His eyes felt crusted over, like someone had stitched them shut. Beams of light lashed at him as he tried to tease his eyelids open – another time, he thought. For now, the man lay motionless save the steady rise and fall of his chest.
Shay was cold, cold how he imagined a rock in a desert would be, with moonlight overhead. The more he thought of that rock, the colder he became. The colder he became, the faster his heart raced. What had happened to him? Floating in this void, he wasn’t sure if the pressure on his back was the ground beneath him, or the inevitable grasp of death lingering over his shoulder. Was he dead, or somewhere in between?
His answer came to him in the white hot touch of a hand on his own, it’s warmth was startling, yet he didn’t - couldn’t – move away.
“Shay?” The softest whisper lay on his ear, one he’d recognise anywhere.
“Elise.” He rasped.
Her words came in mumbles, her hand grasping tighter as he felt himself fade in and out, before he could make sense of what was going on around him, he drifted back off into the void.
Eventually, the world around him seemed to click. The ebbing of sound surrounding him flowed into one coherent ambience, the pressure on his back became a constant in his vegetative state; even crawling to his arms and legs as he felt the rough scratch of raw linen caressing his skin. Every breath came and went, a cold, stale air filtering through his nose.
Shay lay there, stewing, too afraid to open his eyes and confirm what he suspected. A beeping cycled in the background, along with a low hum around him. For the first time since he came to, Shay peeled open an eyelid.
What greeted him first was the splayed form of Elise along a dull beige sofa opposite his… his bed – a sterile affair of baby blue linens and cables reaching over it’s edges. Looking down he could make out the impression of dozens more beneath his blanket, they were something he wasn’t quite ready to tackle the meaning of just yet.
Turning his head to the side, which was decidedly much harder than it ought to be, he saw a small mechanical cat. It was a kids toy, one you’d buy on a whim for a demanding child, or a last minute gift for a forgotten birthday. In his case, it was more than that. Tabby – cream and black, with white socks – his cat, when he was small. Shay’s dad had been here, worried, if the gift was anything to go by.
Why was he here? His memory escaped him, and his interface refused to respond either, neither archive nor analysis mode greeting him in the corner of his vision.
A ruffling sounded out from the Sofa, by the time he had looked over, a pair of green-gold eyes were looking straight back.
“Shay!” Elise exclaimed, bolting up from her slumber with far too much energy, she tripped on a looped corner of the blanket, almost plummeting into his bed frame, “shit-“. Righting herself, she bounded over to him, “You’re awake! Wait, are you awake?” Her brow pinched.
The second it took him to process the question felt much longer evidently, as she drew closer with expectation.
Shay smiled, “I think so,” he felt like the entire left side of his face was bruised, his cheek folding under itself, “I feel like shit.” That got a strained laugh from his friend, the strange concern hanging in the air evaporating.
“You should see yourself,” she said under a grin, though suddenly it fell away as the concern returned, “Actually, not yet. It’s big, Shay, a lot happened but you’re okay.” The quick glance towards the hallway brought his attention to the hurried steps echoing through the crack at the bottom of his rooms door. “You saved my life.” If he was confused before, the comment left him blank.
“Wha-“ the door swung open, cutting him off.
“Mr Leonie.” A tall man in a straight black coat strode through the door, as if on rails. He didn’t even spare a glance away from the patients record that was projected from his wrist. His glide came to a stop at the foot of his bed, and only then did the man look up, “How do you feel, on a scale of one to ten? – Ten being super-human, and one having been thrown out an airlock.” His level gaze was unfaltering, not the slightest bit of humour escaping them.
Both him and Elise shared a questioning look, “Um… three?” He said, not a beat later the man hummed and started tapping idly on the projection in front of him.
One second turned to five, then thirty, finally he looked back up, the projection evaporating, “Please look to each red light, once each has turned green we will move onto the prosthetic calibration.” He produced a torch-like stick from his front pocket, extending his arm far out to the side. A bright red light shone from it’s end.
