The level of awkwardness in this room rivals even the awkwardness of the word “awkwardness” itself.

  For a solid minute — Close. Fifty-one seconds, Minerva informs me — Dr. Ocavey and I simply stare at each other.

  Then the doctor claps his hands.

  “Well! Now that that’s out of the way, shall we look into some Augments for you, Mi… er… Rowan?”

  I (continue to) stare at him blankly.

  “Wait. That’s it?”

  “What’s it?” He chirps brightly.

  “We’re just going to change the subject after dropping that bombshell on me?” I almost shout. I know he doesn’t mean any harm by it, but something about his attempt to just shrug off my shock infuriates me.

  “What more would you like to discuss about it?” He asks. His face, his sudden cheery demeanor, does not change.

  “Well, for one,” I reply. Except, of course, I don’t have anything for one. The fact that Ocavey is right only angers me more, but it’s an act in futility.

  Now, Doctor, don’t tease the child. They’ve had enough excitement for the day, and it’s not even past noon.

  “Not a child!” I respond automatically. “Also, I can’t even use Autopilot, remember? It’ll burn me out.”

  “If anything is going to burn you out, it will be the integration with Minerva. It stands to reason that we equip you to defend yourself in the meantime, and redouble your efforts in training to compensate,” Ocavey says.

  “Redouble my efforts? The last time I did that, I got a concussion and a twisted ankle!” My face is definitely red right now. “And by the way, I still haven’t gotten checked for that concussion!”

  “Rowan, you are a Vessel now. Need I explicitly state that this means regular injuries like concussions are insignificant to you now?” The doctor might have been slightly intimidating, if not for his size. “The fact that yo—”

  Ahem. My point stands. I think it’s about time they got to do something that is exciting in a good way, Minerva interjects. Whatever Ocavey was going to say, he opts to change course. I’m still frustrated, but there’s some truth in what he said. I don’t like the idea of straining my body further and simply hoping I can push myself enough to keep up, but at the very least I can look at some prospects now and save them for later, once I’m strong enough to use them to their fullest extent.

  “Yes yes yes, that’s what I was going to do,” Dr. Ocavey says. He turns toward the larger lab room, a childish spark of delight already glittering in his eyes — or goggles, I suppose. “Now, Mir Losha, let’s get you dressed in something proper for a Vessel.”

  I almost correct him, but hold my tongue at the squeal in his voice. Somehow, I feel like the doctor is going to have more fun picking my gear than I am.

  Without another word, he rushes off ahead of me, nearly tripping twice over the odd gadgets scattered about. You would think that Doctor, having lived in this mess for decades, would have naturally developed some level of dexterity. Alas, t’was not meant to be, Minerva laments in my ear.

  By the time I catch up to him, the doctor is already a table covered in Autopilot. It’s different from the one that caught my eye before; that desk is across the room, diagonal. I’m constantly aware of its location because I have to carefully position myself so my back is to it at all times, or I find my gaze drifting back to those wings.

  Spread out on the surface before him are four Augments, each one different from the others and each one a model I’ve never seen before. Though, it wouldn’t surprise me if all of the stuff here is unique and custom-made, or even assembled by the doctor himself. The abundance of tools and robotic parts strewn about suggests as much.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  I bring myself around to the same side of the table as him; I would be peering over his shoulder if he weren’t so short. The leftmost is a simple pair of prosthetic arms, seemingly innocuous from one glance. Thanks to my years of working at InFashion, though, I can tell high quality and specialized Autopilot from a cursory inspection. And the complex device in front of me is nothing if not quality. I let out a soft whistle.

  I am, ironically, something of a pedant when it comes to Autopilot. For as long as I can remember, I was fascinated by it. I would get in trouble at school for drawing little mecha-suits on my notebooks, or for following upperclassmen around to see their Augments. My apartment has an entire bookshelf of books, paper models and trinkets of different major models and their functions down to the microscopic bolts. It’s a major part of why I got my job at InFashion in the first place. The Studio is an entire company dedicated to designing tailored outfits custom-made according to clients’ Augments, though I never got to do the actual designing. I mostly took measurements, did the practicalities of the work; where to reinforce a joint that would strain the material, where to leave the fabric loose so as not to impede motion, which fabrics would best hide this or that but allow the blue accents to show through… for two years, I wasn’t just observing commercial, public-access Autopilot; I got the close-up view of the real deal, the top-quality pieces that cost more than some houses and looked the part.

