Chapter 16: A talk of Pleasure and Purpose

12:05 AM

June 5th

Ripley

I awoke with only the lightest of headaches compared to the bricks falling on my head when I had gotten my arm installed. The anesthesia Mr. Skeleton had used was as light as a feather. A subtle touch that guided me towards darkness.

Waking up left me feeling no difference to my past self; no pain, no irritation and I had already linked to the skin grafts installed over the patches he’d removed.

Haithama Real-Skin Dermachrome

Grade: Standard

Description: A simple grafting of gene-edited skin with light traces of specialized melanin to give a unique appearance of metal with the texture of real skin.

It was cheap, durable and not the worst looking. It matched my rust-colored eyes to appear as splotches of bronzed metal, if anything it looked like a cool scar. I opted out of the Imperium grafting Mr. Skeleton approached me with originally, that was way too costly for a bunch of fish skin made to look human.

“While you were out I collected the items you’d requested. A man of taste, you are.” Mr. Skeleton was busy delicately wrapping the extracted skin in some form of transparent packaging. And near him was a duffle bag filled to the brim so that bits of it were poking out sharply.

“Never took you to be a Shard Op’.” I remarked, rubbing my fingers over the new skin he’d installed. “And a pretty fucking good one at that. Which one were you first, Shard Op’ or Black market dealer?”

“I dabble in many things, Ripley. Their order matters not, but my proficiency in them does.” Mr. Skeleton finished placing the pile of skin into a chilled box and a droid hastily carried it away to one of those cabinets that emerged from the floor.

“You really don’t share anything about yourself unless it’s to intimidate.” Maybe the anesthesia was giving me a bit more confidence than normal, but I found my lips moving. He smiled and gave no response to that, but I followed through. “So what’s my balance, with the surgery and the services totaled.”

“You’ve made a profit of a hundred and seven thousand Shardyne. Congratulations, you’re a tenth of the way to becoming a millionaire.” He clapped.

I rolled out of the chair, not needing — or even wanting — his assistance. “Let me see the goods.”

“Gladly.”

I peered down, unzipping the bag that seemed to breathe in relief as it pushed apart. I took my time; I’d never once imagined spending this much money in one go, and damn was I going to make sure I got my money’s worth.

Three Bronze Shards; hundreds of Iron Shards; a titanium femur; nanocarbon muscle tubes; subdermal biomonitors; shock absorbers; shock releasers; too many Mag-Joints to count… There were forty six; motors, rotors, floaters, and holders; Neuroframe components and Datacubes; a basic combat protocol and just lots of other miscellaneous parts found in Shardware and firearms.

And finally, five Iron-Grade Claw-tips that didn’t exist anywhere else in the world.

Was this enough?

“You spent more than 90,000 on this, and you still look disappointed.” Mr. Skeleton’s voice raised a good point. Was I disappointed? I could have easily bought Shardware for a tenth of the cost, but I’d made the decision of quality over quantity. Skeleton’s stuff was Plat compared to any other vendor, pre-jailbroken into and compatible to use on any build if you knew the right tricks.

“I’m just questioning if I made the right choice… coming to Little Requiem.” I answered flatly, closing up the bag after spending too long stuffing everything back in. This would serve as a foundation… I couldn’t go into this building the same old junk The Snake Fangs brought me.

“Ripley, you’re a Shard Op’ first. You delve into the worlds of machinery, anatomy and — as much as you may dislike it — business. A job that requires connections to likened minds who will support your endeavors. Before you decide to attach blades or a scrapgun to your arms, remember that the best way to keep those around you safe isn’t a fancy weapon.”

“Then what is it?” I met the holes in his eye-sockets with my own sleep-edged gaze.

“Money.” Skeleton rubbed his fingers together, a festering glow in those red eyes. “Enough Shardyne that the sum you received today is what you’d throw to a scrapper if you’re feeling a micro-ounce of sympathy. Careless change. And I have opportunities for you to make up for the value that Missy doesn’t reap by keeping that Gold in your head. Shardyne is the digital equivalent of physical Shards, a resource synonymous with the power of our Implants. Warp Energy, that which can bend the laws of physics to our whims, is but contained in vessels of metal. You control the Shards, you control the universe itself. Money is power, Ripley — that is the simplest answer, and the only truth of this world the Founders have built.”

