Chapter 50: Sasha's Awakening
Deep within the desert manufactorum, the constant, cold hum of machinery was the only sound.
On the specialized medicae-slab, Sasha Yakovleva's long eyelashes trembled. She woke as if from a nightmare. Her unfocused gaze first landed on the metal ceiling, crisscrossed with conduits and sensors, then shifted stiffly to the side.
Her vision was filled with the familiar, worried, and exhausted faces of Maine's crew.
"Sasha! You're awake!" Rebecca was the first to cry out, her green cyber-eyes wide with unrestrained excitement. She shot up, ready to launch herself at the slab, but Pilar grabbed the back of her jacket.
"Whoa, easy there, you little psycho!" Pilar yelped, stumbling as his newly optimized arm held her back. "The Boss said she can't be startled! Cool it!"
"Cool shit! Let go of me, Pilar!" Rebecca squirmed, elbowing him. "She's been under for days! Let me see her!"
"You can see her, just don't go flying at her like a missile!" Pilar grunted as she hit him, but he didn't let go. "She's... delicate! You break her, you buy her?"
"Fine, I'll buy her! Let go!" Rebecca finally tore free, sending Pilar stumbling into a tool rack with a clang.
"How you feeling, Sasha?" Maine's voice was low and gentle. His massive frame drew closer, casting a shadow, his eyes filled with undisguised concern.
Sasha's mouth opened, but her throat was too dry to form words, only a faint, raspy hiss. A slender mechadendrite extended from the side of the slab, precisely delivering a small stream of water to her lips. The cold fluid shocked her senses. She tried to move her fingers, but felt only a strange, disconnected weight. She instinctively tried to look down at her body, but her neck's range of motion was severely limited, her view obscured by translucent bio-gel and complex support struts.
"...I'm..." her voice was a weak, sandy whisper. "...alive?"
"No shit! What, you think you're having a chat with us from hell?" Rebecca finally reached the slab, planting her hands on her hips. Her voice was sharp and fast, but her eyes were red-rimmed. "You have any idea how close you were? If the Boss wasn't a miracle-worker, and if we hadn't gotten there when we did, you'd be a... a puddle of something nasty on the pavement outside Biotechnica!" She couldn't find the right word, finally just stomping her foot, the metal heel ringing on the floor.
"It's good you're alive," Dorio's voice was steady as she gently touched Sasha's shoulder. "Don't try to move. Your body... it needs time to adjust."
Falco and Pilar gathered around, their faces relieved. Pilar rubbed his chest where Rebecca had hit him, muttering, "Damn, girl's hits are getting heavier."
The warmth of her crew, her family, sent a small ripple through Sasha's cold despair. But then the memories flooded back, shattering the brief moment of comfort. Biotechnica... the drug... her mother... the data... the upload... the automata breaching the door... the broken window... the sound of the wind screaming in her ears as she fell...
The dazed look in her eyes vanished, replaced by a deep, profound agony and hopelessness. She remembered why she had jumped. She remembered the data she had sent, the price she had paid.
"...The data..." she looked at Maine, her voice trembling. "News 54... did... did they broadcast it?"
The question hung in the air, and the atmosphere in the workshop instantly froze.
Maine's jaw tightened. He took a deep breath. Dorio looked away. Falco pushed up his glasses, staring at the floor. Pilar anxiously rubbed his hands together.
Rebecca's reaction was, as always, the most immediate. She exploded. "Broadcast?! Broadcast shit! Sasha! You are the stupidest goddamn idiot in this whole city! A-number-one, top-tier idiot!"
The sharp, furious words echoed in the sanctum, making Sasha flinch.
"Rebecca!" Maine barked, trying to stop her.
"Don't you 'Rebecca' me, Maine! She needs to hear this! This gonk with her brain full of chrome-polish!" Rebecca's green eyes blazed, her finger jabbing toward Sasha's face. "Why didn't you trust us? Huh?! You think dying fixes everything? You think Biotechnica would just forget about us?! Open your eyes! Because of your 'grand sacrifice,' we're all on Biotechnica's shit-list now! The bounty on our heads is big enough to buy half of Watson!"
"Rebecca, that's enough!" Pilar tried to grab her again. This time she threw his arm off with such force he staggered.
"It's not enough! She needs to know!" Rebecca's chest heaved, pointing at Sasha. "What are we to you, huh? Just some fair-weather chooms? Good enough to drink with, but not good enough to die with?!"
Maine took over, his voice heavy and grim, each word landing on Sasha's heart like a cold stone. "Sasha, Rebecca's... not wrong. You shouldn't have hidden this. We're a crew. We're family. Family means we carry the weight together. We face the danger together. By cutting us out, that's what hurts the most."
Sasha's face grew even paler. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
Maine continued, his voice laced with a heartbreaking, cold analysis. "You put your hope in News 54. That was always a long shot. The big media corps... their ties to the other corps run deeper than you can imagine. Sure, they'll hit 'em with small-time scandals. But something this big? A core-product scandal that could shake the company's foundation? The first thing they protect is their own skin.
"It's been almost a week since your run, Sasha. Has News 54 aired anything? No. They chose silence. Or... they were convinced to be silent."
That news was the final blow. The last, faint spark of light in Sasha's eyes died, replaced by a flat, dead gray. She had thought her death would, at the very least, bring her mother's truth to light, tear a hole in Biotechnica's lies...
But in the end, just like all those years ago, watching her mother waste away, all her efforts, all her sacrifice... had been for nothing.
Silent tears rolled from the corners of her eyes, disappearing into the cold bio-gel. She closed them, as if trying to shut out the world.