"Early reports from Atlantic City are indicating unprecedentedly low amounts of damage, currently credited to the heavy investments made by construction company CEO Rick Tenement into a city-wide anti-air array."
-East Coast News Network, 2037
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“Before I begin, would you prefer organs selected purely for survival or would you also like options with long term benefits?” Juny asked, but my answer was clear.
“Survival.”
“Of course! First, I would suggest the Phoenix Nanocyte Breeder.” I was starting to see a pattern with Juny’s theme preferences. “This would provide you with an additional organ that manufactures organic nanomachines, largely supplanting the need for external nanite doses.”
Realizing I hadn’t eaten in hours, I took a moment to order a meal and drink set before we continued. Since I was eating in bed, I went for something that wouldn’t leave a mess, at least if I was careful: popcorn chicken and fries, plus a drink in a bottle with an autosealing lid.
“Why organic nanites instead of the usual kind?”
“Organic nanomachines can be built using ordinary food, while inorganic nanomachines require supplements of rare metals. You will, however, need to eat more to replenish your supply!” For once, Juny’s tendency to make negatives sound positive actually lined up with my perception. I wasn’t going to complain about getting to eat more without worrying about gaining weight.
“How much healing would it be good for?” was the next natural question, asked between bites of dinner.
“Anything a Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite can do! Nanites will deploy from the Breeder in response to injuries and knit you back together, but they will not regrow missing tissue.”
“I’ll take it. Just give me the prices at the end and try to balance the budget.” I took a sip of my drink; I had to hold down a button to do it, and the moment I let go it closed itself.
“Next, I suggest the Whalung Lung replacement.” I didn’t comment, but I was pretty sure she failed to come up with a good play on the word ‘lung’ and just smashed it together with the word ‘whale’ because the result sounds like ‘whaling.’ “Human lungs are inefficient and cannot cope with liquid intrusion. The Whalung processes oxygen more efficiently, improving function during aerobic activity, as well as in low-oxygen environments. It is also more resistant to liquid damage and better at absorbing liquid, making it harder to drown. As a side effect, losing an entire lung would only leave you at your current capacity.”
“Sounds like a good deal. What else have you got?”
Yeah, I was too sleepy at this point to ask a whole lot of questions. I just wanted to do my due diligence and at least get the details before rubber stamping everything.
“My third recommendation is the Whole Hog digestive system replacement. It would take the place of your stomach, intestines, pancreas, and gallbladder. Digestion would be greatly improved, and your stomach acid will no longer pose a danger to your other organs,” Juny presented next, although it didn’t sound like it was primarily a survival enhancer this time.
“How does that help keep me alive?”
I opted to ignore the fact that my new stomach was going to be installed empty, making my entire meal pointless and a waste of two points. At least I was enjoying it? It was only chicken and potatoes in the end, but Protector stuff always tasted better.
“It takes up less space than your current organs, which creates space for the next implant,” she explained calmly. “The Chronolord Binary Heart system replaces your heart with a pair of hearts which pump blood more efficiently. Both hearts can self-seal small wounds to prevent blood from escaping, and either can operate in the absence of the other, as your nanites can seal off one heart in the event of catastrophic damage!”
Add another series to the list.
“Love it. Gonna have to get used to the extra heartbeat though, it’ll probably feel like constant palpitations for a while…”
“Finally, there is the Panacea liver replacement. It will substantially improve your resistance to toxins, including making you effectively immune to those produced by Model Fours. You will not be immune to fatal poisons, but a larger dose will be needed to harm you.”
“Is there nothing for the brain?” I asked, wary of brain damage after my near death experience earlier. Having wolfed down my dinner, I tossed the packaging into the trash can.
I missed.
“Enhancements exists, but none that would improve survival chances without at minimum a Class III catalogue. Would you like a list of beneficial enhancements?”
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“I’ll pass. Just give me the price tag so I can go to sleep.”
“In order, you will first need the Class I Biosculpting catalogue for fifty points, which allows you to purchase the Phoenix Nanocyte Breeder for five hundred points, the Whalung for two hundred-fifty points, the Whole Hog for two hundred points, and the Chronolord Binary Heart for four hundred points. As you are purchasing organic replacements rather than cybernetic, however, you will also need the Class II Medical Utilities catalogue for three hundred points and one token in order to obtain a Healing Hands Life Support and Surgical Suite for twelve hundred points.
“Altogether, your total will be twenty-nine hundred points!”
She made it sound like I was ordering fast food, but whatever.
“I’ll take…all of that, I guess. Do I need to do anything to get ready?” It was major surgery after all. There was usually a good bit of preparation for that sort of thing in my experience.
“Not at all. I will put you to sleep, and you will wake up after the operation is complete.”
