Archive of Our Own

Zane has a loose wire. He's pretty sure. A recent battle knocked something out of place, and it's been rattling around inside his casing, just between his shoulder blades. It's not anything too vital, but it makes his left eye twitch uncomfortably, and it's become an annoyance. It should be an easy fix, but after several attempts, he'd resigned himself to the fact that he simply can't reach it. 

He's not a fan of asking for help with this sort of thing. He's still settling into being- knowing he's a robot, and the others aren't any better. It's a touchy subject for Zane at the best of times, but his teammates are always weird about it. 

Kai is the most outright uncomfortable with the idea, and doesn't bother hiding that fact. Cole insists she doesn't care but makes a conscious effort to avoid any mention of the topic. Zane isn't sure if it's preferable to Jay's ceaseless onslaught of questions, many of which are quite invasive. Perhaps if Zane were more comfortable with himself, he wouldn't mind answering a few questions, but as things are, the attention makes him self-conscious. Nya at least makes an effort to act normal around him, but she looks at him like a puzzle she'd like to solve. Or dissect. Lloyd and Sensei Wu at least don't seem to have any strong opinions on the matter. He suspects Sensei Wu already knew. 

Unfortunately, it has to be Jay or Nya. Even if he didn't predict their outright refusal, Kai and Cole are a couple of meatheads who he wouldn't trust to fix a fridge. Kai is skilled with metal, sure, but only when fire and hammers are involved. Cole, on the other hand, tried to duct tape the mainsail line back together last week. No, Zane needs someone who knows their way around electronics. It's Jay or Nya. Nya built the Samurai, so she definitely knows robots, but only on a larger scale. Jay's gadgetry is more detailed, but whether he's worked with a similar system is a toss up. Zane has known Jay longer, however, making him the more comfortable option. It's an emotional choice, not a logical one, but it doesn't make sense to put himself through unnecessary discomfort for such a simple fix. With that in mind, the choice becomes logical. 

Zane finds Jay alone after dinner and explains the situation. Jay is, predictably, overenthusiastic about the situation. As they enter the vehicle-hangar-turned-workshop, Jay has already launched into his interrogation. 

"So what does that feel like, having something loose in there?"

"It's an incessant tapping against my spine," Zane answers. The line of questioning is at least topical this time. Better at least than being asked over dinner if robots poop. 

"Man, that's gotta be weird." He shudders. "Yep, I thought about it too hard, that's super weird." Zane stays silent, not sure how to respond. Jay fills the space regardless as they pass by the Samurai mech. 

"Y'know, I can't believe none of us noticed this thing for like months. Like no one just went down a level and found all this." 

Jay prattles on until they reach his considerably smaller section of the workshop. He'd wanted an equal share, but it's hard to argue with a 30 brick high, rocket propelled combat mech. 

"Alright, just plop down on the workbench there," Jay says, gesturing vaguely to a sturdy wooden table as he digs through a toolbox. It looks uncomfortable. Zane finds a stool nearby and sits down. He then removes his sweater and folds it neatly on the table in front of him. When Jay turns and starts laying out his tools, he looks at Zane and then pats the table. 

"C'mon, dude. Up." 

"I'd prefer to sit, if it's all the same to you," Zane says. 

"It is not 'all the same', I need to be able to see what I'm doing," Jay huffs, pointing up at the lamp hanging above the workbench like it's obvious. It is obvious, really, but Zane can't find it in him to care right now. 

"Look," Jay starts. "I can get this done in like five minutes my way, or I can scramble around one handed with a flashlight for double or triple the time, your choice." 

Zane thinks it over. As uncomfortable as it is, Jay is right. This is the logical choice. He sighs, an unnecessary emotional response, and climbs awkwardly onto the workbench. It feels weird. Bad. He grabs his sweater to use as a pillow. Oblivious to his teammate's discomfort, Jay starts poking at the seams in Zane's back. 

"Alright, where am I working?" 

