“You think this will help?” Treyko asked, twisting his head in the vice of the chair. Even now, he still smiled. Heelna remembered those days, before she too had been plugged into the mainframe.
Easier days, simpler days.
“You know it will,” Heelna replied, as she tightened the wrist straps on Treyko’s wrists and upper arms. Injecting the implant bots was not the hardest part, that came afterwards when the user would be hit with a wave of information that could burn their brain like electricity.
This process had a 50% survival rate when done under proper conditions. When done in the back of the ship’s lab, three thousand lightmiles away from the closest medical centre, it was probably down to about 20%.
But still, Treyko was prepared to do it. They needed another with access to the mainframe, and since Ophel had died-
“Come on Hee,” Treyko said, bracing himself against the chair, “you know it’ll be fine. It’ll help. We need two minds to access the ships mainframe to drive this damn lump of metal. We can’t just float in space for much longer.”
No, they couldn’t. They all knew that.
“Ready?” Heelna asked as she lowered the needle over Treyko’s elbow.
“Ready,” he replied.
She pushed the needle into Treyko’s arm.
This flashfiction was first posted in 2019
Featured Image by Alice Hampson on Unsplash
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