Girl of Flesh and Metal

by Alicia Ellis

  “My assistants—”

  My mother broke in before Fisher could finish. “I’m sure your assistants are very capable, but I want you overseeing every step of her therapy.”

  “Of course. I’m sure I can find time to spend with both the Model Ones and your daughter. She’s a high priority.”

  “She’s your only priority.”

  Dr. Fisher nodded, but the way her jaw tensed told me she had a lot more to say on the subject.

  My father pushed up from his seat. When he stood right next to me, legs brushing the bed, I had to crane my neck back to see his face. At six feet tall, in his impeccable suit with straight dark hair and prematurely gray strands, my dad struck an imposing figure. Even now, with his face ashen instead of its usual tan, his presence commanded respect. I held back the rest of my questions and waited for him to speak.

  “You’re going to be fine.” His voice held so much confidence that, for once, I was grateful he was in control. “You’ll work with the doctors here. Soon, you’ll be as good as new.”

  Despite his words, I would never be as good as new. From this point forward, I’d never again be a complete me.

  3

  “Is it always going to jerk around like that?” I asked Ron.

  I’d been awake for a few days, and by now, I had learned which of Dr. Fisher’s assistants was which. Ron was the one who wore glasses, black plastic ones that looked simultaneously cool and nerdy. I suspected Dr. Fisher still hadn’t figured out that mystery, because I had yet to hear her call either of them by name.

  “You’re making great progress,” Ron said. “Each time you move it, the arm is learning how your brain impulses translate into action. You’ll be up and running in no time.”

  My nose wrinkled at his words—up and running. They made it sound like I was some kind of machine.

  I gritted my teeth and bent my elbow. My hand jumped toward me. I dodged to one side to avoid hitting myself in the face. Ron snorted, barely containing his laughter. When I shot him a glare, the resistance fell, and he let out a loud guffaw.

  Under Ron’s watchful eye, I sat on a cushioned weight bench in CyberCorp’s makeshift physical-therapy room. The place looked like a cross between a gym and an office. It held the usual gym equipment: weight benches, free weights lining a mirrored wall, and a few adjustable workout machines. A desk occupied one corner of the room, and a small vid-screen faced the chair behind it.

  Just like in my assigned room, vid-screens covered every wall. Today, the screens showed a snowy terrain with tall mountains in the distance. I didn’t think it was the best choice to create a calming atmosphere. Mostly, it made me feel cold.

  I’d spent the first hour of this physical-therapy session staring down at my arm and willing it to move, only to have it ignore me. At first, my elbow wouldn’t bend, and the fingers wouldn’t curl. As thanks for all my hard work, my shoulder throbbed, but I’d managed to get the arm to move.

  My most recent attempt brought the day’s total to six bicep curls—meaning six times I had almost hit myself in the face. Lucky for me, I succeeded in actual impact only the first time, and I was too busy celebrating having moved my arm to be upset that I nearly skewered an eye.

  “You have my pills?” I let my arm hang at my side. The pain in my shoulder worsened by the second, and a headache was blooming at the base of my neck.

  He extracted a bottle of pills from his pocket and tapped one into my right hand. I popped it in my mouth and swallowed without water. The pain never went away, but in a few minutes, it would lessen to a dull ache. I looked forward to that.

  “You’re doing great.” Ron’s face lit up with sincerity.

  I figured the enthusiasm was meant to keep me motivated. Mostly, it just reminded me that six reps with zero pounds was now a reason for excitement. Lucky me.

  “Is your mom still coming by?” He shot a look at the closed door leading into the physical-therapy room. “Weren’t you expecting her about ten minutes ago?”

  “She wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it, so I told her not to worry.” Despite my words, I glanced at the door too.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead, and Ron handed me a water bottle. By instinct, I gripped it in my left, my dominant hand. It took me a second to realize what I’d done, and I couldn’t help the smile from spreading across my face.

