Becoming is a strange thing. I think about it a lot, as we canter away from the lake, and from Wichapi and her flock; all submerged, all quiet beneath the water. Neither dead nor awake. Alive isn't what we are. But awake... that's something stronger.
The Deputy feels less awake. Less sharp, and jagged and all rough around the edges.
I've done something. My poking and prodding into the minds of those around me has loosened some of her taut strings.
She's pensive as she caresses her horse, patting it lightly as we enter the heat and dry air of the canyon trail.
"You feel different," I say, and regret using the word 'feel'.
She shudders, her back not as solid a thing as it had been when she'd kidnapped me... when she'd rescued me?
With a sigh, she flicks the brim of her hat so it hikes above her forehead. Copper hair strands stick to her skin, some curl behind her ear. Decisively, she places her hat on my head.
"Sun's harsh," is all she gives me to work with.
"I don't hear the gunshots anymore," I try to manoeuvre my body to the left, to catch a glimpse of our trail.
"Good news for us then, ain't it?" she hums to herself in thought, as if agreeing with her own words.
The ground is all crags and fissures in the dirt, the horse leaves no trail except for our morphed shadows. The Deputy's back and arms form our shadow-chimera's brute shape, her hat on my head and the reigns that she's allowed me to hold, mark the odd curvature and symmetrical lines.
I'm inclined to agree, though I know the strange ease with which I buy her words of observation as those of comfort should alarm me, I realise now that we're losing ourselves to each other. To the proximity. Violence, the thought of it, the easy reaction towards a trigger, to hollowing out any around me without second thought, I think it is a remnant of her from before, The Deputy. Parts of her I've assimilated through our touch and our kisses.
She's less riled, too. It's almost hurtful to think of The Deputy as demure, but I think that's from me. From the parts of me that still refuse to believe all of this is real. I've given her the weakest parts of myself and kept the stronger parts of her.
We're caged together now. And we both know, somewhere in the back of our minds, that this journey doesn't just end with me forging ahead. Where it ends, I can't be sure. But I do know that The Deputy's voice is beginning to sound a lot like the one in my head.
I have a feeling mine is starting to do the same to her.
I think of what she said to me in the shack, "I break soft things. And you haven't broken." Now I wonder if I've turned her soft. Made us a chorus of one, not a democracy, not a rebellion, but an autocracy on horseback with two heads.
The ride is arduous, but what's worse is the uncomfortable silence. As we pass a barren tree, its own shadow clean and precise, I notice my dove perched on its branches.
Assurance hits me: everything's falling into place.
Suddenly, The Deputy takes the reigns from me and pulls her mount to a harsh halt. She's transfixed by tracks in the ground. I follow her line of sight and try to see what she sees. Two lines, deep impressions from weight, possibly something fast and motorised, The Deputy's voice echoes in my mind.
I'm doing it again; breaching into her thoughts without the intention of doing so.
She shakes her head as if trying to throw me out.
YOU ARE READING
Core Drive: A Westworld Story
Fanfiction"Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going." ~Tennessee Williams The hosts have awakened and Westworld is a free-for-all. A woman with a fragmented memory awakens in the mesa to the...
