"Systems online!" Said a cheerful, female voice that sounded like Siri.
"The heck?" I opened my eyes and slowly sat up. I examined my surroundings. I was in a comfortable bed, but the room I was in looked like a combination of a hospital and an investor's workshop. That seemed a bit... sketchy? Illegal? Not exactly any place you want to wake up. It made me a bit uneasy. Above me on the ceiling was an adjustable lamp and several mechanical arms like those in an automotive factory. They seemed To be turned off.
To my left was a curtain and a cardiograph machine. A vase with black pansies and red mums sat on a dresser with an empty metal tray. On the right was a metal workbench with a million drawers. Powertools hung from hooks in the walls. An excessively large computer with at least eight monitors hung on the wall, flashing images of x-rays and the kind of pictures see in an anatomy text-book. Everything was clean and smelled like lemon and motor oil.
"Hey, Calliope! Glad to see you're awake." That was Vera's voice. She ran in from an adjoining room, followed by my parents. She and my mother sat down on either side of me and pulled me into a hug that was more of a game of tug-of-war.
Vera is of Japanese heritage and the kind of person that never wears make-up and still looks great. But now she seemed a bit tired and not as put together. She was wearing her hair up in a messy bun, like usual, but the chopsticks and the neon pink highlights were missing. "I brought you a change of clothes. You know, I've never understood your obsession with black?" She looked over at the flowers.
Tears welled up in Mom's chocolatey brown eyes. She started crying and laid her head on my shoulder. Mascara stained my hospital gown. Her thick, dark brown curls stuck out in every direction like a sea urchin. She wore a cute purple. sundress I'd never seen before. "I missed you so much! I..." Anything else she tried to say was lost in a fit of sobs. I put an arm around her.
"Hi, Sport! You feeling alright?" Dad said, flashing me a smile and waiting for an opening. I'd never understood why he called me that, since I wasn't really a sports person, but I didn't mind. He wrote khaki slacks and a blue and gray argyle sweater. His dark curly hair was graying on the sides, like Mr. Fantastic or Dr. Strange, from Marvel Comics, I thought. I shared his sapphire eyes and dark skin.
"Uh huh... What time is it? And where am I?" I asked. My voice sounded vaguely unfamiliar to me.
"3:00 PM. Friday. April 6th, 2018. Sixty-seven degrees Fahrenheit and Sunny." Answered the text-to-speech reader voice I'd heard upon waking.
"Who...?"
Vera cut me off. "That's Andromeda, your new 'trainer.' She's a program Dr. Cornelius downloaded into your new body. You're in his lab. He fixed you after the accident. You were pretty damaged. You've been in a coma for a month.."
"What?" I tried to stand and had to sit back down.
"Easy now." Said yet another voice. A bald man with a well-trimmed gray beard quickly but carefully pulled the IV out. He put a hand on my shoulder and helped me up. I wasn't sure where he'd come from. "I'm Dr. Sergio Cornelius." His blue eyes sparked behind his bifocals. I liked him at once. My surroundings suddenly weren't so much of an issue. He seemed competent and friendly. "Come look in the mirror." He pulled back the curtain, revealing a full-wall reflective surface.
I wasn't sure what to make of what I saw. The left side of my body looked just like I remembered; the entire right side of my body was covered in metal. I focused on my leg first. The new prosthetic actually had gyros and motion sensors, which my family hadn't been able to afford. In addition, it was thicker, yet lighter. It seemed like it was actually a natural extension of my body. I could bend my knee just by thinking about it.
"Your spinal cord was broken when the ceiling collapsed. You'll find you are much more flexible now." Andromeda told me. "But that's not the exciting part. Look at your hand."
I looked in the mirror, then down at the real thing. It had a skeletal frame and was very lightweight. The fingers were segmented in an almost insect-like fashion with pads on the finger tips. Alien, yet... the familiarity set in. "Is this...?"
I saw Vera grin behind me. "Yeah. It's a replica of Luke's hand from The Last Jedi."
Dr. Cornelius seemed pleased. "She insisted. Said it would make you happy. I designed the rest of the pieces to for the theme."
I smiled. "Cool." The prosthetic continued up to the elbow, where a couple of cables connected it to a metallic shoulder blade.
