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You lie back, shard in hand. A pulse of bioelectricity twitches through your spinal modem as you insert the chip and begin the integration process.
<span class="mu-s">[Grimoire II: Initialization.]
- Verifying system architecture…
- Executable partition created.
- Angel, Imp, Gremlin queued.
- Estimated integration: 07:17:09.</span>
Your eyes blur at the cascading information as exhaustion outpaces curiosity. The cot creaks beneath you, the light of your modem casting faint lights on the wall. Sleep drags you under before the counter even ticks past its first minute.
<span class="mu-s">[Reestablishing internal chronometer]
- Sourcing from Norfolk TerraComm Dataspire.
- Sourcing from 111th Auxiliary Netrunner.
- Establishing current date: November 7, 2441 CE.</span>
When you wake, the modem is silent, blinking softly with the tell-tale green of a successful installation. It clashes with the first light of dawn peeking through the nylon seams of your housing. As you stretch and stumble to your feet, a duffel bag waits at the foot of your cot, bulging with folded clothes. A paper note is taped to the strap, scrawled in Harper’s handwriting:
<span class="mu-i">These should fit – mix of surplus and salvage. Don’t make it weird.</span>
Inside: fatigues stiff with chemical antiseptic, civilian clothes gone thin at the seams but still smelling faintly of detergent, and a few pieces softer than an apocalypse would warrant. You snort at the mix, a noise halfway between disbelief and amusement, and set the note aside.
The plugsuit peels away reluctantly, the fabric clinging after too many hours worn straight. Cold air prickles at your skin as you strip down, pulling on surplus cargo pants that hang a touch loose and a tan shirt that feels almost decadent. After two days trapped in synthfiber and artificial musculature, the weight of real cloth is grounding, somehow even more intimate than a skintight plugsuit.
You exhale, flexing your limbs as if reacquainting yourself with your own body. The plugsuit falls down into a neat, lifeless bundle on the cot. Parting from it would be a step too far – it’s perfectly functional, and at worst needs a wash.
Harper’s already outside when you step from the prefab, perched atop a crate like he’s been waiting half the morning. The camp hums with its slow rise to activity, diesel and damp canvas thick in the air. Overhead, the sky hangs low and grey, a steady ceiling of cloud that could take a turn for the worse at a moment’s notice.
He lifts a hand in greeting and presents a tray toward you.
“Are those…real eggs?” you ask, incredulous.
“I know a guy who knows a guy.” He shrugs, as if real protein wasn’t as expensive as gold. “Eggs, hash browns, and pork sausage, the genuine kind. No yellow starch bricks, no 3D-printed onions coils of vat-grown proteins…pancakes are still artificial, but the maple syrup’s real. Thought you’d want something with weight to it as your first real meal.”
(cont.)
