Excerpt: Conservator

Getting Implants

Claudius Pinot followed his oldest brother Vincent through the darkened warehouse, the grey plastic walls thick and pitted with age and graffiti. He saw several gang markings, but all of them were either the Black Nine or allied to them. Still, if it weren’t for Vincent, he’d’ve turned tail and run.

Vincent’s tight black curls, growing in now that he’d stopped shaving his head, shined in the faint light. His black skin, darker than Claudius’s own by several shades, seemed to disappear in the gloom.

“Calm down,” Vincent murmured without turning.

Claudius flushed. “I’m fine,” he snapped.

Vincent glanced at him, a flash of dark eye. Claudius could see the shadow of his unshaven whiskers lining his jaw. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m fine,” Claudius repeated, but looked down so he didn’t have to lie to Vincent’s face. “I’ll be all right.”

Vincent, mollified, turned back to the trail left by successive footprints, wearing into the floor. Claudius knew what concrete was, there were pictures in the vids he got from the library. Even though there was none on Mars, at least anywhere that common riffraff like he would be, it looked like it to him. Dark grey, almost brown with grime and age, it seemed solid as stone and not plastic.

The wall loomed, a doorway with no door staring at them like a lidless eye. Vincent stepped through, his bulky form filling the width, and Claudius suppressed a spurt of envy at his brother’s size. Claudius had inherited their mother’s willowy figure, small-boned and delicate. Vincent looked like their father, except those eyes of his. It was like his mother stared at him out of Vincent’s face, Claudius thought sourly. Made arguing with his big brother difficult.

A sharp scent, some kind of medicinal tang, floated by and Claudius sneezed. A dog started barking, invisible in the gloom, and Claudius felt his stomach tighten.

“It’s all right. The doctors have dogs as guards,” Vincent told him, voice quiet. “Come on.”

He turned left, down a hallway that Claudius hadn’t noticed, and descended a stairwell. Claudius suppressed a shiver of superstitious fear. Tunnels on Mars weren’t safe, not since the Newgarden monorail accident. He squared his shoulders and followed Vincent down, the bare light bulbs glaring into his eyes.

A door barred the bottom of the stairwell, a small metal plate covering a hatch at eye-height. It opened the moment Vincent approached.

“Name.” The voice sounded indeterminate gender and Claudius wondered if it was human or cybernetics.

“Vincent Pinot to see Doctor Malcolm.”

The voice digested that without speaking. Then Claudius heard the tumblers slide free and felt his eyebrows shoot up. Pretty heavy-duty locks for such a dump.

The door opened to reveal a young woman, black hair bound on top of her head in a complicated knot. She wore indigo robes and simple canvas sandals, but a large emerald flashed from her right hand. He could see the lacquer on her nails and wondered if it was paint or bonded.

“This way, please. I am Superintendent Tanaka.”

Vincent nodded and motioned to Claudius to stay with him. They followed Tanaka through several hallways, the plastic walls and floor scrupulously clean. In contrast to the warehouse, the surfaces seemed, if not fresh, at least well maintained.

They came to another stairwell leading down another flight, and Tanaka descended without a backward glance. Vincent hesitated only a moment, but Claudius saw it. He wondered if his brother felt superstitious too, or if it was some other reason. Tanaka was too close to ask him without her hearing, so he kept quiet.

She came to a door marked “Intake” with a small placard, and led the way inside. A bed sat along the far wall, white sheets gleaming, and a metal counter lined two of the walls, forming an “L.” A stool on wheels sat in front of the counter and two chairs took up the remaining wall. Vincent sat in one, and before either of them could speak, Claudius took the other.

Tanaka eyed him but said nothing. She sat on the stool and removed a clipboard from a drawer. “I’ll need these filled out, please.”

Vincent took the board without bothering to glance at Claudius. Claudius felt himself flush. At least his brother could pretend he wasn’t a kid anymore. Vincent filled out the pages quickly, eyes scanning rapidly back and forth.

“You need to sign here,” Vincent told him, thrusting the paperwork at him.

Claudius took it, feeling belligerent, and made him wait while he reviewed everything. After the second page, he grudgingly admitted, if only to himself, it was a good thing Vincent filled it out. He didn’t know the answers to half the questions. He signed on the last page and handed the board back to Vincent, who handed it to Tanaka.

Tanaka studied Claudius. “You’ve given your consent?” she asked him.

He nodded.

She cocked her head. “You understand what’s involved?”

He nodded again, not meeting her eyes. She stared at him the way Earthers did, directly at his eye as though they were in the same gang. He felt himself flush, prickles shooting down his neck.

“He understands, Superintendent. We’ve discussed it.”

