[Gundam 00] In the Machine (Part I)
Title: In the Machine
Fandom: Gundam 00
Pairing: Variations on Feldt/Tieria/Lockon (Neil). Primarily Feldt/Tieria, one-sided Feldt/Lockon, mostly one-sided Tieria/Lockon with voyeur!Feldt.
Rating: NC-17 (PG in this section)
Wordcount: 13,629 (6,150 in this section)
Notes: The result of a kinkmeme prompt that got out of hand. This is all Feldt point of view all the time and actually has very little sex, but a lot of character drama.
Summary: Feldt's own brain has surprises in store for her. When an electronic implant rewires her to be a cyborg, she uses her new abilities to better Celestial Being--but somewhere inside all that is still a teenage girl who is scared of what she's becoming.
Feldt always dreamed in computer code. It informed her thought processes much better than the precarious reality of colors and people. With the proper expression and equation, a problem could be solved. It was much easier than when she needed speak to people and tell them of her feelings, or when she could go shopping, or when she could not go shopping because Christina was no longer here to take her and they were all too busy repairing and rebuilding, in any case.
In fact, Feldt often thought in computer code. It was only when she dreamed in it that she understood that there was a deeper reason for this than its mere convenience. When she dreamed, she was aware of that knot of wires buried at the base of her brain, ready to unravel when more skill and precision, more speed and strength, more processing power was needed. For a while, she begged it not to expand. She was enjoying being human too much.
Then loss hit her like a stray comet, the kind that once caused an extinction. She cracked, then, briefly, and in her dreams she asked the implants deep in her brain to take over for her. But there was no response. She was left to be human and in pain.
Now Feldt was better. It had only been a few days, but she had a new resolve. And when she dreamed, she no longer asked the implant to extend its wires through her, to reroute her love and her grief into perfect skill and machine precision. She was determined now to hold onto her humanity and make the very best of it. She had already shed too many tears and lost too much love to give it up now. For the sake of those who were gone, like Lockon and Christina, and for the sake of those who remained, like Tieria and, somewhere, Setsuna, she would keep going.
But for all her own resolve, Celestial Being was weakening. Tieria returned, but Sumeragi left. They had few resources and fewer people to make use of them. The proto-intelligence that guided the implant observed this. It observed that, should it make the necessary changes, Feldt could synchronize her originally biological brain with Tieria's, which had always been electronic and always would be, no matter how much he learned of being human. It observed that the ways in which it was built to augment its host would allow Feldt to manipulate GN particles in new and beneficial ways. It took action.
So no matter what her own decision was, one morning shortly after Tieria's return, Feldt awoke with her eyes shimmering silver from the quantum flow of information through the visual interface with her brain's new structure. She could do new things. She could help Celestial Being better this way.
She tried not to think of what she might be losing. Instead, she focused on the mission.
* * *
She only had to tell Ian, Lasse, and Tieria; they were the only ones left. Ian smiled and reassured her that she was still Feldt, and he'd still need her help repairing the Gundams. He seemed a little uncomfortable, though. Feldt would not have noticed this before, but the new dimensions to her brain fed her so much information that even she could pick up on subtle social cues. That didn't mean she understood them. Why was he uncomfortable? Was it because she was so strange now? Or--she hated to think this, because it would mean he'd been keeping secrets from her, and she didn't want to think that of her family--had he been one of the ones to fit the implant to her in the first place?
Even now, she didn't know how that had happened. She just knew now that it was there, and it was active. She found herself hoping that the ones who had done it to her were not here. It felt cold, and while she was grateful to be of more use to Celestial Being, she was irrationally scared of it.
Lasse left with Ian, clearly still digesting the information he'd learned, and then Feldt and Tieria were the only ones in the meeting room. That was good, because she had more to explain to Tieria. But first she wished she knew more about how he felt. He'd shown no reaction except faint surprise at her revelation, and now he watched her with solemn and earnest eyes. She realized that no matter what, she'd soon know a great deal more about how he felt.
"There's more to this," he guessed.
"Yes," she said. "I didn't want to say it in front of the others, but...Tieria, I know about you now."
Now he showed signs of what the new connections in her brain said was vulnerability. His mouth opened just so; he cast his eyes down. "I see. Then you realize I'm not...no, I am human. Lockon Stratos told me I am human." He was still reassuring himself, still exploring the idea. That was what that hesitation in his speech meant.
Lockon Stratos. The name still pulled a pang from Feldt's chest, and her brain puzzled at this. Surely she no longer needed these negative and painful emotions. But those parts of her had not been rerouted yet, and Feldt resisted the idea that they would be. She turned her razor-sharp thoughts instead to Tieria and what she needed to tell him now.
"My brain is now built to link with yours," she said.
His eyes widened. A human indication of shock. "Explain."
"I can link my superior information processing skills with your superior electronic senses and guide you," Feldt said. "Tieria, I'll feel what you feel." She felt as if she should apologize for that. It didn't seem right.
"What good will this do us?" Tieria said. He was stiff now. She took a strange comfort in that: they were both uncertain of this.
"I don't know yet," Feldt confessed. "But my first mission has been uploaded." She stopped the tremors in her voice; it was surprisingly easy with her new brain. "We have to find the bodies of the ones who died in battle. I might be able to revive them with the right use of GN particles."
Tieria stared at her as if--as if--she had no metaphor for it. Metaphors were useless anyway, weren't they? He said, "I understand. It's acceptable, then, that you link with me. No matter what the price."
* * *
Ordinarily it would have been quite impossible to find four human bodies scattered in space, in places that the remains of the Ptolemaios had long since left behind. But Feldt could perform the four-dimensional calculations necessary to determine their locations in seconds. She just couldn't explain to other people, normal people (and Tieria), how she could do it. Locating small objects in space was one of her purposes now. Explaining the details of it was not.
What was left of the Ptolemaios was not maneuverable enough to return to the places where the records and Feldt's calculations showed the bodies should be. But Nadleeh had been repaired enough that it could return to the scene, albeit with almost nonexistent weaponry. It was a risk. Feldt deemed it acceptable. So did Tieria.
"I see," he said. "That's why you need to link with me. The coordinates are far too precise to entrust to ordinary communications."
"Yes," Feldt said. "It isn't anything personal. I'll leave your thoughts alone." She hesitated, not sure she was being entirely honest. It was funny how she still couldn't tell that. So she added, "I don't know how much I can. But I'll try, Tieria."
He looked away for a moment, and when he turned to face her again, his eyes were bright. "I don't mind," he said. "My brain was designed to link with Veda. If any information in it could be useful to you, take it."
"I'm not Veda," she said. "I'm still Feldt. Aren't I...?"
"Of course," Tieria said. "We should test this link before employing it on the mission itself."
Feldt nodded. She didn't waste any more time; she simply reached for Tieria's forehead, the tips of her fingers resting at his temples.
