Synth

Upon arriving back at their small living quarters, TO was happy to see that Vik—the only person there at the moment—was entirely engrossed in their work at their tiny computer. A sigh of relief escaped them since TO was certain that they couldn’t handle being around people at the moment, or at the very least they couldn’t bring themself to be normal at the moment.

They wanted to be alone, to get behind the curtain and hide in the little private space they slept in so that they could relax and let their ears drop. Behind the curtain, they could cry if they wanted and muffle the sound with their fist or a pillow or a blanket and nobody would know. Their ears could be low, and they could be as miserable as they needed to be for a short time.

Gaining that privacy would be harder than they expected. The sheet-turned curtain was down, and TO couldn’t reach up high enough to connect the magnet high up enough on the wall. They realized then that even if they could hang up the curtain that they wouldn’t be able to get out of their chair and into the space: They could move their chair just fine, but the private area behind the curtain was a nest of pillows and blankets which the wheels of their chair could not get over.

Without help, they couldn’t get out of the chair, couldn’t hang up the curtain, couldn’t even shower or use the washroom on their own! Even if one overlooked all the damage they had managed to cause to their pod, the way they were currently helpless and needed so much help made them enough of a burden to them cast out, wasn’t it?

No. They had to find a way to do something on their own! Reaching down, they grasped the sheet with their fingertips and, with a fair amount of strain and struggle, they grasped the sheet. They then lowered their good leg to the floor, locked the wheelchair in place, and with their hand on the arm of the chair they pushed themself up, attempting to put the curtain back in place.

They yelped in pain the second their bad knee moved, and fell back into their chair with such speed that the sudden force against their knee drove a fiery spike of pain through their whole body.

“Abyssal-fucking-shit” they cried out, switching back to synth-speak inadvertently, their voice cracking and breaking on the last syllable as they leaned over, grasping their knee as though they could somehow stop the pain that way. A shuddering collection of clicks escaped them as their breath grew ragged: the frustration, their rage at themself, the hurt from GiDi, their utter uselessness, and finally the raw pain that coursed through them all swirling together into a vortex of uncontained misery.

“Shit.” Vik said, the typing stopping for a second. “Are you ok?”

“No!” was all TO could say, their voice cracking as they leaned over and began to sob. They hated this. They hated everything about the situation: their pain, their uselessness, the way that it seemed that they could only hurt people!

They hated themself. They hated themself so, so much that they wished they could start over, could somehow rip themself off and be someone different, someone new.

Vik cursed as they stared at TO, their eyes wide, their body frozen in place. A moment later they jumped from their seat, their tiny body zooming through the air as they landed first on TO’s shoulder, then on the floor where TO dropped the magnet after falling back in pain. They grabbed the magnet, jumped to the handle of the wheelchair, and a last jump let them stick the magnet up on the wall a little further back than normal, so it draped over TO. It took them another minute to sort out the sheets so that it wasn’t on top of TO, but by the time TO managed to claw some control back, they had some small level of privacy.

“Right.” Vik said as they jumped to a nearby shelf, bringing them about at eye level with TO. “Is it your knee? Of course it’s your knee. That’s a stupid question. DH has the meds here, I think. I can-“

Face in their hands, TO shook their head. “I…I have painkillers. It’s not that. I was stupid. It doesn’t hurt anymore.” They clutched at their head, the hard tips of their sheathed claws digging into their scalp. The pain in their knee, which was for a second so sharp and so all-encompassing, was indeed fading now, but the other pains—their failure, their uselessness—lingered and throbbed like a toothache.

Vik shifted, watching TO carefully. A moment later, they pulled out their tablet and began looking for something.

“What are you doing?” They asked as Vik pointed the tablet at TO, their fragile voice cracking.

“You lot, synths, Chilacians, communicate a lot more with your ears in your regular language, yeah?” he asked. “I’m awful at languages, to be honest. I mean, not many people need to learn languages thanks to the translators! Unfortunately, that doesn’t cover facial language.”

TO took a shuddering breath, wiping tears from their eyes as they looked up, clinging to what Vik was saying in an attempt to distract themself. “My helmet does... my suit.” They mumbled.

