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"Is something wrong?"
Niva slammed her fist into the wall, her knuckles cracking and bleeding on the gritty concrete surface. A system responded to her thoughts, and it was different from the AI she remembered. It flushed chemicals into her veins and she let out a breath amid the coolness of intravenous injection.
Amphetamines peaked in her system, riding the edge of overdose, but that was normal. She was accustomed to the knife-edge anxiety and the chills which wracked her body. She tuned the dose, finding that it came easily, the software of her system pre-loaded and intuitive. She checked her chem levels. Amid the list of narcotics and stimulants she found others: a life-preserver class of non-recreationals. A triple dose of anti-depressants to make the world manageable around her, and something else—an anti-rejection mix that was unfamiliar. She had no cybernetic parts, and nothing for her body to reject.
"Where am I?" she asked. She leaned against a wall, blood dripping from her lip. She pinged the unfamiliar system and triggered a scan for injuries while hissing air between her teeth.
[PAIN IN RIGHT EXTREMITY] [PAIN IN LEFT EXTREMITY] [PAIN IN UPPER SKELETAL FRAME]
The alerts continued, naming off every part of her body and making her want to scream. The drugs flowed and numbed the pain and her mind, making her thoughts slow and intentional. She opened her eyes. She stood in a dark room that went on a hundred feet in every direction. A man stood before her and she registered his white suit, his bald head, and the smile of achievement on his face. "Why can't I remember? What did you do?"
"Insurance," the man said. Already she had forgotten his face, or had it wiped by the strange system he had implanted in her mind. When she looked at him he was nothing but an unreadable blur. "Even if you agreed to this, I can't have you talking."
Niva cursed and spit on the ground. "I didn't see anything," she said. "And I didn't agree to anything." How had she gotten there? She remembered the men in tactical gear. She remembered Sati, her friend. She was on the floor, kicked and beaten. Sati was dead. Niva swallowed and her heart ached. "Who are you?"
The man laughed and it triggered memories that brought up walls: data she was not allowed to access. Her head ached as synapses tried to fire but were refused. She tried to hold her head, but her arms met resistance, and didn't respond to her thoughts the way they should. She searched her nerves and found a new cluster in her mind running all through her body. She rubbed her hand against her face, but her arm was hard and metallic, and wet on his cheek.
"Don't worry," the man said. "It will all make sense soon. Or sense enough, I suppose. I need you to understand." Lights burned above, blinding Niva and washing the warehouse in white. Niva squinted and opened her eyes. Bodies lay all around them, broken and bleeding in various states of viscera. They wore the same tactical gear, but it was wet and cracked on their bodies. Bile rose in Niva's throat and she swallowed it down, wincing in pain.
"What did you do?" she asked and tears wet her eyes. "What are you going to do to me?"
The man laughed again and her mind clicked, connected, failed. It tried to register the laughter as something more than cruelty. It was familiar and she was not allowed to know why.
"Think, Niva," the man said. "You did this. Don't you remember? Don't you remember the hate?"
"I didn't," Niva said, but it came out as a yell. "I didn't kill them." Synapses clicked and her body spasmed as her brain fought its restrictions. "Why are you doing this?"
Her feet weighed heavy below her and she became aware of her body. The form she remembered was gone, twisted into something unnatural. Even with the drugs flowing through her system, she was aware of her arms, no longer bone and tendon. Her legs felt nothing, but her brains till signaled them artificially through that new set of nerves. She raised her right leg and stomped it to the concrete floor. It cracked beneath her weight and tears streamed from her face.
"Maybe it is best you don't remember," the man said. "Not yet. You came to me in quite a state, after all. You were already broken beyond repair. Or nearly so. "He chuckled at that. "You are certainly functional now."
Functional. Niva pinged her system and ran diagnostics. She reached out to systems she didn't know existed, that she had no memory of. The readings that came back tore her mind, system checks referencing levels of hydraulic fluids, anti-rejection mixes that fought off infection and blood poisoning, and the massive parts of her that were not Niva, were not her own flesh and bone.
She screamed and slammed her foot down again, enjoying the feeling of concrete crushing beneath her foot like rib and tactical helmet. All the while her mind tried to break free of its prison.
Something snapped inside her and she couldn't tell if it was through the strain of her mind or if she was being allowed access to her thoughts, the floodgates retracted to deliver this information at this time and direct her to a chosen path.
In her memory she lay on the floor, a pile of mangled flesh with a severed spine and a broken soul. Sati was dead and her body hurt in ways she had never imagined. She look up into flashing lights and saw her enemy. Men stood above her in that same tactical armor, loaded with ammunition and explosives. One of the men spoke into his comm, face blank and emotionless. "She's down."
Niva stood straight, tears still streaming from her face, one of the few original pieces of herself. She stared at the bodies around her and knew they were only a test. They were a proof of concept for a broken people. And she had succeeded.
She would be a weapon against them, for herself, and for Sati. She couldn't know if she wanted that. Those memories were not allowed to her, and she was not truly Niva anymore. She locked that part of herself away behind a wall of her own. She didn't know why they attacked Sati, or why they killed her. Because they had certainly killed her.
And she would make them pay for it.
* * *
Originally published in The Mods by Shacklebound Books.