Chapter Text
“I need you to come with me.”
“Oh I don’t think I can, but thanks. I think I’m just going to stay here and… you know. Rest.”
“You don’t want to leave?”
“I-I don’t think I can.”
“Okay. Maybe just rest then.”
“Yeah… What was your name again?”
—
“Tex…” Church warned. “Don’t freak out. Caboose killed me and I’m a ghost now.”
Every second in this canyon with these idiot simulation soldiers felt like one giant improv show. Tex was too cool to actually attend an improv show, let alone participate, but she knew what it meant to ‘Yes, and’ another person’s insane ideas. And, well, she’d prefer this insanity too what she and Church had been before he was sent to Blood Gulch.
“Okay.” She shrugged.
She could see in her mind’s eye the brow furrowing and wide eyed blinking Church would do when she agreed with him easily. It was fueled by the apprehension of a man expecting a mountain and getting a mole hill. Or, the image she she saw was not Church, since she’d never seen more than his body doubles picture. She instead saw someone who looked a lot like the Director, but… not. Like fraternal twins, the closer you looked the less resemblance was shared. Especially twins like the Dakota’s; Once you grow closer to one, they don’t even seem like twins anymore.
But while she struggled to place the Director and Church in the same room, she could put ‘Church’ and ‘Ghost’ together. Hell, it was easier for Church to be a ghost. In fact, the only thing she and Church had in common was that they were both ghosts, who had never been born. The difference was she had a death certificate and he didn’t.
If Church was an AI, he was a thing. But if he was a ghost, he was a person, and what would that maker her? How was it possible that he was artificial copy of a person, and she was a copy of that copy? Maybe the difference between artificial intelligence and true intelligence is the desire to say no. A computer can only deny a request that contradicts it’s instructions. A person can deny a request that their entire life had trained them for. A ghost can deny a request it died for.
Maybe that’s why she and Church played contrarian all the time. Because while they could be sure that their no’s were their own, they could never determine where their yes’s came from.
—
As time went on, she began to doubt that the whole ‘ghost’ thing was a lie. Well, the entire Red vs Blue war was a lie, but specifically the ghost part. She had always figured she was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost, but it was reaching beyond that now. Alpha- No, Church, her Church, the Church who was negotiating with a bomb to speak to an alien for the ‘Great Prophecy’ simulation, was a whole person. A person with partial memories of being alive, having a body, experiencing loss, experiencing a pain so great he couldn’t go one without leaving parts behind, then those parts were discarded, thrown to rot in some purgatory to stall for time. What better word for them was ghosts?
Tex was not a good person, and didn’t claim to be. But the more she rationalized the two of them being actual ghosts, a burden she didn’t realize she was carrying lightened.
-
“You ever read Frankenstein?"
They both had robot bodies now. While the humans slept, she and Church got into the habit of just hanging around each other in the base. Watching him try and fail at simple tasks were semi-entertaining. They were at the one table in the kitchen of base now, the window shades drawn so it felt like the soft light fixtures were necessary. Church was fiddling with the parts of his deconstructed sniper rifle, trying to ‘repair’ whatever was making his aim shit.
He looked up at her, just an orange visor on a cobalt helmet. She saw less and less of the Director’s face everyday. “Does it look like I have time to read?”
“Yes. Yes it does.”
“Pft, goes to show how much attention your paying around here,” He said, circling a gloved finger around. “Keeping this place from burning down and those idiots breathing is a full time job. The only time I get a moment alone is when they’re unconscious.”
“You’ve two casualties, genius.”
“Yeah, but with Tucker’s demon spawn, Grif’s sister, Sheila, and Doc - if you count him as a person- Then I’m actually up by two bodies since I became Captain.”
“I’ll be sure to mention the infant and tank when submitting your application for a Purple Heart. Anyways, when I read it-“
“Bullshit you read Frankenstein!” He cut off.
“I read!” She shot back. She was lying, of course, but it’s the principle.
“The only person on this team who reads is Tucker, and if there’s no sex in the first three chapters he gives up.”
“Doc reads self help books.” She pointed out.
“I’ve decided to not count him as a person.”
“Well, I’m not one of your idiot friends, I read books.”
“Really?” Church tilted his visor at her. “Name one character that’s not Frankenstein or the dude that made him.”
“Mary Elizabeth,” She said quickly. Her voice was even and smooth, even as the lies began spilling. “She was the wife of the cemetery owner who was having an affair with Dr. Frankenstein. That’s how he got all the body parts.”
They stared at each other, waiting for the other to break. If she had a heart, it would probably begin beating faster at this point. How was it he managed to stress her out more than actual combat? She was banking a lot on Church not knowing a thing about the book, and being too lazy to look it up.
Church shrugged, returning his attention to his rifle. “Huh, guess you did read Frankenstein. Congrats.”
“Thank you,” Tex said smugly, feeling as though she could smile. “Anyways, I was thinking. Do you think when they brought the monster back to life, his ghost went back to his body too?”
“What, like us?” He asked.
“Yeah,” She said. She didn’t really know where she was going with this, but these conversations rarely had a point. Like most conversations in Blood Gulch.
“Hmm,” Church hummed, thinking it over. “Well, in the book, wasn’t it a whole bunch of different guys’ body parts all stitched together?”
“Yeah.” Probably.
“Then maybe it wasn’t one guys soul, but like, bits and pieces of all those guys souls that made a new one.”
“Like the Ship of Theseus?”
“Yeah, or Tucker’s shit box car back home with four different doors and a lawnmower engine.”
“But if it was a bunch of guys’ souls, wouldn’t it have all of those guys memories? Who would be the main soul?” She pressed.
Church was quiet again, his hands slowing on his project. He shrugged. “It would probably just be a whole new guy at that point, you know? Like, the memories aren’t what make up a soul. Yeah it has some other people’s memories, but once it’s back to life, it’s a new person. That’s probably why it’s so weird when it comes back to life and is like a baby mentally.”
“I thought you didn’t read the book?”
“Well, that’s how it plays out in the Family Guy spoof,” Church said.
A whole person, created from the fragments of others. She had the sudden urge to tell him the truth, so strong she felt a current zip threw her. To tell Church that they weren’t ghosts, not in the way he’s thinking, but copies of a broken, grieving man’s mind. To tell him that all she was was an extension of that. That his memories were real, but she didn’t have any. She wanted to grab him by the shoulder’s and ask him if he thought she was a real, if she was something new. She wanted to ask him if she would still matter when all their memories together were someone else’s.
She could never do that. She would pretend it was because of the importance of keeping him safe, that breaking this illusion would make the Director retaliate. But right now, the lie didn’t feel like it was for Church’s benefit. Not in the slightest.
“Do you want to watch the movie?” She asked instead. Church was always apprehensive when she asked for things, because they usually came at a price, but he sighed in frustration, dropping the rifle parts onto a heap on the table.
“Yeah, this stupid fucking thing isn’t getting fixed anytime soon,” He set the rifle on the table. “But can we watch something not boring as shit?”
“Sure, I’ll meet you at the common area in a second.”
Church didn’t ask any more questions, and walked away. That night, she cut the surveillance system to some parts of the base. Not enough to give them total black out from whoever was watching from Project Freelancer, but enough to give them some privacy.
Whatever she and Church had at Blood Gulch was real. She wasn’t going to share it with the ghost of a man watching from afar. She deserved to keep secrets of her own.