“[…] As I turned thirty, I had no idea what to do with my life. It was only by sheer chance that I managed to grab the COO position at Xian & Juan. Before that, I had no ambition, no social life or will to live, really. Who would’ve thought that putting a man in a role that was responsible for hundreds of lives was going to change my laid-back and uncaring attitude? I definitely didn’t. But it did and that’s how I was able to lead the company along with the previous CEO into a golden age of resonance-powered weapons. That responsibility gave birth to my current passion and reason to live–guns, baby.”
— Excerpt from an interview with the COO of Xian & Juan, Carlos Manakes, the year 2482.
----------------------------------------
It would appear that the organization called Blackwire had ways of going about things that I didn’t agree with.
Killing was a necessary and unavoidable part of strife, where parties fought for whatever values they held dear, but considering that the main goal of this organization was probably to do some damage to corporations, I couldn’t fathom how killing this one person would help them. Not in the long run that is.
How illogical.
It wasn’t people that made corporations, but money. Fundamentally, that is.
“Is that so?” Dawid’s tone rose a bit, and it was very noticeable since his voice was very deep to begin with. “So you won’t do it?”
“I do not see the reason for it. At least without further information about your main objective I cannot decide if such a course of action would be in any way helpful.” I wondered about what he said before. About resolve. “And if you believe that I am desperate enough to join your organization and commit such an act then I must clarify.”
His eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t say anything. I continued.
“Jane mentioned that she would be able to help me with my problem regarding Fran-Mili and in no way have I obligated myself to your cause by having that conversation with her. Moreover, I hold no grudge or strong motivation in destroying corporations the same way many others do. Like Jane and perhaps you. If I have to ‘prove’ myself, then I will simply leave and try figuring this on my own. Currently, I answer to no one and I have other people who could offer me help.” I hoped so at least.
I still had Gabriel and if I helped him, he would be willing to help me back. Not with Fran-Mili of course since I didn’t want him dead, but with other things that were also important. Like shelter and companionship.
It would be unpleasant not seeing Jane more, but just because I declined Dawid’s offer for me to join them, it wouldn’t mean she would alienate me. I thought.
“Then I guess we have nothing else to say to each other. You can go, Jane will take you upstairs.” He turned around and started to tap again on his datapad.
I stood up slowly and looked at my limp arm again. I would have to address this sooner rather than later.
When I came out of the makeshift office, I saw Jane hanging by the exit and smoking a cigarette.
Really? There were explosives around here.
She noticed me as I came closer and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly when she exhaled a cloud of dense smoke. I worried how she would react to what I was going to tell her.
“And?” There was some hopeful lilt in her voice.
“I am afraid that Dawid and I have not reached an agreement.”
“What? Why?” Her brows scrunched together in a way that made the rest of her face seem more angry than perhaps she was.
“He had asked me to do something I was not comfortable with.”
“Like what?” It would appear that Jane was quite set on finding out exactly how the conversation between me and Dawid went.
“Like kill someone.” At that Jane’s eyes widened, and she coughed the smoke out as she was in the middle of inhaling it as I spoke.
“W-what?!” Some more coughing, “He wouldn’t do that.” After a couple of seconds of deep breaths, Jane seemed to get her composure back.
“He did.” I didn't understand why she wouldn’t believe me. Didn’t she know this Dawid well?
“Wait here. I’ll speak with him.” Jane rushed past me and I let her. Well, in my current state I wasn’t actually sure I’d be able to stop her even if I wanted to. I wondered if Gabriel would be able to defeat me like this. I shuddered at the possibility of the answer being yes to that.
I decided to listen in on their conversation. Maybe I’d find out why Jane was so surprised at what Dawid had asked me to do.
“Dawid! What the fuck?” Jane sounded more agitated than I’ve ever heard her.
“Jane? What’s wrong?” And Dawid sounded the same as I left him.
“What’s wrong is that you asked her to play a fucking assassin. You know we don’t do shit like that.” Now that was interesting. Then why did he ask me to do such a thing?
“I see.” He said and there was some shuffling sound of feet against concrete. “What else would you have her do? She’s a synth, right? A military one at that. If we can’t use that for things we are not willing to do, what else will she bring to the table? You said it yourself that a mili-synth would be a great acquisition for our cause.” For some reason, at his words my core blazed with new energy. That was his reasoning?
“You make it sound like she’s a tool.” Jane again. This time less angry and more breathless.
“Isn’t she? If not for her being a mili-synth, you wouldn’t have brought her to my attention.”
