Built Different [Cyborg Superhero ProgFant]

Death was something I had long accepted as my fate. Not only because I was a mortal being and thus my end was inevitable, but I deserved some comeuppance for all the lives I had taken. All the ruin wrought under direction from whoever.

Yet as I drifted into the abyss, I did not loosen my grip on that which had leashed me to this plane. Even if I was undeserving of the happiness and companionship that now surrounded me, it was that exact fact that fueled my desire to fight. This is what I desired most. I couldn't give it up.

My unconscious mind drifted between melting dreams and half-formed thoughts. Emotions rose and fell, but had no connecting direction. Nothing that stuck or lingered in my head long enough to remember. Even these few thoughts… a barely strung together declaration of my determination, were put together over a lengthy period of wavering in and out of different shades of oblivion.

Eventually, my willpower won out. Pain was the first sensation I felt. The most deserved reward for my efforts. A repeating thrum of pressure beat on the inside of my skull like a blacksmith's anvil. Drumming played to the tune of my heart. Part of me wanted to sink back into the clear nothingness instead.

A cold weight pressed against my forehead, giving me slight relief.

I couldn't open my eyes yet. Even the thought of it made me feel nauseas. I became aware of my slow breathing, and gradually prickles of pain ran up and down my body. Nerves on fire, flickering back and forth like fireworks. I had no jaw to clench, but a slow hiss ran from my vocalizer.

A voice came from the side of me, but it came through muted and scratchy. The last thoughts of what happened before the darkness trickled back into my dry brain.

[Clara?]

"No," the familiar voice replied, music to my recovering ears. "Roxy."

A warmth pressed on my left arm, bringing with it more tingling pain. Some comfort, though. Knowing she was here was at least reassuring that the techie wasn't trying to kill me. Although that whole… experience was clouded with a thick fog still.

[I'm in pain.]

Not as eloquent as usual, but short sentences would have to do for now.

"You're already full of enough drugs. I'm not allowed to give you anything else. Sorry."

There was an odd tone to her voice that I couldn't place. Regretful, but not exactly unapologetic. Some apprehension, maybe, or…

I started putting two and two together. The number I reached wasn't four, but at least it was a number. Despite the gradual realization as to why I was laying somewhere not dead, my thought process was immediately stuck on what Clara had said before putting me out.

[Her methods… questionable.]

"She gave me a list of possible questions you'd have when waking up. Primarily, that'd you'd be confused about why she came on to you, drugged you without consent, and then pretended to be Boss again."

[In a… word. Yes.]

The cooling pressure on my forehead had warmed to the point of not being that effective, but it had helped temper what I assumed was a brief fever. I heard the super exhale through her nose before adjusting her seating position.

"She didn't give you a regular anesthesia. Intricate synapse surgery has a higher success rate the more active your mind is. Hitting you with the shock and uncertainty kept you on edge even as you went under."

[The seduction?]

Roxy clicked her tongue. "Clara confessed her original plan was to go all the way with you, and administer the drug after. She'll play it off that you would have been too relaxed for the procedure if that were the case, but I think she just didn't have the guts for it."

[Hmm. I'm not sure if you are also telling me this just to shock my mind into working better.]

"You'll never know." Her smile was evident in her voice. "Based on the length of that sentence, it seemed to have worked. Something you need to tell me?"

For lack of a better response to her goading, I groaned and opened my eyes. Regretting it immediately. The bright white of the operating room ceiling burned at my vision.

[Could you just crush my skull and put me out my misery instead?]

"The pain should only last a few more hours, if you're lucky. You've endured worse." I felt her warmth press against my arm as her shadowed face loomed over me.

As thankful as I was for her blocking some of the harsh light from me, I couldn't help but notice it looked as though she had been crying.

[Is everything okay?]

"Dumbass." She sighed. "Asking everything but the most important question."

It took my aching brain a few seconds to get caught back up. The bigger picture of what this whole ordeal was about. My stomach tightened. I looked back at the super with wide eyes, no matter how painful that was.

[Did she attempt…?]

Fresh tears ran down Roxy's face as she smiled softly. "Who do you think is holding your head together right now?"

My heart skipped a beat, threatening to stop for good. The weight in my stomach swirled, nauseating me. I started sweating.