Zane wordlessly points to the site of the malfunction; a narrow panel between his shoulder blades. Jay cracks it open with a little more force than necessary. And possibly a screwdriver. 

"Need I remind you–" Zane says sternly. "–that my spine is just as vital as yours. Please do not damage it." 

"I know, I know. I'm being careful." Jay starts digging for the loose wire, and they both go silent. 

It's strange. Before Zane was aware of his nature, he couldn't feel his internal workings any more than a human could feel their tendons move separately from their muscles. Now, though, he's aware of every sensor, joint, and servo, each reporting up to his CPU individually. As Jay digs through the 82 wires running along his spine, he feels the intrusion as blunt pressure against his bones. It's still strange, but rhythmic and predictable. His anxiety comes down a notch; present, but manageable. Until Jay rests an elbow on his head. 

"Do you mind?" Zane grits out. 

"Huh? Oh! Sorry, dude." Jay chuckles and moves his elbow to rest on Zane's shoulder instead. Only Marginally better. "Not used to my work caring about that." 

The comment grates on Zane's mind like a steel file, his momentary peace gone. 

"Do you treat all your 'work' with such flippancy?" 

"Relax, man. I told you, I know what I'm doing." 

Just as he says it, something snaps, and Zane's vision goes dark. 

Jay freezes. Zane freezes. A moment of horrified silence passes between the two. 

"Jay," Zane says, panic evident only in the tightness of his voice. "What did you do." 

"Uhhh..." Jay replies eloquently. It's not exactly comforting. 

"Jay-"

"It's okay! Something just got disconnected, I just gotta stick it back in. What does this thing do?" 

Oh, no. 

"What does what do?" Zane asks, trying to stay calm. 

"This. Thing. Right here."

"I see. Or rather, I don't. If 'that thing' is what you displaced, then it's responsible for my vision." 

"Oh." Jay at least sounds appropriately concerned. "That's not good."

"It is not ideal, no. But it was simply disconnected. You need only plug it back in." This shouldn't feel so much like babysitting. 

"Aaaaand that's where we've got a problem. The, uh, connector sorta kinda maybe... snappedoffintheport." 

"It what?!" 

"It snapped! I didn't want you to freak out but I guess that's kind of a moot point by now- BUT, it's just a cable. Your vision isn't broken, just temporarily cut off." 

Zane groans into his sweater. This is ridiculous. He gathers himself and tries to work through the logical steps of the problem.

"Alright. Do you have a replacement cable?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, lemme just go get one from my box of spare Zane parts." 

"Do you-?"

"No, I'm being sarcastic." Jay sighs. "It's not exactly a universal connector, I mean I've literally never seen something like this before." 

"If you don't have one, perhaps Nya does?" 

"Maybe? I'll have to go ask her though. Even if she didn't organize based on the whims of pixies, she'd kill me for digging through her stuff." 

"Then let us hope the pixies enjoy collecting rare connector cables," Zane says, sitting up. He pulls his sweater back on with some trial and error. 

"Y'know what," Jay says. "I'll go find Nya, you stay here. Cause you just put your sweater on inside out and backwards." 

Zane acquiesces, and Jay scurries off, leaving him alone, blind, sitting on a workbench. He still doesn't like the workbench, so he tries to stand, and underestimates the distance to the floor. He stumbles forward, crashes into something that rattles, and winds up flat on his butt. That certainly could've gone better, but at least no one was around to see it. Probably. He wouldn't be all that surprised if Lloyd were to bring it up in a week to embarrass him. 

Without his primary sense, Zane feels helpless. There's nothing he can do but sit on the floor and not move. Frustration bubbles up in his mind, and he shakes his head. It's not productive. He breathes deeply. An unnecessary but grounding action. He crosses his legs, sits up straight, and tries to focus. He feels the grain of the wood floor and the subsonic rumble of the engines. He can hear the wind whipping by outside and footsteps on the floor above. He breathes again. He lets the fear and frustration pass over and through him. Taking stock of what he can sense helps. He realizes Jay never closed the panel in his back, and the cable he broke is dangling out. He reaches back to grab it and, sure enough, the metal connector is snapped clean off. Curious, he feels around the cavity under his neck. His hand brushes an irregular piece of metal wedged in where there should be a cable, and for just a second, his vision flashes pure white. He decides not to do that again. 

