As long as she was close to him he was content with lying perfectly still. She seemed so intense, so vibrant, so full of everything precisely as he remembered her. He did not like the sounds of the men approaching her and he readied for action, the straight razor cold in his hand, comforting and deadly. But she didn't seem to mind them at all and so he kept observing her with all the adoration of a large dog. The robed person walked over to him and bent down making William twist to the side and look. The neural spike connected to his neck and his mind shut down with the picture of Janice solidly printed in the front of his brains.
.... light. A sense of dizziness threatened to overwhelm him and he felt a need to throw up. He moved a hand up in front of his face but nothing arrived. Puzzled he threw up without actually throwing up. He managed to control his dizziness and tried to move his limbs. Somehow he could control his them but nothing seemed to happen as if his own mind had been de-coupled from his body. The picture of a golden coloured hair appeared in his inner vision and he smiled.
"Janice"
A slight pain in his neck and darkness fell upon him again.
.... light. Through the haze of dizziness and discomfort the picture of a woman appeared in his inner vision and he smiled.
"Janice?"
Darkness.
.... light. The initial dizziness and sense of non-corporealness faded and something appeared in his inner vision. He smiled.
"............?"
Darkness.
Ahriman removed the neural spike, a highly illegal Serco mind-probing device. The spike had been originally designed to assist children that had suffered from extensive brain damage when they were introduced to their brainpal. On some children the connecting pathways to the brainpal found the wrong parts of the brain and caused seizures, epilepsy or worse. The spike could selectively sever these connections and the brainpal could then be removed safely and thus restore a life of semi-normality to the child. The child would not be counted as a full citizen obviously, since it would not be able to perform its civic duties later in life being unable to aug but they would be treated like any UIT living in Serco territory. The intelligence community and the Indoctrination centre especially had seized this new wonder toy like a birthday present. They were now able to remove information from people's minds and with the right auxiliary equipment install information to be unlocked at later times. Strangely enough it worked best on the non-treated minds of the UIT and only to some degree on members of the Itani defence force because they had received so much mental training when learning to fly. In this case Ahriman had encountered no problems and had erased the apparent obsession with a woman, focusing that obsession towards fighting instead. Not that he had to do all that much, it was merely the simple deletion of choice synapses that did the trick.
He flushed the patient's system with steroids and cortisone before disconnecting the brain-lock device. The patient woke up and blinked a few times, turned to one side and dry-retched before looking at Ahriman with slightly closed eyes. His voice, feeling the impact of three days of dryness and non-use, was hoarse and thick.
"Where am I?"
Ahriman moved back and motioned to Silia to come forward. She smiled down at William.
"Worry not, you are back among your friends. Welcome back to KAOS."
William, unsure of himself and the situation he was in, smiled back.
###
It had been lying dormant in the back of her mind ever since Ahriman had taken the person away. Somehow the name Janice had been floating around and touched upon this and that memory without making any real connections. She had finished moving the crates of coolant fluid, given the Wraith to Tramshed and left for her own quarters while her mind was processing away. Just as she had dumped herself on the bed, Retractile had called and invited her to a champagne party courtesy of the pigs at Daltas. Not really wanting to, she had agreed to join them in the command cubicle after Ret had pressured her for a bit. However, she was not going to arrive as a Daltas cheerleader and had taken a quick shower to get the dye out of the hair. She found a dress best described as a chaotic jumble of strings and beads, albeit a small jumble, donned it and started making her hair. Her eyes strayed to the picture of a happy family of five and that was when the name connected. She bent over as if a large Serco marine soldier had kicked her hard in the stomach with metal tipped boots. She felt nauseous and wanted to throw up badly but couldn't do much else than cry while moaning and writhing on the floor. She knew Janice, she knew Janice very well. And the memory block she had requested when she left the IDF had so very efficiently guarded her from that particular memory of herself, of her shame and of her sister until today. The memories flooded her and she succumbed to the power of remembrance.
Retractile found her an hour later sobbing on the floor, overwhelmed by the memory luggage she had carried from her youth and until now safely contained by selectively forgetting it. She was hugging her knees and repeating the same thing over and over;
"I know you, I know you."
A tranquilliser helped her to the oblivion of sleep and the party was postponed.
###
The three bots displayed an impressive array of blunt weapons that moved in semi-random circles in front of their armoured carapaces. The last bot was powered down since she was only EVA rated at level nine and she was training with her brainpal deactivated. The middle bot attacked her and she moved her left leg slightly back in anticipation of the two other bots’ attacks. The cudgel hammered towards her head and she intercepted the weapon sliding it along her lower left arm and jammed it under her arm. Using the forward momentum of the bot, she pressed the bot into the left following bot and released the cudgel. The bot on the right was now almost up to her back and she bent low before slamming her elbow up into the carapace of it. A red light turned on and the targeted bot withdrew, a sign that a real life enemy had been incapacitated or killed. The two other bots regained their attack pose and tried to rush her. She jabbed with her mock rifle at the chest of the left bot before intercepting the weapon of the other bot's weapon. She took a small step closer to the bot and hammered the stock of her weapon into the carapace following up with a shoulder into its centre. The red light turned on but the remaining bot slammed its cudgel into her leg freezing the endo-skeleton to simulate a broken leg. Stumbling backwards, she fought hard to keep the bot at bay eventually stumbling and landing hard on her back. The cudgel hammered towards her head and she dodged it narrowly while swinging the rifle as a club towards the bot's legs. The bot lost its balance and she managed to get halfway up before the bot started its attack again. Blocking the hammer blow with her rifle, she slammed the butt down on the bot's feet and forced it backwards. She regained her pose and attacked again, stabbed with the bayonet end before taking a small step forwards and slamming the rifle butt up into the face of the bot and shutting it down.
Heaving for air, she released the endo-skeleton's controls and stood swaying slightly in the middle of the room. Slowly she became aware that someone was clapping slowly behind her and she turned. A short slightly overweight man with a long thin beard clad in a green flight suit was standing near the entrance to the training hall. She narrowed her eyes and tried to place the person but failed. She activated her brainpal and set it to run a comparison study that came up with a couple of suggestions. She smiled.
"Asteroth."
"Bravo girl. I see you are keeping in shape as always."
"Just doing my bit Sir."
He waved his hand in dismissal and shook his head.
"Don't Sir me. I am but a mere ordinary member of TGFT now. For a while anyway. I won't take your time; I was just in the neighbourhood and wanted to see how you are doing. It is good to see you Cat."
"You too Sir. You too. Take care with whatever it is you are doing Sir."
Asteroth smiled at her deliberate disobedience and waved a hand in farewell.
Cat grinned and turned to the close combat bots. She had almost lost the last fight and that would not do. Not when Asteroth might need her soon. She took a deep breath and re-activated the bots.