Everything he spoke was true, why become a weapon when you can just hire others? You could have a whole army of workers performing menial tasks while you handled the exciting innovation. But I was no business tycoon, Shardware was my passion from the ground up. There was beauty in the incremental changes you manifested over decades of learning and improvement — whether the task was small or large. Yet, Shardware Operating was an expensive craft if these basic materials told me anything, and his words were like honey for a man who’d never tasted sugar. “What sort of opportunities?”

“You're Gold, but I’ll be blunt with you, I doubt you’re any better than most Iron Grade Shard Op’s. For now. But I can count the number of Gold Shard Op’s that I know personally on one hand, and with just two fingers raised. You. And me. The rest are pinched up by the Megacorps, slaving away with the hopes of being promoted, but that’s if their genius even gets the credit they believe it should.”

“Your point is?” Did he want me to work for him?

“When you’re good enough, you’ll be able to work with Gold Grade Shardware, even Titanium to a small degree. If you and I play our cards right, we can establish a partnership that will reap profits off from the rich. You know just how many powerful Megacorp bosses want to hide their illegal Implants? Plenty of them can just scrub records, but those that are trying to keep hidden from the Founders and their immediate underlings? We might be the only people in the world that could lab up the Shardware they desire. The world’s elite playing to our hands, feeding our bellies and curiosity to the secrets they keep.” Skeleton leaned forward, his smile casual and even delicate to a degree.

I tried to understand, but everything he said held an air of grandiosity. It felt like I was staring up at a tower, and thousands of security drones aimed their weapons at me and it… it excited me? To have not just the spotlight, but all of them focused on me.

I wanted it, but at the same time… “I… might have to pass on that, I get the feeling that getting deeper than I already am would put my mother in danger. Did you… did you put in the request I asked of you?”

Mr. Skeleton showed no reaction to my second refusal to work with him, and it freaked me out. It was like the thing I was speaking to truly was a skeleton, just a collection of animated metal that connected deeper to a real human being who might have very different emotions than this Proxy conveyed.

Everything I saw was deliberate, calculated, not a shred of the tiny slips humans made that conveyed their true selves.

“I’ve started,” Mr. Skeleton nodded. “But it will take a moment to get your mother’s Genetic Database from the city archives. Once she’s paired with a suitable Silver, I’ll share the price with you and get things moved along. It could take months to find a suitable donor considering your mother’s already used two Implants.”

I wondered how I must have looked right now; for so long it’d seemed like my mother was an ever-approaching comet. Her light would shine bright in my eyes, then one day fade before I knew it. That much had been certain in the last two years, and the next three years.

My hands found themselves rubbing the wetness of my eyes, tiny trails of moisture smearing across them. “Um, thank you.”

“Thank you, Ripley. It’s been a while since lighter pockets have felt so heavy with anticipation. I’m dying to know what you can do. Now, I’d assume our business is settled?”

“Settled.” I agreed, tired at the eventful day but excited too.

“Very well, but I have one last thing to give you. Well, it’s more akin to a hint for your situation. Just remind your mother that your grandfather’s still got skin in the game, and that it’s time for his work to be looked upon.” Mr. Skeleton said with a cryptic smile, before the shimmering of light within his body disappeared with an electric buzz and the proxy went limp in its seat.

Remind my mother that her father still had skin in the game?

A man entered the tent, he was dressed in an immaculate suit that I had to guess was weaved in nano-chitin with how extensively it fit to perfectly cover his skin. In fact, there was not an inch of skin bared free through his whole body, even his face was imprisoned in a form-fitting mask of black cloth that submerged deeper into his clothes. The brief outlines in the mask formed by changes in angles of facial features made it almost look like a skull.

A section of the floor opened up, a tall and wide cylinder popping out. An elevator. I wish I could say what happened next was dramatic, but it was hardly so. The steel tube led down to an even deeper sub-section of the club that consisted of long tunnels that seemed to spread out like infesting roots of a parasitic plant, and I simply followed the guard.

For a long, long time. Twilight made harmless conversation throughout it, commenting that I’d done better than she expected me to. Honestly, after the events of today I was too tired to be freaked out by everything, it worked in my favor I guess. She floated across me at times, teasing out my intentions for the various merchandise I’d acquired.

I kept most of it closely to my chest, there was too much she knew about me already. Now she knew about my grandfather’s mysterious existence, and I’d begun to question who he was as well. My mom seldom mentioned him. Hell, I couldn’t even recall his name until today. But for a man I’d never met, I felt a large swell of anger beating out of my chest directed at him.

