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CT-9902 – formerly known as Tech, currently dead – had never been one to follow orders. He was designed that way along the rest of his squad, and he died that way, alone, though his defiance had always been an act of love. He wears – wore – it proudly.
“CX-2” – as many soldiers called him behind his back, when they thought he wasn't listening (he always was) – was, in more ways than one, very similar. His features were the first of the list, of course, but there was also his voice, his mannerisms, and his abilities (his brain was a work of art, Hemlock had said). And, unshaken and unmoving in his core, entangled with his veins and bones, there was his disobedience. Despite the fact that his very creation was to assure efficiency and blind fealty, he couldn't fully deny his nature. When the right opportunity came, an old feeling inside him had screamed its way up his mind (or what was left of it) and had decided it wanted to live. And CX-2, loyal to the very end, had followed.
That is probably how he wound up here, on this gods’ forsaken island, living a lie under the ever-watchful and judgeful firmament.
Tonight, everyone is asleep. The moon shines in through the window, casting its light on the mattress where Wrecker is sprawled, snoring; Omega lays beside him, curled up and clutching Lula in her grasp. Echo and Hunter are on the other side, probably blocked by Wrecker’s arm. Crosshair, finally sleeping peacefully for the first time in months, is lying next to Tech, his good hand an inch from his brother's fingers.
Tech likes looking at them. Not in a creepy way. But there's a sense of peace in the way they sleep, and counting their breaths makes Tech feel less lost. Most nights, he can hold on to the fact that he's here, and he's alive. CX-2 becomes just a distant memory.
But not this night.
Tonight, Tech looks at them, and he sees only the awful way in which he marked them. He sees a phantom red stream dripping from Crosshair's missing hand; he sees the blown-up face of Wrecker, and the hole in Echo's chest; he sees Omega's face broken with fear and Hunter's with pain. He feels the weight of the rifle on his hands.
It's been months, years, and he went through two lives, but his mind is clouded with the memories of his actions. They come to him in fragments, faded and blurry, with a constant whistle in the background. They're not clear, but they feel real nonetheless. Sometimes, they’re just a buzzing noise, a mosquito that doesn’t bite but never leaves, an invisible leech gnawing at his flesh. Most frequently, they take up all the space, and Tech succumbs to them, helpless.
Yet, tonight is not only for the shadows of lingering mistakes.
Tonight, there's a man in the corner of the room watching him. His dark hair is damp, and his uniform is torn up by the bullets’ holes, but he's grinning through the shadow, and there's a glint of malice in his sunken eyes.
This is the first time that the ghost has come this close. For the past year and a half, it was just in the corner of his vision, at the edges of reality, haunting him from afar. But now, it has come into his house, and Tech knows it won’t leave.
He has made the calculations. There’s no way out.
(All his lives – cadet, soldier, traitor, machine – have been an endless, self-eating cycle of falling into an infinite ocean, and no matter how many times he managed to come to the surface, something new brought him down deeper. And he always died, in some ways. That is the only constant)
The ghost tilts his head, and his grin widens, revealing a set of rotten teeth that shine through the dark. It might be just a figment of Tech’s imagination, but the clone sees blood dripping from his smile onto his shirt.
Tech can’t move. The ghost’s gaze keeps him locked in place on the bed, and despite the shivers, despite his mind reeling and his body itching to jump, Tech doesn’t move. The ghost doesn’t speak, but Tech can see it in its face, the order on the tip of its tongue.
After all, the ghost doesn’t need to say a thing. Its whispers have been resonating in his head since they left Tantiss; its voice is always with him, speaking truths.
You can’t hide forever, it says, and there’s nothing that Tech can do to shake away the memories that cling to his throat.
Images of a fogged glass, fumes going up his mouth and nose, burning his insides.
I gave you life.
The ghost’s voice, but alive and greedy, welcoming him to a new world, ordering him to "get up, shoot that target, find the girl, kill them". Because good soldiers follow orders. Because loyalty is a weakness, but fear is a good incentive. And where fear doesn’t work, there’s always control.
(The chip had never had an effect on him, but they had found something else to manipulate him with. He wonders how many of his actions were really his own and how many were not)
You’re my creation.
The stirring sound of the machines. The piercing pain at the back of his skull. The continuous tearing of his bones.
You belong to the Empire.
The ghost smiles, his skin deteriorating, and Tech, trembling and sweating, barely able to breathe, decides he has had enough.
