Chapter Text
Thursday, 17 May 2192
It doesn’t hurt as bad as you feared.
The knife cuts clean, only catching once, on the outer sheath of the tracker itself embedded under your skin. You had cut a little higher than you had intended, maybe. The perils of working with a restroom mirror, head craned hard to the left. Watching the arms, the hand, the body in the reflection. It takes some follow up work with a pair of tweezers to finish the job, blinking the water out of your vision.
There’s more blood running down from the wound than you’re comfortable with and the alarm bells of pain are starting to strain your ability to keep your hands under control even as you grind your teeth to keep quiet. To keep focused as you dig around in the wound with the tweezers.
What were you thinking? Why did this ever seem like a good idea?
Shit shit shit shit – the tiny black cylinder pops out with a twist, slipping free of the tweezers and clattering onto the countertop. It leaves a bed of red droplets in its wake.
Can’t drop the tweezers fast enough. They clatter on top of the bloody exacto-knife and the two slide into the sink together. Red, red, red. Bright under the overhead lights, wet and sticky.
A wave of vertigo makes your knees tremble and you have to grab at the counter for balance. Fuck.
Deep breaths. You’ll never live it down if you faint at this stage. Probably crack your head on the counter or something. And then the paramedics or a security guard will have to break down the restroom door and see you here. With all this. To call it embarrassing would be an understatement. They’ll probably send you to some sort of mental facility.
A wetted paper towel to wipe the skin down. All the instructional videos you’ve watched used alcohol wipes but you couldn’t get your hands on any of those during the shoplifting spree. Maybe could have asked Riley but she would have tried to talk you out of this.
“Dude!” Speaking of… There’s a knock on the door. “You okay in there? Was that a scream?”
Did you? No – no way, you wouldn’t. You shake your head at your reflection. Pallid, near white. “I’m fine,” you croak. Cough. Raise your voice and try again. “It’s-it’s-it’s fine!”
“You sure? We don’t have to do this if you don’t wanna.”
“Just– Espera un… un momento!”
There’s a huff on the other side of the door. “Show-off!”
You break eye contact with the ghastly face in the mirror and go through the array of medical supplies you laid out ahead of time. There’s a kind of satisfaction in this, isn’t there? Just throwing yourself headfirst into a terrible idea. Like jumping off a balcony but less immediately suicidal.
You rip off the seal over the tip of a tube of something the pharmacy aisle advertised as a ‘MediPaste’ equivalent. The sterilized sealant oozes out like toothpaste as you squeeze. Feels like it too. You spread it slow, rub it into and over the wound, eyes squeezed shut until the numbness sets in and the blood stops seeping through.
Doesn’t – fuck – doesn’t hurt at all.
You ball your hands into fists, smearing more paste into your palms.
Clench. Hold. Let go. The nausea churns in the back of your throat begging you to just get it over with but you’ve got too many things to do today – and Riley could overhear, she’s worried enough about you as it is.
A poster on the wall by the bathroom stall details the stages of NMIV sickness. Silver from the nose or eyes? Call your doctor! Severe nausea or vomiting silver discharge? Call the emergency line immediately, an infographic of a cartoon bird declares with an outstretched wing. At the bottom, outlined in gold lettering are the words “There’s always ways to pay! It’s never too late!”
Reach for the faucet only to have to wave your hand in front of sensor repeatedly before the water activates. The black nail polish on your nails is already chipping like crazy. You’ll have to fix that later; there’s only so much you’re willing to do in public restroom even with Riley standing guard outside doing her best delinquent stoner act to scare people off.
You wash your hands clean and then do the same for the knife and tweezers. Swallowing down little waves of nausea as they come, praying your heartbeat to slow down. It’s not a big deal. Just a little– just a little blood. Not anything worse then when you fuck up an injection or get a nosebleed.
It’s nothing. It’s done. It’s over. It’s gone.
With hands still wet, you run them over your face, trying to loosen up your expression. Need to look less like a murder victim. Nothing worth paying attention to here.
That face in the mirror looks like shit. Sunken eyes. Acne. Too big nose. Awful awful awful – No, stop it. Get a grip.
The therapist you used to see, he called it body dysmorphia. Said it was “a common comorbidity with glitches like yours,” and “you have to learn to live with it.” Indulging in it – like this – would be the mental equivalent of taking up smoking, he claimed while radiating a smug confidence that accepted no alternative. You’re just confused, the argument went, you’re still young, you don’t know who you are yet. Even, and this was a favorite line of discussion with him, that it was because you “lacked any significant male role models at home.”
Hard not to believe him. Not to take it to heart. Even after Rivka found out about everything he was telling you and lost her mind over it. Ended the sessions right then and there in the hospital room with a level of murderous fury she usually reserved for talking about things like the government.
Still. Hard not to believe it all.
