Polity 4 - The Technician Read Online Free Page B

apparently goes under the title of the Technician, inflicted damage upon
you that should have killed you. However, it very meticulously sealed blood
vessels as it cut, and it didn’t take off your breather mask until it reached
your face, where it did the most damage. This might be just the standard way
hooders operate. We can’t be sure. You’re the most we’ve ever found of one of
their Human victims.’
    ‘The
Technician does not exist. Hierarch Chalden declared it a myth propagated by
those whose faith is not strong enough. Anyone caught spreading rumours of its
existence must be subject to punishment six.’
    Faith is dead.
    A sound
issued from the voice synthesizer. A glitch, obviously, for it sounded like a
giggle.
    ‘Punishment
Six. Yes, that’s when you pin someone out naked over the spring growth of flute
grass, so the sprouts steadily punch through their bodies.’
    Jem
suddenly felt flute grass underneath him, dry old grass, papery against his
remaining skin. But it wasn’t the grass making that sound in the darkness all
around him. Stars above? No, even rows of them, yellow . . . He began to recite
the First Satagent, as he had then.
    ‘Religious
babble,’ she said. ‘After it took off your mask it took off your face. It took
all the soft matter off your skull even as far back as your tonsils. Why it
left you one eye is a mystery. Perhaps it’s an artist, not a technician. You
cannot speak because you have no lips or tongue and you cannot blink because
you have no eyelids.’
    His
recitation stuttered to a halt. He was having a nightmare, that was it. This
whole situation seemed to possess its own internal logic but, when examined
from a distance, the inconsistencies were evident. What was that over there?
Something moving at the end of the building, where that big shadow lay . . .
    ‘It went
even further than that,’ she said. ‘There are numerous holes through your
skull, numerous incisions, bleeds, what looks like cautery inside your head and
the remains of fibre connections like you get from an aug. All the facial
nerves have been removed right back to your spine. The damage is beyond the
reconstruction technology I have available. Until we get some real Polity
expertise here, all I can do for you is this.’
    She
pulled the cloth from the object on the bed, revealing a hairless human head
fashioned of some stark white material. It had one eye, yellow like old glass,
the other missing. He stared at that yellow eye then glanced away, but it
seemed to leave an after-image in his vision. A clicking sound, he looked back
in utter terror, only to see that she had hinged the head open like a clam to
reveal gleaming electronics inside.
    ‘It came
by special delivery,’ she said, frowning in perplexity, then went on, ‘Like the
voice synthesizer it detects relevant neural activity and translates it into
action. You’ll be able to speak, to eat, and your sense of smell will return.
It will also route blood to underlying bone to prevent it dying.’
    She
tapped a lump inside the open head, then turned it over and opened the mouth to
reveal a tongue, pure white. He realized the lump she had tapped was a mouth
lining seen from the skull side. Turning it back over, she now pointed to the
back of the yellow eye, then picked up the wormlike connection extending from
it.
    ‘The
hooder left your optic nerve in place and, though it did something odd with it,
we can still make a connection so you get binocular vision back.’ She now
pointed up at his face. ‘It left you your eardrums, which is why you can hear
me, but with the extra connections in this prosthetic your hearing will improve
too.’
    She
closed the head up, and there, again, that yellow eye. He tried to blink to
clear the previous after-image of it, could not, and now there were two
after-images, then three. The darkness had grown now to fill one entire half of
this room, and that medical machine, the insectile one, seemed a lot lot