Two finally stepped out of the infirmary, immediately stumbling into Five’s arms. After so long in one room, she had become unaccustomed to the gravitational field shift, and it made her feel sick all over again “Guh… I forgot how much that sucks.” she groaned.
“You’re not gonna throw up on me now, are you?” Five smiled down at her and tried to get her back up on her own feet, patting her on the back .
“Hah. You’re never going to let me live down feeling nauseous from that again, are you?” Two chuckled, standing back up on her own.
“Better get used to it.” She teased and patted her on the shoulder as she started walking down the hall, expecting Two to follow “It’ll be good to have another set of hands around here again.”
Two backed away from her instead and glared at her “… Seriously?”
“Huh?” Five took a few moments to think about what she said and her eyes went wide “Oh! Oh no! I didn’t mean-”
“It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” Two said quietly, reaching over to feel once more at the harness Five had fitted to her right arm to mount the prosthesis. “Let’s just… get my new arm on and then you won’t be wrong.”
Five nodded “Y-Yeah… Sorry.” she said quietly, leading the rest of the way to her workstation in awkward silence. She cleared her throat as she picked up a spindly metal rod assembly with a two-pronged claw at the end of it that had some kind of rubber grip on the end “And here it is.” she held it out in both hands for Two to inspect.
Two looked it over with mild disappointment, putting her hand over it and feeling the metal rods. She wasn’t really sure what she was expecting when she was told that she would get a prosthetic hand, but she had somehow hoped that it would look more like a hand than a machine.
“Yeah… I know. It’s not pretty.” Five said quietly “I… actually had to reforge some metal to make the grip. But it should be sturdy.”
Two shook her head “No no, it’s just… I’m never going to have anything like an actual hand again, am I? It’s really just going to have to be… some kind of machine thing.”
“I mean, I could probably make it look a bit better, but I think I’d need to machine parts for that.” Five said sadly “And that kind of equipment is in there.” she pointed back toward the sealed off engineering bay. “Sorry again.”
“No, it’s… it’s functional, right? That’s all I can really ask for right now.” Two said, forcing a smile “You did a good job making this. I appreciate it. Thank you.”
Five blushed a little at the compliment “You’re… you’re welcome.” she cleared her throat again and continued “So right, it’ll take some getting used to, but here’s how it works. See, this gripper, you can control it with this switch. I had the idea to make it so you could operate it with your remaining arm muscles, but for now you’ll have to open and close it manually with your other hand. There’s a lever for that here. And I know sometimes you gotta be more or less delicate with stuff sometimes, so this screw here adjusts how tight it holds. At the loose end, it should be able to hold your slate without crushing it. And at the other end, well. She chuckled “I’m pretty sure the harness would give out before it would lose grip if you had it turned all the way up. Hell, if I reinforce the harness to your torso, you might be able to hold your body weight up with it. Not… really sure why you would need that, but I thought it was a neat idea.”
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“Are you trying to convince me this thing is better than my old arm or something?” Two huffed, a grim smile on her face.
“You give me some time, and the engineering bay up and running again, I WILL make that thing better than your old arm.” she announced triumphantly “You just wait, once I figure out how to fix that room, I’ll make that thing something to be proud of.”
Two nodded. “I’ll hold you to that. For now, just help get it on me.”
—
Two walked into the dormitories cradling her new metal arm. It was strange, but it was almost as if she could actually feel it, the sensation oddly comforting after the eerie absence she’d experienced there since it happened. She already felt like the new limb was a part of her.
“Oh wow, that looks kind of cool.” Seven called the moment she laid eyes on her.
“You’re just saying that.” Two looked away from her, knowing she was just trying to be nice. “So… I’ve been out for awhile. More than a week. I can’t have missed nothing, so what has everyone been up to?”
Seven looked a little bit disappointed, and began recounting things. “Well, Three’s mostly been taking care of you and reading the database. I’ve been looking over the communication logs on the bridge and helping Five build the forge she had to make. And Five has been working non-stop on your arm.”
“And no one’s made any progress on the Phoenix thing?” Two sounded a little disappointed. “I was hoping maybe there would be more clues out there.”
“Afraid not.” Seven shook her head “The answer’s got to be out there somewhere, though, right? There’s just so much data to go through.”
“I wonder if we’re looking in the right place.” Two clicked her tongue “Maybe we overlooked something we should have seen already.”
“Like what? We’ve been all over the station at this point.” Seven looked bored as she traced her slate around the table some more “And Three said you’re still supposed to rest up right now.”
“I could just lay around in bed and browse the database, but I feel like I’m not just gonna walk into it like that.” she sat down across from Seven at the table and stared out the window. She’d missed this view, since the infirmary was closed off “You know… we left the genetics lab pretty quick, and I don’t think anyone’s had a good hard look around there since then.”
“I… tried while you were out.” Seven said quietly, a bit of anxiety in her voice “The smell’s gone, but I got scared. I don’t want to see Four…”
Two nodded, not wanting to admit that she wouldn’t find Four’s body if she was even looking “Well, I’m going to check that out next. Maybe look into the cloning chambers’ code again. Or its hardware. See if I can learn anything else.”
“So you’re not just gonna stay on bed rest?” Seven asked, sitting up and taking hold of her slate.
“Did you expect me to?” Two smirked as she stood up and made her way to the door again. Seven followed quickly after, glad to have something to do again.