Cybernova, page 2
“Ok, Olly, you know the drill. Do not move while I am messing with this shit, remember what happened last time?” Zeke says in an uncharacteristically serious tone. I nod, knowing exactly what he means. Let’s just say it was a shocking experience that neither of us are eager to replicate.
“I’m gonna start with the shoulder.” He reaches to the back of my right shoulder and releases the latch. With a small screwdriver, he opens the access panel and temporarily deactivates my shoulder and arm.
“I swear to god, Olly, if you break this servo one more time, I am not replacing it for you!” Zeke jokes, taking out my main shoulder servo and putting in a new one. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see just how broken the servo was. It’s twisted and mangled, practically snapped in half. He then reactivates my arm, and I can already tell that it’s better. He closes up the access panel and moves to my left ear.
“Yeah, that’s right where he hit me, so I’m guessing—”
“Shut up, talking is moving!” He yells. Instead of saying anything, I reply with the most indignant glare I can muster while also not moving at all. After replacing the chip for my hearing enhancement, he looks at my broken nose and chuckles.
“What’s so funny?”
“Well, in case you forgot, your nose is still made of cartilage, so the best I can do is snap it back into place and offer you my condolences.” He proceeds to snap my nose back into place in a way that is both careful and much too quick. I do my best not to show how painful it is, which is challenging because it hurts like hell. Zeke notices but is kind enough not to say anything.
“Hey man, I really appreciate you doing this for me. I can even pay you this time if you want,” I offer, hoping he will refuse.
“Nah, we both know you need whatever pocket change you have more than I do,” he replies, “I just better not see you in here next week, or maybe I will charge you!”
“I know, man, trust me, I’m gonna take some time away from that whole scene. It’s not worth it anymore. Things just aren’t the same as they used to be”.
“I know, buddy, I know. Maybe it’s time you moved onto something else. You have too much potential to waste it fighting huge guys that are more machine than man at this point”. I may disagree about the whole ‘having potential’ business, but he may have a point about the fights.
“I’ll see you around Zeke, hopefully under better circumstances.” I give him a half smile, knowing it probably won’t be under better circumstances the next time I see him. I’d rather visit him as a friend more often than as a patient, but oh well. He’s the only cyber-surgeon in Nova City I would trust with my life, and he also happens to be the only one I know of who will accept favors and friendship as a form of payment.
***
I stare down the training dummy in front of me, its wooden “limbs” taped together with duct tape and its punching bag “torso” bursting in several places. I drop into a low stance, bring my hands up in loose fists in front of my face, and begin wailing on the dummy. I punch the bag, block the arms, bob and weave, drop low, bring an uppercut to its imaginary jaw, and then back up to catch my breath.
At least I can still move like that.
Lunging forward suddenly, I bring a one-two punch full-force into the center of the dummy. My right hook knocks the dummy off of its base, snapping the pole that was holding it up. The dummy flies across the room and lands in a pile of takeout boxes. Chopsticks and stale rice scatter everywhere.
And I can still hit that hard. My form isn’t too bad, either. Can’t get that sort of training and consistency from chrome. That’s all-natural martial arts training.
I down the rest of my Hydra energy drink, grimacing slightly at the metallic aftertaste. I glance at the can for a second, the multi-headed dragon logo staring back at me. They’re a subsidiary of CYBR Corp, of course. I toss the can into the pile with the rest of the garbage, then pick up the training dummy. I brush rice and who knows what else off of the dummy as I walk back to its stand. I grab the duct tape and some chopsticks and get to work fixing the snapped pole.
It’s been two weeks since the fight in Ritorujapan, and I still don’t know what to do with my life. For the past four years, my life has revolved around the fights. If I wasn’t doing the fighting, I was betting on the fights. I’d bet on sure things so that I could win enough money to pay my way into another fight, all in a hopeless pursuit of some misguided belief.
Ah, there we go. Nothing duct tape can’t fix.
