Mason Bane
Mason was used to living with multiple voices inside his head – that was what happened when you linked your central mind to four different mini-brains. But it was a special kind of commotion whenever Grayson started speaking in here. Especially annoying, for the most part.
“Screw this bloody damn slick piece of – watch it!”
[It would be easier for us to climb if you were a little quieter.]
“Screw you, little brother. You try staying quiet when you’re worrying your head off that the priceless tech you spent decades refining might fall hundreds of feet to the ground because of a random gust of wind. I’d be yelling my head off if it wouldn’t make the rest of these assholes look at me funny.”
Right-arm Mason reached a tendril up another few inches, searching for a divot in the surface that would provide sufficient grip to move on. [We’re surprised they’re not looking at you funny already.]
“Turned my helmet comm off. As long as I mutter, they won’t notice shit. Don’t head straight up that spire, are you mad?”
Right-arm Mason got lucky. A few more feet and they would be onto a flatter part on top of the ship, and able to move more quickly. [We’ll move more easily along the base of them. We won’t actually go up it except as a last resort. Although…] Left-arm Mason made it to the base of the spire and tapped it consideringly with his middle finger. [We think it’s more than an exhaust port. It could really be a viable way into the ship.]
“Well, start with something less dangerous. There’s got to be some other ingress up there, for refueling or removing waste or as a – Lefty, what the hell are you doing?”
[Lefty!]
Left-arm Mason, as he was wont to do, suddenly made the unilateral decision to climb that stack.
[Lefty, stop that! Get back here!]
Mason wasn’t capable of blushing with embarrassment, which was good because he would have been red enough to match Sik-Tar’s dim, distant sun’s light right now otherwise. [He isn’t listening to us.]
“Shit.”
Left-arm Mason was, in fact, heading up the stack at a good rate of speed. There were ridges every foot or so that made getting up it much easier than climbing the surface of the ship had been, and there was no way Right-arm Mason was going to be able to catch up in time to pull his brother-in-arm back down to the safer section of the ship. [None of our transmissions are making it through to Lefty right now. We’ll continue looking for a way in down here.]
“That bloody arm of yours better not get lost or crushed or damaged, or so help me…”
[You threaten because you care.]
Right-arm Mason crawled along the base of the stacks, searching for another entrance to the ship. Mason split his internal sight between his arms, following both of them at once.
Back when he was nine years old, shortly after the fire that had raged through the Martian slums and taken his limbs, Grayson had built the first version of Mason’s new body. Freshly placed in his rough mechanical shell, with no therapies to help him along and trying to integrate a huge amount of new technology into his central nervous system, he’d gotten the worst headaches trying to maintain split images in his mind, bad to the point of needing to shut down to keep from having a seizure. Now the process was as simple as breathing – more simple, since breathing wasn’t something he really did anymore. All the oxygen Mason needed was siphoned through gill-like structures along the sides of his “neck” and filtered into the broth that encased his brain. The limbs had their own, smaller versions of the gills to feed their own neural cores.
[Nothing so far from either of them.] Mason’s minds wandered along with his bodies. [Do you think there’s actual Xenium here? The kind we might be able to find and take back with us?]
“Maybe. Would be nice, wouldn’t it? We’d be able to sell it for enough credits to set us up for life, anywhere you want to go.”
[That would be nice.] A chance to let all of his brains rest for a while, to not be overworked for a job or forced into hibernation like they had been back at Bor-Turia. He’d fought it, Mason remembered. Fought it because he didn’t like the idea of leaving his brother alone without his help. Grayson liked to think he didn’t need help, but Mason knew better.
“It’s not our first priority, but it’s definitely a priority,” his brother prattled on. “Wouldn’t want to let a chance like this go to waste. You’ve got enough space in your core to stash, what, about ten pounds of the stuff?”
[About that, we think.]
“Reckon we could get a hell of a good deal for it on the black market. We could – don’t you dare, you little shit!”
Left-arm Mason, far from being cowed by Grayson’s shout, tapped around the edges of the top of the spire he had reached, then casually tipped himself over the edge and down it. Mason felt the surge of momentum rush through their brains, making his grounded body sway for a moment. [Turn on your light! Lights, Lefty, lights!]
Left-arm Mason finally remembered to turn his lights on. For a moment they showed nothing but smooth-sided metal, much cleaner than the dust-exposed surface he’d just climbed up. Then there was a clang, and all of a sudden the arm was in freefall.
