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It was second time in a month that Koller had to put Adam under. Last time, Adam squared his jaw and let Koller do his thing, pretended it did not bother him, until after... When Koller unearthed all these new augmentations that someone put into his body without his knowledge, quite possibly while he was out in Alaska, unconscious, vulnerable. That was when Adam flipped and told Koller in no uncertain terms how much he hates being unconscious. This time, Koller knew.
“Jensen, I know, I know, not the chair, not the switch off again. But what can I do, I can’t quite fix your rebreather without, well, having you off air for a little bit, and then I need to plug you into the backup lung device, so that your brain does not fry, and then–”.
“Koller, stop. Just do it. Here, I’ll sit in your blasted chair.”
“No, no, this won’t do. This won’t do at all. We are going to do it the right way this time. I don’t need you freaking out every time you come here, I need you to trust the chair. Trust me.”
“I don’t think this is possible, Koller. You know what they did to me. Sarif, then Alaska.”
“This is why we are doing it my way now, Jensen. First, I will tell you exactly what is going to happen. I will be here when you go under, and I will be here all the time you are under, and then when you come back – I will still be here. You see, you trust me, right? Have I ever done anything for you to mistrust? No. So I will be here, and nothing bad will happen.”
Koller was, in his weird way, reassuring. Sure, he was chattering like a squirrel, and looked almost as panicky as Adam felt, but the chattering was like the sound of rain on a roof, methodical little drops hitting the hard surface, not following any pattern, drowning the mind in their unpredictability, almost calming.
“And then I will look at your rebreather aug. Only look. Not take anything, not put anything in, nothing to change there – maybe repair a little, bring it back to how it should be, how it was before. So, nothing unexpected. You wake up – and here, everything the same as it was, and no unexpected new things.”
Koller grabbed a seat from one of the tables and rolled it to the left side of the surgical chair, placing himself right beside Adam.
“Now, I will sit here” – Koller articulated with his arms, to further clarify where “here” was, as if it was not evident from his words alone – “and tell you exactly what the rebreather is, and what I think I will have to do, and then I will be here, right with you, all the way until you go under. Slowly.” With that, Koller put his left augmented hand on top of Adam’s, both of their hands now resting on the chair's arm.
Koller’s head was just centimetres away, he was almost whispering into Adam’s ear. More than half of it went right over Adam’s head – a lot of terminology he has at best seen once or twice before, in the books on augmentation technology, which he lately tried to get into to understand his own body better. Koller was as experienced in all of this as Adam was in the intricacies of United States federal laws, or in the ways one could incapacitate an unaware target without giving them time to react. Rattling of the raindrops, what it was, when Koller spoke. He was filling Adam up with his competence, with his certainty, with all the possible information on everything that’s going to happen to him during the brief time under the gas. It was all that Adam did not have during these two times when he had augmentations installed into him without his consent, while he was out. Koller was holding Adam’s hand, like a nurse would for a scared patient, his touch tethering Adam to reality, pulling him away from the shapeless form that was trying to consume him from within, that near-subconscious fear of the unknown, that all humans possess since birth, but some connect to more than others, after the unknown lashes out and hurts them, again and again, without mercy. There was so much care in what Koller was doing, what he did not have to do at all. Adam’s eyes stung a little.
“Now, I will start the gas going.” There was no face mask, like in old films. The gas cord could be plugged directly into one of the ports on the side of Adam’s torso, convenient direct access to his lungs, and with broken rebreather he did not even need to make a conscious decision to allow it to take him over. Koller continued talking. “See, I am staying right here, holding your hand, and when you come back – I will still be here, holding your hand. Are you okay, Jensen? Adam?”
Adam could feel the lightness steadily taking him over, much more gradual than the last time – Koller was not kidding about going slow. He nodded drowsily. Koller’s head was still centimetres away from his, the heavily augmented surgeon looking at him gently. The last thing he remembered was Koller’s lips softly touching his, just before he slipped entirely into the darkness.
When Adam came to, it was like no time has passed at all. His left hand was still covered by Koller’s own. The ruffled surgeon was still sitting next to him, looking at him intently. The lightness from the gas lingered all over his mind. He was scrambling to remember. His rebreather, Koller was going to fix the rebreather. Adam took a deep breath and felt the familiar tingle of his artificial lungs activating the filters. That seemed to work, now. Still so light. Did Koller kiss him just before he went under?