Out of instinct Shay looked to the light, a moment later it turned green. Snapping out of it, he caught the man mid-way between changing poses “Wait, wait. What’s happening right now? Why am I here?” Somewhere between the impromptu traffic light test and Elise almost braining herself on the corner of his bed, Shay had recovered his senses. He didn’t miss Elise’s worried glance toward him, her eyes skirting over to his left, he wondered what she was looking at but couldn’t quite crane his neck that way just yet.
The tower of black looked through him, seemingly assessing how best to dissect him, “You died, Shay Leonie.”
The room froze over – he died? Shay’s irrational brain wanted to cry lies and falsehoods, but emotions that were supposed to be there never arrived, and the look on Elises face told him all he needed to know.
“How did it happen?” The words slid out of him, emotionless.
Elise leant forward, “It was at Hobar-“
“An explosion.” The figure ahead of him cut in, “forty percent vaporisation, fifteen percent evisceration, upper left portion rendered irrecoverable… ” As the man rattled off his injuries like you would a take out order, x-ray images and magnetic scans flared up in his vision. They shuffled through themselves with every diagnosis the man gave. He couldn’t understand a majority of what they showed, but one consistency stuck out like a sore thumb, almost the entire left portion of his body was missing. “…irradiated portions have been rejuvenated, as well as limited bi-lateral brain functionality.” At that, a multi layered scan super imposed itself in the air above his bed, this one everyone could see if his friends expression was anything to go by. It was his brain, but only half of it.
Shay considered the bombshell that had been dropped, and he waited, waited for the inevitable slew of horror and realisation at the news, but it never came. Suddenly there was a lax, like a ballon filled to burst but deflating instead, he knew that if there was any time to have a crisis of the self, it was now, but it just didn’t come, he felt uniquely at odds with the cold rationalisations in his head.
“Oh, Shay.” Elise whimpered, enveloping him in a hug, her warmth wrapped around his neck and shoulder, stopping on the left side he now knew wasn’t there anymore. “I’m so sorry, Shay, I’m so sorry.” She cried for him, as he found he couldn’t do so himself.
“How am I alive?” He said.
“You saved me, Shay. The explosion – they destroyed everything, so many people-“ she made to gather herself, “ but you saved me,” she gestured to a ruined portion of her shoulder and cheek, he only realised now she shared his bandages to a certain extent, “You shielded me at the last second, they said we’d both be, that we’d both be dead if you didn’t.”
He mustered all of his strength, gripping her arm with his remaining hand, “Elise.” He smiled with what he hoped was the same smile he had before, “I’m glad you’re alright. Please, tell me everything when the grim reaper isn’t hanging over my bed.” under a chuckle, she returned the smile with her own. Shay then brought his gaze back to the man, “How am I alive?”
“In short, your father. He donated the necessary equipment to revive you.” As he spoke, he walked to the end of the room, reaching for the door. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Shay felt Elise tighten her grip on his hand, “Dad? What does he mean, Elise. How am I alive, please.” His eyes practically pleaded with her.
His friend seemed lost in thought, her eyes now raw from rubbing away her tears on the purple sweater she wore. “I don’t know either, Shay. He was here for a whole week after the explosion, I’d never seen him like that before, he was so mad, so angry. When I tried to talk to him he would hardly respond.” She glanced to the mechanical cat on his bedside table, “But he wasn’t mad at me, or you. I got this feeling that he just needed to think. Then when they said they mightn’t be able to save you, he left for a few days without a word. I wasn’t here when he came back, but the next time I saw you, they said you’d be fine now. That he’d given them what they needed.”
“So what happened?” He asked.
To which she responded with a deep breath, “It was at Hobart’s Day.”
“We all went? Wait, is Oscar okay?” His eyes went wide.
They hadn’t mentioned his boyfriend once, nor was he in the room, he feared for the worse, had he been hurt? The thought dug up a primal sort of protection in him, he needed-
“Shay, you really don’t remember?” Her brow raised questioningly, “What was the last thing you remember?” He couldn’t quite make sense of the question.