This is you we’re talking about, and you’re crazy. Everyone thinks so.
Remember how, once, when you were younger, after reading this sci-fi story you found on that net that you were definitely not old enough for, you got it stuck in your head that you were secretly a monster, someone infected by Imago and trapped in rotting skin. Stuck masquerading as human and if you could just– if you could just peel off this gross bag of flesh then you could stop pretending. That everyone would have to stop pretending that things were fine and finally face the truth.
It didn’t work out like that.
Obviously.
You needed stitches afterwards and wow was Rivka livid, even by Rivka standards. Still have a scar across your thigh.
Meanwhile, you best effort here wasn’t exactly ‘trained surgeon’ levels of quality either. Your sum total of education on the matter being a dozen instructional videos and advertisements posted up on the chattrnet. An auto-gen playlist running on your tablet.
The breath you take while drying your hands is still less steady than you’d prefer. An effort to force your hands still. Fingertips still numbed by the anaesthetic in the paste. That cut is going to scar and it’s going to be yet another thing to piss Rivka off. She’ll be yelling at you the whole time she drags you back to the clinic to get another damn tracker jammed back in there because god forbid she let a seventeen-year-old – practically a grown adult! – walk around without being personally trackable by her stupid PDA AI.
Once your hands are washed and dried, the linen bandage comes next. Wrapped tight to protect the arm, just like you read about it. Allow the gel and the body to do their work.
“Okay, seriously–” Riley’s muffled voice echoes in through and under the door, “–are you alive in there? You didn’t faint again did you?”
“F-fuck, I– I’m fine!” you snap back. Throw the remainder of the rolled up bandage at the door. It impacts with a soft thud. “Just g-g-gimme a– a second.”
“It’s been like twenty minutes, dude. The others are going to wonder where the hell we fucked off to. I can only stall for so long.”
“This– it-it-it isn’t– it isn’t easy. You know.”
“You need help getting dressed?” she asks. Smug. Almost playful.
Your face sets itself on fire, oh thank fuck she can’t see it right now. “No! Fuck off!”
Laughter.
“The– the longer y-y-you keep me talking, the longer th-th-this takes, you know.”
“Fiiiiiine.” You don’t need to see her to know she’s rolling her eyes. And then, mercifully, you can feel her pull back. She has no idea you’re in here playing restroom surgery using tips you picked up from watching chattrnet videos and if you have your way, she never will.
With the arm taken care of, you clean the tracker off as best you can. There’s a small divot in the side from where the knife nicked it on the first extraction attempt, but nothing to suggest it isn’t still functional. More’s the pity.
Feels weird turning it over in your fingers now. Without this, you could go anywhere you wanted and Rivka would never know. Hell, you could leave the Arcology if you really wanted to risk it.
You wrap the tracker in a fresh paper towel and drop it to the floor. Stomp on it with the heel of your shoe, expecting to hear something break but your foot just sort of awkwardly presses on it to no effect. Damn.
You try again twice more before sheepishly picking it back up while feeling like an idiot. Have to settle for dropping it in the trash receptacle set into the wall alongside everything else: the the bloody paper towels, the knife and tweezers, most of the mini-first aid kit you shoplifted. Once the sink is clean, you pull a few more dozens sheets of paper and stuff them into the trash on top to cover everything up.
Okay.
Okay. Now the hard part.
You pull the clothes out of your backpack and set them down next to the sink. It’s a few awkward minutes to wriggle out of your old, oversized garbage, back turned to the mirror because like hell are you doing that to yourself.
Riley helped pick the new clothes; way tighter a fit then you’re used to but that might be because you usually dress like a human-shaped potato. It’s nothing especially daring. You need plausible deniability, if you want to not get arrested for crossdressing, but it’s. It’s something. Everyone apparently knows what you are anyway, so why keep torturing yourself pretending otherwise?
You really are crazy.
Black short-sleeve shirt with the logo of some metal band you’ve never heard of. Tucked just like Riley showed you, into the waistband of this pair of dark-grey jeans that feel like they’re squeezing your legs. Are they too small? Maybe. They’re certainly tight. Down there. In parts you don’t want to think about. It takes some… careful positioning to make things not look, well, like what it is. Almost enough to make you think Riley was right and you should have sucked it up and gone for the skirt after all. Almost, but not quite.
Over the shirt goes your jacket, the same one from Halloween – no sense in stealing more than you have to, right? The cheap black pleather is already starting to fray around the stitching but it’s fine, whatever. You stick your hands in the pockets and find the pair of fingerless gloves from Halloween still in there too. Neat. Bonus.
None of this is real. None of this is actually happening. Maybe you forgot to take your meds. Maybe you’re still asleep and last night didn’t completely shatter your entire worldview. It could all just be a bad dream or some kind of twisted hallucination. Because if this was real, you’d be scared out of your mind and what you actually feel is… in control? For the first time in your life, maybe. But you aren’t in control except in that way where you actually are. See? Crazy talk.
