by Viola Grace
Hours passed, and by the time lunch came around, she was almost walking normally. It was odd. She could barely remember a time when struggling for balance wasn’t something she did just to use her scalpel.
She found herself humming as she got her meal from the dispenser.
“You are eating? This place is covered with blood.”
She turned and looked at the man who was being sutured together by her automated unit. “I have to eat. You guys don’t stop coming, so this is my break while you are being closed up. What did that, by the way? It looks like Achillies’ work.”
He frowned. “He is fighting his way back up the ranks.”
“Okay. So put more coagulant into the roster. Good to know.”
She ate the rest of her food quickly, washed it down with a glass of water, and put her dishes back into the unit. She burped delicately and put on a new set of gloves.
“Okay, sutures are in, now I am going to do the final seal to pull your skin together.”
“You didn’t wash your hands.”
She snorted. “I gloved up after discarding my meal. Trust me, your nanites can take care of any pastrami residue.”
He was repulsed, and she grinned. It was another subroutine that she had been given, and it was doing very well. Repulsion was highly desirable.
She put the laser over him and sealed the skin, leaving a thin silver line. “There you go.”
She pulled the equipment back, and he scrambled to get away. She shrugged and sent the bill to his account, just like she did every time.
Humming again, she turned down the repulsion and let in the next patient.
Hammer walked in with blood streaking down his arm. “I believe I am next.”
She frowned. “You weren’t there when I looked before my last patient.”
“I jumped the line. Now, you are looking better.” He slung himself into the med bed and looked at her expectantly.
“Yes, I have had a few epiphanies in the last few days.”
“You aren’t shackled to the wall.”
“I refused to let them.” She smiled and pulled her monitor over his wound. She blinked. “You did this yourself.”
“You are a hard woman to get an appointment with.”
She snorted and started to use her equipment to close the deep muscle gash and then work on the skin. She didn’t give him an anaesthetic.
He winced. “So, how is your day going? Only four guys are waiting outside. It looks like you will be free for dinner.”
She paused and looked around the machine. “I can’t leave this area of the base. I told you that.”
“I have purloined authorization for you to join me for dinner if I give myself as collateral. If you escape, they kill me.” He smiled brightly.
“You don’t see anything wrong with that?”
He shrugged. “I have worried about very little in the last few years. It is hardly time to start now.”
She returned to her work.
She fidgeted. “Is it actual food? Or just dispenser stuff?”
“Actual food.”
“I am stuck wearing this.”
He chuckled. “I will be back here in three hours.”
She completed the repair. “You are done.”
He smiled and hopped out of the chair, swiping at the blood on his hand. “I will change and then meet you back here.”
She nodded and frowned slightly. “I guess it’s a date.”
His grin was blinding as he left the clinic. She summoned the next patient and went to work on aligning his leg. He could be healed without getting an implant as long as she lined him up. The nanites weren’t great at pushing.
“Do you want to be awake for this?” She asked him quickly.
“Just do it.”
“Great. Hold the bars on the sides of the bed. I am going to pull in three... two—” She yanked, he screamed and passed out.
She double-checked the alignment and nodded as his nanites surged to the site, and the skin went light silver. The colouration would fade in a day or two.
She got a boot and slid it on his leg, strapping his leg in as the nanites made a basic weld. The boot would transfer the weight from the knee to the heel of the boot, bypassing the broken leg.
Cracker summoned the next patient and used the secondary bed. There was no time to lose. She had a date with an actual meal to keep.
Chapter Six
Cracker made sure that the sterilization protocols were lined up, she unwrapped her tether, took off her coat, and put the tether back around her waist. She washed her hands a few times and dried them on the disposable towel.
A date. An actual date. She hadn’t been on a date since she was on Adaptation Station. It had been over six years since she had let someone sit with her over a meal.
She looked down and winced at the blood spatter on her boots. Well, there was nothing to be done.
She walked to the door and peeped out, blinking when Hammer’s face was on the other side. “Ready for dinner?”
She felt her skin heat. “Sure. Let me just lock up.”
She turned her back to him, but he was very close.
Cracker sealed the clinic and turned to her date. “Okay. I am done for the day unless you wounded someone on the way down here.”
He grinned and offered her his arm. “The night is young.”
She took his arm, and it felt weird to be holding onto the limb that was driving half her business. She felt something under her hand, and her eyes widened as they walked toward the zone that was previously off-limits to her.
“Is my forearm that impressive?”
She glanced at him, but he was looking straight ahead. “It is just more than I was expecting. It does explain a few things.”
He chuckled. “All that from my forearm? Wait until you squeeze my bicep.”
She snorted. “I am going to refrain from squeezing anything. I am just using you for a fresh meal.”
