Dreaming in digital [edit]

Dreaming in Digital

By Scott Keith Hess

An event in the history of The Bleeding Roses

Here I am, standing in a snow covered field.  There’s a ship lying on its side, the single object of any worth, everything else a barren wasteland.  I can hear a voice in the back of my mind.

"Tell us Dakka, what is it that you see right now?"

"I see a ship, an old tanker of some sort just lying here, as if it sunk decades ago.  It makes me wonder if this was the bottom of a lake," there is chatter in the recesses of my mind, voices whispering to each other.

"What do you desire to do, Dakka?" I’m cold out in the field, I have little clothing and the frigid wind is nearly more than I can bare.

"I want to go inside the ship," I say, and proceed to do so.  The inside will likely be hard to walk around in but I'm confident that it won’t be an issue.  I step atop the deck, various colors in the rust spectrum dominate the once light blue deck, walked upon by the crew of times past.  The deck is slicker than I think it will be, I have to time my movements to get to the door, the door I see just a few yards away.

I make it.  Out of breath and cold I manage to get the handle.  I swing with the door and get a foot in the arch.  The delicate balance is hard to maintain but with concentration, I get in.  I stumble once inside. it feels like the gravity has shifted upright in the ship. More eerily, the innards look as if the halls have never been out of service, it’s clean.  I explore, there isn’t a soul to see.  I come closer to the center I hear music, a piano.

"Whats going on?" the voices asked me.

"The inside, its so luxurious.  No rust, no decay, its a cruise ship of the most exquisite type." More chatter between the voices.

"What will you do?"

"I'm curious about the music I hear, I'm investigating it." I hold a hand out to the wall, the paint is rough on my fingertips as my hand slides across its black and gold accents.  As I get closer, the music becomes familiar.  I stand.  Staring at a door 'GRAND HALL LVL 2.'  The piano just behind it.  I slip my hand into the elaborate brass handle and cautiously open the door.

"Honey, I'm home." I see who is sitting at the piano and jerk away in surprise and shock.  A replication of the cybernetics within my body.  The wires within me, naked, running to exposed plugs on the surface of what should have been my skin, form a vague and frightening skeleton.  Arms, legs, torso, all there.  Nausea.  Confronted with the reality, the vision, of myself, as I am.  Frightened by the thought that this may be how others see me.  There are more metal replacements than I’d imagined.  More metal replacements than flesh.  My red and yellow spine emits a deep purple glow between each link.  I look down at my hands and arms, over all of myself.  The plugs and other exposed machinery are all missing. I remember, it’s as if that horrible surgery, which feels so far away, yet so close, never happened.  

The skeletal figure at the piano stops, the gentle melody turning to discord, then silence.  It looks at me.  Something is wrong, the cybernetics which should be set in the front of the cranium were set in the back. A chill goes down my spine, this isn’t right. It’s terribly wrong.  I look around the room and find other metal bodies, bodies floating as if unbound by the laws of nature.  Bodies that I recognize.  One is Breech. The observation made plain by the heavy work in the arms, chest and head, and confirmed by the eyes.  The eyes are the same as hers.  Blank, but filled with experience that belonged to Breech and no one else.  A void, with all the wisdom, and potential, of the night sky.

There is another.  Just an arm.  Ratchet.  A total nutcase.  The amount of work she's inflicted upon herself simply for a cybernetic arm is immense.  Only one body remains.

It is an absolute work of art in a cybernetics.  A total human replica down to the musculature.  Such a beautiful piece... but merely a cage. Even the most beautiful of cages is still a cage, this, a cage for a soul to live in, alone and afraid.  The question burns within me, killing me, to whom does this cage belong?  Or rather, who has been committed to it, locked away, with no chance of escape but death.  Not Delta, his body isn’t nearly so... fine, and feminine.  MooK? or even Levan?  The only possibilities I know of, the only two whose lithe frames might match what I see before me.

The voices return, buzzing in a place of my mind I cannot identify.  They fade, the already faint whisperings turn to static and the semblance of music. I turn to the piano, expecting it to be the source of the melancholy tune.  My skeletal metal doppelganger however, is not playing it.  It’s coming towards me slowly, along with the other chassis. They’re surrounding me.  I back towards the door, fear and claustrophobia setting in. Before I make it far, the door snaps shut behind me, I turn to it, pounding, but nothing I do can break through it.  A hand grabs my shoulder and turns me around.  I see the fist of the unknown body, the work of art, the cage, flying through the air towards my comparatively frail and soft human flesh.  Soon it will strike me, break me.  I brace myself for the blow, but something changes.  Everything around me distorts into a psychedelic twist of tie-dyed colors before reverting to wire frame.  My psycho-analysis for grinder piloting was complete.