“I noticed!” They said, beaming, “I mean, did you think I wouldn’t poke through those things the second I got a chance? The only problem with that is that it translated it for you, which means translating facial expression in to ear movements, which I can’t read.” They beamed as they looked over the tablet. “Now, Pholi is too busy to help me with it, but it was easy enough for me to reverse the process by making your translation thing translate my own facial expressions! I’m still parsing some stuff, but I’ve almost got a functional translator. Once that’s done, I think I can make my own program to translate facial expressions into words!”

“That… That’s great.” TO said, taking deep breaths as they listened. They were happy enough for the distraction.

“And on that note, I can use the partial system I already have made to translate your ears!”

“Oh.” Their ears dropped, flushing lightly. “So, that means-“

“That means that while I don’t doubt you were in pain there, you’re also really really upset about something, and really frustrated.” Vik looked up, beaming for a moment in pride at their system and at how clever they were, but then their ears dipped slightly and their tail, which had been flicking about happily, lay still on the shelf. “Ah.. of course, I don’t really know what to do with that.” They said. “Normally… Well, ice cream tends to fix most anything, but we don’t have ice cream on the ship.” They frowned. “And I don’t know if you can eat ice cream.”

“What’s in it?”

“Uh, cream? Often fruit. Sugar-“

“Refined sugar?” TO’s ears flicked as they pondered this.

“Yes?”

“Then it’s probably not a good idea for me.” They said. They could see how it might help many civilian races: the presence of natural and refined sugars would absolutely help brighten up the mood of most civilians. “I imagine it’s the excessive sugar that helps, but syn… Chilacians are designed to take in sugar fast and process it quickly. So, I doubt it would have the same effect.”

Vik stared at TO for a moment, then sat down. “Well shit.” They muttered as they started typing things on their tablet again. “I dunno. Wanna talk about it? I mean, I know we’re not close or anything…” They frowned as they seemed to read something off their tablet. “Do you want a distraction, solutions, or do you want to rant?” When TO only looked at them in confusion, they awkwardly turned their tiny tablet towards TO, though it was so small it was hard for TO to see what they were looking at. “Look, just because I can identify the feelings, doesn’t mean I know what to do when a freakin’ synth is upset, you know?” They tucked their tablet away. “If you were DH, I’d show you some kind of problem I was having with a system I was programming. That’d distract you for days if necessary-“

“Did you do that a lot for DH?”

The way that Vik suddenly froze, his ears pressing against his head and his little tail stiffening behind him, made TO believe that Vik had told them something they weren’t supposed to.

“Well, you know… This is hard for everyone.” They said with a nervous chuckle, “Every single person on this ship has just been uprooted from their home and now sleeps shoulder to shoulder sharing a small bathroom, some chemical toilets, and a single shower! And yeah, I know ‘home’ wasn’t great for most of us, but home is still home, no matter how awful it is!” They looked back at their tablet, “And for you a lot, well, you’ve been through some rough times, and everything has been happening fast for you, yeah?” They shrugged and looked away. “I imagine that for you and for DH, there’s stuff that happened weeks ago which you’re only getting the chance to really think about now…”

While that wasn’t true for TO themself, they appreciated what Vik was saying. Moreso, they understood what Vik was actually saying. Without betraying any trust, they had given TO somewhat of an answer to their question. Yes, Vik has been working to distract DH as of late, probably because DH has been slowly dealing with everything that’s happened.

How upset had DH been as of late? How had TO not even noticed? Their ears flicked down as they looked aside. Once more, they had proven themself useless. Maybe this was what GiDi had been saying; they hadn’t realized why GiDi was upset until someone told them, and now they hadn’t realized that DH had been upset until Vik let it slip now.

“… Do you want to talk about it?” Vik asked after the silence between them had drawn on too long.

“… No.” TO said. There was too much they’d have to explain, too much that they just didn’t want anyone else finding out about for them to tell Vik what was on their mind.

“Ok…” they said, trailing off, their little whiskers twitching as they considered things. “…. You like games, right? Wanna see a game I’m making?”

TO turned to look at them, frowning as their ears flicked back in consideration. “You make games?”

“I’m trying to!” They said, their ears perking up, “I love the programming aspect of it. Wanna see?”

TO realized that they never considered that someone made games. All the simulations they had played, all the games, seemed to simply exist. Suddenly, they realized that someone made them. They were crafted just as much as any show or musical was.

“Yes,” they said as their ears perked up and their eyes widened, “Show me.”