The last thing I saw before everything went black was the usual purchase text:
Class II Medical Utilities Unlocked!
Class I Biosculpting Unlocked!
New Purchases: Phoenix Nanocyte Breeder, Whalung, Whole Hog, Chronolord Binary Heart, and Healing Hands Life Support and Surgical Suite
Points Reduced to…4,462
I woke as if a switch had been flipped. At the corner of my vision I was that six hours had passed; it was now two AM on the dot. That probably meant it was my turn on call while Alana got her own upgrades.
“Good morning! How are you feeling?” Juny asked, startling me a bit. She hadn’t turned the lights back on after presumably turning them off at some point, so her voice had come from the darkness.
“Fine, I guess? Can you turn the lights- ah!” Before I even got to the word ‘on’ I was blinded by the room lights flaring up, bathing the room in bright light. I saw now that there was a long box on the bed next to me, longer than I was tall, that I could only assume was the suite I had purchased. It must have folded up when it was finished working.
Somehow there was no blood, despite the fact that I’d received the operation lying right on the bed. It wasn’t really worth wondering how Protector technology accomplished that. It was basically magic. Next I checked myself. In spite of having my whole abdomen sliced open and half my internal organs scooped out and replaced, there were no scars left behind.
I didn’t feel all that different compared to before, but it was normal not to feel one’s organs most of the time. If anything that just told me everything was working. There was one difference, of course, but it was only apparent if I placed a hand over my sternum: I now had two heartbeats, one in the usual spot and another where my stomach should have been. My new hearts were slower than my old one, so rather than feeling as if I had one heart racing, it felt like one heart beating slightly faster than normal, just with the thumps alternating in location.
On the other hand, I was pretty hungry. My new stomach had literally never had food in it before. I ordered another meal, this time a sandwich, and inhaled it, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy me now. That’s when I remembered I needed to eat enough for my nanite breeder as well, which probably had an empty tank.
“I suppose if I need to eat a lot I may as well have some fun with it. I have to eat more than I normally will because of the new Phoenix organ, right?” I asked Juny, wanting to know if this was just going to be my appetite from now on. If it was, I’d need to cut back on using points for food, because it was going to get expensive.
“Correct! The Phoenix Nanocyte Breeder will only require this much in resources if fully depleted,” she explained helpfully. Satisfied, I started ordering. First I swallowed an entire steak, then the biggest lobster tail I’d ever heard of, and then, since it all cost the same anyway, high quality Bluefin tuna sushi. One of those things was incredibly expensive, and the other two had practically ceased to exist thanks to the Antithesis, and yet they were in the catalogue.
I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“What’s the situation?” I asked, sighing in contentment from my binge eating.
“Alana’s watch proceeded without incident. The Antithesis have continued sporadic attacks throughout the night, but have not escalated compared to previous nights, and the attacks are small. Most likely they are simply probing for changes in the defenses!”
That was good, at least. I couldn’t help but think it was a ruse, though. If the Antithesis were getting smarter, surely they would eventually figure out how to make use of the already-established pattern…
“Alert!” There it was. “A group of Model Twelves have landed on the roof and disgorged ground models.”
“Past tense? As in they already did it before anyone noticed?” I asked, used to this sort of issue thanks to my good friends the Model Nines. They must have been hidden from sensors somehow. I went ahead and hopped off the bed.
“Correct! Model Twelves are able to produce electromagnetic interference to defeat sensors. A review of camera footage suggests they were able to slip between searchlights during their approach, as well!”
So they were already in the building, and we only found once someone made contact using the good old Mark I Eyeball. Well, my old suit was beyond my ability to repair, so my only choice was to spend even more time in the new one than expected.
“Go ahead and buy the Mistiltienn. Put it right now me,” I told Juny.
“You will need to be in midair when it materializes so that there is space for the boots!”
“Got it. Three, two, one-” I jumped, and right at the moment when gravity started to take hold again, I found myself ensconced in armor. When I landed it was with a heavy thud that strained the floorboards below me, my new power armor just as heavy as the old suit due to the dense materials used in its construction.
I still needed to spend several moments retrieving equipment from the wrecked Dainsleif before I was totally ready. Just like that suit, the Mistletienn had magnetic strips for securing my weapons, and with the jump pack replaced by jets across its exterior, I now had plenty of space to affix both the assault rifle and shotgun to my back. The SMGs took their place on my thighs, and I wrapped my grav-chute along my waist.
With the previous suit that had been the only additional equipment I could add to the suit itself, but this more advanced model could accommodate a few more if I had them. But that wasn’t important right now.
“Alright Juny, tell me where to go. Let’s put this suit through its paces.”