Cinder

15 - Fragmentation

Noise. The faint hum of engines with accompanying vibrations through the metal of the ship. Not the sound of a burning fire, though; so it was definitely a step up from his previous position.

Shifting slightly, he groaned as pain flared up in his chest. That was alright, pain was good; it meant he was alive.

Ignoring it for the time being, he finally opened his eyes properly and immediately wished he was back in the hangar.

He'd been set against the wall of the dropship, a standard Goblin model, so there wasn't much room to move around. His biggest concern wasn't the ship, though; it was the white Simulacrum standing several feet away and staring at him without so much as a word.

Damn it all.

"I'm guessing it was you that dragged my ass out of there?" he quipped, his voice lacking in any real enthusiasm. In an odd turn of events, it seemed that he's been taken out of the fire and thrown into the frying pan. Weird to hear that figure of speech backwards, but considering the state of the hangar ...

Still mute, she gave him a single nod.

He sighed resignedly. "If you want the cylinder, I'm afraid you're too late. Gates has it now, and she's long gone. No point to any of this, unless you're planning to torture me for her location. And I assure you, I'm pretty hard to break."

"I don't care about the cylinder," she softly said, finally breaking her silence.

He rolled his eyes. "Right. Because you definitely didn't kill all those people just to get it back."

"Tobias, I-"

She cut off mid-sentence, but not like the previous times where it seemed a glitch was responsible; instead, it seemed as though she'd legitimately just been rendered speechless. She became quiet again, pausing to take the time to gather her thoughts before attempting to respond again.

"That wasn't me back there."

"Yeah, no kidding," he snidely remarked. "I don't know what you are exactly, 'Artemis', but you're definitely not Kay-"

"I'm not Artemis!" she yelled, her voice now firm and defiant. He fell silent, and prepared for her to attack him.

Upon seeing his reaction, she fell back into her soft-spoken mannerisms as though she was worried of frightening him. "But ... I'm not quite who I used to be either."

He bounced that data against the walls of his mind a bit, his eyes widening at the implication. He leaned forward ever so slightly with a flicker of hope stirring in his chest. "... Kay?"

She lowered her head in a gesture that seemed most reminiscent of shame. "Yes ... and no."

His emotions seemed to be getting put through the wringer, and it was leaving him more confused than anything. "That doesn't make any sense."

Another thought came to him, and his eyes narrowed. "How do I know you're not just Artemis trying to trick me?"

"As you saw, my- her methods are a bit ... blunt," the one before him stated with distaste. "She doesn't have the same self-control that some of the others have, she's too driven. But I suppose that comes as part of my- her nature," she stammered.

He noticed the discrepancies, and remained defensive. "You slipped up there. Hard to speak about yourself in third person?"

She shook her head. "No, it's not like that! It's difficult to explain-" She stopped speaking again, and took another moment to think as she had done before.