The comforting hum of electricity warmed Auri’s synthetic skin. She felt her circuits reconnect as a diagnostic screen loaded in front of her closed lids.
She couldn’t open her eyes—that didn’t worry her.
Her heart was a rock in her chest—that didn’t disturb her.
She’d endured each terrifying sensation every two years as doctors replaced some robotic part to keep up with her rapid growth. In the beginning, waking up trapped in a dead body frightened her.
Now it felt almost normal.
Instead of focusing on the shell caging her soul, she fixated on the systems activating, the diagnostic screen as the percentages increased.
Four minutes.
She had four minutes until she could open her eyes, until her heart began to beat, until her lungs expanded with air.
The diagnostic percentage climbed. Into the seventies, into the eighties, nineties.
That’s when sound reached her. One minute left.
“Is she okay?” Malachi’s accent was impossible to mistake.
“She will be in fifty seconds.” This low tenor belonged to the man she’d met before she went under. A tech doctor on the planet Delfan. She hadn’t wanted to trust him to fiddle inside her head, to fix the secret parts of her. And she still wouldn’t trust him until she was awake and all systems were functional.
“She’s so pale.”
“Her heart isn’t beating, but don’t be concerned. Aurelia’s gone through this many times. I’ll send a bolt of power to kickstart her robotic parts. Then they’ll be able to use her body’s natural energy as fuel.”
“She’s brave.”
“They all are.” He paused then added pointedly, “As are you.”
Malachi scoffed. “Don’t get emotional on me, Doc.”
A shot of pure electricity slammed into Auri’s heart. She felt herself spasm, sensation returning to tingling limbs. Her heart gave one hard thud. Then another. Her lungs expanded, shallow at first. Then her chest rose in a deep breath.
She opened her eyes.
There was a moment of pure serenity without the trappings of human emotions. The doctor stood over her, shining a light in her eyes. He nodded at the reaction and moved to pick up a handheld tablet. It connected to Auri’s skull via a thin wire. Malachi stood beside him, arms crossed, watching each movement the doctor made.
Her humanity rushed back with a slew of questions and feeling.
How long had Malachi been in the OR? Through the entire procedure? Did he watch as the doctor removed the flap of synthetic skin at the base of her skull? Did he grimace as the doctor inserted a surgery drone into her brain to repair damaged cells?
The thought made Auri sick, though she had nothing to throw up. She’d fasted twelve hours prior. Tears pricked at her eye. She knew the feelings barreling through her were an aftereffect of the procedure, but she couldn’t help feeling so…
So inhuman. So ugly.
She was a monster.
The doctor moved away and Malachi’s face filled her vision. “Welcome back,” he said. She felt his finger brush a tear from her organic cheek.
Kuso. Now he had seen her cry.
She opened her mouth to speak, but only a gargled sound came out. Too early for vocal chords.
“I didn’t stay to watch,” Malachi said as if he could read her thoughts. “But I wanted to be here when you woke up. Marin… Marin suggested it.”
That brought fresh tears trickling out of Auri’s eye. No one but doctors had ever been with her when she regained consciousness. She’d always battled the debilitating emotions alone and coped with the shame of her scraped-together body.
“Th-thank you,” she said, her voice scratchy but closer to its usual pitch.
He looked up as the doctor came bustling back.
“Aurelia,” the doctor said. “How are you feeling? A little emotional? Overwhelmed?”
She glanced at Malachi before nodding. “I kn-know that’s normal th-though.” So was the stutter, unfortunately.
“Of course. You probably know more than me about the procedure.” He grinned at her, the wrinkles around his mouth a roadmap to years of other smiles.
The doctor was an older man, probably nearing his late sixties. His pale skin contrasted with dark black irises, but his eyes were kind. He turned her head to the side and eased the cord from the back of her skull.
“Give yourself a little time, and you’ll be fully operational. You should automatically connect to Delfan’s grid in a few seconds. Afterwards, I’ll have you do some practice movements to make sure everything’s reconnected properly.”
For a backwater doctor, he was surprisingly professional. She’d had serious concerns upon entering the humble surgery room inhabited by a doctor wearing a patched surgical coat. The man even wore tiny spectacles, something Auri hadn’t seen on her side of the system, where corrective eye surgery was commonplace.
