Still Human

By Margaret Graber

I died three hundred and ninety-nine days ago.

The doctors told me that I didn’t really die. I just lost 46.6 percent of my human body. It felt like dying when they dragged my broken frame out of the rubble and inferno of the explosion and filled the empty spaces with wires and metal. My right hand and both of my legs are now pure machine, plus a little extra wiring through my nervous system to complete the package.

I shuffle through the streets, keeping my head down and my coat wrapped tightly around me. I’ve learned it’s always better not to attract notice, especially when you have mechanical limbs. Cyborgs have a bad reputation on every planet as being criminals and overall losers. Most of us are.

I grip my gun closer, the one I stole from an enforcer last week. I wasn’t always a criminal. I was the opposite in fact—a hero for the helpless, a strength for the weak. That sort of nonsense. That man has been dead for so long I can barely remember him.

I squeeze through the crowd, peering out from under my hood at the numerous shops as I pass them. There’s everything a lifeform could dream of buying in the marketplace. Too bad no one will sell any of it to a cyborg. Hence the stealing.

I stick out a hand and snatch a bag of packaged meat from one of the displays, hiding it under my coat. I don’t even know why I bother justifying any of it to my myself anymore.

I casually tilt to the right and bump into a blue-skinned alien. The alien sticks his tentacled face in mine and yells in some foreign language. I raise my hands in fake apology and he moves on, not noticing his missing cash-card. I slip it onto my belt and keep moving, plucking a luminescent fruit from another stand as I go. I’m almost out of the marketplace when I hear an angry shout behind me.

I don’t stop to see if they’re talking to me. Instead, I quicken my pace. The shouts grow louder behind me. I dodge into an alleyway and dive behind a broken down hoverbike. Two bots and an enforcer charge past the mouth of the alleyway, missing me completely.

I let out a breath of relief and sink to the ground. I brush aside my coat to check if I lost anything. Thankfully, everything is still there. I pull off my cramped boots, roll up my pants, and wiggle my toes, which click against each other metallically. It’s so good to finally be free of those constricting things. Metal doesn’t do well in cramped spaces.

There’s movement at the edge of my vision. I wipe my coat over myself and spin around. There’s a tiny human girl staring at me, her eyes wide with shock. My body tingles—exposed—as I remember too late the removed boots. Instantly, I know she saw too much.

I am frozen in mute horror, certain that at any moment she’s going to scream and bring back the enforcer. Sweat beads on my forehead, and my temperature regulation functions begin to kick in as I imagine the authorities tearing my limbs off and inspecting me. What will be left of me when they’re done?

The moments tick by, and I realize she still hasn’t screamed. She’s just standing there. She opens her mouth, and I wince.

“Why are you so shiny?” Her voice is soft and hesitant.

I almost choke in surprise. “Shiny?”

She recoils at my tone.

I scramble for words. For some dumb reason, I end up being honest. “I was in an accident. I lost my legs. They made me new ones.” I glance away, fighting against memories of an eternity on a lab table as they stuck tubes and needles in me and pieced me back together.

“Did it hurt?”

My body aches with the painful and familiar absence of feeling. A void that can never be filled.

“Yes,” I clench my human fist. “Yes, it did.”

She steps forward, reaching out a hand towards me. I jerk backwards, but her fingers brush my metal knuckles.

“Cold!” She giggles.

I stare at my feet. I’ve never had anyone touch my cybernetic parts.

“What can it do?” She cocks her head to the side.

I frown. I’ve never really wanted to figure out what kinds of things the cybernetic parts are capable of. That they exist is horrifying enough. I don’t really know what they put in me.

I reach up and press a button on my neck. If my memory serves me correctly, then it should be the functions button.

A knife pops out of my cybernetic index finger.

I flinch away from it and quickly push it back in. The girl laughs and claps her hands. Stupid. Does she think this is some sort of game?

I press another button, and a lighter pops out of my thumb.

“Ooh,” She stares at the blue flame.

I watch the reflection of the flame dance in her wide eyes.

“It’s so warm.” She grins. “You can make it not be cold.”

“Yeah.” I shrug. My skin crawls under her rapt attention.

A voice calls from somewhere in the noisy crowded street, and the girl looks up. “I’ve got to go.”

She gives a small wave, and I find myself waving back. I watch her go and look back at the warm flame flickering over my finger.

Maybe I didn’t really die after all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Margaret Graber is an aesthete living in a big house in a small corner of the world. She’s often found buried deep in a book, daydreaming about weird things, typing fanatically at a keyboard, or listening to loud music. She asks that if you find her in such a state that you leave her alone. When she is not obsessing over those things she is usually laughing with her family and friends.

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