The Change is Yet to Come - Knocked Down a Peg
Story by Gruffy on SoFurry
Even the small things pose new challenges for Robert.
The Change is Yet to Come - Knocked Down a Peg
by
Gruffy
2017
This is a commission for :iconaaron-blackpaw: featuring some interesting content, if I say it for myself- it’s always a pleasure to tackle a hardcore scenario, and not just talking about sex here...you’ll see what I’m talking about. i shall look forward to your feedback, and remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!
Cheers !
*
FIFTIETH DAY
“Alright, Robert, you remember how this works. There are thirty-six pins on that little bowl there, and thirty-six slots on the board here. You have to pick up each pin and put them into the holes. It doesn’t matter which hole you pick, just try to get as many pins into the holes as you can during the time I give to you. Do you have any questions now?”
Robert glared at the vixen sitting opposite to him across the table. She looked back to him with an expression of immense patience. She had her pad open on the desk and was planning to use it to time Robert’s performance.
“No,” Robert said. “Nothing.”
His eyes moved down to the primitive plastic setup in front of him. To him it looked like something a two-year-old would play with.
“Great!” said the vixen. “Are you ready to start?”
“Yep,” Robert said.
“And...go!”
Robert didn’t exactly jump into action. He looked first at the board and then at his hands, which were resting on the tabletop. He barely recognized them as his own. Their appearance was only barely human, at least on this point. Five fingers, yes, on each hand, but the digits were a bright, clinical shade of white, lacking of any surface detail. The same odd material covered his arms up to the shoulders, although the short-sleeved shirt hid them for most part.
He wasn’t sure how much of the arms under the surface coating were his own flesh. The parts too damaged to heal properly had been replaced by artificial muscle, hydraulics, command circuits and motor tracts that joined the machine into the biological. Not only blood circulated in his arms anymore, but other operational fluids as well. Sometimes he was sure that they emitted a soft whirr or a hum even when he wasn’t trying to move his cumbersome new limbs.
“In your own time, Robert.”
It really was a matter of trying. He had to stare at his hands, their shape and their feel - for he did feel them and their weighty presence as a strange echo through the cybernetic implants that now governed their communication with his brain - he had to see them to be able to make them move upon command.
Seconds passed. Robert knew that the frustration that soon followed was unreasonable. His brain was relearning to do things that he had taken for granted for as long as he had lived. It could not be hurried by sheer will. Robert was sure that he had plenty of that.
The twitching fingers on the table complied sluggishly. Robert’s new hands moved in jerks and twists that rattled the bowl of plastic plugs when his fingertips collided against its side. Robert huffed.
“Damn it.”
“Just take your time,” the vixen said. She smiled encouragingly.
“Right.”
His right hand moved awkwardly. He tried lifting it to get into the bowl to pick up one of the plastic tabs. His fingers pinched but only brushed against the bottom of the bowl. The tabs were pushed to the side.
“Shit!”
“Just take your time.”
Robert huffed.
“I did this...yesterday,” he muttered. “I can…”
His arm jerked to the side and upturned the bowl. The little plastic tabs were smattered over the table top and onto the floor.
“Fuck!”
Robert stomped his hands down to the table. He was almost pleased by the amount of pain this caused. Obviously something inside the hermetic seals didn’t like the collision. For a quadriplegic, even the slightest sensation brought an odd masochist pleasure. Even the pain.
The vixen tapped on her pad to stop the timer.
“Don’t worry about it, Robert,” she said gently.
“I did it yesterday,” Robert sulked. “I should be able to do it now!”
The vixen began to gather the tabs back into the bowl.
“You know that rehabilitation is not linear, Robert,” the anthro lady said. “Sometimes things that are working one day are not working the next day. It is just a matter of pacing yourself.”
“Maybe the terminal ends are inflamed,” Robert huffed. “When was the last time they took my inflammation factors? What about the analeptics? What if I’m developing a tolerance to the drugs? What if - “
The vixen chuckled.
“And here I thought doctors make the worst patients,” she said. “I suppose cyberneticians are even worse then.”
Robert scowled.
“I know how this works!” he muttered. “They’re using my human-machine interface. The nanolattices, the neuron grafts, the anti-inflammatory serum coating - “
The vixen put her paw onto Robert’s arm.
“I know, Robert,” she said firmly. “I have to know this stuff too, remember? I might’ve not invented it but I have to know how it works so that I know what to do with it when I’m making it all work together.”
Robert huffed.
“It should be working,” he said. “Something is wrong.”
The vixen stood up from her stool and then crouched down to continue the cleaning up from the floor.
“Sometimes it’s just a bad day, you know,” she spoke. Robert could only see the tips of her ears from where he was sitting on the high-backed wheelchair. “This goes much beyond the physical stuff, or biochemical or whatever.”
“I know how it works!” Robert complained. “It should work!”
He tried slapping the tabletop but his hand refused to move. He could only huff. Robert was oddly pleased that at least his chest seemed to behave the way he wanted it to do. The voluntary control of breathing was functioning wonderfully through the cervical bridge that was fooling his brain to overlook the terrible damage to his spinal cord.
The vixen emerged from the floor with the bowl full of plastic pegs. She put it down to the table again.
“It’s been seven days since we started getting your arms online,” she said. The vixen now stood up next to the table. She was quite tall, very slim, and wore scrubs in a gentle shade of purple. The name tag said “Kayla” on her chest. “Just remember how long it took for you to learn all that when you were a baby.”
“It’s not the same situation,” Robert complained. “My brain knows how to do it. It’s just that the connections have to be re-established. They are giving me the new stuff to enhance the adaptation process. The stuff that doesn’t even have a name yet because it’s so new.”
“I don’t know about that, Robert, because I don’t prescribe your medication,” the vixen said. “I just help you to help yourself.”
Robert scowled.
“We should try again,” Kayla said.
“I don’t want to,” Robert said.
Kayla’s ears flicked curiously.
“The fine motor test has been scheduled for today,” the vixen said.
“I don’t want to,” Robert repeated. “I want to do more walking.”
“You haven’t been scheduled for that,” she replied. “We should keep to the schedule.”
“It takes you a couple minutes to set it up,” he said. “We have the time to do fifteen minutes at least. I know we can.”
“You shouldn’t overexert yourself,” she told him.
Robert snorted.
“How the hell am I going to exhaust legs that are electrically powered?” he grunted. “Run out of battery? They’ve got a microwave link up!”
“You know it’s the same as with your hands, Robert,” she was quick to reply, “it is mentally exhausting. That’s why we don’t do it every day, or not for very long.”
“Ten minutes, then,” Robert knew he was bargaining, but he was desperate to do something productive. “I just need to get something done. Anything.”
“We could try the pegs again,” Kayla suggested. “I don’t even have to time it. It’s only incentive at this point.”
“I don’t want to,” Robert said.
“My job is to make you to do the things I want you to do, not the things you might like to do,” she said immediately. “I know I don’t have to reason with you, because you seem to know some of this stuff even better than I do, what it is for and all that. But I know that I have to tell you to do it, especially when you don’t want to.”
“Didn’t you just tell me that I’m having a bad day?” Robert suggested.
The vixen’s long smile flashed at him again.
“You said so,” she said, “not me. I said that they happen.”
“I don’t want to play with the pegs.”
“I’m telling you to play with the pegs.”
Robert glared at the re-set bowl, at his hands, and then at the vixen.
*
Thank you for reading my story! Remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!
Enjoy my writing and want to support my work? Considering checking out my Patreon herewww.patreon.com/Gruffy for exclusive stories and sneak peeks :)
My Twitter for randomness and updates:
Cheerio!