Quoted By:
No artificial pulse in your veins. No servos twitching in your joins. No glass lenses behind your eyes. Just the modem, warm at the base of your skull, and the simple fact of your own heartbeat in your chest.
<span class="mu-i">Neural interface: baseline.
Cortical lag: absent.
Spinal modem: present.
Additional implants: none detected.
Phantom sensation: negative.
Cognitive drift: within normal tolerances.
Integrity of identity: unbroken.
Conclusion: no hidden architecture. You are mostly human.
Corollary: what you see is what you are.
Codicil: are you disappointed by that fact?</span>
>>Line Break
Hampton rises from the water like a rusting crown, jagged and half-sunken.
The pod scrapes along a makeshift dock, jolting Harper awake. He blinks blearily, wipes the crust from his eyes, and peers out. Beyond the porthole sprawls the regiment’s camp: tents stitched from camo tarps, vehicles sunk into the mud like stranded beasts, cookfires bleeding thin smoke into the gray morning sky. Further beyond, in the ruins of residential neighborhoods, the ruins of residential blocks sprawl into the horizon - the civilian quarter, indistinct at this distance, but grim enough in silhouette.
It doesn’t take long before you’re noticed. A patrol approaches, guns carried loose, but hands ready to snap to iron in a heartbeat. Baseline stock soldiers, for the most part. A cybernetic arm here, an ocular lens there. Nothing extravagant. Their true measure would need a full scan, but you know better than to stare.
Harper glances at you for permission, then cranks the hatch open. He thrusts out a mottled, muddy handkerchief before poking his head out: “Identifying, Sierra-Mike-Tango. Repeating, Sierra-Mike-Tango. Digger-Actual reporting back in - bit earlier than expected.”
The patrol exhales as one, relief rippling through the formation like a wave. "Harper!" their leader calls, taking the man's fist in a firm handshake. "Welcome back. Hope you didn't have too much of a hard time of it."
Then their eyes land on you.
Suspicion sharpens the air. You feel it prick against your skin, crawling past the surface of your plugsuit, and the smooth curve of your neck where the modem juts out of your skin. Too clean. Too intact. Not the look of a refugee who'd clawed her way through drowned streets and ash.
"Who's the civie?" one of them asks, his rifle shifting almost lazily.
"Rescue," Harper says bluntly. "She's with me." He doesn't elaborate any further, instead jerking a thumb at the pod. "Can I get a security detail posted on this, pretty please? High priority equipment recovery, designation Alpha-Delta."
The patrol exchanges a glance, but his tone leaves no room for debate. They peel off to secure the pod, casting glances back you way.
"C'mon," Harper mutters, steering you up the mud path towards a cluster of tents at the camp's heart. "Sooner we get the codes to the colonel, the sooner we can get you something that isn't just rehydrated ration bricks."
(cont.)