Tani chose Delilah because she was smart, capable, and had the most experience with surgical procedure out of anyone who applied to work in the project. But her attempts to explain what they did at the lab to Stateswoman Shae were clumsy. She stumbled over words, struggled to find the right combination of words to express what they were doing while also underplaying the illegal part of it all. The awkward verbal somersaults from Delilah undermined the true value of the project.
Since issues of legality did not burden Tani, she took this Shae woman at her word and accepted that she too was unconcerned about such issues. At least unconcerned for now — and for now was all that mattered. The woman’s threat to have the facility shut down was a good one today. But tomorrow Tani would pull the trigger to move to the facility she already had on standby, and it would be months before Lady Shae could find them again. In those months, Tani would become prepared again for the next move, or five. As many as it took.
Delilah was explaining the situation regarding the rabbit boy’s mother. Tani watched from her perch on the metal rafters above. She swung a leg over the edge and leaned over, grabbing a pipe that ran from ceiling to floor, and slid her way down it, carefully making sure her clothing covered all points of contact with the pipe. She planted both feet on the ground, creating a firm echo in the space that announced her decent. Stateswoman Shae and Delilah turned to face her.
“The important thing we are doing is taking work that Central hospital won’t. Everyone is here because they decided to be. Workers and patients,” Tani started. She waved away the question on Lady Shae’s face before she could ask it. “Yes, they are essentially guinea pigs. But they signed up to be.”
What an interesting phrase, ‘guinea pigs’. There was no scientific study that used them as far as Tani had ever seen on the SatNet records. Tani was not even sure what exactly a guinea pig was, other than some animal that was likely never seen after the Sundering. But the phrase had stayed around and been picked up and reused throughout Terran history and lingered longer than the animals that inspired it. Her Illara lab tech used it as well, which amused Tani; a Terran phrase that no longer applied to the Terran world being used by a different Terranoid species that had also never seen the animal to which the phrase referred. She supposed the thought would appear mundane if she spoke it aloud, but it was the minor details of how systems overlapped and adopted parts from each other that interested her. It had led her to her scavenger and mechanic work. It had led her to this lab—to the vast space that, for the Underground, was open and more expensive than the entire housing block she had moved in from. Everything here was systems and layers—an ecosystem that encompassed the social and intellectual realms just as much as the physical.
Ayna stood silent, not in reproach or scorn, but in observation. Tani felt as if the lady had seen the thoughts that crossed her mind, feeling simultaneously sheepish for thinking them and angry that the woman would invade her thoughts. She recognized both the emotions as equally preposterous and pushed them aside.
“As Delilah mentioned…” Tani stumbled over the words herself. I’m just as clumsy as Delilah is, she scolded herself. She also knew that should know the name of her patient, but she didn’t. “This patient… has a problem that is caused by her central nervous system, which has been stripped of myelin, and has lesions forming in the brain. I believe it was known as Multiple Sclerosis.”
She glanced at Delilah to see if she was mistaken. Delilah did not correct her, so she continued, “The process that we have performed has halted the growths in her brain that cause degeneration, for now. We will observe her for another two weeks, which will take us to a month after the first operation, and if she remains stable in her condition, then we will move forward with the next operation. This will not reverse the degeneration, unfortunately, but it will allow her to move herself with her mind—”
“Telekinesis,” Delilah interjected.
Tani resisted the urge to roll her eyes. For some reason, the word telekinesis bothered her. It was such a fancy word for the most mundane power they could give someone — potentially give someone. The process was still being refined, despite its small successes so far. She felt the same way she felt about the word telekinesis as she did about kingsnakes. They were simple and disgusting creatures, but some idiot had thought it was appropriate to put ‘king’ in their name, like putting a top hat on a rat. Or, she guessed, expensive fabric on an Underground child. She glanced down at her dirty white linen shirt and the lab coat she wore and then over at the stateswoman’s dress. It was likely silk or some synthetic variant of it. It fell from gentle curves that hung around her hips and thighs until it barely touched the surface of the ground. Even in the rich neighborhoods of Prin, it was impractical. The inch of dirtied hem was not all from the lady’s trip to the Underground, but had accumulated over multiple wearings of the dress. It would have been a thousand times more ridiculous on Tani.
Instead of responding to Tani’s introduction and its subjects, the woman put out her hand in greeting. “As I am sure you heard, I am Ayna Shae. What is your name?”
“Tani.” She didn’t care at all for the smooth and clean hand that met her own.
“Tani. You put this entire project together, didn’t you? It is no small feat. It must have taken a lot of effort and organization.”
Tani nodded. “I found the documents on the SatNet, as many others did. They just made sense to me in a way they didn’t to other people, I guess. All the systems and layers… that’s the simple part.”
Tani wasn’t sure why she added on the last part, but it had escaped her mind and her mouth and so she closed her mouth and waited to see—and judge—the response.