Making sure he’s being silent, he runs out of the house. The moon, high in the sky, watches him. Dawn is getting near, and with that, it will be harder to face his pain, so he tries his best to outrun it.
But no matter how fast he leaps, how far he goes, the laughter of the ghost still follows.
—
Between the infinite doubts, lies and second-guesses, Tech only has one truth: he doesn’t regret dying for his brothers. He would do it again if he was given the opportunity. As many times as needed.
What he regrets most of all is not staying dead. If he had been just a little bit braver, he wouldn’t be here. Instead, his will to live had been so strong that Dr. Hemlock had used it. Tech had never understood what they had done to him, and he didn't want to. He didn’t know if he was the same person or a clone of a clone or something entirely new. It didn’t matter: he was here now, and his mind was broken beyond repair, and no amount of love from his family could fix him. He had no humanity left.
Perhaps it was this sense of loss that had brought him to build the radio. Or, trying to at least, because after all this time, he still hadn't found a way to make it work. Its static had now begun to haunt him in the silence of the night, leaving him plagued either by pain or failure. He exchanged every part and gadget more than once, but he still hadn't found a solution.
Tech had come to the conclusion that the problem had to be him.
He hadn’t destroyed it, though. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. It could have still been of value.
And it was ironic: Tech had become Hemlock, bringing back to life something that had surpassed its use, and even if he had the chance to do one act of mercy, he still didn’t kill it.
The machine had become the human, and the human had become the machine.
Tech sits in front of the radio, a rusty box made of various scrap materials Omega had bought at the market or Phee had brought back from her travels. The few lights they had installed illuminate the space, and Echo's ship sits silent in the dark. He had once swapped the machine for Gonky, and he had almost started taking the droid apart. In his defense, Tech had not been sleeping for the previous two nights; Hunter then made him stay in bed for a week.
For a few months now, the routine has been this: staring at the radio, hoping that it would start on its own, by some kind of miracle. They had met numerous space wizards with many talents: why couldn't the Force bless this machine, as well?
Tech knows that these are only the delusions of a desperate man. Logic tells him so. But Omega had taught them that nothing is impossible, so he dares to dream.
It’s of no use now.
The ghost is still in the house, and it’s as real as Tech is alive (which could mean very much or not at all). It has come to take back its puppet, and it won’t go away until it does.
Tech wants to run. He’s become good at that. But he can’t leave his family. If anything, out of obligation to the brother he replaced. If he were to leave, they wouldn’t survive losing him again.
They had told him they needed him. Tech still doesn’t fully believe it, but the old one - the original one - did, so this version of him has to stay. He owes it to them. For getting him out of there.
Maybe, he thinks, once he’s expired, they’ll let him go, and he could see the galaxy without the lenses of his helmet. He’ll even join Phee in her missions, if she’ll let him, and he knows she will: she loves him, or loved the previous Tech, her “brown eyes”. She has been calling him that a lot more, now that he has ditched his goggles. He doesn’t need them anyway: Hemlock fixed his sight. They’re still on a shelf in the bedroom. As a reminder.
Never again.
Sure, for them is a reason to go forward, but for him … that's a whole different story. He doesn't like looking at the glasses. He doesn't even acknowledge them. Doing so would be just a slap on the face, another spear thrown at this side, the admission that he took him away from them.
He wonders what they see when they look at him. A usurper? A threat? A killer? Why haven't they cast him out already? He deserves it. If he wasn't such a coward, he would have done something about it. This is not his life. This should not be his life. He stole it, like he stole everything else: his name, his skills, his soul.
I should have left you in that machine, the ghost says, sending a chill down his spine.
For the first in what feels like ages, the clone finds his voice.
“No,” he whispers. Then, louder, “No.”
It comes out with a rasp, his tone breaking, and his mind rushes.
The crashing of waves is washed out by the overbearing clangs, the bangs, the hisses.
He covers his ears, pointlessly, and talks to the air. “Please, don't put me back there,” he begs, not knowing if the ghost will hear him, and immediately despises himself for speaking.
He hates it. He hates the way it sounds, the way his voice trembles, he hates being so weak, and he hates pleading for his life. But he's afraid.
He remembers not being able to breathe, the weight on his lungs. He remembers how badly it hurt, how it felt like dying all over again.
The memories are foggy, and he wonders how many of them are real, how many were implanted by Hemlock, and how many are a response to his incident.
