“This stuff is so cool,” Riley said, holding up one of the in progress legs that Taylor was working on in her spare time. “The artificial muscles are amazing, never mind this skeletal system. This is way more advanced than what my tech comes up with.”
Riley had brought some examples of her tech, and the odds were good that the girl could have restored her ability to walk, but she couldn’t do half of what Taylor managed. Riley’s tech was much more generalized, and she could do some truly scary things if the documentation she had was accurate, but she focused on helping people instead.
It was something Taylor wanted to do with her power, to help those that healers like Panacea couldn’t help. Riley was a chatterbox, throwing out technical details of what she could see from Taylor’s tech and together they were bouncing ideas left and right. Cranial hadn’t gotten directly involved, but they had already vastly improved elements of the mind interface that would allow her cyber brain to interact with the outside world.
Working with them was stimulating, that was the best way Taylor could think to describe it. Together they had managed more progress in two hours than Taylor had done in the last three days. In hindsight, many of their contributions were glaringly obvious, but that was the whole point of bringing in experts to assist.
Taylor was in her element, and she was almost sad that it was time to lay down and begin the procedure. Riley happily checked over the systems as Taylor took her place on the operating table. Nervous didn’t even begin to describe things, but she had two of the foremost experts on the human brain there to watch over the procedure.
Cranial was prodding the shell of her eventual cyber brain with what she recognized as a diagnostic tool, before they finally slotted it into the machine. Pretty much everything had been checked, rechecked and there was nothing left to stall the procedure.
“Alright,” Taylor said with a sigh. “Hook me up.”
Riley nodded, bringing over an arm that then clamped itself over her, various connection points securing her to the table and Taylor knew that once she was unconscious, they would take over the complicated task of keeping her body alive without her brain for the thirty or so minutes it would take to complete the transplant.
“Alright, I’m going to inject you with a sedative now,” Riley said, biting her lip. “You’ve nothing to worry about, I’ve kept brains alive through worse, so relax.”
“Easy for you to say,” Taylor said as she was injected. A creeping cold began to spread up her arm, and the moment it hit her heart, she felt it spread rapidly, her consciousness slipping almost immediately.
----------------------------------------
It was almost like déjà vu, waking up to a bright ceiling, but this time she wasn’t struggling to remember who she was. No, this time Taylor was aware of that and so much more. Across her eyes, information was overlaid, fed directly into the visual cortex of her brain. Diagnostic feedbacks were compiling, errors were being reported, all within expected parameters. The errors were within spec and easy enough to calibrate now that she had direct access to her brain.
More so, she began flexing her hands, which seemed as responsive as ever. Then came the true test, she wiggled her feet. Both of them. A smile pulled at her lips as she began to sit up, her feet moving just as smoothly as her hands. Even her left arm, which had been slightly numb, was back to full strength.
She would need to exercise to improve them, but that was something she could start once her new body was complete and she could automate the process in the background for her current one. Then again, maybe she could just manufacture a new body for her civilian life and be done with it.
Thoughts for later, as she had a very enthusiastic blonde bouncing on her heels to contend with. “Everything seems in order.”
“Yup!” Riley said enthusiastically. “That was some of the most fun I’ve had in years, watching your gray matter get all kinds of fun additions. It was a work of art!”
Given the information still pouring in from the additional processors that were now boosting her natural mental capabilities, she had to agree. She was so much more now, and she couldn’t wait to experience a full cybernetic body. That was still at least a month off, but she would have plenty of time to work on it once her Winslow plans were complete.
Absently, she connected to the wireless network that existed in Toybox’s dimension, and the information flood ratcheted itself up by several levels. She looked over the data from the transfer, watched bits of the footage itself and even began correcting some of the errors, all while she spoke with Riley about the procedure.
She could now multitask far beyond that of a normal person, and with the non-standard system at her disposal, it felt entirely natural. The processors would be a bit quirky for the first few days, but she would soon get them dialed in to the point that they felt indistinguishable from her own thought processes.
“Still can’t believe Cranial left already,” Riley said with a huff. “I mean, this stuff is right up their alley and all. They should be here gushing over everything, coming up with clever ideas and new tech. I’ve got so many new ideas and I want to run them by you. Your brain alone would be amazing for improving my last ditch survival method.”
Taylor knew the words would be a mistake, but she was morbidly curious all the same.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Do I want to ask?”
Riley nodded enthusiastically. “My head and spine can detach from my body and scurry off if I suffer a fatal blow.” And Taylor already regretted asking. “Completely self-contained systems would keep me alive for weeks. I picked up the tricks from another Tinker, it’s really cool when you break it down but you take it a step farther.”
“I suppose I do,” Taylor said.
Her cyber brain could be detached and left hooked up to a support system if needed for extended periods. Sure, she would need a body to maintain things, two bodies really, to keep up maintenance on everything, but being plugged directly in removed the minor lag that came with wireless control. Even her best system she could envision for remote piloting got dubious once a dozen miles were between her and the target.
