“Starting the road to being a brain jar borg from the head is a first for me. I’ve not heard of someone doing that before. Usually they fall in love with super powerful arms or legs first. You’ve gone straight for the head.” Dr. Nguyen said from the side.
“It’s a good strategy. Keeps you alive longer on the battlefield at least. Not many medics can save a casualty with half it’s head all over the floor. A lot of medics can save a casualty full of bullets to the torso and limbs.” Dr. Wood said, her face tightening as she spoke.
“I forgot you’ve been outside the city, did you see a lot of combat out there in the wilds?” I said softly.
“Yeah, running around with the nomads was fun but after a crash or an ambush I’d have to peel up what was left and try to save them. Having all their chrome lovers and borgs actually have their head armored like you would have saved a lot of lives. Battlefield medicine is most often just trying to preserve the brain until we can get them out of there, it’s a lot easier when it’s in one piece.” She said, not looking away from the screens.
“Damn. Sorry.” I said, a little awkwardly.
“It’s fine. Lots of good with the bad with those days. Good days, bad days. Lost people but also saved people. Lots of new people too. I delivered so many babies you’d think the nomads were eating something different to the rest of us.” She said with a smile.
Even Dr. Nguyen was smiling at that from the little desk they had in the surgery.
“What do nomads eat? I basically live on dry stuff and packets of things from the vending machines with the occasional take out meal. Out there in the wilds they likely don’t find many vending machines.” I asked.
“There’s game animals around. Mostly just timber wolves, gray coyote, white cows and black tail deer. Those and mud scale iguana everywhere, wandering around eating the bugs. So many bugs. One thing I like about the cities is there’s no bugs or rats. You get out into the crater lands or the wilds beyond and it’s bugs all the way until the next city even if you stick to the roads. I almost wish they hadn’t saved the bugs when the biosphere collapsed.” Wood said with a shiver.
“Food webs need bugs Wood, what are the poor iguanas supposed to eat?” Nguyen said from the desk as he worked on what looked like my records.
“You grew up with them Nguyen, you eat spiders raw and don’t care. I’m from the city, bugs are gross.” Wood said with a huff.
“I’ve never seen a spider in real life I don’t think. Are they really hairy?” I asked Nguyen.
“We’ve only got a few types of spiders now, small whites, medium blacks that are venomous and big browns with spiky hairs. Apparently they’ve started breeding some more lines in other countries but up here in America we’ve just got those ones and I haven’t heard any plans to make more. I don’t know the real names, my mom might if I asked.” He said, rubbing his chin with thought at the end.
“Let’s get you set up Mal, it’ll be good to get this started earlier because this is quite a big task now. Going to have to swap out a lot of stuff.” Wood said as she walked over and placed a bib like fabric thing over me.
“We can test out your bit strength tomorrow Mal, it’ll be fun to see what those cyberjaws can chew through.” Nguyen said as he walked over to the big white machine on the side and pulled a familiar face mask from it..
“If you’re healed enough for that anyway. Let’s not run before we can walk here.” Wood said.
“Yeah, yeah. Mal has bounced back fine so far with his cyberware. Kids take to it like an iguana to a spider.” Nguyen said with a grin as he placed the mask over my face.
Wood just grimaced.
“Let’s count you down from ten then Mal, and we’ll talk more later. Call it out for me.” Nguyen said as he stepped away to keep an eye on the readout as I heard a pressure change and the mask filled with a familiar spicy smell.
“Ten, nine, eight…” I said before drifting off.
-
I woke up to a familiar ceiling, pale orange and bumpy. I was in the recovery room again.
Bringing my hands up to my face I touched my cheeks and they felt… Normal. No different then they had before. I touched my chin, normal. My forehead and around my eyes, normal. Eyebrows, not normal. The hairs didn’t bend how I remembered. I touched my hair on my head and it was the same thing with it feeling like hair but not feeling like my old hair.
