"I'm sorry, but he can't come out. Maybe try again in a few more days."

Beyond the drawn shades, sparse light filtered into the room in slivers. Specks of dust swirled in their spindly beams, yet the bundled shape upon Frogg's bed remained in shadow. The Superhero Kiddie College on the corner had let out and there was the scuffle of sneakers on the sidewalk, of children talking and yelling as they trekked home – of games to play, of what homework would be the hardest, which cartoons had new episodes to watch. Despite this noise, the conversation taking place on the Reinhart's front porch lifted dreamily through the cracked window into Frogg's room.

"Thanks for checking, Lisbeth. Walk home safely."

There was a mumbled reply he could not catch, the apologetic tone of Professor Reinhart, and then the click of the old front door closing. When footsteps ascended the stairs, the bundle only turned closer into itself – if Frogg could disappear, he would have long ago.

The creak outside of his bedroom door confirmed the arrival of his professor, and the man gently opened the door. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness within.

"I think that it's time you come out. It's not good to hole yourself up like this… and Lisbeth is worried about you. She's your friend, it's not fair to treat her like this."

There was no reply, and the Professor was certain that that boy he addressed was not truly asleep. It was one of the hardest things he ever had to see. Archibald Frogg was just on his way to gaining the confidence that he deserved so much, only to be suddenly and violently regressed into this state. The Professor's fingers played upon the knob of the door as he stood uncertainly in its frame, frowning as he sought words for a sentiment in which there was no right way to say – "Archibald. I know, or – I understand that this is hard. By no means am I trying to invalidate what has happened… but I promise you will get through this. It may not seem like it, but things will get better, and-"

"No it won't."

The reply was soft and meek, but so certain.

Once, when Hans Reinhart was young and it was the summer between school years, he was exploring the woods and stumbled upon teenage boys that had caught a wild snake. The boys there had alcohol and matches, and a five-year-old Hans could only watch just as the snake had been lit up, and under the liquid fire it had contorted and twisted in a way that haunted him for years. The word 'agony' had sprung to his mind then, and it was a memory that Hans had done a good job of making himself forget. Until recently.

As if in restless fever, though his actual temperature said otherwise, Frogg's movements beneath the covers reminded Professor Reinhart every bit of that snake. There was a barely audible groan when the boy curled in on himself, twisting beneath the sheets. Again, agony. He had caught Archibald in this state far too many times - it was the subconscious writhing of the sick and injured, but now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, Hans could see that the pain medication Gisela had carefully placed for Archibald that morning remained untouched. Whether it was physical or mental torture, Hans had no way of knowing, but he assumed both. Frogg had been back from the hospital for close to two weeks and had barely spoken or answered their questions on how to make him feel better or more comfortable, and he was at a loss…

"Archibald? Can you talk to me?" Hans Reinhart and his wife had tried in every way they knew to help. Now, he was realizing it was next to impossible. When he sighed, it was not of exasperation but deep concern, and spoke into the dark room – "You need to take care of yourself. Dinner will be ready in a bit, please come down and try to eat something this time."

The door quietly clicked shut.

Frogg released the breath he had been holding in. It came out as a raking choke and hurt in his lungs and throat, and he had to suddenly fling the blankets from his face. Though he had pulled them close like a nest or a sort of safety barrier and refused to leave them for days at a time, now he clawed them away in desperation, panting and suffering as quietly as he could – another anxiety attack – so it would not rouse the attention of the Professor and make him return. He could only stare at a single point on the ceiling with panic-filled eyes as he did the only thing there was to do… wait for it to pass. He did not want to be seen like this. He did not want anyone to look at him, acknowledge him, see what he had become… deep down, in the part of his brain dedicated to maintaining how others should be treated, he knew that his Guardians and Lisbeth were only trying to help, and they were trying their hardest. But God, it just hurt too much to care.

He just wanted it all to stop. If he could be left alone to just rot, to just lay in this bed until he just ceased to be… Frogg's forced his eyes shut, trying to imagine it. Serenity. Nothingness.

