"Cold body, warm heart.
A Cyborg 009 fanfic.


It's not like he doesn't have arms or hands anymore, but sometimes he still misses his human body.

Not only because it drives him mad to always have to use long sleeves in summer so that others don't see that he's not full flash and blood. Not just because he still remembers how she loved to cuddle against him when she was cold at night. It's more than just because, at times, he touches his gun hand and feels how it's colder than the rest of his cyborg body...

It's because his sense of touch is missing. Almost inexistent. Francoise is lucky because all of her senses were enhanced, not only her sight and hear, but also her capacity to touch - she could feel the slightiest temperature changes in the air, in example. And the others still retained the capacity to feel things through their skins and fingertips.

While all he has is a hand, which delivers death with bullets, and another, hiding a deadly laser knife. All covered under his skin-like gloves, the ones concealing the weapons implanted in him.

That's why he was so surprised when, all of a sudden, Jet told him not to miss such things. Jet, of all people! Wasn't he the rash one, the man stuck in a teen's body who still had the mindset of the boy from the Bronx? He'd be supposed to be less sensitive than, say, Francoise or Joe...

But in the airport, when he was getting ready to fly back to Germany after spending some weeks visiting the American youth and his friends (Cathy, Jimmy, the kids from the youth center Jet worked in...), Jet suddenly took his gloved gun hand and said something he'd never forget.

"Man, you might be a walking bomb, but while you still have a conscience and a heart, it doesn't matter. You're yourself, Heinrich. Don't forget it. EVER".

The surprise didn't allow him to react, back then. But now that he had thought of it...

"Yes, Link. I am myself. I'll always be myself".

Albert closed his eyes, and gingerly placed his gun hand over the knife one. He would always remember not only what Jet said, but the fact that having more metal than flesh in his body and not being always able to really touch things and feel them on his skin didn't necessarily mean he was less of a human man...

"While I don't lose my heart, I'll be able to learn to keep my humanity and the touch of my hands with me".