by James Wake
Nadia looked down at where her belt buckle should have been. Instead there was a large device that matched the one on Tess’s belt, a brick resting right below her navel.
Tess grabbed the front of her own buckle device, yanked out what looked like a large plug, and spooled out a length of silver cable along with it. “Nanohook attachment coil,” she said, pointing to the plug, “and graphene silk threads, just like in your sweater.” She threw the end of it, the weighted plug flying and attaching itself to a nearby wall with a rather loud thunk.
“And that will grip on to anything?”
“Almost anything,” Tess said. “Most kinds of glass are a no-go. Anything else should work.” She clicked a button on her belt and yelped as she was yanked off her feet, dragging along on her butt and cursing as her feet fought to slow her down.
“Hmm.” Nadia detached her own plug, feeling the thread spool out from where it was concealed in the belt around her waist. She tossed it near where Tess had anchored and winced at the loud screeeee as the wire trailed along.
“Careful. That thing is fucking strong,” Tess said, still working on standing up.
Clicking the button on her belt evoked less of a feeling of being pulled and more of a feeling of being hit by a particularly malicious vehicle. It tore the breath out of Nadia, stinging the soles of her feet when she landed. The loud metallic screeeee of the wire retracting didn’t help.
“I see why they’re called riplines,” Nadia said.
“Actually I read that it means…” Tess groaned as she pushed the button on her belt again, dragging a string of profanities along the floor with her. “…RIP, you know, like…dead.”
Nadia found this rather tasteless. She clicked her button again, not at all enjoying the sensation of being yanked by her hips a short length across the room.
“I mean, the really cool part is verticality.” Tess clicked a different button, which detached her hook and pulled it back to her belt with a loud clack. “Watch this.”
She threw the hook straight up, attaching it to one of the ceiling tiles. When she activated the reel, it didn’t lift her a millimeter. Instead the ceiling tile crumbled to pieces, pelting her with bits of foam and dust.
“Ack! Pfft. Ugh!” Tess cried, brushing bits of tile out of her hair.
“Yes, very cool.”
“Shut up.”
* * *
Temporary, Nadia told herself yet again.
She missed her old goggles. These ones looked like the ones police officers wore, maybe a bit thinner. No style to them at all.
“Sheesh,” Tess said in her ears, nervously clicking something in the background. “Can you stop looking down so much? It’s freaking me out.”
Nadia made an extremely disgusted noise and glanced over her shoulder for good measure. The street stared back at her, slick with light misty rain, dozens of stories below.
“What did I just say?” Tess said, her voice high and tight.
“Forgive me for making you uncomfortable,” Nadia said, bracing herself for another pull. She pushed the button on her belt, which launched her up toward her anchor. She was almost fine with that part—the rush of wind on her mask, the mist slamming into her goggles. It was like riding her beloved scooter.
Her toes found a bit of purchase between two large panels, her glove sneaking onto the rim of a metal beam. This part terrified her. The anchor came unstuck, dangling in her free hand, and her entire body tightened up in tense alarm. Nothing but her own muscles kept her from plummeting to a messy death.
She threw the anchor up, wincing at the noise of the cable unspooling. It bounced off the side of DataVault Secure Storage Headquarters (a division of Auktoris Global Funds) then tumbled back down toward her.
“You gotta arc it a little,” Tess said.
“I’m trying,” Nadia said. She threw it again, this time feeling her heart drop as the anchor bounced off an ad display that ran up the side of the building.
“It doesn’t stick to glass,” Tess said, sounding bored.
“Yes, I know,” Nadia said for the third time.
She tried again. It bounced off again.
“Oh, for the love of…” Nadia spooled it in, lightly gripping the cable until the anchor slid into her hand. Infuriating. She held the anchor in her fist and stuck it to the side of the building in front of her, just to give her fingers a bit of a rest. Certainly easier to hold on this way. “Hmm.” She detached the anchor and reached up, sticking it in place above her head. And pull, new toehold…there.
Et voilà.
“I quite like that actually,” she said.
“It’ll take you all night to climb up that way!” Tess said.
Nadia ignored her, slowly climbing up one temporary handhold at a time. It would go much faster if she didn’t have to scramble for purchase for her left hand. And she’d absolutely love to do away with the moment of sick tension every time she detached the anchor, holding on with nothing but the precarious grip of her human limbs. Yes, one in each hand would do nicely.
“I’ll be borrowing your anchor when I get back,” she said.
“Hey, I like playing with that thing.”
“You are slowly destroying my living space, and I will not—”
Her foot slipped as she reached up with the anchor, her toes sliding off the slick steel. Nadia let out a single panicked squeak as her body dropped, dangling by the fingers of her left hand.
“Aaaahhh!” Tess yelled. “Don’t fall! Don’t fall! Don’t fall!”
“Not helping!” Nadia said, her right hand flailing around for the ripline cable. Of course that hand had betrayed her, dropping the anchor the moment she had slipped. It should have been within easy reach, but she felt only empty air; her free hand bit violently at the wall instead. She found something, anything, to hang her fingertips on and dangled there, feeling slightly less panicked.
