I had been somewhat despondent lately; bored, depressed. I sat in the Officers’ Mess with most of the other senior officers, picking at the last few grains of rice on my plate with my fork. Lost in my own head I paid no attention to the conversations around the table. I wanted to leave, but lacking any real excuse to do so, was unable to without appearing rude. Colonel Tenanochi, the prick, was paged to Comms, and his parrot, Major Iluiri, closely followed him out. Tenanochi was barely any older than me and had only achieved his paygrade from brown nosing SuVee bigwigs; I had only achieved my rank of Commander with the Navy because of my education and my contributions to Rear Admiral Kalarala’s, my CO, reasearch. His departure however provided me with an excuse to leave the table, so I headed to my dorm to continue my brooding. Camp 7 was comparable in size to about 3 Charon class freighters, but still managed to be cramped in places due to the large amount of equipment and design. Caldari ships and installations had a reputation of efficiency and exceptional functionality, not luxury.
The base wasn’t really a camp though, that was just a code name for the massive clandestine fortress and warehouse kilometers under a mountain range on the edge of the polar region of Caldari Prime. The Provists, though the CEP, had secretly authorized its creation just over a year ago for when the Gallente eventually try to recapture the planet. It used to be an old emergency stockpile sank 7 km into the ground. It still was, but with the additions it had doubled in size. The Gallente would be in for a nasty surprise when they did come back. Being a terrestrial base it had an inordinate amount of Marines for a Naval installation; only three of the ten senior officers were in the Navy proper, the third being Adm. Oskarin, commander of the installation. The place was full of bigwigs too, apparently Fleet Adm. Erinen wanted people she could trust, those who wouldn’t easily be swayed by the Provists running the place. The others were Colonel Etsagas was the crotchety old man in charge of Logistics, he controlled everything that came in and out of the base, and was also the Quartermaster. Tenanochi covered Tactical and Comms with his assistant the Major. Lt. Gen Samiwa was second in command and in charge of all troop movement throughout the base; his understudies, were Aokinisen, Narva, and Nuriski. RADM Miri Kalarala was charged with Facilities Maintenance and all R&D projects conducted on base.
I was her assistant and understudy, and it was thanks to her recommendation that I had gotten the promotion that I had. Miri spent most of her time in the lab, and thus all of the Maintenance duties fell on me, leaving research secondary. Every time something broke down on base, which was often due to the slipshod work and rushed the construction of the base, and repairs on any ships that came through were my responsibility. Even though I had two Lieutenants, a Junior Grade, and a handful of Midshipmen directly under me, the work never ended, and I spent most of my time filling out reports and requisition forms, and fixing what the others couldn’t get done or couldn’t figure out. They were glorified parts-changers essentially, so any real work usually required my input. The only reason I had accepted the post was because Miri had personally asked me to accompany her and I figured that I owed it to her. Plus, it was a rare opportunity to see the homeworld, a free Caldari hadn’t set foot on the now liberated planet in over a century. However, the nature of the assignment permitted little in the way of luxury, and no one was allowed to enter or leave the base without authorization and a damned good reason. Being constantly surrounded by walls of dull gray metal with little distraction for months on end was enough drive anyone a little nutty after a while.
The few luxuries afforded by my position were all that kept me sane. I had a private dormitory, like all of the senior officers, and though it was little more than a well furnished cell, the privacy to brood was enough. I was also permitted to work the odd hours that I worked so long as things got done. I often burned the midnight oil so as to avoid too much human contact. I spent long hours in my room reading or just sitting and thinking. When I got to my room, I shed my uniform down to my undersuit and tossed my tunic over the back of the chair at my desk before killing the lights and flopping on my bunk. I lay there for a while, trying to sleep, but my fitful dreams and trains of thought, depressive solitude, and the perpetual music that ran through my head prevented rest.
