by Aline Riva
He looked up at Elise, and saw pain reflected in her eyes as she thought of Felix and the suffering he had endured.
“I was in a car accident once,” he said, “My car, several others...a bridge collapsed.”
He left it there, hoping she would feel a little better to know that Felix wasn't the only one who had been through pain. But she cast him a look of disgust.
“A car accident?” she said bitterly, “Felix was in an explosion! You can't begin to compare it -”
“I was just trying to explain I've suffered too,” he pointed out.
Elise blinked away tears of anger as it all played through her mind again, the shock seeing him for the first time with half his body destroyed, her Felix, her handsome general, ripped to pieces by an explosion.
“You haven't got a clue!” she snapped, “Piss off, Jekel!”
Then she walked away and Jekel got up, turning towards Felix who stood alone as he watched the sunrise. Then, reflecting on all she had said, he decided perhaps the best course of action would be to try and make peace with him, even if it would be on an uncertain level. Then he began to walk over to meet him, hoping he could do something he had never before wanted to do – shake the hand of a former member of the UNA...
Chapter: 3 The Magician and the Soldier
“Lynch?”
As he turned his head, the silver in the older man's wavy hair looked tinged with gold as the morning sun shone down brightly.
“What do you want now?” he replied, casting him a frosty glance.
“I wanted to say maybe I was too quick to judge and I'm sorry,” Jekel replied, “I don't know you. I shouldn't have said that about your past -”
“Oh no, what's she been saying behind my back?” Lynch demanded as anger blazed in his eyes like blue fire, “Oh wait... let me guess, she told you about what happened to me, about how I lost my legs? Did she remember to mention I also lost my bollocks and everything else a man highly values?”
Jekel hoped that his raised voice hadn't carried so far that Elise had heard what he said, and he didn't look around to find out, but if she had, Lynch didn't care as he continued to rage, “Okay, so you know I lost vital equipment. It goes without saying the closest I'll get to love making is listening to our resident piss head cyborg delinquents shagging away in my motor home! Does it make you feel better, to know this ex UNA has lost everything?”
“You haven't lost Elise,” Jekel pointed out, and he took a step back, fully expecting the angry former General to take a swing at him, but the fire simmered down in his eyes, replaced by a slightly baffled expression as Felix processed his words.
“That's true... You're either a smart arse or a very observant twat who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. My advice is to be neither around me, have you got that?”
“I think you just insulted me twice,”Jekel replied.
Felix looked hard at the man in the sharp suit who had clearly got through all of the conflict this world has seen in recent years without gaining as much as a scratch.
“Make yourself useful,” he replied, “We're staying here for another twenty four hours. I haven't spotted anything on the scanner for a hundred mile radius but sometimes howlers slip through the net - there could be a pack on the horizon, the hills could have obscured them. I need the electrified fencing put up. Go and find Spike, get the randy dog off his backside - or out of Ruby's - and tell him to give you a hand setting it up!”
Jekel felt too exhausted to be handling fencing, his battery was still low – but the thought of the word electrified filled him with fresh hope...
“How do you power the fence?” he asked, and Felix shook his head, muttering something that Jekel was sure was yet another insult, but he didn't catch it.
“A fucking battery pack, are you retarded?”
Jekel kept his cool as the former general glared at him.
“I'm not a soldier, nor do I know a thing about motor homes, camping or any of that stuff, okay?”
“But you used to be a stage magician,” Felix replied, “You must know about lights and plugs and smoke machines and making your assistant disappear! I'm surprised you didn't get yourself off to the hills long ago with... did you have an assistant?”
Jekel looked at Felix, and noticed there was something a little off about the man's expression, it was there in his eyes, like something was slightly missing or vaguely confused...he guessed it was mild brain damage, no doubt due to the inexperienced surgeon who had pushed the connecting wires into his brain a few years back when cybernetics had been a new concept.
“Her name was Margo,” Jekel replied, “And she was so much more than a colleague. She was my fiancée and I lost her when the UNA burned my home town.”
Sadness shaded his gaze as Felix considered his reply.
“I was recruited by the UNA to be a human face of the higher ranks,” he replied, “Us generals were kept in the dark about the truth. They had us shut away working on nonsense that came to nothing, put us out for the press to take pictures now and then, none of us knew the truth until it was to late. And I'm sorry for your loss, Jekel.”
“I'm sorry for yours,” he replied.
Felix stepped closer, and the look in his eyes was unreadable.
“Gloria.”
Jekel blinked.
“What?”
“Gloria,” he replied, “My sister's name. She died in the conflicts too. I named my favourite weapon after her.”
“I know, you shoved her in my face,” Jekel replied, and he started to smile, but Felix did not as he recalled his previous remark. Then Jekel glanced back at the armoured, battered motor home and looked back at Lynch.
“So if you call your gun Gloria, what do you call the motor home?” he asked.
Felix stared at him, his eyes growing wide as he wobbled somewhere between anger and confusion.
