Chrysalis Corporation

by T. A. Venedicktov

  “Good way to put that!” He let out a bark of laughter, then calmed when he remembered why Requiem was unnerved.

  “Do you remember anything about your dream?” Damion asked as he scrubbed Requiem’s hair.

  Requiem sighed, leaning into Damion’s hands. “Affirmative, but only a few things. It took place in many different areas, but you were always there. It was perplexing.”

  “Yeah, sometimes I’ll be dreaming I’m back at home, then other times at places I’ve never visited but only seen on vids.” Damion shrugged. “Do you have to go to the capsule every time that happens?”

  Requiem’s head tilted and Damion could see the wheels turning as Requiem thought about the question seriously for a moment. “I do not know. I have never had a dream before, and I felt… I felt like I needed something familiar to ground me.”

  “I guess you have to do that to feel better.” Damion urged Requiem to rinse out his hair.

  Requiem tilted his head back under the water and quickly rinsed out his hair before grabbing soap and pouring it onto a washcloth. He started washing Damion’s back. “You are upset?”

  “I just got used to you sleeping next to me, so I figured you would be there when I woke up. I’d just rather you stay next to me.”

  Requiem’s hands paused in their washing for a moment before resuming slowly. “I cannot say that I can all the time. Unfortunately I do need to plug in daily while on the Zeus. I am not saying that I cannot sleep in the bed, but I do need to jack in so that they can monitor me while I rest at times. So I may only occasionally sleep in your bed.”

  Damion let out a deep sigh of resignation at Requiem’s need for the capsule. “All right. I get it.”

  Damion washed off the soap and heard the fifteen-minute warning from the other room. “Slave drivers.”

  Requiem stepped out of the shower first. He grabbed a towel and handed it to Damion before getting one for himself. “We only have approximately seven minutes to get ready if we are going to arrive in time.”

  “No problem.” Damion quickly toweled off his hair and then went to pull out some clothing.

  Requiem was a bit quicker at it, pulling up his uniform and zipping it up to his neck. He grabbed his passkey and put it in the arm pocket, then made sure that all the holes in the suit matched up neatly with his ports. There was a reason that a Core’s uniform was tighter than a Fighter’s was: so they didn’t have any problems with jacking in. He sat on the edge of his capsule and waited for Damion to finish.

  Damion fastened his belt and combed his fingers through his wet hair. “All right, let’s go before we get yelled at our first day back.”

  Nodding, Requiem moved to the door and called for it to open—and then stopped. Blocking their way were four men from the Zeus’s security team, and they did not look happy.

  The one in a lieutenant’s uniform stepped forward, blocking the doorway even more. “Core 47, I am Lieutenant Niles. You are to come with us. The Creators would like to see you,” he demanded, his dark eyes serious and unkind before he turned them to Damion. “Your patrol is canceled for the day because of his absence. You will be confined to quarters.” He turned, motioning his hand for one of the other men to walk into the room, before he turned back to Damion. “Collins will make sure you do so.” He grabbed Requiem by the arm and began to pull him into the hall.

  Requiem looked back at Damion for a moment, his eyes sad and even a little fearful. He acted like he knew what was going to happen next. His lips formed the word “good-bye.”

  “Wait! Hey! What’s this shit about?” Damion rushed forward, trying to take Requiem back.

  The man already in the room—Collins—came out of nowhere and punched Damion in the stomach, pushing him back into their quarters. The leader turned, still gripping Requiem’s arm. “Fighter Hawk, I suggest you do not make this any worse for you than it already is. The Creators discovered last night that you’ve broken the rules concerning Core 47, and as a result, his programming is unraveling. They’ve become aware of the fact that he is not eating all his supplements and therefore will become useless to the Corporation unless something is done about it. This is your one warning, Fighter Hawk. If you continue to let this happen, you will be dishonorably discharged for corrupting and tampering with the Corporation’s property.”