When I rolled over and glanced at the chronometer on my desk I discovered that it was well past 2300. Most of the base was be asleep, and the showers would be empty, so I decided to take the opportunity and try to wash off some of the depressive filth in some way. One of the perks of being under the polar ice and being dirtside was the luxury of water showers, and not the abrasive, steam, or sonic ones found on most ships. I undid the long braid that I kept my hair in on the way. It was empty, as expected. I headed to the corner and let the water heated by the secondary reactor wash over me. I eventually sat in the corner, letting the hot water wash over me, and the monotonous hissing of the shower head drown out everything else. The motion sensitive lights eventually cut off and I continued to sit there, head slung, with only the sensation of the water hitting my skin and the sound of the water. After a time, the lights blinked back into existence. I turned my eyes without moving my head to see Nuriski standing in the doorway, looking at my quasi-lifeless body with an expression of mild confusion, and something else I couldn’t identify. Emotional acuity and extrapersonal sympathy weren’t strong-points for Civire. He must have been working late organizing patrols or troop exchanges or some other tedium. My hair prevented him from seeing my face or my eyes, but he would be able to notice the slow up and down oscillation of my breasts that was indicative of breathing. I let him look and when his hesitation passed, he headed towards a head almost halfway between the door and my corner. He washed himself and after a few minutes that seemed to drag on he went through the sonic dryers and left, the lights blinking out of existence again soon after. I’ll admit that I watched (though if he was aware of it he certainly didn’t show it) him through my veil of dark hair and water, I watched as the water and the soap trickled in little streams from his strong neck across his trachea, down his torso with its toned muscles, to his groin and his well endowed manhood beneath the obfuscation of his pubic hair, further down his well defined thighs and calves, all the way to his sturdy looking feet, complete with same light brown hair on his head that was on the knuckles of his toes. I might have been crazy but I was still human. I believe that he had some interest in me though I couldn’t completely tell of what nature it was. At dinner over the past few weeks, I noticed that he attempted to bait me into conversations, sometimes subtly, other times less so; but when he succeeded, he would quickly retreat from the active string of the dialog. At first I thought that this was a clever attempt to covertly remove himself from conversations he didn’t wish to continue by using me to replace him. The look in his eyes, and the expression that I had witnessed seem to suggest something more though. Soon I myself headed for the exit, hurrying through the dryer to avoid the unsettling resonance it caused in my skull. After getting dressed again in my room, I headed off to find something that needed my attention.
Not long after my shower meditation, I was paged to the docks. Apparently blockade runner got caught up in the Gallente military blockade at the stargate, and though it took a beating, it managed to make it to the safety of the defensive fleet in orbit. The strange arrival made it immediately apparent that it was carrying sensitive or secret cargo, and though my security clearance allowed me to be privy to most of the goings on of the base, I was never briefed on this particular delivery. Most likely it carried critical parts for the supercomputer project down in bowels of R&D. I technically wasn’t supposed to know about that, but being in maintenance it wasn’t hard to figure out; repeated inexplicable power drains and the long waiting list for electrical components seemed to indicate as much. Command obviously thought it was important, the manner of the ship’s arrival was a major break in SOP. What had to be brought in from out of system usually came in via contracted smugglers in more trivial cases, or via capsuleer piloted and cloaked blockade runners with the support of the fleet; and even then, they unloaded at overt bases near the major cities, then transported by multiple teams to the base to prevent the location of the base from being discovered. This ship however had not only flown straight to the base, but it also received no support from the fleet. According to the crew, the Navy loaded their hold, sealed it, and gave them their destination, the fleet apparently had no word of their arrival either. Their arrival also cost one of my midshipmen his life and wounded another. A damned mangled drone had latched on to one of the hull breaches of the ship, and when they came across it, it burned a head-sized whole clean through his torso and burned the other’s arm off clean to the shoulder before one of the MPs finished it off.
Either way, I spent the next three days patching the mangled Kestrel wreck up, barely having time to eat more than half a ration, much less a meal. The only meal I managed to get was breakfast the morning it arrived before Etsagas came in and ran everyone out while the cargo was unloaded and the base went to yellow alert. After the ship finally disembarked, I took a long non-private shower before heading back to my room to spend the next three hours filling out reports. Beyond the reports, I decided to write a letter. It was a tradition of ancient commanders that wasn’t often practiced in the modern era, a tradition the Admiral maintained and I admired him for it. Whenever a soldier under his command would die, he would write a letter of condolences to the parents or spouse of the deceased. I decided that I could do the same. What I wrote was pretty generic, that I was sorry for their loss and that he died in the line of duty. It seemed a little cold to me, but I also mentioned that he was of exceptional competence, which was true, but was something I demanded in all those I commanded. I figured that this would be gratifying to the parents, being Deteis. I managed to reinitiate my depressed despondency when I had to look at the man’s file to remember his name, I felt bad at what was by all accounts a callous action on my part.