  It was like living a dream… except for the fact that it meant getting mocked and insulted every day by those people. I got sick of it after the first year and a half putting up with it, never getting a break between that and school. As if it didn’t hurt enough that I would never be able to use an Augment myself. A few pompous dicks (and a dickess) even talked to my manager once, saying a manual had no place in a store specifically catering to the Augmented. Mia-Lindsey wasn’t having any of it, though. Had them kicked out; not blacklisted or anything, she didn’t have the authority for that; but it was nice to see a few douches get kicked onto the street for once in their spoiled lifetimes.

  Nice tangent. Should I remind you that the present is still a thing? Minerva quips, yanking me back to reality. I focus again on the prosthetics.

  The arms seem basic, but looking at how thin the accents are on the forearms and wrists, there’s definitely mechanisms hidden below the skin. The finger pads don’t escape my notice, either. The tips of the fingers have the softest touches of blue; close up, you’d be able to see that theyre shifting fingerprints, able to read and encode the fingerprints of the user’s corresponding hands onto them. I raise my eyebrows; now that is not something you see every day, even at InFashion.

  To my memory, the very last motes of touch-ID were finally phased out at least two decades ago. Even if I bought that this model was that old, which it isn’t, the possible uses for it would be too niche to ever be useful to any civilian, even the rich.

  This is a military-grade Augment. I almost question myself, but there’s no denying it; the military is the only sector still using touch-ID as a layer of security in its systems.

  “You look surprised,” Dr. Ocavey comments, seeing the look on my face. “Though I hate to put it so crudely, the fact of the matter is that you, Rowan, are a military asset now. That means only the best of the best.”

  Ah, right.

  “I suppose I am,” I say, still inspecting the piece. As impressive as the biorecognition technology is on these limbs, it’s far from the only rare and incredible feature on them. I absentmindedly reach out a hand to touch one arm before remembering where I am. I look up at the doctor for permission; he nods.

  I don’t pick it up; this model is no doubt incredibly heavy. Instead, I roll one arm over so its palm is facing up, and lean forward to get a better look at it. I press the palm gently, first in the center, then on various points radiating outward from there. There. It’s cushioned well, but if you look for it, there’s a small ring in the middle, maybe three centimeters in diameter, so thin as to be barely perceptible. Some sort of projectile, most likely. By now, Innova’s mechanisms are so compact that the entire inside of a prosthetic can be all but hollow, leaving room for a plethora of other things.

  I run a finger over the faux-skin, feeling for a hint of a crevice. None; there’s no hatch or opening from which any solid projectile might be launched. Probably not an electromagnetic field, unless…? My eyes widen. I look up at the doctor; he’s grinning like a maniac.

  “No…” I don’t dare hope.

  “I present to you my greatest masterpiece of the prosthetics I have designed, the Hands of Kui. As you guessed, they are equipped for government and military access identification. The palms are designed to produce a concentrated electromagnetic pulse, which can temporarily disable all but the most robust Augments. I designed the Faraday interior protection myself.” He turns one arm over, holding it up by the crook of the arm to better show the forearm.

  “Here,” He continues, pointing with his free hand to one of the fine-lined sections of the forearm I noted earlier, “are three separate functions built into the skin itself. The first is a camera and microphone with fifty petabytes of storage space each, though the limited space shouldn’t be a problem since Minerva will be able to regularly filter out and delete irrelevant footage.” He smiles apologetically at that. “I had hoped to push at least seventy-five petabytes in each camera, but decided the space would be better used for the lightsabers.”

  “Lightsabers?” I ask incredulously.

  Dr. Ocavey actually grins at that, a mischievous look at odds with the utterly ridiculous levels of genius surrounding the man.

  “Lightsabers.”

  Holy shit, maybe burning myself out for this would actually be worth it.

  “Just what exactly do you mean by that,” I probe, leaning in conspiratorially.