Lia the Empty

I had no memories of the explosion. I remembered the grenades, sure, but there the images ended like a corrupted video file. If I didn’t know what grenades were, I’d assume the metal cylinders with rounded tips would’ve left a bruise and little else. But they didn’t. The explosion destroyed the androids and vaporised most of my body.

The politician’s son called in his personal Rapid-Transit Trauma Response unit (RTTR). They arrived in minutes, found my body, scraped and scooped what was left off the floor, and flew me to the nearest hospital. Just think: I’d planned to kill the politician’s son along with Horace.

My memories at this point have some modicum of clarity. White halls and whiter lights and whitest sheets on a gurney being saturated in my dark, sticky blood. The blood came not from one or a dozen wounds but rather a gruesome amalgamation, as if I were the wounds and the wounds were me. I hallucinated the DelStag. It hovered between the gurney and ceiling, its oily black eyes peering down at me. Its four antlers dripped blood onto my bloodied figure. My surviving eye locked onto the DelStag’s dark visage and sensed the expansive decades of suffering it had witnessed. For the first time I understood that it showed me no malice. It was neutral. It watched me as death watched every living thing.

Or blood loss made me delirious.

In critical condition, I went straight into surgery. A grand host of surgeons in mint-green smocks operated on pretty much everything. I survived the explosion because of two factors: First, my advanced biotech. Second, the kinetic displacer I’d equipped before flying to Neo-III Tokyo. But survival wasn’t everything. I’d taken too much damage for them to fully stabilise my condition. Ironically, my extensive, fancy cybernetics and biotech made it more difficult for the surgeons to figure out the best treatment. Some of the tech they’d never even seen before; it only existed in my body and a private, Aquinor-funded laboratory.

The surgeons needed to make a decision, but they needed permission. It was a blend of bureaucracy, legality, and good ol’ fashion ethics. The dilemma had existed in high school textbooks ever since the percentage laws were codified. Basically: If a person required cybernetics to survive but could not consent was it the doctors’ moral responsibility to treat them, even if it meant pushing them above the 49% bracket?

Well, either they gave me the cybernetics – or I became a brain in a jar.

Part of me would’ve opted for the brain.

The hospital tried to contact my family. Father was unavailable, but they spoke to my sister. She made the decision – and years passed before I forgave her.

When I regained consciousness hours later, I lay motionless and alone in a white-walled private room. I tried to move, but my limbs didn’t respond. Plaster, bandages, gauze, salve, ointment—I was covered in everything the hospital had to offer. I had an eyepatch. I glanced but couldn’t find a mirror. In fact, there weren’t any reflective surfaces. There were chairs, cabinets, and a bathroom, but I still couldn’t get out of bed.

An indefinite time later, the main door slid open. A doctor, two nurses, and my sister, Priscilla, filed inside. Priscilla sat at my side, while the staff stood at the foot of my bed. They ran through preliminary checks, like if I knew my name and date. With my mental acuity accounted for, they began to explain what happened, and then what they did to ensure I survived. I barely heard their words, yet I perceived what it meant. I stared at Priscilla, who kept her gaze to the floor.

My biotech was rendered irrelevant. It got replaced with cybernetics. Not cybernetics equal to my old gear. The hospital didn’t keep stuff of that quality in stock. Even if they did, Mum wasn’t around to purchase it.

The doctor finished speaking, left the room, and a MechDoc replaced him. He talked me through the cybernetic specifications, rehabilitation time, and maintenance protocols. I’d heard it all before.

My one good eye had the burden of conveying the sum total of my animosity. That tiny, spherical organ. Imagine pouring the ocean through a baking funnel. Mechanisms whirred as, through force of willpower, I raised my arm.

‘You mustn’t overtax your system,’ the MechDoc warned.

My arm flopped to the linen; I ran out of energy. I tried to form words, but my lower jaw had been replaced. With a grizzled, artificial voice, I managed to ask: 

‘How much?’

‘Your percentage is…’ the MechDoc hummed and flipped through his documents. He knew. Of course he fucking knew. Yet, he flipped back and forth through his documents like he’d forgotten how to read. It felt like an hour passed before he cleared his throat and answered:

‘Ninety-four percent.’

My body was unresponsive, but every neuron—even my soul, whatever that meant in 2099—sought the same purpose: To scream.

