The Reaper’s Legion

Chapter 50

Bone and Blood. Biosteel and Biotic.

My digital heart hammered in my chest as I stared at the sphere. Recollection surged back to me, the single most sharp memory I had in my head. Wolven tearing me apart, unveiling the biotic core, it’s plan to make me a part of it. It hadn’t succeeded, I remembered that clearly, I’d killed it before it could, I’d nearly died to make sure of it. Quite in fact, in most definitions I’d very much so died to make sure of it.

And yet, here this was.

I turned my desperate gaze to my physical form, churning through the tissues with as much awareness as my form would allow. Electricity and attention scanned through every layer, every cell. And there I found the vindication of my fear.

I’d killed Wolven, I’d stopped it from doing what it had intended. But the core itself?

Shards of it, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. I was still scanning, but it was clear that these fragments were everywhere. They’d been fused to my form, and it became abundantly clear why my background processing had stopped trying to heal my body. Making new arms and legs were all well and fine, but I hadn’t instructed them how to deal with a foreign body that was like this. These fragments were tied into every system, even in my brain.

A realization that sent a stroke of terror down my spine. I’d assimilated these pieces when I was busy trying not to die, I’d woven them into my very form. Did that mean Wolven was fucking in here with me?

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ panic surged within me even as my inorganic parts helped to calm myself down. Everytime I calmed, a new surge would hit, and I felt my mentality shuddering as I looked specifically for Wolven. Every portion of myself.

Digital tissues sheltered nothing, I went so far as to pierce myself with electrical scans. It was painful, intensely so, but I couldn’t afford a piece of Wolven to have survived. If it was, then maybe it could remake itself like I had.

After hours of this, though, I had found nothing. I felt my mind drift, wracking myself over the possibilities. Maybe Wolven hadn’t come along then, but why did I have such a sudden obsession over weaving? Why did I crave that action? How did I even know how to create such a sturdy cocoon over myself?

I drifted farther, letting my thoughts settle over the events of the past few days. I couldn’t think of anything particularly dangerous that had come of this, but I couldn’t be certain that I would have known. Desperately, I tried to account for every waking moment in my memory before I had to admit that there was no period of time that I couldn’t place exactly what I was doing. If something was happening, it wasn’t within my scope of awareness. There were no strands of information connecting me elsewhere, aside from communications, and even those only drifted lazily at the edge of my awareness. Nothing was directly connected to me.

To be certain, I investigated the whole of my mind-scape, finding that it was vast beyond what I’d anticipated. I suspected this space would shrink as I saved more information, but for now it was immense.

I turned my attention back on myself, my strange viewpoint allowing for my physical form to be seen. After all of the refinement I’d just done, I suspected that I wouldn’t be hazy and indistinct form anymore. Now that I think about it, it was rather nice of Sis not to point that out.

Seeing what I was now, though, I wasn’t sure I would ever want anyone to see my digital self.

“Ohhhhh no. Just no. That’s not okay.” I groaned, seeing that my viewpoint was not magically due to mental-scape magic. No, my viewpoint was mounted on something, a long tentacle - because damnit that’s exactly what it was - and that tentacle was attached to me.

Not just one tentacle, but tens of them, hundreds even. My body, armored in Reaper attire, was suspended in the middle of this space like a parody of Wolven. Each arm responded to my will instinctively, and it suddenly became no small wonder that I was capable of everything that’d I’d been able to do so far. Accessing information, moving through firewalls, splitting my consciousness…

I felt my viewpoint snap back into place, revulsion rolling through my core. Shuddering rolled through me as I wanted to remove these things, to get rid of anything Wolven.

For the first time, the arms did nothing, and I could feel each of them strain at the concept of being incapable of doing what I wanted them to do. Ceasing to exist wasn’t a concept that existed for them, not for Wolven, nor for biotics.

They writhed in unison in agitation, sending wriggling signals of alarm through me. It overwhelmed my senses, and I grabbed at some, pulling and tugging on them, trying to dislodge them.

Yet, I could do no such thing. They were secure, stable, as a part of me as my own two hands. Hating them would be no different than hating my pinky toe, I suspected. Each seemed to have a subordinate mind of its own, but the concept was the same.

A pinky toe couldn’t remove itself, it didn’t hate you for hating it. It was a part of your body, and that was that.

And as I screamed out in impotent helplessness, I knew that this wasn’t going to go away. Logically, I knew that I would be fine, this might even be considered a benefit. Obviously they were quite useful.

