by Eric Warren
“Scan complete,” Shin said, walking over to her.
“Is this where you stick me and tell me to go to sleep?” she asked, not even caring anymore.
“It is as I suspected,” Shin said, ignoring the question. “It is an electronic disease, originating from your hand. When it was activated, it began siphoning energy from your central nervous system.”
Arista lifted her head up and one of the orderlies placed a pillow under it so she wouldn’t have to strain. “Uhh, thank you.” She turned back to Shin. “Siphoning energy?”
“It requires a lot of energy to create those blasts you use and they are physically draining you. The infection is a side effect. The weapon cannot find any more power. It is trying to take the energy from your cells. From the mitochondria themselves. It is reaching out, necrotizing you from the inside.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. If something was causing that much harm I would know it.”
“You can see the evidence for yourself.” He picked up a transparent tablet and tapped it a few times, handing it to her.
Arista stared at the information displayed on the tablet, but it took a few moments for it sink in. Everything he said was true. Unless he had doctored the information on the tablet but he hadn’t had the time. Not for this level of detail. Displayed was a cross section of her, and she zoomed in on the hand itself. She could see all the connections Sy had made along with what looked like some kind of liquid polymer leaking out of the hand, moving up through her arm, searching for something. Why hadn’t the Device picked this up?
She looked at Shin. His eyebrows were knitted but otherwise his face remained impassive. He really was concerned. And why should that surprise her? It wasn’t as if every machine was like Charlie. Her parents, for instance. They had been nothing but loving and wonderful from the day she’d met them. They had taken care of her.
And Frees. Before the jump he’d done nothing but help protect her, even if he didn’t always show it in the best way. Even if sometimes he made mistakes. They were all good machines. People without malice. Why should Shin be any different? If he’d wanted to incapacitate her, he wouldn’t be going to all this trouble. He already had the means to overpower her.
“What do we do?” Arista gripped the tablet tighter with her human hand.
“I don’t know. We will have to be fast. It is spreading.”
It could kill her. They needed to get the hand off right now. “Shin, you said you’d been monitoring us since we arrived, even when I thought you weren’t.”
“Correct.”
“Do you know where Frees is?”
He nodded.
“Will you bring him here? He might be able to help.”
“Yes. I will do that.”
Twenty-Seven
Pushing through the crowds, Frees finally spotted what he’d been looking for: a repair bay. They would have all the scanning tools he would need, he’d just have to ‘co-opt’ the workers for a short time. He only hoped it didn’t show up on Hogo-sha’s surveillance until he was done. One way or another he would find out what was wrong with him. It probably would be safer to do it back in Chicago, but he couldn’t wait. Arista was still out there somewhere and if he was going to find a way to help her he needed to be able to trust his own decisions.
The bay was on the corner with a regular-sized door on one street and a garage-sized door on the other. It had no windows, only notices placed at regular intervals on its exterior walls advertising what was in stock and what repairs could be made that day. And all of it was written in Japanese.
Normally Frees would have taken the time to translate and read it all, but it didn’t matter today. He wasn’t searching for parts, only services. And if this place was like the ones back home, they should have all the equipment necessary for scanning for and replacing malfunctioning parts. Back when he’d still been alone he’d been overly cautious about staying away from places like this. Someone coming in without any skin could raise alarms and it was better to avoid the situation if possible. But since then careful hadn’t exactly been his forte. In fact, he should have died from his injuries sustained rescuing Arista, had she not come and fixed him. He’d been so adamant he could make the repairs himself only to find he was much worse off than he’d originally thought. It was a good thing she’d been there.
Frees pushed through the front door and a chime rang somewhere.
“Hello. How may we help you today?” the woman at the desk asked. She was very petite with long black hair. If he hadn’t looked closely he would have sworn she was a child.
“I need a full scan for updates,” Frees responded, using his translator to speak the words in Japanese. “Private facility.”
“Yes, sir.” The woman tapped a screen in front of her. “Do you need assistance?”
Frees pulled the hood closer to his face, shielding him. “No.”
“Please have a seat and we will call you when ready.” The woman smiled.
Frees trudged over to the row of chairs against the wall and sat. The machines here could provide more comprehensive cortex scans than his own internal diagnostics. He chuckled to himself. These were places where humans once brought their machines for repairs. Now the machines brought themselves.
The chime rang again and Frees looked up as three individuals entered at once. All three were clad in black suits with sunglasses, two men, one woman.
Shit.
Apparently, this was not the day for scans. How had Hogo-sha found him? He’d stayed out of the line of any surveillance device; been extremely careful. Had they been tailing him this entire time? He powered up the felp.
One of the men turned toward Frees and stepped forward. The woman at the desk looked on with mild interest as if this was something that happened every day.
“Frees,” the man said. “You will come with us.”
