over there.”
Lex threw down his packages and tore off his helmet. Amid protests from his ailing leg, he dropped to his hands and knees and started searching for the missing digits. He found a thumb under the edge of a cabinet, and two more fingers near the door. He took a few more frantic glances, found nothing, and decided speed was better than thoroughness. The mangled mechanic was on the opposite side of the room now, flipping open the top of a large plastic crate. Lex hurried over.
“ I couldn’t find the rest! What do I do with these, put them in ice or something?!”
“ Hmm? Oh, no. Just put them on that table there.”
There wasn’t any pain in the man’s voice or features anymore. In fact, he almost seemed bored, rolling up the tattered sleeve to grasp his forearm and, with a few clicks and twists... remove the whole arm at the shoulder. He pulled a bin on the floor out with his foot and dropped the ruined arm inside. There were at least two other similarly chewed up appendages already in there. Then, from the freshly opened crate, he pulled a new arm.
“ Hold that,” he said, thrusting it at Lex, “And follow me.”
Lex took the limb without thinking. Anger, disgust, confusion, and panic were all actively campaigning for time on his face. Confusion won. He stuttered and sputtered, trying to find the right words to adequately object to the situation, but his mind was not yet ready to be coherent. Meanwhile the mechanic rummaged through a drawer with his remaining arm until he found a pair of shears. He then cut the bloody sleeve off, revealing a complicated looking metal socket where his shoulder should be. Wordlessly, he took the arm from Lex, lined it up with the socket, and connected it.
“ There, that’s that done,” he said, life quickly returning to the limb, and the appropriate color beginning to fade into its pale flesh. He brushed himself off, swept the fingers from the table into his pocket, and proclaimed, “Who’s hungry?”
Chapter 8
The pair had made it to the mess hall, just a few doors down, before Lex managed to kick his brain into gear.
“ What just happened?” he asked.
“ Well, I was trying to hot-bleed a custom plasma manifold valve on a Class A power module and I forgot I went with the 3-6-3 sequence instead of the 2-4-3,” he said, matter-of-factly, while grabbing a tray and pushing it along the counter.
“ And you blew your hand off.”
“ Well, I blew my fingers off, anyway. It happens all the time. Hence all of the spares.”
“ Spares. So it’s prosthetic.”
“ I prefer cybernetic.”
Lex nodded. After the crash, the strange bus, and the adventure in lost body parts, this cafeteria was the first halfway normal thing he’d had to deal with. Admittedly, the place was utterly deserted, but there was a counter with covered warming trays, and there were tables and chairs. That made sense. He took a tray, threw a plate and some silverware on it, and started pushing it along after his host. Now that he wasn’t coping with a life threatening situation or an acid trip, his brain was willing to spend some time processing things. It started with the mechanic. He was one of those men who was hard to pin to a certain age. From the looks of him, he could have been anywhere from a worn out thirty to a baby-faced sixty. His voice had a generic urban quality, sloppy and a little hollow. Build-wise he was a little pudgy, but irregularly so. He had a slight paunch that didn’t so much seem to be the result of overeating or laziness, but the kind of belly that accumulates like sediment over the years. He was maybe two inches shorter than Lex. His hair was salt and pepper black... but that’s where things started getting unusual. A swath of his hair along the right side of his head looked wrong. It wasn’t as fine as the rest, and was much shinier, like a doll’s hair. Most of his skin was blotchy and pitted with neglect, but there were patches here and there that
Lex threw down his packages and tore off his helmet. Amid protests from his ailing leg, he dropped to his hands and knees and started searching for the missing digits. He found a thumb under the edge of a cabinet, and two more fingers near the door. He took a few more frantic glances, found nothing, and decided speed was better than thoroughness. The mangled mechanic was on the opposite side of the room now, flipping open the top of a large plastic crate. Lex hurried over.
“ I couldn’t find the rest! What do I do with these, put them in ice or something?!”
“ Hmm? Oh, no. Just put them on that table there.”
There wasn’t any pain in the man’s voice or features anymore. In fact, he almost seemed bored, rolling up the tattered sleeve to grasp his forearm and, with a few clicks and twists... remove the whole arm at the shoulder. He pulled a bin on the floor out with his foot and dropped the ruined arm inside. There were at least two other similarly chewed up appendages already in there. Then, from the freshly opened crate, he pulled a new arm.
“ Hold that,” he said, thrusting it at Lex, “And follow me.”
Lex took the limb without thinking. Anger, disgust, confusion, and panic were all actively campaigning for time on his face. Confusion won. He stuttered and sputtered, trying to find the right words to adequately object to the situation, but his mind was not yet ready to be coherent. Meanwhile the mechanic rummaged through a drawer with his remaining arm until he found a pair of shears. He then cut the bloody sleeve off, revealing a complicated looking metal socket where his shoulder should be. Wordlessly, he took the arm from Lex, lined it up with the socket, and connected it.
“ There, that’s that done,” he said, life quickly returning to the limb, and the appropriate color beginning to fade into its pale flesh. He brushed himself off, swept the fingers from the table into his pocket, and proclaimed, “Who’s hungry?”
Chapter 8
The pair had made it to the mess hall, just a few doors down, before Lex managed to kick his brain into gear.
“ What just happened?” he asked.
“ Well, I was trying to hot-bleed a custom plasma manifold valve on a Class A power module and I forgot I went with the 3-6-3 sequence instead of the 2-4-3,” he said, matter-of-factly, while grabbing a tray and pushing it along the counter.
“ And you blew your hand off.”
“ Well, I blew my fingers off, anyway. It happens all the time. Hence all of the spares.”
“ Spares. So it’s prosthetic.”
“ I prefer cybernetic.”
Lex nodded. After the crash, the strange bus, and the adventure in lost body parts, this cafeteria was the first halfway normal thing he’d had to deal with. Admittedly, the place was utterly deserted, but there was a counter with covered warming trays, and there were tables and chairs. That made sense. He took a tray, threw a plate and some silverware on it, and started pushing it along after his host. Now that he wasn’t coping with a life threatening situation or an acid trip, his brain was willing to spend some time processing things. It started with the mechanic. He was one of those men who was hard to pin to a certain age. From the looks of him, he could have been anywhere from a worn out thirty to a baby-faced sixty. His voice had a generic urban quality, sloppy and a little hollow. Build-wise he was a little pudgy, but irregularly so. He had a slight paunch that didn’t so much seem to be the result of overeating or laziness, but the kind of belly that accumulates like sediment over the years. He was maybe two inches shorter than Lex. His hair was salt and pepper black... but that’s where things started getting unusual. A swath of his hair along the right side of his head looked wrong. It wasn’t as fine as the rest, and was much shinier, like a doll’s hair. Most of his skin was blotchy and pitted with neglect, but there were patches here and there that
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