Jaysee reported to decontamination, wondering why there hadn’t been a revolt by the augmented long before. Every quarter orbit, Jaysee exited the mine through the primary medlock. Their shoulders hunched as they cringed around stomach and intestinal cramping. Nerves stretching from spine to extremities screamed with every flex of degraded muscle as they pulled off their neoposiprene surface suit. The biotech epidermis exposed was more grey than silver as they stepped into the first chamber for decontamination via liquid spray. The slick green sides of the shower room glowed as both radiation and pain leached from every organic portion of Jaysee’s body.

A voice in soothing contralto filled their mind. “Jaysee, beloved, remember me. I’ll be waiting at the shuttle port the day your contract ends. No matter how a hundred orbits spent apart may change us, remember we were made for each other. I will always love you.”

In that moment, as synapses recovered and toxins flushed, Jaysee remembered Esvee. Whether the words were memory or an audio file from the augmentations, Jaysee didn’t know. How much more debt remained to pay, Jaysee couldn’t remember, but they remembered their love, Esvee. Surely that feeling of love was organic.

When Esvee said they were “made for each other” that was only a figure of speech. Jaysee’s body had been customized for work in the freezing and radioactive mines of this distant moon, so they could pay off medical debt. It wasn’t meant to change how they felt about themself or someone they loved. Jaysee remembered nothing like that in the contract.

As the green glow faded, they passed through another medlock into a chamber, white with mist that smelled like gardenias. The temperature drop made them shiver, or was that the memory of Esvee’s touch? Did the gas mixture truly smell of gardenias, or was that a misplaced memory of Esvee?

Each quarter orbit in the mines scrambled neural functioning. The physical agony experienced in the harsh lunar environment drove away higher level thought. But wasn’t pain proof that they were still alive? Each quarter orbit, when a visit to decontamination cleansed and reconditioned both biological and technological components, Jaysee gloried in being alive and free from pain.

After one hundred orbits, they would be free from debt and indenture as well. Free to return to Esvee, their love.

As Jaysee walked into the final decontamination chamber, a warm yellow light suffused the room. It triggered memories of bare human skin, a yellow sun, the physical act of love.

Standing with all six limbs spread wide, Jaysee struggled to remember the shape or appearance of Esvee’s body.

Jaysee couldn’t even remember their own.

Had their limbs and bodily systems been so altered that they could no longer identify what they’d felt? How they might once have been shaped? The way they came together with their lover?

But their love was strong. Their desire for Esvee remained. They’d chosen between death and being augmented for purely human reasons. When their hundred-orbit indenture was complete, they would survive for hundreds of orbits more in this augmented form. They would be free to live and love then.

The power of that motivation assured Jaysee that they were still human, as they donned their refurbished neoposiprene surface suit and stepped through the final medlock back into the mine.

A moment later, Kaysee reported to decontamination, wondering why there hadn’t been a revolt by the augmented long before.