Confused, and increasingly concerned, Dahlia nonetheless obliged and leaned close to Quinn’s face. A synthetic whirring echoed briefly in her ears before vanishing in her aural blind spot, and with a blink her eyes brought faux clarity to the dark. A seamless combination of night vision and rapidly-refreshing AI-generation took in and deciphered everything just as fast as the eyes she’d been born with. It mapped out Quinn’s face, twisted in pain and grief and anxiety, and then further, it lit up the empty eye socket.
It seemed normal for modium scarring. Discolored, gray flesh like water splashed on dry concrete. She knew from experience how uncomfortable it could be at first, but this was old and healed and as much a part of her as the rest of her skin. Then, further in, it highlighted something…else. Something small, hardly the size of a fingernail, lodged into the flesh at the very back of the socket.
Dahlia had never had reason to doubt her implants before, but when a preemptive scan warned her that she was looking at raw modium, she figured there must be a glitch. She blinked, the overlay reset, scanned again. Again it returned modium, warned her to back away. Dahlia gasped hard.
Her first thought was simple and animalistic—run. Quickly her human mind caught up and told her she needed to drag Quinn to Follen’s now because she was about to die. Then the logical mind followed, and reminded her that she should already be dead. Long dead, burst into a statue of volatile steel.
But here she sat, with her, both of them alive.
“What…” she mumbled dumbly. “That’s…but…is that from when you were little? But…but you should be…”
She recalled Quinn’s babbling, and a pit formed in her stomach. “He…? Do you mean…do you think…Follen knew?”
He’d have to, wouldn’t he? They’d have scanned Quinn before the modioscory, to say nothing of the numerous scans afterwards. There was no way Follen hadn’t known about it. So…so why hadn’t he said anything?
“What…what do we do?”
It seemed normal for modium scarring. Discolored, gray flesh like water splashed on dry concrete. She knew from experience how uncomfortable it could be at first, but this was old and healed and as much a part of her as the rest of her skin. Then, further in, it highlighted something…else. Something small, hardly the size of a fingernail, lodged into the flesh at the very back of the socket.
Dahlia had never had reason to doubt her implants before, but when a preemptive scan warned her that she was looking at raw modium, she figured there must be a glitch. She blinked, the overlay reset, scanned again. Again it returned modium, warned her to back away. Dahlia gasped hard.
Her first thought was simple and animalistic—run. Quickly her human mind caught up and told her she needed to drag Quinn to Follen’s now because she was about to die. Then the logical mind followed, and reminded her that she should already be dead. Long dead, burst into a statue of volatile steel.
But here she sat, with her, both of them alive.
“What…” she mumbled dumbly. “That’s…but…is that from when you were little? But…but you should be…”
She recalled Quinn’s babbling, and a pit formed in her stomach. “He…? Do you mean…do you think…Follen knew?”
He’d have to, wouldn’t he? They’d have scanned Quinn before the modioscory, to say nothing of the numerous scans afterwards. There was no way Follen hadn’t known about it. So…so why hadn’t he said anything?
“What…what do we do?”