Welcome to the Bakery!

“Do you recognize this child?”

Oni’s robotic yet dulcet tone filled the room. In front of where she sat was a large panel flanked on either side by two others set up in such a way as if mirroring the main panel in the center. It was not unlike the effect one would get when opening two sides of a medicine cabinet. As if conjured, the image of standing in her bathroom all those years ago flashed before her. The juxtaposition of seeing her flesh reflected back to her in the mirrored panes of the cabinet’s doors as the created biocybernetic face she wore here leered back at her made her head throb. She shook her head to cast the image away and reopened her eyes to see Oni on screen in front of her, tone shifting somewhat to irritability if an AI could feel such things. Here, she believed they may.

“Do you recognize this child?” Oni asked again.

Below the glowing visage of Oni was what looked like the futuristic cousin of a Xerox machine. The callback to a life she’d had to leave behind jarred her once more. They promised it would get easier in time, but it had not and she wondered if there was just something wrong with her. Well clearly because… But before she could continue down the road of self-degradation Oni’s voice punctured her reverie once more.

“Do you recognize this chid?”

Her tone was a concoction of irritated and worried. Maybe the latter was projected, but she didn’t want to piss the AI off anymore than she had. Leaning forward, she grabbed the item sticking from the contraption’s face. It looked like a polaroid, however it was transparent, allowing the black, white and green glow emanating from the screens to taint the colors printed on it. The image was of a girl, a child likely between the ages of four to six. She was seated at what looked like a dinner table, a large smile painted across a gaunt face. Arms thinner than they should be protruded from the sleeves of either a dirty or faded pink blouse. Sitting in between her outstretched palms were wooden blocks, obviously worn with age and use.

“I….I think so.” She mumbled aloud.

In the process of becoming what she was now, they’d done tons of scans and imaging and recording. They’d forced her to sing, make an astounding array of noises, talk plainly, whisper, and yell. She’d felt incredibly stupid doing most of the exercises, but they assured her it was to make sure her shell sounded as much like her as was possible. And it did, for the most part. But there was something just slightly off about it as if the very thing that made her “her voice” was missing. She’d labeled it as the loss of her humanity while in her shell. But really it was just the mechanization and reproduction of it, truly not as deep as she made it. Or was it?

“Who is this child?”

Oni changed the question and she felt scolded, as if she were failing an open book test. She looked at the photograph once more taking in the stringy brown hair tucked into a braid and somehow knowing that, despite the facial expression of the child nearly screwing her eyes closed that they were a crystalline blue. Not unlike the sky. Finally the connection was made and she stammered, “I think this is my daughter, but wrong somehow.”

“This is a current photo of your daughter.” Oni stated in a gentler tone.

Current photo? When she’d left, her daughter had been small. Smaller than kids her age due to the cancer ravaging her body. The illness that had cost the family everything and forced her to sign her life away in the hopes of making enough money to afford treatments. “How…how long has it been, Oni?”

The image of the AI on the screen strobed before she responded with, “It has been three years, seven months, and eight days and it is almost time for your shell payment. Sekiguchi Genetics will charge your payment against your current line of credit.” Her line of credit. The one she’d never pay back. She slid the image into the front of the black harness that criss-crossed its way around her shell. How had three years gone so fast? Time flies when you’re rendered immortal and yet die at every turn.

“This contract will take you to Outpost. I warn you to avoid the Pinwheel at all costs.” She rose and waved a hand at the screen. “Of course, Oni. I’ll do my best.” As she began to walk out of the sensory overstimulation that was the glowing and whirring orientation room, Oni spoke once more, “If you continue on this path, you will never see your daughter again.” She turned and looked at the image on the screen, essentially a floating head with wires flowing from beneath. Since when did Oni do do anything other than check her faculties and send her to her impending death? The screen faded to black and she was left wondering if that even happened. There was absolutely something wrong with her.

After visiting the armory and getting kitted out – another charge to her credit – she was transmatted to the slick deck of the Airfield on Outpost. “Runner affirmation – what cannot be seen cannot be killed.” It was Oni once more to cheer her on in her own robotic way. Long since were the days where she’d attempted to talk her into killing other Runners. It never went anywhere.

