While this wasn't wholly unfamiliar to her, something felt decidely off about the whole affair. She would have scratched her head while pondering, but the straps fit so tightly about her chest it was preventing any movement. She couldn't even /wiggle/ her arms, let alone haul a hand up to her head. There's something immediately freeing, yet wholly oppressive about being strapped to a table. On the one hand, she had no way of affecting her own body, but on the other hand whatever happened she could ride out in a wave of "Don't blame me, I was strapped to a table."
"Um... sir... Doctor, um... sir?" The voice was high pitched, urgent sounding and mostly nervous. It cut into her revery with a grating misery that caused her brow to furrow. She had just started to get comfortable and now the voice had to go and start making her nervous.
"Not now Menkins. It's bad enough I have to figure out what to tell her when she wakes up, I still have to figure out what happened." The other voice shared her annoyance, that was good. Maybe he would get rid of the first voice. She opened an eye to get a look at the owners of the voices. The first must have belonged to the mousey hunched fellow who was watching her face like a pervert with a Snow White fetish. Looking over a bit, the other voice must have belonged to the older scientist. If cliches and movies had taught her anything, the man in the lab coat and frumpy glasses was either insane or worked for the military. Probably both.
"About that sir..." Nervous McPuberty squeaked out, while still looking at her moving eye. Menkins reached over to grab the doctor, "She's awake!"
"She's wha... oh dammit."
Oh good. Always pleasant to wake up to the knowledge that nobody wanted you awake again. Real ego boosters, these two.
"Hello Renee... Can you hear me?" Well, he knew her name anyway, that was a start. It meant that she probably knew his and would remember it soon enough. For the moment she didn't much care. She moved her head a little, approximating a nod, and tried to smile a bit. Her voice wasn't working toO well at the moment, but that should be enough.
"We've got you on a lot of painkillers, and some other drugs. It's probably got your head a little fuzzy, not to mention you may not remember some things. Do you remember me?"
Bravlowski, that was his name! She tried to say as much, nodding a bit, but all that came out was a low mumble that sounded more like a wounded deer than anything else. She'd been right earlier, ex-military scientist, now working for a private security firm. Mad as a Hatter and brilliant as the sun. At least that's how the other contemporaries had described him. She'd mostly just made fun of his hair.
Not that he wasn't brilliant. Pieces started to come back into place. Menkins, the other lab assistant, had won the secret lots they'd drawn. She also remembered rejecting his advances about thirty-four times at last count. She secretly wondered if he'd copped a feel while she was out...
"Good. Your voice will return soon, it's mostly the drugs. Partly the damage... Do you remember the suit?"
Of course she did. That's what she and Menkins had been drawing lots about. Who was going to wear the Doctor's new suit. It was just about ready for full experimental testing, but the firm wasn't willing to dedicate any test subjects to it. Something about unpromising results and too many projects on the budget, yadda, yadda. The good doctor was never one to be restricted by such plebian beliefs as "Safety Regulations". One of the assistants would do for some minimal testing. Just a shot or two.
"Good. Well, there was... an unanticipated effect of the suit's discharge."
Well no crap 'Doctor'. Very few people end up strapped to a table when everything's going well. Well not with all their clothes on at any rate.
The suit was an experiment in energy discharge. A new power suit to help augment some of the firm's field agents. The street punks of the world at large had started to become increasingly powerful since the invasion, and normal means just weren't cutting it anymore. The suit collected 'Ambient nominal radiation'- or sun rays, to the rest of the world. Sometimes it would soak up the stray microwave, or x-ray- and used it to augment the wearer. It allowed a discharge of energy in a cohesive form, and also conferred a certain level of resistance to lethal damage and healing of wounds. At least enough to allow its wearer to survive the average gunshot wound.
She wondered quickly if she'd been shot. No, no, that wasn't it. They'd been testing the energy bolts today. Seeing what kind of distance they could achieve, the damage, etc.
"The suit was supposed to project the energy past your arms and out... it... didn't do that."
She wondered what had the doctor so nervous. Usually that was Menkins' department. She tried to look down at herself but couldn't manage toO well. Her head was being held down. All she could really tell was that she was still wearing the suit. It looked a lot like a form fitting turtle shell covering her body. Which was odd, as she didn't remeber the suit fitting that well before.
