The Bionics (The Bionics Series Part 1) by Alicia Michaels Page A

will hurt for hours after I put it in.
    The single, glass lens protects my bionic eye from the police scanners , which are capable of detecting hardware like mine, and keeps me safe while I’m walking the streets with Dax . There is no protection for my robotic arm, except for the polyurethane glove the Professor constructed for me to wear over it. It looks like my other hand and seals over the skin right above my elbow, where the titanium an d gadgetry end and I begin. It repels water , is heat and cold resistant and , more importantly, keeps me looking like the other ‘ normies ’ .
    After a minute or two, the excruciating pain in my left eye socket fades to an annoying throb. While the actual eyeball doesn’t hurt, the lids do , as well as the nerves attached to the damn thing, and I hate wearing the thick, glass lens. By luncht ime it’ll be an irritating itch and by the time I’m ready to take it off, I’ll have gotten used to it. I slip my digital watch on and grab my bag before returning to the master bedroom, throwing it into my pack. I roll my blanket up and slide that in there as well.
    4:20 a.m . B etter get a move on.
    Dog is sitting beside the door on his haunches, waiting patiently for me to open it . As soon as I do, he’s rushing to the living room to greet Dax , who is si tting on the couch in front of the television. The sleek sofa is the only piece of furniture left in the room. The remnants of the family that once occupied it are scattered across the floor. Broken photo frames, forgotten children’s toys, and articles of clothing tell the story of a family recently terrorized by the government and Military Police. The television is working just fine , though, even if it isn’t one of those sensory stimulating models they have in those big cities that are still standing. Those babies have picture so colorful and sound so realistic that you’d swear the actors of your favorite shows were right there in your living room. You can smell what the TV chefs are cooking and the fabric softener in commercials full of smiling people and soft towels. I step over a broken va se and dodge a disembodied baby doll head, dodging the debris scattered around the room like landmines until I reach the kitchen.
    Dax has, in his usual fashion, made the most of what we found when coming upon this house the night before. He’s located and cleaned a few pans , plates, cups and utensils and raided the fridge.
    “Fresh eggs?” I ask as I dig into the pan he’s left on the stove. The eggs are still warm and are mixed with bits of Dax’s rationed beef jerky. “Potatoes?” I scoop some of those onto my plate too and eye the orange concoction in a glass pitcher on the counter with awe. “Is this real orange juice?”
    “The house couldn’t have been vacant for more than a few days before we showed up,” Dax said from where he sat on the couch, glued to the news. “The expiration date on that orange juice was for a week from now. And the potatoes aren’t real, but the eggs are , so eat up. ”
    We fall into silence again as I sink down onto the sofa beside him, sitting my orange juice glass on the floor between my feet . I dig into my eggs and groan aloud with ecstasy. It’s been months since I’ve eaten real eggs. Food that isn’t biologically engineered is hard to come by, which tells me this family ha d money. However, their wealth obviously wasn’t enough to save them from what happened here before we arrived. Despite the beef jerky, which is an odd mix with the eggs, I wolf my breakfast down pretty quickly, content to let Dax finish watching the broadcast in peace.
    Silence between Dax and me is comfortable, which is good because I’m not much for talking unless I have something to talk about. Dax knows this about me and understands that my silence isn’t always a bad thing. After I’m done eating, I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He is leaning back comfortably , his long legs spread with Dog