“I will not,” Frees said, standing. He raised his arm to the man. Unable to see behind the sunglasses he couldn’t tell if he was a Peacekeeper or not. What had Arista called them? Psuedokeepers? They weren’t like the ones back in Chicago, Hogo-sha manipulated them somehow. And if their code had been manipulated then there was a chance they might not be recoverable. At least that’s what he’d tell himself. He knew he was doing nothing other than justifying a reason to shoot them all and flee and it wasn’t working. If he did this, it would be on his conscience.
“Hogo-sha requires your presence,” the man said. “He holds Arista Barnes prisoner.”
Frees stopped, dropping his hand. He’d found her. Of course he’d found her, he’d probably been tracking them both since they’d arrived. Everything else had just been for show.
“If you come with us, no harm will befall her.”
Frees had the sudden urge to rip the man’s optics out. Gone was the guilt associated with killing these three. He could do it too, he could take them down, then fight his way through an army of them to get to her. But by then Hogo-sha would act. He could be monitoring this conversation right now. Who was to say one of the three wasn’t his avatar at the moment?
“Take me to her.”
Less than ten minutes later Frees stood at the base of the tower he’d jumped out of only the day before. He stared up at the impossibly tall glass structure; it’s top reaching so high it seemed to pierce the night.
The man who’d spoken to him stood at his right; the other two behind as an escort. The front of the building stretched the entire block to both the left and the right and was set back from the sidewalk by thirty-three feet. They crossed this concrete plain only for Frees to realize within it were tiny reflective pebbles that caught the light as they passed. What had been their purpose? A mirror of constellations? Or something more abstract? He found himself fascinated by the mystery. The building itself sat atop a short but wide stairway that also extended the full length of the block. Each step had an ornate carving across its face, repeated every few feet or so, down the entire length of them.
“A hat
. A roll of fabric. Feathers. What do they all mean?”
The man beside him was silent. It must have something to do with Japanese culture, at least human Japanese culture as they’d been the ones to build the building. It was too bad no one was left to tell him.
Once they’d scaled the steps they escorted him inside the giant glass doors; everything about this place was made to make it look as grandiose as possible. It reminded him of the Cadre HQ back in Chicago taken to the nth power. Whoever had designed this place, they had done it with love and care.
He was escorted to a familiar bank of elevators, four in a row. They looked like they could have been the same ones they’d originally ridden on their first visit here. Frees expected the higher he rose the more familiar the building would become.
They didn’t even reach the first sky lobby before disembarking. Two of the guards stayed behind at the doors and the man continued to escort him.
“Taking me to lockup? Or surgery, to remove my weapon?”
“Surgery,” the man replied. Frees gaped at him a moment. He hadn’t expected him to be so candid. At least people didn’t bullshit here. They came to a pair of sliding doors and the man passed his hand in front of the scanner. The doors slid open silently. Inside were a number of alcoves surrounding a large control station in the middle. Frees wasn’t even sure he would get to see—
“Frees?” a weak voice said from the far side of the room. Frees peered around the control station.
There she was. Laid out like some experiment. Shin stood over her along with another machine he didn’t recognize. Rage took over.
“What have you done to her!” he screamed, launching himself across the room toward Shin. “You lying bastard.” He grabbed Shin by the neck. The man didn’t seem perturbed and made no motion to stop him. Why would he? This was only a useless avatar. The real mind was a hundred floors above them.
“Frees, no, it’s okay.” Arista grabbed for him with her human hand. Her other one was strangely immobile. Had they disabled it somehow?
“What is going on here?” he demanded, still holding Shin by the neck. Why weren’t the other machines trying to stop him?
“I asked him to bring you here, put him down, he’s trying to help,” she said. Frees turned to her. Trying to help? This machine had tried to kill them yesterday. But he saw from the look on her face she wasn’t kidding.
He released Shin’s neck while the man just smiled at him. He turned back to his friend. She looked much paler than usual. When his eyes finally found the arm above her new hand, he took a step back. “Did he…did they…?”
Arista shook her head. “It wasn’t them. I think it was Sy.”
Twenty-Eight
Arista tried to explain it as best she could, given her condition. Shin filled in the holes or offered alternative scenarios where possible. When Frees finally got a look at her data he understood just how dire it was. Whatever was in that hand was slowly killing her, one cell at a time.
“Frees,” she called to him, her voice ragged. He put down the transparent tablet and walked back over to her alcove. “I’m sorry for what I—”
“Stop,” he said. He couldn’t take her apologizing to him right now. Not in this condition. “Don’t worry about that. I shouldn’t have made the jump. You were right.” He dropped his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking and I still don’t. I’m trying to figure it out.”
“Are you malfunctioning?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
He placed his hand on her bare shoulder. The lines hadn’t reached it yet, they remained at her elbow, but the skin around them had turned a violent purple. Down closer to the hand itself the skin had turned black.
Shin came up beside him. “I am sorry for the deception. It was the fastest way to get you here without a fight. Obviously she is not a prisoner.”
