ShowerKrogan

  I rode the elevator with Becca in silence. Something must be off with this Gale guy; she seemed borderline frightened.

  We entered the workshop and on the screen was a man, at least a decade older than me, with disheveled, thick brown hair. He wore a pair of gsses that sat in front of eyes that looked like they had just finished staring into the depths of hell.

  On the table in front of the screen was Sadie, in a fresh gown that kept her modestly covered. Various medical supplies were scattered on the table, and the stump where her hand used to be looked mostly clean. There was a dark, metal hand resting nearby that Becca was preparing to attach.

  “Dr. Gale,” Becca said with the utmost respect in her tone. The hell is this? She never speaks to me like that. Not an ounce of sass in her tone. “This is Grayson. The human within whom I have been impnted.”

  “Ah, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Grayson. I’m happy to hear the impntation was successful. I was unaware of the previous failed attempts before you when I sent Becca to Dr. Ava,” Dr. Gale said and offered me a warm smile. This guy seemed nice. It was pissing me off. “I am sorry to hear what happened to her, Becca. She was a good friend with a remarkable mind.”

  “Yeah, nice to meet you. What failed attempts?” I asked, and Becca cast me a side-eye before looking back at Dr. Gale.

  “We are thrilled we’ve finally been able to reach you. I was concerned when I could not contact you during the outbreak and the months following,” Becca said, ignoring my question.

  “Yeah, we’ve been dealing with… well, a lot,” he said and pushed his fingers under his gsses to rub his eyes.

  “Yes, I am sorry about the situation with your wife. It was better for you to find out when we did. But, what is going on at your facility?” Becca asked him.

  “We can get into that soon; let's make sure we get this young woman fixed up first. I’m gd you were there to save her, Grayson,” Dr. Gale said. “According to Becca, you seem to be driven to heroics.”

  “Uh, sure. That’s one way to put it,” I said, deciding not to go into the details of my heroic partial failure.

  For the next several minutes, Dr. Gale spoke to Becca and walked her through fixing up Sadie and attaching the specialized hand. I didn’t understand most of the words he had used and thought he might have made a few up on the spot. What in the hell is a fa-n-gee? Utter nonsense.

  Thankfully, wherever he was, had simir cutting-edge technology for hand repcement. These facilities held a lot of secrets and, thankfully, some impressive tech that Becca and I were still digging into with our free time. If what he was describing was accurate, she should be able to use this as a normal hand once her body adjusted. Becca helped the process by being able to follow instructions with robotic precision after hearing them only once.

  We would need to spend more time looking into this hand tech, especially now that was in use. Hopefully it wasn’t cursed or something.

  Finally, Becca stepped away from Sadie, and Dr. Gale let out a heavy sigh as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Excellent work as always, Becca,” he said and leaned back up. “If possible, try to grab the meds I listed earlier to help with pain and possible infection. Though I’m sure it’s slim pickens out there. Maybe you can find something useful at a compound pharmacy, if you’re exceptionally lucky.”

  “We will do our best. Thank you again for your help,” Becca said.

  I just stood there watching. I couldn’t do much to help Becca, but it sounded like I had another outing in my near future. I needed to go to the farm soon too, for supplies. If I go to the pharmacy first, maybe I could find something helpful to offer in trade to Farmer Ivore. That’s assuming nothing crazy happens at the pharmacy that forces me to return to the facility immediately with a new companion.

  A woman suddenly appeared walking behind Dr. Gale, muttering angrily to herself. She had short, bck hair tied back to keep her face clear. She was pretty, but… in a scary way. She looked on the shorter side and petite, but her presence was that of a giant.

  “Should have just killed him on that mammoth. Shot him and Darren. Yeah, yeah, that’s what I should have done. Next time. I just need to find my gun and correct that mistake. I’m going to kill that fucking creep,” she said and started looking through a bag she pulled from off-screen. She suddenly stopped what she was doing and looked right into the screen, directly at me.

  I felt an overwhelming desire to bring Mike into the workshop so I could hide behind him.

