When morning came around, I hadn't had a single wink of sleep. My mind just couldn't let the thought go that I was missing some bit of important information that I desperately needed. The nurse came in with breakfast and she was a bit surprised to find Noreen asleep beside me, until I explained her condition.

“I had a cousin like that.” The nurse said. “She was... very popular.”

It sounded like she was resentful of her cousin, despite knowing it was a desperate condition; so I didn't comment about it and only nodded. She handed me a brown algenate disc and left a red one for Noreen.

I didn't even taste it as I ate it, because I was so preoccupied.

That's going to bug the hell out of me until I remember what it is. I thought. Of course, with that part of my brain gone, there's literally no chance I'm going to remember.

Noreen moaned as she started to wake up. “Mmm.” She rubbed her cheek on my bare chest. “Good morning, Jack.”

“You remembered it was me.” I said, and she looked up at me. “I was a bit worried you might think I was Nathan and... well...”

Noreen smiled slyly as her hand caressed my abdomen. “Are you saying I could have taken advantage of you?”

I chuckled. “I'm saying I was worried you would try to, and not realize it was me.”

Noreen moved her hand up to my chest and rested her chin on it. “I'll tell you a little secret.”

“What's that?”

“I have no trouble knowing it was you.” Noreen said. “You see, Nathan is hairy.”

“What?”

Noreen chuckled at my surprised expression. “Unlike you with all these smooth muscles, it's like he's wearing a thin sweater.” She grinned. “Over his whole body.”

I clamped my mouth shut so I wouldn't laugh; but, she could see the humor on my face.

“It's like cuddling with a bear.” Noreen said, and I couldn't help it and laughed. “I'm tempted to comb it every time I see him naked.”

“Aha!” I closed my mouth to stop myself from making too much noise.

“The only reason I make him shave off his beard is so I'll know which side of him his face is on.”

“Bwahaha!” I laughed, and she joined me. We laughed for several moments, and then calmed down. “Noreen, I... thank you.”

“You don't have to thank me, Jack.” Noreen said. “You let me hold you all night, and didn't complain once that I was squeezing too tightly.”

I blinked my eyes twice, then took a breath to compose a response. “Does he complain about it?”

“Sometimes.” Noreen said. “I'm a little clingy.”

I moved my hand from her hip, slid it up along her body, and tucked it under her arm. “Only a little?” I asked, and her face flushed a little red. “I think you're just the right amount of clingy.” I said and gave her a very tight hug, and her eyes widened.

“R-really?”

I nodded. “You gladly take what's offered, and sometimes ask for what you need if that's not quite enough; but, you never push or try to go further than people are comfortable with.” I explained. “You always show restraint, even though you don't have to; and no one would blame you if you didn't.”

“J-Jack, I...”

“I can't cuddle you as much as I should, not with this damn artificial limb.” I said and lifted it. “Even with the limiters in place, I can severely hurt you if I tried.”

Noreen had several different expressions cross her face, almost too fast to see; but, the others didn't matter because she ended with relief and a smile.

“I'll take any cuddling you want to give.” Noreen said happily.

“You should eat breakfast first.” I said and pointed to the sealed package.

“Ooo! Red!” Noreen said and opened the package to take a bite.

“I think that's what I'm going to miss the most.” I said, and she looked at me. “Normal tastes.”

“You ate yours already, didn't you?” Noreen asked, and I nodded. She took a small bite of the algenate disc, chewed it up messily, and it left several crumbs on her lips. She moved up and kissed me on the lips, and it transferred the crumbs to me. She leaned back and looked at me expectantly, and I licked my lips to clear off the crumbs.

“There.” Noreen said and smiled. “You got a good taste, and can honestly say that you didn't eat it yourself. All you did was clean up my mess.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that it didn't work that way, then remembered that she had done the same thing yesterday with Nathan and cake icing, and I chuckled.

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Noreen said and ate the rest of the red disc. “So, what are you going to do today?”

“I plan on laying here with you.” I said, and she laid back down to rest her cheek on my chest, and I put my arm back around her and rested my hand on her hip.

Lunch came and went, and the nurse didn't get back to me about starting physical therapy; which was both frustrating and a relief. The tech person, Astra, came to visit in the afternoon.

“You can stay.” Astra said when Noreen started to get up. “It's just diagnostics today.”

“Are you sure I won't be in the way?” Noreen asked.

“You would be if you were on this side.” Astra said and set up the portable maintenance kit. She pulled out the two leads and attached them behind my ear, just like I had done to Crush when I had him hooked up to the diagnostic computer at the vacation house.

Damn, I really do have extensive cerebral replacements. I thought and held in my sigh. Astra typed in a few commands and hit the button.

“So, how did you sleep?”