“Not by you anyway.” The more he stared at her hand the angrier he got. Goddamn Sy. He’d known something was wrong with that woman; coming to their rescue like that. Promises of a human colony. All in exchange for one simple, one-hour job. And it had all been a deception.
“This woman,” Shin said, as if reading his mind. “She is dangerous.”
“You have no idea.”
“You think she did this on purpose?” Arista asked. Her head was relaxed on the pillow but her eyes were fierce. “What if it’s a side effect?”
“Right now it doesn’t matter,” Shin said. “It is killing you.”
She looked like she wanted to argue the point, but instead turned away and stared at the ceiling instead. Frees didn’t blame her. No one liked to be betrayed by their own kind. He had been furious when Shin revealed his true intentions, and he still wasn’t sure he trusted the man. But at this point he had little choice. If they were to have any chance at saving Arista.
“She doesn’t have a lot of time.” Frees said.
“I don’t know enough about humans to be of much help. I’ll begin downloading information on biology.”
“Everything you can find,” Frees said, still watching Arista. “I’ve been learning all about it as well. And unless we have an antidote for the infection I don’t think we have a choice. We’ll have to take her arm up to the infected tissue.”
Arista’s wince didn’t escape his attention, though she said nothing. He couldn’t even imagine what she was feeling and how hard it was to keep it all in. First her hand and now most of her arm.
“Cut it off before it reaches vital organs?”
Frees nodded.
“I see,” Shin said. Two orderlies trotted up beside him in perfect sync with each other. “Download all available information on human biology and the care of amputations.” The two orderlies bowed in acknowledgment.
“Do you have to?” Arista’s asked. Her voice was so weak Frees wasn’t sure they hadn’t waited too long already. She would need fluids and, in a perfect world, a couple pints of blood. But without an ample supply they would just have to be very careful to keep her from losing too much.
Frees tried to keep his face neutral. “I wish there was another way. How does it feel?”
“I can’t feel the hand anymore. Everything else is throbbing.” Her lips trembled as she spoke. Frees had to turn away to keep himself from lashing out erratically. Shin stood behind him to catch his gaze.
“I feel like this is going to need to be delicate but quick. She doesn’t have much longer.”
Shin nodded. “We can help. How do we begin?”
Frees went over to one of the stations and turned on the water. After it sputtered for a moment, he rinsed his hands with soap. Even though he no longer had skin his hands could still pick up small bacteria. “We need to sterilize the area. Humans have a high susceptibility to infection. We don’t want to make the problem worse while trying to make it better.”
Focus. Just focus on the job and don’t think about what you are doing.
Shin nodded. “I will activate the ionizer. It dispels bacteria. In the air and around the alcove.”
Frees dried his hands under a sterilizer beside the sink. “Perfect. We’re going to need something to cut with. Preferably something that can cauterize the wound as soon as we make it. A clean cut.”
Shin turned his head to the left. Immediately one of the orderlies ran over to a supply cabinet and grabbed some tools wrapped in some kind of plastic. “This unit has exoscalpels. They are sterile and don’t leave tissue damage,” Shin said.
“For never having done this you know a lot about surgery,” Frees said.
“I am downloading information as we go. My AI upstairs is capable of very fast data transfer.”
The orderly returned and handed Shin the equipment.
“Would it…uh…how do I put this delicately?” He tried not to stumble over his words. “Would it be better to let them go?” Frees indicated the orderly who remained blank-faced.
Shin shook his head. “She will change them. Unacceptable.”
Frees couldn
’t argue, in her agitated state Arista could probably change anyone within a fifty-foot radius. It was curious: Shin was helping them but didn’t want his people to be subjected to autonomy. So what would he do with them once Arista was better?
Arista lifted her arm and waved him over. He made sure to keep his hands off any of the surfaces and approached her cautiously. “Frees, I can’t go through this again, I can’t—”
“You are going to be fine. But we have to do this. You will make it through.” He tried to keep any hint of doubt off his face.
“I can’t lose my arm, not again.” Tears had begun streaming from her eyes and she hadn’t moved to wipe them away. “It’s too much.”
“It’s not going to change who you are,” Frees said. “And just think: you’ll be able to run even faster now because you’ll be lighter.”
She scoffed.
“Okay, not the best argument. But here’s a bonus. You get to see me absolutely lose it as soon as we begin cutting. If I had a gag reflex, I would have thrown up already.”
A faint smile played across her face.
“I don’t want to anesthetize you because I don’t know how old these drugs are and if they’ll even work. You’ll need to remain conscious.”
She drew a deep, ragged breath and nodded.
“We should still do a local,” Shin said. “For her discomfort.”
“Do you have anything that hasn’t turned toxic over the past hundred years?”
Shin nodded. “Of course. All of it is in cold storage. Lidocaine Monohydrochloride.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth a third orderly appeared at the doors holding a vial. Shin turned to him. “Right on time.”
