Mama I Don't Feel Right

Detective Nayeli approached the towering structure of Heddlu’s headquarters feeling a familiar sense of power. She docked her craft, heading for interrogation room 2, this world is dark, it’s horrible, to take Rumi’s conscious, to leave her body a mass of meat and metal. This world doesn’t deserve to exist, it needs to be dest… She clenched her fist, recollecting the warning of the implant facility…

“Enhancing your mind is a rare compatibility, but with superior intelligence and combat prowess, you lose your humanity. Focusing on how dark the world can be. Therefore, you need someone, or something to anchor you to this world, in a sense, your world needs to be small, a thing you love that anchors your compassion.”

Nayeli stomped her feet against the smooth stone, the agents of the police force understandably avoiding her. These last 20 days, she has been on the hunt, her enhanced mind overworked, her combat implants active and encouraging her violent impulses.

She found Meyer Masseria 2 days ago, arrested him half dead and immediately placed him within a recovery stasis machine at Heddlu HQ, now she stood at the doorway looking at a healed Meyer. Good as new, now I can break every bone again, he will tell me where she is… Nayeli shivered. My bloodlust… it’s rapidly growing, I need Rumi back.

She walked in front of Meyer blocking his reflection in the one-way mirror, he looked off to the right at the door. Nayeli placed her metallic left hand onto the steel table, glaring at the side of his face.

“Where is she?”

“Detective, how did you catch us? We were meticulous…”

Her metal hand pierced the table as she leaned in. ”No alarms, no biometrics, no witnesses, but you messed with an enhanced detective.” She felt an emptiness in her arms, as if they were about to act before she could stop them. Meyer’s vitality was displayed in her vision as her enhanced combat implants displayed her best course of action to strike his vital points.

“Your daughter was a fighter, I’m sorry we couldn’t put the body to rest. She nearly killed one of my men, we had to leave to save him.”

Nayeli remembered seeing her steel door torched open, Rumi’s body breathing, blinking, but blank as it was frozen reaching for something. Nayeli's mind collapsed, she woke to a hostile world, to beat back the urge to destroy it, she began looking for clues, following the trail of the chase.

The torched door was the biggest lead, she knew of three companies that produce torches hot enough to melt her custom security door. Using her enhanced mind, she determined from the slag pattern and estimated heat from the torch marks that the torch was military grade, only one supplier produced it… Technoleg. She had 44% of the information needed to find the man that owned it, and that man led her to the leader of the crew that held her world captive.

“I will obliterate everything to find her.”

“The Draig has an unspoken condition with their jobs. Moving consciousness is a tough skill, and they’re forcing us to use it for… this.” Meyer looked at the detective. “I tried telling you, they put my son in purgatory. The crewmembers, they did the same to their families, to your… I had no choice.”

“Answer the question, Meyer, where is Rumi?” Nayeli’s tired mind couldn’t function enough to question the man about purgatory, and her compassion was null.

“Do you know what they told me? A broken mind begs to be mended. They forced me to hear him break…”

Detective Nayeli’s metallic left arm began whirring as the internal nerves heated from her constant use. The arm dug deeper into the solid table, her darkened face closed in enough for Meyer to see the display of his own estimated vitality on her eyes. He flared his nostrils and prepared himself for Nayeli’s wrath.

“It was your own damn fault. You signed her up for the enhanced mind implant; it’s too rare a compatibility, detective.” Meyer knew giving up the package meant giving up his family.

“Draig has nothing compared to me. I am the god that allows this world safe harbor, and I will spilt it at my whim to find the world I love. Broken, fault, doesn’t matter, it will all fade without Rumi.”

Meyer swallowed hard at the daunting sounds coming from the detective. “This district is under Draig control. The councilor has no force strong enough to stand against them…” With a long sign, he continued. “Heddlu has access to the bypass. My crew and our family, they are innocent, we were caught in Daiga’s machinations.”

Nayeli felt her arm shooting forward, she stopped an inch from Meyer’s neck. Her breaths became heavy, her skin began to cool as her sweat evaporated. I nearly killed him. I don’t want this, please Nayeli, it’s obvious what he’s asking for, keep a hold of yourself, please. “To save my world… I’ll give you access.”

Meyer solemnly nodded backing away. “Sub level 6, in the slums, I have a deal with a bar called Rammet, some hole in the wall place. The bartender, tell him your there for a package for Memory Man. We weren’t supposed to deliver it for another 10 days, it should still be stashed there.”

“Slums, sub level 6, Rammet.” Nayeli said hopefully, Rumi’s there, I know where my world is. As hope built, the mechanical whirring that pounded the room lulled.

Nayeli quickly headed for the door, radioing in to solidify her deal with Meyer. “Heddlu Chief, Detective Nayeli requesting arranged transport, work details out with Meyer Masseria in Room 2.”

Nayeli landed her craft on the sublevel 6 platform and headed for the slums. The bar was crudely built of a dark wood, smell of alcohol and steel stinging her nostrils. It was darkly lit, empty except for a tall man with no visible implants finely dressed polishing a glass.

“How may I be of service miss?”

“Package for Memory Man.” Nayeli said.

