Episode 2: The Surgeon

‘Damn, that loose nut is starting to chafe.’

‘I can’t believe he would say that to me!’

‘Moses lives. Moses lives. Moses lives.’

Thoughts all around me. Everywhere I look, another mind. I am an island in the midst of a vast, stormy sea. Thoughts and feelings roll over me like breaking waves: I am unmoved. I must stand guard. Goshi will be sending soldiers soon. I must be ready. The cul-de-sac should be defensible enough. I don’t like that the surgeon’s home is held up only by cables. Stitch would have a field day with that.

I don’t want to think about my family right now. I let the outer voices rise up again; I allow myself to be the crowd for a few moments longer.

‘Just two more days until I can get a new arm. Just two more days.’

‘Samophlange? What’s a Samophlange?’

‘What’s with the Biomade chick? Is she bleeding? Holy crap, she’s bleeding!’

I open my eyes and met the gaze of the Mechified. Samophlange Jack. He thinks I deserve to bleed. That all Biomade deserve to bleed. He doesn’t ask if I’m all right. He feels guilty as he walks away.

There. Moses. Moving away from my position at a run. His thoughts are panicked. Goshi soldiers. Their thoughts are the thoughts of a hunter seeking a dangerous prey. My eyes narrow. It could be a trap.

It’s what I would do, after all.

But It’s Moses. He’s stupid, but he’s important. I can’t take the risk that he really might be in danger.

I take off running, and with my injuries, every step burns like fire.

Thoughts. Thoughts and feelings everywhere I look. A cosmos of words and emotion and pictures rush past me. I descend.

Goshi soldiers. I am closing on them. I follow them away from the crowds to where Moses has run. I wait until I can take two alone.

A pink flash is his only warning as my psychic knife blossoms out of its gauntlet-generator. I plant it in his back twice, and he falls to the ground. The other whirls around to face me and opens fire.

Stupid.

I can’t lift much with my telekinesis, but I have always been good at using it to shield myself. The bullets deflect off of my psychokinetic shield.

I make short work of the second guard. Even as I take a communicator from their dead bodies, something occurs to me: I hadn’t heard their thoughts.

Shit.

The gunfire gave away my position. They’re coming. Moses is just ahead, but I don’t think that it’s Moses anymore.

I round the corner and come face to face with Aimi. Then a dozen guards rush out to surround me.

“Shit,” I say.

Aimi smiles.

“Mama Pain is very angry at you, dear sister,” she tells me.

Mama Pain. Doctor Aliya Pain. I feel that same love/hate I always feel when I think of Mama Pain.

Aimi speaks. “I have to ask, why Moses?”

I meet her gaze questioningly.

“Is it something kinky? I’ll be disappointed if it isn’t something kinky.”

I roll my eyes. Aimi never changes. “You know I hate to disappoint you,” I say.

She looks disappointed.

“I don’t suppose you could just forget you found me?” I ask. “Walk the other way?”

Aimi shakes her head. “Mama Pain would be pissed if I did that.”

“Mama Pain never stays pissed at you for long.”

Aimi shrugs.

In the distance, I hear what sounds like an explosion.

Her next words decide my course of action: I am not the only one to have run away. Nero is also missing. My eyes widen.

If Nero is out here... I feel a cold terror bubbling up within my stomach.

“Mama Pain will never understand,” I say, activating my psychokinetic shield, “But tell Doctor Soren that I’m sorry.”

I leap. My height and trajectory is perfectly timed, and will take me clear of the soldiers in a matter of seconds – seconds I don’t have.

They open fire. My shield blocks most of it, but not enough. Pain thunders through my body, and I fall. Even as the floor rushes up to meet me, everything goes black.

The world fades back in slowly, and reluctantly. I hurt. Everything hurts. Blood. Anger. There is a rage building, somewhere. The guards... where are the guards? Where’s Aimi? I don’t see Aimi. The guards look like they were slammed into the walls of the tunnel by... something. I feel cold. I get up and limp back to where I left... who? Moses? Una? I should protect Una. She’s lost her family. So have I.

I don’t know how much time passes. Everything is a haze of pain and fear and anger. The Surgeon’s house is gone. The cables that held it in place are snapped. A crowd has gathered. Where’d the house go? I look down.

There it is.

It’s on the train track about thirty meters down. If I weren’t bleeding so badly, I might try to jump it. There’s a train coming.

Shit.

Acetylene Sue is down there. I can’t let her kill Stitch. He’s an ass, but he’s still my brother. Though I know it will give me away to her, I connect with her mind and whisper, ‘Don’t kill him!’

Touching her mind is like touching a hot coal. Anger is everywhere. I reel. There’s gunfire. Snipers are firing at my... friends.

I have friends!

There’s a terrible roar as the train hits the house and... stops? How did it stop?

The gunfire continues.

Aimi is their commander, isn’t she? Aimi and I are variations on the same DNA. Our voices are similar enough. I activate the comlink I stole and order them to cease fire immediately. It buys us the time we need.

A few minutes later, I’m being carried down a long passageway. Una is carrying Kiyoshi. Moses is running ahead, but he looks badly injured. Sue is with us. The Mechified are up in arms. Their revolution has begun.

Good.

They deserve better than what they have.

The thoughts of my friends and of Sue and her gang rise up, and I can barely concentrate hard enough to be myself and not them. Sue is full of determination, and I latch onto that. It helps.

Shit. There are six soldiers ahead. High Dive makes a little ball of flame out of coal and a sock, and I patch in to their telepathic channel and send my thoughts into it.

Sue doesn’t trust me. She knows. She knows. She knows. Kiyoshi has strange dreams. That’s anatomically impossible. Moses thinks he’s a symbol. He’s right. High Dive... Una... nothing. There are minds there, but finding their thoughts is like trying to navigate a mirror-maze. The others... revolution burns in their hearts. My own thoughts are nearly lost in the storm, but I push them through, too.

It works. The earpieces short out. A soldier stumbles out of his hiding spot just in time to be struck upside the head by High Dive’s fiery ball.

The cold feeling is getting worse, and I recognize it as a symptom of blood loss. Even so, I feel strangely energized. I feel as if something is about to happen. I let it.

Everything goes dark. There is a feeling like rushing wind, and bullets fly everywhere. Then we’re clear. We’re standing in front of the lift.

I’m still bleeding badly. I'm so very cold. My limbs feel like they're made of lead.

I....

....