4: I Stumble
My eighth meal goes untouched. The metal-armed man, the man with no name and no past, makes no comment about my continuing neglect. He doesn't lecture me as I allow myself only a few hours of sleep, either. Perhaps he can sense my panicked, frenzied intensity. I rather suspect, as he sits unmoving as stone, he just no longer wants to recognize that I'm there.
I work tirelessly, always moving, checking diagrams and rewiring the small, fragile gears at his shoulder. If the wires seemed like a jungle mess in his forearm, it's nothing to the layers upon layers or red, green, blue and silver wires that crisscross and cover every inch of his bicep. It takes very steady fingers to gently push aside the tangle to get to the corrupted internal workings. I have to stop several times to shake out my hands-they won't stop trembling. This is the kind of intensity my brain craves and yet, for the first time in my life, I can't lose myself in my focus. My brain will shift into gear, only to splutter and grind down another path of thoughts unprovoked. How can someone not know their past, or even their name? Did he choose this? Has he been brainwashed? But what for?... If I'm honest with myself, I know what for. The knives on his belt are so close I could brush my fingers against the steel by accident. The knives always intimidated me, and yet I totally put any thought of why he would need knives out of my head. They appear almost sinister to me now, gleaming in the low light, and I'm unable to suppress a shutter whenever I catch my reflection in them. I've been such a fool; his metal arm is scarred with violence. And really, how many purposes could there be for such a precise bionic limb?
How did I ever believe I wasn't in danger? He's brainwashed, and violent, with a mission-but from whom? Does he work for the government, or some foreign body? Does it matter? Oh God, what am I a part of? When I fix his arm-if I even do fix his arm-does that mean innocent will die? Am I an accessory to murder?
But what good would it do, to throw down my tools and refuse to continue? They would simply shoot me, abandon this particular mission, and find someone else to fix his arm, someone who doesn't mind dirty hands. My sacrifice would mean nothing, and yet my success would mean the almost guaranteed death of someone else; I can attest to the overwhelming power and precision of this metal weapon.
Unless… unless I kill the metal-armed man.
I don't understand everything in the metal arm. There are whole portions that the manuals completely ignore, I would guess intentionally. At first I ignored them too, those tiny chips buried in his upper arm underneath all the layers of wires. They seemed to have nothing to do with the arm's functionality and so were none of my immediate concern. Now I steal glances at them as I continue to work my way up from fingers, then wrist, forearm, elbow, upper arm, and finally now shoulder. I can only make an educated guess, but one of them is bound to be a kill switch. No bionic-sporting assassin working for a shadowy organization is complete without one. If I found it, and triggered it…
By the time my ninth meal arrives, I've narrowed it down to two switches. My instinct is to ignore the food and keep going. But I force myself to pick up the tray and chew, letting my options swim around in my mind. I have no concept of how much more time they'll give me, how much longer I have left to live. Either way, if I'm going to flip the switch, it'll need to be soon.
The eternal optimist in me surmises that the switch probably causes some type of explosion. If there's no remote safety, it's probably instantaneous, killing everyone nearby. Worst case scenario, the switch kills only the metal-armed man, and the guards either kill me instantly, or torture me for days before killing me. I want to lie to myself and insist I'd face such treatment with courage born of moral righteousness, but the cowardly truth is I'd prefer the explosion.
I swallow the last of my meal, utterly unaware of what it was I was even eating-it all tasted like sand in my mouth. I turn back to my work, my brain heavy with fatigue and decisions. In all scenarios I can think of, I die if I flip that switch. I certainly never envisioned going out like this; my widest prediction had been a roller coaster accident. Still, if it meant I saved even one innocent life, maybe it'd be worth it. I don't want to die-but maybe some things are more important than my life.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, in the way they do when I can feel the metal-armed man's gaze on me. I look up without thinking, too tired to be cautious. His eyes lock with mine, and he doesn't look away. For a moment, I panic-can he tell what I'm thinking, what I'm planning? His face reveals nothing. His stare is even, unemotional, and yet just the sight of his vivid eyes causes my heart to constrict. I'm thinking of all the innocent lives out there, and ignoring the one sitting right in front of me. I don't know that he choose this; he could be just as much a victim as anyone he kills. I can make a choice about my own life, but to decide for him that he should die is no better than what I'm deciding he should die for.
"I'm finished," I say quietly.
I sit back in my chair to allow the metal-armed man full range of motion. He tentatively flexes his wrist, slowly bending and extending, rotating his shoulder in circles with satisfactory fluidity. As conflicted as I feel about my decision to not flip the switch, I can't help a feeling of pride in the arm's functionality.
The American guard steps close to us, his gun still strapped to his side. "How does it feel?" he asks.
The metal-armed man makes a few full-armed swings, like a pitcher winding up for a fast ball. After a few moments of stretching, he nods at the guard.
"Good," the guard says, and raising his gun, points it directly at me.