First month
Coffee consumption: 22 liters
Pizzas ordered: 8
Burgers ordered: 2
"The package has arrived!" Dr. Jennifer Summer's entire face lit up as she entered the R&D lab to share the good news with her colleague. Dr. Craig Davidson turned his office chair in her direction, rubbed his tired red eyes, and grinned broadly. Then he rolled up the magazine he had just been leafing through. His break was obviously over. With his angular features, three-day beard, and fashionable haircut, he looked more like a daredevil surf instructor than an electrical engineer.
"I'd rather not ask how Malcom got it," he replied in a slightly smoky voice, standing up so as not to miss the moment when his colleague would open the box.
"Yeah, better not," Summer agreed. The tall, slender woman with the tightly pulled ponytail placed the package on a side table. "I'll tell you anyway. Apparently, she hired someone to buy it from a guy on the north side of town known in the underworld as *the Octopus*. Must have cost an arm and a leg, hah! Quick, open it! Open it!" With that, she pulled a box cutter out of her pants pocket, slammed it down on the table, and shoved it in Davidson's direction. He just laughed and smacked her on the butt with the rolled-up magazine.
"Open it yourself, you lazy piece of work!" he replied, puffing up in front of her.
"Hey, no way! I hate knives, and if someone's going to accidentally cut themselves, better you than me," she replied indignantly, grabbing an eraser from the table and throwing it at her colleague, hitting him in the face.
"All right, stop it, I'm cutting!" he declared, rubbing his right eye, which had turned red from the blow. Then Davidson deftly wielded a box cutter and opened the package.
"Fascinating, just fascinating," he murmured as he unwrapped the contents from the thick bubble wrap. It was a mechanical hand, made of a metal that was definitely not common. It was heavier than its size would suggest. "No doubt about it. Size, weight, material, it's all right!" He handed Summer the hand, which his colleague looked at enthusiastically from all sides. The hand had been severed from its original body just below the wrist by a high-powered laser, as could be seen by the burnt residue on the metal.
"That definitely takes us a step further," Summer nodded contentedly, putting her hand down on the table in the bubble wrap.
"Yes, it does. At least a little bit." Davidson turned to the examination table where Yanny's remains lay. "Now I remember why I didn't want to go to medical school back then. Still, now it seems I ended up in pathology anyway," he sighed, walking back to his desk and taking a sip from his coffee mug. The drink was ice-cold now and tasted disgusting; it had been here since yesterday. Davidson grimaced. Summer grinned as she saw him sipping the stale brew, lost in thought.
"We just do what we always do: take everything apart, collect data, rebuild destroyed parts, mirror missing parts. At least we're lucky to have half an arm and a leg. And now we have this hand as well. Practically nothing can go wrong now," she whispered encouragingly. Davidson grunted in agreement, but then closed one eye skeptically.
"The chip. Don't forget the chip."
"Yes, the chip. We'd better go in through the spinal entrance before we drill directly into the skull. I don't know how deep it is inside the head. We can't shoot X-rays through metal," Summer waved. Davidson took another sip of his foul-smelling coffee.
"You know it turns me on when you talk like that?" He winked at her as the brown liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth. He just couldn't manage to swallow the broth.
"Take a number, you freak," Summer replied dryly, giving him the middle finger.
"Will the draftsmen be in the office tomorrow? Have you heard from them?" Davidson ignored her reply.
"Three of them," she nodded. "And the one with glasses is pretty hot, if you must know."
"Perfect," he replied, spitting the coffee back into the cup.
Second month
Coffee consumption: 28 liters
Pizzas ordered: 12
Burgers ordered: 4
"Weld a little more there. Right there, a little higher, yeah, right there," Summer ordered in a stern voice.
"Like that?" Davidson continued to work with the welder on the joint his colleague was pointing to, sparks flying against the shield in front of his face. Why did she insist that he improve his skills with this tool he disliked so much, especially when it came to such intricate detail work?
