Augment

by C R MacFarlane

  She tried to turn away, but the restraints cut across her wrists.

  “The commons, they’re so ignorant,” he huffed. One of his long legs bounced erratically as he gazed into a distance that wasn’t there. At least she wasn’t the only one who got lost. She waited for him to refocus, and when he did it was with the cold, medical intensity she’d been expecting. “You had been on Selousa for years, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “I ran additional bloodwork —.”

  She inhaled sharply. If he had looked at her hands, he would know. There would be too many questions. Things she didn’t like acknowledging, things she would have to hide if she wanted a normal life. Not that there was much chance of that now.

  “You’ve got a chronic zinc deficiency. That artificial stuff they pedal is almost worthless. Your neural pathways are degrading.”

  Her breath left her.

  “You look confused. See what I mean about the neural pathways,” he smirked.

  She stared at him. “You’ve never been very funny.”

  His grin spread. “You’ll be fine. The ship has a stock of UEC rations from Etar with natural zinc. A couple weeks and you’ll be right where you should be. I’ve already given you an injection to boost your blood levels.”

  Her head did feel clearer. “The gamma gravitation array?”

  “Off. We’re back on Contyna.” He stood, stretching until his fingers almost brushed the ceiling. “Look, they figured those restraints would be enough. I couldn’t tell them they weren’t without telling them a whole lot more. If you want my advice, play nice, don’t give them any reason to think you’re more dangerous than they already do.”

  She never intended to let them think that at all. But a person could never hide their true colours: Once a monster, always a monster.

  He shrugged, “The mission went well — I’m sure you’re not surprised. Thank you for waiting until you got back to go psychotic. No sign the warship even knew we were there. We got a good haul of rations and medical supplies. We’ll see about the data, I’ve just started going through it, but I’m excited.”

  Her hand caught on the restraint as she tried to reach up to the spot on the side of her head. It didn’t hurt now, the whole thing seemed like a distant dream. Had it really happened at all?

  Hoepe stretched once more and sat back down in the chair beside the bed. He pulled out a data pad. “Everyone felt better if there was someone keeping watch.”

  Her face fell. So that was it, strapped to the bed with a 24-hour guard. Same prison, different cage. She twisted her hand from the restraint like she’d learned to do at twelve, and rolled over to stare at the grey wall.

  Hoepe scrolled through his data and talked idly, “I hid on Etar for a few months before falling in with a gang who needed a medic. That got a little too close, so I came out here and got these boys together. They’re a good crew, know their job, don’t ask questions. You shot one of them. They’ll be alright though, won’t hurt you, I talked to them. I want you to join us when you’re better.”

  Pulling jobs, fighting, stealth missions, bombs…. A life fit for a monster. Her life. “Do you know where the others are?” she asked, the words surprising her.

  “No. You’re the first one I found. A couple of whispers here and there but nothing worth following up.”

  “That’s what we were trying to find for you on the warship, wasn’t it?”

  He glanced over his data pad. “I’m surprised you didn’t realize it sooner.”

  So was she, the damage must have been worse than either of them thought.

  He sighed and turned back to his reading. “Don’t get your hopes up though. They keep records of us sealed like plastiq-weld. Your brother found you on the mainframe in the central compound — friends in high places, I suppose.”

  Halud had given up a lot for her.

  “Get some sleep, Sarrin, your neural pathways need it to regenerate.”

  It had been a long time since she’d slept deeply, but with Hoepe keeping watch, she felt she could risk it. She unclipped the other restraints from her legs and wrist. For now, she was safe. She dreamt about young girl and her brother playing in the orchards on their parents’ farm.

  NINE

  ABOARD THE UECAS COMRADE, COMMANDANT Mallor gritted her teeth. The doctor had said they would come, and so they had, following the carefully laid out pieces like breadcrumbs.

  Came and went.