“Dammit, Dawid! This could be the key to getting past the GUF security. You know how soft they are on synths. We could use her! You saw what she did to the camera outside. That level of technomancy might be just what we need in getting inside.” Was that why Jane asked me to help her? So I could help them with that? Just because I was a synth? Just because of my technomancy?
If I weren’t capable of all that, how differently would she act towards me? Did my past with Jack mean nothing to her?
“We’ll find some other way. You can’t pick up a broken tool just because it used to be expensive. Now go take her out of here.” That made me angry. I didn’t need any software to tell me how that felt like.
“Fuck you, Dawid.”
“Yeah, yeah. You always say that.”
Then the sound of a pair of rushing boots came from where Dawid’s office was. Jane was walking at me with a quick pace and a pissed off demeanor.
“Let’s go.” Nothing else was said.
I followed along slowly and thought about how this was the first time that I was met with something akin to prejudice.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
My core felt strange. Like it was devoid of any power. That churning life-like energy was gone and I wondered how I was still able to walk with an emotional rapture that grew each time I recalled the conversation between Jane and Dawid.
Somehow, looking at Jane’s back did not make me feel good anymore.
----------------------------------------
I found myself back in Cece’s room with Jane pacing around it with an unreadable expression on her face. I didn’t need FERS to tell me that she was angry and thoughtful at the same time.
“You know what? Fuck Dawid. Why don't we help each other out, huh? He’s not necessary.” She stopped in the middle of the room and looked at me from above as I was sitting on Cece’s bed.
How come she didn’t mention the state of my clothes? Did these people really have such low standards regarding decency?
Or maybe she really did not care much about me?
“Is it really fine to go against your superior like that?
“Dawid’s my boss, yes. But it doesn’t mean I can’t take side projects, right?” She jabbed a finger in my chest and continued, “How about you listen to my proposal, huh? Promise it involves no killing.”
“Sure.” I had nothing else to do right now. Not until Cece got back. I wanted to see her instead of Jane.
“Then listen to this.” She straightened herself up and something flashed in her eyes. It would appear that I could deduce a lot from how people looked at me. “You don’t like Fran-Mili. I don’t like Fran-Mili. So, how about we do something about that? They have this big military tech expo every year, and I’ve been thinking about giving it a visit.”
“By ‘giving it a visit’ you mean sabotaging it, I presume?” I believed that was what Jane was implying.
“Bingo!” She exclaimed. “And you’re perfect for it. They want you back so you’ll be a bait and I could do some real damage as they fight over you. Of course, we could iron the plan some more, but how does it sound? It happens in a couple of months so we have time.” Jane’s facial expressions got increasingly easier to read over time. She still looked indecipherable somewhat, but small, almost imperceptible twitches of facial muscles made me think she was excited about the prospect.
“I would like to help you with it, but first I need to take care of a more prominent issue.” I looked at my arm and wondered what to do about it. What to do about all of this.
Jane’s idea sounded promising, and maybe with time I would notice something other than pragmatism when she looked at me.
I already checked the web and there was no mention about anything like being possessed, losing faculty of limbs and having untouchable files on SSUs forums. I doubted that there even was an answer at all.
What would happen if I couldn’t make my arm work again? Would replacing it do anything? I couldn’t answer that if I didn’t know the reason for its paralysis in the first place.
It could be a problem with my arm’s internal hardware or something in my programming, but there was no way of knowing that if the diagnostics didn’t tell me.
“You said it was a software issue.” Jane pointed to my right arm. “Is it?”
“I would like to think so, but so far, I haven’t a clue.” I felt a nagging feeling of energized frustration. Maybe Hadley was right with feelings being uncomfortable. Actually, I didn’t want to think about that.
“I could ask Ly to help you, but they’ll want something in return I’m sure.”
“I will think about it.” I could do one more thing to perhaps figure this out before I started asking others for any advice. I would have to comb through my system manually but that would take some time and a quiet place. Maybe if I got back to the HQ, I would have some peace to do that.
Right. I would somehow have to get back there.
“Do you have a car by chance?” It wasn’t exactly the best impression to make on someone when you constantly asked them for help, but as I once read on the web ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’.
“I do. Why?”
“Could you drive me to the Contractor’s HQ later?” I managed to say it with no infliction, even though jolts of heated neutronium traveled to my face.
“I guess, but I’ll have to go to work soon. Just text me and I'll meet you when I can.” Jane looked over my body and seemed to deliberate something. “Cece should be done with her shift soon, I’ll ask her to lend you some clothes.”
“Thank you.” Jane was acting nice right now, but it didn't make me feel the same way when Cece was that kind to me. “So it’s alright if I stay here?”