  “What are you doing, Dr. Gale?” she demanded.

  “I was just-” he started to say before she cut him off again.

  “What’s with that half-naked hot robot woman? Is this one of those video sex call things? I know things got weird with your wife, but you don’t need to turn to this kind of stuff,” she said and walked closer to get a better view of his screen. Dr. Gale said nothing and let his gaze drift off. Becca sent a smug grin in my direction when the woman referred to her as hot. “What’s with the boy watching from that corner? Some kind of cuck fetish?”

  “I would have brought my special chair if that were the case,” I said. She’s scary, but I think I liked her.

  “Heh,” she said with half a smile.

  “Grayson, this is Karen. Karen, meet Grayson. And that’s not a robot or a sex thing. That’s Becca,” he expined to her.

  “Hello, Karen,” Becca said to her and offered a partial smile. “It is nice to see you again.”

  “Becca? It’s weird you're not some blue hologram. They finally made you a body? Dr. Kale is going to mess himself,” Karen said.

  “Oh, dear Lord. No. He cannot find out about this,” Dr. Gale said and covered his face with his hands.

  “Don’t worry, I was just on my way to kill him. Where’s your gun?” Karen said and went back to digging through a bag.

  Some muffled shouting came through the speaker. Dr. Gale hung his head. There was a loud BANG and a small, scrawny man marched into view. He stood about five and a half feet tall with thin bck hair swept to the side, and eyes to match. He saw Dr. Gale was on the computer and he rushed over to look over Dr. Gale’s shoulder. He stared at me from behind a pair of thin gsses. This newcomer had tanned skin and a broad, gleaming smile, and wore a white b coat over bck pants. On his b coat was a nametag that read “Hi my name is” and had “Dr. Kale” scribbled beneath in sloppy handwriting.

  When he saw me, his face drooped.

  “Aw,” he said in a whine. “I was hoping to see what kind of weirdo porn Dr. Gale was into.”

  Then he took his eyes off me and noticed Becca.

  “Oh, wait, all hope is not lost!”

  “Dr. Kale, meet Grayson,” Dr. Gale groaned. “That is Becca. She has a body now.”

  “Yeah, she does!” he excimed as he checked her out and completely ignored me. “Hubba bubba.”

  Hearing him say that, I was disgusted with myself for thinking those words when meeting the, possibly non-existent goth woman. Real or not, I owed her an apology. Becca’s eyes fshed red. I hadn’t seen them do that in this body before, only in hologram form. That’s a special kind of anger.

  “Don’t worry, Becca, I found the gun!” Karen’s voice came from somewhere off screen.

  “Wait, wait! Hang on!” Dr. Kale seemed to take her threat seriously.

  “WHERE IS HE?” a new voice boomed from someone I couldn’t see. The sound of a door being kicked open caused Dr. Kale to shriek and duck down beside Dr. Gale.

  A rge, muscled-up man with light skin, dressed in a bck suit, stepped into camera view. Dr. Gale looked as if he wished to be anywhere else at the moment. But he made the introductions.

  “Grayson, meet Justin. Justin, this is Grayson,” Dr. Gale spoke with half-hearted enthusiasm. Dude looked worn out.

  “Sure, hi Mason,” Justin said without looking at me. I rolled my eyes. Come on, dude.

  "Grayson," I said with a forced smile.

  He waved me off and gred searing daggers at Dr. Kale.

  “Karen, let me borrow that gun,” he said and held out his hand. His eyes jumped to the screen for a brief moment, then he did a double take to look at Becca. “Dr. Gale, what kind of shit are you watching here?”

  Dr. Gale's fingers were buried in his temples. “It’s Becca. You all really think I’m just sitting here in an office, that anyone can enter, watching something like that?”

  “I heard we should be able to look at litttttle porn at work,” Dr. Kale offered.

  I started to feel forgotten. These people were crazy; no wonder Becca was so weird.

