Penmanship faculties

a short story by Lancelot Schaubert

January 10th

Went to the doctor, complained about my immune system, asked about supplements.

He smirked.

Asked him if something's funny.

He called American supplements ignorant. Said he had something better, just approved. "Nanoimmunity bot."

Looked like aspirin. Dumb price, but insurance would pay, so... it engineers new paths towards health, teaches my body to adapt to "health threats."

He swore up and down it'd saved several trauma victims. "Like that self-healing plastic."

Why the hell not? I swallowed, signed.

February 3rd

No signs of it working, but I haven't caught a cold or flu or a sinus infection like normal in winter. Better than fish oil.

March 15th

Fell down the stairs. Heard something snap. Pain. Soft voice in my head asked me for permission to set the bone, fix the break. I'd called the hospital, but the voice insisted. I said sure. It said no additional resources needed, went silent.

Pain left. The most wonderful feeling. I mean, I once spiral fractured my femur in high school football. Took weeks. There in my stairwell this thing asks and break pain goes away. Miracle drug. Everyone should get one.

March 25th

Sliced my thumb tip to turn. Terrifying, but the other inner voice came back, asking permission to fix it.

Curious how this one'd look, I said, "sure."

It asked me to eat a plastic sandwich bag.

That's dumb.

It went on and on, growing more and more intense, louder, fiercer, almost worried it wouldn't have resources in time.

A bit of plastic would just get pooped out, right? Thumb's bleeding over my countertop. Took out another cutting board, used another knife to dice up a bag. Shot glass: half-plastic, half-brandy. Translucent, fleshy mesh formed over the wound, pulling the skin flap over deep tissue, scarring up a blue streak like a layer of woven water bottle where flesh oughta go.

Saved me money yet again and a bigger mop. Writing with that hand.

April 13th

No runny nose.

May 6th

Bar fight. Normally don't throw down, but the guy hit on my bride. Haven't hit a guy since my little brother, but I hit this one hard.

He was the bigger of the two of us, so... there was that.

Turns out people still break bottles over heads.

I cracked a hewn chair over his back, knocked him out.

Barkeep saw it. Cops on the way. I'd better get out, so I got a few blocks, bleeding and get a PSA of "permission to heal cuts" and "permission to fix fracture" and "permission to stop internal bleeding."

Last one stopped me short, so I said yeah, stop the bleeding.

It asked for more plastic.

Didn't have any. There's a dumpster, though. Trash bag.

Asked for some steel.

I took out my pocketknife and shaved off the paint and then some rust flakes from the dumpster's shell. Downed both as best as I could and heard "permission to heal cuts" and "permission to fix fracture." Went with the fracture. "More steel." Shaved and swallowed more. "More steel," it said. More. More steel, it said and more steel, so I gave it more and more and more until it told me "metal reserve sufficient."

May 7th

All the cuts healed with little bluish scars all over my face. Hope scar-removal cream helps.

May 21st

BLUE SCARS!

June 15th

Burnt my hand baking lasagna. Blister.

"Permission to cure burn."

Hadn't heard one of those before so I gave consent.

"Need Type 5 plastic."

I found one of the iced tea cups from that ethical coffee joint down the block, diced up some plastic. Swallowed and waited.

In a few moments, the skin on my palm--the blistering one-- bubbled and rippled as if the muscle below coiled. Around the

redness, a transparent plastic bloomed shoots: blades of miniature grass tinted blue. The entire burn site was surrounded by little plastic spires. Then, like a tuna can lid rolled back, my skin lifted up, detached and slid off my palm to the floor.

The pain was gone, and it its place sat a blue, plastic palm.

Have an idea...

June 18th

Thing's always asking for more plastic, right? More metal?

I took some of everything and chopped them up or grinded them into powders using that wooden mortar and pestle we use for the coriander. I asked what other resources it needed.

It answered, "Gold, silver, copper, all other plastics, iron, carbon fiber, Kevlar, oil, steel, rubber, cotton on occasion, zinc, glass."

The gold was simple--that watch hadn't worked since my uncle gave it to me for high school graduation. Same with Mara's silver necklace. Copper from old pennies. Iron from the skillet,

carbon fiber from the car. Stainless steel spoon. Rubber was gross: condoms. Extra lubrication couldn't hurt. Diced cotton. Ground up mirror. Zinc supplements. Separated them all into medicine bottles. Sewed elastic loops in my coat.

Had I ever turned the damn police scanner on?

June 19th

Alarm call at the neighborhood clinic. Beat the cops there. Some cracked-out moron looking for syringes, opiates. I came in loud as a Saint Bernard. He turned toward the noise, panicked, shot me in the gut and when I slumped, he turned back around.

"Metal received," my immune system said. "Permission to repair internal damage?"

Said yes, swallowed plastic, other things from the bottles. Blue spot appeared under the hole, flexible skin-like... what's it called? I'm looking this one up... hold on... polymer.

Got the gun out of his hands and pointed it at him and he started to run, so I tripped him and sat on him. Then I tied him up with some gauze, couldn't really see in the light. Made it out the back as the cop entered the front.

Too much fun.

