Page 52 of Defiant

“Bubbly,” I said. “But also noble. Yeah, I probably should have just said noble. You’re a good person, M-Bot.”

Person. I’m…a person. That’s strange when I don’t even have a body. Is it wrong that I miss it? I couldn’t control it, and the circuitry was literally designed to imprison me. But that ship was me. Mine. I miss it.

I tried not to feel guilty. I already had enough to feel bad about—remembering how I’d left him to be ripped apart, his ship dissected and then destroyed by the Superiority, wouldn’t help.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t rip me apart. See? I understand thatandI feel it. But Spensa, I’m still worried. Because of morality. I feel like…like I need to be helping you. Protecting our friends. Doing what I can from in here.

“Great!” I said. “That’s what I need you to do. You were a huge help with Peg. And you’re keeping an eye on the delvers.”

Not much to watch. Something’s odd about them, Spensa.Moreodd, I mean. They’re emerging from hiding, and—while imitating one of them so they don’t know what I am—I’ve been able to listen in on a few things. They’ve been talking to Winzik and Brade again. It seems the deal between the delvers and the Superiority is still in force. A treaty.

I nodded, feeling daunted, but this was no more than what I’d expected. The delvers were willing to work for Winzik in exchange for him promising to exterminate the cytonics—me in particular—and to move to using slugs alone for hyperjumping. I didn’t know how Brade fit into that deal.

At any rate, if not for their timidity about me, Winzik would already have used them as a weapon against us. Worryingly, if the delvers were still talking to him, it might not be long before they decided to move. Regardless of their fear.

The delvers are no longer willing to hide,M-Bot explained.I can feel them seething. Trembling with emotion.

“Keep an eye on them,” I said. “Let me know if you think they’re about to move on from stewing about me to actually attacking us.”

I will. But…Spensa…do you mind me asking—why do you fight? Is it still for the chance to murder your enemies?

“It was never about that, not really,” I said. “It was about proving myself.”

You did that though. Didn’t you?

I supposed I had. Ever since I’d chosen to eject from my ship back in flight school, I hadn’t worried if I was a coward or not. I’d proven myself—to myself.

Why did I fight now? “It’s for the reasons you gave earlier. For my friends. For my people.”

And at the end of it…what do you want?

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t really think that far ahead.”

I do, and that’s what worries me. Spensa, everything in my existence was pushing me toward that moment when I decided. When I went against programming, self-preservation, and reason to protect my friends. I came of age in that moment, Spensa.

Now…now that I’m the equivalent of an adult, shouldn’t Iwantto do the right things? Shouldn’t Ienjoywhat I’m doing, because it’s the proper choice? The moral one?

“You don’t enjoy it?”

No. I’ll do it. But I’d rather be doing something else.

“Collecting mushrooms?”

Yes. Or other things. Does it really matter if it’s not the thing Ishouldbe doing?

“I suppose it doesn’t,” I said. “But M-Bot, if it helps, I don’t think most peoplewantto do what’s right. That’s what makes doing the right thing noble. It’s a conscious choice. A hard one. If it were easy, then why would we respect it so much?”

I’d never phrased it that way before, not even to myself. Simple though the concept was, it struck me powerfully right then. I nodded, trailing through the hallway, walking—without consciously realizing it—back toward the observation room with the glass floor. I found an odd sense striking me as I walked the hallway. A familiarity? Or maybe just a kinship.

When I’d first come to these platforms, I’d found their sterile corridors to be too clean, too slick, too…inorganic. I felt a little of that again now. But also something else.

“Huh,” I said, resting my hand on the corridor wall. “I’m actually growing to like this place. I would’ve thought I’d find it evenmoreunnatural, after traveling the landscapes of the fragments.”

M-Bot didn’t respond immediately, and I felt an unusual disconnect from him.

M-Bot?I sent.

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