“Ugh.” I said and opened my eyes, only to discover that they didn't work. “Well, fu-”

“JACK!” Sandra said from beside me.

“I'm sorry.” I said. “No, I'm not. I'm blind, goddammit! I'll never see your beautiful face again!”

Sandra took my right hand and held it up to her face, and kissed my palm. “That's because your eyes are bandaged over, you overreacting lovable fool.” She explained in a tender voice. “The doctor said something about light sensitivity... or lack of visual awareness... whatever that means.”

Well, crap. I thought and sighed, because that was the standard line given to cybernetic eye replacement patients. “Should I even ask how long I've been here, wherever here is?”

“You're at General Medic, obviously.” Noreen, Sandra's mother said.

I turned my head to look at her, even though I couldn't actually see her. I tried to lift my hand to reach for her, and it didn't work.

Dammit. That, too?

“Dad, tell the nurse to get the doctor.” Sandra said, and I heard the curtain move.

At least my ears still work. I thought. Assuming they're still mine.

“You gave us all quite a scare.” Noreen said and I felt her hand on my forehead. “What would we do if we had lost you?”

“Don't take this the wrong way; but, I'd sincerely hope that you both would have grieved for the rest of your lives over me, and never... ever... tried to replace me by finding solace in the arms of someone else.” I said with a completely straight face.

Sandra snorted a laugh and kissed my cheek as Noreen laughed and ran her hand through my hair.

“I think you can count on that hope.” Sandra said.

“Definitely.” Noreen said.

“Ah, he really is awake.” A man's voice said as the curtain moved, and I thought back to the first time I'd heard that voice. It was the doctor that had been in charge of Sandra after her accident.

I really hope he doesn't hold a grudge. I thought, with only a little hope.

“So, how do you like being at my mercy instead of the other way around?” The doctor asked.

So much for that small hope. I thought. “Even blind, I could still kill you.” I said, and the doctor laughed.

No one else did, though.

The doctor's laughter faded away, and he coughed to clear his throat in the uncomfortable silence. “Well.” He said and took a deep breath. “You were extensively hurt in that military training exercise.”

Now I know the cover story. I thought.

“Your left leg, left arm, a good portion of your chest, part of your jaw, and both eyes were hit with shrapnel.” The doctor said.

Shrapnel, and not particle beams. I sighed for dramatic effect. Got it.

“We had to... remove... the damaged parts.” The doctor said. The words themselves were sad; but, he didn't sound sad at all. “You were very lucky that the System overrode the standard replacement protocols.” He said, and he sounded downright happy. “We finally got to put in full bio-memetic replacements in a live patient!”

“You bastard.” I said.

“Jack!” Sandra exclaimed. “He saved your life!”

“No, he made me a damn guinea pig.” I said and sighed. “Keeping me alive was just a bonus.” I told her. “I'll be lucky if I'm allowed to walk outside without some kind of escort.”

“How did you know...” The doctor coughed. “Ah... where was I?” He asked. “Oh, right. You will need to be constantly monitored for the first week or so, just so we can get a good baseline for both the integration of the new parts, and the recovery from the new techniques we had to use.” He said. “After that... well, we can discuss it then.”

I waited a moment and then spoke. “Can I get these eye bandages removed?”

“Of course.” The doctor said. “Sit up, please.”

With Sandra's hand as a brace and a guide, I sat up awkwardly. Neither my left leg nor my left arm worked, so my balance was considerably off. When I started to slide to the right, Noreen put her arms around my chest and pulled me back to the center of the bed.

“Thanks.” I said.

I felt the doctor's hands as they undid something at the back of my head, and he carefully pulled the bandages away. I still couldn't see anything, and then the two little pads over my eyes were lifted off. I blinked my eyelids several times and they were sluggish.

“What's the neural response time?” I asked and kept trying to blink.

“It's set for the default, until your brain gets used to the artificial inputs.” The doctor said.

“Well that's just stupid.” I said.

“Jack!” Sandra said.

“If it's set for the default, my brain will get used to that artificial input and not what it should actually be.”

Sandra didn't know what to say to that.

“What can you see?” The doctor asked.

“Nothing.” I said.

“Oops.” The doctor said. “Hold on for just a minute. I'll initialize the interface.”

Yeah, this is going to be fun. I sighed dramatically. I thought the Port doctors were bad, but this guy... he's an idiot.

I felt something click inside my head, almost like a physical switch, and then my eyes started to work.

“How's that?”

“It's like watching one of those old televisions in the Humanity Museum.” I said and let Sandra's hand go. I held it up in front of my face and wiggled my fingers. “Yeah, this sucks.”

“Let me adjust the filters.” The doctor said and he did some things on his control pad. My eyesight narrowed down to a short tunnel, and I reached out to grab the control pad. I missed it by a mile, and the doctor reacted after I had missed and pulled it to the side and out of easy reach.

“This is very sophisticated equipment.” The doctor said.

“That you don't know how to use, you quack.” I said and closed my eyes.

