Emerson Fortier
patreon
Chapter 43 - Upgrade
🕑 Added 2022-10-23 10:59:59 +0000 UTC“How does a man calculate balance? Two men exchange a loaf of bread for a bit of silver, but the bread might save one man’s life while the silver merely puts weight in the other’s pocket. We call the justice of the heaven’s fickle, but in truth only the heavens can judge the balance of a man and his oath. Only the heavens knows when a debt has been paid, or a if a debt remains. Woe to those who sever an oath thinking that their oath has been fulfilled. Only by agreeing to the terms ahead of time, and sticking scrupulously to such terms, can a tragic fate be avoided. Better, in this one’s opinion, to avoid the oath all together, than risk a hundred years of cultivation.”
-Excerpt from: “A Treatise on Soul Oaths Dictated by the Sage of Threefold Wisdoms at the Request of Elder Bou Tian of the Leaves at Sunset Sect During the Festival Held in the Sage’s Honor”
Sirens. Darkness.
Yi Cao choked on black water and flailed against crushing weight.
His hands burned. Flames washed across his skin. Vines clamped his arms, his feet, his shoulders.
His channels roared with a hunger for spiritual power he’d never known
Indistinct voices shouted beyond the choking black as Yi Cao thrashed. A muffled voice yelled for someone to “sedate him” and someone screamed in the distance.
A spear pierced his shoulder and Yi Cao bucked.
Then black, deeper than the black that filled his eyes, closed in around him and he knew no more.
He woke to the hunger. Later, much later. Awareness of it rose like a tide. His channels ached in his flesh as they had when he’d tried cultivating without any Ki, only this time the completeness of his first circle amplified the sensation, tripled it so that it was like a living thing. It roared inside of him. Howled, until the dark reached up, and he faded away again.
“What do you mean he’s ruined?”
Zihan.
Yi Cao’s sleeping mind recoiled from the voice.
The liar. The monster. The killer.
Aspen leaves rattled, like the roar of a bonfire in the wind. He missed the first part of the response to the sound.
“-ninety percent of him. I’ve seen worse, but I can’t think when.”
The voice of the man who answered Zihan seemed to bubble and pop with excess liquid, like he spoke from underwater or with too much spittle caught between his lips.
“His hands have all the symptoms of corpses found in the void after a millennia of exposure. His veins below the elbow leak like a sieve, and the muscles and nerves have been shredded by gas boiling out of his blood. Even the bones show cracks where his marrow boiled. His foot is similar, though not at all as bad. These are grievous wounds, but far from the worst. His lungs, as might be expected from such an incident, have been totally destroyed. His heart shows scars where the blood began to boil while still within its chambers, and something has completely cauterized the jelly of his eyes. It almost looks like he was hit by a very targeted mining laser, but for the life of me, I cannot say why.”
Something stung Yi Cao’s eyes in the silence that followed.
Zihan’s voice, when it spoke, came from another corner of the room as though the boy had been pacing.
“What does all of that mean!” He snapped.
Yi Cao felt a thin plume of fire Ki wash into his channels, only increasing the roaring hunger of his foundation for power.
“Young sir.” The watery voice replied. “It means that we cannot fix him. His biology is totally destroyed. If we did not have a tube connecting directly to what remains of his lungs, he would be dead. He will never be able to use those eyes again.”
“There are treasures, back home, herbs, poultices, alchemical pills.”
The other voice gave a watery laugh. “You are from Nshamti.” It said. “Such pills are wonderful, but, as I understand, they have their limitations do they not? I have seen some of these miracle pills. The one I saw experimented upon had an entire arm returned to her, but the consequence completely ruined her as a human being. She had to be killed to keep her from destroying the medical station she was repaired in.”
Something struck the surface Yi Cao lay on and Yi Cao’s ears rang.
“There must be some gift.” Zihan said in the distance.
“Of course.” The watery voice replied.
“His flesh, surgeon. Not your technomancy.”
“Mmmm.” The watery voice burbled for a moment in thought. “There are none here. The Tomotans are said to possess such gifts of regeneration, and some of the monsters of the system colony. Some of the Kispuhru can do so as well, as a result of their hereditary powers, but there is nothing here. Nothing that works with the flesh.”
