Chapter 12
?rim
The following morning, ?rim waited outside the clinic doors, gathering his thoughts. He didn’t want to misrepresent himself or draw suspicion. Not that there was anything problematic about his project, but he knew biological organisms could get uncomfortable when they were involved in research.
“How can we assist you today?” The senior healer, Aglao, greeted him when he entered the clinic. ?rim wasn’t sure how to approach the subject with the zoa.
“I’m working on a research project, and I was hoping to borrow a piece of medical equipment."
Aglao glowed a shade of yellow for a moment before returning to their original blue. “It might be possible. Can you give me more details about what you need?”
“Yes, it should be a standard portable ultrasound device,” he said.
“Why do you need an ultrasound device?” Another voice cut in, and junior healer Eleri entered the atrium, pulling a pair of gloves off her hands and tossing them into the waste atomizer as she walked by it. “You’re the educator, right?”
“I am,” ?rim confirmed as he rubbed nervously at his wrist node. He still wasn’t entirely sure how to approach this conversation. “But I also run experiments from time to time. I have a background as a bioengineer."
“What kind of mechanical experimentation would require an ultrasound?” Aglao asked.
“Cassie’s voicelock,” Eleri said after a brief pause. “Did you get her permission to look at it?”
“I’m going to figure out how to remove it.” ?rim paused at a noise behind them. Eleri turned first, and Cassie’s slight figure retreated up the stairs to the second floor above the clinic. “Is she alright?” he asked.
Eleri frowned. “Oh, did you see Cassie? She’s fine, I think. Cassie lives in the apartment above the clinic, but she always disappears when anyone is in the atrium. I’ll go check on her after you leave. Do you really think you can get it removed?”
“Well,” ?rim backtracked, “I obviously can’t remove it myself, but if I can disable it, then hopefully someone else can remove it.”
“Well, if it’s for that, I’m happy to lend you one of our portables as long as Aglao approves.”
“We seldom use our portable ultrasounds. I see no conflict as long as it is returned,” Aglao hummed as they brought over a device from a drawer unit on the central console. “This is an older model. Do you know how to use it?”
“Yes. I have used devices like this in my work before.” ?rim accepted the device from them, but lingered, realizing he was concerned about Cassie.
“Are you sure she’s well?” he asked Eleri.
“It’s hard for me to know.” The healer stuck her hands in her pockets. “It’s obviously difficult when the conversation is so one-sided. And we know so little about what happened to her in the Aviary.”
“Yes, the Aviary. I’ve done some research, but it’s proving difficult to find reliable information.
” ?rim shifted the weight of the ultrasound device.
Ever since S’samph’s comment the other night, he’d thrown himself into learning all he could about the shadowy place, but information was surprisingly scarce.
“I don’t really think I can say anything else. You’ll have to ask Cassie if you want more information.” Eleri shook her head. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything at all.”
“Apologies, I didn’t mean to make this an uncomfortable conversation.
” ?rim lifted the device. “Thank you for this. Please tell Cassie I hope my presence didn’t disturb her here.
” Excitement about moving on to the next stage of his investigation warred with concern.
He’d only probed the surface of news articles and supposed holo evidence of the Aviary thus far, but now it had been mentioned twice, he decided to do a deeper dive.
Cassie would be joining him for a lesson soon, so he formulated a research sequence as he walked in the overwhelming heat back to the schoolhouse.
His lesson with Cassie would be straightforward.
She was only learning the very fundamentals of literacy.
He suspected using an ultrasound wouldn’t yield extensive data, but he wanted a baseline before trying anything more invasive.
There was something intrusive about the search, almost like he felt like he shouldn’t be searching to begin with, but his curiosity won the day, and ?rim found himself in a deep dive on the intelewaves.
A standard search brought up nothing, which he already knew it would.
Unsurprising. If it was a secret or dangerous organization, it would be intentionally masked from standard searching.
He went on a chat forum, not on the darkwave, but on a site with more connections to insider knowledge about the IA and affiliated planets. Here he didn’t feel like he needed to be so obscure in his questioning.
Harot: Has anyone heard of somewhere called the Aviary? Can you tell me anything about it? Doing some research on victims of organized crime.
?rim wasn’t even sure this had anything to do with organized crime, but worst case he was wrong and people thought he was a conspiracist. Best case, he was close enough that he got some useful information about the topic.
He left the tab open on his datapad as he returned to the final organization for Cassie’s reading lesson, but the tab soon chimed with notifications.
Aewalqi9o: Bleak question for my morning. Unpleasantness. [auto-generated translation to Universal from Anqoe]
PrimeSector3: How have you never heard of the Aviary? It was a hot news story even though the IA tried to keep it under wraps.
V3kt0r: Ok, but the Aviary was only the most notorious pain clinic run by BDL Pharma. Full of stupid rich addicts looking for a hit.
Semicolonic: Those poor people they had working there. Voicelocked and everything. Ugh nightmare fuel.
