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  Rhea did so, and then felt a gentle brush against the nape of her head as the drone inserted its limb into whatever access point existed at the base of her neck.

  She had only just started to wonder what the drone was doing back there when reality winked out.

  2

  Rhea awakened to the fleeting scent of either burnt flesh, or burnt circuitry—she couldn’t be certain, as they smelled the same to her. Probably the latter, given what she was, or had become.

  The bright lamps shone into her eyes overhead, and she squinted, turning her head to the side. She was still on the table. Just like the last time she had awakened, the light levels dimmed, and she was able to look directly at the lamps once more.

  Text had appeared on her HUD in the lower left of her display. It caught her eye, but before she could finish reading it, the text vanished. She saw these words:

  Intense luminescence detected. Act—

  Had the lights truly dimmed? Or had they only seemed to, courtesy of some internal mechanism in her cyborg eyes, one that decreased the amount of light reaching her visual cortex?

  On a whim she concentrated upon the lamps, willing them to brighten. Nothing happened.

  Her whole body had tensed up while she had concentrated, but she relaxed then. That was when she noticed sensation in her extremities: she had arms and legs again. But when she attempted to move her limbs, she felt cold metal pressing into her wrists and ankles.

  Lifting her head to look down at herself, she saw that metal clamps indeed restrained her arms and legs, in addition to the strap at her torso.

  “Don’t mind the clamps,” Will said. “They’re for your protection, until we can confirm your systems are at a hundred percent. Wouldn’t do to have your arms and legs taking on a life of their own. Believe you me, when a cyborg knocks himself out cold by repeatedly punching himself in the face, it isn’t pretty.”

  She studied her new arms. They were metallic beige, with clefts encircling the joint regions that gave the impression the parts between the articulations were removable and interchangeable. A small blue glow emanated from the joints of the elbows and wrists. The left arm was darker in color, a shade of bronze, while the right was reddish. The surface of the right also seemed more mottled, as if covered with millions of micro abrasions, while the left was smooth. Her legs were similarly mismatched.

  “Why are they different colors and textures?” Rhea asked. “Also, the right arm’s shorter. As is the right leg.”

  “That’s because they’re taken from different android models,” Will said. “You know how rare it is to come across intact body frames in this line of work? I used the best pieces from our salvage inventory, the finest specimens scavenged from the rubble over the past few weeks. Just be happy your parts match-up as well as they do and aren’t a complete mishmash. You’re actually quite lucky you know… you could have robotic tails for arms, and claws for hands. Besides, the legs are only slightly different lengths. We’re talking centimeters. You’ll hardly notice.”

  She frowned and lay her head back. “So you say. When are you going to unbind me?”

  “Soon,” Will said. “We already ran a basic set of tests while Gizmo was still interfaced with your mind, but we need to run them again, this time with you in control. First…” He glanced at the drone.

  Gizmo came forward and slowly hovered across Rhea’s four limbs. A small blue beam slid across her skin, no doubt some form of invasive scan.

  “Everything seems to be operating normally,” Will said. “I need you to wiggle the toes of your right foot one at a time, starting with the big toe.”

  As she proceeded down the line, she noticed there seemed to be a slight delay between her intent to wiggle a given toe, and when that actual toe finally moved.

  “Is there any lag between your intention and the actual movement?” Will asked.

  “About a half second,” she replied.

  “Give your mind-machine interface a moment to compensate,” Will said. “If it doesn’t go away, we’ll get Gizmo to interface with you again to make some tweaks.”

  Rhea started over with the big toe and proceeded down the line once more. “I think it’s gone away.”

  “You think?” Will pressed. “Or it has?”

  She tried again. “It has.”

  Will nodded.

  She proceeded to wiggle the toes of her other foot, and then the fingers of each hand in turn.

  “Any lag?” Will said.

  She gazed down at her fingers. “No, but… I feel weird. Like my arms and legs aren’t where they’re supposed to be. And my fingers… they feel sluggish. Almost heavy.”