Andromeda spoke up again. "We also replaced your lungs, esophagus, inner ear, and eyeball with synthetic pieces."
My gaze, and my hand, went to my face. Aside from a decorative pattern of thin metal lines leading from my temple to my eye, nothing seemed out of place.
"Your distinctive blue eyes made it easy to match the color. You'll find that it can glow at night if you ask me for a flashlight." Andromeda said in her usual chipper tone.
I did so. Sure enough, the iris lit up and bathed the room in a lovely shade of Caribbean blue.
Everyone 'oohed' and 'aahed'. "I can do other colors too." Andromeda informed me.
"No thanks. Not right now." I replied. "I'm kind of hungry."
Then my mother spoke up. "I bet! We'll get takeout on the way home?"
I nodded. "Breakfast food sounds really good right now." She agreed, then joined and my father to say a few parting words to Dr. Cornelius.
Vera and I went out into the hallway, which wasn't anything more than a long white corridor. "Hey, Vera. About that change of clothes?"
Vera smirked and games me a gym bag. "I grabbed a few shirts for you to choose." She started handing me T-shirts.
Ninety-nine percent of my wardrobe consists of black T-shirts with Pop culture characters and logos. If it got cold, I'd pair them with a hoodie or a button-down shirt, either worn open, over top of it, or under it. I looked at what she'd brought me.
"General Grievous, Long John Silver, Inspector Gadget, Jenny, Cyborg ..." I looked up and raised an eyebrow. Vera returned the look. "Firstly," I said, "You're a jerk. Secondly, Jenny's a robot, not a cyborg. Hence the show's title, My Life As A Teenage Robot."
"Right. Sorry." She didn't seem apologetic. "I haven't seen it."
I smirked and grabbed the shirt. "Add it to the list." ***
The next week was weird. Whenever I tried apologizing to Vera for ditching her in a burning building to get my self blown up by "Trench Coat Guy", she would tell me not to worry about it and clam up.
She stayed at my place the entire time, which wasn't out of the ordinary. Her parents were divorced, so Vera was forced to swap between their houses every few weeks. Mr. Mirasaki, her father, was a global sales manager for a software company based in New York, and spent a lot of time overseas. Her mother was a horrible person and an alcoholic to boot.
Every morning, Andromeda would wake me up at 6:30 with a cheery "Systems Online!" and an update on the time, date, and temperature. Vera would already be in the shower, belting out Anime openings at the top of her lungs. Sleeping in was not an option.
Vera and I attended school, where I was simultaneously the most popular and the most ostracized student. I couldn't walk down the hallways without someone making a Star Trek: The Next Generation reference or asking me to do the robot, but anytime I played along, they would make it clear that I was only supposed to be at the butt end of the joke and walk away.
My grades started to slip due to having missed so much. Each afternoon, Vera and I would spend a few hours "doing homework", which meant catching up on TV shows, cartoons, and Critical Role while Andromeda fed us the answers. (May I remind you, I was in a coma for a month?)
If we had time afterward, we'd head to the park to play a round of Disc Golf. It was there that we received an apocalyptic omen. Three days into the week, a black feathered bird landed on the marker for the thirteenth tee. (I think that was the universe playing a joke.) Then Trench Coat Guy appeared across the street and ducked into an alleyway.
~~~ Alright, that's Chapter 1 (finally) complete and I have a choice for you guys. The "right" may seem a little obvious, but this could go in a number of ways. Should Calliope and Vera: A) Follow Trench Coat Guy to see what he's up to, B) Report Trench Coat Guy to the police or another authority, or C) Stay out of Trench Coat Guy's way? Comment below your honest thoughts on this chapter, then check out the poll at the bottom of the home page. Thanks!
Statistics: Raven was written in for the pet question and was chosen by a factor of 6 of 9 total votes: I added a raven, but I couldn't justify him being Calliope's pet. Yet.
Best/ imaginary friend tied with fanboy/fangirl, with each receiving 2 of 7 total votes. I took a few liberties. Vera became the best friend and Andromeda is (sort of) an imaginary friend. Calliope became the fangirl instead of Vera.
Cyborg female was chosen by a factor of 6 of 13 total votes. Congrats, guys! You got Calliope blown up. Kidding. That was on her. She seems strangely cool with it though.