He thinks he was locked in that machine – more a tube than a tank, hot and humid – for roughly 4 months (he had picked the number by the talks between Hemlock and the clone Commander); he spent a week after that learning how to walk again, and the next three training day and night, alone. He was a secret, a project the Doctor wasn’t completely convinced of but was willing to bet on. When he had emerged functioning, Hemlock had taken it as a victory and had begun working on the other enhanced assassins. CX-2 was sent out to the facility, posing as a normal trooper in the division, but they all knew what he really was. Everyone could feel the way he walked differently, with a slight limp and the shoulders curved. It didn’t matter if they all wore the same armor, if they had the same skills, if they all had no past or name of their own: he was still different and alone more than ever. He didn’t talk to anyone. He started forgetting the sound of his voice.
Given his unnatural condition, he had to be put back in the tube more than once to make sure he wouldn’t fall apart. The life support though did more damage than anything, and thus began his trouble with breathing. Every now and then, he suffocated in his helmet, in his sleep, in the very machine. It was a side effect, Hemlock said. Of his death, or maybe his resurrection.
(No, of his blood’s death. He – Tech-2, if you will – was never alive in the beginning)
He had believed that, with time, he would have gotten better, and he wouldn’t have had to see that machine ever again. In fact, he did heal, physically at least, and they did stop strapping him in. But the first time he disobeyed an order, he found himself back in that room, trapped in the tube. And this time, it wasn’t to help him.
He still sees it, when he closes his eyes: the glass shaking as he pounds on it; Hemlock’s face on the other side, stern but almost gleeful. He still feels his screams in his ears, muffling every other sound.
They’d break him until he didn’t know his name, until he could only respond with “yessir” and nothing more; then, they’d throw him in his room, with the parting promise of doing it again, if necessary.
The next time, after Teth, they injected him with the same serum they used on the other clones. And between the threat of pain and the effect of the serum, short as it was (thanks to his blood), CX-2 kept doing what he was told.
That was, until he retrieved Omega.
After flying away from Pabu, everything becomes a blur, a mix between the present and memories that in part might not be real, and in part don’t belong to him.
From that derives a constant question bothering him: are these two versions of Tech the same? Are their blood, their soul, their brains equal? This clone doesn’t feel that way. He feels like a stranger in his own skin.
In his fractured mind, there’s an overlap of events: there are the orders, the ones he followed and the ones he didn’t. There’s the memory of a long fall; there’s grief and anger. And then, there are the faces of his brothers. There’s the spear hitting his back, his sides, hanging over his naked face. There's begging, and there’s mercy.
They had implored him to come back to them. And the clone of Tech, who had felt the original crying in his blood, had said yes, and for the first time, he had meant it.
But all this means nothing. It didn’t heal him. It didn’t make him a whole person. It just keeps hurting.
Everything hurts all the time.
He wants it to end.
Sleep doesn't stop the visions from coming. On the contrary, it enforces them. When he tries to speak with the others, he doesn't find the words. They wouldn’t understand anyway.
Throwing himself into his work would’ve been the only helpful thing, so he'd built the radio to communicate safely with Rex, but the kriffing machine doesn’t start.
He hates it profoundly. It mocks him in its silence. If he could bring himself to destroy it, punching and kicking in the water, he would, but his body seems to have different opinions.
He doesn't even register raising his hand until he barely dodges the machine: his fist meets the rock with a cracking sound, and the impact reverberates in his entire body. Tech lets out a scream (pain and anger go hand in hand), the kind that scratches his throat, as he stumbles backward and leans over the nearest wall of the cove. The cold of it sends a shiver down his spine. His knuckles might be broken.
Everything is too much like being in the tube.
He heaves through the pain, eyes closed, mind drowning. He feels all the overwhelming weight of it on his chest.
It's heavy, but he feels it.
For months, it has been the only confirmation that he was alive, even if lost.
In this moment of panic, he remembers Omega's lessons on meditation. He doesn't know why it comes to him now, but he hears Omega's soothing voice guiding him through the motions, with Crosshair and Batcher sitting at their side and the setting sun warming their faces.
Inhale. Feel the universe around you. Be one with it. Listen to how it sings. And exhale. Good. Again.
It may be desperation or delusion that brings him to do it, but Tech inhales. He listens to all the sounds surrounding him – the chirping of nightly birds, the howling of the wind –, letting them flow between his arms, his fingers, his hair.
With every breath, the pain diminishes, his heart slows its pounding, and his mind stops running. The calming sound of waves echoes in the cove, and for a moment, in this space, Tech finds stability.