But the doctor had followed every protocol that the Fed’s official cyber-surgeons did. And, if Auri were honest, he had been much kinder throughout the process. The Fed surgeons never bothered to explain the procedures, just poked and prodded her while spouting techno-jargon to be recorded on their tablets.
Silence settled over the room, interrupted by the clank and clink of the doctor as he cleaned and stored his tools. Malachi slid a stool up to Auri’s bed and perched atop it. His lips spread in a yawn that he covered with a gloved hand. Rather than the smudges under his eyes vanishing after sleeping, they had darkened. She wondered if he was the one she heard last night and the night before, whimpering in the lonely hours before dawn.
She felt her c-tacts latch onto Delfan’s grid. Screens exploded in her vision: sites she’d been following, weather updates, the Fed’s daily news bulletins that went out to every citizen, and pings. So. Many. Pings.
Auri grimaced as she struggled to filter through them. After mentally swiping away the other screens, she focused on her inbox. The GIC’s name ranked first, followed by Captain Ishida. Between the two of them there were twenty-five messages: five from the captain and twenty from the GIC. Nothing from Ty.
Maybe they hadn’t loaded yet.
She opened Ty’s message folder, cold pricking the tips of her organic fingers and sending ice daggers into her heart. The last message was one that he had sent the day of her first DISC mission: Mind grabbing me some takoyaki?
Ty hadn’t sent her a birthday message, a hello, or even panicked pings saying how worried he was. Her eagerness to connect to the grid and contact him withered and died.
She didn’t bother opening the pings from the GIC or the captain. Their most recent messages were bolded in their folders.
From the GIC: Attempted to contact you for days. Where are…
From the captain: You are to report for duty today. GIC…
By opening the pings, both men would know she read their messages. She didn’t need to read what they sent to know that when she got home, she’d be in trouble.
“Lots of pings from your friends to sort through?” Malachi asked beside her.
She swiped away her inbox until her vision was clear. “Yeah… Lots of pings.” The words rang false to her own ears. No doubt Malachi saw straight through her lie.
The floor rumbled as if the surface of Delfan attempted to shake off a pesky bug. When they had arrived on the planet, Ferris had teased Auri that the planet might not like her and try to kick her off. She thought he’d been joking until Malachi explained that mining across the surface and deep into the core caused Delfan to have countless minor—and major—earthquakes. She didn’t know how people could live here in a constant state of will today be the day my home is destroyed?
But just like with the inhospitable heat and dryness on Kaido, people had adapted to their planet’s dangers. All the buildings were one story with flexible walls and support beams. Not to mention most of the furniture and equipment in the cyber-doctor’s operating room had been bolted to the floor.
She looked down at her robotic arm. The synthetic skin was smooth, her barcode a dark black. She ran her fingers over the area, checking for any bubbles or rough spots. The synthetic was even and perfectly applied. It must’ve cost the cyber-doctor, and therefore Malachi, a lot of money. She made a fist, the sheer pleasure of being able to bend her fingers brightening her melancholy mood.
The doctor came around for final checks. He had her sit up, blink, bend her fingers. Once he cleared her, he gestured toward the door. “Some of our children are outside having a bonfire tonight. Your crew is out there. Both of you are welcome to join them after—”
“After I pay you,” Malachi said, standing with a grunt. He bowed his head, eyes moving as he transferred the payment. “Arigato. Thanks for your help, Doc.”
The doctor bowed in kind. “I appreciate the credits, Captain Malachi.” He turned to Auri as she slid her feet into a pair of waiting slippers. “And thank you for trusting me. I know doctors on the rim don’t have the best reputations.”
She felt her organic cheek warm. “You’ve put an end to the rumors, at least as far as I’m concerned.”
The doctor walked them out of the operating room into a waiting area. At the door, Auri swapped her borrowed slippers for her boots. Malachi did the same.
The two of them stepped outside. The scent of cooking meat made her stomach growl. Day had passed into night while she dozed in surgery. The sky overhead was a swath of blackness, the horizon lit with the haze of mining drills still at work. Low air quality accounted for the lack of stars and the rasping, dry sensation in the back of her throat.
At least twenty children clustered around an enormous bonfire a safe distance from the clinic. Some of them held sticks, roasting yams or chunks of meat. Others sat in groups, warming their hands against Delfan’s nighttime chill.