“Okay, okay…hoo, wow, okay…” Tess said. “Just pull yourself up and you’ll be good.”
Nadia’s arms bent, only a few degrees, pathetically failing to obey her command. She grunted and held her breath, flailing her legs in a vain effort to propel herself up.
“Are you kidding me? One measly pull-up? Your life literally depends on it!”
If only looks could lift oneself up. Nadia kept kicking and vainly trying to climb, her feet eventually pedaling off the wall enough to push her up. Her breath returned to her burning lungs as she found a stable grip again.
“There we go!” Tess said. “There we go. Breathe it out. You okay?”
Nadia fought to catch her breath. With numb fingers, she reached down to her belt, felt her way to the cable, and pulled the anchor up into her hand again.
Simple. Easy. What she should have done in the first place, of course, but she’d been too panicked and stupid to think it through. Nadia glared at nothing but herself, shook her head as she secured herself to the wall.
Tess’s voice came through again. “I’m sorry. Bad plan. Let yourself down. I have a couple of backup paths we can try.”
“Nonsense. I’ve come this far.”
“You sure?”
Nadia looked up. She could almost see the bit of vent Tess’s drone had identified. She began to climb again.
* * *
“You just didn’t want to give up your toy,” Nadia said.
Tess worried over the black gloves on Nadia’s hands—one last round of checks. “Actually I took both anchors apart to make these.”
Nadia turned her right hand over, staring at the flat pads on her fingers and palm. They did look familiar, upon further inspection. She took particular pleasure in imagining Tess dismantling those dreadful riplines.
The rest of her new outfit gave her significantly less pleasure. Light metal struts ran down the outside of each of her arms and legs, all attached to a heavy harness anchored around her waist and chest.
“You hate it already, don’t you?” Tess said.
Nadia wondered how to respond. She glanced up at the pull-up bar instead.
“I know it’s clunky. An older model, army surplus,” Tess said. “Not as cool as the new light rigs, but it was all I could get my hands on.”
“Where do you get all these things?”
“I know people. Okay, ready? Rig active.”
Nadia felt instantly lighter, instantly a bit more alive on her feet. Goose bumps all through her limbs. She raised her arms, wavering on her feet a bit as the extra weight she expected to feel was nowhere to be found.
“Careful! Slow at first,” Tess said.
Slowly, bending her knees carefully, Nadia jumped up—weightlessly, effortlessly—and grabbed the bar. Trying this without the rig on had been futile; she’d been left hanging while her weak hands quickly lost their grip. Now she floated up in a breath’s effort, feeling the rig lift for her.
“Not bad,” Tess said. “Come on. You know that’s cool.”
Nadia let herself down, slow and controlled in a way she’d never been able to before. Hanging with her arms straight, she looked up at her hands. The gloves she liked.
She opened her hands, her fingers too stubborn to peel off at first. It took a peculiar twisting movement to unstick them, leaving her hanging with the pads on her palms fastened to the bar.
The gloves she liked. No question about that. She twisted her hands, unsticking and landing on the floor with a loud thud. She wanted to cringe at the extra weight but felt nothing as the rig on her legs absorbed the impact.
Tess scampered over to the nearby treadmill, nodding and clearly excited. “Okay, come over to me, nice and easy.”
Nadia didn’t come right away; she just shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back.
“Will you say something already?” Tess said.
“It feels very…odd,” she forced out, feeling every shift of the rig in her ears.
“I’m sure it takes a lot of getting used to.”
“You’ve never worn one?”
“Why would I?” Tess held up her right arm. Her hoodie was gone for once; she was back to a T-shirt that barely concealed where her stump ended and her prosthetic began.
Tess beckoned, waving Nadia closer with her artificial arm. Nadia stared at it, watching the fibers contract like real muscles, so lovely compared to the crude exoskeleton currently powering her own limbs.
She stomped over, slowly and carefully. Tess offered a hand and led her onto the treadmill, eyes lit up.
“Motorized reactive exoskeleton,” she read. “The only MRE you can’t eat.”
“And what does rig stand for?”
Tess shrugged, flicking her fingers and starting the treadmill at a slow pace. “It’ll get easier the longer you walk on this thing. A couple hours of HiL testing should work out all the awkward kinks.”
“Hill test?” Nadia said, looking down at the perfectly flat treadmill.
“Human in the Loop,” Tess said. “The rig reads your steps, adjusting itself to your gait over time. The more you wear it, the more natural it’ll feel. You’ve just gotta feed the thing data for a while.” She tapped the back of Nadia’s harness, a small shell of a backpack resting there with what Nadia assumed was a control unit.
She kept walking, hating every pounding step. Clunk, clunk, clunk…dreadful. But she had to admit the motion of her legs already felt smoother.
Tess wandered away to jump up and grab the pull-up bar. She held on with just her prosthetic arm, popping out pull-ups in quick succession, smooth and controlled.
It was odd seeing Tess’s arm so exposed. Nadia stared openly, watching the lanky imitation muscles bulging—still not the width of a normal arm, even when flexed. Slender. Sleek. She felt the word beautiful threaten to form in her mouth, then chewed on it awkwardly for a moment, slowly working her way to perhaps beginning to accept the idea.