‘You,’ I said.

Priscilla bit her lip. Her shoulders trembled as tears fell. I felt twisted sadness and shame intermingled with sadistic pleasure. My words—my word—hurt the person I loved, yet I wanted them to hurt. I wanted contrition. Deep inside I knew Priscilla made the right decision to let the surgeons operate, but “right” was often difficult to accept.

As my shame grew, so did my fury. I tried to lift my arms and speak again. ‘You wanted me like this,’ I said in a wavering croak. ‘Spite. Envy. Die.’

Priscilla knocked the chair over as she fled the room. She’d left her tears on the bedsheets.

As I continued to struggle, the MechDoc ordered a sedative. My consciousness faded.

#

Who knew how many days passed? Three times a day a nurse checked how I healed and brought cheap hospital food on a dark red tray with peeling plastic. The food was usually a block of greyish protein jelly, syntho-bread, assorted vegetables, and some soup. I’d have killed for vegetable frittata. I’ll spare you details of the bedpan and related excretions.

The worst part was the archaic TV hanging in the corner like a CRT gargoyle. Early in my hospitalisation, a nurse with orange acrylic nails and matching eyeliner rambled about what a poor-sweet-darling I was and how I must’ve been so terribly bored, so she turned on the TV like it was a grand, magnanimous gesture. Except she’d left it tuned to reality shows. Endless reality shows. Bright and fabricated voices droning and drawling and cackling. It was like an abstract psychological torture, left to rot in my 6% human body while what little sensory input I could receive was relegated to who got voted off the island.

Really, I should be thanking the nurse. If the TV hadn’t enraged me, it might have taken a lot longer to leave the bed. With the aforementioned rage fuelling my mind, I forced my cybernetic limbs to move. Finally, I stood upright. The room tilted. I felt sick. Bile came up my throat, but I swallowed it back down. Movement was the next challenge. I walked with an automaton’s stiffness, like those ancient wind-up toys. A clockwork girl. But, more success found me. Over the course of minutes, I walked to the TV, reached up, and turned it off. Beautiful silence returned to the room. Next, the bathroom. I needed to see, whether I’d like my reflection or not.

I slid open the bathroom door. The mirror was right in front of me. I couldn’t open my mouth much. An amalgamated laugh-scream escaped my lips. Tears formed in the corners of my remaining eye.

Cybernetics in advertisements had a sleek, precise quality to them. Such products resembled muscles coated in steel. In contrast, my body (the parts not bandaged) was like a mechanic scooped up spare steel panels, pipes, and paraphernalia, and then welded them together at random. No aesthetic consideration. Barely any practical consideration, other than basic motor functions. It wasn’t even a brand of cybernetic; it must’ve been government surplus. Like, parts from outdated military androids.

I went back to the bed but didn’t lie down.

When most kids got their first cybernetics, they typically only reached the 3% mark. Parents and MechDocs offered comfort by saying how plenty of them was still human, so they didn’t need to worry. Well, what about me? Wasn’t the inverse true? I was a damn robot with a bit of human stuck on. Were the toasters, microwaves, and photocopiers going to comfort me? Would they still accept me, despite being a bit human?

I couldn’t stay at the hospital. I needed to get out, find the nearest Aquinor facility, and get new cybernetics installed. I didn’t have funds, but my relation to the Viper of Aquinor should’ve been sufficient. The longer I stayed at the hospital, the more my body grew accustomed to the cheap cybernetics, and the longer it’d take to replace them. Go, I thought. Leave.

I struggled to the door and shoved it open. The elevator was down the hall. Using the wall for support, I dragged myself toward it. I passed patients, nurses, and doctors. One of the latter talked to me, but I pushed onward. Part of me knew I’d messed up, getting seen by the doctor, and a minute later the result crashed upon me. Hospital guards rounded the corner, blocking my path to the elevator. I pulled a fist back and swung. The guards could’ve made tea in the time it took my fist to reach them. So it felt. They seized my arms, dragged me back to bed, and were stationed outside the door.

Thus, my first escape attempt reached an abrupt end.

Let me amend that statement. My first (and last) escape attempt. You see, before the attempt the hospital viewed me as a regular patient. They’d contacted Priscilla but nobody else. By trying to escape, they were forced to look deeper into my background. They got a clearer picture of the identity of Aurelia Sorranus, member of Montim Aquinor. So, the hospital contacted the syndicate. The syndicate got word of what happened to me. That fast-tracked my change in status, given my new cybernetic percentage. Within hours, I’d lost a nauseatingly long list of rights.

