19:11, Fourthsol 15th M5, 2226

Jaya leads me through a cluster of densely-arranged pods near the edge of the dome, higher-rising and more cramped than my spacious doctor's pod complex in the centre of Eris-1. A screen in the little foyer flits between hov sales ads, city shuttle timetables and 'keep warm' posters of a smiling Megumi Kida.

My stomach muscles churn emptiness. Hydrochloric acid froths inside me. I'm dangerously hungry. Jaya's secret partner is sick and all I can think about is whether she'll be weak enough that I can discreetly feed on her.

As I scramble after Jaya into the pod, I can't help turning over Shiro's diatribe on the corruption of Eris. Surely an ore smuggler relies on corruption and exploitation to live. And yet he'd seemed so vehement that Earth's poorest had left the planet only to be exploited worse than ever on the Edge — out of sight, out of mind. Shiro's hatred of Eris's indignities may just be criminal bluster, though I suspect that it's from the heart. Doubtless he was driven to smuggling by the kind of abject poverty he wouldn't wish on his enemies.

Jaya leads me into a bright little bedroom. Ornately framed certificates and photographs crowd the walls, most of a stately warden with a chest gleaming with medals. Such a decorated warden must be at least a superintendent. A woman in her forties is curled on the bed in the tiny pod. Her likeness stands to attention in the images lining the walls, though her smile is only a dimming ember of the proud grin of the warden in the photographs.

Jaya's secrecy about their partner becomes clear to me. The conflict of interest for a superintendent examiner in a secret romance with their trainee warden would be scandalous, ending both of their careers. But it hasn't stopped them. Their love is the most beautiful kind of corruption I can imagine.

The woman's deathly pale tone and wisps of laser-straight hair are a stark contrast to Jaya's darkness and frizz as they kiss. They fall into urgent whispers and I'm left hovering next to the bed, an interloper on a secret conversation between secret partners. It's not long before Jaya sheds tears, brushing at their partner's hair. 

I wonder what it must be like to feel so loved, and to love so much.

Though her symptoms aren't so noticeable, my trained eyes can see the signs of radiation sickness eating away at her. Her meatware is dying, letting her slowly succumb to the killer radiation of the solar wind as it batters Eris. I've lost count of how many citizens have accumulated in Eris-1's hospital in the past month, undergrounders now shielded from radiation by four metres of rock, still with no guarantee that they'll recover.

A flustered Jaya leaves the room with apologies to their partner, their lenses seemingly piling up with messages about the governor's imminent visit from Earth to plan meatware trials on Pluto, and the other Dwarfs. The very thought makes me taste acid.

The lady uncurls under her blankets. "What's your name?"

"Doctor Singh."

"What do your friends call you?"

Friends? Years ago Ying had been my friend. Now she hates me. Perhaps Shiro will let me be a friend to him one day. A smile appears on my lips, unbidden. "My friends call me Heems."

"My name is Daiyu."

I'd been half-expecting her to introduce herself as Superintendent Li, just as on the captions under her mounted photos. She seems so distant from my vision of wardens as crazed sadists beating rioters into a pulp and pulsing criminals away with glee. In fact, Daiyu's easy friendliness moves me. I find myself feeling happy for Jaya.

"When did your metabolic implant stop working properly?"

Daiyu fiddles with her blankets. "It hasn't stopped working. I'll be back at the Warden Station soon. The governor's visit, and the rioting, and the ore smuggling... So much work to do. I need to get better."

"I won't report anything to the hospital. You can trust me."

"I told you. My meatware's fine. I keep feeling tired. My head hurts sometimes. Nothing more."

I rummage through my medical bag for nitrile gloves, pulling on a pair before I feel safe enough to approach Daiyu. "Radiation sickness starts with tiredness and headaches. You feel OK for the next few weeks, maybe months. Then the sores start. You need to go underground. We have basement accommodation in the hospital and—"

"I don't have the money."

I point up at a photo of Daiyu on parade in her crisp steel-grey uniform and glittering medals of service. "You're a superintendent. The Wardens Department would keep paying you while you went underground, right?"

"Yes, but not enough money for me to live for six months. The Warden Station hasn't needed long-term sickness pay policies for forty years."

"Since meatware came," I whisper.

Daiyu peeks out at her dour little bedroom. "If I took bribes I'd be rich enough to go underground. Rich enough to own a bigger pod than this."

"Jaya didn't bribe me!"

Daiyu shrinks away at my outburst. "I know."

"If you don't want to talk to me, then please talk to Kida Biotech. They might be able to fix your meatware."

"I don't want them to touch me. Those who go to Kida... they never come back."

"Who told you that?"

