His eyes snapped open to bright lights and a smooth dark hand flitting across his vision. He flinched without meaning to, fear filling him in a way that didn’t feel normal. Why was he so afraid? Where was he? Who was he? Nothing made sense.

  “Did you feel that?” A child’s voice asked, doe-like eyes peering down at him.

  Something sparked behind his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but there was nothing but a loud whir and the smell of burning wires. He fell back into the darkness against his will.

  “Hey, there.” A young man, barely a boy really, stared at him, red hair falling into his eyes as he examined the android’s arm. He felt pain run up it and tried to pull back. The teen winced. “Sorry. The pain receptors are the worst things to test. I’m Rowan, and Sebastian calls you Neo. You must be pretty important for him to go through so much to get you back. Don’t worry, we’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  He woke again, numb, but feeling as lost as ever. Random bursts of images flooded his mind. Otters holding hands so they don’t float away. Wolves howling to their lost pack members. A mother calling to her daughter on a dusty, forgotten planet. He felt lost and alone. Someone was supposed to be here, but he couldn’t remember who. Had he died? He felt the hammer blows against his titanium body. The burn of a laser firing straight through him, the damage eating away at him. He felt the press of a gun against his skull.

  “I’m dying.” Rowan sat cross-legged before him. “They know, but there’s nothing anyone can do. They think it’s the same thing Mom had.” He leaned in close. “They’re going to think I’m selfish. I know it’s going to tear them apart, but when it gets too much, before I stop being me, I’ll leave on my own terms. I can’t...I won’t let them watch me die.”

  He jerked but couldn’t move. Flashes of light burst behind his eyelids. Flares shot across the sky. A staggering meteor shower where the shattered stars rained down around him, catching fire to everything. A young man’s voice, nestled under warm blankets, promised in the dark, “I’ll come back. I swear I will.”

  The metal cuffs binding him to the table refused to budge, and he banged his head back down with a loud clatter. “Are you awake?” A young girl asked, peering down at him. Esi, he recalled. Her name was Esi.

  “What…?” There were no grinding gears or pain as he finally managed the single word. He was unprepared for the rush of relief that filled him.

  “You’re okay. I fixed you. I mean, you may need a second opinion from someone more qualified, but--”

  “It’s alright. I trust you.” He flexed his wrists. “Can you untie me?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry.” She unlatched the cuffs. “You panicked a bit.”

  “Synthetic emotions.” He replied softly, thinking he was copying the words of someone else.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Real enough.” He noticed a deep scratch against one cheek and felt he should apologize, but it also felt wrong to acknowledge any wrongdoing. He hadn’t been well. She understood. “I wanted to fix your appearance but wasn’t sure how you wanted it. I figured it’d be best to ask. Brie got us lots of silicone for the skin. It won’t be the best, but it’ll be good enough.”

  Brie. A space pirate, friends with… “Brie’s here?”

  “Yeah, she’s downstairs, talking with Mama.” She hesitated, waiting for him to ask, but he didn’t. The unspoken question, the only one that mattered, hung in the air. He let it dangle as he stared at his robotic hands, opening and closing them, the world feeling too bright, too much. Like the first few minutes after being born. The girl shifted uncomfortably. “Can you make me look any sort of way?”

  “Within reason, sure. I mean, if you want to look like a cat or dog, I could try, but it probably wouldn’t go well.”

  He grinned and gestured towards a pile of clothes he recognized as his own. Or at least, the ones he’d been wearing before. “In my pocket, there’s a photograph of two men. I want to look like the blonde one. Only this time, can you make my hair red?”

  “Absolutely.” She matched his grin as she fished out the photograph. “One more thing,” she turned, photograph in hand, “are you Rowan...or Neo?”

  Brie returned to the attic workshop just before dusk, leaving her aunt to prepare dinner. It’d only been three days since Sebastian’s departure, but it felt far longer. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d stayed on a planet this long without that infuriating man shadowing her steps. She missed him, and the rest of their little crew. Her little family.

  “Supper’s almost ready, Esi.” She said then stopped in the doorway at the sight of the android sitting up on the table. He was staring at the death certificate in his hands, wrinkled from the many times he’d read it. When he looked up, his eyes were not the green she’d become used to, but the steady blue of a painful memory. “Neo.”

  He smiled at the name. “It’s good to see you again, Brie.”

  “He insisted on this appearance.” Esi defended quickly, looking between the two.

  “It’s fine.” Brie replied shakily. “Can you give us a moment?”

  “Sure, I should probably go help Mama anyway.” The silence she left behind felt uncomfortable and heavy, fraught with unspoken worries and a question no one wanted to answer.

  “He’s not here.” Brie finally said. “He told us to leave you in pieces. He’s not coming back. Not this time. I’m sorry.”

  Neo wanted to pretend it didn’t bother him, that he couldn’t feel the hurt, thorn sharp inside his mechanical heart. He folded the death certificate neatly, tempted to destroy it but feeling it’d be a slight to Rowan’s memory to do so. He returned it to his pocket. “Don’t be.”

  “It’s just the way he is.” She said, frustrated. “You know we were supposed to get married? Made the plans and everything, but at the last minute, he left me alone. On that planet, in that veil, as if I meant nothing. I forgave him. Of course, I did. He said he’d been doing me a favor, but it was still awful.” She shook her head. “He’s always been a better friend than lover. We’ve been friends for years, but I’ve never understood it.”

  Neo remembered the times he’d waited for Sebastian, how many times he’d seen the flares and pretended they were shooting stars. The number of times he’d made wishes that didn’t come true. The number of broken promises. He remembered dying, remembered his last thought being that infuriating space pirate who couldn’t keep such an easy promise. Sebastian had crossed half a galaxy to bring him back. For all the time he spent running away, he’d still come back in the end. He’d just been too late.

  Brie sat down beside him and placed a hand on top of his, skin against machine. “Hey, it’s a big universe. You shouldn’t have to keep waiting for one man to act right. I can lend you a ship; you can go wherever you want. Do whatever you want.”

  And she was right. It was clear, to her, at least, that Sebastian had abandoned him. Neo didn’t have to wait anymore for a man who’d never come home to stay. He was free of it now, the expectations, the disappointments, every shattered promise. As Brie had said, it was a big universe. But there was only one place he wanted to be. He looked up at her. “Can I really borrow a ship?”