I could stay this way forever, he thinks. Suspended in time. On his own. Peaceful.
But this safety lasts a moment only: from the rock echo nearing steps, and Tech knows that the ghost has come to take him.
He considers, for a second, putting up a fight. But what would be the point? He can't defeat a ghost. They're both already dead either way.
Just when he decides to accept that this is the end, the ghost calls out his name, except that it's not its voice.
Usually, the ghost is slimy and hissing. This tone is worried and soft.
It must be a trick. A new way to get him. Easing him to his demise.
“Tech,” the voice says again, and it's low and raspy, but it feels familiar, and it ricochets in his ears in a pleasing way.
Tech dares to open his eyes. At first, his vision is blurry, and he can barely make out the silhouette of a crouching figure in front of him, reaching out. Tech almost instantly pulls away but meets the limit of the rocky wall behind him.
After blinking a few times, his vision clears, and what he sees in front of him is not the ghost, in any measure.
Instead, there is Hunter, hand open towards him; his hair is up in a bun and his brows are furrowed with worry, but nothing in his stance is aggressive. The tattoo on his face is dimly lit by the moon.
Tech stares at him, still slightly shaking.
Hunter repeats his name, and it flows perfectly on his lips. Like it was made to be said by him.
The original Tech must have been so loved.
The thought hits him without warning, sharp like a knife, and it’s followed by the realization that Hunter is looking at him and seeing someone else.
His chest clenches, his throat soars up. He can’t stop the grief washing over him.
As these feelings overwhelm him, Tech tries to scatter away, but he has no space. Despite the spacious cove, he feels trapped, suffocated.
Hunter doesn’t step forward, but he still looks at him with pleading eyes.
Tech can’t bear it, so he looks away, just to meet with the vision of the four other clones rushing up to them. The bigger three slow down once they’ve reached the cove, but Omega leaps on the rocks until she’s beside Hunter. She tries to get closer, but Tech (imagining her chained up and frightened for her life) gathers his knees to his chest. The kid (who’s not really a kid anymore, pushing up to her early teenage years) stops dead in her tracks. A pained gasp leaves her mouth.
Tech covers his eyes. He doesn’t want to look at them as he hurts them again.
“Why are you here?” he croaks. His fingertips rest nervously on his eyelids. If he were not himself, he might carve his eyes out. It would certainly ease the pain, or at least direct it somewhere else.
It is Hunter who speaks first, voice low but loving as always. “I thought you needed help. I heard you rush out, and I thought …” The clone gulps. “I was worried,”
Tech moves his hands away and glances at Hunter. “You heard me leave?” he asks, doubt and surprise in his voice. He knew he had been quiet (like a ghost in the night). He had learned to slip away unnoticed, even and especially by someone with enhanced senses like Hunter. Has he lost his ability?
Am I of no use anymore? Has my time finally come?
Hunter’s features soften, the same face he has when watching Omega running freely. “I always hear you,” he whispers. A small smile forms on his lips.
And that's the core of it, of their family. Because yes, they had been made brothers, but they had been comrades first, and it had taken Omega to make them be brothers again. But in that time, they had never stopped knowing each other. They could have never been strangers and not even enemies.
And yet, this is not Tech – CX-2 – ‘s family. Not entirely, not yet. Maybe not ever.
He’s lying to you, the ghost remarks, insistent. Why would he care?
And that is, also, the core of this clone. Who would think of a worn-out, incompetent soldier who doesn't even know his own mind anymore? Who would even bother.
“Why do you care?” Tech echoes, and he feels the ghost chuckling in his ear, the memory of CX-2 creeping up on him. He looks away.
Tech doesn’t need to see Hunter to know his pained impression. He picks it up with his sucked breath.
It’s a painful sound. He should apologize. He doesn't find the words.
“Because you’re our brother-”
Tech shakes his head. “Your brother is dead,” he spits out before he can stop himself. He grimaces at his own words as he hears the reactions of the others. Crosshair scoffs (the only sound he can make), Wrecker gasps (for the first time in his life, quietly), Echo sighs (knowingly).
It's Omega's response that hurts the most. She cries out, itching to come closer. “Tech, please,”. Her voice cracks as she begs him. For what, he doesn't know.
He can't give her anything but more pain.
“Just go,” he pleads. His voice doesn't sound his own, and maybe it isn't. He feels he's floating away from his own body, down deep into the ocean of the unknown.
He can’t be saved.
“I’m not your Tech,” he whispers, barely audible amongst Omega’s sobs.
