35
When I awoke, it wasn”t with a system reboot but a sigh. My existence felt... simpler somehow. My lungs pumped, and I felt their rhythm. My tongue was dry, plastered to the roof of my mouth. I swallowed on instinct, but nothing filled my salivary glands.
Then my eyes moved, and I knew they were shut. Well lubricated, they didn”t feel like anything at all, but I knew they were there from the twitch of my eyelids. And there was a sound. Maybe a sound from before I woke up, but I knew it was there. Many sounds.
”She is alert,” a smooth voice announced. My eyes slid open, and I found myself staring up at a biognostic with black facets and such a quiet data halo that he must have vantaplates hidden beneath his casing.
A shilpakaar with long teal tendrils and black eyes swam into view. His tendrils were scarred lime green, the marks marring his cheek and neck, despite the professionally calm smile he wore.
”Hello, Roz. Can you hear me?”
I tried to nod but couldn”t move. The option simply wasn”t there. I tried speaking, but that required movement as well. No warnings popped up in my mind, however, despite how much I tried. Finally, I resorted to quantum speech, the biognostic”s gaze trained on the light in my eye as it blinked.
Yes, but I can”t speak.
”Yes, she can,” he translated.
”Can you recall what I just asked you?”
Can you hear me?
”Good.” The shilpakaar”s smile warmed up a little. ”My name is Ezraji Zarabi, Renata”s medical delegate. This is Roav.”
The biognostic nodded. ”Expeditionary maintenance unit, tactical evolution strain.”
Roz”s mind buzzed with terror at the news, but her heart and lungs didn”t follow suit. She blinked between them.
I can”t be here! I need to be decommissioned. You can”t let me be here.
”Why can”t you be here, Roz-02?” a voice pushed.
My eyes blinked on their timer as the two men I could see looked at the corner of the room. Tension filled the air. Although I”d corrected everyone that had ever called me by my designation, I couldn”t bring myself to do it this time.
Something is... wrong. With me. Warnings and priorities that aren”t mine. There”s code that isn”t me.
”We have performed a variety of repairs and replacements,” Roav said with succinct frustration, staring at the man in the corner. ”The parasitic code has been isolated and destroyed. You should experience no further interruptions or failures of your autonomy. And your...” A series of quantum questions raced over his eye as he paused. Coil? Vir? Buck? Husband? Mate? Thuais? Harmony? Vital component? Partner? Spouse? Triumph? Prize? Zevara? Lebdalise? Trophy? Man? Apsire?
All of those things,I replied.
”He is eager to see you.”
If I could feel anything beyond the front of my face, I”d have sighed with relief. Fásach was okay. Everyone was okay. If I could, I would have cried and smiled. An unrelenting need to curl into a ball and sob hit me. A release from the anxiety of losing them without being able to say goodbye or explain myself. Because Fásach thought there was only one of me, and I would have taken it away from him to keep my promises.
Dr Zarabi patted my forehead softly, maybe guessing at my inner turmoil. ”Ignore the immovable brick in the corner. We would like to restore your bodily permissions but want to be sure that you won”t try something drastic again.”
”Like fry your core,” Roav added for clarity.
”Also, we should mention that you”re lying on a surgical table with your casing open,” the doctor added with an apologetic twist of his tendrils. ”So you will remain numb and immovable through your thoracic region and legs.”
Okay.
Roav”s wrist desconstructed, the facets pulling open to reveal an articulated cable with a silver-sharp gleam at the end, so thin it barely caught the light. He lowered his wrist to my neck, plugged into what I assumed was my core processor, and my visual sensors blinked out as my systems were returned to my control.
Hundreds of notifications piled up as my vitals deck and regulator suite returned to me. Just as quickly as they popped up, they were dismissed. Roav stayed inside my system as things booted up, their locations and serial numbers different from before. It was disorienting, and having Roav inside me was a comfort.
By the time he was done, I felt... organized. Balanced. He”d recalibrated my systems so that the buzz of civilization didn”t bother me so much. I knew where every piece of code was, every protocol. More importantly, there was a central control module now, where I could turn those parts of me on and off. It was a closed system, with no exterior access without a biometric signature that I specifically allowed and stored in redundant locations throughout my core.
But more than that, my unit—my body—felt like it was mine. My parumauxi no longer felt like a swarm of nanobots, but like my subconscious. My LMem flowed more naturally, without the garish ribbon of data but a stream of consciousness. I felt a sense of calm when looking inward, as if my river mirrored that of the Mummer.
”Your unit was not built for evolution, so I took some liberties...” Roav said with unease. ”If you dislike your system build, I can make adjustments as you see fit. This is more similar to a biognostic scaffolding, but I can return you to your default logic if it”s uncomfortable.”
