Alliance of Serpents Read Free Page B

"I may not be able to remove it, but with a bit of
study, I may be able to minimize it."
    "That won't help me," Arus muttered. "We're
taught that machines are evil, and they are forbidden where I come
from. If I try to go home like this, I'll either be killed, cast
out, or thrown into the dungeons of Castle Asteria."
    "Now, now, don't be so negative." Nori's warm
smile returned. "You don't know for sure that's how they'll
react."
    Arus shrugged it off and rested his head
against the feather pillow. It was all so much for him to take in
at once. He used to stare at the stars, wondering if humans were
alone in the galaxy, and now he was being treated in a spaceship amidst those stars! He'd met two alien beings, a human who's
ancestors traced back to a time before the Great War, been enslaved
to a machine, now apparently freed, and it had all turned his
world—his universe , rather—completely upside down. Perhaps it's all just an elaborate dream. It didn't seem
likely, but anything was preferable to his current situation.
    "Ah! Here we go!" Nori exclaimed. His fingers
rattled across the terminal keys. "This should do it." A sharp
tingle surged through his mechanical arm, though how he could feel
sensations through steel the way he felt them through his flesh was
still beyond his understanding. The implant emitted a momentary
electric hum, and rolling warmth spread across the length of the
cybernetic limb. "All right, Arus. Try to lift your arm." He
pointed at the polished steel.
    The thing moved and felt like his
natural arm, flexing and rotating with only Arus' thoughts guiding
it. The doctor took him through a series of exercises to test its
mobility and responsiveness, flexing each finger and bending each
joint. "I can't exactly say I'm happy to see this thing in action
again," Arus mumbled.
    "Two hands are better than one, that's what I
always say!" Nori laughed again. Did the man ever finish a sentence without laughing? How could anyone be so . . . so . . .
jolly?
    Arus sighed and let the arm fall to the bed.
"Just as long as I'm the one controlling them."
    Nori continued his work for quite some time,
disconnecting and removing several bundles of wires from the
circuits embedded in his scalp. Here and there, a mutter of "Oh,
would you look at that?" and "That's interesting, I never would've
thought of that!" slipped through the old man's lips, which didn't
sit so well with Arus, of course. Did this guy even know what he
was doing? And how could Arus be sure that he wasn't trying to gain
control of the implant to force him into submission again? The idea
of jumping from the bed and running for his life tempted Arus more
than once, but he wasn't so sure his body could handle it, and if
Damien had told the truth, they were only trying to help. Besides,
where would he run to?
    "Very well, that should do it for now," the
old man said after a time, clapping his hands together. "I've
removed all of the cables that controlled your motor functions, and
erased the lines of code that overrode your brain's instructions. I
also deactivated any other functions that the implant was
controlling, such as pupil dilation and balance, among others. In
short, your brain is now in complete control of your body, and the
implant is just along for the ride at the moment. I am going to
have to analyze the programming of your mechanical eye for a bit to
determine which functions I need to reactivate in order to restore
your vision on your left side without activating the laser weapon
or any of the other additional functions that Truce added. For now,
I'll have some food sent up for you. After all you've been through,
you must be hungry, and you need your strength to recover!"
    Arus watched Nori as he walked around the bed
and headed for the door, and his eye came to rest on an unannounced
visitor leaning against the counter. "Vultrel!" He was holding
Arus' sword, examining it as though it was some sort of
archeological find, and handling it with