by Pearl Foxx
Instead, Enver climbed the stairs, bypassed the fourth floor, and kept on going to the fifth floor, where Imogen sequestered herself when she wasn't out scavenging the deadlands. The door creaked open when he pushed it, and he could see the now familiar shape of the blonde girl sitting on the floor. Her skirts billowed around her legs, and the toes of her compound-issue boots stuck out of the edges. Her long sleeves were unbuttoned and pushed up to avoid mess while the high collar remained secured all the way to the top.
He peered around the room in amazement. She hadn’t noticed him there yet. She was so engrossed in her work and had something metallic stuck in her ear with a wire hanging down and attached to the machine she fiddled with. The room had been a storage area and had been covered in dusty empty shelves and boxes for years.
Enver never bothered to clear out the space, figuring if the third floor ever became overpopulated he could move patients up here, after a good cleaning of course. It never occurred to him there was another use.
Boxes laid open strewn across the room with their materials redistributed and stacked in like piles. Fabrics, machinery, even some furniture. But what astounded Enver most of all was what Imogen focused on so intently. He came up next to her, trying not to startle the girl and placed a cybernetic hand on her shoulder.
She looked up with a smile and pulled the metal piece from her ear.
“Isn’t it amazing?" she asked, as if he had any idea what she was talking about.
He nodded and squatted down next to her. The warmth of the room increased at the proximity of her body. Enver knew empirically that Imogen was attractive. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, the All-American farm girl thing that had all but disappeared in this day and age. Since she'd been in the dead lands, she had even developed a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
Sun damage was dangerous. The UV's shone too bright out here without shelter, but something about those little brown spots made his hardened heart flutter.
"Put this in your ear," Imogen said holding out the small black device.
"What is it? It’s not going to crawl inside and lay eggs in my brain is it?" Enver tried for a smile but managed only a weak excuse.
Imogen rolled her eyes, as she did often around Enver. He wondered if it was a habit of hers, or whether he was just particularly annoying.
"No, it's a microphone. Like the stethoscope you use downstairs to listen to patients, but listen. You can hear the interior workings of the machines if you send it to the right wavelength.
Enver placed the small thing in his ear, and Imogen placed the other end of the black wire against a small child's toy she found, an old X3 cybernetic pet designed to simulate what it must've been like when animals were more than just food. Enver listened and all he could hear was the clickety-clack of internal gears as they shifted toward their next command. Imogen placed a hand lightly on his and whispered, "Now listen deeper past the gears and commands. Listen to the heart of it.”
Enver had no idea what she was talking about. Listen past gears and commands. There wasn't anything to listen to. But with her hand on his, he couldn't help but try. He listened for a long moment and at her suggestion closed his eyes, but no matter what he did, he couldn't understand what she wanted to show him.
He took the receiver out of his ear and handed it back. “I'm sorry I don't hear it.”
"It's alive," Imogen said her face bright. “If you listen, if you slow down and really listen, there's more here than just gears, commands, and algorithms.”
Enver shook his head. "That's wishful thinking, cyborgs are nothing more than machinery. The only thing alive about us is what was left behind. The rest is no more human than that chair."
He stood up. "So, is this what you’ve been doing up here, listening to long extinct children's toys and coming up with new theories on the meaning of life?" He meant for it to come out teasing, but Imogen winced, and he knew he missed the mark. He had almost no social skills left after so many years alone.
Imogen took a deep breath and shook off the disappointed emotion that flickered across her face.
“No, come see." She stood in an easy fluid movement that reminded Enver of the way snipers could be in one place one second and then gone in the next without ever having made a noise. She pulled his attention towards the back of the room under the window she had clearly done her best to clean. He could still see the streak marks from her dry cloth as the sun filtered in.
The sun blasted the earth outside, but from in here, it’s rays felt good. And for a moment, Enver imagined he was a petal unfurling in its light. Under the window, on a desk, sat a contraption unlike anything he’d seen before. It had a solid base but was lopsided. Only one side rose up from the bottom and then arched over like a bridge but never connected back down to the base.
