What we have right now is a clear breach in trust.

Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Lost in the Stars
Current Date: November 17, 4022

Character: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human – Genetically Modified
Age: 2 940, physically about 24
Current residence: Aeriasea, Borealis Continent, Inera
 

---

On the screen hovering just to his right, a few lines of what could be code sit. A cursor blinks slowly, perhaps in time with his heartbeat, perhaps not. Gabriel has long since lost track of these things. There hadn’t been a heartbeat for him to have while in the ether, and less so while in the android body. There had been the whirring of things inside and the feel of necessary liquids going to and from places but that had been it and he’d gotten used to those after a while too.

He’s lost in thought at this point. The cursor has been doing its slow-blink for some time by that point and he hasn’t even bothered looking at it. His presence in the ether as a free-floater has been uncommon lately. At least for longer periods of time. He still is permanently connected, but it is little more than a sort of buzz at the back of his mind, something he can ignore easily and doesn’t think of much unless there is an emergency.

A bit like the beacon that led Bray to him. He’d spent a lot more time in the ether back then and he still does scan signals every so often but not as much as he used to and, honestly, that might be for the best.

At this point, it is something else entirely that sits on his mind and Gabriel finally frowns as he draws his eyes away from the nothingness he’d been staring at. His eyes focus and he does turn his gaze towards the floating screen. He studies the text a moment and shakes his head before heaving a sigh. This wasn’t what he’d hoped to hear.

For months, at this point, Gabriel has been reaching out to all ends of the ether—while using his computer, which he’s still adapting to—trying to find someone who might have means of helping him deal with issues regarding how his body simply does not age. The genetic modifications that he’s been put through while being transferred from his android body to a fully human one keep him at a certain age and while it was an interesting thing for a while, the thought of remaining young while those few people he calls friend age—it bothers him.

Up until recently, there hasn’t been a thing for him to find. There just hasn’t been a single thing in his research that had offered him the kind of answer he is looking for.

With a sharp wave of his hand, the screen, flickers and then disappears altogether. Gabriel breathes a slightly disgruntled noise and tells himself that he’ll have to reach out to Timothy in a little while. He knows the older man isn’t very far off the planet at current and that there are no rescues with him. There has to be something he can do about this but his lack of ability to really connect with most people makes figuring this particular thing out difficult for him.

He knows that there has been a huge breach of trust between himself and the person he had reached out to for information. Thankfully, if nothing else, his years in the ether have taught him that sharing personal information with someone unless you are absolutely certain you can trust them is not to be done. The information he had given to the person in question had had some truth to it but there had been little white lies peppered throughout.

Gabriel still remembers the odd little questionnaire that had been sent to him and some of the questions had been ridiculously personal and hadn’t had any reason to be on there. They weren’t relevant to the subject at hand. So, he’d fibbed a bit on those and now he was glad for that.

He still remembers how quickly the ping came back. It had only been a few hours since he’d filled in those questions and sent it off and yet…

Shaking his head, he tries to forget, just for a moment, that someone out there had betrayed the little bit of trust he’d tried to show them. Thankfully, the information that has been leaked is something he has already taken care of. It’s not that part that bothers him; it’s the part where he thought he’d found someone he could have trusted about these things and, clearly, that hadn’t been the case.

Maybe, just maybe, he should get in touch with Fortune. It was some years back now since he last turned his attention towards that one and it was about time to reconnect. Things have changed since then, he knows—from Fiona to Fortune, for one, and he’s aware that this is a well-kept secret and he’s not about to tell anyone as it’s not his place—but maybe, Fortune has some information that he hasn’t been able to find.

Final Word Count: 815

I know I can’t stop you from making bad life choices, but I can at least try.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: August 31, 2022

Character: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 34
Current residence: Ithaca, New York
 

---

Helping people still comes naturally. At least, helping them behind the scenes, online, where they might try all they want, they’ll never find me.

