XVIII
Winter-Made
Night City, 2077
“You’re going with her, right?”
Navarro’s voice cut through the low whir of surgical ventilators and the soft, steady sound of Sofie’s breathing. The clinic lights glared against steel counters and pale polymer plating, casting thin reflections across the instruments arranged in perfect rows.
Liv didn’t look up.
Her gloved hands were deep in the open cavity at the back of her sister’s head, wrists steady, movements precise. She was carefully guiding a cable one tenth the width of a violin string toward the final connection slot inside the mounting frame for Sofie’s new neuroport.
“Almost there,” Liv murmured.
Eiko and Elise tightened their grips on Sofie’s shoulders and jaw, keeping her perfectly angled beneath the lights. The anesthesia drip beside them pulsed a soft, serene green.
Liv slid the cable home with practiced ease, feeling the magnetic lock click into place. Only then did she answer, her voice flat.
“I haven’t decided.”
Navarro snorted behind her mask. “Bullshit. You’re avoiding deciding.”
Liv reached for the next tool without looking away from her work. Sofie’s old neuroport components were laid out beside the tray—scarred, discolored, outdated. Some of the parts were ones Liv herself had installed two years ago, repairing damage done by their brother, Erik. The discarded parts looked ancient compared to the sleek composite lattice settling into Sofie’s skull now.
“I’m focusing,” Liv said.
Navarro didn’t let her off that easily.
“You’re stalling.”
Eiko froze mid-motion as she glanced to the vitals monitor, as if afraid to be caught in the building tension.
Liv lifted the new neuroport and pushed it into the cavity. She fastened it in place with a tiny screwdriver, then replaced the magnetic covering. The device vanished behind the synthetic scalp and hair lining the cover.
“Navarro,” Liv said as she leaned back, “if I were going, I would have told you.”
Eiko and Elise gently lowered Sofie down onto her back.
“Sure. And if you weren’t going, you’d have told me ” Navarro folded her arms over her surgical apron.
Liv didn’t reply.
Eiko glanced nervously between them as she took the screwdriver Liv handed to her.
“Vitals are steady,” Navarro said, her voice calm but clipped.
“So,” Eiko ventured, “Now that her neuroport’s been installed, we can move on to the rest of the upgrades, right?”
“Right,” Liv said. “Apart from her biomonitor and, the rest of her cyberware is housed in her arms. Normally, I’d like to upgrade everything, but we can’t swap her biomon out without cutting her open.”
“Which we’re not doing because she needs to be ready for strenuous physical activity,” Eiko said, repeating what Liv told her earlier while they were preparing the workspace. “Ares is going too. Did he want any upgrades?”
“Most of Ares’ implants are only a few months old,” Navarro said. “Unlike his wife here, Ares has no aversion to upgrades. Sofie’s stuck in the past, trying to hold onto parts of her body that are already gone.”
Eiko looked pensively at Sofie, asleep on the table. “But… her implants are parts of her body now too. I’m not sure I understand.”
Liv paused, hand hovering over a covered tray. “Sofie,” Liv began, “Sofie never had a choice about her implants. She’s a very, good netrunner, but if she’d had a say in the matter, she’d still be fully organic.”
Eiko looked sick. “What do you mean she didn’t have a choice?”
“None of us did. Not Sofie, or myself, or any of our siblings,” Liv replied. “We have our—uh—our ‘’ to thank for that.”
“That’s awful,” Eiko said as she lifted the cover away from the tray.
“It was.”
Two new cyberarms waited on the tray, their pale blue, white, and chrome casings gleaming under the surgical lamps. They were sleek, modern, and unmistakably synthetic. Navarro was out of stock, so Liv had ordered RealSkinn covers for the arms, but Gene-Tek was reporting a manufacturing problem and the wraps wouldn’t arrive for another three weeks, at least. For now, Sofie would have to deal with it. There would be no illusion to hide behind.
Liv hesitate for only a breath. Then she lifted the right arm and carried it to the table, setting it gently beside Sofie’s shoulder.
“Okay,” she said quietly, “Let’s remove the old unit.”
Elise stepped in without needing further instruction. She braced Sofie’s shoulder, holding her steady as Liv guided Eiko through the process of separating Sofie’s synthetic RealSkinn coverings from her organic skin to reveal the junction between her cyberarm and the coupling joint replacing her natural shoulder.
The seam came away cleanly, peeling back like a glow turned inside out. Beneath it, the polymer musculature and aging actuator lines looked dull under the surgical lights—choked with dust, stress fractures, and years of deferred upgrades. Liv exhaled through her nose as she exposed the shoulder mount itself: a reinforced titanium socket, scored along the rim where strain and overuse had started to take their toll.
Eiko swallowed. “I didn’t realize she was using parts this worn-out.”
“She refused to upgrade anything for as long as she could,” Navarro said. “And Liv let her get away with it.”
Liv’s jaw tightened. Navarro wasn’t wrong.
“It’s not new chrome she’s afraid of.” Liv said, disconnecting the old prosthetic. She handed it to Eiko, who placed it on the same tray as the pieces of Sofie’s old neuroport.
