JanePtinum

  Where the fuck is Sonia? I choke down an entire pte of food and she's te. Screw it, I'll do it myself.

  I wedge the end of my fork under my kneecap, and a swift upward kick fttens the end. It's not quite a screwdriver, but it should work. I set to work taking off the outside shell of my new arm.

  Who would have ever guessed It’s frustrating trying to use a fttened fork to unscrew ptes with one hand, but I guess it could be worse. At least Seven shot my left arm instead of my right.

  I get halfway through by the time the door opens.

  “What are you doing?” Sonia already sounds exhausted.

  “Your job.”

  Without another word she pulls a chair next to me and gets to work. Both of her hands grab tools and begin to work individually. It only takes her a few seconds to do what took me minutes.

  Suddenly she connects a wire and my entire arm begins to lightly tingle. My hand sits limply in my p, I’m almost afraid to try to move it. These surgeries have far from a 100% success rate. It only takes Sonia a few seconds to reattach the outer ptes.

  “Alright, can you feel this?”

  I see her grab my thumb, and feel pinpricks of sensation all across my phantom arm. Great, this again. I’d hoped Sonia would have been able to avoid the relearning process.

  “Every nerve is in the wrong pce.”

  “You’re going-”

  “To have to get used to it, I know. This isn’t my first time.” I cut her off. I don’t need and don’t want her to expin what I already know.

  “Can you make a fist?” She completely ignores my outburst.

  I attempt to flex what would have been my hand. The fingers move at an incredible speed, contorting in random directions. If an organic hand did half of what mine just did, it would have shattered in a dozen pces.

  “Let’s try to isote individual fingers.”

  “I can do it myself. You can get back to work.”

  “Alright.” She shrugs and puts her tools back in her pockets. “Don’t break anything.”

  I don’t say anything as she leaves. My attention is already fully on my hand. It moved, which means I can fix it. I start by imagining moving every muscle in my arm individually, seeing which servo it’s now hooked up to.

  There’s no rhyme or reason dictating any of the changes. My tricep now moves my pointer finger left, extending my pinky now only extends the st joint, What was once my bicep now causes my middle finger to extend. That’ll be fun to flip people off with at least.

  Mapping out my hand is the easy part, it only takes a few hours and discovering a few never before used muscles. It’ll take days to get used to moving them, but it’s a good start.

  Feeling is going to be the hard part. Every sensory nerve in my arm has been wired seemingly randomly. Even poking what should be a single point causes me to feel it in uncountable separate pces.

  I drag the tines of the fork gently across my palm. If I hadn't been the one to do it, it’d be impossible to tell where the fork was touching.

  I already know from my legs that my brain will adapt, but it could take months to change fully. I need it faster than that.

  I poke a single spot repeatedly, willing myself to adapt. Every time a few hundred points on my arm feel the tap.

  “Fuck.” I mutter under my breath. This isn’t working. I’m not consistent enough. Even the smallest miss makes an extra hundred spots on my arm feel the tap. It’s incomprehensible.

  It’s fine. If Seven figured this out, so can I. I begin to drag my finger across my hand, only to have the same result. I spend over an hour trying a dozen different methods to make progress. It’s like I’m smming my head against the wall.

  “Fuck!” I yell, a small outlet for my growing frustration. I am not going to be beaten by this thing.

  I hear Blue stand up behind the wall at my back. Great. She opens her door and takes a few steps over to mine.

  “Just come in.” I reluctantly yell out before she can even knock. If I turn her away she’s probably going to freak out or something.

  “Are you ok?” Blue cracks the door and peaks through with that bird on her shoulder.

  She’s made good progress on her hair. The entire left half of her head has hair tumbling down to her shoulders. Of course the other half of her missing scalp is freaky.

  “I’m fine.” I reflexively try to wave her way, only to use the wrong hand. It contorts, flopping itself off my p and onto the bed.

  Blue’s face instantly reflects her fear.

  “What's wrong?” Her voice betrays her barely contained terror.

  “I'm fine, it's just this fucking arm.”

  “What's wrong with it?” She takes a few steps over to me.

  “Sonia wired the thing up wrong. I just need to get used to it.”

  “Can we help? Corax and I both had to adapt to new bodies.” She tries her best to keep her voice calm and quiet. I wish she’d just talk normally, not treat me like some scared animal.

  “I don't know how much help you can be.” I tell her honestly.

  “Bird.” Corax pipes up from her shoulder. What the fuck does that even mean?

  “Corax was a normal bird and had to adapt to his whole body. He can probably help a lot, or I can try to fix the wiring.”

  Right, he's a mind rip. I'm not sure how someone who can't string two words together can give advice though.

