“Why were you climbing Verona Rupes in the first place?”

Boreas avoided eye contact with the medic who was undoubtedly scrutinizing his ability to make good decisions. 

“You’ve broken, shattered, or fractured, one hundred and twenty three bones in your body—that is well over half of them.”

“The impact mitigation in the suit I was wearing was supposed to prevent this.”

“Which is precisely why you’re getting first rate treatment for the injuries you’ve incurred.”

“How can I ever repay you!” Boreas laced his words with sarcasm.

“Just worry about the deductible.” 

Boreas barked a laugh at that, then grunted as his body tense up in pain.

“Laughter is not the best medicine..”

The medic almost smiled. She was running through some equipment diagnostics, and the patient checklist. Her accent belied her non-Uranian background but it wasn’t thick enough for Dante to place it.

“You’re not from Ur-Sys, are you?”

“Neither are you.” For a moment she was silent, glancing over at her patient perfunctorily before continuing. “I never thought to come to Uranus, initially. But after my training, it was the first job available that wasn’t on a ship or orbital station.”

“You prefer to keep your feet on the ground, I take it?”

She deposited the tablet she was using back into the receptacle at the foot of the incubator style bed.

“Your vitals have remained stable for the last few days and your internal organs have been repaired sufficiently by nanomeds. Your full recovery will be long and complex, just like your injuries. The chief surgeon will be visiting soon to discuss your options moving forward.”

With that said, the medic exited the room. 

Boreas was suspended and restrained from virtually all moment. There were multiple device attached and strapped to his body, each making their own beeping or ticking noise. The oblong cradle-like bed was likely fabricated from nanoglass. Medical grade was only surpassed by military grade processes and was virtually indestructible and resistant to most compromising agents and methods of contamination. The rest of the room was composites all in the light medical grey colour. The lighting was clinical, though not as stark and flat as some of the lighting choices on the transport ship that brought him to Uranus months ago.

That ship was a derelict barge of a machine if he ever saw one.The sights he saw on the trip were etched into his mind, and yet he still found himself wanting to have his own ship, one day. 

He had booked passage to Uranus in the hopes of getting involved with some of the local merc ops. They were known system-wide for being the best, and the most lucrative. 

His foray up the Verona Rupes was supped to secure him entry into the best mercenary group, the Shades of Anubis. Instead, it rewarded him with incalculable pain. The amount of meds pumping through his system allowed his body to heal quite a bit over the past few days, but it also prevented him from being conscious—until now. And now that he was awake, he wished that he wasn’t.

It hurt to breath. 

It hurt to open his eyes. 

It hurt to think, even.

“So you survived.”

The voice startled him. There was no one but him in the room, and the door was closed and no discernible source that could produce a voice. Instead of flinching or jumping, which thankfully avoided a lot of pain, he froze. His body went cold and Boreas was filled with a sense of dread.

The voice had sounded from within his own head.

“A subvocalization communication device has been implanted within your ear canal while your body was undergoing treatment.”

That information did not help him. Laying prone and immobilized in a secure room with no way to call for help, his heart rate began to increase.

“You obviously can hear these words. Please calm yourself before the monitoring equipment triggers a response from the medics. Take a slow breath and simply say the words ‘thank you’ to complete the communication test.”

Boreas was perplexed, but he began to understand what might be happening. He inhaled slowly without causing to much pain throughout his torso and exhaled slowly. Then he took another smaller breath and spoke the two words lightly. 

After at least an uneasy minute of silence, the voice returned and simply, “The Shades of Anubis will advise.”

— • —

When the surgeon met with Boreas he had to be revived from another induced slumber. Fragments of memories swarmed in his head adding to his disorientation. As his head cleared, he noticed the other man in the room was accompanied by the medic that had previous attended to him.

“I see that you’re mostly awake now, Mx. Dante.”

“Mister.”

“Of course.” The surgeon nodded and stepped back, settling onto a stool. The medic seemed to be monitoring the table again. There was another person near the doorway, who finally looked up.

“Apparently I have options.” Boreas had to clear his throat to get the words out clearly.

“Luckily you do, Mr. Dante.” This third person approached. “Most that embark on such adventures risk their lives by obtaining their equipment from unsavoury sources. You, however did not. Those that do as you did, typically don’t realize that the added insurance purchased with equipment, such as with yours, would not have covered most injuries incurred on such adventures due to user error.”

The man in the semi-casual suit shrugged before continuing.

“In your case, the failure of the equipment was so severe that we ruled out user error from being the primary cause of your, incident. And so, as a representative of the manufacturer I have authorized this facility to provide you with acceptable courses of treatment, no charge to you, as recompense.”

“You’re a lawyer?”

“Administrative Facilitator.” The man corrected.

“A lawyer.” That seemed to irk the man just slightly.

“There will be paperwork to fill out, but pleased be assured that everything the team here will offer and provide you is the best you could hope to receive, all things considered.”

“Thank you...” The words hesitated on the tip of his tongue before he released them. He remembered the voice in his head from the last time he was awake.

The lawyer nodded, and gestured to the other two in the room. The surgeon stood again and stepped up to the beside. The medic circled around and actived a HUD projection above Boreas. They proceeded to detail his injuries and the pros and cons of each ‘option’ available to him.

“So, essentially I could get a fully augmented skeleton?”

“Well, yes. It is the most invasive course of action, not without it’s share of pain, rehabilitation, and chance of complication. It is, however, the one with the shortest time frame—if, and only if, all goes well.”

“I’ll go for that one, then.”

“Are you sure? I can give you some time-“

“No. I’ve made my choice.”

The surgeon paused for a moment, then nodded to the medic. The medic deactivated the HUD and made to leave the room.

“I’ll go schedule the preliminary procedures.” She announced.

“Ok, for now you can rest. Soon we will begin with the rest of your recovery.”

Once again, alone in the hospital bed. Boreas wondered what he had gotten himself into. Was all of this worth it?