Tryptich Chapter 1

 

Mac

Mac arranges her face back into a smile as the cameras turn to her. There’s deafening applause from the audience virtually tuned in to the late-night show as Mark Zeng takes his seat. Mac takes a moment to imagine people going through their routine pausing to clap at random times in the middle of nowhere. Her smile grows wider with amusement.

Mark shakes hands with her co-star Ander, congratulating him and catching up like old friends before turning to her. He takes her hand politely, and Mac smiles into the sleek glass eye staring at her, Zeng’s eye feed providing an exclusive 1^st person view to selected viewers of the nation’s biggest show. Zeng keeps his eyes on her form as he takes his seat, taking in her silver ensemble for later fashion analysis and debate.

“Welcome to the show once again you too. And Congratulations on the new movie.” Zeng starts the show with his signature enthusiasm. “I must say, my wife and I saw the movie just last night and your chemistry is incomparable.” He claps his hands like an excited puppy and Mac and Ander both smile politely through the loud cheers in their ears. “Ander, the way you portrayed the complexity of the character, the evolution from a savior to the captor, the whole existential debate man. Chills! I swear, chills.”

“Thanks, Mark” Ander chuckles softly. “It was a challenging part no doubt, of course, I had to find the balance between the humanity of the character and the limitations of his artificial side.” He poses it as a question, gesturing with his hands before turning to Mac for help.

“He was really good.” Mac adds amicably, “I think he really understood the essence of the character, as did I, and that really showed in our sincere portrayal.” Ander smiles at her gratefully.

“It does. It really does.” Zeng affirms before moving to Mac. “And Katherine my dear, I might say you are well on your way to rule the big screen as well the music market am I right?”

Mac lets out a bashful laugh as she preens at the praise, her shoulders straightening with pride at the resounding in her ears. Not many twenty-year-olds can say they have achieved as much as she has. Even though it’s not a path she would have wanted for herself, she lets herself bask in the glory for a moment. “Thank you, Mark. You’re too sweet. But really I’m just thankful to my fans who support everything I do and appreciate my hard work.”

“So we have to talk about the kiss, of course, the amazing climax to a twisted love story.” Zeng says suddenly, “Tell me, Katherine, from one to ten how you will rate your experience with Mr Ander.” Mac’s smile freezes on her perfectly crafted face. If she could frown, her forehead would’ve hidden her eyes. She spies Ander avoiding her eyes, looking awkward and all she can do is poke her nails into the inside of her palm.

Moment’s over.

“I – I actually don’t remember” she replies coolly, ignoring the disappointed groans from the crowd. She wants to turn the conversation and elaborate on the movie’s socially controversial premise instead, but Orion catches her eye from behind the front camera. Right. She can’t afford to start a probing question here, not after her last upgrade patch that took weeks to erase. So she bites her tongue and settles for an embarrassed smile when Zeng blanches, “You don’t. Well, that’s – embarrassing.” He casts a fleeting look to Ander, waiting for him to rise to the bait.

 Thankfully, her co-star has more functioning brain cells than a common sheep.  “It was more than a year ago.” He shrugs matter-of-factly. “I suppose we’ve been more focused on the promotion. I barely remember the scenes I filmed.”

Everyone laughs good-naturedly at that rookie mistake, no wonder deeming it cute, and Mac’s fury is appeased, for now.

                                                                                                           

Mac fumes all the way back to her penthouse. The audacity of Mark Zeng, the injustice of asking her something that inconsequential when she could talk about how easy it was to manipulate an advanced transhuman, how easily man’s greatest invention could be brought to his knees but of course not. She feels Orion step beside her in the elevator. He keeps quiet but she knows he’s watching her, waiting, bracing for the explosion.

It happens as soon as she enters her lab, hidden two floors above her luxury apartment. She’s already traded her fancy dress for a mech body suit, stolen from a FOCUS lab courtesy of Dr. Stein. Curses and expletives flow from her mouth as she throws stuff around while waiting for the multiple screens to load up. It's too risky to leave the unauthorized lab operating when she’s out, even with the jammers and the extra padding around the roof. This is her whole life, her safe space, and she’s not risking it for anything.

Orion watches her quietly for a while before sighing, “Let it go, Mac, it’s not the first time it has happened. It won’t be the last.”

“And that means I should just go with it?’ She gripes out incredulously.

“You could always do what you’ve been threatening to for the last fifteen minutes I guess,” Orion says wryly. “But you’re too smart to give yourself away like that.”

Mac growls in indignation, “I swear I wanted to take Zeng’s little head and just -” she mimes squeezing something between her hands before something on the monitors distracts her from imagining violence. “Well, well. FOCUS has selected a volunteer for the last upgrade. There’s talk about an implantation later this week.”

Orion comes to stand behind her, peaking at the monitor as though he can decipher the coded deep web chatter with his human eyes. “The board allowed it already? I thought there were some complications.”

Mac takes her plump lip between her teeth, thinking hard. “Either they fixed them or they’re moving forward anyway.” She says dismissively. “I wonder” She mutters, lost in thought.

Orion rears back in alarm as Mac flies across the desk, grabbing the keyboard and plugging into the FOCUS com-web. “Oh cool, they’ve reinforced the firewall.” She says conversationally. Her fingers move across the keys at a speed that blinds Orion, before she scoffs in frustration and Orion grabs a surgical glove and quietly passes it to her. Mac accepts it with a scowl, connecting it to her neural cord externally but Orion can tell the process gets easier as dozens of needle-like fingers swarm the keys. An excited gleam appears in Mac’s eyes as she breaks down barrier after barrier until she smiles triumphantly and announces, “Right, let’s find out our sacrificial lamb.”

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