"The heck?" I opened my eyes and slowly sat up. I examined my surroundings. I was in a comfortable bed, but the room I was in looked like a combination of a hospital and an investor's workshop. That seemed a bit... sketchy? Illegal? Not exactly any place you want to wake up. It made me a bit uneasy. Above me on the ceiling was an adjustable lamp and several mechanical arms like those in an automotive factory. They seemed To be turned off.
To my left was a curtain and a cardiograph machine. A vase with black pansies and red mums sat on a dresser with an empty metal tray. On the right was a metal workbench with a million drawers. Powertools hung from hooks in the walls. An excessively large computer with at least eight monitors hung on the wall, flashing images of x-rays and the kind of pictures see in an anatomy text-book. Everything was clean and smelled like lemon and motor oil.
"Hey, Calliope! Glad to see you're awake." That was Vera's voice. She ran in from an adjoining room, followed by my parents. She and my mother sat down on either side of me and pulled me into a hug that was more of a game of tug-of-war.
Vera is of Japanese heritage and the kind of person that never wears make-up and still looks great. But now she seemed a bit tired and not as put together. She was wearing her hair up in a messy bun, like usual, but the chopsticks and the neon pink highlights were missing. "I brought you a change of clothes. You know, I've never understood your obsession with black?" She looked over at the flowers.
Tears welled up in Mom's chocolatey brown eyes. She started crying and laid her head on my shoulder. Mascara stained my hospital gown. Her thick, dark brown curls stuck out in every direction like a sea urchin. She wore a cute purple. sundress I'd never seen before. "I missed you so much! I..." Anything else she tried to say was lost in a fit of sobs. I put an arm around her.
"Hi, Sport! You feeling alright?" Dad said, flashing me a smile and waiting for an opening. I'd never understood why he called me that, since I wasn't really a sports person, but I didn't mind. He wrote khaki slacks and a blue and gray argyle sweater. His dark curly hair was graying on the sides, like Mr. Fantastic or Dr. Strange, from Marvel Comics, I thought. I shared his sapphire eyes and dark skin.
"Uh huh... What time is it? And where am I?" I asked. My voice sounded vaguely unfamiliar to me.
"3:00 PM. Friday. April 6th, 2018. Sixty-seven degrees Fahrenheit and Sunny."
Answered the text-to-speech reader voice I'd heard upon waking.
"Who...?"
Vera cut me off. "That's Andromeda, your new 'trainer.' She's a program Dr. Cornelius downloaded into your new body. You're in his lab. He fixed you after the accident. You were pretty damaged. You've been in a coma for a month.."
"What?" I tried to stand and had to sit back down.
"Easy now." Said yet another voice. A bald man with a well-trimmed gray beard quickly but carefully pulled the IV out. He put a hand on my shoulder and helped me up. I wasn't sure where he'd come from. "I'm Dr. Sergio Cornelius." His blue eyes sparked behind his bifocals. I liked him at once. My surroundings suddenly weren't so much of an issue. He seemed competent and friendly. "Come look in the mirror." He pulled back the curtain, revealing a full-wall reflective surface.
I wasn't sure what to make of what I saw. The left side of my body looked just like I remembered; the entire right side of my body was covered in metal. I focused on my leg first. The new prosthetic actually had gyros and motion sensors, which my family hadn't been able to afford. In addition, it was thicker, yet lighter. It seemed like it was actually a natural extension of my body. I could bend my knee just by thinking about it.
"Your spinal cord was broken when the ceiling collapsed. You'll find you are much more flexible now." Andromeda told me. "But that's not the exciting part. Look at your hand."
I looked in the mirror, then down at the real thing. It had a skeletal frame and was very lightweight. The fingers were segmented in an almost insect-like fashion with pads on the finger tips. Alien, yet... the familiarity set in. "Is this...?"
I saw Vera grin behind me. "Yeah. It's a replica of Luke's hand from The Last Jedi."
Dr. Cornelius seemed pleased. "She insisted. Said it would make you happy. I designed the rest of the pieces to for the theme."
I smiled. "Cool." The prosthetic continued up to the elbow, where a couple of cables connected it to a metallic shoulder blade.