Jane nodded and said, “Yeah. Then I guess I’ll leave you to it. Text me when you’ll feel better, I guess.” She nodded subtly at my right arm and started to walk towards the exit. “Adios.” And then she was gone.
Since Cece was working right now, I had some time to go over all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. I laid back on the bed and closed my eyes. It wasn’t a necessary action for me to concentrate, but it did lower some of the processing power the sight was taking.
Starting with the ambush near the Central Park Greenhouse. The question regarding that was how did they manage to track me down? I didn’t think they started following me from the contract site, but I couldn’t fathom a way of how they managed to spot me in that skyscraper. I did sense cameras in that building, but even a corporation like Fran-Mili wouldn’t notice a second of footage that had my face in it among the sea of other camera feeds.
It was a possibility though, that’s why I tried to avoid being in their range, but there was also another possible explanation.
They could’ve started following me from the HQ itself. That would mean they were aware of my location at all times, although perhaps now I was safe since I suspected there was only one person in charge of attempting to catch me.
That being Hadley Sullivan.
And she was most likely slightly incapacitated right now. Although according to my social situation simulation program, she was probably aggravated by what had happened. It was hard to gauge a possible scenario on how she could retaliate because I simply did not have enough data about her.
She seemed set on getting me back and even argued with her superiors about it. The way she mentioned ‘that they barely agreed to this’ was a small proof of that.
Also, the fact that she was the Chief Officer of R&D meant that she was potentially involved in my creation and humans got easily attached to the material things.
If Hadley was the main reason for Fran-Mili’s aggression towards me then perhaps it would be easy to get rid of this problem. Since it was only one person.
I should’ve killed her.
A faint impression of a voice resonated through my hearing implants, or perhaps from my core even. I almost didn’t realize that something odd was said or thought, but then a tingling sensation bloomed in my right arm.
I sat up in the bed immediately and looked at the paralyzed limb. It wasn’t visibly moving but with a zoomed enough vision, I noticed small tremors were occurring in different parts of my arm.
With a strange anxious surge of energy, I grabbed the remnants of the jacket and shirt that covered that arm and tore it off it.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe for it to change color to that strange shade of blue I saw during the test, or perhaps for it to become wrinkly like in that dream-like vision.
But my arm looked normal and the minor tremors subsided almost immediately.
There was no visible change, but I knew that something was off. It had to be.
The strange voice–was it a voice?–did not repeat and the local diagnostic that I ran on my hearing implants showed nothing odd.
Was this what frustration felt like? My air box wanted to burst with the need to scream.
“Knock, knock! I’m coming in.” The sound of doors opening brought me back to where I was and who I was waiting for.
Cece, dressed in a silky-looking white robe, stepped inside. She had fluffy slippers on her feet and in one hand she was holding a small towel that she used to dab her face.
She must’ve finished her performance as I noted a sheen of sweat on her bronzed skin which was glistening slightly in the dim lighting of the room.
“Hello.” Her soft smile and light eyes made me feel a thousand times better. How curious. The memories of Jack were fond and I appreciated him, but Cece registered as a much different entity in my mind.
Even though I barely knew her, the way she looked and acted towards me made me feel pliable and warm as my core buzzed in satisfaction. Maybe it was because no one has ever taken care of me like this, or showed such clear signs of sympathy and interest? I could only speculate since my emotional response circuits didn’t usually give out the reasoning behind their actions. Not since I’ve gained sentience.
I’ve never seen a person who looked at me like that.
I stopped a strange feeling in my core from traveling further up my spine.
“How are you feeling? Janey mentioned that something happened?” As she came closer to me, I couldn’t help but memorize the distinct smell of soft florals and rich musk of her skin.
I’ve never paid much attention to smells, but I suppose humans were correct in giving me that sense. I didn’t think I'd ever met two people who possessed the same odor. It was a great way of differentiating humans; such a distinct signature of organic lifeforms.
“I suppose it did.” I stayed sitting on the bed and decided not to stress Cece more than she needed to be, “I can tell you later. It would appear you would like to shower.”
Cece’s dark eyebrows shot up and she exhaled with an amused laugh, “Really? How did you know?”
“Your eyes have been glancing towards the bathroom.” It was quite obvious to anyone with even minor observation skills. Also, her feet kept shuffling on the floor and moving her inch by inch in that direction.
“Then I guess I’ll take you on that offer and go shower. Make yourself comfortable–Oh! You can also borrow some clothes. The last two drawers have some leisure wear.” Cece mentioned as she pointed to a cabinet to my right.
“Thank you. I will.” I waited for Cece to go to the bathroom and with a reluctant step came closer to the cabinet.
Now, how should I go about this? Changing clothes with one arm was not something I was trained for.