  “Relax, Amelia.” The doctor’s gnarled face frowned in her peripheral vision. They were alone in his darkened medical lab.

  A growl escaped from deep in her throat, her hands clenching as she stared out of the small viewport to the empty expanse of space. “I find it difficult.”

  He scanned her head down to her toes, then pressed an auto-syringe into her shoulder. “Something to help you relax.”

  The medicine pushed through the fabric of her crisp, white uniform and raced through her veins. Her mind slowed, sluggish to the point she felt nearly asleep even as she stood, waiting for him.

  “I am your master. You follow my commands,” he said, his voice low and soothing.

  She nodded, mumbling, “You are my master. I follow your commands.”

  “Good.” His long scar turned up as he smiled. “Now, talk to me, Amelia dear.”

  A strange sensation of lost time passed quickly, and she blinked, returning to her usual hard self. “I admit to being impressed, Doctor. How did you know they would come?”

  “Ah!” He waved his hand knowingly as he turned back to the long counter and started sorting through his instruments. “Psychology, my dear. Once you know what drives someone at their core, it is easy to predict their every move, often plan it.”

  An unknown thought, more like a heavy feeling, caught her before it fleeted away. “Still, the Augments can be unpredictable.”

  “I know these children better than anyone. Love them, in a way. I know all their secrets.”

  “May I ask, what is it that you want?”

  “The same thing you want, my dear. To destroy them.” His beady brown eyes twinkled. “Remember they killed your family.”

  She growled in agreement. “They killed my family.”

  “I know.” He stepped closer to her, reaching a soothing, understanding hand to her shoulder. Most people kept their distance, but never the doctor. She revelled in the feeling of reassurance, just for a moment.

  “What is our next move? When will we destroy them?” Releasing a captive Augment was foolish. As far as she was concerned, they should all be made dead. But this was the doctor’s plan, and he was certain 005478F could be kept under control.

  “We must flush her out first, and then follow her,” said the doctor. “But this one is special, she is dangerous. We must keep track of her at all times, I want to know her movements before she makes them.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Are you ready?”

  She frowned. “Ready?”

  “To have your own chip activated.”

  “P-pardon?” A vision flashed of a cold, damp industrial laboratory, disappearing instantly.

  He smiled, and a knot twisted itself in her stomach. “We brought her all this way to activate her chip. Now we need to switch on yours.”

  “I have an implant?”

  “Of course. You were made as a soldier, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.” The thought twitched again, far away and sluggish.

  “Good.” He gestured to the procedure table, inviting her to sit. As she did, he moved the head of a narrow beam generator — the same one they had set by the mainframe computer room — next to her skull. “There may be a small pressure.”

  Pain exploded against her temporal lobe. She clutched her head with her hand.

  “This chip is powered by the human brain,” shouted Guitteriez gleefully. “It will link with hers, connect you to her every thought. It works across galaxies, regardless of limits of distance and transmission speed.”

 
“Connected?” Acid burned in the back of her throat, and a chill ran up her spine. Anger seized her and she gripped the edge of the table.

  “My dear” — Guitteriez placed a calming hand once again on her shoulder — “it is perfectly safe. You will be in complete control.”

  “I do not want their vile thoughts in my head.”

  He smiled. “You feel her even now, don’t you? Where is she?”

  A strange doubled sensation came over her, and Amelia concentrated a moment. “She is resting. She is on the planet.” It was disconcerting that she could know that, could simply feel it as easily as she would know her own body.

  “Good. We need her to move. It’s time for hunting. Show her how dark the Deep can be.”

  At last. She grinned, clicking on her personal comm chip, ready to relay orders to her crew. “Prepare the drones.”

  * * *

  Sarrin bolted upright, scrabbling with dead heads against the unfamiliar bedsheets. The walls closed in around her and she panted for breath. The dream had been too dark, too real. In it, she sat quietly, peacefully on a white bed, her hair being brushed smooth while the older girl hummed softly.

