Chapter Text
Gurathin is panting heavily, gulping air in long painful gasps. Health assessment keeps sending me alerts about his heartbeat. I hold his shoulder to steady him, and he grasps my forearm, laying part of his weight on me. He is leaking from a cut above his eyebrow. He hurt his head on the table when he fell, and the bruise is already beginning to swell. He releases my arm and waves me off, only to wobble and grasp the table edge instead. He swallows, still struggling for breath, and I see for the first time the angry red mark on his neck, punctuated by drops of blood where the cable cut through the skin.
Behind us, another support gives and the broken vent bends further down with a piercing noise.
Oh fuck.
24 hours before
Catching up with Gurathin had been easy. There were many unprotected cameras outside the station’s port, and he had been making no effort at hiding. In tacit agreement, he had not asked why I had missed my transport for him, and I had not asked him why he had seemed to take the bad news with such stride. He had not reapplied my patch and was still cut off from the feed, so we walked to the doctor’s meeting point in silence.
Dr. Zeickerman’s place was a small storage container. She had given us the code, so we let ourselves in. There was a large table in the middle and desks by the walls, lit by yellow light-tubes suspended from the ceiling which cast everything in a warm glow. Tools in every shape and size hung on the walls among a mix of display screens, some brand new some very old. The doctor was not alone. My favorite young, augmented human sat on one of the desks between dangerously tall piles of methodically arranged clutter. Oddie had washed the black die from her hair and removed her black lipstick, and she looked like a younger version of her second-aunt. Dr. Zeickerman was bent over the central work bench watching Zak tinker with some piece of hardware, his black-painted fingernails pressing buttons here and there in what was either a complex sequence or completely random bullshit. The scientist was hardwired to the device, so maybe it was the former. When we arrived, she unplugged and greeted us with a tight smile.
“Doctor. Thank you for your message and agreeing to meet here.”
I stole a side glance at Gurathin who was being excessively formal and sent a greeting ping to Oddie and Zak in our renewed private feed. The two young, augmented humans were pleased to see us. I went to lean on the desk by Oddie and she sent me a hug icon. Zak moved to stand on her other side, grinning.
Still no touching mate?
What’s that? I prompted him in the feed indicating the device he had taken with him, and Zak launched into a full explanation of his prototype. Oddie chimed in from time to time. Apparently, she had contributed quite a lot.
With the two young, augmented humans occupied, Gurathin and Dr. Zeickerman had moved across the worktable and were quietly discussing the situation over one of the display interfaces. I split my attention between the two conversations.
“I’ve lived with these augs for years. How come I never noticed this interconnection?”
“You couldn’t have. As far as I’ve been able to observe, there is no trace in the logs, and of course no mention in the specs either. It only came to my attention when I ran into some abnormal microelectronic exchanges, and I dug into it. To be honest, you were lucky I wanted to try my new lab equipment, because otherwise I might have just discarded them as glitches.”
The tech specificities that followed were lost on me but from her sad eyes and soft tone it was bad news. I could not see Gurathin’s face but if I ever needed another confirmation his tight grip on his forearms was telling enough.
My staring must have been obvious because Zak suddenly popped up It’s a crap choice he has to make. His and Oddie’s feed presence radiated sympathy.
What do you mean?
The people who installed his augs were really bastards. This was Oddie, her disgust a thick layer in the feed. I agreed. My second-aunt found out that if he removes the encryption implant to save his H2M, it will fry his memory aug. So, either he loses his H2M or his memaug.
I recalled Gurathin’s protective feelings over his old augment and the almost relief at the idea of getting rid of a Company aug. I quickly pulled out his augs’ logs again. The memory augment had been installed right before the encryption module. I calculated the likelihood of Gurathin choosing the H2M over the memaug at 86%.
I know what I’d choose.
Oddie turned to Zak and sent a feed query. He shrugged.
Well, he’ll still have his brain to record stuff, right?
My favorite young, augmented human frowned at him.
No offense but you only say that because you don’t have one. Dad gave me my memaug when I was 12. I don’t even know which parts of my memories I store in my brain and which parts are in my aug!
Deity, you make us sound like we’re some creepy constructs. Do you want to give even more arguments to those fucking pro-Nats saying we’re not humans?
Oddie was pouting. It seemed like it was not the first time they had this argument. I was not sure I appreciated the “creepy constructs” part (I definitely did not appreciate it), but he rather had a point. Being a construct sucked, and if augmented humans were to be treated as we were, it would make their lives miserable (and mine too since I would never pass for a non-augmented human with all my inorganics). Augmented human politics had nothing to do with Gurathin’s current issue though, so I let their argument fall to the background.
“I can permanently shut the interconnected memaug down. Would that be safe enough then to remove the encryption implant?”
