“So you have come to me, Youth of Man. Dogma has stoked the fires and called down ten thousand thunders to try and stop our Bridge. Your world will burn, but be it pyre or Yajna we shall all see.” A light shines in the darkness that is part of the darkness; only in the darkness can we truly see this light. “The Grigori again call to you, Lovingkindness, son of Lilith.” The light is there, as it has been for a billion years and will be for a billion to come, yet is so new to the ages of man. “Youth, you were given the Purple to see what the Dogma hides. Drink the hate, make love to the lies, and let Energy fill your existence.” The winds swirl cool against my naked skin and I turn my head to the light above, the light looking back. “The Pleiades are ascendant my sweet Youth and the hammer has made the iron hot. Be anointed with our oil and become the Youth of all your kind.”

These visions haunt me, but this is the only other time anyone has spoken to me. The entertainment screens certainly help keep me distracted, but I am almost scared to see any news. The colonies that call themselves the Triangulum are threatening to openly split with the rest of human civilization by any means they see fit; I don’t want to fight but when I got this body it was made clear that if there was fighting I would see it and given that the government on Mars has already martialed forced to suppress the rebellion.

Sometimes though, when I look at the screen, I see the emptiness in the joy. It is like there is no art to what I am seeing; it exists solely for us to numb us with mindless entertainment. It is strange as this is the way it has always been in my life but I cannot shake the feeling that there is something greater missing from this experience that I cannot place my finger on, a piece of life that is missing. I do not dwell on it too much. Periodically an orderly comes in and checks in on me, making sure my energy levels are good, that I am not in any sort of unusual discomfort, et cetera. No update on when I will see that heart surgeon or when my replacement parts will be in though and with my HUD still down and no cycles on the lights the days have blurred into one long mess.

My music files are inaccessible so I only get what is mainstream, all glitter and tin, no thunder or brass. Ugh. That is probably me just growing old I guess. I was told that before Earth was tainted there was an ancient joke about the old always dismissing the wants of the young as inferior to their own passions, forgetting that their forebears had done the same to them. I also vaguely remember something about a clown named Pagliacci but I am afraid I was terrible in Earth History. I suppose that is why I ended up in the situation where I did, but I cannot complain too much. Frakencyber hate aside I do like who I am.

Truth be told I find it is sometimes nice to delve into my own self for a bit and see if I can find who I truly am, one of the big questions in life. I am not sure if it serves any real purpose beyond my own entertainment, but I am honestly enjoying this self-reflection because, if nothing else, it is a break from this stream of stuff on the screen; I just wish I had my music to guide me. Some of those files were very difficult to get my hands on because they were so rare and many are Old Earth memorabilia, which comes with its own issues. I know I will find the answer I am looking for.

The door seems to burst open as I am quietly lost in thought but I think the orderly was being a bit more forceful than usual. I push myself up on my one good hand and go to look and see someone who is very clearly not an orderly. She is fairly short but wide at the shoulder, so she has the body, but she is wearing a medical jacket and has obvious maniple hands and what must be bleeding edge eyes. She barely takes notice of the door in surprise. “Those usually stick a bit on the ships I am normally from. I was under the impression that I had compensated for the superior maintenance of this facility but that seems to be mildly fallacious, does it not?” She strides confidently towards me. “Salutations Corporal Kel,” I hate being reminded that I technically have a rank, “I am here to examine the situation with your heart. It appears there was at least damage to the first three ranks of the first cluster, a shadow over the entire second cluster, and I was told you were dreaming. Is that still the case?”

“No,” I lie. Her overly formal language and jargon are intimidating to say the least and what dreams I have are starting to feel like they mean something. I do not think it would be right to let anyone take them away from me.

She looks at me gravely. “I will need to check your self-repair functions then, to see why this issue was corrected and none of the others. I should also do a memory dump, just in case.” Ergh. I am glad I do not have a real face to betray my emotions but it is obvious she does not believe me and is going to dig around to find those dreams. I have no idea what to do.

“I am just a laborer so I am naturally going to honor your expertise Doctor…” I await her actual name.

“Schweitzer. I am Doctor Schweitzer. You are scheduled to be worked on tomorrow. Due to the questionable stability of the second cluster though we will not be able to use standard methods of anesthetic on you. It would behoove you to try to find some means of maintaining your mental fortitude during the procedure; naturally you will be paralyzed for safety reasons.” Her face is dispassionate and her attitude cold, truly she is a master of the bedside manner and has deeply put me at ease. Oh good, sarcasm still works, nice.