  And then Guitteriez’s ugly, grinning face had taken over everything.

  Hoepe’s eyes searched her intently over the top of his data pad. Rapidly, she unhooked the heavy-duty restraints from her legs, swinging off the bed and retreating to the latrine. Splashing cold water on her cheeks, she brought herself back to the present, back to the little cramped room. She let the water run, watching it twirl down the drain, hoping it would wash away the foreign DNA and training and experiments and surgeries.

  But it never would.

  Hoepe called to her from the other room, “Shift change is soon.”

  Started, she shook her head. How long had she been standing there? How long had she been asleep? She couldn’t say. Her mind played tricks with time, remembering the past too clearly and none of the present.

  She shut off the water. Hoepe may not care if she wandered around, but the others certainly would. She returned to the bed, clicking the restraints into place and shutting her eyes just as the door slid open.

  Hoepe stood from the chair, the legs scraping as he pushed it back along the carpet. “I just gave her another dose,” he told the new guard, “she should be sedated for a while. Comm me direct if you have any trouble.”

  Hoepe left and the man sat in the chair. He leaned back, his boots pressed against the edge of the bed. Dangerously close. “Pathetic scum,” he snorted. And then he spit.

  She forced her shaking body to be still, to ignore the angry emotions that rolled off of him and crashed into her. She was meant to be sedated; it was easier that way. Still, fear clawed at her chest and her mind told her to run. This wasn’t her, wasn’t who she was meant to be. But it was how she had been made.

  His boot kicked her in the side, rocking her, stretching her arm out painfully against the restraint. “That’s for Dyno’s arm.” Another kick. “And Troy.”

  The men she had injured. She forced her muscles to relax with a concentrated effort, and prepared to feign sleep. How cracked she had been to think she could live a normal life.

  She waited two hours before his breathing evened into the deep rhythm of sleep. Unclipping her wrist and ankles, she flung herself across the room. Flying as though the bed would swallow her whole. She scrubbed her whole face with the freezing water from the latrine. Her eyes danced: eight different escapes and nineteen objects that could be used as deadly weapons.

  No, she shook her head, she shouldn’t be carrying weapons. She couldn’t be trusted. And yet, the fool guard had brought his laz-gun with him. Had Hoepe told them nothing? The darkness called to her, reminding her she wasn’t a bad person. These people hated her, would kill her if they had half a chance. She’d had a chance to live normally. But she’d cracked it.

  The bolts unscrewed from the wall, and the panel ripped off easily. Her teeth gritted as she squeezed into the tight space. Wiggling and dragging her body, she escaped up the space behind the wall, finding an access tube. Her mind felt better, but it was far from clear. Flashes of laz-fire danced in the corners of her vision.

  Only memories.

  She dropped into a corridor and broke into a run. Feet struck the floor, a steady thump-thump-thump. The rhythm of it soothed her, let her mind lose itself. Pushed on by an undefined and desperate urge to flee, she ran, and ran, and ran.

  Seventy-eight circuits of the ship — an estimated 12-kilometres. Usually the distance wouldn’t have been a problem, but she had been incarcerated for three and a half years — she came to a sudden stop, bending over, legs aching.

  A passage came to her: ’Though they will take me, they will not break me. I am a mind, independent of time. My trials shall pass, but I alone will last.’ Halud had written it the day after the Earth was lost. Sarrin had read it on a hacked newsfeed hidden between decks on a freightship not that different from this one. She had survived that, she would survive this, she told herself. A mineral deficiency — an illness, treatable — had done this. Not her. She would recover. She would find somewhere to go, somewhere she would just be another face in another crowd. Folk. Not Augment. Not soldier. Not monster.

  The corridor was empty, the lights dimmed to 10-percent. The only sound was the gentle creaking of the ship’s bulkheads and the grunt of the engines.

  Her feet carried her to Engineering and through to the engine room.