Something arced between them. It was invisible--quantum tunneling happened on a level too minuscule even for Feldt's new eyes to see--but they both felt it. And then--
Feldt was looking out through Tieria's eyes, staring into her own silver ones, watching the newly inhuman irises scroll more and more rapidly with flashes of code. Her enhanced perception remained; she was simply using it from another person's eyes. But that wasn't all. Underneath it hummed thoughts she couldn't ignore. Gratitude, gratitude, thoughts that she could barely put into words, I was meant to link my brain to Veda, and then I was meant to protect Lockon, perhaps I can still come close enough, and hope, hope. That was there too.
Feldt released the connection. "I'm ready now," she said. "Tieria, will you be all right in Nadleeh?"
"So long as you guide me," he said.
* * *
Feldt sent Nadleeh to the site the Ptolemaios had occupied during the battle first. She had watched the video record from Dynames to determine where she should send Tieria next, but that could wait. First, they had to retrieve and study the bodies of Joyce Moreno, Lichtendal Tsery, and Christina Sierra.
Or at least, they had to study them. The moment Tieria focused Nadleeh's sensors on them, Feldt knew that there was no chance of revival in these cases. The bodily damage was irrelevant, as was the time that had passed--the vacuum of space preserved already-broken bodies well (too well, Feldt thought, because against all her new programming, this was hurting her). The problem was the concentration of GN particles; it wasn't nearly great enough.
Still, it was difficult for her to navigate Nadleeh away from where the bridge of the Ptolemaios had been. Logic and the demands of the mission told her that she should leave all the bodies where they were. They certainly didn't have the resources to arrange a proper burial, and as they were now, they were nothing but empty, meaningless husks. But still, she made Tieria's gaze linger on Christina, or just her shattered body. Feldt wondered, still confused despite all her processing power, why Christina had died that way. A part of her knew that right and wrong had nothing to do with life and death, but another part of her didn't care.
Feldt. It was Tieria. He was communicating with her, and she could feel flashes of fumbling sympathy in the words and the feelings beneath them. It would be all right for you to cry.
I promised not to cry, Feldt told him, and for a moment she was human again. Promises were a human thing. But in the process, she felt her connection with Tieria start to weaken, and she had to clutch at it hurriedly, and by the time she'd reestablished it, the threat of tears was gone. Tieria, let's continue to--
The connection fell painfully silent as far as spoken words went. But Feldt could make out a sea of emotions beneath it. The thought occurred to her: if she continued as necessary upon the path of her programming, one day she would only be able to feel those emotions by linking with Tieria. In her own mind, the neurons for creating such strong feelings would be remade so she could better serve the purpose of Celestial Being. But right now, she shared those feelings with him. No, not entirely--Lockon had meant different things to each of them. But they had been similar things.
She drew on the information she'd calculated based on the video records from Dynames, and she sent Nadleeh along its way to the next position. But as Tieria approached (his heart was pounding; Feldt could detect such things), she noticed something else.
Someone's disturbed the site. It happened almost immediately after the battle.
Tieria stilled. Explain.
I've sent you to an asteroid that I calculated captured the debris of the GN-Arms and Lockon's body, Feldt told him. But it should have captured some of the debris of Gundam Throne Zwei as well.
A sudden surge of new emotion came to her from Tieria. Hatred. It was new to him, too, she could tell from the shock that followed. And the body of that man as well?
That could have been captured by another nearby asteroid, Feldt sent. But... With Tieria's hands, she activated the best scanners Nadleeh currently had. She searched. She used her own enhanced perception. There was nothing of Throne Zwei or its last occupant--nothing at all.
Tieria filled in the blanks, although Feldt had already come to the conclusion herself. He survived.
A burst of emotion overtook Feldt despite everything. We'll fix that! We have to! Then she stopped herself. No, it's also possible someone else retrieved the body and was unable to do anything with it. But...
There was only grim determination from Tieria. Unlikely.
In any case, they had something more important to do. Feldt guided Nadleeh around the asteroid, until--
Tieria? What are you doing?
He'd spotted the body as soon as she had, even though with his lesser perceptions, it should have been impossible. Now he was opening his cockpit and launching himself out. Feldt hurried to control Nadleeh remotely, using one of its hands to scoop up Lockon's broken form. As soon as she did, Tieria landed next to it.
Tieria?
He sent nothing back along the link, at least not intentionally. But looking out through his eyes, she saw him touch the shattered visor of Lockon's helmet and shy away from the burned and fractured parts of his flight suit. She felt a resurgence of overwhelming grief, and then she was fighting it herself, and back where her physical body was, she knew she'd broken her promise. She was crying.
Her programming told her that it would be best to let the tears flow, then resume her work. So she did, and what was still human in her shivered at her conclusions. The GN particle concentration here is high enough.
Tieria froze. What does that mean? But he knew. She could feel it in the way his heart beat faster and his throat tightened up. She still had those reactions, too.
It means I can restore his body and brain to a pre-death state, Feldt said. It was the natural description of what she was going to do, but somehow it seemed an inadequate description. So she allowed herself to add a simpler one. I can bring him back.
* * *
Feldt released her hold on Tieria's mind as soon as Nadleeh was on its way back to the base. It was more accurate to call it that than to call it the Ptolemaios, her increasingly rational brain reminded her, as the Ptolemaios had been destroyed and this place had hardly been rebuilt enough to qualify as its successor yet. The fact that she wanted to keep calling it by the name of the place where she'd formed her first bonds of friendship and family was one of those things about her human brain she would eventually have to come to terms with giving up. She would be better, in the future. For now, she had work to do.
They still had a GN drive left from Dynames. That would do, to power what Feldt needed to do. With that energy and Feldt's new abilities, the makeshift sickbay they'd put together would be enough. Their current regeneration technology was subpar, but she would enhance it beyond anything they'd had before.
By the time Tieria returned in Nadleeh with Lockon's body, Feldt was ready. Tieria and Lasse both helped put Lockon's body into the spare regeneration pod, both of them moving stiffly, uncomfortable with the task. Or perhaps they were uncomfortable with Feldt's unseeing and all-seeing silver eyes. She hoped it wasn't that. She didn't want to scare people away from her. She'd put so much effort into becoming close to them, even when it hurt.
But she couldn't spare the time for thoughts like that, so with the help of the new connections in her brain, she pushed them away. "This will take a few weeks," she said.
"We'll be ready in the cafeteria when you need to take a break," Lasse said. Maybe it hadn't been her strange eyes making him uncomfortable after all. Feldt was more grateful for that than she needed to be.
But she still had to turn him down. "I'll be switching entirely to electronic mode for this," she said. "I'll get all the power I need from the GN drive."
"I wasn't aware you could do that," Tieria said. "Even I..." He trailed off. With Lasse in the room, he didn't want to say more.
"I'll provide updates," Feldt said softly. "I know this is important to you too. To all of you. Lockon Stratos was part of Celestial Being. Soon, he will be again."
* * *
Lockon was dead. He was not merely dormant in some way. Feldt had to perform what some people still considered a miracle: she had to bring him back to life.
It was the brain that was the problem. By extending the wires of her implant out through her hand and carefully rerouting the components of the stripped-bare regeneration pod, Feldt could easily restore Lockon's body. It would take time--that was why she'd told Tieria and Lasse that it would take weeks--but she could do it. But there was no point unless she could restore electrical activity to the brain--and not just any electrical activity, but the same activity that had once filled it. Otherwise, they would have only succeeded in reviving a blank slate with Lockon's face.
