Fixit Adventures Anthology

by Erik Schubach

  I myself wish I had the time to go topside, and the ungodly sums of credits it took to get some. I'd love an uplink to the Tau Ceti Prime information grid. That was all a pipe dream though. I didn't have the credits for even a comm link.

  As we approached the huge Quonset hut that served as the maintenance bay for the harvesting pingers and tenders, the rest of my family came trundling out. They all looked concerned the way they were moving. Turk must have filled them in on the drive back.

  All my pingers here at A1 had been developing their own communications network since their built-in com circuits were helping to form the distributed computational duties needed to make them self-aware, sentient beings.

  Just as we were pulling into the service bay, there was a huge buzzing thrum, and a wave of golden light rippled over the Agri Grid in a dome. The winds died down to maybe twenty miles per hour, and I could see most of the rain flowing down to the photonic shield's perimeter. Maybe twenty percent of the storm and its ferocity were making it through. Glitch had completed our work and activated the shield. Good on him!

  I did note the weak band of the dome where the secondary projector had been demolished. I didn't like that, but I had to get Vashon stabilized and get someone from New Terra to come airlift us out before they broke for orbit. My tumbril was open air and couldn't break atmosphere. I had no time to cobble together a replacement. At worst if the primary failed, we might lose ten percent of our crops. But they can be replanted.

  Wrongway trundled up quickly and reached out the wrong direction, and I helped move Vash into his arm. He cradled her like she were the most fragile thing he had ever carried and started for a workbench as Flower squeed at chirped at him authoritatively, Dubdub followed her instructions. All the boys were always vying for her attention, and she has sort of taken charge.

  She swept all the tools off the workbench, and Wrongway laid my girlfriend on the surface. I stepped up to her and stroked her gorgeous long black hair again and whispered, “Let me look at your wounds, and I'll get New Terra to send an ambulance tumbril for us.”

  She grasped my arm, hard, I could hear servos overextending, their limiters must have been out of alignment. She said desperately, “Do-n-don-don't let-t-t her d-do it ag-a-again. Please?” She was begging.

  I swallowed hard, thinking I knew who this 'she' was and I didn't want to contemplate what I have been postulating what was going on with Vash after some things were said the last time we were at New Terra to save Glitch. I didn't want to think about it since if I were correct, it went against every concept of morality we as humans had.

  I nodded and whispered to her, “I promise.” This seemed to satisfy her as that panic left her one good eye as the other still sparked behind her pupil, and she started to drift off. Exhausted from her ordeal.

  I smiled down at her, leaned down and kissed her lips gently, then turned and said to Blip. “The emergency medical kit?” He nodded and spun around. A little too fast and he tipped over on his side with an audible, “Blip!”

  If she could have, I'm sure Flower would have sighed as she trundled over to right the silly boy. Blip righted himself and darted off in the direction of Flower's potting table as I peeled my girl's clothes off of her.

  I grabbed a scanner and pulled it up on my iso-pad and ran it slowly up Vashon's body. My eyes getting wider and wider as I went. I heard someone, I think it was me, whispering, “By the gods of the cosmos...” As the pad cataloged the implants and the damage to them.

  Blip arrived just as I went over Vash's head. I gasped and dropped the iso-pad. It bounced and clattered to the table as I covered my mouth. My eyes were staring at the number 53 that blazed on the screen. It took a few moments for me to realize Blip was offering the medical kit to me.

  I absently took it with numb fingers as I couldn't tear my eyes away from the display. What had they done? I looked at the ceiling in the direction of the floating city. I couldn't call down the med techs now, they'd find out. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't let her die.

  Maybe... maybe I could call Lady Peregrine herself. She has to know. She'd know what to do.

  A moan from my girl brought me back to the immediate needs. First I had to stop her bleeding, then I needed to keep power to her implants. I was afraid of what might happen if the power was depleted fully.