Afterwards, I thought sleep would come easy after getting only 9 hours of sleep over the last three days, but it turned out I was wrong. The best I could manage was laying on my back in my bodysuit while I alternated staring at the inside of my eyelids, to staring at the ceiling, bathed in the dim blue glow of the chronometer, listening to the air handler in my room mixed with the faint hum of the reactor. The relative silence was shattered however by a knock on my door. The sound startled me and while my heart skipped a beat I wondered at first if I had imagined it. Who the hell it could be at this hour? But the knock came again. Instead of getting up, I simply responded in a slow, exasperated monotone, “Yes?”
The sound of my voice was followed by the faint whir of the electronic assist that preceded the opening of the door, and the activation of the lights; they automatically came on when the door opened if off. To my surprise, the door revealed a casual Nuriski, wearing a pair of fatigue pants and a standard issue slate gray shirt. I looked at him without moving my head. He stood there for a split second and just as I was about to repeat myself when he spoke up, “Hello, sorry to disturb you, uh, Commander Osokina. Umm, may I call you Kori?” Still a little surprised, I wondered how he knew the abridged version of my decidedly un-Achura, and really un-Caldari first name, Korinne; it was an heirloom from some Matari ancestor, and caused me no end of grief as a child. The only person on the base that knew that, as far as I knew, much less called me that was Miri. I supposed he must have overheard her as some point, it seemed the most logical answer. I was slightly astonished that he assumed that level of familiarity with me, and was inclined to reward it with an affirmative if for no other reason than his audacity, when it occurred to me that I didn’t know his first name. “Depends; what may I call you?” I responded in a somewhat playful tone, or at least as playful as a hoarse monotone can be.
“You may call me Shoru if you like.” His voice, while firm but casual, had a subtle undertone that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Yes Shoru, you may. Have a seat.” I responded as I sat up on my elbows, feeling the fatigue in my bones. He seemed to jump a little bit at it, as if the possibility of me allowing him to sit hadn’t occurred to him. Pulling the chair out, he sat down; the gap between the seat of the chair and the edge of my bunk was almost completely taken up by his legs, which emphasized the small space.
“What can I do for you?”
“Well…,” he started hesitantly, “I noticed that you haven’t been to dinner recently and the past few times I’ve seen you… you seemed to be troubled.” As he paused I wonder if he knew that it was me in the shower earlier this week, he hadn’t seen my face after all.
“And, I, was just thought that I would drop in and make sure that you were, ok, you know?”
So it was concern I detected. This was interesting I decided, his interest in my wellbeing was, or at least appeared to be, of a sincere nature; there was no reason that I could discern for him to deceive me, though that didn’t stop me from thinking it. Hell, he was still a man, and therefore prone to all sorts of schemes to get into my pants. I felt that knot of emotion soaked in depression, that black ocean of sentiment I’d been swimming in recently churn. I got that feeling in my gut that I got when I was about to do something of tremendous gravity; I was nervous, uneasy, and a little nauseous; and afraid.
He continued with the same tone, “I’m a little concerned about you. I’ve seen people exhibit some of your… behaviours before and seen them go down that road…” He carried on with his platitudes and why he was concerned, for that was what it was; probably thought I was gonna off myself, which was entirely understandable. I tried to make heads or tales of the maelstrom in my chest, hearing him, but not listening. He wanted to try and do something to help, and his intentions seemed sincere, which intrigued me; after all, he was in no way responsible for my life, there was nothing of his invested into me. The sensation in my gut grew stronger, and I don’t know that it was a conscious decision, but apparently I decided that if he wanted to help, that I would let him. I watched from inside myself as the events transpired, and interrupted him.
