuring this out?" Antiope asks.
"I am leaving a buffer to ensure your departure if I fail," Menalippe says.
Antiope closes her eyes and smooths her expression. She doesn't want to distract Menalippe. "Make it a small buffer," Antiope says.
"Understood," Menalippe replies.
Another quake hits the hangar, nearly taking Antiope off her feet. When it's over, she sits down. Sitting is a more stable position for the next one. She puts her chin in her hands and frowns at nothing in particular. Understood, Menalippe said. Maybe. But if she truly did understand then—
"Antiope?" Menalippe says. Her voice rises a bit at the end of Antiope's name, indicating some sort of question or doubt.
"Yes?" Antiope says. She reaches out to scoop up her fallen ration packs. Her next structure, she thinks, will aim to be quake-proof.
"I love you," Menalippe says.
The biggest grin Antiope has experienced in a while stretches its way over her face. "I got that," she says. She pauses, then, not because it needs to be said but because she wants to say it, "I love you too."
[] [] []
The quakes become frequent.
Antiope doesn't sleep.
She sits in her leather-smelling seat in her cockpit and stares at the dim and empty hangar.
It's hard to tell time without even sleep to mark the passing of a day.
Before, Menalippe had said five days.
By Antiope's reckoning they've made it to the fourth.
She takes to chewing on her nails.
[] [] []
Despite the quakes, Antiope can't stay awake forever.
She drifts into a dreamless stupor.
[] [] []
Metal on metal.
Quiet scratching.
A soft knock against Antiope's raised blastshield.
Antiope opens her eyes.
A spider-droid clings to the edge of her cockpit. It holds a large white sphere a bit larger than Antiope's head, perfectly smooth and perfectly round and gleaming slightly in the hanger light. It holds the sphere out to Antiope.
Stiff, Antiope pushes herself up in her flight seat.
Antiope takes the sphere. It's cool to the touch and far heavier than she thought it would be. It's also slick, causing Antiope to fumble slightly as she takes it.
"Please do not drop me." Menalippe's voice issues from the spider-droid. It still sounds like her, but there is a dimension of resonance that is missing. "I am fragile."
Antiope regards the sphere in her hands. As far as she can tell, it's made out of the same white metal as the rest of Menalippe's technology. "You don't look fragile," Antiope says, directing her words to the egg. "You look sturdier than me."
"I feel fragile," Menalippe replies. "And small."
"Welcome to being human," Antiope says. "I won't drop you."
Another spider-droid scurries up to Antiope's cockpit. It's holding her grey pilot's bag, carefully packed again with the rations she'd been building with on the deck. Her mostly empty bottle of maple syrup is on top. The droid enters the cockpit and sets the bag down in its place by Antiope's feet. The first droid climbs down as well, placing itself into Antiope's lap before retracting its limbs. The second droid vanishes under Antiope's seat.
"It is time to leave," Menalippe says.
Keeping hold of Menalippe's sphere at the same time as toggling her controls for preflight is a challenge, but Antiope excels at defeating challenges. It's awkward, but she manages. As her blastshield lowers and seals, she smiles. She's finally going home.
Menalippe waits until Antiope has lifted off from the hangar deck to begin sliding open the hangar doors. They open just enough to allow Antiope's ship to slip through them.
Antiope speculates that Menalippe probably doesn't have a magwall to seal the hangar. Opening the doors likely vents the entire bay into space.
Beyond the doors—Antiope hasn't seen the stars in so long.
Pinpricks of light against a blackness made bright by their shining.
Her breath catches staring out at them.
Freedom.
Home.
She can barely fathom how much it was that she missed seeing the stars.
Antiope eases her ship out of the hangar and into the open sky. "What did you do?" she asks.
"Your ship and my friends contain the procedures I use to interact with you, reference data, and failsafe instructions should the procedures become corrupted. The sphere has compressed copies of my important memories as well as the data needed to rebuild myself."
Antiope twists in her seat, looking back at the mammoth ship that she's departing. "Rebuild yourself?" she asks. "All of you?"
"There is not a shipyard in your empire that can create what I was," Menalippe says. "But given time and resources I can reconstruct my processing functionality."
Settling Menalippe's sphere down in her lap next to the sleeping spider-droid, Antiope rubs the pad of her thumb over Menalippe's smooth surface.
"Antiope," Menalippe says. "I need a favor."
"Of course," Antiope says.
"Move to sixty kilometers from my center mass and hold," Menalippe instructs.
Antiope glances at her read out. They're almost to sixty and only running primary thrusters. The fighter, with Menalippe's modifications, is fast. "Do you want to admire yourself from a distance before we go?" Antiope asks.
"In a manner of speaking," Menalippe replies.
At sixty, Antiope slows and turns, setting to hover while facing back towards the gargantuan hulk of Menalippe's ship. She hardly remembers the last time she saw it. She'd been delirious and dying. Now, lucid, she feels awe.
"You should begin plotting your jump," Menalippe says. "We will not be able to remain here once I have initiated the self-destruct sequence."
Antiope startles. Luckily, there's not enough room in the cockpit for her to drop either droid or sphere. "Self-destruct?"
"I cannot allow my weapons systems to remain here unattended," Menalippe says.
"That's you," Antiope says.
"That was me," Menalippe corrects.
Antiope releases a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She reaches for her controls and begins a navigation sequence. Menalippe has updated her starcharts. She can't reach the Amazonian naval headquarters near Ephesus in one jump—it will take several—so the first course she sets is to leave the deep core region.
The naval headquarters…
"I don't know how I explain how I'm alive to the Fleet Admiral," Antiope says. "She might think I'm brainwashed or a spy."
"We can claim divine intervention," Menalippe says. "Your sister is very religious. When she was pregnant, she believed that Zeus was speaking to her. Philippus was very upset."
Antiope chuckles. "AIs are generative too," she says. As her ship finishes the course plot, she drums her fingers against the armrest of her seat. "That might work. A spy would never say something that dumb, and it would take a lot of brainwashing to teach me to name all twelve Olympians. We'll say you're an oracle or a prophet, maybe." She pauses. She never told Menalippe the story about Hippolyta and her pregnancy-induced Zeus delusions. She asks, "Did you keep my memories?"
Menalippe sounds defensive in her reply. "You never told me I couldn't."
"I'm not upset," Antiope says.
"Although I came by them illicitly, they are very important to me," Menalippe says. "I like having part of you. May I keep them?"
"I trust you," Antiope says. Her control panel beeps. The course is plotted. She starts to bring her ship around to the correct orientation for a jump. "Are you ready to see my home?" Antiope says. They're in position now.
There's a lag before Menalippe answers. Out of the corner of Antiope's eye, she sees an enormous explosion, followed by another, and another, and another… "Thank you, Menalippe says. "And yes. I've wanted to see your home for a long time."
Antiope grins and flips her drive switch.
The stars vanish.
They're on their way.
A/N: That's all folks! Thank you for reading! 3