As my burning eyes looked up toward my forehead, the pressure around my skull released and a dark shape moved away from my head.

Dark metal, blurry with how my eyes were suffering… but there was no mistaking the five prongs emerging from a central blob. It ran down, a forearm holding it up in place without me knowing. I turned my head to the side, my neck stiff, to see that said arm ran all the way to my shoulder.

"You have a hand," Roxy said, barely able to get the words out.

Likewise, I was speechless. Barely able to process that this was real. My own eyes filled with calm wetness, my own silent rivers overflowing. I had no mouth to smile. No vocal chord with which to wail. Just a heart that ached with joy.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I concentrated, and the fingers moved. It felt… numb to me, but it responded.

"Clara said it will take a little time to feel right. It wasn't easy for her, and you're going to feel like a corpse - but it was a success."

I relaxed back down and allowed myself to calm. Closed my eyes. Part of me wanted to activate the emergency flood from my stim pack and rush into the recovery process. My life was about to change, and that sort of thing shouldn't be rushed.

[Tell Clara… I miss the gun-arm, can I switch back?]

"Pah!" Roxy sniffed as she wiped her tears away. "Dickhead. She would literally murder you."

[Where is she now? Asleep?]

"Yeah. Not by choice, but she was close to falling apart by the time she was done. When I came back off patrol, she was trying to drag your unconscious ass through the garden. Her plan had a fair few holes in it, but she said those pictures you sent yesterday had a missing component that tied everything together."

[How long have I been out of it?]

"Must be close to twelve hours. Eight of those were the surgery, and she anticipated you wouldn't be awake for at least another six hours. Otherwise, she'd be here." She ran her hand up my left arm and gave my shoulder a squeeze. "Just in case you weren't overwhelmed enough, that means the wasteland mission tomorrow, and the Heroism Arena is the day after."

[More importantly, your parents are after that.]

"Sweet of you to say, but I think the two intense career events where you'll have to work with your new limb are more anxiety inducing." She exhaled through her nose. "Anyone but you, and it'd take months of recuperation from this. I can already see through this monitor that your pain levels are dropping off by the minute."

[You just have an excellent bedside manner.]

Roxy leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead. "I'm here for anything you need, but I suggest some more sleep."

I opened my eyes and watched as my metal hand moved slowly in front of me and cupped the side of her face. There was… some minor feeling there. Dull. I couldn't feel the softness of her cheek or the warmth of her skin, but there was a connection. Sensation through this new cybernetic.

The pain was something I could endure. Certainly—now that my brain understood what had happened—any cost was worthwhile. Roxy was right about the sleep though. My eyes closed again, and I left this state of consciousness, hopeful that this wasn't all a dream.

I jerked up into a sitting position after what felt like barely a second.

"Woah, calm down there." Roxy was beside me, her warm hand on my aching back so that I didn't collapse again.

My attention was fully focused on my arm. My right arm. It was tingling, as if I had slept on it weirdly and now my nerves were waking up. I formed a fist and then extended my fingers fully. As I sat enamored with my cybernetic, the super filtered information in through my ear.

"You slept another two hours. Clara is still asleep. The Natural Disasters are on call to come have that team meeting, but there's no rush if you're not up to it."

The arm was sleek, made of the dark metal we had stolen from those ancient mechas. From shoulder to elbow, it was mostly the same old cybernetics, with a couple of panels or extra reinforcing bars added as it connected to my forearm. Something that wasn't too different from my flesh arm in terms of size and shape. Slightly bulkier and bumpy from the various parts assembled within it, but it was—in a word—perfect.

I could feel Roxy's concern as I shuffled my aching legs off the side of the bed and pushed forward to stand on the cold floor. The thin bedcover fell away from me and I furrowed my brow.

[Was being completely naked for the procedure necessary?]

"Apparently. She made some convincing arguments, although she did look partially insane at the time."

A culmination of all her overworked days finally leading up to what she saw as the pinnacle of her career. Her life's work made manifest. An overblown statement, considering how young she was, but she had put her all into this.

"I have some compression shorts here," Roxy said, gesturing to a side table. "I'll help you in them to hide your modesty, but you're not meant to restrict your recovery in any other way."