The dummy is fixed, albeit much more wiggly than before. I give it a test punch, and it seems alright.
I truly believed that I could show people that they were wrong, that I could win a fight with the minimal amount of cybernetics I had, even though my opponents were essentially tanks with arms, all of them nearly impossible to beat in a fair fight, or hell, even in an unfair one.
With the anger of all those fights filling me, I launch into another series of blows on the dummy. The more in the zone I become, the more I imagine I’m fighting a real opponent. I grab a wooden practice katana and slash the arms, torso, and legs, blocking blows and slipping through their defenses. I deliver a killing slash across the chest, stuffing flying in all directions. The chopsticks snap, and the dummy leans over, the duct tape groaning under the weight.
I should really get a new one of these things.
I know I talk a lot of shit about guys with cyber-enhancements for a guy who has some himself, but there really is a difference between that guy I fought last month and me. At this point, you’re more likely to become an outcast for not having any cybernetics than for having too many. My right arm was replaced not by choice but by necessity. I lost my arm in an accident, and it was either get cybernetics or be down an arm for the rest of my life. In the old days, they would have called my arm a prosthetic and considered it to be a miracle of engineering! But now, it’s just an arm and a rather boring one at that.
I also have some basic enhancements that arguably weren’t necessary, like the vision correction and hearing enhancement, but those are still pretty minor. It was either wearing glasses and a hearing aid or getting implants. I went for the latter. A lot of people, usually the ones who are rich, powerful, shady, or usually a combination of the three, have so many enhancements that they can barely be considered human anymore. That’s why I use my swords, my daishō. I don’t want to kill anyone, and there’s no way I’d let myself become some sort of horrible metal monster, but I need something to even the playing field. With my kung fu training, the swords just made sense.
I set the practice sword down, turn off the lamp in my training corner, and then move to my living room area. I plop down in the armchair and turn on the TV. I don’t really want to watch anything, but it’s better than silence.
People argue about whether or not cybernetics make you super- or sub-human, but when it comes down to it, AI robots and assistants feel more human than some of these “people” do. I chuckle to myself slightly at the thought, sitting alone in my dilapidated armchair. The only source of light is the TV, as it blasts me with ads for shit I don’t need or even remotely want. I step out of my own headspace long enough to watch an ad for some sort of new stim that keeps you from needing to sleep for up to a week.
Yeah, I’m sure there are no side effects to that…
I gave him a lot of sass, but Zeke was right, as always. All I can think about is what he told me the last time I saw him, that I needed to do something with my life instead of wasting it on fights I’ll never win. But stopping the fights means I admit I can’t win and have nothing to show for four long years of blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention the countless times Zeke has managed to scrounge up replacements for my busted circuitry. I just don’t know if I can do that. If I admit it was for nothing, then what the hell am I doing? What’s the point of any of this? At this point, the only consistent thing in my life is getting my ass handed to me, then stumbling into Zeke’s shop begging for help. It’s not like I’m proud of it, but I honestly have no idea what else there is to do. I don’t even reach out to Zeke or hang out with him outside of asking him to fix my busted arm or whatever else broke on any given day. I’m worried he won’t want to see me anymore if there isn’t a reason. Lately, I haven’t exactly been a great friend or fun to be around. Those visits to his clinic are sort of the only thing I have. As I recount my various visits to Zeke’s clinic, my mind drifts to CYBR Corp, who manufactured my arm.
When the world started its headlong descent into mass-produced cybernetics, corporate greed, and corrupt politics, CYBR Corp was at the helm. Sometimes, I forget that they began as a company claiming to want to help progress humankind to our next stage of development twenty years ago. They spewed messages of the ‘miracles of cybernetic enhancements,’ of a ‘better future for all.’ Naturally, most of it turned out to be total bullshit, but the world was desperate for good news at the time, so everyone believed them.
