Chapter Text
(Music: Optic Nerve - Citizen Sleeper)
You open your eyes and find yourself staring up at a metal ceiling. Lengths of wiring run along it in many different directions. In your periphery you can see tech on all sides of you. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that you were in the same shop in Darkside where your botched reboot had taken place.
You search your internal memory for context, but all you recall moments before you fell unconscious was taking a sharp shock to the system. You hope that it didn’t cause any bad internal damage. You can repair yourself, but Sleeper parts are hard to come by out in the belt.
The sound of a voice makes you realize that you are not alone in this place.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
You try to turn your head to get a good look at this person, but you realize with building dread that you cannot move your body at all. It is tightly restrained against whatever surface you are laying on.
The person that had previously been speaking steps into view and you realize that you recognize him. Disheveled dark hair, goggles, the heavy padded clothes of someone used to working with scrap. You had met this man only a few hours ago. He’d offered a contract that you’d turned down.
The man had offered a sizable amount of cryo just for the chance to be able to examine you. To take you apart and then put you back together. You had shuddered at the thought and now you feel dread setting in as you realize that this man had decided to take what he wanted by force.
“Like I told you before, I’ve always wanted to take apart a sleeper, see how they tick.”
You don’t like the look he gives you, it was one you were used to getting by now. The look of someone who considers you only an object.
You flinch as you see them reaching somewhere by your head. To your surprise, they undo the restraint going across your head. Now free to look around the room, you see server towers and unfinished projects. Various tech lies scattered along the walls and the room is a mess of wires going every which way. It is dark, the only lights in the room coming from the tech scattered around it.
You are strapped to a scrapper’s workbench with mechanical arms that jut out from it, likely to help in various projects. You lay your head back on the table.
There is a click and you are blinded by a light from the ceiling. You pull your head up again and focus on your body instead, on the synthetic skin that covers your frame from sight. You had been stripped of all clothes and accessories. There are straps on your arms and legs as well as the top of your torso and your waist.
You see the man move to the table, wince at the sight of a small knife in one of his hands.
“Don’t…” The word was strained as it left your throat. No physical obstruction caused it, it was due to your emotions.
He stops inches away from touching the knife to your skin and turns his attention to you instead, eyes locking onto yours. Your eyes are on the blade, you watch as he lets go of it and lets it float in the air, not liking how fast he moves over to where your head is positioned.
“Would you look at that? It does talk. I was starting to believe the shock had disabled your ability to.”
His eyes roamed along your body, hands coming up and brushing against your arms, your torso, your legs. You felt exposed, vulnerable. To him you were nothing but a curiosity, to be disassembled. Nothing but a machine.
“Why are you doing this?” You ask, avoiding eye contact.
“It’s not often a scrapper like me gets a sleeper to mess with. Surely you know how rare they are on the belt. I’m not going to let this opportunity slip by.”
His voice was cold and you watched as he pressed hard against your sternum, tracing the framing there. His eyes lingered on scratches and exposed wiring from a previous contract that Bliss had not had time to fix. He dipped a finger into one tear, widening it ever so slightly to reveal more wires.
“I was just going to start cutting, but this is so much more tantalizing. I can feel the mechanical parts underneath your skin.”
His voice made you shiver. The hand went back up to your sternum, pressing flat palmed against it and moving downward to just below your stomach.
“So many intricate details.”
You lean your head back, closing your eyes. You do not want to think about the violation happening to your frame anymore, and how it’s going to get so much worse.
You know nothing you could say can change this man’s mind, he was a fanatic.
You feel pressure on your arms as he does the same thing to them, and then to your legs. He touches every exposed part of you, even tilting your head forward to examine the port in the back. You feel disgusted. If you were human, the sight of him doing these things to you might make your stomach turn.
Along with disgust there was one other emotion that permeated your entire being.
Fear.
A voice jolted you from your thoughts, the man talking again as he examined each of your fingers.