“You want to help? Just shut up and lay down with me.” The words came from my mouth and I wasn’t sure where it came from, my voice had an undue amount of hoarseness. Once they escaped my lips, Shoru hesitated for a moment and then leaned over in what seemed like slow motion and wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace; shifting in a smooth motion and laid beside me, my head in his chest, his arms around me. Though I was far from being a small woman, he seemed to envelop me. He smelled clean, with a hint of natural musk. I could feel his breath on my head as his hand stroked my hair, following my braid down. Slowly, his hand came into contact with the edge of the cold metal cover of my neural socket, which sat at the base of my skull. His hand flinched when he felt it, it shocked him, and with good reason since few people with capsuleer training served in the Navy directly, or outside of a pod; most people were unnerved at best around immortals. He seemed to recover quickly, his breathing returning to normal, his hand on the base of my braid. I sat there, listening to his heartbeat and his breathing when the emotion I had been feeling climaxed. I was swallowed by it; and I became aware of its depth. It was like a painful sore that over time, you acclimate to the perpetual pain, and forget about it. It was then, that sudden abatement of the pain made me aware of the pain there that I had forgotten. The floodgate of emotion burst open. I’m not sure when, but at some point I began to cry. I cried for my depression, for my loneliness, for the sake of crying; I cried for that dead midshipman, and then cried some more from not remembering his name. I lost track of time there, crying, enveloped by this man I barely knew; and though I could see no apparent emotional connection to him, at that moment I felt warm. Not physically, but emotionally. I felt something I couldn’t remember ever feeling; I felt wanted. How long this went on, I can’t say, but at some point, the exhaustion overtook me and I fell asleep.
I slept long and hard, a dreamless sleep that was pure rest. When my stomach and uncanny internal clock awoke me, I discovered Shoru was gone. Glancing at the chronometer I realized it was 1800, I had slept the day away. They started serving dinner in the mess hall a half hour ago, and the senior officers would still be eating. Driven by hunger more than anything else, I dressed and made myself decent before heading to the mess hall. I got a plate, not really caring what was on it, so long as it was edible. I sat in the first open seat, two down and opposite of where Shoru was. He was listening to Samiwa telling a joke about a furrier or something and glanced over at me before quickly turning back to the man across the table talking to him. He didn’t want to offend, or seem improper. Interpersonal relationships among service-people stationed together, though it happened, were looked upon poorly by command, and would likely not be tolerated here, given the Admiral’s sense of decorum. While he may have had a reputation to maintain, I was already considered a loose cannon at best and nuts at worse, depending on the gossip I overheard, thus I had no qualms about staring rather openly at him while I mechanically cleaned my plate, without even looking at its contents. Every time he glanced towards me, his eyes met mine. I was still intrigued, still not entirely sure of what happened late last night. Afterwards, I managed to catch him in the hall and pulled him aside.
“I’m sorry about what happened last night. I don’t usually behave that way, and I apologize for imposing on you,” He grinned and put his hand on my shoulder before responding.
“Don’t be sorry, I’m glad I could be there to help. Besides, I knocked on your door, remember?”
“Yes but still-,”
“No really,” he interrupted pleadingly but firmly, “don’t worry about it.”
We stood there for a moment, as I stared into his silver eyes, until he lowered his hand from my shoulder.
“You wanna go get a drink? On me?”
I hesitated for a moment, trying to weigh the options in my mind before responding, “Ok, if you’re buying.”
So we made our way to the officers’ lounge and claimed a table by one of the large vidscreens on the wall; showing a broadcasted image of the planet from orbit, the idea being to create the illusion of being on board a ship, and not deep underground. Real alcohol was a luxury the base couldn’t, or wouldn’t afford. Instead, they had the standard fare of most deep space vessels, synthesized ethyl alcohol substitute of varying concentrations, artificially flavored to mimic the real thing. It was designed to rapidly break down once it reached a certain concentration in the bloodstream, thus you could get buzzed, but never drunk off of it. My personal preference was flavored to mimic aged whiskey, Shoru ordered some kind of faux-ale.
“So,” he began, looking slightly down, not quite looking me directly in the eye, “How did you end up assigned here? I would have thought someone as, uh, equipped, as you would be considered a better service to the navy in the militia or-”, he was talking about my neural interface. I kinda figured this would come up, but I interrupted his inquiry with one of my own.
“Why are you so interested in me all of a sudden?”