"You can't be too careful with the knees. Better to re-weld them if you're not sure," she nodded. Davidson scratched his head and looked at her through the small viewing slit protected by darkened glass.
"How many knees have you worked on? Since when does someone like you know so much about knees?" Summer crossed her arms and made a sour face.
"If you really want to know: This is my third! Or why do you think my grandma can run like a weasel again?" Davidson sighed. He had sighed a lot since they had been assigned to this job.
Third month
Coffee consumption: 36 liters
Pizzas ordered: 16
Burgers ordered: 6
"That looks pretty good. The boss will be pleased." Davidson patted the arm of Yanny's polished skeleton with a satisfied smile.
"I'm going in today," Summer declared, blowing a strand of hair from her sweaty face. She pointed her thumb at Yanny's head, which lay on the table behind her, hooked up to various devices.
"Today?!" Davidson asked in surprise.
"Workaholic," she replied, pointing her thumb at herself.
"Coffee?" he followed.
"Yes," she nodded in agreement.
"Want to marry me?" he added casually. "There's nothing more exciting to me than a woman who thinks only of her work."
"No," she shook her head as she prepared her tools. Davidson sighed and shuffled over to the thermos.
Fourth month
Coffee consumption: 42 liters
Pizzas ordered: 8
Burgers ordered: 16
"I can't stand those pizzas from the place around the corner anymore," growled Davidson. "Mayor Fabio has a new fast-food place. Maybe we should order there for a change?" Summer pursed her lips and her eyes narrowed to slits.
"I didn't vote for him, I don't eat his burgers," Summer replied curtly. Davidson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Then he carefully carried Yanny's chip to the custom-built electron microscope. The construction of this device had slowed down the entire project, but it was desperately needed, as their existing equipment did not have sufficient magnification capabilities. The chip was simply too complex. Its design was beyond anything they had ever seen before. Half an hour later, the microscope was perfectly adjusted and the chip was finally ready for closer examination. Davidson hesitated to answer. Summer was growing impatient. Finally, he looked up from the microscope.
"So?" she asked, biting her nails.
"I think I need a cigarette," was all he said.
"Is it what we suspected?" she asked. Davidson took a big sip from his coffee cup. Totally cold again. No matter. He walked over to the sofa bed they had delivered to the lab and plopped down on the soft cushions.
"I would say yes. Yes, it's what we suspected. This thing was never created on our planet, simply not possible. We have no chance of reproducing this technology. Look at its structures. They're so tiny, they're in the nano range. This thing is... call me crazy, but you get the impression that it's not man-made. When I look at this thing and compare it to what we have here... I feel like a Neanderthal." Summer's face remained blank. Her mind was racing.
"Did you notice any damage to the chip?" she asked.
"Yeah, there's a hairline crack through it, and some of these... hmm... what do you call them? Some of the conductors are completely charred. You can't tell if they're destroyed or just encrusted. Oxidation has started in places too," he explained. Summer groaned and rubbed her temples.
"That doesn't sound good." She knew she was just stating the obvious, but she was tired and this news made her seriously doubt the successful completion of the project.
"No, it doesn't sound good," Davidson nodded dejectedly.
"Shall we continue or tell the Malcom there's nothing more we can do?" She looked at him questioningly.
"We continue," he confirmed, scratching his ear. She thought about it a bit.
"Wait, can we even fix the chip?"
"Not that I know of," he admitted frankly. She suddenly grinned in spite of the hopeless situation. It was simply absurd that he wanted to continue working on it. They were burning through huge sums of money here and the head of the power company would skin them both for it. It was so absurd that she found it funny at that moment.
"If we pull this off, I'll marry you," she winked at him in an exaggeratedly playful way. Davidson, whose bags under his eyes had grown to considerable proportions, just sighed deeply.
"I'm calling Fabio's Fitness Burger."