“It's a vehicle!” he exclaimed, “What's wrong with you? WHY would I want to name my frigging motor home?”
Jekel shook his head.
“I'm sorry,” he replied, “I mean, for your loss...”
“Don't be sorry for my loss,”Felix said, “Why the hell should you care if half of me is gone? I've been a cyborg for almost five years, and that's my business. Now go and sort that fence out!”
“Right, I'll do that,” Jekel replied, deciding if he owed him anything, it was a degree of tolerance. Then he turned away and walked back towards the motor home, wondering how the hell Elise put up with the spiky, brittle, broken man called Felix Lynch.
Sounds were coming from behind the closed door inside the motor home, the door that led to the room where Spike and Ruby lived. She was making moaning noises that were low and breathless, and a rhythmic knocking began to sound against the wall. Jekel passed the closed door quietly, deciding now would not be the best time to burst in and tell Spike that he needed help with the fencing. Then he paused, looking up the walkway as he wondered where the hell he could find the battery – his own hidden scanners had not detected any threat on the horizon and he was sure he needed that power much more than the fencing did...Jekel was sure he wasn't putting lives at risk. He just needed to recharge his own, slightly defective power supply. One battery ought to be enough to perform a recharge...
“What are you looking for?”
He turned around, catching his breath as he met Joy's gaze with wide eyes as he felt more than a little guilty.
“Lynch said there was a battery for the fencing...Spike has to help me with the fence and he's still busy...”
“This way,” she said, and she walked towards the middle of the vehicle, where an area was sectioned off by a large drape.
“I keep the batteries locked up just like I lock up the cybernetic fluid supply,” she told him, and then she pulled the curtain aside and he followed her into a make shift medical room.
“Why keep the fluid locked up?”
As he asked that question, Joy had gone over to a large metal cabinet and drawn keys
from her pocket.
“Because they all need it – well, not me, not Elise but the others do. And they need measured shots. We had to fight to get our hands on this stuff - its not self renewing, without it artificial flesh starts to decompose and the next phase is failure of cybernetic parts followed by a slow and painful death. None of the cyborgs here have intact semi organic skin covering over machine workings, that's long gone. Ruby is the last to lose it. Now the poor sods are down to the threat of human-to-cyborg connection failure. Felix is most at risk because he's got the most modification so needs the biggest shots but he won't take his until the others have had theirs.”
Jekel said nothing, feeling another stab of guilt as he considered their plight – many cyborgs had died after the law had changed, barring cybernetic modification. Every time he had read about it in the press and seen the cyborgs right to live protests, he had thought about his own unique, self renewing cybernetic fluid, a world away from the poor quality fluid other depended on, and had pitied them.
And now he was about to steal their electricity...He wasn't proud of himself, but he knew there was little choice in the matter, because if he powered down unexpectedly, they would soon find out exactly how he was put together – there was a scanner in the middle of this room, and one glance would tell Joy exactly what he was made of...
Here it is,” she said and handed him a large, square battery. Just the sight of the hole set into it where he could plug in to drain the battery made him feel a surge of sweet relief, soon he would be feeling much stronger, and they would never know anything had ever been amiss...
“Thanks Joy,” he said, and he met her gaze, smiled and then left the medical area.
Joy locked up the cabinet and put the keys back in her pocket and then spared a moment to look wistfully to the curtain that Jekel had just dashed aside in his haste to leave.
There had not been many men in Joy's life that had touched her heart, the first had died when the Howlers had first stalked the land and then there had been Captain Murdock – a man who still stirred her heart when ever his name came up in conversation and General Lynch remarked that he was hardly surprised to learn of his heroic reputation – the man had been born to lead, and born to win battles. Murdock had first touched her heart when he was her patient, battered and bleeding after the fight with Captain Jordan that had almost killed him. But he had survived and even after the scars had healed but not faded away, she had seen the handsome man beneath them, the man who had the heart of a lion and the courage to match. And then she had been forced to say goodbye. She had never had a chance with him.
She hoped that wouldn't happen with Jekel, because one look into his eyes had set her mind on fire as her heart had beat faster as she had thought back to that day long ago when she and Murdock had first encountered him. He was not in the league of Captain Murdock, but there was something about him, something that drew up such fondness for the man that it surprised her.
But coming forward, to try and get closer, seemed the hardest step to ever take. She didn't want him to end up being another man she placed on a pedestal and worshipped forever from afar, but perhaps that was all he would ever be... All the same, it was rare for a man to catch her eye – and Jekel had certainly done that. If she wasn't careful he would also capture her heart and maybe never even know it...
Joy pushed aside dreams that seemed to have no place in this crazy world any more and went over to a desk and took out a notebook, then she started checking the list of doses to be given for the cybernetic fluid shots, and gave no more thought to how she may or may not allow herself to feel for a man she barely knew.
