Work Text:
The pain was excruciating.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t really think. My head was burning from the inside out. I vaguely understood that I needed help, but I was incapable of even pushing a message into the feed. It went on for hours, days, years.
Something cool brushed against the fire in my brain, poured through it, smothered it. I became aware of the hard floor underneath me, the rasp of my own labored breathing, a thick, wet sensation around my eyes and nose and a coppery taste in my mouth. My head swam painfully, but it seemed like nothing compared to what had just ended. I tried to get my arms under myself to push myself up, but a hand pressed against my back. The cool presence slipped away, and the ache in my skull ticked up a notch or three.
“No, hold on, I’ve got you.”
“SecUnit?”
“Yeah, it’s me. You’re gonna be fine, Gurathin.”
I turned my head toward its voice, but there was nothing there. Just darkness. Where were we? What was I doing before the pain? I couldn’t remember. I felt hands, motion. It was carrying me, we were moving fast, but everything was black. “Wait, slow down, it’s too dark to run like this.”
A beat of silence broken only by its rapid footsteps. It’s not dark, your vision augments malfunctioned, it said through the feed. Receiving was another, smaller pain on top of the pervasive ache. I had to turn them off to make it stop. I’m taking you to Station Medical. It gave me a few seconds to absorb that, and I needed them because thinking was hard, though no longer entirely impossible. How long have you had them? These specific ones, not vision augments in general.
Laboriously, I did the math. “Not quite twenty years.”
And when did they start glitching? I felt the sideways pull of momentum as we rounded a corner at speed. Someone cried out in surprise.
“A couple of years ago, I guess? Please don’t run anyone over.”
I have a drone out in front, we’re not crashing into anything. I actually know what I’m doing.
I knew I should probably apologize for offending it, but I knew it in a distant, hazy sort of way. The full-brain ache was starting to throb in time with my pulse. My grasp on consciousness was sliding away. As if in a dream, I heard voices barking questions, SecUnit barking answers back. A sting in my arm, and then nothing at all.
***
My eyes fluttered open, but everything was black. I was laying on something soft, and there was a blanket over me.
“Hey, there you are.” A warm hand squeezed mine, and my sluggish brain identified the voice. Bharadwaj. I blinked, squinted, but the darkness didn’t lift. My head hurt, but it was manageable.
“What’s happening?”
“Your vision augments malfunctioned,” she said. Right, I knew that, I was just slow. I felt kind of floaty. Oh…painkillers, probably.
“I remember now. I’m in Medical? SecUnit was bringing me there, last I recall.”
“Yes. It can probably tell you what happened better than I can. SecUnit?”
It was still here? Apparently so, because it was talking to me. Out loud, which was unusual. “Yeah, you collapsed in your office. My drone notified me, and I, uh, I had to hack into your neural augments to figure out what was happening since you couldn’t talk. I turned your vision augments off because they were the problem.” It hesitated, and that worried me. “Look, you should know, it wasn’t a malfunction. It was programmed in. You didn’t go out and spend a bunch of money on new ones when they kept giving you trouble, so they sent too much power through the connection to your organics, kind of like a governor module. To help you make the right decision,” it concluded sardonically.
My muddled thoughts latched onto that. That was what not being rogue had been like for SecUnit? By the void, no wonder it had hacked itself. I had known how the module worked in theory, but it was suddenly quite clear that such a thing as the application of electrical shock directly to brain tissue must be experienced to be understood. I had long ago ceased to believe that SecUnit shouldn’t have gone rogue, but now I was ashamed all over again for ever having thought differently.
I wasn’t really surprised by the planned obsolescence of my augments, or the cruelty of its execution. If I’d stayed in the Rim, my contract would be nearing its end; the price of new augments would have neatly trapped me into a very long extension. “Can they be reprogrammed to function again?”
“Uh…theoretically? I mean, yeah, I could strip out the glitch code, but the scans showed the hardware isn’t in great shape either. You need new augments. They don’t have anything like your class of augments here, though, so we’ll have to wait for the new ones to come in from out-system.”