“We were at mine, with Oscar and Dad. You and I were studying while Oscar played D&D with dad and his mates.” He enunciated each word, as if reciting from a script.
“No, Shay. No, I’m sorry. That was the day before.” She swallowed back whatever news was to come, “You caught Oscar in AR with another girl, you broke up the day after.” She leant in and hugged him again.
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“Wha- but he wouldn’t, it was our anniversary…” he tried to think, then suddenly fragments hit him like a truck, of Elise doing just this, consoling him in his room, he remembered her yelling at Oscar to get out, kicking him in the butt even, right out the door. Everything after came in bursts, scattered memories cutting in and out. They arrived at Aunt Ann’s, then they were talking to a robot- no, an Ortos, it’s name was… Seth? Then they were gliding through B13, and then ordering Space Taco’s; everything was jumbled around, he felt a spike shear through his head before letting out a pained moan.
“Shay what’s wrong?” Elise grabbed for him.
“I’m fine, it’s okay.” He said through gritted teeth.
He sat with the information for a long while, comforting Elise who markedly seemed to be having a more visceral reaction to all of this than he was.
Eventually, the TV screen that hanged from a corner of his hospital room turned on much to his surprise, neither of the two had caused it. Elises’ head swung toward the noise, a news report blaring.
On the screen, aerial images of a smouldering scaffolding and half erected platforms lay lazily on top of each other, having collapsed in a catastrophic explosion. Multiple craters were clearly marked throughout the once hub of Hobart, surrounded by smaller scattered explosions leading away from their epicentres. The footage swapped to evidently more recent images as the hub had transformed into a bandaged reflection of his own form, the fires and brimstone replaced with ashy aftermath and cleanup crews resurrecting the destroyed platforms. “Three weeks on and the terrorist attack on the historic Hobart’s Day event continues to incite unrest amongst The Station.” A reporters voice rang over the startling imagery, “Critical infrastructure is still recovering from the collateral destruction, with the outer cities struggling under the already limited supplies.” The channel cut to the image of a man with platinum hair and crows feet, his face sent another ping through Shay’s mind, “Despite his injuries, Mr Mudgway has defended the Wensago from public persecution, amidst claims of their involvement in the attacks by the Data Runner group, Axis5. He is expected to make a full recovery in the following weeks...”
The news blared uncomfortably above, rifling through more information than he could process. Too much had happened, and he was still trying to gain his bearings as it was. With Elise at his side, it helped, but questions of his father and where, or who, he was floated in the air.
“…so we followed him under the stage, and then it happened.” He recounted the story she had told him, while they waited for the tall figure, who Shay suspected wasn’t a doctor, to return.
“And then you took off, but came running back around the corner a second later telling me to get down.” She filled in the gaps for him.
“And then I died.” He finished.
She shifted at that, “You’re here now, and that’s all that matters.” She said as his door clicked, swinging open for a potbellied, rotund woman, trailed by the same tall, black clad one that had left.
She made her way over to him, almost as close as Elise, riding up to the opposite side of his hospital bed. Her pock marked face sharpened the closer she got, a half ringed device hovered around her head like a halo. Her hair sheened incongruously with the rest of her unkempt visage, the blue uniform she wore denoting hospital staff, but the black steel badge on her breast and dozens of protruding devices bursting out of her exposed upper arms told him exactly what she was - a Vestman.
“Hello young man, I am Isla Denning, I’m so glad to meet you. I’ve been assigned to your case for the time being, how do you feel?” Her voice came out like bark, the honeyed words she used struggling to match her person.
“I was just going over everything that happened with him, that man was… less subtle.” Elise answered for him.
The Vestman nodded, looking toward the figure behind them, “Ah yes, Assessor Architurn was just leaving, I believe.” Shay could feel the metaphorical daggers she was staring at the man. Just like that, the assessor turned and left, but not after returning the animosity with a baleful glare to the woman. Shay found it difficult to place his features now that he could look at the him without receiving the same treatment for a moment. His bland face slipping from his mind just like the man slipped from the room.