“You can't talk to me like-”

I leaned forward and my hand darted out and snatched the control pad out of his hand, and it cut off his words.

“Hey!” The doctor said. “Give that back!”

“Be quiet.” Nathan said.

“If this is mostly a standard interface...” I felt around the control pad and put my thumb on the bottom left corner. “...this should be the reset to default button.”

“Don't push that!” The doctor said. “You'll undo a whole week of calibrations!”

“Now I know how long I've been here.” I said and pushed the button. I felt something shift behind my eyes, and shivered.

“Are you cold?” Noreen asked. She still had her arms around my chest and had felt the slight shake.

“Yes, but it's not from the temperature.” I said, and I felt her soft lips on my cheek.

“You're still alive.” Noreen said. “That's all that matters.”

I opened my eyes, and everything was blurry.

“Your pupils are huge!” Sandra said, and that gave me the information I needed.

“Noreen? I need to move.” I said.

Noreen nodded and let my chest go, and I held the control pad up and very close to my face.

“There we go.” I said as it came into focus. I found the aperture opening settings for the eye implants, and set it to automatic with my thumb. I moved the control pad away from my face and it stayed in focus. “What kind of calibrations were you doing for a week, if I wasn't awake to see the results?” I asked and put the control pad on my lap to start calibrating the interface properly. Even if it was new equipment, the software was almost identical to normal implants.

“It's very complicated.” The doctor said. “You have no idea how...” He looked at the control pad and frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing myself.” I said. “Your electrical interference tolerances are too low, by the way.”

“Wh-what?

“You didn't account for the ambient voltage bleed from other implants.” I said. “The body by itself produces an electrical charge, but sometimes it's augmented by... well, augments.” I smiled. “Even just adding a pacemaker to keep a heart moving can cause wave interference on any other cybernetic part on the patient.”

“H-how do you know that?”

“You're talking to one of the best programmers the System has.” Nathan said as I continued to make the proper adjustments to my new eyes. “Which, I assume is why he was on a military training mission in the first place.”

I nodded without looking up at him. “My previous job was cyborg maintenance and repair, with an emphasis on coding. I was there talking to a cyborg that had been partially caught in an EMP.” I said. “Someone yelled a warning, I tipped over her gurney to protect her, then I woke up here.”

“So, it was just a stupid accident.” Nathan said.

“I guess so.” I said. “You know just as much about it as I do.”

“I'm glad the military took care of you, at least.” He said.

“I knew I'd be in good hands if anything happened.” I said and finished the manual calibration of my visual interface. I looked at Sandra and saw her head was completely bald. I put the control pad down and ran my hand over the smooth skin of the top of her head. “I sincerely hope I'm still going to be in good hands.”

“I talked to mom.” Sandra said and leaned into my hand. “She told me what you said.” She reached up and took my hand to give it a squeeze. “She also told me what you did.”

“I hope you mean buying the apartment next door to mine.” I said and smiled. “The other stuff is between me and her.”

Sandra chuckled, and leaned in close. “I heard you liked this.” She whispered and then licked my ear.

“Ahaha!” I laughed and squirmed a little.

Noreen picked up the control pad before it slid off of my lap.

“I'd like that back, please.” The doctor said.

“If you hand over the appendage control pad.” I said, and it was his turn to sigh. He took out the larger control pad and passed it to me, and Noreen gave him the optical control pad. For the next several minutes I checked over the appendage control pad, and the doctor checked over all of the settings I had changed in the optical interface. He stood up without looking at anyone and walked over to the curtain.

“Have your wife and mother step back before you activate the limbs.” The doctor said absently. “You apparently already know how twitchy they can be sometimes.” He left without making sure I heard him, and I heard his footsteps as they quickly went over to the door of the ward. It opened and shut a moment later, and I looked at both women.

“You heard the doctor.” I said and smiled as I shifted my gaze to Sandra. “Mom, move back a little.”

Sandra gasped and slapped my shoulder, and Noreen laughed.

“Errant children.” Nathan said and shook his head. “I'm constantly around errant children.”

That made us all laugh for a few moments, then I took a deep breath and let it out.

“Okay, the arm first.” I said, and Noreen moved down to the foot of the bed and well out of the way. I started the initialization protocol, and the arm shot straight out to the side. “AGHH!” I yelled as the movement had pulled on all the muscles the artificial arm was attached to. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”

Sandra reached across my chest and massaged the shoulder where it was joined to my collarbone. I actually felt a dull sensation from her touch, and then the arm fully activated and dropped down to the bed.

“If you can believe it, having the arm jerk like that made me feel it right down to my bones.”

“Is the integration that deep into the rest of your body?” Sandra asked.

“I don't know for sure, not until I get myself to a full scanner and see the actual extent of the... replacements.” I said. “But, since my spine is now sore...”

“Oh, Jack.” Sandra said and rested her head on my real shoulder. “We're quite the pair now, aren't we?”

