Clash of Flesh and Metal by Alicia Ellis EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Alicia Ellis
- Language: English
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
“THIS WON’T HURT. IT JUST LOOKS LIKE IT DOES.” THE TECHNICIAN
held my metal arm out to one side and flicked on the laser.
Two weeks after removing all unauthorized data from my artificial
intelligence, CyberCorp—otherwise known as my parents—had granted me
the skin I wanted. Then it took only twelve minutes to custom cut a skin
sheet and fit fingernails to the fingers. It felt like a lifetime.
“Almost done,” the tech said.
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I willed my feet to stop their nervous taps beneath my chair.
Mounted from the ceiling, the laser emitted a red light as the tech
guided it down my arm. Its heat warmed my face. When he reached my
fingertips, the bright light went off, immediately cooling the room and my
nerves.
The tech released me. “Well?” He shifted in his seat before setting his
hands down in his lap. “Are you happy?”
When I flexed both hands, they bent in unison. Matching light-brown
fingers, wrists, elbows. The new one was perfect—except for being
artificially intelligent. “It’s good.”
“I followed all your parents’ instructions exactly.” He reached for the
laser. “But we can redo it if you want.”
“It’s great. Thank you.”
His shoulders relaxed. “You’re good to go unless there’s anything else I
can do for you.”
I hopped to my feet. The skin moved with me as if it had always been
there.
That meant I could get out of here. I could run to the elevator and out
the front doors while waving both middle fingers in farewell to CyberCorp
Tower.
But then I’d be all over the news again, and I’d never hear the end of it
from my mother. So instead, I thanked him again and left at a reasonable
pace.
“Lena, how are you?”
I jumped when the voice assaulted me from the side as soon as I stepped
into the hallway.
Dr. Athena Fisher fell into step on my left. Her blond hair was pulled
into a bun with a pen sticking out of it, and her long legs moved more
slowly than mine to match my pace. “Everything go okay?”
“I have skin.” My tone was flat. I stepped onto the moving walkway
that stretched down the middle of the hallway.
“And that’s what you wanted.”
What I wanted was my original arm back, but this would do—as long as
I could keep people from hacking into it to make me sleepwalk and strangle
my friends. “Yes,” was all I said though. “That’s what I wanted.”
“Good.” She beamed. “You have a second chance—a new start that not
a lot of people with injuries like yours would get.” She was keeping up fine
even off the automated walkway. Still, she stepped onto it next to me and
squeezed in close so we fit side by side. “And you and I have a second
chance to become friends.”
Once upon a time, the doctor wanted nothing to do with me, preferring
to spend her time perfecting the Model One androids. But life-threatening
situations tended to bond people
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