5th month
Coffee consumption: 45 liters
Pizzas ordered: 10
Burgers ordered: 8
Fabio's fitness burgers ordered: 6
Stomach pills ordered: 12
"She's beautiful, I must say..." Davidson gazed dreamily at Yanny as she lay naked on the examination table. Many parts of her body were still wired, but otherwise she looked as if she had been reborn. In fact, reconstructing her human tissue had been one of the minor problems. Samples of the remaining tissue had been sent to a genetic lab. Malcolm had hired a whole department there to help with the reconstruction. The exact measurements and appearance of Yanny had again been taken from detailed records in cyberspace, still stored on the red computer from the old technology. In addition, they had found a woman with a very similar physique who had been photographed with a 3D scanner so that the computer could create a coherent overall picture. It had worked, the tissue had quickly grown into the correct shape over the metal skeleton based on the data from the controlled impulses. Summer's eyes darkened at her colleague's comment and she punched Davidson roughly in the ribs, causing him to buckle and let out a sharp gasp.
"Don't look so closely, you horrible lecher! How dare you!" she scolded him.
"But I have to look, how else can I work on her?" he defended himself innocently.
"Yes, you can look, but not like *that*!" she admonished him loudly. Surprised by her strong reaction, Davidson smiled mischievously.
"Too bad I wasn't there when they scanned Mrs. Jones," he goaded her further.
"It was a bit of a mix between a medical exam and a photo shoot for a sex magazine," she explained matter-of-factly.
"Damn, I missed something!" Davidson laughed.
"I suppose you only read *Beach Boobies* for the interesting interviews?" she grunted.
"No, I just buy the magazine for the naked women. And why are you reading the *Cover Boys* I saw peeking out of your backpack the other day?" Davidson replied. Summer turned and left the room with quick steps.
"It's my turn to make coffee!" he heard her call from outside. Then the engineer looked back thoughtfully at the motionless Yanny.
"The skeleton and the tissue are one thing, these other companies have obviously managed that as well. The most important thing is the chip, without it she's just a shell," he muttered to himself, searching his jacket for his pack of cigarettes.
Sixth month
Coffee consumption: 20 liters
Black tea consumption: 60 liters
Pizzas ordered: 12
Burgers ordered: 12
Fabio's fitness burgers ordered: 12
Stomach pills ordered: 18
"18th test." Davidson put his hand to his mouth and yawned heartily. Had it really been such a good idea to squeeze the hairline crack in the chip with a custom-made metal clamp? He had lost about two liters of sweat. A little too much pressure and the chip would break during the operation. The clamp held, and as far as he could see under the microscope, the contacts were sitting on top of each other. Basically, it was their only option, their last option. What should he have done? Apply superglue? Use a soldering iron? There was no tool in the entire city that could have repaired the conductors that were invisible to the human eye. Fire residue could be removed completely, but a crack was another matter if you didn't have the technology to seal it again. He could only hope that the contacts would snap back into place under the pressure of the clamp. The slot in Yanny's head for the chip had to be modified to accommodate the extra mass of the metal clip. The chip had just been connected to the lab's computer, and the two scientists were frantically trying to establish a connection with it. They had used the slot in the head as an adapter. Perhaps they could somehow manage to read its data?
"We don't have to worry about engraving our wedding rings anymore," Summer said in a neutral tone. Davidson yawned louder. Then he shook his head and took his eye drops from his breast pocket, moistening his eyeballs one by one.
"You wish, you nasty noodle... One more... we'll do one more test!" he said firmly.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
"All right, 19th test," Summer grunted. A new pulse was sent. Suddenly the screen of the lab computer went black. "Oh crap, we broke it!" she gasped and typed nervously on the keyboard.
"No, wait!" Davidson shouted excitedly. The cursor appeared on the black screen. It moved to the middle of the line and wrote an x. Then it moved to the next line and wrote again, this time three xxx.
"What the hell is going on?" asked Summer.
"That's not writing, it means something else," he guessed. They both stared at the screen, spellbound. After fifteen minutes, the message appeared in all its glory.
