Hullmetal Girls

by Emily Skrutskie

  I scooped my little brother up on my shoulders, took my sister’s hand, and told them they could beg forgiveness at the service. Throughout the hour, I kept expecting them to zone out, as they often did at temple. But the air around us was electric with three centuries of celebration, and for once Amar didn’t tug the hem of his shirt loose and Malikah didn’t play with the tassels on her headscarf and I felt like I was managing. Like maybe after everything that had happened, things were finally working out.

  I’d started crying then. Now I’ll never cry again, thanks to my new biology.

  I’d pulled both of them close to me in the pew. Now I’m districts away from the Reliant, from my siblings, from everything I’ve fought so hard to protect.

  I’d thought the worst was over.

  My heart rebels, pumping so hard that it feels like it’s hammering against the metal reinforcements that structure my ribs. I feel the exo slipping around my brainstem, encouraging my lungs to steady, but every nudge just makes it more apparent that my body isn’t what it used to be.

  I was human. You’re better now, the exo insists. In a way, it’s true—being Scela is stronger. Faster. Control, control, control.

  My eyes burn, like the tears should be coming. They should be coming. Why does my Scela body have to rob me of something that makes so much sense? I try to lift a hand to my face, but the orders we’ve been given keep my limbs locked up, even as my own will urges the exo to slip their grip. For its part, the exo is trying to help—it’s always looking out for our well-being. It knows it would be better for me to be able to move. It wants that for me. I’m grateful.

  I’m not grateful. I want it out. I want my body back the way it was—wasn’t—shouldn’t have been. I can never have that, and the very idea feels so enormous that it finally shatters the orders’ will and allows me to slump back against the wall behind me, burying my face in my hands as the hum behind my skull dissipates.

  So much for making a good impression on our first day out in public.

  Aisha. Praava’s presence swells in my head as she hits me with her full attention. I feel her eyes on me, taking in the way my body has broken free and collapsed. A fierce internal battle rages inside her, and at the end of it, her exo frees up one arm. She reaches over, then pauses.

  Her thoughts swirl through me, half formed. Do you…Would it be okay if I…Okay, this is stupid. Praava lets out a thin sigh, barely detectable. When I was too young for hormones, I used to get a little…like this, and it always helped when my sister rubbed my back.

  The exo’s spine covers the parts her sister used to trace. There’s no sensation there anymore, just segmented metal. I feel the difference, and the loss hits her. I watch her face it, feel her accept it and tuck it away with a thousand other experiences.

  Try, I plead.

  She slips her hand under the drapery of my uniform shoulder, the loose fabric meant to smooth out the harsh lines formed by the exo’s headpiece and bulk. Her fingers instinctively go for the spine, but she hesitates. It feels wrong, somehow, to touch another Scela’s metal. Praava ducks the wrongness with a compromise, running her thumb in a careful circle around the ridge of my shoulder blade, over the lines where my skin’s been resealed.

  The touch is comforting, faint as it is. But when my sensation hits Praava’s head, she returns fire with memories that flood my mind as if we’re newly linked again.

  Ratna. Her sister’s name is Ratna, and Ratna would sit on the edge of Praava’s bed, comb her fingers through her hair, rub her back, talk to her in low, quiet tones, promising a better future. I’ve felt Praava’s certainty that Ratna will save the Fleet, but only now in the immediacy of her memories do I understand how it was planted, grown, cultivated.

  In her memories, Praava’s dysphoria melts. And even when it sometimes doesn’t, even when it racks her still, her sister’s there to help her ride it out. And she’s here with me now, and even though these things aren’t the same, not even close, there’s something parallel that lines up between our minds.

  My breathing slows. The burn fades behind my eyes. I let my exo guide me back into parade rest, with a few extra degrees granted to the angle of my neck so that for a moment, all I do is stare down at this body—this wondrous body, the exo tries helpfully, but I shunt the thought aside. No adjectives. This body is a body. This body is a fact. This body is mine.

