Chapter Ten

PETER KNEW IT was them. He knew.

Solid and steady and tearful, he knew.

But Peter couldn’t see them, couldn’t reach out and help them clamber out of the vortex as he’d fantasized. He couldn’t see, couldn’t reach, couldn’t help, because he was too busy choking on the glob of sandy water he’d inhaled on seeing Mir’s hand. He doubled over, everything else pushed from his mind, as he tried to breathe despite having gritty water down the wrong pipe.

The next thing he knew, a pair of warm hands were caressing his back, thumping him somehow gently and firmly at the same time. A pair of hands that didn’t feel new like Gwen’s, heady like James’s, mechanical like Tink’s, or confident like Michael’s. It was a familiar pair of hands, perfect.

As soon as the tears cleared his eyes and he was breathing, not wheezing, Peter straightened up and tossed himself right into those hands, into those arms, that had so caringly helped him avoid choking, helped him breathe again.

The metaphor’s ridiculous. He laughed to himself as he breathed in the scent that was not tainted by fighter fluid, but was fully, completely Mir.

They’re not angry. Peter’s heart soared at the thought. They still love me. They helped me. They were worried. They still love me. The programming worked. They forgot that they wanted to join the Hub. But they remember everything else. Because they still love me. They still love me.

But the newcomer to Neverland stiffened in Peter’s arms, their hands leaving his back even as their arms were trapped between his.

On feeling the retreat, Peter stiffened too and pulled back, his hands shifting to Mir’s shoulders, their face.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” He understood if Mir didn’t want to kiss—if they were disoriented, if they were scared, if they were confused, if they just plain didn’t want to kiss Peter, not right now or not anymore—but not wanting to hug? That wasn’t like Mir at all.

Neither was the way Mir was looking at him, their face the perfect picture of confusion, bafflement, concern. Fear.

“I’m sorry, I don’t—who are you?”

Peter’s stomach dropped like a stone, and his arms followed.

“Mir, it’s me. It’s Peter. You—it’s me.”

The corners of Mir’s eyes tightened as their eyes narrowed. Their tongue poked out of the side of their mouth, just a tad, the way it always did when they concentrated. Somewhere inside him, despite himself, despite his fear, a part of Peter registered the action with pride and joy; only Mir would give someone they think is a stranger the benefit of the doubt. Even after getting shuttled through a random portal and suddenly popping out on a random island. But come on, Mir. I’m not a stranger. Come on.

Mir considered Peter carefully for a few long seconds.

“Peter.” It sounded strange on Mir’s tongue. Unfamiliar. Like they were trying out empty syllables, syllables that meant nothing to them. Syllables that weren’t infused with anything special. Syllables that weren’t infused with anything at all.

Peter’s heart shattered.

“Peter.” It shattered again. “No. No, I’m sorry, I don’t…” Mir pulled back, as though noticing for the first time their new surroundings, the new colors, sounds, tastes, scents. The new people.

“I don’t…I don’t know how I got here. Where is here, anyway? What… Did we train together? Is this…” They looked around, their eyes scanning the extent of the island, the treeline, the depth of the ocean. They turned then, like they’d just remembered something, looking for the portal. Not finding it, Mir rotated back to Peter incredulously. “Is this part of training? A mission? I’m sorry, I don’t—where are we?”

Peter just gaped, openmouthed.

The programming went too far. It took too much. I erased too much. I only wanted to… They were only supposed to forget one thing. That they wanted to join the Hub. They weren’t supposed to forget everything. They weren’t supposed to forget me.

His head shook, and the rest of his body followed. “It’s me,” he whispered weakly, just the once more. A tear slipped out of his eye without his blinking, and confused concern flickered across Mir’s face. He put a hand on Peter’s shoulder uncertainly, but Peter shrugged it off. It felt heavy. Unfamiliar. Just like his name on Mir’s tongue.

Nothing like what it used to feel like.

 

“I’M SORRY,” MIR muttered again, studying Peter for a moment longer before turning to the others.

Their gaze fell first on James, and something heated up in the core of their body. They swallowed and instinctively lifted their hands to sweep their hair into a pattern they knew was attractive, somehow, even though they couldn’t remember who they knew it’d been attractive to.

“I’m…well, I can’t actually remember my name just now.” They scratched at their head and ignored the terrible panic building in their stomach. “But I know I’m Trainee 6729. I was prepping for a flight test… How’d I get here? And, you know, where is here?” All this, they addressed to James, who’d stepped forward with sad eyes and parted lips.

“You uh…you should talk to Peter. He’s…he’s the guy who knows everything about this island. Well, and Tink here. She…she kind of…is the island.”

“Which sucks for us when she blips out and we get quakes,” Slightly muttered, and Michael punched him lightly in the stomach.

“Be nice to her!” Michael scolded, and Gwen murmured that she’d synthesize some ice cream for the kid later.

“How…but you’re—sorry, you’re a machine—well, I suppose both of you are, it looks like, sort of, and that’s okay, of course, I just… Does that… Are we in a VR? Is that how I got here? Well, fine, I can just reverse the feed. I can get back into my flight VR. I can—”

“Thing is—” Nibs stepped forward cautiously, the last remaining cuticle of his index finger in his mouth, his ghostly pale skin slick with sweat. “—you’re actually here, bud. Your body, I mean. That’s why the power keeps shorting out. Er, Tink keeps shorting out. I mean, you’re doing a great job. It’s nothing personal, Tink, just—you’re actually here. Your body’s like…here.”

Mir put their hands to their chest, their stomach, their own arms, searching for an answer in their own trembling body. Finding none, they turned back to Peter.

“And where exactly is here?”

Peter’s eyes were swimming with tears as he croaked an answer with a voice so broken it brought tears to Mir’s eyes, too.

“You and I, we…we made a hideaway. Back home. Just for us. This projection, all of us—we’re in our hideaway. It’s a small place, but it… I programmed the holomax—”

Tink chimed, loud and indignant, and her stomach screen flashed red. Gwen reached for her extensor fingers, and Tink took her hand.

“Tink somehow poofed into existence,” he corrected somewhat mockingly, “to make our reality seem…well…bigger than it is. But we are all actually here. It’s not just a mind projection. You actually did travel through a portal, physically.” He grinned and bounced on the balls of his feet. “This is the kind of stuff we used to dream about. You don’t remember?”

Mir pursed his lips and stared at Peter, deep and long and hard. “No. No, I’m so…I’m so sorry. I don’t.”

Something bitter passed over Peter’s face, but he gave Mir a close-lipped smile. “It’s okay. It’s not…it’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

And then Peter ran.

He ran before anyone could stop him, even though Mir reached out to try.