No one around them looked the same, and Urle revelled in that.
This part of Gohhi was only marginally less busy than the main area, the clientele mostly but not all human, and every single one of them was an augson.
Mechanical parts replacing eyes or limbs or adorning the tops of heads in fantastical configurations made the outline a riot of shapes and even hues – many were embellished with lighted strips in neon colors.
A being passed them – whether man or woman a mystery, as so much of their body had been replaced that they simply moved on mechanical tendrils, nearly hidden under a long cloak.
Urle watched the being pass, considering for a moment the pros and cons of such a form of movement.
Not today, at least.
He looked at Kell. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
Kell looked to him. “Do you believe that you have a soul?” he asked.
Urle sputtered. “Wait, what? That came out of nowhere.”
Kell did not reply to that, and Urle had to beat down his disappointment. He’d actually expected Kell to be full of questions about the beings around him, and he had looked forward to discussing the matter in depth. But after a moment Urle made himself consider the actual question Kell had asked. When he took it seriously it was not a hard thing for him to answer.
“No,” he said. “I don’t really believe anything happens within us except the physics and chemistry that makes up our bodies. Why, do you think people will lose their soul if they become augs?” It had been a common resistance to this lifestyle in past periods, though rarely brought up now except by the most fringe of organic fundamentalists.
“No,” Kell replied with finality.
“Good, I’ve always found that a silly thought. But what about your people? Do Shoggoths have a concept of a spiritual essence?”
Kell’s laugh was deep and honest. “No,” he said.
Urle puzzled on that a moment. “Just curious – why ask me, then?” He rarely got the sense that Kell wanted to know much about humanity. It seemed more a tolerance at best, with the occasional superficial curiosity or amusement.
“I wished to know your stance. Many humans have believed in such a concept, in older times,” Kell replied.
“Depends on the times, really,” Urle said. “Nowadays, less than one percent of humans in the Sapient Union identify as strongly religious. The whole concept has lost a lot of traction over the centuries, starting in the Enlightenment era.”
He turned to look at Kell. “And the concept has varied quite a lot. In the Germanic cultures of pre-Christian Northern Europe, they believed that humans consisted of four parts; the physical form, the mind, the fate or luck, and a familiar that existed externally.”
Kell looked at him in silence, but Urle sensed a curiosity in him. “The ‘familiar’ existed outside of their body?” he asked.
“Well, in their beliefs, yes. It represented something about their personality. Like someone who was excessively violent might have a wolf that preceded them, and people who would meet them might first meet their familiar in a dream or something like that.”
Urle cleared his throat. “My point is really that the whole conception of a single ‘soul’ within a physical body is hardly the sum of human spiritual belief.”
“I see,” Kell said. “You say that most humans in the Sapient Union are not spiritual, but what of those outside it? Like here?”
“There are still faiths. It is much less than it used to be – most don’t survive unless they have a lot of psychophants or are profitable schemes, but most historical faith has been simply the gasp of the oppressed. A hope that one day things will be better, when it never seems like it will be.”
Kell was quiet again, and Urle continued. “One thing I’ve seen among Augs is a belief of something like a . . . ‘spirit in the code’ or similar. Some of them feel that machines have a will beyond just what’s coded into them, especially once melded with the body.”
“And you do not believe that?” Kell asked.
“It’s utter nonsense,” Urle replied.
His scanners had been checking each store as they passed, small data signs outlining each store’s products and services. It alerted him that it had found something that met his search criteria.
The sign above the storefront was small and unobtrusive. Not even a fancy name was writ on it, though the letters of the name were glowing dimly in the darkness of the station’s long halls.
‘Upgrades Available’.
Urle scanned the code beneath the sign in more depth, getting a series of simple, informative ads on what exactly they stocked.
“Let’s go here,” he said to Kell.
The Shoggoth said nothing as they entered the store. It was dim, lit only by neon blue and red lights that dominated different sides of the store.
Cases made of translucent titanium formed the shelves, and within them each item lay in a box of darkened glass.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“They are machine parts,” Kell noted.
Urle glanced at him. “You can see them?”
With the lighting, only an aug could even have seen in and to the product beneath – which was no accident, he surmised.
“Yes.”
“Your eyes are better than they scan as,” Urle replied. “Most people wouldn’t see any details.”
“These eyes are inadequate,” Kell replied, but said nothing more.
----------------------------------------
A looming shadow approached, and Urle saw that the figure was over a full head taller than he was, and even more augmented. Urle had to crane his neck to look the man in the face.
“What name ya?” the man asked.
Unlike many augs, Urle had never taken on a new name. “I’m Zach.”
The man clearly judged him for that, but Urle found it childish. “Madspark,” he said as his own introduction. “What you search here for?” His voice came from not just organic vocal chords, but two synthetic voice boxes, one tinny and metallic, the other so deep that it seemed to vibrate the floor.
An odd choice, Urle thought, but effective. With his size and the strange voice, Urle doubted that anyone messed with him or his business.
“Looking for the bleeding edge,” he said. “You carry that?”
“Aye,” the man grumbled. “Take a look.” His one real eye looked beyond Urle, at Kell. “Your friend a baby?”
Among augs, anyone without upgrades was little more than the flesh they’d been born into – a baby.
Urle took a moment to decide how to respond. He couldn’t pass Kell off as a realskin, hiding his augments. Madspark surely had scanners that would see through that.