“What are you saying?” Wrecker exclaims, his tone feeble, despite his imposing stance. How have they all changed since the beginning.
“You’re talking nonsense,” Crosshair adds, earning himself a glare from both Hunter and Echo. “What?” He continues with a snarl. “I’m right.”
The clone – Tech? CX-2? Someone else? – lets out a hysterical laugh that sounds too close to the ghost’s.
“Not helping,” mutters Echo to Cross, noticing the other’s reaction.
Crosshair completely ignores him. “It doesn’t matter how you arrived here - you’re still Tech. The DNA is the same,”
“Is it?” The clone shoots back, something rotten rising in his throat. “You don’t know what he did to me - what he created.” He tries to sit up, but immediately the world spins, so he finds himself back on the ground. “And even if you did-” he goes on, clutching his temples, “how are you so sure that we’re the same? You didn't know me when you found me and you don't know me now. You didn't know your brother either, and you left him to die, alone. You killed him!”
He feels the anger spilling out from his lips like venom. Crosshair backs up, his eyes wide with something that looks like fear. His missing hand (you cut it you cut it you cut it) starts trembling.
The clone digs his nails into the rock under him. The impact travels on his arms like a shocking wave, and for a split second, he’s back in the tube.
“Do you really believe that your brother is somewhere buried deep inside me? Do you think he’ll crawl back out to you?”
Tech is an abstract desire, an illusion from a better time, from a past without cracks and emptiness. A wish he cannot grant.
“Tech is gone, and I’m not him,” he spits out, the words tearing apart his throat. The snarl that comes out of it has the same tone as Hemlock's voice. He tastes blood on his tongue.
Wrecker turns his head away, eyes closed. Omega hides behind Hunter, and the Sergeant moves with her, putting himself in front of the kid. To protect her.
Something not yet broken rips inside the clone. A new wound opens. And it’s, again, his own doing.
He tips back his head, a scream at the back of his throat ready to be let out. He doesn't trust himself enough to speak, afraid of what other obscenity might come out.
The water shines on the rocky ceiling of the cove. It looks so peaceful. The whole universe does when he's not there to ruin it.
There's a burrowing void inside his second-hand heart. It makes him question existence itself. A clone is not meant to have these kinds of problems. They were just meant to fight and die for something that was already doomed. Now, without it, what are they?
“I’m not even sure I am someone,” he mutters to himself and to the ghost, who simply chuckles in response. Anger roars in his chest at the sound.
If you weren’t already dead, he thinks, I would break you apart.
You wouldn’t have the courage, the ghost hisses back.
But it’s true. Even if he’d had the chance, he doesn’t know if he’d have the strength to do it. In the end, he’s a coward.
Another figure steps in front of him: the clone lowers his gaze to remark Echo, crouched down, his expression shaped in a stern look, with his eyes furrowed and his lips sealed in a line. He seems almost disappointed, which scares the clone even more, to the point of averting his eyes, but Echo stretches forward his hand and puts it on his brother’s (are they not at least brothers in tragedy?) knee.
With a serious tone, he tells him, “Look at me,”
When the other doesn't oblige, Echo repeats it more firmly. It doesn't shake him the way Hemlock's voice used to, but the clone still jumps up at the tone and meets his eyes.
Once Echo is sure he's being paid enough attention to, he asks, “What do you see?”
The clone stares at him with a frown. What kind of question is that? What else would he see, besides the determination and righteousness in his features, the strength and bravery in his figure, the love and care in the lines on his face?
“I just see you,” he answers.
Echo nods, a hint of a satisfied smile on his lips. “And do you know what other people see?” When the other shakes his head, he taps the implant on his temples with his robotic arm. “Just this. They don’t look past my appearance. But you see me as I am. And I- we see you.”
The other clone exhales, shaking. “And what am I?”
Will you tell me?, is the unsaid question.
“Who you are,” Echo responds, giving him a reassuring smile, “is for you to figure out.”
The living corpse shakes his head. “I don't know how to do it.”
Help me, help me, help me.
“It takes time. But you are strong, and you will find a way.”
“Don't lie to me,” the clone says, almost involuntarily. He bites his tongue, urging it to stay put. The metallic taste fills his palate, and it’s almost comforting. This, at least, is a known feeling.
Echo almost scoffs. “When have I ever lied to you?”
There is surely an example that, however, doesn't come to mind, so he lets it go.