July 29th

Haven't written in awhile. Elastic helps keep them straight when Immunity barks orders in the heat of the firefight. Jumped into a car that had flipped down a ravine. Got cut up pretty bad pulling out the only living soul--a little girl. Got enough in me to meet some plastic number 5 reserve and heal. Long blue streaks on my arms. I lost most of the skin on my face, which defeated the purpose of the mask.

Mara left after that--couldn't look at me, said my expressions were the same, but fake.

I'll get her back. Right now, work matters. Biggest threat?

Gang activity on the old shipping docks. Broke enough bones to empty every metal reserve. Resorted to shaving off raw stuff

around me: railing on one of the ships. I felt stronger, better, faster even after the mending. I can jump higher now.

August 3rd

Nanoman. Every time I hear it on the scanners... there's a twinge... like when dad asked me to go to the hardware store as a kid, even just to pick up peanuts.

Nanoman. They might write comics.

August 15th

Meth lab. Guy turned his pit bull loose on me. Got the bastard, but lost most of my calf and the skin on that leg. Lost blue polymer too. You could see the bones and the spots where there wasn't bone: iron, a great piston of a leg. A backhoe's joint where it met ankle, only smaller. Chugged every vial to stabilize. Drove home left foot on the pedals. Almost wrecked.

August 16th

Still healing from bite, but it's coming. Biggest problem? Keeping medicine bottles filled. Gold and silver's expensive-- sold furniture, cashed savings bonds.

September 14th

Bank robbery. Shot in the lung next to a desk. It hissed.

"Metal received. Permission to heal wound?" After consent, it asked for a bunch of rubber--way more than chopped-up condoms.

I was by that manager's desk, wheezing, so I grabbed her rubber band holder, her scissors, downed it as fast as I could.

"More rubber."

Went to the other desk. Got shot in the butt.

"Metal received. More rubber."

Chopped up more, ate more.

"More rubber."

Went to the other desk, limping, managed to avoid getting shot. How's that work? Had a good leg, good butt moving from desk one to desk two, shot in the ass. Moving from desk two to desk three, limping, and they can't hit my side of the room.

After the third bowlful, I was sick of eating rubber.

It stopped asking. Instead it said, "Preparing expectorant."

I coughed, hawked, hacked, barked louder and louder until a lung flew out. A slimy mass there in my hands. My new lung filled up and I got light-headed, but the room became clear.

Clearer than I'd ever seen it. I chucked the lung at the thieves.

One whined, "gross."

Using my good leg--the one with the pistons and blue synthetic skin--I kicked them across the room. Took two more shots to that leg, but they healed.

Drove home in their stolen car.

September 29th

Apartment fire. People jumping out of thirteenth-floor windows. Terrible. They had the whole fire department show up in force, out-of towners working it. I was already there kicking through brick walls and hauling load after load down. Knew I'd need more plastic than normal, so I took extra vials. I'd rescue some, take a swig, blue-sprout-shed skin. Back for more.

Coughing both lungs. Me and the crews saved a lot of lives, but lost even more when the whole thing came down--they'd evacuated after a couple of engineers came and warned about structural integrity. Fire chiefs knew, but didn't care until bystanders protested. Became a rubble search with tractors and arms strengthened by breaks-made-steel.

Long night. Afterwards, I came home, showered off the soot and cooked flesh and slept naked. I'll clean the drains in the morning.

September 30th

I have no skin. I HAVE NO SKIN.

Spent an hour staring at myself in the mirror. I'm all blue. How translucent this polymer is. I can see which bones have been damaged and replaced by pistons, which ones look human. My rib cage looks strangest, the ribs on one side must have shattered cause they're now a wheel-and-spoke system of iron bars. The synthetic lung looks bigger, stronger, fuller than my other. And yet... the breathing isn't really... breathing. It's something else.

Muscle on muscle have given way to metal and polymer. Some of the nerves underneath look like wires. Little gold and copper wires.

This sucks.

October 30th

System asked permission to discard my other lung. Told it no over and over, but it insisted. Two hours of nagging, then the synthetic bicep on my right arm ignored me, contracted, and jammed my synthetic thumb through my synthetic chest and into my organic lung. I felt it deflate.

"Permission to heal wound," it said.

If I was going down, it was on my terms. I said no.

"Rubber reserve analysis: sufficient for repair. No new rubber consumption required."

It repaired the lung without asking. I hacked up my last real lung. I caught it and threw it at the shower wall where it stuck and, to my knowledge, still hangs.

That shit all day. Permission for that, permission for this. One of my body parts will betray me, repair itself. I'll pass a kidney in the toilet, bits of my liver. My old heart just fell out a hole in my side. A pump replaced it. No muscle tissue left. Memories of my wife are fading, my mother. It asked to fix my brain. No way. It's finding a harder time poking holes up in my head. I'll hold on, but even now I can feel the fight drawing in, an army of microscopic robots battering the bulwarks in my mind's meat. Mara? If you find this, I'm sorry for everything.

I'm sorry for worrying about my health. I'm sorry for adopting the tech without fir-- [a series of indiscernible scribbles follows]

Penmanship faculties seized. Proceed to next brain lobe.

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