“I need to make sure he has given his informed consent, Monsieur Pinot. This is not a minor undertaking, and there is significant risk.”

“I understand it,” Claudius said then. “I consent.”

She stared at him and he kept his eyes on the floor, itching to look back at her but unable to. She finally turned to Vincent and Claudius was able to breathe.

“He is a settler, you said?”

Vincent nodded. “We’re fourth-generation. But our parents were killed in the Newgarden monorail accident. Claudius was raised here.”

“Oh,” Tanaka breathed, as though something made sense. She shifted in her chair so she no longer faced Claudius directly, and set the clipboard in her lap, hands folded on top. She looked a his chest. “My apologies.”

He glanced at her, but she kept her eyes politely averted. He frowned and glanced at Vincent. Vincent motioned with his head, ‘say something.’

“Thank you,” Claudius said. “You thought I was from Earth?”

She shrugged. “I was mistaken. I meant no offense.”

He dearly wanted to ask why she though that, but didn’t know how to make it sound like he wasn’t accusing her of anything.

“You’re sure you understand what will happen?” Tanaka asked.

Claudius nodded. “Yes. The implants will be installed under local anesthetic. I have to be awake because of how the wiring is done.”

“Yes. If anything goes wrong, the anesthesiologist will bring you under. But we don’t anticipate any problems.”

Claudius didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded. “Thank you.”

Tanaka stood, still facing away from Claudius, toward the wall and not directly looming over him. He felt confused. If she knew how to act properly, why didn’t she do so from the start?

“I’ll let Doctor Malcolm know you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Vincent responded.

She stepped out and closed the door gently.

“What did she mean, she thought I was a settler?” Claudius demanded, surging to his feet to glare at his brother. “What did you tell her about me?”

Vincent held his gaze. “Calm down, Claudius. I had to give them your medical history, or they wouldn’t have done the surgery.”

“Why?”

“Because. They need to know your aptitude for it.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Claudius snapped. “I passed the pilots’ exam, didn’t I?”

“Well, they wanted to know why you weren’t in pilots’ training, so I had to tell them something,” Vincent explained.

Claudius digested that. “Fine.”

Vincent chuckled. “Don’t be so touchy.”

Claudius made a face at him and went to rummage in the drawers. Nothing of interest turned up, just medical supplies like surgical tape, gloves, and clamps. Most of the drawers were locked, and he didn’t want to pick the locks without knowing when Tanaka would return.

Just when he started to get bored enough to do it anyway, the door clicked open and a tall, slender man entered, dressed in a white lab coat and grey suit underneath.

“Vincent!” he burst out, a smile lighting his face. “It’s been a long time!”

Vincent stood, shaking the doctor’s hand. “How have you been, doctor?”

Doctor Malcolm shrugged. His graying hair, cut close to his head, bobbed slightly in front with the motion. “Can’t complain. This must be Claudius.” He didn’t face Claudius, like Tanaka had, but stood at an angle to him. “I’m Doctor Geoffrey Malcolm, Claudius. I knew your father.”

Claudius nodded politely. “Nice to meet you.”

“We’re ready to start,” Dr. Malcolm told him. “If you will both come with me, I’ll take you to the prep room. Claudius, you’ll need to change into a hospital gown. A nurse will start your I.V. and take you to the operating room. We’ll be all done in a couple hours.”

Claudius inhaled. “Thank you.” He kept his voice blank, but inside, he shivered. No matter what he’d told Tanaka, Vincent could probably read the fear on him.

Mercifully, his brother said nothing, just stood. Claudius followed the doctor down the hall to another room. A nurse waited inside, and she handed Claudius a set of hospital clothes. She waited while he stepped behind a screen to change, then had him lay down on a gurney. The needle felt cold going in, and then went numb as she started the feed.

“What’s in that?” he managed to say around a surge of lethargy.

“Something to calm you, it’s nothing to fear. You’ll be awake, but relaxed.”

He blinked, noticing the ceiling moving. He realized the gurney had been pushed into the hall, and then they were in the O.R. He kept losing time. One moment, Vincent told him good luck, the next, Doctor Malcolm greeted him. Though the doctor’s face mask hid his face, his eyes smiled kindly at him.

The first incisions felt strange. He could hear what they were doing, but it didn’t hurt. As they worked, exchanging arcane commands over his head, he drifted.

A sudden pain speared through his left eye and he heard himself whimper.

“Claudius?” He heard Doctor Malcolm , but couldn’t answer.

A jumble of voices rose around him, scraping his ears like a serrated knife. He tried to speak, to tell them something seemed wrong, but he couldn’t make his mouth work. He watched the ceiling spin above him and realized, too late, that it was falling. His awareness went with it, evaporating like water in a vacuum.

He didn’t even have time to be afraid.