She stumbled, the front of her toe clipping the treadmill. Her arms shot out to the bars on either side, the rig shifting loudly along with them. Close, but still standing.
* * *
“I hate this thing.”
Tess groaned in her ears.
“I loathe it,” Nadia said. “Despise. Detest. Abhor.”
“That’s not the only way to get in,” Tess said. “Maybe try turning on your side?”
“I already tried that!” She crouched at the vent opening at DataVault Secure Storage Headquarters, glaring at it as if it had insinuated she were heavy.
“Okay…calm down. Like I said, there’s another way to… Or fine, try the vent again, sure. Whatever.”
Nadia wouldn’t make it any farther, she knew. She tried slithering her way in again, but once more felt the rig clank and scrape against the sides of the vent.
The surface bent beneath her, mocking her. The harness around her chest stuck fast, not giving an inch. No way to squeeze and shift and sneak her way through with this unyielding metal cage wrapped around her.
This should have been easy. She knew she could fit in here without the rig. She knew it. She tried pulling herself through, but was stuck fast even with the extra strength in her arms.
“Can you move?” Tess said. “I think I can still fit Droney through there.”
Nadia felt something die inside her. She scrambled backward, clumsy and awkward. “You are not calling it that.”
“Droney is my sweet baby boy, and I can call him whatever I want.”
Worlds better the moment she backed out of the vent, ten degrees cooler and able to breathe again. Nadia stood in a huff, brushing herself off and glaring at the drone flitting into the darkness of the vent without her.
The abominable rig hung on her body. It didn’t even match her outfit—the harness had been painted in gaudy, tacky camo; random pixels of green and gray and brown. Nadia snapped the buckles on her chest open, grunting as she tried to shrug the straps off.
“Hey. Hey!” Tess said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Nadia kept grunting—the rig wouldn’t budge, of course; the arm struts were secured at her wrists as well.
“First of all, that’s going to take at least an hour to take off,” Tess said. “And second, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I will not suffer this…thing…a moment longer.”
“Oh, and you’re gonna carry it back?”
Nadia paused. Slowly, and with as much show of not wanting to as possible, she snapped the buckles secure again.
“It sucks. I get it,” Tess said. “But wow.”
“We are discussing alternatives the moment I return.”
* * *
“I made you something.”
“Hmph.” Nadia allowed Tess to place a frame of a mask over her head, wires trailing out and connecting to a jumble of equipment on a table.
A mannequin stood across from her with new goggles strapped to its head, plain and black and expressionless. Identical to Nadia’s old pair.
“Okay, and…on,” Tess said, twitching her fingers.
The front of the goggles lit up in the rough shape of eyes. Two plain white circles, a cartoonish pair of spectacles.
“I appreciate the gesture, Tess, but if you think…” Nadia froze mid-word. The eyes on the goggles had…moved.
She squinted. The goggles squinted. She closed one eye, then the other. The goggles copied her.
She jumped—actually jumped—gasping and clapping her hands.
“I love it!” Nadia squealed, catching herself and gracefully clearing her throat. “I mean…er…what does it do? Aside from look pretty, of course?”
“Nothing,” Tess said. “It reads the shape of your eyes and matches them.
Total waste of processor cycles.”
Nadia rolled her eyes and was deeply pleased to see her goggles do the same. “Marvelous. Might I inquire about adjusting the shape of them?”
“Knew you would ask,” Tess said, twitching her fingers in the air. The circles changed to languid cat’s eyes.
Nadia held back the disgust that threatened to spill out onto her face. “Too much,” she said instead.
They changed again…this time to sharp, narrow demon’s eyes.
“Ugh,” Nadia said, shaking her head. “Next.”
Almond-shaped this time, close to ovals but with a single pointed corner in each. Simple. Elegant. Luxurious.
“Ooh, perfect,” Nadia purred. “And the…” Before she could even form the word color, the eyes changed to a deep and alluring blue, perfectly matching the color of her own eyes.
“Tess,” Nadia said breathlessly, holding her hands over her heart. “You shouldn’t have.”
“You can turn them off too,” Tess said, and the lights on the goggles went out. “You know, like you should. When you’re sneaking around, trying not to be noticed?”
Nadia nodded, already knowing she was going to leave the eyes lit up as much as possible.
“Now what about these?” Tess said, holding a pair of fake cat ears over the mask.
“Ugh, so tacky.”
“You know,” Tess said, eagerly whispering. “Because you’re a cat burglar.”
“Absolutely not.”
“We could even make you a catsuit.”
“Where did you get those things?” Nadia said, still sneering at the ears.
“I used to wear them with my own catsuit.”
“I thought you called it a fursuit?”
“Same difference.”
* * *
“Tess?”
“Lab,” drifted back at her, muffled from the other room.
Tess’s lab was a side room where Nadia had forced her to put the more…obtrusive equipment. Nadia opened the door to see her partner leaned back in a chair, poking the air at an interface only her eyes could see.
