Chapter 28: Consequences of Freedom

Interview with Professor Elliot Svengard of the New California Institute of Implants; B.Eng, BM, PhD, MD. Author of The Limits of Adapters. Conducted during the World Expo of 2494, hosted within the Imperium capital city of Pyramid’s Valor.

His response to “What correlation exists between Compatibility and an Adapter’s potential?”

Adapters have proved to be, paradoxically, both inconsistent and unchanging in their responses to Implants. Determined stages of development do exist and probe continuous cycles that can be tracked via genetic and neural resonating Warpcode within the Neuroframes, as designed by Mazhyr. How one develops at each stage is dependent on their circumstances and the specifications of their Implants.

Likewise, an Adapter’s original biology and mentality causes significant alteration to their Implant’s development, especially at higher compatibilities. Statistically, less than 1% of all Implant Users are above the 75%, yet they make up more than 90% of all Evolved Adapters at Tier IV. As referenced in the research paper Stevens, Ibrahim, Mosegor et al. an Adapter with 70% progresses at a similar rate of a Higher Grade Adapter at 50%. While Adapters at 80% can progress equivalent to a higher grade at 70%, and above this, each five percent difference causes a significant speed increase in development.

At a hypothetical 99%, a Bronze Adapter may even develop at speeds comparable to Gold or Titanium at 80% compatibility. As for 100%, the exponential constant governing the rate of Implant Development seems to no longer exist within such ranges. It could be classified as a limitless potential if it were to exist, as one’s mind merges with the notion of warping reality. Whether compatibility is dependent on one’s genetics or psychology has been debated upon, with many scientific claims leaning towards one or the other and oftentimes both.

However, one thing is certain. An Implant never shares the same compatibility with two different recipients, even monozygotic twins are known to carry differentiating compatibilities. Tests conducted with controlled childhoods within the Cradles, where identically cloned individuals are tested with Implants continue to show high degrees of variability.

As such, the nature of compatibility can be considered random despite all scientific input towards its understanding and quantification. Despite that, the trends of compatibility can be understood, even if they prove difficult to be measured.

4:42 AM

June 26th

Ripley

Stirring awake, I was all too aware of the lack of sensation in my left arm. Where I should have had some sense of muscle tone or the prickle of hair against whatever surface I laid on, was instead just weight. Dead weight.

“You’re awake.” It was a voice I’d heard before, steeled up as though coming from a speaker. Diamante’s voice — he was that guy who stuck the new leg onto me, Missy’s right hand man and made entirely of metal.

The lights above were blinding, but within them I saw that fight repeat itself again and again. An overcast illusion of my failure. My eyes stayed open, not blinking once.“You um… didn’t cut off my arm?”

Diamante’s body moved outside my vision, the shuffling of steel in a trenchcoat droning in my ears. “Didn’t seem to like it the last time I operated. Besides, it would be a bit tiresome if everytime we met you, you had to get a limb removed.”

A dry chuckle escaped me. “Maybe I should just cut them all off to save you the trouble…”

“Maybe.” I heard a snort at the end of it, he thought I was joking. I wasn’t.

I tried anything to remove my mind from reality. “Which organic part is the worst to get removed?”

“The axial skeleton. Many people think it would be your organs but it isn’t.” He sounded confident in his response, those red eyes moved into my view, their uncaring blankness stripping my vulnerability down. “Your ribs and vertebrae are a bitch, organs don’t have too many pain receptors except for some slow-pain nerves. But for your axial skeleton? For month’s it’ll feel like an insect is biting away from inside of you. I’d been handcuffed to stop me from digging in.”

That made me all too thoughtful of what I’d come across. “Found an Endoskeleton, but you already know that thanks to Mirage. It’s the type you plate over your bones.”

“Heard about it, yeah… lucky ass. Your grandfather, Alberich, damn what I would’ve given for him to just use a screwdriver on my body.” Diamante’s metallic arms drifted above me, holding a crimson bag that replaced one that was empty.

Diamante explained as he hooked it up to me with an already-present catherer stinging into my thigh. “Synthetic Blood. You lost a lot on the way here… or Twilight did anyway, had to get her to Mirage before you passed out. Pain in the ass hooking it up to your femoral vein by the way.”

“Tch. Surprised you aren’t berating me for all of this.” I hastily breathed out, if he wasn’t here to taunt me, then was this when they scalped my Gold out for themselves?

“Don’t need to.” Diamante seemed to hold back a chuckle, those crimson beams of light turned somewhere my body couldn’t afford the energy look to. “Not gonna waste my breath when others will tell you the things you already know.”

“…Are they here? Mirage… Missy?”