He looked at his drink and paused for a moment before responding. “Well, at first, you were kind of an oddity, being only the fifth or sixth Achura I’d ever actually met.” That much was true, we didn’t tend to get far from Achura space, it was part of our reclusive nature. “Beyond that though, you seemed different. You weren’t afraid to say things candidly, even to superiors; you didn’t follow any of the typical party lines of the megacorp politics; you weren’t afraid to hold unpopular opinions, and you were confident in them. At first I simply found this slightly amusing and your conviction somewhat admirable; but as you became quieter, I started to realize that more often than not you said things most people thought without saying. I found myself silently agreeing with your arguments against Tenanochi and Etsagas with their ‘practical’ politics, and even doubting the patriot’s dialog. When we started to see and hear less of you, I realized that I truly missed your candid nature, and I guess you enabled a certain kind of brazenness in me, and I started to feel concerned for you, which was why I showed up at your door.”
So I’d “grown” on him, that explained a lot, if sincere, especially his behavior at dinner. I decided that since he was forthcoming, I would answer his question, regardless of its personal nature.
“After graduating from my studies in physics on Achur, I went into research to further my education. It was a lot of metallurgical studies and EM stuff; I spent a lot of time in asteroid drifts. I knew it would greatly increase the efficiency of my studies, and I would be able to make a little money on the side. Most of my research had been for the Navy, so I was able to get them to sponsor me. They defrayed the cost of the implants, and provided the training. Afterwards, I was offered a commission as a Junior Officer on a converted Bustard class that was doing research on creating new plasmas and cyclotrons for hybrid turrets under Kalarala. Being able to pilot the test frigates and cruisers solo, and being able to interface with equipment was an invaluable asset. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s hard to describe without experiencing it, but the enhanced reality of being attached to a ship, the feed from the sensors was like opening your eyes and seeing for the first time. Everything was cleaner, sharper, better.” I paused for a moment before continuing, “It… it kinda scared me; not for fear of the dangers, I was afraid that I would come to like it too much; that I would come to prefer the reality of the pod to this one, that I would become obsessed with my own immortality to the point that I wouldn‘t really live. After that, Kalarala took me on as her assistant, and I’ve been following her on assignments ever since. I still use it to help her research from time to time, but I try to avoid it.” I finally looked up from my drink and met his gaze. He was about to say something when my Neocom went off, someone was paging me. I let out a sigh before reaching to answer it, “Yes?” There was a short pause before the response.
“Would you mind coming down to my office for a moment?” The sweet voice coming from the comlink was Miri’s. From the sound of something she had either had a breakthrough and was exited as a result, or she was trying to butter me up to help her do something I wouldn’t enjoy. Letting out another sigh, I looked back at Shoru, “Sorry, I gotta go… Thanks for the drink.” I raised the glass and downed the rest of its contents before heading off towards the bowels of the facility where the labs were on foot. A half hour later, like I said it was a big place, I had reached the security checkpoint outside the labs. As soon as I rounded the corner I knew something wasn’t right. The checkpoint was usually manned by a single marine who did little more than hold down the desk and check security clearances of those entering, maybe a second by the door on a busy day. Today however, there were at least seven marines, fully armed, arrayed outside the blast door. They were on alert, though for what I didn’t know. The Sergeant in charge gave me the entire security rundown, to make sure I was who I said I was, going beyond normal procedures. I eventually got through though, and made my way through the labs towards Miri’s office. The place was eerily quiet, and completely deserted. Most of the lights were off too, adding to the creepiness of the place by casting menacing shadows all over the place. In the distance was the warm yellow glow of Miri’s incandescent desk lamp. Those things were beyond antique, but she kept one anyway, claiming she liked the nostalgia of it, and I had to agree that it had some charm. I knocked on the doorframe, and without even looking up from what she began in a distracted monotone, “Have a seat.” I gladly obliged and plopped myself into the chair opposite her desk, the liquor enhancing the latent exhaustion. I sat there, head back and eyes closed for a moment, while she continued to assault the keypad of the console on her desk. She was a middle aged woman, a Civire with dark eyes and unkempt amber hair that had faded with age. Almost a head-and-a-half shorter than me, she was an unremarkable woman who’s only real distinguishing feature was the scar that ran from the peak of her left cheek to her scalp just missing her eye. A trophy resulting from her unwillingness to stop testing an experimental cyclotron during a skirmish with Guristas; the thing blew up in her face, and her left eyebrow never did grow back completely. To say she was obsessive about her work was an understatement, and perhaps this left her maladjusted which resulted in a lot of people thinking that she was a little off to say the least. She had a candid nature and a sense of humor that while she found funny, ranged from inappropriate, to bad, to dark, to disturbing depending on who you asked; which probably didn’t help the case for my own sanity since I thought she could be quite funny at times. She was the closest thing I had to a friend on base, and that was mostly out of familiarity.