  I closed my eyes, centered myself, and took a deep breath. Then I smiled and said to her, even though she was unconscious, “I'll do my best, lady.” Then I added for her ears only, whether she was aware of it or not. “I love you.”

  Chapter 4 – Jury Rigging

  I cursed, “Flanterskelling trollite!” as I was shocked by one of the makeshift power packs I had thrown together with some of the partially burned power storage crystals.

  I had Flower holding Vashon's eyelid open as I moved the connector into the now empty eye socket. The cybernetic eye was a total loss, but this gave me a direct access port to one of the other failing implants. The most important one. The one that scared the hell out of me. The one that had replaced a portion of Vashon's brain.

  The scans showed all of the damaged tissue around the implant, from a trauma suffered many years ago. What had happened? And who made the decision to...

  I shook my head. It was better if I didn't think about it – didn't ask. I made the connection, and I could hear the hum and scree of power until it went into the ultrasonic frequencies.

  With that, her eyes fluttered open. She looked around in a panic until she saw me with her one good eye. Then she smiled and said, “F-fi-fixie.”

  I smiled back in utter relief. “Hi lady. You had me worried.”

  She started to talk, but I placed a finger over her lips. “Don't talk. Let me work on the neural clusters in your speech center first. I think some of the pathways were overloaded, I'll have to reroute the subroutines.”

  She looked frightened for a moment, and looked around again, her eye landing on the iso-pad I was too afraid to touch now. The scan results and the red flashing 53. She glanced back at me, and I shrugged. “Let's get you patched up the best I can and then we can call someone and get topside before they transfer to orbit. We only have a two-hour window.”

  She looked at the pad and me with fear on her face, and I assured her, “It doesn't matter. I love you, Vash.”

  She exhaled in relief, and her eye twinkled in wonder as she whispered, “I l-lo-love you t-t-t-too, Veg-a”

  There was a group, squee that sounded suspiciously like “Awww,” from our family of pingers who were gathered around the workbench where she laid on a bunch of thick blankets and a pillow now. The boys kept running off every few minutes to bring another blanket. Not sure how many humans needed since they never slept and didn't need the comfort.

  She slowly touched her head, her arm moving oddly. She whispered, “I co-co-couldn't lose t-th-them.”

  I assured her. “I've got most of your implants functional. I still have to work on your hip.”

  She shook her head and explained, “N-not the fla-fla-flanter... fucking impla-pla-plants. My mem-mor-ies.”

  I froze. My blood ran cold as I swallowed. Now fully realizing her panic. This was exactly why you didn't do what someone did to her. I realized what she was so desperate to hold onto. Me. Memories of me.

  I silently cursed whoever had done this to her. But I already knew who. I knew before this but didn't want to admit it to myself. I just kept telling myself that I was jumping to the wrong conclusions.

  I coded on the diagnostic tool, finding alternate pathways in the most advanced implant I had ever laid eyes upon. This thing could run an entire armada of spacecraft through interstellar space. It was to the Mark 32, what that Mark 32 was to the 23.

  I ran a simulation in my mind, then made a quick adjustment, and fed commands into the cerebral implant. Then said, “Try now.”

  She started to talk then stopped and narrowed her eyes when her voice came out sounding like a prepubescent teen. I hate myself for smiling so
big at it. I held up a hand to stop the reprimand. “Hang on, let me adjust the tone. You must have a secondary vocal processor.” I typed in a rework on the original coding some flanterskelling genius had written, after I cracked the quantum encryption. No matter how smart a coder is, there is always a back door, usually one they themselves put in.

  Then I looked at the iso-pad with the red flashing screen. I steeled myself then picked it up and looked through the scans. Ah, there was a secondary. It looks like whatever had scarred her brain so much had also burned out the nerve pathways to her vocal cords. A redundant secondary was connected via monofilament cluster in a nodule in her neck.

  I adjusted the code to sync the two. It was the best I could manage. Whoever did this to her originally, was going to have their work cut out for them to fix all my jury-rigging. I executed the code then cocked an eyebrow at her. She narrowed her good eye, looking strange with all the connectors and power traces hanging out her other socket.

