After a restful night, Katie’s alarm sounds off just before sunrise. She throws the sheets off, hand-walks over to her bedside chair and snaps her legs into her hip sockets. She dresses in her workout clothing and grabs her work uniform, quickly folding it up and shoving it into a small duffle bag. After making the bed, Katie heads out into the early fog of the morning. Her car pulls up as she exits from her houseboat, and its autopilot drives her through the routine morning traffic.
When she arrives at work, there are only a few cars in the parking lot - mostly the maintenance crew and the few overnight shift workers. She walks over to the gym, a disused hangar behind the main dispatch building.
Katie runs through her usual routine, focusing on her upper body and core strength. As she gets set up in the roman chair for crunches and back extensions, a few coworkers wander in to start their morning workouts.
“Morning Katie! Early as usual!”
“Of course, I gotta get in here before the crowds - I’m bad at sharing when I’m in the zone.”
“Fair enough, hopefully we’ll get some more equipment ordered in here once this year’s funding comes in.”
Katie finishes up her sets, unhooks her legs from the bench’s pads and rotates back into a standing position. She grabs a cleaning wipe from the conveniently placed can, and wipes down the pads.
“The gym’s all yours, I’m all set.”
Katie heads over to the locker room, and pops the lock on her storage cage. She grabs a towel from the rack and strips down to head to the shower. After a quick cleanup to knock off the workout sweat, she towels off and walks back to her locker.
She quickly throws on her work uniform - a sports bra and zip-up utility shirt for her upper body, and something akin to a bikini bottom for modesty and to prevent any loose clothing from jamming in her hip sockets.
She snaps on a short skirt, providing coverage but built to be removed quickly in case of a call. Katie sits on the small bench on the back wall of her cage, and disconnects her cybernetic legs. She hops into her wheelchair, and locks her lower body into the built-in brackets. Katie stows her land legs carefully in their carrying case, and leans the case up against the chicken wire wall of the cage.
She rolls out, locking up behind her and heading to her office.
Her tiny office, a remodeled former broom closet, sits in-between the dispatch area and the hall of conference rooms and offices. As she rolls in, she says “Hey Ada, I’m here.”
“Good morning Katie, logging you in now.”
The screen on her desk lights up, and she quickly looks over her work email. Something catches her eye - a mandatory meeting from the boss, she automatically adds it to her schedule. She messages Hashim. “Morning, any info on this meeting later today?”
“Yeah, it’s the big budget update meeting - we’re all gonna have to be there, and the afternoon looks like the only time that works for most of us.”
“Cool, thanks! I’ll be there. Can I get any spoilers about our budget? The guys are hoping for some more gym equipment..”
“Nothing yet, I’m getting the update in a couple hours. Right at the last minute, like usual.”
After clearing out her inbox and checking for any issues she may need to address, Katie decides to get a head start on her shopping for Fiona’s event.
She sends a quick text, “Hey Fiona, I’m gonna need some ideas for your big event - this fancy stuff is completely out of my wheelhouse.”
“While you’d probably be elated if I told you mechanics coveralls were the theme, I’ll send you a quick sketch of what I’m thinking would fit the aesthetic and flatter your figure. Just give me a few minutes.”
“Oh cool, thanks! You’re the best!”
About ten minutes later, an attachment from Fiona arrives in Katie’s smart glasses. When she opens it, she sees a professionally sketched fashion drawing of Katie, wearing an ankle-length sleeveless dress, lavender-colored with a thigh-high slit on each side.
“Wow Fiona, you just drew this? It’s beautiful. It’s pretty daring for me - but I really like it.”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a little while, so drawing it was relatively straightforward. You have fantastic arms, so naturally it’s sleeveless. This gallery event is in support of the Adapts Foundation’s outreach efforts, so the high slits in the dress are there for you to show off your particular adaptations.”
“It’s a little bold, but I think it’s perfect. I’ll see about getting it made up asap.”
Katie looks up at a small box mounted to the ceiling, and sends the attachment to her Ada contact in her phone. “Hey Ada, can you help me find a clothing maker nearby that can fab this up for me?”
A voice emits from the speaker on the ceiling. “I’ve found a location nearby that is taking requests currently, and I can send your body sizing scan along with the artwork for manufacture. Lead time is approximately two days.”
“That sounds good, thanks Ada!”
As Katie wraps up checking the day’s news, a familiar sound blasts out of the PA system, starting with the alert tone. Katie instantly reacts, locking her computer and whipping around, rolling at top speed out of her office and toward the airstrip. The dispatcher calls out the situation report while everyone scrambles to prep the aircraft.
