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Zane was not human. He was still coming to terms with it. He didn’t have a brain or lungs or even a heart, just some weird power source humming steadily inside his hollowed out chest. He felt empty. He was already so different, so othered from his teammates and now he wasn’t even human. Would they even want him on the team? They already didn’t like him all that much.
Maybe he’d be better off going to live in the woods with his falcon and the other animals again. He hopes they’re all doing well. He misses them.
It was late. Later than Zane should be up. He’s usually very punctual. Asleep on the dot, awake and ready for training bright and early. But tonight he couldn’t keep his eyes closed. There were too many noises. Kai snoring across the room, Jay’s video game still playing through the wall, pipes creaking, raining thudding, and cutting through all of it was his power source humming. Loud and ringing in his ears. He needed to get out.
So he found himself walking quietly through the Bounty’s halls. Thud. Thud. Thud. His footsteps drowned out some of the noise. Mainly Jay’s game. But he could still hear the humming of his power source.
He stops walking. He’s reached the kitchen. His favorite place. Here it was quiet.
Zane takes a deep breath.
Thud.
His head snaps up. Someone is walking around. He can still hear Jay’s game and Kai’s snoring, so it’s not them. And Nya and Wu have rooms on the other side of the ship.
Zane creeps down the hall towards the sound. There’s footsteps. The scraping of something against the old floorboards. And a sigh.
Zane finds himself outside Jay and Cole’s door. It’s cracked open.
A new sound starts pouring out of the room. First it’s staticy, but not like how the inside of Zane’s head feels some days. It’s warm, filled with a feeling Zane can’t even begin to describe. Like the sound the sun would make.
He doesn’t know what the next sound is. He just knows it fills his chest up with the deep tones and clears his head with the light melody. He feels whole, he feels human. Like his power source isn’t humming, but beating like a heart is supposed to. His eyes flutter closed, leaning his head against the wall.
He’s so absorbed by the sounds pouring out of the room that he doesn’t notice the door opening.
“Zane?” Cole’s voice cuts through the noise, almost blending into the sounds. Zane’s eyes snap open.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Zane stands quickly, not looking into Cole’s eyes, “I’ll go back to my room,”
He turns, hurrying back to his room.
“Wait,” Cole calls out after him. Zane turns back, walking tentatively toward him, “Can’t sleep?”
Zane nods.
“You wanna come listen with me? It always helps me sleep,” Cole offers like it’s the easiest thing. Like he was talking to another human.
“That’d be nice,” Zane says quietly, following Cole back into the room.
A strange device sits on the floor. It’s small, with a needle and some sort of disc laying on it.
“What is that?” Zane says as Cole sits on the ground next to the device.
“It’s a record player. It plays music,” Cole pats the floor next to him. Zane sits.
“Music?”
“Yeah,” Cole smiles, placing the needle on the disc, “that’s what you were listening to. It’s jazz,” Something in his voice sounds empty. Sad. Zane doesn’t understand why.
“How does it work?”
Cole looks at it for a minute, contemplating. “Well, the record, this thing,” he points at the disc, the record, “has little grooves on the surface. The needle runs along these grooves and projects the sound that the grooves make through here,” he taps the side of the record player.
Zane likes listening to Cole. He was the only one who would explain “normal” things to Zane without treating him like he was stupid. Jay would tease him and Kai rolls his eyes at him. Cole was kind about it, though.
Zane was pulled out of his thoughts by the record beginning to spin again. The noise, music, began to play. It was beautiful.
“So what is jazz?” Zane mutters, not wanting to interrupt the record.
Cole hums. His eyes were shut as his head tipped back. He looked peaceful.
“Jazz is an improvisational style of music. That means the musicians basically trade who leads the song and they play what comes from in here,” he presses a hand to his chest. Where his heart is, “instead of from a paper,”
Zane looks at Cole for a moment. He mimics Cole’s pose. Letting his eyes slip shut and his head tilt back.
“To me,” Cole speaks again, “Jazz is human. It’s different from most other music because the musicians are playing from inside. It reminds me what it means to be human,”
Zane hums. “What does it mean to be human, to you?”
Cole goes quiet, letting the music dance in the air around them.
“To me, it means to love, to protect, and to create. We’re supposed to love and protect each other and we all create art and music. It’s how we’re connected,”
Zane slips deep into thought. Those things applied to him, right? He was built to protect, so that one at least did. But love?
“How do you know if you’re loving people?”
“You care for them,” Cole’s answer was nearly instant, “you’d do anything for them. And being around them makes you happy and feel calm.”
Zane hums. If that’s the case, he loves his animals, his falcon. And maybe his team. They’ve been getting closer. He can feel the beginning of those feelings Cole described.
The music flows through the air before suddenly stopping.
Cole leans over the player, picking up the record gently before flipping it over. He places the needle back down and the music resumes.
His eyes look tired. Cole stares at the record like it’s going to say something.
“My mom loved jazz,” Cole smiles, “These were her records. I like to listen to them when I miss her, it reminds me of her and my dad when we were happy. And when she was still here,”
It wasn’t the first time Cole had brought up his mother. But he’d never been so clear about any of it.
Zane doesn’t know what to do.
“What was she like?”
Cole smiles. “She was the nicest person ever. She was kind and she always grounded my father. She was the stable one compared to my father. She taught me to always be kind to others and to always protect those who can’t protect themselves,”
Something in Zane’s chest twinges with a sense of familiarity.
“And she loved music,” Cole continues, “I come from a very musical family. There was always music playing in our house. And my parents were always dancing. My mom loved jazz most of all, though. She said it made her feel connected to her family and to the earth,”
Zane nods, letting Cole’s words sit there with the music.
“When I turned my memory switch back on,” Zane starts, “I remembered the man who built me telling me that I was built to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves,”
He doesn’t know why he shares it. But it feels right to let the words spill out, mixing into the notes and being carried away with the melody.
“I guess we’re pretty similar then,” Cole's voice is soft, almost lost under the beating of the drums.
The music continues late into the night. Zane leans his head against Cole’s shoulder. He felt grounded. Human.
Maybe he didn’t need to be a human inside to still feel human.
Either way, Zane thinks he’s going to have to listen to music with Cole more.