Fuck.
Have to turn back to the mirror one more time because there’s still one last thing you’ve been putting off, even after folding your old clothes up neatly and putting them away into your backpack. Another minute of suffering your reflection while you work with the eyeliner pen. Of course this is the part that gets your heart pounding.
Cutting up your arm with a knife? Snore.
Putting on what is technically women’s clothes? That was the easy part, it turns out.
Drawing on your face? Nerve-wracking anxiety. Bubbling fear. Fuck. You’ve practiced before but never took it outside of the apartment. Your hands aren’t steady enough for what you really want to do. Which is to copy Nova’s look. The way all the fan artists do it. The rounded triangles coming down off the eyes. Just going to poke your eye out with the way your hands are shaking.
Keep it simple. Basic. Block tips coming off the outer edges. It’s just– it’s just to help with avoiding facial recognition, okay? Break up the facial profile a little to better confuse the security cameras. Just like in the story. That’s all. That’s all it is. With the Superintendent watching everything, you need every trick you can muster to throw it off the trail if anyone wants to look for you. If Rivka wants to.
And anyway, guyliner is a thing, right? It’s normal. Movie stars are allowed to do it, so it’s Fashion at least. When you finally finish, you drop the eyeliner pen like it’s a live snake and you’re staring at the reflection that’s still not you but is maybe closer than it has been in a long time and…
And this feels…
You don’t know.
You don’t know how it feels.
There’s supposed to be this magic moment of connection, right?
But you don’t feel anything magical. You don’t really feel much of anything. Which, you suppose, is it’s own kind of magic when normally you’d be thinking about ways to peel your own skin off right now. But that still doesn’t seem quite the same thing.
Stop.
Staring.
“Mooooooorgaaaaaaan~!” Riley half-sings, “I’m boooooooreeeed~!”
You break eye contact. “Almost done!”
Quick check of your backpack: your tablet, your old potato clothes, and there at the bottom wrapped between a spare pair of jeans is a plastic bag. Everything you had the foresight to grab before storming out of the apartment. Inside is a pack of clean needles – two sets: one for drawing, one for injecting – bandages, alcohol wipes, a month’s supply of your various medications, and a small glass vial full of viscous liquid, turned a glittering silver in the light by the nanites suspended in the solution.
It’s not like you can really run away. Not for long.
The pills you could maybe stretch out by taking only when the migraines or the body pain get really bad and still be… well. Some level of functional. But the nanites are a hard time limit for how long you can stay away from home, assuming you intend to keep being alive.
And maybe you actually do?
That’s weird.
For Riley’s sake if not your own. She’d be pretty pissed if you stopped living.
You zip the backpack shut and swing your arm through the loop, across the good shoulder only. All that’s left is the face mask, The ‘breathe safe and cover up!’ public safety jingle warding against NMIV infection plays in your mind as you pull the black padded fabric up over your mouth, nose. Give the body in the mirror one last look over. The elastic bands tug uncomfortably against your ears.
You put on your headphones, let them hang around your neck with the tinny sounds of Ysme Wonder strumming away on the bass barely audible. You are, maybe, feeling a little bit of that manic energy again. The sort that someone only gets when they’re riding the high of making a terrible mistake before the consequences catch up with them.
Fuck.
Looking at yourself like this in the mirror, with your lower face covered up, shitty brown shoulder-length hair, and your terrible attempt at eyeliner, you could almost, almost mistake yourself for a girl.
You pat yourself down.
Check every pocket.
Deep breaths.
Open the door and there’s Riley right across the hallway, leaning against the wall. Her eyebrows shoot up and she practically leaps across the floor to stand in front of you. “Hey Ms. Psychic Girl, about time. I was starting to think you were trying to tunnel your way out of Alcatraz.”
You almost short-circuit. What the hell did she just call you?
Riley comes to a stop with her hands on her hips, shopping bag hanging off one shoulder. Looking you over.
“W-well?” someone says. You, you realize a second later.
Her eyes settle on your face. “Dude, is that eyeliner?”
You glare at her. “Riley–”
“Hey, no! You look–” Her mind tumbles through a dozen different words, struggling to land on just one. “–good?”
“Good?” you echo back, your arms wrapping around your chest. The static buzz of the mall is louder here than it was in the bathroom. The hum of the lights and the crowds pressing in are almost a comfort. A way to bury some of the panic threatening to burst up through your throat.
“Moumentai dude.” She raises her hands in self defense then switches to signing. “I’m trying not to make you feel self-conscious here.”
“Too late.” you sign back, chewing the inside of your cheek.
“Yeah well your eyeliner game is already better than mine. A revelation that I’m having a little trouble processing right now.”
“Really?” You pause, thinking. “Since when do you wear eyeliner?”