He abandoned us, and left my mom in the possession of an arm that could kill her? That didn’t make sense, and I knew for a fact that once I reached back home I would have to grill her about all… all of this.

I didn’t know scrap about my Implant, simple basics sure, but the sort of data I needed was kept up in AbyssNet and Corporate archives that weren’t so easily accessible. Even simpler programs like the Combat Protocol I received from Skeleton were difficult to jailbreak into due to the nature of Warpcode. It would give me some basic combat instinct and over time it would greatly speed up the rate at which I learned basic muscle memory for fighting, even stimulate them in my dreams… but it wouldn’t be as effective as a pure Feature update improving combat efficiency.

Those were all thoughts for the future, for now I was stuck with Skeleton’s frightening information network’s revelations. He might have a team of Data-Delvers working for him around the clock, maybe he even had links to The Dogwhistler. Data could be stolen off the servers connected to the Net or grabbed off a corpse, but most corporate technology had protocols to self-destruct once an Adapter was injured critically or identified to have been captured.

A similar event to that male corporate’s Neuroframe spattering up coughs of blood back in The Toxin Club.

All together, Mr. Skeleton had showered me with gifts, perhaps so strongly that it made me all the more cautious of him. Yet from each interaction it was clear that his words were deliberate, movements mathematical, syllables framed under a careful and perfect approach.

To what? Make me appreciative — or suspicious? Was it a test of some kind? I didn’t trust him, but it was human nature in my heart to feel like I did owe him. And he was enticing, so very enticing with the deals he offered, but I had priorities for my family. Bronze would work to extend my mother’s life, but Silver would cure her. A compatible Silver Implant would not only let her mind manage the flakes of Warp Residue that had wrapped around her nerves but give her control over it.

Maybe not 99% of it, but it was control. The only issue from then on would be to reverse the existing damage over her body, and allow her to resume her work in Shard Operating. It was her passion — our passion — and a person only ever died once their dreams had passed on. She had taught me that.

Which meant her Implant had to contain the Sustain and Technician Features at the very least, the first would improve her quality of life while the second would ensure she could continue her practice. Those two weren’t a popular combination, so the price would stay manageable for plenty of Bronze Implants but the implementation of the third Feature I’d requested in the Silvers would complicate things.

Energized. One of the most sought after Features in a BUG, you could never go wrong with Energized. It specifically enhanced control of Warp Energy beyond normal usage, you’d be able to enhance your own effectiveness and even slightly convert it into electrical or thermal energy if you had the right parts and update. With Sustain and Energized, it would be like she was never sick at all.

Subconsciously, I found my fingers pulsing at the thought. That’s right, I hadn’t had the time to look into it too much, but my Claw did possess a Feature Link derived from the Energized Feature. Warp Threads, it explained why my manipulation of Warp Energy felt like plucking strings and weaving them.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Feature Links were simple on paper, they occurred either naturally or were forced into Shardware by a skilled Operator using a complex technique called Engramming. In doing so, you’d leave an imprint of a Feature within the Shardware. A popular example was to improve synthetic organs with a Link derived from Sustain, enhancing their life support functions while a Neuroframe linked to Database could massively improve your memory. You didn’t even need the associated Feature to benefit, you could just pry the cybernetic off a corpse and use it yourself albeit at a loss of efficiency and a chance of rejection.

Feature Links could never outright replace Features, they mostly served as quality-of-life upgrades to Shardware, but were always considered highly valuable due to how difficult they were to create and the convenience provided. How many Links an individual piece could withstand followed the same rule of thought as regular Implants, Iron for one, Bronze for two, Silver for three. And a single Silver Shardware could cost up to a million Shardyne in raw materials alone. After all, you needed to use a Silver Shard to make one and they were priced at 500,000 Shardyne a piece.

My grandfather broke that rule. He could make an Iron-piece as valuable as a Silver. That spoke to heresy of the laws of Shardware…

My arm was one-of-a-kind, and worth far more than I’d ever thought. Maybe even millions. It was laughable, to think that the hunk of scraps I’d had a nearly-botched surgery over was capable of paying my way out of every issue I’d ever had. And my mother knew that, she had worn it while she had an Implant, she had seen its specs. She knew it was a Pseudo-Silver.