She stalked forward, using the hulking shipping containers’ shadows to provide cover. The rain, a muted yet cold sensation against the bioskin of her shell, made it hard for others to hear her footfalls. Made it hard for her to hear theirs too. She pulled up the menu that transposed over the world in front of her and read the details of this contract. Checking the map afterwards, she was pleased to find she’d started at least somewhat close to where she need to be. Sure, she was a Runner, but running across a massive area infested with UESC and other (more deadly) Runners was a liability. And the worst part? She was great at the work. She was not great at the killing as it pertained to other Runners.

Of the missions she’d successfully pulled off, nearly 95% were done with no killing whatsoever. As Oni said, you cannot kill what you cannot see. And the UESC were routine at this point. She could tell which class or classes stomped above her. She knew exactly how much space she did and did not need to put between herself and these bots to move without garnering attention. Her map knowledge was unparalleled and that was solely because she needed to get to where she was going without any ONE seeing her.

Maybe she was too caught up in her own situation to be “good” at this line of work. By good she meant having the ability to kill as needed. She knew logically other runners couldn’t die because she couldn’t die. The shell would be destroyed, more debt added to the ledger she’d never pay back, but death? She feared if she’d ever be able to die or if she’d simply just be a consciousness dropped off again and again on a locale looking for scraps for corporations who had pushed her to this decision in the first place. An all too human ache surged through her chest. If she possessed a heart, it skipped a beat at the thought of it all. The phantom pain could not truly hurt her. But the bullets ripping through her abdomen could.

Within a few buttons pressed, she was invisible. However, trapped as she’d been in her reverie she had been badly injured and a trail of blue drew a line directly to her. She hazily wondered if they’re made this liquid blue to not simulate the true red viscera that would’ve been left behind had she been in her biological body. Her head spun once more at the thought of being in two places at once. The Bully SMG in her hands felt too heavy as she clamored for a healing kit. The gun slid from her hands, slicked now as they were with her own gore. The clattering of the gun on the airfield’s deck ricocheted across the otherwise empty rainy night. This was hopeless. She was hopeless.

As self-loathing coursed through her, the other Runner was upon in. With a swiftness she was downed and their shell’s face filled her vision. This person was running under Thief class. It was the most uncanny of them all, the most humanoid…or so she felt. The black synthetic hair was sticking to the glossy face of the shell, a face that held no emotion. She wondered what it would be like if only she could feel nothing towards this job she’d rushed into. They raised their knife and she raised her hands defensively and cried out, “Please just let me finish this contract. My daughter needs the money.” The Thief stopped, knife mere inches from her core. Their face remained clear of whatever it was the person behind those eyes was thinking, but their head titled slightly.

The runner stood up abruptly and dropped a patch kit on her chest. No words were spoken as they melted into the night. Her fingers would not work as her mind whirred. She never begged to be saved because she expected no kindness. Not here. And somehow she’d found a Runner who understood. Fumbling with the patch kit, she finally healed up and crossed the Airfield without any further interruptions. In and out, silent and invisible, the contract was completed and all that was left was to leave.

As she hid behind some sort of defunct machinery, listening to UESC bots swarm and chitter to one another as the guarded exfil whirred to life, her mind wandered back to that Thief. How she’d been so quickly spotted but then within the next twenty minutes of her contract she’d heard minimal shooting and saw no one else. It was weird, disconcerting even, but she’d take the luck. This money would cover a few months more of her daughter’s care. Not a dime would go to her shell repayment. That bill would continue to swell. It towered over her, a looming reminder that if she continued as she was she truly would never go home. And maybe going home had been a fallacy the instant she signed her life away.

The exfil chirped and she went invisible once more, sliding into its warm blue ring. The UESC alerted but she didn’t know to what. Her chest tightened. There must be someone else here. Instinctively she threw her smoke, shrouding the entire exfil in haze she couldn’t see through. But no one else could either. Quiet footfalls came from her right and she pulled her knife, adrenaline rushing through her biological form miles away from where her consciousness stood.

“Take this.” Came the brusk voice of the Thief who spared her earlier. It was the Runner’s entire pack shoved into her hands. Before she was able to say a word, the pair were transmatted back to their individual base locations. She’d likely never see this Thief again, but now this run made sense. The muffled shots were the sniper rifle hung off of the bag she’d been given. Not only had this Thief spared her, but they’d protected her too. Tears pricked her eyes and rolled down the cheeks of her comatose biological form. In her shell, no tears fell. But the realization sat heavy on her. Made her wonder what that Thief had left behind, what that Thief was working towards.

Maybe there was empathy on Tau Ceti IV, rare but present.