"What the hell is it?"
Imogen practically bounced, as she shoved him out of the way and pulled the chair out to sit. “A sewing machine,” she explained excitedly, and Enver shook his head.
“What are you talking about? We have industrial venders, or we can hand stitch up something with a rip. You said you did embroidery which is weird but pretty I guess.”
"Don't you understand? This warehouse is full of fabric. It's full of industrial fabric of all different thicknesses. We could make our own sheets, we could make our own blankets, we could make gowns for the patients to wear instead of having them walk around in their bloody clothes or worse wrapped up in a sheet. It wouldn't cost anything. I found everything I need to make it run, watch.”
Imogen slid into the chair and came close to the desk. She grabbed a piece of fabric sitting next to her that she had been working on and slipped it in the hole of the machine.
Enver frowned and crossed his arms across his chest. "We don't have the power to run machines that may or may not be useful."
Imogen beamed up at him, and her blue eyes sparkled in the dusty sunlight. In another life, he could imagine being attracted to her, leaning down and taking her heart-shaped face into his hands and placing a kiss on those excited lips. Instead he just frowned.
"I make my own electricity," Imogen said with a coy smile, and the next thing Enver knew the machine vibrated churning and whirling like a mod one cyborg and the fabric began to move.
"Under the table." Imogen commanded and Enver ducked his head. Her foot flew up and down rocking on her heel and whatever speed she moved her foot seemed to effect the motion of the needle up above.
"See? With the right machinery and counterweights, I was able to rig up a machine like we have on the compound. There's an old dry cleaner where I found thread and scissors and even more fabric. I've been wanting to make more clothes for myself, but with all this, there’s really nothing I can't make." She slowed her foot and the needle came to a stop, Imogen flung her leg around and stared up at Enver expectantly. “I can finally help," she said with earnest intensity.
Enver sat on the desk next to her contraption. “You already help. You help take care of the patients.”
Imogen lowered her head. "I know. I like taking care of the patients, but I want to do more. If I'm going to live here, I want to help make things better.
Enver couldn't stop the swell of emotion that filled his heart at the idea of someone wanting to not just do what they're told but actively contribute to running the ward. This place had been a dream for him. His two closest friends, Chance and Tane, had risked their finances helping him set it up, but the running of the place, the day-to-day management of personalities, injured cyborgs, and loved ones coming to search for them, it all fell to him.
He was glad to do it. Glad to offer some kind of service in honor of all his fallen military brothers and sisters whose families were never told what really happened to them. For all of the cyborgs who had been forced to serve a country that had no intention of welcoming them back home with a ticker-tape parade and a place in society. Some of those same cyborgs were the very people he now fixed up after the under
ground boxing matches at the Ball & Joint. Not that they ever let on that they recognized him. After what he had done, he couldn't blame them. This was his penance. Why would anyone want to live on the hell side of purgatory with him?
"I want to tell you that you don't have to, I want to tell you that you should do other things with your time, find someplace else to live."
Imogen's face fell as he spoke.
"But I can't. This is amazing. And I think you're right. It would really help things around here if we had a way to make it feel nice, new, and clean. Thank you, Imogen."
Her eyes filled with water but before Enver was tempted to say anything else, he turned on his heel and walked away.
Chapter 3
Imogen
Imogen couldn’t help but flit about the Ward, just at the outskirts of whatever task Enver was working on at the time. Tonight, he was scheduled to go into Cyn City for his job as a medic at the underground cyborg fights. She couldn’t decide how she felt about the fights one way or the other. They were illegal and immoral. But on the other hand, there was something exhilarating about the idea of cyberneticly enhanced war machines battling it out for love and honor.
She had always been a hopeless romantic. She had driven her best friend, Verity, crazy. Those romantic notions were exactly what had gotten her into trouble and landed her exiled and abandoned here.
