Cambria's Corner

I coughed and groaned, blinking the dust out of my eyes. 

The wall I had been thrown into was a pile of rubble around me, clouds of dust and debris clogging the air. I grabbed a chunk of the rubble and pulled myself to my feet, just in time for another impact to make me stagger backwards. 

Whatever hit me had caught me in the arm, about at the elbow. I looked down and saw sparks fizzling from my wires. I quickly shut off the pain receptors in my arm – I needed to focus right now. 

I lowered myself into a combat stance as I saw my opponent approaching. The woman was rushing towards me at full, augmented speed. We had already been fighting for what had felt like hours, and I had dealt enough of my own blows to leave her looking as beat up as I felt. She was missing an arm too, and an eye. I could see the exposed, metallic endoskeleton of her ribcage, and sparks fizzling where I had dealt enough damage. If I was quick, and clever, I could end this right here.

I dropped lower and kicked off the rubble behind me. I slid forward on one knee as the woman rushed me, and I saw her one remaining eye widen in surprise. When I was close enough, I kicked off the ground and collided with her ribs where I could see her endoskeleton, shoulder first. The augmented joints in my legs strained with effort, and I felt the titanium-alloy bones in my shoulder chip and break as I punched through her ribcage.

I felt the air rush out of her lungs, and I reached up and lifted her off of me. I laid her gently on the ground next to me and immediately checked her over with my cybernetic implants. Heart, functional. Left lung destroyed, right functional. Nervous system damaged, especially around the lower spine, but it could be repaired. She would live. Good. I didn’t need another death on my conscience.

I groaned and stumbled backwards, sitting on the rubble to catch my breath. I ran a diagnostic of my own systems as I did. My right arm was missing, of course. The shoulder was also more or less destroyed, the bone shattered into at least a dozen pieces. I had dozens of minor fractures, the skin over most of my legs was stripped away, and two – no, three – vertebrae were cracked, probably from the impact against the wall. 

All in all, not too bad.

I walked over and picked up what I could salvage of the arm that had been blown off. Rosa would be pissed if I showed up without it.

I glanced around and turned on my navigation implants. I had to tweak the settings a bit to compensate for damages, but a path over the rubble and onto the rooftops highlighted itself in my vision. I redirected a bit of power from my right arm and the less necessary parts of my brain and into my legs and remaining arm, and set off across the city towards Rosa’s.

One of the best parts of my augmentations was the ability to turn down the parts of my brain that only slowed me down in situations like this. My focus was completely on movement, blindly set to follow the path before me, with just enough left remaining aware to watch for threats and know when I arrived. I didn’t have to think about what I had just done, or how mad Rosa was going to be, or what the next few weeks would be like now that that particular encounter was over.

Before I knew it, my automated restore features began kicking in and the power redistributed properly across my body. It was dangerous to keep parts of my brain unpowered as they could atrophy without it, and I had already been pushing my limits the past few days. I was almost to Rosa’s, anyway. No need to push it further.

As I ran though, I felt the bad thoughts begin to creep in. I was nervous. About how Rosa would react to me being damaged again, about the other Aug and whether she would be okay, about the hornet’s nest I had probably just kicked… My heart wouldn’t stop racing, and it wasn’t because of the exertion.

I landed on the roof of her place, harder than I meant to. I felt the joints in my knees groan with the strain as I impacted. The augments added a lot of weight, and even my joints couldn’t always keep up, especially after all the stress of today. I turned down the pain receptors in my legs, which was probably not a good idea, but I was here already anyway. 

I walked up to the rooftop door and stuck my detached arm out to scan the chip embedded in the wrist. The doorpad beeped and I heard a soft click as the door unlocked. I took a deep breath, still trying and still failing to calm my heart, and headed inside.

“Rosa?” I called out as I entered. There was no response. I slowly walked down the stairs and opened the door to the workshop proper, and was immediately overwhelmed with sensations. The whirring of machines nearly deafened me, the harsh lights of her workshop brighter than the midday sun, and the smell of her signature chilaquiles filled my nostrils. I realized I had forgotten to turn down my senses after the fight, and quickly rectified that. 