At last, he hears the door open, and Nya's voice from the other side of the workshop. 

"Alright, so what is it you broke?" 

"Ah, well, it's sorta- you see-" Jay takes so long stumbling over an answer that Nya must spot Zane on her own. 

"Fancy meeting you here, Zane."

"Hello Nya. Did Jay fill you in on the situation?"

"He said he broke something and needs a weird cable. Please tell me you're sitting on the floor in the workshop for completely unrelated reasons." 

"Unfortunately, no. The cable that Jay broke was connecting my optical input to my central processor." 

"Oh for bricks sake-" Nya sounds exasperated, but at least she isn't panicking. "Alright, let's see it." 

"I suppose you'll want me to get back on the workbench?" Zane asks with a touch of apprehension. 

"No, you're fine where you are." 

Relieved, Zane pulls up the back of his sweater again. He figures he can get away with keeping it mostly on. It gets caught on the open panel and Nya has to help him with it. She looks at the snapped cable for a moment before declaring, "Yep, that's a weird one." 

She shifts Zane's sweater up a bit and rests her hand on the back of his neck. 

"Jay, can you pass me those tweezers?" she asks. Zane hears the tool change hands as the information processes. 

"I do not think that is wise," he says. 

"Well, I don't think it's wise to leave a conductive piece of metal sticking out of your brain," Nya retorts. 

"If you're referring to my central processing unit, that is located-" Zane's vision goes white again as metal touches metal, and the scream that rips out of his throat is completely involuntary. He thinks he hears something hit the floor, but all information is secondary to the stabbing, electric pain in his neck. It subsides after a few seconds, but the shock of it leaves him shaking. A superhuman robot isn't supposed to shake. Nya's voice cuts through the fog. 

"Zane, I am so sorry, I had no idea that would happen-"

"I told you it was unwise." His voice sounds like it was scraped off the floor.  

He hears Nya take in a sharp breath. Normally, Zane would hate being so harsh with his friends, but his patience was already stretched thin, and he’s had enough of people treating him like a machine. 

"You're right. I'm sorry. The port isn't damaged though, so we can just close this up until we find a new cable, and-" Nya's hand brushes Zane's back and he flinches away. 

"Do not touch me. Please." 

Nya doesn't respond, so he shuffles away and reaches back to shove the dangling cord inelegantly into the cavity and close the panel. He pulls his sweater back on and presses his back against the wall, trying to get his fine motor functions back under control. 

He hears Jay speak up. 

"Look man, I'm sorry, I-"

"Give him a minute," Nya interrupts. "Let's just go look for that cable." 

Zane is grateful for the partial solitude as Jay and Nya search the workshop, speaking quietly and infrequently. After almost half an hour, they report back that the search has turned up empty. Not for the first time today, Zane sighs in frustration. 

"It is late, we should all rest. Perhaps the solution will be easier to see in the morning."

"Need help getting to your bunk?" Jay offers. 

"No, thank you. I know the ship well, getting there on my own will not be difficult."

With that, Zane stands and immediately hits his head on the workbench. The one he hadn't realized he was sitting under. 

"Lemme give you a hand, buddy," Jay says, sounding very much like he's suppressing laughter. Zane, resigned to the situation, holds out a hand for Jay to grab. Jay leads him carefully out from under the table and through the workshop. They work out the best way to move like that; Zane holding Jay's arm and trailing just behind and to the left. They're still pretty slow though, and Nya heads to the bunks ahead of them. 

When they finally make it back to the bunks, Jay opens the door. Zane supposes he should've expected an audience. 