“But that’s not as bad as it sounds,” Bharadwaj hastened to add. “They couldn’t give you new ones right away anyway. Unfortunately, the malfunction created some inflammation in your brain, where the augments connect. The doctors want to wait at least two weeks and put you on some high-dose anti-inflammatories before the replacement surgery. It may be a few extra days after that for your new augments to come in, but surely it’s worth a little more time?”
I sighed. I’d looked into this when they first started glitching, and two weeks in the dark was something I didn’t want to even think about right then, so I thought about what was at the end of that instead. “Except anything besides vision-replacement models are luxury items. That’s why I didn’t get them replaced when they started giving me trouble, I wanted the additional features for as long as possible.”
“You use your augments in your work, though,” Bharadwaj said.
“I do, but they aren’t required for my work, just useful. Other people do the same work with no augments, visual or otherwise. So I don’t qualify for an exception to replacement policy. I guess the good news is that I can get the new ones as soon as the inflammation is gone.”
“Oh, Gurathin, I’m sorry.” She squeezed my hand.
“No,” SecUnit said abruptly. “My augmented human is not getting stupid basic vision augments. I have what is apparently a lot of currency, and if it’s not enough, ART convinced me to get a line of credit on Mihira, so I have that to work with, too. I’m getting you good augments.”
“SecUnit, I can’t accept that much. I’d never be able to pay you back, and I certainly won’t have anyone going into debt for me.” I tried to ignore the warm feeling its offer (and its reference to me as its own) engendered.
“You don’t need to pay me back,” it said irritably. “I hardly use any of the currency I make, and I make a lot because Pin-Lee negotiates my contracts.”
This, I could readily believe. “And if my only other option were remaining blind, I would probably take you up on your offer of assistance, but that’s not the case. My vision will be restored. I’ll be a bit less efficient at my work going forward, but that’s fine. It’s far better than a twenty-year contract extension.”
“But—“
“SecUnit,” Bharadwaj interrupted gently, with an undercurrent of firmness. “It’s a very generous offer, but Gurathin has declined, and you should accept that. You can’t force him to let you buy his augments, you know.”
A beat of silence. “Fine.” Then footsteps, and the whoosh of the door.
“It’s not really mad,” she said.
“I think it is, but I won’t change my mind,” I replied with a sigh. “I never want to be in debt again. Even if I’m the only one calling it that.”
***
The doctors came around a little later and confirmed what I’d already heard—I wouldn’t be able to see again for at least two weeks. However, I wasn’t prepared to be told that for the next week at least I was strictly prohibited from any activity in the feed which could trigger my visual cortex. No books, no work papers, no feed messages, unless I happened to have text-to-speech software installed? And actually, I did. My former employer had liked the idea of its systems people reviewing documentation and requirements while they took their allotted meal and elimination breaks. I found some amusement in the idea that they’d given me a tool that would help me while I healed from the damage their augments had done.
Once the inflammation was lessened, I’d have some scans so MedSystem and the supervising surgeon would know if there had been any permanent damage that would require the connections to be re-routed. I doubted there would be. The ‘glitch’ would have been fine-tuned to teach me not to hesitate to get expensive new augments at the first sign of trouble in future, but not to make me unable to receive them, or fulfill the contract I’d have had to sign to get them if I were still on the Rim.
The surgery would take place at Makeba Central Medical, planet-side. I was offered various options for the interim: stay at Station Medical until a day or two before surgery, transfer to MCM early, or return to my own home here on Station with caregivers to assist me until it was time to go down.
Before I could answer, Bharadwaj offered another option. “Or you can go home with friends instead of caregivers. Ratthi is on a shuttle as we speak, Arada and Overse are arranging job coverage and expect to be here in a day or two, and of course Pin-Lee, SecUnit, and I are here already, and here for you. You can go home without having to depend on strangers.”
Mensah was on the northern continent with a group of doctoral students, and Volescu had distanced himself from all of us after the survey where we met SecUnit. Everyone else was making themselves available to me, or trying to? I didn’t know how to take that in. I wouldn’t have expected any of them to set their own concerns aside for me, beyond a possible bedside visit from those already on Station, like Bharadwaj. I squashed the thought of what they would expect of me in return; the most persistent carryover from my years on the Rim was the habit of viewing everything as a transaction. None of them would expect anything, and I would dishonor their generosity by suspecting it.