  “That’s bullshit! He’s fine! He is the best!” Damion stood up and thought about fighting his guard dog but stopped short, wondering if they would take it out on his Core. A cold fear filled his veins. “If you would only let me explain! I told him to do it! It wasn’t his fault!”

  The Core in question, his Requiem, stayed silent. He seemed to know it wouldn’t do any good. He stood there with his head bowed and gave in to the inevitable.

  “Of course it was your fault! They are not blaming 47, merely fixing him before he becomes too broken to keep conscious. The Creators will return him to you in ten hours. We expect you to keep your fucking mouth shut, or I’ll have Collins here shut it for you. End of discussion.” And with that, he walked out, dragging Requiem away by the arm.

  Damion took a step forward, and that same annoying body blocked his way. He was so angry. He was also so afraid. He hated waiting. At least they wouldn’t hurt Requiem—he hoped.

  Collins stood in front of the door, turning to flash a key card over the console next to the door that would override Damion’s voice commands. After that, he walked over to the small table, grabbed a chair, and dragged it in front of the door to sit on, then crossed his arms with a snide grin on his face.

  He was smaller than Damion, but had more upper-body muscle. For a quick moment, Damion considered whether or not he could take him down and determined Collins would give him a challenge in hand-to-hand. Damion would have to use a weapon. He then considered whether attempting to escape would be his best bet to help Requiem.

  “So, Hawk, we’re going to be here for at least five hours together. We should get to know each other.”

  Collins cut off Damion’s train of thought and stared at him with empty, almost dead-looking brown eyes.

  “No offense, but you’re keeping me here against my will while they go and ‘fix’ my Core.” Damion tried not to sound like a complete ass, but it was hard to achieve.

  “Hey, it’s your own fault. Be happy they’re fixing him,” Collins said as he stretched and linked his tan, callused fingers behind his head. “Generally when a toy or a tool gets broken, there are two different ways to go about it. Fixing it or throwing it out. Be happy they’re doing the former and not wiping him and plugging him into the system.”

  “He’s too damn good to be wiped,” Damion said through clenched teeth as he attempted to calm his temper.

  “Mm, yes, but sometimes you have to throw out the good with the bad when a Core becomes a liability and can’t be controlled. And that’s what the creepy scientists are afraid is goin’ to happen. Especially with 47, who’s shown way the fuck too much independence since he arrived on the Zeus. And that was before he stopped taking his thrice-daily dose of gruel.”

  Collins closed his eyes until they were mere slits, watching Damion closely through them. “You’d actually be doing both of you a favor by doing what they tell ya. Either you do, or you get booted and he gets a complete mind-wipe and plugged into the ship. Nothing more than a breathing machine until he dies. And let me tell you, the plugged Cores are fucking creepy. They just lie there, eyes wide open, cords coming out of every orifice and beyond and just… breathe. That’s it. They don’t move or nothing, just lie there, staring.”

  “Are you trying to freak me out? Because all you’re doing is pissing me off!” Damion snapped and kicked the back wall of his room. “He was fine! He’s good because he is different from other Cores. He’s faster and smarter. They say we can basically do anything we want with them, and now they’re pissed because I did.”

  “Ah, anything within the rules. Anything that doesn’t ruin the precious balance of man, machine, and slave that they’
ve made the Cores into. Your Core was starting to feel emotion. There were even signs of dreaming. Both big no-no’s. They aren’t supposed to feel, and dreaming is unnecessary. They’re supposed to be good little automatons unable to disagree, fight back, or go against orders.”

  Collins paused, opening his eyes and leaning forward so that his elbows rested on his knees, his hands dangling between. The guard’s dark tan complexion was a striking contrast to the pale green material of his uniform. “Why do you care anyway? He’s only a Core, yet you’re freakin’ the fuck out.”

  “He’s my Core! Mine,” Damion growled as he stopped pacing and looked at his jailor. He was getting a hunch the guard was holding something back. “How do you know so damn much about them anyway? Who are you exactly? You’re not just some infantryman.”

