The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

She found the button to open the suit, set in under Jennie’s jaw, and pressed it. The click of the plates unlocking was audible, but without a functioning battery in the main port, Gyre had to wriggle her fingertips between the plates to pry them off. She started at Jennie’s sides and belly, cracking open the suit like a nutshell. From one armpit to the other, down along her ribs and across her belly, she freed the plates from each other. Then she grabbed Jennie’s shoulders and hauled her upright, peeling her off the part of the suit that contained the backup. Her body was somewhat preserved, feedback film desiccated and husk-like around her, but it and the flesh gave way when Gyre touched her, pulling apart across her back as she leaned the woman against her chest. Gyre sat there, breathing hard and staring at the tubes and electrodes running from the suit to Jennie’s torn flesh. This was her, beneath the suit. Wired in, plugged in, part of the technology. In some ways, she was just the brain inside of it, the fine-motor control.