Ghost Black

by Matthew S. Cox

  For two minutes that felt like twenty, Risa waited on the metal disc, shivering, trying to force that thought out of her mind. Eventually, the squeak of a chair made her look up. Doctor Haltemeyer rounded the edge of his desk and walked over. After a few routine questions about known allergies―none of which she had―he tapped a button which caused the cylinder to rise until it sealed against a matching disc on the ceiling.

  “Miss Aum. Before we continue, I am required to ask that you acknowledge this is an elective procedure not necessary for the preservation of life. While we strive for perfection, there is always the outside chance a patient’s body may react in unpredictable ways. Are you certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you wish to continue?”

  There’s something about being stuck naked in a clear cage that’s intimidating in a way even hanging off a tiny combat aircraft can’t match. She continued to shiver, unsure if from the freezing air or her nerves. A moment’s concentration on the memory of the little girl having a freakout at the sight of her, plus so many hours of regret, steeled her nerves. “I’m sure. Please go ahead.”

  The doctor nodded and hit another switch. Risa jumped as a heavy clank shook the platform, and mechanical whirring vibrated the chamber. Within seconds, viscous peach-hued slime welled up out of the vent slats on either side of her feet. Compared to the air and metal floor, the warm ooze felt like a welcome blanket wrapping around her.

  “Miss Aum, since you did not ask any questions about the gel, I assume you know how it works.”

  She gave a thumbs-up as the substance climbed past her thighs and over her hips. Breathing slime didn’t rank high on her list of fun things to do, but eight years of activity with the Front necessitated a certain amount of tube time. Wonderful warmth passed her breasts and reached her neck, buoyancy taking her weight off the ground. She exhaled as much as she could, the last second or two bubbling as the liquid climbed past her chin. Once she floated free and submerged, she stopped trying to hold her breath and let the substance fill her lungs.

  Mild pain lingered in her chest for the first minute as her system adjusted. It took all her concentration to resist the primal terror of drowning; she repeated ‘I can breathe’ over and over in her mind until she reached a state of calm. Her waist-long hair hovered around her like an inky phantasm, spreading outward.

  She glanced up at a mechanical noise. A fist-sized hatch in the upper platform opened, and her biological eyeballs dropped into the tank with her. Revulsion and curiosity stalemated; she neither cringed away nor studied them.

  Three more figures in white entered: a dark-skinned and bone-thin woman about Risa’s age, a heavyset red-haired woman creeping up on forty, and a blond man who looked like a ten-year-old boy stretched to an adult’s height. The male medtech seemed startled at the privacy curtain being open, and gawked at her until Doctor Haltemeyer sent everyone to various workstations near the tube.

  One of the floating spheres seemed to swim like a malformed sperm, guided by invisible nanobots. When it glided up to her face, she locked eyes with herself.

  “Priya is going to administer and monitor the anesthetic now.” The doctor’s voice thrummed in the gel. “Relax, and I’ll see you in a few hours… though to you, it will feel like only a moment.” He twisted away from his terminal to look back at her, smiled, and spoke into the mic again. “Last chance to change your mind.”

  Risa thought about giving a thumbs-up, but the next thing she knew, it felt as though someone had smashed her in the head with a metal pipe. Instinctively, her hand moved to her face, finding a soft, padded blindfold. It next occurred to her that air streamed in and out of her nose and the warm squishiness of a Comforgel pad embraced her. She returned her arm to her side. Aside from a sheet, she remained nude. Blindness made the woozy feeling worse, creating a feeling of falling backward through the bed into an endless spiral. The glowing cyan time display at the lower left corner of her vision that she’d grown so accustomed to stood out as glaring by its absence. Without its light, a hollow void consumed her world.

  She clutched the bedding, a feeble effort to fight the vertigo.

  When she tried to move her eyes around, the tremendous headache intensified. She gritted her teeth and moaned. Minutes passed in dark silence. At a trace of autoshower soap in the air, she wondered who bathed her to clear the residue of the medical gel. She reached both hands up and examined the thing on her head: padded, cloth, probably black. It felt black. Her fingers teased at the mask. Fear of being so helpless clashed with worry she’d hurt herself if she took it off.

