4 – Recovery

Addie looked at the clock on her AUI, saw it was 11:32, and said, “JJ, if I’m walking, how long will it take me to get to the Royal Breeze Apartments from here?”

“If all goes well on your route, you will require seventeen minutes to reach the Royal Breeze Apartments.”

Addie smiled ruefully at JJ’s caveat: “If all goes well.” All too often, all did most decidedly not go well in the Blast. She shifted in the marginally more comfortable, slightly padded chair that Doc Peters kept in his recovery room. There were four beds in the room, three of which were occupied, but she was only interested in the one before her. “Should I wait for him?” she asked, keeping her voice very low to avoid waking any of the other unconscious patients.

“According to his chart,” JJ said, naturally assuming the question wasn’t rhetorical, “Tony is a twenty-nine-year-old man. It would not be unreasonable to assume that he can find his way back to your father’s store.”

“True.” Addie nodded and then sighed, slumping down in the chair. Was she really going to take advice on human behavior from JJ? The dummy couldn’t tell sarcasm from rage, let alone how Tony might feel if he woke up alone. What if he didn’t remember something? What if he didn’t remember anything? He’d been drugged before her dad gave him the dodgy inhaler. “I should’ve thrown that thing out! Well, to be fair, I didn’t know he saved it…”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand—”

“Not talking to you, JJ.” After a moment, she said, “Message the apartment manager. See if he’s going to be free to talk today.”

“Message sent.”

“Mmph,” Tony grunted, shifting under the thin, gray blanket Doc Peters had thrown over him. Addie watched as he lifted his cybernetic right arm and rubbed his face. The blanket caught in the exposed actuators near his elbow, and he unwittingly dragged it to the side, where gravity took over and pulled it to the floor.

“Oof,” he said, holding his hand before his face, mechanical fingers splayed. They had little rubbery pads on the fingertips, and Addie was pretty sure Tony could feel things with them, but when she stood to look at his face, all she saw was confusion in his left eye. A clean white bandage mercifully obscured his other socket.

“You waking up?” she asked.

“Huh. It works all right,” he said by way of answer, clenching and unclenching the black, plasteel fingers. He reached down and gently probed his chest where Addie’s old Dust reactor sat. Only a tiny chrome circle was exposed at the center of his swollen red flesh. She knew, from experience, that it could be programmed to display his Dust level in LED digits or, if he installed a mod from the city net, he could get it to display a tiny image of whatever he wanted.

She leaned a little closer. “You remember everything?”

He shifted to lift his head a little and peer at her through that uncanny silver iris. His dark brows drew together, and his lips cracked in a smile. “Hey! Adelaide.”

“Oh, good. I feared I’d have to explain to my pops that his new project had lost his mind.”

“Is that what I am? A project?” Tony pushed himself up into a sitting position, his mechanical arm clicking and whirring softly as he gripped the rail on the side of the bed. He winced a little and let go, reaching over with his other arm to massage the area where his flesh met the synthetic, black, rubbery skin at the arm’s cuff. “A little tender.”

“Yeah, Peters said you should take it easy for a few days. He gave you a Tri-Norovan implant that’ll last about a week.”

“For infection?”

Addie nodded. “Infection and rejection. He thinks you’ll accept the synth materials, though.”

“Yeah. I’ve had no problems in the past.” Tony coughed and shifted his legs to the side of the bed. “Can we stop for a soda or something on the way back?”

“We’ve got drinks at home.” Addie stepped closer. “I have an appointment, remember? I’ll drop you off on the way, though.” She grabbed his jacket from the foot of the bed and held it out to him.

“Thanks.” He pushed his arms awkwardly into the sleeves, and Addie resisted the urge to try to help. In fact, she forced herself to look away; something about seeing him shirtless made him more real and less temporary in her mind.

She wanted to ask what kind of work he’d done when he’d been a corpo drone because she didn’t think most corpo-rats had muscle definition quite like that. Maybe he was one of those pretty boy narcissists who spent half their day in the gym and the other half at a salon. Maybe he’d been a high-end escort! Addie’s mind spiraled down strange avenues as ideas bloomed like fireworks. Could he be a source? Could he have an interesting story? If it got people to click on her page, maybe it would boost some of the more important stories from the district. If—

“If you’re late, I can find the way. I’ll bring the cart back.”

Addie, startled out of her fantasies, saw that he’d zipped up the jacket and was stepping into his sneakers. A moment later, he stood before her—loomed over her was a better description. She looked up at him and arched an eyebrow. “How do you seem taller?”

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

“You didn’t get this close to me before. Do I need to see the doc?”

“No, he’s busy saving someone—gunshot wounds.” She gestured to the door. “Ready?”

“Yep. Where’s the cart?” He started for the door, quietly moving past an unconscious woman who’d just had some tumors removed from her lungs.

“Take a right in the hallway toward the back door. The cart’s in the alley.”

Tony nodded, and then he was gone—out the door—and Addie was hurrying to keep up; was he feeling so much better after a little medical attention and just about ninety minutes of sedation? Shouldn’t he feel even more groggy? When they reached the alley and started toward the street with Tony driving the little electric cart, she said, “Peters told me you had a fancy wirejob.”

Tony looked over his shoulder at her, tilting his head quizzically. “Seems like a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“Hah! I don’t think you’ll find a court to hear your case in this district.”

“Anyway, the wirejob’s useless to me.”

“Yeah, he said it was tier-one.” Addie was fishing—something that came naturally to her—but she wasn’t sure what she was fishing for, exactly. He’d already admitted to being an ex-corpo. He’d already told them that he’d been betrayed, stripped, and dumped. If he’d had tier-one gear, though, that was certainly an interesting angle. A full-body wirejob like that would cost a fortune.

