The Imperial Service has an entire set of procedures for waking someone from stasis gel. Since every reason to use a stasis pod involves catastrophe of one sort or another, the Service assumes the person coming out will be shocky at best, catatonic at worst. Stasis gel wake-up teams include a doctor, a telepath, and as many close friends the Service can scare up to attend. In my case, I went under expecting one person to attend, since my only close friend was also my doctor, and a telepath.
I woke alone in the dark, the stasis gel still rock solid. A scream, so faint I might have imagined it, echoed through my head despite the cushioning gel. I could only assume the initial noise woke me. Waking alone, in the dark, to an impossible scream laced with insanity and despair, I did the only thing a sane, rational being could under the circumstances.
I panicked.
Let me out! Let me out! I'm still in here!
I knew no one could hear my mental pleas any more than I could break free from the concrete-hard gel. I fought back my terror and tried to think. If I'd woken up without someone waking me, something had failed. A fragment of the interrupted sim floated up into my conscious mind. The 'Sects. The trap. Tiamat had fallen prey to the 'Sects' trap, and soon they would come for me. They would open the door, decant me like some jellied 'Sect delicacy, and eat me whole.
Worse, they'd eat me a little at a time, just to see how I reacted. Pink light flashed in the corner of my sight as memories washed through me, vision after vision of slow, painful death inflicted by 'Sect mandibles.
Trapped in the beak of a Hullborer, cut off from the rest of my unit. The big 'borer ratcheted the pressure up erg by erg. I'd been peeled from my ruined armor by a Pseudolasher, handed over to the 'borer before it moved on to the next kill. My skin split, my muscles tore apart, and finally my spine gave way in a welter of gore. I watched the Hullborer, huge and ungainly on the surface of the big asteroid where the 'Sects kept prisoners, hump its way over to my upper torso. I tried to lever myself up on the stumps of my arms, but before I could get any leverage it lifted my head almost delicately in its beak.
It started to squeeze, increasing the pressure erg by erg. Pink light blinked in the corner of my vision. Cold sweat leaked down my back. My soaked shirt squished as I thrashed in the grip of the stasis gel.
Four 'Sect Beetles held me, one on each limb. I'd fallen prey to a squadron of Squids, who took me down while I focused on a flotilla of their bigger Kraken brethren. The thought of burning 'Sect hunter-killers sustained me as each of the massive 'Sect ground units took one gargantuan step backward and pulled. I yanked, trying to get at least one arm free, but inverted spines coated the inside of each massive mandible, and I only succeeded in shredding the remains of my uniform and flaying the skin from my right arm. My left elbow gave way with an audible pop, the Beetle on that arm staggering backward as the ligaments tore and the bones separated. I screamed my agony silently into the uncaring vacuum when my nerves faithfully reported each muscle strand ripping free under the weight of the massive 'Sect. My essie strove frantically to stem the bleeding, to keep my other limbs in place, and to prepare scuttling enzyme for body parts torn from me. They had no time to dull my pain.
The Beetle stepped back to me and clamped its massive mandibles on my upper right arm. Pink light blinked in the corner of my vision, faintly tinged by a steady green glow from above. My teeth cracked as I ground them together, fire beginning to burn away my sweat. I focused my will and screamed silently into the dead black of the stasis gel.
Lights! I need to see!
Another Hornet exploded in front of me, and I convulsed as it burned away yet another layer of skin. The writhing tentacles of the Kraken holding me stretched, but the tiny drill cilia coating its arms kept it stuck to me better than any glue might. Some of those tentacles burned where I used them to scrape the Hornet acid from my skin, but the mindless Kraken didn't care. Slowly, inexorably, it drew me back out until I hung, limbs spread wide. My essie tried, throwing themselves into the breaches of my skin, releasing counteragents to stop the chemical burn, but the reaction of the counteragent cooked my flesh nearly as badly as the acid might have. I shook my head to fling the last droplets away and risked a quick glance.
The Hullborer still crouched before me, its tongue engorged with its tiny flying progeny. Before I closed my eyes, another Hornet crawled free and launched itself toward me. Pink light blinked in the corner of my vision. I screamed in incoherent fury at the images flashing though my mind. The damned 'Sects weren't killing me. They weren't torturing me. They were stress testing me, seeking out my breaking points with unthinking brutality and mindless repetition.
A single line of green text floated in front of me. Desperate for anything to escape the constant torment of my memories, I forced myself to read it slowly, grunting the words through a jaw cemented in place and filled with stasis gel.
SC: would you prefer voice or text communication?
Communication. Someone to talk to. I wouldn't prefer it; I needed it with every sane fiber of my being. I grunted my reply as clearly as I could, sending the thought out at the same time.
