Solace in the Stars

Turning

The wheel keeps turning. It's only a matter a time before you find yourself at the bottom again. Of course that only matters to people on the edge. Nobody was further out on the edges of this wheel than Lee Genic. Now that wasn't their real last name.

Lee couldn't have told you what it was meant to be- their family hadn't deigned to leave one on the sign off form when they sold xer. Genic Co.- along with every other corporation that dealt in body modification- leveraged people's debts to claim children as company orphans.

Some particularly enterprising people such as Lee's parents chose to exchange their asset -read their own child- in lieu of payment for personal modifications. As the cost of raising a child far exceeded the cost of the assets gained, and the company needed to recoup their losses through labor. As long as there was a debt Lee was considered the intellectual property of the company. So Lee Genic it was, a walking billboard for their products.

Lee leaned over the sink of a public restroom with a pen solder system that rested on the edge, and a razor blade in their hand. Xe pressed xer fingers into the meat of their neck and slowly prodded up along their trachea until xe found the edge they were looking for.

Xe drew the blade along the invisible seam marked only by a fine scar on their tan skin. Blood dripped down their bare masculine chest. The periodic drips of too thin fluid left a trail of pink rather than crimson, every litre diluted with the synthetic fluids needed to maintain xer mods. 

Xe peeled back the layers of tissue, maybe two inches of flesh. Their arched brows drew low while xe grit their teeth in pain. Xe dropped the blade in the sink, and picked up the solder pen. Their mouth hung open silently, unable to scream.

It took a moment to find the little red light on the device. Xe pressed it in, and the light slid out along with a slim contactor. Xe closed their eyes, unable to see what they worked on anyway. The smell of seared blood, and burnt flesh wafted up as xe bypassed the contactor with solder. As soon as the metal made contact a distorted cry of agony erupted from their open mouth.

"Fuck me! Ow! Finally." Xe pressed the skin back into place over the device with one hand. Xe hadn't heard their own voice in weeks. Xe tucked the pen solder back into the pocket of their long, faux leather jacket. No one had real leather on the rim.

"You okay in there?" Daena's low alto voice came through the metal airlock door, and carried farther than it had any right to.

"Right as rain love. I got my pretty pipes back in order. Just need to close up." Xe stuck two fingers into the inside pocket of their coat to slip out the booster gel. The small tube had a plunger on one end that let them apply a thin line of the clear gel. It shimmered in the light as the edges of the clean cut sealed together.

"I know I offered to help, but I'd forgotten how much of a talker you were, can we put it back?" she teased. A soft thump let him know she'd gone back to leaning on the door to keep anyone else out.

"No can do sweetheart, I'm afraid I already sealed it back up." Xe did their best to wash the blood away before they pulled the door open. Xe grinned up at Daena despite the twinge of pain it sent through the partially healed wound. At a respectable height of six feet, xe still had to look up at her.

"We gonna sell that hunk a junk?" She gestured to the tiny contactor xe had in their hand with her own enormous metal one. In fact both her arms were made of metal. Hand-me-down rigs from her father, they weren't known for their dexterity, but they could pop open a ship hull like a tin can.

"You, my exceedingly large, but overwhelmingly beautiful friend will have to wait for me to take it apart. I have to remove the receiver from the circuit, or maybe replace it with one tuned for a different frequency. This one isn't exactly made to be versatile." Xe tucked it gently into their jacket pocket, and leaned back with a languid smile. Despite the misfortune of being a second generation Genic indentured, xe envied her for the fact that she had gotten to know her family, at least for a little while.