5.

Wild Doc’s surgery was only a three-minute walk away. When we got there, it was at the end of a tunnel like any other, and two men had already been leaving.

“Whatever,” the first said gruffly, hawking a glob of spit on the floor. 

“We’ll be back, and you better have that CleanserFluid,” the other said before they strut past us. “What are you lookin’ at?” Big man. Muscular. Scary.

When they vanished into the hall of undergrounders behind us, Silver pointed to a piece of paper taped above the door access panel. 𝚆𝙸𝙻𝙳 𝙳𝙾𝙲'𝚂 𝚂𝚄𝚁𝙶𝙴𝚁𝚈, the words on the paper read. And underlined beneath it: 𝟷 𝙲𝙻𝙸𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝙰𝚃 𝙰 𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴! 𝙽𝙾 𝙲𝙻𝙴𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙴𝚁𝙵𝙻𝚄𝙸𝙳!

"Wonder what that was all about," I said, still thinking of the men.

"Typical underground drug addicts," Silver said. "Probably lookin' to get their fix by injecting CleanserFluid into their arms."

“Nice people.” Rogue sneered, stuffing her hands in her inside jacket pockets and looking back at them. “Real polite.”

“Well, see you guys in a bit I guess.” A worry line formed across my brow as I waved them goodbye and made my way up to the surgery. “Only one person is allowed in.”

Silver looked nervous—he wasn’t the type of man to get nervous about anything, not even death—when I knocked on the door, not realising it had already been open. Was he worried about me not getting treated? Well, the feeling was mutual. I stepped in and shut the door behind me.

“Just a second. . . .” Wild Doc was sitting on a swivel chair and typing away at a computer fixed upon a davenport. He teamed a three-piece double breasted suit with a bowler hat. A swatch of red-and-white tape edged the brim, and a crow’s feather pointed up from the side.

The surgery itself was drab. At the end was a wheeled hospital bed fitted with a white duvet and blanket. Next to it lay a shelf with lavender-scented air-fresheners, flasks, stethoscopes, and empty vials stained with blue liquid.

“What happened back there?” I said.

More typing. I stood folding my arms awkwardly—I wasn’t used to being ignored like that. 

Once finished typing, Wild Doc spun to face me on the chair and steepled his fingers. “Now, let’s talk. Have a seat.” He gestured to the bed. 

I did.

“Tell me what ails you?” he said sarcastically, but his emotionless face gave me the impression that he hadn’t been sarcastic at all.

“My hand,” I said, leaning forward to show it to him.

“Ah ah ah!” He made a back-up motion with his palm. “Stay there.”

What was with this guy?

He reached into the davenport drawer, pulled out a pair of goggles, and pressed a button at the side until they lit up with a purple rim. “These are gamma-wave goggles, they can detect if something is infectious or not. So—” He popped them on, then stretched a pair of blue latex gloves around his hands. “—as to not infect myself, you understand, Ms . . . ?”

“Ashe,” I said. “Ashley Bone, but call me Ashe, please.” I couldn’t stand people calling me Ashley. Only Ma and Pa could call me that. 

“Okay, Ashe,” he said. “I’m Wild Doc. My real name isn’t relevant, but understand that the name is nominal. I am very educated and you’re in good hands here.” I nodded. “Now, you said your hand is the problem? Explain.” He wheeled over to me, grabbed my wrist, and examined the wound. 

“A glass wound,” I said. “I was stabbed. Stung bad all day. It’s gone numb now.”

“You were stabbed?” His mouth opened with surprise. “In the City?”

“No,” I replied quickly, “from the Dust. I’m not from around here.”

“Hmm.” He licked his lips. “I see. When did you receive this . . . wound?”

I neighed, tried to remember the exact time it happened, couldn’t do it, and ended up saying, “Early this morning, like, 1 A.M. early.”

“Hm,” he said. “You’re not a killer, are you?” The question slipped out of his mouth as if it was something normal like Are you a smoker? or How’s your sex life?

“No, why?” 

He snickered. “. . . Aw, Ashe. You’re a terrible liar.” He never took his eyes (or goggles) off the gash. 

I opened my mouth to respond, realised I had no comeback, and kept it shut. Shit.

“You have a very bad infection here,” he said. “A bacterial one. Was there anything on the glass? A powder? Someone else’s blood, perhaps?”

“Not that I know of,” I said. “I just know I got stabbed so I pulled it out. My friend stitched me up.”

“Mhm,” he said. “I can tell this is the work of an amateur, but regardless, you’ve been hit with a bacterial infection, so I’m afraid there’s not a whole lot medicine can do for you.”

My heart raced. “What?”

He let go. “Tell me,” he said, lifting his goggles and staring at me with those soulless blue-grey eyes, “how many people have you killed?”

I sat silent, unable to answer his question, partly because I didn’t know and partly because I didn’t want to ruin my chances of getting some sort of treatment. I sighed. “I did what I had to, okay?”

“I see an evil in your eyes,” he said. “Cold, dark. Eyes that I’ve met before.” There followed a moment of silence in which I thought all hope was lost. “. . . You’re Red’s daughter.”

Goosebumps pimpled my skin. “How do you know my pa?”

He unwound the goggles, wheeled over to the davenport, and popped them in the drawer, shutting it. “He used to come here with that pal of his: Silver.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m with Silver, and Badger.”

He half-smiled. “You’re the spitting image of Red, just without the masculinity.” He steepled his fingers again, and after more silence, said, “Your hand needs to be cut off, Ashe.”

I was left speechless. The statement was just so . . . “What?” I said numbly. “You’re not serious?”