“I would like to go home,” I said after a stunned moment. “With my friends.”
“Excellent,” boomed Dr. Khandowa. “We will send a nurse to you every third day to check your progress with regards to the inflammation. Other than that, take your medicines, eat well, and rest. Enjoy the company of your friends—and perhaps some nice music, eh?—and in a week or so we will set a firm date for your surgery.”
“You should expect that to be in about two to three weeks, as we said, unless the inflammation is very persistent,” added Dr. Tenzin.
I voiced my understanding, and the doctors left. I gave Bharadwaj a chance to go also, claiming I’d be fine until they discharged me, but she cheerfully declined. She had taken a sabbatical from the university to work on her latest documentary, and was, she declared, ‘entirely at liberty’. We (mostly she) chatted about that project for a while. After her documentary about SecUnit, she’d done one about about contract labor in the Rim, interviewing a number of refugees now living in the Alliance, including several of the former miners who had been stranded here when the smuggler working to liberate them from BreharWallHan had been murdered. Her new project focused on a ComfortUnit—rogue, of course—who had arrived here about a year after the documentary about SecUnit was released. It hadn’t been the first of its kind to come to Preservation, but it had been the first to agree to participate in Bharadwaj’s project.
It was going well, and I was happy for her. The Unit was articulate and thoughtful, she said, and had not hesitated to draw clear boundaries between what it was willing to discuss and what it wasn’t. She had feared, going into the project, that a being programmed to please would answer any question, whether it wished to or not, but it seemed that at least in this case the desire to oblige at all costs had rested more with the governor module than the operating system.
Luckily, the subject had shifted to a survey planned for the next summer that I was thinking of joining before the door whooshed open. “SecUnit is here with some clothes for you,” she informed me.
I was surprised it was back so soon, and more surprised still that it had been out running an errand on my behalf. “What happened to what I was wearing before?”
“You bled on your shirt.” That was SecUnit, and close by, though I hadn’t heard it move. “And there was one of those hot drinks you like on your pants. You probably dropped it when the glitch happened.”
“They’re bagged up for you,” Bharadwaj added. “But the shirt at least is probably ruined. Should I step out while you get dressed?”
I wasn’t particularly modest by Rim standards, but by Preservation’s I was hilariously so. It was nice of her to offer to leave, but I knew I was still wearing undergarments at least, so I declined. What better time to stretch my comfort zone than when I couldn’t see reactions, right? “I won’t be offended if you leave, SecUnit. I know you think humans are gross,” I joked.
“It’s fine,” it said. “Besides, I’m the only one here who can catch you if you fall over or whatever.”
I sat up carefully and swung my legs over the edge of the bed after feeling for the gap in the rail along the side of the bed. I realized I had no idea how high the platform was, so I started just sliding slowly down the side of it, searching for the floor with my toes. I heard a soft huff, felt a swirl of displaced air, and then there were hands on my waist, lifting me slightly and setting me firmly on my feet. Then, still holding onto my right side, it took my left hand and placed it on the bed-rail. I grabbed the rail and knew SecUnit had been right to stay, because I felt a bit dizzy. More than a bit. The sensation of everything spinning around you when you can’t see any of it is particularly disconcerting. I took a couple of measured breaths and the spell passed. “Right. I’m okay.” I said. Gingerly, I lifted my hand off the railing. I was, in fact, steady on my feet.
I held out a hand. “Trousers, please.” Fabric touched my hand and I grasped it; by feeling around for the pockets I determined where the front was and stepped into them. When I straightened up I swayed, and a cool hand caught my elbow. It was becoming very clear just how much help I was going to need, and every scrap of my pride revolted. But I contained it, and just said, “Thank you, SecUnit.”
Taking off the hospital smock and donning my shirt was easier—no bending over required, so my equilibrium was easier to maintain. I managed to scramble back onto the bed on my own, though I suspect I looked ridiculous, and sat on the edge. Aching head aside I was perfectly healthy, and laying down constantly just didn’t feel right.