He used to call me a modern-day Robin Hood. I never really saw it that way, I wasn’t so much taking from the rich to give to the poor. I was just helping the unfortunate be a little less so because they deserve to have a good life too. It hardly is their fault—most of the time—that they are dealing with the issues they are. I considered myself well above helping crooks who had dug themselves in too deep when it came to gambling or debt but helping someone whose whole family had turned their backs and who had nothing to their name, well, they deserved a little help.

That’s the way I saw things. That’s the way I still see things if you ask me.

I do have a real job, but it’s the kind of job that I can’t talk about. Even Bray is only aware of some barebone information about what I really do for a living. At least, the stuff that I can somewhat talk about. The calls from certain clients asking for help with their setup and the rest. The other part of the job that I can’t talk about, has to do with bigger agencies that don’t want people to know they hire folks like me.

Not that there are a lot of us. I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one in the country and that’s not even because I want to boast about it. I know what I can and cannot do. Just as I know that the movies make it seems like something completely different from what it really is and that suits me fine.

There are certain people that I reach out to, before I help them. I feel as though they deserve to know that there is possibly someone out there looking out for them. Ron is one such person I’ve helped now and again but in a way that I thought would get him to make some efforts on trying to get off of the streets. I was wrong the first time around, but I still gave him a second chance.

I shouldn’t have.

There’s a saying that goes with that, I think. Something about fooling you once, shame on the person fooling you, but if you end up being fooled twice—is that even the way to look at it, I wonder—it’s on your shoulders and not theirs anymore. So yeah, it was wholly my fault that I allowed myself to think that he would make some effort on that second chance I gave him.

The second time he got in trouble—for exactly the same thing as the first time—I told him that I couldn’t stop him from making bad life choices, but at the very least, I could try. I had tried the first time I’d helped him; I had reminded him of those exact same words that second time and, well, shame on me. I’m done helping him. I don’t care if he reaches out to me—as he’s done a few times since that day. I’ve tried to help him, but he threw it all away.

So yes, I do help people.

Yes, I’ve been known to be swayed into helping them a second time if they’re not careful with that first instance of help. It hasn’t happened often and I’m learning to know better than to give these particular people second chances. Some need a different sort of help, and I haven’t been above setting trails on people if you would, so the authorities that might have been looking for them do find them.

At times, the help you offer certain people isn’t the help they might wish to have but it’s the one that they do need, in the long run. There are no two ways of looking at it like that, in the end. I can’t fix the whole world. I don’t want to fix the whole world. I just want to be able to reach out to certain souls who need help in some way and offer them the help that I can.

There are certain occasions where that help isn’t a whole lot but it’s just enough of a push to get these people back on their feet and that’s what I’m trying to achieve, in the end. I’m no modern-day Robin Hood. I don’t want to be seen as that either. I help others that might need it because I feel like people might have a better chance at life if they get a little push. Maybe I’m just giving to others what I didn’t have, while I was growing up.

I don’t think I’ll ever really know at this point. I just am how I am.

Final Word Count: 817

What do I regret? A better question is; what don’t I regret?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 33
Current residence: Ithaca, New York
Final Word Count: 769 words
 

---

I can admit willingly that I never expected someone else to come into my life. After he had eased out of this very life, I truly did think that I would be alone for the rest of it; something I had long ago made my peace with. My inability to spend time outside, and what I do for a living, tend to not make me someone that anyone might want to spend time with. Coupled with the fact that I don’t do all that well when it comes to face-to-face dealings and, well yes, I did fully think that I’d be on my own until my death.

When Bray came into my life, things were different. I reached out to him because of the things his ex was doing. The bugging in his side of the house was a bit of a nuisance to me and he just sounded as though things were rough. So I did what I thought was the right thing. I hadn’t expected to make a friend out of the situation, let alone anything more.

That ‘anything more’ is slowly changing my life. I admit that I’m a little wary of things, considering what happened last time but I’m taking things one day after the other and I figure that this is the best I can do. I can’t just focus on the past and live in that past constantly, either. They are gone from my life, and they are not coming back. Bray is a breath of fresh air and, as someone who is more vampire than human, despite being all human, a breath of fresh air is just so beautifully refreshing that I can’t complain. It’s almost as beautiful as he is.

