Work Text:
After you wake up from the procedure, the first thing you notice is how heavy your left arm feels. The implants weigh it down, pin it to the bed you're lying on, even though they're made out of a special lightweight alloy. Early prototypes, you've been told, were heavier still, and quickly discarded in favour of better models, as they would have impacted fighting ability far too much.
You slowly raise your hand and examine it. Very little of the implants is visible, with most of it hidden below your skin. There's nothing attached to the ports yet, of course. That comes later, much later. First, you'll recover from your surgery while the doctors make sure everything heals up correctly. You'll need both of your hands if you are to serve as a Neuron officer. Then afterwards begins the measuring and calibration process, during which they will construct a Legion tailored to you and you alone. How long this step will take, you don't know. Some people, you're told, are very complicated to match. Others are able to bond with a Legion with minimal alterations from the base model.
Time will tell which group you belong to.
The brain scans are a nuisance. Time and again you're hooked up to various scanners that spit out results you don't fully understand, but that will probably help the technicians refine your Legion. At least you don't have to stay in the hospital, only come in when another scan is needed. On the other hand, you're stuck with doing paperwork instead of actual police work until you can formally join Neuron, so perhaps staying there would have been preferable. What can you do about it, though. Potential Neuron applicants are too valuable to send out into the field without the protection of a Legion.
Fortunately, it seems that you are one of the lucky ones. Before the month is over, they call you in and show you your future partner.
It's humanoid in shape, and significantly taller than you. The light reflects off the polished metal framing its biomechanical body and makes it gleam brightly. Its shape isn't customised yet, that's something you two will be able to do on your own after the adjustment period, but you've always liked the off-the-rack look a brand new Legion has.
They bid you lie down and prepare the link they will plug into your implant shortly. It's no chain just yet, but a simple cable. Thin. Fragile. It's difficult to believe that it will be able to join two consciousnesses together.
“Are you ready?“
You nod.
They push the plug into the port.
You see through two sets of eyes at once. They ask you questions, and two sets of vocal chords answer. Not all of the answers are yours, even as you feel yourself speaking. When your arm lifts and your fingers touch each other, it's not you moving them—but it's you who makes the Legion step off the dais it rested on. It's no more difficult than moving your own legs.
You understand now why Neuron officers refer to themselves as “we“ now. Thoughts that are not your own fly through your head—or was it you who thought them after all? It's impossible to tell, sometimes.
They say you're unusually quick to get used to it. You're not sure about that. Are you getting used to it, or is your Legion?
Is it you who, weeks later, steps out into the streets with a chain fastened to your arm?
Or is it your Legion?