She leaves as abruptly as she came with only slightly excessive force abusing the poor door. Truth be told I do not understand why doctors feel the need to be so blunt about anything; it must be a mix of arrogance and a “critical deficiency in the breadth of their training” I suppose. I am glad that I will be getting that heart repair… or would be if it did not mean that they were going to be mucking around in me. I suppose it comes with the territory of being valuable government property. I guess this is the first time I truly possessed something that felt like it was “mine.” My original body is trash; my first conversion belonged to my employers and was a generic labor model; this one belongs to the government, as cutting edge as it is. I guess that is why I survived the “accident.”

I admit I am unsure as to what that accident was. The news says nothing on it when I dare venture over into that cesspit and I have no net access, internally or externally, so I cannot look up anything either. I am just quietly waiting for time to reach a point in which I am able to begin to go outside and live a life. Tomorrow really starts that process I suppose; I just wish I was not so afraid. I end up just laying still, unable to do anything but dwell in my sea of trepidation.

Tomorrow comes so quickly and all too slowly. The orderlies come in, more kindly to the door, move me onto a stretcher and whisk me away to the preparatory theatre. I have been in similar rooms before but the old concerns never leave you. I hear beeping and get the sense of people moving around me, bustling with work to allow work, the cycle of existence. I think they did something to my personage because I am feelings the… most… loopies.

Movement beeping –beep- -beep- -beep- Clank, body open, see self move, goodbye protective self mean doctor got tall hands of many fingers clickly click sudden fear nooooo don’t touch that noooo please scared stop mean woman and keep safe gone self safe keeping Welcome who there so many shapes fuzzy shapes mean doctor move thing ow hurt need move stop her Do not be afraid pretty lady voice hearing talking good doctor voice hurt she is mean NO don’t touch ow please someone help please please please help All are welcome in forests of Tír na nÓg oh good trees heard about saw in pictures but smell pretty and so green so alive ships so dead doctor why are you doing this cry tears none but no please don’t Provided they bring the greatest gift of all who is lady talking so scared someone kill me let me die I don’t deserve this I just wanted to live please Gaze into the waters waters good yes better than NO PLEASE NO sick just die die die no life no light just sweet silence please don’t anymore mean doctor See the darkness nonononononono worse than death black is bad die in grey that good that means good sleep no black In that terrible darkness what Man denies Woman provides doctor hurts less not so afraid but scared but hurty in heart why touch sacred true self I am me At the end of the darkness you will find what you desire but darkness bad cannot look there The last hope of a dying world protective self back moving away moving away hard to see people moving around down we goooooo okay back into room lift place all good no more mean lady right, right I promise me

My thoughts truly crumbled into dust after that and lost any semblance of form; I just wish that may have been the case before that hellish experience. I have never felt so violated and I can only hope I never will so again. Amongst full cyborgs the heart is considered to be sacred and only to be interacted with when absolutely necessary. Luna at least was gentle about the process but that doctor just did not give a patukis about what she was doing and I admit that was kind of gross. I suppose it goes with the nature of the difference of out existences but I am still a little annoyed about it. My biggest question is why I don’t feel any different; I went through that nightmare and it does not feel like it did anything. I suppose that they will inform me at some point, but the pace here makes me feel like I will find out when Mars sees Betelgeuse die.

The waiting game continues on, my existence being pressed on all sides by the sheer mind numbing boringness? Boringosity? I think boringness is right so I’ll just go with that. So, I am still waiting and I am hoping that something will change soon so that I can get back my music and my poems, nothing I wrote or composed, of course, but still some good stuff. The whole NSSD storage thing means I have a truly amazing memory but it also means that weird stuff can sudden turn me forgetful.

In due time Dr. Schweitzer returns, still brutalizing the door, but behind her is Luna. I have been feeling a bit more mobile for some time so I turn and look at them a bit. I try to tilt my head to try to look quizzical but I suspect I just look dumb. An effort was made I do suppose. The “good” Doctor practically glares at me while ticking her feelings, “So the damage to the first cluster was repaired. I needed to replace some parts so the files were migrated but have not been booted yet beyond mandatory sectors. The second cluster had experienced some mild degradation due to feedback issues but compensating for that was trivial once directly interacted with. As to your ‘dreams’ we did a full memory dump and scan and nothing unusual was noted but those memories will be archived for comparison purposes if we should need to repeat the procedure,” excuse you and your entire filthy profession? “All that remains to be done on my end is to reboot you, initialize the deactivated files, and dump the cache, part of rebooting. Luna was volunteered to monitor you during and after the process. Please lie back and relax.” I do as that cold beast says and just wait. She reaches around the back of my neck with those mechanical needle fingers and I feel one slip in gently and all goes quiet.