There is one rule that I live by. A rule that I lived by long before the Feds tentatively reached out to me for me to do what I do, to help them. If I believe that an action I am about to take will result in any sort of regret somewhere down the road, I won’t take that action. I believe in doing things that I know I mean to, and that will not lead to living with regret.

It’s a very fine line to walk, there’s no denying that. When I was younger and just starting up, discovering the world for what it had to offer, there was plenty that I nearly did but didn’t because I kept on asking myself if it was the right thing to do. That’s how it started, was I doing the right thing? Tempting as it was to find the means of taking from the rich to give to the poor, it wasn’t really what was supposed to be done. It’s like that old saying about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish.

Offering some help to clear out debilitating medical bills? That’s something I’ve done. Trick the system into the right lottery numbers for someone? Count me out, that would come out as regret in the long run. People might celebrate the win then, but there’s no saying what they would do with all of that money and then what? At least, clearing out someone’s medical debt felt like something that would have led to the potential of a longer, healthier life without having to choose between health and crippling debt.

I could probably spend hours just asking myself whether or not this one act, or that one, were good things. What I did, as far as the things I planted in Alton’s computer? I have no regrets about that. He already had done plenty of bad things, I was only adding to the evidence of things, making it a bit easier to find so that he’d get what he deserved.

I’m no hero, I don’t wear a cape, I don’t save everyone because I think I should. I don’t think I play god, either. I’m just me. I find bad people, I help make sure these bad people get put away for what they’ve done and, now and again, I’ll find something in the news or elsewhere that will draw my attention and I might just do something about that, too. It’s not much more complicated than that, not really. At least, to me, it doesn’t feel complicated, but I’ve been doing this stuff for more than half of my life, so I suppose that it might have a sway on things.

All I do know is that I have no regrets, as far as my decisions up until this point in my life, are concerned.

You’ve got the knowledge, but do you have the skill?

 
Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Lost in the Stars
Characters: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human – Genetically Modified
Age: 2 939, physically about 24
Current residence: Aeriasea, Borealis Continent, Inera
Final Word Count: 776 words
 

---

The more I allow myself to roam these forums, the more I have to roll my eyes at the claims of the common folks who participate in these portals of discussion. Most of them are teenagers or young adults, the latter usually claiming all the latest tech-mod as though it makes them better at what they claim to be.

In this particular area of the portal—for lack of a better word, though it is a thing like the world of old when I was first alive, text on pages and replies—they discuss their technological prowess. How one now has this or that tech as part of themselves and how they can do this or that thing, but they bring no proof to their claims. And I know, from quick searches through the ether, that their claims are as false as their non-existent upgrades.

The world, as it is now, requires that any tech modification be registered—in case, you know, something goes wrong or the piece is recalled or well, for any safety reason. The database for these things is, of course, under lock and key but there is very little that does not give under a little push when I put my mind to it, and I have an easy access to that database.

Nearly everyone on that particular area of the discussion portal is a liar as to the claims they make, and I can only shake my head.

I try, oh do I ever try to normalize my life to a point. I still do check in with the ether, but I do so much less often than I used to. When I need to check in on something that does not require deeper digging, I log into my computer the way others do. It is a change in my life that is not half as easy as it could be. I spent so many years in the ether that habits are still hard to let go of.

On the other hand, when I do need to dig deeper, it isn’t difficult to ease into the ether and I have done a lot of digging recently, trying to find information about the body and how to help it age a little. I don’t want to stay young forever if those around me are growing old.

A few days back, some idiot tried to challenge me when I pointed out in a way that felt calm and without aggression that they were wrong about their claim. It is fairly rare that I get involved in these discussions, but the man claimed that he knew all there ever was to know about a certain program that had been created only a few months ago.

So asked him. I pointed out that he claimed to have all of the knowledge, but did he have the skill to work the program at all? Knowledge is useless if you don’t have the skill to back up your claims, after all.