“Yeah, both of them. And your mother.”

I jerked up, pulling the IV stand to the floor and taking Diamante by surprise. “What- why is she here?!”

Finally, staring at the robotic man’s face and steel mustache, he didn’t look too pleased at me. “Because… she’s your mother.”

“That’s exactly why she shouldn’t be here,” I shouted, to which he only awkwardly shuffled.

“Kid. Turn to your left.”

Fuck.

And as I did, there she was in all of her glory sitting upon a couch not too dissimilar from the one in our home. Even with the only lighting in the small room being the spotlight above me, I could still make out the dried tears that had been running for god knows how long.

“Ripley… you fucking idiot.” Her voice was beyond broken, shattered to pieces. “You… you attacked and kil- you… do you know what you’ve done?!”

“Saved his own life.” Another voice, Mirage’s, came from my right. “Even if it was his own fault that it almost ended.”

My mom shot a nasty look beyond my shoulder, but I was too tired from all this sudden moving. “I- you need to understand-”

“I don’t! Every day my boy disappears for all of daylight, and when he comes back all he does is grumble about what? Not getting a fourth Feature? Failing to crack apart thousands of Shardware pieces in less than a minute? Not understanding a Warp Material? All things that shouldn’t even be possible! Then, one day he just doesn’t come home at all, instead I get a knock on my door in the middle of the night and I’m driven here to see you… like this! At this point I’m not sure which of us is going to live longer!”

Another person put a calming hand on my mom’s shoulder, it’s long metallic fingers leading up to a grim complexion. Missy, the mastermind of all of this, was comforting my mother. “Isabel… I’m sorry you have to go through with this. He’s certainly, yeah, an idiot. But look at him — at his face. You saw the video recordings, he had a purpose behind it.”

With that, all of them looked at me, awaiting an answer. My lips moved slowly, but the words spilled out aching in rage. “She was selling ‘Embrance.”

My mother froze in horror, she immediately knew all too well why I did what I did. To the others, it only perked up even more confusion.

Mirage’s voice rendered from behind me. “Remembrance? That psycho-drug used to hallucinate old memories…? Why would you go after someone for selling it?”

My words choked, failing to come out. I couldn’t stand remembering that agonizing day, the weeks that followed, when our lives truly crumbled down to the trash-heap we lived in until I finally put an end to my agony by inserting the Personality Matrix to… forget about everything. My mother answered for me, her thin hair a frayed curtain against the pain within her eyes. “It’s how his father… my husband… died.”

The room stood still in silence, awkward breaths stifling around me. Even the ventilation of Diamante’s iron lungs seized.

Missy’s arm cradled around my shaking mother, her voice dripping with an empathy that was rare in this city. “My condolences Isabel, I can see how you and Dominic raised your son to be his best despite all that life threw at him… take a moment to breathe outside. Topaz? Be a dear?”

As though slipping out of the shadows, a man who couldn’t be that much older than me — with a dark complexion and buzzed blonde hair — appeared beside the couch. He gave my mom a look that could only be described as pained, before offering his arm for support.

My mother stood up by herself, leaning on the couch as precious air escaped her. Hurried gasps in between giggles almost manic in nature. “Been almost three months since I- I- left the house, and where do I go? Little Requiem.”

“What? We’re in Little Requiem? You brought her here!” A worried puff of air left me.

“Don’t worry about it Ripley.” My mother took a hold of the man, Topaz’s, shoulder… but her teary eyes cleaved into me. “I’m just going to see a little bit of what you've been getting yourself up to. Then you’ll know the feeling.”

Every part of my body that could move flinched in some way to hearing that, the terror flooding even into a phantom space where my left arm lay limp. “Mom… I-“

But she’d already started walking, and I couldn’t say a thing before the door closed on her way out.

Missy approached me as my words failed, her steel fingers holding a warmth I didn’t know I needed as they cupped my cheek. “You’ve been through a lot Ripley… you and your mother both. The two of you only have each other. When I left the Gold in your hands, it was because in my foolishness — in my… I don’t know, my belief in humanity — that I thought you could do good with that Gold. Good that you and your mother could be proud off.”

Tears trailed down my eyes, hollow husks staring at where my mother once sat. “But I stained it.”

“No, Ripley. You made a choice, and you got to face the consequences. Your left arm, even with a Bronze Medspray, the nerve damage caused by the burns you inflicted — that isn’t coming back. Blood vessels, maybe, but it’s going to be paralyzed until you thread in some neural wiring. And we’ve only got a few days until infection beats the spray.”