And she continued wearing it even if it poisoned her. Like me, she refused to entertain even the idea of selling it. This was our legacy, no one else would be prying their filthy eyes on it.

Three metallic fingers clenched tight, Twilight’s energetic voice was now mellow as she whispered in my ears. “You on edge?”

My laugh was genuine; I was on edge. “My mother can’t contact me while I’m in LR, it’s a Blackout Zone. It’s been hours since I left and when I head back I’m going to be drenched in dried blood and missing a few patches of skin.”

“You kept one piece of skin.” She teased, her avatar appearing and pointing to my chest.

“I wasn’t going to let him tear off my nipple.” I calmly spoke, but I could feel the embarrassing heat of my cheeks betraying me.

Twilight teased me by making a twisting motion with her fingers, her speech riddled with incoherent giggles. “You have a glowing nipple… I want you to just think about that! It’s certainly going to make you unique! C’mon, I’m begging you, work without a shirt on your customers and let them meet your little laser pointer!”

“I am not doing that!” I felt my body tense up, Gold Energy fluctuating to the rhythm of my embarassment. Ever since I’d linked with my arm, my control over the Warp Energy had become even more pronounced, or perhaps less so? It was beginning to simmer and flow to my lightest thoughts, like a feather guiding a river.

My left nipple was glowing from the stress of this day.

A thin scratchy light peered amidst blood and cloth. Twilight shrieked with joy at the golden glow. “That is so cool! Oh, Daylight is going to have the time of her life with you! If I had a physical body, would you let me twist it? Oh, I wish I could twist it!”

I covered the patch with my hand, feeling certainly embarrassed with the predicament I had placed myself under. I didn’t like having a torch for a nipple, it was… god, what the fuck did my life become?!

“Can this day end?” I whispered, praying the sewers would have my answer.

And thankfully, the guard soon stopped moving and escorted me into an old service elevator, the rackety noise lifted me higher up towards an uncertain location. Ambient sounds grew louder, a consistent thudding I’d grown accustomed to, rhythms slowly became more vocal and then the beeps and cawing horns of traffic alerted my ears.

When I emerged to the light, I was in an old worn down building. I had noticed the elevator didn’t have a button for the city’s sub-sewers; this place couldn’t be used to enter them. Only to leave. Taking a deep breath, I stepped out into the world of New California.

There was a saying. In New California you’re the ant, and the skyscrapers are the shiny boots everyone wants to climb into. But boots only do one thing to ants — stomp them.

That certainly felt true today, as no matter how far I stared up, my neck craned as high as it could and I still couldn’t see the tops of the monoliths surrounding me as star-like flickers of dazzling beauty formed ever-shifting walls of light, streaming images on their surfaces and even into the skies around them. Dancing women, muscular men, their inverse, products containing actual animal-derived resources, the newest holo-flicks. And of course, Shardware ads.

I strapped up my hood, dissolving into the anonumous crowd of people walking beside the building to whatever next destination they were going to spend their money in. Above me ran a holographic display of Anderson Wellec, the CFO of Imperium’s Olympia program and seven-time New Olympics winner, the undersoles of his feet briefly flooding my location with an artificial shadow.

“With the Imperium’s Olympia Hermes, you too can run as fast as me!”

That’s right, that’s why I hated this place. No where else in Westcrook did the world appear so bitter than The Pleasure Lanes. Several light-born naked bodies wagged their fingers at me, and the thick scent of pheromones injected into the air lulled my senses.

“NeoCola! NeoCore’s official drink of the day — and night! Even the MAL want to take a sip!”

“With real hunted fur, wear Imperium Solstice to show everyone how foxy you can truly be.”

“So you want to hang out with people who are not prostitutes? Well then the Mr. Hung is for you. SynTec’s manliest cybernetic.”

“Simply real. Simply you. Visit your nearest Yuzhou Gene-Clinic to become the you the world deserves.”

“More blood, more sex and more metal! The Termination 14 arrives in just under one week with Triple-Haitham Award Winning Actor Michael Roscow. Produced by Haithama Studios!”

“Do you want your kids to be perfect? Consider adopting from a Cradle, where we only provide the best. Mazhyr, where dreams are made real.”

I felt sick to my stomach. Not because I hated it, but because I loved it. Sky-dwelling displays, constellations of attracting beauties both in people and objects whisked at my imagination of what my life could be. I’d hated that I could never afford even a minute here, despite how much I wanted to.

