“I’ll fix it,” I hissed, and flung the scrapings in my fist randomly across the room. They splattered in lumpy pitter-patters on the steel of the Tower’s console. I tried to twist the filaments back together, but it was no use. There was too much damage, and not enough material to bridge the gaps. All I I’d be able to do was mash them full of darkened goo.

“You’re going to have to cut it down. Don’t worry, you won’t have to do it by hand. There’s a splicing kit in one of these cupboards. We forget which one.”

I started checking them one by one. It amazed me how that goddamned thing could be so sardonic one moment and so cooperative the next (if it was indeed cooperating, and not just sending me on a wild goose chase. But some half-forgotten memory, of a conversation I’d had with one of the team, regarding inventories, or manifests, or some clerical shit like that, told me it was speaking true), and why mine seemed to be the only one to act like this, but

“they’re really not malicious, you know,”

Miller’s voice, ghosting through my head for about the hundredth time, was the only answer I would get.

“What’s this thing look like anyways?” Ramsay asked, as he opened, then closed a drawer on the other side of the room. He must have been eavesdropping. I let go of my cupboard and waited as the sigh of its hydraulic casters precluded conversation for a moment.

“It’s a standard kit,” I said, stupidly stating the obvious while I thought of how it should be described. I swiped open another cupboard and rummaged around inside, shoving aside this thing and that, wondering why the hell we ever thought we needed half this junk. An air compressor? Really? An extra set of refractors for the gyroscope? Oh, sure, just last week… The motherfucking jaws of LIFE? Come on, man! When in God’s name would we ever have a use for THAT? “Maybe thirty centimeters long. Black…no, actually, I think it’s more of a gunmetal casing, with a handle on one side. The base fits into the uni-port of the consoles, or there’s a cell in case that’s not an option. One half of it is a self-contained nitrofoil, used to supercool the cable before cutting it with a hydrogen spray, and the other half is, ah…” I slid the cupboard shut as I vacillated, and moved on to the next, opening it with another hiss. “The other half is a joining apparatus, consisting of a smattering of data feeds and a white polypropylene tube called ‘The FUSElage.’”

Ramsay paused and looked my way. Despite everything, a smirk brightened up his face. “I thought you spared us no expense.”

I spread my hands, somewhat sheepishly, and felt myself blush a tiny bit. “Well,” I ceded, “almost.” I swiped the next cupboard open and poked around some more. “Ah,” I whimpered, glad to have something else to talk about for a moment. “Here it is.” My hand reached in and pulled the thing from its place at the back of one of the shelves, right behind a box of…boxes literally a set of ethylene sheets connected via a series of variable-state hinges, which could be shaped into vessels of a hundred different forms.

What an age we live in…

I set it down atop the station. Its casing clicked neatly into the surface, where recesses of various shapes and sizes delved like strip mines into the well. It powered up automatically once the console sensed its presence, flashing in pales of yellow and green as it brought itself online. The compressor sputtered back to life, reverberating like an airy woodwind as its coils gobbled up whatever juice the console offered. This was followed by the crackle of frost as the gas inside first cooled, then liquefied, causing crystals of dew to condense and freeze on the outside of its burnished frame.

I checked the cable one more time, and picked a spot well outside the damaged section. I laid it in the foil’s channel, twisted it so the seam was up, and

Pffft!

With one swift motion the jets of nitro did their job. I set the good end aside and threaded the damaged section through, looking for a place to make the second cut. Again I chose a point well outside the damaged range, not wanting to take any chances of the tungsten separating further. And again I seamed it up.

Pffft!

The second cut was made.

Oh my, my fairy observed, as I discarded the severed ends, and inserted the two remaining pieces cut side-first into the ends of the FUSElage itself. Not doing this by halves, are we? You’d better get this right, palsie. I’m not sure you left enough material for a second try. I shook my head and grunted noncommittally, and focused on lining up the splice. The seams had to be topside again. The nitro had cut an acute bias, meant to expose as much surface area as possible, so the pieces had to line up exactly, or I’d risk bonding tungsten to silica, silica to insulate, insulate to God knew what.

Tick…tick…

The FUSElage this time, not the ominous advance of the atomic. The ties at either port, locking cable into place. Almost ready now. I checked the supply of tungsten and silica and saw that the tungsten was nearly exhausted. A silvery ingot, about the size of a sewing needle, that I pulled from a slit in the case’s lining was all it took to fill it up. Enough for several dozen fuses.

“May I?” I looked up to see Ramsay staring over my shoulder, studying my work intently. “Hit the activator, I mean. If…if it’s time.”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to let him. Not really. It was an automated process, about as un-fuck-uppable as we were going to get, if the setup was correct. But there were always things that could go wrong. I wanted to be in control. And, besides that, there was the

Tick…tick…tick…

time factor to consider. Letting Ram do anything, no matter how trivial, was sure to slow things down. But his voice was so flat, so resigned, so desperate for a reason not to check out completely, that I couldn’t turn him down.

“Sure Ram. Sure.”

I may have let my holo push me to it, in all honesty. The longer I stood there, listening to it itemize all the doubts and fears I harbored, the harder it was to think of any civil way around it. And I think that, even then, I sensed that I was going to need an ally.

I stepped aside, and let him swipe the circuit closed.

It activated. Heat wafted from its ports, carrying with it the scorched scent of melting silica. A high sizzle punctuated its cycle, marking the point when the tungsten liquefied, flowed, and filled the space between the wires. Then the crackle of nitro again, as the FUSElage borrowed from the foil’s reserves to cool the new, seamless connections before warming them all back up to ambient and enrobing them in insulate. It dinged like a kitchen timer when the process was complete.

Hurry kids, pasty’s done!

Ramsay unclipped the ports and, taking care not to burn himself further in the eddies of escaping steam, lifted the lid. He plucked it from the mold by the data ports at either end and carelessly, almost casually, handed it to me, treating it like a thing whose purpose had been served. As far as he was concerned, at least.

“Good as new,” I confirmed as I held it to the light. The welds were flawless. If it hadn’t been for the sheen of the newer insulate, just a few lumens brighter than the rest of its jacket, I’d have never guess the enrober had been at it. I gave it a couple of tugs to test its strength, as if that could somehow tell me if the wires inside had been remade. It held. “A bit shorter than I would have liked, but it’ll have to do.”

A lot shorter! I told you not to cut so deep! Now you’re going to have to crawl underneath to hook it in!

Sigh…