Shay was busy observing the sharp angled black badge Isla wore, it was a simple black metal, spartan and unadorned save the glossy glint of the ‘V’ that made up it’s shape. He noticed only one side of the V held that shine while the other was matte.
She swung around to face him, “So?”
He began with a start, “I um… I feel fine,” the unconvinced look in her eyes forced his next words out, “well, better than fine. When he told me I’d died, I felt fine – it was a surprise! Don’t get me wrong, but I felt fine right after, and I’m pretty sure that’s not how you’re supposed to feel when you’ve been told you’ve y’know, died.” He felt the involuntary urge to scratch his head, suppressed both by the castings and disappointingly, his lack of limbs.
Isla Denning, one of the few active Vestman he had met in his life, brought her hand to the nape of his neck. He felt no warmth from her, only a cold touch followed by the static buzzing of whatever machination she had grafted into her fingertips, “Do not fear, Mr Leonie. There isn’t exactly a script to follow for hearing that kind of news. You are in fact one of very few to hear such a thing, outside of AR games and all.” He wasn’t sure if the slight chuckle she let out was intentional, but it helped loosen the growing atmosphere.
“So what happens to him from here? Is he going to be stuck in a bed forever?! What about that picture of his head before?” His friend spitfired all of his worries at her, he’d actually forgotten about his half-brain… maybe that was because of his half-brain? He mused, what a morbidly funny thought.
“Calm, Ms Emery. Have you forgotten what it is exactly I do?” She gave Elise a quizzical look as her hand retracted, the buzz retreating from his neck. “Your friend will be ‘fine’, or so he says.” She turned her attention to him, “I’m confident he might even enjoy his newfound circumstances.”
Confusedly, Shay watched the woman stride back towards the far wall, she then projected the same image of his brain above, one half still missing – it really wasn’t some cruel joke.
“This is what remains of your brain. Virtually untouched, however, most of the existing implants were fried in the explosion; they were removed, of course. That would also explain why you’ve no doubt had trouble with your Archival and Analysis Systems” Orange highlighted channels came to life throughout the folds of his brain, “It will be restored momentarily, so do not worry. Firstly, you might notice these connections run into your left hemisphere – no brain there, of course.” She clapped both hands atop her bulbous belly, “That is where it gets quite interesting, and also why Assessor Architurn was skulking around here, uninvited I’ll add.”
Suddenly, his brain lit up with activity within the projection, blue clouds fading in and out of existence, with tendrils of lightening arcing all over. Shay could almost see the moment an errant thought of his fired in the hologram, his friend watched in matching awe at the spectacle, “Wow” they said, it wasn’t very often the two saw humanities medical advances on display like this.
Isla seemed pleased, “That isn’t all, kiddies.” She bounced with child like wonder, Shay figured this was the real her, typical for what he knew of Vestman, “Observe.” Her hand cut the air in two as his left hemisphere was revealed, it was… exceedingly normal, albeit dull in colour, and perhaps a tad smoother, actually he could make out small bump like tumours in certain areas.
“Do I have brain cancer?” He asked, Elise shared his concern.
“What? No, Christ. Are we seeing the same thing?” She hopped to the side, probably to get another perspective on the projection, “Maybe I had a little too much faith in you two. Look, ask any Vestman to try and discern who or what made this, and everyone, myself included, will be left clueless.” The brain shrunk into a manageable, handheld size, resting in her two palms. “You see the dull exterior colour, and lack of neural activity unlike your left hemisphere?” He did, “These are both live feeds, both sides thinking simultaneously like any other persons brain would, the only difference,” she isolated the right side, holding it up to the two, “this side is entirely synthetic, made from elasticised rubber metal, with material sciences we can’t even begin to guess on.”
Shay took a moment to absorb the news, he found that was a common theme for his day. “And this is in my head? – is my head?” He stumbled.