”I like it,” I said slowly, my voice hoarse from disuse. I turned my head to see in the corner. Another biognostic with five lenses and a hulking build stood curled into the corner with his arms crossed. He watched her but said nothing. ”Where”s Fásach?”
”He”s outside with Sizzle and Arms Master Renatex.” Roav was still connected to me through a spinal tap in the open seams of my neck, so he knew when I didn”t understand the reference. ”Ah, Vindilus. He and his vira changed their surname together.”
”Imani James,” I tried. The name didn”t make me panic. I glanced up at Roav and he nodded once, stoic but understanding.
”Yes.”
I turned my head in the other direction, and my brow creased. On a steel table to my right was another me. I didn”t recognize myself at first, what with my head shaved down to the skin and my eyes missing behind sunken lids. But there I was, a mirror with her chest cavity, throat, and cranium split open at the seams, electrical wires spilling from her body like innards, tied in bunches and draping down towards the floor.
Ezraji stepped in front of her, his tendrils twisted up with anxiety. ”Apologies,” he said, covering her with a sheet. I expected oil and blood stains to seep through the white, but nothing happened.
”That”s the unit that replaced Rosy when she left, right?” I asked, feeling distant. Roav and Dr Zarabi looked at each other warily, then nodded.
”We refurbished her components to replace the ones you damaged,” Roav explained.
I smiled. ”That”s nice.” Now a little part of all three of us would share my body. Rosy, her doll, and me. I searched for her and found artifacts of her experience. ”She tried really hard to be a good human.”
When Roav and Dr Zarabi”s eyes met again, the doctor”s tendrils relaxed into confident spirals. ”Speaking of being human, we have one other development to discuss with you before we discharge you to the care of your thuais.”
My insides flipped at the term, heat creeping up my neck and cheeks.
That”s when I realized my insides were currently outside.
I lifted my head to look down at my body, and the hairs stood up on my neck, eyes as wide as plates. They still had me open, most of my body covered by a sheet with a fitted rectangular opening that clung to the seams in my casing, currently open in full. A plastic seal with a suctioned opening for a surgical arm lifted the plastic in an odd, slightly nauseating way.
”Dios mio...”
Roav raised a brow. ”Does seeing your interior bother you?”
I plunked my head back down on the table and closed my eyes, swallowing on a tight throat. A mist of sweat peppered my skin as I nodded.
”I”ll get the curtain,” Dr Zarabi said, rushing from the room.
”Interesting,” the man in the corner remarked. ”An entirely biological response.”
”What did you expect?” Roav snapped.
”I expected to be right. But it seems I was wrong.” Heavy boots walked towards the table, and my eyes popped open, hoping for anything to distract me. The other biognostic loomed over me, then his heavy, warm palm fell on my forehead. His central lens, the one on a track, lit up directly in front of my neck. ”Go ahead and look. See? You”re alright.”
I didn”t dare at first, but his big palm brushed through my curls with fatherly care. I thought of Rosy”s papi, took a deep breath, and looked down the length of my body. I was clothed in a care gown without a scratch. My brain immediately bought into the illusion, the nauseated knot in my chest relaxing.
”Thank you,” I breathed, internalizing the image, scoring away the one of my open body pulsing from blood flow, steaming the plastic.
”Were you aware that your parumauxi are replacing your components with biological tissues?” he asked, keeping the illusion intact, just in case.
”Yes.” My brow creased. ”Why are they doing that?”
”The swarm follows the will of its host,” he said. Roav watched him in silence, something heady crossing his inhuman facets. ”My partner has overridden your swarm”s priorities for now. If you wish for it to continue, you will need regular medical intervention. The clinic will suggest you remove part of your swarm to grow more targeted organs outside of your unit, rather than grafting the components you currently have. It would make medical care more predictable for you.”
I swallowed hard. ”I have that sort of option?”
”Yes,” Dr Zarabi interjected. He floated a leviscreen in front of me, and the other biognostic removed his illusion, stepping away. ”You don”t need to choose now, but soon. Otherwise, they”ll overharvest your stem cells. You don”t have many to begin with, and what”s left you should preserve for red blood cell production. Otherwise, you”ll become ill. Anemia, weakness, wasting, lethargy...”
I nodded. I wanted to say yes right away but stopped myself. I didn”t understand who I was quite yet, but I was where I needed to be to feel the freedom to find out. ”I”ll think about it.”
My body jolted and whirred as Roav worked on me. Wires fell to the floor. Dr Zarabi removed the plastic encasing me and the surgical arm, crumpling it up and tossing it into a biohazard receptacle. They helped me sit just as a crackling yip crescendoed into a howl outside. All four of us looked towards the lobby down the hallway.
”Sounds like your thuais is getting impatient.” Dr Zarabi smirked knowingly. ”Come. Let”s not keep him waiting.”
They had to wrestle a care gown on me like a rambunctious toddler before I rushed down the hall barefoot and out into the sun with a breathless smile.