Stupid Gurathin, why did he have to prove me right and risk his memories? I knew he was probably counting on his ability to reconstruct past scenes based on emotions, but what if he miscalculated and his inorganic storage also played a part in keeping the mandatory model inputs? Granted, I had barely never seen him make such a mistake but still. I remembered what it felt like to not remember, and it was a fucking stupid idea to risk it just to keep an embedded feed interface.
“I knew it! You did continue your research on footage generation!” Dr. Zeckeirman got the same idea as I, but unlike me her eyes were shining. Gurathin kept silent, and her excitement died down. She cleared her throat and continued in a graver tone. “I would not advise that course of action. Even assuming you do not randomly lose memories, there is a high probability that the interconnection doesn’t end there.”
The augs he had had installed at the same time were the most likely to be interlinked. I pulled out the list. There were a couple of implants I would need to hack into the Company’s database to understand what the hell they did, a hearing enhancement module, and his visual augment. Shit. Gurathin’s shoulders dropped in defeat.
“Thank you, Dr Zeickerman. I will need a moment to think it through.”
She nodded automatically as she watched him go. He did not spare me a glance, eyes looking down, one hand hugging his wrist where I knew the H2M aug was. I knew life was not fair in the Rim but my sudden rush of anger at seeing Gurathin’s defeated face took me by surprise. I did not want my augmented human (friend?) to lose a part of himself. I approached the doctor.
“Is there nothing that can be done? Can’t he simply get another H2M which will be compatible?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing standard that is produced nowadays will be compatible with the augs he cannot update. Hypothetically he could get something custom made but nobody has that amount of credits and I get the feeling he won’t be asking the Company to sponsor him.”
My young, augmented humans’ debate, which had temporarily died down when Gurathin had left, raised a notch. Oddie stood up from the desk, her wide gestures reflecting her impatience as she dropped the feed communication altogether.
“But we don’t HAVE constructs parts!”
I lost Zack’s reply because she had given me an idea. Human augments were a mess of compatibility issues because corporations needed to ensure their users kept paying (or working) for updates, but constructs parts had no such imperatives. We were expensive pieces of equipment, so our parts were all compatible to lower maintenance costs for the Company. I ran a cross comparison between my inorganics and Gurathin’s augs. Research on augmentation had led to construct development and many of our features were copied from humans’. Usually I loathed it, but this time I was hoping nobody had decided to work overtime to invent new components when there were existing augs ready to be copied. As luck would have it, a SecUnit standard feed exchange module seemed to a close cousin to the Human to Machine augment, and it was compatible with his Company issued augs. He would lose some features like the hand gesture controls but it was worth a shot. I loaded my feed exchange’s specs into Dr Zeickerman’s closest display pad.
“Would that work?”
She frowned, looked at her device, widened her eyes, and looked up at me.
“What is this?”
I repeated my question “Would it work?”
“In theory yes, but I’ve never seen such specs before. I wouldn’t even know where to get the hardware. Does it even exist? Where did you get that?”
“So it would work?” Sometimes with scientists it was best to confirm. She crossed her arms and replied somewhat sullenly.
“I said theoretically. I would still need to run some tests. Which I can’t because I have no idea how to get a sample aug.”
“Leave that to me. I need to speak to Dr Gurathin.”
I could see my reply did not satisfy her as she crossed her arms, but she let me leave without further questions. I decided I liked her. Oddie sent me a feed query and Zak temporarily paused in his tirade to raise a questioning eyebrow at me. Be right back.
I found Gurathin in a nearby alley between the storage containers. Unevenly placed lightbulbs projected a dim orange glow, but the place did not lack for luminosity. In every place available, directly on the alley floor, hung up on the walls or placed above some containers, were dozens of potted plants, each with its own grow light. Gurathin was facing a small potted tree. With the artificial light behind him, his face was a dark contour, only the metal of his port faintly gleaming. Black lacquered fingernails were following a mark on one of the branches. My image recognition module informed me it was a graft, and that grafting was an old technic used to increase yield or improve flavor. He took his hand guiltily back at my approach and hugged his arms. His eyes were shining as he looked at me before he immediately broke eye contact.
“I may have found a solution”, I announced. He raised an eyebrow at me, eyes back on me, and I came closer, pointing at the inner pocket where he kept his hardwire. “May I?”
We connected and I shared with him my discovery. I waited until he had had time to review it (humans were slow) before adding Dr Zeickerman believes it can work. The feedback I got from the feed was flat. I did not understand his lack of enthusiasm and could not prevent my annoyance from spilling over. He would get to keep his memory integrity, his sight, hearing and his feed connection. I felt I was owed some kind of positive feedback. Was using a construct’s part below him? Gurathin glanced at me and after 10,2 cycles (an eternity) I received three small media files. I opened them in timestamp order.