He laughed. “Fair enough.”
The world around her was new. She saw actual market stalls being shopped at by over a dozen alien races. She noted the differences in their movements, the way they spoke to each other, and how they distributed their weight.
The human cyborgs were mixing and mingling with the aliens, just as if they were all part of the same community.
“This is so weird. It is like a holiday village at home, but with folks with many more joints.”
He chuckled. “It is a little odd, but I have seen some peculiar things in my time. Even one race that I would consider more dangerous than the Splice.”
“Are there any members here?”
He shook his head. “No, I saw them on another base before I came here. They almost look like humans with wings, until they don’t.”
“Sounds scary. Were there humans on the ship?”
“Yes. Thousands. All in top shape with the best facilities.” He chuckled.
“Why did you leave?”
“I had a mission.”
She nodded. She understood that. It was one of the reasons that when she had been offered her position with the defense crews on Earth, she had agreed provided that they could help her with her medical issue.
“Here we are.”
He led her into an actual restaurant staffed by a dozen human cyborgs. The host saw Hammer, and he smiled. “Champion! Please come this way.”
Cracker held his arm as they wove past tables and were seated in a wide area that was positioned in a bay window.
Hammer held out her chair for her, and she settled, ignoring the click of her tether on the back of the chair. There were a few patients that she recognized passing by in the market outside. A few of them saw her and looked over to Hammer. She winced and knew that there were going to be rumours about them having a relationship, which, she supposed, they were.
“Do you mind being on display?”
She raised her brows. “I normally get led around by a leash embedded in my leg. This is the leas
t noticeable thing that I have done recently.”
“I see you have balanced out.”
“I have. It took some doing, but I got some advice from a friend, and now, I have legs that match in dimension.”
“How did you manage that?” He smiled and sipped at his water glass.
“I got lucky.” She smiled brightly and toasted him with her glass.
He raised his brows but didn’t say anything else.
The menus arrived, and it was startling how many fresh fruit and vegetables were available. Cracker looked past that and headed into the meat department. It was a little off-putting that the descriptions of the meat were in quotes, but she wasn’t that picky when it came to her protein.
“So, what are you thinking about?”
She looked at the menu. “The ten-ounce slab of steak. With a side of the mixed vegetables.”
He blinked. “Right.”
She shrugged. “I work for a living.”
He grinned. “Of course. I also expect you to do the dessert menu justice.”
Cracker was stunned. “They have dessert?”
“They have dessert.”
She grinned and rubbed her hands together.
They ordered, and then, a silence fell.
She waited a minute before she asked him, “What did you do before you went to fight the Splice?”
Hammer smiled slowly. “Would you believe I was a concert pianist?”
She closed her mouth with a snap. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Cracker leaned in. “What is your actual name?”
He leaned forward, and their faces were nearly touching. “Hamilton Eckhart.”
She blinked. “My sister had your albums.”
He laughed. “Glad to hear it. I enjoyed performing, but I knew when duty called. What did you do for a living before you became a medic?”
She smiled slightly. “What makes you think I am a medic?”
“You perform surgery.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I was a mechanic. My family had an orchard, and I fixed all of the vehicles and every piece of equipment. When the defense forces arrived to stage for a counterattack against the Splice, I was fixing all of their vehicles, including some of the shuttles. After the counterattack was underway, the military came to my family home, and they offered me training as a mechanic as long as I would take medical training as well. My mom said no way, so of course, I was in the truck with them and heading back to base in three minutes.”
He blinked in surprise. “So, they didn’t say that they wanted you to be in cyborg repair?”
“No. It was a good thing. My mother and father were registered religious observers. Normally, someone with my medical condition would just have had gene therapy, but my parents agreed that God had given me hemophilia, so he must have had a plan for me.”
He frowned. “But it is treatable.”
“Oh, I know. The fact that their deity had decided to gift humanity with enough science to fix the issue didn’t stop them from risking my life on more occasions than I can count. I didn’t leave home, I sprinted to my destiny.” She chuckled.
Their server came back with a basket of bread and small chunks of butter.
She prepared one for herself and nibbled carefully. It had been nearly a decade since she had eaten bread. It was nice, but it wasn’t nearly as nice as the smells coming from the kitchen.
“What is your name, by the way?”
She swallowed. “Kerida.”
“That is a lovely name.”
She made a face. “I was named after a word they heard on an old television program. They spelled it wrong.”
He smiled. “It is still a lovely name. It means dear or mistress, right?”
“Uh, right. How do you know that?”
“I used to tour the world. I am familiar with ways to flatter women in nineteen languages.” His wink was inviting her to share the joke.
She sighed. “Of course, and you are very good with your hands.”
