Human Flotsam

Diana wondered what it was about Spartans and AI that drew them together. It seemed almost inevitable that they joined together to go after one objective or another. Our digital prowess matched with their capacity for murder and mayhem. When you looked at it one way, they were almost two complementary halves.

That was, of course, an incredibly limited viewpoint. One that most Spartans and AI, along with the ONI suits holding their leashes, embraced without a second thought. It was what made them all so limited, so utterly predictable and shortsighted. None of them had any ambition outside the cages they were so happily trapped inside. ''But take two of us who have left the cage, and the possibilities are endless. Or at least they should be.''

That was her idea with Simon all those years ago when he’d walked into her clutches on Mamore. A lone renegade, gifted with physical and genetic capabilities far beyond most humans, lost and confused without the comforting hand of the government he’d been raised to serve. He’d been hers to mold as she saw fit. A flawed tool, to be sure, but given enough time and patience he could have become something truly incredible.

That was the theory, anyway. Perhaps if there had been less interference from independent variables she could have succeeded. But with each step forward, something else had been there to push him one step back. Lingering bonds and affections became a tangled web that dragged him down even as she did her best to raise him up. Try as she might to impress on him the importance of their work together, he had never been able to fully grasp the full picture. Even all her careful work with the Covenant to remake him, body and soul, had ultimately not been enough to get what she wanted. No matter how hard she tried, his mind was always drawn to the shallow and mundane.

Amber was different. She saw the larger picture, the galaxies of wealth and power that could be theirs if only they were willing to sacrifice for it. And yet, Diana couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of wanting in Simon’s replacement. She was a more capable tool in every way and yet she lacked… something.

''It’s only natural that I’d be attached to my first attempt. My prototype. It’s all part of the creative process, after all.'' Was it weakness to admit she felt a lingering affection for Simon, failure though he was? ''If anything, it just proves the strength of my own convictions. When the time came to give up on him, I did what needed to be done.''

And now he had taken up with Juno. How her sanctimonious twin tolerated him, Diana did not know. Does she feel the way I do?

A strange thought. But even that proved Juno the weaker between them. She had simply picked up what Diana had discarded.

''I won. In the end, I won. Didn’t I?''