by Adam Thielen
The only modification she wasn’t able to get approval for was a quantum drive link like those Kate had. Regulations still prohibited their use, and espionage technology was getting close to cracking quantum signals, theoretically creating a security risk for anyone still using the implants. Even without that cherry on top, Tsenka felt she had come out ahead, and believed she had not begun to tap into the full capabilities of the cybernetics.
* * *
Tsenka had gotten back into the rhythm of life. When she wasn’t in the gym or taking lessons with Matthias, she started writing again, attempting to capture and preserve her experience in relearning how to move and live. Her therapist had prescribed a mild mood stabilizer, and she believed she was back on track.
Cho stayed up late writing, which meant she stayed awake as the sun rose, while Matthias retreated to the bedroom. It’s time, she thought, activating her com implant. She was still learning to mentally interface with her augments but managed to send a call to Kate’s address after some fumbling through menus.
“Ey, Tsenka, what’s hapt?” greeted Kate.
“Getting along,” replied Tsenka. “Still at Matt’s. Keeping busy. I’ve been reading the briefings.”
“That’s ex', lady.”
“It’s okay. How are you?” Tsenka ran her fingers through her currently unbraided hair.
Kate sighed. “Some days are g-good,” she said. “Some not. I’m fine. Taq and Drew are here for me.”
Tsenka sat upright. “Are you at the station?”
“Newp,” said Kate. “I’m sorry, Tsenka. There’s something you should know.”
Tsenka felt her stomach tighten. “What’s going on?”
After a pause, Kate answered. “The agency will be revoking your clearances s-soon and then terminating your employment.”
Tsenka sat stunned. “What? Why?” And before Kate could reply, “They can’t do this!” She jumped to her feet and paced around the couch, wishing she were using a com she could throw or at least hang up. She was too flustered to interface with her cyber.
“I’m sorry, Tsenka,” repeated Kate.
“But why, Kate?” she said, continuing to pace.
“I… took a risk,” answered Kate. “Most of the board were in favor of dismissing you after a briefing on the incident and your injuries. Matt… No, I can’t blame him. The board was going to provide procedures that ensured you would not die as a result of your injuries or nerve damage.”
“No, Kate,” rejected Tsenka. “You didn’t…”
“I d-did,” she affirmed. “I told—I knew it was risky. You deserved to be taken care of. I hoped they would see that I did what was necessary and that you could still be an asset. They didn’t.”
“Just like that?” Cho asked. “I’m done? Thrown out like spoiled meat?”
“I made a case,” said Kate. “And then they sus-suspended me. I really don’t know what’s going to happen now.”
“I’m so selfish,” said Tsenka. She collapsed onto the recliner. “And now your career is over.”
“If we are being honest,” started Kate, “it wasn’t going to l-last much longer.”
“Kate…”
“I’m okay, Tsenka. And they can’t do sh-shit now that the implants are inside you. I wish I could have saved your career. I saw big things in you.”
“I’m sorry.”
Both women were quiet. Tsenka wiped at her eyes.
“You still haven’t told us the specifics of what happened,” said Kate. “But I figured a couple things out on my own.”
“They were waiting,” said Tsenka. “He was waiting.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Did you get any feed data?”
“No,” said Kate. “Everything went quiet when you got to the island.”
“Corpsec,” said Tsenka. “Almost had to be Chantech. Their leader… do you think if I get a sketch you can find out who he is?”
“Matt said you are talking to someone,” Kate pivoted.
“Can you? Will you?” persisted Cho.
Kate pondered what Tsenka would do with this information. Her first instinct was to deny the request and try to keep Cho from making a mistake. But she knew something most of the board didn’t. Something Matthias didn’t. “Aye, come by sometime. I will be here.”
“Thanks, Kate. I don’t know what else to say. It’s—I’m… I have some thinking to do.”
“Yea,” said Kate. “I’ll see you later, then.”
“See ya, Kate.” Tsenka managed the mental discipline to select the disconnect option, then sank onto the floor in front of the chair and pulled her knees up. She buried her face in between them and closed her eyes, searching. Why am I still alive?
* * *
Matthias’s second alarm woke him just after nine in the evening. He looked up at the wall with slight confusion, then turned over to see his first alarm still asleep beside him. With a grim thought in his mind, he touched her arm and sighed with relief. He lifted himself out of bed and went about his evening routine before returning.
He shook her by the shoulder, and she groaned in response. “Leave me alone,” she ordered.
Matthias lay beside her. “You alright?”
“I just want to sleep.”
“Come on,” said Matthias. “This isn’t productive.”
“Piss off. I don’t want to get up yet.”
“Damn it,” said Matthias. “I had a surprise waiting for you at the gym tonight.”
“What?”
“Terry Clark.”
“Who? Wait, Terry Clark?”
“That’s right,” said Matthias. “He’s a bit of a fan, if you can believe it.”
Tsenka rose from the bed and quietly got dressed. She could put off her existential crisis for one more day if the most skilled striker in the world was willing to spend a few hours working on her technique.