Jekel had gone into his room and locked the door behind him. Then he placed the battery on the bed, sat down and quickly took off his jacket, then grabbed at his shirt and tugged it up, exposing flesh just below his ribcage. He ran his fingertips across the hidden seal where cybernetic flesh met with human skin, released the seal and lifted the flap, revealing a small port and three tiny buttons. His hand shook as he jabbed at the first button, then grabbed at the cable that emerged, he tugged on it impatiently, fearing total battery failure – if he passed out now and they found him like this, it could all be over... Jekel slid the end of the cable into the battery and then hit the second button, closing his eyes as he braced himself for the sting of a fast power up.
It slammed into him like fire, sailing up through the cable and into his own battery, then it crackled up the main cable that ran through his body and as it hit he swore he felt every single one of the fifty thousand wires that snaked through his brain sparking painfully. He gave a gasp as his pupils glowed red, then the glow faded out and his head ached and a trickle of sweat ran down his face as he breathed out.
He disconnected the cable, pushed the button and it retracted back inside him, and then he closed up the flesh, tucked his shirt back into place and paused to open up a couple of buttons on his shirt as he breathed heavily.
The battery intended for the fence was truly dead, but that fast power up would see him good for a few days, at least...He wondered how many other charged batteries Joy kept in that cabinet, and then he took a moment to sit there in his tiny, cramped living space as he got his breath back, recovering from the painful rapid charge that had just surged into his body. As his breathing slowed, he got up and paused to put on his jacket and run his fingers through his hair, then he lifted up the now dead battery and left the room in search of Spike, so they could set up the fence as he silently hoped his scanner had been accurate, and there would be no need for that battery to be live, because there was nothing lurking for miles around that would require the need of an electrified fence...
A short while later as Spike checked the fence was locked together tightly and Jekel warned him to step back as he flipped the switch, Joy looked out from the cracked window in the medical area and wondered why he seemed so nervous as he checked the battery again, then nodded to Spike to reassure him it was okay...Jekel was looking well all of a sudden – last night he had been on the brink of collapse and now he had just set up a ring of electrified steel around the area where the motor home was parked with little or no effort on his part...He didn't seem at all tired. That fact bothered Joy, but she wasn't sure why – it was one hell of a rapid recovery...
Then Joy drew off the last of the fluid shots from a measured container and turned to her last patient. Spike had been first, leaving Jekel to set up the fencing briefly, then Ruby had been next, she had seemed anxious, desperate to be sure she had that shot, but of course, had let Spike go first, because she adored him. Now her other patient was standing in the medical area, and his lover had entered the room with him and carefully closed the curtain up tight behind them because she knew how he could get. There was a look of fear in the eyes of Felix Lynch, it was always there when ever he needed anything done to his part cyborg body.
“Are you ready?” Joy asked.
He drew in a breath and let it out and started to perspire.
“Not really,” he muttered, then he took off his coat and handed it to Elise, and then he got on to the examination table and laid back, reached down and his shaking hands unbuckled his belt and a quick fluid movement jerked down his zip. Then he tugged his trousers down to his thighs and looked up at the ceiling.
“You don't have to stay,” he said.
“I think I do,” Elise replied kindly, “I know how much you hate this.”
Joy went over to the table and prepared the syringe. As she did so, she glanced down at the lower half of his body – his groin area was covered by a steel plate, his legs were also metal plated, covering cybernetic workings within. His cyborg body matched his human body in shape and slender build, and the steel met flesh seamlessly, blending in an elegant curve from the top of his groin to the remains of his human hip bones. Cybernetically, it was a good job – the surgeon may not have had experience at the time the graft had been used, but he had done a good job compared to some of the wrecks Joy had seen over
the years, victims of poorly qualified amateurs...
But Lynch was obvious to any visual beauty in the half robotic body he was now trapped in. He kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling and as his hand shook, Elise stepped closer and took hold of it.
“You're not alone,” she said softly.
“Okay Lynch I'm just going to inject into the transfer cable, okay? Double dose in one shot – you'll be good for a few weeks after this.”
“And then I'll have to do it again.”
Joy pressed a small, flat button on his hip and it slid aside, revealing an exposed cable. She carefully pressed the needle through the outer surface of the cable, pushing through until the needle cleared its thickness, and then she injected.
“Relax,” she said to him, “You can't feel it.”
“I know,” he replied, his gaze still fixed on the ceiling as sweat ran down his face, “That's what bothers me so much.”
Joy withdrew the needle and closed up the port, turning away as she disposed of the syringe and thought back to all that Lynch had been through. Sometimes she felt sure he had never lost that horror stricken look reflected in his eyes on the day he came around enough to understand just how much of his human body was gone...
As she turned back Elise swept her hand over his hair, then she stepped back as Lynch pulled up his clothing and hastily closed his belt once more, hiding all trace of his half robotic body.
“Thanks Joy,” he said, and he got off the bed and paused to take his coat from Elise, and then he left the room and Elise followed.