The Third XCOM Saga, part 15, RP Interlude 24

As written by Kite Winters…

Kite said very little as she lay waiting for the diagnostics and repairs to finish. The only reason she wasn’t waiting for fabrication of an entirely new limb was because a perverse sense of sentimentality had led to keeping the ‘spares’ built up over decades of occasional upgrades. So the majority of her focus was on simply curling and un-curling the fingers of her ‘new’ left arm, software had been updated to current, but prioperceptive “muscle memory” was still a thing even with bundles of braided BMF cable through which electrons ran instead of blood. This hand would know how to throw a punch, and how to shoot, but it’d be awhile before it was much use again for dicing or chopping.

Funny, really. Paranoia and hate kept how to use the old limbs for violence alive in her mind, but the details of creation and warmth had to be relearned every damn time.

The details of paying-more-attention-than-it-appears to people doing maintenance on her similarly never slipped away. “You’re upset and silent. I prefer if the people looking at readings from my brain limit themselves to one of those two.”

“I’m sorry,” he actually sounded cowed. “I just didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. It looks like there might be something of a significant malfunction going on with your systems.”

Kite waited for a moment before saying anything, in case they were going to continue by themselves. “I know that electronicists aren’t usually required to have a bedside manner, but that’s not a good place to stop talking.”

“There’s no doubt that the neural governor systems activated during the mission, but I can’t find any logs of it in your system.”

“There won’t be any, ignore it and move on.”

“No, I can’t do that. There has to be logs of it, the record of your behavior after your internals started taking damage-”

“Was just me being angry. The governor system was the first thing Da–” Oh wait, this guy isn’t part of the old group. “–that the Commander wanted removed in prepping so that Hussey and I could actually go off base after the Second War. So no, that wasn’t an automated murder system taking over my motor functions. I’m just a stubborn bitch. So, if that’s all that’s worrying you about my brain, kindly close my skull back up and get to work on the gaping chest wound.”