Hullmetal Girls

by Emily Skrutskie

  The marshal drops to one knee beside him. “Work with it,” she coaxes. “Don’t glitch out on your first day in rig, kid.”

  “Not—a—kid,” Woojin gasps.

  “No? Then stand up. Show me what you’re made of.”

  His fingers unlock, his arms falling limp at his sides. For a moment, all he does is shake. Then, as if the weight of the Fleet rests on his shoulders, Woojin shoves himself to his feet. The motion is so smooth and swift that it catches Marshal Jesuit off guard. She jerks back Scela-fast, her rig crackling with energy.

  Woojin stands tall. But there’s something fundamentally different about him, both inside and outside. His thoughts have gone quieter than we’ve ever known them, his end of the exosystem wrapped in an uncanny calm. It almost feels like the rig is puppeting him instead of the other way around. My exo urges me not to worry about it, which only makes me worry about it more. I don’t want my body taken over by the full rig.

  Marshal Jesuit stares at Woojin, her brow furrowed. “Isaac warned me you sustained some heavier than usual neurological damage during the integration. He said it might translate to difficulty differentiating your will from the exo’s guidance. It’s already hard enough for new Scela to figure out who owns what impulse, but for you…there’s a chance you might never fully grasp it.”

  Praava, Aisha, and I recoil. In the system, it feels like his exo has written over his mind, and he projects nothing but smooth acceptance back at us. This is a truth of what the integration has done to him, and it’s a truth we’ll have to work around if our squad’s going to succeed.

  But it’s not a truth I can accept. I press deeper into his side of the system, absorbing the way his body’s been broken and the way it’s been reconstructed. Something’s not quite right. Something that can never be put right again. I see the way his rig is compensating, taking over, pushing him into submission just to keep his legs working properly. My exo assures me that it’s fine. The exo’s supplements should work better than his own spine as long as Woojin has the sense to stay out of his own body’s way.

  Somehow I doubt that’s how this plays out.

  Dread rumbles in the pit of my stomach. Something’s wrong with Woojin. Is something wrong with me? Is it some kind of neurological damage that’s smashed my memories to pieces?

  Marshal Jesuit clears her throat, jolting me back into my own head. “This is one of the most important parts of basic. As a squad, you have to function as a unit, even though your abilities may vary. And those above you—the people who give your most critical orders—to them, you’re tools and weapons. You’ll be expected to perform every command they give, and they won’t hear excuses, no matter how reasonable. That means you have to figure out how you work and how you work together. How to get results, no matter what. And how to take care of each other, because no humans—not even Isaac and his team—are ever going to really understand the way you function. Got it?”

  We nod in unison.

  “Good. Now get yourselves together and head back to Gym Deck, the lot of you,” she barks.

  * * *

  —

  It’s fucked from the start.

  Woojin trips over his own feet two steps into our assigned ten laps around Gym Deck. Praava catches him by the collar before he hits the ground, but the damage is already done. The system skews out of balance as our synchrony breaks.

  Aisha and I pull ahead of them, and the exosystem goes fuzzy with worries that leak out of Aisha’s consciousness, too powerful to be contained by her rig. We can’t fail. For my family. Amar. Malikah. It has to be enough.

  Maybe if I put distance between the two of us, it’ll shut up the thoughts she’s slugging into my brain. I grit my teeth—they still don’t feel right—and try to lengthen my stride. The bulk of the rig’s metal may feel natural to the exo, but my brain isn’t used to having cameras for eyes, much less legs that could kick through hullmetal. My steps are lumbering, and behind me, the others aren’t faring much better.

  Except for Praava. When she lets go of Woojin, she takes off down the track, closing the distance between us with graceful, thundering steps that make her metal seem fluid. She wears the full rig like a second skin. As she gains on me and Aisha, I force myself into her headspace to see how she’s doing it. It throws her off, my mind slamming into hers, and she accidentally checks Aisha with her shoulder.