He tried to verbally attack me, and it was pretty pathetic. He claimed that my post count was so low that I was most likely a kid who’d never even tried a single thing in his life and that I was barking up the wrong tree and just, he used so many older-time expressions that it actually made me smile a little. His attempt at a verbal—written, I suppose—attack was petty, but it was depressing just the same.

It isn’t as though I told him to his face that I didn’t believe he had all of the knowledge. I just asked him if he knew how to use that knowledge, these are two different things and people that feel the need to defend themselves even against the simplest of things just make me shake my head.

I didn’t reply to his attack. Plenty of others did, though. Most of them were others I had spoken to in a more one-on-one manner after they had pinged me following one reply or another to other threads. I always try to keep my replies as neutral as possible, and the knowledge is something I am willing to share. I spent too many years being seen as a virus, I feel like being open about things I do know that are public property and knowledge is what makes the most sense.

They’re little things in the end and if they want to defend me, they can; I just don’t get why people feel the need to attack one another over something so simple. It’s another one of the reasons why it all makes me shake my head.

Your words are louder than your actions. Is that what you want me to think about you?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 32
Final Word Count: 688 words
 

---

The apartment building where we met used to see a lot of come and go. It wasn’t a bad place, nor was it high-end. I think it was somewhere in the middle. I think it’s more for the fact it sat on the edge of two worlds, so to speak. The building, in street-speak, used to sit right on the edge of the tracks. You had the better side of the city on one side and the somewhat rougher side on the other. This place, in the end, turned out to be more of a pit stop for most people who dropped in.

Ethan, his brother Evan and myself might have been some of the longer-term residents that ever did live there. When Evan was healthy again, he and Marie found another apartment elsewhere. Not very far but still not in the building. Eventually, Ethan managed to convince me that just maybe, a house would do us good. Of course, that so happened not long after the other two had found their own dream home and moved from their first and last apartment into a beautiful house.

It took a lot of looking but, eventually, we found a place to call our own.

I think we possibly moved right before it was too late, too.

Over the course of a few weeks, we’d been hearing a lot of banging through the walls, a lot of arguing and, well, a lot of angry sex. Whoever our new neighbours were, they clearly didn’t get along all that well but what could we do? I wasn’t about to get involved in whatever was going on with them though I already knew most of what I needed to know via their computer and things that they didn’t secure properly.

One of the last fights we heard was much quieter than any of the other; I’m sure it was the slighter man who was angry that time. His voice wasn’t raised in anger but the walls weren’t exactly very thick and sound did carry. He sounded angry and defeated at the same time, talking about how his partner’s words were louder than his actions. That made me pause; it wasn’t the way I’d heard of that phrase before and it confused me but I suppose that after hearing all of the nasty, ugly things that the man’s partner was constantly saying, it made sense.

Everything went quiet after the slighter man asked his partner, or maybe himself, it was just so quiet in that apartment, if that really was how he wanted to be seen as. I tried to tune them out after that, we’d been packing and had realized that we were going to be several boxes short so Ethan had left to get us more. I’d pulled out everything I knew we could live without for the week or so we’d still be there and then I’d settled on waiting until he returned.

A few weeks after we were settled into the house, we both saw the news about an apartment building that had caught fire and just, well, the news left me to wonder if it didn’t have anything to do with the pair. If it had, I sent out a quick prayer though I am in no way religious, that the slighter man was all right. His partner had sounded like a bully through and through and while I wish death on no one, he still needed to get out of the other man’s life.

I didn’t dig for information though I could have. I didn’t ask around, I didn’t poke or prod. It felt like it would have been an invasion of privacy and that just wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted in my life, not really. I suppose you could say that working where I do has changed me, maybe for the better. Not that I used to do bad things before. Looking back, I’m almost tempted to label myself a sort of Robin Hood of modern times but I guess that this wouldn’t be quite right either. It’s all right, though, I don’t mind.

Do I even want to know where you bought a tiny dragon? Are there even markets for those?