  Throbbing eyeballs made it difficult to think about anything. Time seemed meaningless. Again, she glanced low and left for the spot where her time display had always been. She couldn’t remember being without it, even though it had only been seven years. Her jaw clenched. The entire time Kree has been alive, I’ve had metal eyes. She fidgeted, unable to tell if she’d been awake for minutes or hours. Eventually, the constant pain in her skull started a swirl of regret.

  A soft hiss suggested a pneumatic door sliding open. Scuffing shoes and a rush of cooler air confirmed it. Someone approached the side of the bed. Seconds later, electric chirps emanated a few inches away from her head.

  “Welcome back to the land of the conscious,” said Doctor Haltemeyer. “I’m pleased to report that everything seems to have worked out fine. You may be experiencing some discomfort around the eyes. This is due to the reattachment of your extraocular muscles. You’ve had metal eyes for some years now, so we had to regenerate quite a bit of tissue in there.”

  “Some discomfort? It feels like my eyeballs are six times bigger than the sockets.”

  Another few beeps happened, followed by a spot of cold on her right shoulder and a soft hiss.

  “That should help with the pain. You can remove the padding if you feel up to it.”

  An onrush of dizziness accompanied the drug, though it did dull the sense of eyes swollen to the point of bursting. Risa lifted the mask, expecting to cringe at painful light, but discovered her blindfold to be white and the room tolerable in brightness. She pulled it off the rest of the way, and squinted at the doctor. He hovered close, holding a small device with a lens over one eye and then the other. The noises it made sounded reassuring. A moment later, he backed off, and she sat up, cradling her face in her hands. Her head felt like an inert twenty-pound orb bot balanced on a stick. Every surface around her appeared glistening and smooth.

  “Why does everything look weird and shiny, like it’s all wrapped in plastic?”

  The doctor tucked the device into his medical coat pocket. “You’d been using electronic eyes for a long time, rather old ones at that. Do you remember when you first got them? Did you perceive a screen effect, as if you were looking at the world through a tiny mesh?”

  She tried to rub her nose, but it hurt too much. “Ow. Yeah… kind of.”

  “That was your brain perceiving the individual pixels generated by the image sensors in the eyes. Eventually you became used to it, and no longer perceived the grid; however, that grid would’ve imparted a drabness to your vision, desaturating all color. Natural eyes don’t pixilate. The world is going to appear a little strange to you until your brain rewires itself.”

  “Oh.” Risa stumbled out of the bed on jellied legs. “Great. I should go home.” I’m too vulnerable here.

  She took three steps toward the door before the doctor cleared his throat.

  “Forgetting something, Miss Aum?”

  Risa kept going until she reached the exit, then leaned one hand on the doorjamb and glanced back at him. “Huh?”

  “You aren’t wearing anything.” He pursed his lips.

  She blinked down at herself. Oh wow. I must be high. Didn’t even feel naked. “Ngh. It hurts so much I’m not sure I care.”

  He guided her back to the bed. “The headache should subside in a few hours. Please rest. I’ll need to send one of the medtechs in in a little while to make sure everything is working bef
ore we can release you.”

  The floor raced up to meet her, but the doctor caught her. He helped her get back in the bed before covering her with the sheet again.

  “Maybe I should rest.”

  He smiled.

  “Miss Aum?” asked a whispery female voice.

  Risa startled out of a half-awake state. Mercifully, the headache had almost faded, but her muscles remained ‘gooey’ and unresponsive. Her clothes sat folded on the table next to the bed, but she couldn’t remember anyone bringing them in. She yawned and sat up.

  The dark-skinned woman who’d monitored her anesthetic walked over to the bed and smiled. “Good afternoon. I’m Priya. Are you feeling up for a few tests to make sure everything is working?”

  “Headache’s almost gone.” Risa yawned again. “Sure. Why not?”

  Priya took a datapad from the large pocket on the left side of her coat. “Can you try to activate your virtual interface and let me know if you see anything unusual?”

