Chromium

Chapter 1

Dia slowly opened her eyes, blinded by the sudden light. She was dazed, groggy like she was waking up after a very long and very bad dream.

She tried to focus, but the only thing she could see was white, white everywhere. But there seemed to be something odd in that white expense, a geometrical pattern.

Tiles? Do I see a floor?

She was lying on...something, she couldn't tell. She couldn't see anything except that white floor, three maybe four feet below her.

But that wasn't the problem; the problem was she couldn't move. At all.

She couldn't feel her body, and when she attempted to speak, she realized she couldn't even do that. Tears began to well up at the corner of her eyes as she became aware of how utterly helpless she was.

That's when she heard it. A sound, low but regular. An electronic beep. She went deeper, trying to focus on her hearing. There was something else aside from that beep, something human.

Voices.

She got nothing at the start, except an overlapping chatter, painful as much as it was bothersome. But then she tried to pinpoint the individual voices.

"....I'm telling you, these guys in the cybernetic department have to stop pissing on us." It was a male voice, shrill and annoying like a stab in her brain. "They have made this mess, they can fix it. Why should I care?"

"I hear you, man." Another male voice, younger and calmer than the first one. "I don't like them either. But you know special projects are our specialty."

"Specialty my ass. If you want to stay, it's your business, but I'm outta here. I have more lucrative ways to spend my Friday."

"Playing dice isn't lucrative" The second man muttered.

"What did you say?"

The second man cleared his throat.

"I said you should check her medical chart, you may regret it otherwise."

Her, meaning me. Dia tried to talk, but apparently, her vocal cords were still out of commission.

"Why? Who is she? The daughter of some spice lord?" The first man sniggered like he found it very amusing, but the laugh died in his throat. "She isn't, right?" He sounded alarmed.

"Just check the chart."

They were quiet for a long minute, the waiting made all the more painful by the fact she had no idea of what they were doing.

Then the first man whistled.

"Titanium spine, modified Inconel limbs and a core made of super chromium twenty-eight." He laughed. "Looking at her you'd never tell this little girl is a deadly cyborg."

His words failed to register at first, but when they did, there was only despair.

What..what did they do to me?

"I have to admit the cybernetic department guys did a great job with this one." The second man said. "Look at her skin, completely spotless. It looks real. Semi-organic, a perfect complement to her modified limbs."

"Yeah, yeah they did a great job and all that" The sarcasm in his voice like a sharp blade. "until they forgot we had to do ours and closed up her skull. Now we have to reopen."

She didn't like where this was going. Not a bit. She tried to move, to feel something, anything.

But nothing, she was still insensitive.

"But I still don't see why I should stay."

"Look at the name on the chart, under the buyer."

Dia heard a sharp intake of breath.

"I didn't know the girl belonged to him, of all people." The first man's voice sounded scared.

But what interested her more was the part she belonged to someone.

I am no one's property. She could hardly wait to meet this buyer, but first, she had to get the hell out of here.

"Do you understand now?"

"Yes, of course." The first man hesitated. "What do we have to put inside?" He said it like her head was a freaking toolbox.

"The complete package. IPS, remote control and our crown jewel: the kill switch."

The IPS---interplanetary direction System---was bad enough, but the last two downright terrified her.

If they put that thing inside her head, she would be no different from a puppet. She had to move. Now.

I can beat it. Whatever they pumped in my veins, I can beat it.

She repeated like a mantra, and strangely it worked. It wasn't much, just the tips of her fingers, but she could feel them.

"All right, let's move. I want this to be over before dinner." The first man said.

"So you can go play dices?" The second man didn't pull his punches this time.

"Everyone of us has a hobby, Hendricks. Like you with that horror gun."

"You knew?" Hendricks asked, evidently surprised.

"It's right here!" He exclaimed. "I am not blind, you know, I can see it. It's that big piece of antiquated technology hanging on the wall."

"Plasma is not antiquated, Rowling" Hendricks replied, but he sounded like a pouty child.

"Come on Hendricks, laser beats plasma in every way that counts."

"Not on firepower." Hendrick objected.

"Sure, if you want to wait ten minutes for your gun to recharge. Plasma overheats too easily. But I don't want to discuss this with you. Let's hurry. You put the song, I take the drill."

Drill. The word sounded like a nightmare come true.

"The Chromium coating around her skull is highly resistant to heat. The laser could take a while." Hendricks warned. "Better do it the old-fashioned way."

"Damn cybernetic guys" Rowling mumbled under his breath. "Fine. The rotating drill it is then."

She heard the notes of Bach's Golden variations, and right after what she was most afraid.

That high-pitched whir grew closer and closer until she could hear the noise just behind her head, at the back of her skull.

Move. Move. Move.

But she was way too slow. Even worse, the fact she was regaining sensitivity had one undesired side effect.  She could feel it, that sharp, metal tip digging a hole inside her brain. However, there was only so much pain Dia---or every living being for that matter---could take.

When she was way over her breaking point, she didn't just want the pain to stop. Not anymore. She wanted them to die in the most truculent and bloody way possible.

When the pain became anger, and the anger became hatred, her feelings took the shape of a single incoherent scream.

Then two sounds, high pitched and electrical, resounded in the room one after the other, followed by the noise of something flopping on the ground.

Then the drill stopped, and Dia saw something running on the floor's white tiles.

A smoking green mush.

But there was something inside that formless blob. Something red.

It was blood.