  I waggled my eyebrows at her as she said, “Testing, testing. Much better. You're a genius, Vega.” Then she looked ashamed, and I hated that.

  Her eye going between me and the iso-pad. I laid a hand on her arm. “It doesn't matter. It's actually kind of sexy to me.” Then I added more quietly as I pushed her back onto the table as she tried to sit up. “How? Fifty-three percent? What happened Vash?” Then I growled, “And stop squirming, I'm still working here.”

  Glitch reached in and pushed her flat as Flower started another round of dermal regeneration on the various injuries except for her hip, except to stop the bleeding there. That servo was doing more damage than good, and I'd have to replace it before sealing her up.

  She studied me, and I hope that all she saw was my love and no judgment. I wouldn't judge. I was just scared for her. What if the Galactic Office of Ethical Standards found out?

  There were strict limits for cybernetic implants any person could have. These limits were strictly enforced since the cybernetic wars of 4037. Soldiers were being sent out into the field who were more machine than man.

  Since the peace accords, the limits to cybernetic augmentation for humans was set at 27 percent. Or 35 percent for mining or space dock workers in high hazard environments, excluding military who weren't allowed this higher percentage. Technically I guess that Vashon fit into that high hazard category being a Sky Guard ranger and all since they were peacekeepers, not soldiers. And her implants replaced only 33 percent of her organics.

  It was her – other – implant that was the problem here. The Galactic Office of Ethical Standards took decades after the Cyber Wars debating on the use of cerebral implants. Replacing portions of the human brain was nothing new when an individual suffered cranial damage. But when you replace portions of a healthy brain in a military individual, so that the recipient has quicker reflexes or reasoning skills or even aim, brought up some questions as to what was ethical and not. So the 4078 Humanities Act forbade any cranial implants to replace healthy brain tissue, allowing only for damaged tissue replacement.

  The Act also outlined a compromise for extremists and human purists who lobbied for the act. They came up with a determination of what constituted humanity, and what constituted a machine... what constituted property. If the limits were strict about how many implants one person could possess, they were even more strict about the definition of what made someone human or simply property that needed to be recycled.

  That limit on brain implants is hard and set at thirty percent. If a patient requires more than that, then they are to be denied medical attention, or they are deemed property and an Asmov inhibitor chip installed. Anyone who receives more than thirty percent is not even looked upon as human. Simply a pinger that needs to be controlled or put down.

  What had happened to Vashon in the past that had caused so much catastrophic damage to her brain, requiring 53 percent of her brain to be replaced? Nobody had ever had such an extensive repair. I hated being part of the human race just then, because, to them, Vash wasn't human. She was a machine, a pinger.

  And worse, if anyone found out, it was a death sentence to the woman I loved. They would place an Asimov inhibitor chip inside her head until her scheduled... disassembly; a more palatable term than execution, but hey, in their limited scope of understanding she wasn't human anymore right? That's how they would justify the morality of it.

  I held her forehead as she tried to rise. “Stay still, woman, I'm digging in your brain here. I have to set up some redundancy, or you could have a cascade failure in your longterm memory storage. I just need a storage matrix that can...”

  I paused as Flower moved up next to me and an access door snicked open. She squinted at me, and I blinked at her. She was offering the memory matrix that controlled her grappler? Her arm would be useless until I replaced the crystal matrix. I smiled warmly at her. “Are you sure Flower?” She nodded and squealed and reached out to gently stroke Vashon's cheek, her optical port widening in worry. Vash looked at her, her own eye wide in shock. Then she softened and said simply, “Thank you, Flower.”

  With a sigh, I gently pulled out the crystal, and with a hum, Flower's grappler fell to her side, just dangling there. I told her, “You're very generous. I'll get you fixed in no time.”

  She squeed and swiveled her orb, so it looked like she was shrugging. By the lords of the cosmos, I loved my family.