All that could get the boy from his bed was the need for the bathroom, or when he had to acknowledge his hunger or thirst when his stomach would cramp and ache tremendously from lack of food or drink. Tending to these things just mattered so little, and he was torn between the numb emptiness of feeling nothing at all or feeling everything so hard it would make his chest constrict and breaths come out in pants… Frogg had always been a nervous boy, but when he experienced his first anxiety attack, he truly thought he was dying all over again, suffocating. Sometimes he would suddenly become aware of himself and realize that he had been writhing in his bed for what could have been hours, his brain just running and running and running. Moving like a fevered or mad person might. Or when the pain in his wrists flared so it consumed all his senses… even worse, was when he discovered the Phantom Pains. Of excruciating sensations in his fingers or palms, and despite the pain of it and the logic that it was impossible, for a moment with leaping hope he would scramble to pull his hands up to confirm the sensation, because it was so real… but he would be met with incomplete forearms and wrists, the site of his amputation staring up at him in cruel mockery, and reality would once again crash down full force.

It was difficult in this state to tell how much time was passing.

The only thing that brought relief was sleep – or, even better, was when he would sometimes slowly awake in the sweet spot between what was real and what wasn't. Where in the limbo between dreaming and real life, he might have thought it was a normal weekend and mistakenly yet contentedly think to himself 'I'll play video games before I see Lisbeth today, but first more sleep'. It was these moments that were best. But then the discomfort of his recent surgery would make itself known and ebb into his thoughts, slicing that moment much too short. So, he tried his hardest to stay in the dark, to not look at whether the sun or moon was out as he sought that fraction of peace. However, as the days passed, it seemed that his Guardians finally made the decision that this was not a healthy way to recover, and the boy resented them for it.

It was Gisela, of course, who seemed to make the executive decision. One morning she let herself in after a quick knock and pulled his blinds up, letting the blazing light in. She had appeared at his bedside and pulled the covers down he was forced to look at her with his squinting, red eyes and his hair was close to matting it was so unkempt and unclean. The boy looked like a haggard creature from the dark, and quiet rage radiated from his safe space being violated, but she wouldn't leave until he finished the glass of apple juice that she had brought in.

There was one day following this where the Professor sat at the foot of Frogg's bed and attempted a conversation to make him feel better (to explain 'the practicalities of his situation', as he put it) and said, "I know that your accident has impacted your life and you think you can't be in science anymore, but it doesn't mean that a career is impossible. There are still plenty of things you can do in your field. You can change your studies to something that does not have you rely so much on hands. You can begin a new degree."

"But I want to build!" Frogg snapped. The twelve-year-old, who had always been so soft-spoken and had learned to carefully monitor his tone from living with an abusive parent for years, was beginning to sound like an entirely different person - fluctuating between saying nothing at all in his deep depression to raising his voice for the very first time in his life. Hans attempted to hide his shock – Frogg had been possibly the most soft-spoken and timid child he had ever met, and this boy seemed like a stranger.

"I know, but you need to realize this doesn't mean your life is over. You can still supervise, or teach, or-"

"Teaching is for people who aren't good enough for the real thing! I want to build!"

He did not realize that what he said was an insult to his Guardian's profession until the words left Frogg's mouth, but the man was too patient to take the offense personally, instead acting as if he did not hear it.

"Archibald. I know you want things to go back to how they were, but-"

"What I want is my fucking hands back!"

"Hey, watch your language," Hans scolded, and his tone was not severe in the slightest, but Frogg still reacted by raising his own.

"No! You can't tell me what to do, you're not my papa! You never were!"

This time he could see the clear hurt flicker in the Professor's eyes, see how taken aback he was by the stinging words. Frogg did not know why he said it, even surprising himself. Of course, he knew his adoptive parents loved him, and despite not even being a blood relative, they had cared for him more than his very own papa did after turning to alcoholism. Frogg knew the right thing to do would be to immediately apologize, to say he did not mean it, but his mouth stayed pressed into a thin, angry line. In the future, he would remember snapping this nasty thing to the Professor and think it was one of the worst things he had ever said out loud. But at that moment, all Frogg understood was the anger and the sorrow and injustice of it all. Of everything that happened to him. Over and over, it seemed to happen to him and only him. But now this? Everything, no matter how tragic, had steered him to the life he was living in West Berlin where for the first time in his life felt as though he could do something and be great at it, be something, something in which he was the best and finally confident for the first time…

