STYX

“Can you hear me?”
A very pink face was looking down at me, with huge bug compound eyes and a metal grille where its mouth should be. Oh, I thought. I’m in Hell. Colder than I expected. Then my eyes adjusted to the light, and the monster’s features resolved into a set of silvered safety glasses and a filtration mask, like they wear in cyborg clinics.
“Pupils responsive, auditory unconfirmed. He’s back,” said the figure in a metallic voice. I saw that it held a small, old-fashioned digi-tape recorder in one glittering claw. The other hand, resting on the bench on which I lay, was a teeming swarm of micro-manipulators all jockeying for place. I realised that I was naked, and then immediately after that I realised I couldn’t move. I opened my mouth to ask where I was, or maybe to scream, but the figure cut me off.
“You can’t move because I gave you a relaxant before the operation. It should be wearing off enough to speak now, but if I were you I would be careful with my words. You only get so many.”
“I’m… naked…” I said, my brain refusing to take in the word ‘operation’
“That’s right,” said the figure, in the same voice you might answer a particularly persistent child. “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor.”
Doctor of what, I thought but did not say. I opted instead for the reliable standby: “Where am I?”
The room was dark outside of the glaring circular glow of the overhead light, but what I could see was brushed-metal and glowing buttons, and an oval-rectangular perspex panel in the door with a face pressed up against it.
“You’re nowhere,” said the doctor. “You’re in Styx.”
Somewhere in my brain, two wires touched together. “Did you say ‘operation?’”

I stared in the mirror at the mask that was made of a smooth black material. A small opening around my mouth betrayed scarred flesh. Two holes where my nose should have been. My eyes were hidden behind black lenses that blended into the surrounding mask perfectly.
“I did my best with what I got, but I’m no Old Hollywood cosmetix machine,” said the doctor. “Trust me when I say you’ll want to keep the mask around for a while.”
“What did you do to me? I said.
”Oh, don’t worry about that. This is a cyborg clinic, but you are still 100% flesh and blood. I just… put you back together.”
I could feel strength filtering back into my body gradually. I flexed my fingers. “I feel different.”
“Naturally. It’s been a while since you’ve been conscious this long in one go. Last time you weren’t anywhere near this cognitive.”
My limbs were bound with plastic straps. “How long was I out?”
The doctor looked sheepish, as much as an expressionless bug-eyed assortment of safety equipment can. “About a year, give or take. It wasn’t easy getting you right.”
Though the mask was flatly impassive I could feel my eyes bulge out. The plastic straps snapped like paper.
“Hey hey hey!” cried the doctor, mechanical appendages extended towards me. “Calm down!”
I looked down at my hands, my bare wrists red where the straps had bit into the skin as I broke free. “Why did you do it? Why did you bring me back?”
“Why does anyone do anything? To see if I could. My own Adam,” said the doctor. “My Monster.”
“But all… all this can’t have been cheap,” I said, gesturing my hands around at the arrays of monitors and medtech that surrounded me most hours of the day. “My blackpaper wouldn’t stretch this far.”
The doctor laughed. “Blackpaper is no longer your concern. As far as the company is involved, you’re a dead man. Whether you’re actually up and walking and talking is beside the point. The good news is that I have an opportunity for you that could be quite beneficial to both of us.
”Another one?” I said. “You sound like the old man.”
“That would be Mr Argento?”
“That’s him,” I said.
The doctor reached down and unstrapped my feet. “You should be ready to stand on your own now. Let me tell you, there’s no man I hate more than Lazarus Argento.”