"This is the weirdest job I've ever done," Davidson grinned. "But it's definitely awesome." The printer rattled and ejected the image the chip had generated. He tore the page from the fanfold paper of the dot-matrix printer and tapped it enthusiastically with his index finger.
"What is this?" asked Summer. She saw the string of characters that had made a whole picture out of many little x's. "Does that mean anything to you?"
"Well, this is called *ASCII art*. That's what you call a style of art when you create an image using only letters, special characters, and numbers," laughed Davidson, looking completely liberated. "If you look closely, it's kind of a group picture. There are two women. One with short hair and one with long hair, and three men, one of whom is unusually tall and broad."
"But what's so special about it? There must be countless images and memories stored on the chip. That's another small step forward, of course, but it doesn't tell us if the thing works or if we've just tapped into its memory function. Maybe it's nothing more than an oversized floppy disk in its current state?" she said skeptically. Davidson shook his head and pointed at his screen again.
"If I read this log correctly, it wasn't our computer that made the connection to the chip, it was the other way around: the chip made the connection itself. It even took over a small part of the system, interacting with the connected peripherals after a short period of familiarization. I don't know. Looking at it, I'd say she's alive," he explained, his tired eyes shining almost feverishly.
"Are you sure?" she asked quietly.
"Yes. And we're going to find out what this group picture is all about. By the way, I ordered a wedding dress catalog two weeks ago that you could look at if you get a chance..." This time it was Summer who sighed deeply and resignedly.
"Damn... All right."
The next day, 08:12 a.m.
"Every story comes to an end," Davidson said, leaning back in his office chair, putting a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it with relish. Summer gave him a quizzical look.
"Where did that come from?"
"I don't know, either. It just came to me," the engineer replied. From his seat he could see Yanny on the examination table. "When exactly did you sew her up?"
"Her scalp?" asked Summer, looking at her watch. "About nine hours ago." Davidson nodded and gestured to the cyborg.
"It's closed," he said curtly. The scientist walked over to Yanny and examined the place where she had inserted the chip.
"It's closed," she confirmed in amazement.
"Man, I wish I could do that! That would save a lot on health insurance," he said, sucking demonstratively on his cigarette. Summer laughed.
"Yes, it's true. This genetic engineering company has exactly followed the tissue recipe from the recordings. Maybe we should try some experiments on you? But honestly... There is more going on here than the sum of all parts. We haven't even activated her organism from the outside. The regeneration shouldn't be working yet," she said, continuing to look at Yanny indecisively. Davidson scratched the back of his head and took another drag on his cigarette.
"Maybe it's the chip?" he mused. Summer shrugged.
"What's Malcom going to do to us if she doesn't boot up in the end? I've been looking at the expense reports for the last few months because I know that nervous guy in Accounting. You know, the one with the sweat stains under his arms." Davidson hesitated and rubbed his chin.
"Better add two bulletproof vests to the next order list."
Supermarket, 08:48 a.m.
