Neal Asher: Gridlinked

'If an AI is on it now, we won't get out of here,' he said.

Without replying Pelter opened the door and got out. He was still angry at Stanton's disobedience, but was moving OK now. The saline infusion and the drugs had given him an energy Stanton knew Pelter would pay for later. Stanton got out and followed him.

The booth for auto transactions protruded from the side of the Norver Bank building like a Victorian conservatory. The building itself was a domed affair, much like a mosque, at the edge of one of the arcology parks. Pelter walked through the sliding door and straight up to one of the cash machines. Stanton stayed by the entrance and watched as Pelter placed his hand on the palm-reader and put his remaining eye up against the retinal scanner.

'Identified. What do you require, Arian Pelter?' the machine asked him in its silky voice.

'I wish to make a cash withdrawal,' Pelter replied.

Stanton noted other customers casting glances in both his and Pelter's directions. It didn't surprise him. He would have noticed the pair of them too.

'Please key in the required amount and confirm,' the machine instructed.

Pelter tapped away for a moment, then placed his palm and his eye again. A low note sounded in the air, and Stanton could see Pelter speaking, but could not hear him. A soundfield had come on and the bank machine was no doubt asking Pelter if he required the services of bank security. Stanton looked up and saw the eye in the ceiling swivelling to observe him. He heard the door lock itself behind him. Pelter continued talking. After a moment the door lock clicked off again. Pelter stepped back as a hatch slid open in the base of the cash machine. He reached in and took up the briefcase the bank had provided him for his withdrawal, probably at no extra charge. Pelter and Stanton quickly exited the building.

'How much?' Stanton asked once they were airborne again. Pelter opened the briefcase and exposed its contents. Stanton whistled at the little eyes that glittered back at him from black velvet.

'That's four million New Carth shillings in a hundred thousand units,' said Pelter.

'What kind?'

'Etched sapphires, scan-enabled. They're redeemable anywhere, even Out-Polity. Stay with me, John, and ten of them are yours. Try to take them from me and I'll kill you.'

'I don't work like that,' said Stanton. 'You know that.'

'Yes… now get us to Sylac'

'As you say, Arian.'

Sylac was a surgeon of a kind that was frowned on in the Polity. There was not much that humans could do to themselves that was disallowed, including cosmetic alteration, genetic adaptation and cyber-implants and alterations. What the Polity did frown upon was people who carried out the aforementioned without sufficient qualification, or those who liked experimenting, and for whom the human body was a testing ground, even a playground. But so long as no one complained there was nothing that could be done about these people. No one complained about what Sylac did to them. In nearly every case they came to him for something other, more reputable surgeons would refuse to handle.

Stanton neither liked nor trusted the man, and he could not understand Arian wanting to be here. He studied his surroundings. The operating theatre was cutting edge, in more ways than the metaphorical. A surgical robot, looking something like a giant chrome cockroach, was crouched over the operating table. The devices lining one wall had labels on them like 'Bone-weld Inc.', 'Cell Fuser' and 'Nervectonic'. Below these, in row upon row of cryogenic cylinders, were things he knew he would not really want to study too closely. Spares or leftovers, probably.

A long workbench on the other side of the theatre was strewn with devices of which Stanton had only scant recognition. There he saw selections of cerebral augmentations, booster-joint motors, nerve links and synaptic plugs, and those were but a small portion of what lay there. Stanton realized that many of these items were intended for those wanting to go further than mere physical boosting or cerebral augmentation. Some people, he knew, actually wanted to lose their humanity and go completely cyborg.

'Well?' said Sylac. He turned around to them and crossed his arms, all four of them.

Sylac was his own advertisement. He was apparently human up to the waist, but thereafter things started to go drastically wrong. From his waistline there protruded two double-jointed arms, which would have looked more suitable on the surgical robot. The extremities of these two arms bore no resemblance to human hands. They were a confetti of blades and esoteric instruments. His torso was keel-shaped so as to support this set of additional appendages. His head, set above perfectly normal shoulders and arms, had a half hemisphere on one side of it, as if a cannonball was in the process of obliterating it.

'Glad you could see us,' said Pelter.

Sylac looked at the both of them. 'Your usual doctor retired?' He smirked.

Pelter walked unsteadily forward to the operating table. Sylac retained his smirk as he watched. Stanton knew the surgeon had every reason to feel confident; neither Separatists nor ECS had been able to do anything about him for some time. His augmentation had taken him not far from the level of a Polity AI, and the technology with which he surrounded himself made it unlikely that anything less than a tactical strike could take him out, and even that…

Pelter placed four etched sapphires down on the table.

'Rather excessive for a few repairs,' said Sylac.

Pelter undipped an object like a small black pebble from his belt, which he placed next to the sapphires.

'Ah,' said Sylac.

'You can do my friend first,' said Pelter. 'What I want is going to take a litde longer.'

Stanton hesitated when Pelter looked towards him, then moved further into the theatre. Sylac watched him for a moment, then glanced towards the operating table. At that same glance the surgical robot straightened up and began moving some of its instrument arms in a manner that could only be described as eager. Sylac moved over to the table and swept up the sapphires and the other object Pelter had deposited mere. A second after this the table motors hummed gently as it folded in a number of places. In moments it had become a chair with a headrest and arms. Sylac gestured to the chair with one of his metal arms. The gesture was graceful, which made it all the more unnerving. Stanton moved across and sat. He looked at Sylac, but the cybersurgeon had turned away and was walking to his side bench. Instead of Sylac, the robot moved round beside Stanton. A thin arm darted out and sliced cleanly through his sling.

'Wait a minute!' Stanton cried.

Two padded clamps darted out, pulled his arm aside and pinned it to the chair arm. He felt the broken bone grinding inside and yelled more in shock than in pain.

Sylac looked round at him. 'I do have other things to do, man. You only have a broken arm,' he said.

A sharp pain in his shoulder, and Stanton looked around at the disc now pressed there. His arm went completely dead: nerve-blocker. Stanton looked over at

Arian, but me Separatist had his concentration fixed on Sylac, who was inspecting the black device.

'What do you want with this, Pelter?' he asked.

'I want it connected into a military aug, and I want that interfaced with my optic nerve,' said Pelter, and so saying he peeled the dressing from his face.

Sylac looked at the ruin of his face with something like disinterest. 'I'll have to do some grafting there, but your payment covers that,' he said.

Pelter went on. 'I also want my finger and handprints removed and my retinal print changed.'

Fascinated as he was by this exchange, Stanton could not concentrate on it. The robot now removed the splint and bandages from his arm with a scuttling of curved scalpels. This would have been bad enough in a proper hospital, but here? It then split his shirt sleeve and parted it… only, Stanton suddenly realized, it wasn't just his shirt that the machine had opened. He looked away quickly from the neatly snapped bone he could see mere, and cringed at the sound of small tubes sucking away the blood that started to well up. There was movement next, but no pain, then came the reassuring drone of a bone welder. Stanton could not say he was impressed with Sylac's bedside manner.