  The hum washed over her and took her away, as she rested her hands against the purring beast. She wanted to feel it, and pressed the whole of her arm against it, drinking in the vibration. She didn’t hear the engineer come in, not until he tapped the wall with his spanner, the tinny sound echoing in the small room.

  She stared at him wide-eyed, as he stared back. Her heart raced uncontrollably in her chest. He had gotten too close without her noticing.

  “Hi.” He lifted a cautious hand.

  Sarrin retreated three steps, putting the engine between them.

  He coughed involuntarily, turning away. He wore a thin plastic brace, and bruising crept from his slightly open coveralls to his jaw.

  She stared at her hands — not her hands, tools, belonging to the Army. Slowly, they moved to wrap around her own throat, testing. She didn’t remember what happened, but it must have been her, she must have crushed him. The bruising marks were a perfect match. What else could it have been?

  Her eyes snapped up, looking at him, fearful of the answer.

  “I’m okay,” he croaked — his voice was terrible and raspy, no soft and irregular accent. He smiled, but he started to cough again.

  She pointed a finger to him and then to herself, questioning.

  His eyebrows knitted together, and Sarrin held her breath as he studied her, pressing his lips together seriously. Then, he nodded once.

  The blow cascaded in her chest and left her gasping for air. Hoepe had told her there’d been injured but not who, not what. She’d attacked the engineer who she found both brilliant and, more importantly, kind. She had never wanted to hurt anybody, never — had worked her entire life to avoid it, but she couldn’t escape what they had made her. No matter the treatment, Hoepe couldn’t make the monster go away.

  It had to stop. She pressed her hands to her head and clutched her hair.

  “It’s okay,” he said again, reaching for her.

  She threw herself backwards against the wall, putting as much space between them as possible. Monster, monster, monster.

  He put his hands up in the air.

  “Don’t touch,” she whispered. She didn’t want to hurt anybody.

  He frowned again, but nodded.

  Sarrin catalogued the room: three escape routes and twelve deadly objects.

  No! No weapons.

  “Look” — he swallowed with effort and pressed on, speaking carefully — “I don’t know what happened, but I don’t think you meant for it to happen. Am I right?”

 
She nodded once. “A mineral imbalance.”

  He nodded with her. “Hoepe told us.”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  He smiled weakly. “Is that what they trained you for in Evangecore?”

  She felt behind her for the screws on the bulkhead.

  “Is there something we should know, like a code-word to shut you off or something. You know, if… well, if it does happen again.”

  “It won’t.” One of the screws popped loose and fell into her hand.

  He pressed his lips together. He knew it as well as she did: it could happen again, she would have no control. She was too cracked.

  “Hoepe used 300mg of lorazepam combined with 150mg of telazol.”

  He stared. “I don’t have any of that.”

  Another screw dropped, but her hand shook and it fell to the floor.

  His eyes darted to it immediately, and then to her. “Sarrin, it’s okay. I won’t tell the others you were here.”

  She turned and pulled at the bulkhead, ripping the last of the screws off. A hand reached for her. She spun around, whipping the panel between her and him. “Don’t touch me!”

  He staggered back, clutching the panel in surprise. “Sarrin, wait! I just want to talk to you.”

  She slipped into the wall, pushing aside the heavy ropes of conduit and climbed up the wall and into the ceiling.

  Below, she heard the engineer try to follow. “Come back. I’m not afraid of you. Sarrin!” A wave of coughing overtook him, and he staggered back.

  She lay in the narrow space, panting to catch her breath. Inches separated her from the expanse of stars. She brought her hands up again and scratched at her neck, each dig stinging sharply against her flesh.

  The walls pressed in, her chest heaving in the thing, stale air. It was safe here, far from the others.

  She debated opening a hole and pressing her mouth into it before the hull’s auto-seal could block her from the vacuum of space, but she recalled they were in Hoepe’s hangar, on Contyna. The same oxygen outside as inside.