Ratthi came bounding in minutes later, exclaiming, “Gurathin! You scared us! How are you feeling?” He pulled me into a hug, which was startling as I didn’t see it coming, and pounded lightly on my back.
I thanked him for coming, and between us we filled him in on what had happened and what was expected to happen. He’d gotten a message from SecUnit that my visual augments had malfunctioned and I’d had a seizure; that was all he’d known until he reached us. He was horrified to learn that I was completely blind for the time being and had some choice words for my augments’ manufacturer before cheerfully declaring that, except for a few classes he’d need to teach via vidlink every week, he was all mine for as long as required.
Ratthi’s arrival marked the end of the quiet part of the day. Almost on his heels came Dr Khandowa, ready to discharge me. The instructions were pretty simple—take the anti-inflammatories as directed, get extra rest, let my friends help me, and if I experienced symptoms of depression or anxiety I should speak to a professional immediately, because this was not the sort of thing most people could just handle for themselves.
And then I was on my way. Ratthi chattered cheerfully the whole way to my rooms. I couldn’t tell if it was done to distract me or just because he was in a voluble mood. Either way, I appreciated it, because it did distract me. I’d known Ratthi for years, including several surveys, before what I privately call The Year Everything Went to the Void, but I’d never appreciated him before our time on TranRollinHyfa. To be honest, I’d regarded him with a certain amount of contempt. I hadn’t seen past his relentless happiness, ever-fashionable attire, and utter openness about his complicated social life to his keen mind and essential kindness. But on TRH, Pin-Lee and I would have been at each other’s throats without him. One or both of us would have almost certainly done something in a fit of temper to make the whole situation much worse. But Ratthi had kept us on an even keel, and it hadn’t been easy. Once I’d come to appreciate that about him, his other qualities were easier to see. I suppose we all have our own blind spots (hah).
***
My rooms had never been so full of people and noise as they were that evening. Ratthi took over the kitchen as soon as we arrived, making pastries filled with hot, spiced proteins, grains, and vegetables. They were delicious, and delayed the moment when I’d have to attempt to use eating utensils without my sight. While he did that, Bharadwaj asked me what kind of music I’d enjoy right then, and she and SecUnit quickly assembled a playlist and got it going on my media device. I’ve always thought I preferred quiet, but that evening I realized that I simply get enough stimulation, in the normal course of things, from my vision, and that my hearing was now the sense most likely to keep me from feeling as though I’d been launched into the void. The bustle of others, the music, the conversation—it was more than welcome.
Pin-Lee came by in the middle of the meal, irritable from a long day in the courtroom but more than willing to tell amusing—if rather savage—tales of the incompetence of the counsel for her client’s co-defendant. SecUnit’s offer to arrange a little non-fatal accident for them on their way to court the next morning made us all laugh, though I’m fairly sure it would have done it if she’d agreed.
When it got late, Bharadwaj and Pin-Lee both went home and Ratthi helped me navigate to my bedroom and change into a sleep smock before he settled down for the night on my couch. I laid there in my bed and tried not to let silence and fear overwhelm me. Rationally, I knew that I only needed to endure the next two weeks—perhaps three, if I were slow to heal—and I would have my life back, almost the way it had been before. But in that impenetrable darkness, broken only by the occasional, faint creak of the couch as Ratthi moved in his sleep, I was not entirely rational, and I felt very alone.
Do you need one of the sedatives they sent with you?
I startled, more from the sudden, falsely-pleasant voice of my text-to-speech module than the message itself. I’d thought SecUnit had left by now. But maybe it was just watching me toss and turn through a drone. It took a little concentration, but I was able to form a reply despite having disabled my internal display.
Where are you?
I’m sitting right by the door, it replied. Do you want the sedative? You should sleep.
It had stayed, even though so many uninterrupted hours among humans must have annoyed it. Yes, thank you. I probably should.
