I stand overlooking the hangar deck of the Iron Hand, technicians swarming like ants over the aircraft being prepared for me. Pre-flights are checked off, seals are secured, and fuel is fed into the mysterious looking craft. It is long, longer even than the transport shuttles I often fly for the Church, and slender - only four feet wide at its widest point. The wings appear folded up to the side of the fuselage, trailing edges compacted together in an effort to abate the impacts of such a massive wingspan. I've heard of this craft before, but never seen one. Supposedly, it's used for atmospheric insertion and reconnaissance. SIGINT, I believe. It would make sense - Asterius has been examining his signal charts rather closely in the days prior. His plans for me stretch far, it seems. His pet pilot. I cannot tell if the thought comforts or terrifies me.
Another mission briefing plays behind my eyes. Overlaid in front of my view of the technicians prepping the black-coated aircraft for flight, the mission briefing shows a flight plan. Sixteen waypoints, atmosphere insertion, and flight level at 30 km above Central Asia. No predicted threats. Just me, the cockpit, and the sky. I approach the aircraft, technicians dispersing in my wake, as if Moses upon the Red Sea. The seat inside was cramped - exceptionally so. I dread trying to fit my 6’3'' frame within such confines. Such a task seems impossible even now, without the bulky pressure suit necessary for my survival. Asterius sees fit to punish me once more, my trial by fire on Titan seemingly not enough to satiate his desires. I gingerly touch the osteobracing along my jaw, feeling where warm, responsive skin reaches inflamed scar tissue and transitions into ice-cold smooth metal. It will take some getting used to. I still need time to mourn the last vestiges of my beauty.
A technician whistles to me. I jump, a display of fear unbecoming of an agent of the Cog's Teeth. And yet, I do worry.
God, not right now. I have a flight, I can't afford to do this right now.
The expected buzz of neural injection code does not set in, and I shake myself back to awareness. It seemed he had simply tried to let me know the craft was ready, nothing more. I breathe a sigh of relief, and walk to my locker. A pressure suit is left inside. Custom fitted, Asterius’ note-tag pings. Another technician sees me remove the pressure suit from the locker and walks over to assist. I know her by the distinctive click her boots make on the steel floor. As I don the pressure suit, I can feel her hands on my waist. She says she's helping me get into the bulky outfit. My head nonetheless spins, sickness rising in my chest. The final seals are completed, locking me into this bulky moon-suit, so unbecoming of my naturally thin and lithe, if not emaciated, figure. I am trapped, I feel, but I ignore the panic seeping into my voice, my words, and my thoughts as I lean down to lace up my boots.
In this god-forsaken flight suit, every movement comes at an exponentially increased cost. My hands fumble with the laces, every motion hard-won. Was it any different than every other day, where the combination of nerve damage in my right hand and complete lack of any real sensation in my left had on many occasions driven me to such depths of frustration that tears rolled hot and wet from my right eye? I lamented only that I could no longer cry from my left. Am I really that pathetic? I know the answer. Better to ignore the question. I can feel the laces slip along my deadened fingers, the right hand trembling and the left jerky, imprecise in its movements. Eventually, after an uncomfortably long time, the boots are secured enough. The technician, hand on my shoulder, secures the Venturi AC unit to the port in my suit. The cockpit looms ahead.
I push down the rising of fear in my throat, climb the ladder, and take my seat behind the controls of the high-tech aircraft. Flight computers, switch arrays, and relay panels line the interior of the cockpit - all redundant. All subsystems are automated or remote-controlled by Asterius, save the flight stick and the sensor payload. With the thought, I glance towards the glowing blue button near my legs. Every waypoint, I will push the button, taking a signal reading of the area. The science is far beyond me, but I suppose I make a good operator.
I flip down the visor on my helmet, watching deep, inky, solar-absorbent black obscure my face. My worn features — inflamed skin, golden cybernetics — disappear beneath the anonymity my role provides. Anyone could be behind the visor. Any agent at all.
A crimson warning strobe flicks on against the wall. The ground cart roars to life, damaged cooling fans kicking into gear as electrical power rushes into the system. Only enough was needed to pressurize the hydraulic actuators and prime the chemical batteries for readiness. Soon enough, the amber warning light accompanied the crimson. Hydraulics were pressurized. The cockpit glass descends and seals, leaving me to my fate. Only one more light to go. I listen as gears grind in the nose of the vessel as the antenna searches for its communications lock. Data flows between the aircraft and Asterius’ command station, not only myself supine before his will, but every station and subsystem on the aircraft. The power he wields here and now is immense, only fitting for one so blessed. A blue light illuminates the hangar. Hand signals flash to me from the technicians on the ground as they evacuate towards the exits. The aircraft pressurizes, and I await my fate.
