Free Dark Space: Avilon by Jasper T. Scott Page B

Dag’s legitimate side business was implanting cybernetics.
    Bretton set the Imperial down on the stairs. Stepping up to the door, he knocked twice, then once, then three times more, so Dag would know it was a friend.
    Moments later he heard a clunk as deadbolts slid aside, and then a rusty groan as the door cracked open. A pair of glowing orange eyes appeared in the crack.
    “Hello, Dag.”
    “You brought me a client?” a deep voice growled. The orange eyes flicked to the man lying on the steps.
    “That’s right.”
    The door swung wide, and Dag reached out of the shadows with a long, over-muscled black arm. He picked the Imperial up by his flight suit and dragged him inside. Bretton followed, closing and locking the door behind them.
    “You got the bytes?”
    “You owe me, remember?”
    Dag grunted and turned away. Bretton followed him through the gloom, careful to watch his step. Dag could see in the dark thanks to the augmented reality contacts he wore. Bretton eschewed them just for the bittersweet memories they evoked from Etheria.
    They walked from the dark, cluttered foyer to another door, this one flanked by a glowing blue control panel. Dag stepped up to it and typed in a key code. The door popped open with a hiss of escaping air. A crack of light appeared between the door and the jamb, and when Dag opened it, the light flooded out, dazzling Bretton’s eyes.
    They walked into a small antechamber with two sliding glass doors. The first one swished open for them as they approached, while the second remained closed. The walls glowed brightly and steam hissed from the ceiling.
    “I want you to de-link him,” Bretton said, suddenly realizing he hadn’t been very specific about calling in his favor.
    The door shut behind them, and the hissing from the ceiling grew more insistent. The room filled with a sweet-smelling mist that would sterilize them for the operation room beyond. Dag was wearing a simple green gown, baggy enough to hide his muscle, but not his size. He made the taller-than-average man dangling from his hand look tiny.
    “He’s unlisted,” Dag said as the sterilizing mist stopped hissing into the room. “That usually means he’s not linked. . . .”
    “Trust me, he is.”
    Swish. The inner door opened.
    They passed from the antechamber into a locker room with hooks, hangars, and racks. On one of the hangars was a simple green gown like the one Dag wore, a see-through cap to keep stray hairs on Bretton’s head, and a pair of slippers.
    “Get changed,” Dag said. Even though his head was bald, he donned a cap, too.
    “Where did you find him?” Dag asked as he busied himself with undressing the unconscious Imperial.
    “He wandered into a Psycho den and sat down to eat his lunch.”
    “Stupid or suicidal?”
    Bretton shook his head. “Neither. He’s not from here. Check the markings on his suit. He’s an Imperial.”
    “That’s unusual . . . He know he’s gettin’ de-linked?” Dag asked as they finished getting changed. Now their patient was wearing a blue gown and a see-through cap of his own. No slippers, though. Dag picked him up and slung him over one shoulder like a sack of vegetables.
    Here Bretton had to twist the truth. “He has no desire to become an Etherian.” How could you want to be something before you knew what that something was?
    “All right.”
    They walked to the end of the locker and passed through a final door into a brightly-lit room full of shining metal. In the center of the room was a naked gray table where Dag gently laid the Imperial down. That done, he reached up and grabbed an overhead light attached to a jointed-metal arm. Dag positioned the lamp over the man’s head and then turned to an adjacent display and control console. He spent a moment configuring it before a fan of light flickered out from the lamp, passing from the top of the Imperial’s head to the base of his neck and back up again.
    Dag studied the holographic display that appeared