Taking places after A Real Hero, Sam and Five discuss Veronica’s sacrifice
“Do you reckon she’s still… Veronica?” Sam stared at the floor, uncertainty and grief mixing in his expression.
Across from him, Five solemnly considered the question. They had gone to the comms shack the moment they had gotten home and finished being checked over.
“She sounded like herself… on the way back.” She had talked to them, making use of the interface of the computerized motorboat. “She asked why I teared up when I found your note in my backpack”
He took this in, a small sad smile touching the corners of his lips. “That does sound like Ronnie, yeah”
“Yeah… the statistics are a bit weird though… I guess that’s from the ANNIE part?”
“I think she said something like… ‘Five? I don’t understand what about this you are finding so emotionally affecting. It is no longer relevant; Sam is perfectly safe, as are you, at least in comparison to the rates of danger that have been the baseline for approximately 5 years, 10 months, and 23 days. Besides, given his observed personality and past behaviors, I project a 98.7% chance he will ensure you see one another within 15 minutes of your return to Abel, which is projected to be in another 34 minutes’… I probably got all those numbers wrong”
“Oh… that is… different, yeah”
“…maybe it is really her and she’s just… changed?”
“You think V and ANNIE have, like… what, melded? Like they’re completely one and the same now?”
“…maybe…” They sighed. “…or maybe Veronica died, and ANNIE just has a copy of her personality”
“It sounded like she believed it’d be a full transfer”
“…I don’t think we’ll ever know if she was right”
“Yeah… either way, it was very brave of her.” He clenched his jaw, looking down, blinking back tears. “I really wish she hadn’t, I keep feeling like there should’ve been another way… but it was her choice… and she did save you and maybe all of England. Still… that’s a really big sacrifice”
“…I don’t know. She seemed to really want to do it, even knowing the risks… and whatever version of her exists now seemed happy about it… from what I could tell”
“But Ronnie does that, she closes off her emotions”
He looked up at them, confused.
“…I don’t know. Just, we’ve tried so many times to get through to her, maybe there’s never been a mask… maybe she really does just have… unusual responses to things”
“Even if she wanted to take that risk, she was still just a kid, seventeen!”
“…we let sixteen year olds be runners”
“God… I hate that this is what things’ve come to”