That wasn’t the worst part.

I had a visitor.

A man in a stupid beige suit and tangerine pocket square entered my room. He had a neatly trimmed beard and swept back hair, both dyed cerulean blue. Horatius Claudius Nerva. Horace. The man who put Mum in exile. ‘How’re you feeling, Lia?’ he asked, overly chipper despite being in a hospital.

I didn’t respond.

‘I am so, so sorry this happened to you. But, in my defence, there was no way of knowing you were standing behind those androids.’ When he grinned, nothing but his mouth moved.

I made fists under the sheets.

‘I’d heard you were flying in from Italy, so I figured we could chat after the mission. Instead, well…what a lucky coincidence.’ His grin vanished and demeanour shifted. He climbed onto the bed, his entire body hovering above mine, and stared down. A primal fear coursed through me. That fear of proximity.

‘I know what you planned,’ Horace whispered. ‘It may have worked, given your hardware. But now…’ He peeled back the sheets, exposing my body of metal and plastic. He gave a disgusted but self-satisfied smirk. ‘If I’m being honest, I can’t think of any job you can do.’ He tapped a finger along my metal sternum, ribcage, and pelvis. ‘Wait, just thought of something. Why not visit your mother? Zorica and Aurelia, reunited at last. Children should be around their parents when they pass.’

I reached up to strangle him. Horace pushed my arms down, as if restraining a puppy. I spat. Phlegm got on his cheek and lapel. He recoiled and wiped it away with his pocket square. A tense moment passed. He grinned and slapped me. My head cracked to the side. Vision blurred. Felt like my brain rattled.

‘My suggestion was not in jest,’ he said, climbing off the bed. ‘Your mother will be dead within the year. Go to her, and then join her. That is all you can hope to accomplish.’

With that, he departed.

#

Priscilla visited a couple more times, and each time I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. Each time her tears fell, though each time fewer than the last. She wanted me to go with her to a new city, where we could start over (her words). I refused. She said there was nothing we could do for Mum. I told her training and self-improvement gave life meaning, but she didn’t understand. During Priscilla’s last visit, she gave me a stack of yen. She also gave me her new address in Atlanta. She’d gotten a job there. Apparently she’d been planning to leave for a while, but she wanted to convince me to go with her.

‘You’re sure?’ she asked, one more time.

I nodded.

Priscilla looked like she wanted to say more, but she pursed her lips, collected her bags, and left.

I got discharged two weeks later. My first stop was the vending machine outfitters. I fed the machine a 50,000 yen note, input my measurements, and selected “street casual” as the style. In the bottom slot I found denim jeans, a starchy T-shirt that smelled of disinfectant, and a black hoodie with various kanji on the front. I stared at the kanji, expecting my eyes to auto-translate it, until I remembered the translation software was no longer installed. Great. Just had to hope the kanji weren’t weird.

To make matters worse, I’d gotten my measurements wrong. Instinctively, I’d input my old numbers, so the clothes were too big for me. I rolled up the jean cuffs and tucked the T-shirt into the waistband. The hoodie’s hem went to mid-thigh.

Then I went to the nearest Aquinor site. Here’s a summary of my interaction with one of the administrative members:

‘Can I—?’

‘No.’

‘What about—?’

‘Nope.’

‘Maybe if I—?’

‘That’s a no.’

‘I’m the daughter of the Viper of—!’

‘Still no.’

However, they did give me another stack of yen. Father had been giving Priscilla and I an allowance, since Mother’s exile. He was still busy in Italy. Not sure if he even knew I’d been hospitalised. Either way, he’d continue giving a monthly allowance.

I left with a visceral sense of dread, as if reality itself folded inward. If we perceived reality through the lens of our identity, then my lens was cracked beyond repair. I scarcely comprehended the life before me.

What about being a Venator?

The Central Venator Commission didn’t turn away applicants of any cybernetic level, but historically they didn’t give licences to anyone over 90%. Viewer ratings and approval points mostly skewed to the lower-middling range. If two applicants both displayed the same level of skill, they’d take the person with a lower percentage. They were easier to market. Easier to get public support and, more importantly, donations.

