The Law and the Codas

Chapter Twelve

The floor's splashed with the glow of Izzer's seventy-eight computer screens that flicker between street views of Sector cameras from inside Neon Brights. One of two holographic projectors projects a 3D map of the Tramway system in thin, red lines that hover mid-air. According to the map key, blue dots mark the locations of Chip ports and security hubs.

These, too, are reflected in the floor and the plastic tarp Izzer's thrown down to ensure my blood doesn't stain his precious marble tile. It's amazing how swiftly he managed to change his base of operations into a makeshift operating room, but I imagine we're not his first time outfitting illegals with black market chips.

Being Ten, I'm the last to go. Fingers claw at the wooden armrests and I can feel splinters piercing my flesh. I squirm under Izzer's gloved touch and the way his breath tickles the exposed flesh at the base of my neck. Keran stands next to him, a begrudging assistant, donning a white lab coat over her Codas fatigues, her gun holstered at her hip. She's wearing gloves, and paper slip-on over her boots at Izzer's insistence for sanitary operating conditions. There's a buzzing coming from behind my ear, and the scent of burning hair as the laser scalpel closes the gap between myself and it's white-hot tip.

"You might feel a pinch." Izzer's voice is muffled by the strip of cloth he's wrapped over his nose and mouth in a sort of makeshift doctor's mask.

The buzzing gets louder. I grit my teeth and focus on the glow of muted colors dancing along the floor. It'll all be over before I know—

"Goddammit!"

Immediately, my hand flies up to the back of my neck where I feel I've just been stabbed about a hundred times in the past second. Keran smacks my hand mid-flight. She's got her soldier's reflexes, honed to perfection, and she doesn't shy away from reminding me of the many ways she's my better.

"No touching." She sneers. "Unsanitary hands like yours might cause infection."

She's not wrong, but at the same time, her words aren't meant to carry truth; they're meant to tear me down, the way her bullets would if Della allowed her to kill me. Guess we all can't get what we want. "You said there'd be a pinch, but that hurt like hell."

There's a clamor as the expended laser tip is freed from the scalpel's shaft and disposed of in a metal bowl. It's little more than a thin, coil of metal, without the red laser darting from the end. "How could that have hurt so much? I've had laser scalps used on me before and none of them felt like that."

Izzer chuckles as he tears into a new pack of tips and pulls one out. "Oh, that?" With a pop, it snaps into place on the scalpel shaft. "I've modified these to be more efficient." He leans forward so I can watch him as he fingers the button on the side, commanding the new tip to burst into a deadly line of red. He adjusts the dial for thickness and length before easing back into his chair again and disappearing from my sight. "You might feel another pinch. I'm going to start peeling back the flesh—"

I grit my teeth. That morning's breakfast - our leftovers from the other night of oily noodles and battered chicken - rises alongside bile in my throat. "No need to spill the details," I manage my voice tense.

"I offered you something for the pain," he says.

There's applied pressure at the base of my skull and something like a clamp snaps into place. Keran winces and tries to look everywhere else but at me. Must be grisly to get a reaction out of her.

"And whatever it was you gave Sam had him puking up his guts afterward," I say.

Izzer chuckles, and there's the soft swish of his surgeon's gown. A sliver of blue from his covered shoe slips into view accompanied by a crinkling of plastic. "To clarify, I didn't poison him. Just a little home-brewed concoction for nausea and pain. Besides," the numbing cream seems to have finally taken hold as the pressure on my neck lessens, "He's got Rima watching out for him. That was always the good thing about the twins - they had each other. Pain in the ass if you ever wanted one of them to vote against the other, though." He clicks his tongue and begins to hum. There's more of that acrid smell, probably more of me being burned off, and the faintest tickle running down my neck.