Rosa was bent over a machine bench, working on something. She was holding some kind of tool that was the source of most of the noise. It seemed like she hadn’t heard me enter. 

I waited for a lull in her work, and when she set the tool down and started muttering something to herself I called out again. 

“Rosalyn,” I said, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“¡Puta madre, Alicia! Don’t scare me like that!”

I laughed a bit. “I didn’t want to mess up your work.” I held up my disconnected arm. “It happened again.”

She swore again and came rushing over to me. “Are you okay? What happened exactly? What is functioning and what isn’t?” She dragged me over to a table and sat me down, pulling out a multiscanner and assessing the damage. I already felt better, just seeing her, and letting her fret over me.

“I’m okay,” I answered, and she shook her head. I continued anyway. “I got into a fight. You should see the other girl.” She didn’t look amused. “My body is functional, but my entire right arm is kaput, a few vertebrae are cracked, I lost a bunch of skin, and I’ve got dozens of smaller damages.”

“Wounds, Alicia. You can call them wounds.” I shifted uncomfortably, and she gently smacked the back of my head. “Stop moving, dummy. I need you still.” She tsked as her scanner did its work. “I keep telling you you need to be more careful.”

“Tell that to the other Augs.” She muttered something under her breath that I couldn’t hear with my muted senses. “Can you fix me?”

“Of course I can fix you.” She anticipated my next question before I could ask it. “And of course I will. But I’m gonna have to cut off most of your power. And it’ll take a while.”

“Okay, do it. I need to be ready.”

“Alicia…”

“I know, Rosa. But you know as well as I do that I don’t get to just be done.”

She sighed. “I know, my love,” she replied, and kissed me. “But I hate seeing you like this.”

“One day, this will all be over,” I said, pressing my forehead against hers. “And we’ll both get to stop this.”

She took my hand and squeezed it. “Okay,” she said after a few moments. “Turn around, I have to open you up.”

I obliged, already diverting power to my brain, face, and left hand, and turning down my pain sensors at the same time. I needed to be able to talk to her and use my hand, but I didn’t need to feel as she opened me up from my spine. 

Turning off the pain didn’t turn off all sensation, though, and I felt the cold of her scalpel as it opened up a slit down my back. She reached for a tool that was just a bit too far away, and I reached out and slid it towards her. “Okay, now don’t move,” she said as she reached inside my body with the tool. I felt a jolt rocket through my whole body and then… nothing. All the sensation and control of my body was gone, except for the parts I had just stored power in. 

Rosa tsked again from behind me. “These are a little bit more than cracks, mi amor. How were you even still moving?”

I tried to shrug, but then remembered my body didn’t exactly work at the moment. “I dunno. Rerouted power into my legs, I think the endoskeleton did a lot of the work.”

She sighed again. “That means your legs are probably gonna need refits, too.”

“Yeah.”

There were a few moments of silence as she fiddled with my spine, probably examining the broken vertebrae.

“Rosa?”

“What is it, love?”

“Why do you keep agreeing to do this?”

She paused her work. “Because I love you. And I know you aren’t going to stop. And I wouldn’t trust anyone else to fix you up instead.”

“But you know I wouldn’t go to anyone else. I couldn’t trust anyone else. If you just refused to help, I’d have to stop.”

“Would you be okay with that?”

It was my turn to pause. “No. No, I don’t think so.”

“So, I have to.” There was silence for a few more moments as she finished shutting down my systems. “I’m gonna lay you down.”
“Mmkay,” I said, and helped out with my functional arm as she laid me down on my stomach. 

Rosa pulled out some more tools and opened up more parts of my body. I couldn’t do much of anything except lay there as she worked on me, and my mind began to wander.

Rosa and I had met a few years ago, soon after I got my first augments. She had met me, really. I’d been in an alley, my body badly damaged after a fight. I had taken so much damage that my body had entered a dormant state to preserve my vital organs. She had patched me up, and since then she had been the only person I knew I could trust and count on. It wasn’t like she approved of what I was doing, but I knew she would always be there to patch me up.

