21. Obila Part II Brothers

Fengári was frantically typinga message on a personal holo-pad when Lupo spotted him. He walked across the plaza toward the bench they'd sat on the previous day. Fengári didn't look up as Lupo sat beside him.

"Sorry, I've got some shit I'm working out," he muttered angrily.

"Take your time," Lupo said, setting Auren between them and staring at the nearly empty plaza.

The place was trashed. Cans and confetti were scattered everywhere, upended benches and broken glass reminders of the prior evening's frivolity. Now, with the ominous attack about to be under way, you could have heard a pin drop in the vast space. Lupo watched as an elderly woman picked up debris from the ground, sorting it and carefully placing it in the appropriate waste receptacles.

"I found a guy. Black market. Apparently, he mostly does body modifications, but my contact says he has the equipment to print a full synthetic body if we have the credits," Fengári said, closing his terminal.

"And do we?" Lupo asked cautiously.

"Kind of," Fengári dodged. He groaned. "Look, I'm in deep with some bad guys. Recently, I took out a loan to start my holo-bike career. I purchased my first bike last week. But now they're hustling me for the money, and I doubled my debt just now fronting the cost of the roboticist. I'm a bit fucked," he concluded.

"I'm sorry; I wish I could help," Lupo said, genuinely feeling for his friend's brother. He had no credits of his own; Bartie had emptied his accounts long ago.

"No, no, it's not your fault. Ren and I never had anyone to rely on, only each other. He'd do the same for me. I'll figure it out. And besides, my first big race is tomorrow. It turns out the odds are stacked sixty-four to one against me winning, so I bet the rest of what I had left on myself. If I can win, I can pay it all off and be free once and for all, and none of this will matter," he said, as though it were as good as done. Lupo admired his self-confidence.

"And if you lose?" Lupo asked.

An image of Bartie flashed through his mind, the man flying through space with his cadre of enslaved minions, and it made him momentarily dizzy with anger.

"They'll kill me," Fengári said ominously. "So that's not an option. Now, come on. Let's get Ren to the roboticist so he can stop being a creepy prop."

He grabbed his brother's skull and set off down a side street, Lupo at his heels.

The roboticist's lair—and it was a lair—was a few miles' walk from the plaza. The structure was brutalist—concrete, steel, and little else. There weren't even any windows. An enormous robotic arm protruded from it, serving as a sort of store sign.

It casually gestured at passersby, beckoning them inside and flipping them off when they ignored it or disrespected it in any way. Lupo ducked instinctively as he passed beneath it and entered Soma-Form. The hand gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up as he did so.

The lighting within was dim, the space filled with tanks and containers, and arcane contraptions littered every surface. Lupo looked around uneasily as a little chime sounded, announcing their entry. Bubbling flasks and odd bits of scrap were messily strewn about.

"One minute!" trilled a shrill voice.

A small, holo-visored man popped up from behind a table. He held a mechanical foot in one hand and a sparking welding tool in the other. He lifted his safety visor and set his implements down, squinting at the men who had just entered like they were unexpected and unwanted.

"I'll have you know I'm in the middle of something very important," he began defensively, his singsong voice instantly pecking at Lupo's nerves.

Fengári dropped Auren's head on the table between himself and the man. The trilling stopped immediately. The roboticist chirped, then activated something on his visor. Lupo watched suspiciously as the black-market technician peered at Auren from this angle and then that, hopping from one foot to another as he hummed excitedly to himself.

He flinched when the man suddenly reached out to pick up Auren. He fought the urge to grab his arm and stop him, still mistrusting the odd fellow. Fengári shook his head at him as the roboticist did so and began looking at the severed connector cables in Auren's neck, holding him up in the air and peering into his desecrated passageway.

"Hmmmm," he hummed after a while, setting Auren down gingerly.

"Can you help?" Lupo asked trepidly.

"I've never seen anything quite like this," the man said, "but I do have a printer that can accommodate his model size and the spool and synth required to weave a frame for him. Reattaching the head to the new body will be a serious challenge… and this will be expensive. Very expensive. I hope you've got the credits…"

"We do," Fengári said readily.

He was pulling up his personal holo as he spoke, preparing the funds for transfer to the shop then and there.

"Name your price," he said.

"Sending you a quote now," the roboticist replied, putting his holo-visor back on and typing away for a moment before turning once more to Auren's severed head.

"How long will it take?" Lupo asked, unable to control the nerves flaring across him at the prospect of being reunited with his companion.

"As long as it takes," the man said simply.

A chime from his lens alerted them all that Fengári's payment had been received, and he snatched Auren's head from the table.

"All sales are final," the man said over his shoulder, whisking Auren off to mount him within one of the larger tanks. As he slid it closed, it lit up and went to work. Robotic arms began at once to poke and prod at Auren's skull. It made Lupo sick to watch.

"Please, make yourselves at home while I work," the roboticist tweeted. He pulled up a holo and began flipping through page after page of commands, his little hands flying over the controls.

"Well, shall we sit and wait for this to sort itself out?" Lupo asked, gesturing to a bench fabricated from bits and parts of various machines.

"As good a plan as any," Fengári said.

He'd been oddly quiet ever since Lupo had met up with him. Lupo had caught him once again staring apprehensively at his little personal holo. His expression was taut, his complexion perturbed. He slumped onto the bench beside Lupo with a weary sigh.

"At least we're getting your brother back. Don't worry; we'll help you figure out the rest once this is done," Lupo reassured him.