  “That’s to be expected,” Will told her. “The muscle memory you retained after the mind wipe is for a body built to entirely different proportions. Also, your strength will be off. It will take a bit to get used to the feel of your new parts. The reorientation period shouldn’t be too long, though, given your cyborg nature: in fact, your mind-machine interface should adapt very quickly.”

  Will walked her through a series of knee and arm motions, and she bent her limbs as far as the restraints would allow. She flexed her ankles, rotated her wrists, and shrugged her shoulders.

  Will gave Horatio the go-ahead to release the binds and Rhea was finally able to sit up. She surveyed her surroundings for a moment: she resided inside a chamber of some kind. It was a little cramped—the table took up a good half of it.

  “So how do you feel now?” Will asked.

  She lifted a hand and opened and closed the fingers. “Still a bit weird.”

  As she continued to flex her fingers, they began to feel more natural: the sluggishness and weightiness dissipated, along with the sensation they weren’t her own.

  “That’s better,” she said.

  “See, I told you it wouldn’t take long to adapt,” Will said.

  She lifted her opposite hand and similarly flexed the fingers until they too felt like they belonged to her.

  She touched her legs and felt the metal beneath her fingertips. It wasn’t cold, but not quite warm, either. She brushed her fingers upward, along her torso, until she reached the artificial epidermis that sheathed her upper chest. The skin felt soft and supple, and warm, like a real human’s.

  “Does my face have skin, too?” she asked, combing a strand of synthetic hair from her eyes. She touched her cheeks and felt the same warmth. She slid her fingers around her lips, nose, and chin.

  “It does,” Will said. “But it dips into the uncanny valley a little bit. Have a look.”

  She received a share request and accepted. A video transmitted from the viewpoint of Will’s drone, Gizmo, filled her vision so that she was looking at herself.

  She was sitting up on the table. Her face was indeed made of the same kind of artificial skin as her upper chest, as was her neck. Her artificial cheekbones were high, and the skin covering them was blemishless. She had two almond-shaped eyes, which were slightly too large for a normal human, paired with a mouth that was a little too big. Her lips were a realistic red, however. She had a cute button of a nose, and synthetic hair that hung to either side of her face in a bob cut.

  Will was right about the dip into the uncanny valley: with those eyes and mouth, she didn’t quite look human. Not that anyone would ever think she was, given the obviously robotic body attached below.

  “You know, the tech is advanced enough to make faces that look completely human,” Will said. “In fact, the rich routinely swap their minds into human-seeming androids because they don’t like their physical attributes, or they just want to be young again, and only their friends could tell you that they’re cyborgs. My guess is you chose to exaggerate certain features because you wanted people to know without a doubt you weren’t entirely human.”

  “Maybe so.” Her eyes had drifted to her forehead. The center was a raw red color, as if the area had been abraded or burned in some way.

  She reached up. The area was raw and tender to the touc
h.

  “I had a mark here,” she said. “What was it?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Will said. “Besides, it’s gone now. This is all part of giving you a clean slate. A mark on your head doesn’t define who you are, after all. Don’t worry, the redness will go away after a day or so, thanks to the healing properties of your artificial skin.”

  “Will the skin grow back over the rest of my body?” she pressed.

  He chuckled. “Now, now, your skin isn’t that regenerative. You’re going to have to purchase a base layer if you want to wrap up the rest of your body.”

  She dismissed the video feed and swung her legs off the table and lowered her palms to the edge for balance. She concentrated on her feet, wiggling the toes and rotating the ankles.

  When she felt ready, she lowered herself to the floor.

  “Careful…” Will said.

  When she touched the floor, she slid off the table so her legs could hold her full weight. Her body tilted very slightly to one side, thanks to the difference in length between her legs, but otherwise the robotic appendages held.

  “Here, let me hold your hand.” Will reached out.

  Stubbornly, Rhea ignored his hand and took a step on her own. Her stride seemed much shorter than she had expected, and she wasn’t ready when the floor contacted her heel.

