by D. Rus
The Doc waved his hand in front of my face, and burst into laughter again, “Hey, whatsyourname… Lucky! What a silly name. Would you want to die under a heap of women’s underwear? Wow, you’re boring company… All right, what do we have on the screen here? Ah, pain impulse down in the red. No implant, nothing to put out the body’s chemicals. Sucks, right? That’s all right, hang in there, slave, you’ll be an overseer yet!”
He turned away and clearly enunciated: “Pharmacist, three boilers of formula number 741, from my personal list.”
A pleasant automated female voice instantly responded, “Processing. Three boilers, 741, private list. Synthesizing formula, ready in seven, six, five seconds. Formula is unstable, expires in: two minutes.”
“Shut up, I know!” the Doc held his hand out to the dispenser window, and a dimly glowing syringe dropped into his palm.
He smiled endearingly and brought the syringe to my shoulder. I felt the needle sink into my arm. A pain grew in my muscle, then gave way to a torpor. My hearing rapidly dulled, and tingling sensations developed in my weary head.
The Doc cooed like a drug dealer praising the first gratuitous dose, “An evacuator can’t inject you with something this good; it doesn’t have such synthesizers, just a field set and some light stuff. But my cocktail – mmm! Complete relaxation. Removes stress and activates the mind. You feel it, don’t you? It’s like deep anesthesia; you won’t notice a thing if they weave a rug out of your nervous tissue! Yet your mind is burning with ideas. The most important thing is to avoid a burn out… Why am I so nice to you? A single dose of this stuff costs 20 credits! Unless you’re the base’s chief doctor that is, ha-ha!”
I would have nodded or cursed at him, but my body was in a coma. My vision grew sharper, and my mind analyzed everything; the Doc’s mimicry, his gestures, his tone of voice.
The Doc was lost in thought for a second, nervously biting his lip, then resolutely gave an order to the ceiling, “Full airproofing of the interior, endorsed by my personal signature! Class ‘A’ surgery in progress.”
The screen covering the doorway grew denser, going from blue to crimson. The droning of the air-conditioners became louder, and additional lighting turned on. The walls came apart, changing their design and the laboratory devices. Medical servers protruded from the recesses and froze, ready to start.
The Doc turned to me and winked, “Morph plastic: one of the latest inventions of the improved humanity. The compound contains 6 percent nanobots. Fifty credits for a single cubic decimeter! But, since this is the military, all you need is a well-written request. No way a woman can contend with the genius of the male brain, eh? Oh, I wish our supercargo, Appius Quintus, were alive… How we used to fight over every position! Our memos were a collection of poems! Perhaps I should publish it and live happily on the royalties. Wonderful dreams.”
I drearily closed my eyes for a second; my operating surgeon was a half-mad chauvinist junkie. I’m fucked.
The Doc sat his skinny behind down in an ergonomic operator seat and spread his arms wide as he opened projected screen panels. His long, deft fingers raced over the touch interfaces. Like most solitary individuals, he continued mumbling under his breath, “We’re old-school, everything by hand. No traces in the personal implant logs. Those dummies from the security council will never figure this one out, ha-ha!”
The Doc worked too fast. I was barely able to read the random fragments of what he typed: “Warehouse record,” “Closed end fund,” “Experimental models…”
I had a bad feeling. What is this pseudo-scientist up to? I just needed a regular pilot implant and a military officer implant with two lieutenant’s stars. I really wanted to fly a military spacecraft; it sounded much better than that mysterious “milking,” or the bioreactor.
“What’s our goal?” the Doc went on. “Maximum survival potential. The budget and materials haven’t been specified. And what does that mean? It means that it’s time for creative improvisation! This is a rare opportunity. I’ll show you the difference between homo sapiens and homo artificialis! This is not the same as sewing in infantry implants, a dozen a day, damn autosurgeons. You think you can implant the module, inject the subject with a gallon of basic nanobots, and voila, you have a first-rate doctor-AI? I had to study for 12 years before I performed my first surgery! And I studied with Manius Prime himself, may he rest in peace.”