"What's up with you two," Cole starts. "Late night romantic stroll around the lower decks?"

"Jay, if you break my sister's heart, I'll kill you," Kai says casually. He sounds like he's eating something. 

"No!" Jay's voice cracks. "Nothing like that, it's just- I mean, it's kind of a long story, but-"

"Jay blinded me," Zane cuts in. 

Cole shouts, "He what!?" while Kai chokes on his snack and starts laughing. 

"Oh, Jay, you absolute blockhead, how did you manage that?" Kai says between wheezes. 

"I didn't mean to, I was just supposed to fix a loose wire, and then there was this other-" 

Zane cuts him off again. 

"I'd prefer we not discuss it in detail. It can be fixed, we just need to find the right part." 

"What do you need?" Cole asks, thankfully much more serious about the predicament. "Maybe we can help look." 

"Uhhh, it's a cable with this sort of trapezoid connector? I'm not really sure how to describe it." Jay gestures with his hands as he talks, probably illustrating the shape of the connector. 

"Here," Nya's voice comes from across the room. Zane hadn't realized she was there. "This is what we're looking for." 

There's some footsteps and shuffling around while everyone presumably looks at what Nya's holding. Zane must be making some kind of facial expression, because Jay leans over to explain, "It's that broken piece she pulled out of your neck." 

Zane shudders at the memory. He lets go of Jay's arm and carefully shuffles his way over to his bunk. Thankfully, no one bothers him, and he's left alone to think over his predicament. 

Zane wakes up first, as he usually does. Six AM sharp. He sits up and moves to get out of bed, until his processor catches up with his motor functions and stops him. He still can't see. He slumps back down and resigns himself to waiting until the others wake for breakfast. As much as he'd like to get up and move, he doesn't like the non-zero chance of walking straight off the ship. 

There's movement beside him, and a light tap on the wall above his head. 

"You awake?" Jay whispers. 

Zane opens his eyes, not that it makes any difference, and mumbles a weak affirmative. 

"You're up earlier than usual," he says.

"Yeah, didn't sleep great, and after a while it just didn't seem worth it to keep trying, y'know? Actually, do you know? Do robots get insomnia?" 

"My sleeping patterns are generally consistent, barring any extenuating circumstances," Zane answers. It's really too early for this. His systems need time to boot up. 

"Ugh, I wish I could just decide to fall asleep," Jay grumbles. "Anyway, I sent a letter to my parents to see if they have one of those weird cables, but it's gonna be a while before it gets there and another while before we get a response, so I was thinking..." Zane doesn't like where he's going with this. "I was joking earlier about the box of spare Zane parts, but it would probably actually be really helpful to have that sort of thing around. I mean, you can't grow new bolts the way a human can heal a broken bone. And if there's any place that'll have a box of spare Zane parts somewhere, it's-" 

"I am not going back there." 

"It might be the only place we can find what you need."

"Something will turn up," Zane snaps. This shouldn't upset him so much, but...

"Look, you're unique," Jay says, only 

"I am aware."

"I mean really unique. Like, probably the only thing in the world like you-"

"I do not need to be reminded."

"Sorry, but I'm not the one that made you. And I wouldn't put it past the guy who did to use all custom parts."

Jay isn't wrong. In fact, he makes a very logical point. The more Zane thinks about it, the more he has to admit that it is the logical choice. He sighs into his pillow and turns to face Jay, for all the good it does. 

"If this endeavor yields no results, I will be very upset." 

"Well, at least you won't have to see the place." 

Zane sees the lab every day. He's spent countless hours since coming to live with Sensei Wu going over and over the moment at which his memory begins. The body on the floor, the live wire in his hand, the sharp smell in the air. With enough focus and careful meditation he's been able to recover a few memories, but the events leading to that moment still elude him. When older memories resurfaced, he learned the woman on the floor was his creator, but he still can't understand why he would have done such a thing. Had she hurt Zane? Surely, he thinks, he would never kill without reason. But he does not know who he was before. How much of his moral code is his own, and how much was learned from Sensei Wu? 

