“Okay, this is gross,” I said as I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand. I’d tried to keep any blood off any clothing, but as I swiped the sweat from my cheek, I felt the dead man’s sticky blood on my skin.

“Actuator replacement is the only option, currently,” Mogwai instructed and before my eyes a holographic display of the ambulatory support frame highlighting the damage at the hip assembly.

The frame had taken damage in some unique ways, and I wondered briefly if there were any muscle or skeletal damage myself. Not being able to feel anything below the waist meant I didn’t feel any pain, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any damage. I’d seen a vet nearly bleed to death because he didn’t know he’d been cut.

“It is currently 0834 am. In another four hours the outside temperature will be approximately 35 degrees,” Mogwai said, once again with a tone that bordered on plaintive.

“What’s that in Fahrenheit?” I asked and tried to ignore the flap of skin and muscle I’d cut from over the pectoral muscle that went to the left shoulder.

“95 degrees. Which will not make this work any easier and smell twice as much. Shall we continue?” Mogwai asked primly and once more the dissection overlay popped up over my vision. With the overlay in place over the bloody ruins of the man’s chest and shoulder I knew exactly where to cut and how, but the smell of the meat, and the sticky red blood tacky against the cold alloy of my blade, I was feeling a bit ill.

The image of the reclamation drone kept running through my mind, the sickening pop when the audio implant was torn from his skull. Now here I was doing the same work, just slower and messier.

“What is this arm augment? The T-32 prosthetic?” I asked as I hit the edge refinement feature of my Karambit blade, and leaned into the start, cutting the synthetic tendons and ligaments free.

“Negative, this is the J282 series of augmented muscle and skeletal system. Synthetic muscles fibers and nano-carbon mesh over the bones to support the extra power. We are after the shoulder actuator. With some slight modifications, it should replace the hip actuator in the frame,” she said, as if we had not covered this a few hundred times.

For hours now the Magpies, a white and black relative of the crow, had flocked around the site, several finding their dinner in the bloody post battle remains. I hated those birds. I hated being stuck watching them strip the flesh from the bodies of the fallen just like the victors took their weapons and gear, and as I was now stripping the implants.

I held my blade by the handle, with my index figure over the spine of the crescent-shaped blade. Using it like a claw, I pressed down with the tip, hooking the edge up under the tendon and pulled. For a moment I struggled with it, then with a thump it gave like an overly taut cord being cut.

Cold sticky fluid flew back in my face, and I yelped despite myself. "Oh yeah, Abby, you are s real hard charger!" I scoffed at myself.

“There it is,” Mogwai said, and through the shredded human tissue I could just see the shine of composite plastics.

A wave of nausea climbed up from my guts, and I turned to the side to puke, then dry heaved until my ribs hurt.

"I'm deteching a increase in blood pressure and a rapid heart rate. Are you in plain? Is it the nerve block or the wound?" Mog asked, and for a moment I didn't know how to answer.

I'd nearly forgotten about the wound. Not being able to feel anything below my waste except occasional lightening like pain, had its advantages for once.

"I'm fine, Lets just fine this-"

“Oh, they fused it with the bone. I was afraid of this. You will have to break the bone. I suggest a heavy rock,” Mogwai was saying, but all I could think was how the man’s skin looked so plastic and fake, how the slick black stubble on his face looked like it was pressed into pale play dough. And how it could have been me laying there.

“Perhaps we should test the component before we go through any more effort,” I said between breaths, and attempts to spit out sticky phlegm at the back of my throat.

I’d pulled the truck battery out the night before, and despite the thing only being about the size of a soda can, it weighed nearly twenty-five pounds. Using the push drag method, I’d managed to pull myself, the frame and the battery over towards the dead man.

“The power pack for the arm should be between his shoulder blades,” Mogwai said helpfully, and as I avoided looking at the mess I’d made, I grabbed the leads, then sighed as I realized I’d have to turn him over.

“Reminds me of my last date,” I said as I rolled the man over on his good shoulder.

“Your last date was a stiff?” Mogwai asked, her wit catching me off guard.

“I was going to say all the useful bits were battery powered, but sure, he was kind of a cold fish,” I said as stuck the pads onto his skin.