“Koller, did you kiss me?” His own voice sounded so confused to him. Half of the world still barely made sense, although it was slowly coming back to him.
Koller straightened up in his seat, his eyes alight with panic, yet he did not let go of Adam’s hand. Surely he had to, at some point, to do the whole fixing the rebreather thing. But then he made sure to come back, sit down, and take hold of it once again, to ensure that Adam wakes up to no changes at all.
“Shit. Shit. I was hoping you forgot. I am so sorry, Adam. Jensen. I don’t know what came over me. You were so relaxed. You are always so tense, so afraid of your own body, but you have beautiful body, your augmentations are like pieces of art, I could look at them for days, the way they all work together with your organics, seamlessly, perfectly–”
Koller was jabbering.
“Koller, stop.” Adam sluggishly moved his right arm to cover Koller’s hand with his. “Thank you. It did help. I have to go.”
It took Adam another five to fully recover from the post-anaesthesia dizziness, while Koller was putting away the tools he took out for this repair job. Last time, when Adam came to – everything was already cleaned up, Koller must have done it while he was waking up and recovering. But this time Koller had to sit next to him, holding his hand, delaying the cleaning, disrupting the usual process.
***
Next time Adam needed a fix, it was a simple arm tweak, some of the artificial muscles got twisted and wouldn’t undo themselves. He was almost disappointed when Koller told him that there was no need to put him under for this one. His ever-attentive aug expert must have noticed.
“Disappointed that you don’t need to sit in the chair this time, Jensen? Starting to trust the chair, yes? You can sit down anyway. I have time, I can sit with you.”
Adam did not say anything, just nodded, and went to the chair. Koller sat on his left, same as last time. Without asking, he put his right hand, the one with two missing fingers, on top of Adam’s. This was reassuring, relaxing. Koller had no procedure to talk about this time, the fix to Adam's arm took all of two minutes, so he was silently scrolling through a pocket secretary with his left hand, while the mechanical thumb of his right was idly running circles over Adam’s skin mesh. There was no fear anymore, just comfort, and without noticing, Adam drifted to sleep.
He woke up to Koller gently calling his name.
“Adam, Adam, wake up. It has been an hour, I have another client coming soon, and, well, when you are me, you don’t want your clients to meet, you understand?”
Adam took possession of his left arm and stretched with a crack in his organic shoulders. The surgical chair was not made for comfortable sleeping.
“Damn, Koller, did you really sit with me all this time?”
“What was I to do? I did not want you to wake up all on your own, this is not what I am trying to do here, I need you to trust me.”
“Damn.” Adam winced with guilt. He was taking too much of Koller’s time. And napping in the middle of the day? He couldn’t say that he did not have the time, he knew that whoever needed him could always get to him via Infolink, but it still felt wrong. He was not sick, he should be out there, doing things, learning intel, moving forward, fixing the world. Then remembered hours spent at home in the evenings drinking whiskey, staring mindlessly at the cycling newsreel on his TV, when his mind was too tired to process any new information, too exposed to the unyielding painful memories.
“Hey, don’t worry, Jensen. I have plenty I can do without running around. There was this article I’ve meant to read forever, some interesting theories about the possibilities of nano-augmentation, very far-fetched, but you know what, I like far-fetched. Makes my brain tingle. You know what I mean.”
“I know, Koller. Thank you. I... I have to go.” He wanted to ask if he can come again, to nap in Koller’s chair, to wake up to his hand being held, feeling safe, secure. He could not get himself to ask.
“Jensen, you just... You can come here again, alright? If you want to just… sit? Rest?” Suddenly, it was Koller who looked lost. Did what Adam did not dare to do. “Can have a drink. I have beer. Can tell you more about your augmentations, if you want.”
“When?” This was all Adam could get out of himself. He was speechless with dread and anticipation. When was the last time he let himself be so vulnerable? But this was Koller. Koller, who would repeatedly treat his unconscious body full of priceless pieces of tech without ever, ever letting him come to harm. Koller was the safest person there was, and Adam wanted, yearned to feel safe.
Koller stopped in his tracks, his brows slightly lifted in surprise. Licked his teeth, eyes quickly moving over the invisible HUD containing his schedule. “In three days. I have a window between two and four.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Stay safe, Adam.”
“You too.” Please, stay safe. Be here when I am back. Don’t let this comfort, this feeling of security ever go away. Adam wanted to say all of that, but he did not. He walked out, and made a note in his calendar for next Tuesday, two o’clock sharp. He will be there.