And now his Guardians were trying to tell him that everything would be just fine even though he had his hands ripped off and shredded in a lab accident? That he could just oh so easily change everything that he had lived and loved and worked so hard on for a "career change" (a conversation that truly no twelve-year-old child should ever be having!) as if it was so simple. Now he finally understood how his papa had felt being forced to relocate from his rural hometown by the power plant - where he was a high-clearance Nuclear Engineer, only to be reduced to some mundane desk job in East Berlin for the facilities instead – no wonder his papa had become so angry, so bitter. Even if it manifested in the form of beating on his poor defenseless son, his papa had the right to be feel betrayed and now Frogg felt it too.

And what was worse, is his Guardians would be say these things right across from Frogg at the kitchen table when they made him come down from his safe space, their fingers cozily wrapped around hot cups of coffee as they spoke, and he would just glare in contempt and jealously at it. He'd never know what that would feel like again. Gisela would leave these conversations and work on her paintings with her precise artist's touch. The Professor could still write in his little notebooks about lesson plans for his new students. They didn't know what they were talking about. So yes, he was angry, and no he did not need to apologize for it. This was a complete and utter tragedy, and they did not understand at all.

And tragedy was something that Frogg was far too familiar with. He wondered if his prior encounters with this reviled companion may have even softened this experience in some horrible way, some way he hated that he had to appreciate. He had already experienced the physical and emotional agony of being beaten on by his own papa, of knowing what it felt to be once loved by a parent and then cast away from the same person. His mind was still plagued by his fear of the Stasi, forever instilling a lifetime of distrust within. Living - literally! - under the shadow of The Berlin Wall had him well acquainted with feelings of dread, a sort of existential anxiety no one, let alone a child, should experience. Archibald Frogg had practically shaken hands (oh, the irony there) with explosive feelings of loss, pain, fear and confusion far too many times in his already short life. And despite this, there was one thing he had yet to experience… and that was complete and utter desperation. It was the self-preservation found in the animal chewing its own paw off to escape the hunter's trap, the desperation of having to do whatever it takes to survive. Something that could drive someone to the brink of sanity.

And when it hit Frogg, it was worth the force of a train, and it was as if he finally woke up.

The day it happened, Frogg's plan of evading his anguish in the realm of dreams and unconsciousness was foiled early that morning. Gisela let herself in and opened the blinds like she had the prior three days. The warm sun hit him in the face, and once more he reacted much like a gremlin would, wincing and shying away from it. He wanted to be left alone, to rot in his misery and pretend that life did not exist outside his bedroom.

"Wake up, Archie! Good morning," Gisela called out in a way that wasn't quite sing-song, but close enough to irritate him even more. Plus, only Lisbeth was allowed to call him 'Archie'. "Here's your juice and vitamin, drink up."

He knew from the past two mornings' experience that she would not leave unless he obliged. His stomach was so empty it was already hurting to the point that eating or drinking was even more undesirable. He had not come down for dinner the night prior, opting for sleep instead of eating, but Gisela had come up with a plate of food then as well. She had not left until Frogg forced down two bites of cucumber salad and half of a roll. It was the most he ate in two days. It used to be a trait of Gisela's that Frogg admired – wishing he could be the same – where she was so determined and head-strong to take not take 'no' for an answer, but now he resented her for it. Of course, she didn't bring a straw for the glass of juice. She knew he'd have to work for it.

"Use the prosthetics," Gisela suggested as she went about the room and straightened things, acting as if she wasn't aware that Frogg was struggling and getting red-faced from the frustration of it. "You should be practicing every day; you know that right?"

He was supposed to, of course. But they had remained untouched on his bedside table since he had arrived home from the hospital. Once, he entertained the idea of practicing with them just because the Professor was so adamant, but that session had only lasted ten minutes. He couldn't do it – it was too frustrating, it was an insult to the hands he once had, they were inferior devices – so he left them alone.