That was where the GN particles came in, along with Feldt's new abilities. This was one of the things she had been designed for (was it her who had been designed for this, or just the implant? What was the difference, now?): reviving lost members of the crew when this specific accident of physics allowed it.
The area Lockon had died in had been saturated with GN particles. They lingered on in the silent corridors of his brain, and as soon as she finished setting up the regeneration pod to heal his body, Feldt turned her attention to this. She plucked the memory of withered neurons from the particles, and she restored what they told her to. Bit by bit, she brought Lockon back. She had never been happier to be useful.
She continued to be happy, until she reached his visual cortex.
The GN particles had not fully penetrated there. Perhaps it was because of his existing eye injury. Perhaps it was only coincidence. But she would be able to restore dim, shadowy sight at best, no matter how hard she worked--and she was ready to work hard. But her programming stopped her. It would be pointless to revive a member of Celestial Being who had served as a sniper if he could no longer see. It was better to leave him dead.
But her programming did not have full hold on her yet. Feldt still remembered the feeling she and Tieria had shared when Nadleeh had scooped up Lockon's near-shattered body. She still remembered how it had felt when Lockon put one gloved hand on her head. He didn't need to be able to snipe to do that. He didn't need to be able to snipe to be Lockon Stratos, she decided. So she continued to work. No matter how little he saw, she still wanted Lockon back.
She was using her new abilities for purposes they were not approved for, she realized. But she thought it was okay, because Lockon had helped teach her that it was all right to open up to people and care about them. Maybe even without sight, he could teach them all more.
Nineteen days after she started the operation, Feldt finished the system restore of Lockon's brain. His good eye would see only faint patterns of light and dark, but he was alive again.
* * *
When the work was over, Feldt retreated from the sickbay. She was not exhausted in any physical sense; the GN drive had indeed supplied all her power needs over the past nearly three weeks. But the magnitude of what she had done still frightened her a little. She was just Feldt. She wasn't even a Gundam Meister. How had she become someone who could blur the line between the living and the dead? All she'd wanted was her family back.
Tieria found her as she was returning to her quarters. "Feldt Grace," he said stiffly.
She wondered if the name still fit her, or if she should be something else. But she responded anyway. "What is it, Tieria?"
"Are you done?"
She didn't need to link with his brain to tell that he was anxious. It was still strange, that perception the implant and its extensive rerouting of her brain gave her. She could observe things about people's emotional states that she'd never been able to figure out before. But she was starting to have trouble knowing why it mattered. For now, though, she was anxious as well. She nodded. "Lockon will wake up sometime tomorrow," she said. "But--"
"Something went wrong," Tieria said.
"He's blind," she said.
"A blind sniper," Tieria said. This time she couldn't read his expression.
"I wasn't supposed to," she said suddenly. The words rushed out of her. "My programming suggested that he was of no more use. But I did it anyway. I brought him back."
For a long moment, Tieria said nothing. Hesitantly, he reached out his hands. "Feldt."
She looked down at his hands, stretched out so strangely. After a moment, she realized he was offering them to her. She grabbed them a little too quickly and a little too hard, but even so, it made her feel better to touch him like that. He was struggling with all of this as well.
"Once," Tieria said, "my programming would also have told me to abandon Lockon Stratos if his vision was impaired. Now it's different. Thank you, Feldt." He squeezed her hands. She didn't think he knew what he was supposed to do with them. That was okay; she didn't really know, either. "Thank you for bringing him back, regardless of what he can or cannot see."
"I'm still scared," Feldt said. And it was still hard for her to say something like that. "I don't know how he'll react. Please be the first to go see him when he wakes up."
* * *
Feldt watched from a window above the sickbay as Tieria waited for Lockon to wake up. Temptation came to her again and again: it would be so easy to slip into Tieria's brain. Then she could watch and listen both as they greeted each other. She could be a part of what they had--something that was different and stranger and maybe more exciting than what she and Lockon had had. At these thoughts, her programming stirred. Jealousy, it identified the emotion she was feeling. She wasn't sure whether to be thankful for that identification or not. She was sure that, despite the potential she now had to simply shut it out, she wanted to keep it.
She was less sure that she could resist the temptation to link with Tieria, but somehow she did. When Lockon first stirred in his bed and sat up, blinking without comprehension, Feldt held herself back and only watched. She watched Tieria hesitate, then very slowly reach out for Lockon's face and turn it toward him. She watched their expressions intently--Tieria's stunned but grateful, Lockon's stunned and numb.
Strange sparks tugged at her brain. A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. What was this?
She found the answer by consulting some of the new information buried in her changed mind. She'd rebuilt Lockon's brain with her own brain. She knew its patterns inside and out now, and she felt when they shifted and changed. She could read his emotions. She'd know when he was happy and when he was sad. He wouldn't be able to hide it from her when he needed something.
A small flare of triumph went up through her, beyond the bounds of her programming. She had something special of her own with Lockon now.
But it was strange, then, that she could sense very little in the way of brain activity from him now. She knew she'd properly repaired the limbic center and other areas of his brain responsible for emotion, so why were so few of them lighting up? She probably needed practice to read him properly. Right now, she focused--closing her eyes so that the sight of Tieria touching Lockon's face did not distract her. After a moment, she identified one emotion beyond the obvious shock: frustration.
But that was it. She clearly needed more practice.
After a while, Tieria emerged and came up to speak with her. "You should see him as well," he said. "You are the one responsible for his being here."
Feldt looked down. "Tomorrow," she whispered. "I'm not ready yet."
"Something's wrong," Tieria said, looking at her.
"I can sense his feelings," she said.
There was no mistaking the way Tieria looked at her now: with naked jealousy, the same thing she'd once felt of him. "Then can you tell if he is grateful to be back with us? I can't tell."
"Not yet," Feldt said. "I'm not very good at it right now." She looked up at Tieria, and too late, she realized that her own worry was evident on her face. She should have known better, she thought; she could control that sort of thing better now.
He looked down at her, and after a moment, he stepped forward very awkwardly and put his arms around her. It was a hug. She thought it was probably a hug. This was what they were supposed to be like, or at least it was close. "We'll discover how he feels together," Tieria said. "It is important."
"Yes," she agreed. Tieria felt warm to her. She wondered if she would still feel warm, when the implant had finished what it was doing to her brain and her body, or if in the end, he would be more human than she was. But for now, despite her fears, she was glad he was holding her.
* * *
In the end, Feldt could not wait as long as she had planned to. In the early hours of the ship's artificial morning, she found herself standing in the door of the sickbay where Lockon remained, staring at him. There were a few new scars on him, but for the most part, the regeneration technology, aided by her own abilities, had done its job. He looked as if there hadn't been a period of weeks, even months, where he'd simply ceased to be. He looked normal.
More normal than Feldt looked now, as she stared at him with distant silver eyes. She took a step forward, then another.
That was when he stirred and sat up. She was relieved to notice it; he must already be learning to rely on his hearing. That was good. It meant he was adapting, just as she was now adapting to her new mind and body.
