Which Flesh is Your Flesh?

Chapter 2

Iguazu couldn’t get Raven out of his head. It was late now, everyone else had long since fallen asleep, but Iguazu couldn’t. His regulator must’ve been broken again, that had to be it. That must’ve been the reason he had his hands in his pants, imagining the feeling of wet muscle and wire beneath his hands. He must’ve been out of his mind horny if he was imagining that power drill voice in his ear, daring him to fuck Raven’s throat. Raven wouldn’t be able to do anything outside of his AC, he would be helpless, just a corpse that hadn’t realized it was dead yet, but he wouldn’t act like it. He’d taunt Iguazu until he was doing exactly what the horrible skinless thing wanted and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Iguazu wasn’t even sure if he’d want to stop himself, if making Raven choke on his cock was less satisfying if he knew the other pilot wanted it, or if it was more satisfying to let himself become someone else’s trained dog.

As he came into his hand, his mind became unfortunately clear. He looked at his white stained hand. Christ he was fucked up. Iguazu quietly cursed himself out as he cleaned his hand. He decided then and there to get his augments checked out again the next day, maybe some wires had gotten crossed when he’d almost fallen off the scaffolding in Raven’s haunted house. That was the best thing to call it really. There was no crew living there, just the machine and the ghost that haunted it. The ghost he was jacking off over. He dug his palms against his eyes. He really needed to get himself checked out.

The next morning he checked himself into the med center and after hours of stress testing, the med techs concluded there was nothing wrong with his augments. He insisted that couldn’t be the case, that he was experiencing “inappropriate arousal towards the enemy” but in response all he got was a condescending lecture about adrenaline and arousal and how he might have strange urges in the cockpit. Though he was still pissed that they’d blown him off, he didn’t exactly clarify what he was getting aroused over. He just wanted his circuits resoldered, he didn’t need to end up in a fucking mental hospital.

Of course “I’m horny and confused” was not a good enough excuse to get out of training, especially with Arquebus making bolder and bolder moves now that the PCA was out of the picture. He and Nile were set to spar eachother today. That was normally a miserable fucking exercise for him. Michigan seemed to think it was useless for him to spar with Wu Huahai and Red, so he was stuck with Nile and his fucking missiles. Things were better when Volta was still alive. At least they had been relatively close in skill level.

It was times like this that he almost wished he was in Raven’s digitigrade death trap of an AC. It would be easier to dodge all of the shit that was flying at him at the very least. He couldn’t track all of the targets Nile was launching at him. His good eye darted in all directions trying to catch where the next missile would strike, but still he caught a few of them every salvo. Each hit chipping away further and further at his AP.

The worst of it was that Nile seemed bored. He yawned over the fucking coms while Iguazu dodged line his life depended on it. The alarms wouldn’t quit, the cameras outlining missiles in flashing red until it was all he could see, yet he couldn’t process any of it. HEAD BRINGER took a hit to the chest and he felt his brain rattle around in his skull. “Your AC has to be your eyes.” Raven’s voice careened through his mind. It was probably the brain damage, but what he’d said dug itself into Iguazu’s head. The cameras could track the missiles, his eyes couldn’t but the cameras could. He had a port embedded in the back of his neck, connecting his nervous system to his AC’s. It was worth a shot, wasn’t it?

Iguazu closed his good eye. A barrage of missiles hit him head on and his AC screamed at him that its AP was only at 50%.

“Gun Five what the hell are you doing?!” Iguazu barely heard Michigan over the coms. He could feel the single eye in the center of his AC’s face. Another missile caught him in the arm and his eye was wrenched open. He could see all of them, the trajectories they intended to take, the speed they were approaching him, it was like the world cracked open in front of him. “Is something funny to you, Gun Five?!” Michigan shouted. Iguazu hadn’t even realized he was laughing. It was so much easier for him to dodge, now that he could see everything that was coming at him. His machine gun struck DEEP DOWN’s chassis over and over and over. He could feel his regulator on the verge of breaking again, not from fear or anger this time, but from mania.

