by Meg LaTorre
Gwen wheezed, unable to take a deep breath.
How is killing off your performers trivial?
Celeste gestured to the wailing Charlotte. “It’s simple. Either do your job, or you will join them.” She flicked manicured fingernails as though a thought had just occurred to her. “I’ll let this one instance slide since it’s your first week. But consider today your one and only warning. If you disobey me a second time, my watchmen will not simply remind you of your place. You will lose the use of your legs. After all, tinkerers do not need their legs to work.”
Unable to stop herself, Gwen’s eyes slid to the massive sword sheathed at the watchman’s hip and then to the two pistols strapped to their back.
“If you disobey me a third time or step out of line in any way—and stars help you if you do—I will remove your new eye. I installed the implant. I can, and will, take it back.” A glint of malice she’d never seen before swirled in the Mistress’s eyes.
Could Gwen survive without her eye and the plating and technology reinforcing her skull? Perhaps not.
Celeste didn’t move from where she stood above Gwen. “Have I made myself clear?”
Gwen thought of every horrible boss she’d ever had working as a ship tinkerer—launderers, rapists, thugs. But never murderers.
She’d been so excited for the challenge of a new position at the circus, of proving herself as a tinkerer in her new life as a cyborg. More than that, she’d been so damn confident in her skills, in her ability to learn a completely different job. But cyborg tinkering was as different from ship tinkering as life and death. At this moment, her skills meant the difference between life as a human for Charlotte and no life at all.
For the first time, she wondered if she should have turned down Bastian’s offer.
Slowly, Gwen stood. Her eyes skirted to the table of instruments behind her, which were cleaned to a shine, revealing her reflection in the metal—wide eyes, clenched jaw, brow slick with sweat.
If I don’t do this, Charlotte could lose her entire arm or worse. Surely, I’m a far better option than Celeste. At least I have a fucking heart.
“I’ll do it,” Gwen said, and Charlotte screamed. “Where are your surgeons? I could use their assistance.”
“Besides myself, we do not have official cyborg surgeons on staff,” the Mistress said. “But Mr. Kabir and these watchmen are at your disposal.”
Gwen eyed the watchman who’d struck her twice, the baton still in his fist.
Goody.
Gwen sighed. “What about anesthesia?”
The Mistress shook her head. “No additional anesthesia will be given to performers with terminated contracts.”
“But that’s…” Gwen began, but stopped.
Looming quietly at the edges of the room, Bastian shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Yet another warning.
Biting her tongue, she turned back to the task at hand. With shaking hands, she smoothed Rora’s golden gown before she picked up several tools and a strip of leather and turned to Charlotte. Ignoring Bastian, the Mistress, and the watchmen, she said, “I’ll need you to bite on this.”
Charlotte froze as Gwen held the piece of leather before her mouth.
“I’ll work as fast as I can, but this will hurt. If you want to save your teeth along with your life, I suggest you bite on this.”
Slowly, Charlotte opened her mouth, and Gwen slipped the leather strap between her teeth.
Not too long ago, Celeste had done the very same thing before turning Gwen into a cyborg.
To the watchmen, Gwen said, “I need alcohol. As much as you can find.”
The Mistress nodded, and two of the guards left the room.
After washing her hands and donning gloves lined with rubber, Gwen popped open the plating to the woman’s cyborg hand, revealing the main panel. She turned off the system’s magnetic energy and removed the battery, hoping that would prevent any electric shocks to either herself or Charlotte. Next, she used her cyborg eye to locate where the implant met the flesh and bone, wondering just where she could detach it.
For the first time in her life, Gwen wished she’d pursued a profession as a healer and not a tinkerer. She knew precious little of human anatomy. Only what she’d learned while working as a tinkerer, acting as a pseudo healer in deep space when there had been injuries following pirate attacks.
Turning to the Mistress, she dared to meet her eyes. “How many cyborgs are critically dependent on their implants?”