  Praava pulls her hand back, tucking her memories away from the system. She slips into our mandated position again, and a brief glimmer of pride glows through her thoughts before she can clamp down on it. Not pride in me, but pride in herself, in being something close to what her sister is. Her teeth flash out in a too-brief Scela grin.

  My focus finally shifts out to the Launch Day festivities. I let the ship back in around me. Watch the people moving, hear the music, drink in the smell of that wonderful food.

  See a pattern moving through the crowd.

  Start to panic.

  “Okay, what about this?” Woojin muses, fingers drumming against his palms. “Sick parent. Sick parents—that’d be even stronger. Wasting fever, maybe, or really anything else. Ring any bells?”

  My lip curls. “We’re civilized up in the frontend—we have health care. They wouldn’t need this to be looked after.”

  Down below, the festival’s building to a fever pitch. The thoroughfare is packed to capacity, and the windows along the street spill the noises of smaller gatherings out above the main celebration. It pales in comparison to the spectacle of the Antilles’s three hundredth Launch Day—I remember that much. And the bit about my parents is definitely true too.

  I think.

  With the Dread’s communications locked down, I haven’t been able to contact them. I’m not desperate enough to keep begging for a chance to send out a message like Aisha, but surely my parents must know why I took the metal.

  If they know I took the metal in the first place.

  “What if you did it on a dare? Or with a friend—both of you tried to see whether you could take the conversion, and you were the only one who walked away?”

  “Fucking dark, Lih,” I snarl. “And no. Pretty sure I’m not that stupid. Spirits alive, where do you get this shit?”

  He shrugs. I’m not exactly sure how he shrugs, given how firmly the orders have locked down my own body, but Woojin plays fast and loose with the rules that govern the rest of us when he’s not in his rig. “What about…,” he drawls, and in the system I feel him reeling in the next idea.

  He’s been at it for what feels like hours. I don’t know how to make him stop. I already tried ignoring him, but the silent treatment doesn’t really work when he’s in my head. With my body locked in place by the orders buzzing at my neck, there’s no way for me to physically shut Woojin up. At this point, I’m just waiting for him to wear himself out. At least his prattle is drowning out whatever’s got Aisha throwing a fit on the other end of the exosystem.

  Woojin opens his mouth again. I can already anticipate what he’s about to say, and there’s no way I’m going to let him vocalize the suggestion. “Is there a boy—”

  “Stop,” I hiss, blasting the sentiment through the exosystem at the same time. The combination of the two is enough to shock him into silence. “It’s pretty clear that I don’t remember, and I’m never going to. All I know is that I’m here.”

  My head goes quiet, and it takes me too long to realize that it’s my exo throwing up walls. Not to protect me from Woojin’s nattering—no, it’s not that merciful. It’s clamping me down to keep me away from the others. Shuttered in my own head, just to keep me from lashing out.

  Next to me, Woojin’s gone abruptly still. Locked from his thoughts, I’m forced to wait for whatever he’s going to blurt next.

  “It’s not so bad,” he says at last, reaching up to pinch a leaf from the vine arcing over our station. “I mean, I’v
e felt the holes in you—I know you’re dealing with a different monster. But when I took the metal, it wasn’t for any grand reason. Not like, y’know, those two. It doesn’t have to be for a grand reason.”

  “You took the metal because you’re a fucking criminal,” I mutter. I’d settle for just a reason, even if it’s not all that grand, and something tells me that I’m not the only one. When he isn’t being pinned down by a full rig, Woojin’s thoughts are awash in existential confusion. The guy’s spent his whole life clawing just to live another day, and he barely knows how to function outside of survival mode.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he says gently.

  Part of me knows he’s being kind. Most of me knows I don’t deserve it. And all of me is certain it’s the most ridiculous thing he could ever say in this situation. It’s not okay. It’s not going to be okay until I recover my memories. Until I understand why I did this to myself. Until I get answers. I’m about to tear down the exo’s barriers and make Woojin understand exactly why it’s not okay when they fall away abruptly, leaving me unsteady in my own head.

