Changeling

(58)

The fateful day had come. Nestra’s plane was set to depart at 2PM but for some inane reason, the private company in charge of transport insisted that she came at 10, which meant catching the tail end of rush hour. Not only that, but the small airport’s admin staff spent most of the time triple checking that her passport and visa were in order. Maybe it had something to do with last minute calls or maybe it was standard fare. She’d never traveled to Europe before so she couldn’t be sure. That left her with too much time hanging around a lightly populated terminal watching rich Thresholders board reinforced airliners to destinations unknown.

Contrary to the old airliners she’d seen in pre-Incursion vids, modern planes were sleeker, faster, and sharper to accommodate exotic platings and countermeasures. The planes were unarmed but they did have tools to survive, the most prominent of which was speed. Watching those majestic beasts take off was an inspiring reminder of mankind’s resilience that awed Nestra for all of five minutes before boredom set in. An early lunch occupied another half an hour and then it was time to reply to texts and doomscroll the latest news. All of her family (except Ulysses) had sent her supportive texts. Some of the senior members of the House had also sent their encouragement. She replied to all of them and also to Stibbs and even Doctor Mazingwe with promises that yes she’d set an appointment as soon as she was back. Valerian remained a cause for concern. He was definitely not feeling too chuffed about his family breathing down on his neck, but as he’d said, he wasn’t in any sort of danger so Nestra accepted that it would be something for when she came back.

Aunt Claire found her bored to tears at 1:30, not too long before the boarding time would begin.

“Where were you? I thought you might miss the flight!” Nestra reproached.

“What do you mean, darling? I’m well in advance this time. I could even fly out and grab you new shoes and still make it.”

Aunt Claire was wearing a colorful designer dress ensemble that remained sensible yet still caught the gaze, especially with her bare scarred shoulders. By contrast, Nestra was wearing a tank top with thick trousers while her deep green coat was rolled over her cabin luggage. It was much colder in Switzerland at the edge of October.

“You have boots?” Claire exclaimed.

“Yeah? It might rain in Zurich.”

“Oh, sorry. If it looks like I might walk in a puddle I might just… hover. You’re here early darling. Nervous?”

“You?” Nestra asked, shocked to her core. “A member in good standing of Society? An investor?”

“I know, I know. It looks like I’ve joined the Great Capital. But to my defense, I had no choice if I wanted to move science forward. It’s the kind of world we live in.”

She brushed a fake tear from her eye.

“If it’s any comfort I’m still working so that means I’m not a rent seeker.”

“Riel forbid.”

Nestra remained mostly quiet until they were called to the boarding gate. The queue was fairly small and made of equal part corpo exec augs and admin gleams. As far as Nestra could tell, Aunt Claire was the only true raider. The rest might have dallied at some point though. A dusky-skinned young man did a double take when he spotted Aunt Claire, his expression one of sudden terror.

“An acquaintance?” Nestra whispered.

Aunt Claire replied with the loud kind of voice that showed exactly how little of a shit she gave.

“I attended a factory protest against his family due to appalling work conditions. When his father showed up, he called them all sheep and claimed he was a wolf that would teach them their place by force if necessary so I beat the crap out of him. Don’t worry though, I don’t punch down. The kid’s safe.”

Nestra nodded wisely. There were a lot of people convinced that ‘Might makes Right’ who’d changed their tune after meeting Claire. Turns out that it’s a less desirable system when you’re at the short end of it. Despite her misgivings, the two of them boarded the plane without police intervention of any kind. Inside, Nestra found luxury she would have never expected from her previous experience with military transports.

Cream seats, sleek lines, ample room, the plane was a sanctum of quiet luxury, dark and intimate while windows let in a filtered light. Nestra almost felt like an intruder sitting her pleb ass on the upholstery. At least she wasn’t sweating. A flute of bubbly popped up from a recess. She took a sip. It was pretty nice.

“There are crackers in the other box. You can ask for refills as well,” Aunt Claire said without looking.

They waited for technical checkups as well as a slow trickle of late arrivals. There were no more than thirty seats here but it looked like they would be mostly filled. Nestra squirmed a bit. She was feeling curious.

“So… can I ask?”

Aunt Claire looked up from her paper book. She was so old school in many ways.

“I don’t think you need to ask why. You know why.”

“I’m your top two favorite niece?”

Aunt Claire chuckled.

“You jest, but I may have more nieces back in the old country. You know your mother and I come from the United States?”