When she finally looked away from her work, she rubbed her eyes before she started, “You look like crap.”
“Thanks,” I responded dryly.
“So,” she continued in that cheery tone she’d used earlier, “How was Nuriski? It’s obvious you didn’t get much sleep.” A grin took her face as she ended on a humorous note. It was far from unheard of for superior officers to keep tabs on their underlings, some called it spying, and though I thought Miri was above such behavior my eyes still widened slightly at the possibility. As if she read my mind she continued, “Don’t worry, I only bring it up since I saw him outside your door the other night when I left my room. I thought you might have been… venting frustrations so to speak.”
“Oh please,” I retorted sardonically.
“Just a thought… it’s not like you couldn’t use it,” she finished as she started snickering to herself, which I responded to with an offensive hand gesture that only served to renew her laughter.
“What do you need?” I interjected on a serious note. She let her laughter trail off before sighing to herself and continuing, “I need your help with something.” I knew it, she buttering me up for something, “Remember that Kestrel that came through the other day?”
“Do I remember?!” I started almost angrily, “I’ve spent the past few days personally refitting it, not to mention a man got his torso vaporized for crying out loud.”
“So I heard. It was carrying an important delivery, obviously. Ever heard of the Prometheus Project?”
“Prometheus? You mean the research on living computers, cybernetic processors, reverse engineered from ‘captured’ Sansha drone tech, all brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Sukuuvesta Corporation right?”
“Yea, that’s the one. The blockade runner was carrying some of the fruits of the project, among other things. It was a synthetic cyborg, an organic processor built on a fabricated human frame; a living computer, flesh intermeshed with silicone; a true drone that would have done Sansha himself proud. It died on the way here though. Killed automatically to prevent its capture by the blockade.” She finished as if disappointed.
“This has to do with what they’re doing downstairs doesn’t it?” Miri confirmed my suspicion with a solemn nod before continuing.
“What they’ve been building down there is the true purpose of the base. It’s not just to serve as a stronghold against another Federation invasion, it’s the nervous center for the entire planetary defensive system among other things. It’s meant to indirectly control and coordinate the defense. When the Gallente come back, they won’t catch us unprepared and bombard the planet into submission again. This time, they will pay for every single step.” She paused for a moment, letting the gravity of the situation sink in.
“What’s this have to do with me? Why tell me all of a sudden?” The words were hollow, the pieces were already clicking into place in my head.
“Command doesn’t want the system to be run solely by a computer with human taskmasters, too many points of failure, it would be too easy for the Gallente to disable, and they don’t like the idea of giving that much power to a fully autonomous computer run system. The synthetic was meant to be the failsafe, it was meant to control all input and output of the system, and act as the backup; couldn‘t be bribed, couldn‘t be hacked, easily anway. The Gallente could smash all the computers they wanted and as long as the synthetic was still alive, the system would still be functional; its onboard computers could suffice to a point. The problem, is that the drone was the only one of it’s kind, which was why they took the risk of delivering it directly. Command has already decided to have the delivery of the next one to coincide with the next Militia incursion into the system to bulk up the fleet, the idea being to make sure the new one gets here safely. But it’ll take the better part of a year to build another one, and Intel’s screaming that the Gallente are mobilizing and planning something big. The bottom line is that we need the system tested and online, and we need it now.”
I knew what she wanted from me, and she knew that I knew. The best I could do was throw my head back and hold my temples with my right hand, letting out a resigned, “Fuck.” Interfacing with a ship was one thing, that was just an expansion of ones self through the body of a ship; but interfacing directly with a computer was another thing entirely. When you interfaced with a ship, the ship became an extension of your mind, a part of you the same as your arm was a part of you. When you interfaced directly with a computer, you became a part of the computer, like installing a new memory chip. It was like being perpetually stuck in the middle of a noisy mob, a mob that if it so decided could trample you; meanwhile you had to try and direct the mob by yelling ‘fire‘ and push them in the direction you wanted to go. The Sanshas had been the only ones to do it successfully, if you could call it that, for extended periods. It wasn’t done much, and when it was done, it was for short periods. Those who risked extended periods of that kind of link took the risk of suffering strange and varying side effects, mostly various forms of psychosomatic and psychological ailments. The same kinds of viruses and other maladies that afflicted computers could sometimes be transferred to the implants, if not interfaced mind, with unpredictable results.