“Yes, we are.” I said, then tried to concentrate on my new arm to wiggle the fingers. Or I tried to. When nothing happened, I sighed and looked through the settings again. Everything was where it was supposed to be, and I wasn't sure what was going on.

“Oh, that idiot.” I said.

“What is it?” Sandra asked.

“Give me a minute.” I said and searched through the control pad for the administration tools. Once I accessed them with my military override, I saw what he had done. The doctor had set the limbs to 'test mode', and that was why it had shot out to the standard maintenance pose and disabled the normal interface.

“I am really, really glad that I didn't do the leg first.” I said, and explained what had happened. Nathan winced in sympathy for what could have happened and put a hand over his crotch.

“Oh, my.” Noreen said. “That... could have been...”

“Tragically horrible.” Sandra said. “You're right. That doctor is an idiot.”

“She sees the light!” I said and raised my good arm up into the air and waved. “She said I'm right again!”

Sandra and Noreen laughed, and I changed the protocols on both of my limbs to the proper mode, ensured that all the settings I had made previously had been retained, and started the arm up again. The HUD on my new eyes showed the programs starting up that needed to be used for the arm, and I felt a tingle go out from my chest and down my new arm. When it hit the fingers, my HUD said the initialization was complete.

I turned my new hand over, then touched my index finger to my thumb, then the middle, and so on, then back again. I flexed the fingers and made a fist, then held up my middle finger.

“Is that function necessary?” Nathan asked with a smile.

“Only if the doctor asks how good of a job he's doing.” I said, and he chuckled.

“All right, I'll give you that.”

“Thanks.” I said and used both hands to check over the leg settings, double-checked that it wasn't in test mode, then initiated the startup protocol. The programs ran on my HUD, and I wondered why the Heads Up Display was still like the old one that I'd had with my real eyes.

That's something else I'll have to look into when I get the chance. I thought and then the tingle went from my chest and down my spine and into my new left leg. Thankfully, the leg stayed put and didn't spring out to the side, and I wiggled my toes. I could see them under the blanket, and was happy they hadn't done the single balance pad that most cybernetic feet had. Individual toes would let me pretend it was my actual foot and not a mechanical replacement.

“Knock knock.” A woman's voice said from the other side of the curtain.

“Come in.” I said.

The nurse that I'd met several times came in with a big water basin, wash cloth, sponge, soap, and a very happy expression.

“I'm so glad you're awake.” She said and set the basin down on the small table beside the head of the bed, and looked at Sandra, Noreen and Nathan. “It's bath time for the next half an hour.” She smiled. “Can we have some privacy?”

“Of course.” Noreen said and Nathan held the curtain open. “Sandra? Let's go and grab something to eat.”

“Make sure you use the cafeteria and my Points.” I said.

Sandra frowned. “Jack, you know what I-”

“You're living with me now.” I said and grinned. “You can't complain if I'm wasting our Points.”

“That doesn't make any sense.” Sandra said and stopped frowning.

“Let's go, baby.” Noreen said and took her daughter's hand. “If Jack's buying, I'm getting a piece of cake!”

“Mom!” Sandra almost yelled.

“With sprinkles and real sugar!” Noreen said and started to walk away and dragged Sandra behind her. I saw Sandra's face turn red at the mention of real sugar. It reminded her of the first time we had slept together, and I blew her a kiss when she looked at me.

“All right.” Sandra said and the three of them left the ward.

“That's a nice family you've found.” The nurse said.

“It is.” I said. “They're just as odd and quirky as me.”

The nurse chuckled and pulled the blanket down and undid the hospital unitard I was wearing. It folded open, and I finally saw the full extent of the damage.

“Goddamn.” I said. It looked like I'd had a shark take a huge bite out of my chest and a little out of my abdomen. The entire pectoral muscle had been replaced with the same synthetic material as my arm and leg.

“You were really lucky.” The nurse said. “If you hadn't been leaning back at the time...”

“That would have been my head.” I said. When the nurse lathered up a sponge and started to gently scrub the real part of my chest, I whispered to her. “Please tell me we won.”

“Even with the loss of the overall commander, it was a landslide victory.” She whispered back.

“What did we gain?”

The nurse looked around and leaned closer. “We have double water rations from the reserves for the next three months, and permission to build another full food dome and the appropriate resources.”

“Thank god.” I said. “What about the objective?”

“It was secured and taken to headquarters.” The nurse said. “I couldn't believe what it was.”

“What was it?”

The nurse looked at me with wide eyes. “Don't you know?”

I pointed to my eyes, and she sighed. “Right, sorry.”

“Well?”

“It was a fully functional particle generator.” The nurse said.

“Wh-what?” I said, surprised. “Where did it come from?”

“They won't say officially.” The nurse said.

“What's the 'unofficial' word on the grapvine?” I asked, and was pretty sure I knew what she was going to say.

“S. C. R. A. P. E. built it.” She said. “To use against us.”

That's not what I thought she was going to say. I thought, once again surprised. “Damn.”