“Barely since you never talk about it.”

“Right. Anyway, I did it because I love you and I didn’t want to watch you suffer those cravings until you died and then Debbie and I would have had to bury you. It’s not right for a parent to bury their child, Nestra. I hope you never have to do it.”

She frowned, lost in memories. Nestra remained quiet until Claire shook her head.

“But let’s not dwell on that, especially since it looks like you’re all going to be raiders… as to how, it started with an internet research. So, there have been core wounds in the past decades but very few of them, and many slowly healed over time so it was just considered a debilitating injury that nothing could be done about. But I did find an article from the University of Zurich from a couple years before about the possibility of… core melds. They call it that. Essentially, damaged cores are like cracked marbles if I simplify it very, very much. The cracks will be reabsorbed over time while the mind must heal as well. I read reports about the feeling of the cracked core. They made it sound like it was an intensely traumatic experience. The idea Doctor Fehr had was to extract the pure mana essence from a similar core to be used as a, hmm, mortar I guess? Or scar tissue. The essence would be liquefied and captured by an extremely complex process involving several types of mana, then reinjected in the damaged core. While it would not heal the gleam right away because it’s not their mana yet, it would bypass the longest part of the recovery process. Like… just having surgery and then immediately going to reeducation without having to wait for everything to fuse back together.”

“You mean like broken bones?”

“Yeah, that. So, the thing is, it was a bit of a fringe thing when I asked five years ago, with Doctor Fehr struggling to get funding. So I asked him if it could be used on you and he was hesitant because, well, he can’t grow a core from nothing. I did get him your medical files with your mom’s approval and he said it looked like your core was just missing, not that it had never existed.”

Aunt Claire hesitated.

“Sorry maybe I should have asked you but I didn't want to give you false hope.”

“It’s ok. You had access to them before anyway so it’s not like it was a new thing.”

“Right. So Doctor Fehr said it should work provided we got a core with an almost perfect mix for you. The thing is, for most B-classes, they have a large amount of mana available so there is time to balance the mix but with your mix variables must be under a level that…aaaaand that’s technical details you don’t need to know.”

The discussion was interrupted briefly while the plane moved, then promptly took off. Nestra was pushed against the back of her seat by the acceleration. No wonder the nice steward had asked her to return the flute of bubbly. It just kept going for a long time too. That plane was really, really fast. Faster than a gunship by orders of magnitude.

“So anyway, I offered to fund his initial research and testing into the liquefaction process. It was a very long and costly endeavor. We actually created a company with me as the director to get it started, hence why I got the resident permit. Since then, Doctor Fehr published his findings and we got a lot of coverage in the high gleam world. You’ll actually be the sixth surgery. All of the others were mostly successful.”

“Mostly?”

“Not all cores were fully repaired, though all of them got vastly improved. It doesn’t matter for you since your missing core will be tiny and immaterial so it should be remade without issues. Anyway, things have turned out pretty well and your old aunt is helping a lot of high gleams with her capitalistic project.”

“Ok I’m actually very impressed. Not to mention grateful of course. By the way, when does the plane stop accelerating?” Nestra asked.

Aunt Claire pointed outside with a very pleased grin.

The blue of the earth turned darker, and Nestra’s mind was captured until all she could see was the vast expanse of sky turn to night blue, an Ombré going from the sea to the horizon, and then to the limit of the atmosphere. Nestra drank the sight and the darkness with a strange longing. It felt so… peaceful here.

She gripped her seat with sudden alarm. She’d been on the verge of losing her mask without realizing it. A moment later, her concerns were washed away when the disturbing feeling of her bladder going up distracted her. Blonde hair puffed around her head. She turned to a purely happy Claire, her wild brown mop even wilder now.

“I’ll never get tired of it,” she said.

“I’m going to the lavatories,” Nestra said, but really she just wanted to be free.

“You know you can just move around the cabin, no need for excuses. Heck, you can just go grab a snack in the back. Try it!”

Nestra felt so liberated without gravity. She grabbed the edge of her seat to move herself forward, cruising through the air like… actually was this how Sashimi always felt? This was so nice! She twirled nicely through the air until she was upside down though was it really upside down? There were no such directions in space.

She horsed around at the back of the plane next to a stewardess who was doing her very best to ignore her. Nestra was granted two extra bags of snacks which she pocketed with a thank you, then back to her seat it was fifteen minutes later since they were going to leave the no-gravity part of the flight. She tried to get the jump on Aunt Claire by crawling up the ceiling like a blonde xenomorph but it didn’t work on the B-class.

