#bionic enhancements

There was no pain, either. He reached for his shoulder with his left hand.

“Whoa, wait,” Todd said, seizing Marcus’s wrist. “Not yet. Like I told you, it’ll be about twenty-four hours before the tissue fully grows to fuse with the arm. You’ve got a sling on for now, okay? That sound good?”

Marcus swallowed tightly. His eyes slowly focused on Todd’s face, hovering a few inches above his own. “Why do I feel so weird?” he croaked.

“I ended up sedating you,” Todd said, releasing Marcus’s wrist. “You don’t remember that? You started to pass out and… and panic, I guess. I couldn’t manage both you and the install. I asked you if I could… you said—”

The memory flashed behind Marcus’s eyes, here and gone in an instant.

“D-do whatever the fuck you… fuck, I… I can’t… Jake…”

He nodded weakly. “I let you,” he said. “I remember.”

Todd let out a breath. “Yeah. I didn’t… I didn’t… force…”

Marcus’s eyes pricked with tears, with relief. “Y-yeah,” he said softly. “I know.” He glanced down at his… at his one remaining flesh-and-blood arm. He was still receiving fluids through an IV taped to the inside of his elbow. Suspicion prickled in the back of his mind as his eyes followed the tubing up to the bag hanging from a stand by his head. “And am I… are you… still giving me… something?”

Lars stepped away from the wall, looking even more exhausted than when they brought him to this place. “Nothing in there but saline, Marcus,” they said. “I’ll… if it’ll make you feel better, we can put a line in me, give me some. I’m probably dehydrated as it is.” They shrugged and leaned against the foot of the surgical table Marcus lay on.

He met their gaze, trembling slightly as he opened and closed his hand. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For… for bringing me here. For everything.”

A smile tugged at their lips. “Yeah, Marcus. I’m glad I could help. Truly. I wish you’d come to me sooner, but I’m glad you came to me at all. I’m glad that this—” They gestured at his shoulder. “—worked out.”

Marcus finally allowed himself to glance down at Todd’s handiwork. Clean, tidy dressings stretched across his shoulder, obscuring the border between his amputated flesh and the shiny new arm.

Looking at the arm, though, made him feel dizzy all over again. Not with nausea or pain – but with awe. The intricate metal piece extended from his shoulder like it had always belonged on his body, and Todd had just been waiting to attach it. It lay against his chest, cradled in a medical grade sling – an astronomically expensive piece of equipment gifted to a broken Lev like someone else might give someone else a dollar. He gingerly ran the fingertips of his flesh hand along a seam in his new bicep. He didn’t feel the touch. He hadn’t expected to.

“That touch is a little light for the sensors to be able to pick up and transmit,” Todd said. “They do better with firmer pressure. The muscles are the things that are going to take the full twenty-four hours, but… you might have some neurological attachments formed already. Here.” He reached out and gently took Marcus’s metal fingers in his. “Let me know if you can feel this.” He squeezed Marcus’s second and third fingers and watched Marcus’s face.

Marcus’s stomach swooped as the sensation passed through him. There was something not quite perfect about it – as if he was being touched through a glove. But he felt it. He felt it.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

Todd grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I kinda live for this part.”

Marcus tried to sit up. “I—”

“Let me help,” Todd said. “You use your shoulder for a lot more than you think.” He scooped his arm behind Marcus’s shoulders and lifted. Marcus’s skin crawled, but he allowed the touch. It was better than tearing a connection between himself and the new arm and ruining Todd’s handiwork.

He swung his legs down off the table and sat on the edge. “Okay,” he croaked. “I’m… Todd, I can’t thank you enough for this. Twenty-four hours, and then I can start looking for Jake, right? I’m not sure where I’m going to start, but… I know he was arrested. I have a date. I can work backward from there.”

Lars cleared their throat. “I have a lead, if you want somewhere more definitive to start.”

Marcus leveled his gaze at them. “You have… a lead? And you—”

And you didn’t tell me?

They wet their lips, as if they could tell what he was thinking. “Yeah,” they said. “I do. I’ll tell you on one condition. But it’s a pretty fucking large, very firm condition.”

Rage and distrust rose in Marcus’s gut as he stared them down. “And that is?”

“That you stay with either me or Todd for the full twenty-four hours once I tell you. Todd isn’t fucking around with this. You will absolutely tear your shit up if you try to go after Jake before the nanobots have the time to finish with their work. And I’m telling you, you cannot save Jake if you don’t let them work.”

Todd nodded. “I left as much of your own tissue in as I possibly could,” he said. “But if you do… any amount of activity before the time is up… I’ll have to go in, remove more tissue, and do the entire install over again. The clock will start again. So you… really do need to not use that arm at all for twenty-four hours.”

Marcus ground his teeth in annoyance. “I get it,” he said. “Now will you tell me what the fuck this lead is?”

Lars huffed and tilted their head back. “Well,” they said. “This town is a pretty good place to live – AMTEC usually leaves us alone in general – but there is one person in town who I know for sure is an AMTEC employee. Lower level, definitely, since he lives here and takes the train into the city for work every day, but… he’s AMTEC. So… I don’t know. Might be a good place to start.”

Heat flooded Marcus’s throat. He felt his bionic hand twitch against his chest, felt it want to curl into a fist – or curl around this person’s throat.

Someone from AMTEC lives in this town and I had no idea. I could have gone after them from the start. I could have figured out where Jake was weeks ago and—

And what? He couldn’t have saved Jake, not without a working right arm. He needed Todd to fix him before he saved Jake. He couldn’t have done anything without Todd, and without Lars, either.

He nodded once, jaw clenched so tight it was making his head hurt.

Lars swallowed. “You still need to wait the full—”

“I know,” Marcus said through his teeth. “I won’t go after this person until I’m better. I promise.” He rolled his head on his neck and had to stop himself from rolling his shoulders. “But once I’m better… just give me an address, or give me a name. I’ll start with this person. And I’m not going to stop until I have Jake back.”

Or until the entirety of AMTEC is burning. If Jake is dead, there isn’t anything on this planet that can save a single one of those fuckers now.

Continued here

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