The doctor explained: “This clinic didn’t always used to be a ghost town. Now… now it’s just me. But there were dozens of us at one time.” The doctor set a candle on a candlestick and led me into a small room with bamboo mats on the floor. “Are you familiar with the cyborg belief system?”
I shook my head.
“No,” the doctor said. “Few who haven’t converted are. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. But foremost in our beliefs, at least in our sect (the Church of the Soul of Iron), is the prohibition of using God’s gifts for profit.”
“God’s gifts?”
“Our augmentations. That they are made by our hand, the product of the ingenuity of the human brain, is no contradiction. God exists in all things, and we were not put here to languish in our imperfect bodies when improvements can be made.”
This was starting to bounce off me, but I nodded anyway, not wanting the doctor to toss me out on the street. If there was any street outside. I realised I could have been anywhere.
“This doesn’t explain how Argento took your… friends?”
“It is difficult to exist in a system which demands that you exploit your every resource under such a restriction. Argento made it all but impossible before he left. He took my comrades with him,” said the doctor. “Quite simply, he made them an offer and they took it. I keep the candles lit in the hope that they may one day return.”
“Have you heard from any of them?” I asked. The doctor answered with a shake of the head.
“This does bring me to our mutually beneficial task somewhat neatly, though. Argento is the keystone of the local gambling scene, and the biggest contributor to that is the underground fighting that you once took part in. It’s expanded over the last year. I want you to go back into that scene”
“Like this?”
“Your face might not have survived the change intact, but your body has been altered more than enough to compensate. For example: the oxygen concentration in this room is currently roughly equivalent to the air above the peak of Mons Olympus on ancient Mars. You haven’t noticed, because your lungs have been improved to compensate. You will have uncanny strength and stamina. Your wounds will heal in minutes, your bruises will fade in seconds. To render you unconscious would require the force of a TNT explosion next to your head. Would you like me to go on?”
I shook my head forcefully. “I think I get the picture,” I said. “And this is 100% biological?”
“You’ll be screened for cyborg parts before you’re allowed to enter. They’re strictly forbidden in the ring.”
I flexed my arms with some satisfaction, watching them bulge and the muscles stand out bold. “And this isn’t?” I said.
“How can they ban something they don’t believe exists? Bio-modification is supposed to be impossible.”

I barely broke a sweat as the training bot hit the ground hard, sparks flying from a rupture in the faceplate. My own mask was designed to be “hyper-breathable”, according to the doctor. I would never have to remove it if I didn’t want to.
But at the heart of that question laid a fundamental misunderstanding of the human condition. Even knowing I wouldn’t like what I saw, I had to. I stood in front of the full-length mirror, closed my eyes, and pulled. The mask slid off as easily as if it wasn’t there. I opened my eyes, and gazed into the horror. They were the same red as the hideous neon glow that had burned my eyes the night I lost Beca, the night I vowed I would do what I had been too weak to do before. The night I decided to kill Argento.

“You are distracted,” said the doctor as I let a side kick through my guard that cracked my ribs. “Your reflexes must be tuned as sharp as piano wire if you are to face the trials ahead.”
I winced, feeling the ribs begin to knit themselves back together even at that moment. I straightened my back and made sure they were growing back in place. I’d hate to have had to break them again to fix them.
“Now,” said the doctor. “Focus your eyes on me. Not on my body, on my face.” They took up a low fighting stance, legs spread far apart. “Watch and listen closely, young man,”
I watched as closely as I could as the doctor extended one leg out shockingly high.
“Impressive, I guess. What is this?” I said.
“Simple control,” said the doctor. “You will learn it, and easier. Listen closely.”
I turned my head to one side to aim my head at the source of the sound. It was a faint, leathery stretching sound like a belt being pulled taut.
“The tendons stretching! I realised my hearing was enhanced too.”I can hear it!” I said. “I hate it!”

I went for a stroll along the hallways of the clinic, all long since deserted now except for mine and the doctor’s rooms. There were dozens of them once, and now it was just us. And I hardly count.

When the doctor said that I was ready, many training droids later. I jumped at the chance to go into the field, My knuckles were becoming incredibly strong, as was the rest of my body. I packed up my old bag with my old clothes, and got ready to walk.

I’ll take you somewhere you need to be. Do you understand?