Circa Tempore: The Artificial Organic
Copyright© 2026 by E. B. Redfield
Chapter 24 - Shop Talk
Kayla fidgeted in the seat of the examination chamber, which was an old science classroom judging by the sinks against the wall. A scanner hummed and a faucet dripped behind her, but aside from that there was nothing at all to mask the skittering and scratching sounds of the beijinkind workers as they crawled over their olive vessel, which apparently had been outfitted for medical purposes. It hovered over Kayla; its various arms probing her, poking her for blood samples. More intrusively, the workers crawled across her body as they took readings and set up for the coming procedures. She ground her teeth and willed herself to remain perfectly still as they worked, but failed consistently as the workers crossed the back of her neck and shoulders like a bridge; causing her to shudder no matter how much she attempted to hold the impulse back.
“Are you uncomfortable?” the distorted voice of Die Vielen asked her from the vessel’s speakers. They had introduced themselves properly while helping Kayla get into the chamber.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” she apologized profusely, “I’m just ... not used to this feeling.”
“It’s a common reaction from our human clients,” the voice assured her, “An ancient instinct, and one that we find interesting and strangely poetic in a way.”
“How so?” she asked.
“On Gropth there are many different primate and avian species who feasted upon our ancestors,” Die Vielen explained while a stream of workers flooded into a part of the scanning machine to make an adjustment. Their voice was strained and measured, as though they were also attempting to thread a needle, “We developed similar protective instincts against those species. Instincts which linger within us still and occasionally cause misunderstandings with your kind and passaro.”
Kayla raised an eyebrow as she empathized with it. Growing up in rural Minnesota had gifted her with a plethora of unconscious bias, which had caused numerous embarrassing faux pas over the years. She’d done her level best over the last few years to learn to recognize this before it became a problem, but admittedly, she had never assumed this would someday apply to the goosebumps she developed at the feeling of hundreds of insects crawling across her skin. She gritted her teeth and did her best to allow herself to acclimate. Desperate to focus on anything else, she took note of the classroom they were in. Its age was apparent, but it was also meticulously clean and well cared for.
“Interesting place you have here,” she commented, trying to distract herself.
“It is adequate for our needs,” Die Vielen replied, “The space is optimal.”
“So, this was a school before?”
“Yes, though it had been long abandoned for that purpose by the time we moved in. So far as the city is concerned, it is historical property held by a wealthy, anonymous investor who pays the right amount of tender to keep the authorities from snooping too heavily,” their attention turned back to the readings they were gathering, “Ok, that about sums things up for now.” To Kayla’s relief, the workers began retreating to the vessel above her. Her skin continued to crawl, however and she knew she would still be feeling them every time a loose hair brushed her bare skin for the next few days at least.
“Well, according to our readings,” Die Vielen said after a few more moments, “You are in decent health, and simultaneously very odd.”
“What do you mean?” Kayla asked anxiously, fear spiking in her at these words.
“Nothing to panic over,” Die Vielen assured her, “The DNA scan is just picking up a few ... strange sequences. Ones that the database had flagged as having died out generations ago. To have them makes you ... for lack of a better term ... quite unique.”
“How unique?”
“Well, sometimes we see a human with one or two of these sequences,” the hive explained, “You have eleven. Either you are a one in a trillion case, or you’ve been frozen in a block of ice for a few centuries. Either way, it’s intriguing.”
“Will it affect the procedure here?” Kayla asked.
“It shouldn’t,” Die Vielen replied absently as they continued taking readings, “We’ll be very careful about what we administer and be monitoring you closely. However, we would advise you to be cautious about what you eat, drink, or partake in recreationally. There could be ... unintended side effects.”
Kayla’s eyes widened. “I fucking knew that could be a thing! I fucking told Craig...” her heart skipped a beat. Craig had been practically living on psychohol all week! Fear gripped her, “What about psychohol? Would that be dangerous?”
“I mean, sparingly you should be fine. Though that would be the advice I’d give you regardless. Psychohol should be regulated a lot more than it is,” Die Vielen replied, “The damage that overuse can do is catastrophic. One of my top selling services is treating physchorot.”
“How much is too much?” Kayla pressed, her heart rate audibly increasing on the monitor attached to the vessel.
“It depends on the person, but we’re referring to a long-term overuse,” Die Vielen explained assuringly, noting her distress, “Some folk tend to believe it can be a gateway to understanding the mysteries of the universe. They take it in the hopes that it will show them secrets or enlighten them. Within a month or so, they can lose their sense of reality. Become solipsistic and isolate. Other people just take it as an escape. They tend to last a little longer.” Relief washed over Kayla, but she promised herself she’d still tell Craig to slow down on the psychohol when she saw him next.
“Let’s talk about your procedure,” Die Vielen said as the vessel’s instruments pulled back into the bottom and it flipped around to face her at eye level. “First, we’ll install implancements. This is going to be very extensive; it starts with the nerve pathway bolstering.” An image of the human body projected out of the vessel, and highlighted the areas they were immediately referencing. “The result of a QPU installation is a dramatic increase in data processing and response time, so it is important to put the infrastructure in first. Here’s what that will look like.
“We’ll be lining your nerves and capping the endings with a protective lining that will carry the enhanced signals of the QPU without burning out your existing nerves. This will be most noticeable along your spinal column, as the largest concentration of these efforts will go there,” The spine of the model seemed to glow and she saw the lining added to it. “We will install some fortification around our work. Your back may feel a bit stiff for a week or two, post-surgery, as you adjust.
“After finishing the nerve fortification, we will bolster your joints to withstand the increased strain against them,” The human model suddenly highlighted the shoulders and knees. Kayla raised an eyebrow as it highlighted the jaw as well as other places she wouldn’t have considered, like her toes and neck, “Replacing certain areas like your knee caps and the tendons in these areas with more resilient material, and giving your muscles a shot of specialized steroids to make them more malleable, healing faster than normal for a few weeks to help them acclimate. Once that is finished, we will need to update the receptors in your eyes and ears. Finally, we will install the QPU and run diagnostics to ensure safety before beginning rest and healing procedures. Any questions so far?”
Kayla had been staring at the display as the weight of what she was about to do crashed against her. She had done some research into the procedure, but this was much more than she had anticipated.
“Is it necessary to have the nerve stuff done?” she asked, tearing away from the display, “This feels like a huge procedure.”
“The QPU has to interact with your nervous system, and it’s signals will fry your biological pathways without reinforcement,” Die Vielen explained, “QPU technology barely survived its infancy when that side effect was, for lack of a better word, discovered. Rats and other test animals never ran into the problem of overloading the chips; but as soon as the scientists began implanting it into beings with higher learning and reasoning capabilities, the death count skyrocketed. So, unless you want every nerve in your body to slowly overheat, causing you to experience one of the most excruciating deaths known to civilized space? It’s necessary.”
Doing her best to shove the lump in her throat back down, Kayla nodded her understanding.
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