By around the year 2030, climate change had begun to devastate the world. Scientists saw it coming from miles away, but selfish, greedy, narrow-minded politicians and corporations made sure the voices of those whose interests didn’t align with theirs were all but silenced. By the time the world realized they were right all along, it was far too late. Ocean levels rose significantly, almost entirely swallowing countries like Japan, Madagascar, Ireland, and many coastal portions of the entire world.
Then, when it seems nothing can be done but to make the most of what little time the Earth has left, CYBR Corp comes along, promising miraculous technological advancements capable of saving the human race from its own stupidity. They promised to build floating cities, allowing the human race to repopulate beyond the limits at that time. They promised to bring affordable cybernetic enhancements to the masses, curing disease, allowing the paralyzed to walk, extending life expectancies, and so on. The desperate remains of the human race ate it up, and who could blame them?
My parents immediately fell for it, moving us here when I was only eight years old. It’s been a very long twenty years since 2040. CYBR Corp was a brand new company at the time, and we had no idea what was coming.
It wasn’t long before people started to realize those floating cities were for the rich and powerful, and the enhancements equally so. They couldn’t cure diseases so much as they could remove your diseased parts and replace them with shiny metal replacements for a hefty fee. John Nova, the original founder and CEO of CYBR Corp, died only five years into their rule. It’s ironic that he built an empire of cybernetics but couldn’t save himself from death. The only problem is that his death didn’t stop CYBR Corp from taking control of every aspect of life. In the year 2045, Nova City was founded in place of what used to be Las Vegas, Nevada. John Nova charmed and bribed his way into getting the entire city of Las Vegas named after him with a giant statue to honor his memory in the city center. The whole city was rebuilt and massively expanded, branded as the ‘desert oasis’ where people would come for opportunity, cybernetics, and escape from the dreadful realities of the global climate crisis. To this day, they rule the world, or what’s left of it, with an iron fist.
I’m about halfway between self-pity and self-loathing when I hear an explosion not far from my apartment, immediately jolting me out of my stupor and into a focused panic. The focus is thanks to the cybernetics, and the panic is all-natural paranoia. I scan the streets below, searching frantically for my standard-issue CYBR VYSR so I can get a better look at the commotion.
Ah, there you are, you slippery bastard!
After a few minutes of rummaging through piles of trash and outdated tech, I find my VYSR. I throw it on, taking a look out of my apartment window at the street below. As the smoke clears, I start to make out two intimidating figures bearing down on a third, all three heading toward a side alley just off 7th Street, my street. For a second, I get the crazy idea to go help whoever is being chased. I turn on the night vision mode of my VYSR and confirm what I already know to be true: this is another hit by CYBR Corp’s personal police force, the Retribution.
When CYBR Corp took over the entire world through extortion, political corruption, and technological dependence of the masses, the Retribution was their destructive hand of injustice. These guys make the amped-up MMA fighters look like all-natural homo sapiens. These troops have all been enhanced to the point that the only human emotion they still feel is a deep, burning hatred, needing no excuse to be unleashed on the unfortunate citizens of Nova City.
So yeah, sure, I could rush after them and try to save that unlucky soul, but I don’t particularly feel like dying today.
What are you saying? Are you seriously just gonna let that guy get killed while you do nothing? But I can’t, seriously. What can I even do? Fuck-all, that’s what.
I pace back and forth in front of the window, arguing with my conscience.
Okay, but say you die saving his life. At least you’ll have done something meaningful for once. Come on, Oliver! How long are you going to sit in this apartment and feel sorry for yourself!? You’ve got to do something.
I slam my fist on the windowsill, “fuck.”
I just, I can’t. I can find meaning somewhere else. But it’s not like I necessarily will die, is it? No, of course, it is. They’re heartless monsters and will stop at nothing.
My eyes well up, my body shaking with a mixture of fury, fear, and guilt. But I can’t bring myself to do anything, so I just stand here, staring at the street below.