Echo keeps going. “The first step will be hard - probably the hardest thing you'll have to do. But it is you who has to do it. It has to start from you”
“And if I can't?” the clone asks. He can't trust what he says. He can't trust anything, not anymore.
“You will,” the other retorts, and it's half a promise, half an order. And this one, he's willing to follow.
“Besides,” Echo adds, “you won't be alone. We will be by your side”. He turns around to glance at the group. Their faces are still full of pain and confusion, but they shake out of it and nod in agreement. Omega takes a few steps forward, Hunter’s hand still on her shoulder.
“Of course we will,” she says. They’re brothers after all, are they not?
The clone, who would very much like to smile at her, can’t gather the strength to do it. He offers a nod as thanks, instead. She nods back, understanding. Of course she does. She doesn’t have a grain of hate in her heart.
And yet.
How can they accept him after everything he’s done? How can they love him, even now? He doesn’t understand how they can be so merciful, how they can still choose goodness after all they’ve been through. His mind can't grasp it. Logically, they'd have every right to loathe him.
And yet they don't.
The human-machine groans and covers his face with his hand. He wishes he could strip his thoughts out of his mind with a hook, although he's very aware of the pain it could cause. Maybe he'd even welcome it.
“You don't think you can?” Echo proposes, trying to make words of the clone's thoughts.
He laughs drily. “I know I can't,” he says. “The ghost won't leave,”
They don't ask him to explain further, they don't share confused looks: they all know what he means. They've all had their own ghosts, at some point.
Echo gathers the clone’s hands in his and moves them away from his face. When the other doesn't shake away, he squeezes them. “It won't leave because you're still afraid of it. To move on, you have to face it. You need to accept it. You need to accept the pain and make it yours. It can't control you,”
He says these things as if they were the easiest task in the world. And, in some ways, they are: they've fought droids and brainwashed soldiers, they've survived impossible missions, and they bested death itself. But here they are. Losing to a ghost.
“I don't want to become him,” he whispers, the sound barely leaving his mouth. I don't want to succumb to revenge.
“You won't,” the clone reassures, but his voice trembles.
He glances at Echo. Even though his smile hasn’t faltered, there’s doubt behind his eyes. Behind him, Crosshair bears the same expression. Of them all, these two are the ones that probably understand him more. They, too, were abused and treated like mere property. Echo wears the scars of it everywhere.
At least they emerged alive from it.
Echo frowns. Something in the other's expression alerted him. After a few seconds, he says “We’re out,” sensing the clone’s thoughts. “We are not machines. I promise you,”
The other closes his eyes and feels the air around him. There’s a slight chill running up his bones. A bird cries out from the sea.
It takes time for him to make the decision to talk. When he does, he doesn't do it lightly.
“I wish they had left me dead,” he admits. He feels Crosshair suck in a breath, and he opens his eyes. Echo’s smile has disappeared, and now he’s looking at him with sorrow.
He gets up, his movements floppy, hurtful. Like he had just exited the tank.
He looks out the cove, past his ship, to the sea lit by the low moon. The other clones follow his gaze. They stay that way for a moment, basking in the silence of the scene, until thunder breaks the sky, and gentle rain starts hitting the water.
They will never accept you, the ghost stirs in CX-2’s mind. In response, a high voice from a buried memory exclaims, "Do you think we’ll ever see the rain stop?”
Kamino and Tantiss, from what he knows, had that in common. The constant pouring down of the sky.
Sometimes, he misses it. It gave him certainty that not everything was an illusion.
This, too, then, is real. For better or worse.
Partly to the sea, partly to him, Echo whispers, “I wished they’d done the same for me,” with such pain, anger, and exhaustion in his tone that Tech – or whoever is in his place – dies a second (third, fourth) time.
The revelation hangs heavily amongst them. It’s suffocating.
They had never really talked about it. Mainly because there wasn't a chance, and then they had Omega to look after. Now they had time, and it became clearer that they all carried unfathomable pain, and yet they still weren't able to speak. He surely didn't have the courage to do it. Not because he didn't trust them. It was rather uncertainty freezing him, a wall rising in his insides and blocking his tongue. He wanted to be known, to be loved, but he was so afraid of this longing.
Either way, even if he wants it or not, they'll never truly know him.
It feels … ungrateful of him to think that way. He wishes he could be satisfied with his situation; he does want to make the best of it.
But what can he do if he can't even fix the radio? How can he mend and fill this immense, unfillable void for his brothers? How can he save them?
Maybe, if he dies again, it will mean something.