“I’m getting it removed.” Somehow, making that choice made it easier to climb out of the sinking pit of my mind and I saw it reflect in Missy’s eyes as she nodded with the faintest smile.

“Smart choice… but you have to think. Was this worth it? I can see it in your eyes Ripley, you believe in doing great things. In changing the world, in proving yourself. You once lived in a twentieth floor apartment in the Pleasure Lanes, now you’ve crashed down beneath the earth. I know how that feels, how it is to lose everything… to want revenge against those that did it. Even at the cost of yourself, of losing the people around you.”

“I’m doing this because of her.” My voice cracked. “I-“

“Ripley.” Missy’s sweet voice sunk into a firm, hard, truth-speaking tone. “You’re doing this because of you. Because you want to save her even though she doesn’t know if she wants it. You attacked that ‘Embrance dealer because you had a reason to. Outfitting yourself in borderline combat-shardware because it’s what you want.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I let my thoughts float on that for a while, turning my head to speak to the woman I’d met before, towards Mirage. “You asked me about why I didn’t like ‘Embrance. But you already knew about my dad…” — and now rage slipped into my tongue — “You knew the reason, I know it. Probably, all of you have dissected each thought I’ve ever even conceived. But why ask the question when the answer had already been given?”

Mirage twisted in guilt, her legs hugged up to her knees and her blank violet gaze drifted across the floor. “Your dad was a chronic Remembrance user, yeah, I’d read about what happened after he lost his job. How your family shattered when he died attacking an Investigator while drugged out, when your mother had to take that arm and an Iron BUG even though it would kill her.”

“He wasn’t…” Pain, rage, agony… it all slithered out of my mouth. “He wasn’t a fucking ‘Embrance user! They killed him, he knew what Syntec was doing so they fucking silenced him! He wouldn’t have touched that shit even with a metal arm! Not when he had me!”

Diamante, for the first time, looked genuinely conflicted even with his entirely steel body. I could already see it, the disbelief, the same fucking look everyone around me had whenever I spoke this truth. And now, now the only person who believed me was dea-

“I believe you, Ripley.” Missy’s voice sank a relief so deep that it pained my soul, like I’d had every nerve let go of the stress at once. “I know how these companies play, it’s more likely than not. And I’ll take your word anytime over a cop’s or corporate’s.”

“I believe you too.” Mirage’s voice slid from between her knees. “For what my belief is worth.”

Diamante’s fists shook like a jackhammer in place, an intensity dancing behind those metallic eyes. “You’re a messed up kid, Ripley. But it’s not your fault, none of this is. You got a deck with a high card of one… and now they’re all aces. To even see that drug get circled around after how it tore your family apart, yeah… I’d have done the same. Maybe just a little cleaner.”

I laughed at that, and hearing everything made me feel… a way I hadn’t for a long ass time. The belief and the… acknowledgement in a world where I had been an ant for all my life.

Missy laughed as she focused closer on my face, and only now did I make out the faint angular scars of a head modification. “You’ve got quite the smile, Ripley. In fact, there’s a whole lot of stuff within you that once polished could shine. I was bestowed the responsibility over your Gold, and I decided to let you do as you wish simply because… I felt you’d make better use of it. And I still stand by that, but now I’ve come to understand that it doesn’t mean you should be left alone. You needed more than just Mirage’s Personas.”

“I don’t know, Twilight and Daylight have been more than enough honestly.” An honest chuckle found it’s way out.

Mirage seemed to feel the same way as her humored noise came to me, red eyes glared up and a manic smile twisted. “Oh, is that so? If I was in your skull that day, I’d have let you died. Don’t think my sisters kindness means we care.”

Missy joined in with laughter. “Don’t worry about Midnight, that’s just how she is. Point is, this is a cross-road in your life Ripley. You went into that fight with the confidence of a Gold lacking the strength to back it up, because everyone around believes that it’s the Implant that’s making you special. It’s not. It’s you who determines that, you who weaves the future into the path ahead…”

Then her voice dropped low, holding a swell of pain. “And the path we walk isn’t a very good one… come with me.”

She unplugged the IV with a delicate pluck, a quick spray from her finger cooling the miniscule wound and scabbing it in seconds. Then she held my hand to get me off the table, and I found the weight I could lean on her had made her seem like a bastion, like an umbrella was covering me from the thunderstorm raging around me.

Gingerly, she walked me until I steadied my pace to turn around and walk to a table that had been right behind my head.

It held a corpse. I recognized it, I’d killed her just a few hours ago after all. That bent neck and bloodshot eyes were all the evidence I needed. My mother had been… staring at that? At plain and damning proof that her son was a killer?

