I slept.

  And I dreamed.

  I was a ranting shadow, raging against bonds and indignity.

  I was a cowering child, just trying to hide and survive another day.

  My world was reduced to instinct, motion, and the quiet rasp of claws against skin.

  There was little I could make sense of. I was everything, and absolutely nothing at all. Caught between a shattering mind and a rebelling body.

  So, I dreamed, and let the dreams piece me back together again.

  It all ended rather abruptly. One second, I was still an endlessly shattering and reforming nucleus of shadow and pale sinew. The next, I was standing on my own two feet as my eyes took in a drab room through a pane of glass.

  “I’m really hoping this isn’t a mistake.”

  A voice sounded off to my right. I tried to move towards it and stumbled, barely arresting my fall by pressing my hands against the glass.

  I frowned, feeling out what was wrong. My body wasn’t moving right. It wasn’t wrong, either, just… less physical. Instincts and drives and balance were all off. My usual slow, sliding gait disagreed with me.

  But why? And why did the quick, lurching way I had ended up moving feel more natural, not less?

  I squinted at the see-through glass, only to startle when I caught sight of my own, very faint reflection in the glare from the overhead light.

  Two perfect orbs of obsidian, cut through only by red irises, stared back at me. I lazily lifted a hand to hover it just underneath my eyes, then froze again at the sight of it.

  Everything came crashing down at me all at once, memories and visions and dreams suddenly resolving themselves into frustrating clarity.

  All but the shadow. The ranting shadow, I quite willfully locked away and threw away the key. At least for now.

  Instead, I focused all my attention on my new hands. Pale grey, almost corpse-like in quality. Frighteningly natural-looking too. I couldn’t even make out the joints and seams of the cybernetics anymore.

  But I could feel them. I could sense the bunching of the synth muscles, their shifting underneath my skin, the quiet, terrible strength hidden underneath the corpse-like pallor.

  My fingers, too, looked just odd enough to give away the truth of the matter. No way were those the hands of someone normal. Someone human. Not when they looked like a fifty-fifty cross between cat paws and human hands.

  A mere flex of my new muscles removed all doubt.

  Long, wickedly sharp claws popped out of my fingers with not even a sound. I admired them for a moment before slowly running them down the pane of glass. The screech that followed was horrible, but also quite… hollow.

  I felt remarkably at ease. There weren’t even any marks left on the glass.

  I wonder…

  I tapped into my eyes. Sure enough, the world shifted into a kaleidoscope of code. That confirmed my suspicions, at least.

  I was in netspace.

  It was only then that I finally turned to look at my host. The doctor’s little lab assistant was staring at me like I was some rabid druggie about to rob her. Maybe even a genuine slum druggie, who would sell her to a butcher or something for a bit of extra cash.

  I realized with a start that I had first taken too long to examine myself before paying attention to her, and that I was now committing another social error. I was just staring at her blankly, without moving a single muscle.

  You know, like a shadow might.

  I forced make-believe air into my make-believe lungs and made an effort to adopt slightly more human mannerisms.

  “Does the good doctor know I’m here?”

  I was pretty confident I already knew the answer. Something about the anxiety in her eyes, and the way she held herself, screamed out that she was way more terrified than she should have been.

  Not in response to just me, anyway. I mean, I might be a human-eating monstrosity now, but I’d still never given her a real reason to be scared of me. She had even apologized to me not long ago.

  My suspicions were proven correct when she shook her head.

  “Not right now, no. I’ve convinced him you’re still in a coma. And I mean, you were, until a day or so ago. Then I kept you under using those drugs he’s so proud of…”

  “And now we’re in netspace, chatting,” I said blandly, noting the way she stiffened in response. “Tell me, do I still have all my limbs in the real space?”

  “You do. You look identical to the way you look now, actually. Want me to summon up a mirror for you? I can…”

  I leaned heavily into my Clairvoyance, then tapped into several other skills the Shadow Runner package gave me access to. My clawed fingers dug into the code of the glass cage she had me in. Lazily, I stirred it around before pulling my hand back.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The code fell away. I was left with a section of glass now converted into a mirror, nearly identical to the one I had in my apartment.

  I frowned at the horrible flimsy outfit I was presumably wearing in the real world. It was some kind of hospital gown that looked like it would fall apart at a single tug.

  I proceeded to give it just that. My claws flashed again (I was quickly growing very fond of those!), and the terribly uncomfortable material fluttered to the floor around me.

  Sure, that left me in the buff. Amelia flushed and looked away. But I honestly didn’t give a shit at the moment. Some of my sensibilities must have gotten fried in the process of whatever had happened to me.

  In any case, I was a little busy taking in the state of my upper body.

  The arms were perfectly fused to me.

  There was no other way to describe it. I gingerly ran my new fingers over my shoulder, then winced at the foreign feeling of my own flesh. It might seem like simple skin at a glance, and it did feel kind of… rubbery? But what I had covering my arms could not be considered even remotely organic.

  Or if it was, then the ‘organism’ in question was made up entirely of metal, rubber, plastic, and other such stuff.

  At least my connection to the cybernetics was smooth. Gone were the seams that should have marked the spot where my new arms joined my body. Now, there was only unbroken not-skin there.

  The skin itself, though… that was a change.

  Pale grey flesh stretched well across my shoulders, enveloping them completely in swirls and tentacle-like patterns that resembled some odd, off-color tattoos. The patterns spread up my neck, almost to my chin, and down my chest as well. It was like a pair of octopuses had latched onto my shoulders and stuck their grippers all across whatever patch of my skin they could reach.

