by D. M. Almond
CHAPTER 9
“Stop that, Logan Walker, you fresh little devil!” Maggie lightly slapped his hand away, blushing as she playfully shooed him back.
“Well, maybe not now then, Mag,” Logan said, noticing that the more he smirked, the redder her cheeks became.
Covering her smile, she gave a couple more flaps of her hand as she left the room. Not that it helped much. He could hear her giggling with the other healers down the hallway immediately after leaving.
Ah well, at least I tried, he thought, stretching his arms and legs out on the cot. All the strange medical equipment had been removed from his room now, leaving only the bare essentials behind. Logan sat up and looked around the room for his boots. He could not expect to sneak out of the place without boots now, could he?
No, definitely not, he decided, shaking his head while still wearing the smirk. Three days ago, he had been able to pry some information out of a porter. The man stopped in nightly to play a couple hands of cards with him, and until this point Logan had been too weak to make use of the info. However, today…today was different. He felt excellent, right back to his old self.
That thought stopped him short and he stared at the area where his hand had used to be. Well, except for my new friend, he thought. The healers had done their finest work to save his life and stop the bleeding, which the medi-gel only barely suppressed. They had tied up the broken nubs and gashes of his hand quickly enough, but the appendage was ruined beyond repair, fingers and knuckles left back in the carnage of the battle somewhere on the wall.
Once they had finished, the Elders personal bio-engineers rapidly took over. They worked methodically to install a new hand, first melding his nervous system to the cybernetic circuitry, then the vessels, muscle, and ligaments were all replaced with hydraulic pistons and gears. The new hand was covered with a soft, thin elastic coating. It looked metallic but felt slightly squishy. One of the older bio-engineers boasted that the coating was as strong as any steel blade and more than an adequate reward from the Council of Twelve for his heroic deeds.
Logan wiggled the fingers of the mechanical miracle, delighting in the spectacle of hydraulic drives seamlessly responding to his nervous system. He had never been one to dwell on the past, not since a tragedy in his youth robbed him of feeling. Initially, he had been quite distressed to find out his hand was gone, as was only natural. However, as the days passed, he realized his body was getting used to the new appendage and before he knew it, the new hand was something he was just accustomed to, functioning so naturally he began to forget it was even mechanical. He knew in his heart that he was more than fortunate to have received such an amazing gift.
“If only it wasn’t so damned shiny,” he lamented again, this time out loud. He had tried to coax them into coating it with a dermal layer like one of the nurses told him about, but the bio-engineer said the High Council would not authorize any further expense. The work they had already done was rare enough, only given to him as a reward for saving the capitol with his warning, and it was not as if he had the funds to pay for such an expensive procedure on his own.
He pulled a small pouch of gold and silver pieces from behind his pillow and grinned wolfishly. He might not have enough to buy a dermal layer, but the winnings he had taken from the porter were more than enough for a little something he had cooked up. If he had to live with a mechanical hand, he planned on having some minor adjustments made to it.
Logan peeked around the open doorway, looking up and down the corridor. His smile widened to find that his boots were resting on a pad just outside the door. Snatching them, he instantly went to work getting his things together, saving the black leather gloves that some of the nurses had pitched in to buy for him for last. Apparently, his ceaseless flirtations had paid off, though he would have preferred to have someone to share his time with. The gloves should disguise his hand just enough to blend in, as it was common knowledge that the young man who had saved the city now had a mechanical hand.
Another quick glance around the doorway into the corridor, to make sure no one was about, and Logan made a dash for the exit. If he did not take this opportunity, the chance might not come again, especially once his nagging little brother came to pick him up for their trip back to Riverbell.
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