  She stumbled, and Will’s hand shot out, instantly wrapping around hers. Horatio grabbed her arm on the other side, and together they stabilized her.

  “Try again,” Will said.

  With the two hanging onto her, she took one step, then another. Her gait became more confident as she went.

  “Feel good enough do to it on your own?” Will asked.

  “Not really,” she responded. “But I have to walk on my own at some point…”

  Will nodded. He exchanged a glance with Horatio, and then the two released her.

  She held out her arms for balance as she continued forward on wobbly feet. It felt like she was walking on a tightrope, without the rope. Will and Horatio followed alongside, ready to assist if needed.

  After a few steps she stumbled once more but recovered almost immediately. Even so, Will’s hand darted forward to help: she waved him away.

  “She’s got this,” Horatio said.

  After a few more steps, she felt confident enough to lower her arms. She hardly noticed the different lengths of her legs anymore.

  “She’s doing it,” Horatio said.

  She reached the far wall of the chamber and then turned around to pace to the other side. Ahead of her, she spotted the table illuminated by the lights, and realized it wasn’t actually a table, but rather a gurney lying on top of a crate of some sort. A pair of backpacks lay on the floor beside it.

  “There you go…” Will commented encouragingly from beside her. “Now you’re walking like this is your natural body.”

  Filled with a surge of gratitude, she threw her arms around him in a hug.

  “Thank you so much for what you’ve done for me!” she said.

  Will squeezed back, but then pushed her away, his dreadlocks dangling down in front of her. “Don’t get too mushy now. You did sign a contract, remember.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, turning away.

  She spotted an opening in the far wall and realized she was standing inside some sort of abandoned cargo container. Beyond, she could see a ruined city street, and the rebar-laden husk of a partially collapsed skyscraper.

  She turned toward Will and noticed for the first time the pistol strapped to his waist. Horatio didn’t have such a weapon, though she did spot some wicked-looking double-barrels tucked away beneath his arms. Probably rifles of some kind, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

  Will followed her gaze and shrugged. “The Outlands are a dangerous place. Not everyone is as upstanding as Horatio and me. Bandits and highwaymen roam these ruins, and they’re not averse to killing someone such as yourself for the spare parts. Speaking of which… here. You should probably put on some clothes, so you don’t look like such a tempting target. Horatio?”

  Horatio delved into one of the big backpacks lying on the floor next to the table.

  “Just clothes?” she asked. “I don’t get a weapon, too?”

  “Even if I had a spare, I’m not sure I’d give it to you,” he said. “You don’t have the knowledge necessary to handle a weapon. You could hurt yourself. Or us.”

  “How do you know?” she said. “Let me hold your pistol. Maybe I have the muscle memory.”

  Will studied her uncertainly. “Not today.”

  Horatio gave her a one-piece uniform, and she slid the gray fatigues over her arms, legs, and torso, and zipped up the front. She donned the boots the robot gave her next and slid on a pair of gloves so that when she was done, only her head and neck remained uncovered. That actually suited her, as she felt strangely ashamed of her more robotic parts, preferring to expose only those portions of herself that were covered in synthetic skin, even if her eyes and mouth were too big to be entirely human.

  “There you go,” Will said. “From afar, no one will be able to tell you’re a cyborg.”

  “What about him?” Rhea nodded at Horatio, who wore no clothes whatsoever. “You don’t think his spare parts make a tempting target?”

  Will waved a dismissive hand. “From far away, he doesn’t look like a robot either. He’s just another bandit wearing a face wrap and an AR visor, with antennae for communicating to his drone. The black and gray coloration of his polycarbonate body blends right in with the rubble. Besides, even if he was recognized, there’s a good chance bandits wouldn’t attack. His body is made from cheap, salvaged parts: something not really worth risking their lives for.”

  “But I’m made from the same parts,” Rhea insisted.

  “Your body, maybe,” Will agreed. “But not your head. The mind-machine interface you carry up there? That alone is worth a small fortune.”