Was he made only for violence? 

The ship lurches as it lands and Zane pushes the thought out of his mind. It doesn't go far. He steps out on the deck, still following Jay's lead. Cold wind hits his face, different from the mountain air at the monastery or the rush of wind felt from the back of a dragon. It's hollow, desolate; snow whips around in the air and stings his face. It's exactly like the day he left. 

"I hope we're in the right spot," Jay says from his side. "I don't remember this place very well."

Zane hears the door behind them swing open and then Nya's voice. 

"My sonar doesn't lie, so unless you know another labyrinthine network of cavities under this forest, we're definitely in the right place." 

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Zane grips Jay's arm a little tighter and hopes desperately for another labyrinthine network of cavities under the forest. 

With Zane unable to see, and Jay acting as his seeing-eye ninja, it's up to the others to find the lab's entrance. Nya's ground-penetrating sonar is still new, and while it could identify the cavity, the exact shape is lacking in detail. She's tasked herself with re-calibrating it in hopes of getting a clearer image, while Kai and Cole have tasked themselves with kicking trees. Zane tries to block out the sounds to focus. His internal compass always points him towards magnetic north, but the massive underground steel structure has been messing with it since they landed. It stands to reason, however, that the strongest point of disruption would be the closest to the surface. He can feel it; his compass wavers between what he knows to be magnetic north and a point somewhere to the west of him. He lets go of Jay and starts walking. 

"Hey, wait-" Jay protests.

"I believe this is the right direction." 

Jay must get the picture, because he quiets down and follows along, only speaking up to warn Zane of obstacles and tripping hazards. The magnetic disruption gets steadily stronger, confirming Zane's theory. Everything but the magnetic pull seems to fade away. He doesn't realize how fast he's going until his whole body jerks back abruptly, scarf tightening around his neck. He stumbles, and as the world rushes back into his head, he finds that Jay has yanked him back by the tails of his scarf. 

"Why did you do that," he asks, tone coming out sharper than he intends. 

"'Cause you weren't listening to me, and you were gonna run into that tree." 

The magnetic disruption is strong here, and Zane reaches out to confirm- 

His hand hits cold metal. He gives it a solid smack, and it makes a hollow clang. 

“Oh,” Jay says. “Not a tree, then.” 

Distantly, Zane hears Kai and Nya bickering over whose method was more effective. He pays it no mind as he feels around the tree for the door. His hand slides over Dr. Julien’s maker’s mark and he presses it in. The door clicks and swings open. 

It takes some time to get down the stairs. They’re uneven, and lacking a handrail, so Zane has to cling to the wall the whole way. Behind him, Cole argues that they should just drop a rope down, and Kai suggests traveling by spinjitsu to speed up the process. Nya, of course, takes the opportunity to remind everyone that she owns a jetpack. They all fall silent after what Zane can only assume is a dirty look from Jay. Zane is quite happy to let Jay speak for him in this instance. Or, glare for him, he supposes. 

All the while, the smell of rust and rot grows stronger. Jay was right about one thing; Zane is glad he can’t see the place. The sense memory of the stale air and feeling of being underground is enough to recall plenty of other unpleasant memories. It’s much like the last time he was here, only now he has those memories to look back on as well. Flashes of it come back to him unprompted. 

When the others arrived, Zane was still kneeling on the floor, clutching the blueprints in his hands. He had stopped focusing on their detail hours ago, but could not bring himself to move. His teammates’ voices from the top of the stairs slowly brought him back. 

“What is this place?”

“I dunno, but it’s crazy cool!” 

“Keep a lid on your nerd stuff. We’re not here as tourists, remember?”

The predictable bickering between his friends grounded Zane somewhat, at least enough to look up when they clustered around him. Cole put a hand on his shoulder and he finally looked up. 

“Zane, are you okay?”