  Get off me, Praava snaps, shoving me back into my own head. We round the bend, all three of us jockeying for a position on the inside of edge of the track.

  Guys, wait up, Woojin thinks behind us. His steps are uneven, like one of his legs doesn’t work quite right. In the system, we feel his exo’s sputtering attempts to keep his body under control, like trying to make a fist around a live eel.

  We all know the rules. It doesn’t matter that I’ve done nothing wrong. It doesn’t matter that Praava’s a natural. Our squad only advances as a unit, and Woojin is lagging far behind us. We have to work together, or we’re going to end up on the wrong end of the rankings board.

  We shorten our strides and wait for him to make the turn.

  Once he closes, the four of us set off at a more moderate pace, letting our bodies fall in sync. Each of us has our own camera feed, our own web of data from the exos’ attachments to the rig pieces, and our own thoughts about this chaotic thing we’ve been thrown into. Balancing it while running is a tall order, especially on our first day.

  But with each step, we get a little better. I feel the thrill of success warming through me, and something about it lines up with the empty spaces in me. The sensation is familiar. From the drills we’ve been running over the past few days, but also—I’m realizing, I’m remembering—from the years I spent clawing for the top of my class in the Antilles’s academies. That was me. That was something true about the life I lived before all this. I let a savage smile loose as I spur the squad faster. If this is my reward for success, I want more. I want everything.

  And just when I think I’m starting to get the hang of having four hyperpowered bodies jumbled in my brain, Marshal Jesuit flicks a thought into our exosystem from the far end of the deck.

  Look up. We have an observer.

  Our cameras spin, zeroing in on a higher platform that looms over the rest of Gym Deck. A figure stands there, swathed in an ivory cloak. I adjust my cameras, but even though I can’t bring her face into focus underneath the hood, I know exactly who she is.

  Chancellor Vel.

  A shiver of reverence runs through my exo at the sight of the Fleet’s leader. The head of the General Body. The champion ushering humanity through the stars. I know I’ve seen her in person from time to time at events on the Antilles—a vague memory, not concrete enough to celebrate, but one that nonetheless bubbles up from before I was stripped down and rebuilt into a machine meant to serve her. My resolve swells even more. I’m going to be the best damn Scela the Fleet has ever seen.

  And that’s the moment Woojin trips again.

  We unravel all at once, the moment exploding in the crash of rig on rig. All four of us go down this time, caught in the panic that seizes the exosystem. I can’t distinguish impact from impact—what’s me hitting the ground, what’s me hitting one of the others, and what’s one of the others being hit. It’s like the system is fresh, our minds indistinct once more.

  Only when Aisha boils over do we come back to ourselves as individuals. Her thoughts go sharp with rage about how our squad’s going to end up with a dead-end patrol assignment thanks to Woojin. Because of him, she shrieks internally, she gave her body away for nothing. Her sister will work herself ragged in the hell of the Reliant’s textile plant, and her brother’s plague will consume him. Praava’s mind snaps to her own sister—the dangerous, critical research she’s doing, the thin funding her salary is supposed to bolster, the chance that her sister might not save the Fleet after all. I’m drowni
ng in their thoughts. Like my empty spaces are making extra room just for me to swallow them up.

  Woojin is mercifully silent. He’s the first back on his feet, swaying on his unstable legs. It’s his cameras that flick up to the observation deck and confirm it. The Chancellor’s turned her back on us.

  She’s seen enough.

  * * *

  —

  As the Dread’s lights fade toward deep night levels, we strip out of the rigs, muted both outside and in.

  With every piece that snaps off my body, I feel lesser. I feel powerless. Or maybe it’s the exo that’s doing the feeling—the blending between me and the machine leaves me uncertain of which intentions I can claim as my own. But whatever’s mine, it’s coming back stronger as the percentage of my body composed of metal dwindles. By the time I disengage the last armpiece and set it in its charging ports, I feel downright human, my machine parts inconsequential, my holes cavernous, and today’s faults and failings all too tangible.

