Foreign Biological Material

“No, you can’t do this to me. I’ve always been loyal to Aethis.”

The man’s voice carried across the checkpoint as I waited to clock in for my shift.

Glancing over, I saw the newly bricked man on his knees in front of a guard in power armor. He looked to be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, and pleaded as if pleading had ever gotten anyone anywhere. The guard stood there, stoic and silent, without even acknowledging him, while a group of other bricked corporate washouts surrounded the man, speaking in low voices as they tried to offer what comfort they could.

The reader flashed green when I tapped my card against it, and I stepped through, pulling my tattered gloves over my hands as I made my way toward my station.

Heat hung over the sorting floor, thick with the smell of old garbage, hot metal, grease, and scorched plastic. Faded yellow lines marked the walkways between stations, while red paint warned us away from the machinery.

A conveyor rattled overhead, carrying another load of broken furniture, torn packaging, twisted wire, and discarded components into the shop. The industrial grinder sat at the far end of the floor, waiting for whatever metal we pulled from the garbage.

My job was pointless, honestly. Machines could have sorted it faster, but I guessed Aethis Heavy Industries needed somewhere to put its corporate washouts while pretending to let us earn a living.

Besides, we were probably cheaper.

“No, you don’t understand!” the man screamed, his voice cracking as he fought against the hands holding him. “I was loyal. I did everything they asked me to do. Everything! You have to check again. This has to be a mistake.”

He twisted toward the guard, nearly falling as the other workers tried to keep him upright.

“My whole life is gone. Do you hear me? My job, my home, my family, all of it. How are they supposed to eat? What am I supposed to tell them?” Spittle sprayed from his mouth and ran down his chin. “I don’t even know what I did. Just tell me what I did wrong and I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it. Please, just put it back.”

The man broke down sobbing as the others gathered around him, telling him what they told every newly bricked worker who came through those doors.

This was a second chance. All he had to do was keep his head down, do the job, and wait for his next evaluation. If he worked hard enough, Aethis might restore his implant and give him his old life back.

It was a comforting lie.

I had never seen a single person leave this place and return to the life they had before.

I cleared my pile, pushing the remaining trash onto the conveyor and sending the metal toward the grinder, then walked back to my station, where another load was already waiting.

He surged to his feet and turned toward one of the bricked workers.

“No. I know my life is over. This is it. The end of the road for all of us!”

Then his eyes flicked toward the grinder, and I knew.

I just fucking knew what he was thinking.

“No! Hold him!”

The man tore free and ran straight toward the industrial grinder.

I bolted after him before I could think. I wasn’t sure why I cared, only that I couldn’t let him end his life like this. I caught up just as he reached the machine and stretched out to grab him, but he leaped before my fingers could close around him and disappeared headfirst into the grinder.

I turned away, unwilling to see what happened next, as warm, sticky gore sprayed across my face and down one side of my body.

I just stood there.

“Foreign biological material detected,” a mechanical female voice announced. “Processing suspended. Maintenance required. Please remain clear of the machinery.”

A piece of the man slid from my shoulder and struck the steel floor with a wet squelch. I stared at it and thought of my sister.

She had begged Mom and Dad to sign the papers for her implant when she turned sixteen, and I had been just as happy as she was when they finally agreed. She had wanted one so badly, wanted to prove she was growing up and ready to choose her future.

I was thirteen then, and my sister was my best friend. We joked, played, and explored together, but after the implant, everything became about her career and the path she wanted to take. She stopped having time for me, and whenever I asked why, she told me she had to think about her future.

I lost her to a damn chip and vowed I would never let anyone put one inside me. My parents were proud of her, though. They acted as if she hadn’t changed at all, as if the implant had merely helped her grow up.

Another piece of the man slipped from me and struck the floor.

Something that small should not be able to take this much of a person. It should not be able to decide who someone had time for, define what their life was worth, or leave them unable to live when it was taken away.

But it had.

And this was what remained.

The foreman’s voice carried over the loudspeaker.

“It looks like maintenance won’t be able to get here for several hours, so I have to end the shift early.”

Un-fucking-believable.

I immediately made my way toward the foreman’s office while the other workers muttered complaints behind me. Some of them were still staring at the grinder and the streak of blood leading away from it.

I couldn’t let his death affect me right now.

I couldn’t afford to.

When I opened the door, cool air rolled over me, raising goosebumps across my gore-streaked skin as I stepped inside.

