Cyber Mage

Going Null

Chapter 3: Grieselda

Grieselda blinked her eyes open.
‘I was unconscious.’

She regarded the four point harness strapping her into place.
‘And back on the carrier,’ she surmised.

She was in her skin suit. Someone had stripped her out her mechanical suit.
‘And treated my wounds.’

She had stitches on the back of her head, her left shoulder was bandaged and the rest of her fractured left arm was folded into a cloth sling.

“Grieselda,” the captain said. “You okay?”

‘Grieselda. Grieselda. Grieselda Blanchett,’ even in her own mind the name sounded foreign to her. But she had to completely adopt the persona.
‘Well, at least until the assignment is completed.’

“I’m fine, the agent?”

Technically she wasn’t but she was still muted so her senses remained oblivious to the damage.

The captain nodded to an unconscious figure in the corner of the carrier.

“Thanks to your sacrifice I was able to sneak up on him,” the captain said evenly, wearing his usual tired expression which betrayed no emotion.

‘You Bastard.’

Her nostrils flared, breathing hard. It was one thing for the captain to act shamelessly but to own up to it as if it was normal, greatly annoyed her.
‘The assignment,’ she reminded herself.

She needed to get into his good graces. It would make the assignment easier to complete. Not to mention she was off to a bad start by defying some of his orders. So like always she suppressed her frustrations.

She ran a hand across her bandaged shoulder, numb to her own touch. And everything looked so dull, everything smelled so hollow and everything tasted like, like…

She swallowed some bile.
‘Like nothing.’

She felt uneasy, uncomfortable, unnatural, especially when she regarded her stabbed shoulder and broken arm. Deep down she knew it was unwise to prolong unmuting any longer.

‘It’s just pain. It’s just pain. It’s just pain,’ she recited but traumalash wasn’t something one got accustomed to because they thought positively. If only it where that easy. The moment she unmuted it would assault her. So she couldn’t help but hesitate.

“Knew a guy once,” the captain mused, staring out the window. “Xander Hacking was his name, bastard tried to come out 3 day mute after breaking his back.”

“Siii,” Grieselda winced and sucked in a hollow breath.

“He hadn’t meant to wait so long, just too scarred of the traumalash, so he kept putting it off and the trauma kept accumulating, on the 3rd day he finally decided to unmute not because he was braver but because he had started to fully experience the consequences of staying muted so long-”

“Going Null, I know,” Grieselda snapped.

She didn’t need his indirect advice. She knew better than to put it off any longer. She just needed a little time to psyche herself up, is all.

She unmuted herself.
“Ng-Ng-Ng…”

Grieselda stammered incomprehensible gibberish as her mind shook and her body jerked uncontrollably. Pain screamed up her slinged arm, her bandaged shoulder, along her spine and through her brain as an excruciating headache, like needles swimming through her head.

The pain of her injuries bombarded her like a tidal wave of compressed pain, demanding to be felt. She felt like she was dying, she could swear she was and part of her wished she would.
‘Anything to make the pain stop.’