DEEP DOWN hit its load limit and ecstasy shot through Iguazu’s body like lightning. He was charging a shot aimed directly at Nile’s cockpit when finally the mic feedback from Michigan’s yelling snapped him out of it.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” There was an edge of desperation in his voice that Iguazu was unaccustomed to hearing. Hands shaking, Iguazu lowered his rifle and opened his eye. For a moment the feed from his cameras overlapped with his human vision making him feel like he was seeing double. Then the feed cut off and he realized he’d almost killed Nile. “Are you back with us, Gun Five?”

“I-“ his mouth was dry and his teeth chattered. “I think so.”

Michigan stayed uncharacteristically silent for a moment.

“Seems like you finally remembered you’re a goddamn cyborg. Keep it up Gun Five, but get that temper under control. Mad dogs get put down, got it C4-616?”

Hearing his designation made Iguazu grind his teeth. He was the only augmented human in the Red Guns, and there wasn’t a day he wasn’t reminded that despite that, half the ordinary humans on the squad could kick his ass. His augments hadn’t done shit for his reaction speed in the past, though now it seemed like he just hadn’t known how to use them. Raven must’ve figured out how to do it himself. He must not have had a choice with how little was left of his body.

He had to see him again.

Iguazu didn’t even bother answering, he just ran. Michigan was saying something over the coms but he couldn’t focus enough to process what it was. He expected them to stop him, for Head Bringer to be torn to shreds in a hail of gunfire, but his proximity alarms never sounded.

“You sure you want me to let him go? Before he ran off last night, Red said he gave him a message from Gun Thirteen. We know 13’s got contacts at Arquebus, he might be helping him defect.” Nile kept his sights trained on Head Bringer’s fleeing silhouette.

“If he was actually trying to defect he’d try to kill me first.” Michigan rested his head on his hand in his cockpit. “If something is going on, it’s just between him and Gun Thirteen.”

“Should we send another MT squad to recover his sorry ass before he gets himself killed?”

“No, something’s changed. That wasn’t a man out for revenge.” Michigan smiled to himself. “I think he might be ‘fraternizing with the enemy’.”

“Iguazu? With that hornet up his ass?”

“You had one too back in the day. Never stopped us.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“You weren’t, but I also wasn’t nearly as crazy as Gun Thirteen.” Michigan considered a few scenarios in his head. “I say there’s a fifty percent chance we get another decent pilot out of this. Sure in the other fifty Iguazu goes postal or finally fries his tiny brain, but given the sorry state we’re in right now, I say it’s worth the risk. If he runs off to go screw Gun Thirteen and comes back fighting like that, he can go screw him anytime he wants.” Michigan lit himself a cigar. “He can blow up the fucking base for all I care, as long as he drops Snail’s head in my lap when he’s done.”

“Hey, Freelancer!” Iguazu banged on the door to Raven’s haunted house. “Open the damn door! I know you’re in there, Freelancer!” He could see him on his scanners. Raven wasn’t quietly arming himself or moving to open the door, he was just standing there idly doing stupid tricks with a handgun, clearly ignoring him.

Iguazu leaned his AC’s head against the door.

“Raven,” the independent mercenary dropped his gun in surprise, “please open the door.” Raven picked up his hand gun and clamped it back onto his left shoulder.

“Did Michigan kick you out or something?” His voice was just as loud and harsh as it had been the previous day but again it felt like it resonated with something deep in his hind brain.

“I just want to talk.”

“What about?”

Raven unplugged himself and stood on the other side of the hangar door, but didn’t open it. He was probably scanning him. Iguazu knew what he looked like, he oozed desperation like a dog left out in the cold, but he didn’t care.

He sent Raven access to his internal cameras. To his surprise a notification popped up indicating that Raven was watching him. Iguazu closed his one good eye and connected to Head Bringer’s cameras. He looked around for a moment before finding a rock about the size of his AC’s fist. Then he lobbed it into the air. His targeting system locked onto the boulder in a matter of seconds and he took aim with his rifle. The shot landed, the rock careened off into the distance.

Raven lifted the hangar door.

“Can you teach me how to do more?” Iguazu begged.

