Tailspin, page 54
I pushed myself up, put the drink down, and slid to the edge of the bed.
“There’s no pain,” I said. “At least for now.”
My feet dangled over the edge of the bed, and the floor suddenly seemed so far away. I had to take another look. Eyes playing tricks on me, I couldn’t do without the other eye, and there was no way I’d ever give up being DP for Malaki. If I couldn’t do this, I would be a dead man. Once again, I let my feet slip off the end of the bed to the cold tiles, and Jim helped me into the chair.
A moment later, he wheeled me into another adjoining room, with Alba and Roe talking animatedly and watching me like a hawk. “Alba doesn’t approve?” I asked him.
“She didn’t enjoy you almost joining our son in the afterlife,” Jim said, his voice almost a whisper.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I let out a deep sigh. I really was sorry. I thought about how much I was putting them through and straightened my back.
The room the mage was in was dark. One machine beeped in the corner softly, showing all his statistics, though I knew nothing about what they were. The form on the bed looked a lot smaller than I recalled from the helo. Mage Baron opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked at me. His features were even more prominent in the light here. “Come closer, child.”
I wanted to chastise him. I wasn’t a child.
“When you have lived as long as I have, at your age, you are a child. I mean no disrespect to you.”
“Did I say that out loud?”
He shook his head. The brightness in his eyes shimmered blues across his iris. Jim moved the chair forward, but the mage waved him away. “Let him.”
My arms were lead weights, but I found the wheels, and steadily I wheeled forward myself.
“Better,” Mage Baron said. “I can see you now. You really are a young man. I apologize for my choice of words.”
“Are you really a mage?”
“Are you really a drone hopper?”
“Not yet,” I said, feeling the heat rise up my neck. “I won’t be if I can’t get this eye.”
“Doctor Brosk says you’ll make the finest drone pilot anyone’s ever known. Is that true?”
Jim thought that? Hope surged through my heart. I thought about an answer for the mage. I thought about what I wanted to tell him. Would it be a lie? No? Ultimately, I could only nod when he clearly waited for me to speak again.
“And you need the X16 because you were going through ocular implosion, too much pressure on the eyes?”
“Yes,” I said. “It would have killed me. It will kill me.”
“Without your squad and bravery, I’d also be dead.”
I lowered my head. “Maybe.”
“I’ve messaged Captain Kine,” he said. “I’ll be late back to the wall. Grand Master Tovak can cope without me for an extra day.”
I looked up at him and saw the spark of electricity in his eyes. “You’ll do what we’re asking?”
“Yes,” he said, though his forehead scrunched slightly. “Though I think I will be the only person on this planet who ever played with experimental tech and lived.”
“It could kill you?”
“M-Corp might kill me,” he said. “I may be one of their assets, but the X1 is something else entirely.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Prototype, that’s all I know. A costly one, on par with me.”
“Even without training?”
“Very much so,” he admitted. “They’ve a lot riding on you and this tech.”
“I can’t get any answers off anyone about the ‘why me’…but I really am starting to think they believe I can take the highest-level TAP and maximum amount of drones.”
“How many is that?”
“Sixteen’s been the maximum up to now.”
“You think they want more from you?”
“Don’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes, I’d say so. Prototypes investment all around. They want a lot more from you.”
“They want proof the tech works,” I said and sighed. “But after that I don’t know what they want.”
Mage Baron coughed and the sparks in his eyes lit up the veins in his face with pulsating bright lights. Then they faded and turned black. It looked terrifying. “Are you okay?”
“I’m dying,” he said. “This has been coming for a long time. I’m not getting any younger.”
“What is it?”
“A form of sickness,” he said. “I’ve but a few tasks left in this world. You’re going to be one of them, and if this works, it will be one of my proudest moments.”
I didn’t know what to say, and Apex said nothing.
“Doctor,” Mage Baron called over my shoulder. “We’re ready when you are.”
“Team’s assembled,” Jim said. “We’re ready again.”
I put my hand out, and Mage Baron took it to shake. “Stay strong, Airman Korolyov.”
“I will,” I said. “I will.”
Alba took me out and back toward the operating theater. I squeezed her hand on the arms at the back of the chair. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I promise you I will be.”
She leaned in and kissed the side of my head. “I—”
“E’toro would be very proud of everything you both do here, including looking after me.”
Alba nodded, turned away, sniffed, and left me. Roe put the needle to my arm once more and pulled the trigger. “We’ll all be waiting.”
“I know.” I laughed nervously as the world faded to black. My mind went blank as I lost consciousness.
There was no expectation other than maybe I wouldn’t feel anything.
When that first jolt of electricity sparked through my veins and snapped me back to reality, I wasn’t in my body anymore; I was not only fully awake but also watching from a distance as the surgical team and robotic arms surrounded me.
No, I said to myself.
Apex wasn’t there. No one else was here. Just me, Doctor Brosk, and a room full of surgical robots.
