Fix the Game

by Viola Grace

  She sighed. “Everyone left me alone. I was tired. I went to my quarters.”

  He touched her tether.

  “Tie that up, and I will break your fucking fingers.” She finished her shower and wrapped a towel around her, stepping out of the stall. “I have been waiting for a proper shower for six months, and the only way I can get dressed again is if I can pull the tether through the leg of my uniform.”

  He looked at the tether. “I am supposed to lock you up.”

  “Fine. Great. Lock the door. Seal it until someone comes to get me tomorrow. But now, this one day, let me put properly clean underwear on before I have to go back to the fully clothed sonic shower again.”

  He blinked. “I... you have to use the sonic shower?”

  “I have a twelve-foot cable running through my leg, and it is usually latched to the wall. How do you think I get clean? I can’t take my clothing off without one of you helping, and I am definitely not asking for that.”

  He nodded, swallowed, and said, “Fine. I will leave you untethered. You will be here tomorrow morning?”

  “There is nowhere I would rather be.”

  He left her alone, and she headed to bed, enjoying the feel of the sheets against her skin. It was a weird day, but a good outcome. She would call it a win.

  Chapter Four

  Lucky checked the stream from the tracker she had put in the search code. “Holy shit. Solouk, look at this!”

  He leaned over, and he frowned. “What are we watching?”

  “Cyborg fights. I heard about these on Khiron Station. Hey! It’s our mole.” She watched as the man sent out to find one of the three missing staff members from Adaptation Station fought with another human cyborg.

  The fight was long, brutal, and the hammer strikes of their mole’s arm sent out the pulse that her code had tracked.

  The final strike caused the other fighter to collapse, his chest visibly caved in.

  Instead of getting him to a medic, everything went still.

  Folk moved around, and the announcements scrolling across the top of the screen displayed their mole’s winning stats.

  Minutes passed, and Solouk said, “Why are you still watching? The fight is done.”

  “Something is coming. They are waiting for something.”

  The injured man was still struggling to breathe, and no one was helping him.

  Suddenly, there was a murmur through the crowd. Lucky stared, and her jaw dropped open when Cracker was carried to the fight area and set on the ground with some weird cable attached to her leg.

  “Is that your friend?”

  Lucky didn’t reply. She watched as Cracker moved her patient into position and made a hole in his back. Then, she said, “Oh, yeah. That’s Cracker.”

  The camera focused on Cracker’s leg, and Lucky almost puked. The woven cable that had a latch on one side was running through Cracker’s leg. It was an inch above the ankle and would keep her constantly off balance.

  “Stitch has to see this. She’s going to freak.” Lucky got up and headed for the door.

  Solouk moved swiftly to stop her. “Perhaps you should get dressed first.”

  Lucky paused, looked down, and looked up again. “Very good point. I will do that and then show this to Stitch.”

  “Excellent plan, my Queen.”

  Lucky waited for Stitch and Alphy to meet her in her office, and she pulled the file onto the screen.

  Her friends entered and stared at her. Stitch asked, “Well?”

  “We found Cracker.”

  Alphy blinked. “Show us.”

  The image of Cracker being brought to the fight area, her flipping over the patient and getting in through the spot next to his spine. Stitch chuckled softly. “That is definitely Cracker.”

  When the video moved to her leg, Alphy asked, “What the fuck is that?”

  “It appears to be a cable. I am guessing that she is on a short leash, literally.” Lucky nodded. “Our guy is there already. He sent the signal that got her on screen.”

  “Show the whole video.”

  Lucky played the entire video, and Stitch whistled. “That was effective, but he has a lot of rage.”

  Stitch turned to Alphy and asked, “What was his occupation on Earth?”

  Alphy grinned. “He was very good with his hands.”

  Lucky was curious, but she asked something important instead. “So, how are we going to get her out of there?”

  Alphy sighed. “It is the largest stronghold of cyborgs outside of this vessel.”

  Stitch grinned. “What she is saying is we have a plan.”

  Lucky waited and eventually all was made clear. Solouk was going to love it.

  * * * *

  Being dressed in fresh clothing was a luxury. Cracker got up and checked her monitors. There were a few folk inbound, but since there was no fight on now, she guessed it was a security sweep.

  She turned to the door when they knocked. “Come in.”

  She could swear that she heard them relax from the other side of the door.

  They opened the door and walked in, doing a tech scan. “It is a little early for a scan like that, isn’t it?”

  “Sorry, Cracker. We have a job to do.” They tossed her place, and when they came up empty, they inclined their heads and left her alone.

  She moved around and tidied up before she looked at the monitor and made a decision. Cracker opened the clinic page, and she put two words on it. Mod Day.

  The open invitation would let the fighters line up for custom modifications. She only did it when she wasn’t swamped in other repairs, but today, there were no fights scheduled. The changing of champions was something that caused a ripple through the arena.

  She grabbed a coffee from the dispenser, wrapped up her tether, and walked down to the clinic. She grinned when she got close. There was already a line forming.