“You killed her with your Psyche Feature’s protocol…” Mirage said with a tightness. “A flash of Gold up your hand snapped her neck seconds after she gripped your arm, she didn’t die immediately… but she was paralyzed for around an hour-and-a-half below the neck thanks to her Tier I physiology. She died in the car-ride over here… asphyxiation in the trunk’s limited air supply.”

My breath became cold air as the blood-red eyes condemned me, her left arm bent in an odd angle, all leading my Preservation Matrix fluctuating into an active state. “I… I did it to survive.”

“You had threatened her life first.” Missy said in a cold voice that planted my shaking feet in place, the last time I felt this commanded by a word was when the former Lieutenant made me close that box.

“I asked her to stop selling the ‘embrance.”

Diamante spoke this time. “That is her life, Ripley. Emily Wilbur, aged 29, has been on the streets since she was a kid and had one herself when she was 15. Was a sex worker from then on… drifted from broken relationship to broken relationship, until her current boyfriend landed her in with Muramasa. He was one of their hired guards, siphoning out some product to her that she sold without them knowing. To support her fourteen year-old son.”

I didn’t question how he knew that much about her, nor did I question if it was true. It was true. It is true. I’d orphaned a kid, another poor child losing their parent to that drug. Left in the care of a man who wasn’t her father.

I’d been around that age when it happened. “I… didn’t know.”

Mirage spoke softly. “You made the choice, Ripley.”

And these were the consequences. “What can I do about it?”

“You can’t support a child that you're not ready to take care of, Ripley. There’s only one thing to do. Live with the consequences without losing yourself to the numbness — that’s the curse of freedom. It’s not about doing whatever you want, it’s about making your own decisions and understanding they’ll have consequences for everyone around you — long into the future.” Diamante quietly put a hand on my shoulder, the dense weight not doing a thing to weigh me down when I was already feeling so heavy. “Striving forward even with the guilt, living on in the silence of being the last man standing. Hoping that by the time this all ends, we did more good than bad.”

“Ripley, where we stand…” Missy put another weight on my more dead shoulder. “It’s on a mountain of corpses just like this. Not only from the city, but from the whole world.”

“You guys… are that big?” Now I really didn’t have a clue as to what I was getting into.

“Just her.” Mirage coughed. “She used to be a NeoCore Inquisitor back during the Fourth Swarm.”

And before I could ask, Missy spoke. “Yes, I’m more than a century old. It’s a long story, one that I’m quite shy about… but I understand that you need to trust us. Diana mentioned the NeoCore Herald Ruby, she was a… close friend of mine back in the day. Though my differences with the organization led me to defect, I still do have some contacts in the company. Since then, I’ve been around places and for the last few decades… I’ve been here.”

“Working as a mercenary?” From NeoCore Inquisitor to a merc? I’d heard of the opposite happening with an Inquisitor callsigned Frostbite but I’d never heard of this.

“Working to survive.” She said all too seriously. “And to make a difference in this world, one person at a time.”

One step at a time… my gaze returned to the body. My Matrices working in tandem to shield me from feeling too sorry about it, but the fact that I had felt less than I should be only ate at me.

“We all have our scars, every single one of us.” Diamante said, a hint of reluctance to the fact peering through. “And everyday I wished I could go straight, but as they say ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’.”

“Assuming I forget all of this.” I lingered on the corpse of Emily Wilbur. “Assuming I go straight, I’ve done the calculations. Unless I sell out, either the Livewire, my Implant or the EnSkel… I’d never be able to save her. My mother.”

Mirage echoed from my side. “You’d still be choosing to sell a different part of yourself then.”

Then Twilight. “You’d be choosing to sacrifice your morals over material wealth.”

Her voice drilled down into a sinister whisper with Midnight. “Soooo many more orphans.”

And then light broke through, Daylight. “Whatever you choose, I’ll be rooting for you, Ripley!”

That idea, the one of me selling my morals over my material wealth… It rubbed me the wrong way. “It’s not just the value of the Shardyne that I see in those pieces of technology, it’s a reflection of something… I guess the only word coming to me is arcane. Selling it away would mean losing a part of my history, my identity… There's so much I don’t even know about myself. All of that is a clue, all of it is a guide, but it’s not a map. I’ll have to chart everything out myself, forge my own way through it all. It’s up to me! I have to-”

Missy relaxed me with a squeeze. “Seems like you’ve made up your mind, Ripley. Now do you remember what I said in our agreement over the month?”

I never forgot. “To see if my life would be worth the fifty million in my head. And I know the answer now, I’m-”

Mirage’s voice lingered on for a moment. “Uuuuh about that… I haven’t told them about the compatibility or your fourth feature.”