“Man, you know I can’t afford to lose a shift,” I said, trying to keep the heat out of my voice. “Can’t you put me on another line? Maybe the incinerator line. I’d be happy to do that.”

The large man turned toward me. An optical device hung over his right eye, allowing him to interact with the terminals surrounding his desk.

“You know a baseline can’t cross jobs without a certification on record.”

“Yeah, but can’t you make one exception? I’ll be two weeks behind on rent if I lose this shift.”

The foreman lifted the screen away from his eye and looked at me.

“Lucas, was it? Look, I’d love to help you out, but you know I can’t do that.” His eyes traveled over the blood and pieces of flesh still clinging to me. “Besides, I don’t really give a shit how poorly you manage your credits, so please, go home, clean that off, and come back tomorrow.”

Clenching my fists, I turned and left. What else could I do? This was the only job I could get, and as good as punching him in the face would have felt, I needed it.

The guard’s helmet swiveled toward me as I passed.

I pulled my card from my top pocket and tapped it against the reader. It beeped, clocking me out after barely an hour of work.

The helmet continued to follow me until the doors closed behind me.

Outside, the street was nearly empty, as usual. A rare ground vehicle hummed past with something large strapped to its flatbed, wires protruding from beneath a tarp.

I stepped around a puddle reflecting a nearby sign.

Aethis Heavy Industries: Building Tomorrow Now.

As I walked, I couldn’t stop thinking about what a fucking prick the foreman was, acting as if I had somehow mismanaged my wages. Who the hell did he think he was?

A man glanced up as I approached. His eyes moved over the blood coating one side of me, and he pressed himself against the wall until I passed.

Everyone was always paranoid, even though violent crime was almost nonexistent. The implants suppressed violent impulses, a known side effect listed in the contract before installation.

“Excuse me, sir. I noticed you don’t have an implant, which makes this an extremely lucky day for you.”

An Aethis implant salesman stepped directly into my path.

I didn’t stop. I lowered my shoulder and pushed past him.

“Not interested.”

“But, sir, you haven’t heard the best part!” he called after me. “For a limited time, you can own your implant outright after only three years of payments, and it comes with a whole month of Premium access free!”

His voice grew louder as the distance between us widened. I raised one hand dismissively without bothering to look back. He muttered something under his breath, but I had already turned the corner and disappeared down the alley.

Less than two minutes later, someone grabbed me and dragged me into a narrow passage branching off the alley.

I twisted and tried to pull free, but whoever had me kept dragging me backward for nearly twenty feet before finally letting go.

I spun around, ready to swing, then stopped.

The man standing in front of me was ancient. His head was bald, a pair of bulky augmented-reality goggles covered his eyes, and a long beard hung down his chest. He reminded me of the crazy old hermits from the cartoons I watched as a kid, the kind who lived alone inside an asteroid and yelled at passing ships.

“What the fuck? Who are you?”

The old man glanced back down the alley. Red light flickered across the lenses of his goggles before he turned toward me again.

“I don’t have much time before they track me down, so I’ll make this quick,” he said, his voice dry and raspy.

He reached into a pocket of his oversized shirt and pulled out a small metallic cylinder. It was rounded at one end and flat at the other, with a tiny opening in the center. Thin seams crossed its surface, pulsing with blue light from somewhere beneath the metal.

“What I have here is a one-of-a-kind implant.”

I scowled as heat rose in my chest.

“Look, old man, I’m not interested. What the fuck is it with everyone wanting to stick a leash in my head?”

The old man sighed and glanced behind him again.

“This isn’t a leash, Lucas. This is thirty years of my life. I intended to use it myself, but look at me.” He spread one thin hand toward his body. “I’m too old to survive the integration.”

I took a step back.

“I don’t give a shit how long it took you to make it. How the fuck do you know my name?”

The old man shook his head.

“I’ve been watching you. You’re the only person without an implant within twenty miles who was close enough for me to reach.”

He poked me in the forehead, and I flinched farther back.

“You’re not afraid of the technology. You’re afraid of what the corporations put inside it. You would rather live in a hole and sort garbage than let them decide what happens in here.”

He tapped my forehead again.

“You don’t hate implants, Lucas. You hate leashes.”

I brushed his hand away.

“You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

The old man let out a harsh laugh.

“Don’t I? You and I are more alike than you think, my friend. I was once exactly where you are.”

He glanced toward the alley entrance again before continuing.