  “I’m holding the bottle!” Now it was me who sounded too enthusiastic about minimal progress. My smile withered and died when I tried to raise the water to my mouth. With a frustrated grunt, I passed it to my right hand and took a swig.

  “I promise you,” Ron said, “this will get better. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “What about Jackson? Is he going to be fine too?” My chest constricted every time I thought of him stuck in that coma—where I’d put him.

  “I checked on him for you this morning. Still asleep. Sorry.” He patted my shoulder, but his sympathy did nothing to ease the guilt.

  I took another gulp of water. “Can’t we just modify my arm’s programming to make this easier?”

  “Yes, but we’re not going to. It’s calibrated based on your height, weight, and muscle mass. Once it learns how you operate, it will be just as strong as your right arm. If we change the strength specs, eventually the arm will get too strong. This is a learning process. Be patient.”

  I hated patience. “How often does CyberCorp do this medical-type stuff?”

  “It used to be pretty rare, but they’re doing it more and more often now. Mostly charity cases because low-income patients are happy to try out early models. It’s more aggressive treatment than their insurance would cover, but from us, it’s free.”

  “So you guys have done a lot of arms like mine?”

  “Not that I know of. Up until now, we’ve dealt with smaller medical devices. Replacement joints—that kind of thing, none of them artificially intelligent.” Ron paused and licked his lips. “My mother had treatment here four years ago. Cancer. They used nanobots—incredibly tiny devices—to attack the cancerous cells.”

  “Really?” I leaned forward in my seat. “Is she . . . How did the surgery go?”

  His jaw tightened. “Not well. She died soon after.”

  My eyes widened.

  He gave an awkward laugh and a smile that looked like the edges were glued upright. “The bots didn’t kill her. Cancer did.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too. My dad took her death really hard. The nanobots got his hopes up.”

  The sound of a door opening came from behind me. I twisted in my seat, expecting to find my mother there. Instead, Dr. Fisher stood in the doorway. She waved Ron toward her. Her other assistant, Simon, stood at her side, his hand-screen open at his fingertips and tilted toward the doctor. Her gaze settled on me briefly before shifting back to Ron, without even a nod of recognition.

  “I’ll be right back.” Ron hurried toward Dr. Fisher and Simon.

  While I waited for him to return, I picked up my own hand-screen. An alert blinked in the corner, informing me that Philip Pollock had posted a new audio program online. An anti-technology activist, Pollock kept his listeners in the know about happenings at CyberCorp and other tech companies.

  I pressed a button on the side of the device, and an earpiece popped out. I stuck it in my ear, so I could hear the program without subjecting everyone in the room to the noise.

  “. . . contrary to nature. Not only is technology in direct opposition with nature, but it has evolved to bring out the worst in us. It makes us greedy and selfish, makes us tear down natural forests, build atop natural deserts. We are the destroyers of this world. I’m not saying we should get rid of it completely and return to the dark ages. But a medium needs to be found—a balance between progress and nature . . .”

  I found myself nodding along with Pollock’s words. Historically, I didn’t agree with everything he said. He’d introduced me to issues that came along with advancing technology, and I respected the
man—idolized him, really. But these days, he seemed just as concerned with smearing tech enthusiasts as he did with promoting his cause.

  Today, though, his words hit the mark. We are the destroyers of this world. CyberCorp had certainly managed to destroy my world, first with its auto-drive technology and now with my atrocity of an arm. Sure, I’d played a role in the accident too, but it would never have happened without CyberCorp’s tech.

  “My sources have confirmed that Lena Hayes, daughter of CyberCorp moguls Tom and Marissa Hayes, was in a serious car accident several weeks ago . . .”

  My breath caught as I waited for him to tell the world about my cybernetic arm. He would make me an outcast, a target of the anti-tech community I respected so much.