“Is this really your first time in near space?” Claire asked, visibly confused.

“I think so?”

“You’re remarkably gifted when it comes to moving here, you know? I expected I’d have to nab you from the air. Not that it’s the kind of skill that’s useful in a resume but…”

“It’s just fun,” Nestra said.

Might be an Aszhii thing. Unfortunately, the plane started its descent and Nestra had to get her seatbelt on. It had only been half an hour since the start of the trip. It would take more time accelerating and decelerating than just crossing most of the distance between the two cities.

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Stress returned with gravity. Nestra had one bag of snacks and then it was the reentry, the bottom of the plane shining beautifully through the reinforced windows. First came clouds, thick and fluffy, and then mountains. The light of the early morning shone on them at an angle that cast long shadows over the land.

Nestra sighed with pleasure. Those were not the volcanic protuberances of the Threshold continent, but actual old mountains bearing the bones of the earth. They were absolutely titanic, green, and topped with snow. She’d never touched natural earth snow before.

It was kind of nice to see there were still so many exciting places to see that wouldn’t have her go through a portal.

After the mountains came fields, long square ones now dull from the harvest, but still a pre-Incursion vista at first before she could spot the damage. Several of the fields were burnt beyond recognition, or crossed by the scars of large battles. There were no isolated villages either, only moving convoys around large machines she could see as the plane went lower. The plane crossed tall walls and landed immediately after.

Nestra was still watching the distant low town topped with the pointy roofs of old churches right before they disappeared behind a forest. The inside of the city fortress was heavily forested.

“Don’t they miss portals?” Nestra wondered.

“Hmm?”

“How can they keep this much area under control?”

“There are fewer portals and a lot of hikers. The area around the lake is a bit of a cold zone but the fields are rife with monsters and breaches. Switzerland doesn’t have guilds per se. They use different squadrons of dragoons who receive rewards on performance to… keep the gleams motivated.”

There was resignation in her voice, but after a while, she shrugged.

“I suppose I’m the same since I just use a ton of money to do what I want. In any case, the dragoons and citizen vigilance keeps the city protected. It’s in the fields that the hunting happens. Ah, we’re almost at the terminal.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Nestra’s trip through customs was fast and efficient. The dour border guard just asked her why she was here and nodded along when she replied it was for a medical procedure. Aunt Claire didn’t even have to do anything. She just beeped her way through the security gate with her fancy residence permit. It was absolutely insane seeing her as a respectable member of any society. Fuck, she was even courteous with the police people. Was it like… a vacation from being an unmanageable hellion? Did she just appreciate being proper as a novelty?

“How come you’re acting so much unlike yourself?” Nestra whispered, full of fear at this surprising twist.

“Well for one the canton of Zurich is a vibrant democracy not being slowly cornered by a bunch of dickless corpo vultures circling an entrenched cynical politician. I find the contrast refreshing. And second, they have the world’s best chocolate ice cream in that place I like and I’ll be damned if I allow myself to get banned.”

“Huh.”

Nestra picked up her luggage, then they had a nice early breakfast at an airport lounge after purchasing a telecom plan for Nestra.

“Twelve credits for a cappuccino?” Nestra grumbled. “What the fuck?”

“It’s a Swiss airport darling. Just be grateful you didn’t try the steak.”

Unwilling to trade her liver for a sirloin, Nestra followed her aunt to the nearby train station. The sky outside was gray and sad, and her visor confirmed it was only 8:30 AM local time. The weather was cold and damp, but not in the oppressive ocean-side manner of Threshold. It was more drafty too. Sometimes, a puff of wind brought an enticing smell.

“Sweet chestnuts,” Claire said with a smile. “We’ll get you some later.”

It was a brief antigrav taxi trip to the train station. Zurich was old in the way Nestra had difficulties processing. Some of the brutalist architecture of the post-Incursion year had survived alongside sleeker, more modern designs but there were also buildings that were centuries old. Centuries! And they were still standing, with like, stones and everything. It was also incredibly clean in a way that made Nestra envious.

The train station itself was a huge hangar behind a stone facade, a remnant of a happier past when trains had been far more numerous. Only two lanes were still in use, so the place felt remarkably empty. The train itself was just a tube. It wasn’t fortified in the slightest! It was fairly short too, only seven cars long.