  At least they were confined to the upper half of my chest, if that was any consolation. And I guess it was? I mean, it was at most a third of my body that had been infected by strange eldritch flesh, rather than some other unfortunate ratio.

  If one didn’t count my blood and bones, of course. ‘Cause if those were taken into account, then the percentages changed by quite a bit, especially with what the doctor had revealed during my operation.

  “I — I see you don’t need my help.”

  Amelia let out a nervous little titter. I realized I was just staring at myself and staying quiet again, so I focused my attention back onto the assistant of my tormentor.

  Judging by how she flinched, she didn’t enjoy it much. I tried to remember to blink on occasion.

  “Is there any special reason why you wanted to chat with me? Wasn’t I supposed to be dead by now?”

  “Well, you’ve kind of risen in value, somewhat. Ya know, cause my asshole of a father’s been trying to kill you with his experiments, and you keep surviving somehow? He wants to know if you’ll be operational once you wake up.”

  “And you have other plans.”

  “And I have other plans,” she confirmed, switching from foot to foot.

  Remembering I needed to blink, I did so languidly. Might have messed up the timing a little and did one eye and then the other, considering how she grimaced and looked away from me.

  “Listen… I don’t like my father any more than you do. Way less, actually.”

  “I seriously doubt that. You know, cause of the whole ‘arms’ incident?”

  Humor. It appealed to me. It reminded me of what — who — I was. Am. Used to be? It was complicated and I hated it, but I loved the fact that the annoyance sparked something more human inside of me, too.

  “Yes, well.” A deep breath. She was trying to be brave? “You’re not the only one he’s messed with.”

  She wiggled her hands at me, and I tilted my head a little as I properly took them in for the first time. I hadn’t noticed before, but they were a very soft, green color.

  Cybernetics?

  “Your hands are not natural?”

  “Afraid not. Dear old Pops needed a volunteer. So, you know, he volunteered me! Without asking. Or telling me. Just… woke up on his operating table one day, with my arms gone. Was kind of a shock, let me tell ya.”

  I blinked again. I was pretty sure I was getting better at it, ‘cause she didn’t flinch. Progress!

  Then I felt sad for feeling happy about something like that. And then I remembered that she was still waiting for an answer. Or a comment. Or anything, really.

  “You hate him.”

  “Yes, yes I do. What was your first hint?”

  I shrugged. “All the name-calling, I guess.”

  “That wasn’t an actual question, you asshole.”

  This time, I permitted myself a smug little smile. “Oh, I know. I’m not… Well okay, I’m a little messed up, but not that badly. I’m getting better. Maybe.”

  “You really need to work on the whole staring thing. And the ‘staying extremely still’ thing.”

  Stupid human mannerisms.

  I tried to remember what it was like to just… fidget. That almost forgotten need to keep myself in nearly constant motion.

  “Please stop that,” Amelia cut in, her expression very much disquieted. “You’re doing a weird full-body twitching thing, and I really don’t like it.”

  “Oh. Right. I’ll practice later.”

  At least the tone of my voice was mostly right. It occasionally slipped into a weird monotony, but the longer we talked, the less that happened.

  “Riiight. Practice. Later. Listen…” Her pale green hands clenched into tight fists. “I want your help. I can’t do much on my own. My father made sure I have none of the training I would need to do anything that could threaten him. I have no idea how to hack or bypass his defenses, how to fight, or any of that other stuff. I’m an amazing ripper. Even better at cybernetics and bioengineering. I can handle the programming I need for those jobs. But actual runner training? Zilch. Zero. Nothing!”

  I felt a flash of irritation, but the hope that followed was well worth putting up with any other emotions. Still…

  “What do you even expect me to do?” I demanded. “Sure, I have some runner training. But it’s not like I can just connect to the net and take over his lab or something. I don’t even have a deck. Would you be able to get me one?”

  “Yes.”

  That finally shocked me into silence as my eyes locked onto hers. The sincerity I saw there was a relief. Ironically, though, the burning desire to believe her made it harder to do so.

  “Yes, I can get you a deck,” she rushed on. “I think the report mentioned you had an external one? Can’t get one of those. They’re, um, a little too old for my father. I can get you a deck implant, though. We have some. Made at the same time as your eyes, in fact. Highly compatible. Would that work?”

  I realized she was rambling. Her eyes were darting around, as if she was eager to look anywhere but at me. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she was terrified of my reaction, for some reason.

  “That would work great,” I said slowly. “But… How would you even get it to me? Or install it?”

  “I mentioned I’m a very good ripper, right? And my father’s put you under my care for now. I don’t think he’s going to be checking in on you much until you’re officially awake, and I’ve already rerouted your actual vitals to my own scroll. I’m currently feeding him bogus data, so he won’t get an alert that something weird is happening to you, or even that you’re awake!”

  I narrowed my eyes at that. She had mentioned she wasn’t good at ‘any of the actual runner stuff’, but then she turned around and casually revealed the deception she’d managed against her dear old dad. Shielding my actual status details from him was a runner skill, and she’d done it easily. More than once.

  I almost suspected her of treachery, but… she was more than worried and scared enough to be telling the truth. At least I thought so.

  That left one simple explanation: she was genuinely convinced that she couldn’t do something that was actually within her skill level.

  Not that I cared. If she wanted to depend on me, and therefore help with my own survival, I was more than happy to oblige.

  “Fine. Get me that deck, and then I’ll see what I can do to help us escape.”