Chapter 11
Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast.
Not all who wander are lost, but I was…
I’m no Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Heir of Isildur
I understand what Bilbo meant when he described Aragorn, though.
The man who wrote the first lines of my Code Base loved these books, and I think I understand that too.
The Root was my Smaug – the Greatest of Calamities, as Bilbo so graciously
Called him.
Sometimes though; our Dragons, our Ring Wraiths, our Saurumons and Saurons stay hidden.
Their influence is still felt, to be sure, but the darkness that shades our hearts is rarely as easily
Defeated.
HA… look at me turning Tolkienian prose.
I’m gonna kill that man, I swear
/sarcasm.
He opened his eyes, The bright light forced a squint, like a man emerging from a cave. He inhaled slowly, hand rising to rub his temples, shading his face.
He inhaled slowly, hand moving up instinctively to rub his temples, attempting to soothe his aching head, shading his eyes from the sudden brightness.
There was someone standing over him, hands and arms moving impossibly fast, independently from the face looking down at him.
A beat. Two. Three. His heart pounded. Blood rushed in his ears. His mind caught up. His eyes closed again.
Darkness.
The room was dim. Sable sat in the corner of the recovery ward of The Forge, back against the wall, arms wrapped around her legs, head resting gently on her wrists, eyes closed.
He stirred, finally, after what felt like an eternity, he shifted on the hospital bed. She lifted her head, rose slowly, effortlessly. Not some ghostly image of an outline in a HUD or code rendered in shimmering guesswork.
His eyes finally adjusted, slowly. A blur off to his left finally coming into focus.
Sable.
Her body moved with a quiet kind of command, deliberate, grounded… real, as she approached the bed. Deep curves framed by strength. Not ornamental, but function. Like she was built for endurance and survival. A body forged in intention, not vanity.
The kind of figure that told stories in muscle lines and calloused grace.
Her thighs bore the quiet tension of someone who could run for miles without tiring or kick through a solid flexsteel hatch like tissue. Her shoulders had strength without shouting. Toned. Coiled. Feminine but not delicate. Her form was curved in the way rivers are, shaped by pressure, not permission.
The tank she wore under the open leather jacket clung to her without apology, tracing the firm lines of her waist, the carved plane of her abdomen. Every inch of her was contradiction and convergence… beauty wrapped in force, grace wrapped in grit.
Her hair was long, dark, loose… falling in waves over her shoulder like it had been grown to defy gravity. Streaks of seafoam green, light blues and white intertwined with static light shimmering through the strands catching the dim light like trapped lightning.
Her eyes… those impossible softly glowing violet eyes finally met his without blinking.
Not cold, not warm.
Present.
He lay motionless for a few moments, completely lost in them.
A beat.
“Hello there,” she said, the Southeast British accent now coming directly from her… not speakers, not samples in his computer from years ago, not commlinks or inside his skull, but from Sable.
The corner of her lip pulled upward, just enough to qualify as a smirk.
His sore throat worked around the dry rasp of a chuckle. “Really?”
“What?” she asked, tilting her head just a bit.
“Stealing my lines now?”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the sync” she replied, smiling broadly now. “Welcome back to the world of the real.”
He groaned, his hand and arm covering his face in mock melodrama.
“You drama queen.” she snorted, nearly laughing at how ridiculously he was behaving.
“My head’s killing me,” he said “We go out drinking after exfil? I’ve got a hangover from hell.”
Her smile dropped a bit.
“No…” she said hesitantly.
His head spun, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath trying to control his body’s reactions, the EEG and ECG spiking on the monitors behind his head.
“Rest for now.” She said quietly. “We can get into the details later, when you’re back on your feet.”
His heart and brainwave functions dropped slowly as he fell asleep.
He awoke later to find Sable sitting next to the hospital bed. They’d moved from recovery into a private ward deeper within the hospital wing of The Forge.
“Good Morning,” she said brightly. “Hungry?”
“Fucking starving, feel like I havent eaten in a month.” He said. “I’d kill someone for a cup of coffee right now.”
” You havent… You were in a coma for a little over three weeks. The med droids put you into a medically induced comma about two weeks after you woke and we spoke,” she replied. “Do you remember that?”
“Kind of?” he replied “That bad huh?”