 
Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Lost in the Stars
Characters: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human – Genetically Modified
Age: 2 937, physically about 17
Final Word Count: 676 words
 

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At times, we take trips to the colonies because it just gets us off-planet. On some days, it seems as though I feel like I might not belong on that planet, the technology isn’t advanced anywhere but in our ship and in our home because we’ve set it up that way but it always feels as though I’m out of place. After so many years, you would think that I’ve gotten used to the low-tech end of things but I still feel the need to ‘dive’ into the ether every now and again for a deeper look at things.

To those who know me, they’d claim that I don’t need to get off the planet to dive into the ether as I’m still permanently connected to it, even though I now have this human body, even if this body doesn’t age. I know that even once off the planet if we were to leave for good, I wouldn’t age either. It is part of the body as it was made for me. I don’t know whether I should be worried about this or not. If we ever leave the planet, Livewire and the others will age. They age now, though it is a very slow process, but they age. I don’t age. I don’t know whether to be worried about this or not. I am forever the age I was when I died and the body is near identical to my memory of it, but should I worry that I will forever be this way? I don’t know.

On one of our recent trips to a fantasy-themed colony that claims to have only the very best dragons, fairies and other fantasy woodland and non-woodland creatures, saw us discovering things that mostly had only ever been in fairy-tale books. I’d heard about dragons, I’d seen the bigger ones briefly during another trip we’ve enjoyed, but I never imagined that there could be such tiny ones. When I first saw them, I truly thought that they were fairies and I suppose that, in a way, they could have been.

The man who was carrying the tiny thing on his shoulder, a sort of harness and lead on its slight, shimmering body, was clearly showing off his new buy. After a quick search into the ether about all things related to this colony, I knew for a fact that there were no markets for those. No one could buy dragons of that size and they were on the brink of extinction. They were known as fairy dragons for the fact that their wings weren’t leather or feathers but they were akin to fairy wings, pale and translucent, glittering in the light. Some looked like butterfly wings while others were more moth-like.

There was no way that this man had bought that dragon and it was more likely he’d gotten it from the wild. How it stayed so calmly seated on his shoulder, I didn’t know, but I had to assume that it had to do with drugs, what else could it be? Unless somehow he’d raised the little thing from very young, though that seemed unlikely since the scan I had gotten of him marked him as a visitor who had punched in just a few days ago.

All in all, it was baffling and it was only because I hated getting involved that I didn’t march right up to the man to demand to know what he thought he was doing. Instead, I went undercover, as I tended to. So to speak. I sent a notice to the authorities about the man, a photo from his scan sent with; an anonymous tip that likely went a very long way in getting that dragon the care it really deserved.

I can’t stand people who think they can do whatever they want, with everything that surrounds them. It reminds me too much of the life I’ve had before the ether and that is one of the things I aim to leave behind the most.

It clears your head.

 
Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Lost in the Stars
Characters: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human – Genetically Modified
Age: 2 937, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 577 words
 

---

I don’t ever really know what to think about these people who think they have found the perfect way to do X or Y thing. Don’t they know that there is no such thing as perfection and someone will always do that thing better than them? Even if the difference is infinitesimally minimal, it still will get better results. That’s just the way of life, even for the likes of me who had died, had somehow stayed alive through the ether, had been downloaded into an android body only to eventually be given a proper human body.

I’ve been alive long enough to know that nothing is perfect, nothing will ever be. Sure, in the eyes of certain people, things will seem perfect and to them, it will be, I can understand that, but this is more about the ‘teachers’, those who call themselves the ‘masters’ of things. This is more about people like the charlatan we’ve been dealing with for the past half hour who is trying to convince us that somehow, his herbal remedies are the absolute best and thus are worth about five times what you’d pay for the exact same mix everywhere else.

That is the downside to this body, though I’ve adapted to it over the past decade or so. A body that is human but not completely so. Do I have a soul? I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter that much. After I first died, I landed in the ether, it was neither heaven nor hell but I don’t know if everyone ends up there, I think I was a special case. I was already plugged into the ether, so it was different; it’s the escape path I took.