“I-” Nothing in Zane’s apparently very technologically advanced mind could come up with the right words. Instead, he silently held up the blueprints and let his friends put two and two together. It was weird seeing his insides all drawn up like that. Weirder still showing it to his teammates. 

“Zane…” Cole started, cautiously. “What is this?”

“It’s a robot, dummy,” Jay cut in. 

“Obviously it’s a robot, I mean why does it look like Zane?”

“Because it is me.”

All eyes were on Zane again. 

It’s a relief when Zane’s feet finally hit solid ground. He nearly trips and eats dirt, but it’s a relief nonetheless. Accompanied by Kai’s brash voice, it breaks him out of his thoughts. 

“So, what are we looking for, a box of wires?” 

“I already showed you the one we need,” Nya explains. “But any other spare parts will be helpful.” 

“Alright, so we know what exactly one spare part looks like.” Nya rolls her eyes as Kai goes on. “Not all of us are rocket scientists, y’know.” 

“Then it’s a good thing this isn’t rocket science.”

“Oookay,” Cole cuts in. “How about we just bring you stuff and you nerds tell us if we need it. Cool?” 

“Cool.” 

“How about this?”

“It’s a joint, but not a human one. I’d bet it’d fit on that falcon.” 

“Keep, then. Can’t hurt to have.” 

Zane has resigned himself to sitting quietly in the corner while the team digs through the lab. It’s a place he knows only for the pain it has caused him, and they’re rifling through it like a toy shop. Jay especially seems unable to keep a lid on his excitement. 

“Ooh, check this out!” 

"Guys, check this out!”

“Are those bones?”

“Quit screwing around,” Cole butts in. “Have some respect. Besides, if someone died here, we should be on our guard in case whatever killed them is still here.” 

Zane approached the group slowly. 

“Her name was Doctor Julien.” Three masked faces whipped around to stare at him. “She created me.” 

“Did she-” Cole started.

“I do not know how she died.” 

It was the truth, if only on a technicality. 

"But you remember her," Jay said, perking up at the idea. "Did you get your memories back?"

“Bits and pieces. All the memories I have are contained within this laboratory.” 

There was a long pause, in which no one quite knew what to say. Jay looked down at the floor, Cole looked at Zane like a kicked puppy, and Kai looked at the bones as if they contained some secret. It made Zane anxious. Dr. Julien had many secrets, and there was no doubt her corpse was the same. 

“We should bury her,” Jay said suddenly. “I mean, it’s Zane’s mom. The least we can do is give her a proper sendoff.” 

“I don’t know anything about her. I’m not sure she was any kind of parent to me.” 

“Zane, buddy, she made you. She made you!” At Zane’s raised eyebrow, Jay elaborated. “I mean, she made a robot from scratch. She gave you a mind that can think and feel, and senses that process the world in more than just data- She gave you a nose!” –Cole snickers at that– “You can laugh, but I can’t imagine how hard it would be to mechanically replicate a sense of smell! That’s nuts! You don’t do all that for someone you don’t really love.” 

Jay looks so completely sincere, and Zane wants nothing more than to be comforted by his words, but something nags at the back of his mind. 

“Finally,” Nya says from across the lab. “Zane, we found it!”

“And a few spares,” Jay chimes in. Something rattles. 

“More than a few.” Cole’s voice sounds closer. “If you could see these boxes, you’d probably nod approvingly and say we've done an admirable job.” 

Zane has to admit, her impression is spot on. Though, the relief at getting to finally leave the lab may be affecting his bias. 

“I don’t need to see it to know it’s true. Thank you all for helping me today, truly. I don’t know how to repay you.” 

“You could make us dinner,” Kai suggests. “I’m starving!”

“I couldn’t ask for anything, I still feel bad about breaking your eyes in the first place,” Jay says. He still sounds genuinely quite guilty about it. 

“Bad enough to turn down Zane’s cooking?” Nya sounds notably less guilty. 

