“Thanks! Thanks so much! Blow up and die! Thanks! I have two arms again, Elb! Thanks! It’s all thanks to you! You got me my arm back!”
“Come on, stop that.”
“Stand still!”
I stood still. And found myself on the receiving end of a hard, affectionate hug and a quick, wet peck on my right cheek.
“Does it work all right?”
“Works fine!”
“Nothing’s popping or cracking?”
“Nope!”
“Fantastic.”
“I’m a happy goblin!” She announced.
“And I’m a happy zombie,” whispered Bask through his baseball cap.
Glancing at him, I asked:
“Can they fix your eyes here?”
“Not in the Outskirts.” The cap on his face rose and fell in rhythm with his words. “I had ‘em examined. The system won’t fix eyes around here.”
“So what’s your next move?”
“I’m gonna ask around in Murkwaters.”
“Great! Just so happens we were planning a trip there very soon. Okay... Here, Yorka, this is an isotonic solution. Half for you, half for Bask. That’s his name, by the way. Bask the zombie.”
“Hey there!” Yorka leaned over the injured man.
“Oh. Just ask him if he’s allowed to drink first.” I said, sliding off the wall ledge.
“And if he’s not?”
“Then the whole bottle’s yours. Here, two t-shirts. One for you and one for Bask. And one for me... Hang out here for a while, I’ll be back soon.”
“Where’re you off to?”
“I have some shopping to do,” I replied, taking careful steps forward as I pulled one of the black t-shirts on over my own blood-spattered one, hoping to avoid attracting any shocked gazes. “I won’t be long.”
“Okay. We’ll be here.”
I hadn’t gotten to ask all my questions. I had so many questions, and there was no one I could ask.
I looked at myself and was pleased with what I saw. I still had to rinse my face as soon as I could, but the t-shirt hugged my torso like a glove, emphasizing my pecs and flat, muscular stomach. My arms dangled too loosely in the sleeves, but there was nothing I could do about that.
As far as arms were concerned, just now, when I saw Yorkа’s new arm covered in tattoos, it struck me: What did the system do with the arms it took as punishment or as payment for debts? No, that wasn’t the right question. It was obvious what it did with them — they were a resource, and resources have to be used. The severed arms were stored somewhere, and whenever the need arose, there they were, ready to go.
Yorka got one wrinkled arm. Just one. Right?
Right.
The system wasn’t stupid. We could assume it wouldn’t break a whole set of limbs down into separate parts. Yorka’s arm came from the ‘incomplete’ pile. That made sense. And whose limbs were cut off one by one and added to that pile? Criminals and people who defaulted on their debts. The arm she got came from one of them.
What was my point?
Her arm was painfully conspicuous. Incredibly conspicuous. Bright, with a unique pattern. What would happen if the tattooed arm’s former owner stumbled upon Yorka in a narrow hallway? It was an arm, after all. An arm! An entire limb! It wasn’t a t-shirt or an old pair of shorts that would be forgotten after a little while. Seeing your arm on another person... The former owner’s reaction would be hard to predict. Even if none of us actually had their original, home-grown limbs, we still grew accustomed to the ones we did have. Like me with my old man’s set.
And I had a complete set. The limbs all looked the same — but I was sure the system hadn’t tapped into its elite stores for new ones. It was most likely someone was made a worm, and their limbs were passed to me.
Or maybe someone died and was quickly taken to a medblock, where the already-unnecessary limbs were removed to be repurposed... Based on how old my limbs looked, this was a real possibility.
Wasn’t I technically a zombie? Balancing on the legs of a dead man, using the arms of a dead man... We were all zombies here, to one degree or another.
The last question I asked myself about arms and legs was: Where were my natural limbs? The ones I was born with. If I saw them roaming the Outskirts somewhere, would I recognize them? Would I realize those were
A strange delirium was writhing in my head... Maybe there was something fun mixed into that isotonic. And I had only taken a little sip...
The pluxes... I hadn’t had time to ask questions about the dead monsters. What the hell did the brigades need them for?
Fortunately, that was a practical question I could get answered any time. A one-armed goblin limped by me, scratching his belly under his shirt. He looked relaxed. Most likely he had just come from breakfast. He was walking in the same direction as I was — heading straight for the wall of vending machines.
Trade points... Info points... Every day more and more words took up residence in my head, gradually gaining meaning.