“Get your extensions out! Grab onto something, you pillock, don’t–”
Clang! The reverberations Left-arm Mason made as he hit the bottom of the spire were enough to numb all the Masons, graying out their collective vision for a moment.
“Oh, hell,” Grayson muttered.
“Oh damn, is he OK?”
That was… was that… that was the other human, the… Drexler, Dr Drexler. They must have noticed him acting off. He couldn’t reassure them, so he left it to his brother and focused on Left-arm Mason.
[Up and at ’em, Lefty.] Two of Left-arm Mason’s fingers twitched. [There we go, get those connections working again. Rough fall, huh, luv? But we’re all right, we’re all right now. We’ve got this. Good, now try the other ones. Very good!]
All of his fingers were functioning again. The extensions took a bit longer to reel in – one of them wouldn’t retract at all, something inside of its servo motor was broken now, but it could have been a lot worse.
Mason looked around. His arm was in a vast chamber, so big that the little light he was equipped with couldn’t illuminate the ceiling in any detail. What the hell was this place? [Activate your positioning system, Lefty. See if you can detect the rest of us, then start looking for a way out.]
Right-arm Mason was already on his way back to the main body – because he was an obedient body part who understood the importance of not gallivanting off on adventures whenever he wanted to.
“Don’t even bother tryin’ to teach that bastard arm a lesson, brat. Lefty’s hopeless.”
[None of us are hopeless, don’t be rude.] Mason watched as Left-arm Mason’s position alert finally lit up, a small constellation of dots representing his rogue body part flaring to life not a hundred feet away. [Good, we’re close! Come toward us and try to find a way through. We know you can do this, Lefty.] His left arm brightened a bit at the praise, picking up his pace until he’d reached the exterior wall.
[Look for a control panel.] It probably wouldn’t function, but it might be able to tell them other things. Left-arm Mason crawled along, extensions feeling the wall for any sign of another entrance or exit or–
[Door! That looks like a door!] A much smaller door than the massive one that had stymied them so far. [Perfect. Do you see any sort of handle? Anything that could help us open it?] There was definitely something up there.
Left-arm Mason climbed the wall until it reached what looked like a control panel next to the door. There was no power going to it, but there was a teardrop-shaped handle marked with bright yellow and gray lines in the up position. It seemed like it was specifically shaped for a Caridian claw.
[Good, Lefty, really good. Do you think you can pull it?] Mason watched as Left-arm Mason reshaped his hand into a clawlike shape, maximizing the force he’d be able to exert on it. Then he pressed his extenders hard into the wall just below the handle, braced, and pulled for all he was worth.
One arm, no matter how specialized, couldn’t exert as much force as a complete body. Mason watched Lefty’s battery levels diminish with concern as the arm pulled again and again. The handle seemed stuck. He’d have to direct himself to disengage soon, go try to find another door, or maybe send Right-arm Mason up and inside to join–
The handle moved. Not much, but enough to sense a corresponding chance in the door’s seal. [That’s it, Lefty! You’re doing great!]
“Pull, you little shit, pull!”
[No need for insults when we’re doing such a good job,] Mason chided his brother.
“Don’t tell me how to speak to your arm! I programmed that son of a bitch, and he’d better–”
The handle dropped another inch, then another, finally settling into a smooth slide all the way down to the bottom of its arc. The door it was next to released its tight grip on the wall, ancient seals opening with a puff of dust and sand. Mason sensed the others in their party running over to where the fresh hole appeared in the surface in front of them, but didn’t follow. He needed to be whole first. Right-arm Mason had already returned to him, rejoining the main body. Lefty, a little low on power but still feeling spunky, crawled out the door’s gap, through the forest of crewmembers’ feet obscuring his path back to Mason, and finally reconnected to their body with the metallic sigh of a job well done.
[We’re so proud of you,] Mason told Lefty. All the other body parts agreed. [But you really ought to listen better next time.]
Lefty sent the equivalent of a virtual shrug. Mason would have laughed if he was capable of it.
“Get over here, Mason! You’re gonna want to take a look inside.”
[Yeah? Is it cool?] Mason asked, reconfiguring himself into a standing position and walking over to the door, which was pulled completely out of the way now. It was tall enough for a Caridian to walk through without having to bend, which meant that all of them, except Divak, could get through with ease.
“Yeah, mate. I’d say it’s pretty goddamn cool.”