  The marshal was merciless after our disaster in front of the Chancellor, but not in the way I expected. She didn’t yell. Didn’t scream. Didn’t do anything we deserved. She just kept the orders coming. Kept us running in circles until it felt like our flesh was about to liquefy around our enhancements. Kept us scaling the climbing wall until our fingertips were rubbed raw inside our gloves. The brief breaks we took for lunch and dinner felt like barely anything at all—just enough time for the ache to sink into our muscles before the marshal had us marching back to Gym Deck. All four of us avoided looking at the board in the mess. Marshal Jesuit hasn’t said outright where our performance today puts us, but we have no doubt it’s right of the ranking board’s center.

  Her disappointment has settled like a weight on top of the exo’s. I should find it infuriating, but after today’s ordeal, I’m too tired for that.

  A nudge from my exo tells me we have a schedule to keep, urging me out of the bay. Praava and Aisha fall in step with me, and Woojin lurches behind us. We make our way back down the darkened halls to our shared room.

  There’s resentment in the air between us. Everybody thinks everybody else hasn’t been pulling their weight, and no one wants to take the blame for the way things went sour today. I hit my stride as ordered, but I’m stuck with a fucking felon and two desperate backenders. They were the ones holding us back. Woojin’s glitchy integration. Praava’s worries. And above all of it, Aisha’s constant, obnoxious fear. They’re the ones who will be responsible if this squad makes anything less than the elite ranks.

  The empty spaces in me feel deeper with the little joy that progress gave me now absent. Today’s events have left me hungry. Starving for anything that will put my mind at peace. The steady hum against my skull reassures me as I sink back into the cradling foam mattress—I will feel complete. I will feel whole again.

  But only if we come out on top.

  I snap awake from our usual dreamless sleep on the Fleet’s 301st Launch Day, near-human jitters rattling through my nervous system on the heels of our alarm-order’s buzz. It’s the Fleet’s biggest and most celebrated holiday, but that’s not what has me humming with anticipation.

  Today’s our first day in the field. Our first real chance to redeem ourselves after the long, slow disaster the past five days of training have been.

  Our morning accelerates recklessly. The Dread is the most lively and cheerful I’ve ever seen it. We dress, scarf down breakfast, and every Scela cleared for active duty packs onto the shuttle decks, waiting for their assignments.

  Our squad gets directed to a shuttle bound for the starship Porthos, a First District ship that flies adjacent to the Dread in the Fleet formation. The marshal splits us into two teams—me with Praava, Key with Wooj. “As a squad, your exosystem makes you part of a unified experience,” she explains. “But as individuals, your perceptions are inherently different. Running in a pack and other actions in unison feel natural, but in the course of your duties, you’ll have assignments that will require you to each tackle separate goals without getting distracted by the others or co-opted by their will. Today is about easing you into those situations.”

  So when the shuttle docks on the Porthos’s intership deck, we’re hit with instructions and a layout. We disembark in orderly lines and file off the deck and into the ship’s habitat. Praava and I peel away at the same moment Wooj and Key split off in the opposite direction. Together, the two of us take up our posts on a walkway overlooking the ship’s main thoroughfare, feeling the other two mirroring us in the system from its other side.

  And then, as far as I can tell, we stand around and wait for something to go wrong.

  The street between us seethes with activity, people flocking to the Launch Day festivities in droves. Steam rises from the vendor booths, and the ventilation systems groan overhead as they try to process the extra strain.

  It’s a First District ship. It can probably handle it.

  It’s strange to think that the arrangement of the Fleet into seven tiers was mechanical in origin. Ships were grouped according to their functions and maintenance requirements so that in the event of an emergency, the right servicepeople wouldn’t have to launch across the Fleet to get where they were needed.

