The rest of dinner was barely tolerable, but sufficient for them to at least stay healthy. Nutrient packed something or other that Cerah supplied them with as some sort of apology for not letting them live in the city under population restrictions. It tasted like nothing for the most part, and the texture varied depending on how solidified the gelatin was. But at least they had a few spices to make it consumable, and it kept Midas from being hungry as he spent a few more hours into the night fussing with his work instead of going straight to sleep. Something he realized he shouldn’t have done when Whip shook him awake too early in the morning and shoved him out of his half hidden room to go talk to Aina.
There had been much groaning and protesting as Midas had dragged himself off the floor and stumbled several blocks away to the fairly intact building Aina was holed up in. It was the only place C-Tech made sure was functioning properly since it held their equipment and employee. Which only made Midas uncomfortable with the place, grumbling slightly as he wove down the empty corridors to Aina’s room and opened the door without knocking.
If he startled the small girl she didn’t show it. Just turning on her stool to look at him with that neutral expression he always found so hard to read. Even when he wasn’t half asleep from morning jet lag.
“Oh… There you are.”
Aina’s voice was her usual soft and indescribably hard to understand tone despite the fact Midas was obviously late to the appointment. He wasn’t sure if she was irritated, unimpressed, disappointed, or had somehow transcended emotion and reached the point of not caring about anything anymore. It was borderline infuriating how little she seemed to be affected by anything sometimes. Hiding behind a blank mask that made it harder for Midas to understand her when he already had a difficult time with the other people of the slums. As though people who were raised in the city were taught it was improper to show emotion. A fact that, when combined with the pristine room, made Midas grumpier than his usual unhappy morning self.
“What’s that s’pposed to mean?” he half mumbled, rubbing a hand down his face while waddling over to plop on the nearby stool.
It caused Aina to stare at him silently for long enough he started to wonder if he had been incoherent. But before he could think about repeating himself she spoke. “Well…. You were supposed to meet me last night,” she informed, finally pulling her hands away from her slim keyboard and turning to face him, resting her hands on her lap. She actually looked a little upset, but perhaps it was only because of her actions combined with what she said that keyed Midas in on that fact.
“Oh… sorry. Got caught up,” Midas admitted with just a bit of embarrassment. He figured that was a better answer than telling her he’d just completely forgotten. No need to give someone else a reason to tease him for having a bad memory despite having a machine supported brain. It was half true anyway. He hadn’t been tired, so he’d gone back to working on his project, and ended up losing track of time for a few hours.
Aina continued to stare at him with the once again blank expression she always had, making Midas question once more if she was being judgemental or not. But yet again she said nothing to betray her thoughts. Instead moving on to the next subject by turning back to her keyboard; her equipment always so sleek and up to date instead of the pieced together retired trash the rest of them had to work with.
More than once Midas wished he could take a look at it.
“Well, whatever, listen to this.”
Aina’s words interrupted Midas’ derailing thoughts, and he squinted when he thought he could hear a smothered strain of excitement in her tone. Was she also smiling a little? She tapped something out on the keys, then turned to look back at Midas expectantly. Only to have him continue to stare at her with a confused squint that she couldn’t tell if it was because he was glaring at her or trying not to fall asleep again.
“…. Midas…?” Aina prodded after a moment longer, the small smile fading into a frown.
“Huh?” Midas twitched, the squint fading as he tried to pull his brain back to focus on the topic Aina wanted him to.
Aina’s brow rose a fraction, and she shifted her legs somewhat nervously. “Ummm…. Did you hear or see anything?” she prodded, not wanting him to know what she was testing so he wouldn’t lie and tell her the experiment was a success when it wasn’t.
“...Aside from when you said my name?” Midas asked after a pause, wondering if he had zoned out and missed something. Why were they doing this so early in the morning again? And what was it that she was doing anyway?
He felt a small spike in anxiety when Aina heaved a sigh and slumped her shoulders after his response. But only for a second before she started typing on her keyboard again, making notes that only she could see through the transparent visor over her eyes. “Maaaan, I really thought I was able to ping you this time…,” she complained quietly, mouth pushing into a mild pout.
Oh, so that’s what this was about.