Thankfully, Gisela did not chastise him for refusing to use the prosthetics and he managed to gulp down the juice with difficulty, the cup balanced between his wrists, but she still left with a remark – "You should do something today. Read a book, take a bath, come downstairs. I'm thinking of curry for lunch, any other requests?"

"No."

And he gloomily retreated to the safety of his blankets – pulled them over his head so the light from the window was muted, his amputated wrists tucked securely at his sides where he would not be able to see them, and he clamped his eyes shut. He felt sick from drinking the sickly-sweet apple juice.

But hours later, rather than numbly drifting through sleep as he hoped and intended, Frogg awoke startled. The boy could not remember his dream, yet his heart was racing, and residual ropes of panic slithered away from his consciousness. He was grateful that he could not recall the dream – once he had shot up screaming because he had what seemed to be the most realistic recreation of his surgery in sleep, where surgeons used archaic and rusted tools to slice off what was left on his hands as he laid on the hospital table. But now, the most pressing matter was his discomfort. He still felt nauseous from chugging the apple juice that morning, and his bladder was complaining about it as well. Frogg groaned.

Rising from the bed, he felt dizzy. He had always been thin, but he had dropped weight in the past few weeks to the point of appearing downright sickly, and he was weak. Frogg did not even consider his prosthetics as he left the room. Without his pile of blankets, the house felt freezing despite it being a comfortable room temperature. Wearing pajamas and the ease of access they provided made using the bathroom somewhat easier, but he was not able to shut the door (can't use a doorknob without hands to turn it). Still feeling quite dizzy, he had expected to throw up when he was in the restroom, but it passed. Maybe food would do good after all, even if it did not sound appetizing.

On his journey downstairs, Frogg was sure to place his feet on the floorboards that did not creak. He knew that if Gisela heard or saw him, she would only encourage him to stay downstairs, or eat more than he wanted to, or to practice with those infernal prosthetics. Or, most likely, his adoptive guardian probably just wanted to spend time with him and hope that he was doing better – but no, this was only a quick mission. When he arrived at the kitchen, Frogg looked for something quick and simple to grab. There were apples in a basket, but the taste of apple juice lingered on his tongue bitterly. A banana bunch sat there as well, and he'd have to use his teeth to peel one, but Frogg went for it.

That was when the telephone in the kitchen began its shill ringing, startling him, and he heard Gisela's quick footsteps to answer it. Frogg clumsily dropped the banana he had been gnawing on. He did not want to be seen. He didn't want to hear her good-natured yet undesired encouragement. The pantry door was ajar. Frogg slid in, stepping back so he was in the corner between the brooms and dry goods.

Gisela Reinhart came in and lifted the phone receiver.

"Hello? Oh, Doktor Fischer. How are you?"

From where he stood in the shadow of the pantry, Frogg blinked in confusion. Doktor Fischer, his Principal Investigator at the University?

"Thanks for asking. Yes… he's getting better… yes, he's been getting lots of rest."

Oddly enough, Frogg found an annoyance creeping over him - that he was being talked about so openly with this woman. Doktor Fischer was a colleague, essentially an academic supervisor, and this person was calling for what sounded like a wellness check? Has Gisela spoken to her before? He listened on, keeping his breath quiet.

"He has an appointment at the end of the month for a follow up on the surgery. So far it seems everything is healing nicely. Oh, thank you. Thanks, I appreciate the offer, but I work from home and that helps immensely."

Hearing a one-sided conversation was maddening. What was his PI saying? Embarrassment washed over him – something that felt infantilizing, reminding him that whether he was what people called a 'child prodigy' or not, he was still a child, and that the adults around him only seemed to focus on that. If he were in this same situation but the age as his lab mates, would this phone call be happening?

"Oh, I'm not sure," he heard Gisela say with what sounded like an overwhelmed sigh into the phone, "I agree that he wants you continuing the project… I'm positive about that. I just don't know if it's a good idea for him to be there where it happened. It may be best for him to hold off on the Master's."

Frogg quietly gasped.

"I'm not sure how it works. Is it still possible?" There were several moments of Gisela listening to the other end of the call and Frogg wished more than anything he could know what was being said, "Ah, okay. So, it sounds unlikely. I understand. Like I said, it's not my area of expertise. I'll talk to Hans tonight; he'll know more than me... Alright. Thank you again, have a good day."