I heard a rustle of fabric, and it wasn’t from Ratthi or past him, at the door of my lodgings, but closer. SecUnit had been by the door of my room. I suddenly felt overwhelmed by how much everyone had already done for me, and my useless eyes stung.
It returned in seconds and I levered myself upright. It placed a cup of water in my hand and, when I held out the other, dropped a pill into it. Thank you, I said, and swallowed it. I realized I had nowhere to put the cup, so I drained it and leant over to place it on the floor, only to have it plucked from my hand. Another faint rustle of fabric told me that SecUnit was taking it away.
You don’t keep a small table by the bed like most humans, it commented.
People use those for clocks and feed devices, I replied. I have both of those in my head.
I guess you do. Do you need a distraction until you can fall asleep?
The insight surprised me, but maybe it shouldn’t have. If anyone knew about the utility of distraction in uncomfortable situations, it was SecUnit. A distraction would be welcome. Did you have something in mind? I can’t watch media, even on the feed—my visual center is where the worst of the inflammation is.
It managed to convey amusement as it replied, « I was actually listening when the doctors were talking. A pause. Well, I recorded it, and mined the data when they were done. Humans communicate so slowly. The point is, I know you can’t do visual stuff on the feed either, but I have some audio dramas. I guess they’re pretty popular in New Tideland. They do a lot of manufacturing there, and the workers listen to them while they do boring work that needs their hands and eyes. I listen to them when I’m doing maintenance on my drones and stuff like that.
That sounded like something I would normally have no interest in, but in that moment it was intriguing. I’d be interested to try one. Will you send me your favorite?
Instead of giving me the file, it launched it in our shared connection. It was called “Unknown Systems”, and opened with the crew of a large passenger vessel struggling to stabilize their wormhole drive after a malfunction. The voices were distinctive and the sound-effects well positioned, adding atmosphere without taking away from the unfolding story. The crew had just managed to get the ship to safely exit the wormhole and realized that they had no idea where in the galaxy they were, when the sedative pulled me under.
***
The next twelve days were much more pleasant than I could have anticipated, despite the seemingly endless series of small problems and humiliations—having to be assisted in dressing, bathing, walking, accumulating bruised shins and toes, spilling food and drink. My rooms were always full of friends during normal waking hours. Bharadwaj hardly left except to sleep, and Ratthi was there day and night, except when he had a class to teach. Pin-Lee arrived every evening and, according to Ratthi, made steady inroads into my modest collection of fine liquors. (I didn’t begrudge her a single sip, how could I?) Arada and Overse arrived on the third day and were usually with me except for Arada’s teaching commitments. Mensah sent daily messages of inquiry and encouragement, and though SecUnit disappeared for a few hours every day, no doubt badly in need of time alone, it was always there at night when the silence was oppressive. We listened to “Unknown Systems” and started its sequel, “Allied Systems”. On the tenth day, I was cleared to read text in the feed, but only text. More complex visuals would come after the augment replacement and not a second earlier. I had to set a filter on my workspace not to display images, but just getting access to my books again was cause for a little private rejoicing.
My surgery was only three days away, and I was scheduled to go down to the planet and check in at Makeba Central Medical tomorrow, when someone burst into the living area in the middle of the morning, startling a yelp from Arada. “Gurathin, I need to talk to you.” Ah, it was SecUnit.
“All right,” I said. I assumed if something terrible had happened it would sound angry or upset, and it didn’t. Just urgent. “I’m not going to ask everyone to leave, so would you be comfortable speaking with me in the other room?” That would be my bedroom—the kitchen was open to the living area, and I didn’t have a separate office, just the desk in here.
“Whatever, sure.”
I stood and made my way to the bedroom. I’d become adept at navigating my little space without sight and no longer required assistance to do that, at least. Inside, I sat on the edge of the bed and waited until I heard the door slide shut. “What’s going on, SecUnit?”
“So, uh…” It switched to the feed. The day of your malfunction, when you wouldn’t let me get you better augments, I sent a message through the wormhole to ART—Perihelion. To ask if it could think of any way to get them without spending a bunch of money or stealing, which I figured you’d also object to. It was right about that, although…to be honest, I’d probably accept augments stolen from a Rim corporation. I have no liking or concern for those entities. But I wouldn’t ask anyone to take the risk of stealing them for me.