Clark was an older black man with curly silver locks who, in his younger days, was decorated in MMA, kickboxing, traditional boxing, and Muay Thai. He was warming up on a punching bag when Matthias and Tsenka entered. One of his own gym’s coaches held the bag and nodded in their direction. Matthias and Clark shook hands, both impressed with the other’s work. Clark turned and bowed to Cho, introducing himself and his partner, Burt.
Tsenka activated her perfect storage to record everything he said and did, and everything she said and did at his instruction. After almost two hours of practicing technique that she requested he only show once, so as to keep moving on to new things, his coach donned sparring gear.
“This way,” said Clark. “I can corner you, and give you some pointers while you are in action.”
Tsenka nodded and stepped inside the cage with coach Burt. They started slowly. Tsenka activated perfect recall, but the way the knowledge transferred from storage module to her synapses wasn’t perfect, and it was more distracting than informative. She ducked and weaved to try to get the hang of using it, but Burt shuffled in and delivered a stiff jab to her face, harder than he intended to.
Cho stumbled back, the cage stopping her fall. Burt waved his hand apologetically, but Cho saw only red. She rushed toward him, stopped, and waited for a tell. Burt was hesitant to fire first. Cho jabbed, catching Burt. Then again, and again. He was too slow to get out of the way, and her body gave no advance signal before she struck.
Burt opened himself up in an attempt to kick Cho’s leg and stave off her needling, but it had the opposite effect. His right hand had fallen, and Tsenka seized upon it by throwing a left hook that landed on his jaw. Burt staggered back on wobbly legs. He put his hands up, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once.
Tsenka’s implant had adjusted to her synaptic patterns, and she recalled every technique she was shown and executed them with perfect form. Worse, she was angry. At Burt, at the agency, at the man whose name she didn’t even know. But for now, Burt would do. He was one of them in a way he could not escape. As soon as he would move to protect one vector of
attack, she struck a new vulnerability. She kicked occasionally to keep him off balance then lit him up with a barrage of fists.
Desperate and trying simply to survive, Burt ducked right into an uppercut and his legs gave out. Tsenka wasn’t done with him. Burt’s brain had shut down and he wouldn’t remember the next twelve strikes, but his body pretended to be awake as his arms and legs lifted into the air and he lay on his back. Tsenka’s mouthpiece fell out and she began to grunt as she swung, pummeling poor Burt.
As Burt’s head rose slightly then was slammed back into the canvas, Tsenka felt disconnected, as if watching the scene play out from a distance. Arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her away. It was Matthias. He was yelling something, but his voice was distant and distorted. As he swung her around, she caught a glimpse of Clark standing cageside. He stared at Burt, wide-eyed and mouth agape.
* * *
Silence filled the car on the way back to Matthias’s house. Tsenka jumped out before the vehicle had a chance to come to a complete stop and ran inside with Matthias behind her.
“Talk to me, Tsenka,” demanded Matthias. “What the hell was that?”
“Fuck you,” she said, marching to the bathroom. “Fuck you all!” She slammed the door behind her and locked it.
“Okay then,” said Matthias, walking slowly after her.
Tsenka sat on the toilet as Matthias’s voice came through the door.
“Did I do something?” he asked.
“Leave me alone.”
“Dammit, Tsenka, I’m trying to help you.”
Tsenka opened the door. “You’re trying to help me?”
Matthias took a step back. “Are you really asking me that?”
Tsenka’s glare softened and she breathed in deeply. “I’m sorry. I can’t take it. I just can’t take it anymore.”
“What can’t you take, Tsenka?”
Cho stepped back and leaned against the sink. Her head fell back. “The agency burned me. I’m done.”
Matthias stepped into the room and tilted his head. “Says who?”
“Kate told me this morning.”
“Ah,” said Matthias. “I see.”
“I know I’m different now—”
“With good reason.”
“But I realized something today,” she said. “I realized that I can’t exist on the same planet as the motherfucker that did this to me.”
Matthias shook his head in denial. “You can heal. It takes time.”
“All the time in the world won’t make me whole again, Matthias. I am broken.” Her lower lip twitched.
“Don’t say that. You can stay here with me. We can be happy,” said Matthias, his eyes beginning to gloss over. “We were so happy.”
“I’m glad for that,” she said. “But you aren’t understanding me. I will not share this world with him, but I can’t beat him either, not even with all the junk inside me.”
Matthias placed his arms around her. “Don’t talk like this. You don’t need to. Whatever you need, I’ll get it for you.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, baiting him.
“I mean it,” he said, still holding her.
“I saw this man move out of the way of bullets and decimate my entire team,” recalled Tsenka. “He had cybernetics all over his body. I felt him in my mind as he violated me. I don’t know what he is, but I can’t beat him. I’m not strong enough, I’m not fast enough, and no amount of training is going to fix that.”
Tsenka stepped back to look Matthias in the eyes. She grabbed the front of his t-shirt, with her hands near the collar. “But I still have to try, or I have to… show mercy on myself.”
Matthias shook his head again and tried to speak, but Cho wasn’t finished yet.
