She's falling and falling and falling and she's lying on something hard that's sticking to her skin and she's looking at the ceiling and she feels stretched like her skin doesn't fit right and her chest aches and she's cold and she can't move can't move can't move can't move help help helphelp helphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelp

"Hello, Solace."

It holds her down with a firm hand.

"Please do stay still, I'm not entirely done with the procedure yet. Routine maintenance, you see. Don't struggle unless you'd like to be put to bed again."

Her eyes flick wildly from side to side, desperately looking for something that might help her escape.

It ties off a suture and strokes her hair with its now-free hand.

"You're going to be okay."

Her eyes are pleading for freedom, for this to just stop please please please.

Why should it care what look is in her eyes?

"I'm done now. I'm going to keep you here for a few days while you heal up a bit, and then we can test out moving you."

Test... Out? She should be able to move on her own why isn't her body responding she doesn't understand it's not fair please let her go

"I can feel your pulse. Please try to calm yourself."

It strokes her hair.

"Everything is going to be okay."

The next few days are fragmented in her mind. Much of it is spent in darkness -- not a peaceful darkness, but a clawing one. She is overcome with the idea that it is trying to kill her, that she is being chased, and she cannot run fast enough.

The few times she does wake, she screams, long and loud until Morda clamps a hand over her mouth within seconds. If she's quiet, the robot will return to whatever it seems to be working on. The first time she woke it was cleaning. Now it seems to be ... assembling something. Sometimes it plugs itself into EMBER-2, and Solace's muscles are too weak to move her arm away. Whatever communication happens is not known to her.

A small portion of her time is spent in some realm between waking and sleeping. She's a hacker again, in her prime, and there is no system she cannot take down. She lies in bed and watches shadowy figures dance on the ceiling and listens to long-dead friends whisper to her. The Phage has taken so many.

Somewhere in the back of her mind it registers that Ali should have come already, and that he hasn't. 

She cries only once, and it is when Morda sits on the end of her bed and sings softly to her.

She opens her eyes. That much is not barred to her. She tries to move her limbs.

"I'll move those for you. I wouldn't want you to overexert yourself just yet."

It presses a button on what it's been assembling and her right arm lifts slightly.

"How do you like it?"

what have you done

"It's needed, I'm afraid."

Needed? Needed for what? I didn't consent to full body surgery!

"You'll understand soon enough, I'm sure."

Stop speaking in riddles you tin-can traitor! Tell me what you've done, now.

"No need for insults. I've made you into a better tool for Us."

Going to be honest here and say that I had no intention of being your tool and I don't plan on starting now. You'll regret this. If you don't let me go your ems will be tortured in simspace for eternity, and only I can save them. You didn't really think I had no safety switch, did you?

"I'm afraid I've disassembled or destroyed most of what you've previously created. As such, you don't have much to fall back on here."

How can you be sure, though? You've only been around for so long, and many things are beyond even my capacity to destroy, they can only be put off for some time.

"Talking about this is uninteresting to me. I would like to continue testing your movement."

Her right arm raises, a little higher this time.

She tries very hard to resist this.

"Oh, stop that. We don't have time."

She is not going to stop trying.

Her hand hits her face, not very precisely aimed but hard enough to hurt.