I touched around my throat a little as I looked for where they had put the seam and found a load of bandage spray covered in more actual strips of bandages. I couldn’t check the seam yet then. The actual bandages covered from the top of my neck to the bottom. I wondered how much work had went into the neck considering the focus of the surgery was a whole new head.
Wondering what it looked like, I sat up on the bed which did cause a little discomfort in my neck and shoulders, not so much pain as stiffness and tingles. I wanted to walk over to the little en-suite bathroom and take a look in the mirror but as soon as I sat up a little alarm went off on the monitor machine on the side of the bed. I’d been rumbled.
Dr. Wood quickly opened the door to the recovery room to find my sitting up in the recovery bed. She gave me a quick frown but then went back to neutral expression.
“How are you feeling Mal? You’ve been asleep a bit longer and it’s nearly seven pm now. We kept you under so you’re neck could get some more healing done seeing as it’s a major supporting structure. Your actual painkillers have likely worn off in the last half hour, do you need more?” She asked, siting at the end of the bed.
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I considered my head and neck. They felt fine with what little movement I was giving them, only sitting up and tensing the muscles had felt a bit odd but even that hadn’t hurt.
“Nah, my neck and head feel fine if I’m honest. There was a bit of a weird feeling when I sat up just then for the first time but it wasn’t actually painful, just a bit tingly.” I said, touching the bandage spray.
“That’ll be the nerves still settling the connections with your new wired nerves. Your new head is basically total chrome now, there’s a whole load of things you just don’t have anymore.” She said, patting my shin.
“What? What do you mean?” I asked, a little concerned. My head felt fine, what was gone?
“Oh nothing bad, just different than before. You don’t have an inner ear, so no real dizziness anymore without big damage to your sensory suite or your brain. No sinuses so getting a cold isn’t so bad and you can’t laugh water out of your nose. A bunch of changes with the way your tears work. Whole new mouth so your gums, palettes, teeth and tongue are all chrome so taking another pipe to the mouth won’t be such an issue.” Wood said as she pointed at my head at different angles.
“So it all went in alright? Even with the modifications and the old braincase?” I asked.
“It went very well. There was a bit of worry about your voice box as we worked hard to avoid it so you could age up your voice properly as you go through puberty. We had to put in some collagen scaffolding to keep the flesh secure but from the outside it’s unnoticeable and there’s no effect on flexibility or function.”
“I hadn’t even thought about my voice changing.”
“It could just be done manually or even just ditch the voice box entirely and use the sensory suite to process your voice output from a synthesizer. But we’re here to go at your speed Mal, you wanted the surgery done that you asked for and we considered your health and future into that. If one day you want a synth voice then that’ll be a choice then, we don’t take options away from our patients unless it’s medically necessary.”
“Yeah, I know. Thank Dr. Wood. I was half expecting to wake up with my head all deconstructed because of some issue I’d caused because of my choices with the parts. You and Dr. Nguyen have always done perfect work though, even when I wandered in spilling my guts all over.”
“If you could try not to make that a habit I’d really appreciate it. Never think you can’t just turn up at the door whenever you’re hurt Mal. Even if you stop working with Marchand I’ll always treat you right away in an emergency. But try not to make them too common, yeah?”
“I don’t exactly run into the dangerous situations. They usually run into me. Although I’ve recently got told off for not then running from the dangerous situations, so we’ll see in the future I guess.”
“Never be afraid to grab what you care about and run. I once ran fourteen miles over incredibly rough terrain with a nomad kid on my back over two days of constant pursuit from raiders. In and out of caves and dodging gunfire. I could have made a stand with my weapons and some traps to take them on but it was better to take the kid and get to a nomad camp, so I did just that. The raiders were peppered as soon as they got over the hill and me and the boy were safe.” Wood said as she looked lost in the memory by the end.