As the last technician exits the hangar, the void-doors slam shut, insulating the interior of the vessel from the cold vacuum outside. I lean back in my seat, taking a sharp breath as I prepare for what comes next. Almost instantly, the hangar depressurizes, sucking the craft out into the void. I do not panic. Internal reaction wheels hold our course steady as we drift into the abyss, damaged flesh interfacing with a glitching, warm touchscreen as a cold metal hand grips a cold metal flightstick. Jets of decomposed hydrazine reposition the craft, steadily burning retrograde until the trajectory shown on my heads up display dipped below the atmosphere. Taking my hands off the controls, I lean back in my seat, still wholly uncomfortable in the confined cockpit. I need to stretch my legs, hang out the side of a helicopter, feel the wind in my hair and against my battered face. Not today, though. Quartz glass and this inky black visor lie between me and my dream. I take a deep breath, and begin to pray.
I am disturbed from my meditation by a gentle rattle in our structure. A plasma sheath builds around the window, flames licking the quartz-glass outer layer so peacefully, almost hypnotic in nature. I stare, mesmerized with the dancing plasma, until the vibrations grow in magnitude and the flames dance ever higher, temperature and g-loading warnings blaring inside the cockpit. I shake myself out of it, warmth building in my core - I cannot tell if it's an accumulation of waste heat or something else entirely. Acting fast, I pull the glider into its first glide slope - wings retracted for now. The lifting body abates enough of gravity's relentless clutches, pulling our body out of the dive and instead coasting on a bed of flames, soaring above the deepest parts of the atmosphere. Only now do we deploy our wings. Great, hulking contraptions of steel and carbon fold out like an angel's radiance, or perhaps a hawk's baleful shadow. We slowly coast to our first waypoint. Our mission is about to begin.
As the first waypoint draws closer and closer on the map projection, I watch the little blue button by my legs with greater intensity. I wonder what would happen when the aircraft flew over its intended target. Would the box with the button do nothing? Blare an alarm? Simply automatically record its data? The glowing blue light vexes me, and I would only have my answer once the first waypoint was reached. Soon enough, the aircraft crosses into its target area, and a mechanical chirp sounds throughout the cockpit. I wait a moment, to see if the ring returns. It does. The button glows brighter now, flashing blue. With enough experimentation complete, I reach down and gingerly press the button. It seems as if nothing happened, at least nothing I can see, but at least the ringing has ceased. My routine confirmed, I can lay back and relax for the long flight ahead.
The second waypoint passed by in a haze of daydreams, radio check-ins, and navigational confirmations. With nothing to do up here, I keep myself occupied however I can. When not double and triple checking my navigation coordinates, I sing to myself, quietly, in the safety of the cabin. I know Asterius is listening, and he does not explicitly approve such things, but as long as I stick to my hymns I should be safe. He's always enjoyed when I sing my hymns, even if he feigns disapproval. I feel a familiar warmth in my skull. With the sun peeking over the horizon, the landscape below is washed in blue and white, clouds and atmospheric scattering combined as if a great ocean above the land. I miss the sea and the Venerable. The warmth grows hotter still, and with it a touch of pain. The more I focus on the sensation, the more the pain increases. It's a familiar predicament, one which would normally be an annoyance. An augmetic cascade failure - a mounting failure mode of neuralware which leads to exceptionally unpleasant consequences. I'm familiar with cascade failures - I often experience such things when stressed, or tired, or when my Mindshackle is overstressed. It's a simple solution. A manual reset or power cycle is enough to prevent the failure cascade from getting out of hand. Instinctively, I reach to my temple, finding only fused quartz-glass where I expect pallid skin and a power interface. I feel my heart sink into my boots. Without a direct line to reset my blessings, I will simply have to remain and endure what the machine God sees fit to grant me.
The headache grows as I affix my eyes forward, desperate to ride out the mounting pain. I suppress my whimpers - should Asterius hear such displays of weakness, my already rocky standing in the church may be forfeit. I am nothing, if not composed. I read passages from our divine book to myself as I keep my eyes affixed on the map display, waiting for the headache to inevitably break. It does.
As the last remnants of the pain in my head wash over me, I sigh in relief against my better judgment. The sensor payload chirps. Reaching down, I locate the pulsing blue button and press it before the box chimes again. Such an unpleasant sound. Reorienting myself back into my seat, I glance at my map display, only to be startled by an apparition in my windscreen.