It would travel through a very, very, very long narrow tunnel. That was why they couldn’t grow portals, or at least not for long.

“Were those dug by machines?” Nestra wondered as they waited

“Machines backed by earth mana powers. Not like mine though. Mine are exciting powers.”

Nestra frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Well to dig those they used boring powers.”

Nestra groaned. Aunt Claire leaned forward until her stupid face was fingers away from Nestra’s own like some sort of bargain bin supervillain.

“Boring powers, Nestra.”

“Just let me be a gleam so I can sock you in the jaw.”

The train was another fancy thing Nestra didn’t want to check the price tag of. They even had a pretty decent restaurant for what would be tea time for her. The other passengers wore clothes in a fashion Nestra didn’t recognize. Mostly, they kept to themselves. There were no raiders in the lot either.

The trip was fairly short and entirely underground. Nestra emerged from the train craving sunlight. Her internal clock said it should be near late afternoon by now but the sun was high above when they emerged from the Jungfraujoch Station.

“Wow.”

She was on another planet.

Well, not really, but it felt that way overlooking a glacier, a massive peak a short distance. There was only snow around, and she finally got some use out of her heavy coat. Half-buried structures dotted the landscape.

“Research labs and army folks used this place shortly after the Incursion,” Aunt Claire explained over the howling wind. “Now it’s great for secluded projects and discerning customers. Over there,” Aunt Claire said.

She grabbed Nestra and flew them all the way to a distant building, ignoring the available jetskis. It gave Nestra action vid evil lair vibes she was actually enjoying, a good distraction. It only lasted until they went through a safety gate half-buried in ice.

Time to face the music.

*******

Nestra walked into the facility with the sort of low stress that came by shutting down your brain before a big exam. She would be terrified if she ever stopped to think for a moment, but she didn’t, and so the stress was running after her, gnawing at her heart yet failing to overwhelm her. The facility was not just clean, it was spotless, all in white colors and sleek lines that were one hundred percent futuristic. She didn’t get the chance to ask Aunt Claire if she’d been part of the design team though, because there was a brown-haired water gleam strutting towards them with a smile.

“Mrs. Reid. Welcome.”

Nestra missed a step.

She knew what her mom and Aunt Claire’s last names were, of course. She was just so unused to hearing them that having Aunt Claire called ‘Mrs Reid’ gave her whiplash. In Threshold the etiquette was to call her just Claire, or Claire of House Palladian, or Claire Palladian for administrative purposes.

“Mrs. Liburdi,” Aunt Claire replied without missing a step. “Is everything ready?”

“Naturally ma’am. We were just waiting for you. If you would give me the core for processing?”

Aunt Claire picked a small black box from her bag, clicking it open with a careful thumb. The core was large and blue, with the occasional yellow arc playing over its surface. It was pretty big as well.

Hidden, the Aszhii part of her wanted to eat it. It looked delicious.

“Thank you. I will take it from here. Doctor Fehr is waiting for you in the operation theater. Everything is ready.”

“Really?” Nestra nervously chuckled as they walked through tastefully decorated corridors that vaguely smelled of jasmine. “No queues?”

Seriously, this place was more like a luxury spa than a hospital.

“This is a high end therapy place for gleams, Nestra dear. And I own it. Of course we won’t wait.”

After knocking, they entered a spacious room with a secluded changing spot and an array of testing machines. A tall white gleam waited in impeccable white scrubs. A heavy visor hung from his neck, so heavy that it had to be the equivalent of an aug suite. He also had a black sleeve which she recognized as a tactile interface. His eyes were the same pale blue as Camille’s. She could feel he was C-class but it took her so long to detect his mana that she thought there might be an issue. His control was amazing for someone who was clearly not a raider.

He was also kind of ugly with a forehead so prominent it felt like it was over half of his head. The thin layer of brown hair at the top like grass growing at the summit of a hill didn’t help with the evil genius vibes he had going.

“Doctor Fehr,” Claire greeted with familiarity.

“Director Reid. Welcome.”

His voice was cold and polite, though there was a respect in the way he inclined his head that really changed how Nestra thought about Claire.

“Director…” she repeated, testing the word against a lifetime of preconceived ideas.

“Your aunt owns this facility at a ratio of 83%, to be precise, thanks to a repeated wave of investments,” Doctor Fehr explained.

“Cost me a fortune but I’ve never been really good with money,” Aunt Claire joked.

Doctor Fehr smiled thinly. Again, it felt genuine and respectful.