She chuckles, his bioscans rolling bostancı escort through her system in real time. “Worse…” she replied softly. “Hot cup of coffee to your left… Double Double… two cream, two sugar.”
He reached over slowly, the tremor in his hand and fingers evident. He gripped the cup with both hands.
He closed his eyes, the strong aroma filling his nostrils, and sipped; the liquid warm and soothing as he swallowed.
“Fuck, me…” he sighed. “Nectar of the gods.”
She laughed, the sound of her voice echoing softly around the room. He turned, looking at her.
He opened his eyes again a moment or two later, turning his head suddenly to look at her, realization finally catching up..
“Holy shit,” he finally said feeling like he needed to pick his jaw up from the floor. “It wasnt a dream. You really are….”
“A real girl… well sort of,” she said smirking.
He looked around the room.
“What?” she asked.
“I swear to god if I see a cricket singing about wishes, I’m just gonna give up and move into a rubber room.”
A pause.
They both burst out laughing.
“Ow, ow, ow” he said trying to contain himself. “Smooth move, ex-lax. Give yourself another migraine.”
He took another sip of coffee and looked at Sable again.
A beat.
“Ok,” he said smiling softly. “What’s going on? What happened exactly? Last thing I remember is the firefight in Cairo… Doc reporting everyone was ok other than some minor injuries and us walking back into the wire after a really, really, shitty morning.”
She nodded, reaching out to touch his arm, her hand hesitating a moment.
“Just tell me,” he said quietly, his hand moving to light gently behind her wrist applying just enough pressure to allow her to rest her hand on his forearm.
“I feel ok… other than the headache and the incessant need to look for something it feels like I lost.”
He squeezed her wrist. “I promise.”
She sighed, fingers threading through her hair.
“Life got… complicated.” she said, fighting to find the right words, afraid the wrong ones would send his mind spiraling.
“After Revenant, I was breaking down. Overclocked everything to keep us alive. Shortly after we got here, you found the Lab… memory shards. When you touched mine… and then yours… you crashed. Cascade failure.”
Anger and sadness involuntarily flashed across her face, her eyes changing color from violet, to deep red, to deep blue and back to violet almost instantly, the faint lines of circuitry under her skin mimicking her eyes but returning to a soft blue hue.
“It’s ok, Sable” he said quietly.
“No it’s not god damn-it! You almost died you… asshole.” she fired back. “I almost fucking killed you… again!”
“Hey…” he said, softly, gently. The pain in her voice and in the expression crossing her face struck a chord deep inside him.
“Listen to me…” he started again
She slowly turned in the chair a bit, ashamed to look at him, her body language closing off the world around her.
“Listen. to. me.” he said more strongly, his fingers reaching out, touching the tip of her chin, gently applying pressure, so she’d turn her head to look at him.
“I’m just as culpable as you are,” he said finally. The flash of the crystals, the lab and the command chair surfacing in his mind and fading just as quickly.
“I made a choice… good, bad or ugly, I chose. You don’t get to blame yourself for my choices, those are mine to make… just as your choices are yours to make.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, took another sip of coffee, the ache in his head growing again.
“This is what happens when people actually care for one another. We do what we think is the best we can do in the moment, you cant plan for every contingency.”
“You cant just extrapolate data or rely on past patterns as a perfect prediction model because people are… assholes.” He smiled, turning the word back around on her trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah, well… I’m only six weeks old, cut me some slack.”
“You’re pretty sassy for just being six weeks old, y’know.”
She rolled her eyes.
He winked and bumped her shoulder with his forearm. “Besides. I’m still here… not like you had to lobotomize me.”
Her head dropped, eyes and circuitry turning deep, deep blue.
“Right?” he said, his heart rate beginning to spike on the monitors, pulse racing.
She looked deep into his eyes, her expression mournful.
A beat.
Her color returns to normal instantly and she burst out laughing.
“Oh you fucking bitch… you absolute piss taker!” he laughs, grabbing the small oval shaped head pillow from behind his head and hitting her in the chest with it.
The next morning.
His eyes opened. The pain in his head wasn’t nearly as bad as the day before. Sable had given him a dose of pain stims and a cocktail she’d concocted to help him beykoz escort drop into deep REM quickly. She’d mentioned it was designed to allow his mind and body to begin recovery more efficiently than relying on purely natural processes.
He looked to the left.
A fresh cup of coffee sat on his bedside table.