  “I want to know why the Model One rollout has not been postponed in light of this accident. Lena Hayes was in a coma for weeks, presumably on the edge of life and death. Yet her parents carry on business as usual. Why? Because technology is more important than humanity, more important than their own child. When I tell you, time after time, that one of the many evils of technology is its ability to push us farther and farther apart, this is what I mean: technology over humanity.”

  I exhaled. He hadn’t mentioned my arm, and it didn’t sound like he knew. CyberCorp employees all signed strict confidentiality agreements, and it looked like the staff I worked with kept their word. No one would know about my arm—until I rejoined the world outside this building.

  When this got out, Pollock would have a lot more to say about my accident and how my parents were handling it. He would make me a target of anti-tech fanatics just to make my parents look bad. As a girl who was now part machine, I represented everything Pollock—and I—hated about technology.

  The conversation between Ron, Dr. Fisher, and Simon went on longer than I expected, still in progress when the audio program ended five minutes later. The doctor was now pointing back and forth between Simon’s hand-screen and me. I couldn’t hear her words.

  Only one other patient shared the gym with us this morning. A boy with longish dark hair, badly in need of a cut. He sat on a weight machine, working his right leg. In long gym shorts, most of the leg remained hidden. And most of it looked human, unlike my new arm. But a small metal square graced the side of his right knee.

  Each time the boy kicked his foot to extend the leg, a thirty-pound stack of weights lifted on the machine. Sweat popped out on his forehead.

  With each kick, he murmured a number. When he reached fifteen, he stopped, and his body slumped. The leg hung beneath him, and the stack of weights slammed back into place. The boy swiped up a bottle of water from the floor. He took a series of long gulps and then tossed the bottle back on the floor, where it rolled before stopping.

  His gaze followed it and then kept going until it landed on me. He caught me staring at him.

  He squinted while he examined my left arm. I wished I’d worn long sleeves. I still couldn’t imagine going out in the world and showing it off. Part of me wanted to insist they keep me here until they deemed me ready for new skin, but a louder part of me wanted to get as far away from this cursed building as possible.

  Undeterred by my scowl, the boy sauntered toward me.

  “I’m Hunter,” he said.

  Despite his dark hair, he had a fair complexion, the kind that probably burned if he got too much sun. A royal blue T-shirt sporting the Superman emblem draped his lean frame. His lopsided smile revealed a dimple on only his right cheek.

  I’d lost my arm, and this boy couldn’t seem to stop himself from grinning.

  I kept my expression placid. “Lena.”

  “I know who you are.” I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but the smile got wider. He had great teeth, straight and white but way too happy.

  “Do I know you?”

  “I transferred to Hanover on scholarship last semester. I sat in front of you in Calculus.” He spun around to offer me a view of the back of his head. “Recognize me now?” he asked after turning to face me again.

  My mouth twitched downward. “Still no.”

  “They fitted you for a new arm?” He pointed at my left hand, which hung motionless at my side.

  “Yep.” Why did he bother to phrase it like a question when the answer was obvious?

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t you know it’s rude to just ask people about their injuries?” I pushed all the scorn I could manage into my tone. If I was lucky, he’d go back to his side of room, and I could get on with my daily torture ritual without his incessant glee making it worse.

  No such luck.

  “I got a new knee.” He pointed—proudly—at the metal plates on the sides of his right knee. “I was hit by a car when I was ten, been through four different surgeries and a couple years in a wheelchair since then. This was my first procedure with CyberCorp.” He bounced up and down, flexing his legs. “Feels fantastic. What your parents do is amazing.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Amazing.”

  I envied his knee. It improved his life without artificial intelligence. His head had no chip in it, eavesdropping on his brain signals and sending signals of its own. I fully supported the use of prosthetics, but I wanted to be the one in control—not artificial intelligence. The AI in my arm changed a useful thing into something unhuman.

  “I guess I should get back to my rehab,” I added.

  “I’m done for the day. But I’m a pro at this rehab thing, so if you want to talk . . .” He withdrew a pen from his pocket and lifted my right arm—the one that was still human. His grip around my palm came with surprising confidence.

