Matt watched the Ascendancy move slowly at first, and then pick up speed as it headed away from the EMAR. There was the uncomfortable feeling of being distinctly out of his element here, but the word had come after Martin was back on board the Dreadnaught that he was able to see Neil. Or at least go into an observation room and look at him.

He would, now that he had seen Martin safe off. Once the Ascendancy was out of sight, he turned. “You’re ready then, Senator?”

“Please, call me Matt.” He said wearily. “I’m only a senator when I’m wearing a tie.”

“There’s still protocol to be observed, Senator.” She said, without anything but the matter of fact automation he had come to expect from her. There was a very small part of him that wondered if she was some sort of experimental Android technology, but the outcry that would cause if it ever got out…

Not even two centuries had passed since the technology that had be intended to be humanity’s savior had turned on the race and nearly caused its extinction. From the old colonies on and around the moon, humanity had watched as their planet was rendered uninhabitable. They had won the day at the cost of their future, so they thought. The dyson sphere had been abandoned to the best of their abilities from afar, and the mass migration to the newly terraformed mars had begun. And what a nightmare that had been.

Dismissing the thought, he shrugged. “Yes, I’m ready, captain. Please take me to him.”

If there was a wing in the EMAR for patients in critical condition, Neil was a couple more wings in, and the security protocols to access the area became more complex as they went. “I don’t suppose you’ll be around if I need to get in and out again?”

“Basic amenities will be provided.” Henderson said. “But there will also be someone there with access to all previous levels of security, should you need anything.”

They came to the bay rather suddenly. The door slid open, and Natalie’s head came up from where she had been laying, obviously asleep.

“Apprentice Sanderson, this is Senator Matthias Ziggenbor, here to see Sergeant Ziggenbor.” Henderson said. If she knew of their relation, she didn’t show it. “He’ll be under your guidance till he’s back on common access level, understood?”

“Yes ma’am.” Natalie said, standing and rubbing her eyes.

Henderson nodded and left without another word. Matt and Natalie stared at each other for a few heartbeats, and then she threw himself into his arms. Matt held her there as she cried, whether tears of relief, worry, or exhaustion, he couldn’t tell. More than likely it was a combination of the three.

Leaning into him, Natalie relaxed slightly, and Matt took in the room. It was long, the entire opposite wall a sheet of opaque glass. Some monitoring terminals were set in the corner, and two long benches were built into the floor. One of these, Natalie had converted into a bed, with a small pillow and thin blanket, her bag open next to it spilling with all sorts of technical equipment and external data cards.

When she pulled away Natalie rubbed her hands over her eyes again. “I’m glad you’re here.” She said, “Do you want to see him?”

“Yes.” Matt said, without considering the question. Crossing the room, Natalie flipped a switch, and the glass turned from opaque to transparent.

Laying on a wide medical bed, was Neil. His brother was naked and had a tube in his mouth, obviously sedated. One eye was closed and the other… The other was the same stark blue as his natural eye, but mechanical, attached into the eye socket with wiring and plating. What seemed like the entire right side of his body had been replaced with metal, his chest, his arm to the shoulder, his leg to the hip… and the rest of the exposed flesh was covered in burns. Healing rapidly due to the medical treatment he has received, but still angry, pink, and puckering.

Martin sat down hard onto one of the benches.

His thoughts went back to his earlier line of thinking, unable to keep the dogmatic views of the cluster regarding partial humans. Even thinking that about his brother felt like a slick of oil in otherwise pure drinking water. Neil had always been a hot headed and bullish animal compared to the elder two Ziggenbors, but still, his brother. A loveable outlier in an otherwise cold and calculating family. His brother, every inch… now he wondered where his brother ended, and the machine ended. Twenty five percent was all that was needed legally for the term to apply, and staring at his brother now he knew there was more than enough there: cyborg.

Matt shuddered, hating himself for even letting the word cross his mind. Shaking his head like a dog trying to rid itself of fly, he tried to force it from his mind, the word, the shining metal that now made up what looked like half his brother. It didn’t matter. Not now. Then he forced himself to stare hard at that machinery, the dormant prosthetics and staring eye.

Not ever, he told himself. Not. Ever.

Natalie hugged herself. “It’s worse than it looks.” She said, mercifully ripping the bandaid off. “His entire right lung was destroyed, and if the second subject hadn’t wrapped his hand around the back of his head his brain just would have… fallen out. Half his skull is plating now, and a piece of his spinal cord was missing. About three vertebrae. That’s what took the longest. The spinal cord stuff is all still mostly experimental. I did the hand and forearm, Drake did the eye. I don’t know who did the rest, but I was here for all of it. It was awful, Matt. We had to find where the second subject met him, they had sort of been burned together. We had to replace some of his teeth… do you want to know more?”

“I want to know everything.” Matt said in a shaking voice.

“Okay…” And Natalie went through the rest of the injuries Neil had sustained, and the measures taken to save him, right down to the materials used to reconstruct his toenails. “All that,” she said. “And we still don't know what it’s going to be like when he wakes up. He has functional but erratic brain activity, so he’s not in a vegetative state, somehow. Matt I don’t know how you survive something like that. He wasn’t in cryo for almost twenty minutes from the time of the explosion to when they put him under.”

