Born of Silicon

Book 5 Chapter 49

Ivy takes over the story once again.

I’m not proud of how I acted when I first got settled. I still thought this was temporary. That I’d get kicked out once they realized who I really was, just like always. People had tried to help me before, only to get frustrated and throw me back out onto the streets once they realized things weren’t going to be fast or easy.

Jade knew everything I took, I just didn’t care. That stuff, it makes itself the only important thing in your life. It overrides your shame, your desires, your dreams.

I spent months in the city, lost months really, but I was rarely home. I made friends, real friends when I stayed here, only to burn those bridges when my brain demanded more money for another hit.

Jade was so, so incredibly supportive. She was there when I needed her, when I needed someone to drag me home when I was out of my mind. No matter what state I was in, if I was angry and lashing out at her, if I was sad and crying in her arms, apologizing and promising to do better, If I was elated and tempting her to join me. She was always there. Just waiting patiently for me to come back to reality. And I wanted to, I promise I did, but I just couldn’t.

Nobody kicked me out. Nobody demanded rent. Silver didn’t complain when I came home, ate their food, made an ass of myself, and gave nothing back.

There are scrappers here that went through the same thing as me. Had the same vices. They’d talk to me on a rare sober day. They’d share their stories, and I’d share mine. They helped a lot too.

What really did it though was late one night I ran out of arcs, and I went to Jade.

She said no.

I’d been angry at her before. I’d yelled, I’d screamed, I’d cried. But that day I lashed out physically. I hurt the only person that would do anything for me. The only person that would stay beside me no matter what. That was my rock bottom. That’s what it took to realize that something needed to change.

I didn’t go cold turkey, pretty sure doing so would have killed me, but what I did was give everything to Jade. I had Sonia close my ports too, openable only by Jade. I let her regulate me.

That didn’t stop me from trying. I accidentally cut myself more than a few times trying to wedge a knife into them, just to get them open enough to add a few drops. Thankfully Sonia is a better engineer than I could break.

What helped was finding ways to keep me distracted, and that’s where Drew came in. My eye is more than just an eye, it’s got an interface with my brain. I can manipulate it, a much more limited version of what Drew, Silver, and Hummingbird have. Drew helped me by making a super simplified programming language, and making me some programs to mess around with. I still use his automatic mapping software.

He also got me into art. That helped a lot. It was a good distraction.

The thing that helped the most, however, was the first program I ever made. Just a little picture of Jade permanently in the corner of my vision. A constant reminder of what I did, of why I was working to get better. Of what I was trying to fix.

The biggest decision I ever made was when I was with Jade. She’d been helping me wean off some of my worst stuff. We had a schedule, a little less every week, until we reached the final dose. The last one I’d ever take. And you know what I did?

I said no. 

I’m still proud to this day that I did that. It’s not that I didn’t want it. No, no it was really the opposite. I wanted it so badly, more than I wanted to breathe. But I made a realization. Ending on my choice, my decision, would be a hell of a lot easier than being forced to stop, to always think if I had just one more I’d be done.

Jade was so damn proud. Every time I get tempted I pull up that picture of her face. That’s what keeps me going.

We cried, we hugged, and I started counting days since I last used. Not in general, just that drug. If I couldn’t make it to the next day, I’d start counting hours. Or minutes. Or even seconds. I could make it another second without reaching for it.

I spent several nights in my room with a timer pulled up, taking up all the vision in my left eye, just watching the seconds pass. And I made it through the seconds, and through the nights.

My other addictions weren’t so simple. They weren’t as bad as the one I managed to kick. What was the harm in celebrating a little? I just needed to relax after all, get my mind off things. It’ll make it easier to not worry for a bit, it’ll knock down my cravings, right?

Yeah, I relapsed a few times. More than a few. It was a slow process, still is a slow process. That pull never fully goes away, or never did for me. I got good at managing it though, living with it.

I started to leave the friends I made outside the compound, and rebuild the bridges I burnt inside of it. I started working where I could, helping Jade in the armory a lot of the time. And while in there, I took up shooting.