Now I could. And that made me even more sick, that the place I’d once sworn to never step foot in could be so sweet to me once I became worthy of it. Westcrook’s District Center was built in an area once called Great Lake City back before the collapse, New California’s government liked to call it something similar… but for everyone else, it was better known as The Pleasure Lanes.

Still, I did have the money to spare now, and that woman was just my type. And it was only two thousand for a show-

“You’re walking the wrong way.” Twilight’s voice brought me out of my lull. “And get those pheromones out of your system, I’m surprised you haven’t tried it yet with Psyche.”

I shook my head, trying to make sense of my thoughts. The slimmest thought of clearing my mind from distractions reoriented my thoughts, stretching them to avoid the precise neuron-targeting light rays. The Warp Energy flooded clarity through me.

And I covered my nipple as I did so. At once, my head cleared like I’d dunked it into a bath of EasyClean and swiped off years of gunk and addiction.

Psyche V.0.07 has been updated to V.0.08

Effect: Increased resilience to artificial stimulation of the brain’s reward centers from the external environment the Adapter deems unsafe.

This place was dangerous in a way different than Little Requiem, this city would wring you dry for all that you’re worth if you weren’t careful. In the land where you meant nothing, people would do anything to be something. That included spending all my hard-earned skin-torn money on frivolous matters. Shaking my gaze, I followed the light towards Twilight. “Wrong way? Is there a place I’m supposed to be going to?”

“Yup, my apartment!” Twilight responded in a cheer. “As long as you’re a good boy, she’ll let you stay.”

“Your… dominant personality? Your author?”

“Her? Dominant? Pfft, oh no, you’re thinking of Midnight. Elsa’s a mixed bag of all three of us. Though, mostly me!”

So far, I’d heard her mention Daylight as well. So, with her as Twilight and the recently mentioned Midnight, those were the three Personas? And I finally knew their author’s name. Elsa.

“I- I don’t know. My mother’ll be worried sick and-“

“You’re carrying a bag worth probably a hundred thousand Shardyne. In the middle of the busiest area of the city, I know this place isn’t Little Requiem but remember you’re still in Westcrook. Nowhere here is safe. Just call up your mother, be honest for a bit and tell her you’re staying with a friend until the morning. We’ll get you an automated taxi when the night owls are hooting their dreams up.”

I took in the suggestion. It seemed to come from a genuine place, but my suspicions still clawed at me. A shame then, I was too tired to think, I’d just gotten out of surgery, met one of the scariest persons in my life in Skeleton, engaged in a fight where Twilight used my flesh vessel’s very inexperienced hands to… to murder.

It became easier to accept that fact because of Psyche and… the modifications I made to my frame’s Warpcode software.

“Think I could take a shower? I’m- I’m sorry but if my mother sees me like this, I’m not sure what I’d be able to say. I don’t know if I can tell her that I killed someone.” In that one sentence, I’d been able to release a falling skyscraper’s worth of exhaustion and shame.

“Hmmm… one condition. You shine your nipples in the mirror.”

I silently leaned against the building, contemplating with the three neurons that hadn’t fallen asleep yet. “Fine.”

Twilight lived nearby, in a building complex attached to several clubs — but then again, which complex wasn't? More people probably spent their nights on a dancefloor than their own bed in Westcrook. I was surprised as the elevator dinged higher and higher, not quite the penthouse but still to an elevated section of the building where only three apartments were placed compared to the twenty-something on the lower floors.

Her digital hand pressed against a screen next to her door and I entered, taking in the smell of flowers. Real flowers and not the bullshit perfumed sprays I used whenever trash-seeped rain dribbled down through the cracks of my apartment’s roof. Her apartment was modest, I told myself that, but I couldn’t help but feel like I’d stepped into a massive world where I meant as much as the filth in a bathroom. Her kitchen was larger than my studio, and the living room was twice that.

The place was lit by the sharp neon advertisements of the buildings around us, lending an atmospheric glow to the entire space, but Twilight seemed to have instant remote activation of the place and quickly set the windows to decrease in transparency and blur the outside light until only soft and hazy pink and red floated across the surfaces.

I didn’t spend long in the shower, most of that time was taken by Twilight asking me to pose with my light-up… beacon. I’d agreed to one and I’m pretty sure she somehow managed to snapshot that memory of me.

