Chapter Text
Alex still missed his little sister. She had been a pervasively annoying thorn in his side that he had not properly appreciated until Talos I had taken her. It was in some ways worse now that they had achieved multiple successes in their experiments with mapping human connectomes onto the Typhon. The display in his office showed the three survivors - three amalgamations wearing the face of his flesh and blood, gathered around January like little ducklings.
“You should let me meet them,” Morgan said, from his left side.
Her gaze was trained on the display in rapt concentration. After a moment she seemed to sense his attention and turned away, although the gesture seemed forced. She paced restlessly in a small circle.
“No,” he said, before she could launch into an impassioned speech. “You know that’s a bad idea, as well as I do. This project is more important than your vanity, Morgan. Try to remember that.”
“You see how they defer to the big one,” she said, undeterred by his refusal. “If I could just-“
“This is not a negotation!” he interrupted. “I’m putting trust in you by sharing the progress of this project. Don’t make me regret it.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” She did not sound in the least bit chastised, but she also did not renew the argument.
Her characterization of the trio troubled him. Each of the altered Typhon were physically indistinguishable, save for the designations on the suits they’d been provided. And yet- the longer he watched them, he instinctively understood what Morgan had meant by the big one.
“You’re right,” he said begrudgingly. The footage was not live, and he had watched it a few times before approving it for sharing with Morgan. It had been some of the first interactions between the three separate entities, and they had been focused on individual measures - fluctuations in their emulated forms, psionic readings, any signs of aggression or abnormalities. But he saw it clearly now that Morgan had pointed it out - the latest iteration did not speak any more than the other two, but the previous two did not challenge it like they did January or each other. “It’s not exactly a hierarchy, but it is significant.”
“See-” Morgan grinned at him. If not for her ragged pupils and bloodshot eye, she might have been the woman he remembered. None of her offshoots had ever been capable of quite the same amount of arrogance. “I told you that you would need me.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he reminded her. “This is a delicate stage.”
“For me, or for them?”
Morgan’s expression was calm, although there was still a small smile on her lips. That was what made him most uneasy, he realized. She’d always been prone to grandeur - pursued her ambitions tirelessly and without hesitation. But after everything that had happened, everything they had gained and then so quickly lost, she still seemed ennervated by a mysterious and boundless source of optimism. He couldn’t be sure if it was her own way of coping, or some sign of some deeper sort of corruption.
“Both,” he admitted.
“So what’s different about that one?” Her attention slid back to the screen. There was a slight blip in the recording, a burst of static when one of the creatures grew irritated at the list of requirements January was reciting. “It doesn’t speak, but there’s something about it I can’t put my finger on.”
“We started with the phantoms first,” Alex said, “because they’re the most - well human isn’t the right word for it. But they are made from us, and they’re about the right size. Mimics reacted… badly to the procedure.”
“They don’t have the temperment,” Morgan observed. “Or the mass. Which leaves-“ She looked at him sharply. “You couldn’t have.”
“Once we had a success we wanted to diversify our subjects.” Thinking of it gave him a little surge of pride, even if it had cost lives and resources that were in short supply. “Ensure we had one with the best possible chance of interfacing with the coral.”
“A weaver.” The recording had looped and showed January approaching the trio again. Two of them watching the operator with a wary sort of recognition, and the remaining rising as though to greet it. “That was the last one? The one with the highest score?”
“Perfect score, if that means anything.” He hadn’t trusted the results, even as he watched the excerpts on the screen. Part of him had wondered if all of their careful precautions to keep the subjects isolated during containment had been a failure and each iteration had learned from the previous. If there was some more subtle form of communication besides the coral which allowed them to communicate, or to deceive them. It was the reason he’d relented and allowed the survivors to be housed together. Watching their open interactions might reveal if there was another more subtle connection to them.
Perhaps he was just succumbing to paranoia. Sometimes it was difficult to judge. At least he knew he was not gone as long as he could still doubt himself.
“Depends on how you interpret the results, though, doesn’t it?”
Alex avoided Morgan’s mismatched eyes. In her own escape she had “failed” the final test, although the real events had of course been more complicated than the simulation. They had had this conversation more than once, and he had no desire to have it again.
“It has occured to me that the tests may not be as strictly quarantined as we thought,” he said. “That it may have known what we wanted before the simulation started.”
“Is that a problem?” She sat down, an attempt to keep up her calm presentation, although he knew she was anything but. “Not even all humans are good because they think it’s the right thing to do. They do it because they know it’s expected of them. It’s the only reason we all survive, and if there is anything of us in them, they understand that, whether because they communicate it or because they learned it.”
“Then they could just as easily discard it once they know we will not kill them,” he replied. “We cannot trust them.”
“Alex,” Morgan said, shaking her head. “They’re only as human as we can make them.” She smiled, but it was not meant kindly. “We certainly can’t make them more human that we are.”
“What we did was for the good of humanity,” he said curtly, turning away. Impossible not to notice the difference between the subjects, now. What else didn’t he notice? Was he imagining it now?
“Am I still human?” Morgan asked. “Are you?”
“Of course,” he answered, immediately.
“You shouldn’t worry so much,” she said, and her soft tone alarmed him so much he turned back to watch her. But her eyes were back on the screen. Self-absorbed. “None of us would hurt you, Alex. None of us did.”
“I know, Morgan.” He was so tired. But there was no time for rest.
“We’re family.” Morgan rose again, standing back at his side. “You should let me meet them.”