Ayna nodded. “In another time, before the Sundering, you would have changed the world.” Ayna paused, then put her hand out again. Tani took it and gave it a light shake, welcoming Ayna’s recognition of her, but not falling prey to the flattery as camouflage for the threat that Ayna created just by being there. Ayna continued to speak as she shook Tani’s hand, “It was a pleasure to meet you.” She glanced over to Delilah and added, “Both of you.” She turned toward the door and walked out of the lab.
Tani watched the door close behind the stateswoman. In another time… “Call Vin. Tell him to prepare our secondary substation. We need to complete the move by the end of tomorrow.”
Tani was living a life of comparative luxury. Volunteers, patients and their friends and families moved everything into her new station. She only had to move her clothes and what few other items she had, all of which fit into her backpack. Enjoying a walk to the new substation, she took the Topside path through the Upper Market with all its shops that she never could purchase from before. Taking her time, she peered into each stall as she passed through the wide open pavilion. Many of Prin’s original shops had set up inside the buildings long before the stalls came along, but even with her improved financial status, she didn’t dare to enter those most exclusive of stores. Sticking to the tents and carts that lined the open space outside, she smiled to herself as she admired the sparkle of the jewels in one cart. She imagined wearing as many as her small neck and arms could hold while performing surgery.
It was impossible not to notice the sideways looks she got from many of the stall owners and shoppers. She didn’t belong, and they all knew that she never would. The stall owners were likely making sure she wasn’t stealing anything, while the shoppers all visibly held their pouches and purses a little closer. She thought about lifting something from someone just out of spite, but she found the nicest sling cot in a furniture stall and bought it for herself instead. Even though it was a practical item, it had cost more than she had wanted to spend, and the shop owner and a few onlookers had watched incredulously as she swiped her LightTab and it approved the purchase. It was half of what was in her credit account, but they didn’t need to know that. She was happy that the looks of judgment shifted into looks of curiosity.
She slung the cot in its pack onto her back and turned on her heel. She walked a few extra blocks through Topside so that no one from the market would see her slink down into the Underground entrance. Holding the pack gently and rubbing her hands over the smooth grey material, she walked down into the abandoned section of Underground. Tiles from the walls had long-since chipped away, many of them defaced with faded lines and splashes of paint, and small bits of rubble lined what had once been busy platforms. She hopped down onto the tracks, walking between the rails until she reached an old stopped train. She climbed in through the back and walked until she found the open door that led her back onto another platform.
The lights down here did not work, leaving her in near-complete darkness, but she knew the path well. She had grown up in a makeshift flat close to the new station. Sometimes the rubble shifted slightly, but mostly the empty parts of the Underground remained unchanged since she had lived nearby. Some new graffiti lined the walls, but it all blended together into a blur in the darkness. It was too bothersome to rely on torches regularly when moving around in the Underground. Rebellious teenagers from Topsider families did most of the graffiti and other defacements in the Underground that required light.
Approaching the end of the platform, she jumped back down onto the tracks and walked past the storage space that used to be her home. Inside was a small room with flimsy dividers creating a small hallway and six tiny bedrooms. She had shared the front one with two other orphans when they were still young enough to find food easily and go to the basic Topside schools.
She walked by, pausing for a second to see if she could hear any signs of life. There was nothing, which was not surprising. Anyone who lived in one of those rooms didn’t spend time there, if they could avoid it. She skipped down the tracks a few hundred meters. The raised shadow of the next platform was in sight now, but she ran her fingers along the dirt caked wall until she felt the opening for a maintenance tunnel right before reaching the platform. Piping and insulated wiring lined the small shaft, which went deeper at a nearly imperceptible decline before opening into an electrical room, long-since abandoned and unused. Rusted, large metal boxes filled the room. Scavengers stripped any salvageable parts from them years ago. Crossing over to a round metal plate in the far corner of the room, she pulled it off and descended along the ladder beneath it.
She couldn’t help but think again of Ayna Shae and imagine her climbing down into this new station to pay another visit to the Project. It wouldn’t surprise Tani to find out that Ayna had enough connections in Prin and its Underground to find the new station. But it would surprise her if Ayna could do it in less than a few months. Not that it mattered. Tani already had the next location lined up, if they needed one.
She still could not deduce what had prompted Ayna’s visit. Something must have provoked it—something that Tani was certain she would want to know about. But so far, nothing came across the SatNet that tipped her off. The SatNet was a festering pool of rumors, but if you knew where to look, you could almost always find out what you needed — or wanted — to know.
She swung open the hatch to the new station. Large metal pipes filled with heavy cable bundles as thick as Tani’s wrist ran in every direction from here: into the city, away from the city, north, south, east and west. Some initial settlers in the Underground had welded metal panels to the piping, creating various levels of flooring up the sides of the room, spiraling upward. Every vertical fifteen meters, there was enough support to create a full level of flooring that filled the circular room. They had three stories of this makeshift flooring to work with.