Andromeda spoke up again. "We also replaced your lungs, esophagus, inner ear, and eyeball with synthetic pieces."
My gaze, and my hand, went to my face. Aside from a decorative pattern of thin metal lines leading from my temple to my eye, nothing seemed out of place.
"Your distinctive blue eyes made it easy to match the color. You'll find that it can glow at night if you ask me for a flashlight." Andromeda said in her usual chipper tone.
I did so. Sure enough, the iris lit up and bathed the room in a lovely shade of Caribbean blue.
Everyone 'oohed' and 'aahed'. "I can do other colors too." Andromeda informed me.
"No thanks. Not right now." I replied. "I'm kind of hungry."
Then my mother spoke up. "I bet! We'll get takeout on the way home?"
I nodded. "Breakfast food sounds really good right now." She agreed, then joined and my father to say a few parting words to Dr. Cornelius.
Vera and I went out into the hallway, which wasn't anything more than a long white corridor. "Hey, Vera. About that change of clothes?"
Vera smirked and games me a gym bag. "I grabbed a few shirts for you to choose." She started handing me T-shirts.
Ninety-nine percent of my wardrobe consists of black T-shirts with Pop culture characters and logos. If it got cold, I'd pair them with a hoodie or a button-down shirt, either worn open, over top of it, or under it. I looked at what she'd brought me.
"General Grievous, Long John Silver, Inspector Gadget, Jenny, Cyborg ..." I looked up and raised an eyebrow. Vera returned the look. "Firstly," I said, "You're a jerk. Secondly, Jenny's a robot, not a cyborg. Hence the show's title, My Life As A Teenage Robot."
"Right. Sorry." She didn't seem apologetic. "I haven't seen it."
I smirked and grabbed the shirt. "Add it to the list."
***
The next week was weird. Whenever I tried apologizing to Vera for ditching her in a burning building to get my self blown up by "Trench Coat Guy", she would tell me not to worry about it and clam up.
She stayed at my place the entire time, which wasn't out of the ordinary. Her parents were divorced, so Vera was forced to swap between their houses every few weeks.
Mr. Mirasaki, her father, was a global sales manager for a software company based in New York, and spent a lot of time overseas. Her mother was a horrible person and an alcoholic to boot.
Every morning, Andromeda would wake me up at 6:30 with a cheery "Systems Online!" and an update on the time, date, and temperature. Vera would already be in the shower, belting out Anime openings at the top of her lungs. Sleeping in was not an option.
Vera and I attended school, where I was simultaneously the most popular and the most ostracized student. I couldn't walk down the hallways without someone making a Star Trek: The Next Generation reference or asking me to do the robot, but anytime I played along, they would make it clear that I was only supposed to be at the butt end of the joke and walk away.
My grades started to slip due to having missed so much. Each afternoon, Vera and I would spend a few hours "doing homework", which meant catching up on TV shows, cartoons, and Critical Role while Andromeda fed us the answers. (May I remind you, I was in a coma for a month?)
If we had time afterward, we'd head to the park to play a round of Disc Golf. It was there that we received an apocalyptic omen. Three days into the week, a black feathered bird landed on the marker for the thirteenth tee. (I think that was the universe playing a joke.) Then Trench Coat Guy appeared across the street and ducked into an alleyway.
~~~
Alright, that's Chapter 1 (finally) complete and I have a choice for you guys. The "right" may seem a little obvious, but this could go in a number of ways. Should Calliope and Vera:
A) Follow Trench Coat Guy to see what he's up to,
B) Report Trench Coat Guy to the police or another authority, or
C) Stay out of Trench Coat Guy's way? Comment below your honest thoughts on this chapter, then check out the poll at the bottom of the home page. Thanks!
Statistics:
Raven was written in for the pet question and was chosen by a factor of 6 of 9 total votes: I added a raven, but I couldn't justify him being Calliope's pet. Yet.
Best/ imaginary friend tied with fanboy/fangirl, with each receiving 2 of 7 total votes. I took a few liberties. Vera became the best friend and Andromeda is (sort of) an imaginary friend. Calliope became the fangirl instead of Vera.
Cyborg female was chosen by a factor of 6 of 13 total votes. Congrats, guys! You got Calliope blown up. Kidding. That was on her. She seems strangely cool with it though.