Invisible gripping devices placed me into a transparent surgical box. A scanner moved over my head as thin robotic arms flashed around me, inserting IV needles into me, preparing the surgical site, and performing several other tasks that were unknown to me. Blue and green laser dots flickered over the box’s surface.
The doctor gave me a stern glance, “Don’t blink so often! The laser’s cutting your skull open. We can’t deviate from the error margin by more than a few angstroms, so let’s avoid micro concussions. I’d put you all the way under, but I need your brain’s reactions for detailed optimization. I’ll leave default settings to AI-Pirogoff. A true artist relies on intuition alone, ha-ha!”
I barely understood his words; the smell of scorched bone and the hissing of flesh being cut by a laser both hypnotized me and drove me crazy. A transparent mask was lowered onto my face. An oxygen-rich mixture with some sedative chemicals flowed into my lungs.
In a minute, I felt much better. I could hear the Doc’s voice again over the drumming in my ears, “All right, let’s sort by years… Hmm… A big shot indeed! Doesn’t even have drivers. A trophy, or certified back when Queen Anne was alive? Hey, cowboy, what do you prefer? An experimental implant for space fleet senior management manufactured in the Russian Empire, with an alpha-prime reliability index? It’s never been approved though… Or the rich kid Volant 9 for the spoiled aristobrats who’ve laundered enough money for an intersystem yacht? It will keep you alive during implantation, to be sure, but you'll be a rotten space fighter pilot, doomed to go down in the first battle… Personally, I like them both. I have never worked with either one, and the top priority order allows me to use anything I want. Oh, how tempting!”
The doctor jumped to his feet and started nervously pacing the room, fingering his bony chin.
I lay in silence like a fatalist, watching my reflection in the glassy surface as the autosurgeon cautiously cut me in layers. A large X-shaped incision appeared on my body, with the two lines running from shoulder to opposite heel. Clamps held my skin apart as the robotic arms carefully unraveled my muscles fiber by fiber, exposing the snow-white bones, the sinews, and the pulsating veins. Although my body felt no pain, it clearly did not like the procedure.
The mad scientist sighed, “Oh, Cornelia… I value science more than my own ass. All right, what did those imperials do here? Wow! The Kovrov lab, group number 000, special order for the Higher Military Command School in Stellar Ryazan! Impressive. Is there a hit for the serial number in the database? Attaboys! What did the legendary AI-Mordor used to say? ‘Russian Empire Communism is all about control and record keeping.' Now, the cover letter: minor specifications, rough surgery sketches, nanobot formula for the synthesizer… Holy Asclepius! Twenty-seven pounds of nano-mass of perfect purity and density! They used to be rich until the Hive got them… Whatever. What’s our closest match? Star dust at an adamantine lattice site? Dream on… Hmm, why don't I take some equipment from admiral implant kits? Those have been lying around unused for 60 years. Quantity can make up for quality. This will make it more interesting. Let's introduce a fresh, innovative idea into this closed cycle of projects.”
The autosurgeon which had been drying my involuntary tears with a stream of warm air grew tired of fighting the weakness of the human body; it sprayed my mucous membranes with yet another medicinal concoction that instantly paralyzed my eyelids. A dense, transparent film covered my eyes as if I were a dragon.
The Doc punched a whole series of commands into the projected screen, then spent a while dealing with the multiple service AIs: accounting, warehouse, courier ser
vice, and so on. He even had to make a few phone calls, putting forth Cornelia’s authorization as his strongest argument. Everyone feared her enough to perform a few minor infractions, break into a few storage cells in the dusty warehouses, and supply the needed chemicals.
I imagined such an order back in the hard 1939: “Provide the petitioner with everything he needs to complete the task at hand!” signed “L.P. Beria, Head of State Security.” Or perhaps, “G.K. Zhukov.” They say he too had one hell of a temper and could send anyone to face the firing squad.