Anyway, this charlatan is trying to sell us a mix of herbs—something with mint and eucalyptus in it or at least things from the same family but from nowhere near earth—at an exorbitant price because it claims that it will clear our heads. He doesn’t mean it in a medical way, not really. It’s clear in the way he’s talking about it that this is more like a drug. There is something in this herbal mix that should clear your mind, probably make you hallucinate but I was able to find every ingredient in his mix and a quick search through the ether—something I’m still permanently connected to, to this day—and nothing in there has these properties. Maybe mixed together but I don’t think so.

I don’t even know why we’re here. Livewire told me that this was about a bust of some sort, something we’d picked up mostly for the sake of getting off planet for a little while as per someone’s request and that’s why we’re here.

I don’t like this asteroid. The air, even inside the dome, is dusty and dry. Even though this body can still manage to deal with these sorts of conditions, I don’t like it and it makes my throat ache and my eyes burn. I just want us to be back on the ship and looking at other clues that will lead us to the grand finale. I don’t know, I guess I’ve just become used to living on the planet, free to roam. I like it that way and it’s just a comfort to be able to breathe in that deeply fresh air. I know we’ll be back soon but for now, I guess we’re stuck with this.

I thought, if anyone, you’d be happy for me.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 589 words
 

---

Through the years, I have met—through a computer screen—a good number of people. It isn’t because I can now handle some sunlight in slight doses that I’ve stopped doing what I’ve done all my life. Not that I do it just randomly and without any reason at this point. I actually work for an agency. I can’t talk much about it because so much of it is hush-hush.

I remember when I first met these people, these men and women who were willing to pay me to hack my way around and through firewalls, encrypted files, the whole deal, really. It feels like it just happened yesterday but it was close to seven years ago at this point and I kept myself from telling anyone. Well, Ethan is aware but that’s because we live together and I hide nothing from him that would just be stupid.

There was just one more person I’d let it slip to and I haven’t spoken to that very person since that day. I’d met them through a sort of half-hidden chatting board lost somewhere out there, a place where only those who had the skills to enter could enter. It was a child’s game for me but I kept myself from pointing out the obvious flaws in the whole thing, it had given me people to ‘talk’ to when I was tired of being alone.

This person, this one I thought was a sort of friend, I let it slip to them that I’d been hired for that agency, that I was working, essentially, on the side of the law but it made them balk, I was called a traitor and I’m sure that they tried to spread ugly things about me after that moment. I thought they’d be happy for me, happy that I’d found a proper job but clearly that didn’t work out.

It hurt when it happened. It did. I really had thought that we’d had something special, a sort of connection that some friends have but I was wrong and Ethan found me in tears that evening after he’d come home. I felt like crying all of the tears in me and I couldn’t even coherently explain why.

When I told him about the job, he was happy for me. That helped close up the weeping wound in my heart some, it helped me to cling to the surface and pull myself back up.

I would be lying if I said that I was happy being alone all of my life until Ethan became a part of it. I hated it but it was all I’d ever known, all I had ever had. He changed my life in such a drastic way and all that because I was bored on that particular day, found an open door in his computer—with just the wall of our apartments separating us, not that I knew—and things just happened.

Of course, he didn’t care much for me at first, I was a nuisance when he was just trying to make ends meet but that changed after a while, I proved to him that I could be useful and well, things went from there.

I adore him. I don’t think I could survive without him in my life. I’ve learned so much from him, so much from Evan and Marie, so much for the small circle I can now call my friends and family. I owe them a lot and I’ll do all I can to keep them safe.

Stop getting us kicked out of grocery stores.

Timeline/World: Modern Monotony – Involved with Them
Characters: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 29
Final Word Count: 521 words

---

That he could be out and about in the sunlight, at least for very short periods of time, still baffled him. He couldn’t really wrap his mind around it. Times had changed and he was glad to be able to spend time outside. It meant he had been able to attend the wedding of his partner’s brother with the precious young woman who had changed his life, for one thing. He hadn’t been able to stay for the whole length of it but most of it and he had photos of the event to think back on.