“Not right now, not in good conscience.” Iguazu grabbed his arm in desperation. Raven brushed him off. “I’m looking at your vitals right now Iguazu, your testosterone is high and your dopamine levels are way out of the normal range. Your mood regulator must be busted. You aren’t in a headspace to make any kind of decision.”

“It’s not. I had it checked this morning.” He admitted, knowing exactly how that made him look. Raven laughed long and hard at that.

“So you’re just a sick fuck then. Go jack off somewhere and come back when you aren’t thinking with your dick.”

“I’m not fucking leaving.” His stubbornness wouldn’t let him. Iguazu felt like he’d fucked lightning, he was going to chase that feeling no matter how much Raven tried to drive him away.

“Alright then do it here.” Raven forced a video feed onto Iguazu’s hud. It was the inside of his cockpit. Tubes connected to his flayed body cycled out his blood to be filtered, and the stumps of his amputated limbs were clamped in a splayed position, making it look like he was being crucified. “Do it, I fucking dare you.” Hundreds of cables ran between the ports in his body and his AC like chains. The way Raven’s voice tore through him, so loud he felt the vibrations of it in his chest, he didn’t seem vulnerable. Raven was a bound god from an old earth pulp novel, an eyeless, skinless thing that hated him so much it froze the air in Iguazu’s lungs, making his teeth chatter. Yet his hand still went to the zipper of his flight suit.

“Christ, you really are a sick fuck.” Raven’s voice crackled in his ear. Though his distorted vocal synthesizers didn’t give anything away, Raven leaned forward against his clamps, his open wound of a mouth threatening to break into a grin.

“Shut up,” Iguazu replied weakly. Any protests he could’ve made would ring pretty damn hollow while he was sitting there half naked with a hand around his cock.

“So what is it? You have an amputee fetish? You’re into blood? Wait no, bots? Are you into bots?” Iguazu glowered into the internal cameras of his AC. “Yeah you’re right, bot fuckers like their shit all sterile and plasticy. I bet it’s gore isn’t it. You’re probably just glad to be jerking off to something alive for once.”

Iguazu hated that Raven’s insults were turning him on. His wounded pride and impotent anger created a feedback loop in his brain. Raven was nearly powerless on his own, but yet Iguazu was even further beneath him. He was a bug. No, he was worse than a bug, he was nothing but a red stain on the ground. His legs trembled.

“Oh, there it is. I think I get it now.” Raven’s lips curled over his bloodstained teeth. They were crooked, making his canine teeth appear longer than they actually were. “Maybe I should make you buy my dick back. It would give you something to keep that mouth occupied. I hear some of the higher up corporate pilots swear by having a cum dump with them on missions. You can’t fight for shit, sucking my cock is all you’re good for anyway.”

“F-fuck you.” He was losing coherence.

“Well what else am I supposed to do, Iguazu? If I made you take me up the ass you’d probably cum all over the controls. I could make you clean it up, but I don’t trust you to be thorough enough. That’s a lot of sensitive equipment to lick and you’d probably quit the second your jaw got tired.”

“Shit!” Iguazu lurched forward smacking his head on the controls.

“Iguazu?” 621 could see him on the cameras, lying motionless bent over the controls. “Hey, Iguazu!” He still wasn’t moving. His heart and lungs were still going but his AC reported decreased brain activity. “God damn it.”

“Raven… what… what did you do to him?” He heard Ayre’s concerned voice in his head.

“I didn’t do anything, the idiot managed to knock himself out.” Iguazu’s hormone levels were slowly stabilizing now that he was out. So it really wasn’t a broken regulator, he actually had been turned on.

“No I mean…”

“Look Ayre, I don’t know how Coral reproduces-“

“Ah I see. There is still so much about you that I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” 621 asked as he pulled open Head Bringer’s emergency hatch, gingerly lifted Iguazu by the back of his half open flight suit and then carefully rested his unconscious body in his palm. He could close his hand. He could close his hand right now and rid himself of the terrible headache he’d had since he’d landed on Rubicon, but he didn’t. He just curled his fingers slightly to keep Iguazu from falling.