“Despite your aunt’s self-deprecating humor, I can assure you that the facility is doing very well. We are four operations away from recouping all of our costs.”

“Wow,” Nestra said. “Isn’t it like… several million credits?” she asked.

Aunt Claire made ‘no’ gestures but her apparent minion didn’t comply.

“What is 1.5 million francs when it saves twenty years of painful recovery? Most B-rank raiders generate that wealth in six months or less, even without pushing themselves. I must credit your aunt for trusting in me, after all, and also for coming up with the air-based isolation process necessary to safely transfer the liquified essence to the core. We have named the spell after her.”

“Oh, stop it you. Now I’m sounding respectable.”

“Damn, Clecle, I owe you big time,” Nestra admitted again.

“You do. Now enough flattery!”

"Natürlich, Direktor. Young Palladian, please come here for the last test. Just a formality.”

Nestra placed her hands on two panels of a nearby machine. She received a mana jolt and heard a beep. A screen appeared, revealing very low values. Everything was close to zero.

“Hmmm. Is that bad?”

“Not at all. This machine is calibrated for B-rank raiders, yet it is also quite precise. I am merely confirming what Doctor Mazingwe measured back in your home city with our own equipment. Everything happens to be in order. Now, please get changed over there. Leave your underwear behind as well, if you please.”

There was a small bed and a white pajama and short slip in the secluded spot. Nestra wriggled into those as fast as she could. It made her feel vulnerable. Outside, the gleams waited patiently. Aunt Claire had folded arms, which was an unusual sign of nervousness. Next, Doctor Fehr had Nestra stand in a sort of tube linked to a bulbous robot that made her feel like she was about to be microwaved.

“I can confirm damage and scarring in the spot where your core ought to be.”

“Was she attacked?” Aunt Claire asked, suddenly concerned.

“I am unable to say, but it must have happened a very long time ago. Now, if you would proceed to the surgery room?”

That was it. Nestra was left to step into a mostly empty room under a bright light. A large white bed occupied the center. The walls were gray and high. Meanwhile, the entire ceiling was taken by a large machine split in several parts. It was whirring when she arrived. Mana flooded it, coming from above.

Doctor Fehr’s voice came from a microphone. He and Aunt Claire were looking down from a window from a sort of control room. It gave Nestra intense high school flashbacks. The setting was disturbingly like the one where she’d learned she was missing a core. Her heartbeat accelerated. Panic filled her chest.

“You’re doing fine, sweetie,” Aunt Claire said.

“I apologize for the dry setup Miss Palladian. Unfortunately, this is still an experimental treatment and we do not understand everything yet, thus the seeming overabundance of precautions. We will remain here so as to not interfere with the mana transfer.”

The doors closed. Nestra took a deep breath. Then several more deep breaths.

“If you could comfortably lie down on the bed, I believe the team… Yes, they are almost done. We are about to begin. Now, when I tell you, I would like you to reach for your mind palace as you were trained to do. If you cannot do so quickly, do not be alarmed. There is no rush. A robot will inject you with a drug that will assist you in this endeavor.”

Nestra didn't react when a robotic arm lowered itself, then jabbed a needle in her arm. It was very quick and precise and she barely felt a sting. A deep sensation of dissociation suddenly overcame her, like she was looking at herself from afar and not really recognizing her own body.

“You may enter your mind palace at your convenience.”

It was incredibly easy to do so, even more so than when she was dreaming. The palace was the same as always, an empty hall around a pedestal where the core should be, then a door to the left leading to the planetarium of skills and two to the right leading the the resistances and false core rooms, respectively.

“I am there.”

“Immersion confirmed. That was very fast. Well done. Now we will slowly inject the liquid essence. You should feel a presence or intrusion. What I need you to do is to accept and guide it to the spot where you believe your core must be. Can you do this for me?”

“I will do my best.”

“Core processed. Beginning phase 3. Miss Palladian, you should feel it… now.”

And she did. There was something pulsing, pushing above her. It was a lance of pure energy that could destroy her, but it was also perfectly contained. Like lightning in a bottle. She felt that dangerous mix fall over her, but it was searching blindly as well. She felt like she could draw it in. She hesitantly reached for the tip.

“Response detected. You’re doing fantastic, young Palladian. Now guide it… that’s right.”