Gisela had placed the phone back into its cradle and returned to her studio where she painted throughout the day in a trance-like state, but Frogg did not move for several moments.

Frogg felt as if he had been electrocuted. What about his Master's?

He had been operating through a haze, not keeping track of days, and trying his best not to acknowledge the real world outside of his own dark bedroom – but now he willed himself to focus, to clear his brain of the fog, and slowly he put the pieces together.

His life was over - that was the hard truth that he had come to.

No hands equaled no engineering… no future Doktor Archibald Niklas Frogg. The boy wasn't just an Engineer or a Physicist like his bachelor's stated - he was also a welder, an electrician, a mechanic and more – all these things so that he could successfully create his fantastical inventions. With his 'disability', as his doctor from the hospital called it, he just simply could not do these things. And contrary to what the Professor insisted, the boy wanted to create. Everything, all his ideas, uniquely his. He had zero interest in becoming a project manager, or a designer, or a supervisor despite Hans's attempts to justify such an immense change. No one else could put their heart and soul into the things he needed to create like he could, it had to be his.

But what about his Master's? Was that over too?

Frogg focused with difficulty – he had to think hard. He must have been gone from the University for close to a month and a half at this point. That was such a long time… by now, if everything was going as planned, the laser should be getting it's finishing touches. He guessed that his colleagues Ishaan, Flynn and Emma had probably started testing it and outlining the scientific paper, maybe just waiting on plugging in results before writing the discussion and conclusion. No matter how much work he contributed to the actual physical production of their machine, Frogg knew very well that it was the name on the paper that truly mattered. That was the ticket to receiving his Master's. And it was also what should have opened the doorway to a Doctorate. What if – Frogg was beginning to get a headache – what if it wasn't all over?

What if he somehow piggybacked this experiment all the way to a Doctorate?

What he and his colleagues and Principal Investigator were building at Humboldt was groundbreaking. This was a fact. For all he knew, it may be the biggest invention of the year. He recalled how occasionally when he worked in the lab, humming to himself as he just casually went about his work, the boy would suddenly be hit with a sobering realization – I'm touching something worth millions one day – and would check himself by maybe turning the music down a bit to increase his concentration, or focus on his surroundings considering his horrid case of clumsiness. Sure, other scientists were experimenting with lasers, he kept up with all the scientific magazines… Some guys in Tanzania had invented a machine last year where a beam could suspend objects in space, like a tractor beam. And in the United States (of course it would be U.S.) the government recently approved trial runs of police using a non-lethal laser as weapons. But what he and his teammates created could have scientists all over the world reconsider the laws of physics. It was so big; he could possibly ride its success for a few more years all the way to a Doctorate.

Even if he couldn't use the title, maybe he could still be one.

It was there, still standing in the darkness of the pantry, that Frogg was hit with this sudden epiphany so hard he audibly gasped.

He could salvage this.

He could actually salvage it…! Even if it was just a small victory, even if it felt like his life was over if he couldn't create anymore and it was just a title of all things, he could certainly finish his Master's. And possibly, if he did it correctly, he could obtain his doctorate. Even if just being able to call himself Doktor Frogg was such the smallest fraction of his lifelong dream, at least he could have that. He was desperate.

And he needed to act now.

Frogg went to move, hit with the overwhelming sense of urgency – he had things to do and fast, time was not on his side – but then the most obvious obstacle of them all came to mind. How exactly would he do it? He subconsciously rested a forearm near his belly, painfully aware of how hideous their ends looked. But especially how utterly useless they were. He could not even hold a pencil in this current state. Even if it was the absolute bare minimum, he was still going to have to have a means to touch and hold things. The prosthetics provided by the hospital still sat untouched on his bedside table upstairs – those would be no good.

He needed to be able to function, and Frogg deserved better. He'd have to make his own.

Later that night, Archibald Frogg was fresh from a bath that had turned his skin pink from the . Hans had to knock and ask if he was okay, for Frogg had soaked for close to two hours – just thinking and planning. He had plans for tomorrow and needed to get his thoughts organized. Despite the boy's stomach still being all sorts of messed up and his appetite was nonexistent, his Guardians were pleasantly surprised when he came down to the dinner table. He was going to need energy to fuel his brain and working on an empty stomach just would not do.

