The graft was more than just an operation; it felt as if she were hurting herself deliberately, as if it were some kind of twisted ritual.
Maxine Sharpe was lying on a cold table in her locked laboratory. The only light was coming from a nerve strand shimmering as if it were from a god or something, and it was floating in an antiseptic solution. The plans made by Lucien Gray along with her notes were hanging in the air. She had injected herself with a strong paralytic but made sure that her mind remained clear.
A mirror reflected the back of her neck which was neatly shaved over a vertebra. Robots with tiny scalpels and threads moved based on her gaze.
She took a deep breath. The air smelled like iodine and something else.
Begin.
The machines were turning on. There was a very small sting as the local anesthetic was bypassed - she wanted to feel the very first touch to see how her nerves would react. The scalpel incised her skin. Blood was drawn and it was sucked away. The bone saw buzzed, and it was the sound that came to her head that was terrible as it cut a hole in her bone.
Her spinal cord, a pale extension of herself, was now exposed.
Now it was the nerve of the matter. The robotic arm grabbed the nerve thread. It looked like a mixture of gold and white and it was glowing and pulsing softly. When it got close to the cut, the weird Echo in the room got stronger, like a pressure.
…don't…
…too small…
…you'll break…
Maxine didn't care. Data. The tissue was just scared. She moved the arm. The nerve thread, treated with her chemicals, started to split into hairs.
Touch.
Pain.
This was not a simple cut. It felt as if she was getting bigger. Now her mind was like a tiny boat in a huge, stormy ocean. She felt the slow ache of some giant body. The Heartforge felt like a toothache in a giant's jaw. The harvest spots stung like burns. The fungal areas were a soft, singing itch.
And under all of that, a deep hunger.
She gasped, completely unable to move, her mind lost. The robotic arms ceased motion, waiting for her.
Focus. You're not the ocean. You're just a tool. Send it through you. Map it.
She remembered Lucien's mental tricks. She began constructing a labyrinth in her mind. Logical walls. Anatomy paths. She turned the ocean of feeling into data: Pain is in the liver, level seven. Psychic weirdness near the Maw, theta waves. Tremors in the skin.
The storm calmed. It became something she could handle. She could see it – a map of the dying god's nervous system overlaid on her own body.
The robots moved again, sewing the nerve thread into place with material made of her own cells and some kind of fungal fiber. It stuck. The storm didn't cease, but it coursed through the maze of her mind.
The entire thing took four hours. Maxine was covered in sweat and shaking from adrenaline and those weird feelings when the machines withdrew and sealed the cut.
She was still able to feel her body – the cold table, the incision. But underneath, like another world, was the god's body. She felt a distant cut in the Spine Mountains. She felt a pulse from the Silent Sea.
And something else. A sphere of intense energy, similar to a dark star, in the middle of the Cerebral Vault. The Core Memory Lobe. It extended to the nerve thread in her spine. It was frightening and really lovely.
She moved slowly, sitting up. She felt odd in her body. She looked at her hands. They were hers. But she could also feel, like a ghost, the arms of something so big its fingers were mountains. It made her nauseous.
A sound came from her lab door – a call from the Arch-Cardinal's office.
She stood, turned on the comm, and grabbed the communication device. Sebastian Wilder looked at her with concern.
Chief Carver Sharpe. Am I bothering you?
No, Your Eminence. Her voice was weak. How can I be of service?
Your harvests have been excellent lately. The Pancreas, even with the problems, was really quite pure. The New Appetite is of the opinion that you are the right person for the next thing. He smiled. We're giving you the go-ahead to conduct a study of the Cerebral Vault. The time for being scared is over, Maxine. The plate needs its final course.
The Lobe. He wanted her to find the way to the Lobe.
The nerve thread in her spine pulled.
I'm honored, Maxine said, like a machine doing its job. I'll start right away.
Good. Cardinal Lucien Gray will be your support. He's curious about what's in the Vault. Give him what he needs. The screen went dark.
Maxine ended the comm and went to a mirror.
The woman's face that was looking back was hers, the sharp eyes. But the eyes had now something new. Tiny bits of gold-white light moved in their depths, like stars in a galaxy of pain. The graft was effective.
She was no longer just Maxine Sharpe.
She was becoming a connection.
And connections can be accessed from both sides.