  Risa thought about accessing her NetMini over the wireless link. The virtual screens she’d grown so accustomed to appeared as before, but seemed more real somehow… as if rather than a digital display, she witnessed a hole in reality looking into another world.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Priya. “You look confused.”

  She stared at Pavo’s face in her contacts list, and unconsciously tried to touch him. “It’s so different. They look like they’re right in front of me, not like I’m staring at a virtual holo-panel.”

  Priya smiled. “That’s your new cortical interface unit. The resolution is much sharper. Plus, it is feeding data directly to the vision-processing centers in your brain, rather than using the image sensors of artificial eyes as an intermediary. There is zero pixilation. Is everything working as it should, aside from being more vivid?”

  She navigated several floating menus; the system seemed a little faster, another side effect of the hardware upgrade. After testing video playback, and sending an ‘I’m okay’ message to Pavo, she glanced at Priya and activated her combat tactical processor. Glowing dotted lines appeared, indicating motion paths for the four most efficient ways to kill the woman. She deactivated it, closed her eyes, and tried the Wraith. Amid the blackness, the words ‘No Sensor Detected’ floated as if carved of ruby.

  “Everything but the Wraith seems good.”

  Priya tapped the datapad, typing in notes. “Any dizziness, nausea, blurriness, or headache?”

  She rubbed her temple. “Only the headache I woke up with.”

  “Good.” The medtech smiled, and switched off the datapad. “You’ll be better off using the interface as little as possible within the first forty-eight hours. The spatial relativity processor requires input from ultrasonic emitters and detectors, which your artificial eyes had. I assume that’s why your employer opted for the Oracle series.” She sighed. “They’re rather startling in appearance.”

  “Yeah, so I’ll need a wearable sensor for the Wraith, got it.” She bit her lip. “C-can I see a mirror?”

  Priya stepped back and turned ninety degrees, like a human door opening out of her way as she gestured to her right. “In the bathroom.”

  She felt fine until she attempted to put weight on her legs―and collapsed. Her knees hit the floor with a loud crack, but she didn’t feel it. “That should’ve hurt, shouldn’t it?”

  Priya helped her up. “You’ve had a rather large dose of pain medication. Perhaps you should rest a little longer.”

  I need to get back before Kree has a meltdown. “I―”

  Motion at the door stalled her voice in her throat as Pavo walked in, wearing a rogue’s grin. Two steps past the door, he froze, staring. Priya edged backwards without a word as he approached the bed, one arm extended. His fingertips brushed her cheek and lifted her chin. The adoring look on his face caused tears to gather in her eyes.

  She offered a weak smile. “Surprise…”

  “Beautiful…” He stared at her for another minute in silence.

  Risa looked down at her lap. “I’m an idiot. I never should’ve let them―”

  He pressed his thumb into her lips. “Regret is a futile burden; to worry about that which you cannot change is to cast your heart into a bottomless pit.”

  She pulled his arm down, smiling despite having the sniffles. “Okay, fortune cookie. How do they look?”

  “Perfect.”

  Every unshaven whisker on his face seemed to wave at her, the overhead lights gleaming on his forehead.

  Risa squinted at him, stroking her fingers over his cheek. “You’re so shiny and smooth.”

  “I see someone’s found the narcoderms again.” Pavo scooped her up in his arms.

  “Not now.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’ve got a headache.”

  He chuckled, and set her on the edge of the Comforgel pad. “Seems you had a problem walking.”

  “Pain meds.” She grabbed her clothes and glanced at Priya. “Am I okay to leave?”

  “For the next four to six hours, you’re legally impaired. Careful what you attempt to do.” Priya seemed hesitant. “I suppose since you have someone to help you, there won’t be a problem. Let me get Doctor Haltemeyer to sign off on your release.”

  Pavo presented his MDF badge. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t try to drive, operate any heavy equipment, or incite a rebellion in a small sovereign colony.”

  Risa laughed into a bundle of periwinkle blue cloth. The room spun when she tried to stand to get her leggings on.

