Sigma/Star

Chapter 122: Wondershot

Sigma sat on the edge of the island, his eyes closed and his mind focusing. The increasing activity of late was cutting into time he used to spend alone, in meditation and thought. With rebel leaders going to and fro, Porter and the gang constantly leaving, and the arrival of Irina, it was beginning to feel a little too hectic on Sigma's former paradise. So he had to come out to the fringe of the beach to find some solitude.

This was also where he would scan out across the endless expanse of the world, searching for disturbances in data, shifts in information, and changes to the structure of reality. He wanted to know where the Jahari appeared, who was with them, how many, what governments were doing to respond. He wanted to see what ships had routes that took them near the island, what crafts would fly overhead, and which ones he might be able to hijack if needed. Over the past month, there had been a serious decline in vessels going into this area as it seemed to have become a black hole for travellers. Urban legends spread fast.

The lack of neutral ships to hijack was being filled by the increase in rebel crafts the group had access to. The Red Scarf Gang and Jade Fang both had ships they had stolen, bought, or built, and many of them had visited this location over time with the growth of operations. There was a portion of the Red Scarf Gang that disturbed Sigma, or rather Leif, because he still felt they were partially to blame for Allyson's arrest, but he knew that he was still holding on to selfish beliefs. Allyson had lived for what she believed in, and had run the Red Scarf Gang accordingly. Nothing that group had done caused her to get arrested, and Sigma was still trying to come to terms with that, and stop looking for a target to blame.

As a portion of his moving on, he had commanded Alpha to find Chandana when she next returned to the island and bring her to Sigma. He had been battling internally with exposing Alpha's origin as Allyson for some time, knowing that Chandana revered the former leader like a god, a fallen angel they could never get back, and it had fuelled her before. Since Chandana's own arrest, the woman had grown significantly calmer and more disciplined in her approach. This, in turn, led Sigma to believe he could finally expose the truth behind Alpha to her former followers.

"What a strange existence you must lead." Chandana stood next to Sigma, her eyes shimmering with reflections of the light off the water. Her lips ran straight across her face, barely curling up on the edges to indicate her slight amusement at the world. Alpha was slightly behind her, quietly watching the pair, awaiting any further instruction. "It must be so interesting to have a head filled entirely with information, to be able to compute the minute details in life without even thinking about it."

"What's your point then?" Sigma made sure his voice was not aggressive or sarcastic, trying his best to display a positive reception to Chandana's arrival, while also challenging the woman's beliefs. It was difficult, sometimes, for him to properly convey emotion. He knew what it was, and he knew what it meant, and he had them himself, but being partially a machine still took things from him, and in some cases he was an ineffective communicator. He needed to reform himself still, to become a better person, so he would keep working at it.

"Well, if you had to dissolve all of it down to some base level, I suppose I am mostly curious if you can ever turn it off, or if you're just always like that? And then what would that kind of life be like?" Chandana didn't turn as she spoke to Sigma, keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon alone. But Sigma gave no response to her question, no answer whatsoever, and Chandana smirked as she took his silence as a response. "I suppose this is about her isn't it." The woman stuck her thumb over her shoulder towards Alpha, the android still unmoving behind them.

"Then you know already?"

"It may be slightly distorted, but I would not forget that face Sigma, the same way I wouldn't forget yours." Chandana's final words shocked Sigma, jarring the android out of his meditations. He twisted his head to look up at her, trying to study her face for a reaction, but there was nothing. He had never met anyone who had known about him prior to his transformation, and he didn't have any specific memories of visiting Allyson at the Red Scarf Gang, but it wasn't hard to believe that he could have come across a member or two in the past, especially not the former number two.