Valentine lay on his back, once again in the small room where the nanites had first been administered to him. Triss lay by his side as he ruffled his fingers through her fur. A strange contraption loomed over him. There was a metal band around his forehead, and two sliding up and down, stopping at odd intervals while Artisan Coppersmith watched data readouts running across one screen and what looked like alternating images of particle clouds on another screen.

“And your ah, companion has been alright for you, then?” Coppersmith said, eyeing Triss apprehensively.

“Why?” Valentine grinned. “Having second thoughts about letting me hold onto her?”

“No, god, no.” Coppersmith said. “I was hoping you weren’t going to be bringing her back my way anytime soon.”

“Pretty sure I’m stuck with her now. Hey, you know if this sound in my ears is normal?”

“Tinnitus is, unfortunately, very common in your line of work.”

“No, smartass.” Valentine dug a finger in his ear. “That’s what I thought too, but it’s not a ringing. That’s been less, maybe because of this shit.”

“What does it sound like, then?”

“Chittering.” He resisted the urge to try and shake his head.

“Chittering?”

“Yeah, like a bunch of…” He grappled with something to compare it to, but came up short. “Chittering.” He said again, and Triss whimpered twice as his side.

Coppersmith looked troubled, and then turned back to her screen. For almost thirty minutes they were quiet, Valentine closing his eyes with that low chittering that always seemed to be way back in his eardrums. Finally, he cracked an eye and looked at the Artisan.

“Anything interesting, Coop?” He asked, wincing more from the uncomfortable cold metal on his bare skin than any actual pain.

“So far, not really.” Coppersmith said, moving the metal plating to Valentine’s pectoral muscles. “Which is good, by and large, the nanites aren’t doing anything they’re not supposed to be doing.” She pursed her lips.

“Are you… sure?” Valentine asked.

“Well their expressed purpose was to repair the damage done to your body with an understanding program to focus on the most grievously damaged parts first... “ She tapped the screen for a moment before turning back to him. “They’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, very enthusiastically.”

Valentine scowled. “Are those tiny fuckers in there not doing what you expected them to?”

“That’s a broad term when it comes to nanites, Val. We keep them on a tight leash, sure enough, but you’ve got to remember that we’re dealing with one of the big three, and you’ve got the biggest of the lot.”

“Really.” Valentine said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Biggest? That’s the one you’re gonna hit me with when I’ve got nanites running around inside me?”

“Hush. But everything else has a hard off switch.”

“Again, low hanging fruit.”

“Damn soldiers…” Coppersmith muttered and turned to face Valentine fully. “Look, think about it this way. Cloning was always in its fledgling state until it came here, but we’ve still always been able to… control the data, more or less. After the subject is here and grown it's a free for all, but we can set the rules. Same with macro-robotics, and that’s the easiest. The worst that can happen is--”

“They can wipe out half of humanity and chase us off our home planet?” Valentine nodded. “No big deal at all.”

“--have a programmed kill command, or a set EMP sequence in the brain on a timer to go off. Even without those, you can set up a robot to be the most basic of programming, nothing more than lights and clockwork if you want.”

“How’d that work out last time?”

“Last time we didn’t know enough to be idiots about it.” Coppersmith said seriously. “We were like a kid who found the keys to an outer-atmospheric craft and decided to take it for a spin without the slightest idea about zero-gravity navigation and controls. Destined to fail and likely die horribly in the process. But nanites,” Coppersmith shrugged. “Look there’s no real way to stop them learning no matter how far you dumb them down.”

An old stab of panic lanced through Valentine. “These things are going to… learn things?”

“Well, yes, Sergeant. That’s pretty much the baseline of nanotechnology. They’re self replicating and highly intelligent artificial organisms, no matter how you slice it.”

“You could mentioned that before you put a fuck ton of them inside me.” He snarled. “What if they learn their way right into thinking I’m not the one who needs to be piloting this meatsack of a body after all? What then?”

“Long before that we can perform a replacement sweep and you’ll be back to square one. With your legs intact.” She sniffed.

“Replacment… what?”

“Two injections, two weeks apart. One will be with nanite… the term is many syllables, but they’re essentially nanite predators. They’re designed to kill other nanites, but then they die. There was a species a long time ago called ‘bees’ that would die after they attacked anything they deemed to be a threat. That process will take about a week, and then another week to pass all the nanites from your--”

“I’m going to piss these things out?” Valentine’s eyes popped. “I’ve had a kidney stone before, Coop, and I’d rather rip my dick--”

“Stools.” Coppersmith said. “To use your army vernacular, you’ll shit your brains out for about twenty-four hours and then you’ll get another injection before your genetic makeup that’s being held together by the nanites breaks down.”