“Wait, you’re still trying that?” Midas asked, cautious curiosity waking him up a little more. He knew this wasn’t her first attempt to try to connect with him digitally. But with how long it had been since the last attempt, and how big her list of projects was he hadn’t been able to guess that was what she’d wanted to see him about.
“Well, yeah. It’s convenient,” Aina confirmed, not sure why Midas would think she would stop. “It’s how I keep in touch with Whip and Ian afterall. Even when they’re far away from Cerah. But… it looks like you weren’t converted by any of the recorded scientists from C-Tech, living or dead. All of the known person codes in the records aren’t working…. Which I should have guessed with more surety from the beginning considering your face…,” she half explained patiently, and half mused aloud. She’d had a guess this would be the case in the beginning. But her need to double check meant she had spent the last year sorting through all the recorded codes and testing them to see if they would connect to Midas. She’d even had a generator fill in the missing gaps. And yet none of them had worked, regardless of her hope.
“What’s that s’ppose to mean?” Midas immediately huffed, narrowing his eyes and scrunching his nose in defensive annoyance. What was wrong with his face?
“W’well, your scar.” Aina clarified with a stammer, holding her hands up in her own defense and averting her gaze to avoid his direct ire. “The documented cyborgs all had reported focus on minimizing visible post surgery disfigurement by structuring collagen-”
“Speak common words,” Midas interrupted, not following what Aina was saying at all. He wasn’t sure if she was speaking gibberish on purpose, or if it was his own struggle with biological related topics that made it hard to understand what she was saying.
The demand caused Aina to cut off with a flinch, partially looking at Midas again and noticing he was just upset he wasn’t able to follow her. “...Um… Based on historical records, full body cyborgs aren’t supposed to have any scars,” she tried to simplify, not quite able to lower her hands just yet. “The…considering the extent of which a person’s body was modified, and the majority of the reason for the conversion being for medical reasons, C-Tech always had a focus on minimizing any external indication of the surgery or previous ailments. Meaning there was a distinct focus on the nanites erasing any scar tissue that existed before the surgery, and may have formed after. It’s why even modern day people with cybernetic enhancements still don’t scar in whatever place has been modified,” she explained with a slight ramble. “Which… even though cybernetic enhancement surgery has been outlawed for any brain or head modifications, and people are limited to only twenty percent of total body construction being cybernetic instead of forty, limited scaring is still a priority. So… it’s possible that your tech was created by someone other than C-Tech. Which… I had the thought before, but wasn’t sure I should mention it. It’s practically unheard of for anyone else to be successful after all. And those who are… the cyborg usually goes berserk within months.”
While Aina spoke Midas stared at her with half narrowed eyes. Both because he was tired and also because of underlying discomfort with the topic. He definitely wanted to know who had created him, but talking about C-Tech always made him uneasy. But from what Aina was saying, it was looking like he hadn’t been created by the world famous cybernetics company that has since avoided that title after everything fell apart almost a hundred years ago. And Aina had only figured that out because cyborgs weren’t supposed to have scars, but he was sporting a rather large one blatantly across his face. And also none of the maintenance codes that C-Tech had documented for any cyborg that ever existed worked for him.
And yet, despite the partial confirmation that C-Tech had nothing to do with him, Midas found himself trailing off to focus on something else one of her comments made him think of. All cyborgs were created with a focus on ‘minimizing any external indication of the surgery or previous ailments’. So people weren’t supposed to be able to tell someone was a cyborg. Which made sense considering most of the time the only way people could tell just by looking was the faint ring cyborgs had in their irises. Something that had come to be known as ‘halo eyes’, and made people immediately wary. But there were some cyborgs that still ended up with prominent cybernetic markings.
Like Whip and Ian.
“Then what’s up with Ian’s face? And Whip’s back?” Midas blurted seemingly at random. A few months ago he’d had the privilege of seeing Ian without the fabric he wore covering the right half of his face. And it wasn’t like Whip ever bothered wearing shirts that covered the digital patterning spanning across his entire upper back. A similar patterning that Ian had branching out from his discolored right eye.
