They drove in silence, sticking to the rules and avoiding attention. Jim's adrenaline ebbed after a few minutes, and Tex noticed he was trembling slightly, so she discreetly turned up the heat.
“Fuck me, if we hadn’t gotten out in time…” His voice trailed off as he shook his head and exhaled heavily, resting his forehead on a hand propped on the dashboard.
Without a word, Tex patted his shoulder and kept driving, meanwhile sending reports and footage of the explosion seen from her perspective to headquarters. Two of the organization’s strike teams were already heading to the scene, though they didn’t expect to find any suspects. Whoever had orchestrated this had erased all traces of evidence in the apartment. The analysis department informed her they had managed to retrieve 32.8% of the data she had been transferring before the explosion. Better than nothing, she thought, her expression souring.
To distract him, Tex said, “Untie that rope, coil it properly, and toss it into my bag in the back. Along with this evidence.” She pulled several small zip-lock bags containing strands of hair from her inner pocket and handed them to him. He stared at the items absentmindedly before looking down at the loosely tied rope still around his waist.
“Sure,” he mumbled in a slightly dazed tone and began working slowly. Halfway through, he took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and steadied his nerves. “You said ‘coil.’ Climbing or sailing?”
“Climbing,” she replied flatly, maneuvering smoothly through another intersection.
“Nice, wanna check some climbing walls together this weekend?” he asked, attempting to keep the conversation going.
“No, I’m not into it anymore,” she replied, her tone final. Her face remained unchanged, but Jim took the hint and quietly finished packing the rope and evidence into the designated bag.
Unintentionally, Tex’s mind drifted to those thrilling moments—when her exhausted legs propelled her toward a handhold just out of reach, unsure if her fingers would make it. Would the chalk on her hands provide enough friction for a firm grip? Did she calculate correctly, or had she overestimated her strength? The exhilaration of barely catching a hold, her body swinging slightly before her other hand reached the next hold on the climbing wall, body and mind working in unision.
After her incident, the cybernetic implant procedure, and months of recovery, she had only gone climbing once. Her cybernetically controlled mechanical legs seamlessly integrated into her system that calculated angles, surface traction, and adjusted the texture of her synthetic skin to optimize grip. Her new tech shattered all her personal bests on her favorite routes, but by the fourth climb, she felt nauseated. It wasn’t her climbing anymore—it was the engineers from OneStepAhead Lab. Sure, without the tech, she’d have been a bedridden husk of a person, but the joy of climbing was gone. The memory left her throat dry, and the small patch of real skin on her back grew clammy with cold sweat. She made a mental note for her trigger journal. Once a month, she had mandatory sessions with a shrink to discuss events or words that triggered such reactions—a part of the cost of her procedure. Few people legally inhabited the far end of the spectrum between human and machine.
A quiet snort of frustration escaped her at the thought of the dissertations likely to be written about the disintegration of her personality or whatever waited for her at the end. When she returned her focus to reality, they were nearly at her apartment. She had spent the better part of an hour drowning in her frustrations, driving on autopilot. She hated herself for it.
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“I’ll take the car and evidence bag to the office. We’ll stay in touch,” Jim offered, seeming fully recovered. “Thanks, Tex. You kept your cool and got us out of there. Despite that I’m the one in security,” he added, slightly embarrassed but genuinely grateful.
“Don’t sweat it. Before investigations, I spent nearly a decade in security. You’ll get there,” she replied lightly, her tone carefully controlled. Not wanting him to press further, she got out, patted the car roof, signaling he could leave, and headed toward the row of elevators leading to her residential hub.
Her apartment was small and tidy, entering directly into a kitchen-dining area. Behind it lay her bedroom, with a bathroom at the rear. Every door, internal and external, was reinforced, as were the walls. Located in the heart of a massive residential hub near one of its structural pillars, Tex felt confident that her home was secure as long as the hub itself stood. Authorizing entry with a frequently updated code, the doors locked automatically with a soft click behind her. She removed her shoes to avoid tracking dirt inside and stripped on her way to the bathroom, tossing her entire outfit into the washing machine before stepping into the shower.
The disinfectant-cleanser mix was pleasantly warm. Her synthetic skin transmitted sensory signals to her brain, but the fragment of real skin on her back felt the most soothing under the spray. Engineers claimed it was psychological rather than a flaw in their design, but Tex thought they didn’t have a clue. After her shower, she examined herself in the mirror, a habit that helped stave off dissociation. To an untrained eye, the transitions between human and machine parts were imperceptible. However, she knew every detail to the millimeter. The lab had done excellent work, and focusing on the reflection, especially with just her left eye, helped her feel whole again.
She applied a special balm to her new skin and spent a few minutes in the armchair in her bedroom, where she ran a thorough diagnostic of all her components and inductively recharged her power cells. Everything was in order.
Afterward, she changed into casual homewear and heated a single-serving Toshioki Ramen. Sitting in the dining area with her warm bowl of soup, she reviewed the files they had managed to extract. She also searched for information on the deceased’s ex-wife, daughter, and the uncle with a law firm mentioned in the recording. Headquarters confirmed the sole heiress had received all the credits. She began profiling potential employees who might be persuaded to talk, knowing the company’s internal report wouldn’t reveal anything significant. By the time she finished eating, she had a shortlist of six candidates.
Before bed, she retrieved her dry, fresh-smelling laundry, folded it neatly, and stored it away. While finally in bed, she was watching news projections. Searching for coverage of the explosion, only a few outlets had mentioned it. They had nothing significant to report, reiterating the police’s statement that the cause was still under investigation, though suspected to be an energy cell malfunction. Unsurprising, given the ever-increasing client list of her organization.
After an hour of combing through news and articles, she gave up and decided to sleep. She took her medication for nightmares and insomnia, lowered the room temperature, and tucked herself in—a ritual despite not needing a blanket. She always woke up uncovered anyway.
That night, the pills didn’t keep the nightmares at bay. She dreamt of Alex’s apartment, where TurboNews24’s speculation about a malfunctioning cell proved accurate. Standing a few steps from it, she heard the hissing. Alarmed, she crouched instinctively, shielding her face with her hands and her torso with her legs—just as she had during her accident. In the dream, she observed herself from the outside, like a journalistic drone. The cell exploded, the heat and shockwave stripping her of everything but life. The scene replayed frame by frame. The psychiatrist had warned her against looking at pre-surgery photos of the incident. He was probably right. Now, those images were part of her nightmares’ regular repertoire.
By morning, the dream faded quickly, aided by the medication’s effect of suppressing recall. Only her slightly swollen, stinging left eye, irritated by salt tears, hinted that the night had been anything but peaceful.
