Embers After Flames, Chapter 12.2

12.2

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“It’s genuinely impressive that you’re alive, you know that?”

Less than five minutes after I’d started the deeper examinations, I’d moved Raven into a medical tank. Even that tiny little preliminary examination told me enough to know that if I wanted to get this done with anything resembling speed or efficiency, it was the only option.

The tank was fairly simple. Just a large cylindrical tube, big enough to hold a person. Raven had been fitted with a mask that covered all orifices on the head, and then the tank had been completely filled with a fluid containing a mix of specialized medical nanites, mineral supplies, organic solutions, and Coral.

“You really weren’t treated kindly by those who Augmented you... Or perhaps those who did this to you came afterwards?”

The fluid mass had the vast majority of things a body would need in order to be repaired. Everything else was supplied through a series of tubes that, currently, had been inserted at various different points along Raven’s spine.

The last look I’d gotten at Raven’s body had been through Ayre’s symbiosis. This was limited by the Coral in Raven’s body. Mostly, it concerned the brain and nervous systems. You didn’t need Coral in order to make muscles and bones more durable.

The damage had been quite bad through that look. Knowing what I knew now, however...

“It is incredibly displeasing for me to see this.” I told Raven. Mostly, I was doing it just to give Raven something to focus on. “This is simply abject cruelty, and I will not allow it.”

Raven didn’t move. Raven couldn’t move. The very first step of unfucking all of this was making sure no further damage could occur. To that end, I had supplied Raven with a local anesthetic, and then injected nanites into the spine and neck. From there, it was a relatively simple task of disabling the sensations and muscle control.

It wasn’t going to last too long, but idle twitching really wasn’t something you want to have to work around when you’re trying to deal with the spinal cord. I’d have rendered Raven unconscious completely, but there were two things that had stopped me from doing that. The first is that when it comes to making significant changes to the extent that I was preparing to do, gradual changes that the subject could get used to was usually a better idea.

The second was that Raven, for whatever reason, had refused to not be awake for it. As such, I talked, and when I wasn’t talking, Ayre was.

Both helped.

“The first few steps will be relatively easy, at least.” I said. “When the nanomachines have reached complete saturation in your body, I will start fixing things from the inside out. Your bone marrow will be the first.”

Typical Augmentation called for higher than normal levels of blood oxygenation. It was an efficiency matter. Raven apparently had not received the standard levels set by C4 procedures, and I wasn’t yet sure why. I had a hunch that the state of Raven’s brain had something to do with it, though.

With the bone marrow modified, the red blood cells produced would be better than what nature had designed. The lungs and circulatory system would have to follow, of course, but for now I could compensate by increasing the amount of oxygen in the air that Raven was breathing.

“I’m sorry to say that I can’t unblock the nerve signal interception until that’s done.” I explained. “I will need to introduce genetic agents across your entire body. Don’t worry though, it won’t take too long.”

I would also have to suppress the immune system for the moment. I was about to make a lot of changes, after all. At the very least, that was rather easy with the nanomachine infusion. After I was done with every other thing, then I could get the immune system properly updated so that it wouldn’t react to the body’s new Augmentations.

Once the agents had been introduced, I wouldn’t need all these needles. Without the needles, I also wouldn’t need to block Raven’s movements. The sensations... Well, that was another matter entirely.

The nanomachines were effectively going to be disassembling and reassembling absolutely everything. It was molecular-scale reconstruction, exceedingly thorough. It wouldn’t hurt, precisely, but that was because it would feel instead like a sweeping wave of numbness as the nerves were intercepted before being remade.

Ayre took over speaking as I made it happen. The injections only took a few minutes. When I undid the block, Raven barely even twitched.

Over the course of the next few hours, it took effect. First came the marrow, as promised.

It was impossible to see, of course. It was happening inside of Raven’s body. The nanomachines went to work immediately, acting alongside and directing the biological agents. Flesh and bone were de-integrated, separated out into molecular fragments. From the slurry in the suspension fluid, the nanomachines assembled both raw biomass and new augmentations, forming them layer by layer. When they were ready, both the bioagents and the nanomachines fused them back together.

If one could see it happen with naked eye, it would appear as a sweeping wave of changes. Portions of every bone in the body dissolving before new bone and metal would appear to simply grow into place.

The rest of the body happened nearly simultaneously. The organs were important, yes, but so were the muscles and the nervous system- to say nothing of the older C4 implants that were still present in Raven’s body.

They were... well, I’d hesitate to say crude, because they are in fact quite refined. Cruel would perhaps be a more appropriate word.

Still, they were present, and it needed to be dealt with. Doing so was easy; the nanomachines simply disassembled them, tearing them apart molecularly at a pace that was visible, if slow, to the naked eye. Kind of like watching paint dry.

At the very least, some of the matter was useful, the atoms capable of being repurposed. Everything else was getting completely flushed out, though.