“If you want to give me a chance, a chance to return to you, there is something you can do,” she revealed. “You can make me like you. You can turn me.”
“I can’t do that, Tsenka,” Matthias declared, gently pulling her hands off his shirt.
“You actually can.”
“There are laws. Both federal and corporate.”
“You’re Matthias fucking Trent,” she reminded him. “You can get an exception.”
“I—I don’t want you to be like me,” he said.
“I’m begging you, Matthias. All I want is the chance to…”
“Revenge,” he finished. “It’s all you live for now.”
“Help me get it!” she pleaded. “And let me find out if there’s anything else left.”
“Look at you!” said Matthias. “You’ve got to take meds every day; immunosuppressants, nanomachines, who knows what else, just to keep your body from rejecting the tech inside you.”
“So?”
“‘Vampires heal fast,” he explained. “Rejections that might take days or weeks to get out of hand right now will happen in minutes or hours as a nocturnal.”
“I’ve researched it,” she countered. “Plenty of vampires have implants, as long as they got them before being turned.”
“Extensive as yours?” asked Matthias. “Thought not. Your body is protected by one big graft. If your body fights it and your new skin comes off, you will die.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s a risk I have to take.”
“There are a hundred other reasons why I can’t and why you shouldn’t,” said Matthias. “I’ve been trying to explain. The rules, your obsession, it’s a fantasy.”
Tsenka swallowed and looked past Matthias. “Thank you for taking me in. I’m going to get my things gathered up, and I’ll head out.”
“Really? You are just going to up and leave?” he said.
“I can’t stay here,” she replied.
Matthias turned around and walked down the hall back to the dining room. “That’s just great,” he yelled, marching to the living room. “If you just want to throw away your life, go right ahead. Not like I was right the first time you left.”
Tsenka emerged from the hall, her eyes smoldering. “Fuck you, Matthias.” She then walked past the laundry and down the stairs to her mini-room.
Tsenka had accumulated nothing since she arrived at Matthias’s door, and she’d leave with only the one suitcase she brought. She took one last look at the room she barely spent any time in and went back upstairs.
The face of Charles Wu was electronically painted on the wall in front of Matthias. Tsenka stopped to look and, to her surprise, the face homed in on her.
“Hello, Ms. Cho,” said Wu. “Nice to meet you. I knew your grandmother Sandra. She was really something.”
“Uh, thank you, sir,” said Tsenka meekly, intimidated by the founding father.
Wu turned back to the vampire in front of him. “Right. I will see what I can do,” he said.
“Will you really?” questioned Matthias. “Or are you just getting rid of me?”
“You overestimate my pull,” Wu replied. “But I will try.”
“Thanks, Charles. I’ll see you.”
Wu nodded and the wall went blank. Matthias crumpled onto the couch with his elbows propped on his knees and his chin cradled in his hands. Tsenka moved next to the chair, bewildered.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“You’ve been skipping therapy sessions,” accused Matthias.
“Forget I asked,” she said, moving to the door.
“I will do it,” he uttered.
“Don’t tease, Matthias.”
“You win,” he said, shaking his head. “Come have a seat.”
Tsenka did as asked, sitting in the chair facing the couch where the vampire sat. She waited patiently, with a feeling she was in for a lecture.
“I will get in touch with some cybernetic specialists about controlling rejection issues,” he said. “They might have some new ideas that are dangerous for people, but not for us—I mean, what you will be.”
“You will really do it…” she said in disbelief.
“Yes,” he said. “But here’s something you need t
o know. You may lose your life, or you may just lose your mind, or lose parts of you that make you who you are. You may decide you don’t care about vengeance. You may get a lot stronger, or you may only get a little stronger. It affects everyone differently. This isn’t a solution, it’s a series of probable catastrophes.”
“Thank you, Matthias,” said Tsenka, ignoring his warnings. “I know what this means.”
“I’m a liar,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Mostly to myself. But that’s more dangerous than lying to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I love you, Tsenka.”
Tsenka chuckled, then became serious again. “Come on, Matthias. That wasn’t what we had, and that’s not who you are.”
“I told myself that, too,” he said. “I wanted to tell you before you left the first time, but I was scared. Both that I would be sabotaging your dreams and also for what it meant for me.”
“What it meant?” questioned Tsenka. “I don’t follow.”
“Love makes people vulnerable,” he explained. “It ties you to the fate of another. It always hurts you, sooner or later.”
Tsenka smiled slightly. “I think that’s why we worked so well. We didn’t want to tether ourselves to someone else. Things just didn’t work out.”
“For me, it was more than that,” asserted Matthias. “There was nothing I could do about it. Nothing I can do about it.”
Tsenka felt pity for him, for she felt that she was not worth loving before the incident, and now he couldn’t understand that that girl was gone. She became suspicious of his affection. Did he feel he owed her something?
“What really happened with Sandra?” she asked.
“I didn’t love her,” he said. “If that’s what you mean.” Matthias sat up. “I suppose I should take this opportunity to tell you what really happened to her.”