I’d… also suddenly become aware that Twilight was able to see everything. “You’re honestly not half-bad Ripley, sure you could use some muscle but what you’ve got attached on top of them is pretty good.” She meant that, I knew that, but it still felt false hearing it.

“Surprised you haven’t made a dick joke, yet.”

“That’s a low blow. Get it? Or maybe… you’re not getting any at all?”

I sighed, steaming water turning it from one of exasperation into relief. “I spoke too soon.”

“You’re not really experienced are you, Ripley? I thought you’d be different considering your last line of work.”

“That’s not the issue.” I rubbed grime off my chest. “I’ve gotten laid before, Hoaqin had dragged me to plenty of clubs over the last four years. Even I get lucky…” The warmth of the steam sent a shiver through me. “But growing up in a brothel, seeing what some of those women go through on a day-to-day basis… How they have to carefully present themselves, how I have to change their bodies so that others like them. I’ve seen perfection of the human form, like to think I played a part in it, but I’ve seen how empty it can be to just… you know. In some ways, I’m more experienced with sex than a lot of people.”

“You ever been in love, Ripley?” Twilight appeared next to me, her body clothed and the watter sending little sparks of code flashing against my skin.

I shut off the running water, feeling a tad bit embarrassed at being butt naked. My hand gripped the controls a bit too tight as I ignored the question, my thoughts going to someone who… I couldn’t let myself remember. It was just like my father all over again. “What can I wear? Don’t think you want me sleeping on your couch in a towel.”

Twilight’s eyebrows furrowed, a distinct appearance of compassion falling across her. “I think I’ve got a hoodie and some sweatpants you won’t complain about. Just… I’ve known you for two days, and you’re not that bad of a guy, Ripley.”

I wiped the towel across my arms and body, wrapping it around me. “I’m a cog in the machine. Good or bad doesn’t matter. Results do, money does… and power. My life has been upended in the last week, I’m lost but… also free.”

I knew it was my exhaustion speaking, but words continued to trail off as I followed Twilight’s ghostly appearance. “My very brain chemistry is changing every hour, I’m more in control than I’ve been in years even as so much is out of my control. It’s like, the roads that I’d marched on for years have just vanished under an earthquake and now I’m climbing the rocks to a new place. But diamonds revealed themselves in the cracks.”

For what it was worth, Twilight listened intently as her artificial gaze made contact with me. “I have the opportunity to forget my past, to turn my devils into angels. To kill a person without a shred of emotion. I don’t know what to feel and my Implant reacts to even that…”

“A word of wisdom,” Twilight stopped me by a closet. “In the Tier 0 phase of your growth, it isn’t you who is Adapting to the Implant. It’s the Implant that’s Adapting to you, and with your level of compatibility it’s being fed not just the thoughts you think about but also the ones you choose not to think about.”

I knew what she was referring to.

She continued. “If the Psyche realizes that you function better without a certain emotion or memory, it can erase it permanently — especially with that prior modification in your head. I’ve seen it happen. I mean, it can even develop to the point where you can split off parts of who you are into separate entities, so yeah I get what you’re going through. Whether you choose to remember your… if you choose to remember them, then in my opinion, write it down, everything about them. It’s rare, but sometimes you can reverse the effects of a Feature Update.”

I stayed silent, putting on the oversized hoodie without caring about the punk-band picture posted on top of it. Making my way over to the couch, I collapsed onto it like the bag of my goods had on the floor next to me when I’d left for the shower.

“Twilight… you’re a bit weird. But you’re nice.” I half-snored.

“You’re the real weirdo.”

“Maybeee…”

“You’re kind of sweet, too.”

“That’s… nice of youuu.” I yawned, stretching myself to get comfortable.

“Hey Ripley?” Twilight’s raised tone was just enough to get me to open my lead-weighed eyes. “Elsa… she’s a lot like you. A lot like me due to the obvious but… she’s not as free as I am. Or as Daylight or Midnight. I think the two of you will get along, eventually. I’ll put in a good word. But be careful, not just with her but with Mr. Skeleton and this whole… Dogwhistler business. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I smiled weakly, tapping my Neuroframe behind me. “I won’t.”

She smiled too, an even weaker one burdened with something my sleep-addled mind couldn’t have the tiniest ounce of effort to gauge. “Good night, Ripley.”

“Good… good, good-night.” My world submerged into darkness.