"Tieria?" he called out. "It's all right, you don't need to come check on me all the time."
"Lockon," she said.
Something in him changed. His expression stayed the same, but the emotional centers of his brain flickered. It happened too fast for Feldt to identify just what it was, and then it was gone; he was blank again. No, no, she corrected herself; Lockon wasn't blank. He definitely had emotions. She just wasn't good at sensing them yet.
"Yo, Feldt," he said. "Tieria told me you're the one who brought me back."
She took a few steps closer. Now she was next to him. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted to. She didn't, not just yet. "It was a team effort," she said. "Tieria helped too."
"That's good," Lockon said. "You two make a pretty good team, you know."
"Do we?"
"That's right." He smiled in her general direction. But what she could sense of his brain activity didn't match that smile. That was really strange. Didn't people only smile when they were happy? Or was that wrong? No, her new knowledge quickly answered her unspoken question: sometimes people smiled when they didn't mean it. Sometimes people lied with their faces as well as with their words. Feldt didn't want to think of Lockon being one of those people. Maybe he was just a little mixed up from being dead all this time.
"I'll keep working with him," she said. "I like it."
"Good," Lockon said. "So it sounds like I should thank you, huh?" A flash of some other emotion passed through his head. This time, she chased it down and identified it, but that didn't make it make any more sense. It was a strange mix of bitterness, resentment, and guilt.
"Lockon..." She tried to think of what to say. "Don't thank me." Then she blurted out, "I can tell something's wrong!"
His expression slackened, the smile fading. He'd been caught off guard for a moment. When he picked it up again, it was wearier. "Feldt, there wasn't a lot of point in bringing me back, was there? Like I said, you and Tieria make a great team. Even if Ms. Sumeragi's gone, and you can't find Allelujah and Setsuna--" There! A flash of emotion, more potent than what she'd felt in him before. Fear and loss, at the mention of Setsuna's name.
"I'll look for them," Feldt said quickly. "I'll look for Setsuna. I have the ability to do that, now."
Lockon shook his head. "I believe in him," he said. "You should, too."
There was a strange mingling of hope and fear in him now. Feldt took a moment to realize that he didn't want to risk finding out that Setsuna was gone. It was strange, to think of Lockon needing someone like that. So much of this was strange. So she only nodded and let him go on.
"Well, even if all that's true," he continued, "there are still people in Celestial Being. It's better to go forward with the new than try picking up the old pieces, right?"
Once, it would have made sense to hear Lockon say something like that. But now it jarred oddly with her perception of his brain. She didn't know why. She didn't know what the word for that jarring sensation was. Before she could tell it not to, one of her brain's new links reached for the information and found a word. Hypocrisy. That was it--
She pushed the thought away. Instead, she knelt down at the side of Lockon's bed. "It was still my directive to bring you back," she said.
He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. But he missed, and instead his hand brushed against her cheek. Before he could draw it away, she found herself turning into it, pressing her face to his fingers. There was no need for her to do something like that, and she was grateful she still had the urge.
"Feldt," Lockon said softly, "why did you do it? I'm not a lot of use this way, and you know it."
"It was my mission," she said stubbornly. "Celestial Being always completes its missions."
He tried to look at her, but she knew he wouldn't be able to make out her expression--just the faint blur of her head before him. He smiled, and once again it didn't match up with what she could sense of his mind. "It's a good thing you're here, Feldt. Celestial Being will stick together just fine with you."
And with you, she wanted to say, but couldn't quite.
* * *
They all made arrangements to accommodate Lockon's new weaknesses. Feldt accessed information on Braille--it was more obscure now than it had once been, since most causes of blindness were now treatable, but not all. She gave the information she found to Lockon. Ian put up raised guides on the walls of the ship, and he came up with some ways to pass the time as well. He made a pack of old Earth cards, their surfaces also raised to allow for Lockon to use them, and started to explain the games one could play with them to Lasse and Lockon.
Lockon stopped him. "I know all about these games," he said. "You're right. They're a pretty good way to pass the time." He smiled as he said it, and he smiled as he played poker with Lasse. But Feldt could sense that beneath that smile, there was nothing.
There should have been something. Even if it wasn't the happiness that was supposed to accompany smiles, there should have been something. Even though it had been painful, Feldt had forced herself to watch the video records of Dynames' last battle to help determine from where Lockon's body needed to be retrieved. She'd heard the rage in his voice, seen it contort his face. Something like that didn't come out of nowhere and vanish into nowhere. She might have been unsure about that before, but she knew it now. Her new connections fed her helpful information about human emotional states.
She was grateful, then, that she had someone else who would notice this to whom she could turn. Tieria was there for her. He was there for Lockon, too. He would have seen it as well.
Feldt found him outside Lockon's quarters one night after Lockon had gone to sleep. That was where they both should be, she felt (even if such a feeling was irrational and would someday be eliminated by the increasing dominance of her implant). "Tieria," she said.
He looked at her.
"Something's wrong with Lockon," she said.
There were many things Tieria could have said in response to that. He could have pointed out the obvious--that Lockon was blind, and surely considering his previous profession that counted as something "wrong" with him--or asked her what she meant. But even without linking brains, they had come to be on the same wavelength about Lockon. "He's missing something," Tieria said.
"Yes," Feldt said. "I can't sense as much emotion from him as I should. And--the parts of his brain responsible for experiencing memories light up a lot. But not the parts responsible for reacting to the present. Did I get something wrong when I brought him back?" The words came out sounding more distraught than Feldt had intended.
Tieria lowered his gaze. "No," he said quietly. "I think...he lost it himself."
"Do you know what it is?"
Tieria said nothing.
"Please tell me, Tieria," Feldt said. Then she reached for his head, took hold if it, and initiated their link.
He stiffened under her hands, but there was nothing he could do. She touched his memories, even as he resisted--
--there was an island, and a conversation there, and a gun, why was Lockon pointing a gun at Setsuna--
--she released Tieria. "I'm starting to understand," she said.
After a tense moment and a numb stare that Feldt endured quietly, Tieria nodded. "He thinks he has no more reason to live," he said.
"That can't be," she said. Again she had to force down tears. "He can do much more than fight. I know it."
"He doesn't know it," Tieria said. He sounded puzzled, as they both were. How could Lockon not understand how much he was good for?
"We could tell him that Ali al-Saachez is probably still alive," Feldt said.
"We could," Tieria said dubiously.
"If he weren't human...if he were more like us..." Tieria flinched, and Feldt cast an apologetic glance at him. She'd forgotten. "It would make sense to tell him. A computer needs as much information as possible to make the right decision. Doesn't it?"
"But we shouldn't tell him," Tieria said. "Humans are different. Some information only hurts them." He paused. "It's true for us, too. I didn't want to know that Lockon doesn't want to live."
"Neither did I," said Feldt. "Does that mean I'm still human? For now?"
"I couldn't say," Tieria said.
"I don't understand it," Feldt said. "Does that mean I'm not human enough?"
This time, Tieria said nothing. He only reached for her hand, and he held it very awkwardly.