Mirage kept it a secret?

I gulped in my mind, revealing either of that would only raise the worth of my Implant, tempt them evermore to take it. As it stood, they knew too much about me already and this would be tipping the pool out of my hands, it would be raising the value of my Implant much higher.

Then concealing it, however, would be an admission that it would be worth less than my life. Every neuron of my mind swarmed against the syllables coming out of my mouth, but they pushed through, unyielding. “Me and Diana share a compatibility of 99%, and I have a unique feature allowing me to imitate any Feature within a BUG or apparently even read it off a Neuroframe. Data Mimicry.”

A pin-drop could be heard throughout the room’s silence, like a god had gripped everyone’s voices tight with a heavenly hush. Only after Diamante stumbled at my side, did he speak with robotic eyes torn open to take every detail of me inside their quaking lenses. “Missy, you sure you don’t want to take that Implant? If that’s true then, then that could change everything.”

It was the outcome I’d wanted the least, but had been expecting the most. A primal part of my brain screamed to run, and I’d almost done so until Missy’s quiet demeanor struck through me with a parting off her mouth. “New estimate of your Implant… Five-Billion Shardyne. Now, we’re a bit early by a week so if you want that time then I’ll give it to you… otherwise you can tell me here and now. Are you worth it? That much?”

Five billion… I could buy an apartment in space and a lifetime’s supply of Shardware and still never run out of money. Yet somewhere, in spite of all the shocked faces and piercing glares that had hounded me over the past few weeks… I’d found a pride.

One that had led me to losing an arm, but it was still there as a roiling storm hurting to lash out. Slowly, my mouth carved a grin on my face. “Am I worth five billion? I’m a diamond mine in a sea of coal, Missy. I’m worth so much more.”

For her to meet my grin with an equal was beyond my calculations, the laugh that followed shattering any and all possibility I’d held in my head. “Well then, do with the Implant as you wish.”

“I want in.” A deep hunger starved within me. “I need to get in. To save what’s close to me, to take all of this and harness it for a purpose befitting the recognition that I- that I deserve.”

“Well then…” Missy held a concerned look on her, and I wasn’t sure why. It didn’t hold an ounce of malice, it was the kind you would see in those old movies where a student surpasses his master’s expectations. “We’ll need to hold a vote. I’m counting you as well, and you want in. I’m supporting that.”

“Against.” Diamante turned to me, his voice stubborn. “Just spend the remaining time you have left with your mother. You’ll regret it otherwise.”

“Same. Against.” Mirage raised her hand, then her eyes shone brighter as Twilight spoke through her. “Have to agree, Ripley. You’re not cut out of this… and forcing your Implant to adapt is only going to hurt you.”

Crimson red spilled into her irises. “You’ll die.”

Blue light sparkled next. “I support you Ripley!”

Missy still smiled even against the overwhelming vote in me not joining. “Me, Daylight and Ripley against Mirage, Diamante, Twilight and Midnight.”

“Vote’s over.” Diamante hushed. “Sorry, kid.”

“Not quite.” Missy pointed towards where my mother had left, the door was now open and that other guy, Topaz, stood beside my mother.

His voice was calm and cool, determined with a focus on me I couldn’t expect from a stranger I’d never met. “Taking Missy’s side. So I’m in support.”

“Four against four now. Quartz isn’t here and he doesn’t care either way…” Missy stared beyond me, at the last person there. “Isabel, it’s your vote for your son’s future.”

She stood there in silence, dried tears too close to welling up again. I didn’t know what to say, if I should even say anything. Her gaze scanned all those present, all those she would have to trust with taking care of me if I were to join.

Her mouth moved slowly, as though she hadn’t made up her mind even as she was speaking. This wasn’t just my future being voted on, it was her future as well. She had the freedom to make a decision, and the consequences of what it would bear. “Ripley… you really want this?”

My voice struggled to affirm its place, this wasn’t about me. “Mom… the question is. Do you?”

Somewhere, a knot untangled within her as tears fell unashamedly down the contours of her face. “I- I just want you to be safe. I just… want to keep taking care of you. To see you grow, and have a family… and I- I don’t want to die. I want to see everything you become.”

Finally, she could admit it and I said the only thing that mattered. “I’m not going to let you die.”

“Then…” She sniffled her tears back in. “Then promise me. That the next time you lose a limb, it will be of your own choice.”

She broke out a tearful laugh, even Missy and I followed with a chuckle. “I promise. 'Bout time I turn these Externals into actual cybernetics.”

Missy put a hand on my shoulder, her eyes radiating with mirth and care. "We may know a guy who can help."