The further Jordan clawed his way to the habitat's cap, the more desperate he became to rid himself of his frozen clothes and be done with this trial for good. Perhaps from his haste, his stumbling became more frequent even as the snow thinned to a transparent powdery film. Nearly out of breath, he grunted louder with each step as he accelerated, pushing through the floor curving gently beneath him until he reached the edge of the forest and the steep ramp before him.
Upon reaching the clearing, Jordan stomped his foot in the snow to arrest his momentum and froze his body as best he could. But it did him no good. The pair of beasts watched him intently through eyes as yellow as the sun. Clumps of snow fell gently from their snouts and bushy fur as they raised their heads higher and positioned themselves apart from each other, flanking his path.
“Dammit!” He cursed under his breath. At most, Jordan assumed he had an hour and a half before his time was up; significantly less until hypothermia set in.
A blur in his peripherals brought Jordan's attention back to the beasts. Their heads tilted slightly back and forth as they approached. Lazily, slowly, subtly sweeping the floor with their bushy tales; apparently as if to point towards Jordan's destination with their wedge-shaped ears. Time seemed to stretch into an eternity as the snow steadily crunched beneath their paws. The habitat itself seemed to ring with silence, as if the entire universe were sleeping - hibernating, except for those three terrestrial animals, long displaced from their cradle. Their eyes remained fixed on Jordan, who was trembling from what he himself assumed was cold. His eyes remained fixed on the bulging joints of their bodies as they slowly crept forward, radiating violence despite their apparently peaceful body language. Then, they paused. As if they caught a scent of something of interest, their necks craned in unison, causing subtle glints of gold and silver to flash in Jordan's eyes.
Jordan blinked hard on impulse and immediately fluttered his eyes open to look closer. He felt his body squeeze out a scream as he stumbled back. Snow, paws, and the white underbellies of the wolves shifted rapidly in front of him as they leapt over him to dart through the trees, leaving clumps of snow flinging upwards in their wake; along with the same glints of gold and silver shining from their pierced ears.
As he watched the snow settle behind them, the thumps of their steps faded into the ambience. His eyes bounced between their prints as he gained his bearings once again. ‘Were those... tags? The Twin Dogs, maybe?’
Despite the irrationality of it, Jordan couldn't help but hold contempt for the wolves. It felt as if they wanted him to suffer. As if they had some type of sentience or were bred to be passive-aggressively malicious. To look down on humans for being naturally unprepared for the cold.
Jordan groaned, shaking his head free of the distractions. With a heavy a sigh and a last look to his destination, he clicked his heels together and tapped his toes on the ground to check his mag-boots. He played with the resistance settings until it demanded a mildly strong tug to release and continued stomping forward.
With each step and consequent increase in the incline, Jordan struggled to keep his body perpendicular to the ground. His abs burned as they tightly clenched his ribs, supporting his body as it canted ever more vertically until the weight of his pack became too uncomfortable to ignore. As a distraction, he thought about what he'd look like to someone floating high above the station. Looking through the dozens of meters of radiation protection, life support systems, and logistics networks, to see Jordan stomping toward the center of a relatively flat, spinning dais. An absurdly large carousel with living walls stacked kilometers high. The journey became easier with his mental gymnastics, yet the distraction of his mind conversely became more difficult with each step forward. His brain felt like a spinning top inside his skull. His path became more erratic as the vertigo increased, and once Jordan could no longer keep up the mental image, his pack ceased its tug and seemed to float just above his back.
He gazed up and saw only rivets at the joints of steel girders. Without thinking, he disengaged his mag-boots and remained suspended just above the surface, nestled in the joint between the cap and truss. A few meters away, just below the truss, an airlock flashed its lights at Jordan as if to beckon him to its open doors. He kicked at the air to impart a slight rotation on himself until he could push off the truss toward the airlock. Then braced himself. Time paused again as Jordan squeezed his eyes shut and relaxed his body. After two deep breaths, a sharp pain erupted along the length of his back. His lungs forced themselves empty as his body rebounded with a violent rotation. His legs slapped against another wall a moment later, halting most of his speed enough to bounce him gently inside the airlock.
"Hah!" Jordan gasped out a laugh. "I made it!" He winced through the pain at the airlock sealing beneath his feet and let out another weak laugh, nubs raised high while his eyes fluttered closed.
Hiss!
Jordan's eyes ripped opened to see pluming cones of gas erupting from the walls and dissipating around him, choking his lungs with disinfectants, antiseptics, and, most of all, warmth.
The door above his head hissed open a second later, and he craned his neck to see a cloud of curly hair floating in front of his face. "Congrats!" Jacques peeled his lips back to reveal a row of perfectly straight, oddly white teeth.