“Yes.” Was all she said, lifting it back up and seemingly shifting through different visual spectrums of his synthetic brain.
“Somehow I have more questions than answers now…” his brows furrowed.
Elise seemed in her own world, staring off into the changing colours of his brain in Isla’s hand.
He breathed deep, determined to get a straight answer for what he’s been wondering this whole time, “So how am I alive, how am I thinking with that, if you don’t even know what it’s made of?”
“-or how!” She crooned, Shay decided not to question her odd approach to professionalism. Isla dismissed the projection in a cloud of glittering, fading light. He thought it odd a medical projection had such a flourished dismissal sprite. Probably a perk of Isla’s? He suddenly found he didn’t care as she began pacing.
“I was very reluctant, to be fair. However, your father was insistent, said that it was the only way to save you… he was right.” Again, his father grew closer to a stranger in his mind, “Initially, you were little more than a cocoon for your friend, having shielded her from the explosions. We found you two wrapped together in the wreckage of the lower rafters, you’re lucky they weren’t part of the fallen segments that took out the industrial district below.”
Elise had taken to vacantly playing with the mechanical cat by his bedside.
“When your recovery didn’t look promising the first week of regrowth, the clinic was going to have to cut the ego support; our servers just couldn’t handle the load of a half conscious mind, that was after we retrieved your glimpse as well.” She rounded her third lap at the foot of his bed.
Elise cut in, “They had to use the Glimpse we took at your place, just before Oscar…” her head dropped, “I just hoped that you’d remember,” she remained looking down, “Sorry, Shay.”
This time Isla cut in before he could respond, “Make no mistake, Elise. It helped beyond measure, your friend would surely be elsewhere if it weren’t for your quick thinking.” She gestured to her, “She was the one who told us about your Glimpse, raced to your home as soon as she found out what happened.”
He looked at her in a new light, at her downtrodden form. He wanted nothing more than to hug her then.
“Of course, when your father stormed off, and came back with that brain, he all but forced me to implant it. I had so many questions, and now he’s disappeared off the face of the station. Assessor Architurn is the unfortunate consequence of your fathers mystique.” She shook her head.
“The tumours?” He didn’t know what else to ask, his questions quickly being overwritten with paternal worry.
“Oh, no need to worry. They aren’t tumours,” she replied from her brooding, “Whatever it’s made of, your brain is scarily intuitive – adaptive, even. Those ‘tumours’ are in fact your implants. I couldn’t penetrate the surface of the brain, which is another question in itself, but when the implants were introduced to it experimentally, they took to them like Spacers to Gravity Condensers. It was remarkable, they were absorbed from there, functioning exactly how you’d expect.” She slowly made her way to him, a seventh appendage on her forearm extending outwards, which he’d only now recognised was a robotic prosthetic, “as for turning them on,” the appendage beeped, “There, should boot up in a second.”
Not a moment later his vision was bathed in the unmistakeable boot-up screen of the AA implants, probably the only, and most advanced piece of widespread tech available, and practically essential for most anyone.
“Thank you, Isla.” He nodded to the woman, though her kind eyes found little comfort in his own. The encroaching reality of what had happened still looming in the background.
He was crippled, he could feel it. The stillness in his body, his limbs felt like they were made of iron. He supposed they could be, eventually. People rarely lived without all four limbs nowadays, flesh or otherwise. A grinding tension had pervaded the silence between the three, with the biggest questions satisfied as best they could, the obvious challenges began to whisper.
Isla Denning assumed a reserved posture, the buzz of the scattered tech that jutted from her shoulders the only ambience in the room, save the gentle hum of whatever convoluted network of pipes and cables ran through the clinics walls. Her eyes ran over the two, liquid and judging, “Now, as for the rest,” she gestured to the missing portions of Shay’s shattered body, it was obvious the regrowth treatments had their limits, “Let’s rundown some options.” All of a sudden catalogues on catalogues of prosthetic limbs and modifications flew into the air in a grand display.
It turned out the woman was a snake oil salesman in doctors clothing.