Chapter 12
Realizing this was the culmination of hours upon hours in a chem-fueled fugue state, I sit back down in the office chair—if only to avoid the embarrassment of falling on my ass.
I press my fingertips together, eyes drifting to the silver tin in the corner. Once, it held about forty mentats-laced cigarettes. Now, it's just another reminder of my poor decisions. My stomach twists, trying to devour itself. I wince.
FKSR looks at me with a serene expression, completely ignoring Elias, who is currently having the synth equivalent of a panic attack in the corner.
I click my tongue, trying to assess the situation. "How long have you been capable of activating yourself?"
Her head tilts slightly, the nodes above her forehead pulsing.
Approximately 10 standard Vinetan minutes ago doctor. You were unconscious but preliminary scans of your mind indicated you would awaken momentarily. The synthetic entered as you awoke.
My brows furrow at her method of communication—telepathic, though not unexpected. We're still being filmed, after all, and the twitchy synth in the corner has clearly decided not to intervene, even after I collapsed post-crash. Dick.
So you timed your decanting for exactly when I'd awaken… acceptable. Sending you a data packet containing a primer: where we are, what we're dealing with, and who's in play. Further information can wait until we're out of their tender clutches.
Her eyes narrow as she processes the transfer.
What are my parameters Doctor? She asks.
As I just informed you, we're miles under the ocean. They've got tech capable of matter reconstitution—teleportation. The synthetic present is a Courser, a hunter unit built specifically to track down rogue synths. Use placating body language. Don't drop your guard. Your bioresonant capabilities far outstrip mine, I'll be relying on you should this go catastrophically.
FKSR gives a single, slow nod, her movements deliberate—measured in a way that only something aware of being watched would bother to perform. Her gaze finally shifts to Elias, just enough to acknowledge him without actually offering recognition.
Good girl.
Ignoring the pain lancing through my head like a hot iron as I look straight at Elias and I point at him.
"You," I say, pointing at Elias. "How long was I out?"
He snaps to attention like I barked an order. "Twelve hours. You had… a seizure, then passed out."
"Really?" I mutter. "How novel."
Ignoring the fact that I was left for dead, gritting my teeth internally. I push myself upwards much to my brain's protest, even with my enhancements, I have my limits, this compiled with the backlash I received when dealing with that hotel entity probably knocked something loose.
Scan the facility— full census of all organics and synthetics. After being left to seize on a chair, we operate under the assumption they've already broken our agreement. Exfiltration under 'compliance' is preferable.
A small nod
I stagger slightly as I stand, palm catching the edge of the panel before I can make a real fool of myself. FKSR is at my side immediately, steadying me with one hand on my shoulder. Her grip is firm—almost imperceptibly too strong for a "prototype," but subtle enough that Elias doesn't twitch.
Now at full height, I realized with some discomfort how she loomed over me - a full seven and a half feet of engineered perfection. And also that her newly-grown organic torso was currently... exposed.
Priorities, Emil.
Coughing into my fist, I shrugged out of my lab coat and reached up to drape it over her shoulders. The garment looked absurdly small on her frame, barely covering what needed covering, but it would have to suffice.
"Temporary measure," I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.
As I adjusted the coat, I sent a quick bioresonant pulse through the room. My belongings had been delivered during my fugue - all except the weapons, naturally. The reinforced fatigues/bodysuit called to me like an old friend, but dealing with the jackhammer in my skull took precedence.
Turning to Elias, I kept my voice flat: "Do you stock any stimpak variants rated for cranial trauma? Or are your medical facilities as primitive as your surveillance decor?"
Nothing…
I snatched up the bag containing my fatigues on the way out, the weight reassuring in my grip. If I was walking out of this underwater tomb, I'd be doing it in proper armor. Elias moved to block the doorway, his synth muscles tensing.
"Fuck off," I growled, layering just enough telekinetic force behind the words to send him stumbling half a step sideways. "I just suffered a seizure, you budget terminator." Rubbing my forehead with my right hand's palm.
