His harness.
The restraint system wrapped around his torso. The thing I've been trying not to stare at for two days, not because of how it sits across his chest but because of what it represents. Straps crossing his shoulders, a central chest plate, connection points running down his ribs. Blue circuit traceries woven through the bands, pulsing faintly with each breath. Technology grafted onto a body that never consented to wearing it.
"Bebo." My voice is careful. "Specify the source."
"The restraint harness currently worn by the Varkaani. Central chest plate contains micro-processors compatible with beacon power regulation. Additionally, the harness framework incorporates component arrays that could serve as signal amplifiers."
Horgox has gone very still.
"The components I need," I say slowly, "are in your harness."
"Yes." His voice is flat. Controlled. The arena voice, the one he uses when something is about to hurt and he won't show it.
"To get them, I'd need to—"
"Access the chest plate. Remove the outer casing. Disconnect the components from the framework." Each word measured, clinical. "It requires sustained close contact. The harness connections run along neural pathways; they're… sensitive."
Sensitive. The word sits in the air between us, heavy with things he isn't saying and implications I'm trying very hard not to think about.
"I can't remove the harness entirely," he continues, not looking at me. "The spinal connections are fused to my implant ports. But the chest plate components are accessible with the right tools."
The right tools. My tools. My hands, on his chest, dismantling technology that was designed to control him.
"That's not an emergency," I say. "That's an option. We can find other power sources. We can wait for the drone coverage to shift and go back to the wreckage—"
"Those options take time we may not have. The components are here. I'm offering." His jaw is tight, and the jade markings on his forearms have gone dark. Not the warm shifts I've catalogued over two days. Something harder. Resolution, maybe. Or the particular shade of someone bracing for an experience they're determined to endure.
"Horgox."
"It's my choice." He meets my eyes. "That matters."
Choice. From a male who spent a lifetime without one.
"Okay." I stand, wiping my hands on my jumpsuit, reaching for my tool kit. "But we do this on your terms. You tell me if you need to stop. You tell me if something hurts. And if at any point you change your mind, we stop. No questions."
Something shifts in his expression. The dark markings on his forearms ease, fractionally, toward a shade I haven't seen before. Warmer than jade. Closer to gold.
"Understood," he says.
And I realise, with a clarity that lands like a fist to the sternum, that no one has ever said those words to him before.
5
The Undoing
Horgox
Theharnesshasnotbeen fully off my body in forty years.
Pieces of it. I've stripped the outer casing, disabled the shock system, ripped the compliance chip from the back of my neck with a salvaged blade and hands that shook for an hour afterward. The parts that could kill me, I tore out. But the chest plate and spinal connectors remain, fused to implant ports along my spine, wired into neural pathways designed to carry pain directly to my brain. The parts that hold me together, I can't reach. ApexCorp built them to control me. They built them to last.
Krilly is three metres away, organizing tools on the flat stone surface. Firelight catches the circuit tester turning between her fingers and the loose curls falling around her face. She's rolled her sleeves up, forearms bare, jumpsuit unzipped to the collarbone against the cave's trapped heat. The hollow of her throat gleams with a faint sheen of perspiration.
Watching her hands is safer than thinking about where those hands are going. Not by much.
"Before we start." The words scrape. "There's something you should know about why ApexCorp is hunting me this aggressively."
She looks up. Waits.