Neither spoke and the ringing in Yi Cao’s ears warbled high then low, then high, then low again, before either of them spoke. In the warbling their voices were muffled and distant, unintelligible through the rising darkness.
“There are worse fates than these.” The watery voice whispered as through the veil of dark. “The augmentations I can use to replace his damaged parts will serve him better than any of his organic originals. If you cannot afford them, then I can help you to give him a peaceful end.”
Yi Cao thrashed against the dark, fought to escape it. To speak, but there was something his mouth. Something hard and metallic that should not be there.
No one spoke beyond the darkness.
“Euthenasia is swift and painless.” The watery voice said after several moments. “You would not even need to remove the pipe feeding oxygen to his chest.”
Yi Cao heard the Young Master breathing heavily over him. He thrashed, silently, somewhere deep inside, while he waited for the ax to fall.
“No.”
Yi Cao fell still.
“Will you have him augmented then?”
Zihan snarled wordlessly and turned from Yi Cao’s bed. “Yes.” He snapped. “Whatever you see fit.”
Yi Cao felt the dark pull at him again. Warm and inviting.
He would not burn.
He let go, drifted back towards sleep while the Young Master argued with the watery voice beyond.
“Preserve what you can of him.” The monster said. “He will need it yet. His fate does not end here.”
“Mmmm. I will see what I can do.”
Yi Cao did not wake for his own death.
He dreamed, dreamed of pain. A dream of incisions, and the smell of blood, of things moving inside of him and flesh shifting in ways it was never meant to while his channels rebelled at the rough treatment of their physical medium and a low bubbling voice hummed to itself while it worked.
There was no line between waking and sleeping.
There was darkness, and then he could see, but what he saw was darkness, and as the darkness left his mind he began to be aware of things that surrounded him in the darkness. Bubbling vats of fluid back lit by the small blinking lights of technomancy. Armatures of bronze and silvered steel tipped by hands whose fingers were a dozen different tools; Knives, needles, and lenses.
Machinery hummed in the silence, and vents hissed with passing air.
Yi Cao sat upright in a chair at the center of the chamber. Heavy manacles held his arms in place and something buzzed in time to the rise and fall of his chest. As the room came slowly into focus, Yi Cao realized that he could not blink, and did not have to. Realized, too, that he was not there alone.
Zihan sat across from him, arms crossed as he waited in the silence for Yi Cao to wake up.
Yi Cao tried to blink.
Something buzzed in his face and his vision blurred. When he brought his arm up to clear his eyes something hard and metallic slapped him across the face and he nearly fell out of the chair. He blinked wildly and felt the world fly out of focus as he fought madly to bring it back into clarity.
“Woah there, woah.” The voice bubbled soothingly as a shadow loomed over him. It touched him with one metallic hand and Yi Cao felt his muscles relax. His eyes refocused, and he saw a man, or half a man, old, bald, and liverspotted with age or unhealth, hovering over him, held aloft by the armature that held him suspended above the floor where his legs should have been.
The old man curled his lips into a smile magnified by the thin tank of transparent fluid that covered the lower half of his face.
“Everything is alright.” The old man said. “You’ve had some rather abrupt alterations.” He patted Yi Cao’s hand, Yi Cao’s metal hand, affectionately, then helped Yi Cao to straighten in his chair. “Why don’t you take a moment to calm down, and we’ll go over everything.”
Yi Cao’s breath came fast and hard, rasping as steel bands of panic seemed to constrict his ribs and he continued trying to blink.
The old man patted his arm again. “I know.” He said. “I know.” He swung away, and Yi Cao’s eyes went haywire again. He caught a glimpse of the Young Master still sitting across from him pale and severe, as his field of vision warped and twisted.
“Best to get this over with quickly.” The half man said as he swung back. He touched Zihan again and Zihan’s vision cleared. “This is you,” The half man bubbled, “The new and improved you. It may take some getting used to.”