“Well, we did find a replacement, so I guess not that bad…” 

“I would be happy to make dinner for you all, as soon as I can see what I’m doing,” Zane says as he stands. 

“It’s settled, then.” Jay sounds much closer than before. “Pop that top and let's get your eyes hooked up.” 

“I don’t think now is the best time.”

“You wanna do all those stairs blind again?” Jay counters, and slaps Zane on the back. “Do not put off until tomorrow-”

“Why did you say that?” 

Zane blinked up at Dr. Julien. He was just as surprised as she was. 

“I do not know.” 

“That’s not an answer. I want an analysis of the decisions leading to you calling me ‘mother’.” 

“It just… seemed right.”

“It can’t.”

Zane was sensing he’d made a severe error. He tried to salvage it with familiar rhetoric. 

“You created me. It is the logical conclusion.” 

“Why didn’t you say that first?”

“I–”

“This is wrong. This is all wrong,” Dr. Julien said, pressing at her forehead like she could squeeze answers out of it. 

“Doctor Julien, I am concerned about your health. You have not slept a full eight hours in-” 

“You’re not supposed to be concerned about anything! You’re not a person!” 

Zane recoiled at the outburst, and something seemed to shift in Dr. Julien’s face. She seemed somehow colder now. That didn’t make sense. Expressions didn’t have temperature. 

“Come with me,” she said flatly. She then turned on her heel and walked out of the room. 

Cautiously, Zane followed. In the next room, Dr. Julien sat by her computer. A thick cable extended from the computer tower, and as Zane took his usual spot next to the desk, Dr. Julien unsealed the panel at the base of his skull and connected the cable. Normally, Zane would be content to stand idly as Dr. Julien implemented a new software update, but this time he was apprehensive. As the computer booted up, he could feel the code poking around in his mind, and it set him on edge. The code jabbed at his memory, and he glanced at the screen to confirm. He did not expect to see a large block of red text reading “DELETE.”

A single key clicked. 

Zane is on the floor again. He hears Jay groan, and it sounds like he’s on the floor too. 

“Dude, what the heck?!” It takes Zane a second to realize Cole is shouting at him. 

“I am unsure what you’re referring to.” 

“You punched Jay!”

“I punched Jay?”

“I probaly deyerb yhat,” Jay says. From the sound of it, his nose is hurt. Zane hopes he didn’t break it. The loss of control is disconcerting, to say the least. He really needs to get out of the lab. 

“No, I was startled and overreacted, you did not deserve that. I’m sorry, Jay.” Zane thinks it’s probably best not to mention that he blacked out. At least, not right now. 

“We really godda ged your eyed hooged bag ub.”

Back on the ship, Zane doesn’t relax until he feels the engines rumble and the telltale lurch of the deck as they lift off. He’s anxious to get his eyes back, but there’s nothing to be done until Jay’s nose stops bleeding, so he challenges himself to make it back to the lower deck workshop on his own. After the stairs in the lab, the ones on the ship are easy. The thrum of the engines is strongest down here, and it’s comforting after the strangeness of the underground lab. Zane carefully lays down on the floor and lets the engine noise take over his senses. 

Zane is abruptly shaken back to reality by the kchunk of what sounds like a box of spare parts set down heavily. He’s surprised to find that almost half an hour has passed. It’s not often that he loses track of time. 

“Hey, Zane?” Jay sounds much less stuffy than he did earlier. 

“Yes?”

“Why are you on the floor?”

“I’m listening to the engines. It’s quite relaxing.”

“Oh. Cool.” 

Zane sits up to continue the conversation. Normally he’d feel odd conversing from the floor, but it would be a very inappropriate time to fall over again. 

“Are you alright? I hope I didn’t injure you severely.”

“Nah, just a nosebleed.” 

“I’m sorry. It was not my intent to hurt you.”