***
I check the clock for the twentieth time this hour, and it’s 02:22, just like it was the last time I looked. I’ve spent the last several hours pacing nervously back and forth in front of my window and trying unsuccessfully to shake this burning feeling I have. The feeling that I could have done something to save that person earlier, the one the Retribution officers chased into the nearby alley and most likely tore to pieces with their arc rifles. For years, I’ve wished there was something I could do to fight back, but going against them would be suicide, or at least that’s what I tell myself, so I can still sleep at night.
“Come on, Oliver, you’re being stupid!” I say to myself, stopping in my tracks and throwing my hands into the air in desperation. “Even if you had made it down there in time, there would just be the burnt remains of two dead bodies instead of one!”
But if that’s true, and it is, then why do I feel this way?
Just then, the Holocomm on my wrist blinks to life. The Holocomm is an all-in-one digital communications device combining the functionality of old-fashioned smart phones, smartwatches, and tablet computers. All with the added benefit of holographic projection capabilities for calls and general 3D browsing. Everyone gets the screen implanted in their non-dominant forearm when they turn eighteen, so for me, it’s my left arm.
On the screen, I see the call is from Zeke. My heart sinks. I haven’t heard from him at all during the last couple of weeks, and if he’s calling me at this hour, something significant is happening. I answer as fast as I can.
“I need you to get your ass to my clinic RIGHT NOW,” Zeke shouts into his comm. Even over the static-filled holo feed, I can tell that he’s in trouble.
“I’m already on my way. Just stay alive long enough for me to make it there, alright?” I joke with him, hoping to lighten the mood. It does not work.
“Great, hurry up,” Zeke hastily responds, ending the call.
I wasn’t lying to him about already being on the way: by the time we ended that brief call, I’d already grabbed my daishō and was making my way to the elevator.
After a tense forty-eight-floor elevator ride, I book it down 7th street toward the nearest Hyper Rail station. I wouldn’t normally ride the Rail at this time of night, but I need to get there quickly, and I grab my arc-daishō on the way out the door so I can easily handle the riffraff of a 03:00 Hyper Rail.
During the ride, I take the opportunity to inspect my daishō. This set of swords has been through everything with me all these years. Remarkably, the weapons are still in great shape, all things considered. Since the Hyper Rail is essentially empty, I decide to take the longer sword, the katana or daitō, out of its sheath and inspect it further. The long, gently curved blade is artfully crafted Japanese steel, and I sharpen it regularly, always keeping it in excellent condition. I turn my attention to the hilt, inspecting the arc modification unit, one of which has been retroactively added to each of the two swords.
Now, I don’t claim to fully understand the logistics of arc technology. However, I’ve picked up enough to know that my swords have essentially been transformed from elegant yet outdated samurai tools into deadly, lightning-charged taser blades. I hold the sword firmly and slightly away from my body as I flip the switch on the arc unit. The blade hums to life, and as I feel the soft vibration of the machinery begin to kick in, the blade starts to glow blue with a steady stream of crackling electricity. Some purists claim that arc modifications ruin the authenticity of swords such as these, but those people have clearly never held one in their hands. I switch off the arc unit, sheathing the katana and drawing the smaller of the two swords, the wakizashi or shōtō. Identical in shape and composition to the katana, this sword is about half the length and is generally used as a parrying or close-combat weapon. It also has an arc unit fitted to it.
Just as I finish inspecting the wakizashi, I arrive at the Maintenance District. As I step onto the station, I strap my swords into their place, first the katana, then the wakizashi just above it. As I strap them into place, I head over to Zeke’s. The way he sounded and looked in that call is still shaking me, and I can only imagine what’s wrong, wondering if I’m already too late. I take off at a brisk pace, an increasing sense of danger growing in my mind. I could just be paranoid, but I’d rather be prepared for the worst than expect the best.
I arrive at Zeke’s a couple of minutes later and rush to the back, where I can see him standing over his operation table. I half-expected to find thugs or Retribution troops outside the door, so just to find him not actively being attacked was somewhat of a relief.