  Something’s happening. Aisha’s alarm slams into us from the far end of the thoroughfare. Whatever weirdness consumed her, she’s gotten over it now—or at least she’s got it locked down enough that she’s no longer spilling her issues into the exosystem. There’s coordinated movement in the crowd.

  Blood in the water, the exos sing between us. Woojin drops his leaf. Our restless energy snaps into awareness, bridging the things we see, the things we hear. We’re one being in four bodies, four sets of eyes and ears, four brains, four exos working in tandem. The crowd below us rearranges into statistics, and our mechanical minds pick out the errors in the dataset. Not many of them, but they’re there. People who suddenly have an objective. A vector. A rendezvous.

  Somehow I already know exactly what I’m looking at.

  Not good. We have to do something. My exo agrees on both points. It’s a wide-open opportunity. Intervene. Save the day. Make up for embarrassing ourselves in front of the Chancellor. Pull ourselves leftward on the rankings board. Unlock that right feeling and the memories attached to it. I can feel my former self on the other side of a curtain, just waiting to step in.

  As I take my first steps forward, the Fractionist protest takes shape beneath me.

  Their numbers are weak—the strength of the movement comes from the backend, not the frontend. But they don’t need many for what they’re after. They converge on the General Body representative in the middle of the crowd. His retinue collapses around him, fencing him in, but it’s not enough. The protestors came prepared. Fractionists unfurl banners scrawled with their slogans, hoisting them up on telescoping poles.

  WHERE IS THE PLANET THAT WAS PROMISED?

  HUMANITY WILL DIE IN THE STARS.

  SPLIT THE FLEET. SPLIT THE FLEET. SPLIT THE FLEET.

  The buzz on my neck shifts in pitch as circumstance mutates our orders. Stand still and observe evaporates into Protect the representative. I leap down from our perch and plunge into the crowd, Woojin quick on my heels. He ducks through the food stalls with practiced grace, his muscles alive with memories of Sixth District smash-and-grab runs. I don’t have his grace or his time to waste. I’m chasing my former self, and that calls for brute speed and every bit of strength in my limbs.

  A satisfied snarl rasps out of my throat as people dive out of my way. No matter what your political stance, when seven feet of enhanced muscle and metal comes barreling toward you, you’d better move your ass.

  In my academy training, I remember reading about citizen rights back when humanity had a planet to live on. Freedom to assemble used to be one of those. It didn’t last in space. With people in such close quarters. With the engineering of a starship dependent on people staying put. Chaos has to be shut down.

  Has to be shut down fast.

  The chanting starts. My exo dims the audio—it doesn’t want me getting confused. End this, before it gets out of hand. Woojin is two steps behind me. Aisha and Praava close on us from the far end. We’re flocking into a herding pattern, like wolves on an Old Earth cast. Hunt, the blood roars in my veins.

  Stop, a new voice commands, and my exo locks up, bringing me staggering to a standstill just twenty feet away from the knot of demonstrators. I catch the panicked stare of the representative, and purpose thunders down my spine. But the word we’ve been given is laced with the hullmetal will of the marshal’s orders humming against the back of my neck. You four have zero training on how to handle humans. You’re a danger to innocent civilians if you go charging in like that, and I’m not giving you any points for it. Let the regular patrol rein the Fractionists in.

  I rage, seething for a chance to prove myself, a chance that’s lying right in front of me. But the marshal’s will bats my own to the side and clamps down hard, and I’m left feeling less like a wolf, more like a pup. I don’t know how to slip her grip, and none of the other three seem willing to try. My lips fall back down over my teeth.

  I square my shoulders as the mature Scela surge forward around us. The protest falters, the less-committed abandoning their banners and scattering into the retreating crowd. The holdouts stand tall, trying to fill the gaps in their formation, but it’s too late. Scela strength rips their slogans in half. The Fractionists’ chants go silent or turn to begging. The representative ducks to safety, swiftly escorted away by his cowering retinue.