"Good, you're practicing with the prosthetics," Hans had noted in approval when he saw Frogg raise one of the fake hands and try positioning a fork in it.

He did not have much of a choice. Though he detested the things, unfortunately Frogg would need something to help him complete the first steps of his plans. Now he regretted ignoring the devices for so long – though inferior, now they were essential tools to make something even better, and he tried his best to calm the escalating frustration of using them. He did not speak as he worked his way through the meal and constantly adjusted his new 'fingers' to use his utensils. Following dinner, he found himself planted on the couch and watching the evening news with his Guardians. He would have rather been left alone to plot and plan, but if he wanted to be out and about the next day and leave the house, he needed to make a good impression – so he listened as the news anchors went on and on about this new World Wide Web gaining traction, and it was followed with some gossip on an international Superhero. Some sort of drama that was usually only reserved for celebrities.

"This is ridiculous," Gisela had declared, gesturing towards the television. "When I was little, a superhero was just… a hero! What happened to saving lives? Who cares about this stuff like who is dating who?"

"Too many people, unfortunately," Hans commented, barely looking up from the assignments he was grading. "Maybe these heroes are becoming the new movie star.

After everyone had gone to sleep, Archibald tested his newly fresh bed. Hans had put his sheets in the wash earlier, and the boy approved, for they must have looked awful and smelled like depressed pre-teen boy. But rather than pull the fresh blankets over him, Frogg scooted close to his bedside table, determination set on his face. He reached for his lamp and used his prosthetic to flip its switch. Every single movement, literally, required tedious adjustments - he may end up going crazy before getting any work done doing this – and with the light bright upon his arms, he worked on pulling them off.

For the first time since he left the hospital, Frogg really looked at what became of his hands. There would be no flinching away this time, no avoiding the quick glances that upset and made him avert his eyes in disgust and shame.

Upon beginning the examination, his heart pounded. It was in his ears, behind his eyelids, and forming on either side of his throat, tightening it. No, he thought through a forced deep breath, no anxiety attacks this time. This is purely clinical. It's just human anatomy, like anyone else's. Just mechanics of the body. He repeated his like a mantra, taking those shaking deep breaths. And surprisingly, though he did not realize it as the boy became fixated in his concentration – it worked. He had the mind of a scientist, and his brain fell much too easily into the familiar role. He carefully studied his body.

Despite the pools of knowledge that Frogg's higher education provided him and related very much to what the boy now examined – hours of Physiology and Biology that he had taken as Electives, for this was fun to the child prodigy of The Free University – it was far from the first source that sprang to the boy's mind. His first introduction to these things began what felt like a lifetime ago to the twelve-year old, not from University, but when he was just a small boy hiding in his childhood bedroom of East Berlin of all places.

Towards the end of his stay in East Berlin, the spine of his mama's old copy of Gray's Anatomy had become fragile from little Frogg's constant use of it. He would sit on the floor of his bedroom, where just beyond its window the Berlin Wall sat within view, and confident that his papa was passed out drunk for the night, he would flip the book open to a bookmarked page. There was an illustration of a human forearm, and there were layers of the cardiovascular system, the dermis, and following pages would show the complicated network of tendons and ligaments. He would just study it over and over, the earliest idea for a one-of-a-kind Archibald Frogg invention.

"Kaspar, does that look familiar to you?"

And the grey cat that was sitting either beside him or sometimes in his lap would just purr and listen to her human friend excitedly chatter, because he did not have any of his own to share these ideas with.

"It's a human skeleton, but you have that too! We all do, cause mammals are more similar than different. That's what my Professor Reinhart says… Did you know we have twenty-seven bones in one hand? Cat's have eighteen, but that's still a lot! I'm gonna make you a new paw, are you excited?"

Then he would reach out and give Kaspar's bad leg a little squeeze, where it had not entirely formed when she was born. It did not hurt the animal, and Kaspar would just blink slowly at him in the way cats do when they feel safe, and Frogg would pull out his secret stash of parts and get to work.