“Sleep? What's that?” I asked, and she nodded.

“Most patients can't sleep after extensive replacement surgery.”

“That part I can ignore for now.” I said, honestly. “I'll be freaking out over it when I'm alone, I assure you.” I said to both her and Noreen's surprise. “Losing the only part of my brain I wanted to keep is what's bugging me.”

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“Wh-what?”

I didn't say anything in response, so Noreen said it for me.

“His childhood was all he had of his mother.” Noreen explained. “She died when he was young.”

“I... I'm sorry.” Astra said. “I didn't know.”

“I told you that my medical history wasn't who I was.” I said, and she nodded.

Astra ran the diagnostic and used the limb and optical control pads to check the status of my eyes and limbs. “I can't believe you did this.” She said and held up the optical control pad. “How in the world did you parse out the static in the interface without having any experience with the new hardware?”

“It's almost the exact same software that's been used for years, and I've had tons of experience with tweaking it.” I said. “I don't know why you don't have someone checking over your programming to make sure it's up to date.”

“We want to keep things secret.” Astra said. “It's hard to do that if we're using general message traffic for collaborations on sensitive software packages.”

“No wonder the doctor was so surprised when I fixed my own eye interface.” I laughed. “He was so caught up with keeping things contained, that he had no idea that someone outside of your research group could fix it.”

Astra didn't say anything and then the diagnostics finished. She checked over the numbers, looked at the control pads, and made the proper comparisons.

“Well, there's no signal degradation between your synthetic parts and your organic ones, and all of the tolerances are within normal operating functions.”

“That is just a bunch of techno-gobble-de-gook.” I said and smiled. “You can just say they are working like they are supposed to.”

“You must have had a horrible bedside manner in the service.” Astra said and smiled.

“Only when working on other people.” I smiled back. “No one complained when I was alone.”

Astra laughed and packed up everything. “I'll send the nurse in for your bath.”

“Thanks.” I said, and she left.

“Now I do have to get up.” Noreen said a little sadly, and sat up. “Jack...”

“You're welcome.” I said, and she smiled.

The nurse came in through the curtain with the proper supplies. “I hear you're ready for a bath.”

“I apparently stink to high heaven.” I said, and she laughed.

“No, you don't.” Noreen said and stood up. “I was up close and personal with you all night, and you smell just fine.”

“Hey, you're a natural deodorant!” I exclaimed, and she chuckled.

“I'll go and see if Sandra's up for a visit.”

“Thanks, Noreen.” I said, and she leaned down to kiss my cheek. “See you soon.”

“Hey, if you stick around for a few minutes, you'll be seeing a whole lot of me real soon.” I said.

“You're terrible!” Noreen laughed as she playfully swatted my arm, then she left.

“Any luck with getting me in for therapy?” I asked the nurse when she started to bathe my normal side.

“They're booked up solid for the next month.” The nurse said.

“I am not staying here for a month.” I said, and the nurse nodded.

“I went down to the basement for a few minutes during my break.” The nurse said, and I smiled.

“Tell me they're sending someone over.”

“They'll be here tonight after the regular shift rotation.”

“Thanks.” I said and held both hands up and made fists. “I know I'm going to need a lot of help getting these things to work together.”

“The hands are the easy part.” The nurse said. “It's your legs I'm worried about.”

“What? Why?”

“You're lopsided.” She said and dried off my normal side. “Doing just a normal walk is... no, I'm not going to discourage you.”

“You're trying to tell me that since I have a much more powerful leg, I'm going to have a difficult time adjusting it to a normal leg.”

The nurse nodded. “Unfortunately.”

I sighed. “I thought that was going to be a possibility; but, I had hoped with these newer materials...” I shook my head. “Yeah, it's just wishful thinking.”

“You'll have a better view of what it's going to be like this evening.” She said. “Until then, I think we can just keep hoping.”

I nodded and she finished cleaning my synthetic side. She helped me dress in a new hospital unitard just in time, because Sandra and her parents came in to visit.

“Somebody call heaven!” I said as she sat in the chair beside the bed. “One of their angels escaped!”

Sandra laughed for a moment, then coughed. I reached out with my real hand and rubbed her bald head.

“You don't have to keep doing that.” Sandra said.

“Oh, yes I do.” I said, and carefully sat up. I teetered a little and caught myself, then pulled her in for a kiss.

Sandra broke the kiss and touched my cheek. “Lay back down before you hurt yourself.” She said, her voice full of concern. I eased back and laid down on the bed again, then sighed.

“I'm starting therapy after shift change this evening; so, hopefully that won't be a concern for much longer.”

“So late?” Nathan asked, and I nodded.

“The normal therapists are too busy, so the military's sending someone in for me.”