« PART II »
Fandom: Gundam 00
Pairing: Variations on Feldt/Tieria/Lockon (Neil). Primarily Feldt/Tieria, one-sided Feldt/Lockon, mostly one-sided Tieria/Lockon with voyeur!Feldt.
Rating: NC-17 (PG in this section)
Wordcount: 13,629 (6,150 in this section)
Notes: The result of a kinkmeme prompt that got out of hand. This is all Feldt point of view all the time and actually has very little sex, but a lot of character drama.
Summary: Feldt's own brain has surprises in store for her. When an electronic implant rewires her to be a cyborg, she uses her new abilities to better Celestial Being--but somewhere inside all that is still a teenage girl who is scared of what she's becoming.
Feldt always dreamed in computer code. It informed her thought processes much better than the precarious reality of colors and people. With the proper expression and equation, a problem could be solved. It was much easier than when she needed speak to people and tell them of her feelings, or when she could go shopping, or when she could not go shopping because Christina was no longer here to take her and they were all too busy repairing and rebuilding, in any case.
In fact, Feldt often thought in computer code. It was only when she dreamed in it that she understood that there was a deeper reason for this than its mere convenience. When she dreamed, she was aware of that knot of wires buried at the base of her brain, ready to unravel when more skill and precision, more speed and strength, more processing power was needed. For a while, she begged it not to expand. She was enjoying being human too much.
Then loss hit her like a stray comet, the kind that once caused an extinction. She cracked, then, briefly, and in her dreams she asked the implants deep in her brain to take over for her. But there was no response. She was left to be human and in pain.
Now Feldt was better. It had only been a few days, but she had a new resolve. And when she dreamed, she no longer asked the implant to extend its wires through her, to reroute her love and her grief into perfect skill and machine precision. She was determined now to hold onto her humanity and make the very best of it. She had already shed too many tears and lost too much love to give it up now. For the sake of those who were gone, like Lockon and Christina, and for the sake of those who remained, like Tieria and, somewhere, Setsuna, she would keep going.
But for all her own resolve, Celestial Being was weakening. Tieria returned, but Sumeragi left. They had few resources and fewer people to make use of them. The proto-intelligence that guided the implant observed this. It observed that, should it make the necessary changes, Feldt could synchronize her originally biological brain with Tieria's, which had always been electronic and always would be, no matter how much he learned of being human. It observed that the ways in which it was built to augment its host would allow Feldt to manipulate GN particles in new and beneficial ways. It took action.
So no matter what her own decision was, one morning shortly after Tieria's return, Feldt awoke with her eyes shimmering silver from the quantum flow of information through the visual interface with her brain's new structure. She could do new things. She could help Celestial Being better this way.
She tried not to think of what she might be losing. Instead, she focused on the mission.
* * *
She only had to tell Ian, Lasse, and Tieria; they were the only ones left. Ian smiled and reassured her that she was still Feldt, and he'd still need her help repairing the Gundams. He seemed a little uncomfortable, though. Feldt would not have noticed this before, but the new dimensions to her brain fed her so much information that even she could pick up on subtle social cues. That didn't mean she understood them. Why was he uncomfortable? Was it because she was so strange now? Or--she hated to think this, because it would mean he'd been keeping secrets from her, and she didn't want to think that of her family--had he been one of the ones to fit the implant to her in the first place?
Even now, she didn't know how that had happened. She just knew now that it was there, and it was active. She found herself hoping that the ones who had done it to her were not here. It felt cold, and while she was grateful to be of more use to Celestial Being, she was irrationally scared of it.
Lasse left with Ian, clearly still digesting the information he'd learned, and then Feldt and Tieria were the only ones in the meeting room. That was good, because she had more to explain to Tieria. But first she wished she knew more about how he felt. He'd shown no reaction except faint surprise at her revelation, and now he watched her with solemn and earnest eyes. She realized that no matter what, she'd soon know a great deal more about how he felt.
"There's more to this," he guessed.
"Yes," she said. "I didn't want to say it in front of the others, but...Tieria, I know about you now."
Now he showed signs of what the new connections in her brain said was vulnerability. His mouth opened just so; he cast his eyes down. "I see. Then you realize I'm not...no, I am human. Lockon Stratos told me I am human." He was still reassuring himself, still exploring the idea. That was what that hesitation in his speech meant.
Lockon Stratos. The name still pulled a pang from Feldt's chest, and her brain puzzled at this. Surely she no longer needed these negative and painful emotions. But those parts of her had not been rerouted yet, and Feldt resisted the idea that they would be. She turned her razor-sharp thoughts instead to Tieria and what she needed to tell him now.
"My brain is now built to link with yours," she said.
His eyes widened. A human indication of shock. "Explain."
"I can link my superior information processing skills with your superior electronic senses and guide you," Feldt said. "Tieria, I'll feel what you feel." She felt as if she should apologize for that. It didn't seem right.
"What good will this do us?" Tieria said. He was stiff now. She took a strange comfort in that: they were both uncertain of this.
"I don't know yet," Feldt confessed. "But my first mission has been uploaded." She stopped the tremors in her voice; it was surprisingly easy with her new brain. "We have to find the bodies of the ones who died in battle. I might be able to revive them with the right use of GN particles."
Tieria stared at her as if--as if--she had no metaphor for it. Metaphors were useless anyway, weren't they? He said, "I understand. It's acceptable, then, that you link with me. No matter what the price."
* * *
Ordinarily it would have been quite impossible to find four human bodies scattered in space, in places that the remains of the Ptolemaios had long since left behind. But Feldt could perform the four-dimensional calculations necessary to determine their locations in seconds. She just couldn't explain to other people, normal people (and Tieria), how she could do it. Locating small objects in space was one of her purposes now. Explaining the details of it was not.
What was left of the Ptolemaios was not maneuverable enough to return to the places where the records and Feldt's calculations showed the bodies should be. But Nadleeh had been repaired enough that it could return to the scene, albeit with almost nonexistent weaponry. It was a risk. Feldt deemed it acceptable. So did Tieria.
"I see," he said. "That's why you need to link with me. The coordinates are far too precise to entrust to ordinary communications."
"Yes," Feldt said. "It isn't anything personal. I'll leave your thoughts alone." She hesitated, not sure she was being entirely honest. It was funny how she still couldn't tell that. So she added, "I don't know how much I can. But I'll try, Tieria."
He looked away for a moment, and when he turned to face her again, his eyes were bright. "I don't mind," he said. "My brain was designed to link with Veda. If any information in it could be useful to you, take it."
"I'm not Veda," she said. "I'm still Feldt. Aren't I...?"
"Of course," Tieria said. "We should test this link before employing it on the mission itself."
Feldt nodded. She didn't waste any more time; she simply reached for Tieria's forehead, the tips of her fingers resting at his temples.
