Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 135784 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135784 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
I'll worry about that then. One day at a time, like always.
Sophie swallows so loudly I can hear it in the room. "Won't…won't that be hard on your limbs?"
"It's all hard on my limbs," I admit. I pull a stool out from the rickety table near the wall because my knee is screaming pain at me. I thump down onto it a little heavier than I wanted and let out a hiss when it sends a shockwave of feedback up my spine. I need to do some maintenance, and that's going to be tricky with a skittish human sharing quarters with me. Might as well get it out in the open, though, give her time to get used to the idea. "Okay with you if I take my shirt off?"
"Why?" Her tone is wary.
"Because my prosthetics are acting up and unless I want to be twisted into a knot in the morning, I'm going to have to loosen things up and get some maintenance in. You might not wanna watch. It's not a pretty sight." I put bluster in my voice so she'll get the idea. What's left of me is strong, sure, but it's also mangled and scarred and unpleasant. Just like me.
"I've seen you without a shirt on, remember? When I woke you up."
My gut feels tight. Sick. I hadn't realized she was looking. "Ah. Well…a warning's a warning all the same." I turn my back to her and contemplate leaving my jumper on, just deal with whatever challenges my body gives me in the morning. I touch my cybernetic arm and the synthetic skin over it shivers painfully. One of the circuits feels hot, too. I can't leave this or I won't be in any sort of position to get us out of here when this storm clears. Gritting my teeth, I undo the auto-fasten at my neck and let the clothing pool at my waist. I feel exposed—stupidly so. She's already seen it, I remind myself. She knows what your shoulder looks like, with the ugly grafts and the mass of scar tissue. She knows there's a big hollowed-out-scar instead of plating over your chest. She knows your one shoulder is higher than the other, and that your spine isn't quite a straight line to your tail. She knows you've been pieced back together like a badly abused doll.
I hate it. I hate that I can feel her staring. I clench my jaw and do my best to ignore her, prying open one of the panels on the underside of my arm so I can do a systems test on that hot circuit before it melts down. If I have to replace it, that'll be keffing expensive, more than I have on hand, which means I've got to make this work.
"You have…robot limbs?" Sophie asks in a quiet voice. "You lost yours?"
No, I want to bite back. I thought it might be fun to be pulled apart like a bug and pieced back together. I keep those vitriol-filled words in my chest, though, and work on massaging the skin over my arm. "Lost all of one leg. Foot off another. One arm. Part of my chest. Eye. Ear."
"That's terrible. What happened?"
"Nothing good." I let it lie at that, rubbing my arm. It spasms in response, and even though it's a fake arm, the feedback sends waves of pain through me, and a headache to boot. I hiss, rubbing my arm harder. There's wiring loose under the wrist, and that needs to be fixed. The last thing I need is to lose my entire hand right now. I pull out a small toolkit, one that I carry with me at all times for occasions like this. If I were a big, fancy soldier with a good house and a fat pension, I'd have top-of-the-line replacement limbs. No constant massaging of parts needed. I open up a panel across my wrist, but the moment I do, my entire arm spasms again.
Kef me. This is going to be a long night.
"Here," Sophie says from behind me. Then, she's crossing the room and moving to my side. Before I can tell her to get the kef away from me, I can feel her presence, the air changing as she moves close. "I can rub your arm while you work on that, if that's all right?"
"You don't have to."
"It's not sexual," she points out hastily, resting her fingertips on my shoulder like I'm some sort of jumpy animal. "I'm not interested in anyone or anything sexually. I just…it looks painful and I want to help."
I should tell her no. If she touches it, she's going to feel it like I do - the rough circuits just barely contained under the skin, the wires that shift more than they should. A good cybernetic limb should feel like a regular limb, but mine are just cheap garbage, and I'm reminded of that every day. It shames me.