  Back to your stations, the marshal orders. My exo growls. It wanted the fight, the test, the chance, just as much as I did. But her willpower’s too forceful to disobey, and I find myself reluctantly trudging back the way I came, my eyes unfocused as the nervous stares of the citizens follow us back to our posts.

  It sinks in. This is the reality of patrol duty—being trapped in our heads while we wait around for something interesting to happen. The occasional flurry of action, followed quickly by an order to stand aside once the cavalry arrives. And then back to standing still, stuck in the quagmire of the exosystem and the void of my own mind.

  This can’t be the rest of my life. For a moment there, I forgot about my missing pieces. For a moment, nothing was missing in the first place—with the Fractionists ahead and orders driving my muscles to action, I had everything I needed. I don’t know why I became Scela, but it certainly wasn’t to stand by like this. I’m meant for more—I have to be.

  Overhead, loudspeakers crackle on, and every screen in the vicinity turns to the stark image of the General Body seal. For a moment, I think it’s a reaction to the protest, but then Chancellor Vel’s face appears, smiling benevolently, and I remember: The annual address. The reason we’re here.

  “Citizens of the Fleet,” the Chancellor says. She stands in her stateroom aboard the starship Pantheon, framed in rich mahogany and backgrounded by a sweeping galactic mural. My exo tries to discern any minute twitches of her facial expression to shed light on what she’s feeling, but I can’t get a read on her. If she knows what’s unfolding on the Porthos, she doesn’t show it.

  “I come before you on this, the three hundred and first anniversary of our Fleet’s launch. Today we celebrate how far we’ve traveled in the time since we left humanity’s ruined cradle and our hope for a day when we might set our roots once more. Last year, I spoke at length. Today, I have but a few words for you.”

  Some of the captured Fractionists have started shouting over the Chancellor’s voice, hurling insults and petty taunts at the screens as if she can hear. Others—ones the Scela are far quicker to muzzle—try to agitate the crowd around them as they’re hastily hauled away.

  “Our ancestors left us with no choice but to wander. It was the life we were born into when the resources of the Old Solar System could no longer sustain our race. The task we have been born into, the task these great ships around us were built for, is not an easy one. And it certainly isn’t one that can be accomplished on our
own.

  “It’s through our unity that the Fleet sails on. Our unity is what we celebrate on Launch Day. And it’s our unity that will bring humanity to the world we’ve been searching for. I wish each and every one of you peace and blessings, and a happy Launch Day to all.” The Chancellor gives the camera a beatific nod, and the feed cuts to black.

  The concourse rings with the echoes of her last words. As I settle back into my parade rest stance, I realize that my heartbeat’s holding steady at twice its usual rate. I push a question at the exo. Why the fuck am I still so worked up?

  But naturally it’s still not telling me anything.

  The morning after Launch Day, we wake not to the buzz of an order but to Marshal Jesuit shoving into our exosystem. I get five words into the Morning Strain before her presence swells in our heads, stalwart and impossible to ignore.

  Today is your first day off. Un-Haad, your request for leave has been granted. Report to Assembly for immediate departure. Tanaka, you’ll be escorting her. Lih and Ganes, you’re free to spend the day however you wish aboard the Dread. Your exosystem will disengage in ten seconds.

  A muffled curse rings out from Key’s bunk.

  The marshal pops out as suddenly as she came, leaving the four of us blinking in uncanny synchrony. A few heartbeats later, our collective mind snaps four ways, and for the first time in days, I’m in no one’s head but my own. The sensation is so unfamiliar that I get lost in it for a moment, transfixed by my own individuality.

  Then the marshal’s words come back, and my thoughts narrow sharply.

  Amar. Malikah.

  I’m just a shuttle ride away.

  Three minutes later, by my exo’s count, I’m sprinting down to Assembly with Key on my heels. I feel lighter without the weight of her judgment pressing into me constantly, but the exo warns me not to get too comfortable. More often than not, having Key Tanaka in my head is going to be a fact of my existence.