“Jesus, Tess.”

Tessa tossed the straps and insulated cables of the wire harness onto the bed, turned back to Ben and held out her hands for the dual core fusion cell he lugged into the room like a heavy toolbox. Her expression was blank, hard as iron.

“Jesus has nothing to do with it.” She said. Ben swallowed reflexively. “Help me.”

Lying down, she set the harness on her chest, started sorting though leads, glanced at each masking tape label in turn. Chest, left, 1 of 3. Leg, lower right, 1 of 2. She handed off a thick line labeled Power, pressed it into Ben’s hand, eyes locking with his, refusing to budge even as he took it, reluctantly plugged it into the fusion cell. Check lights came online, flashed red three times, then turned green. Tessa’s eyes returned to the tangle of leads on her chest, hands sorting again. Temple, left. Hand, right, back. Ben’s hands came hesitant at first, slowly gained confidence, lifted and checked each cable, laid them carefully across the sections of body they were labeled for. Tessa smiled softly, almost wryly. “You’re going to have to help me with the needlework too.” Ben’s eyes were blank, the worried, uncertain shock of someone who had lost so much, someone who was suddenly being asked to lose more. Tessa breathed a silent, shaky breath, looked away. Ben’s voice came cracking, weak.

“Okay.”

The needles went in as easy as could be expected, punching through skin rubbed down with analgesic disinfectant, spreading into her body on nano-active wires which tapped into nerve centers one by one, bridged lines and foci in the body with silent connections. It only took ten minutes, but by the time all twenty four leads had been plugged into her flesh and another thirty seconds had been spent holding Ben’s shaking hands, waiting for the final wires to sink into place, to find their targets and connect with them, Tessa had already started to sweat. She knew what to expect, knew she could handle it, but that didn’t change the reality of the hell she knew she was about to throw herself into.

“It’s not a wire chamber, but a harness is the next best thing.” She licked her lips, tried to calm her breathing. Her eyes flicked to Dimitrov’s, held them for a moment in hesitation. “Ok.” She managed. “We’ll start with three seconds.” She glanced at the fusion cell, met Ben’s eyes again. “Flick it.” Ben’s nod came quick, solid. Fingers traced the edge of the switch, jammed it. Check lights flashed yellow.

And then the hell began.

She couldn’t help it– the scream ripped itself from Tessa’s body like a hungry spirit, burning through skin as reality flared with hot pain. Muscles spasmed, every nerve in her body catching fire, boiling until there was nothing left, until the room, the harness, everything dropped away in a spastic haze and left her hanging in the gray void between sleep and death.

Move. Her mind urged her. Focus.

Light came from nowhere. Thoughts were scattered, broken. She reached out for reality, for some edge of what she had come there for, and found it an instant later, reeling as time and space opened like a bubble, snapped closed around her with all the suddenness of an elastic suit, pinching her into some edge of something that didn’t make sense, something that swirled dark and full of stars. Focus, Tess. Focus.

And then she was somewhere else entirely.

The scene unfolded slowly. Dropping out of the haze, Tessa stepped into a body she knew was hers, felt the familiar, oppressive crash of depression, the harsh, sharp pain of loss, but also the edge of something more, something deeper. All at once, the pain washed over her, soaked into her, the hot, heavy screams of gunshot wounds, deep and bleeding, staining her uniform with the life that drained away around her.

“Fuckin’ freak.” Someone sneered. The heavy tread of a boot connecting with her cheek knocked her sideways, left her sprawled out on the greasy deck of a noisy freighter. “Give her a chance, he says, give her a blood test, he says, give her a fuckin’ fair trial, he says.” A sniff, the sound of heavy boots pacing on deckplating. “Fuckin’ captain should have listened to me, should have stuffed you out the airlock the instant someone saw you playin’ with metal that way, making those fuckin’ creepy weapons so you could kill us off just like your fuckin’ blue buddies did all the colonists on Luna.” The pace quickened, another boot sped in, caught her in the ribs, spun her onto her chest, left her panting, wincing, bleeding. “My brother was there, bitch. You like that? You like knowing that humans are a fuckin’ endangered species now?” He growled again, stomped across the deck. “They fuckin’ grow you in a tank? Stick you in a fighter that looks like Seindrive but isn’t.” A laugh, cruel and bitter. “What the fuck is the point, bitch? You fucks have won! You’ve won!” He kicked her again. “Bitch!”

“Just shoot her, Darren.” Someone else said, voice cold, bored. “We’re wasting time. Captain said bullet and airlock. We’ve still got supplies to stow.”

“Fuck the captain.” Darren said solidly. “Old bitch thinks he can run the show? I do things my way, Mary, and right now I say this piece of shit needs to suffer.” He paused, crossed the deck to Tessa, spat at her. “Let her bleed out all over the fuckin’ deck before we pump her into space. I want her to see what she’s done. I want her to regret it.”

“What. . . ?” Talking came difficult, felt like chewing broken glass. “Uhh. . .”

“Did I say you could talk!?” He yanked cruelly at her hair and slammed her against the ground again, pressed her face against the cold, silicon viewport. “Look at what you did! Look at it! I bet clones like you are the reason HQ pulled back the fleet, abandoned all the colonies. Well, you’ve had your slaughter. You happy, bitch? You fuckin’ happy!?”

Tessa’s eyes widened, her mouth working for words, but there were none. Darren’s line of broken, angry speech dropped away in a silent haze as he pounded the deck with his industrial boots, left her to stare, unable to look away. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that registered in her hot, tear-strained eyes, the quivering lip, the tortured scream that built and built in her chest, scratching at her raw throat, was the image of Earth, the cradle from which humanity had so recently crawled, the fires of a dying world.

It was clear who had won. Spinning silently, slowly in the mass of stars below her, Terra burned, and all around it, the debris stretched on impossibly, endless.

“We. . . we lost.” She whispered, but it didn’t matter. An instant later, the boot came again, smashed against the back of her head, left her spiraling through crimson-tainted darkness.