Circa Tempore: The Artificial Organic
Copyright© 2026 by E. B. Redfield
Chapter 26 - Galaxy Brain
Kayla blinked awake. Then she blinked some more, awareness not reaching her the way that it usually did. Something about how she was lying down was uncomfortable, her back felt stiff and twinged painfully, as though she had slept on it wrong. She groaned and attempted to roll to her side but found herself unable, in part because the bed was currently propped at a strange angle, and because of the rail at the edge that her arm collided with. Her eyes shot wide open and she remembered where she was.
She grabbed the railing. pulled herself up to a more comfortable position, and glanced around. She was in one of the repurposed classrooms; there was a smartboard of some kind on one wall that might have once detailed lessons and homework assignments, but was now covered in a language she didn’t recognize. She squinted at it in confusion; it was the first thing she hadn’t been able to automatically read all week. Her hand shot up to her forehead in a panic and not feeling the neural band there, she frantically searched for it. After the club incident with Tal Sweep, and the near-miss she’d had in the alley, she felt naked without it.
There was a knock at the door and she glanced up in time to see Maroon enter, carrying a tray with a water cup and a bowl of fruit.
“Welcome back, Kayla!” they replied, spinning around into the room and pulling a cart to the side of the bed and placing the food and drink on them, “You’re moving sooner than we thought! That’s definitely a good sign! How are you feeling?”
Kayla looked down at herself, she was wearing the first set of analog clothing since she’d arrived in the future: a hospital gown and a pair of thin socks. As her adrenaline soothed over the stiffness she felt in her back became noticeable in nearly every joint. With a shock, she realized she couldn’t feel anything in her waist.
“Stiff ... and numb,” she answered, glancing at Maroon.
“All to be expected,” Maroon explained reassuringly, closing the door behind her and moving closer to check the readings on the monitors Kayla was connected to, “We have you on a numbing agent, so we can better gauge your body’s reaction to all that is new to it. And we have great news where that’s concerned. Your body, initially, has accepted the new organs. There has been no rejection of them, nor of your implancements. We’ll need to run some tests now that you’re awake ... and we’ll want to make sure you’re capable of urinating without pain or issue. With that in mind, we’ll need to remove this,” she replied indicating the catheter.
Tears welled up in Kayla’s eyes, and she wiped them away.
“Can I see?” she asked.
“Of course!” Maroon replied, positioning their pod and extending a panel with a reflexive surface attached. They angled it appropriately and when Kayla finally got to see herself, and her eyes misted. She was bruised, she was swollen ... but she was finally whole. The weight of endless rejection lifted off her shoulders and she burst into tears.
“Oh, no!” Maroon exclaimed, noticing her weeping, “Is something wrong? Are you in pain?”
“No,” Kayla assured her, laughing through her sobs, “No, this is ... this is ... thank you! Thank you so much! Both of you! Is Die Vielen here? Can I thank them as well?”
“We are Die Vielen,” Maroon replied. Kayla pulled her eyes away from the mirror and cocked her head in confusion, “Together, Olive and I are Die Vielen. I suppose they didn’t tell you that. But no, Olive isn’t here right now. They are resting. Your procedures were quite exhausting for them.”
“Oh!” Kayla replied, “I’m sorry for assuming.”
“There’s no need to worry about that,” Maroon assured her, “Now, the advanced proteins have done an excellent job of healing up your scarring and helped connect the various tissues, so in all likelihood you’ll be able to leave the facility today.” Kayla had to pick her jaw up off the floor. Same-day surgery was maybe the wildest thing she’d encountered in the future thus-far, and given she had already met sapient trees and hiveminds that operated tiny spaceships, that was a high bar to clear, “The only thing left to do is run conscious diagnostics of your QPU, make sure that it syncs up properly with your neural band. Then we’ll give you one more session in the chamber to tackle your swelling and we’ll let you go!”
So excited had she been to learn about the success of her bottom surgery, she had almost forgotten about the installation of a computer brain. That must be what was causing the stiffness and soreness in her back and the rest of her body. She frowned as she realized that she didn’t feel all that different from before, there was no indication outside her mild stiffness and discomfort that she’d become a cyborg.
“Huh,” she commented, “I don’t feel ... I don’t know, smarter?”
Maroon chuckled, “That’s because your implancements were powered down to charge while you slept. We wanted you to experience the boot process consciously for the first time to run those diagnostics. We’ll do that after we get your catheter out and once the numbing down there has worn off. We’ll want to make sure your new nerves respond well to the QPU.” Kayla nodded, but then she noticed the writing on the board behind her again.
“Where’s my neural band and immediattire?” she asked.
“Right here,” Maroon opened the top drawer in the cabinet behind her, the neural band just visible, “We didn’t want it accessible to you when you first woke up. We’ll need to run our diagnostics before you sync up to it.”
After the uncomfortable sensation of removing the catheter, Kayla stood up. Grabbing the floating station that carried her saline drip, she took a few steps with Maroon hovering nearby, ready to catch her should she fall. After a few laps around the room, and then getting the trip to the bathroom off the checklist, her numbness gave way to a low, dull ache. She sat back in the bed and took a bite out of the apple, having difficulty not bouncing her feet in the excitement of it.
“OK, so now we’d like to power on your QPU,” they replied, “Before we do, some things to explain: you’re bound to feel disoriented at first. We’ll want you to really focus on your actions. Be slow, deliberate, and cautious. When the boot sequence appears, the QPU will begin integrating with your organic mind. We booted it and ran some important diagnostics while you were sleeping ... but this will be the true test now, as it compiles with your conscious experience. Do your best to remain in the moment with us while this process happens, ok? Let us know when you’re ready.”
