Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Maria Griffin Page A

like? She placed her hand to her chest, still thrumming. What must it look like in there? There was such beauty in these augmented human shapes. And so many of these contributions were in her family’s name.
    She would hold on to Julian’s augmented arm for a moment longer next time they embraced.
    From nowhere then she was brave. Here, in the room adorned with limbs—some analogue frombefore her father’s creations, some of Julian’s marvels—here in the charred museum, she decided to tell Oliver about the hand. She wanted to show him. She wanted to talk about it. Oliver was the only one who had the same vocabulary as she and her father, who spoke the language that existed on the strange border between machine and human. She hated that Oliver would understand, but he would.
    â€œI’m about to show you something, Kelly,” said Nell, quiet, dangerous, “and if you ever tell another living soul that you saw this, or if you take the piss out of me in front of Antoinette or Ruby, I’ll take you apart.”
    His eyes flashed, and his mouth opened ever so slightly. Did he think she was flirting?
    â€œI am under no circumstances flirting with you.” Nell’s voice was dry. “Do you understand?”
    Oliver flushed slightly and nodded.
    â€œGood.”
    Nell reached into her satchel and felt around for the hand. She fished it out from the depths, brought it into the light, and presented it to Oliver across her palms. He knitted his brow.
    â€œIs that a hand?”
    â€œYes,” Nell began, “and it’s the best thing I’ve ever found.”
    â€œWhy?” Oliver peered closer. “It’s . . . a mannequinif I’m not mistaken? Never would have been worn by a survivor of the epidemic, even in the worst of it. It’s a display piece.”
    â€œIt’s beautiful,” Nell said. A blush prickled at her cheeks.
    â€œWhat a strange piece to hang on to, Crane. Do you mind if I take a look at it?” Oliver wasn’t teasing her now; their swords were down. No combat. Just conversation.
    She hadn’t a moment to protest before he was holding it up to the light, examining it closely. He removed an eye loupe from his coat pocket and placed it between the lids of his right eye to get a better look, clearly scanning it for some distinctive marking or other. She considered him for a moment: his keen eye, his imagination for building things, his absurd dedication to courting her. Nell then thought of her drawings, her boy drawn out on cream paper on her desk. The hand’s specter, the boy that it wasn’t—the boy that it could be. His eyes, his nose, his hair billowing back from the invisible breezes in her paper world. Her choices were this possible boy, or Oliver.
    Her ticking spoke to her body in a low metronome. Oliver was all wrong. She should cut him loose. Being useful wasn’t justification for keeping him hanging on. It wasn’t fair.
    â€œIf you pulled it apart at each joint,” he was saying,“each knuckle, then each mound, then hollow out the palm, hide a battery in the center so nobody could see it, run a wire down the center of each finger, and attach the smallest hinges you have, I think you could make it walk.”
    Nell laughed despite herself. “Yeah, and what use would that be? I can hardly stand up in front of the council and present the Incredible Walking Hand. I’ve enough tiny machines to be toying with.”
    â€œI don’t envy you, Crane. You’ve a lot to live up to. I mean, Cora and the statue was one thing, but what Julian makes”—Oliver whistled, low—“they’re something else. I mean, just look at the walls. Look, you can see his marksmanship all over them; the rudimentary wooden home-brewed parts up there look like something a child made in comparison. His pieces are so intuitive. If they didn’t need a charge to sustain their movement, they