Something arced between them. It was invisible--quantum tunneling happened on a level too minuscule even for Feldt's new eyes to see--but they both felt it. And then--
Feldt was looking out through Tieria's eyes, staring into her own silver ones, watching the newly inhuman irises scroll more and more rapidly with flashes of code. Her enhanced perception remained; she was simply using it from another person's eyes. But that wasn't all. Underneath it hummed thoughts she couldn't ignore. Gratitude, gratitude, thoughts that she could barely put into words, I was meant to link my brain to Veda, and then I was meant to protect Lockon, perhaps I can still come close enough, and hope, hope. That was there too.
Feldt released the connection. "I'm ready now," she said. "Tieria, will you be all right in Nadleeh?"
"So long as you guide me," he said.
* * *
Feldt sent Nadleeh to the site the Ptolemaios had occupied during the battle first. She had watched the video record from Dynames to determine where she should send Tieria next, but that could wait. First, they had to retrieve and study the bodies of Joyce Moreno, Lichtendal Tsery, and Christina Sierra.
Or at least, they had to study them. The moment Tieria focused Nadleeh's sensors on them, Feldt knew that there was no chance of revival in these cases. The bodily damage was irrelevant, as was the time that had passed--the vacuum of space preserved already-broken bodies well (too well, Feldt thought, because against all her new programming, this was hurting her). The problem was the concentration of GN particles; it wasn't nearly great enough.
Still, it was difficult for her to navigate Nadleeh away from where the bridge of the Ptolemaios had been. Logic and the demands of the mission told her that she should leave all the bodies where they were. They certainly didn't have the resources to arrange a proper burial, and as they were now, they were nothing but empty, meaningless husks. But still, she made Tieria's gaze linger on Christina, or just her shattered body. Feldt wondered, still confused despite all her processing power, why Christina had died that way. A part of her knew that right and wrong had nothing to do with life and death, but another part of her didn't care.
Feldt. It was Tieria. He was communicating with her, and she could feel flashes of fumbling sympathy in the words and the feelings beneath them. It would be all right for you to cry.
I promised not to cry, Feldt told him, and for a moment she was human again. Promises were a human thing. But in the process, she felt her connection with Tieria start to weaken, and she had to clutch at it hurriedly, and by the time she'd reestablished it, the threat of tears was gone. Tieria, let's continue to--
The connection fell painfully silent as far as spoken words went. But Feldt could make out a sea of emotions beneath it. The thought occurred to her: if she continued as necessary upon the path of her programming, one day she would only be able to feel those emotions by linking with Tieria. In her own mind, the neurons for creating such strong feelings would be remade so she could better serve the purpose of Celestial Being. But right now, she shared those feelings with him. No, not entirely--Lockon had meant different things to each of them. But they had been similar things.
She drew on the information she'd calculated based on the video records from Dynames, and she sent Nadleeh along its way to the next position. But as Tieria approached (his heart was pounding; Feldt could detect such things), she noticed something else.
Someone's disturbed the site. It happened almost immediately after the battle.
Tieria stilled. Explain.
I've sent you to an asteroid that I calculated captured the debris of the GN-Arms and Lockon's body, Feldt told him. But it should have captured some of the debris of Gundam Throne Zwei as well.
A sudden surge of new emotion came to her from Tieria. Hatred. It was new to him, too, she could tell from the shock that followed. And the body of that man as well?
That could have been captured by another nearby asteroid, Feldt sent. But... With Tieria's hands, she activated the best scanners Nadleeh currently had. She searched. She used her own enhanced perception. There was nothing of Throne Zwei or its last occupant--nothing at all.
Tieria filled in the blanks, although Feldt had already come to the conclusion herself. He survived.
A burst of emotion overtook Feldt despite everything. We'll fix that! We have to! Then she stopped herself. No, it's also possible someone else retrieved the body and was unable to do anything with it. But...
There was only grim determination from Tieria. Unlikely.
In any case, they had something more important to do. Feldt guided Nadleeh around the asteroid, until--
Tieria? What are you doing?
He'd spotted the body as soon as she had, even though with his lesser perceptions, it should have been impossible. Now he was opening his cockpit and launching himself out. Feldt hurried to control Nadleeh remotely, using one of its hands to scoop up Lockon's broken form. As soon as she did, Tieria landed next to it.
Tieria?
He sent nothing back along the link, at least not intentionally. But looking out through his eyes, she saw him touch the shattered visor of Lockon's helmet and shy away from the burned and fractured parts of his flight suit. She felt a resurgence of overwhelming grief, and then she was fighting it herself, and back where her physical body was, she knew she'd broken her promise. She was crying.
Her programming told her that it would be best to let the tears flow, then resume her work. So she did, and what was still human in her shivered at her conclusions. The GN particle concentration here is high enough.
Tieria froze. What does that mean? But he knew. She could feel it in the way his heart beat faster and his throat tightened up. She still had those reactions, too.
It means I can restore his body and brain to a pre-death state, Feldt said. It was the natural description of what she was going to do, but somehow it seemed an inadequate description. So she allowed herself to add a simpler one. I can bring him back.
* * *
Feldt released her hold on Tieria's mind as soon as Nadleeh was on its way back to the base. It was more accurate to call it that than to call it the Ptolemaios, her increasingly rational brain reminded her, as the Ptolemaios had been destroyed and this place had hardly been rebuilt enough to qualify as its successor yet. The fact that she wanted to keep calling it by the name of the place where she'd formed her first bonds of friendship and family was one of those things about her human brain she would eventually have to come to terms with giving up. She would be better, in the future. For now, she had work to do.
They still had a GN drive left from Dynames. That would do, to power what Feldt needed to do. With that energy and Feldt's new abilities, the makeshift sickbay they'd put together would be enough. Their current regeneration technology was subpar, but she would enhance it beyond anything they'd had before.
By the time Tieria returned in Nadleeh with Lockon's body, Feldt was ready. Tieria and Lasse both helped put Lockon's body into the spare regeneration pod, both of them moving stiffly, uncomfortable with the task. Or perhaps they were uncomfortable with Feldt's unseeing and all-seeing silver eyes. She hoped it wasn't that. She didn't want to scare people away from her. She'd put so much effort into becoming close to them, even when it hurt.
But she couldn't spare the time for thoughts like that, so with the help of the new connections in her brain, she pushed them away. "This will take a few weeks," she said.
"We'll be ready in the cafeteria when you need to take a break," Lasse said. Maybe it hadn't been her strange eyes making him uncomfortable after all. Feldt was more grateful for that than she needed to be.
But she still had to turn him down. "I'll be switching entirely to electronic mode for this," she said. "I'll get all the power I need from the GN drive."
"I wasn't aware you could do that," Tieria said. "Even I..." He trailed off. With Lasse in the room, he didn't want to say more.
"I'll provide updates," Feldt said softly. "I know this is important to you too. To all of you. Lockon Stratos was part of Celestial Being. Soon, he will be again."
* * *
Lockon was dead. He was not merely dormant in some way. Feldt had to perform what some people still considered a miracle: she had to bring him back to life.
It was the brain that was the problem. By extending the wires of her implant out through her hand and carefully rerouting the components of the stripped-bare regeneration pod, Feldt could easily restore Lockon's body. It would take time--that was why she'd told Tieria and Lasse that it would take weeks--but she could do it. But there was no point unless she could restore electrical activity to the brain--and not just any electrical activity, but the same activity that had once filled it. Otherwise, they would have only succeeded in reviving a blank slate with Lockon's face.