Those images were practically seared into Frogg's mind. He had poured over all his mother's things endlessly, including other sections of Gray's Anatomy, but how many dozens of hours had he focused solely on that section? All to make a cybernetic for his best friend and pet cat. The profound coincidence of it all hit him. Frogg was not a spiritual or religious boy in the least – confident in what could be considered an atheist viewpoint found at an extremely young age – but it now occurred to him just how strange it all was. Maybe it was fate. Maybe Kaspar the cat had been there to help him, like a fluffy little guardian angel, sent to prepare him for what his life to become… but no, he always got upset when he thought about Kaspar, and he had work to do, so he forced himself to concentrate once more. He had to think logically, this was no time for emotions.

Turning his wrists this way and that, he could see that his amputations weren't exactly symmetrical. Though they had been cut off at the base of his palm, a knobby bone on his left protruded just a bit further than the right arm. The Carpal area, he recalled, the illustration of a skeletal hand with arrows pointing at all twenty-seven of the bones leaping into memory. He knew this spot was especially sensitive post-surgery – he had lightly knocked it into things inadvertently and it was like hitting a funny bone but infinitely worse. The Ulna and Radial bones were complete, their shape defined beneath stitched up skin. There had not been enough, and a small, discolored square on his left thigh indicated the skin graft used to complete this part of the surgery. Seeing the lines of faint blue veins and arteries tracing the underside of his arms, Frogg wondered how the surgeons were able to stop the bleeding. Cauterization? That he did not know.

Frogg then went to flex and work his nonexistent fingers. It was certainly one of the oddest sensations of his life. He had done this very action in the hospital dozens of times, both sickened and perplexed by the sensation, but now he just admired how the human body worked. Though he did not have hands - let alone fingers - his brain could still attempt to perform the function, and he watched in macabre fascination. Beyond his pale skin and the blue of his veins, there were still parts of his body moving. Like little rods at work, even if it was for nothing. Flexor tendons, the family was called. He was positive a significant amount was no longer functional, but there was still some movement. If he went to make a tight 'fist', his scrawny muscles still flexed and reacted. Extensor pollicus longus.

Frogg decided he had seen enough, dropping his wrists. It felt as though he had completed a strenuous workout, but his brain had been doing the exercise, powering through the panic and fear he usually felt when looking upon his disfigurement. He had his brow furrowed in deep thought.

The cybernetic he had made for Kaspar years ago was an entirely different situation. With some gentle prodding (and many treats and petting), Frogg had discovered that his cat had simply not been born with much of this physiology on her bad leg. Whether he had used Gray's Anatomy – a uniquely human reference – or not, he found the principle was still the same, just placed a bit differently in an animal's body. It was found all throughout the animal kingdom down to birds and bats and bears. All the same parts, just arranged a bit differently. He just had to accommodate these differences. And what he had made for her took almost a full year to complete – in the end he had to rely on the nervous system for it to be as perfect as it had. To put it in layman's terms, he made an electrical device to pick up on electrical impulses of the body. What he invented was something that could translate the journey of 'MOVE' from where it began in her brain, down her spinal column, down to her limbs – and then his device received that same message and performed the task MOVE.

Frogg did not have a year's time. He had days.

He did, however, have one advantage over Kaspar's situation. She had simply not been born with all her anatomy. However, even if Frogg's hands were gone, they were just one part of an extensive network of body parts. Some of which were still intact and quite functional. His cat's prosthetic had been created in principles of neurophysiology, and Frogg would of course still have to dip his 'fingers' into that if he really wanted something that could work well, but his situation could be considered primarily mechanical. Ideas began to flood his head and he sketched out blueprints behind his eyes at lightspeed – it was always the same, as if every brain cell of his was now devoted to the task. It only took seconds to reach a conclusion. There were ways to really speed things up. Processes that would be much more familiar to him, but a word sprang to mind at thought of it: invasive.

Invasive, but much faster and very possible.

He bit into his lip. It was going to hurt.

A/N. Still keeping the chapters coming, even if it feels as though a year or two passes between updates! I think I may be the only one left in this dead fandom, but still at it :]