  In the three hundred—three hundred and one—years since, the districts have evolved into something halfway between states and castes. First District leads our formation, carrying the General Body seat, the most prestigious education centers, the pride of humanity in the sleekest of starships. The middling tiers of ships follow, each of them arranged in careful balance. And my own Seventh District makes up the rear, with its manufacturing cores coloring everything we do.

  My exo urges me to settle, and I breathe in deep through my nose. Don’t pick a fight, it reminds me. You’re here to stop trouble, not make it.

  The exo doesn’t see things the way I do, and everything about today is making that divide worse. Its voice is a constant contradiction, meeting my righteous fury with its cold, Godless animal instinct. It’s a machine built to enforce stasis, and every second I spend with its thoughts running parallel to mine makes me feel like more of a fanatic.

  The full rig is supposed to help with that. Key and Praava feel like it helps—I feel their contentment radiating through the system every time they snap the pieces on. Wooj’s rig deadens him, like his body is being passed over to the exo to handle. But mine—mine makes the gap between what my body was—is—is supposed to be—and what it is—was—always has been—overwhelmingly profound.

  Fortunately, we’re not rigged up today. The orders passed through the Dread this morning specified that we’re meant to promote a sense of peace and security among the festivities, and full rigs generate the wrong sort of impression. Instead, we’ve been suited up in dress uniforms that must be worth an entire month of deck janitorial salary, placed in strategic stations, and told not to move, an order our exos enforce very literally.

  The will behind our instructions is stronger than any we’ve encountered so far. Its uncomfortable buzz hums against the back of my neck, a constant symptom of an order strong enough to take our bodies away from us. It doesn’t feel natural—it makes my skin crawl.

  Fidgeting is human, the exo croons, its unyielding, hullmetal-sturdy grip locking my muscles in place. I scowl—it’s kind enough to let me have control of my facial muscles. Or maybe it knows I’ll panic if I feel completely locked in.

  Below our station, the festival is moving into full swing. Loud music pumps from the main stage, families swarm the streets, and the Porthos’s General Body representative moves through the crowd with his retinue, shaking hands and making promises about the policy he’ll enforce with his seat. His partner and counterpart, the ship’s governor, must be out there somewhere too, making similar promises about the way she and her cabinet will oversee the Porthos.

  The walkways of this ship are lined with gre
enery—there’s enough space available on the Porthos that plants can take a little of it. They wind around trellises that arc over the crowd, swaying slightly in the breeze from the ventilation. I watch with a hint of fascination and a hint of what Key would call “backend bitterness.” The Dread barely counts as First District—it’s a warship, not a city. So here, for the first time, I see the finery.

  It’s not really that different from the Reliant. The blueprint is similar—a city laid out under a habitat dome, orderly streets and buildings, the metal sky above painted the same soft blue. But it’s more. More spacious. More polished. Better, a cruel part of me admits.

  The people around us are dressed in colorful silks, and the stalls sell real food, not the synthetic stuff we get in the backend. The rich, savory smell of true meat wafts over us before the ventilation can swallow it up, and if it weren’t for my Scela biology, I’d be salivating. In the distance, I feel Key’s disdain. It’s just street food, she scoffs, but she can’t hide her own envy. Anything sold on these streets would be better than the slop served in the Dread’s mess.

  My eyes catch on the fluttering silks trailing after two girls. They dart through the crowd, clutching spun-sugar wands, and my exo prickles as a swell of nostalgia hits me. My heart thunders in time with the heavy bass beat. Last year’s Launch Day was our three hundredth, and each ship’s representative went all out to commemorate the occasion. I’d never seen the Reliant so bright, so cheerful, so clean.

  I’d just gotten off from a shift helping with that cleaning on the intership deck, and I didn’t bother going home to change. My stained coveralls stood out in the crowd, but I didn’t care. Amar and Malikah met me in the main thoroughfare, under the vaulted sky of the ship’s largest open space. I’d told them no treats before temple. Their faces were sticky anyway.