We go back to our waiting troops where Sergeant Frank gives a half-complete update to the situation, with the promise to spend some one on one time with every to see how they are feeling. I can see that they are desperately nervous but none of them has any idea how to feel right now. I wish I could really understand why, but there just seems to be some sort of gulf that I am unable to bridge. I follow Frank into our room once everyone is dismissed.

“Private talks?” I strip off my uniform and lay down in bed.

“Yes. I need to know who I can trust and who I need to make trustworthy. This is bigger than any of us Kel. Unless you have some magic powers that can save us all hidden in that body.” He sits at his desk and goes to his picture book.

“Nah, used it all up yesterday on making an ice cream cone for myself: Double strawberry with cream swirl on a waffle cone.”

“You cannot eat an ice cream cone Kel.”

“No one, no one Frank, has ever accused me of being a clever man.”

“True.” He chuckles at little bit. I find everyone finds it a little funny when you insult yourself for a joke. “Speaking of private talks, let’s have one now.”

He puts his tablet down, turning it off, and turns to look at me. His shirt and jacket hang across the back of his chair, his metal body glinting subtly in the dim light. “What do you want? That is something I cannot figure out about you. What is it that you really want?”

“Just to live my life and be left alone. Free of all this… everything.”

“So you if I plop you down on an abandoned planet with energy to last you forever you will be happy?” I respond by looking away. The question is uncomfortable for me and I have no idea what to answer anyways.

“No. It would get lonely.”

“So what you want is not just to be left alone.”

“Frank, at this point I would just be happy to exist without anyone mucking around with me. I am barely surviving as it is. Is it too much to ask for that first?”

“There is more to life than surviving; we are not animals. You will not do well now, in this madness, if you do not want something more. Something your heart really desires.”

“I do not have idea any what my heart might want.” Not entirely true… I think.

“Friends, lovers, marriage? You aren’t an island. Any plans on that front?”

“Ish…? I never really learned about the whole cyborg-love-thing. Work before pleasure and work was life so…

“You cannot make me trust you as much as I need to when you are this cagey. You have to die for something so why not live for something as well?”

I can almost feel my heart skip a beat but banish the thought. “I am just used to being used and alone. Coming here did not change that, no slight intended, but there is not anything more I can do without a miracle from long dead gods. There is a gap, Frank, and no one can close it.”

He voice snaps back, “You could stop vetoing the bridges though. Just for once be honest. You need a friend at least. Someone to depend on but you don’t want to let anyone in? How are we supposed to help you when you offer nothing but boundaries? There has to be something I can do.”

I perk up. “You said ‘I.’”

His response is surprisingly sarcastic in tone but something about it… “Yes. I have been trying to get to know you, spend time with you, even let you into my life a little. You are the first person who I get to spend with whose not my subordinate or superior. Maybe you could start easy and open up to someone who has no choice but to?”

I am humbled, slightly at least, or perhaps I am humiliated. “Sorry,” I whisper back. “Any port in a storm, right?”

“More like don’t criticize gift crates Kel. I am alone and you are lonely. Perhaps we could have found a way to solve both issues at once, hmmm?” My mind drifts to the thought of how odd it is the a cyborg can hum with neither lips or lungs but for some reason… “Kel!” I snap back to attention. “Your dodging the conversation. Don’t.”

I jump to a lie, “What makes you say that?”

“You stop staring directly when your attention drifts and your head moves slightly. It is pretty obvious once someone gets to know you. As well as can be done, anyways. Now, let’s talk honestly. This is the last time I get away with giving you a pass so I need you to open up to me. What do you want?”

Telling the truth on important matters is more like spitting it out, each syllable brings bile inexistent to my the equivalent mouth. “I don’t know. I am too used to being alone and drifting. I don’t want to be alone but I don’t even know what that means. I want these weird feelings Kies put in me gone. I, honestly, like being a cyborg but I want to be me on my terms, but I know that it is not possible. Even if I were to swim to the dark depths of wishes in my heart I could never be free.” Saying any of that hurt me more than I anticipated.