Hey, airhead. Knew you'd find me kicking around in here sometime. How are you holding up?
I'm too stunned to speak. I eventually choke out a reply, despite Asterius listening in.
“Callisto?”
The one and only.
“I'm… I guess I could be worse.” The pain in my jaw flares.
Don't I know it.
“What… are you?”
I couldn't tell you, Ophélie.
I know what I'm seeing is a hallucination. While I haven't experienced any in a long time, as familiarity with mental augmetic resets was taught to me almost as soon as I received my blessings, I'm well familiar with the forms such things can take. However, what I don't understand is why Callisto is here, and why she looks so young. She looks like she did when I last left the Venerable. How she looked in my dream. I've only hallucinated memories from augmetic overrides before. Why was this somehow different?
I cannot focus on that now. The next waypoint lies off my starboard side, and I hone my focus for the banking turn ahead. Callisto remains in the corner of my vision, looking all too displeased my attention isn't focused her way. When the turn is complete and my course is straightened, she breaks the silence once more.
You look lonely, Goldie. Have you been by yourself this whole time?
“I-”
Wait, don't answer that. It seems to me like you haven't! My, look at all these access requests. You know this stuff is public, right? You can access it if you know where to look.
“Access, what are you talking about? Requests?”
Hm. Part of me isn't surprised, honestly. You seem the type. Your beloved Overseer can peek right in here. Maybe that's what he was talking about earlier. You know, with you and… Well, you'll figure it out.
“I don't understand, what are you saying?”
I have to go, Ophélie. You understand, I'm sure.
“Callisto-”
Her apparition fades back into the scratched and soot-stained quartz-glass. I lean back in my seat, head pounding. The glare of the sun above does not ease my returned headache, instead aggravating it even more. I can hardly focus and in my haze the sun shifts into a floodlight; the restrictive cockpit transforming into the walls of a storage room, not unlike the one I’d visit Evie in. My head spins ever more. I'm breathless. Hot. My robes are piled haphazardly in the corner of the room, my battle scars and ragged flesh where skin meets augmetic metal on full display. I feel the embrace of an aircraft tech. I don't remember their name. I feel their hot breath on my skin, refreshing and nauseating all at once. The pure bliss which comes with succumbing to the mindshackle augment is so far away now - still present, but buried too deep in my mind to access, not unlike the augment itself. Too deep to embrace, too deep to excise.
It feels as if I'm floating above my own body. I can see the technicians holo-watch, lit up against the dark room with a familiar dialed interface. I look away, ashamed at the state of myself.
I try to let go of the feeling. One must endure much in the Steeled God's service, and such things are the way we prove our worth. So says Asterius, at least. I can feel myself drifting back into my body, the bliss of the Mindshackle slowly trickling back into my neurochemistry. The pleasure etched into miles worth of golden wires and electrodes by Asterius grows ever-so-close as my body increasingly overlaps with my mind. Slipping into my skin once again, the bliss returns with an unremembered intensity. It seems this one was generous with the rewarding dial. A relief - others seemed to only notice the dial for compliance. My whimpers sync with my memory's, the harmony cutting into my mind. I shut my eyes. The technician was not someone I was attracted to in any measure - I found them unsettling, and definitely not someone I would sleep with on my own volition. The memory made one thing clear, though. My volition was no longer my own. Asterius and my own golden arm had taken great pains to teach me that lesson the day I awoke from the surgery table. Better to just relax and let the sensations pass over me.
I come to in the cockpit of the spyplane, just as I left. The sensor package on board chirps once more, and I lean down to silence it. The autopilot was robust enough to guide us to the next waypoint, it seems. My head throbs, this time much duller. I'm grateful for the respite. Taking stock of my situation, all seems to be handled. I breathe a sigh of relief. As the sigh hitches in my throat, though, I recognize the presence of an all too familiar warmth - one I associate with Callisto most of all. I feel disgusted. Even as someone so committed to sacrifice form and soul for the Machine God, so conditioned to be nothing more than a bodily conduit for its power, a corps divine upon the altar, I still hold some modesty. At least my most unbecoming moments in that Mindshackle induced golden-tinted haze are hidden away in storerooms and materials closets, hidden from the prying eyes of all those but Asterius. Storm clouds roil beneath us as we approach the next waypoint.