"It's not that," Fengári mumbled. "I… I promised Aur I wouldn't take another loan from these guys. He's going to be pissed as hell at me."

Lupo couldn't help but laugh.

"I wouldn't worry. I think he'll just be glad to see you. You've done a lot for him," he replied, patting Fengári on the back.

Lupo couldn't help but worry, though, about how evil these thugs were. He knew from personal experience just how far some criminals would go to further their own aims. He only seemed to be adding to his roster of concerns. Each time one was ticked off, another arose from the void.

The pair watched on in uneasy silence as the skeletal frame of a hauntingly human-looking android was woven into being within the tank. Auren's bone structure was nearly complete, and a new series of syringes and cutting implements were winding and weaving across it, stitching the artificial muscle tissue and connective fibers into place. It was both fascinating and horrifying to watch. Lupo flexed his hand instinctively, maybe to prove to himself that he was more than what he was staring at—more than just silicone and steel, titanium and nanofiber. But was he?

The only feeling he could cling to as he watched the man he felt he'd failed be brought back from the dead yet again was the desire for connection—to restore the tether that had begun to intertwine them back on Thestle the night he'd watched Auren dance so freely, his smile so infectious. Lupo clenched his fist, trying hard to steel his nerves. If this didn't work, he didn't know what he'd do with his grief. In the least it would help displace his rage.

Lupo's thoughts drifted to his past as he watched the printer do its work.

Bartie.

He had loved Bartie so deeply for such a long time—only to be betrayed. He should have expected it. He had always feared him. But the fear had been thrilling. With Bartie, the titillation of each new heist had bound the pair in a baffling set of emotions that bombarded his better judgment into oblivion. It was a trauma bond. And it caused him to overlook the always nearby feeling that something wasn't quite right. Not ever. His body had known, long before his mind noticed, that the fear—not love—was the real emotion driving their relationship.

But with Auren, it had been different. Lupo felt protective from the moment he'd spied him through the reincarnation ship's cameras. When Lupo was finally himself again, powering on to the sight of the young man sobbing openly about the violence he'd been forced to perpetrate on the reincarnation ship, he'd realized just how young the soldier was—how innocent. How kind. After all Lupo had been through to drag himself back into this cruel reality, those emotions seemed so worth preserving. They felt more precious now than anything else in the universe, which seemed to promise only entropy and hopelessness these days. He fought back tears as skin began to print onto Auren's feet and legs.

"You might want to look away before it gets to his…" Lupo whispered to Fengári, looking on raptly at the mechanistic miracle in front of them.

"Oh… right," Fengári laughed. "Hey. I'm going to go get some air and reply to some of these assholes," he said, rising with one final look to his brother and waggling his portable holo in Lupo's face.

"Shouldn't be long now, anyway," Lupo replied.

"Thanks for bringing my brother home," Fengári said, reaching out a hand.

Lupo took it in the one he'd been flexing and clenching earlier, relieved to feel the feedback of warmth through his artificial skin.

"You're a good man, Lupo," Fengári stated, departing him.

Lupo, staring at the half-skinned Auren, still decapitated, didn't feel it. This was all his fault. He fought back hot tears at the thought of his failure.

The only emotion he'd had to cling to for the many years he'd been entombed was rage. Rage at being murdered by the man he'd loved. Rage that the betrayal caused him the torture of dying not once but twice, only to find himself imprisoned and disembodied for many years after. Auren had been the first respite from that white-hot fury in all that time. And now the guilt of failing him crashed against the undercurrent of the rage in a boiling storm. Lupo swore to himself with redoubled conviction that he would settle his score. He would hunt Bartie across the universe if he had to.

Auren's torso and arms were completed, and the robotic instruments were needling and probing at his neck, pulling out wires and adding new ones. Terrible a sight as it was, it was impossible to look away.

"Now, here's the tricky bit…" the roboticist muttered to himself, working his digital dials and widgets as he scanned and finagled the printer to do his bidding.

"Well that's odd…" he said, pausing briefly to examine a notification that had appeared in the air beside him, flashing a blaring red-and-yellow warning.

"Oh, this is very odd indeed…" He gasped, working hard now to try and regain access to his system.

"What's going on?" Lupo asked fearfully, rising to his feet and approaching the strange man.

The tank continued to work on Auren, though the light within was flickering on and off, casting his light in and out of eerie blue-black shadows.

"I… I don't know!" the roboticist gasped. The light in the tank went out completely, and Lupo's heart began to race at the thought of losing Auren once and for all.

"Get him out of there!" Lupo yelled angrily, grabbing the tank and pulling at its hinges. Even with his augmented strength, he couldn't pry it open.

"I'm locked out!" the roboticist squawked. "An outside signal—a download—has accessed the printer array and is updating his software!"

He'd ripped off his holo-display and was now using a physical terminal instead, pulling up the deep guts of the system and attempting to lock out the intruder.

Lupo tried to peer into the tank but could only make out the vague pallor of a thigh, the hint of a hand, the flash of steel as a fabrication arm whirled in and out of view, evidently still assembling the machine even though the light remained out. The process was soundless.

"Get him out of there right now, or I swear by the stars I'll fucking kill you," Lupo growled ferally. The rage and fear consumed him.

"I'm trying my very best, sir!" the man peeped.

But then there was a distinctive clunk within the tank. Lupo turned. Two ghastly pale orbs floated within, the color not unlike Obila's own star. The tank began to open, and Lupo knew immediately—as he had known with Bartie—that something was wrong—very, very wrong.