I pretty much expected to just get a lecture about respecting your wishes, it continued. But its reply came through today, and it’s mostly for you. Read this, okay? And think about it for a minute before you say no. It dropped a data packet into my feed.
There was a priority document attached to the package, so I opened that first. It was from a Dr. Olen Kravets (she/her), Senior Researcher for the Medical Technologies department at the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. She explained that a clinical trial of advanced visual augments developed by their team was entering its second year, and though it was going well, they had only managed to secure one volunteer who could be classified as an experienced user of full-featured visual augments. My situation had come to her attention through an associate at the university, and she would like to invite me to participate. She expressed her eagerness to include a volunteer who was not only an experienced user of similar equipment but who also, as a professional systems analyst, would be well-equipped to stress-test the accompanying software and suggest improvements. In hopes that I would agree, the equipment, its software, and the necessary MedSystem module were being sent via a university ship already scheduled to arrive in my home system shortly—the Perihelion. She closed with apparently sincere wishes for not only my participation but my future health and happiness.
My heart was pounding as I opened the larger data package. It was, as I had suspected, the clinical trial information—documents and a contract for me to sign and return, extensive documentation of the software and hardware, and a hefty packet of participant instructions. If I agreed to this, I would put a fair bit of work in. Detailed weekly reports the first six months, tapering to bi-weekly for the next six, then monthly for a further two years. I would be responsible for running extensive calibration exercises as part of each report and including that data in the transmission. It took me over an hour just to get a sense of the scope of it, and SecUnit waited without a word, though I thought wryly that it was probably cursing my human slowness the whole time.
“I’m going to need a little more time to look through all of this,” I said at last. “But if everything is as it appears, it does seem like an excellent opportunity. When is the Perihelion due?”
Just six more cycles. And it said the medical center would probably need a few days to prepare once it has the specs and the module.
Call it ten more days instead of the three I’d been anticipating an hour ago. I flipped through the software capabilities again. They seemed impressive. If these augments and their interface worked as designed—and that was, of course, the question—they would be a significant upgrade from my old ones. “If they don’t work, I’ll have to have yet another surgery,” I reasoned aloud.
That’s true, but this isn’t a cheap product from some corporation. These were made by real scientists who actually want shit to work. And you don’t have to decide this minute. You’ll have to give your signed documents to a university representative—which means ART’s crew—before you can get the augments. So you can’t officially sign up until they get here.
“But I would need to notify the medical center, preferably before I’m supposed to check in there tomorrow.”
A slight pause. I didn’t think of that. Could you look over everything in time to do that?
I considered, and tried not to think about how much I wanted this. I needed to make a rational decision, not grab at a dream out of fear. “I could,” I answered slowly. “But I think I’m going to lean on my friends a little more, actually.” I felt SecUnit’s interest through our feed connection as I parceled out pieces of the data package and sent them to different people with requests for comment. The contract to Pin-Lee; the medical releases to Ratthi, whose mothers had been in and out of Makeba Central Medical the last few years and always relied on him to sort the paperwork; the study’s statement of ethics, rights, and responsibilities to Bharadwaj; the participant documentation requirements to Arada and Overse, who were both more familiar with this sort of scientific record-keeping than I would ever be; and the hardware specs to SecUnit. The software documentation I retained for myself.
Good choices, SecUnit said. Naturally, I had its analysis of the hardware in under five minutes.
***
“So…have you decided?” Ratthi asked.
It was about an hour after the evening meal, and we were all gathered in my living area with tea or mixed drinks. Everyone had already gone over the materials I’d sent them and given me their opinions. It all boiled down to one thing: it looked good. The specs seemed solid, the contract and releases were reasonable, the testing requirements were more extensive than usually seen in a clinical trial, but that wasn’t a bad thing, from a scientific perspective. Ratthi had leveraged his extensive social network to get a 10-minute video call with Dr. Tafoya, the head of surgery at Makeba Central Medical, who had nothing but good things to say about the augments the Pansystem University had previously produced and released to the general market. In fact, it seemed the basic augments I would receive if I kept to the original plan were the product of a PUMNT patent.