Waypoints four, five, and six pass without incident. Another hour ticks away on the mission timer. An uncomfortable amount of time yet remains, but we are closer still to escape. I let myself dream, despite it all. Perhaps the cascade failure had burned itself out, and left me relatively unscathed on the other side.
During the long coast to waypoint seven, my thirst grows to the point it can no longer be ignored. I reach for my water bottle, expecting a gentle thud of plastic against my gloved hand. Nothing. I look down - to my horror, my arm is frozen in place. I try the other. It, too, is locked down, as are both my legs. Servo lockouts are not uncommon in a cascade failure, but all four limbs? Something isn't right.
Hey, pretty girl.
Callisto appears out of the dark against the windscreen, empty space wrapping around her form like a cloak of the finest black velvet.
“What's happening? Why are you back here?”
She smiles, evidently pained. Looking up and down at my statuesque form, her smile curdles.
How could you, Ophélie? I thought we had something special. I thought we were going to run away together, raise a family. Just the two of us.
“Callisto, we do! I never abandoned-”
But you did. What do you think this is? I'm not the one away from home, doing God knows what, sleeping with God knows who. You're not the same woman I remember loving.
“You know I don't have a choice about it, Callisto. I'm so beyond sorry, my dear.”
Say it to yourself again, and see if you believe it.
My mind burns.
Don't you miss it when it was just me?
I try to respond, but my lips won't move.
Hold still. None of them can make you feel like I do.
I hear a muffled, strained, and terrified affirmation leak from my lips. I did not consciously speak it. I have never been scared of Callisto before this moment, but in her almost alien presence, dread begins to grip me.
Her form ripples against the quartz-glass, fading back out amongst the star-dusted sky. It is then I feel her parting gift spool up, and the flood of morphine in my veins takes hold. Despite my concerted efforts to stay conscious, I can't help but drift into a candy-coated daydream, so far from the growing horror of Callisto’s words.
I’m sitting in a seaside café, looking out to the ocean. The Venerable, that massive, rusting hulk, negotiates the attention of three tugboats as it maneuvers into port. Adrien points and laughs, seeing one of the tugboats spitting black smoke in a vain attempt to course correct the massive vessel. Callisto glares at him, but her expression softens quickly. Instead, she playfully slaps his hand down.
“Hey, settle down! That's our home, you know.”
“Maybe yours. I'm going to escape one day, make a life for myself on the mainland, maybe own a little café like this. I think I could make a good espresso. Do you think I could make a good espresso?”
Callisto and I both giggle, looking back to Adrien. He's serious. We laugh even harder. He begins to laugh with us.
“For the record, Adrien, I think you'd make a damn good espresso,” I say.
“Thank you, Ophélie. A little acknowledgement of my talents goes a long way.”
He blows a fake kiss in my direction. Callisto pulls me in for a real one. Adrien knows about us - he's a good friend, and besides, I'm not the best at keeping secrets. He's sworn never to tell anyone, least of all his father, the captain. Adrien blushes. We shared a mutual crush when we were younger, but it never went anywhere. That's okay, though. I'm still happy to have him as a friend.
“Say, Ophélie. When we finish our drinks, do you think you can take us flying?” Adrien inquires.
A creeping dread grows within my chest.
“Uhm, sure thing. I'll take you up, if that's what you want.”
He and Callisto glance at each other. Callisto was never the biggest proponent of our aerial jaunts - she fretted too often about my safety, and seemed to oppose the idea on a deeper, more fundamental level, but she would never tell me why. Despite this, she doesn't want to be left behind, and is keen to join us anyway.
Something about the idea of flying with Adrien makes me nervous, but I can’t pin it down. I turn back to my lemonade, and take another sip. The sun is warm, the sea is beautiful, and my friends are with me. Today is good.
My morphine-laced thoughts turn once again to the technician, and the shameful heat which filled my core when their memory was brought to the surface. I knew that I should be disgusted, and I was, truly, but something subconscious seemed so… attractive, about the whole ordeal. It vexed me, that heat. I hated to consider the possibility that the mindshackle had conditioned my psyche to enjoy the lack of control, but the thought was not lost on me. I would be naught more than a perfect marionette, strung up on golden wires, puppeted for the amusement of the personnel, of Asterius, of the Machine God Himself.
Perfect.
It's what I wanted. Perfection, at any cost. Perhaps this is what I was, what I need to be. Perhaps this is all just me. No Mindshackle, no access requests, no buttons or dials. Perhaps this is who I am.
No matter. Waypoints remain yet still, and the flight ahead demands focus. I can ponder the nature of perfection later. For now, my duty awaits.