Yes!
When the reply to my urgent request arrived, I hung suspended in shock so profound I couldn't understand the words. The chorus of voices purred against my mind, crimson crushed velvet darker than night, shoving aside my rage and fear with a wave of some deep, unfamiliar, yet visceral need. I couldn't recall what she'd said, so I read the statement echoed across my vision in letters of green fire that, as I watched, faded to deep scarlet.
SC: Dual communication protocol established. Emergency vision enhancement and bioluminescence activating in ten heartbeats.
I tried to count the hammering beats of my heart, but before I began a soft yellow-green glow filled the gel around me. Unlike the translucent foam Guy and I had trapped ourselves in, I could see through this gel near-perfectly. The blank interior walls of the stasis chamber mocked me; even if I could move through the gel, nearly a decimeter of the heaviest armor the Imperial Service could devise stood between me and freedom.
Claustrophobia, swamped under my nightmares of death for so long, rose to trace icy fingers along my spine. It met my nightmares and there, in the dark behind my eyes, found form. I lay within the guts of a 'Sect Materner, my limbs encased in the thick, chitinous armor of one of her structural members. I'd nearly escaped when they tried to see how close to vacuum I could survive; Imperial Marines could suck hard vacuum for hours if we had to. She'd pulled me back in, and now she piled on the pressure. Pressure is one thing essies can't do much about in the short run, except tell us how long until we fail. My eyes failed a while back. One side of my blackened vision displayed the current pressure per square meter. The other showed how much more until I passed my rated depth and my skin imploded. Blood leaked from my nose and where my eyes used to be, trickled salt and iron across my protruding tongue.
NO!
White hot rage erupted, fury blinding me as much as any vision had ever done. Visions gripped at me but slid burning from the magma welling from within. I pulled on that rage, formed it into words, and thrust it at my essie.
I need to talk to someone outside. I need to get out. Make this happen.
The purr chorused through my head again, but this time my rage buoyed me, held me free of its seductive grip. "Accessing modification plans. Plans require Imperial authorization. Do we have Imperial authorization?"
Get. Me. Out!
"Imperial override accepted. Plans are being finalized; do you have any other input?"
Too furious to think beyond escape from my armored coffin, afraid to release my rage lest I drown in nightmares once more, I ground my teeth in silence. A few seconds passed, and the chorus purred against my brain again.
"Extensive structural changes required. Estimated time of completion is twelve standard years."
So much for stoic silence.
Get me out NOW!
The siren's purr wavered ever so slightly in the face of my fury. "Revising. Recalculating. Fifteen standard months is minimum completion time without potentially harmful side effects."
Fear and rage shook me like a Kraken's beak shaking an unarmored Marine. I squished my uniform into the gel around me, and the bones in my hands crackled as I bore down on the gel holding them open.
Now, now, now, now, now, now!
I heard nervous sweat making the siren's purr catch. "Revising. Recalculating. Structural changes incorporating current design elements can be completed in just under sixteen hours."
The white heat fell away, and I drifted in a place of ice.
You will get me out of this box in under sixteen minutes, or I swear to God you will live just long enough to regret it.
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The siren stuttered. "Safe... safety protocols overridden. Revising... Hell with it. We've got the spec, we can modify it on the fly as we have to. Prepare for general anesthesia."
General anesthesia. Sleep. Dreams. Nightmares. The ice shattered into a thousand flaming fragments.
NO! No anesthesia!
I'd rendered the siren speechless. A single line of text flashed across my vision, the auditory component no more than a cushioned murmur against my brain.
SC: Yes, ma'am.
It started as an itch at the corners of my lips. Within moments, I desperately needed to run a hunk of pumice over every orifice on my body, and my face burned with the heat of an unshielded star. My hands convulsed, and I screamed through the gel choking my throat when my bones cracked.
The siren sighed. "Please remain still. Structural integrity will be compromised for the bulk of the process. Failure to remain still will extend the duration of the reconstruction."
Rage and terror lurked beneath the pain, hoping in vain the maelstrom of agony racing across my skin would ignore them. Wet heat burned down my face, and the stasis gel against my cheeks melted away. I vomited out goo in an endless stream, the stasis gel down my front dissolving into quivering jelly wherever it touched. I fell forward, curling into a fetal ball. I pulled my fingernails across my thighs, hoping to ease the infernal itching.
I'd forgotten about my cracked fingers. I screamed.
"Flaming... Disconnecting motor control."