“I still don’t get that.” Valentine said. “If they fixed me, why don’t I stay fixed?”

“If they give you an answer, let me know, because I haven’t fully figured it out either. But, like I was saying, a new injection of the base nanites and they’ll go right back to work, like nothing was amiss. They’ll be baseline, you’ll remain fixed, and everyone will be happy.”

“Except the nanites that get intimately acquainted with my rectum.” Valentine muttered darkly. “But what are they doing now?”

“Their job.” Coppersmith said promptly. “They’ve just completed their main assignments and have moved on to others.”

“Moved onto others?”

“Have you ever broken a bone?”

“Um. Yeah.”

“Which?”

“Wrist, leg, shoulder, two fingers three--”

“Okay, okay,” Coppersmith said flapping her hands a little hysterically with the blood rushing from her face. “Please, Val.”

Valentine stared. “Don’t tell me you’re squeamish of human anatomy?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Coppersmith said, her voice disgusted. “All that flesh, and the muscles… dead skin cells flaking off and hair, god, the amount of germs--”

“Jesus Christ.” Valentine held up his hands. “Alright, fuck. I get it, there’s a reason you study itty bitty robots.”

“Just as you say.” Coppersmith huffed. “But, your many injuries sustained through your insane lifestyle and choice of profession, pick one.”

Valentine wiggled one of his still upraised hands. “Wrist.”

“Any ongoing problems with it since your injury?” She said, turning to the screen and tapping it a few times.

“Sure. Limited range of motion on the worst of days. Usually just soreness throughout the day and stiffness when I wake up.”

Coppersmith froze, and seemed to steel herself from laughing. “Your wrist, then. Have you had any pain in it recently?”

“Live with something long enough, you stop noticing it.” Valentine said. “I haven’t thought about it hurting in years.”

“Try thinking about it sometime, because this is the current state of your wrist.” She gestured to the scene. There was what looked like a blueprint of his hand and wrist, but there were dark lines running all throughout it. “The fruits of the damage you’ve caused to your body over the years.”

“Damn medics told me all that shit healed up.”

“It did.” Coppersmith said. “But things like this always leave a scar. The breakdown of cellular structure is why we age at all, the theory goes, and anytime something heals it leaves a physical memory of the hurt that was done to it.”

“How very adolescent of it. But what are they doing?”

“They are removing the memories.” She said, tapping the screen. “The residual damage done to your wrist after the break is being healed. It seemed that the nanites are isolating what they deem to be the next most critically damaged part of your body, and are repairing it.”

“Just like that?”

“As you say.”

Valentine closed his eyes, trying not to think about the tiny robots playing doctor inside him. The vast majority of him felt squeamish at the very thought, but there was another small part of him that felt oddly comforted. “When will they stop?”

“When they’re done.”

“And then?”

Coppersmith shrugged. “Wait for you to break something else, I suppose. But I’m done with you for the day, unless you have other questions.” She tapped a few keys and the metal strips slid away from Valentine. He sat up and rolled his shoulders. “What happens if I get shot?” He asked. “Hard ammo.”

“What an unpleasant thought.” Coppersmith shivered. “But without immediate medical attention I would assume that the rapid loss of blood would kill you just the same as any other non-augmented subject. If you receive said medical attention, I would then assume you would have a far speedier than average recovery.”

“Right.” Valentine stood, and so did Triss. “Thanks Coop. Next check up?”

“I’ll contact you. Keep an eye on your wrist for me?”

“And the chitters?”

Coppersmith smiled a small, concerned smile. “Keep an ear on that too, if you would.”

--

“I did tell you it was going to hurt.” Natalie said as Neil gritted his teeth.

One of the more unpleasant bits about those to whom cybernetic limbs were attached to having full autonomy over their new body parts was that there wasn’t any way to deactivate the pain sensors when it came to maintenance, so it wasn’t until Natalie has slid the synthetic skin on Neil’s inner forearm from crook to wrist and pulled the skin away that she was able to jab a couple of deep inset controls and the pain immediately vanished.

“Yeah, but fucking hell I didn’t know it was actually going to feel like a knife in my arm.”

“That’s because,” Natalie wiggled the scalpel. It was an old medical tool that saw nearly no use in the more civilized age of surgery, but it had some practical application, Natalie had once assured him. “There was a knife in your arm, dummy.”

