Her footsteps echo through the abandoned streets of the city, loud and heavy. I hear them through her. Together we scan the horizon, looking for targets - the fight isn’t finished. It never is.
We spot them at the same time; it’s been a long while since our senses merged. Our motions are as one, our vision is as one. We fire a volley of rockets. Our supply will last us a good long while.
Three targets hit.
Even before, I hated the term “pilot”. It didn’t feel right - not for the way we worked. If anything, she piloted me. She showed me how the world worked, and I worked us into it. She was my captain; and I her loyal knight.
They warned us about reaching terminus. When a pilot and their Hoplite unit became too closely linked, changes happened - changes outside of their control. They described it as the most painful thing ever, they said that once terminus is reached, pilots are no longer themselves but chaotic borg monsters, that they need to be destroyed. That’s why they insisted pilots be removed from active duty for months at a time.
I couldn’t stand to be away from her that long though. I changed up lists, traded places with my fellow pilots, broke into the masterfile of pilots and deleted my name from their system - all so I could spend a little more time with her. When I was with her, I felt free. I felt strong. I felt connected.
They must have lied about terminus, because it was the most beautiful thing we ever experienced. I took her signals and she took my blood, and as I felt her nanomass pierce my skin and merge with my bones I heard her mind closer than ever before. She took over the job of pumping oxygen to my brain so that her fluid could fill my lungs. Did you know that Hoplites have a heartbeat? I could feel it in my chest: a constant pulse of information from her core to her cockpit, strands of numbers which I could never have understood before, but now they pumped through my heart and spewed from my mouth.
Now they want to take that away. They want to sever our bond, return to the old ways. I am the pilot, she is the unit, that’s how things “should be”. So we run, we protect our beauty, we run and fight with the world on our heels.
I don’t remember what it was like to have a body of my own. I don’t want to.