  The guards gave her a wary look. “You declared a Mod Day?”

  “I did. It has been a while, and I have a peculiar inventory of salvaged units.”

  She wobbled into the clinic, and she put on her coat. Today was going to be messy, but it would blank her mind and get some old equipment back into circulation.

  Cracker got her medical equipment where she wanted it, and she pushed the chime to send in the first patient.

  She blinked in surprise. “I thought you were on security.”

  Her escort from the previous week blushed. “Fighters make more.”

  “Until they don’t.”

  He nodded. “Right. I am willing to risk it. What can you give me?”

  She jerked her thumb to the med bed. “Lie down, and I will see what I have that will fit you.”

  He hopped onto the table, and she checked his file. “Leonard. Well, I am not going to say that this process is painless, but if you want to be a fighter, I have three items that will help you. Do you want to be faster, stronger, or have enhanced perceptions?”

  “Can I have all three?”

  She chuckled. “Sure, if you want to burn out your nanite generator. I can only add one at a time before you go through the next adaptation.”

  He nodded. “Stronger. I will go stronger.”

  She didn’t argue. She called up the intramuscular implants, and she nodded to him. “You are going to be completely out for this. It is going to take a while, but most of the work can be done by the automated unit with me supervising.”

  Leonard looked at her wide eyed. “Is that safe?”

  “It is. It will chirp if it needs me. I will just recommend that as you heal, practice delicate movements before you practice the heavy lifting. The dexterity will be lost if you don’t work on it.”

  He nodded nervously. The parts arrived, and he looked ill.

  “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to. I just haven’t had many adaptations.”

  “Well, this one covers your whole body, increases muscle attachments to your bones, and then, it
gets the nanites to boost your strength.”

  “Why increase the attachments?”

  She quirked her lips. “If I don’t do that, your muscles will tear off your bones the moment you lift. Just like me. They had to take my leg off before they could run the tether through it.”

  He blinked. “Your leg wasn’t damaged?”

  “It was a simple break, nanites had it under control. Management wanted me hobbled, so they hobbled me.” She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. No one has ever died here under my care.”

  He relaxed slightly. “Thank you.”

  She nodded. “Right. Under you go.”

  She reached for a hypo and dialled up the quantity of sedative. Leonard went limp, and she moved to the wall, sliding his bed into the mechanical bay for the insertion of all the tiny nanite boosts at his joints and all attachment points. She had accounted for him tripling his current physical stats.

  The machine would let her know when the implants were done. Normally it took close to an hour.

  She rang the bell and got her next client. “Let me guess. You want an adaptation?”

  The man was missing his left arm from mid-bicep. “It was an accident in the landing bay. The other guys let me go first.”

  She nodded and gestured to the second med bed. “Have a seat. I will take some measurements, and you will be on your way.”

  She smiled and got to work putting in a local so that he wouldn’t feel the agony too much longer. This is what she had trained for, not boosting up muscle-bound idiots so they could make money and chase alien tail.

  She called up an arm in his size, and when it arrived, she put him completely under so that she could reach up and get the entire humerus before she attached the replacement. She always tried to save tissue if she could, but if a bone was broken or cut, it needed to be replaced with a solid piece. The combination fusions tended to snap under strain. The cyborg got used to the power offered by the new tissue, and he forgot that the bone wasn’t up to the same levels.

  She got the new arm and had it standing by when she used her surgical equipment to separate the joint.

  She set the arm into position and added the primed nanites. She wished that she had an industrial generator for the nanites, but she had to wait and use the ones she had in tiny increments, only enough for each procedure. She knew there were entire abandoned stations with more med equipment than she had here. It was frustrating.

  Cracker activated his hand and made sure that it opened and closed. The tissue was slowly making its way over the bone, silver and moving at a steady pace. It was time to boost it.

  She got a series of IV bags with protein suspended in the mix. She inserted the IVs at different intervals around his body, and the speed of the skin covering the arm increased dramatically.

  He was good for half an hour, so she changed her gloves and summoned her next patient. It was time to get Mod Day properly underway.

  She checked her inventory, and she nodded. Eighteen modifications concluded and three emergency repairs. She looped her tether up, set the equipment to sterilize itself one final time, put her tether down to remove her gloves and coat, and picked the tether up again.

  There was a guard waiting today, and he reached for the tether. She hissed, “Fuck off. I am not in the mood. I want to have another shower and relax.”

  He held his hands up. “I am just following orders.”

  She snorted and started walking toward her quarters. “There are no orders to follow. Earth has closed its doors to us, they have sealed themselves in and left us out to die.” She was too tired to watch her conversation. Four years of this crap was too much.

  “I don’t know where you are getting your information, but we are here as a training exercise.”

  She laughed. “Right. Training, where the fighters kill each other and are harvested for parts if they die. The generals are getting rich, we are consorting with alien species who are using us as entertainment, but right, I am the one who is wrong about what is going on.”

  She stalked and hopped quickly up the ramp that would lead to her quarters. He was jogging to keep up.