He leaned back on his chair. “Ms Bone—er . . .  Ashe, you have blood poisoning, and neither a cleanser nor an antibiotic will do. The only possible chance you have at surviving is by stopping the spread of infection. Whatever bacteria slipped into your bloodstream is aggressive, very much so. I mean, it’s the most aggressive spread I’ve seen in over a decade.”

“Oh God,” I said. My voice was wavering, starting to dwindle. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m surprised you’re not showing much of a reaction,” he said. “Have you been feeling ill at all? Dizzy maybe?”

“A little.”

He raised an eyebrow above the other. “Well that’s unusual. Not that it matters. So what do you think? Are you willing to have your hand removed? I must remind you, your decision will have to be immediate, because, as I said, you don’t have much time. I give you a week at most without amputation.”

All at once a huge wave of regrets swept my system, causing me to retch but not puke. Everything was my fault. I brought this on myself, and there was no way out of it. I was going to lose my hand, my mother, and my identity, all very, very soon. I got up, held my stomach, and looked at my hand. The doctor was right. The purple had reached a little below my wrist, and the skin was starting to appear wrinkly, as if placed in cold water for more than a couple minutes. There was really no choice. 

“Okay,” I said, fighting tears away. Then, suddenly remembering, I told him, “But I can’t afford it!” That was the big but which frightened me even more.

“Hm,” he said once again. “I helped your father a long time ago, and you know what he told me?”

Hearing Wild Doc mention my pa only aided in making me sadder. “What?” I asked softly, sitting again. 

“‘I have to get back to my wife and little girl.’” He nodded. “Those were the words.”

“So?”

“So,” he began, “I understand that not all of you are bloodthirsty killers. You have the same darkness in your eyes that your father had when he told me he’d killed enough men to land him in the boiler room of hell. But he also told me it was to help his family, a wife and little girl, whose hair was black like the night, and whose nose was long like a saint.”

Now my tears were coming down, albeit in droplets. “He really said all that?”

Another nod. “I have an excellent memory, Ashe. That’s one thing about me: I never forget.” 

More silence.

“So, based on all that, and based on me thinking you’re not that bad, I will perform the surgery free of charge. However, as for your replacement, that’s a different story.”

“My replacement?” I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Oh,” he said, “that’s right. You’re not from here. A cybernetic replacement is, as the name suggests, a cybernetic limb or hand or foot or whatever which replaces your old one. They are powered by a neural link called a cyberchip, which is installed in the brain.” He pointed to his temple. 

That relieved me only partially. Again, there was the matter of expenses. “How much is it?”

He looked at the ceiling thoughtfully, then spun to his computer and began typing. “One moment,” he said. And after that moment was over, he told me to look at the screen. 

I did.

“These are the options and prices of hand-cybernetics,” he said. “As you can see, there’s not a whole lot to choose from.”

I leaned in, placing my hand on the davenport, squinting at the words in the boxes.

CYBER MODEL X $5000 [was $7500] Customisable Colour & Spindle! [Hacker's Spindle] Mimics Natural Hand Shape! TOTALLY BADASS!

CYBER MODEL Y $2000 [was $3500] Customisable Fixed Shape! TOTALLY OKAY!

CYBER MODEL Z $1200 [was $1500] What you see is what you get! TOTALLY AFFORDABLE!

 

There were three different ads for cybernetic hands, decreasing in price from top to bottom.

The first, labelled Cyber Model X, and the most expensive, was five thousand dollars. It mimicked the shape of the user’s natural hand shape, and had high customisability options. You could change the colour, the texture, and even the shape, but only to something called a “Hacker’s Spindle”. Whatever that was. Regardless, it was hyper-realistic, looking just like a human hand in its default settings.

The middle ad (Cyber Model Y) was basic: no Hacker’s Spindle, could only customise the shape, and whatever shape you chose would be permanent. You could choose from a claw to a robotic hand to a human hand, but in each case it looked much shabbier than Cyber Model X.

The last (Cyber Model Z) was ugly, plain and simple. No customisability, no shapeshifting, nothing. To make things worse, it had only three spindly fingers. And it cost twelve-hundred dollars. Who in their right mind would buy this?

“What’s a Hacker’s Spindle?” I stepped back from the computer screen.

“A device used by hackers,” replied Wild Doc flatly. “You know Badger?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Ask him, he’s much better with that sort of stuff than I am. I’m just a guy in a suit. A very intelligent guy.”

And a cocky one, I thought, but he was right. Not to mention: kind.

“They’re all so expensive,” I said. 

“You could always take part in the upcoming Grand Fiesta,” he said. 

I blinked, as if I hadn’t thought of that before. “There’s too much going on right now,” I replied. “I just . . . can’t.”

“Well, alright,” he said. “So, are you ready to have your hand removed?”

I looked at him, wide-eyed. He grinned.

“What? Now?”

“Of course now,” he said, fixing the feather in his bowler hat. “What? Did you think immediate meant the day before one week?”

The suddenness of the situation surprised me into a chuckle. “I guess so. You just caught me off-guard. But yeah, I’m willing. Thanks. And thanks for being so thorough and—”

He cut me off with a hand. “Don’t thank me. I’m a doctor. I take care of people. And good. When you’re ready, now, lie back on the hospital bed and we can begin.”

I obeyed.

Eventually, Wild Doc wrapped me in a white tarp and wheeled the bed into the middle of the surgery, clearing away bits and bobs. He pumped anaesthetic gas into my mouth and nose through an oxygen mask, telling me to count backwards from a hundred.

I made it to seventy-five before everything went dark.