Tony sighed and shrugged. “Probably not enough Dust in this neighborhood to fire my wirejob for more than a couple of seconds.”

Addie frowned. “Is it the quantity or the quality? I know we’re all running some dirty Dust in our reactors down here. I mean, unless we buy extra. I bought five units of refined Dust once, and it lasted me almost a week, using my drone for a few hours every day.”

“You know the answer: it’s some of both. The dirtier the Dust, the more work the reactor goes through to use it, and the less juice it gets out of it. Anyway, this reactor and the matrix you gave me will keep the Dust out of my blood, but there’s no way it could output enough to fire up this wirejob.”

“So, forgive my inquisitive mind, but why’d whoever stripped you down let you keep that wirejob? Why’d they leave you with an eye, for that matter?”

Tony reached up to touch his bandaged eye with his new, mechanical fingers, and then he looked sideways at her again. “Now you’re getting to the good stuff. I’ll be honest, though—I’m trying not to think about those things ’cause I can’t afford to be pissed off in my current situation.”

“What?” His words didn’t compute for Addie; when she had an emotion, she felt it. There was no putting it off for later.

“Yeah. I gotta deal with the present.” He smirked. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but I’m not in a good position to be plotting my revenge.” The cart whirred and thumped as he pushed it over a speed hump. They’d taken a different alley to avoid Beef and his cronies, and as Tony pushed the cart onto the sidewalk, Addie saw her dad standing outside the shop, chatting with Mr. Nguyen. “Hey, there’s your dad.”

“Yep.” Addie lifted her arm to wave, and her father, as always, waved back.

Tony did much better with the cart now that he had two arms and even managed to hop it over the curb so they didn’t have to walk to the corner. Her father jostled Mr. Nguyen. “There they are! I was getting worried, Addie!”

“Seriously? We were like a block and a half away. Anyway, here’s your new employee, feeling much better, I’d say.” Addie gestured expansively at Tony like a showgirl at a fancy car show. Tony sighed and fished in his pocket for the black sunglasses her dad had given him.

“Donny, this is the young man I was telling you about. Tony, this is Donald Nguyen; he owns the bodega on the corner.”

Tony stepped forward and held out his new mechanical hand. Mr. Nguyen, always cheerful, smiled hugely as his eyes widened. “Oh! This is it! The arm from your shop, Bert! Haha! You finally got some value out of it!” He took Tony’s hand and pumped it up and down. “Nice to meet you, Tony. Hey, hey! If things get too slow around here, I could use a tall guy like you to help stock shelves now and then!” He let go of Tony’s hand and turned back to Addie’s dad. “Or! Or, Bert, how about he can watch my store a couple of times a week so I can spend a little time with Nancy before she goes back to school?”

“Easy, Donny,” Bert chuckled, “It’s his first day. Let’s let him settle into a routine for a little while.” Addie had heard enough. She started for the door, but her dad wouldn’t let her slip away that easily. “Where you going, Addie?”

“I have to get my drone. I have an interview in half an hour.” Again, she started through the door.

“Hold up a second! Did you hear about the shootout? There’s more than one gang cruising, looking for payback!”

Addie whirled. “Not against me, dad! The Helldogs know me and most of the others nearby, too. Even Domino doesn’t hassle me.”

“Plenty of others would love to stir trouble up by messing with a local girl like you! Where’s your interview?”

“Royal Breeze Apartments, and I need to leave if I’m going to make—”

“Reschedule it, honey. Things are too hot right—”

“Dad! We live in the Blast! It’s always too hot! These stories need to be told; we’re invisible to the rest of the city, and that’s not okay! You know the guy I interviewed the other day? Mr. Felix? He’s paying seven hundred bits a week to keep the gangs from tossing his place, beating him up, or worse! Boxer Corp doesn’t do anything, but I’m getting more and more clicks! I have to keep growing my page, and I can’t do that if I don’t keep posting stories! You know what happens if you let your page stagnate? You lose followers, and they stop sharing. People tune out!”

“I know the metro net has a harsh algorithm, honey, but your safety—”

“I could go with her,” Tony said, his voice almost too calm and steady to be heard amidst the heated back and forth. Even so, Addie’s father froze momentarily and regarded the tall, near-stranger in his borrowed tracksuit.

“Aren’t you a little worn out?”

Tony grinned and tapped the center of his chest. “Nah. This Dust reactor is cleaning my blood and sending some juice to my nanites. I’m feeling much better.”

Mr. Nguyen did a comical double-take, his eyes wide. “Na-nanites?”

“Yeah, I have a medical nanite battery in here.” Tony thumped his mechanical fist against his right thigh. “I don’t think the guys who stripped me knew about it. It’s nothing too special—helps me heal a little faster than usual, cleans toxins, and whatnot. It wasn’t working ‘cause it’s powered by a Dust engine.”

“Well, no offense, Tony,” Addie’s father said, shaking his head. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, but what are you going to do if there’s trouble?”

“Um…” Tony looked from Bert to Addie and then back again. “I mean, I can probably run twice as fast as she can. If nothing else, I’ll distract the bangers so she can get away.”

“Twice as fast?” Addie felt her neck growing hot. “I don’t think so!”

“Hah!” Mr. Nguyen slapped his hands together. “I like it!”

Addie shook her head and turned to her father. “I’m going. I’m not a little kid—you can’t stop me, Dad.” She paused when her father’s face fell; she hated playing that card with him. They’d gotten into the same argument too many times, and she’d threatened to move into her own place too often for him to really push the matter. Still, she felt guilty, so she decided to throw him a bone. “If you want your new employee to follow me, I won’t stop him. I’m leaving in two minutes.” With that, she pushed her way into the store and stomped upstairs.