My mind wandered from time to time, trying to escape the horror of a live vivisection. The smart technology vigilantly monitored my state. If I started to drift off, my mask would instantly fill with a mist of stimulating chemicals with a poignant smell. It was as if someone slapped my brain awake. My eyes would involuntarily refocus on the outside world, and the quiet muttering would once again reach my ears, “…a double layer of composite on his bones, and a cushion damper in his skull. A hormone synthesizer and a cardiostimulator which we will plant close to the main blood vessels, right next to the last resort autodoc. You’ll survive a 30-fold speed increase and a bullet in your heart. You should be able to survive, that is, he-he… How’s our budget looking so far? Ouch, 30,000 credits. You should be proud, little sucker. Your innards are already worth as much as a suburban house in New Rome! But even impudence has limits. I can’t draw any more from the lab funds, else I could be tried by a military tribunal… Mm… Should I leave you half-finished? What if you’ll die by morning? Here, why don’t you just stay here like that, cut apart, or better yet, sleep for 20 hours. I’ll deal with your teammate. She’s a very, very interesting case. Siamese souls of different sexes in my bestiary; who would have thought? You’ll have fun together. Not for long, but still… Hmm, but what if we go cowboy and unite the individual resources of both parties into a single core? You’ll be stuck with each other either way… What an unconventional procedure! All right, let’s get started.”
Lina was floating in her personal zero gravity capsule. She couldn’t move. Only her eyes actively surveyed the space around her through the pink amniotic fluid. She had to breathe it like a fetus. It wasn’t comfortable. On the contrary, it revived an old phobia of hers which she had developed during a vacation on a seashore. A wave once sucked her in, dragging her down and throwing her against the rocks on the shingle beach. She would have drowned, but she was lucky; the lifeguard on duty happened to be enjoying himself, watching her pretty body…
The post-surgical capsule could offer no rich experiences. There was nothing to look at in the sterile room except for the medical server rack and four other expensive cylindrical regeneration capsules. They weren’t the army versions with minimum functions enabled, but the pretty decent Asclepius 9.2 systems. A fine set of hardware for a mediocre orbital hospital.
Lina did not know how the answers came to her mind, but nothing could surprise her anymore. Since the mad doctor yanked her out of the depths of blissful oblivion, she had had enough time to study her surroundings. She saw the autosurgeon working on Paul’s brain, spraying long-term memory blocks onto the inner surface of his dissected skull.
Paul… Her rescuer, a fellow victim, and the partner imposed upon her for life. The first she could have loved, the second she could have pitied, and the third she could have come to hate.
The ability to love had long ago burned away just like the flesh on her face upon coming in contact with acid. The only one whom she could pity was herself. As for hatred, she had enough of it for an entire regiment of men. For it was they who had caused this pain and deformity.
What was Lina to do now? The screen of her autodoc would emit a beep once in a while, removing the foreign salty fluid from her capsule; the tears growing in her eyes disrupted the delicate chemical balance of the amniotic fluid.
Lina blinked away another tear and shifted her gaze back to the young man’s bare body suspended in the capsule next to hers. How do you go on as a part of such an idiotic artificial duo?
By the slips of the Doc’s tongue, I knew that Lina and I had spent a week in the regeneration capsules. We were discharged along with the other poor devils from group 13. We had been the only ones to receive personal capsules. The rest had to be regenerated like back in the old days; floating in a jelly of recreation gel. It was a cheap and brutal method, considering the post-operational mortality rate. Because of it, our group lost another man.
We fought for our lives. My body rejected the lavish medical gifts and kept slipping into comas and clinical death. The advanced technology brought me back every time, but retained my soul with great difficulty. According to the present-day notions, the soul was almost like any other organ, subject to disease, atrophy, and even transplantation.
Lina was my only saving anchor. To tear apart our astral connection wasn’t easy, and I couldn’t and didn’t want to drag an innocent soul to the “other side” with me. Besides, every death of mine was very painful for the girl. Even in her artificial sleep she would shudder, asking me to stay and crying quietly. It is infinitely frightening to lose a part of yourself.
