Machine Man (serial)

CHAPTER SIX

I woke from dreams of being crushed to the sound of a baby wailing. This wasn’t unusual, because there was an intensive care facility for newborns down the hall. Actually, the dream wasn’t unusual, either. Ever since I deliberately crushed my right leg, my brain had been drowning me in dreams of being trapped in tiny, shrinking spaces. I think it was fighting back. It was telling me that it did not want to lose any more pieces. I found this annoying. It was like the pain in my legs: a defensive mechanism deployed against me by my own body. What my body needed to realize was that I wasn’t taking orders from organs. My biology existed in order to serve me, not the other way around. These self-interested clumps of flesh and fluid, they had better get with the program, because if it came down to them or me, it was going to be me.

24.