It took an hour before I heard back about the man I had injured, and then it took another hour to convince the doctor that I wasn't going to assault another member of his research team. After several apologies, most of them actually sincere on my part, one of the members of his research and development team decided that she could stand to be around 'the grumpy old guy'.

I almost laughed as she walked in through the curtain around my bed, and I saw what she looked like. Her appearance wasn't funny per se; it was just that she was really short at 5 foot even, and extremely cute. With her blonde hair tied up in ponytails on either side of her head, a black skirt so short that I thought she had just pulled her top down and put a belt around her waist, and black fishnet stockings that were a little loose on her skinny legs; she looked like someone's little sister trying to play dress-up, and not an accredited engineering scientist with almost 6 years practical experience.

“Thank you for not holding what happened against me.” I said to her as she took out a proper maintenance kit.

“I am holding it against you.” She said and set up a stand, then opened the kit up. “Greg is a nice guy.”

“Not to me he wasn't.” I said, and she frowned. “Look, I apologized. I didn't mean to hurt him so badly.”

“That's what I'm holding against you.” She said. “You wanted to hurt him.”

“He was going to cut off my cybernetics.” I said. “If you want the proof, just set up the connection and transfer protocols for an external feed. You can watch it for yourself.”

“I'll do that.” She said, and even though she still looked angry, she worked professionally and set everything up. She had to pop off the front of one of my new eyes to access the optical feed directly; but, once she had reset the sending protocol for secured wireless feed, the data dumped directly into her portable terminal.

I sat there quietly as she watched and heard what had happened, and I saw the change in her demeanor. She copied the footage onto a portable storage device for the archive, and turned to me.

“I guess I owe you an apology.” She said.

“Let's hear it.” I said and smiled. “Make it good, because I've been in a bad mood all day from all the accusations and blame piled on top of me.”

A smile spread across her face to match mine. “I'm sorry.”

“Finally!” I said. “I really am sorry it happened.”

“Me, too.” She said and held a hand out. “My name is Astra.”

“Chosen or given?” I asked as I took her offered hand and shook it.

“Chosen.”

“It's nice to meet you, Astra.” I said and let her hand go. “I'm Jack.”

“I know all about you, sir.” Astra said and picked up the first tool she would need for a maintenance check. “We needed a full medical background to perform the surgery.”

“That's not who I am.” I said, and she chuckled.

“It's everything that you are... physically, anyway.” Astra said and used the tool to pop open my cybernetic arm. “Although, I... well, I have a personal question.”

“Don't you need to disable my arm before doing that?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“I'm just checking the physical connections. There's no need for a shutdown or even a bypass.”

“I knew he was messing with me.” I said, and Astra nodded.

“I don't know why he would do that.” Astra said and picked up another tool that I knew well. “He's never done anything like that before.” She used the tool to pry up a bracket that held a set of wires in place next to the junction box in my forearm, and she examined the connectors. “No wear or shorts, thank goodness.”

“I hated that in the old Halbox series.”

“Oh! Me, too!” Astra said and pushed the wires back into place. “The arcing currents always messed up the processing nodes!”

I chuckled. “I took an entire platoon offline once because of those damn shorts.”

Astra looked at me with her mouth wide open. “Wh-what?”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean that I cut off their cybernetics; I only meant that I took them out of the rotation roster for duty.”

“Oh.” Astra sighed. “That's a relief.”

“I'd never offline a cyborg like that.” I said. “I won't even ask to shut down a cybernetic part.”

“But...”

“I warn them first; then if necessary, I'll put them in either maintenance or upgrade mode.”

Astra looked at me with her head tilted to the side slightly, then she smiled. “That's actually a smart way to bypass any damage.”

“Darn right it is.” I said and smiled. “Now, what's your question?”

“Why didn't you already have cybernetic parts?”

“That is a personal question.” I said, and didn't answer her. “While you finish with my arm and start my leg, let me tell you about the last cyborg I worked on.”

Astra picked up the next tool she needed. “Please tell me it was a combat soldier!”

“Advanced Team, Heavy Weapon Specialist.”

“Sweet!” Astra said and popped apart the elbow joint of my arm. “What happened? EMP?”

“Oh, no.” I said. “It was much worse than that.”

“Oh, my.” Astra said and put on her magnifying goggles. “What was it?”

“He'd never had any maintenance.” I said and grinned. “Ever.”

Astra dropped her tool and it fell on the floor. “You're kidding!”

“Not one single bit.” I laughed at her shocked expression.

“Goodness, how was he even functioning?” Astra asked as she picked up the tool and tossed it into the portable sterilizer in the maintenance kit.

“He told me that his Port Mother was a real bitch.”

“Ah... haha... hahahaha!” Astra laughed. “Everyone's Port Mother is a bitch!”

I laughed, too... mainly because she knew the joke.

Over the next hour, I told her all about the repairs and replacements I did on Crush while she checked over my synthetic leg and chest. When she had opened up my pectoral muscle, I saw that I had a few new pieces. A lung, three-quarters of a new heart, a kidney, a spleen, parts of both intestines, and half of my stomach were synthetic.