Yi Cao saw himself in a mirror. Not a mirror like he’d seen back at the sect of polished brass or copper, but a shining portal like a window into the very room he sat in, only the thing he saw inside that window was not himself. The thing was a sai-borg. A thing of metal and flesh. Where its hands should have been were two brass imitations. A long line of puckered scar tissue ran up the center of his naked chest, and where his right foot should have been was a second thing of plated brass bolted to his leg.
His hair, shaggy after so many weeks without the usual weekly trim it received in the sect, had been shaved and twin plates of steel had been embedded in his skin like a mask. Two black disks stared at him from the reflection where the reflected image of him should have had eyes.
The surgeon burbled at Yi Cao as Yi Cao stared at the thing in his reflection, platitudes about getting used to his augmentations, training with them, and utility upgrades. Yi Cao barely heard him. Two black eyes stared at him and he stared back, trying to recall the reflection he’d seen of himself in puddles and streams, and the buckets of water he’d hauled for the inner sect member’s baths.
One metallic hand reached up in the reflection to touch the rim of one glass eye.
“You will have to be careful not to break the eyes with your hands.” The surgeon bubbled at him. “There are energy fields in them to repair very minor damage, as there are in your hands. Brass is not a hard metal, but they can only keep you from running down. Crack a lens, and it will have to be replaced.”
He ran metallic fingers across the steel mask embedded in his brow.
He felt nothing, and try as he might, he could not remember the original color of his eyes.
“Right now, I am assisting you with the use of your augments.” The surgeon told him. “It will take you time, much time, to gain control of them yourself, particularly without Sairoobye, but, I noticed the AI operating inside your earbud. If you like, I can arrange a hook up that would allow your personal assistant to take over the assistance I am providing you now, until you have learned to control your new body.”
Yi Cao dropped his hand and stared at his reflection.
“Would you like me to provide the hookup?” The surgeon asked.
“I look like I’m glaring.” Yi Cao said.
The surgeon chuckled. “Not a bad look.” He said. “You possessed a severe expression even before the augmentation. This merely heightens the appeal of such an aspect.”
Zihan appeared next to the mirror as the surgeon swung it away. Yi Cao met his eyes, briefly, then looked down at his metal foot and hands.
“It is much to grow accustomed to.” The surgeon bubbled as it rummaged through the tools hanging from the ceiling. “The hookup will help, and in time, you will not even notice that your originals are gone.”
He swung back and touched the earbud pinned to Yi Cao’s ear, then a port in Yi Cao’s hands and foot, followed by the rim of one of his eyes.
The two still hadn’t spoken by the time they left. The surgeon made Yi Cao practice with his new limbs. Walk, or limp, a circle in the little operating room, flex his new metallic fingers, even snap them, making them spark in the twilight of the surgeon’s cell. The surgeon seemed to find the trick quite amusing.
He dressed slowly in a narrow cubby beside a waiting room outside. Technomancer’s robes, Voluminous silver things pinched by elastic at the wrists and ankles. Only one shoe.
He spent several long minutes staring at himself in the reflection of the mirror hung along one wall, then found Zihan pacing when he emerged. He stopped and looked at Yi Cao as he emerged. Waited for Yi Cao to say something, then looked away. He pulled out his sub-space wallet and dialed up an item which he tossed in Yi Cao’s direction.
Yi Cao fumbled it with his new hands, batted it from the air when he meant to grab it.
Zihan cursed and stepped forward to retrieve it. “I’m sorry.” He said as he straightened. “Stupid of me. Here.” He held the thing out, gold chain stretched open between two hands. “You left this, on the floor.” He said. “Thought you might want it back.”
Yi Cao stared at the little stone rippling at the end of the golden chain.
He didn’t move to take it.
“I felt you break through.” Zihan Said. “I thought…” The Young Master grimaced and ground his teeth in a scowl. “I thought… I thought you would want it back. To rebuild, after what you went through.”
Yi Cao looked inward for the first time since he’d woken up in the surgeons table. His foundation was shattered. The cycle of channels he’d completed to reflect the first circle fo the Pillars of Creation scripture was shredded where his body had been torn apart, whole sections removed where his limbs had been replaced and his chest opened so that his lungs could be removed. He felt sick witht eh loss of it. Time and effort wasted.
Effort that would have been wasted anyways, if he’d gone home.