"I told you, stop fluttering about like I'm gonna change my mind.” Enver didn't even look up when he spoke to her.
She set down the vidscreen she’d been pretending to chart her patients with and aimed her bright blue eyes directly at him. They had always been her secret weapon, a way to get out of any jam or into any trouble. "I won't be a bother. I'll just sit in the back."
"Oh, so you'll sit at the bar? You gonna drink tonight? They don’t let you just sit there unless you buy something."
Imogen pursed her lips. Enver knew full well she didn't drink. Although nothing in her upbringing strictly forbade it, losing control was against the tenant she's been taught as a child. No matter how much the people who taught those values had betrayed her, she couldn't turn her back on what she believed overnight.
"I didn't think so. So, you're gonna stand in the crowd and get pushed around by the cyborgs and humans screening for blood? Maybe, if you're lucky, you get hit in the head with a cybernetic eye?" Enver glared at her then, his narrow eyes scrunched with annoyance. “Plus, I have to ask around and see if there are any cynkers who can come back to fix that guy’s leg.”
"I just want to see," Imogen whined, the tone of her voice grating even her own ears. "I'm locked up in here all day every day. I just want a chance to go see something."
"Fine but not this." Enver said setting down his tablet and grabbing his jacket from the back of the stool he sat on. "And I don't know why you’re stir crazy. Verity comes to visit you all the time, and you have the patients to talk to. And God knows I can't stop you from going out into the deadlands no matter how many times I tell you not to. I think all that scavenging would give you more than enough entertainment.”
In a moment of pure honesty, Imogen blurted her real intentions. "But there aren’t any people."
Enver’s emotions flit across his face for just a moment before he locked them back up like a lid snapping closed over your fingers. "We'll find a time to go into the city, I promise. But not the fights. I don't think you understand just how unsafe it is.”
Imogen nodded but muttered under her breath. “You go. Verity goes."
Enver chuckled and glanced back at her as he exited the ward. “Yeah and look where that got your friend Verity. Almost killed. I can’t have your death on my conscience, too. Just stay here, we'll figure something out."
He strode out into the evening light.
Imogen remained on her stool, staring after him with a wistful desire that she would hear his motorcycle boots clomping back toward her and he'd open his arms and say screw it, let's go.
She smiled broadly at the idea. It wasn't so much Enver she wanted but freedom. She finally accepted that her life on the compound had been a kind of prison. And now she had traded one confined space for another, it gnawed at her temper.
In the distance she heard the motorcycle growl to life. The vibrations from its engine could be felt through the entire ward, but somehow the patients remained asleep and the injured didn't seem phased. In a world where it seemed like everything was trying to kill you, a noisy carburetor was probably the least of their problems.
What would it be like to ride on such a machine? To wear her sand goggles as the wind rushed past her face, her arms wrapped around Enver’s tight waist? The thought made her shiver. How extensive were his Cybernetics? How much man had remained behind the metal?
As Imogen mused, the cyborg in the bed behind her moaned.
She rushed to his side. “Are you all right? Are you in pain?”
The grizzled cyborg had graying hair at his temples and a permanent frown on his mouth. "Take it off. It fucking hurts." He said before moaning dramatically. "My leg, my leg is killing me."
He reached down to grip the offending appendage only to find his cybernetic enhancement. The look of horror on his face passed so quickly one might have missed it if they weren’t watching closely. In a split second, that man relived what had to be the hardest decision of his life.
"You gotta help me," he begged and writhed on the bed. He flailed throwing his arms back and his head back and forth, as if somehow that would help alleviate the horror. "It burns. My leg, it burns.”
How can it hurt so much when there's nothing there?
Imogen brought a cool washcloth to wipe his face. "Calm down," she cooed. "You're okay. Enver will be back later, and he’ll bring a cynker. I can get you some Advil or some acetaminophen."