  I yanked my hand away and clutched it close to my stomach. “What are you doing?”

  “Sorry.” He mumbled something unintelligible and then added, “I was just going to write my phone number.”

  He finally dropped the silly smile, and somehow, I preferred him with it. So I stuck my hand back out toward him. “It’s fine.”

  He touched my wrist more lightly this time, like he feared he’d spook me. On my palm, he wrote out the digits while I ransacked my head for words to shatter the silence.

  “Call me if you want to talk,” he said as he returned my hand. “See you around.”

  He ambled toward the door, his steps deliberate, favoring his right leg. Just before he exited, he glanced over his shoulder at me. I silently cursed myself that he caught me staring for a second time. He gave me that tilted grin again, then limped out of view.

  Ron finished his conversation with Dr. Fisher, who nodded her goodbye and escaped the room with Simon. Before returning to our torture session, Ron pulled a hand-screen from his pocket and stretched the display to its full size.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  With my right index finger, I pointed at my left shoulder. “Missing an arm.”

  He ignored my snark. “Dr. Fisher suggested we make a few tweaks to your programming.”

  He reached to the interior side of my bicep and pressed the small button there. The compartment slid open below it. Ron gestured for me to lift my arm, so he could access it. My ID chip still sat in the interior storage space. Next to it was a small outlet for a rectangular plug.

  “Dr. Fisher said your mom’s not going to make it down.” He slid a cable from his hand-screen into the outlet.

  “Yeah, of course.” I bit my lip and bobbed my head up and down, so he’d know I was fine. Of course, I couldn’t have expected my mom to drop everything to check on me. I’d see her late tonight, when she wrapped up her work for the day.

  Now connected to my arm, Ron’s hand-screen displayed bold letters reading PROTOTYPE INTERFACE, with the smaller words Enter Password below them. He angled the device away from me while he typed the password. The image on the screen changed to a list of file names. They filled the screen, and Ron scrolled down to find the one he was looking for.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Dr. Fisher agrees with you that your arm should be
stronger than it is. Since we’ve never produced anything like this before, there’s going to be a little trial and error. It’ll still take hard work from you to get it to full strength. But since your left is your dominant side, we can up the power a little and see how that goes.”

  “So it’ll be easier to lift things after you do this?”

  “After this modification, I think we can bump you up from no weight to two-pound free weights.”

  “Oh wow,” I mumbled. “Lucky me.”

  He pressed the surface of the hand-screen to open one of the files. The display filled with program code that made my arm operate—or not operate given how useless it was at the moment. He changed a few lines in that file, paused, and then deleted several lines in another.

  The word COMPILING popped onto the screen with a progress bar beneath it. A few seconds later, the display switched to INSTALLING and a new progress bar.

  A small red light lit up on my palm. Surprised, I tried to jerk the arm toward me, but it didn’t budge. It had shut down.

  Panic tore a path through my insides. As much as I hated having this thing attached to me, the thought of the alternative—having no arm—terrified me.

  The hand-screen beeped when the progress bar reached a hundred percent, and the red light went out. I tried to move the arm again. It whipped up toward me and slammed into my left cheekbone. I shrieked and, instinctively, went to cover the spot—succeeding in slamming myself in the face a second time.

  “Whoa, whoa.” Ron grabbed my wrist to stop me from pummeling myself a third time. “Relax.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He released the limb, and it dropped to my side.

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s get back to work. Grab those.” He pointed to a pair of bright-pink two-pounders that sat atop the row of free weights lining the wall.

  I didn’t move. “Why does Dr. Fisher hate me so much?”

  “She doesn’t hate you. And this isn’t relevant to your therapy.”

  “Sure it is. Most of my therapy is mental. You’ve said that like five times today. You can improve my mental state by telling me why Dr. Fisher looks like I’m wasting her time.”