I am not a trusting man. Part of me wanted to personally review everything I had asked my friends to review on my behalf, but that part was smaller and quieter than I had expected. If the last two weeks had taught me anything, it was that I could trust all of these people, that they truly were my friends. And now I needed to accept that this improbable chance, brought to me through this network of relationships, was worthy of a little faith also.
“Yes,” I said. “I sent a message to Central Medical twenty minutes ago to reschedule my surgery.”
Whoops and exclamations reverberated through the room, and I chuckled to myself as I heard glasses clinking together.
Thank you for this, SecUnit.
I didn’t do anything but send a message.
You made it possible for me to have this chance. Even if the augments don’t work out for me, I’ll always be grateful for that. Did I ever thank you for helping me when they malfunctioned?
You don’t need to. It’s my job.
I’m not your client anymore, SecUnit. Accept my thanks and stop arguing.
…Okay. You’re welcome?
***
I’d been conscious for 90 minutes, and they said the surgery and installation had gone well. We were just waiting for the bulk of the sedatives to clear my systems. MedSystem gave a triple beep and Dr. Tafoya said, “All right, try accessing the user interface, if you would.”
The new software had overwritten the old in my systems, so calling it up should be pretty much the same as activating my previous visual system. I sent the interface activation command as normal, and there it was. Basic functions front and center of my workspace, pointers to other menus readily accessible. I didn’t bother verbally confirming; part of the plan was that the doctor would be receiving a real-time log through a hard connection into my augments.
“Ah, there we go. Excellent.”
Great, so that had worked. I spent some time browsing the interface. I’d practically memorized the user manual since the day I agreed to this, but using something is always different from reading the manual. I made sure the functions I expected to use most often were where they were supposed to be, and browsed the advanced menus, creating shortcuts to a few things I wanted to try sooner rather than later. In the background, the software was running self-diagnostic, which it dumped to the log when complete.
No errors recorded. So far, so good.
Dr. Tafoya needed a little longer to go over it. “Very good,” he said at last. “I think we’re ready to run the diagnostic on the connections, if you’re ready, Dr. Gurathin?”
“I am.” I sent the command and practically held my breath. If there were any issues in the connections between the augments and my neural tissue, I’d have to wait at least a few days before a corrective surgery could be scheduled—and that was assuming a correctable error. It took less than three minutes, but it felt like hours. I seized on the report the instant it landed and went straight to the end, where the summary declared “All signals within normal parameters.”
I’m not sure if the sound I made was a laugh or a sob. It was probably both. From my earliest memories I’ve been waiting for everything to go badly wrong, and life had obliged often enough to reinforce the tendency into an immovable facet of my character. This was going so well that I was tensed for a killing blow.
The supervisory surgeon took his time looking over the results, then said, “Wonderful. If you’re ready, I’ll send the signal to activate the hardware.”
Was I ready?
Yes.
No.
I forced myself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Please proceed,” I said, and was amazed at how calm I sounded. A few seconds passed in silence.
Activation sequence initiated.
Something seized half my artificial working memory for a little over a second, and then released it. An instant later, for the first time in weeks, there was light, and there was shadow, and most importantly, there was no deep, impenetrable darkness. Not anywhere. It was like looking through gauze; I could make out shapes, vague colors, the borders between one thing and another.
Focus control initializing.
A blink, and I could see Dr. Tafoya for the first time. He was rather older than me, white-haired, dark-skinned, plump and smiling. Under his white coat was a long reddish tunic with geometric patterns in shades of…yellow? Colors were glitching from greyscale to washed-out color and back again. Everything farther away was still a blur, but sharpness was increasing in range and depth with every passing second. It was actually an interesting visual effect, as though clarity of sight was radiating outwards from me at a measurable pace. A large object by the door resolved itself into a person.
“SecUnit!” I exclaimed.
“There’s a waiting room full of people asking to come in here, but this one wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Dr. Tafoya informed me dryly.