“No,” he decided to say, reckoning the man could not tell if Kell was entirely bare of augments. “But he’s pretty bare. I trust him, though, yeah?”
Madspark considered that, glowering, but then nodded. “Trust like. Don’t let me go find out you been tellin tales. Just have sure no touching, yeh?”
Urle nodded, and turned to Kell.
“Man doesn’t trust unmodded people,” he told the Shoggoth. “Try not to touch anything.”
Kell was looking over at Madspark, but at least his face was calm. “I have no interest in touching them.”
Urle took that as compliance enough, and started to browse.
He’d been right to pick this place, just from what he was seeing on the shelves. Many of the pieces were one of a kind, at the absolute forefront of cybernetic tech.
Most of it was for humans, some able to multi-species, and some for the other major species – Dessei, Sepht or Qlerning. Somewhere on another station, he knew, there would be communities of augs of those species, who would surely have stores catering mostly to their own kind’s specific cybernetics, but here they were really just a curiosity.
“What is a Glef?” Kell asked, peering at a sign for a piece.
“Ah, to be honest – I’m not sure,” Urle said. “That may be an alternate name for Latarren, a species outside the Sapient Union. We don’t have a lot of contact with them.”
“Then why is a piece of one here?”
“It’s just tech,” Urle said. “I guess occasionally one might come through. We had conflict with them decades ago, but we really didn’t see them much. They cover themselves completely for cultural reasons.”
Kell did not reply, which Urle was frankly used to. He browsed on.
He considered an eye piece that could give him an even broader range of vision, but without the appropriate brain implants to help, it was not nearly as good. And he wasn’t even sure it would interface with his current ports.
Getting those redone would be a much bigger deal, but not out of the question.
He moved on, looking at external scanners more sensitive than his current set – though only barely – but also more compact.
The Sapient Union did not lag in this tech but they did insist on thorough testing before approving pieces for common usage. It was wise, really, as people would expect things on the market to be trustworthy, while experimental tech could be finicky.
He felt confident that he could check these parts himself. But for many of them he was really going to need that new socket . . .
He moved towards the proprietor. “I want piece 472,” he said.
The man glanced at him. “Not with that port.”
“You do hands-on, yeah? Not afraid of the wet?”
“Not afraid,” Madspark said. “Get wet often. Got suite that chop real clean, no one feel thing.”
“Good. I’ll get a port upgrade, too,” Urle said.
Madspark considered. Then; “40k.”
The price was high, even for top-end work like this.
“30k,” Urle countered.
He hated haggling – he’d rather things just be priced reasonably, but he knew he had to play the game at least a little.
“37,” the proprietor replied.
“All right,” Urle said. He’d given up too easily, but it wasn’t the worst price.
“I prep the suite,” Madspark said, his voice still with that odd combination of rumbling and tinny. “You wait.”
He left, and Urle continued to glance through the shelves. He’d already looked at every item on them, but he derived some pleasure just looking at the pieces.
“You replace your flesh with machine willingly,” Kell stated.
“Had you not noticed before?” Urle asked seriously.
“Of course I had. And while I had seen others like yourself, I assumed they were replacement for defective or damaged anatomy rather than a conscious choice.”
“Some of us want to be more,” Urle said. “Our biology can only take us so far.”
“I see,” Kell said, looking at a device intently. Urle realized that, while it was not a particularly cutting-edge piece, the connective mesh to attach it to a body was uniquely fluid, able to move even with a body as it flexed and contorted.
Kell, he surmised, had grasped the significance of it in relation to his own biology. Urle felt a tingle go down his spine for some reason.
“Are you considering an upgrade?” he asked Kell, feigning simple curiosity when he was burning with deeper questions.
“No,” Kell said. “But they are a curiosity.” He looked up to Urle. “In what way did you feel inadequate?”
Urle was caught off-guard. “Ah, well . . . I wasn’t, really. Not by the normal standards. I got interested in weight lifting when I was young, but I also wanted to be a runner. I tried to strike a balance, and became good at both. Other sports as well, but those were my main ones.”
He paused. “But I never liked that people who focused on one or the other exclusively could be better. I tried, for a long time, to overcome it by just working that much harder, but . . .” He shrugged. “Like I said, biology has limits.”
“Yours, at least,” Kell replied. “But I believe I understand.”
“Are you suggesting your biology doesn’t have limitations?” Urle asked, his curiosity burning harder.
“Have you not wondered why we never developed technology?” Kell asked in return. “We never needed it.”
“But you can’t go to space,” Urle said. “You needed us for that.”
Kell said nothing, only looking into the case again. Urle realized what he said might be construed as insulting, and continued.
“Not that your people aren’t incredible. I feel honored that I’m getting to know a Shoggoth better.”
Kell looked up sharply, surprise on his face for a moment before disappearing. “You feel you are getting to know a Shoggoth?”
“Yes, of course. Am I wrong in that?”
“You are getting to know me,” Kell replied.
Urle noted the particular way he said it, but wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Well, as I said, I’m honored – but I do sometimes wonder why you seem to like me.”
“You are more human than some,” Kell replied.
Urle laughed. “Sorry, that’s . . . well, it’s in the eye of the beholder, I suppose, but most people wouldn’t say that about an augson like myself.”
The door at the back swished open, and he heard Madspark call.
“Zach, ready for chop and replace.”
He turned and moved towards him. “Kell, you can wait here if you like – or go out, this might be awhile.”
But Kell was already following him. “I will stay,” he said.