Liv continued as she lined up the new arm’s shoulder mount with the exposed socket. “It’s losing the pieces of herself she remembers. Even if they’re not really hers anymore.”
Eiko nodded, thoughtful, though her eyes showed more confusion than understanding.
Liv connected the first wires. The arm’s fingers flexed once. The motion made Liv’s heart twist. She kept securing the wires until each was in its proper place, then Liv and Eiko pressed the arm into the socket and clicked it into place.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Liv stepped back and turned to the tray where the left arm lay.
“Doctor Arnesen,” Eiko’s voice broke the quiet, “I know you said she didn’t have a choice. That you didn’t either…”
Liv paused with her hand hovering over the sleek winter-colored cybernetic.
“No,” she said, without looking up. “I didn’t.”
Eiko blinked. “But you’re a surgeon. A doctor.”
“I became those things because I had to,” Liv replied. “Not because I was given the freedom to choose.”
Silence followed, broken only by the sound of Eiko peeling back the RealSkinn on Sofie’s left arm.
“Choice is a luxury, kid,” Navarro said after a moment. “Not many of us get it.” She checked Sofie’s vitals again, then made a small adjustment to the anesthetic drip. “Her pulse is steady. Brain activity is normal. She’s tolerating the integrations well.” The relief in her voice was restrained, but unmistakable.
Liv exhaled slowly and lifted the left arm. The pale blue refracted the surgical lights like fractured ice. Change was necessary, but that didn’t make it painless.
“Alright. Elise, please stabilize her. Same as before.”
Navarro took her place as Eiko began to peel back the RealSkinn covering Sofie’s left arm. The synthetic skin resisted slightly—Sofie had reinforced this one herself once, Liv realized, patching a tear with meticulous care. A thin, uneven seam ran along the underside. Sofie’s handiwork. A stubborn refusal to surrender the illusion.
“The mount looks worse on this side,” Eiko said.
It did. The titanium was discolored and covered in stress fractures. One of the calibration chips had burned out and seemed to have been bypassed digitally. It was the kind of fix only made by someone on their own, too afraid to ask for help.
“Let’s get it off,” Liv said. Reaching for the locking pins. She disengaged the connecting pins, then pulled the wires free.
Eiko carried the old limb away with both hands, as if afraid it might fall apart in her grip.
When Liv turned back, Navarro was watching her—not the surgery,
“You know,” Navarro said, “You still haven’t answered my question. Are you going with her, or not?”
Liv gritted her teeth as she brought the new arm close to Sofie’s shoulder. As Eiko slid her hands under the forearm, Liv began carefully guiding the wires into the connection ports.
The silence stretched out. It was thin and brittle.
Liv aligned the shoulder mount and clicked the second arm gently into place.
“I’m serious,” Navarro pressed. “Astrid’s probably packed already. Sofie and Ares are walking into God-knows-what in Norway. Are you going to pretend nothing’s happening, or are you going to make a choice?”
Liv didn’t look up. She detached one of the blue panels from Sofie’s new right arm, revealing the cyberdeck hidden within. The black box was featureless apart from three lights on the visible side and a series of cables protruding from the panel facing her shoulder. After deciding that everything was in its proper place, Liv moved to the other side of the table and began to inspect the Monowire hidden in Sofie’s left arm.
“Answer me, dammit,” Navarro said.
Liv remained silent. She slipped a finger carefully into the cavity along Sofie’s left forearm, carefully lifting the monowire spool into view. The filament glimmered faintly under the lights—thin as a hair, sharp enough to cut bone. Liv checked the tension readout, made a micro-adjustment to the actuator bed, then lowered the spool back into place.
Only then did she speak.
“I’m working,” Liv said quietly.
“That’s not an answer,” Navarro said.
Eiko froze, hands hovering uncertainly over the next tray and the Kiroshi Optics case sitting on it. Her eyes flicked between the two surgeons nervously, then to Sofie’s sleeping face, as if afraid she might somehow wake and find herself in the middle of a conflict she would be unable to escape.
Liv sighed as she sealed the forearm panel. It clicked sharply into place. “It an answer.”
“Okay, so you’re working. Care to elaborate?”
“I’m staying here,” Liv said. “I’ve got patients, and a student, and I can’t go with her because something’s going to try to fall apart either way, but she’s got Ares and Astrid, and she doesn’t need me right now.”
The words hung in the air. Too heavy. Too honest.
Eiko’s breath caught.
For the first time since the surgery began, the quiet felt different.
Navarro let out a slow exhale. “There it is,” she murmured.
“Let’s just do her eyes,” Liv said after another moment of silence, gesturing for Eiko to bring over the Kiroshi case.
Liv closed her own eyes, as Eiko popped the seal on the case. She thought of the Med Center. Of the trauma ward she ran. Of Eiko, hovering anxiously beside her. Of the patients who would be carted into her operating room tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
She thought of Sofie and the scars she bore by Liv’s own hand. Of the little girl who cried herself to sleep in Nástr?nd. And of the woman who still had nightmares every night. That little girl wasn’t alone anymore though. She had her sisters by her side once more, and she had her husband who would do anything for her.