“I said I’d stay out of the way, and I have.” It didn’t sound the least bit repentant and I don’t think I would have wanted it to.
Processing neural feedback. Please stand by.
“It’s perfectly fine,” I told the doctor. “We wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for SecUnit.” It hunched its shoulders and looked away, as it always did at the first hint of praise, but Dr. Tafoya appeared interested, so I added, “SecUnit’s connection to the university that developed these augments is the reason I had the opportunity to receive them.”
“Really.” He looked even more intrigued, and turned his head to glance at SecUnit. “Well, if you were to let your connections know that Makeba Central Medical would be extremely interested in participating in future trials, I would appreciate that very much.”
“Uh, sure. I can do that.”
Suddenly, I lost color entirely. But before I could react, it returned in a wave, crashing over me. I gasped, and the doctor and SecUnit looked at me in alarm. That sterile white room, broken only by the glint of metal, the grey of the door and the two people sharing it with me, was…
…it was beautiful. The colors were so vivid, the contrast so fine and precise. I felt suddenly that I had never truly seen before.
Setup complete.
“It’s…it’s finished setup,” I managed to say. “It’s good. It’s amazing.” I couldn’t stop just looking at things. The texture woven into the white blanket spread across my legs and torso was fascinating. So subtle. Had anyone ever noticed it before? I looked at the doctor; he was beaming. SecUnit had started towards me when I gasped but had since returned to its position by the door.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Dr Tafoya said, “But we still need to do all the tests.” He held up a touch interface and asked me to name shapes and colors as they appeared on the screen.
I’m going to let everyone know the augments are working. It was already halfway through the door.
Tell them I look forward to seeing them soon. And, SecUnit? Thanks again.
Stop thanking me. I only sent a message.
All right, SecUnit. Whatever you say.
***
Exactly one week later, I gathered with Bharadwaj, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi at dock 38, one of two on Preservation Station capable of receiving a ship as large as the Perihelion. It had originally been scheduled to depart on the day of my surgery, but there had been some sort of delay. Now, we were here to see SecUnit off for a period of at least 180 days. They were going halfway across the galaxy to investigate the possible location of a colony abandoned at around the same time the original colony of Preservation’s founders had suffered the same fate, over 300 years ago.
Why a simple archaeological mission needed a SecUnit and a super-sentient ship, I didn’t ask, though I had some vague suspicions. But perhaps SecUnit and its friend simply preferred to spend this time together, while the humans were busy with their scientific work.
I did my best to ignore the startled looks of passers-by. The surgery had given me the appearance of having been punched repeatedly about the eyes, and the bruising was currently in that interesting state of being a glorious mix of purples, greens, and yellows, which I could see with intense clarity in the mirror. Had my vanity taken any turn toward my appearance, I probably would have refused to leave my rooms.
Except for this. Nothing could have induced me to miss the chance to bid SecUnit farewell. I had stopped thanking it, as it wished, but I could be here for this and perhaps, by my presence, help to remind it that it will be missed, that there are people here who will think of it often and hope for its safe and swift return.
It was, of course, embarrassed and made awkward by the attention it never seems to expect. Pin-Lee merely wished it safe travels, while Bharadwaj spoke with/at it for a little longer. It stared at its shoes while Ratthi exclaimed over the adventures no doubt awaiting it, although it didn’t seem displeased. Everyone likes Ratthi. When it was my turn, I simply said, “Goodbye, SecUnit. Try to keep yourself safe, too, okay?”
It actually looked at my face, its gaze questioningly tracing the bruises before ever so briefly taking in the new augments—my eyes. It turned its head away a few degrees and nodded. “Sure.” Without another word, it turned and entered the hatch, sending us a brief wave from inside without turning around as the hatch closed behind it.
My eyes stung, and it was all I could do not to make a fool of myself as the docking clamps began to release and the hum of the Perihelion’s engines thrummed through the dock. An arm draped across my shoulders and I turned to find Ratthi as teary-eyed as I must be.
“It’s all right,” he murmured for my ears alone. “I think we’re all at least a little in love with it, after everything.”