IV || [BL | MxM | Sci-Fi | Romance | Mystery]

The Ghost | 3

They say space eventually drives you mad. Albeit it might've started happening to him a bit too early; or was it Damian who went bonkers, Ray couldn't tell anymore. 

He thought his brother quit the biotech three years ago, but here they were...

Ray splashed cold water over his face, - a momentary bliss, before he noticed his reflection. Those dark circles under the eyes didn't flatter his chiseled features.

Upon his return to the meeting room, both commanders gave him such a pitying look that he cussed under his breath. More importantly, just as Ray feared, the tech team didn't find any issues with the ship before it went offline in Sector 2. No drones or miners were deployed on that asteroid or nearby, so the chances of getting any extra data were slim.

"You know... you don't have to do it on your own...We could ask someone from Copernicus or Ulysses to take over this."

"Or at least take shifts with Max," Rachel was better at hiding her emotions than Guillaume, but even she couldn't cover up the concern written all over her face.

"Thank you, but I'm good for now. It's a lot of data to process, and it's somewhat... complicated. I need a bit more time for this."

Ray excused himself and bolted back to his lab. 

He spent the rest of the lunch break stretched on the sofa, observing panels on the ceiling until the headache finally got him to acknowledge its presence. He tilted his head to face the black void with white splats behind the ship's viewports.

Ray despised this view from day one. Even more now. If not for the circumstances, he'd never be here.

"Circumstances? More like your own stupidity," he huffed out. "Maybe, if not you, Damian wouldn't have ended up like this."

The quiet 'beep' from the desk notified him that the next round of data processing had launched, and he had to return to the endless digits racing on the screen.

So far the data from deep scraping the android's memory was scarce, but spoke for itself...

This thing was modified so much that Ray couldn't find any trace of its initial programming. The alterations masqueraded as the default OS and everything was forged so masterfully that he couldn't help but wonder when, where, and how Damian learned all that. 

He should have reported all this right on the spot. 

His choice not to do so weighed him down for the past few days, and every next deciphered layer just confirmed how much in hot water he'd be for this. But it was already too late, and it was the only way to learn what happened to the ship. Besides, he would never throw Damian under the bus.

_But Damian, just what the fuck were you doing._

"And why?" he muttered. "If he was conducting some research on it, why would he have it as co-pilot? Unless the best way to hide something is to put it in the most visible spot? How about the regular check-ups... Wait, but it's not in the ship's inventory... Nothing adds up."

Mom said that after Erica's death, Damian packed his stuff and enrolled in the SRA training with no explanation. After observing Theseus' crew for some time, Ray could tell most people didn't happily volunteer for astrogeology missions.

Maybe Damian indeed never got over his fiancée's death. Did he just put on the mask of his usual goofy self all this time? Being stuck for months in the black nothing, with the same group of people and repetitive tasks... if he was depressed and grieving ... anyone would get suicidal thoughts.

But why was the android in the escape pod?

Ray glanced at the workstation. The unit sat there, huddled and chained to the table by the cables. It didn't raise its head once or give any other sign of acknowledging Ray's presence, and it's been like that since the 'blackout'.

"Did he give you any name?"

"Iv," the voice was as devoid of emotion as it gets. It made Ray question the previous event, and his own sanity, even more.

"Very..._creative_. What were you tasked with, aside from patrols?"

There was silence, then a quiet reply.

"I was a personal assistant."

"Were you synced with his gadgets then?" He tried to recall all the items he spotted Damian carrying around. Damian's smartwatch broke in the crash, but maybe there still was a tablet, or something else. "Is the synced device still online?"

"Yes."

"Very well."

Ray got up, took off his lab coat, and tossed it on the chair. 

He dialed Rachel on his way to Deck 3 and requested the access code to Damian's quarters.

He should have crossed this task out of his list a while ago; he just couldn't make himself go there. 

The light went up as he entered. A square room with paneled walls and built-in storage compartments; a single bed, an armchair next to a foldable table, - everything was identical to Ray's quarters, except that Damian's trademark mess made it look like a lived space instead of a cubicle on a spaceship.

Every spare surface hosted some half-assembled device or gadget; a few dishes were still soaking in the sink. 

A photo on the headboard grabbed Ray's attention, but he went to get the tablet before returning to take a closer look at it.

A gift from her, probably. Both of them were in the photo, happily in love, next to that red bike they bought together. A barely legible 'I'll always remember you' on its back, with 5.8.78, in a smaller script below. The handwriting wasn't Damian's.

Ray sighed and put the photo back where it was. He looked around again.

Nothing resembled their apartment back from the student years; yet it felt like at any moment Damian would open the door, toss his backpack on the counter and scold Ray for not doing the dishes on his turn.

He sat on the bed and leaned his head against the wall. He really wanted to leave; he really wanted to stay for longer, too.