Kayla sat back down on the bed, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
“I’m ready,” she said.
In her mind she heard a tone, and then in her mind’s eye there was a flash. Very clearly, she saw the symbol for PTICA Industries, though like the writing on the smart board, she realized she couldn’t read it. She merely recognized the font and style. A wave washed over her, a tingling from the top of her head to the tips of her digits and back.
“OK!” Maroon replied, “You’re online! First, we’re going to send signals to your digits. Tell us if you feel them.” Kayla felt the signals one by one being sent to each of her fingers and toes, knuckle to knuckle, elbow, knees, ankles. While that monotonous process played out, something bizarre happened. In her mind’s eye, a door appeared. She saw it more clearly than she’d ever seen anything in her mind’s eye before. Beyond the door was a deep pitch of shadow she could picture just as clearly; a seemingly infinite room, void of any light or context.
“That one went to your left wrist,” Kayla snapped back to Maroon.
“Could you send it again?” she asked. She felt a tingle in her wrist, “Yes, I feel it.”
“Good,” Maroon replied. Kayla returned to the door, and stepped through it into the darkness.
A ball of soft light had materialized in the void. She began to sense herself within this ball. Somehow, she understood the entirety of her lived experience was housed in the orb. Every memory that she had, every preference, habit, and desire. Every secret, mistake, embarrassment, and shame were compacted within. She reached out in her mind’s eye to it.
“Kayla, did you feel that in your forefinger?” Maroon asked.
“Yes,” Kayla breathed absently, and touched the orb.
It was like a nuke had gone off. The orb exploded into tiny fragments, expanding endlessly into the void in all directions. The fragments colliding with each other as they expanded, each collision causing another smaller explosion which branched out further. The entirety of it became a chaotic web, then blankets and glowing streams. Kayla gripped the edge of the bed tightly, her breath caught in her throat, and she was reminded of the first time she had seen a nebula in the night sky above the farm. As she focused on that memory, the networks of light and color shifted and rotated, restructuring themselves to find the relevant points. Tiny dots shot like bullets from their homes in the expansive, still forming galaxy and arranged themselves in order before her. Memories of every time she had laid out in the hay yard at the top of a full stack of alfalfa bales, staring at the night sky, contemplating the universe. She could smell the lingering exhaust of her dirt bike like it was sitting right next to her. She wasn’t just recalling the moments. She was truly reliving them. The emotions she felt at the time pressing against her current experience conflictingly. Laying beneath the stars had been a coping mechanism she had started after difficult moments with her father; and for that reason, many of the memories had imprints of pain and long forgotten anxiety. She felt a tickle on her cheeks as tears streamed down them. The orbs shot back to their places in their respective networks.
“Kayla, that was quite a spike in activity. How are you?”
She blinked and returned to the classroom. She opened her eyes and glanced at Maroon.
“I’m assuming that was the boot process in action,” they continued, “That tends to be very overwhelming for most people. Did you see it as a tree? As an ocean?”
“ ... galaxy,” she replied, her voice hoarse. Maroon handed her the water cup.
“Ah, wonderful!” Maroon replied a bit absently, “Quite robust! And you can communicate, so that’s also quite substantial. Many people fry themselves on the boot alone.”
Kayla returned to the network. She was aware of Maroon’s continued speech and was able to follow it, but the larger part of her mind fixated on the galaxy she had awoken. She realized as she floated among it that this was simply her. She was visualizing something that she didn’t have a word for. Her identity? Her mind? Her soul? Was this what Glyph lived with all the time? How could they get so much done? A tiny branch of the galaxy swung into focus, and the specks it brought forth were every memory she’d had with Glyph thus far. Every time she’d asked them a question and seen them consult their own QPU.
“Kayla? Are you still with me?”
She snapped back to Maroon.
“Yes,” she answered distantly feeling herself pulled back to the galaxy.
“OK, responsive is good...” Maroon commented, “Kayla, stay focused on me, ok? It’ll take a conscious effort on your part to do so. You’ll feel yourself slip away, but you must hold on to the present moment. You need to visualize that process, ok? Maybe you can tie yourself down, maybe there’s a handle for you to grab ... I’ve known people to strap themselves in like a seatbelt. If you have a galaxy ... try to imagine a spaceship! One that you can control and direct.”
Kayla pictured the ITSTU. She suddenly found herself within it, and she could clearly picture the control tablet in her mind. Looking out into the galaxy from there was not so overwhelming as before. Menus appeared to help her navigate. She willed memories of summers spent racing her dirt bike in the empty feed lot behind the barn and found she was able to isolate them, no longer experiencing them all at once. She took deep, steadying breaths as she willed the memories back to their homes among the galaxy.
“OK,” she said, “I think I’m ... uh ... stable.”
“Fantastic!” Maroon said, “Let’s get your immediattire and neural band connected and synced.”
They handed Kayla her neural band, and she hesitated to press it to her forehead.
“What’s going to happen when I sync?” she asked.
“Likely, you will barely notice it at first,” Maroon replied, helping her get her immediattire bands in place. “It won’t be until you use it to access the connetwork that you’ll really experience it. As for how that will feel? I can’t say for sure ... but if you visualized your mind as a galaxy? Then the connetwork will likely feel like something ... vaster than that. Like a cluster of galaxies. Maybe even a universe.”
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