“Can he see us?” Matt asked, looking at the disconcertingly staring eye.

“No. His cybernetics haven’t been brought online yet. Tested, but non functional. Once they are, they’re his, there’s no kill switch.”

Matt nodded. He had read the bill thoroughly, and one of the main topics to get it through the senate was the promise that no soldier, however extensively repaired, would never be subject to the idea that with a push of a button they could be immobilized. It had made some who still nursed a phobia of autonomous robotic constructs nervous. But the bill had made no one truly happy; the mark of a good compromise.

“I wonder what’s going on in his mind.”

“There’s two main theories to that,” Natalie said at once. “The most likely is nothing. He’s under some of the heaviest sedation that can safely be used, and the strongest that can be used in his case.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “What’s the second?”

“The second,” Natalie hesitated. “Is that he’s still stuck in the moment when the blast went off. Possibly reliving it. The neuro-freaks say that sometimes his brain activity… well, sometimes its similar to research subjects who are having nightmares.”

“Christ.” Matt let his head fall into his hands. “Damnit.”

“There’s no way to know that conclusively.” Natalie put in. “The brain is tricky.”

“When will they wake him up?”

“Whenever he reaches stabilized status for twenty-four hours. He’s hit ten, and then his vitals went a bit weird, and now he’s about to hit three. But that’s when they can bring him out. They’re going to be really, really careful with him, being that he’s the first.”

“The first to get this extensively repaired?”

“Yes and no. There’s one or two more that have gotten more repairs than him over time. One is something like eighty-three percent at this point, but he keeps it under wraps. Lives a normal life, but they’ve been able to give the go head, and it’s been over time. One is a civilian, richer than god, and hasn’t known anything but comfort. This,” She nodded to Neil. “People are still people. It’s going to be rough coming out and getting hit with that, not to mention whatever else he’s going to have to deal with. The shock might kill him.”

“Isn’t there a way around that?”

“A few, mostly.” Natalie said. “But people are still people. Sometimes it's not chemicals or a cardiac overload. Sometimes they just switch off and die.” She looked down, as if hearing her own words in a new light.

Matt looked down to where her tablet was lying face up, an audio file playing. “What’s this?”

Natalie smiled. “Something admiral Neerson sent me. One of Grandma’s lectures, I’ve been listening to it when I’m done reading the strategy books he sent me.”

“You’re kidding.” Matt gaped. “I haven’t even been able to get my hands on these.”

“Do you want to listen to it?”

“Absolutely.”

Natalie put aside her headset and let the audio file play on the speakers. The subject matter was terribly dull stuff to Matt, but he had only faint memories of his Grandmother’s voice, and if every word she said slipped through his mind, it didn’t matter. Just listening to it was enough. After an hour, the recording switched off.

“Another?” Natalie said.

“Sure.”

She started another, and as the introduction of the speaker, Jade Ziggenbor, was made, Natalie moved closer to Matt. “Will you tell me he’s going to be okay?”

Matt hesitated. “We don’t know if he will be.”

“I know.” She whispered. “But it’s what I need to hear right now. It’s what he would tell me.”

Looping his arm around her shoulders, Matt planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Neil’s going to be alright, kid. He’s gonna be just fine.”

—

“Wake up.” Nurse Rayne barked, setting down a tray of food and elevating Jackson Valentine's bed.

He glared at her through watering eyes. “Why, in the name of god, do you chase off everyone else away from my room but come in here like my fucking CIs used to at the trident?”

“Don’t curse, there is no god, and because you soldier types sleep too much.” She wrapped the tray with a spoon. “Eight hours, then you eat. My patient, my rules, especially for you tough boys. Eat, you.”

Muttering, Valentine stabbed a carrot with his fork, and popped it into his mouth. Though to him it tasted more like carrot flavored matter, he couldn’t argue that food was nourishing. Nurse Rayne crossed her arms. “More.”

Valentine growled but shoveled more food into his mouth, chewing hard, and swallowing, all while never breaking eye contact with Nurse Rayne. Then he shoved the tray away. “Do you want to talk?” She asked.

“About what?”

“Anything you’d like.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to talk.”

“Established. Why not?”

“Because,” Valentine snarled. “I’m not ready to talk.”

“You talked to your friend.”

“He’s not my friend. Not really. He’s close, but you’re not.”

“I’m your caregiver.”

“And not a thing more.” Valentine laid back down on his pillow. “Go away.”

“Did you know,” Nurse Rayne said, as though his rudeness were a non-factor. “That I am not only your caregiver in this instance? I will also be your physical therapist and mental recovery coach.”

“You’re off to a shit job.”

“I am not.”

“Fuck you.”

“And you as well, sergeant.” Then she gave him a beaming smile and left the room.

Valentine watched her go and speed his arms in a questioning motion to the no one in the room. “What,” he called after her. “The FUCK!”