  “That isn’t what is going on.”

  She turned to him and held up her hand. “They hobbled me to keep an adaptation medic on staff. They had a regular medic, but he died very shortly after he had removed my leg and given me this monstrosity. They pinned me here, killed the two men who had escorted me, and then, they tied me to the wall. That isn’t the actions of a preparing military, that is the actions of a growing organized crime syndicate. There are actually men and women still fighting the Splice out there. The war isn’t won, it is still going on.”

  She turned and hobbled back to her quarters. Damn. She was too tired. That little outburst might cost her her other leg.

  Chapter Five

  She still took her shower, but this time, she connected her long-range com and made her call.

  Lucky started speaking. “We know where you are, we know what is going on. We are on the way, and the code is on its way to you.”

  Cracker blinked. “You are coming?” She felt tears prick her eyes.

  “They didn’t leave me; we are not leaving you. I never got to open your present, what was it?”

  Cracker sniffled and chuckled. “It was a book. A hard copy of the programming specs for the first computer.”

  Lucky sighed. “I love it. Thank you. Now, disconnect and be safe. Don’t risk calling us. We are on the way.”

  Cracker pulled her equipment apart and stowed it carefully.

  She was in bed when they came in to look for the equipment, but she didn’t get out of her bed.

  “Cracker, we need to search the bed.”

  “Listen, butthead. I am naked and having a nice and relaxing evening after jacking you guys up all day. I am tired. I am not going anywhere, and you can just come back when I am at the clinic tomorrow and rifle through all my stuff. I just want to rest.”

  She held her sheets and blankets to her chest and sat up. The men looked at her in surprise, as if only realizing now that she was female.

  Her tether twitched, and she calmed it down. It was her last-ditch self-defense plan, but she didn’t need it now.

  “If there was a signal from here, it is gone now. If it was spoofed from elsewhere, it has also ceased. You aren’t going to find the equipment tonight. You came, you turned my place upside-down, again, and now, I want to get some rest so I don’t start a rash of cutting guys’ dicks off and attaching them to their foreheads.” She smiled tightly. “I would blame you for my lack of rest.”

  The two men nodded, and with a few more glances at her, they left her room.

  She groaned and lay back, finishing her upload of the program that Lucky had made for her.

  She closed her eyes and analyzed what she had been given, and she smiled. “Oh, you clever girl.”

  She was laughing and crying in equal measure during the night and woke up feeling like hammered hell.

  Cracker saw a light flashing on her screen, and she blinked. That was a personal message light.

  She hopped over to the computer, and she tapped the key to access the message.

  Hammer’s voice came through. “Cracker, would you do me the honour of going on a date with me?”

  She blinked. She got this request a lot from the higher-ranked fighters. She sent back an answer. “Um, thank you for the invitation, Hammer, but I am not particularly mobile and not allowed out of my secured area of the facility. Thanks, though.”

  She sent the message and went through the task of getting dressed. Two days in a row with new underwear was total bliss. The feel of crisp clothing on her skin was delightful.

  She checked the fight schedule and nodded when it was packed in celebration for the rise of the new champion. It was going to be a busy day.

  She looped her tether on her, took the upload link apart again, and stowed the pieces. They were going to toss her place while she was working, but she didn�
�t care. Lucky had given her enough tools to take care of herself. Cracker was ready. If she was in danger, she could now defend herself to the fullest extent of her body’s capabilities.

  The change in her personal attitude amused her as she walked through the halls and headed for the clinic. One week earlier and she would have given in to avoid anyone focusing on her. Being nearly invisible in a facility full of men was one of her only social skills.

  She was at the clinic before her guards were. She checked all of the nooks and crannies to make sure that she didn’t have anyone hiding in the corners. She had had folks waiting for her twice, wanting upgrades. Low-level fighters who just didn’t have the skills to make the most of what they had were the most dangerous creatures at the base. She usually urged them to seek out combat programs to help them work out, and then, she promised not to tell anyone that a girl had beaten them.

  Her place was clear, all sterilization protocols had been completed, and now, she could check her inventory.

  She put on her lab coat and wrapped her tether around her waist, balancing herself so that she could move easily, and she began to use one of the programs that Lucky had given to her.

  Her tether slid and then tightened itself. She now had full control and not just the spurious control she had used previously.

  She stroked it, and the clasp that only opened and closed for the Y chromosome was now at her command. It snapped with snakelike jaws, and she stroked the cable next to it. It closed slowly, and Cracker felt happiness soar. Regaining control meant far more to her than she could imagine.

  Since they were going to notice the tether, she used her hands to play patty cake on her thighs. The surge of energy inside her started, and her adapted leg began to warm.

  It was going to be a very interesting day.

  An hour later, the wounded started to trickle in from the arena. The guards looked at her tether but didn’t comment.

  She went about her work, walking with less of a limp with every passing minute. Her back and other hip were being adjusted as well. She had spent a lot of time with uneven hips. It was like mechanically induced scoliosis.