“I don’t! Because I suck at it, duh. Man, this should be like, illegal.”
“I think it is?”
“You know what I mean.”
A small thread of self-satisfaction allows itself to poke through the chaos rolling around in your head. “It helps to practice.”
“Since when do you– you know what, never mind.” Riley steps back, glancing down the hallway. No one else in sight save the flow of the crowd at the other end as people make their way through the various stores of the mall. She glances at you again, almost smiling or maybe actually smiling and before you can put things together she’s stepped forward again and pulled you into a hug.
“H-hey!” you manage to squeak out, entire body going stiff.
“Girls get to be touchy with each other, sorry dude I don’t make the rules, I just benefit from them,” Riley says, grinning into your ear. She has to stand on her tiptoes to keep her head above chest-level. “Oh man, Brayden’s going to fucking shit a brick at the sight of you. I can’t wait.”
You disentangle yourself as quickly as feels polite, the ghost of physical contact tingling on your skin through your clothes. “Gross.”
Riley’s hand snakes its way through the crook of your arm. “You ready?”
“Um.” Deep breath. Intensely aware of how close she is to you now. Her presence a clear channel in the background static of your life. The mall practically buzzing with the afternoon crowds. All of them potential hazards, dangers. All it would take is one person to make a scene, get the attention of Praxis Security, and this whole thing comes crumbling down.
“Hey, it’s gonna be fine,” Riley says, in complete defiance of all rational assessment.
“R-r-right. Moumentai,” you nod. If you’re going to be crazy anyway, might as well add delusional to the mix.
Riley grins back, winks. “That’s right.” With her free hand, she fishes out her cellphone, raising the mic to her mouth. “Hey Sups, what’s the fastest way to the SteakShack?”
“Searching… please follow the guidance line,” the Super’s tinny female voice chirps from her phone. The screen automatically switches over to a map of the mall, a red line stretching forward.
She pulls you along, back out of the alley and into the stream of mall-goers. All while keeping one eye on her phone screen as she barrels forward.
It doesn’t take long before she starts talking again, about clothes, you think, and mostly you’re just nodding along. Signing a few easy phrases when she looks your way. She assumes you must be terrified. Is trying to lead the most direct route possible to the fast food place where the two of you are supposed to meet back up with Brayden and Cassandra.
You keep waiting for someone to yell at you. Or to point and laugh. Or – or do something. You can feel it, the little pinpricks of attention focused in your direction as the two of you power-walk through the mall.
By all rights, there should be some sort of beacon blaring over your head, but the only one that knows what sort of clothes you’re wearing is Riley and for some unfathomable reason, she thinks it looks good. Maybe one or two people stare, or do a double-take but instead of inspiring terror there’s a kind of electric energy to it. Someone thinks you look like a freak? Well jokes on them because you choose to dress like this, what’s their excuse?
You should probably be more concerned about yourself right now. The absolute nightmare direction you life has spiraled down this past year. Reconsider your actions. And maybe it’s your blood sugar being absolutely cratered, or the stress of the last twenty-four hours, or-or-or any number of things, but what you absolutely shouldn’t be feeling, and what you undeniably are, is fucking alive.
It’s almost as exhilarating as it is utterly terrifying, but for the most part, no one seems to care. Perhaps the old adage really is true: be it with people or computers, with the right clothes and the right attitude, you can get into anywhere.
Maybe you can–
The sudden wail of alert sirens stops you both, a chorus of chimes and beeps from the personal devices of near every single person in the mall going off at once. You almost don’t even register it, that’s how out of it you are.
Riley looks at her phone first, cursing under her breath, and that’s when it finally gets through to you to check your own.
***WARNING** SUPERINTENDENT EMERGENCY INTERCOM **WARNING***
A SHELTER IN PLACE ORDER IS NOW IN EFFECT FOR:
TOWER EPSILON CENTRAL MALL AND ALL CONNECTING HALLS.
ALL PRAXIS EMPLOYEES AND RESIDENTS ARE TO SHELTER IN PLACE.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL.– BIOHAZARD WARNING –
REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE AND DON APPROPRIATE P.P.E.
DO NOT IMPEDE SECURITY PERSONAL AND OBEY ALL INSTRUCTIONS.
FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL BE PUNISHED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW AND ACCORDING TO COMPANY POLICY.
DO NOT OPEN OR OVERRIDE ANY DOORS OR GATES.
EXTERIOR HALL ACCESS WILL CLOSE MOMENTARILY.
YOU WILL BE NOTIFIED WHEN SHELTER IN PLACE ORDER IS LIFTED.
“Seriously?” Riley hisses between her teeth. “A fucking Imago, now?”
Well, on the bright side, you might not have to worry about how to handle Rivka or this whole ‘being transgender’ thing if you end up dead in a monster attack.