"The good news is that the suit saved your life. Without the augmented healing you'd probably be dead right now"
"Whoo... hoo," she breathed, astounded at how hoarse her voice was. Not to mention sarcastic.
"Yes... well, I suppose the good news does rather end there. For one, the suit is fused to you. We were unable to remove it. The buildup of energy melted it a bit." That would explain why the androgenous shell looked a bit more feminine.
"Also... It appears that the energy did not go around your arms and shoot past. It..." He took a deep breath, like someone about to explain the worst possible thing, "It went out /through/ your arms. It melted the flesh right off, and what's left of the bone is completly charred."
Her eyes shot open completely and she began struggling at the bonds holding her down. It couldn't be true, it couldn't be real. She could feel her arms. She could feel them right there at her sides like always. Why couldn't she move them? Why were they lying there limp as noodles when she needed them to move. She had to show the doctor that he was just insane, that her arms were just fine.
Menkins and the Doctor watched uncomfortably. "The energy cauterized the wound immediately so there was no real loss of blood, and the suit kept the trauma to a minimum. Well, the physical trauma anyway."
"No! No! No!" She continued to struggle, trying to get her damned arms to move.
"Menkins, undo her head strap. Let her look."
"Are you sure doctor?"
He sighed deeply with regret, "Yes."
She settled as Menkins came near, knowing she could settle this all once she had a good 'ol confirmation look. Just look down at her arms, maybe give herself a little wave, then lie back and sleep. Maybe have a good laugh at their "pick on the lab assistant day" joke. Later, she would smack them senseless for putting her throug all this, but for right now she waited for Menkins' hand undoing the strap like the hand of the savior reaching to take her home.
"There you go Ren..."
Her thoughts were calm and confident,'And now to look, and verify the... bones of my arms attached to my shoulders.' One should not be able to see the very insides of the body from the outside. There's just something wrong about that whole thing. Something that goes against the natural order of things. She could still feel all of her fleshy bits, but they were very much missing. All that lay on the table at her sides now were blackened twisted things that belonged in a cheap horror flick. Her head hit the table with a loud thump, and the pain that blossomed for a moment in the back of her head reminded her, oh so ironically, that she was in fact still alive.
"We were about to begin cutting off the bones. We can't leave you like this," the Doctor tried to sound caring. He was more likely upset at the astounding failure of his project. "We've already got some replacemnt arms in. Some of the boys in prosthetics have worked up a nice number for you. Of course, this is just the skeleton, and we'll get some polyflesh to cover it with, but the mobility and power is...," he cut off when the joy of science started sounding too excited in him. And when he saw the tears pouring from her eyes. Lying on a work bench not far from her were a pair of cold black steel robotic arms. No doubt top of the line. No doubt meant to replace the beautiful flesh she had been privy to before.
"And no worries, this is all covered. We're going to put you back out Renee. When you wake up you should have arms again."
She closed her eyes again and waited for the drugs to work. Too tired to tell him that she still had arms, they were just phantom ones. She sighed as she began to loose consciousness.
She knew this place had too good a health plan.
Renee Somersby was a Lab Assistant for a small, up and coming, security firm. She was assisting in the development of a new energy suit which would help augment field agents with ranged energy fire. During an initial, unauthorized, testing attempt, something went horribly wrong. The energy beams were supposed to shoot around her arms, but instead shot through them, melting the flesh and destroying her arms. The suit also became fused to her body, unable to be removed.
Thanks to the comprehensive medical plan of her company, she received new robotic arm prosthetics. These proved to be the missing key in making the suit work. The metal arms could withstand the heat and energy output (although any attempt to put fake flesh on the arms was a quick and smelly failure), allowing full control over the blasting capabilities of the suit. It was just as Renee was receiving field agent training that a muck up with a high profile job caused the firm to fold in a cloud of finger pointing and disgrace. Left alone with super-heroic disability, Ren did the only thing she could. Shortened her name to an old grade school nickname and approached the Paragon City authorities as Rensom, Super Hero. Heck, the pay was pretty good, and she got free trips to the hospital as well as techs willing to tinker and repair any damages to the suit. Now she stands among Paragon City's mightiest, ready to tumble with the worst.