“Ship in distress, lost power and taking on water. Crew is prepared to abandon ship but is currently managing the situation.”
Once out on the tarmac, Katie kicks her chair into full speed, the electric motors rocketing her toward the waiting aircraft. She bounces up the rear ramp, barely maintaining control as she slams on the brakes at the top. She disconnects from the chair and lowers herself to the deck, hitting a button on the chair controls to send it back to its charging station.
She hand-walks over to her seat, removes her uniform shirt and skirt, and quickly pulls on her wetsuit top. From a bin next to her seat, she pulls out her mask and snorkel along with a flotation vest full of tools for above water rescue work. As the rest of the crew runs on, Katie walks over to her cybernetic tentacle legs, locked into its frame and freshly prepped by the maintenance crew. She climbs up into the support structure, and locks herself into the hips of her cybernetic lower half.
The rear ramp of the helicopter seals and locks, and they lift off as each crew member wraps up their pre-flight checks. The backup swimmer, a newer crew member who is unaugmented, sits at the other end of the chopper.
Katie calls out to the new rescue swimmer. “First real mission?”
She nods as she preps her equipment. “You’ll do great! I watched some of your training, and you kicked ass!”
She smiles as she zips her vest up. “Thanks! I heard about your last mission! That was some no bullshit action movie stuff!”
“Thanks! It was a pretty close call but we have a great team!” Katie reaches down with both hands and flips the locking levers on each side of her cybernetic lower half, waiting for the feeling of her nervous system adjusting to the inputs of all 8 limbs, but there’s no response.
“Huh, the hell?” She flips the locks again and still nothing. “Weird…” She lifts herself up and lowers herself back down onto her cybernetic interfaces, and flips the locks one more time.
“Something’s up with my legs, I’m getting no connection!” A crew member walks over and attempts to assist, going through a few technical checks. He opens a small panel on the back and resets power, and Katie flips the locks once again.
“God damnit! Nothing!” She smacks the side of the hip ring, and winces at the pain. “Fuck!”
She looks over to the backup swimmer. “Looks like I’m out of commission, it’s all you now. I’ll be able to help out a little but it looks like from now on I’m mostly moral support.”
The crew chief calls out “Target ship’s coming up soon, prep the pump pack and a patch kit for hoist. Standby with a basket and sling if the ship sinks and we have to hoist them out.”
The crew hauls a pair of crates from a storage rack, and sets them next to the side door of the chopper. Katie climbs down from the rack and heads back to her seat. She looks over to the backup swimmer and nods. The backup takes up a position near the winch, and clips in her harness.
As the chopper approaches, the navigator says on the comms, “I see victims in the water, the ship is barely floating.”
The crew chief signals to open the side door, and the backup swimmer hops out and lowers down to the water.
The rescue continues without any other issues, and soon two soggy but uninjured sailors are in the chopper.
On the ride back, while the crew is bringing the victims coffee and blankets, Katie climbs around the various access, charging, and interface panels of her cybernetic legs, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Clearly something is broken beyond her basic understanding of the tech, because nothing is obviously wrong.
As the chopper lands, Jules approaches with her wheelchair. “Hey Katie, I already heard. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
She hops in and drives back to the office building with Jules by her side. “We got lucky on this one, a pretty simple recovery so it wasn’t a problem. If the newbie got in trouble I’d probably have to jump in with no legs at all, which would put us at a pretty big disadvantage.”
“I’m really sorry - once we figure out what the hell happened I’ll make sure we get spares of whatever broke and we’ll put in a ticket with the manufacturer. Hell, I’ll call them up and kick them around a bit for my troubles. Of course it had to break right as it goes off of warranty - they sure timed that one well.”
“Thanks Jules, you heading to that budget meeting in a little bit?”
“Of course, we’re all invited to the mandatory fun. See you in a bit!” Jules separates and heads to the maintenance section to start the diagnostic work.
Katie heads back to her office, and logs back in. It looks like her dress got picked up by a local maker; although she cringes a little at the price, it’s worth it for her friend. The day continues, monitoring the routine radio traffic and filling out paperwork.
Katie’s smart display pings her with a few minutes to spare before the budget meeting, and she heads over to the largest conference room. Most of the crew are already there, idly chatting as Katie rolls over to an open spot near the back of the room.
Hashim walks through the door, looking like he just saw a ghost, and Katie is immediately concerned.