“I didn’t realize humans have so much difficulty discerning strong positive and negative emotions from each other.”

“It’s not that humans can’t discern stronger emotions, it's that their bodies react fairly similarly to most of them. Increased blood flow, elevated endorphins, it confuses the nervous system.” 621 stole a glance at the man in his hand. Rail thin, dark hair, bags under his eyes so entrenched they might as well have been wrinkles, he might’ve said Iguazu was handsome in a slimy sort of way if he actually held any fondness for him.

“You say that like you aren’t human.”

621 just laughed, cold and bitter. Not that his synthesized voice could sound anything but cold, like anything but a machine.

When Iguazu woke up again he was strapped to a gurney. After the one second it took for him to process the situation he was in he started thrashing as hard as he could against the belts. He felt something fall out of his ear and land just above his shoulder. Then Iguazu heard the whirring of hydraulics and the sound of heavy footfalls.

Far from reassuring him, Iguazu began instead thrashing his body in a single direction, trying to force the gurney to start rolling. An industrial strength metal hand grabbed onto the railing stopping the thing from moving. He could hear Raven’s voice faintly from somewhere but he couldn’t tell where. He felt clumsy metal hands fiddling with the buckles of the straps binding him down.

Iguazu sat up in a terrified jolt. Raven pointed at the earpiece that had fallen onto the gurney while Iguazu thrashed and pointed to the head of his exoskeleton. Iguazu put it into his ear, his hand shaking in fear.

“You gave yourself a concussion. Your implants are alright, but your brain got a little scrambled.”

Iguazu unbuckled his legs, fighting the urge to run.

“Show me. I did what you asked, show me.”

Raven crossed his arms.

“We’re going to have to jailbreak your augments.”

“Do it then.”

“It will make their performance even more unstable than it is now.”

“Will it help me connect to Head Bringer’s systems better?”

“Yes.”

“Then fucking do it.”

“Lie down again.” Iguazu stayed seated. “Your funeral.”

Raven opened his faceplate and pulled a transfer cable out of his exoskeleton’s tool belt. He gently slid his fingers down the side of Iguazu’s face, silently asking him to turn his head to the side. Once he did, Raven felt along the back of his neck until his metal fingers dipped into Iguazu’s access port. He slid the cable in and locked it in place, flipping up the small latches embedded in Iguazu’s neck. Then he reached behind his own head, metal hands roughly wrenching aside naked muscle and jabbing the transfer cable into his neck.

“Carla over at RAD showed me how to do this,” Raven warned.

“What, do you want me to sign a liability waiver?” Iguazu shook, the wire between them trembling with his motions. A metal hand rested on his shoulder, stilling him.

“You don’t want this.”

“I do!” He slammed his fist against Raven’s chassis. “Fuck you! Do it! Just fucking-“ Iguazu’s head slammed backwards as if he’d been shot. He grabbed onto Raven’s chassis, his knuckles turning white. He could taste iron in his mouth and then, it stopped.

Iguazu saw himself sitting on the Gurney, half his face placid, the other scrunched up in agony, his metal hand brushed his hair out of his face, sticky with sweat as his brain and his augments tried desperately to communicate with each other, but were unable to as they were flooded with data. His metal hand tenderly stroked his face, the cold fingers on his skin and the warmth on his metal becoming a feedback loop and then, he was looking at Raven again. He choked on the blood that filled his mouth, his gums still bleeding from the force he had bitten down with.

“Good job, you didn’t bite through your tongue.”

Iguazu spat the blood from his mouth. He didn’t feel any different but yet his body screamed that something had happened. Something awful had happened.

“The next time you connect to your AC, check your nerve feedback levels.” Raven gently unlocked the cable linking them together, his hand lingering maybe a little too long on the back of his neck. His face plate was still open, baring that skinless, eyeless face to the world. Iguazu wanted so badly to be disgusted. To look at Raven’s face and see a lump of Flesh and wire rather than to look at his exoskeleton and see the cameras where his own face had been reflected.

“Iguazu.” Raven’s voice ripped him out of his own head.