That was where the GN particles came in, along with Feldt's new abilities. This was one of the things she had been designed for (was it her who had been designed for this, or just the implant? What was the difference, now?): reviving lost members of the crew when this specific accident of physics allowed it.
The area Lockon had died in had been saturated with GN particles. They lingered on in the silent corridors of his brain, and as soon as she finished setting up the regeneration pod to heal his body, Feldt turned her attention to this. She plucked the memory of withered neurons from the particles, and she restored what they told her to. Bit by bit, she brought Lockon back. She had never been happier to be useful.
She continued to be happy, until she reached his visual cortex.
The GN particles had not fully penetrated there. Perhaps it was because of his existing eye injury. Perhaps it was only coincidence. But she would be able to restore dim, shadowy sight at best, no matter how hard she worked--and she was ready to work hard. But her programming stopped her. It would be pointless to revive a member of Celestial Being who had served as a sniper if he could no longer see. It was better to leave him dead.
But her programming did not have full hold on her yet. Feldt still remembered the feeling she and Tieria had shared when Nadleeh had scooped up Lockon's near-shattered body. She still remembered how it had felt when Lockon put one gloved hand on her head. He didn't need to be able to snipe to do that. He didn't need to be able to snipe to be Lockon Stratos, she decided. So she continued to work. No matter how little he saw, she still wanted Lockon back.
She was using her new abilities for purposes they were not approved for, she realized. But she thought it was okay, because Lockon had helped teach her that it was all right to open up to people and care about them. Maybe even without sight, he could teach them all more.
Nineteen days after she started the operation, Feldt finished the system restore of Lockon's brain. His good eye would see only faint patterns of light and dark, but he was alive again.
* * *
When the work was over, Feldt retreated from the sickbay. She was not exhausted in any physical sense; the GN drive had indeed supplied all her power needs over the past nearly three weeks. But the magnitude of what she had done still frightened her a little. She was just Feldt. She wasn't even a Gundam Meister. How had she become someone who could blur the line between the living and the dead? All she'd wanted was her family back.
Tieria found her as she was returning to her quarters. "Feldt Grace," he said stiffly.
She wondered if the name still fit her, or if she should be something else. But she responded anyway. "What is it, Tieria?"
"Are you done?"
She didn't need to link with his brain to tell that he was anxious. It was still strange, that perception the implant and its extensive rerouting of her brain gave her. She could observe things about people's emotional states that she'd never been able to figure out before. But she was starting to have trouble knowing why it mattered. For now, though, she was anxious as well. She nodded. "Lockon will wake up sometime tomorrow," she said. "But--"
"Something went wrong," Tieria said.
"He's blind," she said.
"A blind sniper," Tieria said. This time she couldn't read his expression.
"I wasn't supposed to," she said suddenly. The words rushed out of her. "My programming suggested that he was of no more use. But I did it anyway. I brought him back."
For a long moment, Tieria said nothing. Hesitantly, he reached out his hands. "Feldt."
She looked down at his hands, stretched out so strangely. After a moment, she realized he was offering them to her. She grabbed them a little too quickly and a little too hard, but even so, it made her feel better to touch him like that. He was struggling with all of this as well.
"Once," Tieria said, "my programming would also have told me to abandon Lockon Stratos if his vision was impaired. Now it's different. Thank you, Feldt." He squeezed her hands. She didn't think he knew what he was supposed to do with them. That was okay; she didn't really know, either. "Thank you for bringing him back, regardless of what he can or cannot see."
"I'm still scared," Feldt said. And it was still hard for her to say something like that. "I don't know how he'll react. Please be the first to go see him when he wakes up."
* * *
Feldt watched from a window above the sickbay as Tieria waited for Lockon to wake up. Temptation came to her again and again: it would be so easy to slip into Tieria's brain. Then she could watch and listen both as they greeted each other. She could be a part of what they had--something that was different and stranger and maybe more exciting than what she and Lockon had had. At these thoughts, her programming stirred. Jealousy, it identified the emotion she was feeling. She wasn't sure whether to be thankful for that identification or not. She was sure that, despite the potential she now had to simply shut it out, she wanted to keep it.
She was less sure that she could resist the temptation to link with Tieria, but somehow she did. When Lockon first stirred in his bed and sat up, blinking without comprehension, Feldt held herself back and only watched. She watched Tieria hesitate, then very slowly reach out for Lockon's face and turn it toward him. She watched their expressions intently--Tieria's stunned but grateful, Lockon's stunned and numb.
Strange sparks tugged at her brain. A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. What was this?
She found the answer by consulting some of the new information buried in her changed mind. She'd rebuilt Lockon's brain with her own brain. She knew its patterns inside and out now, and she felt when they shifted and changed. She could read his emotions. She'd know when he was happy and when he was sad. He wouldn't be able to hide it from her when he needed something.
A small flare of triumph went up through her, beyond the bounds of her programming. She had something special of her own with Lockon now.
But it was strange, then, that she could sense very little in the way of brain activity from him now. She knew she'd properly repaired the limbic center and other areas of his brain responsible for emotion, so why were so few of them lighting up? She probably needed practice to read him properly. Right now, she focused--closing her eyes so that the sight of Tieria touching Lockon's face did not distract her. After a moment, she identified one emotion beyond the obvious shock: frustration.
But that was it. She clearly needed more practice.
After a while, Tieria emerged and came up to speak with her. "You should see him as well," he said. "You are the one responsible for his being here."
Feldt looked down. "Tomorrow," she whispered. "I'm not ready yet."
"Something's wrong," Tieria said, looking at her.
"I can sense his feelings," she said.
There was no mistaking the way Tieria looked at her now: with naked jealousy, the same thing she'd once felt of him. "Then can you tell if he is grateful to be back with us? I can't tell."
"Not yet," Feldt said. "I'm not very good at it right now." She looked up at Tieria, and too late, she realized that her own worry was evident on her face. She should have known better, she thought; she could control that sort of thing better now.
He looked down at her, and after a moment, he stepped forward very awkwardly and put his arms around her. It was a hug. She thought it was probably a hug. This was what they were supposed to be like, or at least it was close. "We'll discover how he feels together," Tieria said. "It is important."
"Yes," she agreed. Tieria felt warm to her. She wondered if she would still feel warm, when the implant had finished what it was doing to her brain and her body, or if in the end, he would be more human than she was. But for now, despite her fears, she was glad he was holding her.
* * *
In the end, Feldt could not wait as long as she had planned to. In the early hours of the ship's artificial morning, she found herself standing in the door of the sickbay where Lockon remained, staring at him. There were a few new scars on him, but for the most part, the regeneration technology, aided by her own abilities, had done its job. He looked as if there hadn't been a period of weeks, even months, where he'd simply ceased to be. He looked normal.
More normal than Feldt looked now, as she stared at him with distant silver eyes. She took a step forward, then another.
That was when he stirred and sat up. She was relieved to notice it; he must already be learning to rely on his hearing. That was good. It meant he was adapting, just as she was now adapting to her new mind and body.