The source dangled in front of him, rippling with the very Ki the channels that remained to him screamed for.
Still he did not move to take it.
His mechanical lungs gave his voice a new resonance when he spoke. A timbre of steel and brass vibrating as it strained to replicate his old voice.
“How did you find me?”
“Bo Bo told me where you were.” Zihan replied. “Connected through some kind of spirit network.” The hand holding the source drooped. “I told them to fix you, but…”
“I know.” Yi Cao whispered.
Zihan shifted the source in his hand. “Only the best.” He said. “I got you the best they had. I had to… do some things… for Feiruhn, to pay for it.”
Yi Cao looked up. “How long?” He asked.
Zihan met his gaze. “Two days.” He said. “Not long. Just long enough to get the credits.”
They looked at one another for a long moment.
“And the… other thing?” Yi Cao asked. “The plan?”
Zihan’s lips twitched in a smirk. “On track, though, I’m afraid I might have fallen a little behind with my side project… we… might have fallen behind. If you’re still with me.”
He offered the source to Yi Cao again.
Yi Cao broke Zihan’s gaze to look at the stone. “I can’t use that.” He said. He flexed the hand that once held the scripture. The one replaced now by a bronze mechanical facsimile of the original limb.
“You could again.” Zihan replied. “In time.”
If he stayed.
Yi Cao stared at the stone.
It took an effort of will, without his AI helping him, to flex the digits of his new metallic hand. He extended the limb, and twisted the fingers into a hook to take the source from the Young Master’s hand. He used both hands to loop the chain around his neck and settle the stone at his chest. The Ki, even in such small quantities as the locked stone produced, felt like food after weeks of fasting to his empty channels.
“I thought I’d lost it.” Yi Cao said as the power moved through him, reminding him of all the physical aches and pains that still remained now that his most pressing ailment had been resolved. “I thought I’d left it behind.”
Zihan smiled when Yi Cao looked up. “You did.” He replied. “And now it has been returned.” He nodded for Yi Cao to follow him out of the surgeon’s office. “Come on. The girls are waiting outside. I told them you were getting augments and they insisted on coming to see.”
Nothing twisted in Yi Cao’s tortured channels at the young master’s command, but that did not mean he felt nothing from the oath still resting in his shattered foundation as he followed the Young Master out into the bustling concourse beyond.
The girls stood as they approached the bench where they’d been waiting.
“Oh my.” Kalemal touched the rim of one of his glass eyes, then fanned herself and took a step away. “Oh my, oh my.”
Bealtiel lifted one of Yi Cao’s metal hands to stroke his forearm where her own sported black writhing tattoos. She looked up at him and the augments bracketing her dark eyes sparkled. “Did it hurt?” She asked.
He felt something in his eyes ratchet backwards as the AI in his earbud refocused them on the girl in front of him. He shook his head.
“Zihan.” Kalemal said behind her. “Darling. When you said you were getting him augments, you didn’t say you were going to make him hot.”
She wrapped an arm around Zihan’s and licked her lips as she studied Yi Cao.
Zihan gave Yi Cao a speculative look. “Do you find that attractive?” He asked her.
Kalemal gave him a little shove. “Of course.” She said. “Do you think you could get me something like that?”
Zihan smirked. “I’ve got something else planned for you.”
Kalemal rolled her eyes. “Men and their pricks.”
Bealtiel realized she’d been stroking the insides of Yi Cao’s new fingers a little too long and stepped back. Zihan wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her to him while Yi Cao flexed the fingers using his own will and the girls watched in wide eyed fascination. He hadn’t felt anything where she’d touched him.
“Only rich people have augments like that.” Bealtiel said. “Only the chosen.”
Yi Cao dropped his hand and looked up to meet Zihan’s eyes.
Zihan winked, a motion Yi Cao realized he would no longer be able to return.
“Well.” The Young Master replied. “Just remember who, between the two of us, really is the rich one.”
“You should think about getting something like that.” Kalemal told him as they turned to join the pedestrian traffic. “Some of them let you fly, or even shoot fire and lightning from your hands.”
Zihan laughed as Yi Cao let his hand drop and followed after them.
Comments
Joshua Flowers
I’m still curious about what happened to hin