“Hey everyone, I was planning to spend the first half of this meeting talking about our successes then laying down some goals for next year, but I just got the following from our higher HQ. It looks like there’s a huge budget crunch coming down, and our outpost being the smallest and least funded got picked to take the biggest hit.”
Anyone in the crowd who was happy about the successful rescue now looks about the same as Hashim, and everyone is dead silent.
“They’re shutting down this place entirely, and the dispatchers and maintenance crew are being relocated to the other nearby bases. Myself, along with the rest of management and the direct rescue crews will not be continuing on. I’m sorry. It sounds like they’re going to supplement the other crews with drones and reduce rescue personnel across the board. The last day of operation for us is today, the other stations are going to take over our area within two hours.”
Someone in the crowd curses, as Katie absorbs the news. As she realizes what she’s leaning behind, a tear falls from her eye. She whips her chair around and drives out of the room.
As she exits, the noise in the conference room escalates as the shock retreats, and anger and sadness takes over. Katie tries to keep it together as she heads down to her locker to start packing her things. She manages to mostly keep herself calm, until the moment she has to transfer from the company provided power chair and put on her land legs. “This is it. No more being the underwater superhero. What the fuck am I going to do now?”
She attaches the legs and stands up, feeling a slight catch in one of the knees. “Great, now these things are starting to fail too. Wonderful.”
She dumps the contents of her locker into a bin, and sets it onto her wheelchair. She looks at a group photo stuck to the inside of her locker door, and says to herself “Better times I guess. It was fun while it lasted.”
She carefully peels the tape from the photo, and sets it on top of the heap of stuff. She heads out to her car with the box of her former career in tow, and loads it into her passenger seat. As she walks around to the driver’s side, Jules flags her down from across the parking lot and jogs over to her.
“Well this is a total screw job. Sorry about all this mess. My Job’s ‘currently undetermined’, so it looks like I might be joining the ranks of the funemployed also.”
“Shit dude, what a mess. At least there are sure to be maintenance jobs around basically anywhere. It’s gonna be pretty hard for me to find something else.“ She takes on the tone of a fake interviewer. “So, your resume says that you were previously a professional cybernetic squid? I don’t think that’ll really be a good fit here at Burger Crime.”
“Ha! Goddamn Katie, I’m gonna miss your attitude wherever I end up next. You take care of yourself. If I hear anything in the job market involving cyborg seafood you’ll be the first one I call.” He moves in to shake her hand, and she wraps him up in a huge hug.
“I know I’m supposed to be the tough girl, but I’m gonna go now before I lose it. Thanks for everything Jules. Keep in touch.”
Katie heads home, and sets the box off to one side of the doorway. She sits for a while on the back deck of her houseboat, gently bobbing in the slight afternoon chop.
“Alright Katie, this moping stuff is bullshit.” She says to herself. She walks over to the box containing her former job, and pulls out her wetsuit and swimwear. “Might as well clear my mind.” She throws on her stuff, then pops off her not-totally-waterproof legs. She hand-walks to the edge of the houseboat, then drops into the water.
She glides through the water in a highly practiced rhythm. Although lacking the raw power of her former dive gear’s water jet and eight nimble legs, her streamlined and abbreviated form helps her keep a fast pace.
After an aggressive swim partway across the bay, Katie turns back home. She pulls herself out of the water and lies on the deck, catching her breath and thinking about her next steps.
She hand-walks over to her deck chair and grabs her phone. She lies back in the chair and gives Fiona a call.
“Hey Fi, I have some shitty news to share, sorry ahead of time.”
“Oh no! Katie, what’s going on?”
“My work totally got shut down and I was let go this afternoon.”
“Damn it, I’m sorry. No warning?”
“None, other than having our budget cut every year. Apparently they think they can get by without us. Whatever. I’ll have to find something else now, I guess.”
“Well, I happen to know a lot of influential people who are very open to our particular circumstances. I’ll work on gathering some leads for you. Also, I need to buy you a drink. Maybe a few drinks. Tonight.”
“Thanks Fi, you’re the best. My schedule just opened up for the foreseeable future, so I’m definitely available tonight. I’ll get cleaned up and meet you somewhere. Any ideas where?”
“I’ll send you a place. I don’t believe you’ve been there before and they have a phenomenal bar - no menu, you just tell the bartender what mood you’re in and they come up with something.”
“With what happened today I bet they’ll serve me up a tall glass of straight gasoline.”
“Hopefully something a little more palatable, maybe straight tequila? At least you won't have to remember anything afterward!”
“Alright Fi, I’ll see you in a little while.”