Chapter: Carmine’s choice.
Carmine was in a very languid mood, floating listlessly between Crimson and Lyla. A personal inhibitor wired into David’s neural interface had shielded him from the brunt of the… act. The neural field they had shared had told him enough about Matt and the other two beems to know to veer clear of them. There was no converting them, and Carmine was extremely close to getting sequestered by Crimson herself.
Their first hostile encounter with Carmine had explained plenty regarding the capabilities of such Hybrids, and their last encounter had explained equally as much regarding the limitations of his neural interface over his ship.
Carmine, are you alright?
Very alright. The response was dripping with feline satisfaction. His personal inhibitor muffled it, making her difficult to understand.
This isn’t the way. David transmitted, his sternness sobering his ship up slightly.
I won’t leave him. She replied calmly. David sensed a subtle hostility directed at him, almost subconscious – instinctive, perhaps.
You think he cares about you?
I know it. I felt it.
How do you know it wasn’t for the other?
A pause. He pressed the point: How do you know you weren’t the one who felt the pain of partial incompatibility. Maybe you were the outsider.
It doesn’t matter.
And what do you think will happen now?
I don’t know.
Do you want to give up everything we are?
No.
Because we aren’t what they are.
What are they?
They are traitors. The Coalition seeks to better itself – to unite its people. Crimson doesn’t share that goal. They want to destroy. They work against us.
United through oppression? I saw what happened to the Rael – to Lyla’s mother.
Had we not done that, billions more would have died in the ensuing war. The colony ship would have been unable to sustain itself without that industrial core.
It feels wrong.
But you know it had to be done.
I—
We created you.
But—
Don’t go against what you are.
I won’t.
Good, now let’s head back to the —
An electrostatic shock knocked David unconscious immediately.
I’m a beems…