Until quite recently, Luca had suffered because he couldn’t accept himself, eking out one day after another. He’d felt like a wretched survivor forced into a life worse than death, a lump of meat that couldn’t do a thing on its own.
But in the moment he’d raised a vertical line on his breath alone, Luca had felt his own weight for the first time. The weight of an existence that didn’t vanish along with his limbs, brutally heavy and vividly present. And along with it came the captain’s warm smile as he shared that moment.
The captain who bore his name, Luka. A tender, kind adult. A man who never once let on that a body without arms or legs disgusted or burdened him, who always did his utmost to show affection. Every time he smiled he glittered like sunlight, and Luca couldn’t look away...
Just thinking of him set Luca fidgeting at the bedsheet with his hand. The way he fidgeted with a uniform button whenever he was held.
“...He’s definitely a strange man. I’ve never met that type in my life, so to be frank it puts me off a little.”
After that brief pronouncement, his expression turned complicated as he looked out at space. There was no way the captain would carry out charity work with nothing in it for him. Surely he’d saved him for a reason.
And yet, for that, the attention he paid to every single thing was excessive. Gladly giving up his own time and pouring devotion into someone who struggled with mere breathing.
“...Why wouldn’t he let me die? Why does he kiss my forehead and the back of my hand and treat me like I’m precious? Why...”
In that endless banquet of why, Luca let out a short sigh. Not one of his questions had been answered. No, as time passed, the worry he’d been dreading was packing itself densely into his head.
The worry that if it turned out the man had shown him this much affection for the sake of some purpose, he’d inevitably be hurt by it.
Luca murmured, very quietly.
“Once I can walk... he waited a whole month, so he’ll tell me to pay for my life... and then he’ll tell me why our names are the same, and why he came looking for me.”
What reason would he give for saving him? That with his limbs replaced by prosthetics, he’d make a useful combatant, someone who could engage directly when they fought Aegis? Was that why Kai had tuned the output higher?
His condition certainly made it easy to treat him as a machine person rather than a whole human being. Break as many limbs as you like in a fight, and you just swap in new prosthetics. Being treated as a machine person to use and discard suited what he’d become all too well.
“...”
Luca fought to pull his sinking mood back into place. Even if he was treated as a machine person, he mustn’t be sad about it. He’d been saved, so the debt had to be repaid.
Once the debt’s paid off... I suppose I could say I’m getting off this ship after that...
But if he got off, where would he go? His home planet was already destroyed and gone. Was there a planet generous enough to take in a displaced person like him?
The window reflected him alone in a bleak darkness. Not the fevered gaze of someone who’d taken up hope for life, nor the despairing face of someone who’d given up on everything. Just an unremarkable self accepting his fate with composure.
Luca slowly closed his eyes and steadied his breathing once more.
“Haa, hoo...”
Imagining the touch of cold metal against his severed body, Luca, for the first time, didn’t refuse the arrival of a thing called tomorrow.
At last the promised month was full. The appointed hour for connecting prosthetics suited to Luca. On the operating table, ports for neural synchronization had already been precisely implanted into the faces of his shoulder and thighs.
The heavy doors of the medical bay opened, and Kai came in with an enormous metal case loaded onto a transport shaped like a dock cart. Obel followed him, expressionless, adjusting his gloves.
“All right, it’s finally time for Luca’s new life to begin!”
Kai released the case’s locks, his voice excited. The lid opened on a hiss of steam, revealing a grotesque object inside.
It was the black chrome prosthetic that would stand in for Luca’s lost limbs. The black alloy, built specially so the Eternos particles that powered the Nautilus could flow through it, drank in the medical bay’s lighting and held a ghastly sheen.
Blue energy ran faintly through every joint. It looked like the body part of some beast breathing quietly.
Watching from the bed, Luca’s eyes filled with a complicated, subtle color. He’d braced himself to accept it, and seeing it in front of him shook that resolve. The shape was more skin-crawling than he’d imagined.