Jacques was the youngest of the triplets and had the same stature as Jordan. Although he looked like him, many of their siblings and, of course, their father, Jacques' visage had a distinct gentleness to it that Jordan couldn't quite explain. Jacques wasn't as refined, physically, as his brothers; entirely by choice on his part. Mentally, however, was a different story.
"The look on your face tells me you weren't expecting me." Jacques scoffed as he kicked the floor to push himself to the side. "You shouldn't look down on others, Jordan."
Jordan smiled and began kicking his feet underneath him until he was finally propelled into the room. "Let me guess, you already knew the layout of the hab?"
Jacques acted as if he didn't hear and kicked off another wall towards an island of ‘couches’ in the middle of the room. Jordan watched as the cushion absorbed his energy in a powerful wave of fabric and air that blessed Jordan's body with another gust of dry warmth.
Jordan shrugged his curiosity away as he pushed off into a private alcove to change once again. Besides his implants, a final set of clothes, his pack was now only filled with the sopping wet clothes he wore prior. It took him only ten minutes to change into some joggers, loafers and a vest he kept unbuttoned. Yet, the process was still exhausting.
As he emerged from his recovery, the entire chamber suddenly rang with an electronic hum, prompting Jacques to kick off the couch towards the airlock. Just as his head was to impact the metal, it unsealed, and Jacques continued to drift forward until he split his legs out to catch his heels on the frame. James drifted inside from above him a second later, his face stern, his body as dry as a bone.
Without a word, James continued drifting to the far side of the room. Jordan pushed after him and eventually Jacques emerged from the airlock behind them. In the far alcove was a single, large hole that looked like the entrance to a transport tube large enough for five. The pod within was cylindrical, and filled intermittently along the walls with footholds and consoles playing instructional GIFs on the equipments usage.
After securing their feet along the pegs, restraints unfolded from the walls to latch onto their shoulders and the door hissed shut. Moments later, they were pulled into the void once again. Instead of Jupiter's might, Jordan only saw the curiously bright star that was the Sun through the immense distance. If he searched, Jordan would eventually find the colored pixels of Earth, Mars and the rest of the Free Terrestrial Worlds in their perpetual dance around Sol, but his head was craned to his zenith. His eyes remained focused only on the far cylinder that was his home as it fell towards him at a crawl.
'Finally.' He grinned.
Jordan had worked his entire childhood to prepare him for this point. He spent years focusing on his studies and training his body in order to develop himself into someone knowledgeable and self-dependable enough to live as freely as he dreamed. Since he could remember, his elder siblings and their parents, the tenders of the Clan, and even their father regularly queried him on his dreams and aspirations. His ideas of freedom were the only conclusions his mind could ever be drawn to.
'I want to do as I please.'
Since he could remember, without fail, whomever was told Jordan's idea of freedom ensured to remind Jordan that, within the Galilean Powers, such things required Merit.
Upon cycling through the airlock, the transport tube diverged from the main path to streak through the habitat’s skin until they were beneath their castle and ascending through the lower basements to arrive with a satisfying ping. The pegs on which they now stood extended from the tube to allow the trio to pry themselves from their mounts and bow before their half-dozen siblings gathered before them.
Each of them stood in the order of their birth, wearing suits, collared shirts, or formal dresses, except for Vera at the far left, wearing the same vac-suit as before. Centered between them was a large throne of black marble, gold, and scarlet fabric, on which their father sat, silently observing them behind his folded cybernetic hands.
As one, the three brothers positioned their packs at their feet and depressed a thumb-sized button near the base with their toes.
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The packs that had been thrown to them at the start of their trial were composed of two compartments. On the top was the waterproof bag that was packed by their siblings and housed their supplies, while the bottom was an impact-resistant shell that housed their implants and augmentations; never seen by the brothers until now. Jordan's case flipped open with a subtle click and landed against the waterproof back with a wet thud. Before he stood to present his design, however, his body froze and his eyes scanned the contents of his crate again and again.
Eight vials of differing lengths and girths were arranged neatly in the soft foam to the left of his cybernetic arms. To the right was a bag of powder-lined liquid labeled 'Respirocytes. Standard Augmented Dose.' His eyes darted between the three items without pause until they trailed to the top of the crate, where a small box was centered in the foam with the Solar System-known label of Carpo Industries ingrained on the plastic.
'What-'
"James Astros." His brother announced boldly from his left, pulling Jordan's mind back to the present. "26th child of the Astros Clan." At the sound of James' words, the Looking Glass behind their father's throne lit up with a digital schematic of James's arms. Jordan focused on the darker parts of the screen and saw the same light mirrored and slightly shifted behind him, giving their siblings the same view. More than that, he saw the various expressions of his siblings looking at James’ design with silent judgment.