The tip lowered towards her until she could see it inside of the mind palace. Again, Nestra felt there was no way she could touch this without exploding and yet it somehow obeyed her command. Finally, she could see it. It was blue and yellow and moving incredibly fast inside the tightly controlled shape of an arrow. A last look around confirmed that all the doors to her Aszhii self were shut tight. Satisfied, she pushed it down.

On the bed, she felt her body spasm.

“What’s going on?” Aunt Claire demanded.

“Slight overload since the base core value is zero. This is expected,” Doctor Fehr said. “Look, the transfer is beginning.”

And it was. Where her core was to be, the arrow was now undoing itself, spreading in the spherical space like a hose suddenly opened. The tip was gone now, but a wily tube connected the core spot to the outside. It was jumping around with little control. Nestra tried to grab it to keep it calm but it was difficult, again, as if she were trying to hold something several times her size. She felt something strange in her chest at the same time, like a warmth, like a phantom pain disappearing she’d never even known was there to begin with. She took deep breaths. It was an amazing sensation. Moreover, the mana actually stayed in the right spot instead of leaking towards the planetarium. It was working!

“Transfer in progress… you are doing fantastic young Palladian. Keep doing what you are doing. You absolutely must not stop.”

Nestra wouldn’t have stopped if Riel had returned from the beyond to beg her with teary eyes. It felt absolutely amazing. The energy kept coming in. She wanted more. Before it felt like too much but now it was too little, too slow. She needed more.

“Can go faster,” she mumbled, brain addled by the sensation.

“Let us play it nice and slow, young Palladian. I assure you that you will get more than you can handle. Careful, mana precipitation imminent. Young Palladian, you might feel a sort of contraction…”

The mana in her core pulsed and collapsed on itself in a way that made her panic to death for one brief moment, but instead of an explosion, there was now a quickly rotating sphere where her core ought to be. It was blue and yellow and one of the most beautiful things she’d ever beheld. It was still so fragile though, so she resisted the urge to pull on it. It kept moving on itself while the mana still dispersed around it. Nestra guided more of it until an accretion disk formed over the slowly growing center. Her core was drinking the mana at intense speed.

“Precipitation… confirmed. Beginning phase four. Miss Palladian, we will now attempt to regrow your core to what it should have been at awakening.”

Nestra barely listened. She was too busy pushing more energy in. She already had a core. Now she was using a trick to safely regrow it not just to basic awakening but to match years of worth of adult level growth. It just kept drinking greedily so she just kept going. The core was as large as a basketball compared to her at first, a sign it was really underfed, but then it was a yoga ball. It kept growing more and more slowly but still, it was growing.

“Can keep going,” she said.

“Go on sweetie. There’s no way you use all of the core essence anyway. Just take as much as you can,” Claire said.

She sounded so happy. Nestra just kept pushing, again, and again, and again. As time went by though, the draw on the energy arrow faltered. It was going out of control. Her core simply wasn’t drawing that much energy anymore. it wasn’t that hungry. That pissed Nestra off.

“Take more, dammit!”

“We’re going to slow down the intake now, young Palladian. Keep going as best you can,” Doctor Fehr continued.

Nestra pulled more but she was losing control. She could feel that the space her core could occupy was almost filled now, and it was rotating at a sluggish pace. The tube of power feeding into it was as lively as it had always been but there was simply no space for it to pour into, and it had decreased in size as well. Soon, there was merely a thin line Nestra did her best to keep attached.

“Incremental progress now. You can keep going, young Palladian.”

But Nestra failed. The thread slipped between her fingers, disappearing up in a spark of unspent mana.

Her core was here. It was a human core, intimate yet so foreign and surprising. A comforting warmth spread through her chest and then, her entire circuit. Everywhere there had been dull pain and then numbness, now there was plenitude. She felt intensely complete. Whole. For a moment, she basked in the scene of the quiet core revolving in the now illuminated room. It was D-class for sure, though far too big for someone who had just awakened. And it was hers. It was her essence, revived at last.

Nestra opened her eyes. She sat down while the voice of Doctor Fehr quietly concluded from above.

“Operation successful. Core at 98% maximum capacity. The rest will regenerate by itself.”

Aunt Claire burst into the room. She grabbed Nestra by the shoulder, tears dripping on her cheeks. Her smile was so pure it was almost intimidating. The raider grabbed something from her bag: a mirror. She presented it to Nestra who checked her face.

The gray of her iris was gone. Instead, there was a cold azure band coursed by yellow bolts.

“Well I’m a gleam now.”

Aunt Claire hugged her and Nestra allowed herself a sigh of happiness.