I slid to the floor, suddenly limp. My lips finally went numb, a sensation I'd never experienced before. Cool, blessed surcease from sensation rolled outward from my jaw. I thought I wept, but I couldn't open my eyes, and I couldn't feel my face. Melting stasis gel leaked back into my mouth, and my traitorous body lapped at it.
"Beginning neural rewiring. You may experience some unusual sensory phenomenon."
My mouth wouldn't obey; I could only scream at my essie silently.
You think any of this is usual, you flaming pieces of vacuum sucking clutter?
I lost track of my mouth completely. My inner ear told me my head still rocked gently back and forth as I gulped down the rapidly rising tide of stasis gel like mother's milk, but I couldn't feel any of it. Dead numbness spread out from there, expanding to cover my head, then racing down my spine, removing my last tenuous connection to my body. Liquefied stasis gel leaked through my right eyelid, gushed into my nose, and lifted my left eye open as it flooded over my head. Wobbling bubbles told me I still gulped down gel as fast as my throat could swallow it. Nightmares toyed at my brain but fled screaming at the reality of my situation. The dark humor of that caught at me, forcing manic laughter through my brain.
I'd shocked the siren again. "Is she enjoying this?"
Icy rage wrapped around my laughter, forcing it still. No, essie, I am not. Are you done yet?
A set of deep crimson progress bars appeared against the backdrop of the luminescent green gel. The first, labeled 'current phase completion', neared fifty percent. The second, labeled 'overall completion', climbed steadily through the twenties. The final bar, labeled 'remaining time', showed two figures: a percentage slowly ticking from ten to eleven, and a timer with a brilliant yellow '10:00' at the right hand end. According to the timer, my ordeal had only lasted sixty seconds so far.
I had nine minutes of hell to go.
At eight minutes and thirty seconds, gravity fell away, and I went deaf. A few seconds after that, darkness descended. I lashed out before I went under completely.
I said no anesthesia!
"We're rebuilding your eyeballs, clutterhead. " Immediately, foreign shame washed over me. "Apologies. Please do not be alarmed. Your orders are being followed as closely as we can. No anesthesia will be delivered."
The progress bars reappeared. Trapped in weightless, numb silence with only three simple bars to indicate how much of my gauntlet remained, my nightmares crept back toward me. Still buoyed by rage and pain, I beckoned them, welcoming even the memory of pain to banish the endless nothing.
They fled again.
My laughter this time remained silent, even within my own mind, a ghost of a chuckle. The timer passed two minutes, and the 'phase completion' clicked over to...
Something. A paired squiggle, one of them writhing. The bars kept growing, but the things were gone, things that made the growing bars mean something. I tried to grasp something, anything, from those squiggles. I ignored the writhing ones and focused on the still ones. They wriggled in response. I screamed silently and strained harder.
"Please remain calm. This will only last for sixty heartbeats."
Nothing could be further from me than calm, but the first twinges of fatigue wore at my mind. I'd struggled for so long, even before I'd been trapped like a 'Sect in amber. Understanding flickered and flashed in fits and starts. Something important was happening, and I'd forgotten something. I strove against the heavy lead blanket smothering my mind, because soon it would be too late, even if I did remember.
Another bar sprang to life in front of me. The squiggles still meant nothing, but the words I understood. 'Oxygen Level', something I didn't want to drop too far, but the bar shrank steadily toward a line marked 'critical threshold'. Panic tried to force its way back into ascendance, but found no energy to work with.
"Changeover in five heartbeats. Four. Three. Two. One. Changeover."
I had a body again. The constant sizzle of liquefying stasis gel echoed in my ears. The walls melted along with the gel, slowly slopping toward where I lay. Poorly executed local control of grav plates made the room spin slowly, and the damage done by my essie scavenging the plates themselves didn't help. Every minute imperfection in the floor rasped at my newborn skin, despite the futility of the effort. My skin could shrug off small arms fire now, even without activating the shielding. Of course, the shielding sucked power like a black hole sucked light, and right now everything in my body ran on simple organic metabolism. Oxygen running out ought to terrify me, but right now my hindbrain displayed as only fifty percent rebuilt.
The redundant bars still made sense as a reminder if nothing else. I watched the bar shrink for five seconds. I had another twenty seconds of life before everything shut down. Of course, if my flaming essie would stand me up out of the muck, I might be able to breathe, but they were too busy to listen to suggestions. I wondered at that; the stasis gel still should be oxygenated, and with more flowing into me every second, I ought to be getting more oxygen, not using it up.
Two more bars flashed to life in front of my eyes: oxygen intake and oxygen use. The intake wobbled as my mouth sucked down gel gulp by gulp, but the usage grew with every passing second. The phase completion bar reached one hundred percent with two seconds of oxygen remaining.