"Tieria?" he called out. "It's all right, you don't need to come check on me all the time."
"Lockon," she said.
Something in him changed. His expression stayed the same, but the emotional centers of his brain flickered. It happened too fast for Feldt to identify just what it was, and then it was gone; he was blank again. No, no, she corrected herself; Lockon wasn't blank. He definitely had emotions. She just wasn't good at sensing them yet.
"Yo, Feldt," he said. "Tieria told me you're the one who brought me back."
She took a few steps closer. Now she was next to him. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted to. She didn't, not just yet. "It was a team effort," she said. "Tieria helped too."
"That's good," Lockon said. "You two make a pretty good team, you know."
"Do we?"
"That's right." He smiled in her general direction. But what she could sense of his brain activity didn't match that smile. That was really strange. Didn't people only smile when they were happy? Or was that wrong? No, her new knowledge quickly answered her unspoken question: sometimes people smiled when they didn't mean it. Sometimes people lied with their faces as well as with their words. Feldt didn't want to think of Lockon being one of those people. Maybe he was just a little mixed up from being dead all this time.
"I'll keep working with him," she said. "I like it."
"Good," Lockon said. "So it sounds like I should thank you, huh?" A flash of some other emotion passed through his head. This time, she chased it down and identified it, but that didn't make it make any more sense. It was a strange mix of bitterness, resentment, and guilt.
"Lockon..." She tried to think of what to say. "Don't thank me." Then she blurted out, "I can tell something's wrong!"
His expression slackened, the smile fading. He'd been caught off guard for a moment. When he picked it up again, it was wearier. "Feldt, there wasn't a lot of point in bringing me back, was there? Like I said, you and Tieria make a great team. Even if Ms. Sumeragi's gone, and you can't find Allelujah and Setsuna--" There! A flash of emotion, more potent than what she'd felt in him before. Fear and loss, at the mention of Setsuna's name.
"I'll look for them," Feldt said quickly. "I'll look for Setsuna. I have the ability to do that, now."
Lockon shook his head. "I believe in him," he said. "You should, too."
There was a strange mingling of hope and fear in him now. Feldt took a moment to realize that he didn't want to risk finding out that Setsuna was gone. It was strange, to think of Lockon needing someone like that. So much of this was strange. So she only nodded and let him go on.
"Well, even if all that's true," he continued, "there are still people in Celestial Being. It's better to go forward with the new than try picking up the old pieces, right?"
Once, it would have made sense to hear Lockon say something like that. But now it jarred oddly with her perception of his brain. She didn't know why. She didn't know what the word for that jarring sensation was. Before she could tell it not to, one of her brain's new links reached for the information and found a word. Hypocrisy. That was it--
She pushed the thought away. Instead, she knelt down at the side of Lockon's bed. "It was still my directive to bring you back," she said.
He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. But he missed, and instead his hand brushed against her cheek. Before he could draw it away, she found herself turning into it, pressing her face to his fingers. There was no need for her to do something like that, and she was grateful she still had the urge.
"Feldt," Lockon said softly, "why did you do it? I'm not a lot of use this way, and you know it."
"It was my mission," she said stubbornly. "Celestial Being always completes its missions."
He tried to look at her, but she knew he wouldn't be able to make out her expression--just the faint blur of her head before him. He smiled, and once again it didn't match up with what she could sense of his mind. "It's a good thing you're here, Feldt. Celestial Being will stick together just fine with you."
And with you, she wanted to say, but couldn't quite.
* * *
They all made arrangements to accommodate Lockon's new weaknesses. Feldt accessed information on Braille--it was more obscure now than it had once been, since most causes of blindness were now treatable, but not all. She gave the information she found to Lockon. Ian put up raised guides on the walls of the ship, and he came up with some ways to pass the time as well. He made a pack of old Earth cards, their surfaces also raised to allow for Lockon to use them, and started to explain the games one could play with them to Lasse and Lockon.
Lockon stopped him. "I know all about these games," he said. "You're right. They're a pretty good way to pass the time." He smiled as he said it, and he smiled as he played poker with Lasse. But Feldt could sense that beneath that smile, there was nothing.
There should have been something. Even if it wasn't the happiness that was supposed to accompany smiles, there should have been something. Even though it had been painful, Feldt had forced herself to watch the video records of Dynames' last battle to help determine from where Lockon's body needed to be retrieved. She'd heard the rage in his voice, seen it contort his face. Something like that didn't come out of nowhere and vanish into nowhere. She might have been unsure about that before, but she knew it now. Her new connections fed her helpful information about human emotional states.
She was grateful, then, that she had someone else who would notice this to whom she could turn. Tieria was there for her. He was there for Lockon, too. He would have seen it as well.
Feldt found him outside Lockon's quarters one night after Lockon had gone to sleep. That was where they both should be, she felt (even if such a feeling was irrational and would someday be eliminated by the increasing dominance of her implant). "Tieria," she said.
He looked at her.
"Something's wrong with Lockon," she said.
There were many things Tieria could have said in response to that. He could have pointed out the obvious--that Lockon was blind, and surely considering his previous profession that counted as something "wrong" with him--or asked her what she meant. But even without linking brains, they had come to be on the same wavelength about Lockon. "He's missing something," Tieria said.
"Yes," Feldt said. "I can't sense as much emotion from him as I should. And--the parts of his brain responsible for experiencing memories light up a lot. But not the parts responsible for reacting to the present. Did I get something wrong when I brought him back?" The words came out sounding more distraught than Feldt had intended.
Tieria lowered his gaze. "No," he said quietly. "I think...he lost it himself."
"Do you know what it is?"
Tieria said nothing.
"Please tell me, Tieria," Feldt said. Then she reached for his head, took hold if it, and initiated their link.
He stiffened under her hands, but there was nothing he could do. She touched his memories, even as he resisted--
--there was an island, and a conversation there, and a gun, why was Lockon pointing a gun at Setsuna--
--she released Tieria. "I'm starting to understand," she said.
After a tense moment and a numb stare that Feldt endured quietly, Tieria nodded. "He thinks he has no more reason to live," he said.
"That can't be," she said. Again she had to force down tears. "He can do much more than fight. I know it."
"He doesn't know it," Tieria said. He sounded puzzled, as they both were. How could Lockon not understand how much he was good for?
"We could tell him that Ali al-Saachez is probably still alive," Feldt said.
"We could," Tieria said dubiously.
"If he weren't human...if he were more like us..." Tieria flinched, and Feldt cast an apologetic glance at him. She'd forgotten. "It would make sense to tell him. A computer needs as much information as possible to make the right decision. Doesn't it?"
"But we shouldn't tell him," Tieria said. "Humans are different. Some information only hurts them." He paused. "It's true for us, too. I didn't want to know that Lockon doesn't want to live."
"Neither did I," said Feldt. "Does that mean I'm still human? For now?"
"I couldn't say," Tieria said.
"I don't understand it," Feldt said. "Does that mean I'm not human enough?"
This time, Tieria said nothing. He only reached for her hand, and he held it very awkwardly.
« PART II »