“Oh… my apologies, a woman acquired the package 2 days ago.”

“What?!” She shouted leaning over the counter. My world is missing, kill this man, no hurt him, make him speak. No, split the world.

“Ms. I… I abided by the protocol set by Mr. M.”

“I do not care. Who is she?” The crackling sound of the nerves in her implants thundered through the silence. Her arm nearly followed the preemptive strike pattern offered to her from her enhanced combat implants, but she stopped herself, her hand resting by the bartender’s temple.

“I am obligated to remain distant from the clients and their cohorts.” The bartender stepped back towards the wall of alcohol, Nayeli noticed, as if he was deliberately blocking something. Stop, stop, stop, focus my mind, not my body, don’t lose control, please. I’ve already memorized the back wall, so find what he is hiding?

Nayeli picked up a faint electrical current from the wood wall behind the bartender. That one bottle, why is it more pristine than any of the others? No water marks, or signs of use, why keep a clean, clear empty bottle?

She hopped over the counter, knocked the bartender aside feeling something crack and examined the bottle, it was halved, the inside glass was distorted like a fisheye lens, the electric current originated from a dark spot behind it in the wood’s black grains. She pushed her metallic fingers in carefully extracting the camera.

The bartender’s screams finally reached Nayeli, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry. I need my world. She pulled the memory card from the camera inserting it into her metallic hand. It held footage up to 17 days ago, she scrubbed through the data’s acoustic wave looking for a specific phase, ‘memory man’.

Got it, she watched the black headed woman walk out, following her movements with nearby camera footage till it led to a warehouse on sublevel 3, Nayeli commandeered a building with a view of the warehouse, banishing the family into the streets.

She feared the length of Rumi’s separation from her body. A conscious without a body begins deteriorating within 30 days, it’s been 20. The detective didn’t have much time as she watched over the woman’s hideout. She tried using her mind, but her brain began overheating, still, her world was near, she went on focusing. No, don’t… lose… your wits… Nayeli’s body gave out.

She dreamed of the day she decided to take the enhancement, the day she held Rumi and realized this world could never be dark with her daughter to love, even without her husband in this world. She wanted to stay in those happy memories…

A series of solid, loud knocks on the heavy wooden door woke her.

“Tective Nayeli, my world told me ta hand this ta ya. Said it’s thanks for lett’n us go.” A soft voice muffled from the door shook the pain away from Nayeli.

She tried switching to combat mode, but her implants refused…

“You’ve been holding back so much. It’s amazing ya still have control. When Meyer told me ta enhance my mind, I member what the world was like when I woke. Till Meyer became my world, I nearly killed everyone. Meyer wanted me ta give this consciousness back to ya, said it’s your world we stole. I’m sorry.”

“You’re fucking right, that consciousness is my daughter, my world!” Nayeli yanked the door open to a beautiful girl standing with a gentle smile.

“Sorry, I… I try ta forget they’re people, Daiga has us put em n these special… packages.” She extended both arms out, a small rectangular box wrapped in brown paper rested on her palms.

“Package? Not a storage unit?”

“Handle it cautiously.” The woman swallowed hard.

Nayeli gently took the package and placed it on a nearby desk, carefully unfolding the paper.

“Mazing you can fit ‘bout any life n such ah small box. 16 years ain’t much smaller than ah package for 45.”

“Quiet.” Nayeli’s world was in front of her, in her reach, but she couldn’t hear her voice, couldn’t see her face.

“Tective, don’t try n transfer it without the proper equipment. The consciousness will fry.” The woman reached into her coat pocket.

“IT, is my daughter.” Nayeli looked at the woman’s pocketed hand.

“Plug this n, it’ll give the con…, her n ear and ah voice.” She handed Nayeli a base model communication modifier, a device purchased to give robot workers different voices and respond to vocal input. “I’m sorry…” She looked at the package, “it was ah job, Daiga forced us…”

“Choices.”

“Right, it was the choice my world had ta make for us... I’ll leave ya two be, we kept her from ya for too long already.” She left, closing the door behind her.

Nayeli examined the box, it’s safe, from what I can tell. Is this really Rumi? What makes this more than a storage unit? She plugged in the communication modifier.

A deep baritone voice spoke in an emotionally robotic tone. “…se, stop it already. I… I feel so wrong, ple-ee-ee-eese… it hurts so much. Mama, I’m sorry I couldn’t…”

“Baby! Rumi, mama’s here!”

“Maaaaa-ma. It’s me, Rumi. Please, make it stop. Mama I feel weird, something inside is picking me apart. Mama, I’m scared, it hurts, I don’t feel right.”

“Oh, baby, I’ll get you out, I’ll…” She rubbed away the tears as a drop hit the metallic case.

“Ahh, mama it hurts, please don’t touch me.”

“Baby? I’m sorry, I’ll wrap you back up.”

“I’ll do anything, please make it stop. I don’t care anymore, please.”

Nayeli couldn’t handle it, her mind played out the best possible outcome. She disconnected the communication modifier and methodically wrapped Rumi up.

“Don’t worry Rumi. I am your world, and you are mine, I will fix this.” A smile crossed her face, her tears pooling in the corners of her mouth.