being without any memories of childhood or any recollection of whom she was.
Amber knew she had to see him in person, making him wait would only exacerbate the situation. Navigating her way through the main corridors of the ship were always confusing. She had hoped to have ascended the correct ladder to gain access to the most direct route to Volg’s chambers. One check of the digital map showed Amber that she had gone down the wrong corridor, she rolled her eyes as she corrected her route.
En-route to Volg’s room, Sallyn felt her eyes drying out so she gave them brief closure. Once closed, the subconscious part of her mind began projecting memories from one particular event in her life.
Spinning amber lights lit the dark claustrophobia inducing room, while a small crack in the walls gave enough glimpse outside to see a whole colony burning at night.
Opening her eyes she shook her head and resumed her trek to Volg’s room. After half an hour’s stroll down to his room, she typed in the primary code and placed her human hand on a scanner. The door made an internal thud like sound, it then slid open. Inside the dimly illuminated space stood the withered form of a man troubled by his absent past. Like Amber’s, he wore a cowl of scarlet, the differences were his trailed off into a form of overalls as well as missing the broad, hard sun cover.
“Where have you been? Why did the Consortium overrule my right to excavate this planet?”
“You should have all of the files and reasons for our project to be terminated.”
“Some minor details, but I feel one is being retracted by you. What is it you don’t want me to see? Is there something you’re afraid I’ll do? You’ll only make it worse you realise.”
She was stronger now than her child self all those years ago. Although he was right, the more she lied, the more physical he became.
“I’d rather not say, Volg. Have you been feeling like yourself lately?”
“Are you checking me for signs of relapse?”
“Yes”
After a rapid backhanded swipe, Volg then proceeded. “How many times have we played this game Sallyn?”
“Too many to know what that answer means!”
“Then you should be satisfied with your answer!”
“More than previous events. So you’re not afraid of the possibility an Inhibition procedure may need to take place?” She then braved another slam of his hand on her face.
“Go to the lab; unveil the identity of these fossils before I am tempted to commit the first act of murder on another Augment!”
Amber knew others would question her why she even stayed with him, each answer she gave was the same, and there was nowhere else and no one else to go to. They were all outcasts on that ship.
Volg was left to his self destructive outlet, while Amber attended her duty as an archaeologist. Those fossils won’t uncover themselves, she thought. As distracting as it was, the thoughts of uncovering a truth to the fossils from the planet were nowhere near as interesting as the fossils of the personality left within Volg.
On a broad seamless metal block raised in the centre of the room sat one of the fossils. Red hues to the soft soil and rock material reminded her of mars. Early scans revealed dense calcium based structures buried beneath the surface. The artefact sat ready to be opened, a tray of tools slid out from one of the walls under the demand of Sallyn’s thoughts. From above a robotic arm dragged a scanner over the artefact, projecting the images in the corner of her vision. The X-ray image unveiled some unusual evidence,
Millimetres below the surface lay something bearing resemblance to bones, they were incomplete skeletons. Two bodies locked in embrace were revealed at first X-ray glance. A brush stroked the looser dirt away from the surface, the artistic passion she had for archaeology allowed Amber to relax. In a mere five minutes the outermost skeleton had been unveiled. Recording began as she thoroughly removed the planet material from the exhibit. “Subject alpha shows signs of intense plasma burns; skeletal structure is anthropomorphic at first glance. A central column of vertebrae is the first to be uncovered within the rock. It appears a lot of the planet material had been melted after the body was burned. No evidence of volcanic activity to date or prior, so volcanic upheaval can be eliminated from the C O D.
“Upper and lower right ribs were crushed, left arm terminates nanometres before elbow joint. Lower limbs and pelvic region were not found on this subject. The arrangement of the bodies suggests they were attempting an embrace. Moving onto the second subject now.”
The material over subject beta was denser and more secure, it was relentless in guarding the secret as delicate tools broke or became blunt. Crystallisation of the rock had been a rapidly caused process, she knew it was deliberate, there were several layers of incremental crystal growth the deeper she went into the artefact. Then Sallyn looked back at subject alpha to check her findings, how she missed it at first was inexcusable, after cutting into the fossilised material the layers appeared. Any human could have been forgiven for missing such a minute detail, she was an augment, it was an insult to all Augments to miss something like this.
Even augments were capable of tiring but Sallyn kept uncovering and making small errors each time. Straining to keep those special eyes of hers open, Sallyn raised a temporary resting post where her subconscious mind took over to run through basic system diagnostics as well as more fundamental recovery routines. Mental projections lit the lids of her eyes with images of a conflict outside a room illuminated with red flashing lights She was wrapping her arms around her legs. A hand abruptly broke through one of the walls, waking her up to a brightly lit room.
Heart rate monitors flashed over her normal vision, warning of a possible cardiac arrest, a second message appeared where it notified her of counteracting drugs were going to deluge her bloodstream until the trauma had passed. As the rate of her beats slowed there was something she saw. One chunk of material was out of place, no bigger than a fist. Sallyn checked the recording history of the external cameras, so far no one had entered, she then got out of her bed to study the oddity. The rock that fell of was nothing of importance, it was what the rock fell from that was important. Grooves on the top side had imprints, specifically ones from a human set of phalanges.
Curiosity got the better of her as she used her feeler hand to investigate the underside of the rock, to find unmistakeably human bone structures. The epidermal layers were composed of what could only be identified as a metallic substance mixed with polymer. Unusual grooves branched out along the surface, the grooves were dividing fine strands of an unknown material between the plates of metal epidermis.
Further into the exhumation Sallyn pulled a solid chunk of crystallised material off the secondary subject. Where the majority of the skeleton’s torso would have been was more of this intriguing plating over bone structures, all of it was engraved with the same divisions between plate and thread. Finally the rear half of the skull was revealed, cables roped their way out of the spinal column and into the main brain cavity in such an organic fashion. It was fascinating for her to see another race’s approach to technology. These two were almost about to embrace each other before death, the fact one was a machine must not have mattered to its partner. Sallyn spent moments picturing what their culture would have looked like without the need for one to control the other.
Electricity jumped from a static charge grown from her tendrils rolling over the surface. Activity sparked all around as a power surge flowed within the fossil. One of the shoulder blades lifted itself open, the gaping maw suddenly vomited a fountain of small metallic bugs. Sallyn attempted to gather some samples, but they fled too quickly into the walls and crevasses of the ship. One she had thought she’d caught had simply cut through the container.
Managing to capture a glimpse of the cavity before the shoulder closed over; Sallyn saw naked and wet slime covered bone ribs inside the trap. The event was captured as a collection of video feeds; they were not transmitted to Volg as she wanted to study them more. Analysis reveal
ed a lot more about the enigmatic body. Approximately seventy five of the bugs had swarmed out of the body as a probable defence mechanism, it obviously triggered when the static discharge attacked the outer shell. Each of the minute creatures were aesthetically hybrids between arachnids and Isopods. Each was an individual entity in style, most stuck to a standard size of eleven to nineteen millimetres in length.
Energy readings showed they relied on a battery delivery system than self generating power but their complexity would have meant that they could only last for hours using silicon based circuits. Then a second overlapping analysis suggested something far more unconventional, they were hybridised between organic components and mechanical parts like the body on the table. She had found a rarity in the known universe, a genuine cyborg.
Some argue to this day whether augments were cyborgs, going so far as to question their humanity. Delving deeper into the article, Amber tried to distinguish between the definitions her implants and the one this alien and its offspring had. She thought that they both had technology implanted into their systems to provide aid with tasks, she soon realised the difference. A cyborg blurred the lines between organism and machine, going against the beliefs of many that any cyborg could truly be