Tani had the patients’ beds set up on the first floor. She disliked having to walk by them and offer smiles and waves to them as she passed through, but it made the most sense to have them here. The next floor up was where they would perform the operations. She had Vin customize the place, laying down a layer of recycled flooring in the center of the circular platform. He had surrounded that with some metal framing and sound proofing, covered on the inside with plastic sheeting that was easily changeable after each operation. In fact, sheeting covered the whole room, which they could drag out and rinse down after each operation before leaving it in the steam room for the heat to build and cleanse any remaining germs. The disinfectant they could easily get was not the best for the work they were doing, but the steam room at least reached pasteurization temperatures. The bedding had to be tossed out completely. Plastic sheeting was relatively easy to find, but not enough to replace everything in the room every time.
Tani had the room tested thoroughly before they moved. Delilah had gone in, closed the door, and screamed. She was not a loud person, so Tani did not fully trust the silence that was all she heard from outside the room. Instead, Tani had sent Vin in next, who could be heard from across a loud bar before he even raised his voice. She still heard nothing. Even upon retreating downstairs while Vin was still yelling at the top of his lungs, she still heard nothing and was satisfied that there were no sound leaks towards where the patients would be. The soundproofing material he had bought for them was good.
As she came up the metal staircase after her shopping trip, she saw Vin was about done with the lighting installation. The room was well lit, and they would be ready to resume testing operations the next day. She ascended further onto the third large platform. They had used the metal framing here and thrown up some thick tarps as separators. Delilah was living here now. They had a third room for another surgeon that Tani was still trying to get onto the project. Across the platform from their three sleeping pods, they erected three more pods to allow family or loved ones of patients to stay nearby on surgery days. Tani was averse to this, just like she was averse to walking through the patients’ hall just to get to her room. However, Vin had constructed their quarters and the micro-hotels in such a way that Tani could slip from the last stair straight into her room, reducing her chances of being engaged.
She heard chatter from the different rooms as she walked up. The volunteers had taken up residence in one pod, temporarily, to set up a table and a place to hang out and eat while they worked.
Tani slipped into her own pod. There was no break or pause in the conversation, so she was sure she had gone unnoticed. She slung the new cot out from under her arm and eagerly opened up the strings, pulling the material out of its bag. It was soft and stretchy, but also firm. The white fabric was not silk, but some synthetic replication produced by the Nagata. A thin layer of black graphene mesh covered the bottom of the cot, woven into the white fabric on the single side, it provided all the support. She quickly lashed the ends to the metal framing of her pod and slid into the cot. It curved around her body like a cocoon. She smiled, pulled out her LightTab and hunted on the SatNet for new rumors that might lead to information about Ayna Shae’s visit.
The pictures were stunning. Beautiful. Sure, there was a lot of gore. Blood and body parts. But Tani had no problem looking past those parts. What interested her were the crystal formations. One picture in particular, focused on a rotting brain and broken skull, caught her attention.
This is it.
The crystals had woven themselves into the decayed skull. The most interesting part was that you could see where the bone had also grown into the crystal. Posthumously. The implications of what she could do with a crystal that reanimated dead organics were vast, but she wandered how much more effective it would be on living tissue. Combined with her current research veins, she was certain she could create a more solid compound to aid the acceptance of the implantations she was making for Terrans.
She needed to get a hold of this crystal. There was just one problem: the Prin Guard had quarantined the entire field. She needed to talk to Vin.
She bounced off her cot, running her hand across the plush top as she stood and left the small room. Poking her head into the makeshift lunch room, she caught Vin’s eye and nodded her head to indicate she needed to speak with him. He said something to the two men near him and grabbed a plum out of the bowl that sat on the table.
Leading him to the surgery room for privacy, Tani made sure the door was spun closed all the way.
“Vin—Have you seen the field of red crystals? I really need to get some of it.”
Vin halted with the plum positioned between his teeth and balked. He snapped his mouth closed and juice sprayed from the fruit. He spoke in a warning tone, “No one here will touch it. No one will risk trying to get past the guards just to face taking samples from that… stuff.”
He doesn’t need to understand what I am doing. He just needs to help.
“Would anyone be able to sneak me past the guard? I can take the samples. In fact, I’d prefer to.”
Vin thought this over for a long moment. “Maybe,” he admitted.
He took a deep breath, and Tani waited.
Maybe he does need to understand.
“This seems like a bit much, Tani. I know you well enough to know you likely have a good reason for wanting this, but what about everyone else? The patients? Their families? If they find out you are sampling and using that stuff from the Blight field, many of them will want out of their arrangements with you. Everything we’ve built here will unravel.”
Tani nodded. It was a fair argument, and she valued what she had built. I can go so much farther, though.
“Let’s make sure no one finds out, then.”
Vin sighed. “I’ll talk to one of the Ceafield guys. They’d be your best chance.”
Tani smiled, her excitement floating out of her and taking over her face. She could feel it beaming out of her. Vin’s discomfort at working with the crystals vanished into a warm smile and a sideways glance as he left her alone in her pod again, the way she liked it.