“I'm glad to hear that.” Nathan said. “You don't want to just lay around in bed all day.”

“Sometimes it's not so bad.” I said, and saw Noreen's smile. “I also won't have any choice about it, depending on how this session goes.”

“It's going to be all right.” Sandra said and took my hand. “We're right here with you.”

“I wish you could stay here with me, but you need to keep your strength up.” I said.

“Jack, I just got here!” Sandra said, and I chuckled.

“I wasn't kicking you out right this second.” I said and gave her hand a squeeze. “It's a couple of hours until supper.”

Sandra nodded. “I'll go then, but not a minute sooner!”

I laughed. “I never want you to go at all, so I won't object to that restriction.”

The time seemed to fly by, and the nurse showed up to deliver supper. I took my dirt-flavored algenate disc and told Noreen and Nathan to eat in the cafeteria after they took Sandra back to her room. I kissed Sandra goodbye, and the three of them left my bedside; which gave me some privacy as I managed to choke down my supper. I actually surprised myself when I didn't gag on it even once.

The nurse came through the curtain with a wheelchair and helped me transfer from the bed to sit in it. She took me to the elevator and we went down several levels to go to the physical therapy room. When the door to the room opened, I saw the oldest living woman I had ever seen. She wasn't hunched over, thanks to the external braces on her spine; but, the rest of her body was wizened and twisted as if she was still hunched over. It was the oddest thing I had seen, and I had seen a lot of odd things.

“So, he made another guinea pig.” The extremely old woman said when she saw my synthetic parts. “How many Points did they offer to let them experiment on you?”

“I didn't have a choice.” I said. “I was in an accident and woke up like this.”

“That bastard.” The old woman said emphatically.

“That's what I said.”

The old woman laughed. “Nurse, you can leave.” She said. “I'll take care of him.”

The nurse nodded and left me alone with a woman I had just met.

“Shouldn't she have stayed?” I asked. “She's a nurse and-”

“She can't take how I'm going to treat you.” The old lady said and stood up to her full height. She was eight feet tall and her limbs weren't hunched or twisted up anymore.

“Now that was good camouflage.” I said. “Even I was fooled.”

“Thanks.” She said and walked over to me. “Now stand up.”

I started to stand; but, it wasn't fast enough for her. She grabbed my synthetic arm and lifted me up.

“You're a cyborg! Use your strength!”

“Half-cyborg.” I said and got my feet under me and stood up straight.

“It doesn't matter.” The old woman said. “Walk.”

“But...”

“You've been walking since you were little.” She said. “Just do it!”

I took a breath and a step, and she put a hand on my back and pushed.

“Hey!” I said as I fell to the floor on my hands and knees. “What was that for?”

“That was to show you an automatic reaction.” The old woman grinned. “Did you see what happened?”

“Yeah, I fell because you pushed me.” I said.

“Wrong, stupid!” She said and laughed. “What happened was that both of your arms and both legs worked just fine.”

I looked down at the floor, and saw that she was right. Both hands were in the same position to catch me properly, and my knees had taken the brunt of the force. Of course, now my normal knee hurt a little, and my synthetic knee was just fine.

“Well, damn.”

“Don't think about what you need to do.” The old lady said. “Let your brain and your body to that.” She said. “Stand up.”

It took me a few seconds to shift my weight to do that, and she wasn't happy about that. She grabbed my synthetic arm just under the shoulder again and lifted.

“Hands off!” I said as I clenched my synthetic fist and struck back with my elbow. It clanged on her chest and she staggered back as she let go. She looked really angry for a moment, then she laughed.

“Yes! That's it!” She said and swung her fist at my head. I ducked and turned around, and jabbed her in the kidney. My fist made another clang sound, and she staggered to the side. She smiled as she lifted her foot to kick, and my own darted out to counter it. It connected with her thigh, once again with a metallic sound, then I followed it up with a kick to her side. I heard a bone break and fell to the floor.

“GAH!” I yelled and clutched at my foot. “I broke my toe!”

“That's because your balance was off.” She said. “The weight of your limbs is a little different. You can react fine, but you're favoring your normal limbs too much.”

“Of course I am, goddammit!” I nearly yelled. “They're the real ones!”

The old lady laughed. “You're going to be walking lopsided for the rest of your life if you keep believing that.”

“Wh-what?”

“The synthetic parts may be replacements; but, they are just as real as your 'real' parts.”

“But...”

“You can even attack cyborgs with your 'normal' parts, as long as you attack their 'normal' parts.”

“But...”

“Of course, there's an easy solution for you. You won't have to worry about adapting how you walk, and you won't have to suffer like this anymore.” The old lady said and motioned to his foot.

“What's the solution?” I asked.

“Just get that leg replaced, too.” She said and grinned.