Unit 734, known among the handlers only by his number, sat on a cold concrete slab. He was a Silver-Back Macaque, though his coat had lost its sheen years ago. A small, titanium headset was clamped behind his ears, wires trailing down his spine to the mainframe below. For five years, Unit 734 had been a component in the bio-computing grid. His neural pathways were used to calculate trajectory algorithms for deep-space mining probes. He was not considered a 'he'; he was considered hardware.