  “Easy there, Hawk. You just sounded like you pissed on the kid in a territorial dispute like a dog would a tree.” Collins put up placating hands as he leaned back in the chair. “And yeah, I am just some infantryman. Doesn’t mean I always have been, though. I was once an Alpha. I’ve been told my Core is now plugged into the bridge. Went crazy one day and killed a Creator and a doctor. So he was wiped, and I was shoved down to the bottom of the barrel for not reporting the changes in him.”

  Damion frowned but still refused to meet former Fighter Collins’s eyes that were just as lifeless as some of the Cores’ were. A doll’s glass eyes, shiny but devoid of emotion. “Why wouldn’t they just let you be rechosen? If they let Arkin have Core after Core, why not you?”

  Collins shifted, pulled out a pack of soothe cigarettes, and handed them to Damion. These were like the Stim Cigs Damion enjoyed at times for a jolt of energy, except these of course were to help calm a man down. Damion took the pack but wasn’t sure if he wanted to use one of them or not. Collins’s eyes were focused on the ceiling. “Because I didn’t want to be rechosen after they took 162. Not only that, but my Core already went crazy and I’d known something was up beforehand, even had a part in it, but didn’t say anything because I didn’t want him taken away from me. Why would they let me have another one after that? Nah, I’m better off, and I don’t want another Core besides 162.”

  Damion sat down finally and turned the pack of cigs around in his hand. “All I wanted when I joined was to do anything but work in a dead-end Corporation job. Then they give me status, but with strings attached. Req—47, he’s the best. I’ll be the best with him if they’d just leave us alone and let us fight.”

  “They ain’t gonna do that, though. They don’t see much point in having something they can’t control. If they control the Core they can, in some way, control you,” Collins said. He looked at Damion for a moment, seeming to weigh him. “You care too much for 47, and by the way, I caught that. You named him, and that just proves my point. They don’t like it when you feel more than partnership and trust in your Core, and you have gone above and beyond that.” He looked over at the mussed bed, nodding his head at it. “And I’m not just talking about that.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.” Damion’s anger and nervousness returned. “They expect us to use them like that, and I can call him anything I want. They expect us to trust the Cores with our lives. Of course we’re going to become attached.”

  “Actually most Fighters don’t become attached. No more than they would to a pet, anyway. Why would you make friends with your computer? You trust your Zodiac to keep you safe, but you don’t have sex with it.” Collins paused, looking up at the ceiling. “Well, there was this one guy in basic….” He shook his head. “But that’s another story. And yes, you might argue that many Fighters do that with their Cores, and it’s true. It is another of their supposed functions that I see as nothing better than whoring them out.”

  He got up, turned his chair around, and straddled it, looking intently at Damion. “The difference is that some Fighters actually care when they fuck their Cores. Others, it’s like masturbation with a warm hole. Big difference.”

  “They’re human. They’re not just pets.” Damion probably had thought of Requiem like a pet at first. He had made sure he was fed and safe but hadn’t cared past that, really. Until the weeks passed and he saw how aware of his surroundings Requiem was compared to other Cores. “He came different. He has never been like the other Cores. He never will be, and I can’t treat him like a computer when he’s not one. Didn’t you fuck your Core and feel something? Or were you disregarding his emotions completely?”

  Collins was quiet for a few minutes. “I loved 162. He was unstable at times, but I did love him. It wasn’t either of our faults, what happened. He was taking his daily regimen of mush, but… it always made him a little squirrelly afterwards. Paranoid even, and his sleep patterns were horrible. It wasn’t until I took him off the gruel that I realized he was having a reaction to it. The reason he snapped and killed that Creator and doc was because they gave him a full dose of it, undiluted, straight into his bloodstream. It was too much and he shattered, his mind just went into overdrive, trying to get to me, but I was in Medical, unconscious with an injury. He defended himself against the Creator who was going to wipe him. The doc was going to take him, take us, away and he fought back so he could make it to Medical to find me.”

