Runtime by S. B. Divya Read Free Book Online

climb.”
    “You were there? Thought I saw someone.”
    Mike nodded. “You did, but it wasn’t me. We’ve been watching from the start. That’s how we know who to pick. We have to be careful, choose someone who could plausibly win. Now let’s get back to the question at hand: do you want my help with that other calf? Do you want to win this race?”
    Marmeg looked down at her cuff and her brothers’ goofy smiles. She didn’t have to tell them the whole story, but she did have to come home with some money. It was that or call her mother to come bail her out. That was the worst possibility Marmeg could imagine.
    Amihan would never forgive Marmeg for the enormous sin of spending her money on gear and race fees. She would call it gambling. And she would be convinced that God was punishing Marmeg for partaking of such an evil pastime. She might be right, considering that Marmeg would be back to club security and nothing more if she didn’t place. Winning by any means, even for half the prize money, would be better than that.
    “Do it.”
    Mike handed her a few white pills. “These won’t help with the pain now, but they will later.”
    He went back to the trunk and pulled out a dark-brown glass bottle. He worked the cork out and handed Marmeg the bottle. She washed the pills down in one swallow, glad that Jeffy had given her opportunities to drink cheap booze. At least she didn’t make a fool of herself by choking on whatever this was. It burned the back of her throat. A pleasant, tingling warmth soon spread through her body. She leaned her head back against the rough wood and closed her eyes.
    “You go ahead and scream if you need to. Nobody’s around to hear it.”
    That sounded like a line in a bad horror vid. Marmeg chuckled, but she kept her eyes closed. The sounds of gear clinking played counterpoint to the pops and crackles from the wood stove. The scent of smoke filled the air. Marmeg sank into a stupor.
    A sensation of cold and wet against her leg snapped her eyes open. Mike rubbed an alcohol pad against the old incision on her other calf.
    “Ready?” he asked.
    “As ever.”
    Marmeg lay on her side and clenched her hands around the edge of the mattress. Mike sliced into her flesh, a quick, sure cut. She gritted her teeth against the pain; no screaming, not this time. She was breathing fast and harsh by the time he dug in with a pair of tweezers and extracted the bad chip. While he disinfected the replacement, she took a deep, steadying breath and reached for the brown glass bottle. She gulped three times.
    “You better put that down before I finish this.”
    He was much more deft with the capsule placement than she had been. She was surprised that he knew what to do. Unlike her field surgery, he took the time to close the wound neatly, wiping it clean before applying the glue. The result was a red, ragged mess, but it looked better than her other leg.
    “I’m not going near the quad chips and your femoral artery.” He handed Marmeg her screen. “Your turn.”
    She pulled up the control software and reprogrammed the new capsules. She had splurged for a brain-stem chip as her only legit surgery, using the programming contest money she had ferreted away from her mother. One of its benefits was that her muscles adapted more quickly to program changes. Another was that new chips would integrate faster with her physiology. The pain, however, was something she would have to ignore for the next twelve hours.
    Marmeg hissed as she limped to the table where her gear pack lay open. She gritted her teeth, pulled the calf exos on, and went through a basic test sequence: walk, run in place, jump, balance on one foot. The incisions twinged but the pain intensity decreased with every flexion and extension of her muscles.
    As a final exercise, Marmeg jumped from the floor onto the table, landing on it in a crouch and poised for her next motion. Mountain Mike leaned against the door, his arms crossed across his