In theory, she could control a body remotely across the planet, but it would be a lag-filled mess that would make it obvious to even the most casual observer that something was off. She didn’t even want to imagine trying to fight in such a thing, which raised the question of how Dragon managed to do so.
Well, there was a reason she signed on with the world’s largest Tinker collective, they had to have a solution available that could work. Hell, maybe Hero would be the one to provide it, assuming he wasn’t sourcing it from Toybox already.
Just the thought sent her giggling. Taylor had never imagined there would be a day where she could just casually ask the greatest Tinkers alive for tips on how to make her own tech better, but there she was, settling in with Toybox and making waves with some of the other greatest Tinkers alive.
“I’m surprised I feel as good as I do,” Taylor said. “I expected some discomfort or itchiness minimum.”
“You can thank me for that,” Riley said. “I’ve got a lot of regenerative solutions, you were healed up within minutes of your brain being reinstalled.”
“Thank you for that,” Taylor said with a smile before looking around. “Is it just the two of us?”
“Melissa is taking a nap and Jim is negotiating something in the other room,” Riley said.
Taylor was surprised at how quickly she stopped using cape names, only noticing now that she was talking casually with Surgeon. Riley was just an excitable little girl, and not the hope that the Protectorate hung on a string to bring her into their fold.
A quick thought pulled up a mental clock and Taylor almost cursed when she saw it was almost seven in the evening. Her father would be home soon, assuming he didn’t stay late. That brought an idea to mind however, and she tapped into the internet signal that somehow bypassed the dimensional barrier. It was a matter of seconds for her to locate the DWU on the network and tap into it. From there, she located her father’s PC and found it had last been used twenty minutes prior. He didn’t have a cell phone, so there was no point in attempting to track him further.
“Shit,” she said aloud. “I need to get home before Dad notices I’m gone. He’ll be home soon.”
“Aww, but I had so much more I wanted to discuss,” Riley said with an adorable pout.
Taylor laughed, patting the smaller girl on the head. “Tell you what, let me crack into a cell company and liberate a number for you to reach me at and we can text all you want. It will be encrypted so no need to worry about someone hacking into it.”
“That sounds great!” Riley said and a moment later Taylor spoke out a number for her which she hastily put into her phone and sent a confirmation text. “Now we can talk about all sorts of ideas, like how to make your new body even better with all kinds of hidden features!”
“That we can,” Taylor said when a thought occurred. “How often can you actually make it here?”
“I need Dad’s permission,” Riley said with a scrunched nose. “He doesn’t mind, but only when it’s important and I’m up-to-date on my schooling.”
“That’s reasonable,” Taylor said, then tapped the side of her head. “Well, at least we can text and share ideas whenever. I’m always connected now, so feel free to poke me at any time.”
“You bet I will,” Riley said before wrapping her in a quick hug.
Taylor stiffened, not quite used to being hugged, not since her mom died. Hesitantly, she returned it, a gentle thing full of warmth and it reminded her of when Emma would hug her in a way. The gentle embrace of someone who was as good as family.
In a way, that wasn’t far off, Toybox was quickly starting to feel like a part of her life that she didn’t want to get rid of. She enjoyed just hanging out with them, eating junk food and talking about mundane things every bit as much as she enjoyed Tinkering alongside any of them.
That thought hit her hard as she left the dimension and stepped back into her empty living room with crutches in hand. She was quickly becoming closer to any of them than she was to her own father. That was such a sobering thought and one she really didn’t want to become a reality. He would be home soon, and much as she just wanted to go home and pretend things were okay until she could return to the base, it would only make things worse.
She needed to be the one to reach out. There was something she could do to help bridge that gap, and the first hurdle had already been cleared. She had her cyber brain, and with that, he couldn’t prevent her from following through on the procedure. It would hopefully be enough to convince him to not enroll her in the Wards, which would squash so much of what she could do.
Even Riley had done most of her augments in secret for fear of what the Protectorate would say or do about it. Taylor didn’t want to have to deal with such regulations and restrictions, or fight for approval just because she wanted to upgrade her arms to be five percent stronger.
She heard a vehicle pull into the driveway, the rumble of the engine long familiar to her ears. She stored the sound file away, just because she could now, it would allow her to identify the truck even in the middle of a crowded city if need be. She moved over to the door, her crutches left aside.
The decision was an easy one in retrospect, one she embraced. So, when she opened the door, surprising her father who stood there with Chinese takeout, he blinked, then frowned.
“Taylor, where are— How are you standing without your crutches?”
She smiled, stepping back and letting him walk inside. “Well, long story short, I have powers and used them to fix myself.”
She watched as a myriad of emotions ran across her father’s face before she decided to move things along, gently taking the food from him and gesturing for him to follow to the kitchen where she began to set everything out. It took a moment, but she settled on where best to start.
“Tell me, what do you know about Toybox?”