"My boss, the Chief Constable. His partner worked in a foundry. Two months ago she felt ill. She failed a radiation check at the hospital, so she was sent to Kida to check her meatware. The next day when my boss got back from work, all his partner's stuff was gone from their pod. She didn't even say goodbye."

I stare at Daiyu, aghast. "What happened at Kida to make her just... leave him?"

"He doesn't know. You doctors must know. You refer patients to Kida Biotech when their meatware breaks."

I take Daiyu's hand in mine. The purple of my nitrile gloves makes her fingers seem even paler. 

"I swear, Daiyu, I don't know why she left. Us doctors heal wounds and vaccinate against viruses, but we don't know anything about bionics. All I know is that the neuromorphic architectures of the meatware chip get embedded into Eris-born babies' grey matter on implantation. Babies are bionically enhanced for life to resist radiation, but on the rare occasions that their meatware malfunctions, it can only be accessed safely by Kida experts, and Kida is very secretive about their technology.

"Believe me, If I could hack meatware I would. Four years ago I applied for bionics training at Kida, twice. It was my life's goal. All I'd wanted since I was a child was to work for Kida. My dream was to find a way to... to make perfect meatware.

"Kida Biotech didn't want to hire me. My project ideas and research papers proposing routine meatware testing to keep people safe were always rejected by Isamu Kida. It's like he didn't believe that anything could go wrong with meatware. If I couldn't achieve my dream, the next best thing was to help people to heal, so I enrolled in medical school instead."

Daiyu presses at my hand through the thick nitrile of my glove. "I'm glad you're not working for Kida. You're a kind doctor."

"Please go underground, Daiyu. So many people have failing meatware that the governor may declare a pandemic. Everyone could go underground with a stipend from the governor until the meatware problem is fixed."

"Maybe. My wardens are reporting more homeless people with radiation sickness every month. Still, I'd rather take my chances than go near a Kida lab. Jaya needs me here, not underground, or abandoning them without a trace."

What horrific diagnosis did Kida give to that poor woman that made her leave her partner? "Did your boss's partner leave because she was... dying?"

Daiyu's expression is scathing. "If you were dying would you hide it, and yourself, from your partner? You'd want your last moments together to be special."

My mind rushes to Shiro. When trapped in the storm I'd confessed to him that my meatware was faulty. He'd told me that he'd not last much longer either. Shiro and I aren't even partners, yet of all the lies and omissions that we'd thrown at each other that night, we'd been brutally honest about our ailments, and how special we'd wanted our final moments together to be.

I haul up my medical bag, my head in a maelstrom and my heart flooded with an intense feeling of self-disgust. I'd selfishly wished for Shiro's ankle to get worse so that he's forced to call me. At least Daiyu is due a slow decline with her beloved Jaya at her side; Shiro is destined to succumb to radiation sores alone and in agony, his ore-smuggling bosses swiftly replacing him with healthier thieves. If I ever see him again, I'll take so much care of him.

I slip out of Daiyu's pod and hurry towards Eris-1's market to finally address my maddening hunger. My mind tumbles with the questions that Daiyu asked, and that I should have been asking all my life. If I were to pluck up the courage to visit Kida would they help me, or would they tell me things that send me running from my pod and my job, like they did to Daiyu's radiation-sick friend? What exactly does the interface between my brain and my meatware look like, and can Kida bionics engineers even begin to unravel it? Maybe I'm unfixable.

The curved brick and glass of the Kida Biotech building appears out of the drizzle, crowning the domed Eris-1 skyline. As usual I find myself drawn towards the building's iris scanner. I wonder if Shiro is limping through the corridors inside, disabling security systems and stealing secret meatware code. I fall into a daydream of turning the next corner of the Kida building's perimeter wall to find Shiro exiting through a hidden door, but this time he's pleased to see me.

When I turn the corner to find that Shiro is indeed stumbling towards me, at first I think I'm still daydreaming. I blink, and blink again.

I'm not daydreaming. I'm in a nightmare.

Shiro strides along at an impressive speed for someone with a wrecked ankle. Two security guards hare along the pavement behind him. They aren't wearing the azalea-pink Kida Biotechnology uniform; they're wearing turquoise combat fatigues. Not Kida personnel, but IndoChina Mining guards. Ying delivered on her promise to make an example out of the ore thief who hacked her transporter.

Before I realise it my body has launched forward and inserted itself squarely between Shiro and the IndoChina guards. Ying's warning screams in my ears: the moment I help Shiro I'll be an official criminal, fair game to receive a pulser wave to the skull. Helping Shiro means death.

The parasite inside me begs me to flee to my pod, but it's too late. I'm running towards death, and I refuse to stop.