Network Effect

“We have to get this thing out before it kills her, too.” Amena studied the diagrams and images the scanner sent into our feed. “It’s really primitive. It must have been causing the confusion and pain, but that wouldn’t make them forget it was there.”

I rotated the images so I could make sure I was right about the depth. “No. Something else did that.”

“It’s not very good, for what it’s trying to do.” Amena made a violent jabbing motion at her own neck. “If you knew it was there, and you could get away from the person trying to zap you, you could pop it out with a knife.”

Note to self: Make sure Amena has no reason to jab at her own neck with a knife. “Not if you thought it was interwoven with your neural tissue.” At least when I dealt with my governor module, I’d had access to my own schematics and diagnostics.

Amena wasn’t listening. She went over to rummage in the emergency kit. “Her vital signs are getting worse.” She found a laser scalpel case and brandished it. “I’m going to try to take the implant out.”

“You have medic training.” It was worth asking.

“Basic training, sure.” I was making an expression again because she grimaced. “I know, I know! But you said we shouldn’t use the MedSystem and we have to do something.”

She wasn’t wrong. The kit was transmitting increasingly plaintive warnings. There was a lot of technical medical data to process but the conclusion was obvious that the activation had caused damage to Eletra, if not as much as it had to Ras. The kit was demanding we intervene soon.

Most of my medical knowledge came from watching MedCenter Argala, a historical drama series that had been popular twenty-seven corporate standard years ago and was still available for download on almost every media feed I had ever encountered. Even I knew it was inaccurate. I also found it kind of boring, so I’d only watched it once.

I held my hand out for the scalpel.

Amena hesitated. Did she think I was going to kill Eletra? I’d put up with way more annoying humans, including some that she was related to.

Then she handed the scalpel over, her expression a mix of relief and guilt. “I could do it if I had to.”

Huh. Amena wanted to help, maybe to prove herself. I said, “I know you could.” She hadn’t been bluffing about the neck-jabbing thing, I could tell.

But if we were wrong and removing the implant killed Eletra, at least this wouldn’t be my first accidental murder. Also, my hands don’t shake.

Amena got another wound seal pack out and engaged the emergency kit’s sterile field. I followed its instructions to spray anesthetic prep fluid. Then with the occasional pop-up help hint from the kit’s feed, I used the scalpel to cut through the damaged tissue.

I had a drone view of Amena watching the hand scanner, her brow furrowed in half-wince, half-concentration. I avoided the bits that would bleed a lot (not something a human trying to do this to their own body could have managed, so there, Amena) and the implant popped out.

And Eletra woke up.

She gasped a breath, her eyes open, staring without comprehension at Amena’s stomach. I stepped back and Amena hastily fit the pack over the wound before too much blood leaked out. It powered up and snugged in close to Eletra’s skin; her eyes fluttered closed again. From the report on the emergency kit’s feed, the pack had delivered a hefty punch of painkillers and antibiotics. I put the implant in the little container the emergency kit offered, and the kit dutifully sprayed it with something. (I hope the kit knew what it was doing, because I sure didn’t.)

“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re helping you,” Amena was telling Eletra, patting her hand.

Ras’s body was there in the middle of everything and that just felt wrong. I picked it up and carried it to a gurney on the far side of the room. In a supply cabinet I found a cover to put over him, but before I did I pulled down his jacket and shirt to look at his implant. It was on his shoulder blade, surrounded by damaged tissue, much thicker and more swollen than Eletra’s. I wondered if he had known it was there, at some point. If he had jabbed at his back with something trying to get it out, before the Targets made him forget about it again. (It was still a stupid thing to do, but I understood the impulse. I understood it a lot.)

Then the emergency kit blared an alarm through our feed as Eletra’s pulse and respiration rate dropped.