The pendulum shrank as the higher planes of being rejected my defective soul and cast me back into the physical world, right into Lina’s mental embrace. We felt embarrassed every time like two passengers on public transit accidentally pressed against each other, one wearing a summer dress, the other – nothing but shorts. We could neither turn our backs, nor look away. All we could do was blush, our desire stronger than the thirst for life itself, and fall in love forever…
There were only 73 of us left out of a thousand. I had neither the strength nor the desire to think about where the others had gone. I hoped that most of them survived, but my imagination, stimulated by the high temperature, conjured up the pipes of a crematorium… err… a bioreactor…
We staggered along the hallways of the base like a line of war prisoners dragging their feet along the streets of a conquered city. The bodyguards and our gray featureless uniforms nicely complemented the scene.
Just like before, a medical bracelet showed up white on my wrist. Our implants did not yet function routinely, and external devices were required to monitor our condition.
I walked right behind a thickset young man. He was one of the few who still retained the sparkle of life in their eyes. He kept looking around, his gaze fastening on random technical devices. He would state their names and specifications under his breath. At times, he would wrinkle his brow in a funny way when he saw something unfamiliar.
Despite the fact that our bodies were battered and that we had no clue what awaited us in the future, Lina and I were hopeful about our futures.
First of all, I had legs, and she had eyes now. Those who had never been in a wheelchair, who never had to heave their stump of a body into the bathtub cannot understand our joy. As for Lina’s happiness, I absorbed every drop of it with my heightened senses. To see! To be able to perceive everything around me! Simply amazing!
Do you want to know what it was like? Blindfold yourself for 24 hours, or better yet, for a week. Try to live without one of your sensory organs. You’ll learn many new things about yourself and come to value your health and will want to preserve it. It doesn’t last forever and can fail you any day. Boom, and you’re in total darkness. Forever…
They took us to a spacious hangar and lined us up. We kept looking around warily, studying our surroundings and each other. The brutal selection process had served its purpose; we were mostly very troubled characters. Short-tempered, aggressive, and, most importantly, intelligent. We would find it hard to get along…
The clanging sound of footsteps warned us that the higher-ups were here. Cornelia Prime, the lieutenant colonel, for offences unknown had been demoted to the leader of the fleet’s research base which performed quite successful experiments for the Chronos project. This information may have been classified, but he who hath ears to hear will hear. The female division’s discipline was far f
rom perfect. Even the sentries on watch would always chat, even in the presence of the feared Cornelia. I was scared to even think what was going on in the ordinary garrisons…
The lieutenant colonel eyed our diverse group with disgust. We were all between ages 17 and 50, all of different weights and heights, one woman for every eight men.
Spitting on the sterile floor, Cornelia spoke, the loudspeakers on her armor relaying her words in a bass, almost infrasound voice, “Group 13! You may yet live up to your incompetence, as 93 percent of you were waste products. Have mercy on the bioreactor! The protoplasm tanks are jam-packed. Oh, well, you are your own wooden robots… You’ll have a tough time in the virtual academy. Gods favor large battalions. And you’re barely a half company. A heavy infantry platoon, a pilot platoon, and the rest are a useless burden. May a battle cruiser make an emergency landing on your heads, group 13! Better endorse your will with a digital signature. But wait, you don’t own any property. Your asses belong to the government, to which you are heavily indebted. A 100,000 credits per each ugly, hairy ass – that's your average debt! And some of you had managed to stuff your worthless selves with so much nanotech that you will have a cast-iron bolt from the space dross collection waiting for you within the next 100 years instead of demobilization. Oh, well, everything has its upsides.”
Cornelia gave me a challenging look, her heavily scarred face breaking into a poor excuse for a smile. Her right pupil dilated as it zoomed in on me and traveled over my body independently of the other eye, searching for my hottest spots.
I shuddered and tried to disappear in the folds of my uniform. Lina instantly received my feelings, flared her nostrils, and even slightly leaned forward, trying to shield me from the lustful gaze. The girl would go from one extreme to another; from pure rage to a subconscious yet powerful longing to hug me, cling to me, and purr like a happy kitten.