Improved
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
That is, unless you can borrow it from someone else.
Not necessarily in the same way as the Reconnaissance, whose history is bright and colourful in a tie-dye kind of way that reflects its accuracy. Nor in the way of the blithely bland Council for Social Enrichment history books, which talk about Human Culture in the kind of way that makes anybody who’s been part of one start spitting bullets.
No, this is History in the form of a small plastic card. Knowledge and Application thereof, Learning, for the purposes of.
And this is one of the Improved, once considered human, but whose desire to progress beyond the bucket of meat they were born with has lead to some life choices that bring pleasure, pain, knowledge and… well, not. Sometimes.
The Improved can mostly be spotted at a distance. Like tattoos, cybernetic implants have a psychologically addictive quality, once you’ve swapped out an eye for an electronic, heat vision, biosignature recognising eye; and your tooth for a weather-detecting, radio transmitting, food analysing tooth; there remains little incentive not to make the whole world unconfined. But the things by which you can recognise them are the only things that are standard. The look may vary, the professionalism differs, the position deviants, but all of the Improved have the set of card slots that give them their reputation.
It is useful to know first aid, a lot of the time. But sometimes you’d rather just be able to shoot straight, or maybe know biology, or perhaps understand how your engine works. For most people this is the stuff of dinner conversation or contrived quizzes over the local network, if you could swap your education around, what would you choose? But for the Improved, it’s a day to day thing. Going out on patrol? It’s a good idea to find a First Aid card, probably time to dig out the Shotgun skills, and if you can borrow that girl’s stamina mod for the afternoon you might even survive ‘till the evening.
It was sad when the guy with the Level 3 Cooking skill finally died, though. Still, it’s not like he can use it now, and I never really needed to be able to repair the ship anyway.
Anyone for dinner?
Nicholas Avenell