  “Whoa.” Pavo caught her before she fell again. “Why don’t we get a room nearby? You’re in no condition for a shuttle ride for at least a few hours, and it’s a tenth the cost of a hospital bunk.”

  “Sounds… fine.” She again stared at him, tilting her head and marveling at the bright spot on his forehead. “You’re… so… shiny.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “And you are quite high.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed, limp and laughing at her rubbery arms while he dressed her like a toddler. After putting her boots on, he picked her up again, her chemically-relaxed body curled against his warm chest.

  “I’m glad you found me,” she whispered.

  For the first time in seven years, Risa Black closed her eyes.

  8

  Threat Neutralized

  Risa looked up and pulled her hair off her face. Stark naked, she sat in the aisle seat on what appeared to be a Maglev monorail, rushing along without a sound. Around her, morning commuters went about their business, not one giving her so much as a second glance. Blood rushed to her face while she covered herself with her hands as best she could. Murmurs of indistinct conversations surrounded her, single words leapt out clear every so often: meeting, finance, budget, coffee, sales quotas… nothing about a nude woman. Risa cringed in on herself, paralyzed with dread as though the slightest motion would cause everyone to notice her all at once.

  She kept her head down until the tram stopped an agonizing few minutes later. Bodies shuffled in and out via five pairs of doors. Risa shivered in her seat, mortified, unable to will herself to break and run for the safety of the terminal platform. She stared helpless as the doors closed and the tram resumed travel. A pudgy man in a dark-brown coat approached her, gesturing at the window seat two spaces away.

  “Excuse me, Miss.”

  Risa gawked up at him. Without a word, she shifted her legs to the right so he could move past. He smiled, seeming oblivious to her lack of clothing. As soon as he sat and settled in, he took out his NetMini and lost himself in the screen. She looked at him for a few minutes, waiting for the subtle tilt of the wrist that gave away him taking a picture of her, but he didn’t.

  She pondered the bizarre non-reaction of everyone around her until the next stop, where she summoned the nerve to get up. No one in the crowd pressing in from all sides so much as gave her a second glance. As soon as her foot touched the terminal floor, the tram doors snapped closed behind her, blast
ing her with a gust of warm air that pushed her forward a step and blew her hair over her shoulders. Before she could turn to look back, the tram blurred off into a tube.

  I’ve got to be dreaming. I can’t remember how I got on the train.

  Risa continued trying to cover herself, but no one on the platform seemed to care. Perhaps they’d all become numb to it because of the ‘neko’ cyber fad―people who took the cat cyberware thing too far. Some didn’t bother with clothes. Still, at least one pervert should’ve checked her out. Unease bubbled in her gut as she walked across the PubTran station, pulled by an inexplicable urge. Aside from the occasional grumble of annoyance as someone darted around her, she may as well have been invisible.

  The beckoning feeling led her to an escalator bank, and up to a twenty-meter-long flat space before another set of escalators continued. To the left against the wall, a group of street urchins played electronic music while begging for handouts. She watched them for a moment, finding them too familiar.

  Kree and Kyle both worked flashing devices part keyboard part computer, and sang into little microphone booms. Behind them, Sam and Brett coaxed haunting music out of elaborate rigs far too expensive to be theirs. A pair of six-year-olds, and a pair of ten-year-olds. The youngest four children from the mine she’d almost destroyed. Risa wiped her eyes. I’m dreaming. When she looked at them again, a slim woman in ballistic stealth armor and waist-length black hair strolled up to them, approaching an upturned box labeled ‘food please,’ as if to drop in a tip. Not-Risa withdrew a compact bomb from her coat, armed it, and tossed it in. All four children smiled at the false version of her. The evil woman peered over her shoulder at Risa, tiny dots of bright violet at the center of shiny steel eyes. She winked, and sauntered off into the crowd.

  No! screamed Risa in her head. She wanted to run and save them, but the air had become dense syrup she could barely move in. All the people on the platform behind her stopped walking and stared at her. Their eyeballs leapt out of their skulls, flying toward her with little wiggling strands of optic nerve behind them.