Day 113

[from Cyborg Team Alpha]

"Do you understand what I've just told you?"

In the time it had taken the woman to explain Ichiko's predicament to her, the girl lying in the hospital bed had finally regained full use of her senses, and was feeling the control return to her body. Her limbs still felt somewhat numb, but she at least seemed to be able to use them now; her hands were curled tightly into fists as she tried to process what she had just heard. She had died. She had been blown apart, and then put back together again. She was a Cyborg now.

"I'm really sorry," continued the voice. Ichiko still could not see the owner of the voice, though she could tell that it was genuinely remorseful about her satiation. "I know how upsetting this must be for you. Believe me, it was upsetting for me as well." So this woman is a Cyborg as well, Ichiko realized. "But you shouldn't worry," the woman continued. "We'll be here for every step of your recovery, to help you get used to your new Cyborg parts. In time, you won't even realize you have them."

"That's not strictly true," said the male voice. Though Ichiko could hear everything else as clear as day now, the man's voice still sounded slightly muffled, as though he were speaking with his mouth hidden behind a scarf. "I hate to tell you this, Ichiko, but being a Cyborg isn't something you can just forget about. Especially not with the level of conversion you've had to undergo. But what I think she means is… before long, you'll be able to do everything you were able to do before your conversion. And quite a few things you couldn't."

At this point, as she felt her voice returning, Ichiko decided that she had to ask the numerous questions that were preying on her mind, swirling around like a violent storm inside her head. The moment she removed her oxygen mask, pulling it away from her face with trembling fingers, the most important question of all came weakly forth from between her pale lips. "Why?" she gasped. "Why… did you do this…?"

The male answered this one. "You are a teenage prodigy, Ichiko," he said. "From what I've heard, your test scores are among the highest in the country, and you're one of the finest chess prodigies in the world. When we heard what had happened to you, we decided we had to save you, to preserve your intellect, for the good of Japan."

Ichiko didn't have to ask who the man meant by "we". There was only one place in Japan capable of resurrecting a person as a Cyborg: the Toriyama Institute, the world's leading research centre when it came to cybernetics, and the inventor of the Cyborg System by which the recently-deceased could be resurrected as Cyborgs. But… didn't they shut down after the war?

For now, however, there was a far more pressing question to be asked. "You said… a bomb…" gasped Ichiko. "Who… planted it…?" She had a feeling she knew the culprits already, but she wanted to be sure.

"The Rising Sun have claimed responsibility for the bombing," said the woman. "We don't know specifically who planted it, but believe me, we're working with the police as hard as we can to track them down and apprehend them. They won't get away with what they did to you."

Ichiko nodded, her hands clenching tighter. She knew it. The Rising Sun. They were an ultra-nationalist movement that had sprung up three years ago, beginning a campaign of terror against the Japanese government. It was easy to understand their reasons for hating the government, after the five years of war that had engulfed the region during the first years of Ichiko's life. Their methods, however, were far less agreeable. To everyone but themselves, the Rising Sun were nothing more than violent terrorists, who were destabilizing a country that had only just been getting back on its feet.

There was one more vital question to be asked. "How bad… is it? I… I want to see…"

The female hesitated for a moment. "Are you sure you want to see?" she asked eventually. "It's going to be quite a shock for you-"

"I'll have to… see it at… some point," breathed Ichiko, who could already feel herself starting to tire. In her current condition, just speaking was far more effort than it normally would have been. "It… might as well be… now. I'm… ready."

"She sounds just like I did," remarked the male. He's also a Cyborg… I wonder how many others are here. I thought they were all shut down… "Go ahead, Gumi. Show her."

There was relative silence for a moment while Gumi, presumably the female, went to fetch something, presumably a mirror. Then footsteps, and when Gumi spoke again she was standing right beside Ichiko, leaning over the bed a little. "I'm going to remove the bandages over your face now," she said. "Take a deep breath."

Ichiko did as she was told, and slowly, she felt the layers of bandages peel away from her face. The darkness slowly began to recede, but it was not until the bandages were removed completely that she could finally see. As her eyes settled on her reflection in the mirror being held above her face, the horrible reality of what had happened to her finally hit home.

Most of the right side of her face was gone. In its place was a patchwork of steel-grey metallic panels, stitched together with micro-joints to replicate the flexibility of her facial muscles. Her right eye, however, bore no resemblance to her left whatsoever, and she finally realized why she had been unable to close or even blink it. Set in her right eye socket, surrounded by the fake metal skin, was a glowing green artificial eye that resembled an old laser pointer more than an actual eye. The emerald glow was reflected by the mirror back into her eye, until it seemed to consume the entire right-hand side of her face, leaving only half a shocked expression staring back at her. It was both her face and not her face at the same time.

"As you can see, the explosion caused quite a lot of facial damage," said Gumi. "We'll make it look prettier, trust me-"

"What else?" breathed Ichiko, almost unconsciously. A tear rolled down from her left eye, running down her cheek before dripping onto her sheets; her robotic right eye could not and did not weep. "What else did they take from me?"

Gumi let out a heavy sigh before continuing, in a surprisingly more direct manner. "Your left hand. Your right arm, at the shoulder. Your legs, just above the knee. Part of your lower-right torso. All these things were lost in the explosion, and have been rebuilt. Again, I'm very sorry. I wish we hadn't had to have done this to you."

Ichiko looked away, closing her left eye. She could not bear to look anymore. It wasn't that she hated what she had become; it was that she hated what the Rising Sun had done to her. She could feel the pain returning to her extremities, her arms and legs aching as an unfamiliar fury started to well up inside her. They killed me… I'm going to get them back for that.