Emotionally, this was hell. I dreaded making the comparison, but it was like I’d been invaded on the deepest level, that I’d been made into something I should never have been. Wolven had effectively raped me on an existential level.

That wasn’t something that I was comfortable with saying “I’ll get better” from just yet.

I probably never would be totally okay with it.

Still, as with all things, eventually life would move forward. After what felt like hours, or days, I felt a kindling flame stir in my mind. I hadn’t chosen this, but I would have to live with it. My position as the leader of the Reaper’s Legion didn’t give me the luxury to lie down and pool in my own misery.

I started with muscling past my disgust, revulsion wouldn’t get me anywhere. Steadily, I went through the motions, forcing the arms to move exactly as I willed, exactly when I willed it. In that, I kept my mind as hard as steel, searching for any stray influence that wasn’t mine.

Finally, I began to see it, a fragmented ghost of awareness that wasn’t wholly my own. It wasn’t complete, and as I grasped it, threshed it between my fingers, I knew that it would never be able to compete with my control.

Even so, I gripped the force and stripped it, piece by piece, thread by thread. I killed whatever was left of Wolven, discarding anything left of its mind. There would forever be a part of me scarred by it, but I would not be haunted by this spectre. Certainly there was a wisdom it could impart, and there was knowledge in its makings. But I wanted none of it.

I would figure it out as I went. The less of it that was left, the better.

After parsing it apart, I kept only what was truly necessary. Knowing how to move, information about my new arms, the kinds of things that I really couldn’t do without. Once I finished, I felt a stillness rest upon my mind. It was clear now that this fragmented part hadn’t been good for me, and in the wake of it I felt a certain cleanliness flood my perception. A unified whole, that’s what was left now. For better or worse, this was the final product.

Now came the rebuilding, there was no time for rest. Already I had no idea how long I’d been ‘asleep’ in my own body. How was Gilramore doing? Did they need me? The last time I checked in, there was evidence of some unrest among the population. Did they figure that out, or did they need help still?

Regardless, there were many things to do and little time to do it. Research and development, finding other cities, driving back and massacring the biotics in the area and more needed to be done. Not even mentioning getting ready for the stronger biotics that would eventually show. Everyone should have gotten the information packets by now from me and distributed by Sis.

My body wasn’t at risk of perishing at the very minimum and was currently suspended in some kind of fluid. It wasn’t water, but I suspected it was designed to enhance healing. As I pushed my awareness, I realized that there were cameras that I could access.

My digital arms reached and connected, and I could finally see the room that I was stationed in. I’d expected some kind of sterile lab room, but what I saw was a step above that. Black, white, and red marble marked the floor, walls, and ceiling, designed to appear elegant and space-aged. I knew this was within the Reaper HQ, and suspected that this was a very well secured wing of the hospital. There were several pods mounted along the walls, an amniotic red solution holding the bodies of those who would have been severely injured and awaiting recovery. I was not the only one here, and of the other thirty pods I could see that four others were occupied. Around each pod was a brace of steel, spread wide like wings to allow ease of access and visibility to the pods beneath. Undoubtedly, this could snap shut around the pod to protect them.

My own appeared to have three such sets of wings. I supposed they took my care very seriously, especially considering that there seemed to be someone hovering nearby to my container at all times.

‘Well, this is going to freak them right out.’ I chuckled, reexamining myself. Visually I was… mostly a corpse.

My torso was torn open, entrails were visible amidst the red goop that I lay suspended in. Tubes fed into my body in places, but surprisingly I didn’t appear to need one around my mouth. It seemed that I was breathing the solution itself, though how I was doing so was nothing short of a mystery. The others were the same, so at the very least I know that I probably still needed air.

The other tubes seemed mostly to monitor my status. A glance at my records and the notes of the presiding doctor - those that I could see from the camera - told of a long history of inactivity and regularity. My condition hadn’t changed, and I could see that they probably expected no change.

Then, today would be a very interesting day for them.

The first thing that I worked on was my organs, they would need to be redesigned somewhat to better suit my new form. My biosteel organs would be more efficient, and therefore I could afford to make their functional space smaller, but to pad them with additional protection, more muscles. Here I made use of my lessons from Wolven, begrudgingly, and carefully strung cords of muscle around each other, biosteel reinforced my likewise sturdy frame, enhancing my strength greatly. From there, I took greater liberties, pushing my lungs to larger size, my abdomen muscles layering deeper, broader. My heart stopped for a handful of seconds, growing in size, stronger still than it was before. It was at this time, when the EKG machine monitoring my pulse began to siren the alarm that my heart was stopping, that the Doctor looked up.

