Now it was just driving him crazy. That was progress of a sort, he supposed.
“I remember,” he said shortly.
“Well, Danny told me he saw Angel in one of the tunnels just last night. He said she was walkin’ funny, like some sort of robot from an old vid, and that her good eye was closed. He swore up and down that she was asleep, or near enough to it to make no difference. So I went to check on her earlier today. She was diggin’ in the mines, usin’ only her hands and claws, and goin’ at it like the devil hisself was whippin’ her on. I had a helluva time getting her to stop and talk to me. She’s lost weight, I think—that exo makes it hard to tell—and looks worn to a ragass frazzle. I asked her if she was okay. She told me she was just fine. Maybe a little tired sometimes, but not to worry ’cause her exo was makin her rest when she needed to.”
“Shit,” Marchey growled, sagging lower in his chair. He knew enough exo tech to recognize what Jon had just described. To make a prognosis.
A combat exo like Angel’s was designed for short bursts of furious activity, not protracted periods of heavy labor. It allowed its human host to drive his or her body far beyond the limits where an unaugmented person would simply collapse. That was something combat exo’d soldiers were constantly warned against, because if they pushed too hard for too long, the exo would be forced to take compensating measures. Partial and total overrides. Controlling limbs that were supposed to control it, and invoked rest periods where it would, if all warnings were ignored, actually partially disconnect her from her own body for her own protection.
Angel had never received proper training. Not that long ago she’d thought the silver biometal covering her was her own skin. She didn’t know that she was forcing the quasi-aware nanostrand linkages spun into her nervous system to weave themselves deeper and wider inside her. To change the nature of their interfacings to meet the excessive demands she was putting on her body.
Serious changes.
Irrevocable changes.
She didn’t know that she was slowly frying her own nervous system and forcing the nanostrands to take an active rather than passive role.
That she was all too probably condemning herself to having to wear that exo for the rest of her life.
—Doomed her, Fist intoned in his mind, looking pleased at the prospect of seeing his lost toy broken.
“Are you all right, Doc?” Jon’s voice seemed to come from a thousand kilometers away. But it was millions, not thousands, wasn’t it? She needed help. And where was he?
He sighed, scrubbing his face as if to wipe away the sense of guilt and hopelessness that had fallen over him. “Yeah.” He had to do something about her, but what? He couldn’t think of anything he could say if he got a chance to talk to her. Judging by his performance so far, he would only make things worse.
Jon was eyeing him with obvious concern, waiting for him to say something. Anything.
“Tell everyone—” he began, forcing himself to sit up straight. Tell them what! Come on you numbnuts excuse for a doctor, prescribe something! You knew she was working. You should have seen this coming.
“Tell them that if they see her, they should try to talk to her, to slow her down and keep her from working. See if you can find something for her to do that isn’t so physically demanding. You’ve got to make her take it easier, make her rest more often.”
“All right,” Jon said carefully. “You’re tellin’ me she’s messin’ herself up by workin’ so hard?”
Marchey nodded, not wanting to elaborate. “Just be subtle about making her ease off. If she figures out what you’re up to, it just might make matters worse.” Because of all that Fist had done to her, she could not help but react badly to someone trying to control her actions. She finally had a will of her own, and would die before she gave even a little of it up.
“Consider it done,” Jon said soberly. “Anythin’ else?”
There probably was, but he couldn’t seem to pull his thoughts together enough to figure it out. “No, not now. I better start going over the stuff you sent me. Stay close to that board, though.”
“I’m livin’ here, practically,” Jon assured him, then cut the connection.
One green pad remained lit on Marchey’s board. It indicated that the new information Jon had sent was waiting for him, ready to be accessed. He sat there staring at it for several minutes, his thoughts more than a million kilometers away.
At last he roused himself from his reverie. The time had come to find out what the file contained. He had a sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to learn anything he really wanted to know.
Only one way to find out.
He reached out and tapped the pad. If nothing else, studying the file would at least give him a temporary escape from the self-recrimination squatting on his chest like a dour and patient vulture, its cry the strangled sound doom.
Marchey’s metal fingers clattered over the keypad in a quicksilver blur. Before giving up his arms he had been a terrible keyboarder. Immediately afterward he’d found that his prosthetics allowed him to type considerably faster than he could voice input or chase menus. The biometal machines that had replaced his meat fingers were untiring and unerring.
He finished instructing the comp with a final burst of machine-gun-fast keystrokes.
READY TO ABSTRACT AND ANALYZE MATERIALS AS PER SPECIFIED PARAMETERS
read the prompt. He hammered the BEGIN key home hard, almost vengefully. Like driving another nail into his own coffin.
WORKING
the comp replied.
PLEASE STAND BY
As if that wasn’t what he’d been doing all along.
Confirm the probable diagnosis with the appropriate tests. That was how any prudent doctor would proceed.
He slumped back and rubbed his bloodshot eyes, wanting a drink in the worst possible way. Craving it so badly his head pounded dully to its call, the vibrations throbbing through his nerves and making them buzz and itch. He could almost smell it. He licked his lips, his mouth watering for the taste.
But he knew he didn’t dare. He’d end up crawling inside the bottle and closing the cap after himself. Once he got inside, it would be a very long time before he came back out again. If ever.
The comp seemed to be taking forever, and alcohol’s siren call was growing stronger by the second. There was no spar to tie himself to, no way to clap his hands over his ears and shut out the strident babble inside his own head. The urge to find something he could hold on to sent his right hand drifting up to caress the silver Bergmann emblem pinned over his heart. His sculpted metal fingers traced the familiar shape delicately, as if probing a wound.
Two silver arms, crossed at the wrists, fingers spread wide. For over fifteen years he had worn that badge, and in turn been worn down by what it represented. It still looked new. He didn’t.
His silver fingers closed around it. He squeezed his eyes shut and ground his teeth together as the urge to tear it off and hurl it across the compartment swept through him like a hot stinging wind, a sirocco of rage and resentment.
Better yet, he could crush it. Mash it all out of shape, just like his life had been warped all out of shape by what it had made of him.