"Do you want the good news, or the bad news Dakka?" A voice speaks to me, it still feels far off, unreal.

"The bad news?" Even the sound of my own voice seems alien.

"The bad news is... you get to go out and get shot at again"  My vision returns, to reality, or as close as I know to it.  I raise myself to look at the speaker.

"And the good?"

"You get the benefit of piloting a grinder to protect you.  Your evaluation went well," the analyst fits the words in between grunts as he fights off Ratchet, alive, in the flesh, who doesn’t hide her eagerness to view the instrument cluster.

"Were you guys able to see what I saw when I was in the machine?" My mind fights between the relief of disclosure, and the horror of judgement.

"No, why? did you see something strange? a glitch maybe?" On short thought, I find that I’m not sure how to explain what I saw near the end of the analysis.  I decide that the experience is one best kept to myself for now.

"The... sky...” I mock thought, even as the words hesitantly spill from my mouth, “It looked a little too blue." I can only wait, breath locked away, for a response, one which comes quickly, but in a silence which feels to last a lifetime.

"Hmm...” the analyst turns to a clipboard to take a note, perhaps a reminder, and checks some of the readouts on the panel before him.  I still wait. “I suppose we'll have to look into the coding again,” more notes, “regardless,” he turns his eyes back to me, “you’re free to go."

 

I stand, uncomfortably to say the least, and head towards the door, looking to ditch the miserable form fitting test suit which they had made me wear.  I step into the adjoined room and put my catsuit and coat back on, more ready than ever to head back home.

~~~~~~~~~

Walking the familiar halls of the unit’s combat carrier, I wind my way to Kata's room, I need to ask her what she knows about the body, the angelic and unknown wraith which has stalked my mind since seeing it aboard the ship.  I knocked on her door, not knowing what to expect, or why I expect anything at all.  However, I know of nowhere else to turn, and if anybody will know anything, it will be Kata.

"You may enter" Kata’s muffled voice drifts through to me from the other side of the heavy door.  I push the door open to find her sitting and working at her desk.  She stops to look up, and speak to me, slightly surprised it seems.  "Dakka, do you need something?"

"Kata,” I began, “I need to ask you about something.  Something I saw while I was in analysis.” Kata looks interested, but says nothing.  I continue, “Near the end of it all, I came across representations of our cybernetic implants.  Mine, Breech's, Ratchet's, and another.  One that I couldn’t identify.  Is there a Rose,” I picture the work of art in my mind, its details etched into my mind, “with nearly one-hundred percent body replacement?" Kata’s face twists from a look of interest and concern to one of dismay, as if it’s a question which she hoped never to be asked, and which she would be unhappy to answer.  She seems to struggle with herself, her eyes dart from object to object on her desk.

“I didn’t come in for a display of nervous ticks,” I nearly growl, “,just tell me what I want to know, or tell me to get out."  I can hardly control what I do or say, so strong is my obsession, my need to know.

"Alright,” Kata replied firmly, “just cool down.”  She lets a sigh, of relief, or of distress, I can’t tell.  “Now, let me get this straight, you’re saying that while you were put under for analysis, you saw what your cybernetics look like, along with some others that you believe were the other Roses.”  I had taken a seat as she spoke, and now nod, wary of the implication of there being something wrong with my account.  “What I would like to know from you, Dakka, is how you know just how both of these comrades cybernetics are set within their bodies." Kata stands, and turns to look out the porthole behind her.  I consider response, but she doesn’t allow time for it.

"Unless what you see is merely what your subconscious mind wants them to look like on the inside...  In other words," Kata looks back at me, “merely what you think their cybernetics look like.

"I doubt you’ve ever seen blueprints, it’s all far more complex than your projections would indicate. More to the point however," Kata leans on her desk, and pulls a tablet from one of the many slots on her terminal, with a short investigation of the contents, she tosses it across the desk to me.  I catch it, and  scroll through the information it contains.

"Wait... this is... who owns it?” I feel my mind racing, “of all the people to have a body... like that." I’m nearly whispering, not certain whether the words I speak are directed at Kata, myself, or to no-one. I close my eyes and bend my neck over the head of the chair I sit in, exhaling deeply.

Kata speaks again, "The percentage of machinery in this model is so extreme, it would make more sense to give it grinder classification rather than cyborg."  Kata again turned to the tiny window.  "Dakka, this information is not to be discussed with anyone else.  Nobody.   I showed it to you only because I trust you.  We've been through a lot together, and I feel this is the right thing to do, don’t prove me wrong."

"Kata, this...” I can hardly speak, “this information is... incredible.  From anybody else I would never have believed it.  I don’t know what to say."

"Good,” Kata turned her head to me to finalize the conversation, “Then don’t.  Not a thing."