From what Gwen had seen, there were at least three hundred performers employed by Cirque du Borge. Fourteen of the fifty total acts were to be eliminated in a single evening. How many wouldn’t leave here alive because they depended on their implants to survive? And how many could have left alive without their implants if only Gwen was more knowledgeable?
The Mistress raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “One-eighth of the circus.”
Gwen blanched.
If there were three hundred performers in the circus, thirty-eight of them would be sentenced to death if they lost the competition.
Thirty-eight people dead, and for what?
“What do you plan to do with the implants I’m extracting?” Gwen dared the question. She knew Bastian would be writhing under his skin right now. But if she was to harvest these performers and they’d lose their implants, everyone here had a right to know.
The Mistress’s heels clicked on the floor as she stepped up to Gwen, close enough that their chests nearly touched as she whispered in Gwen’s ear. “I plan to use them.”
Brows drawing together, Gwen wasn’t sure what the hell that meant and didn’t have time to think on it as the Mistress stepped back and positioned herself against a nearby wall.
Piling loads of cloth on the table beside her, Gwen picked up a knife, studied where the metal from Charlotte’s implant blossomed in her cyborg eye, and made her first incision, cutting deep enough into the skin to reveal muscle and bone.
Blood pooled from the cut as Gwen widened it. The woman screamed, writhing under the straps that bound her to the table, but they held fast. Blotting up the pooling blood, she pulled the skin back so she could see more clearly. Then she sliced off the edge of the muscle and other flesh where the cyborg implant was attached.
Charlotte’s back arched as she screamed louder, thrashing on the table.
Blood filled the cloth that Gwen had lined the edge of the table with. She placed the cyborg implant into the massive tub at the side of the room before returning to Charlotte. Eyeing the table, she realized there wasn’t a needle or thread.
The door clacked open. Two watchmen strode in with a glass bottle of what she hoped was alcohol.
“What took you so long?” Gwen snatched the bottle from their hands. “Get me one of the candles from the ballroom.” She turned to Bastian. “I also need a needle and thread. Lots of it.”
A watchman appeared with a candle, and she ran a knife through the flame.
“If I’m to do this again, I can’t sear everyone’s skin shut,” she said. “It’s barbaric and a last resort.”
The woman whimpered behind them.
Bastian looked at Charlotte, then to Gwen before nodding and disappearing.
Gwen did her best to clean what remained of Charlotte’s arm with the alcohol. Then she held the flaps of skin down, ran her knife through the candle’s flame a second time, and pressed down.
The room filled with the smell of roasting flesh.
Finally, Charlotte passed out. Relief flooded Gwen’s chest as she finished her work. When she was done, she panted heavily, sweat mingling with the blood and gore soaking her dress. Looking down, she realized her once beautiful golden gown was covered in deep scarlet.
Turning, Gwen looked at the Mistress, not bothering to dampen the heat in her eyes. As expressionless as a piece of parchment, Celeste nodded before turning and leaving the room. As if in approval.
The rest of the night passed in a blur.
The cyborgs
were escorted into the room by watchmen—some fighting, others begging for their lives—and then carried out unconscious after Gwen’s administrations. Bastian never left her side and helped wherever he could. By the early hours of the morning, fourteen acts no longer had their cyborg implants.
All because one woman couldn’t bear to be parted with her property.
But the performers had all left alive. So long as they didn’t get an infection, most of them should survive. They would be disfigured, but they would be alive.
And human.
Thank the stars none of them had been among the eighth who required their implants to live.
When the last person was escorted out of the makeshift surgical room, Gwen’s dress was more scarlet than gold. Bastian’s once handsome black jacket and pants were soaked through.
She hated him.
She hated what he and this circus had made her do. But he had also helped her to save lives this evening. How much of this was following orders? He had warned her, after all.
Tears streamed down Gwen’s cheeks, and she wiped them away with bloodied hands.