“Years ago, a group of free agents hired me to help scrap an abandoned colony ship. Buried inside it, I found the plans for the original implant.”

He held the cylinder between us.

“And do you know what I discovered? These were never meant to divide humanity into tiers. They were meant to be given to everyone, to make us adaptable enough to survive the harshness of space and carry humanity beyond worlds like this.”

His fingers tightened around the implant.

“But the corporations took that design, gutted it, and wrapped what remained in subscriptions, restrictions, and control. They bastardized humanity’s greatest invention and sold it back to us for profit.”

The heavy, rhythmic footfalls of several power-armored guards echoed from somewhere deeper in the passage.

The old man glanced back. Colors flickered rapidly across the lenses of his goggles before he turned to me again.

“Time’s up, my friend. You can accept it or refuse it, but either way, this implant will not end up in their hands.”

I looked down at the cylinder, then back at the old man.

“I don’t like this. You said you made it, so what happens if something goes wrong?”

The old man sighed and held it out to me.

“It stops integrating and is metabolized into your bloodstream. Now stop stalling. Take it or leave it.”

Something settled inside me at that. I wasn’t sure why, but walking away suddenly felt like a waste. The old man was not trying to force the implant on me. He had given me an actual choice.

“Fine. Hand it over.”

He placed the cylinder in my palm. I turned to leave, but he caught my arm.

“No. You have to implant it here.”

“What?”

“If you leave carrying it, they’ll follow you. Once it begins integrating, their scanners won’t detect it as anything different from a normal implant.”

I sighed and rolled the cylinder between my fingers.

“Fine. How do I implant it?”

The old man smiled and turned toward the approaching footfalls.

“Flat side against your skin, at the back of your neck, just above the bump here.”

He pointed to the base of his skull.

Before I could lose my nerve, I pressed the cylinder against my neck.

It hissed. Something stung sharply beneath my skin, and then the cylinder was gone.

“How do I know if it…”

A fuzzy screen appeared in my vision.

Integrating… 0.1%

Mapping neural pathways…

About fifty feet down the passage, someone spoke through a modulated amplifier.

“Remain where you are. Do not resist. Resistance will result in immediate termination.”

The old man glanced over his shoulder at me.

“When I run, you run in the opposite direction. Go straight back to whatever you call a home. I’ll distract them.”

Before I could answer, he bolted directly toward them, moving far faster than I had expected an old man to move.

I turned and ran.

I reached the alley he had dragged me from and rounded the corner just as an ear-splitting explosion tore through the passage behind me. The blast shook the ground and nearly knocked me off my feet, but I caught myself and kept running.

Holy shit.

Did he just blow himself up?

I ran until I reached the building I called home, then leaned against the wall and braced my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath.

Did that really just happen?

Had he planned to blow himself up the entire time?

I shook the thoughts from my head and went inside.

There weren’t many people around at this time of day, which meant I might finally get a shower without waiting half the evening.

At my sleeping rack, I lifted the mattress and opened the storage compartment beneath it, pulling out a set of clean clothes before heading toward the showers.

Five bricked people were already waiting in line.

As I stepped behind the last woman, she glanced back at me, startled, and stumbled into the person ahead of her.

I raised my hands.

“Sorry. There was an industrial accident at work. I’m just trying to get cleaned up.”

She relaxed slightly, but continued glancing over her shoulder while we waited.

As I waited in line, another window appeared in my vision. It was still fuzzy around the edges, but the text was clearer than before.

Integrating… 4.3%

Skill-point accumulation enabled at 20.56% efficiency.

Would you like to view the complete skill list? Y/N

“What?” I said aloud before I realized it.

The woman in front of me flinched and looked back.

“I… I didn’t say anything.”

I shook my head.

“Sorry. I was thinking out loud.”

She turned away again, though her shoulders remained tense.

I considered it for a moment, then decided I needed some privacy before digging into any of this. Standing in line for a shower, surrounded by people, was not the place to start staring blankly into space like every implanted person I had ever seen.

The line moved quickly. We were only allotted three minutes each.

When my turn came, I stepped into the cramped shower stall. It contained a narrow bench, a shelf for my clothes, and a towel dispenser mounted beside the door. Using the towel required a fifty-credit deposit, which the machine returned only after I pushed it into the collection slot.

I undressed, placed my clothes on the shelf, and stepped beneath the showerhead.

A screen above me immediately began playing advertisements. A small light followed my eyes, tracking whether I was actually watching.