  She probably does know her electrical engineering, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am having her inside me. I can definitely take her down with just a fork if anything goes wrong. One quick jab and twist to each joint and she's harmless.

  “Fuck it, feel free to try.” I gesture to my arm.

  “Ok, one second.” She looks relieved to be able to help.

  She disappears from my room, heads into hers, and quickly comes back with a screwdriver and tweezers.

  It takes her a moment to remove the first pte. But once she does, she removes the rest of them as if she's practiced a thousand times.

  “I think there's a small computer in here. I'd be much more comfortable editing that.” Is that excitement in her voice?

  “Just don't break anything.” Sonia would kill me if she did.

  “I won't. Uh, do you have a cord I could use?”

  Sonia didn't give her one? Actually, that sounds about right. She has no idea how much havoc she could spread if she got into the wrong system.

  “There's a charger there.” I point down to a small tablet charger plugged into the wall. “Use that.”

  She removes the cord, plugged it into her wrist and hands the other end to me.

  “Do you want to plug it in?”

  “Sure.” She has no idea how much more comfortable that makes me. “Thanks.”

  Blue gives a big smile, incredibly happy she did something right.

  Well now I guess I have another problem. I can keep my hand on the wire, ready to rip it out, or on the fork, ready to defend. The fork is my only real option.

  Let's get this over with. I shove the cord through the gap she’s created, into a half hidden port in my arm and grab the fork tightly. I keep it hidden under my leg. No need to escate.

  “Oh!” She lets out involuntary. I grab my weapon tighter. “This is really neat.” My hand moves involuntary, going from closed to wide open near instantly

  “Don't do that!” My mind screams at me to fight, to pull the cord and end her now. The only reason I don't, is because my hand goes limp the instant the st sylble leaves my mouth.

  “Sorry! I got excited.” The one good thing about her is that I can always tell exactly how she’s really feeling. I would be hard-pressed to find a voice with more guilt in it. “Should I stop?” She asks.

  “No.” I've already gotten past the worst of it. Might as well make sure it wasn't for nothing. “Just don't fucking do it again.”

  “I won't.” She promises. I'm not sure she could break that even if she had to. “I guess just try to move something, and tell me what you were trying to move.” She says.

  “Middle finger out.”

  I try to flip her off, only for my hand to twist.

  “Ok, small problem. You can control each joint of your fingers independently. I can simute the tendons on an organic hand, or I can leave them independent.”

  “Independent.” I’m not going to let some algorithm get me killed. If I have to learn a few extra muscles, so be it.

  “Ok. I'll hook up that signal to your knuckle joint. Try another muscle.”

  I give my middle finger a test wiggle. Expanding it works like I’d expect, although much more sensitive than my old hand.

  “That works. Middle finger in.”

  It only takes ten minutes to get my hand working exactly how I'd expect, for the most part at least. Using my fingers is fucking weird, but that's fine. I can get used to it by the end of the day.

  I just stare at it moving for a few seconds, amazed at the progress. It took weeks to learn how to walk again, and now I just get a functional hand.

  “I really appreciate it.” I tell her.

  “I'm gd.” She says happily. “Your sensory nerves are all messed up, do you want help with that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ok. Can I touch you?” She seems reluctant to after I yelled at her.

  “Yeah, sure.” I'd prefer if she didn't, but I guess there's no other way.

  She takes my hand in hers. She gently traces the tip of her finger across my palm. The sensations spread across my arm instantly snap into position under her finger. She only needs to touch each point once to fix it.

  She's so gentle, never using more than the minimum needed pressure.

  After a few minutes of tracing her fingers slowly across my hand, she gently turns it over.

  Her hand is the first thing I'm actually feeling with my new arm. It's so warm, and surprisingly soft. I'm gd she can't feel my heart begin to race against my will.

  What the fuck am I thinking? It's just a hand. I'm just excited about my hand being functional, that's all.

  Once she finishes the back of my hand, she begins to double check her work. Her fingers dance across mine way faster than the first time. It's a good thing too, she missed a few spots.

  “Does that feel good?” She asks.

  My voice catches in my throat before realizing what she means.

  “Yeah, it's great.” I can only imagine how red my face is. She had better not fucking tell anyone. “I think that's it for today.”

  “Ok. Here’s your cord back.”

  “Just keep it.” I really need her to just leave.

  “Ok. Tell me when the rest of your arm is connected and I'll help again if you want.”

  Oh fuck.

  “I will. Bye.”

  “Just knock on the wall if you need anything.” She finally turns and leaves, her bird staring into my core.

  Fuck I need to talk to Ivy.

  JanePtinum