“That should do it,” I said and let his body roll back over, as I ignored his sightless stare up into the night. With death dehumanizing him, it was hard to remember he was once a human, and yet all too unforgettable as I did the grizzly deed.

“Charging should be fair.”

A sound emanated from the body, like a moan caused by trapped air escaping, then something clicked, “what was that?” I asked.

I had been able to ignore the sightless gaze, but the sudden low light deep in the socket tissue that glowed blue, was impossible to ignore. “Okay, that is seriously creepy,” I said as I drew back.

“The actuator must be trying to engage. Like most men, when the time’s right they just can’t make it work,” I added, and smirked at my own joke.

“I am detecting some non-standard signals. Perhaps you should,”

The arm thrust out suddenly, grabbing my shoulder. Its fingers felt like steel as the grip tightened, and involuntarily I screamed in terror and pain.

Slamming my own elbow into the inside of the man’s own, I tried to break his hold like I used to do in combative training, but the grip didn’t let up, in fact it was pulling me down closer to the dead man’s face. With the one pale blue glowing eye peering right into my soul.

“Pull the battery cord,” Mogwai said in her forced toneless way, but I couldn’t move my left arm, and my right arm wasn’t going to make it across my body and over to the cords.

I screamed again as panic sprung to life inside me as I struggled. I knew I needed to do something, but my mind wouldn’t engage with the adrenaline flowing through me.

Groping with my right hand, I felt something smooth and round and knew I’d found the rock I’d been planning to break the bone with. It felt cool, and rough to my skin, but in that moment all I could think about was escape.

The rock came up with an unexpected ease, then fell hard, slamming into the long bone of his upper arm. His grip weakened at once, and the glimpse of potential freedom surged into me, and once more I slammed the rock into his arm, rewarded once more with more freedom.

The bone was re-enforced with that nano-carbon tube mesh, but nothing was defying me. Before I knew it I was screaming and pounding the long bone with all my might. When the hand let go of my I had no idea, but I knew all the fear, anxiety and anger was rushing over my soul.

In moments, the arm disfigured, then bones splintered, and broke through the skin and blood was leaking all over the place. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew Mogwai was trying to calm me down, but it when I saw the dark red blood on the speckled stone, I was overcome with disgust, and rolled away.

My world was a chaos of panic, hard gravel under my back, and the iron and fatty stink of the dissected corpse that had just tried to crush me in a mechanical grip that shouldn’t have been possible.

“What the hell?” I said between shuddering breaths, then laughed as the emotions and adrenalin flowed back.

It was a high thin sound, and even to my ears it sounded insane, but just recognizing that brought some clarity back into my mind. “What the hell just happened Mogwai?”

“The capacitor must have had pending orders, the battery powered it and the coded directions were confirmed,” Mogwai said, her flat voice seeming to have returned.

“I build robotics, that answer doesn’t make sense,” I responded.

Mogwai went silent, but I knew I was asking too much from a limited Neuro-lens AI. “Well, I guess we can confirm the actuator is still functional,” I said.

“All indications concur with your assessment. Shall we continue?

Sighing, I searched for my knife, then frowned as I realized in the struggle, I’d driven it deep into the man’s neck. It had been a panic driven action, one I have no memory of, but there it was the handle sticking out of his neck.

Taking another shuddering breath, I reached over and slid it out of his skin. With one more moment of mental preparation, I rolled back onto my belly before resuming the bloody task, ignoring the dust, blood and tears on my cheeks.

As the sun climbed over the hills, I secured the actuator and began servicing the frame. The overall weight of the frame, without armor, was only around thirty kilograms, or fifteen pounds. Moving it wasn’t hard compared to dragging my lower half, but it was unwieldy.

Fortunately for me, I’d always figured that if my life depends on functional technology, I needed a toolkit for the damn thing, so I had what I needed to work on it, if only the basics. Without the cold soldering tool, and the simple needle nose plyers I would have been stuck. But with Mogwai’s help and as my skin started to redden in the sun, my frame was back together.

"Now if we can just figure out how to get back to the city," I said, but the high deserts only response was a magpie soaring on a thermal wind, watching the killing field for me to leave.

In my HUD the mission orders icon still sat in yellow status at the left edge of my left eye. Yellow like I felt as I tried to figure out to how to get as far away from this violent land as possible.