Page 33 of Grimdark Magazine Issue 48

With her free hand, she knocked the broken handguard off the sensor and onto the floor. Hopefully it would all look like an accident. She was pleased at how well her plan was going, the injury was not as bad as she'd feared. They'd cart her off to the med lab and bandage her up, and hopefully she could get the chip she needed.

Medical overrides dropped the shadow filter surrounding the injury.

She saw the flesh of her own hand for the first time in years. Tiny parallel lines of white where the broken handguard had scratched her deeply tanned skin. Dark brown age spots and freckles, so many more than had been there before. The pale blue of her veins. Wrinkles. Her own hand. She suddenly understood the Shades that became cutters, why they'd injure themselves. For this. A glimpse of their own body.

Blood oozed out around the edges of the needle. A crimson ring that contrasted with both the flesh of her hand and the shining silver metal.

The machine stopped beeping, and the awl retracted. Blood gushed everywhere, pulsing out through the puncture wound and pooling in the bottom of the machine. She'd never seen so much blood.

She screamed.

There was a flurry of activity, chaos. The floor supervisor was yelling, but Vivian didn't process any of the words. A Generic wrapped her hand with white cloth that immediately soaked red. Another Generic hung a lanyard around her neck, a pass that would get her into the other wing for medical attention.

One of the Generics led her out of the assembly line and down a long hallway, chattering at her constantly. She tried to nod occasionally to show that she was still conscious, but even that small movement made her dizzy. She stumbled and leaned against the windows that lined one side of the hallway and squeezed her eyes shut. "Sorry. So dizzy."

She opened her eyes and found herself looking down at the rest of the assembly line, all completely automated and supervised by a Keeper. Her head spun. She knew she should study the scene below for security flaws, but this wasn't what she'd expected at all--there were no workers, only a guard and a line of machines.

The Generic ushered her into the medical station and left her with a doc--denoted by a red cross on the chest of their otherwise generic overlay--on shift there. The care was impersonal and efficient. Stitches and bandages, scans to make sure her peripheral ID chip was intact, a reset of her PIP to remove the seek-urgent-care throbbing to leave only a dull ache. The skin of her hand disappeared back into shadow. She wondered if she'd ever see it again.

A second doc came in. "First patient for the new installation?"

The first doc shook their head. "Careless Shade down on the front end of the line. Punched straight through its own hand with one of the machines. I know Shades need work to keep them occupied, but I wish we could go full on automated."

Vivian shouldn't have been able to hear this conversation, but maybe the medical overrides decreased her audio filtering. If she got out of this, she could use that to her advantage. She played an oblivious Shade, pretended not to notice their conversation.

"We've got the prototypes ready to go, who'd know? It's just a Shade."

"You want to do it, go right ahead. I'll still be working here when your newly Shaded ass gets implanted with the latest tech."

One of the docs hooked her up to an IV. "Shade lost enough blood that it won't be going anywhere for a while, you want to grab some lunch?"

"Sure. There's a new place on 6th and Main with a flavor overlay for empanadas."

This was her chance. She'd seen where the doc had gestured when they talked about prototypes--the new implant was here at the med lab. She wouldn't have to get onto the assembly floor at all.

Both docs left. Vivian forced herself upright and stumbled over to the glass case where the prototypes were stored, barely within the range of the clear tubing that tethered her to a bag of fluid. The lid of the case was locked, but the key was on the table next to the case. There were a dozen chips arranged in two neat rows. Vivian carefully removed two, which left slightly shorter rows, but to her eye that was less obvious than a single missing chip that made the rows uneven.

She wrapped the chips in tissue and shoved them into her pocket. If she got caught, she'd lose all her points and be terminated. She'd probably lose points just for her 'accident' although technically people were not supposed to be penalized for sustaining injuries. They'd want to do an investigation. Possibly they were already analyzing the data from her PIP. The security team would be able to see what she saw, including watching the Shade outline of her hands stealing their latest technology.

Probably they hadn't started their investigation yet, or they'd be on high alert. She had to get out. She couldn't wait to be formally discharged. Vivian frowned. It seemed wrong that they'd leave the clinic unattended. Too easy. If she put the chips back maybe they would let her live, wouldn't take all her points. Maybe there was some other way to stop this, to slow this descent into new levels of hell.

No, she was committed. She called up a vague memory of Cass, the way they'd looked when they were nearly seventeen, dressed all in black with bright blue hair nearly as short as Vivian's was now. She'd finish this for Cass, and Auntie would help her get her PIP removed, and she'd live underground where the Keepers wouldn't find her. Maybe someday she'd even see Cass and Brooke again. She tried to draw strength from the thought.

She pulled out her IV, nearly fainting at the sight of the blood that trickled down the end of the tubing. Her arm stayed in shadow, the injury not severe enough to re-trigger the medical safeties. Or was there some kind of override now that she was being treated? She found some gauze and taped it over the dull ache where she thought the IV had been. For once the shadow overlay would come in handy—she was surely splattered in her own blood, but out in the hallway all anyone would see was a Shade.

She made it to her own wing without incident and clocked out with only minor alarms in her peripheral vision to notify her that the leave was unauthorized. No one paid any attention to her. She was a Shade in a crowd of Shades, all of them interchangeable, workers on the line.

As soon as she was clear of ZimCorp property, she opened a manhole and climbed down the ladder. Her head was spinning from her injuries, and she was entering at a different point in the underground maze, but the flow of the wastewater would lead her to the main tunnel.

Rats scurried along the edges of the sewer, and the stench of human waste with its lemon overlay made the throbbing in her head even worse. She glanced down at her arm, but she couldn't see if she was bleeding from her puncture wound, or from the IV line she'd torn out. If it was bad, the safeties would come on, and she'd be able to see. She found her usual entry point in the main tunnel, and walked along the memorized series of turns, fourth tunnel left, second tunnel right, over the extension ladders that someone had cobbled together as a makeshift bridge.

She knocked on Auntie Yang's door, swaying on her feet as she waited for Auntie to let her in. "I have the chips."

The door opened, and Auntie stood on the other side without her Citizen overlay.

"Oh, child."

Vivian followed Auntie's gaze. Behind her a trio of Keepers appeared out of nowhere. They'd filtered themselves from Vivian's senses with her PIP. She'd had no way to know that they were following her. She'd led them straight to Auntie.