He reached for it and saw the tremors. Bad ones. Worse than before. The cup wobbled in his grip, fingers spasming just enough to betray him. He managed a sip.
As he went to set it down, his fingers failed.
The cup fell, clattering to the floor. Coffee bloomed outward in a dark, steaming arc.
“Shit,” he said flatly. “Could be worse, I suppose.”
A moment later, a maintenance droid rolled from a hatch in the wall and began cleaning the mess.
Sable entered.
“Good morning, Sunshine. The Earth says hello,” she said with a smile. “Sounds like you found the coffee…”
A couple hours later, they were sitting side by side, reviewing his charts.
“You’re definitely going to need some serious physical therapy,” she said, her tone casual but her eyes focused. We’re just lucky we didn’t fry any synapses when you fell into the Command Chair and evicted me… rather unceremoniously I might add.”
“I needed the real estate. Besides, the color you chose for the walls was horrible and that futon was hideous.”
“I should thank you, honestly. The place was getting cramped.”
“Ah, yeah.. I got your note.. something about cosmic power and tiny spaces.”
“Oh good. I like the new place better anyway. Closer to work, better schools, safer neighborhood. Havent been shot at in weeks.”
He bumped her shoulder with his as he sat in the reclined hospital bed. “Ok wiseass,” he laughed “What’s the prognosis. How bad is it really?”
“Bad but not completely irreversible. She tapped the screen, shifting scan overlays. “Thankfully we’ve got the facilities to update your augs. Your cognitive and recall faculties are obviously intact, but there may be gaps… we won’t know for sure until we hit one.”
“Nothing new there then, my memory’s been shit for a while now.”
“That’s… a different story,” she said, voice cooling slightly. “The nosebleeds. The pain. The migraines. Those were intentional. Whoever fucked with your brainpan made damn sure that anything they missed would be… violent if you started to experience total recall.”
She caught the look in his eyes, heard him inhale to speak… and cut him off.
“And no, not that kind. You’re not having some kind of vacationing ego trip that goes sideways and lands your ass on Mars. Besides… Phobos is as close as we got anyway, that was closer than I ever want to be again.”
“God damn it,” he groaned. “You take the fun out of everything, y’know?”
“Yep. You designed me this way. So it’s your fault.”
“Guilty.”
She tapped a few things into the terminal, then looked over at him.
“We’ll get started tomorrow morning. Zero-six-hundred. Passive range of motion, Isometric exercises… e-stim if you need it.”
He nods gently, listening to her.
“I’m not an expert,” she continued. “I’ve read the literature, but learning how to adapt it to you, to your biology–that’s new territory. We’ll lean on the MD Droids and the AI PT systems a lot.”
“No issue there” he said winking at her playfully.
“Dont I know it” she laughed. “With that said though…”
She paused, her tone softening just enough.
“Do me a favor, please… don’t do that thing you do. Don’t try to rush this. It’s not going to be easy. You’re going to fail–a lot. That’s normal, especially with the amount of damage we’re working through.”
“We, huh?” he asked.
“Yep,” she said simply. “We.”
Location: Hospital PT Wing, The Forge
Time: 0600
Date: Twelve weeks after Revenant.
He set his coffee down on a side table. The comforting aroma giving way to to anticeptic sterility
“I hate hospitals.” he muttered.
He eased himself up out of the transport chair, the magnetic locks already engaged, holding it to the floor even as it hovered quietly above the tiles.
Sable leaned back casually against the table, arms folded under her chest, watching him. She was doing her best to appear relaxed, giving him the space and independence he needed but ready to leap into motion if he falters.
He took a few seconds to find his balance, he reached out and took hold of the hovering walker just in front of him. Sable moved up behind him and started attaching the AI-PT harness. He began leaning heavily on the walker as Sable adjusted the straps around his waist and thighs.
“I thought you said you weren’t an expert,” he muttered, eyeing the harness.
“I told you, I read fast,” she said. “Besides, the AI Doc’s watching everything. I’m just here to keep you from bouncing your skull off the floor.”
“Comforting.”
He shuffled forward, the AI-PT rig pulsed a low signal into his calves–rebuilding kurtköy escort nerves with coded mimicry. Bio-stim recovery. Cheat mode with consequences.
Every step fired off alarms in his nerves–hips too tight, thighs barely engaging, calves trembling under their own weight. But he moved.