Surprisingly, my body looked like it had been put through a meat-grinder. Large bruises and odd discolorations patterned me, despite all the work being on my arm. The reason we couldn't fully replace the old one was because of how deeply entrenched my synapse connections were, and even this workaround looked to have been hell on my body.

I walked around to the super, pain radiating up torso with every step. She crouched and held the shorts as I put my left arm around her shoulders for stability. The super was still all smiles as I moved my legs into the clothing.

"Still a little unbelievable, right?"

[I'm half expecting this to be a dream. Or something about to turn into a nightmare.]

"It is, as I'm going to make you walk to the house. Are you up to it?"

[Yes.]

"I knew it." She put her hand on my lower back to guide me toward the door. "You are built different, after all."

I paused two steps into my journey.

[Did I even tell you that I love you?]

"Not often enough!"

We stepped out of the workshop and over to the grass. The mid-afternoon sun was warm, and I did my best to ignore the pain itching at my nerves. I walked onto the soft grass and sighed, closing my eyes. My hand formed a fist before relaxing again. The motion repeated as I tested how much I could actually feel. Still numbed to the heat of the overhead sun, and movement was slightly clunky… but I had a hand.

"Take a seat, babe. I'll get you a fresh can' and we'll chill for a while?"

I opened my eyes again and nodded at the super. But before I could vocalize my acknowledgement, the door to the storage unit burst open.

On instinct, I turned and raised my… finger, pointing at the figure stumbling out.

"Clara?" Roxy asked, bewildered. "I thought you were asleep."

The techie slammed the door shut behind her before turning and staggering over toward us. She looked terrible, easily as bad as I felt.

"Tried," she complained, speaking with her jaw clenched closed. "Too much to do. I'm on some heavy stimulants to finish up, after which I'll fall into a literal coma. There are several vials in a case, right here." She pointed at the pouch clipped to her belt. "Hit me with them in the instructed order as soon as I pass out, or I will die."

"What the fuck?" The super threw her hands up in resignation. "Let me get some fuckin' blankets and water or something."

While Roxy stormed off into the house, I raised my hand to the techie in an open gesture.

[Clara… I can't…]

She moved up to me sluggishly and gave me a hug. "Thank me when I'll remember it, Gunquake. There are a few things I have to tell you about your arm before I go unconscious."

[I'm all ears.]

Clara moved away from me and grabbed my new hand, turning it so to show me something. "You have small ports that open along your knuckles, much like the ones on the bottom of your feet. One on the back of your elbow as well."

[For the extra V-Force drive we acquired? I can't feel it.]

"Mmm." Her eyes unfocused for a while, as her mouth hung open. A couple of seconds passed before she snapped back to reality. "Oh. Two functions were disabled until you were recovered enough. Couldn't have more accidents." She tapped her cybernetic finger on my arm.

A tool twirled into her hand with impressive dexterity, considering she was about to pass out. Clara jammed it into my arm, the slim metal hook sliding into a near-invisible gap between two plated parts of the dark metal. She then pulled it back out, dragging through a short white wire. It disconnected, and she stepped to the side as if I were about to explode.

Before she could give me the go-ahead, pain wracked my brain. I grunted and formed a fist.

Two things happened.

First, a V-Force drive in my arm hummed into life. Familiar and easy to control.

The second thing was a little more surprising. Part of my forearm segmented, and a tube raised up over the top of my clenched hand. I frowned and pointed it out toward the wastes.

[Is this… a gun-arm attachment within my arm? Mounted over my hand? Where do I insert the magazines?]

Clara ran her tongue across her bottom lip before grinning wider than I had ever seen from her. Pride practically radiated from her exhausted form as she stood a little taller.

"Oh, my dear guinea pig," she said, slurring the words slightly. "Unfurl your hand and face your palm outwards."

I did as she asked. As soon as I relaxed my fist, the raised barrel dropped back flush into my main forearm. There was a synapse connection there to make it optional - I just needed practice. I flattened my hand and raised my palm forward. The lower part of my palm clipped open, and the barrel stuck out of my hand by barely an inch.

"So you can choose which way you want to shoot." She clicked her tongue and crossed her arms. Smug. "As for ammunition…"

She brought out a small device and flicked a switch. Just beneath my thumb before my wrist, a small light previously inert turned deep green.

"It's time to reveal what the stolen artifact does, Gunquake."