“Doctor Arnesen? Liv? You’re crying.”
Liv opened her eyes.
A single tear had slipped beneath the edge of her mask, tracing a warm path down her cheek before disappearing into the fabric. She hadn’t even felt it fall.
“I’m fine,” she said.
But her voice was too thin, too soft. Even Elise paused at the sound of it.
Eiko stepped closer, hands hovering in that unsure space between wanting to help and not knowing how. “You don’t look fine.”
Liv blinked hard, dispersing what remained of the tears. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Let’s just… focus on Sofie.”
Eiko obeyed, lifting the lid the rest of the way. Inside, nestled in foam, were two gleaming Kiroshi Mk. Vs. The optical implants were far newer, far cleaner, far safer than the eyes Sofie had now. Thin threads of microfilament wiring curled beneath each synthetic iris, pulsing faintly with rainbow light.
Liv steadied herself with a slow, deep breath.
“You’re allowed to feel, Liv.” Navarro spoke quietly, her tone unusually gentle. “Even here.”
“No,” Liv said softly. “No here. Not until I’m done. It’s the only way I can operate on her.”
Navarro nodded solemnly, then steadied Sofie’s head with one hand on her chin and the other on her forehead. Eiko peeled back her left eyelid with a small eye speculum. Liv picked up a curved tool and slid it into the corner of Sofie’s eye. Then she gently pulled on the tool, and Sofie’s eye came with it. Liv disconnected the wires that had replaced her sister’s optic nerve, then reached for the case.
She picked up one of the Kiroshis with a delicacy that bordered on reverence. Under the surgical lights, the pale iris shimmered like frost, mirroring the color of Sofie’s newly installed cyberarms. The same color as Sofie’s natural eyes. The eyes Liv herself had removed.
Her lungs tightened.
She forced herself to breathe normally.
Liv meticulously connected the cables to the back of the new implant and gently pressed it into the socket. The iris flashed twice, first orange, then blue. It was working properly.
Eiko lifted a sterile saline syringe from the tray next to her and washed the eye out with it before releasing the eyelid. Sofie’s eye drifted shut lazily. “One down,” she said softly and moved the speculum to Sofie’s other eye.
“She already had her neuroport and optics by the time she was eleven. Our mother didn’t even bother to match the color of her optics to her organic eyes.” Liv said as she disconnected the old implant. “I don’t know if Sofie remembers the color, but I do. I couldn’t forget if I tried.”
Eiko swallowed, her voice hushed but earnest. “They’re beautiful,” she said, glancing at the frost-pale iris settling into place. “They look like they belong to her.”
Liv didn’t answer. She focused on the old optic she held between her index finger and thumb: a dull metal sphere, scratched and clouded from years of strain. How many times had she cleaned this lens? Recalibrated its focus? How many times had Navarro done the same? How many times had Sofie done it herself? Too many.
As the new eye flashed in confirmation that it was working, she set the old implant onto the tray beside the defunct neuroport. The pile of outdated chrome seemed suddenly obscene. So many years of work, fear, improvisation, all reduced to a handful of discarded parts and a pair of severed limbs.
“They’re going to look a hell of a lot better than those dusty gray marbles,” Navarro said inspecting the second new implant as Eiko flooded it with saline.
They were silent for a while. Liv dropped onto a rolling stool and hung her head. Navarro sighed and began to collect their tools to be cleaned and sterilized. Eiko stopped the anesthesia drip, then she simply stared at Sofie where she lay.
“Doctor..?” Eiko ventured, “If she didn’t have a choice before… does she now?”
“We always have a choice Eiko. Always.” Liv said quietly. “Even when we don’t believe we do. Sofie spent years trying to hold herself together out of fear. Fear of the chrome. Fear of losing control. Fear of turning into something she never chose to be.” Liv sighed and stood. “But she let her fears take hold of her. She found herself drawing ever nearer to the edge of the cliff she was desperately trying to run from.”
Eiko’s eyes never left Sofie.
“She lost herself once. Fell over the edge of the cliff.”
“She—what do you mean?”
“Sofie’s a survivor of Cyberpsychosis. We hear stories all the time; chrome jocks going crazy. Killing sprees. Violent, grizzly affairs, with few survivors. Max-Tac teams flatlining veterans who went mad. It instills fear of the wyrm hiding deep in our implants in us, keeps most of us from going too far.
“But Sofie had no choice about her implants. She’s afraid of her own body, tries so hard to hide it. I’m not sure if she’s capable of accepting her chrome. I’m worried she’s going to slip again.”
Eiko swallowed. “That’s awful.”
“It is,” Liv agreed.
Eiko’s gaze flicked to Liv. “She’s going to be okay? Right?”
As she asked, someone knocked on the clinic door. Navarro went to the door to open it, and Ares stepped inside.
“Yes,” Liv said as she watched Ares cross the clinic and take Sofie’s unconscious hand. “She’s going to be okay.”
