You’ll see.”
“Why would we bring in a civilian?”
“Not everyone can do the type of surgery you’ve had. In fact, there probably aren’t a dozen people in the entire system who can do what she did for you.”
What she did for me. It seemed like a funny way to put it, but I guess that’s exactly how most people would look at it. I’d get used to it in time, I knew that much, but it still seemed so foreign. Like waking up in a completely different body. Was I still me? How much of Tycho was the flesh? How much was the mind? Replace it all with prosthetics like an Augman, would I then still be me?
“So what you’re telling me is that I’m cutting edge technology.”
I tried to smile, but based on Raven’s reaction it must have looked more like a grimace.
“Yeah.” She tried to smile back, but her smile looked just as strange to me. Like she was fighting not to express some other emotion. “You’re top of the line. I mean, maybe not compared to an Ares Terrestrial cyborg, but…”
“Well, I don’t know. If I can’t be as good as one of their chimeras, I’m just not sure it’s worth it.”
She squeezed my hand, then looked up as we heard the door open. A small woman with a skinny face and short blonde hair brushed straight back walked in. “So, the patient’s awake?” she asked.
Raven nodded. “Awake and talking.”
“Hello, Tycho. I’m Dr. Markov,” the woman said, as Raven stood up and moved out of her way. “How are you feeling?”
It felt a little strange to have someone I didn’t know addressing me by my first name. It’d been a long time since anyone outside of Section 9 had called me by anything other than a pseudonym. It was strange, but comforting too.
“I’m… processing. This is a lot to take in.”
“Of course it is.” Her voice was warm and sympathetic. “You probably didn’t expect to survive that crash at all.”
“No, I guess I didn’t. How bad were my injuries?”
Dr. Markov was quiet for a moment, looking as if she was trying to gauge me. “Your injuries were extensive,” she said. “You presented with acute traumatic ischemia and frostbite. Torn mitral valve. Globe rupture in the right orbit. Three broken vertebrae. Fractured skull, multiple fractures across—”
“Okay, I get the idea,” I said. “I was more broken than not.”
“Well, the good news is that you made it. And I’ll do everything I can to help you adjust to your new life. That is what it’s going to feel like. A new life, with new capabilities and even new responsibilities. But we’ll talk more about that later, yes?”
I nodded. Something about this woman was deeply comforting. Maybe it’s just that it wasn’t hard for me to believe she cared, but I could feel my anxiety about the situation fading.
“First things first.” She took out a small device from her lab coat pocket. “I need to check for any complications, now that you’re awake. Please lie as still as you can for just a few minutes.” I lay back while she ran the device down my body. It made an intermittent buzzing sound as she brought it over my chest.
“Everything okay, Dr. Markov?”
“Everything’s fine. And call me Samara, please. I promise I won’t mind.”
Something about the doctor’s voice seemed familiar. It took me a minute to place it, and I didn’t know what to make of it when I did. Her voice sounded strangely similar to Andrea’s. Once I’d drawn the comparison, I realized she even resembled her, though in a different way from the woman on the Havisham. That woman had carried herself with the same poise Andrea always had. Samara had a quiet, subdued manner that was almost the opposite, but her face and voice were definitely similar to Andrea’s.
“All done, Tycho,” she said. “Now then, let’s have a chat.”
Samara took a seat on the chair next to my bed. Raven was a few feet away, standing with her arms crossed and resting one foot up on the wall behind her. Her eyes were closed as she traced her finger through the air, paging through something on her dataspike.
“Living with prosthetics is a process,” Samara began. “It will take some time to learn. You’ll need to take anti-rejection medication to suppress your body’s immune response to the prosthetics, so be mindful that this means an increased risk of infection. If you ever get off-schedule, your commanding officer can explain the