Machine Man (serial)

I fell. The alley floor passed over my head and I felt the terrible mass of my body filling with kinetic energy, preparing to drive my biological parts into the ground. I tried to twist in mid-air and my body ignored me. Something exploded and it was a moment before I realized it wasn’t me. It was the car, a live preview of what was about to happen to me when I hit that alley. I screamed at my body’s betrayal, because of all the times for it to stop listening—

My hooves slammed into the roadtop. I gasped, expecting to fall over, then I gasped again, because I didn’t. I was perfectly balanced. I felt reproval from my body: And you doubted me. I felt like crying. I loved my body. I loved it so very much.

Carl appeared above me. He peered out from the parking garage, surrounded by so much swirling concrete dust that I could barely see him. Which meant he could barely see me. He was hanging himself out there, thinking I must be sprawled dead or broken. Now, said my parts, and I said: Yes yes yes. We got the gun-arm up, my parts and I, and we bellowed gunfire until we couldn’t see the garage any more.

167.