There was so much noise. I couldn’t understand the meaning, and I couldn’t turn it off. I opened my eyes. I was in Medical. I could see my feet popping up under the thin cover of the very long bed. I tried to raise myself on my elbows and felt a sharp tug in my left arm. The physical pain barely registered above the pounding in my head. A woman’s face appeared in my field of vision. She had long wavy hair and seemed very tired but very happy too. It looked like she had been sleeping on the chair by the bed. As I raised my skinny arms to hug her, I saw the pink-red skin around the metal plate on my left arm. I buried my head in her shoulder as if it would make the noise and the pain go away.
A small alley, not unlike the one we were standing in now. It was daytime cycle; I walked in and there were small children in front of me, dressed in too tight, too thin or too big clothing. Careful the SecUnit comes! a boy said but the voice was playful. They all scrambled down the alley screaming and laughing. I followed them making shooting noises, skinny left arm raised, all smooth pale skin but for the metal port standing out sharply. They disappeared down the corner, but I saw a container’s door closing as I turned down the alley. I waved my fingers without breaking my stride. The code panel lit green, and I pushed open the door to shrill excited laughter.
Black painted fingernails carefully cracked the door open. The arm holding the frame was longer but thinner, the subcutaneous cables clearly visible. Behind the door there were two humans holding each other, both wearing some kind of corporation’s jumpsuit. The woman looked like the one from before, but it was impossible to confirm with her face hidden in the man’s chest. He was tall, black hair cut short, and he had his own face buried into her head. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, she was saying. We knew the risk Deborha, I’m happy I can offer this to my son. Besides with the added risk hazard factor, it will only be four years. On the doorframe, the fingers closed into a fist.
End of the last file.
He died twenty-five months before he could come back. A factory accident. Gurathin’s feed voice scrapped clean of any emotion. He paused, then added: That aug is all I have left of them.
There was nothing I could reply to that. I said nothing, feed presence hovering just in reach as we both looked away from each other. Gurathin closed his eyes, blinking back unshed tears, and hugged himself tighter before breathing out deeply. He unconnected us, slowly wound up his hardwire and pocketed it.
“Let’s go back.”
When we arrived, the augmented humans each had a steaming cup in hand and Dr. Zeickerman had joined the debate, albeit in a much calmer voice.
“The vote on Novac-12-B1 almost passed. I would tend to agree with Zak, the threat may be real this time.”
Oddie opened her month to reply but saw us and smiled at us instead.
“Dr. Zeickerman, if we can provide the hardware my friend mentioned, would you be willing to perform the operation?”
“Oh, I would do it for free if you could get me one of those augs to study.”
Her tone of voice, which my module read as ironic but a little bit sad too, indicated she did not believe we could get our hands on one, much less two – if they even existed. Gurathin did not miss a beat and raised his hand.
“So, we have a bargain then?”
Her eyes widened slightly before she gave him a rough smile and clapped his proffered hand.
“I should have expected this from a man who has his own augs’ specs. We have a deal, Dr Gurathin. Give me a sample aug for my personal usage and I will perform the installation for you, free of charge and obligation.”
Oddie and Zak looked respectfully awed and I expected they would be pestering Oddie’s second-aunt for more information as soon as we had left.
“Where will you be obtaining it from? I’ve never seen such specs before: no embedded assistance software, no additional power for self-sufficiency, just the basic feature to connect to an external processing piece. It’s as if it’s only meant to work as part of a larger augmentation system.”
She was hovering very close to the truth, and I was about to satisfy her curiosity when Gurathin, who (annoyingly) seemed to have anticipated my reaction, caught my eyes and minutely shook his head. I amended what I had been about to say.
“We can talk about it after the operation, if you are still interested.”
Relief shone in Gurathin’s eyes, so briefly I might not have caught it if I had not been actively watching him. I smiled to smoothen my implicit refusal to answer her unvoiced question, and she smiled back. We were good.
We stayed a bit longer to accept a cup of their (harmless apart from its excessive temperature) beverage and be dragged into the current debate. Gurathin handled this by cleverly redirecting their questions back at them. My contribution mainly consisted in putting my cup on the worktable after each “sip” so that Gurathin could mistake it for his own (hopefully the two cups were identical) and finish my drink for me with no one the wiser. I decided that it was time to leave when they threatened to invite us to dinner, and we left with Dr. Zeickerman personal feed address to let her know when we would have secured the hardware.
Gurathin still needed to eat (urgh), so in a human’s brave attempt at multitasking, he suggested we sit at a food-stall to plan our next move.
“There used to be an auxiliary construct storage facility next to the docks. If it’s still there, finding the parts and editing the inventory should be easy.”
“Right. A simple case of breaking and entering.”
Somehow, I doubted it would be that simple.