She wasn’t a stranger to hardship or death. Not as a child growing up on Orthodocks after the emperor’s ascension nor as a ship tinkerer fighting pirates boarding her vessel in deep space.
She’d always found something to fight for, whether it was a new life or for her family. Now, she had to protect her new family. Her cyborg family.
Not too long ago, she’d been on death’s doorstep and given a second chance at life. These cyborgs deserved the same.
It was time someone took a stand at Cirque du Borge.
Gwen wouldn’t be cowed so easily. She’d do everything she could to protect the remaining cyborgs.
Cyborgs like me.
Chapter 11
“Get back!” a watchman shouted, a wooden baton in his fist.
A line of watchmen pushed the cyborg performers back as dozens attempted to rush Gwen’s office when the theater doors opened for the morning before rehearsals started.
It had been this way for more than a week.
Her office was a cacophony of noises—shouting voices, grinding gears, sparking implants. Sweat poured down the sides of Gwen’s cheeks, plopping onto the floor as she worked on Marzanna’s foot.
“No new implants will be ordered,” one watchman called, his monotone voice raised to be heard over the crowd. “Only the final ten acts will receive new parts for their current implants. In the meantime, we recommend you make time to see the tinkerer for any serious technology glitches prior to the second competition. Refurbished materials can and will be used.”
Gritting her teeth, Gwen reached a gloved hand into the inner workings of Marzanna’s foot and replaced several faulty wires. The machine sparked as she worked, but she doused it, hurriedly working to secure the wires into the machine.
It would be so convenient if I knew what I was doing.
Unlike Rora’s hand, which sparked with overuse due to outdated machinery, Marzanna’s foot appeared to have been installed improperly. The response time lagged when she tried to move too quickly, and the foot often flopped as she spun in the air or dragged as she walked. Certain wires and plates connected to her flesh weren’t symmetrical all the way around, making her ankle turn in and her one leg longer than the other.
When she finished on Marzanna’s foot, Gwen recalled her list of things to address. Turn off the battery, detach and remove faulty wires, check systems for any additional malfunctions, install new wiring, double-check the wiring and color-coding, turn the system back on.
That should do it.
With her lack of new supplies since the second competition, she’d been hard-pressed to find the right wiring for the implants. From the notes she’d taken for herself the night before, she knew she needed at least eight different varieties of wires. If she had the manual of the implant, she’d know for certain. As it was, she had to guess which wires went with which classes based on size and general appearance.
Stars, she prayed she did this right.
Like every day before, she barely managed to get by. Thanks to this ludicrous competition, she not only had no idea how to be a cyborg tinkerer but now she had no time to learn. The books in her office were outdated pieces of shit, more useless than the scraps of metal, mismatched screws, and other machinery lying around her office shelves. She needed to get medical textbooks, the kind that would have been outlawed or collected by the Union ten years ago.
Gwen closed the panel on Marzanna’s foot. “All set. Thanks for your patience. Hopefully, it shouldn’t lag as much. Truthfully, it looks like the unit wasn’t installed properly, but I don’t have the tools or the skills to surgically remove it and reinstall it. But if you keep it clean and dry, it should get you through the next few weeks.”
“Thanks.” Marzanna hopped off the table and tested her foot, slowly shifting her weight from one foot to another. “It’s better.”
Unable to stop herself, Gwen sighed.
Marzanna nodded to where Rora rehearsed atop the slackline across the theater… without so much as turning her head in Gwen’s direction. “You two still not talking?”
Rora had been the only performer who refused to have her cyborg implant inspected since the first competition. When Gwen watched her train, she could tell from the way Rora avoided using the hand that something wasn’t working properly.
Gwen ran a hand over the half of her head where she’d never stopped shaving since her implantation surgery. “Is it that obvious?”
Planting one hand on a hip, Marzanna raised an eyebrow. “The sexual tension up in here is so thick, it’s distracting. Stop being a little bitch and talk to her.”