She wished she had the key to the medicine cabinet, but Enver insisted that would only put her in danger. Cyborgs who came here may appreciate the help, but apparently, they weren't above biting the hand that healed them if it meant they could make some easy credit on the street or find that one perfect high...
Imogen did her best to soothe the man and bring the temperature down. She gave him the pain medicine she could find and brewed some White Willow tea mixed with cinnamon and ginger to hide the bitter taste. She mopped his wet brow until he fell into a fitful sleep, but the pain remained evident on his face. She could barely stand to be near him. Not because he was a cyborg, but because she hated to think of anyone being in that much pain.
She remembered the pain she'd been in when her family found out she’d gotten pregnant outside of wedlock. The pain from when the doctors there ripped her baby from her body. It wasn't the same, nothing could be the same as that, but her heart went out nonetheless. Once the residents of the Ward were all asleep for the night and she was alone with the barely coherent cyborg, she made her decision.
Enver's office was easy to open, a simple knob lock. And the medicine cabinet, for all of Enver's warnings about making sure things stayed secure, was a joke. It was barely more than a latch and the front of the cabinet was a thin plasteel that any street urchin could smash with enough effort. For all his talk, Enver didn't seem to be putting a lot of effort into keeping people from stealing what he had.
It made sense to her in a strange way, he seemed like someone who would give away his last dollar and then starve himself. The medicine cabinet cracked open and Imogen pulled out a glass vial labeled oxycodone. She used the old-fashioned needle to measure out the right amount, or what she estimated was appropriate for someone the cyborg’s size. She couldn’t be positive of his dosage. But she learned enough as a midwife to come close.
When she returned, the cyborg on the bed was having a fit of dreams. Crying out in pain. Fortunately, he wasn't conscious.
Imogen plunged the needle in his arm, dispensing the medication directly into the vein. She watched for a few moments as it worked its way through his system and calm overtook his features. Now maybe she could do somethi
ng that would really help them.
She ran upstairs to the fifth floor and retrieved a small box of items she'd been gathering. Even Enver didn't know about this collection. She hadn't even told Verity. When she came back down to the Ward, she pulled a tray over to the cyborg and settled herself in a chair near his leg.
She opened the box and laid out the content on the tray. Needle nose pliers, an Alan wrench, and a Sonic Welder—one of her more exciting finds when scavenging the deadlands.
She was sure the problem with the man's leg had less to do with how much pain he was actually in than how his nerve sensors were interfacing with his cybernetics. If wires got crossed and the wrong message was being sent, it could easily overheat a circuit and cause them to go into a kind of fight or flight mode.
With careful deft hands, Imogen felt around under the plesh sheltering the connection from the human body to the Cybernetics. She pulled it back as far as it would go without breaking and then thrust the needle nose pliers in the opening and pulled the cybernetic transmission box down where she could see it.
The man whimpered in his sleep, no doubt the pain substantial. But he didn't wake.
Imogen let out a sigh of relief as she began working on the small box that controlled the man's understanding of his injury. She didn't even know his name and here she was mucking around with his brain receptors.
Each person was placed on the earth at the exact time in the exact place where they were most needed. If she believed nothing else from her time on the compound she still believed that. And now her time was here, with an unknown cyborg who needed her help.
She lost herself in her work. Listening to the transmission box through her homemade stethoscope until it sang in perfect unity. She listened into the microscopic energy transmissions that flowed from the nerve sensors the nanites had built to the man's body.
Greece and synthoil covered her fingers from where it had leaked from broken parts or where used it as a lubricant. Her short hair fell into her eyes time and again until she finally just ran her hand through it allowing the goo to touch her. She could only imagine what her family on the compound would think, what Hiram, her betrothed would say. They would certainly laugh at her, this was no work for a proper woman. But the giddiness rising up in her chest as she inspected the newly functional cybernetic leg filled her with a joy and pride she’d never felt before.