Fine.

I went to a public terminal and searched online. Property, clubs, competitions, jobs involving human interaction, net-based access, asylum—rights related to all those and more were barred. I began to grasp the perils of my situation.

A big reason for the cybernetic percentage laws was the idea a person could trade humanity for advantages. Therefore, their treatment should be adjusted accordingly. Basically, you could get 80% cybernetics and instantly be stronger, faster, and smarter than the average person. So, to make it “fair” for those without cybernetics, other things would be taken away. Don’t ask me if it was fair, equal, justified, honourable, reasonable, fucked up, messed up, screwed up, smart, logical, or: ‘Pretty neo-modern, dude.’ Because I have no idea. I wasn’t a politician or philosopher. I used to have a friend from the Sumiaka-kai who cared about that stuff, and I relied on him to keep me updated.

You’re wondering: Wow, a Montim Aquinor gal with a friend in the Sumiaka-kai? It’s a veritable Romio and Juliett!

Shut up. It wasn’t. We weren’t in love, and it happened when we were kids. The syndicates were going through a play-nice-for-the-public phase, and both sides pushed an initiative to have the Syndikids befriend one another. Sort of like political marriages from last century.

Back to the percentage laws:

If the laws were created because getting cybernetics gave you an advantage, what happened if they gave you a disadvantage? My new legs couldn’t jump higher than an organic pair. My limbs were less responsive. My cybernetic eye was poorly-calibrated, so it flickered between being short-sighted and far-sighted. Plus, my biotech was gone, replaced with cheap, soviet-manufactured circuit boards and recycled semiconductors.

As I walked through the crowded streets of Neo-II Sendai, I caught a lot of stares. People could tell. Maybe they had implants or scanners, or maybe the stiffness in my gait gave it away. Either way, my clothes weren’t sufficient. I’d painted stripes on a housecat and claimed it was a tiger.

I caught a tram away from the city centre. The neon dwindled. Harsher smells intensified. Warm air blew up from vents. An escalator brought me underground, to the rougher part of the city. Well, rougher for humans. Welcoming for anyone above 80%. Rats loved more tails, as the saying went. Nobody stared. I was them, and they were me. Men, women, and children with more silicon than skin, more brass than bones.

I found a busy market in an old subway station, with stalls in abandoned train cars and bordering the platform. I tried to push through the crowds, but I earned scowls and got called a gaki-bitch. Whatever that meant. Lacking my old stature, I had to weave through like everyone else. I kept my ears tuned for opportunities, but everyone spoke an English-Russian-Japanese creole, of which I only understood fragments. I found a stall selling tech, so I asked about translation software for the dialect, but the owner laughed. It wasn’t that he didn’t have it; the software didn’t exist. The underground creole morphed too fast and was spoken by too few people to make software worthwhile.

I wandered off the platform and down a tunnel. The rails had been adorned with lights of every kind, ranging from average kitchen bulbs to the inner components of a pachinko machine. Bioluminescent moths fluttered across the rounded ceiling.

Buddhists from the All-Life sect roamed in a loose procession, chanting the Java Lotus Sutra. Their black and orange robes were stained with grease. I reached an alcove, previously a maintenance room adjoining the track. Inside, followers of TeleShinto kneeled at a shrine. Dozens of candles burned. On a makeshift altar sat a rotary phone, floppy disks, and VCR machines. At the top, in a place of honour: An Olympia SM3 typewriter.

I started to leave until hearing a woman’s brisk voice with a slight Scottish accent. I followed the voice down the tunnel, where I reached another platform. I watched from the darkness, chin level with the platform.

The woman bustled under a canvas canopy. Water from the surface trickled from old pipes and gaps in the tiles, as if it rained. The woman went between cots and a queue at the staircase, administering aid and advice respectively. She wore a full smock, rubber gloves to her elbows, and a medical mask. A sort of underground MechDoc?

Gradually the line slackened and patients in the cots grew quiet. In the silence, the woman removed her attire with alacrity. Underneath she wore a strapless bra and jogging shorts. Either she had advanced pseudo-skin, or she was way below the 49% mark. In fact, she looked almost pure human.

I sensed something in her. A familiarity. A warmth. A life closer to what I’d known. She sang to herself and, drawn to the voice, I climbed onto the platform and approached.