  I smiled at both my girls as I slid the crystal into the diagnostic tool and went about reconfiguring it to store memory engrams. My mind wandered to iso-pad scans. Large portions of Vash's frontal cortex and hippocampus were replaced by the cerebral implant. So most of her memories were stored in the framework. And I realized her fear more intimately then. Her memories since the implant was put in would be stored in the remains of her organic brain, and likely backed up into the memory matrix. So what was stored in the implant? She seemed so afraid that whoever did this to her would damage the organic memories she has made if they need to do extensive repairs to her brain because of this.

  So whatever was stored in the implant wasn't as important to her. False memories? She didn't want to lose her recent memories. And I knew the way she looked at me in pain and panic, that it was her memories of me.

  She started talking as I got a probe out, reaching it through her empty eye socket to pull out the damaged backup matrix and replace it with the makeshift one I had programmed. “You're amazing Fixie. It took them weeks just to try to get the damn thing to communicate with my brain, and you're doing it in minutes.”

  I looked at her expectantly, she was stalling. I snapped the new lattice matrix in place and heard the slight hum that went ultrasonic that indicated a crystal powering up. She was still avoiding my question as I saw lights flickering in her good eye as she said, “Internal stability is now at seventy-three percent, holding stable, no degradation.”

  I sighed at her, I needed to know what happened. So I shared the thoughts I have had since Glitch had been kidnapped and almost dissected. “What I think happened is that something occurred, something bad that left you on death's door. The doctors couldn't save you because there was too much brain damage.”

  She looked anywhere but at me as I pulled out my second multi-tool and reconfigured it, and started working on the exposed servo at her hip. I continued, “Your mother is the damn leader of Prime, and she demanded that you be saved, no matter the cost. When the doctors refused, she went to the Director of Sciences for Prime, Anna Germaine, and told her to ignore the Humanities Act and save you. She did.”

  “So according to the GOES, you're a machine, not human. And like a piece of used up trollite, would see you scrapped because the bootwaffles wouldn't really know anything about morals or what constituted life if it bit them on their flanterskelling asses.”

  Then I challenged, “Stop me if I'm wrong.”

  She closed her eye and took a deep breath. I took the moment of distraction to yank the damaged servo motor from the receiving socket on her hip. She hissed in pain then s
miled at me for being opportunistic in her distraction. I smiled back, and she nodded. “You're right.”

  I placed my hand on her cheek, letting her know that it didn't matter to me. I was the one person in the galaxy who had a unique perspective about what made someone alive. All of my self-aware, sentient pingers reminded me every day. My friends, my family.

  She regarded me and then started to tell me the one story in her life she hadn't shared with me yet.

  Chapter 5 – Vashon

  She sounded so far away as I rummaged for a properly sized servomotor which I could graft to the hard connection points of her hip to, to give her some locomotion. “It was five years ago. I have the memory that my mother and I were estranged because she didn't understand my need to be a Sky Guard ranger. She felt it was too risky and didn't understand my drive to make a difference, not with words, but with actions.”

  Have the memory of? That was odd phrasing. It wasn't lost on me that she shouldn't even have that memory with that portion of her brain missing.

  I looked at an old lock servo that was undersized and would require extensive alteration to fit in her hip socket but might do the job. Glitch squeed, interrupting Vash. I looked over, and he rolled up to me and offered his articulated dextrous manipulator. The hand-like adapter he could swap his grappler out with to perform more humanlike tasks from time to time.

  I blinked at him. Then looked back at Vashon who looked surprised too. I said, “Glitchy, this is part of you.” And it was, even though it was detached at this time, it was still part of his whole.

  He squeed and offered it again. He was so selfless, she was his friend, and he wanted me to use one of his servos. I glanced over at Flower with her grappler hanging limply at the side of her orb. They were giving parts of themselves to help a friend. I dare anyone to ever tell me that they didn't have emotions, and in this case, self-sacrifice.

  I nodded and kissed his visual orb. “You're the best Glitchy.”