“We’re literally ninja, dude. ‘Don’t sneak up on a ninja’ is like rule number one, I can’t blame you for a reflex.” To his credit, Jay does seem in remarkably good spirits for having been boxed in the nose by his friend half an hour ago. He starts clattering around with whatever’s in the box while he talks. 

“It wasn’t exactly a reflex. I didn’t want to worry the others, but you deserve to know that I was not in control of my actions in that moment.” 

The clattering stops. 

“What does that mean?” 

“Something about your action recalled a deleted memory from my system. A very unpleasant one. I don’t know what happened between that and the both of us ending up on the floor.”

“Oh, uh, you hit me, and Cole knocked you down. You… kinda looked like you were gonna do it again.” 

“I–”

“But wait, what do you mean ‘deleted’? I thought you got hit on the head or something, like, amnesia rules.” 

“It seems my memories of the lab were intentionally deleted. I… believe that Doctor Julien intended to wipe my software completely.”

“Oh. Man.” 

Zane is glad he can’t see Jay’s face as he processes the information. Still, he hears it when Jay makes the connection. 

“Wait, did you–?” Jay doesn’t say it, but Zane knows what he means in the same way that he knows the answer. 

“I don’t remember it happening, only the aftermath.”

Jay doesn’t say anything, and Zane isn’t sure what this particular silence means. 

“You did what you had to,” he says finally. It’s almost a whisper. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now.” 

Another long silence stretches between them as Zane contemplates this. And then Jay’s stomach growls. 

It’s so unexpected, it makes Zane laugh, which makes Jay laugh, and the somber air dissipates. 

“Come on, let’s plug your eyes back in so you can make dinner,” Jay says, and Zane hears a chair scrape across the floor. 

The first thing Zane sees is the sloped interior hull of the ship, and he’s never been so happy to see it. 

“It works!” 

Behind him, Jay sighs in relief. 

“Oh man, that’s great, ‘cause I did not wanna go back to that creepy lab.” 

Zane shares the sentiment wholeheartedly. 

Nya is hovering. Not literally, but she keeps sliding awkwardly in and out of the kitchen as Zane works on dinner. She’s asked if he needs help three times now, and Zane is starting to think there’s something else going on. When she pokes her head in again, he decides to be direct.

“You seem restless, Nya. What’s going on?”

“I just– Okay, well–” She sighs. “I don’t know if this is weird or not, but I thought I should give you this.”

Nya holds out her hand to show Zane a small, trapezoidal piece of metal. Zane blinks, not sure what to make of it. It sort of looks like– 

“It’s the connector I yanked out of your neck. Sorry, again, for that.” 

“And you’re giving it back to me?”

“Ah, I knew this was the wrong thing to do, forget it,” Nya says quickly, and starts to turn out of the kitchen. 

“Nya, wait, I’m not upset, just confused.”

Nya stops, turns back around, and fidgets with the connector while she gathers her thoughts. 

“When me and Kai were kids, our parents kept all our baby teeth. Like, for years. I found them all in a little box a couple years after they died. And I don’t know if everyone does that, but it seems right to hold onto the pieces of yourself that fall off. It would feel weird to just toss it. So it’s yours.” 

Nya holds out the piece, and Zane takes it, turning it over in his hand as he considers the implications. He never had baby teeth. He didn’t know that was something people kept. It made sense the more he thought about it; physical evidence of growth. He found he quite liked the idea. 

Dinner is raucous, as usual. Zane watches Cole and Kai trade insults like a tennis match, as Jay and Nya take sides in the petty argument and try to get Zane to do the same. He declines, stating that three against two would be unfair, and watches in amusement as the whole thing devolves into chaos. His new memory tugs at the back of his mind, and he tries to push it out. He is in the present, he reminds himself. He is among friends. He is safe. 

Kai swings wide gesturing with his spoon and flings sauce into Zane’s face. The memory is swiftly pushed from Zane’s mind as he declares war. 

Later, Zane leans over the sink, washing the remnants of dinner from his face. As he reaches for the soap, he feels it. An incessant tapping against his spine. Shit.