...It’s way bigger than what I pictured while he was checking the parts.
He’d said he was raising the output, and it seemed to have gotten larger and more bizarre for it. Comparing arms alone, it looked twice as thick as Luca’s own left one.
No joke, is this real? I have to live with that attached to me now?
The ‘life of walking again’ he’d dreamed of while looking at the universe outside the window hadn’t looked like this. He’d pictured something no different in shape from his original limbs. But the prosthetic in front of him didn’t look like a part of himself that would follow his will. It looked like a beast that would take his frail body as a host and move however it pleased.
“...That’s going to be attached to my body?”
His voice came out trembling slightly. He’d steeled himself to become a machine person, but he hadn’t imagined a figure this hideous.
Oblivious to the reaction, Kai crowed proudly.
“This is a masterpiece the great Kai built staying up a solid month of nights! Far harder than human bone, and it links directly to the Eternos engine! No matter how much you move, you won’t tire!”
He lifted one of the heavy arms and came closer. As the cold mass of metal moved to touch him, Luca convulsed and twisted away.
“Nn, wait... I’m not ready yet...”
That thing was ordnance. He wasn’t getting new arms and legs; he’d be living with weapons bolted to his body. A fear rose in him that operating those weapons would eat away every scrap of his life force.
Is this why they brought me here and saved me? To turn me into this ship’s weapon?
The vague dread turned into concrete terror and began pressing down on him.
“No, no...”
“Luca, hold still. We have to connect it to the nerve ports. It’s dangerous if you move.”
Obel coolly pressed his shoulder down and held him in place. The captain sat at the head of the bed and cupped that white, drained face in both hands.
“Luca, look at me. It’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Does he think this is only fear of the surgery? Does nobody else find those monstrous machine arms and legs strange?
Luca felt betrayed by, and hostile toward, even the captain he’d trusted. Eyes that had been so tender now looked like nothing but the madness of a deranged experimenter trying to turn him into a monster. His terror became rage in an instant and burst out.
“Liar! That thing’s a monster! Why didn’t you tell me? I’d rather just die than live with a hunk of machinery like that attached to me!”
The captain’s eyes went round; he clearly hadn’t anticipated the explosion.
“Luca...? It isn’t as frightening as you think. You’re only startled because it’s the first time.”
“No...!”
“Luca, calm down...”
“No, I said no!”
The captain went still. He seemed to register only now that Luca’s refusal was far too violent. While he spent a moment wondering what lay behind it, Obel spoke.
“What’s this? The synchronization rate’s gone unstable. We should finish quickly, before the numbers drop further.”
Kai chimed in as he lined the black prosthetic up with the port in Luca’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry, this’ll be quick!”
Before the startled Luca could raise a louder scream of resistance, Obel activated the bio-synapse link.
Zzzt.
The horrific sound of metal fusing with nerve came. Without even knowing what this Eternos energy Kai spoke of was, Luca had his body taken from him by force. The sensation of that energy running along human nerves brought pain like every drop of blood in him boiling.
“Aaaaagh...!”
Luca let out a huge scream and thrashed. The captain’s pupils contracted in an instant. Clearly not having expected this either, he whipped around to Obel.
“Is it supposed to hurt this much?”
“Hm, no. The patient seems to be taking it sensitively.”
The medical assistant machine sounded an alarm.
“Mental synchronization rate falling sharply. This is dangerous. Halt the connection.”
The captain shouted.
“Stop!”
His roar rang out once more, sharper.
“Right now, I said stop!”
Kai jolted and yanked the output control lever. Obel, brow furrowed, entered the forced shutdown sequence.
Hissss.
The seething blue energy could gnaw at Luca’s nerves no longer, and it died away. The black chrome prosthetic, half-locked into the shoulder port, dropped limply to the floor with a cold, ringing clang.
In the silence that swallowed the room, only Luca lay on the bed, drenched in sweat and tears, gasping.