“I’m asking you now because I respect you. This order is going to come down, and its coming from high up.”
“It’s not like I have a choice is it.”
“Unfortunately that’s the reality of the situation.”
There was a long pause before I responded. “Let’s get this over with then,” I let out with a resigned sigh.
I got up and followed her through the darkened labs and into the restricted area. The guard at the door gave us some trouble but after an upbraiding by Miri and a call to Control, he let us past. Just inside, the main workstation was covered with a thick blue sheet, hiding the contents of what was underneath, the only clue being a few drops of what looked like greenish hydraulic fluid on the floor next to the table. Further on was a large thick bulkhead door that yielded to Miri’s access code, revealing a large control room full of supercomputers and monitors and a few instruments I couldn’t readily identify. It also revealed an angry looking Euleulen.
“What is she doing here?! She doesn’t have clearance!” He asserted bitterly.
“She is helping to get this project operational,” Miri responded as if the question was testing her patience. “Now get out.”
“But-” Euleulen began to protest but Miri wasn’t hearing any of it.
“Now Colonel.” She responded in a voice that brooked no opposition. With an astonished look on his face that turned into a bitter look as if he had just bitten into something sour, he stormed out, Miri glaring at him the whole way.
“Intolerable whelp,” she stated with disgust as the bulkhead door closed behind him. She lead me through another door toward the back of the control room. This door lead to a much smaller room, predominately filled by the large tilted egg-shaped device at the center of the room, laden with a number of cables and a few additional modules haphazardly added as if in a rush. There was also a small pool of the same green fluid pooled on the floor that had dripped from the number of cables and tubes hanging from the open hatch.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I stated dryly at the sight of it. They intended to reuse the same pod that the drone had died in, the drone that was undoubtedly under the sheet in the lab.
“Don’t worry,” Miri began reassuringly, “I made all the modifications for human use myself. It’s even got an Imprint module should something happen.”
“As if death and a clone are the worst…” I trailed off with a sigh of disgust. I stripped down and became aware of the cold bite of the room, and climbed into the capsule, full of neuroembryonic fluid that was warmed to several degrees below a normal human body temp. With Miri’s help, began to attach the various cables, cords, and tubes. I started with the easier ones first, the ones for waste removal and intravenous injections. Miri reached behind my ear to remove the cover to the interface when I stopped her, “Don’t, do that last.” She retreated and instead continued with some of the other sensors. Attaching the central line for the interface without a feed was unnerving. It was like the buzz created by an ungrounded speaker, except your head was the speaker. With everything else attached, I turned to her, and looked her in the eye, “What’s to keep them from shutting me in this pod and forgetting about me?” I wouldn’t put it past the administration.
“They won’t,” Miri responded reassuringly, “Besides, you’re not as advanced or efficient as the drone anyway.” I thought about this for a moment as Miri reached for the mask that contained the tubes for respiration and digestion. As my last words before I would be unable to speak, “My hair better not fall out.” Miri simply responded with a grin before inserting the respiratory tube, rather roughly I might add. Hair loss wasn’t an uncommon side effect of long periods in the pod, as well as a paling of complexion. She followed the mask up with a common set of blinders. Their innocuous purpose was to keep a person from temporarily blinding themselves upon emergence from the pod, as the instinctive reaction is to open ones maladjusted eyes. Finally, she reached behind my left ear to remove the cover of my interface and insert the central and auxiliary lines to the interface, and with a touch on the shoulder to indicate she was finished, I laid back as she shut the capsule‘s hatch and sealed it. Soon after, the pod began to fill with more of the neuroembryonic cytoplasm, and the leads began to perform their functions. I sat there for a moment, floating in the green goo, becoming acclimated to its coolness, and the injections warming me. I wondered what would happen to me, and I wondered what would Shoru think happened if no one told him; would he think I finally killed myself? All those thoughts soon became irrelevant as the feed was activated, and my bestial consciousness became dwarfed by the enormity of the incoming feed, numbers and data, lost in the shuffled madness of the mob…
Jetcan Memoirs 