“Aw, who told?” His shoulders were shaking with amusement.
Cracker rolled her eyes. “Of course, you know I am no slouch myself in that department, as long as you don’t mind your limbs coming off.”
He winced. “I surrender.”
She laughed. “Thank you. It is hard to get those jokes into casual conversation.”
“I can see that. I am glad that I could offer you this opportunity.”
“Thank you.” She was surprised that she had said it with a serious tone, but she meant it. “This is one of the more pleasant evenings that I have spent since I came here.”
He smiled, and he nodded. “This is the nicest evening I have had in a very long time.”
She inclined her head, and when the food was set in front of them, she lifted her water glass. “To persistence.”
“To persistence.”
After the toast, she picked up her implements and attacked the item that was described as beef. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t beef, but it wasn’t bad.
She found herself smiling nearly every moment of the dinner. Now that they had broken the ice, Hammer asked her about her training, and she asked him if he could teach her to play piano.
The dessert menu was surprisingly extensive, but she opted for fruit with cream. She didn’t want to know what they had milked to make the cream, but if it tasted good, she would be a convert.
Hammer opted for cake. “I admire you for taking the healthy option.”
She sighed. “I haven’t had fresh fruit since the day I left my family’s orchard. My work and studies kept me occupied when there was some in the mess hall, and even when we were on Adaptation Station, we only got the cooked fruit in the ration packs.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “We kept the Splice from getting to Earth, and Earth has its own shell now.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t going to last forever. If the Splice want in, they will throw everything at it.” He scowled.
“Is that the mission you were on?”
He shook his head. “I was on an identification and report situation.”
“And you got stuck here? Bad luck.”
“Oh, I carried out my mission.” He smiled. “Lucky me, I found a woman to keep me in stitches.”
She stared at him as he used the names of two of her best friends. “The devil, you say.”
“Not devils, but very scary in their own ways.” He smiled as he realized she had caught on.
“You are first-gen.”
He inclined his head. “I am. They took the first bit of damage and gave us weapons, not limbs.”
“Us?”
“I am not the only one on the same mission. I found one of the missing three, and I will remain at your side until you are with your people again.”
“Well, not literally at my side.”
Their desserts arrived.
Hammer smiled. “I would if you would let me.”
She blinked. Her mind was filling in what it would be like to be pressed against him, sweating and wrestling to see who could give pleasure to the other one first. She nearly slapped herself to get the heat out of her cheeks, but instead, she ducked her head and focused on the fruit that seemed to have grown near some kind of radioactive disaster.
She shrugged and hoped that her nanites were up to the challenge, eating the first bit of cream and fruit. It wasn’t bad.
“Your face went scarlet. What were you thinking about?”
She grimaced and looked him in the eye, her face pink again. “Piano lessons.”
His grin made it difficult for him to eat his cake, but he managed anyway.
Cracker shook her head, but she made it through the fruit cup. It was actually pretty good, aside from the neon and brown colouration.
When they were both done, Hammer settled the bill. He smirked. “Next time, it will be your turn.”
She laughed. “Then, there won’t be a next time. I don’t get paid
. Only fighters get paid.”
“What about the security guards?”
“They get bribed, or they live on rations. Those are the only choices.”
“What would they get bribed for?”
She smirked. “Oh, to ignore the sounds of a fight. That one springs to mind.”
It was his turn to have blood rush to his face. “Oh. Right.”
She laughed, and she got up when he did.
It was time to get back to her quarters. The date was just about over.
Chapter Seven
Their walk back to her quarters was slightly tense. Arena guards and men from the clinic side of things were watching them and trailing after them closely.
Hammer murmured, “They are not watching me. They are watching you.”
She nodded. “That is possible. They have been watching my quarters for signs of communication with someone off-world.”
“Have they found anything?”
“Not when I left for work this morning, but it is possible that a data chip was located when I left.”
He nodded soberly. “What was on it?”
“Shreds of a program. Just enough to make them analyze it for days.”
“What does the program do?”
She smiled slightly. “For them? Nothing. You need a double X chromosome to activate any of the information. Well, to activate what was left. I didn’t leave much information on it.”
“So, it was for you.”
“Oh, most definitely. You were commenting on my even gait. I needed that boost to get my nanites acknowledgement of my own physiology. I have not had any of the new programmable units that are so popular in certain circles.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. I have had some of those. They are lovely.”
Her giggle echoed back in the metal hallway. The slow steps behind them were also unmistakable.
“Shall I come into your quarters for a moment?”
She smiled. “If you like.”
“Only one of them can get through the door at a time. I can easily deal with that.”
“Good. I am thinking you might have to.” Her tether shifted slightly.
“I have heard that a few times. Is it moving on its own?”