Frank cocks his head curiously. “I have literally no idea what that last bit means but I am curious if you are being fully honest. I must able to trust you to hold my heart in your hands through every temptation they will throw at you. Like it or not you are going to be a valuable puppet in this war.”

I bury my head in my hands. “I want to be loved. I have never known someone to hold me and sleep with me and wake up next to me. I regret not taking advantage of Davis, because it would be someone not Kies touched me like that. I know it’s wrong but I wish I had done it.”

I feel a hand wrap gently around my wrist, pulling my right hand away from my hands. In an almost sensual most Frank most it up my arm and slips his hand under my shoulder and gently pulls me up before wrapping his arms around me and holding me. Intense heat from a hidden source gently warms me as I rest my head against his, nuzzling gently, before I cry. No sound, no movement, only weakness betrays my pain, but I don’t know what else to do now. I lose track of time, truly, before he slips me down gently onto the bed and tucks me in. “I thought you were going to have sex with me.”

“Not when you are like this.” A gentle voice, a lover’s voice. “Besides, you have a lot to think about and we have a lot to talk about and if you do want to I should make sure you are absolutely ready.”

“I thought you needed to trust me completely?”

“That will take time. Rest, please. I will keep you safe. Healing is a lot harder than being wounded I am afraid and in my experience a breakthrough is just a way of saying you took a bigger than baby step. But keep working and we all will be here to help you. Your refusal to abuse Davis did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. So sleep, as long as you can. There will be time for sleepless nights later.” I heed his words, and let myself fall into the abyss of relaxation that comes with real rest and before I go I check the time. He was holding me for over twenty minutes…

The shore is beaten by the pounding surf, wave after wave comes and go. The night sky is brilliant and full of stars more clear than I have seen on any planet before. I walk to the water and my feet touch the foam and again I am paralyzed with fear. Whatever those waters are, reflecting the beautiful sky above, I dare not tread their waters yet not explore their hidden secrets. In answer to my thoughts a woman who was always there is far away from me. She studies the foam as she wears a pale blue dress, almost like someone forgot the red in lilac, and she studies the littoral area wetted by the surf. She turns to look at me, only a few feet away as her pale yellow hair is whipped by the evening. “I told you I would only help you once, so here I am. I worked hard to be able to bridge the narrowing gap. Kel, you are starting to learn who Kel is. Who he is and what he wants is who you are is who we are. We are connected as the distant stars in the heavens are connected by their tiny points of light. To know yourself is to add your point of light to ours, but alive! Kel, there is one thing we need you to do Kel. Go home. The rest will fall into place but in this Dogmatic war you must go home. I shake my head. She sighs. “Not your home. Home. The waters are your mind and the surface has begun to stir, but deep down is still as solid as ever. Once you abandon fear and touch the wetness, truly, you will know. You are close, but as you become you you must be you at Home. All roads leave from Home.” I am again alone for the first time and also for the first time I feel like I could understand what that means.

I stretch, enjoying the brief pretending at being alive, and look around. Nothing has moved, nothing has changed. It is just eight hours in the future with Sergeant Jacobs looking down at me. “Sleep well?”

“Eight hours, but with those dreams I can never tell what is going on. First time I had a good one in…” I stop as I realize what I am saying.

“You actually dream? Kel, no one can know.” Frank kneels down close to me. “I have gotten things arranged so you are after but please, no one must know you dream. It would mean there is something wrong with your heart and right now we need you to be a symbol.”

I feel some annoyance rising up. “Why is it bad that I dream sometimes? Humans get to! Why don’t we! We’re still people to.” Frank puts a hand on my shoulder before my tirade grows too loud and gently pushes my back down in bed. I comply reluctantly. “Besides, a symbol of what?”

“Captain Eriks agreed to champion our cause after he put down dissidents on the ship. Kel, you are the symbol of the new cyborg rebellion. Kel, you could give us a home.”