FKSR assisted me as we exited, her stilted feet making no sound on the composite flooring. The stares from passing scientists were almost comical - a mix of academic curiosity and primal fear as they took in the towering, half-naked killing machine gliding through their sterile halls.
The med-bay doors slid open with a hiss, revealing a clinic that somehow managed to look both cutting-edge and hopelessly outdated.
A Gen-2 synth in a crisp white bodysuit stood at reception, its face frozen in that uncanny not-quite-human expression.
"I've suffered a seizure," I announced, leaning heavily on the FKSR. "I require immediate medical assistance before I redecorate your nice clean floors with my grey matter."
The Gen-2 synth gave a mechanical nod and gestured toward the primary diagnostic chair. I eyed the thing—half dentist's recliner, half execution rig—and sighed, waving FKSR to stand guard by the door.
"Sit," the synth instructed in a tone that had all the warmth of a spreadsheet.
The med-bay chair creaked as I settled into its cold embrace. Needles whirred to life from the overhead armature, their polished tips catching the sterile light. I didn't need bioresonance to know where they were headed - the subtle twitch of the apparatus betrayed its trajectory toward my orbital sockets.
Charming.
I won't be going under, I can't trust this facility with my unconscious body. A quick neural adjustment deadened my thalamic response. The sensation of the needles sliding home registered only as distant pressure, like fingers pressing against closed eyelids. My body knew it should be screaming - the autonomic responses still fired, sending beads of cold sweat down my spine - but the pain itself non-existent other than some discomfort from the pressure.
Across the room, FKSR stood sentinel by the door, her borrowed lab coat stretched taut across her shoulders. The Gen-2 medic worked in silence, its rubberized fingers dancing across the console with mechanical precision.
Status? I pulsed to FKSR.
Her response came layered with subharmonic tension: Facility scan complete. Twenty-three organics, forty-seven synths. Two squads mobilizing outside medical wing. Director Zhao has—
The doors hissed open before she could finish.
Zhao Lian stood framed in the doorway, her petite form radiating enough fury to vaporize seawater. The Gen-2 medic froze mid-procedure, its needle-drill still embedded in my skull.
"Director," I greeted, my voice remarkably steady given the circumstances. "Apologies for my abrupt departure. You see, after suffering a seizure and being left unattended for twelve hours - almost as if someone hoped I'd expire and take advantage of an opportune moment to get away with my work without compensating for it— I felt medical attention took precedence over protocol. Though I don't blame you, I'd have probably done the same."
Zhao's gloved hands flexed at her sides. Behind her, four Coursers in full combat rigging shifted uneasily. Their rifles remained lowered - for now.
"I have a feeling that If FKSR had awakened any later, she'd only awaken to find my cooling corpse and cranium turned to dust." I let out as I rub my chin.
"Your prototype," Zhao bit out, "is unauthorized for autonomous operation. Institute property remains under Institute control."
The medic chose that moment to retract its needles with a wet schluck. I sat forward, wiping a trickle of blood and cerebrospinal fluid from my eye. "Ah, but you see, Director, that's where you're mistaken." My smile didn't reach my eyes. "Did we not agree that I was to keep this proof of concept?"
I scratched absently at the injection site near my left eye, where my enhanced platelets already knitted the puncture closed. The itch was maddening.
"Ah, but here's the rub," I continued, rubbing circles below my eye "We had an agreement. Proof of concept in exchange for resources. Yet you've already violated terms, leaving me for dead, and even attempting to prevent me from seeking aid with Elias, or whatever his designation actually is, blocking my way here to the clinic initially.
"Thus our agreement is…forfeit."
A pulse of bioresonance passed between us - my prearranged signal. FKSR's Projektor nodes flared crimson.