  She studied him uncertainly. “You could have killed me when you found me. Taken that interface and sold it. But you didn’t. Thank you.”

  “We’re not murderers,” Will grumbled. “Believe me when I tell you, the thought didn’t even cross my mind.”

  “It crossed mine,” Horatio admitted. “But only for a microsecond.”

  She gave the robot a wide-eyed look.

  “I’m kidding,” Horatio said.

  “Dude…” Will told him.

  Horatio raised two robotic palms. “All right, all right. I admit it. Jokes and I don’t mesh.”

  Will reached into a pocket and produced a small pill bottle. “Hungry?”

  “Ravished, in fact,” she replied.

  Will opened the cap and offered her a small pill. “Eat this. It’s simple enough to be processed by your artificial digestive system.”

  She took the pill and frowned. “What is it?”

  “Olive oil packaged in pill form, essentially,” he told her. “You can eat standard human meals if you wish, and while it might taste great, most of the food will pass right through you. It’s better to take your macronutrients separately, in pill form like this. The majority of your diet should be fat, by the way.”

  “You want me to binge on fat?” she asked in disbelief. “That doesn’t sound very appealing.”

  “Have it in pill form, it’s tasteless,” he promised.

  She sighed, then popped the pill, taking a swig from the canteen he offered her. It went down easily.

  “All you really need are fat pills and water,” he told her. “That’s what your brain is mostly made of, after all. You don’t particularly need carbs. Your artificial stomach will convert fat into ketone bodies, which your mind can use as fuel. The small amount of protein in the fat pills is converted into glucose, which again your brain uses. Your HUD will notify you if you’re lacking any nutrients, of course.” He glanced at Horatio. “Well, my friend, I believe it’s time we blew this joint.”

  The robot retrieved the gurney from the crate and folded it up, t
hen stuffed it into one of the backpacks. Horatio removed the five lights that hung above the crate, then collapsed the stand that had held them, shoving everything into his backpack. Horatio did the same with the various other equipment yet strewn about.

  “Where to now?” Rhea asked.

  “We continue to Rust Town, where we’ll sell the remaining salvage in our inventory.” Will shrugged on one of the heavy backpacks. “When that’s done, we’ll get you some proper weapons training, buy a pistol to lend you, and then head back into the Outlands so you can work on paying off your debt.”

  She frowned. “Rust Town?”

  3

  The three of them had only walked through the rubble for thirty minutes when Will turned back to her and said: “Want to try hauling my pack? It will get your body used to carrying more than its own weight, and further train your mind-machine interface…”

  “You just want a rest,” Horatio countered.

  “Maybe I do,” Will admitted. “I could swear you swapped some of the heavier parts into my pack.” He turned toward Rhea. “So, what do you say?”

  She eyed his pack uncertainly, then sighed. “I signed a contract with you. Now’s as good a time as any to start pulling my own weight.”

  Will transferred his load to Rhea, so that in moments she was traipsing through the broken city streets with the twin straps of his backpack tugging at her shoulders. She didn’t actually mind. Anything that would further prime her mind-machine interface was a good thing in her eyes, even if the benefits of such priming were minimal. Besides, she hardly felt the weight of the pack at all and continued at the same pace as before. She didn’t even break a sweat. Actually, she didn’t think she was capable of sweating.

  Up ahead, Gizmo led the way at a height of about twenty meters; the drone navigated between the different buildings, picking out a path through the streets that was the least clogged with rubble.

  Rhea glanced at the overhead map in the upper right of her vision. That particular HUD widget had appeared when she’d accepted a telemetry-sharing request from Will shortly after leaving the shelter of the container; the map showed three dots indicating the positions of Will, Horatio and Gizmo relative to her. Apparently, the range could extend up to a couple of kilometers on the open plains but was vastly restricted in the ruined cities courtesy of the interference caused by the buildings. Speaking of those buildings, they appeared on the map as white outlines that slid past as she moved, so that her indicator remained at the center at all times.