Idyllian (Amsterdam Institute) by R. Z. Held

Author:R. Z. Held [Held, R. Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-24T22:00:00+00:00

***

Maintaining vitals as if still unconscious, the implant informed Sienna as she rose through what would normally have been heart-pounding disorientation. With that artificially muted, she felt hazy and sticky instead as she assembled her situation. She was in an internal-technology treatment position, half on her side, half on her stomach, right arm and right leg bent to prop her there. A cautious slit of her eyes revealed the molded plastic edge of a diagnostic couch, but voices made her close them again.

“There was nothing bad enough for a gel bed, but I gave her a dose of healing nanites for the surface injuries and dehydration. Those have finished and flushed.” A man’s voice, and a gentle touch at the back of her neck, the implant installation site. “But I can tell you right now, any surgery to attempt to remove the implant would kill her. As far as I can tell, they kept the original owner in a vegetative state to briefly fool the implant into not self-destructing, then slammed it into this woman. Since it thought it was still in a living host, the implant attempted repair and seems to have taken over an Idyllian communications implant in the process. It has recreated perhaps forty percent of its connections, but that’s more than enough to kill her if we try to sever them.”

“You’re certain?” A woman’s voice. Sienna couldn’t tell if the tone was faintly chilling or if the content was what made it sound that way. “Wouldn’t it be better to get in there and see what the physical connections actually are? This has never happened before, has it?”

“No, because it never should have implanted again in the first place! I can only guess that the fact she didn’t die has something to do with the Idyllian int-tech.” The touch on her neck withdrew, and Sienna realized she hadn’t felt even the residual soreness she’d had from the LSF installation. They’d used top-quality healing nanites on her, at least. She recognized the high-gravity weight of the exhaustion they’d left in their wake. “I’m sorry, Commander Constantinople, surgery is impossible. It would be lethal.”

The woman—Constantinople Elantine, said the implant, but offered no memories—gave a bark of laughter. Once more, was it unkind, or was Sienna unkindly disposed against this stranger and her insistence on cutting her open? “Just our luck, a regular Amsterdam Genevieve.” Which must be the only Idyllian, a century dead as she was, most Pax Romana had heard of. One of Idyll’s heroes, one of the Pax Romana’s traitors. “I’ll capture her vitals and such for my report—if she wakes, I’ll call you,” she said. The man made no protest against that dismissal, and his footsteps receded.

In the ensuing silence, Elantine sighed, moved off a little. Sienna wasn’t entirely sure what instinct had kept her quiet and listening as they spoke over her, but she knew it was still driving her, holding her to stillness. Like it or not, however, any application for asylum would

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