  “Enough talking! It’s Kale killing time!” The one called Justin grabbed Dr. Kale by the scruff of his neck and dragged him over to a couch in the room's corner. Dr. Kale shrieked again and filed like a toddler having a meltdown. It didn't even slow Justin down.

  “Can you not make a mess in here?” Dr. Gale said.

  “He did this shit again! Again!” Justin said and took a rifle that Karen handed him.

  “No! It’s not the same thing!” Dr. Kale argued.

  “Yes, it fucking is!” Justin yelled in his face. “Another egg you messed with and another heartbeat was just registered! While we’re trapped in another facility!”

  “They brought him more spider eggs?!” Becca seemed livid; her eyes were stuck in red mode.

  “No! They won’t let me py with those anymore,” Dr. Kale said through tears and a deep frown. “These are totally different. These are *******************. But the spiders that are here do have that cool *******************.”

  “Hey, what the heck just happened to my ears?” I asked Becca.

  “Arachnoextinction 2 spoilers, I can’t let them through,” Becca said.

  “How many damn times are you going to do this?” It was Karen’s turn to scream. She grabbed him by the colr and shook him like a baby boomer father helping their kid with math homework.

  Once she stopped, everyone stared at Dr. Kale, waiting for an answer.

  “Well,” he said thoughtfully, which I immediately assumed was a terrible sign. “It was a pnned trilogy so at least once more after this?”

  “AHHHH!” Karen resumed the shaking, and Justin checked the gun was loaded.

  “I’m going to go find my son and Dr. Rose so we can start to deal with this,” Dr. Gale said and started typing. “I’m forwarding you a list of medications I would make a priority and some alternatives if you get desperate. I hope we can speak again, Becca. Good luck… with everything.”

  “Please stay safe, Dr. Gale. Say hello to Dave for me,” Becca said, and her eyes returned to normal.

  “Yeah, going to bring him into this real quick this time. Thankfully, he’s around and active already,” Dr. Gale turned back to the group wrestling Dr. Kale to the ground behind him. “And take Dr. Kale’s tablet away from him! He’s not getting to read the new Kiltedfrog series, ‘STAR WIZARDS: Return of the Space Dragons’, on Royal Road until we’ve accounted for every spider and *******.”

  Dr. Kale wailed and tried to crawl his way to Dr. Gale as Justin dragged him out of view by his feet. Karen was cracking her knuckles and following them.

  “Real quick, Becca. This zombie thing?” Dr. Gale asked.

  “Yes. What about it?”

  “Have you noticed any non-human deceased reanimating?” Dr. Gale said and pulled off his gsses to clean them.

  “I don’t believe we have yet,” Becca said and looked at me.

  “I’m not sure. I had come across some rough-looking wildlife, but nothing that resembled the decayed people walking around here. At least, not without being bitten by a decayed. That’s all I can say about that,” I said, and Dr. Gale nodded while I spoke. Becca fshed me a concerned look but didn’t speak up. Some things should stay just between us for now.

  “Good,” Dr. Gale said with a big sigh of relief. “Because we have a rge amount of the dead giant spiders in the lower floors that were being studied. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t have to worry about them coming back.”

  “Please be safe. Who knows what fuckery Dr. Kale will cause,” Becca said. “For when you can leave the facility, I have sent you our location. It would be a dangerous journey from Colorado, but you are welcome here.”

  Dr. Gale chuckled and scratched his face lightly. “Tell you what, Becca. I’ll see if we can take you up on that offer. Now I have to go clean up another mess. Let’s just hope they don’t cut the power aga-”

  The screen disconnected.

  “It, uh, seems like he might have lost power,” I pointed out.

  “Indeed,” Becca growled and ground her robotic teeth.

  “You take a few minutes; I’m going to go talk with Mike some more. Maybe reminisce about the old days when I was a wanted fugitive,” I said and went back to the elevator. I walked by Becca and put my hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know what happened st time, but they seem capable. Believe in your friends, they’ll be alright.”

  “Thank you, Grayson,” Becca said in a light whisper.

  I patted her metal shoulder a few times and took the elevator up. Time to air my dirty undry.