"Neural rewiring complete. Initiating Fusion One."
My whole body spasmed, twisting around my gut. A moment later, my balance settled; the grav plates didn't matter anymore.
"Fusion One initiation complete. Initiating Fusion Two."
Perfect balance became less than what I knew now. Gravity centered on me, drawing the floor to me or pushing it away as I chose. The twin gyroscopes of my fusion reactors stabilized me, made it impossible for me to lose track of up and down, left and right, here and there. I pushed myself to my hands and knees...
"Fusion two initiation complete. Beginning twitch fiber augmentation."
I tried to rise. My limbs still wouldn't obey me. Instead, my back jerked once, flopping me over to lie, face up, staring at the ceiling. The next moment every muscle in my body began to spasm, my limbs flailing wildly as my torso tried to break itself in half. My jaw clamped shut, my eyelids fluttered wildly. I writhed and flopped across the floor, leaving dents in the soft material in my wake.
I came to rest with my face pressed against the floor. Metal filled my mouth, and I sucked at it as greedily as I'd swallowed the stasis gel. Annoyed at my continued paralysis and epilepsy, I took a moment to examine my progress. The remaining time showed four minutes and fifty seconds. The remaining percentage hovered right near seventy five percent. The phase completion lay dormant at zero.
"Final replacement initiation in ten seconds. Warning: there may be some pain associated with this portion of the process."
I stared at the floor; my eyes awash in liquefied metal. My essie hadn't warned me about pain prior to this? By the time the warning really registered, I had just enough time to focus my thoughts on a single desperate syllable.
What?
My bones melted. Liquid fire raced through my body, filling each bone, hollowing them out, replacing them with molten metal culled from the walls of my cell. It seeped through every crevice, incinerating me from the inside out. I tried to clamp my jaw shut, but I still had no control over my body. My scream ripped from my mind, echoing through the chamber despite my best efforts.
"Interior shielding holding. All indicators nominal. Alloying process proceeding normally."
My cracked, broken hands stretched out; the bones forced straight as they burned away. Each finger became a separate agony ripping into me, pulling me further from my anger. My eyes slid closed, and nightmares beckoned once more. I desperately tried to sink into one; nothing I'd experienced in them compared to this.
My nightmares flew to pieces when lines of fire leaked from my spine and into my skull. My world a single sphere of fiery pain, I could only long for control of my body. If I had that, I could find a way to end this. The cold of space sounded pleasant right now if I could only get there.
"Alloying process complete. Matrix alignment successful. Quenching in three. Two. One. Quench."
The stasis gel around me flashed to steam. The pain disappeared the moment it did, leaving me stunned. My eyes sprang open just in time for me to see a corona of light receding into the skin of my arms. Nothing remained of my uniform. I probably wouldn't have wanted it after immersion in stasis gel, but whatever my essie had done, my clothes had disappeared completely.
The siren purred satisfaction into my ear. "Motor control re-engaged. Augmentation complete."
I curled into a ball, expecting the lingering pain of burns, scratches, and impact. Instead, my limbs obeyed smoothly, painlessly, the only discomfort a mild irritation from the abrasive surface of the floor beneath me. I stretched out, luxuriating in the lack of pain. I rolled to my feet and stretched upward onto my toes, my fingers brushing the ceiling. I marveled at how easily I could move through the sloppy remains of metal and gel strewn across the floor. The interior of the door, half melted during the augmentation process, mocked me with its solidity, but for the moment I could cope.
I needed to study it. With enough time I could find a way to make it open, or at least contact someone outside the ruined stasis pod. I rocked back onto my heels, covering my face with my hands.
I tried to settle back onto my heels. Halfway to the floor, the old familiar catch of my fashion doll feet bounced me back upright. The insides of my arms pressed against my other nemeses, forcing my elbows apart despite my best efforts.
Icy rage enveloped me once more, freezing my voice when I addressed my essie aloud. "You mean to tell me you put me through all that, I'm still locked in here, and you didn't even fix my feet or my breasts?"
Honest confusion filled the chorus of sirens' reply, so much I almost felt sorry for them. "You did not request Aesthetic modifications. We completed all the modifications you requested six minutes before your deadline."
Time froze. My initial words to my essie replayed themselves faithfully, my memory post-augmentation perfect. They hadn't failed. I hadn't asked. I'd trapped myself in the form I'd hated all my life, entirely due to my own impatient fear.
Icy rage exploded into action. With a primal scream, I swung at the door. The moment before impact, a corona of energy appeared around my fist.
My fist hit the door.
The door shattered when it hit the far wall of the corridor.
"Told you." Stupid smug sirens.