Aina seemed somewhat taken back by the questions, not quite able to follow how Midas suddenly thought of them and why he wasn’t reacting to new information about himself instead. It was odd. But then again being odd was Midas’ forte. And she had learned by now that it was better to just go along with his questions rather than try to steer him back on topic. She at least had a guess for the reason for Whip’s and Ian’s markings anyway.
“Well… because of the focus on prioritizing physical appearance it was a common if unfortunate side effect for subdermal cybernetic networking to be visible through the skin where there were higher concentrations due to… increased need for cellular reconstruction so to speak,” she hinted, watching as Midas’ expression once again returned to that squint that betrayed he was struggling to comprehend her words. She tried again, changing her terms to more specific examples. ““People who had more serious diseases, like cancerous tumors, or extensive injuries were prone to showing cybernetic networking at the site of those ailments. Especially if the surgery was to support proper healing from such ailments.”
Which implied that the visible markings on Whip and Ian were because of either serious illness or injury. It was something Aina had always been curious about, but never had the guts to ask. Though maybe she would finally get an answer since Midas didn’t have the usual reservation towards bluntly asking questions most people found improper. A thought that caused her to be slightly more nervous when one of said people of their conversation entered the room behind Midas.
“There you are. Ready to go?”
Ian’s lack of proper greeting came with a hand being rested on Midas’ shoulder. A common motion for the man but one that still caused Midas to flinch with his shoulders hunching and head lowering slightly. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to walk up behind him. Not without him noticing at least. But Ian had always been eerily silent compared to others, even having a calming voice that could sometimes put people to sleep when he talked too much. Which was one of the reasons he never got to finish any of his scolding lectures towards the children of the slums when they misbehaved enough to warrant it from him.
At least his calming presence also meant Midas was quick to recover from the startle. “Mmmmm, ask Whip that. He was the one that shoved me out of my room saying ‘go see Aina, I’ll pack for you’ or something,” he answered, intentionally lowering his voice a little to try to mimic Whip when he repeated his instructions, adding a straighter back and hand on the hip to the performance.
The motion and tone just caused Ian to chuckle while he straightened up again, adjusting the customized sniper rifle strapped over his shoulder that had slipped slightly when he’d leaned closer. “Well, we better not keep him waiting then,” he prodded, his gaze trailing from Midas to almost reluctantly rest on Aina. As usual, Midas watched the man’s brows knit together in a faint, bone deep sorrow as he looked at the girl. Sometimes Midas wondered if Ian felt bad for Aina’s missing leg, but that thought never held more weight than a passing consideration. He never looked at any other amputees that way after all. “… Is it alright if I take him?” Ian asked quietly.
“Mm… yeah. There’s not much I can do with him still,” Aina agreed, having turned to face them again. “Until I can figure out the right person code for him I’m still stuck. Can’t even establish a one way connection at this rate, let alone a two way. But… at this point he might have a hermetic code, like you guys.”
“A what now?” Midas interrupted, feeling entitled to the conversation since it was about him, despite the term only giving him a budding headache from the vague familiarity. When he shifted his gaze from Aina to Ian, he was surprised to see Ian also looked surprised.
Ian didn’t seem to want to dwell on the matter too long though, already starting to push Midas off the stool and out the door as he responded. “Hmm… we’ll have to look into that after we get back,” he mused, a subtle tone betraying his interest being piqued.
While she’d been hoping for a little more of a reaction, Aina wasn’t too upset about the topic being delayed since she knew they were on a schedule. So instead she just waved lightly as Ian ushered them out the door. “Mm. sure thing. Have fun. Don’t get eaten,” she bid verbally before turning back to her other projects.
“What’s a hur-meh-dik code, or whatever she said?” Midas immediately asked once they were heading outside, his brain waking up with the rest of his body now that he’d been out of bed long enough. “And what happened to your eye? - Why are you fussing with my hair?” The questions came in rapid succession, squished together before he could manage to forget to ask them, and ending with Midas swatting at Ian’s hand. The older man had started to attempt to smooth Midas’ bedhead out with his fingers while they were walking, apparently leaning more into his dad friend habits to avoid thinking about something. But when Midas huffed and darted a few steps in front of him before turning to stand in his way Ian realized he couldn’t get away with accidentally ignoring these questions. The way Ian avoided topics sometimes was something that Midas had quickly come to hate, but also something he’d just as quickly learned to bring attention to without directly calling Ian out. Which helped Ian be more willing to address said topics instead of scolding Midas for his manners.