All of them, even the youngest who toddled as if she hadn’t been walking long, were cyborgs. Unlike Auri, none of their robotic parts were covered with synthetic skin. In fact, many wore rudimentary pieces.
Meters away, Birdie lay on her back, two little girls rubbing her belly. One of the girls was missing both arms, the robotic fingers only half articulate. The other girl’s metallic leg gleamed in the firelight.
Auri stopped midstride, grabbing Malachi’s arm. “Malachi, what did the doctor mean when he said that these were ‘our children’?”
“They’re orphans, taken in by the doc and his wife.” The firelight deepened the shadows under his eyes. “We first met when I was still enlisted. He runs this orphanage for severely injured kids whose parents were killed in earthquakes or mining accidents. The Fed provides a small stipend, but it’s not enough to give them fully functional limbs.”
Auri rubbed her newly repaired robotic arm. What trick of fate allowed her to be given so much and these children so little? Why had the GIC picked her instead of one of them?
“Hello!” A boy no older than twelve ran up to them, two steaming yams clutched in each robotic hand. He bowed and held out the food. “Want to join us?”
Malachi took one. He tossed his yam into the air to cool it before catching it, wincing at the temperature. “Arigato, Thomas. Did you make these yourself?”
Thomas ducked his head but failed to hide the flicker of guilt. “I stole them from my sister. She doesn’t mind though. She’s busy playing with Wan-chan.”
“The dog? Right.” Malachi ruffled Thomas’s blond hair. “How about we double check?” He gave his yam back to the boy who sighed.
As Auri approached, Birdie flipped onto all fours, abandoning the girls to bound up to her. The dog’s tail churned up a small breeze. She plopped to her bottom in front of Auri, tongue lolling out the side of the dog’s mouth. Birdie’s white curls were covered in red dust, making her earlier bath pointless.
“Having fun?” Auri asked, bending down to run her fingers along Birdie’s back. It felt marvelous to use both hands again. Birdie shifted to sniff at the new synthetic skin.
One of the little girls, Thomas’s sister judging by the matching cropped blonde hair, hobbled over.
“Can we not play with her anymore?” she asked, her lower lip protruding in a pout. When the girl’s gaze landed on Thomas, a frown split her face. “Hey! Those are mine.”
“You left them by the fire!” Thomas tucked the yams into the armpits of his patch-worked shirt. “They almost burned.”
“I was playing.”
“Hey,” Malachi said, interrupting the feud. “You can each have a yam—if you still want one after Thomas has stuck them in his armpits. Auri and I will make our own.”
The girl crinkled her nose but finally held out a hand. “Give me one. I’ll peel off the skin so it isn’t gross.”
Thomas hesitated but obeyed after a nudge from Malachi.
The two kids stood in sullen silence, neither one biting into their yam.
Across the way, the rest of the crew clustered around the fire. Katara and Ferris had a little girl with a robotic jaw positioned between them. Marin huddled by herself, her hands pressed against the dirt, gaze unfocused. Castor had volunteered to help Malachi’s contact load the foodstuffs for Attica, claiming he hated kids. He’d taken the Kestrel off to another district on Delfan.
“Have you two heard of the hippopotamus word game?” Malachi’s question brought Auri’s attention back to the brother and sister.
They shook their heads.
Malachi glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t say this around your guardians, but…” He leaned forward. “Say kaba five times fast.”
Thomas and his sister launched into the challenge. On the fourth kaba, Auri realized the word game and smiled. So did the kids. Thomas grinned in impish glee while his sister’s mouth opened in a small o.
“When you say it fast kaba sounds like… That’s a bad word,” she scolded, though her eyes twinkled in a way that promised she would pass the game on to her friends. “C’mon, Thomas. Let’s go warm these up again.”
The two hurried off, whispering kaba to each other as fast as they could.
Malachi and Auri followed at a slower pace, Birdie bringing up the rear.
“How did you know about the kaba game?” Auri asked.
He tilted his head as he looked at her, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. “You’ve never heard of it? Every kid knows that game. Even the ones before the Curve. It’s a timeless way to say baka without getting in trouble.”
