Machine Man (serial)

Cassandra Cautery was not pleased to hear about my phantom pain. I hadn’t meant to tell her. I was sitting in her office, talking about how the surgeons should remove my arm, and her eyes drifted down to my left calf. I realized I was absent-mindedly kneading the titanium there, as if it were a sore muscle.

“Everything all right?” she said.

“Just a glitch.” I forced myself to put my hand in my lap. “Nothing significant.”

Cassandra Cautery rose from her office chair and walked around the desk. She stopped on the rug, rested her butt against the desk, and folded her arms. I didn’t like the look of this. “Charlie, imagine we’re building a body.” I opened my mouth to say I was building a body, but she held up one finger. “And it’s a wonderful body, one we’re very interested in getting right. Let’s also say that all the ideas for how to build this body, they come from one particular brain. That brain is very important, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “In fact, it’s crucial. If we are building this body, the one thing we must do, the absolute top priority, is keep the brain safe. Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

“Well, to me, Charlie, the body is not those pieces you’re wearing. It’s not the prosthetics themselves. It’s the capacity to produce them. The body I’m building, Charlie, is a corporate entity with the ability to create artificial parts. Do you see the difference?”

I said nothing.

“I think you do. And you’re the brain, Charlie. You’re the thing I must protect. So when I hear about these…” She gestured at my legs. “These unexpected technical problems—”

“Glitch,” I said. “One glitch. Which is temporary.”

“When I hear about that, do you know what I feel like doing? I feel like plucking that brain right out of the body and putting it in a jar. Somewhere safe, so that no matter what happens to the body, what mistakes are made, what glitches we may encounter, the brain is safe. You can understand that, can’t you? The need to separate the brain from the body?”

“But I’m the body,” I said. “I’m both. They can’t be separated.”

“Imagine they could,” she said, and that was when I realized I hadn’t seen Carl for a while.

63.