Harry trudged listlessly through the aisles of the supermarket, stopping from time to time to throw this or that item into his shopping cart. He absentmindedly twisted his car key on a metal ring around the index finger of his left hand and rubbed his itchy eye under his sunglasses. Yes, he had used all his free time to get his driver's license in Elysium. It also relieved Ralph as the only driver so far, who still suffered from severe pain from time to time due to the burns. Good old Ralph... He owed him so much. Without him, he would probably have fallen into a complete depression these past few months. And Abigail just didn't want to learn to drive, she would have cleaned the paint off the steering wheel with disinfectant after a week. So he was the only one left. Yanny could no longer drive. She was gone. He tossed a box of cereal into the cart. Ralph had risked his life for her, running into the burning hall to retrieve her remains, putting himself in grave danger. But now she was gone. He threw another box of cereal into the cart, this time with more force, ripping the lid open. Their villa had never been as empty as it had been in the last few months. The battles in the underwater base had left their mark on all of them, and not just physically. The fight against the Meteor Drinker had made him lose faith in victory deep inside. Sure, they had *won* in the end, if you could call it that. They had carried out their plan, but they had not been able to prevent Yanny from being destroyed. Another box of cereal landed angrily in the cart, thrown so hard that it bounced out the other side. And another. The sight of her charred remains had kept him awake for a long time, and he still woke up in a cold sweat at night, plagued by nightmares. They hadn't heard from her since her body had been taken to one of the labs in the nuclear complex. Six months had passed. Dr. Malcom hadn't given them much hope to begin with. If only they had all fled this damned city together when they still had the chance! They should have just sold the villa and started a new life in one of the other metropolises. But if Elysium had fallen, wouldn't the totalitarian ideology of the Northern City Party have just spread further and further? Due to its geographical location, Elysium was an important hub for the south of the entire continent. And wasn't it Yanny's own unconditional desire to stand up to the killing machine and stop more people from dying?
"Fuck!" he shouted loudly, swinging his right fist and smashing through the bar of the thick wooden shelf that held the cereal boxes. The wood cracked under the force of the blow and there was a terrible crash. One by one the boxes fell to the floor. Harry felt a little relieved, although his back hurt so much from the movement that he had to breathe carefully.
"Mommy, mommy, I want those cereals too, then I'll be as strong as this man!" a very chubby little boy exclaimed enthusiastically, pointing his chubby sausage fingers alternately at Harry and at the boxes of cereal in his shopping cart.
"Clyde-Loris! Get over here right now and stay away from that horrible punk!" a woman yelled from further back, who had apparently been sleeping face down in a makeup case. Why exactly had they saved this city? Harry no longer knew. Suddenly, his cell phone rang. He reached into his trench coat and pulled out his new short sword.
"Oh crap, wrong side of the coat..."
"Oh my God, Mommy, so cool, look, the man has a sword!" the fat boy exclaimed ecstatically, jumping up and down.
"Clyde-Loris, I'm telling you for the last time!" the woman behind him shouted with a slightly hysterical undertone.
Harry put away his sword and fished the phone out of his other pocket.
"Yes?" he answered curtly. Then he listened in amazement to what the excited voice on the other end of the line had to say. His hands began to shake. "Yes... Yes, of course. I'll be right there." He put the phone away. Then he picked up one of the cereal boxes and threw it to the boy, who caught it with some difficulty.
"Three. I ate three boxes of this stuff a day for years to get this strong. Besides, it helps me see in the dark." He lifted his sunglasses and stared at the boy with stern red eyes. The old color had never returned since the injection on the ship.
"Mommy!!! So cool!!!" the boy shouted down the corridor in a high-pitched voice. Then he tore open the package in his hands and immediately began greedily munching on the dry contents. "Excellent, keep it up," Harry nodded, turned and left the supermarket, heading for the now refurbished agency car.
Laboratory, 09:31 a.m.
The body monitor started beeping again. Its sensors were beeping erratically, reporting activity.
"It started about an hour ago," Dr. Summer told Harry. Kelly Malcom had his cell phone number on file with the other TRAP agents as a possible contact in their development department. The others had also been informed and were already on their way here in the stolen police car, but were still stuck in traffic. It was too risky to turn on the sirens in this car. Harry had driven as fast as he could to the nuclear power plant. He would deal with the tickets later. A friendly gentleman at the reception desk had escorted him to the lab, which was sealed off from the outside by several security barriers. Harry took off his sunglasses and stared in disbelief at Yanny, who had been placed on a pristine white bed before his arrival. Sensors were attached to her left arm and temple, transmitting data to the large machine behind the bed. She looked exactly as he remembered her. Just as vulnerable, just as beautiful, as if reborn. He had never expected to see her like this again. Dr. Davidson cleared his throat to get Harry's attention.