A series of whirs and thunks brought me out of my memories and back to the present. Rosa had replaced the damaged vertebrae, and I felt some sensation rush back into my body. I quickly turned my pain receptors back down before they kicked in.

“You really did a number on these,” she said, her hands on my legs. I didn’t miss the disapproval in her voice.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Sorry.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her shake her head. “Don’t apologize. I’ll take care of it.”
“I know.”

She stepped over to a shelf next to the table to grab some supplies. She set them down next to me, but before she started she pulled over a chair and sat looking at me, our eyes level. 

She took my hand in hers and kissed my forehead. “I’m gonna get started on your legs now. You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.” She squeezed my hand again and grabbed her tools.

My body was numbed, but not sensationless. I could sense her hands working on my body. She slid her fingers up and down my legs as she traced the wiring inside my body. Her fingers slid beneath my skin and traced the patterns of my wiring, and I felt her hands brush over the circuits and bones of my body’s structure and brush over the remaining skin on my thighs and hips. Her hands were calloused and warm, but her touch was soft and gentle.

I felt the cold pressure as she opened up the skin at my hips to get at the joints and connectors within me. She murmured soothingly as her fingers worked their way deeper into my body. 

“Are you ready?” she said, and after I grunted out a yes, she disconnected my legs.

Even with my pain receptors down as far as they could go, it hurt. I knew that she had to get power flowing back through my spine and into my legs to get them to release the old parts, but damn did it hurt to have them taken off. 

“You’re doing so well,” she said soothingly, and squeezed my hand again. I felt waves of… not exactly pain, but not exactly not pain either, from where my legs now ended. I had complete faith in her, but a primal, animal part of my brain was terrified anyway. I couldn’t move, could barely even feel. I was totally at her mercy. 

Rosa moved around the table and took off my shoulder, too. The ruined pieces of my arm she set aside with my legs, and it dismayed me a bit more than I would’ve liked to admit, seeing how much of the arm was missing.

She reached into the stumps of my legs and arm and tweaked a few wires, and the discomfort faded. “I disconnected the power, so they shouldn’t hurt for now. I’m gonna have to work on your legs a bit to fix them. Your arm I’m gonna have to replace. Want me to close you back up for now so you can sit up?”

“How long is it gonna take?” 

“Dunno. Could be 20 minutes, could be a few hours.”

“Then yeah, close me up.” She nodded, and did so. 

I let the power flow back through my body, and she helped me sit up on the edge of the table. 

“Easy, now, love,” she said softly into my ear as she held me upright. “Take your time.” I fought through the dizziness as my body adjusted, and she smoothed out my hair and wiped some dirt from my face as I recovered. “You did great. Feeling okay?”

I nodded. “A little woozy, but no pain.” I flexed my existing hand and moved the muscles in my face and stomach. “Everything else seems to be working fine too.”

She nodded back and kissed me. “Good. Let me get you something to eat and drink and then I’ll start on your legs.”

“Mkay,” I said, still fighting off some blackness at the edge of my vision. She came back a few moments later with a bowl of the chilaquiles I smelled earlier and a tall glass of ice water. I drank the water greedily. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was. The food was delicious too, of course, but I wasn’t as hungry as I was thirsty. Benefits of an augmented stomach, I suppose.

Rosa sat next to me and wrapped an arm around me, using her other hand to snag a few bites from my bowl. I leaned my head against her shoulder and we sat there in silence for a few moments, just enjoying each other’s touch. I tried not to worry. I failed. 

It almost seemed like she was reading my mind. “Are you worried about that other Aug?” she asked, her voice soft and gentle.

“Yeah. I know I didn’t have much of a choice, but…” I sighed. “And don’t even get me started on what else this is gonna mean.”

“Yeah,” she said, and kissed the top of my head. “I hate to see this part, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is so difficult for you,” she replied. “I can tell how much doing this hurts you, and scares you.”