  There was pain in his voice—deep, old pain, but it was there.

  “That’s what they’re going to do to your Core. Except they’ll probably give him a bigger dose and do some other stuff. But….” He looked at Damion with something akin to pity in his eyes, but also deep understanding. “He won’t be the same. I warn you that. But at least you’ll get him back—this time.”

  “What do you mean he won’t be the same?” At that moment, Damion wished he had a bottle of whiskey from home.

  “The heavy dose of serum will wash away any semblance of emotion, of personality. Tactile functions will be dulled. He’ll be the perfect little zombie again. 47 might still remember everything from before, but he won’t understand what he was feeling. And I think on some level he will still have those emotional connections, but he won’t be able to figure them out. Just like those who are plugged in, he’ll be trapped within his own mind or behind the haze of chems in his brain.”

  “Are you trying to cheer me up? You’re doing a really fucking swell job.” He couldn’t believe all the work he’d done with Requiem would be washed away so easily. “Why didn’t you try and take your Core and run?”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to give you a heads-up here, not be Miss Mary Fuckin’ Sunshine.” His gaze traveled toward the floor. “I never had an opportunity. It all happened so fast. He snapped, killed the creeper and doc, and they swept him away. I wasn’t even conscious. Found out about it afterward.

  “After they’re wiped and plugged in, they have them locked up tight. Only higher-ups and the creepers are allowed to see them, and if your Core is one of them in there, then you never get to see them. I don’t know if 162 is even alive anymore or ever plugged into the Zeus. I was told and shown two different stories. But the ones who are plugged in, well some of them just… die. Shut down and die.”

  He inhaled and blew a few smoke rings before continuing. “Besides, even if I had the opportunity, we wouldn’t get far. Cores have a tracking device implanted into the back of their heads, straight into the gray matter. The Corp can find them anytime, anywhere. And shut them down with it as well. It sends out a pulse that fries their brains to jelly. It’s so if they’re ever taken in battle, the rebels won’t be able to access or keep the Corp’s property. So there’s really no point.”

  “Would you want to know if he was still plugged in?” Damion asked slowly, wanting to find out more from someone who had been in his position before.

  Collins thought about it for a long moment. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think of him lying there brain-dead. I think I would prefer if he were actually dead. I wouldn’t want him to be trapped like that. He would wish for death instead. I know that.”

  “If my Core was here, he could fi
nd out. He can do anything inside the system,” Damion stated proudly, even if he felt sad. “He killed three Fighters before choosing me.”

  “You mean he chose you before killing three other pilots,” Collins said with a snort. “I heard about that. Hell, everyone heard about that and thought you’d end up just like the others. But once I heard the whole story, I knew he wouldn’t kill you. The only reason your Core is not with my 162 is because of his advanced abilities with the system. On the one hand, he’s a valuable commodity that the creepies want to let grow and see what he does, what he learns, what he can manipulate. On the other hand, they don’t want him to grow independent or have too many individual thoughts about anything other than the system. If he does continue to push them, they’ll put him in the category of being a liability and wipe him. They won’t like it, but they figure there will always be another.”

  Damion grumbled as he felt the beginning of a headache born of stress at the unfair situation. “They can’t take him away.”

  Collins stood up. He opened the small fridge and pulled out two beers, popping them open as he walked back and handed one to Damion. “Can’t really do anything about it if they choose to.” He sat heavily back in the chair, sipping the brew. “Do you love your Core? Or are you merely protective?”

  “He’s mine—of course I would be protective. I’ve put months of work into making him happy.” Damion wasn’t sure if that meant love, but he knew Requiem was more than just important to him.

  “So basically, an incestuous big-brother complex,” Collins said with a shrug of his broad shoulders and took another drink. “So you ain’t gonna do anything about it if they decide taking him would be the best bet all around.” Damion noticed Collins said these probing words while watching Damion carefully. “Just get a new Core. It ain’t love, so it isn’t that important.”