The world—or rather, the vastness of space—unfolded stride by stride. Arthur’s calves cramped, and the meat between his thumb and forefinger twitching from overuse. Despite the discomfort, Hitori pushed him to integrate with Occam—Arthur pushed himself even harder, because Quay wasn’t the end. Jupiter and the Everwar waited and he needed to be ready.

  “Pull it back,” Hitori said, perched on Arthur’s shoulder like a sprite of conscience. “Not too much. Remember to step into the leap this time. See yourself across the crater.”

  Arthur had already fallen a dozen times in his attempts to perfect basic jumping mechanics, but the ledge always came quickly.

  He ran, planted Occam’s right leg, and instead of forcing the remaining limbs into form as he had before, he let the meck carry his momentum. There was an innateness to Occam’s predictive functions. It was like Arthur was in charge of painting the portrait but Occam was responsible for refining the shading after the fact.

  Occam flew—almost. In those exhilarating moments of near-flight Arthur realized Occam wasn’t the painter at all. It was the rain, delivering a natural weeping to art left to dry in a storm. Arthur simply had to dream, lead the machine just past the point of creation and—

  The far side of the crater rushed up to meet him, and his smile vanished.

  “Woah—woah!”

  His arms pinwheeled, the connection between him and Occam torn apart by sudden panic.

  He leaned forward, tucking Occam into a half flip by instinct as much as repetition. The meck whipped by the crater’s lip, and Arthur braced for impact before feeling the repulsor well repel their momentum. A kick from the gravwells stabilized them further, and Occam skidded to a halt on his back.

  “And you’re dead. Again,” Hitori’s voice was calm, almost bored, against Arthur’s pounding heart.

  Arthur sighed and dragged Occam back to its feet. For a moment he swore he saw the meck’s chest rise, as though even the machine was winded.

  “That was the closest one yet,” Arthur said, clinging to the thought. “At least we made it across.”

  Arthur looked over his shoulder with a grin, but Hitori wasn’t there. He turned—and found him full-sized on the center console, voice dropping low like a lion’s growl through tall grass.

  “Close? Close to what? Eighteen jumps in altered grav and you can’t even land on your feet.”

  “But that was my best takeoff,” Arthur bit his tongue, then added a belated ‘sir’.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Hitori considered that.

  “At least it looked like you intended to land. For a moment.”

  Arthur thrust a fist into the air, and Occam mimicked the movement.

  “But,” Hitori went on, “there’s an embarrassing gap between delusional and hopeful.”

  “And which am I?”

  Hitori didn’t answer, but the look in his eyes was enough. Arthur wanted this to be progress—it had to be progress.

  “I felt the flow state you mentioned, just before I jumped,” Arthur tried.

  Hitori shrank to the size of a foot and perched on the cockpit’s edge. For an instant, he looked older—could he control how he looked?

  “Perhaps, but you lost focus when it mattered most. If I hadn’t activated the repulsor, shifted the gravfield for you, you’d be scraping your body from the crater floor. You cannot rely on me to save you.”

  Arthur peered at the list commands Hitori had him program. In the span of a few days he already had a healthy amount. So much so he had to create a hot list of those he used most often. If Hitori could queue these commands, Arthur didn’t understand why he couldn’t be doing most of this himself.

  “What good would it serve to have your decisions made for you?” Hitori cut straight to his own thoughts. “The balance between mind, body, and spirit is essential. It’s what Daiko Hitori created us to do, what he saw as imperative to winning the war. With that connection, I can only help, but you must carry the weight Occam and I cannot.”

  Arthur still didn’t understand, and was beginning to grow more and more frustrated with answers that only asked more questions.

  “All that being said,” Hitori’s tone lightened, “you are improving.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. You no longer drag Occam like a mule. Most of the time, anyway.”

  That was something at least.

  Arthur unclasped the harness and ran his hands through his hair. He stank, needed a shower, then sleep. In that order. But relaxation felt a far off dream at this point. There was so much for him to learn still.

  “What was it like—I mean, did Daiko ever tell you what it was like for him, when he first became a pilot?”

  Hitori tilted his head. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know… part of me just feels like a hunk of meat in a really expensive chair.”

  Hitori blinked, perhaps confused by the phrase, then, “You’re dissatisfied with your progress. That is to be expected.”

  Arthur wiped the sweat from his eyes. Firstly, that hadn’t really answered his question, and second, he couldn’t tell if that was encouragement or condemnation.

  Hitori went on.

  “Disquiet illuminates the path, but you must get over yourself for pity will not carry you through the trials ahead.” His voice grew, and with it his frame expanded a few inches on the console. “If you’re frustrated, good. Be its master.”

  You’re not doing enoug—but you’re doing better—but be happy about being bad—but don’t be bad… Arthur was beginning to wonder if this ultimente was indeed a higher artificial intelligence. He didn’t see a way to win an argument with it, one way or another.

  Arthur refastened the harness, and put his hands back on the sticks.

  “So, what’s next?”

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