Neil scowled.”That’s Acting First Sergeant to you.” He said in an overblown voice, and sighed, looking down at his arm. It was an amazing piece of engineering, even though all he could see was the metal plating that was simultaneously the armor and housing for the components. And it was his. Neil knew that, but even as Nataile plugged a small cable in just below the wrist, he reflected on it in a way that he hadn’t gotten a chance to before his recovery.

Looking at the arm now, he thought about all the history lessons he had taken as a kid. Robots that had been engineered and built to serve the purposes of furthering humanity that had then turned on their creators and turned earth into a wasteland as a result of their destruction. And now he shared about half of himself with technology in the same field of study.

“Easy,” Natlie said, tapping the fist that Neil had made. “You can make fists when I’m running diagnostics, but right now I’m just getting a resting reading to make sure there’s no bullshit going on in there.”

“Are you gonna have to cut my leg open, too?”

“Nah, I can do everything from here.” She was staring fixedly at her tablet, and though her talk was casual and business like, Neil had noted that was all it had been since he had walked in. And she was avoiding looking at him.

Neil settled back, trying to keep his hand relaxed. It wasn’t his to bring up. The fact he had almost sprinted here not withstanding, the last time they had seen each other was at rest in Neil’s mind. If it wasn’t in hers, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. That was on her.

“Huh.” Natalie said, putting her chin in her palm.

“What’s the rub?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Really, nothing, aside from the fact that everything is running perfectly. Better than I expected.”

“You thought you put faulty tech into me?”

“No, no, not that.” She waved a hand. “But there’s usually a month or three of calibration tests that go along with this extent of repairs that I, of course, never got to run on you. I guess Neerson thought Drake would be able to handle it.”

“So what’s ‘huh’?”

“Well I thought that’s what you were talking about with your leg.” She explained. “Just standard tweaking of the load sensors in the foot passing information to the brain, but it’s not that at all. All of the reading shows an above average transference of the data. Looks like I got it right in one swing this time.”

“Why am I tripping on invisible stumps then?”

“That’s either your natural clumsiness, or…” She thought for a moment. Then her eyes grew wide.”

“Or what?” Neil leaned forward. “Talk to me, kid, what’s going on inside that big brain of yours.”

“Nothing.”

Neil stared. “Bullshit.”

“No, really, I don’t know what it could be.” She tapped her lips with a finger. “Which is a damn good bit more bothersome than a problem I do know. I can fix those problems.” Then she tapped her tablet and sensation rushed back into Neil’s arm, though not the same stabbing pain of the scalpel. Natalie stood and rummaged around in her pack. From it she produced what looked like a rubber ball with a short, stubby post protruding from it with a screen on the end. “Here.” She said, forcing the ball end into Neil’s hand. “Squeeze at moderate strength.” Neil obliged, and Natalie stared down at the screen. “Moderate strength, you animal,” she said.

“This is moderate strength.” Neil said.

“My ass.” Natalie said. “Let go. Now, a moderate, easy squeeze, like you’re holding an egg or something.”

Again, Neil obliged, and Natalie stared down at the screen again, not taking her eyes off of it for a few long moments. She tapped her tablet, frowning. “You’re sure that’s moder--”

“Yes, goddamnit.” Neil snapped. “Why?”

“Um. Squeeze harder?” Neil did. “More.” Natalie said. Now Neil was getting frustrated, and he applied more pressure. The screen gave a small blink, and Natalie’s eyes grew wider still. “Give it everything you’ve got.” She said.

“For fucks sake…” Neil compressed his fist to the point he thought he could feel the components in his arm protesting. The screen on the ball beeped louder, and suddenly stopped.

“That’s what I thought. Give.” And Natalie took the ball, tossing it into a trash can.

As she tapped her tablet a few more times, Neil flexed his hand experimentally. It felt no different than it usually did.

“Carga, do we have an egg in the kitchen?”

The robot turned. “Eggs are a delicacy reserved for the Cluster’s luxury living centers.”

“Do we have one?”

“We do not.”

“Do we have anything comparable?”

“When do you need this thing?”

“As soon as you can get one.”

The robot turned and strode away. Neil watched it go. “I don’t know how I feel about that thing being down here.” He said, wiggling his own robotic fingers.

“Captain Benson sure does,” she said. “Doesn’t like her one bit.”