The bioresonant pulse between us lasted less than a millisecond—a neural handshake older than this ruined world. FKSR's Projektor nodes flared crimson, and reality shattered in waves:
Glass Surrendered First – Every pane in the med-bay exploded outward in a diamond blizzard, shredding the Gen-2's rubberized face.
Lights Died – Plunging us into darkness punctuated only by:
FKSR's strobing implants
Coursers' frantic blue beams dancing like drunk fireflies
Then the Screaming Started – Mostly synth vocalizers overloading.
When backup power flickered on 15.4 seconds later, the aftermath was art:
Courser #1: Embedded face-first into a bulkhead, legs twitching.
Courser #2: Folded around a ceiling support beam, spine pretzeled.
Courser #3: Naked save for his coat, crumpled in a corner ("Priorities," FKSR later explained).
Zhao: Frothing at the mouth, her mind overloaded but intact—a message.
FKSR stood at parade rest, now clad in a skintight Courser bodysuit that strained against her shoulders, the legs rolled upwards as to not hang or inconvenience her stilts. "Appropriated," she intoned, examining the dead synth's laser rifle with her fingers before handing it to me.
I stepped over Zhao's seizing form, my boots crunching on spent microfusion cells. "Efficient and Ironic."
My reinforced fatigues slithered back onto my frame—monofilament weave embracing me like an old lover. The lab coat followed, pockets fattened with looted energy cells.
Then the pièce de résistance: A Courser corpse dragged behind us
"Relay chamber," I ordered.
FKSR scooped me up one-handed—cradling me like a disgruntled cat.
"I can walk—"
"Negative." Her fingers pinching my cheek—Hirsch's habit, bled through the imprint— I deadpanned . "Seizure. Orbital injection. Statistical survival probability drops 38% if you stumble at a critical moment."
Her long strides making us move through the hallways.
"Besides," she added with the ghost of a smug grin, "this amuses me."
A section of wall paneling is ripped free, floating ahead of us clearing corners and occasionally bisecting clusters of synths at mach fuck-you.
Finally deciding It's alright to let me walk on my own FKSR places me down.
The relay chamber vibrated with pent-up energy, its quantum capacitors whining at 19.7 kHz - just below the threshold of human hearing. I dumped the Courser's corpse onto the console like a sack of potatoes, my fingers plunging into its cranial cavity with surgical precision. Bone fragments skittered across the terminal as I extracted the Courser chip, its connectors still dripping pink cerebrospinal fluid.
"Hold this," I grunted, underhanding the chip to FKSR. Her hand snapped out faster than a striking cobra, catching it mid-air without even looking up from her improvised demolition work. The microfusion cells I'd looted were already arranged in a perfect Fibonacci spiral atop the console - unstable enough to vaporize the room, precise enough to leave the relay itself intact.
"Margin for error: 4.2 milliseconds," FKSR observed, her Projektor nodes flaring as she calculated the detonation window. "Shall I handle the detonation?"
I shook my head, My fingers danced across the keyboard, inputting coordinates, and finally after grabbing the chip from her hand, I slotted the Courser chip into place with a telekinetic nudge. The console beeped twice - a synthetic voice chimed "override accepted" in that infuriatingly calm tone.
FKSR's hand clamped around my wrist. "Doctor. Your thalamic tremors have increased by 18% since orbital injection." Her grip was immovable, her pupils contracting to pinpricks. "I will execute the detonation."
The countdown timer flashed crimson: 00:00:05...
I opened my mouth to protest-
00:00:04...
FKSR's mind pressed against the microfusion array-
00:00:03...
Her Projektor flared-
00:00:02...
"Now."
Reality came apart in three simultaneous events:
The cells detonated with a crack-hiss of violet energy, their blast wave frozen mid-expansion by the relay's activation
The console exploded upward in a shower of molten alloy as our molecular patterns were captured
My last conscious thought was of FKSR's arm wrapping around my ribs like a titanium safety harness
The world dissolved into cobalt static and the distinct smell of burning plastic.