It wouldn't take much. Pabu stands high on the water, and he's not the man he used to be: accidents can happen any day. He simply slipped. It might just do everyone a favor. Hemlock should have never brought him back in the first place.
Would it be selfish to find a way out? To try and stop the pain from bursting out, to wish for some peace – for him and them –? He's stolen a life: wouldn’t it be right to give it back to the universe? Wouldn't he be doing an act of justice? Replacing the balance, the order of things: isn't it what the Force is all about?
“Well I, for one-” Wrecker exclaims, and it shoves him back into this fragile reality, “-am very glad they didn't.” He gives them both a wide, toothy smile, and the scar on his face crinkles with it (you almost killed him). “I would not survive without you two,”
Echo chuckles under his breath. He traces back his steps and clasps Wrecker's shoulder. “I feel the same, brother,”
Wrecker cackles and pats him on the back; Echo wheezes, not yet completely used to the brother's strength.
(How could they ever? The endlessly changing cycle of life doesn't stop for them)
(Not quite, anyway)
The breath is still escaping his lips when Echo regards the sitting clone and retorts, almost sarcastically, "I told you we were gonna have this talk,”
The broken clone can't help but smile in this situation.
“I have to admit you were right,” he says
Echo murmurs something along the lines of, “I always am,” but still gives him the biggest grin.
It brings him some variation of joy to know that, despite everything, they still have the ability and chance to be happy. He can be happy, too, then.
Crosshair comes closer to him, staring him up and down with his typical look that scares everyone but them. The other returns the glare. Crosshair watches him silently, pondering his next words or whatever thoughts are in his mind. His eyes are calculating, not so different from Tech's, and the impostor clone wonders if he acquired that look after his brother's death or if it was theirs in the first place.
After a few seconds, he says, “Whoever you are, you are always welcome with us.”
It doesn't sound true, but the clone tilts his head in the only thanks he can give. Cross nods, but before he steps away, he adds, “And we will always forgive you."
The words hit the other in the chest like the sharpest knife.
The former assassin-machine-corpse gapes at him as he leaves to go speak with Hunter.
His mind can't seem to wrap around it.
He understood tolerance. He understood love. He understood wanting to maintain the peace so carefully kept in this place. But forgiveness? It's the last thing he deserves.
It doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel earned.
He never worked for it. He still doesn't. He is Pity, crawling at the squad's feet, desperate for belonging, but he knows, he feels it deep in his bones, that he is out of place. Forgiveness is not a gift, but here they are. Giving it to him without a second thought. Crosshair, of all people, is offering him this mercy.
The pain that comes with this realization is a different kind from what he's used to. It's buried, encrusted to the bottom of his heart, and he thinks that no amount of torture or serum or fear could shake it out of there. And that is also a good thing.
The quiet of the cove, such a fertile place for unwanted thoughts, is broken by Omega's yawn, an indicator that they woke up earlier than usual.
Hunter clears his throat and, with just a hint of a smile on his face, announces, “It's probably best if we head back,”
His proposal is met with several sounds of agreement. Wrecker, shuffling Omega's hair as he passes her by, jokes, “Back in the day, we used to stay up for days. We lost our touch, eh?”
“Thank the Force we did,” Hunter says, with only honesty in his words, and he puts his arm around the bigger clone's shoulder, walking him away. The Sergeant nods to Crosshair and Echo to follow; then he turns around just enough to catch the former assassin's eyes, his face turned in a simple, earnest invitation.
The idea of going back into the house, where the ghost is waiting, forms a lump in the clone's throat.
Suddenly, the cold rocky pavement feels so comfortable. Who needs a bed. And heat.
I think I'll just stay here, he's about to say, when his vision is blocked by someone stepping in front of him. The squad stops dead in its tracks to regard the situation.
For a split second, the machine thinks of the ghost, but then he shakes his head and reconsiders.
The clone looks up and refocuses his attention.
Omega has stopped in front of him, hand reaching out, waiting for him to take it. The same hand he was offered on Tantiss. An escape route.
The previous Tech – the one who had just found himself, who still wasn’t whole, so he had to use someone else’s name – had taken it. The question is, of course: will this one?
He stares at it for a moment too long. Nonetheless, the hand doesn’t falter, and neither do the other clones. They wait for him to make a decision. Their looks are the same they had on Tantiss: there isn’t anger or distrust, but simply pure and unconditional … forgiveness.
This is loyalty, he thinks. This is love.
But this was not meant for me.