The hot water control remained locked.

Pressing the soap dispenser started another advertisement.

I washed my body and hair while it played, barely managing to rinse everything before the shower shut off without warning.

“Damn it.”

There was never enough time to get all the soap out.

I pulled a towel from the dispenser, dried myself, dressed, and pushed it into the return slot. My fifty-credit deposit reappeared on the screen.

The line had grown longer while I showered as people returned from their assigned shifts.

I went back to my sleeping rack, crawled inside, and pulled the curtain closed. When I touched the screen beside the bed to dispense my nutrient paste, another advertisement appeared.

I didn’t mind this one as much. It always made me laugh.

A cheerful jingle began playing.

“Yes, we’ve added banana,

we’ve added banana today!

For only fifty credits a month,

enjoy flavors from banana to steak.

Subscribe today!”

I pressed DECLINE.

The screen made a disappointed wah-wah-wah sound before dispensing a bowl of plain nutrient paste.

I ate it with two fingers.

I had grown used to the flavorless metallic taste and couldn’t see the point in wasting credits on something that didn’t actually add anything to the meal.

So, about this skill tree? How does one accept?

The Y brightened.

Selection confirmed.

The window disappeared, replaced by a list of categories.

Confirmed Skill Categories

Computing and Information Systems

Foundational Knowledge

Industrial Equipment Operations

Practical Survival

Related Categories

Mechanical Systems

Materials and Fabrication

Logistics and Resource Management

Environmental Systems

Piloting

Further categories require additional knowledge, experience, or physical exposure.

I expanded Computing and Information Systems.

Human Interface Devices: Intermediate

Terminal Operation: Intermediate

Information Retrieval: Basic

Digital Record Management: Basic

Access and Authentication Systems: Intermediate

Machine Interface Interpretation: Basic

Digital Communications: Basic

System Troubleshooting: Basic

Programming Fundamentals: Available

Computer Hardware Fundamentals: Available

Network Fundamentals: Available

Each available skill required 5,280 SP.

I focused on Programming Fundamentals, and the list was replaced by a description.

Programming Fundamentals

Introduces the foundational concepts required to create and interpret software, including variables, data types, conditional logic, repetition, functions, and basic fault identification.

Prerequisites: Met

SP Required: 5,280

Estimated Completion Time: 53 minutes, 30 seconds

Add to Learning Queue? Y/N

I selected No, returned to the category list, and focused on Piloting.

A new window appeared.

Thruster Control: Available

Power Management: Available

Navigation: Available

Sensors: Available

Shuttle Piloting: Available

Frigate Piloting: Available

I selected Shuttle Piloting. The category expanded, displaying its prerequisites and the foundational skills required to learn them.

Shuttle Piloting

Prerequisites: Not Met

Thruster Control: Basic

Power Management: Basic

Navigation: Basic

Sensors: Basic

Underlying Prerequisites

Thermodynamics: Basic

Total SP Required: 114,255

Estimated Completion Time: 19 hours, 17 minutes, 44 seconds

Queue all missing prerequisites? Y/N

I laughed and selected Yes.

As a kid, I’d always wanted to fly, but now piloting looked like a way to get the hell off this planet.

All I needed was enough credits to buy a shuttle.

One thing at a time.

Sitting there, I wondered what I was going to tell people when they noticed I had an implant. How was I supposed to explain where it came from?

Maybe I could disappear for a couple of days and hide in the tunnels where I went whenever I needed to get away from everyone. Then I could come back and say I had finally gotten one in Old Larien City.

It wasn’t a great plan, but it might work.

I didn’t know when I fell asleep, but I woke to strange murmuring and someone quietly sobbing.

That was when I noticed my skill queue had dropped by six hours. Beside it, Integration: 11.4% glowed beneath a blinking urgent-message indicator.

I focused on it, and a news broadcast opened.

A well-dressed woman sat behind a desk, reading from a tablet.

“This just in. Aethis Heavy Industries has issued a warrant for the arrest of Lucas Cadalain for possession of black-market technology.”

My face appeared in a small window beside her, along with my name, address, occupation, and last known location.

The murmuring in the main room grew louder.

“Fifty thousand credits, three years of Premium service, and reactivation of a bricked implant,” someone said. “Man, I don’t think I can pass that up. Anyone know which bunk he’s in?”

Shit.

I leaped from my bunk.

People were already staring at me. Some looked frightened, but many had a hungry look in their eyes.