“616,” He corrected, not knowing why. “I don’t remember what my name was before the augmentations. Iguazu is just what Michigan decided to call me.”

“No gen 4 remembers their name.” Raven disconnected the transfer cable from his own neck. “You can’t be a good little war machine if you still know who you are.”

“I still know who I was, I was a gambler.” A bad one. That was what had gotten him into this mess.

“Yet you’re still letting Michigan decide what everybody else calls you. Hell, you’re still calling yourself 616.”

“And you aren’t?” Iguazu snapped back.

“I chose Raven. My handler might call me 621 and Michigan might call me Gun 13, but I call myself Raven. I took this name for myself, I didn’t just keep the ones that the people who want to control me gave me. Weapons like us don’t get too many ways we can control our lives. You shouldn’t let other people dictate your identity for you, it’s one of the few things you’ve got left.”

“Don’t fucking preach to me. I’m not a weapon. I can still get the surgeries undone.” Iguazu protested.

Raven laughed at him over the coms.

“You wouldn’t be here if you thought that was true.” Raven grabbed the back of Iguazu’s head, forcing their foreheads together. The surface of his facial muscles was nauseatingly warm and sticky. “We’re the same now, just like you wanted. Whether you want to realize it or not.” Raven let him go roughly, Iguazu’s head jerking backwards with the force. “Have fun getting home with that concussion.”

Iguazu was so dizzy and sick when he stumbled back into his AC that he almost didn’t notice the cold on his skin. Rubicon 3 was freezing thus far north, but he shouldn’t have been able to feel it inside his AC. He hurriedly checked his nerve feedback levels.

All augmented humans had some level of nerve connection to their AC. It decreased the input lag you’d get from fully manual controls. He still used the control sticks, but they were largely vestigial. His AC responded to his brain’s signal to move rather than the movement of the control sticks themselves. However whenever he took a hit he felt it, as if he’d been punched. That was the trade off, you got way faster response time, but in exchange you felt every hit. That’s why he needed that mood regulator, it kept him stuck in euphoric rage so that he didn’t succumb to fear. The generally accepted safe threshold for nerve feedback was 30%, any higher than that and pilots started having heart attacks and burst blood vessels. His nerve feedback was set at 100%. His breath grew ragged as he closed his palm, he could feel his own touch through his sensor arrays, he felt the snow crunch beneath his feet as he started to walk. He was so huge, his body towering above the planet’s surface. The same euphoria that had overtaken him when he first connected to his cameras began to creep in at the edges of his mind. He began to ask himself a horrible question. If he had the chance, would he undo the surgeries?

When he got back to base and re-entered standard mode it felt like he was cutting off a limb. He didn’t even put his hands up to defend himself as Michigan marched towards him, pushing through Balam’s team of mechanics. Though once he got closer, Michigan’s pace slowed.

“Is that your blood Iguazu?”

He raised a hand to his forehead and it came away sticky. He looked at his reflection in Head Bringer’s massive eye. There was still a circle of blood on his forehead from where Raven had pressed his head against his.

“No.” He replied haltingly.

“You look like shit.” Michigan jumped back as Iguazu threw up over the railing.

621 received a package two days after he had jailbroken Iguazu’s augments. That was a novelty, he never bought anything besides AC parts these days. He fired up the laser cutter hidden in his index finger and sliced through the packing tape, wrinkling his nose at the smell of burnt glue and plastic. Inside there was yet another box and a note.

“It was what I could afford. -616”

Well if it was anthrax he was probably already dead. His lack of skin made him extremely prone to infection, even with the cocktail of antibiotics and antivirals he was being fed to compensate. He opened the box. It was a cock, not a real one but a high quality prosthetic, the kind that he could connect to his nerves so he actually felt it. Iguazu hadn’t gone for one of the more realistic looking models though. The silicone had been molded into an angular mechanical shape, false plates providing it with an interesting surface texture. It was black with a few tasteful red highlights, the same color palette as his AC.

“Fucking pervert.” 621 couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across his face. He started the connection process immediately. While he would’ve preferred an arm, he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.