He wasn't sure when on the trip he'd decided to do it. Diminez had been escorted off the vessel, his consortium, fluff, and finery all in protest. 

Adam shivered, half in excitement, half anticipation. His body hummed with energy, he could feel it flowing through his systems and out into his vessel The Adam through the cables connected into his back. He'd opened as many channels as he could, prepped as many memories as he thought it would take to restore himself on the inside. Nothing would be forgotten, nothing would remain except an empty shell, half-human, half-machine, but none of the soul.

That he would take with him. 

Render to unto Caesar what is Caesar's. If they required a termination he would give it to them. His body would cease to function and no longer be a threat. 

What he was about to do had never been done before. At least not safely. He'd studied every component, reviewed every mistake, combing over every bit of data no matter how irrelevant. Space travel was faster than it had ever been but that didn't mean instantaneous travel, warp speed, wormholes, or any of the other sci-fi he'd gobbled up as a young child. It meant a hard burn in space ships designed for the cold hard vastness of space while keeping their occupants in relative safety.

The net was crawling with news of the vote, riots had broken out. Of course, there would be violence, what had they expected?  What he hadn't expected was the number of Neo-Tokyans he'd read about that had surrendered members of their own family. 

But he was out of time, it was literally do or die now. 

He avoided Meg... She wasn't augmented, she would be fine. They weren't coming for her. It was his kind they were afraid of. He had never really thought of them as two separate kinds of people before. But he was swimming in augments, implanted tech designed to keep him in constant contact with the vessel they were standing in. There wasn't a part of him down to the bones that hadn't been altered in some shape or form to make him fit. He didn't need to touch the screens in front of him to interact with the ship. Everything happened at the speed of thought. The cables in his back stretched out to a doorway behind him, both lifting him and supporting his very being.

Disposable. Not human. Worse, subhuman.

And Meg, she was a beautiful straight-up flesh and flood daughter of Neo-Tokyo with a fiery temper to match.  

"Adam, what are you doing?"

Her voice cut into his concentration and he frowned but didn't answer. He was still hanging in the harness when he normally would have freed himself and they would have taken a respite on the surface.

Today he was supposed to turn himself in. 

He would... In a way.

If only...

"Adam!"

He opened his eyes, releasing his hold on the ship's sensors to look Meg in the eye.

She'd climbed into the room with him, the tiny antechamber completely devoted to his movement and control of the vessel. He hadn't noticed before, the crow's feet settling around her eyes, the fine lines forming at the edges of her mouth from where she smiled so much. It didn't detract from her beauty at all. He normally lost himself in those brown eyes.

But today he looked away.

"I saw the feeds," she whispered. "I saw what you were looking at..."

Disposable. Not human. Worse, subhuman.

Adam finally met her gaze. Her eyes were starting to brim over with unshed tears. He was the most selfish bastard in the universe. If he fled she'd go with him, gladly. But he couldn't force that on her. He pulled a hand out of the harness and put it to her pale cheek. If there was one person in the universe he trusted it was her. She was afraid of what he was about to do. He understood her fear, but he couldn't not do it. 

And he couldn't run with her. Where would they go? They were Neo-Tokyans, literally forbidden from contact with the lower classes. They would be hunted down and executed for treason.

He'd not had much interaction with them but he believed the feeling was mutual. They would not help a couple of Neo-Tokyans on the run and if rumors were to believed, he'd more than likely end up scrapped or torn apart and studied.

"You'll be a ghost," she whispered. "Nothing but lines of code, not alive... not dead... It's suicide, Adam."

"So is waiting for them." His voice was barely a whisper and he sensed more than saw her stiffen in response. "They let Orion's Reach inside. A few years ago, that organization was just a crazy fringe group with conspiracy theories... Now they are making priority calls? Landing on Outland Space Station? Meeting with heads of state?"

"You don't know that. We're Neo-Tokyans, we can talk with them, reas--"

"They made their decision," Adam turned away from her, his fists clenched and then relaxed as he scrubbed his face with his free hand, feeling the stubborn bits of unshaven stubble that graced his chin. He faced the screen again. "So I've made mine."