“Sounds really nova. Wish I could have exciting stories like that instead of knife fighting in total darkness at the bottom of a sewer. It doesn’t have the same sense of wonder, you know?” I said, crossing my arms. The movement got me another tingle from my neck.
“The sense of wonder fades quickly when you fill in the details. I was caked with mud, sweat and blood. Like a lot of sweat, I stunk. Then there was the fact I’d had to pee while running so that stank too. My hair was in shambles and had been for days. The kid had vomited and peed in fear several times down my front and back and had apologized each time but that didn’t help my clothes or smell. I was also being eaten alive by bugs by the time I got to the camp, literally in some cases with leeches all over my legs to the point that I barely needed to shave.” She said as her lost look changed to a frown.
“Okay, wow. Yeah. That glossy movie image of the whole thing falls apart when you mention all that. I was more picturing the wilderness bandit hunting woman in shorts with two pistols and an off road motorcycle.”
“Try picturing a fleeing doctor carrying a scared little boy who’s just slightly too large to carry easily but too small to keep up. Jeans turned brown from mud and filth, an exercise vest literally covered in and infested with tree mites, a snapped bra and a single boot. My gun was long gone in a puddle and while a vehicle would have been lovely the only things I had left on me was a knife with a snapped point and a canteen slung around my neck which was filled with green pond water that I’d need to take anti fungals to not die drinking.”
“Can I not picture that? It’s not a very nice picture.”
“It was not a nice picture, no. But it saved the boy and myself that was what I needed to do right then. Running away isn’t often pretty, but it’s important. It keeps you alive. That’s the most important thing almost all of the time and if it ever isn’t the most important thing then you’ll have reached a point that I haven’t yet and I can’t advise you. I haven’t found something or someone I’d be willing to die for.”
“What about that kid though? You ran from raiders.”
“Even that little boy, Lark was his name. If I really thought I had no other choice then I’d have just stuffed him in a cave pocket and ran away without him and just hope he’d be fine and not be found until I got to the camp. I wouldn’t have stood my ground and sacrificed myself for him to get away. He was a son of an acquaintance that was part of the nomad family I was traveling with. They’d understand if I left him behind, even if the mother didn’t forgive me. Worse I would have faced would be told to leave and not come back.” She said, her face hardening as she turned to look at me.
“I’ve been told I’m a bit psychopathic, but I’d have made the same sort of choice if I had to. I think so anyway. I haven’t actually had to defend anyone from actual harm before that I didn’t really care about. I’ve stepped into risk for my mom, and a little for Noe. But no one else really.”
“I don’t think your crazy Mal, the city itself takes a slice. Operator life takes a slice. If you’re alright with what you have left to work with and it doesn’t hurt the ones you love to see what you’ve let go then I wouldn’t worry too much. That might not be a strictly medical opinion though, more just an operator opinion. Maybe just a me opinion.” She said, patting my new hair. It felt odd.
“The hair feels a little different. Not exactly thicker, but it doesn’t feel as soft.” I said as she patted my head.
“Yeah. Can’t do much about that. That’s the limit for the materials unfortunately, any less and the fibers would just fray and fall apart. It visually looks no different than hair and that’s enough for most people along with it’s strength and toughness.” Wood said as she tugged a little on my fringe.
“Wow. Pulling hair doesn’t hurt?” I asked.
“It’s a normal part of the installation. Anything that doesn’t cause your cyberware damage usually won’t hurt. You’ll just sort of feel it. I could likely slap your face with my bare hand and you’d just turn back a bit surprised but unharmed and unhurt. It can be adjusted in the options for your sensory suite though if you feel you need that to feel normal though. Your suite won’t handle pain from your organic parts though.” Wood said with a finger tap to my cheek.
“I think I’ll try just not feeling pain for a while. Not like I haven’t got the rest of me to hurt, no doubt Noe will discover bonking my head doesn’t faze me and just punch my arm instead.”
“At least she can keep you grounded.” Wood said with a smile.