Turns out I was really good at it. My eye could do most of the work, doing simulations on where any theoretical shot would land in real time, although it was finicky. Every gun shoots just a little differently, and the inconsistencies in ammo packing could throw off my eye’s simulations at long range, even after adjusting for any wind. I needed something perfectly consistent. Something that shot in the same exact way every single time.

Jade and I brought the problem to Sonia. Oh she loved that problem. She even let me help every step of the way, even if I just got in the way. I honestly think Jade paid her to deal with me.

What we ended up creating was the simplest gun possible. Moving parts means play, and that means inconsistencies. We couldn’t have that, which is why she doesn’t have anything as unnecessary as a magazine or a scope. We went with the biggest caliber reasonable to lessen the effect of gusts of wind.

It took a few iterations to end up with something perfect, but that’s exactly what we eventually got. Perfect. Every last bullet is hand loaded, designed to fire with as close to the same speed as possible.

She’s been by my side ever since.

Eventually I got to the point where I could be semi-relied on to stick to a schedule. I learned I had a knack for teaching people to shoot. Turns out my eye recording every microscopic move a person makes lets me give some good advice. Silver put me to work, and I trained some of our best shots.

The other thing I got into in those days was body modding. It started out just repairing or circumventing the damage I did to my body over the years. An artificial liver, replacing damaged tissue in my lungs, that kind of thing. But even after I was fine, I kept adding. At points I was going to Sonia almost weekly, asking her to add or change out some of my cybernetics. I’d be surprised if I have a single organ that woman hasn’t seen. A lot of it ended up being a bad idea or failed experiment, but some of it I really rely on.

Things finally started looking brighter. I was finally off my island in the void and could actually see the sun far away in the distance. But I could see it nonetheless.

Being in the range so much naturally meant I was often in close proximity to Vince. I despised him, could barely handle being around him. Every other person saw him as this guy who’s endlessly helpful. Someone who could be relied on. Someone who’s first reaction was always to help, no matter what.

My eye picked up the reality. I saw him fighting his every instinct. I saw the anger that he stamped down constantly. I saw the frustration he tried to hide. I saw the truth he hid from everyone else, tried to hide from himself. 

I didn’t try to hide my disdain, and he noticed too. It was late at night, well after all the trainees went home when he approached me.

“Hey, Ivy. Do you want to get dinner? I feel like we need to talk.”

“Sure.” I shrugged. I figured I could get a free meal out of it and call him out.

“Alright. There’s a place not too far away if you’re free now.”

“Lead the way.”

He brought me to this hole in the wall. It was a quiet place with good soup, and the booth backs are massive, a good enough place for a private conversation. We got a table, sat down, and he started talking.

“Look, I want to apologize. I didn’t know what Jade’s plan was. I’ve talked to her about what she did, and…”

I laughed at him, right in his face.

“You think I care about that? No, no I care about how fake you are. My eye can see every reaction you try to hide. Everything you try to suppress.”

“Ah, guess I haven’t grown as much as I tell myself then. It’s not just a show, I’m really trying to improve. I spent my early adulthood with this horrible woman, right up until Silver started this place.”

We stayed there talking until the restaurant closed, and took it back to Silver’s after. He told me his story, his struggles, his problems. I shared mine as well. That whole conversation was recorded by my eye, and is a file that’ll live in my brain forever.

The problem with that conversation is that I’m a sucker for damaged people. Always have been. I found myself feeling weird when I thought about working with him. This little fluttering in my stomach. Some of my cybernetics would activate without conscious thought. That almost got me into trouble a few times.

I developed a crush on him, like I was thirteen again. It was ridiculous. I still didn’t like him, but I didn’t hate him. I understood what he did, what he was trying to do, and why. I saw him in a different light. And over the next few months, I saw progress. It was slow, but he was working just like I was.

I wanted to be around him more. I wanted to see him progressing, see proof I could get better too. So I asked Drew if I could join the group. They held a vote, said yes, and I was in. A few months later I asked him to dinner, and the rest is history.