Machine Man (serial)

After a couple hours, the door to my little cell opened and there was Carl. At first, neither of us spoke. It was an unusual social situation. In the last six hours, I had fled him on artificial legs and he had shot Lola Banks in the heart. I didn’t know what you said after something like that.

“You can see her now,” Carl said. “If you want.” In the hallway, a wheelchair awaited. “She’s in surgery. But you can watch.”

I opened my mouth to say, Okay, but nothing came out. I felt dizzy. All Cassandra Cautery had said before leaving was that Lola was receiving the best medical care the company had to offer. That could have meant they were zipping her into a body bag.

Carl came forward, his arms out to scoop me up. I tried to push him away, because I wasn’t ready for Carl to touch me. It was going to take a lot before that would be okay. But he had arms like tree trunks, and I was weak and shaky and missing five fingers. He lifted me off the bed. Against Carl’s rock-hard pectorals, I began to cry. It was a post-traumatic reaction. I had been through a lot.

“She’s going to be okay, I think,” Carl said.

The sympathy in his voice unmade me. I blubbered helplessly. Maybe Carl was a good man. A good man, in a tough job. Maybe he had never hated me. Maybe he had, but only because I had walked past him a thousand times and never said hello, treating him like a piece of furniture. Maybe this was a new beginning for us. Maybe we would be best friends.

“It was only NLA,” Carl said. “Non-lethal ammunition. I wouldn’t have fired otherwise.”

I stopped crying. I had a passing familiarity with our company’s munitions line, so knew we preferred a strict definition of non-lethal. The term we used for weaponry that left the target not merely alive but with a solid chance of regaining full quality of life was non-crippling. I hated Carl. I hated him so much.

46.