It all came together quite nicely, my prior experience giving me everything I needed in order to make sure it was done safely. Muscles were strengthened, threaded with composites that dramatically increased both strength and durability. The nervous system, which in Raven’s case had already been replaced, was redone entirely. Before, it had been a standard human system with the neurons replaced by Coral. That worked, sure, but it could be better. All I had to do was a bit of cable management, unfucking what nature had made dramatically and unnecessarily complex, before threading it all with secondary and tertiary relays, accelerating reaction speeds to a level that was blindingly fast.

Organs, more efficient. Better in every way. Skin that stayed healthy, even in conditions that Raven normally existed in, though it would admittedly stay paler than usual on account of a lack of sunlight.

By the end of it, Raven no longer looked like someone with one foot in the grave.

With that all out of the way, I had Raven do some minor exercises to make sure it all functioned correctly. It did- save for where the state of Raven’s brain interfered with things.

“There’s still some room for improvement in your body, but that’s nothing you can’t achieve with a good diet and some exercise.” I told Raven. “Unfortunately, that was the easy part.”

The next part was the brain, and that was going to take much longer to deal with. Unlike the rest of the body, a wave of disassembly and reassembly wasn’t an option. Neurons would not handle that well at all, and the result of trying would be, at best, a blank brain.

What was required here was much ‘gentler’, insofar as brain surgery could be gentle. I was looking at an approximately twelve-hour long process just to get the structure of everything properly in place, and while that would get most of the surgical parts of the process out of the way, there was still going to be an extensive therapeutic process to ensure that Raven returned to full function.

And that could end up taking months.

At least the important bits were still intact. Replacing the current, haphazard contamination with proper C6 integration was still a reasonable possibility.

I had to sedate Raven for this part of the process. Brain surgery on someone who is conscious was not a good idea, after all.

I was at least fortunate enough that it only took about twelve hours to get the majority of it out of the way. The bioprinted brain matter integrated properly, to my relief, and that brought Raven back into the standard deviation of Augmented Humans. A quick test of the autonomic systems told me that everything which worked unconsciously still functioned as intended, and that... was pretty much it, in terms of things that could be done on the surgery table to repair the brain.

Well, the things that could be done without inviting questions about the nature of personhood and the continuity of consciousness, anyway.

Regardless, the next step was doing the Coral implantation.

Raven’s prior Augments... were rather very poor. Coral has been injected into the brain, yes, but not in any way that I would consider efficient. Just a lot of it that had been dumped into certain sectors, mostly the ones relating to movement, senses, and proprioception. The only reason that Raven had the ability to engage in Contact with a Coral mind was because this process had not been gentle, and subsequently, other sectors of the brain had been contaminated.

It was just this side of a miracle that Coral burn-in hadn’t occurred. Perhaps if a bit more time had passed...

Well, that’s speculation. Right now, we’re dealing in facts.

Correcting the current state of the Coral implementation takes another six hours. There’s already enough Coral present for the C6 Augments to be achieved, so I didn’t have to make any further injections at the least. It just takes time for it all to come together, slowly building the secondary network of neurons along the original one, before regenerating what had previously been taken over by Coral entirely.

From start to finish, it’s twenty two hours of long, careful effort. Walter had gone to sleep about ten hours in, and had woken up again before it was done.

Still, it was done, and after decanting Raven and cleaning everything up, I left Raven in a nice and soft bed in order to recover from it all.

Mostly just to sleep the sedatives off. I’d give it another five or six hours. I also left some food and water in the bedside table, because I’d previously just been supplying nutrient paste that, while filling, certainly didn’t replace a nice meal.

Ayre would watch over Raven from there. I made sure she had the proper data to do it, so that she knew exactly what to expect, and to get my attention immediately if something unexpected happened.

It was fairly good timing, honestly.

Shortly after I finished, I received the guests I’d been waiting for.

“Hello, Carla.” I greeted.

“Drich.” Carla greeted back, her fleet of transports closing in on Watchpoint Alpha. “Did the PCA really build their main core directly on top of the Coral mass?”

“You know, Walter said exactly the same thing.” I laughed. “Come on in. I just finished up with Raven, and now Walter’s wandering around glowering dramatically.”

Carla couldn’t help a laugh of her own. “Yeah, he does that. Hasn’t been too bad, has it?”

“He only just started.” I said. “Raven is still asleep, but I was being serious when I said that I just finished up with Raven. Walter was there for most of it... you know, aside from the part where had to sleep for a bit at least.”

“Oh, he actually slept?” Carla asked. “Huh. He normally doesn’t do that.”

“Certain promises may have been made that, if he did not take care of his health, his health would be taken care of.” I responded, drily. “He apparently considered this... a reasonable threat.”

“A threat, huh?”

“If that’s what it takes to get you people to slow down for a moment, I’ll take it.” I sent the signal to the entrance, and it began to open. “But enough about Human insanity. Come on in. I think you might like what I’ve done with the place.”