I was lost in the inky blackness of my mind, comatose. I had dreamt about sticking my hand into a blacksmiths forge repeatedly, and letting them hammer it out. High-pitched bangs ringed throughout the void.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Beep... Beep... Beep
The world was slowly returning to me. The heart monitor next to me. Nurses were shuffling around. My vision slowly returned, and I was suddenly aware of how thirsty I was. I felt cold, like rods of ice were growing within my body. This finally shook me awake, and I shot up as well as one can after surgery.
“Ah, Ms. Van Winkle, you're finally awake! Welcome back to the waking world, and happy New Year.”, said the same jolly nurse as before, as he walked toward my bed. “If you give me but just a moment, I will get your cybernetics up and running, but in the meanwhile, feel free to get used to your new arm”, he said, smiling.
I raised my left arm, and where the elbow ended, a new arm extended. It was a textured matte black, contrasting with the much more pale skin. I closed my new fist into a ball and opened it back up. It was like it was always there. It was shocking at how easily the machine was stitched into the flesh itself.
“Wait, you said 'Happy New Year', what month is it?”, I barely choked out, my voice raspy from disuse.
The mirth washed way from the nurse, as he spoke, “Ma'am, you have gone through a number of intensive surgeries, all needing to heal. It's simply easier to keep you asleep, than to risk you ripping out your cybernetics. Anyway, I think you would agree that it was less painful than you up and about for the last two months. ”
As the nurse spoke, he pulled out a bundle of cables from a rolling computer terminal. He plugged them into a jack in the back of my neck, sending a jolt down my spine that radiated throughout my body. He returned to the terminal and began typing away.
“Fair enough... Say, what are you doing with those wires? Plugging them into my brain to download my social security number?”, I asked.
“Haha, no, but close enough. I'm running a final diagnostic on your cybernetics, followed by a full activation. Just think, new eyes, ears, and mind!”
“New eyes? What, will I have x-ray vision?”, I asked, a bit alarmed.
“No, no, but you will be able to see infra red light, and with the internet link in your head, you'll have access to your facial recognition database, among other things”, he said, typing away as he spoke.
After the final words were spoken, my vision flickered a couple of times, and once it was once again stable, I began to receive a flood of new information. On the top right of my vision, I saw the date and time, reading 4 Feb 2078, 10:18:40. 41. 42. The seconds ticked on. On the top left was simply the word “recording” in a red font. The nurse stepped back towards my friend, and a text box appeared next to his head, reading:
It seems who I thought was the nurse was the doctor all along. Oops.
“Alright, ma'am, the cybernetics should all be online and fully functioning. You should be able to see my name, so if you could be so kind as to remind me, I would be obliged.”
“D-Dominic Sinclair”, I struggled to say.
“Very good. It seems all is as it should be. If anything seems off, let someone know, and they can tell you that's normal, or if it's an actual problem, send you back to me. Whenever you're ready to get out of bed, there's some clothes and water on the chair here. You snore, so I brought a second bottle of water. I imagine you're thirsty.”
The surgeon left, off to do something doctors do, I imagined, which left me to my own devices. On the chair were what he described. A gray t-shirt, a 2 piece coverall in black, black boots, and two bottles of water, which was luckily clear.
I reached for a bottle of water, when I first noticed a series of sockets on the front and back sides of my arm. They jutted through the skin, and were cold. Ignoring the strange metallic bits on my arm, I grabbed the bottle, ripped off the cap, and chugged it. I felt my eyes re-hydrate, causing tears to form. I drank the water too fast, and felt my stomach churn. I pulled the plastic bottle away, coughed a little, and started to dress.
The clothes felt a little stiff, but they were new. After getting dressed, I hopped out of bed, nearly falling. My legs felt like par cooked spaghetti. After getting my legs back under control, a notification popped into my vision.
A breadcrumb trail ran along the ground, and I followed. I soon was taken to a room with a few tables and accompanying chairs, of which, 3 were taken. I was invited to sit and eat a prepackaged meal. The three sitting there, of whom I recognized Max, explained that's what they were informed to do while waiting. There was a white box with a cold cut sandwich, cookies, and an orange. I picked up the sandwich and started eating while listening to the others talk.
The sandwich was dry, and the cold cuts were slimy. The cookies were dry and crumbly, but for shelf stable baked goods, what more could you want? The orange was good, no notes. All in all, it was a good way to start a brand new day.
I quickly got caught up with the names of my new co-workers. Maxwell Clarke, who I had met in the waiting room two months ago, Alexander Sidorkin a failed mechanic who had a business partner steal thousands from him, and the last was James Duvall, a former Aeronautics engineer who skipped town in L.A for angering the wrong suit at the company he worked for. Supposedly, James had fucked someone over out west, and he got out of town to lessen the chance of him getting what he called, the “Corpo Award for Journalistic Excellence.”
Shortly after I finished eating, a man taller than any of us, with a crew cut and in a similar jumpsuit to us entered the room and instructed us to shut our mouths and open our ears. This was our instructor, and it seemed we were in for a long day.