I didn’t want to watch it initially, but I couldn’t help myself. I stepped forward to see exactly what they were doing. The side of my face was exposed, and so was the metal structure of the X1. Which parts were actually Apex? I’d seen the inside of my skull because Malaki had shown it to me, but seeing it like this, with my blood vessels running along the outer edge and inside it, I saw it on a whole other level. It made me feel a little sick, but not me, because I couldn’t feel anything of my real body. Nothing at all. Weird.
With painstaking patience, Jim and his robots attached all the small veins of the new socket to the real ones I had with the robots. Then he got a hot tool and melted the two metals of the X1 and X16 together. Then grafted over my tiny veins with superficial skin to stop the bleeding inside the socket. The eye, a small round ball of metal, no, crystal? Just popped right inside. There was nothing for it to attach to.
My new eye had dropped to the back of the socket, lifeless. I guess it wouldn’t move till I was awake?
Jim picked up a syringe. Inside, it glowed some silver fluid. Were they nites? Holy shit they were, pure nites. That one syringe was a small fortune. No wonder this was the most expensive operation until the TAP. He injected that all around the eye, which now floated in the socket suspended in the liquid. How weird.
This all took time, yet I had no genuine concept of how long it was. I tried to follow the clock on the wall, but every time I looked, it hadn’t moved. I couldn’t contemplate how much time had passed, at all.
Finally, Jim stepped back, the robot arms all retracting around him. I wanted to warn them not to shock me again. Jim looked back to the door, where Mage Baron waited in a chair covered in a smock. “You can shock him again,” Jim said.
The mage moved to my side with care and looked at me. “He’s in agony, you know?”
“What?” Jim frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Stopping the core didn’t stop his feelings; he’s still in there, and he’s screaming at me, at you, to stop hurting him.”
“You listened to him the whole time I was operating?”
“I can’t turn it off, and he got comfort knowing someone could hear him.” I saw the mage’s regret in the frowns on his forehead and his determination for us, which meant a lot to me. “When I turn him back on, Ruslan will crash straight away. Be ready for it.”
Jim waved others into the room. “Thanks for the warning. We have a lot to talk about after this.”
“We do,” Mage Baron said. “For his sake. Are you ready?”
I wanted to stop them, but no sooner did I step in closer than bright light erupted. It was so bright, I was blinded, and I was in so much agony I was jumping all over the table.
“Hold on,” Jim said in my ears. “We’re doing everything we can for you. Hold on.”
“I am,” I screamed at them, watching the room outside my body once again.
In the next blink of an eye, my eye, I was looking up at both of them, and the wail escaping my lips was more gut-wrenching than I ever wanted to scream in my life ever again.
It wasn’t coming from me; it was coming from Apex.
65
Warm, soft fingers laced with mine, and I opened one eye to sunlight and Malaki staring at me. She had puffy bags under her eyes and messy hair.
“Hey,” she murmured, and gave me a light squeeze. “I thought you were waking up. Jim said you were okay, everything was okay. Kind of.”
“Kind of?” I let out a yawn, opening my other eye. Both of them blinked with the brightness of the room. “What day is it?”
“Seventh of April,” she said with a smile.
“Shit, we missed the end of term and all this time? I’m not sure we’ll recover from this. Us, the squad, right?”
“Don’t worry about that. We are all good.”
“Good,” I groaned. “You mean I’ll be falling so far behind that I’ll fail? I’m supposed to be training almost non-stop on all grounds.”
“We both know you were way ahead. You can take this time.” She moaned. “There’s been way more action because of you for the squad and we’ve learned more in that action than any tests or reading or training are going to do for us.”
“Maybe.” I attempted to sit up better. I struggled. “But still, I wanted the paperwork.”
“Paperwork can always be forged.”
I thought to my paperwork, my stats, checking it out at least briefly.
Identification: Ruslan Korolyov
Call Sign: Ice71
Species: Human
Bonus: None
Mod Capacity: 17 *with mods* 40
Mod Capacity in Use: 38
Stat
Current Points
Description
Mods
Quality
Dexterity
11 = *14*
Governs agility and movement.
M177: Right Arm Mod: 3
Cost: 2
(+DEX 3)
Professional
X24: Right Hand Mod: 3
Cost: 6
(+ to hand DEX 6)
Professional
Mental Power
8 = *17*
Governs swiftness and fortitude of the mind.
X1: Cerebral Mod: 3 Cost: 4
(+MP 3)
Professional
AI-T17: ??
Cost: 4
(+PER 3)
Unknown
Perception
12 = *15*
Governs senses and connection to surroundings.
Brain Mod: 3
Cost: 4
(+MP 3)
Professional
X16A: R Eye Mod: 3
Cost: 6
(+MP 3)
Professional
Strength
8
Governs physical strength and damage dealt.
Left Arm Mod: 0
Cost: 0
Toughness
9 = *23*
Governs the body and internal fortitude.