Suddenly and annoyingly, the thought pulls him back down. A primal fear sits heavily at the bottom of his stomach, and it brings him to ask, feebly, “How can you accept this?”
Accept me.
Omega smiles. A light wind lifts up her blond hair, and the glow coming from the lamps shines through it, taking a greenish shade. In this light, she looks like a dancing flame or some kind of deity.
“Change,” she says; he feels a pull of recognition, and he almost immediately realizes that she’s quoting something (him). “It is a fundamental part of life.”
The memory echoes in his mind. The sound of the river coursing through the cave, the glow from the ipsium, and his voice, although so different.
We have to adapt and move on.
It's astounding how, since then, not much has changed at all, and, at the same time, how everything did.
He is not so sure they're family anymore.
But oh, how he wishes he could give them at least this reassurance.
“I don't know what will come from this,” Omega states. Even her voice sounds different: older, rougher, and yet so sweet. How has he not realized that? “But I do know that we can't stop the tides from crashing as much as we can't stop life from changing. And so, we can only welcome this new reality and try to make it ours as we go.”
The clone stares up at her, still a kid –their kid, their little sister– but growing up so wonderfully. When did she get so wise? Where does she find this strength?
He wants to believe her so badly. He wants to be the person she needs him to be, and he wants to prove to them all that they made the right choice. He wants to take back his power.
And maybe, he realizes as Omega grins, showing all her teeth, eyes sparkling, maybe he can.
He's lost in a dark stormy sea, but he has a ship and a light, and he'll find his way back home, even if it destroys him again completely.
After a beat of silence, filled by only their careful breaths, Crosshair, chewing on a toothpick and with a deep frown on his forehead, clicks his tongue and, completely unwanted, says, “Where did you learn this shit?”
Echo slaps him on the shoulder. The blissful moment is broken.
“What?” Crosshair yelps, and the other clone snarls at him.
“Watch your language in front of the kid,”
“She's not a kid anymore!” Crosshair protests. “She's technically even older than us!”
Omega chuckles, and the sound rings like the most beautiful music in the clone-machine's ears. It is worth every pain.
Hunter steps forward and separates the two clones, barely holding back his laughter, Wrecker roaring behind him. The attempt is useless, because Echo barks a comment that makes Crosshair grimace and forces him to throw his toothpick at the other, to which Echo can only respond by trying to jump on him; Wrecker catches him by the shirt before he can do any more damage.
Omega looks at them for a moment, her face warped with fondness. There's a beautiful stillness in her features, hardened but reshaped into their peaceful origins by the salt and the sun.
She's their saving grace. He has hurt her most of all and he hates himself for it, but his love for her is truly the only tether he has to this existence. She is his light.
Once the dispute settles, she turns back to him, hand already forward before she's even facing him completely. There are no signs of a change of mind.
He hesitates once more, just a second. He wants her to want it.
Almost as if reading his thoughts, Omega, firm in her tone, says, “We just want you,”
Any other day, any other moment, the ghost would have slithered to him and taunted him. But in this moment, he can almost sense him screaming as he turns to dust. He will have no power over him now.
It makes him satisfied, but most of all, it makes him excited. It makes him almost a whole person.
Damn Hemlock, damn the pain, damn the memories. Damn the kriffing radio.
Perhaps he can never give them their Tech back. But maybe he doesn’t need to. Maybe a replacement will be enough.
Maybe he will be enough.
Trembling, he takes Omega’s hand. She stands straight, immovable, a fixed anchor in this dark ocean, preventing him from drowning even deeper.
He leans on her to get up, his legs shaking, but Omega doesn't falter. Seeing him standing, the other clones begin walking away, back to the house. Crosshair falls in place beside Echo, telling him something that makes the other sigh and roll his eyes, but his face is beaming with happiness.
Omega leads him by the hand, clutching it fiercely as if to not let him slip away again. She burns like the brightest star. He would follow her anywhere.
The wind picks up, and from beyond the horizon, the sky takes on a rosy color, lighted like a painting, the rain leaving a ghostly vale in the air.
Tech gladly lets himself be guided. Although uncertainty follows him, for the first time in months, he has hope. It has been handed to him, and he still has to nurture it, with hard work and a strong will, but it's there nonetheless. A hope for a brighter future, where the ghost won't reach him, and where he can grow old with this family, in their peaceful home by the sea.
As Pabu slowly and silently wakes up, Tech feels this hope roar in his chest as it comes to life.
Perhaps Time will be kind to him.