Like James' body, his new arms were industrial and bulky, made of flat, angled plates colored a matte gray up to the family crest and his number on his shoulders. Unremarkable to look at but surely functional, Jordan was sure.
"What do you choose to do with the gift of freedom, James?"
Jordan's eyes dropped to the throne at his front, then darted to the side. To his father, kneeling before the three of them.
"With my freedom and these arms." James bowed. "I'll be both the Clan's shield and spear for as long as I live."
Their father smiled subtly and nodded to James. With a last glance at the screen above him, Villan Astros slowly turned his attention to Jordan.
"Jordan Astros." Jordan bowed at the waist until his arms were directly in his line of sight. When compared to James', Jordan's arms seemed almost overly elegant in design. Made of a paper-white, boron-carbide frame, the arms were designed to be light and durable, yet mostly hollow in order to make room for hardware Jordan's rank couldn't yet afford. Mangled, thorny roots were clumped on the backs of his hands. As they grew, their stems coiled up his arms and split at the biceps, wrapping the markings in the center of his shoulders in a blooming wreath of black dahlias and black roses. The joints and palms, though lined with ferrous plates, gripped with vulcanized rubber pads, and textured with faux skin, were treated to resemble a deep, pure gold that reflected his distorted face almost perfectly.
"27th child of the Astros Clan." He finished announcing and waited patiently as his father repeated his previous question. "With my freedom." Jordan rose to look his father in the eye. "I'll rise through the ranks until I attain true freedom. I'll learn about humanity and myself along the way. Until I... master myself."
In truth, it didn't matter what Jordan said; according to the rumors, at least. Jordan had been told many times that his siblings had set 'strange' goals for themselves in the past. If their father ever agreed with those goals was up for debate. Regardless, he showed the utmost support for each of his children, no matter their aspirations. Despite his awareness of those rumors and his honesty, however, Jordan felt his unknowingly panicked heart soothe as his father smiled and turned to his little brother.
"Jacques Astros." He bowed as his arms appeared on the screens above. They were completely smooth and white, with fingers that resembled coiled strands of fiber stacked atop the palms. The fibers were shown to unravel like sentient vines as it reached out to coil around a cup five meters away, then pulled it back to his body in a mangled grip. "28th child of the Astros Clan."
As the loop began to replay, Jordan felt the gnawing assumption that what was shown was precisely Jacques' reasoning for the design - a solution for his laziness.
"With my freedom, I'll bring the universe I've envisioned into a digital reality and continue to gain knowledge for as long as I live." Jacques rose from his bow with a smile of his own that nearly matched their fathers.
Villan bowed once again and returned to stand in front of his throne, then began rambling monotonously. His voice rambled on almost faster than his mouth was moving, as if a recording already heard a thousand times was playing from his throat. "As you may have noticed, you'll be receiving a standard suite of sensory augmentations and optical implants along with your new limbs; starting with a basic brain-machine interface, emergency artificial lung, and a dose of respirocytes." As he spoke, schematics of the implants in question flashed by on the screens at a rate too fast for Jordan to track, much less comprehend. "Each of your senses will be enhanced and synchronized with your optics before your arms are installed. If there are no questions, we'll begin immediately."
Led by the likes of their father, James, Jordan and Jacques waddled through the mid-levels of the castle in radiant silence. Looks of nervousness, anxiety, and apprehension; or an amalgamation of the three remained stamped on each of their faces during the entire walk until they were once again in 'Dr.' Creps' wing of the castle; when their furrowed brows, nervous groans, and darting eyes evolved into panicked breath, cold sweats, and a noticeable reduction in pace.
The doctor shot up from his seat the moment Villan stepped through the door. Jordan swore he saw the same nervous sweat as his own pooling on Dr. Creps' hands as he rather rudely gestured for them to situate themselves onto any of the Automated Robotic Surgeon - ARS - situated throughout the space.
There were a half dozen of the devices positioned along the walls, facing each other. The doctor's desk was positioned in a way that faced his front towards the entrance at all times, allowing him to greet guests upon a moment's notice as he so aptly displayed while permitting as many of the now familiar beds to fill the room as possible. The machine itself looked like a bed slightly larger than twin size, with a crescent arm mounted onto rails along the base, connected to an elongated, drawer-like structure beside the headboard, with a face filled with an assortment of chutes and drawers for the various medicines, drugs, and implants needed to keep the machine stocked. It extended around half a meter to the side of the bed proper, which strongly resembled a miniature MRI machine. A tilting bed large enough for one, overshadowed by a thick band of metal and floodlights.
After verifying each of the vials was in their oddly specific locations, Jordan slid onto the bed as Jago stood above him, fastening the powdered liquid onto the curved band looming over him. His brother curled his lips into a sadistic grin as he gave Jordan's chest a firm pat. Then drifted backwards, only to return moments later with Jordan's arms resting on a trolley.