Neil clenched his fists. “So now can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Sure. The base average for a healthy male’s squeezing pressure usually clocks in at just over seventy pounds. Your casual squeeze was floating around ninety-two. Your angriest squeeze I got a reading on was about two hundred and ten.”

Neil blinked. “No shit?”

“No shit.” She said. “After that it maxed out and you broke my sensor.”

“What was the max?”

“Four hundred. So you’re still not as strong as some of the old animals earth used to have. A lion could bite in the mid six hundreds. But there’s no way you should be that strong, Neil. It’s dangerous, for you and other people around you. And if it’s the same with your leg, there’s no wonder your brain is having trouble getting used to the sheer power you have in the potential. Your legs are way stronger than your arms.”

“Did you say this sort of thing is handled by the brain? The limbs not being able to do more than the body can handle, stuff like that.”

“It’s the stuff like that part that’s an issue.” Natalie said, unplugging Neil’s arm and standing. “There’s old stories of people getting strength way beyond what they should have been able to do, especially in life or death situations. But they didn’t get it, they just tapped into it. Humans have always been scary like that, being able to do way more than we feel like we can in the right situations.”

“And that’s a dangerous thing?”

“Neil, if you start doing too much with your strong, shiny, metal side and get used to it and try to do the same thing with your fleshy, boney, bloody side you could hurt yourself. Your brain sets limits to make sure you don’t do that. The cybernetics are bypassing that. Somehow.”

Neil clenched his fist. “Somehow? Can’t you… turn down the settings, or something?”

“The systems are running perfectly.” Natlie sighed. “And at rest I’m willing to bet you’ve adjusted just fine. You walked in here easily enough. Here,” She turned and tossed a wrench to him, and his right arm came up, catching it deftly with the open synthetic skin flapping. “See?” She said, “I mess around with the systems to compensate for what you can do, it's going to change those parameters. What you have the potential to do will be what the settings think you’re always doing. You’ll basically be carrying dead weight.”

“Journeyman Sanderson.” Carga said, appearing again, handing her a white object in the perfect shape of an average sized egg. Natalie brought it to Neil and placed it into his hand. “Hold this.” She said. “Roll it around in your hands. Apply pressure to the point where you think you’re going too far.”

Neil did as she said. Though he didn’t know what the egg like object was made of, he could feel the brittle tension as though it were waiting to break. He squeezed it gently, and opened his hand. The thing remained undamaged. Natalie took it and threw it at the wall. It shattered, and splattered greenish blue gelatinous fluid against the wall. “See?” Natalie said. “That task was one you were familiar enough with, though I don’t know where you’d be handling eggs enough to know how to handle one properly. But the point is that your brain was telling you the right amount of pressure to use, and you used it. Anyone can break an egg if they try hard enough. But…” She picked up an old piece of metal rebar about ten inches long and set it into a vice. “Come here, try to bend this.”

Neil went to the bar and wrapped his metal fingers around it. He tugged it once experimentally. Then, with almost no effort, he bent it to a right angle. “Yeah,” Natalie said. “No arm wrestling matches for you unless you really don’t like the person, okay?”

Neil snorted and turned to her, but Natalie looked down as he did. “Hey,” He placed his natural hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him with shining eyes. “You’re alright, kid.”

With a small cry she threw herself into his arms, wincing as her head bounced off the metal plating over his right side. Neil wrapped his left arm around her, letting his cybernetic limb hang loosely at his side. “I’m sorry.” She said into his chest. “I’m sorry, I was just so angry at you. And then you were gone.”

“Kept telling you.” He said, kissing the top of her hair. “Sometimes, your chances to make things right run out.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve always hated admitting when you were right.” She pulled away from him and scrubbed a hand over her eyes. Then took his right hand. “Um, awkward, and I’m sorry about this, but I don’t have anymore synthetic tissue.”

“I’ve got to walk around like this?” He wiggled his arm, the skin flaps waving gently.”

“I can take it off, but for now, yeah. You’re going to be a little shiny.”

Irritation stabbed at Neil. “Had to go all the way to the forearm, did you?”

“I was so sure that we would need to do some kind of calibration.” Natalie said in a small voice. “I’m sorry.”

Neil clenched his hand and relaxed it, sighing. “It’s okay, kid. Maybe it’ll be a good reminder for me to not crush anyone’s hand, or whatever. What does Neerson have you working on down here anyway?”

“I… don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that yet.” Natalie said hesitantly. “But I’ve got a feeling you’ll find out what it is sooner rather than later.”

“Fair enough.” He said, turning to go. “See ya round kid.”

“You too boss.”