One of the first things he did, when he was told he could spend time out in the sun, was step into a handful of stores he’d never been in. Being unable to be out in the sun meant his shopping either happened at night or he ordered. Both were problematic. Only certain stores were open all day and night long and most places that delivered were the big chain stores he cared little about. Those very stores were usually the one open at night just the same and his diet suffered somewhat from that.

His first few visits to store turned out to be amusing more than he had expected but his companion hadn’t felt quite the same way. He couldn’t help it. There were things he had known were off limits but he’d still done them, just to see how far he could push. He hadn’t destroyed anything, he hadn’t hurt anyone but he had disrupted others who had come to fill their cart and empty their pockets and he had been asked to leave.

In the long run, it was his partner who ended up doing the shopping for them and for that Gabriel was glad. Ethan was so patient with him, even when it was clear he didn’t want to be, that Gabriel had learned to tone it down. He’d spent so many years on his own that having someone near him was difficult to adapt to but he had wanted Livewire, as per his nickname, at his side. It had made his days bearable, it had been travelling when he couldn’t be out in the sun manageable and it had made being alone a little less lonely, even when Ethan was out and visiting his brother in the hospital.

It had been easy to pay those medical bills. He’d wanted to. It had been for a good cause and the rich and famous could have done with a little less money in their pocket, he doubted they’d even noticed. That was how they’d first met. Computer through computer, only one wall truly separating them. Gabriel wasn’t sure what had prompted him to hack into that particular computer but he had and now, some ten, closer to twelve years later, they were still there, together. Not quite tied at the hip but certainly not far from. Now Marie was expecting and everyone was aflutter. He had a family, not by blood, never by blood but they were his own and he would protect them to the best of his abilities.

Why can’t you lie to them?

Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Crewmates
Characters: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Genetically Modified Human (in an android body)
Age: 2 935, physically about 17
Final Word Count: 573 words

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A lot of people at times thought he was just an AI still, that he’d been created, that this was why he couldn’t lie but that wasn’t really the truth. However, he cared little about arguing with them about the fact. It wasn’t important that they knew he had spent far too long trapped in the ether, surfing on the waves, waiting for someone to find him, to talk to him, to make friends with him.

It had been lonely in the ether. Most people he had tried to approach had thought of him as a virus and had often tried to flush him out but Livewire—Ethan—had been different. He’d been wary at first but not to the point of trying to flush him out of the system. He’d thought of him as someone out to do something bad but all it had taken was some offered help and Gabe had been more than willing to help. Anything for an almost friend.

He couldn’t really remember how long they talked like that, on and off, on a computer screen; his mind and soul, in a way, floating just randomly out there and his body long since dead. When Ethan offered for him to have a body, he was exhilarated, he wanted nothing more but to be flesh and bone—that is, so long as he was promised he never would be experimented upon. That had been his life before; his parents had used him as a guinea pig for ugly, painful things and the only way out had been through the ether.

As it turns out, he wasn’t quite flesh and bone but he was close enough and people couldn’t really tell the difference. His skin was always the latest discovery and it felt real to the touch, so did all of him and pain and pleasure receptors worked absolutely well.

When he did finally have his consciousness in the body they had made for him, he wobbled, he was unsteady, he had to learn a lot of things over again but one thing he didn’t have to learn was how to treat others. Those who deserved it were treated with the utmost of respect; the crew had all of his respect. Those he didn’t know, well he let Ethan guide him on whether or not he should trust them before slowly being able to tell the difference between a good person and a bad one.

He can lie, despite what people think. His time in the ether hasn’t robbed him of that but he hates lying. Lying feels like a bad person thing and his parents had been constantly lying to him. So lying just isn’t something he does, he doesn’t see the point of it. He just withholds some of the information that might be considered unnecessary from others unless it does become a necessity to tell the whole truth. A bit like telling someone they have dirt on their face but not telling them where exactly the dirt is located.

It’s painless now to slip back into the ether to be able to search for things and he can keep an eye on Livewire. That’s important. His body is flesh and bones and leaving it unattended for too long would be a bad thing, so he keeps a close eye, keeps him safe and sound. Not that he really needs it but Gabe likes keeping his Ethan safe and sound.