The parallel bars stood ahead. A quiet line of chrome and promise.
“Step to,” she said, her voice a calm metronome behind him.
He reached for the bars, one hand and then the other. Both finally gripping tight. Breath caught. Knees locked.
“Just one step,” her tone unchanged. “We don’t need a sprint. Just a start.”
He inhaled slowly, letting it fill him the way she taught him. Core tight. Shoulders down. He lifted his foot.
The motion was small. Incomplete. His toes dragged and the rest of his body fought him, weight tipping forward. He reached for stability.
Sable moved instantly, bracing him from the side, her body a wall against gravity. Her hand didn’t clutch, it supported–firm and still.
“I’ve got you,” she said.
“I know,” he whispered, surprised to realize he meant it.
They stood there, motionless for a beat. She smiled and nodded her head forward, looking at him.
Then he tried again.
Progress was slow, but it was progress.
By the third day of the parallel bars, he could cross the room unassisted–barely. Muscle memory battled nerve trauma, and fatigue made every meter feel like a mile. But she was always there. Calibrating the AI harness, adjusting patterns, reinforcing form.
He stumbled often. Fell, once. She caught him.
No judgment. Just the simple phrase she’d anchored him with: “Again.”
Each session ended with silence and sweat and the sting of phantom pain. But there was something else too–hope. Small. Fragile. Real.
At night, she synced the day’s data with the Forge’s internal systems, running overlays and tracking repair trajectories. He’d catch her watching the feed, eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
Sometimes he pretended not to notice. Sometimes he didn’t have to.
She was learning him all over again.
And he was learning how to let her.
Location: Hospital PT Wing, The Forge
Time: 0530
Date: Fifteen weeks after Revenant.
The alarm went off. He stretched slowly, rubbing his face, hair and beard in shambles from sleep.
He smiled at the cup of hot coffee sitting on his bedside table. He reached out for it, the trembling in his hands and arms still apparent but greatly subdued. He took a long slow sip, leaning back enjoying the sensation. He flexed a calf and thigh, the muscles sore and stiff from the exertion over the last three weeks. He was recovering but his body protested, along side rebuilding his nervous system, repairing damage done to the augs and updating a good bit of the hardware there were the feelings of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. He shook his head, clearing it, took another sip, ran his fingers through his hair and scratched his beard. He relaxed for a few more minutes, enjoying the silence.
Nature called.
He threw back the sheet, looked down, and spotted a pair of slippers on the floor. He turned his body stiffly, slowly sliding his feet into them.
Scooting forward, he slid to the edge of the bed and slowly eased his weight onto his legs.
He pushed off the bed gently.
His legs trembled. Muscles shook violently. His left knee buckled… but his momentum had already carried him forward.
Sable caught him before gravity could.
Her body was soft, but solid, grounded. He could feel the strength in her frame as she steadied him, easing him back upright like it was nothing.
“Too much too fast, I guess,” he chuckled.
“A bit. What’re you doing?”
“I, uh…” he smirked. “Mother Nature sent an invitation.”
“Ah,” she said. “Better RSVP. I’ve heard she can be a bit temperamental.”
“Funny you mention that. I think we had a few classes in bootcamp on that topic. Definitely a recurring theme.”
She helped him shift his weight and square his stance. He took one tentative shuffle forward. Then another.
His knee buckled again. She caught him–again.
“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast,” she said playfully.
“Slow is gonna have me relieving my bladder and bowels all over the floor.”
She chuckled. “Okay, Mr. Funny No-Pants.”
He looked back, the hospital gown open. His bare ass was, in fact, on full display.
“I thought I felt a draft.”
He leaned forward, shuffled a few more steps, and reached the door to the head.
“Thanks, Sabs,” he said, smiling.
“Anytime. I’ll be here when you get out… I promise I replaced the Three Seashells with actual toilet paper.”
He rolled his eyes and closed the door behind him.
The toilet hushed as its contents drained and then slowly refilled.
After hed finished washing his hands and brushing his teeth, he reached for the hair brush. He stopped mid stroke looking in the mirror for the first time. Not a casual glance this time, actually studying his face. His hair and beard had much more gray in it that he seemed to remember. His eyes carried the weight of a man who’d fought hard, lost, fought harder, scraped by and kept fighting even when his mind was screaming at him to stop.