“Not every kid,” she muttered. When he didn’t reply, she glanced up. The firelight reflecting in his strange eyes made her step back. In the softness around his mouth, the crinkle of his eyes… Pity lurked there.
Malachi pitied her.
She turned. “I’m going to get a yam to roast.” Before he could reply, she hurried away.
The food table was sunken in the middle and the remaining vegetables had rolled into the center. She grabbed a wooden poker and two yams.
Auri chose a spot unoccupied by the children but away from the smoke. She hunkered down, Birdie beside her. The heat felt delicious against her organic skin. She relished the sensation, closing her eyes and breathing deep. Malachi hadn’t meant to hurt her. But the emotions from her surgery still pressed tight against her skin. She felt like bursting into tears, like she didn’t deserve even a shred of kindness.
“It’s sad.”
Auri opened her eyes to see Marin standing next to her. She sat down, her feet a little too close to the fire, toes curled tight
“What’s sad?” Auri asked, rotating the yams.
“Watching people want something they can’t have.”
At first Auri’s gaze went to Malachi. He stood on the other side of the fire, smiling at the playing children. Then she shifted to Katara and Ferris a few meters off. The expression on the assassin’s face was impossible to read, but Ferris’s was lined with a sadness when he looked at her. He forced a smile and nudged Katara with his shoulder, saying something as if to cheer her up. Katara nodded and spoke to the cyborg girl, pointing up to the sky.
Ferris’s emotions told her all she needed to know about Katara’s feelings.
“Katara wants a baby?” Auri asked.
“The Dispatchers don’t allow babies.”
She faced Marin, almost losing a yam to the roaring fire. “What do you mean? She’s not a Dispatcher anymore.”
The girl looked at Auri. “She doesn’t have a uterus. The women don’t learn it’s removed until later.”
The blunt way Marin spoke made Auri grimace. She looked at Katara anew. While she couldn’t imagine the assassin actually having a baby, her right to have one shouldn’t have been taken away. “The Fed wouldn’t do that.”
“Don’t be so naïve, Onee-chan.”
It was almost comical, the words coming from someone so young. “Why do you call me that?” Auri asked. “Are you a cyborg?”
Marin pushed to her feet. She held a stick in one hand. “You’ll learn soon. Akki-tan?” she called as she stood. “Where are you?” She slipped away, using her stick to guide her to Malachi’s side.
The smell of burning potato yanked Auri’s attention back to her yams. The skin had curled and blackened. She tugged her poker out with a frustrated cry. Upon examination, the insides were still soft and bright orange. She broke one in half and blew to cool it.
Birdie stared up at her with sad eyes, scratching at her leg with a paw.
Auri sighed. “You’ve already had plenty of food, I’m sure.” Still, she allowed a chunk of her yam to chill before plopping it in front of the dog. “You’re so spoiled.”
She rested her arms on her knees and tilted her face up toward the sky. With her eyes closed, the fire’s blaze felt like warm sunlight on her skin. If she used her imagination, she could pretend she was back on her balcony, surrounded by her green plants instead of a planet made of dirt and stitched together by machinery.
Normally, she could tuck painful memories away. Snare them in cages at the back of her mind. But the surgery shattered the locks. All her worries and fears and hopes and dreams swarmed together in an endless tornado.
What would it have been like if she grew up here instead of Rokuton? A place where no one cornered her in secluded hallways. A place to laugh with friends instead of cry alone over cruel boys who beat her robotic parts because their blows never left bruises.
She had never said anything about the bullies. She didn’t even tell Ty. Auri felt like she deserved their anger after the Cyborg Bomber. The criminal walked into a military base, weapons hidden within steel cavities, and murdered countless soldiers. That day, the bullies had lost a parent or sibling. Their ringleader, Indie, lost his entire family.
Somehow, the GIC learned of the attacks. The boys were expelled, drafted into the Marines, and sent to work on Attica after basic, one of the worst job assignments in the MPB.
The very prison the Kestrel and her crew would visit in a few days. But there were hundreds of guards stationed on the Heat. The chance she ran into her childhood tormentors was so low, she shouldn’t let the possibility bother her. Auri needed to stop worrying. She would need to be strong regardless of who she encountered. She would need to be ready. But tonight?
A single tear escaped her eye and pattered onto the dirt. She lowered her head and let more fall.