With a mild sigh of amusement, Ian obliged Midas’ pestering. “A hermetic code is a unique type of person code that only shows up in full body cyborgs. People thought it was a myth at first, but it’s the reason why some cyborgs can’t be forcefully reprogrammed. The hermetic code blocks all external access that the cyborg doesn’t consciously approve of.”
The answer caused some of the muddled facts bubbling under the surface of Midas’ distant memory to clarify, in turn causing the tiny headache to go away. He paused in borderline understanding, asking another question to make sure he was following correctly. “Oh… so because Aina can’t ‘ping’ me or whatever, she thinks I might have one of those things?”
“It’s… rare but possible,” Ian admitted, snickering softly when Midas used air quotes, then reaching out to fuss with the lad’s vibrant ginger hair again.
“Stop it,” Midas hissed in response, swatting at the hand again. “What’s with you? It’s fine.” It wasn’t like he could ever manage to get his hair to lay flat anyway. So what did it matter if it was still messed up from sleep? People always commented he looked like he had bed hair all the time anyway.
“You haven’t brushed your hair yet,” Ian answered simply, weaving his hand to avoid Midas’ swatting. It wasn’t really a big deal, Midas’ hair was short enough that it wouldn’t get tangled much. But Ian felt combing one’s hair daily was still a good habit to have to keep the debris out. “Also where’s your jacket and sleeves? You’re going to fry in that sun.”
“With Whip,” Midas huffed, finally giving in and starting to comb his hair with his own fingers just to placate his friend. “And you still haven’t answered my other question,” he prodded stubbornly.
Ian could only blink in mild confusion, momentarily forgetting the last question Midas had asked. But then he twitched his head in a slight nod as he remembered . The only reasons he hadn’t answered before were both because Midas had thrown several questions at him, but also because he wasn’t sure what Midas was talking about. “What do you mean? Is it irritated again?” he asked, raising his hand to gingerly touch his fingers under his visible eye to see if it was tender and he just hadn’t noticed.
“No. Not that one, the other one,” Midas huffed again, mildly annoyed and waving his hand to gesture towards the fabric covering Ian’s right eye. But then he realized his questions probably didn’t make complete sense to others, and clarified a little. “Aina said that…. Something or other about cyborgs only having visible cybernetics because they were piled up on a major injury or the like. So is that what happened to you and Whip? You both have really obvious circuitry…”
“....Oh,” Ian voiced softly, just a little uncomfortable about the blunt question. Not for himself though, he’d long come to terms with his situation. “Well… You’ll have to ask Whip himself about that one. I don’t think it’s right for me to tell. He’s a little sensitive about it, so try to be a little more gentle than you just were with me,” he cautioned with a mild chuckle, reaching his hand out to start herding Midas to continue moving. “As for me….,” he paused for a moment, not sure he wanted to deal with the reaction he was sure to get, and trying to figure out how to phrase the situation in a way that wouldn’t cause a huge reaction. “Let’s just say when you’re in the army there’s a much higher chance for you to get shot in the face,” he tried, giving Midas a bright smile as though that would convince him what he’d said was no big deal.
Midas’ jaw dropped as his wide eyes snapped up to stare at Ian, the implications registering very quickly in his mind. “You got SHOT in the EYE?!?!” he sputtered. “How are you not dead?”
Ian grimaced as that was definitely a loud reaction he’d wanted to avoid. But at least the questions were easier to answer. “Cyborg,” he answered simply, his own gaze shifting being the only warning Midas got before some article of fabric was thrown over his head.
“It’s about time you showed up,” Whip commented while Midas sputtered while scrambling to pull the sleeveless jacket off from his head. If Whip heard their previous conversation he didn’t comment on it, instead falling back to the original topic for why he’d shooed Midas off in the first place. “So what did Aina want? Did she figure something out with you?” he asked, signifying he was more expecting Ian to answer since as soon as Midas got the jacket off his head Whip was shoving a partially opened vegetable protein bar into his mouth. Breakfast was boring again apparently.