“That’s easier said than done,” Gwen grumbled. “She won’t listen to me.”
Marzanna rolled her eyes, striding back toward the theater. “Make her listen.”
Gwen sighed.
Great pep talk.
The watchmen permitted more cyborgs in throughout the day. But in every free moment Gwen had, she pulled out a secret project she’d been working on since the first competition, using every spare part that wasn’t garbage and careful not to let anyone spot it. As soon as the bell struck, indicating rehearsals were done for the day, she hurried out of her office and toward the dormitories.
Before she’d gotten far, she hesitated, looking over her shoulder.
Three watchmen followed her.
“Can I help you?”
No one moved or spoke.
Sighing, she said, “Why are you following me?”
The center watchman, a woman, spoke up. “The Mistress has decreed there shall be a guard around the tinkerer at all times for her safety.”
She didn’t doubt performers from thirty-six acts either wanted her help or wanted her dead. Though she suspected that wasn’t the real reason she was being followed.
The Mistress is making sure I don’t step out of line again.
Gritting her teeth, she didn’t say anything as she turned and strode to the dormitories. She tried to ignore the single question swirling around her thoughts.
Can I survive without my implant?
She knew the Mistress’s threat to take out her eye wasn’t an idle one, but she’d had the surgery to remove the tumor in her head. The cyborg eye was a bonus. Could she survive without the plating in her skull? How far could she push the Mistress’s boundaries?
Most of the performers were cleaning up before the evening meal. Rather than going to her room in a separate wing of the palace, Gwen strode straight to a door at the end of the hall.
Hesitating, she glanced over her shoulder to the three watchmen hovering behind her. With a groan, she swallowed her pride and knocked on the door.
The door opened, revealing Rora, who looked as though she’d just bitten into a lemon.
“Tinkerer, at your service,” Gwen began awkwardly before clearing her throat. “I’m here to look at that hand. Since… Well, since you seemed pretty
busy at rehearsals today.”
Since you’ve been ignoring me this past week.
Rolling her eyes, Rora moved to shut the door. Expecting as much, Gwen shoved a screwdriver into the door, blocking it before it could click shut.
“Go away,” Rora bit out.
“Can we talk?” Gwen gestured to the watchmen lingering in the hallway behind her. “I’m trying to help you here.”
Rora held the door, unmoving.
“Please, just give me five minutes,” Gwen persisted, not daring to remove the screwdriver. “If you think I’m full of shit by the end of it, I’ll leave you alone.”
Rora’s gaze shifted to the watchmen loitering in the hallway. Performers awkwardly trundled around them, pausing long enough to frown at the watchmen, Gwen, Rora, and the state of the Union before finally moving along.
“Fine.” Opening the door, Rora took a step back into her less than immaculate bedroom. “Five minutes.”
“Excellent.” Gwen bolted into Rora’s room before closing the door in one of the watchmen’s faces. “You won’t regret it.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
How the hell did I fall for a fucking pessimist?
Gwen paused as she removed her toolbelt.
Had she fallen for Rora? That was ludicrous. You couldn’t fall for someone you hardly knew. Rora was just… well, she was beautiful. And Gwen wanted to fuck her beautiful, dark, petite body. That was all.
Slowly, she donned her usual rubber gloves after laying out her instruments on the only clean section of the floor she could find. Grabbing several tools, she sat on the edge of Rora’s bed, gesturing for the gymnast to join her.
Still not speaking, Rora sat down, the bed squeaking beneath their combined weight.
Slowly, Gwen unscrewed Rora’s main panel. Before she could open it, the unit sparked. Electricity flickered out, biting through Gwen’s glove.
Hissing, she yanked off the scorched glove and tossed it onto the floor.
“Are you okay—” Rora began. But when Gwen looked up, their eyes meeting for what felt like the first time in weeks, she closed her mouth—as though afraid to show sympathy.