“Well, damn.” I said. “I'm kind of glad I punched him now.”

Astra sighed. “I don't condone that kind of violence; but, I'm glad you did, too.” She said. “You would have died within minutes.”

Neither of us spoke for the rest of the examination, and when she closed me up completely, she applied a thin layer of lubricant on my synthetic parts to replace the one she had disturbed.

“Thank you.” I said, and she smiled.

“You were a great patient.” Astra said as she closed up my hospital unitard. “I kind of expected you to freak out or something.”

I shrugged. “That wouldn't get me anywhere.” I said. “Plus, I've had to work on hysterical cyborgs. Even if I was freaking out over having an equal number of synthetic parts as I do real ones, I'll wait until my girlfriend or her mother was here.” I smiled. “They can hug and kiss me while they lie their asses off, and tell me that it's all going to be all right.”

Astra looked surprised for a moment, then she stepped close and took my synthetic hand.

“I've been wondering something.” I said. “I only had the basic cerebral upgrade with minimal invasive surgery and replacement.” I said and saw her face close down. “How am I able to run these extensive modifications with what I have?”

“Um... sir, I... you've had extensive cerebral replacement.” Astra said. “The...” She looked around sheepishly. “...shrapnel travelled up and into your cranial cavity.”

I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it and my eyes at the same time. “Tell me what I lost.”

“It's mostly just a bit of your long term memory, and with your last brain scan as a guide, we successfully copied most of the engrams to it's digital equivalent into the cybernetic parts we installed.” She said, and her voice didn't have that happy sound when she saw my face. “Some of the memories are still there; but... you just have to access them instead of remembering them.”

“Can you tell me what...?” I asked.

“From what we could recreate, it's mostly just faded childhood memories.” Astra said and gave my hand a squeeze. “So, it's no big loss.”

I felt a tear try to form in my right eye, but then nothing happened.

“Dammit, I don't have tear ducts anymore!” I nearly yelled, and it startled her.

“It's all going to be all right.” Astra said in a calm voice, and repeated the lie I had told her only Sandra and Noreen could tell me. Since she didn't know that my childhood memories were the only things I had left of my mother, she didn't realize that I had lost much more than just an arm and a leg.

“Can... can you call Noreen for me?” I asked, and I sobbed because the tears couldn't escape. “S-Sandra needs to stay in bed.”

Astra opened her mouth to say something, picked up the maintenance kit and nodded, and left instead. A couple of minutes later Noreen came in.

“Noreen, I... I need...”

“Shh.” Noreen said. “Slide over a little.”

I moved over in the bed, and she crawled onto the bed and laid down on my normal side.

“That girl said I can't touch your other side for a while yet.” Noreen said, and I wrapped my good arm around her shoulders. She gave my cheek a kiss and then rested her head on my chest. “It's going to be all right, Jack.”

I tried to think back to something... anything... from my childhood. “It's gone.” I said as my chest shook from my dry crying. “My childhood. My mother. Everything.”

“Oh, Jack.” Noreen lifted her head and looked at me. She had heard the sorrow in my voice, and she cried the tears that I couldn't. “I'm so sorry.”

“So am I.” I said and kissed her cheek. “I can't even cry for her anymore.”

Noreen cupped the side of my face, kissed me back, then put her head on my chest. Her hand rubbed my abdomen in small circles, and we just laid there and didn't say anything as we held each other. Supper came and went, with it's accompanying dirt-flavored brown algenate disc for me and a blue one for Noreen; then Nathan came in to visit for a while. After I told him the extent of my injuries, he said that I could cuddle Noreen for the night and that he would stay with Sandra.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked. “If I thought they would let Sandra...”

“Don't worry about it.” Nathan said and put a hand on my shoulder. “You'll be able to hold her soon, without having to worry about hurting her; either by your own hand or because she's still so weak.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Thanks, Nathan.”

Nathan gave my shoulder a squeeze and left, and the lights dimmed not long after. Noreen had worked her hand inside my hospital unitard and rubbed my skin directly. I needed the touch almost as much as she did, and I asked her to lift her head.

“Jack?” Noreen looked at me, and I undid the chest part of the unitard for her and pulled it off of the normal side of my chest. “You're looking after me, even in this condition?” She asked, surprised. “I'm supposed to be looking after you.”

“I'd rather we both helped each other.” I said and smiled.

“Jack.” Noreen smiled herself, then laid her head on my bare chest. “I think I'm getting more help out of this than you are.”

I chuckled and squeezed her shoulder lightly, then moved my hand down her back and rested it on her hip. My whole arm was pressed against her now; and with only the thin hospital unitard she wore between it and her skin, her skin hunger was getting a good feed. She kissed my bare chest several times to thank me, snuggled in tight, then let out a long satisfied sigh and quickly fell asleep.

I on the other hand, laid there for the rest of the night and tried, over and over, to remember something. I didn't know what it was that I was trying to remember; but, I knew it was important. Very, very important. I just didn't know why.