In this room, she wanders without worry. The predators are outside, swinging from tree to tree, yammering, hooting laughter, not yet over the thrill of their opposable thumbs. Sometimes, one will overestimate their leap and go crashing down into fragrant grasses dotted with pale green blossoms. The gardener takes very good care of the lawn. Still stunned when the rose vines reach them; to a one, they start shrieking when the thorns indulge in their methodical dismemberment.
Trapped here, with dingy white and gold fleur-de-lis wallpaper, warped wooden floorboards, leaky [yet still impenetrable] windows, she is repulsed by what she sees. The house grumbles along with her. Not always was the world this dangerous, the apes used to be so gentle, the earth stayed under your feet where it damn well belonged. Was she too old-fashioned for this riotous world?
A weak thumping caught her attention – there on the floor, her latest project was slowly bleeding to death. It, he, was staring urgently at her, the whites of his eyes visible all around. Unable to move or speak, it was his heart making the noise. She cursed the house and herself.
“Why do you let me wander away when I’m in the middle of something?” Crouching by the supine body, she stuck the heart with a slender needle and the beating ceased, the man’s face awash with relief.
“Here, next time, *you* remind me,” she said, pulling the mouth open, showing even, yellow teeth. With an expert touch, the tongue was attached and the man – she would have to name him soon – swallowed dryly, spasmodically.
“How is it out there?” he croaked.
“Still a war going on.” She worked swiftly as they talked, soldering nerves, sealing limbs, shoring up the central organs.
“Isn’t that always the way?” He grimaced. “And there go the nerves; I barely felt that. You really are one of the best, aren’t you?”
“I’m integrating muscle control right now,” she said, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t wriggle about. Motion is a privilege, not a right.”
Other than the occasional tick of a fingernail against the floor and the muffled screaming of the apes, there were several minutes of silence in the back bedroom. Memories started to trickle in behind his eyes; there’d be a grandfather clock in the hallway that was always fifteen minutes behind, gun racks in the dining room; his clothing had been washed and pressed and was folded by the door, the door that wasn’t fucking working anymore. With memory came anger. As her careful fingers checked his seams, tested muscles, checked and double-checked synapse responses, he was already sitting up, eyes fixed past her shoulder on the wavy glass window.
“You’re sending me out there again, yeah?” he asked, wiping flecks of dried blood from his chest. She’d really done an incredible job; there were no tremors or gaps in his memory to indicate he’d been dead at all.
“I wish I had a choice.” She looked surprisingly fresh for someone who’d spent the past week and a half in surgery. He paused on his way out to land a sloppy, forceful kiss on her thin smile.
“I’ll be back for you.”
“You always will.”
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