"From people who want to hijack the data in our minds. The right eye is cybernetic, correct?"
"Yes. Why the fuck do you even care?"
She nodded, her gaze shifting to something only she could see. "You're enhanced. It's a close match, but not a perfect one, which means it wasn't custom-colored - yet I assume most people don't notice." She blinked twice then looked at him again. "Does the Legion know?"
"They paid for it. I was wounded in the line of duty. Are you even listening to me?"
"Yes!" she snapped. "I'm solving the problem!"
"What do my eyes have to do with the problem?" He threw his hands in the air and turned back to the door, exasperated.
"How much Stabiltrol do you take?"
He didn't bother to turn around. "Fifteen hundred milligrams every four days."
"Your eye isn't all you lost," she whispered, her voice nearly reverent.
"No. I fucking lost the outside half of my right arm, two fingers on the same hand, and my spine was severed. Happy? Yeah, I'm a modified freak, just like you."
"Does the church pay for the Stabiltrol?"
"Does OutLink pay for yours?"
"Yes," she said. "Since I was under the age of consent, and below the age of request, it's mandated that they must supply it for all of the enhancements."
"Wait." He turned, his anger slipping away. "How old are you, Princess?"
"About twenty-five. Approximately."
"You don't know?"
She shook her head, the cloth slipping lower on her nose.
Sinclair took a long, deep breath, nodding as the air slid into his lungs to convince himself to ask the next question. "The age of request is twelve. How old were you when you were enhanced?"
She blinked slowly. "Three."
"Why does Pharmacon want the Ingénue?" he asked again, feeling in his gut somehow this was all connected.
"Because we're smart enough to find their secret. Stabiltrol isn't the only anti-rejection drug, just the most profitable."
"Fuck." His hand slid across his hair, pushing back the tendril teasing his forehead. "Ah, shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck." He turned to the window, gesturing at the towers of apartments rushing past. "Thirty-two percent of the population is enhanced. Did you know?"
"Yes, Legate."
He breathed out a single laugh. "Right. Genius. So, do you know what most people give up so they can keep their implants?"
"Approximately sixty-one percent of the household income is spent on Stabiltrol. Pharmacon insists it is the only reliable drug to combat the body's rejection of the synthetic neurons."
He nodded, still watching the city move outside the glass. "You ever seen a kid starve to death?"
"No, Brother Sinclair. That would be considered disturbing and might affect my work performance. It is not allowed."
"Don't." He sighed and let his head rest against the glass. "Although it isn't really any better when it's an adult."
Silence hung between them, the clacking of the wheels on the rails the only sound. Sin tapped his head against the glass, wishing he could make the images of such poverty vanish forever. Not just from his mind, but from the world, and especially from New Cincinnati. Too often, he'd seen families ruined because of the cost of their medications. He'd watched men try to cut out the implants, seen women sell their bodies for enough to feed their children.
That was why he despised enhancements so much. Not because of the benefits, but because of the real cost it came with. Medical miracles were supposed to be a good thing, not something that dragged the whole family into poverty, forcing people to choose between life and loved ones in a way that was just cruel. Sadly, medicine relied too much on cybernetics and nanites to repair the body, trusting that Stabiltrol would halt any complications. No one ever stopped to consider what happened after the person was saved.