“Yeah.”

“You can talk to me. If you want to. I can’t say I’ll be able to relate, but I’ll listen.”

I smiled softly, and pulled my head away to look in her eyes. “I know. Thank you.”

She kissed me and put a hand on my cheek. “Of course.”

She squeezed my hand and stood. “I’m gonna go get started on your repairs. Need anything else?”

“Mmm. Could you get me a book?” She nodded and grabbed a volume from the bookshelf on the other side of the room. She set it next to me and kissed the top of my head. “Thanks,” I said.

“Mhm,” she responded, and squeezed my shoulder with her hand. 

For a while, I sat and read, and ate my food, while she worked. It was calm. Peaceful. I treasured these moments. I didn’t have much time for peace, but I could find it with Rosa. Every so often she came over to check and make sure I was doing okay or to take a quick measurement, or sometimes just to give me a kiss or squeeze my hand.

After a while, I started to grow bored of reading, so I put my book down and just watched her. She was so intensely focused on her work that she didn’t even notice my gaze on her. She was singing softly under her breath as she worked. I turned my hearing up a bit to listen in, but she was singing in Spanish and I only caught a few words here and there.

Eventually, she glanced up and noticed me staring. “What?” she asked, and to my surprise she seemed slightly embarrassed.

“Just watching you,” I replied, and I noticed some color rush to her cheeks. I grinned, and she sheepishly returned to her work.

I finished my food and went back to my book while she finished on my legs. Before long, I heard her say “Okay, done!” and she stood. I closed my book and turned to face her.

She came over, carrying both of my legs in her arms. She set them down gently on the table next to me. “You ready?”

I nodded, and helped ease me back down onto the table. I turned down the nerves in my spine and stumps, just like before, and I felt the cold pressure as she opened up my back and legs. In spite of my numbing, I could still feel her hands running up and down and inside my body. Her fingers worked their way into my wiring and structure, and I could feel the pressure of her hands on my back and legs. She fiddled around for a few moments, and then I felt her hand on my upper back, where I hadn’t numbed my nerves.

She leaned in close. “I’m gonna reconnect them now, okay?” I nodded, and braced myself. She kissed the top of my head softly, and made the connection.

Disconnecting the limbs was painful. But reconnecting them was far from it. It was a euphoric sort of pleasure that I felt rush from where the leg connected to my hip up and then back down my body. I felt my body tense as it wracked through me, and I was dimly aware of Rosa stroking my hair and whispering soothingly into my ear. Just as it began to subside, it hit me again, from the other leg this time. I gasped for air as it faded away, and I felt her quickly closing me back up. 

My body was trembling, but Rosa worked fast. WIthin a few seconds, she had closed me up and was stroking my hair again. She sat on the edge of the table and pulled my head onto her lap, singing softly in Spanish as she ran her fingers through my hair. When the trembling subsided, she put a hand on my chin to meet my eyes with hers.

“You did so good, baby,” she cooed, and stroked my cheek. “I know that’s a lot, but you did wonderful.” I flushed a bit, in spite of myself, and she smiled down at me. “You want to sit back up?”

I nodded, and she helped me wobble to a sitting position. I leaned my head against her shoulder, and she wrapped an arm around me and kissed the top of my head. 

“Rosa?” I asked, after a while.

“Yes, Alicia?”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to-”

“I know. But I will anyway.”

I felt her shoulders rise and fall as she laughed. “I know.” She kissed the top of my head again. “If you don’t mind waiting a bit for your new arm, I could use a bit of a break.”

“I don’t mind,” I said, pressing my body against hers. “As long as I can be with you.”

“God you’re adorable.” I flushed, and she stood, reaching out a hand to help me stand. “Legs feel okay?”

I took a few steps back and forth, hopped in place a few times. “Yeah, they feel perfect.”

She nodded, and smiled. “Good. Now c’mon, let’s find a holo to watch.”

I smiled back and followed into the next room, lacing my fingers through hers. And for the first time in hours, my heartbeat was back to normal.