Locus23: Voicelocks and trafficking were all unconfirmed. Sounds like media conspiracy to me.
Galacticbonkers: I believe the voicelocks. No way in craxa would they let anyone work there who could spill secrets.
T’tanph: There is nothing good to come from pursuing this topic. I’lata guide the victims.
Someone on the forum posted a picture. It was grainy and hard to make out with his eyestones in and the bright light of the classroom, but he could determine it depicted several figures, one of them with long hair in a color that was probably something blue or green.
Cassie must have entered the classroom while ?rim was scrutinizing the image and becoming increasingly uncomfortable the more he saw.
She tapped her fingernails on one of the desks, redirecting his attention.
“Oh, sokt! Cassie. I’m sorry. I must have lost track of time.
” Knowing Cassie couldn’t read the screen made it feel even worse that he had been searching for it.
Before he could close the searches, Cassie was pointing at his screen.
The lone picture someone had posted was enough to spark recognition in her face.
And now with his new understanding about the Aviary, he couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye.
She tapped the picture on the screen, which only served to enlarge it. She seemed particularly interested in the young woman with the blue or green hair.
The next set of her hand signs, ?rim couldn’t decipher. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” He trailed off as she wrote a few letters on the datapad he’d given her.
Her motions were laboriously slow, but a holographic R appeared, followed by an A and then a U. It wasn’t a word in any language he recognized, but she pointed insistently at the end of the young woman’s blue hair. ?rim tried sounding out the letters instead. “Ruh ay uh.”
Cassie nodded and tapped the letters again. ?rim still wasn’t entirely sure, but he guessed whatever she was trying to write was the name of the person in the grainy holo.
“Was she your friend?” ?rim asked as the node at his throat felt like it was going to pull away from his skin.
For all he knew, the person was dead, and Cassie wouldn’t even be able to tell him directly.
A nagging voice in the back of his mind said he should let go of his project entirely.
Whatever she’d been through had been enough.
But no, that wouldn’t solve anything. He could still meet his research aims while freeing her from the voicelock. Both things could be true. His work would be positive overall. She would be freed, and he would have his bottled lightning. There was no downside he could measure.
Her hands wavered over the datapad and then produced a new set of letters. S-H-E-S-M-Y-F-R-E-N. ?rim took a moment to try and decipher her inconsistent spelling. Friend. The person with blue hair was Cassie’s friend, and now Cassie was alone.
“I’m sorry I was looking at that. You must find it upsetting.”
Her eyes wouldn’t meet his as she responded, “Can I help you with something else?”
He was getting better at reading the subtext in her limited bank of phrases, and it was clear she didn’t want to talk to him about it. He wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. “Are you ready to start our reading lesson?”
It felt like the wrong question, but it was the only one he could come up with in the moment. Cassie nodded her assent, and they reviewed her word sequences. ?rim was more than impressed to see how much she’d improved since their previous lesson.
“You’re good at this, Cassie. I never would have guessed you didn’t have any formal education.”
She stared at him, her expression hard to read through his eyestones.
L-I-K-L-E-R-N-I-N-G-N-E-W-T-H-I-N-G-S. He watched her hands after she finished scrawling out the letters.
There was an addition to her statement that he couldn’t read.
He’d keep watching. Her hand signs were fascinating.
Certainly not a registered manual language, but likely a pidgin invented by the residents of the Aviary.
After they’d exhausted both of their patience writing and rewriting the same words again and again, ?rim found himself itching to pull out the ultrasound wand.
But he felt like he had to at least ask about her comfort levels.
Research protocols aside, someone like Cassie had clearly been afforded far too little autonomy in her life.
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” ?rim said as he put the ultrasound on the worktable between them. “However, an ultrasound has negligible risk factors.”
Cassie tilted her head to one side, revealing a better angle for him to see the voicelock implant.
“It would be my pleasure!” she exclaimed with a straight face, and ?rim realized that aside from the physical examination, he should compile a complete list of everything she was actually able to say with the voicelock in place.
It would give him a better sense of her working parameters.
It also gave him a cratering feeling about how she was almost set up to be misunderstood in the wrong circumstances.
He started with the ultrasound wand pressed against her neck.
The interface showed a grim picture. The device wasn’t a surface level install.
It was completely embedded inside of her vocal cords.
There was likely no way to remove it without causing substantial, irreversible damage. ?rim suspected that was the point.
“I don’t think this can come out, Cassie.”
She made a hand sign he didn’t recognize, and then just shook her head. “I don’t think I can help you with that. I sincerely apologize.” Her gaze flickered away from him.
“But I think I can at least disable it. I don’t know if that’s better or worse, but then maybe it could be reprogrammed with things you actually wanted to say?
” It was a long shot. He’d have to do a deeper dive into the technology to see if it was even possible, but it seemed like a more probable solution than promising Cassie a jar of lightning.
“Will you let me try?”
“I’m so grateful!” It was her favorite exclamation, but he interpreted it as enthusiastic consent. Maybe they would both get what they wanted out of this after all.