The expression was priceless, I don’t know how someone being shocked can then look even more shocked. Still, the silver of matter energy bled from the edges of my innards, tracing layers of muscle fast enough that the bare eye could see. It was still slow going, centimeters at most, but the way the man shouted out and called for others, issuing order, told me this was the least expected event of the day.

‘Just you wait, I’m far from finished.’ I allowed myself the distraction a moment longer before diving in. I built in minor redundancies in primary organs, namely my lungs and heart. I reinforced my spinal column, building lower and assuring myself that any doctor has probably seen hundreds of men undressed in their lives.

I’d like to say that I shamelessly reinforced certain parts of my body, but honestly I didn’t really need too much in the first place.

Definitely didn’t do that. Nope.

As for my legs, I built them as strong as I could, flexible as possible. I needed as much spring in my step and raw power as I could get, even without a power armor suit on, I wanted to be able to kick a biotic to death. Cords of muscle compacted, coiled around themselves again and gain, braced against bone and in tightly controlled bulks. Small ridges were visible everywhere, though I tried to keep the construction as smooth as possible. There was only so much you can do for that, especially when your bones and muscular system might actually support deadlifting a small tank.

Maybe not that much, but I was sure that I could dismember a man if I so chose with my bare hands. On that note, I began to work on my arms, working through the same methodology. I wove the tissues, stitched them together unerringly, and Matter Energy followed my design faithfully, converting molecule for molecule. Every muscle group had its own nerve cluster, designed to seek out every strand, to push power from every cell. Activation speed would be flawless. If something could hit me without me reacting, it’d have to be going faster than my muscles could move. A feat, considering my now superhuman reaction time. No more would I be limited by my muscles being incapable of keeping up.

I’d found that other parts needed only to be updated. My eyes were one of them, adjusting their sensitivity, acquity, and adding an inner-eyelid that could stream data on a visual platform to help synchronize with my digital-mind. I was my own laser targeting system. I felt nodes come into existence, aligned along my spine in many places, small, both actively reinforcing my skeleton and also acting as broadcast modules.

I would not have extra arms, not in reality. But I would give my mind an outlet, I would have these nodes be my digital apparatus, the external port for my own digital arms. I would only have to apply a bare minimum of intent and they would do the rest.

Silver shined in the container, hugging my body as I remade myself. There was a crows around me now, monitoring equipment going haywire as tubes were ejected, sensors blocked. When the far doors opened, I saw several familiar faces, and a few new ones.

“What’s going on?” Fran’s voice didn’t betray a quiver, in spite of how her clenched fist shook, “You said there’s a change?”

It was then that the doctors and nurses crowding my chamber parted, leaving my transformation bare.

“Matthew?” I barely heard the near breathless voice that belonged to my best friend, Daniel. He was louder when he spoke again, “What’s happening in there?”

The head doctor noticed the alarm in his voice, and smiled warmly, “I think he’s rebuilding. I think he’s finally awake.”

“Wow, that looks intense.” The man I didn’t know well, Richard Nordsen, I think, tilted his head. “That’s a helluva lot different from the nanite solution, right?”

“The nanites didn’t work, that’s pure Obelisk right there,” Terry murmured, much to my astonishment he was no longer in a wheelchair, but did have a half exo-suit for his waist and below. He looked good, healthier than I’d seen him before, and it looked like his legs were bulking up nicely. I suppose they found a way to heal him, then. Wish I’d been around for that. How long had I been out?

“Doug’s gonna lose it,” Alice laughed, beaming with excitement, “This is actually happening, right?”

Someone I didn’t recognize pinched her elbow and she yelped, eliciting chuckles from others, though I noticed that Fran and Daniel were wordlessly gaping at the scene and walking forward stiffly.

“I’d say you’re awake, at least.” The man chuckled, “Hopefully he likes me, considering Doug said that I’d be working closely with him.”

The scene quieted down as Daniel and Fran arrived just in front of the pod, holding hands even as they both touched the thick glass.

“Matt… damn glad to have you back. You wouldn’t believe how crazy it's gotten around here without you.” Daniel laughed, an earnest laugh as he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

“Very glad to have you back,” Fran sighed with relief.

No one in the room expected any response. So I gave them one.

My voice rang out from every speaker in the room, “I’m glad to be back.” Warmth suffused my body, my heart, this was where I belonged. This was the place I needed to be.