'I feel like a lab rat.' That sole thought echoed through Jordan's mind as he squinted beneath the harsh operating lights.
After verifying each of their implants was in their locations, their father and all their siblings moved to the other side of the room as one, while Dr. Creps moved to each of their machines, fastening the bags of powdered liquid into place on the crescent arms and activating their machines.
From his peripherals, Jordan noticed Jago's lips curl into a sadistic grin just as the bed beneath him hummed to life. A thick, black line creased along the length of the curved arm above him. Followed by another, and another, until repeating sets of crowded hands with fingers of needles, laser cutters, scissors and tubes, syringes and claws stretched across the arm from end-to-end, poised around his body in wait.
The bed rattled louder as thick straps spat from the undercarriage to bind Jordan's body in its embrace. His heart began punching at his ribs as a pair of particularly needle-filled hands inched closer to his heaving frame, now bulking under the tension of their restraints.
Jordan's eyes bulged as a thick syringe plunged itself into the back of his knee without warning. Then, they bulged past their limits, threatened to pop out of his skull after the needles menacingly pricked and pronged his body from crown to soles, injecting countless microscopic pressure sensors and temperature gauges into his dermis.
An ecstatic warmth washed over Jordan's body as the hands made it to his midsection. While it wasn't necessarily a numbing sensation, it was enough to distract his mind and quell his rioting heart from the perceived assault he was under. His eyes fluttered through the cloud of lights above him to survey the endless apparatuses standing by along the base of the robotic arm before his mind seemed to skip and he found himself fighting heavy lids to stare at the once-cloudy bag of liquid suspended off to the side of the arm, now sprouting a tube that steadily drained his blood from his leg, replacing it with artificial red blood cells.
The simultaneous rattling of the frame beneath him, the sudden coldness enveloping his skull, the tightening of his restraints, and the needle that jumped from the arm to bite at Jordan's neck ripped him from his sudden daze in an instant. His heart resumed its assault as if it'd never stopped, prompting the new restraints and the claw gripping his head to tighten their grip recklessly. Another wave flooded Jordan's body after the release of the needle. This one bringing along the tingling numbness he'd secretly longed for, but no apparent drowsiness.
When the feeling finally fell to Jordan's feet, a sharp and powerful thump echoed from the back of his skull. Jordan's neck immediately spasmed from the rapid drilling and injection of the brain machine interface. Then began twitching as the implant unfurled and sealed his skull, making the point burn with a subtle intensity through the numbing agent.
Through his clenched eyes, he failed to see another array descending upon his body and, as a result, began lashing out as the sharp, distant pricks began erupting throughout his face. First his ears, as microscopic speakers and microphones, were injected into the dermis from the outer ear to the deepest reaches of his ear canals, followed by each of his nostrils being plugged to have his nasal canal prodded with chemical detectors; and even his tongue after it was dragged from his mouth by a set of mechanical clamps to graft his palate with artificial taste buds.
As the seconds grew to minutes, the sensations only intensified. More prickling in his neck and throat from transmitters, receivers, and microphones. A sharp stab or two between the ribs from the emergency lung. A thousand little stimuli that collectively made Jordan's entire body burn with the sensation of a thousand numbing needles prying his skin apart.
Jordan's neck cramped through the restraints catch a glimpse of the process going underway. Like a molecular assembler, the spindly hands tracked smoothly along the arm and the rail mount at the base to strike at Jordan's legs with rapid precision. Almost on their own, Jordan's eyes slammed shut, blocking his mind from the sight as his neck seemed to lose its strength. His lungs drew themselves full of air as if in an attempt to calm itself during a process it knew was necessary. But before the air could smoothly slip through his nostrils, his cranial band strengthened its hold, latched his forehead in a vise that caused all the air in his lungs to disrupt in a distasteful yelp.
From the influence of the cold, hard fingers on the edges of his face, Jordan felt his eyelids being mercilessly forced open. Through the tears welling in his sockets, his eyes focused on the curved metal claws silhouetted against the dizzying light.
The clawed shadows grew larger with each passing second, gradually undoing the results of the tumultuous, incomplete meditations he'd only just attempted until his body was once again in a full panic. His eyes shut, only to be pried open by the metal fingers, allowing the harsh light to enter unbounded and burn tears down his face. In the blur, a clawed shadow grew closer until the light was overshadowed and eventually eclipsed by the haunting thing. And then he remembered - Jago’s grin.
His body began shaking as if the bed itself were trembling beneath. Yet the claw remained stationary at the center of his vision, looming closer a millimeter at a time until its cold surface contact the flesh of Jordan's eyeballs, and gripped his cornea in a gentle embrace.
"Jordan, calm down!"