“She thought she might be able to ping him, but it didn’t work,” Ian responded simply, trying to help their disaster of a friend by taking the jacket from Midas while he fumbled with the food.
“Hrm, and she said I might have a hermetic code and most likely wasn’t made by C-Tech since none of their person codes worked,” Midas added, momentarily pulling the protein bar from his mouth to speak before taking an actual bite from it.
Whip seemed unsurprised at what Ian told him, but Midas’ response caused him to immediately exchange a look with Ian. Which caused Ian to subtly purse his lips and shake his head a fraction.
“Whuht?” Midas asked around the protein bar that was back in his mouth, being held so he could pull the jacket over his head, followed by tugging shoulder length sleeves over his arms. The wastelands tended to be rather neutral in temperature, so Whip and Ian didn’t have to worry about adding extra layers. But since Midas’ skin sunburnt easily compared to everyone else in the slums, and they didn’t have access to sunscreen and burn cream was limited, they made sure he was covered up.
“Mm… Not much,” Whip dismissed despite being obviously distracted. “We’ll talk about it later. For now let’s just focus on getting that fusion core, yeah? We can worry about your deep dark, increasingly suspicious past later. That was the plan afterall,” he added, finally handing over Midas’ twin guns already nestled into their belt.
The phrasing of Whip’s words combined with the reluctance to talk gave Midas a slew of mixed emotions. It was annoying to not get answers now. But the way Whip talked about it made him feel like he didn’t want to know the answers. A cyborg not being made by C-Tech usually didn’t bode well after all. “Yeah… That was the plan…,” Midas confirmed uncomfortably, figuring he’d rather switch topics for now and stew on those implications later. “Where exactly are we headed then? It’s not like people just find fusion cores laying around. They’re rare enough as it is.”
“I have a pretty good idea where one is. But we are going to Mortenheim to check,” Whip answered, giving a bit of a devilish grin as his hand absently rested on the plasma enhanced blade worn at his hip.
The location name caused Midas’ eyes to widen for a moment, honestly stunned that the taboo city that most scavengers refused to even get close to was their destination. “...That explains why it’s only us three going,” he attempted to chuckle, but it came out as an uneasy shake instead. “You sure the monsters there haven’t eaten it already? What about the… berserkers?”
Whip just gave an easy chuckle while wrapping his arm around Midas’ shoulders to start dragging him towards the scavenged police motorcycle that Midas had restored before they’d met him. “If a monster ate it there probably would have been an explosion that we’d have heard about,” he consoled, and ended up getting a soft hint to his smile in reaction to the term Midas used for the other concern. Most people called the berserk cyborgs ‘zombies’, but it was nice to hear another name this time. “And the berserk cyborgs were cleared out a long time ago. I don’t think we’ll be there long enough to run into any trouble.”
The way Whip and Ian were so relaxed about visiting the graveyard city that most people would only whisper the name of was a little bewildering. But then again, there was a reason the two of them were responsible for keeping the others safe. And that was enough for Midas to build himself back into a more playful mood. “Well I guess I’ll take your word for it. Just make sure we don’t end up running out of ammo because you didn’t think we’d use it, mister I’m too cool for guns,” he teased lightly, slipping the goggles off the mirror of the bike and putting them on before swinging his leg over the vehicle seat.
“You just worry about driving,” Whip chuckled as he hopped onto the second seat behind Midas. He could drive on his own just fine, but Midas was particular about having programmed his own bike to only accept him as an operator. And while they could have taken three bikes, they didn’t want to use up more of the slums’ resources than they needed to. So it was just Whip and Midas on Midas’ bike, and Ian on an old transport bike that Midas was surprised hadn’t broken down yet.
“Think we’ll be back for dinner?” Midas couldn’t help asking as he leaned forward to thread his fingers into the modified steering controls embedded into the side of the hull. The mechanics of the bike responded easily to his touch, faint patterns of circuitry spreading into visible sight along the hull as well as Midas’ hands and lower arms. The warmth was always reassuring.
“Not a chance,” Whip laughed easily, the sound turning into a slightly startled whoop as Midas gunned the power and shot them forward.