“The way that Essen-Arp’s sleepers function has been a closely guarded mystery, and here I am about to crack one open, I can’t believe it.” His voice was full of awe as he spoke. He clearly admired the craftsmanship behind your design.
“You could just ask me.” You decide to respond, carefully masking the fear that you felt. You remember Jean-Mi’s words about how your frame is changing, “I’m not a standard sleeper, I’ve been modified.”
There was no answer, the man was lost in his work. Clearly he didn’t think conversing with you was anything more than a distraction.
When he was satisfied with his examination of your body, he grabbed the knife up again.
“Please… don’t.” You beg him, voice laced with fear.
Once again, you are ignored. He makes a long line from your collar bone to your navel, as if he was going to dissect you. Carefully and diligently he cuts the vinyl skin down to your sides. You watch as your wiring and synthetic organs, tucked neatly into your frame, are exposed. Sharp pain blooms across your body as your sensors go haywire.
You only watch for a moment as he puts his hands on your organs, and then you let your head fall back against the table. You close your eyes against the harsh, blinding light coming from the ceiling, and in your head you picture Serafin’s face, Bliss’ face, Juni’s face, the Rig, the stray cat, anything to distract you.
You want to think about anything other than what is happening to you right now. You struggle, you’ve been struggling this whole time, but the restraints are sturdy and tight.
The first organ is removed and you can’t help but scream. You double your attempt to get free, but the restraints hold fast. Somewhere in your system, an alarm activates, an error message.
The man looks over at you and smiles.
“I wonder. Are you doing that because that is what the emulation tells you that you should do, or are you actually in pain?”
You didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. Your mind was racing. He was really doing this. He was taking you apart piece by piece.
Slowly, you pull your head up to see him admiring one of your synthetic organs, you recognize it as a connector of some kind. He turns it over in his hands, looking at it from every angle.
“Amazing.” He breathes and then sets it aside, going for another one. You can’t help but scream again as he pulls a canister out of your body, detaching the wires at both ends.
You don’t need to breathe, but you can feel your breath becoming ragged now. You wonder how many organs he will remove before you shut down entirely.
You see him slip a hand under the central strut of your frame and tug at it. Involuntarily, your body arches up a little, straining against the restraints. Then he lets go and lightly pushes you back against the table.
“Sturdy frame…” He mutters to himself.
You lay your head back on the table, closing your eyes against the bright light. It was all too much. Once again the faces of your companions come into your mind. You want to see them one last time.
You bite back another scream as something else was removed from inside of you. Your body spasms. You don’t even have to look to know that the man is watching this happen with a smile on his face. You hear him speak again.
“Spasms. Sleepers can have body spasms. Essen-Arp’s technology is truly amazing. To be able to copy the consciousness of a human and put it into a machine is no small feat.” Another few moments of silence followed before he spoke again, “So, if this is what I think it is, then the heart must be…”
You feel a spike of fear, eyes flying open and head jolting forward to look across your body again. The sleeper equivalent to a human heart is one of the key organs keeping you alive.
“No… please.” You beg, strong emotion showing through your voice, “Without that I will shut down.”
Once again, you are ignored. Your feelings of disgust grow as you watch him place a hand on one of the devices in your chest. The other hand wraps tightly against a chord and yanks it free.
The scream that forces itself from your throat is immediate and loud. The spasms return but even worse. Your fingers dig into your palms. You jerk your head back, it bangs hard against the table. Once again, you are blinded by the bright light. The alarm in your head gets louder, errors mounting on each other, processes failing. You feel panic overtaking you.
Then there is silence.
You feel yourself being plunged into unconsciousness. Your last thoughts are of your friends. You wonder if they are looking for you. You wonder if they will ever find you. You realize you want to spare them this gruesome sight.
The spasms finally stop as your body shuts down. You hear a voice.
“Fascinating. To think that Essen-Arp can simulate the beating of an actual human heart.”