Organelles: x6
*Spleen, Liver, Kidneys, Stomach*
*Heart, Lungs*
Cost: 12
(+TOU 14)
4x Basic
2x Professional
I was okay. They…they’d upgraded some of my organelles, too? I guess they had to, and they put the extra into Toughness another had to so I could take the upgrade. Last thing I wanted was to turn into a monster on the table. But I was pushing it again.
I rolled my eyes at her, but she wasn’t wrong. Paperwork could be faked. This upgrade, however, couldn’t. I was still not in any kind of comfortable safe zone. For now, though. I let out a sigh; no more ocular implosion. That was a relief.
“How you feeling?” she probed, giving my hand a squeeze. “Headache?”
Instinctively, my hand went for my face. “It feels different,” I said. “But there’s no pain for now. How’s it looking?”
“It looks good, really good. You’ve healed incredibly well, faster than we expected.”
A wave of relief washed over me. “That’s good to hear.”
She leaned in closer, her fingers tracing the edge of the socket. “Can you move it okay?”
I focused on the metallic ball in my socket and try to will it to move. At first, nothing happened, and panic spread over me. But then, with a burst of effort, the eye shifted slightly. I grinned, feeling a sense of accomplishment.
Malaki chuckled. “Looks like it’s working fine. We’ve all been worried even with the tests they ran for specters, you not coming around right away…we were all worried.”
“All?”
“Our fireteam and Justin’s. He’s only just gone home, family issue.” I don’t know why, but that hit me hard. “Been with me all night though.” Malaki rolled her eyes.
He had actually been here with the others. I laughed this time though at her; he was obsessed. Then I coughed and started to choke. “Water?”
She turned and got me a drink. I sipped it slowly, feeling it slide down my throat like razors.
The more I sipped, though, it eased. “What else have I missed?” Her face changed, and that worried me. I squeezed her hand fearing bad news. “What is it?”
“You’ve been scheduled for a TAP in Laronda’s Medical Centre.”
My heart soared, but her worry was palpable. I tried to check my HUD’s messages. There was nothing off Michaels. “I’ve no idea where that even is.”
Malaki leaned over the bed and whispered. “It’s the other side of Artem, into West Shamrik. It’s a private facility M-Corp use from time to time, according to my father.”
“Wait,” I said, this was from Michaels? It had to be. “What TAP? Who is paying and where’s it coming from?”
The map appeared, and we were both looking and probably working out the best way to get there. At least one that was affordable. I had no doubt I was broke.
“Here are its details.” She brought up alongside the map the details on the TAP.
I read and swallowed hard. It wasn’t the X Series. I guess it was the next best thing.
TAP - G2/10
Tier: Two - Nodes 4 to 6
United Granit model, the Granit Series is a perfect second upgrade!
Tier One to Tier Two is not anywhere near as extensive a surgical procedure but still requires a good rehab program afterwards, especially seeing as this one has been obtained by irregular means.
This Spinal TAP is of the highest-level Granit can provide in spinal science mods and allows control signals to be sent and received between organic and inorganic constructs with some room for error.
This model allows its user to operate 4 to 6 units.
WARNING:
Implantation is delicate and complex, requiring a team of highly skilled and accredited surgeons and medical professionals to properly install the implant.
A full consultation with a TAP specialist is advised to discuss suitability for this procedure. It is not for the faint of heart. A very strong will and strong stomach for pain is a must.
(Granit holds no responsibility if this surgery goes wrong even if a legitimate consultation is on record and it is performed by an accredited surgeon.)
Warranty: Zero guarantee it will work. Zero warranty. If you die, tough.
Durability: 60/100
Slot Cost: 2 - Credit Cost: 810,122
Fuck me, the cost. I checked my account and almost fell over. There was more money in it than I’d ever seen, and no source. The hacker? It had to be.
“You knew we’d been saving. Some of that’s off my father, some off me,” Malaki said softly. “The rest of it, we have to pick up on the way for the hospital fees. That’s coming from Mr. Anonymous.”
She did not look so happy about that. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. I never thought we’d get you there, I’m glad we have.”
“But they can trace it, surely?”
“I doubt it. You have more than a few people pulling strings for you.” She winked at me. “For that, I am very glad too.”
“Doctor Brosk tell you what happened?”
“No, only that you needed someone to look after you that cared a lot. Someone who you’d let in when you were ready.”
A shiver ran up my spine, and it wasn’t mine. “I’m happy you’re here.”
“I got everything you asked for.” The door burst open, and Niko waltzed in with bags of food. He almost dropped the bag. “Holy shit, he’s awake!”
“The others have been waiting out there for you in shifts.” Malaki smiled. “We’ve been here since we came back off the wall.”
“You stayed there?”
“They needed us,” Niko stated. “I wasn’t going back to lectures with that going on.”
Silao was the next one to sneak in around Niko. “Hey, snake!” Niko called after him.
“The name’s Silao,” he said. “Kadar Silao, not snake.”