"We had her hooked up to a starter. She was supposed to be started in two stages for a test run, first body, then head or chip. But not for another two weeks or so. In our opinion, now is too soon. Her tissue is too fresh and we would have at least 14 more checks..." he continued with a technical explanation. Summer interrupted her fiancé.
"What the pointy-head is actually trying to explain is that her organism has obviously started to slowly boot up after the chip was inserted. And that's not really possible without an external starter, believe us. If anyone can judge that, it's us. We rebuilt her almost from scratch. Now there is nothing we can do from the outside. So in short, we unplugged her and put her in this bed. Looks like she'll be fine on her own from here." Summer smiled encouragingly at Harry and she couldn't help but notice how much this affected him. It was clear from his reaction that he must feel very strongly about this cyborg. Harry's mouth was dry. He looked at the two scientists and then back at Yanny.
"But how...?" he croaked.
"We don't know, like I said." Summer blew a strand of hair out of her face, which slipped back into her field of vision seconds later. "You see, I believe in science. In facts. I don't believe in miracles. But if someone ever asks me if I've seen a miracle, I could tell them about this one."
"Better not," Davidson waved.
"Right," she nodded. "It must be the chip, it's the only explanation. Or..."
"Or?" Harry wondered.
"My fiancée has a theory," Davidson explained before Summer continued. "Well, I think the chip probably wasn't made by humans. Not only was I able to determine its almost incomprehensible complexity with a microscope built especially for this project, but it also appears to be ancient, and by that I mean much older than the colonization period of '86. The old technology has a certain quality in the materials that is very recognizable. But this chip is even older than the oldest surviving pieces in Elysium. As far as we know, it developed to its full potential in a humanoid body. Although the combination was more or less accidental..."
"You could say her creation was fate or a higher purpose, wouldn't you?" Summer summarized, blushing slightly. As a woman of facts and science, that still sounded absurd to her ears, and she quickly tried to elaborate. "The chip has traveled through the universe, has been lost for hundreds of years, so to speak, and then finds its way into a humanoid body of all things. A consciousness emerges, and as far as we know, it has adopted a pacifist stance with this consciousness, contrary to its intended purpose, which it in turn abandoned in order to confront an overpowering opponent, protect human lives, and avert danger to the entire city. Isn't that a little too much of a coincidence?" Harry thought about it, Summer might be right. Thinking back to his time with Yanny, she had been the most peaceful person he had ever met in this crazy world. Maybe this theory of a higher purpose wasn't so far-fetched after all.
The machine suddenly beeped faster, more regularly. Yanny's fingers began to twitch. Summer simply removed the sensors and turned the machine off. Then she walked over to her future husband, who put his arm around her shoulders and took a deep breath. Together they watched as Harry sat on the edge of the bed and placed his hand on Yanny's twitching hand. All three of them held their breath in anticipation. A jolt went through the cyborg's body. Then she opened her eyes. A few more seconds passed before the chip in her head took complete control of all bodily functions and the optical data from her new eyes could be processed.
"Harry...?" she finally asked quietly. The street samurai had a large lump in his throat.
"Yes," he replied. "Yes, it's me." Yanny smiled when she heard his voice.
"Are the others okay?"
"Yes, we all survived." Their hands held each other tighter. He could feel the warmth returning to her body.
"Llama not, I still saw that. But if you're all safe and sound, I'm happy, very happy," she replied, her whole face beaming. Then she slowly began to support herself on the bed and move into a sitting position. Harry leaned over and helped her. The two scientists watched her nervously, as if they expected Yanny to fall apart at any moment. When she finally sat up and Harry was kneeling in front of her on the bed, she tilted her head and looked at him with her big eyes.
"Harry?"
"Yes?"
"I think I need to tell you something," she said quietly.
"I have something to tell you too, something I should have told you a long time ago," he replied, smiling softly.
"Come closer, I'll whisper it in your ear..."
The series will (possibly) be continued with the title:
(The Curse of the Oni)