Time passed, days went by. David stayed away from the OR, under the rationale that Jensen needed time to recuperate before any more surgical procedures and wasn't conscious anyway, but Vera had to wonder whether it was shame or fear of facing her. Her communications with David were now passed through Athene, who was remarkably good at arbitrating tense situations like the one they were in now. Vera had to wonder whether she'd had plenty of practice. In total, four days passed before the operations began again. Vera spent her time at home or in the clinic, periodically checking Jensen's charts and data, almost surprised at how flawlessly his recovery was proceeding. It seemed only a matter of time before he was conscious and cogent again. The process of attaching his arm and leg prostheses to his hardpoint augments proceeded, arbitrated in person by Sarif techs and wirelessly by Vera given David's conspicuous absence and the relatively straightforward nature of the procedure.
Day two: Jensen awoke while they were attaching his new left arm, screaming incoherently at the on-duty nurse until he lapsed back into unconsciousness. Vera was in there for the day following, assessing him. It gave her a chance to think. To plan.
She went in to speak with David the next day.
"What do you want, Vera?"
"I want to wash my hands of this, David. I want out. You can find another doctor to finish the process of augmenting Jensen."
David made a spitting noise. "As if! Like you're going to just turn your back on a patient when you're neck deep in, Vera. Come on."
She waited him out.
"You're not actually." David veered off his desk, threw up his hands in exasperation. "We've done this, Vera! I told you-"
"You told me what you thought would motivate me, yes," said Vera sharply. "I watched you exploit my compliance for your experiments. That ends now."
"It's not an experiment," said David, almost sullenly. Vera let the words slide by her with a composure she didn't truly feel.
"I will not play a role in this... parody of medicine. You can find another bio-machine specialist to do my job."
"You leave, Jensen's in the hands of somebody else. You're the best doc in this city at least, why don't you do the math and tell me-"
Vera rode him down with steely calm. "I did think at one point that I could protect Jensen, or perhaps ensure his survival. But all I have done is allow you to overstep the bounds of what I consider ethical. Go. Replace me, just as you have that man in the operating room, piece by piece. This is my limit, David."
David sat down heavily in his chair. It took him a moment to register the shades of the negotiation that was occurring, behind the emotional damage. He looked up back at her, and without looking away reached over to the baseball that sat on a corner of his desk. She remembered when he'd got it-one morning years ago, near the end of their work during the plague years, in yet another ramshackle clinic in the few places left in Europe still left ravaged and broken by the epidemics. A little Czech boy, maybe not older than eight, had signed the baseball and given it to the Yankee that had saved his life as a gift. Vera had never found out how or where the boy had managed to get a baseball of all things in the middle of Europe, and David had understood. He'd taken it back with him, treasured it even. Now, as he had for many years, he picked the ball off the desk and began tossing it in the air, catching it before it hit the ground.
"What are you saying?"
Vera swallowed. "You have taken Jensen's identity from him, David. You have altered him irrevocably."
David snorted. "You of all people should know what I did to him. I made him better, Vera! What he can do-"
Vera let some of her fury show. "He will awaken to a body that is not his own, in a mind so augmented by machinery that his thoughts arguably are not his own, with his life shattered beyond recognition, and you tell me that you have given him something?"
David snorted. "And if he'd woken up with half his body wrecked and the other half amputated, you think that's better? He'd be on life support until we either augmented him or watched him die. You tell me, Vera. What the hell would you have done? Leave him to rot? Let him wake up like that, just in time to tell him his ex is fucking dead?"
"Is this about Megan?" Vera asked, voice soft. Suddenly, she needed to know.
David's mouth twisted. "Murdered. All of 'em. Just for trying to change something, make a better world. If they hadn't killed her, all the others, maybe... Hell, Vera, I don't know."
Vera took a breath. "He could have recuperated. Reacted on his own terms. You have dictated his-"
"No." David held up a hand in warning. "No, I didn't. I gave him more choices, not less. He can go after those bastards that killed Megan and everyone that got in their way, that left him for dead, he can walk away from Sarif for all I care. But like I said-"
"Put your money where your mouth is," said Vera, borrowing David's accent, an old joke between them given Vera's tendency towards deadpan. There was a sudden silence between them, like a thin sheet of glass, and then David's mouth twitched into the beginnings of hollow laughter. It died almost the moment it left his lips.
"Yeah? What's your price, then, Vera?"
This was the window. David, like always, had let himself get carried away with his own emotions. There probably wouldn't be a second chance. "You will activate Jensen's implants sufficient to replicate function before his injury. Beyond that, you will leave Jensen's implants inactive. Let him activate them on his own."
David's mouth hung open for a moment. Then he leaned back. Tossed the ball up in the air again. "You want me to lie to a patient? And what, you'll just go along with that bullshit?"
"I would rather let him live his life on his own terms than allow you to turn him into a weapon."
David made a small smile, almost as if to himself and he'd forgotten she was there. "Vera, you've got no idea."
"It will allow him to pursue your enemies, if he wishes to," said Vera. "But he will decide what he becomes beyond that, David. Not you."
David tilted his head. Toss, catch, toss. "All right. That'll work. But I've got another round of augments that are going in. No more underhanded crap from you, no sabotage. Just do your damn job, and leave the legality to me."
Vera pretended to consider. "Deal," she said. She reached out to shake his hand. Even the texture of his hand felt strangely unfamiliar, after everything that she'd watched him become. It was only when she'd withdrawn her hand that she added, "I should mention that Jensen awakened yesterday and is now fully cogent."
David's eyes widened and he barked out laughter. "You bitch," he said, more with wondering astonishment than anger.
"Indeed," said Vera. "I will do my job, David. But if you want to augment Jensen further, then you will need to convince him, not me."
David folded his arms. "You'll see. I've got the kid's number all right."
"Of course," said Vera with distaste. David caught the emotion like wind from the sudden pressure change in entering a tunnel.
"You may not like it, Vera," he called out after her as she walked out of his office, "but this is the way of the world, business or not. It's all about compromise."
