‘This is it... this is the moment,’ Shaw mused to himself moments before he stepped over to the edge of the balcony to stare into the void. Below him stood a sprawling crowd of low-wage workers, substance abusers, homeless, ex-veterans, ex-job holders: ‘ex-humans’ as some called them.
He looked down upon the gloomy mass, their longing, mournful eyes staring off into space; their souls stripped of purpose.
They looked up at him longing to hear something, anything, to deliver them from their misery.
Against the balcony a white screen had been hastily hung askew that was playing a newscast. Wyatt J4me5 had been killed. Beneath it a ticker scrolled: “Silent we shall remain no more”.
Despite the atrium teeming with people an eerie hush permeated the air under the vaulted latticework of steel and glass, to be disturbed only by intermittent coughs, the shuffling of feet and the ongoing patter of rain against the windows. Grief hung over them, just as the clouds did above the towering skyline, bearing down upon the city.
Shaw soaked in the grief that floated around like mist. He started, his voice crackling through the cavernous hall like thunder, rattling the glass and steel, and piercing through bone and metal alike.
“We have been demeaned! Harassed! Relegated to the ghettos! All we have asked is to be considered human! Can’t we have a claim to a normal life... to be considered the same?! For too long we have remained silent... but what has that brought us?! They have taken him from us!” he shouted, pointing at the screen, “just as our other countless sisters and brothers! Nothing is to stop them from coming for us! We must rise and demand justice! No longer shall we remain in hiding! No longer shall we remain silent!”
He flung his coat aside. His crimson red prosthetic arm attached to the left shoulder shone metallic and he raised his crossed arms into the air, fists clenched.
The crowd had been listening to him with solemn intent, murmuring furtively to each other, nodding in agreement to his words. Upon his defiance, a woman in the crowd gave a loud shriek and with violent fervor tore her sleeve off to reveal her own prosthetic arm. Emboldened yet reluctant, one by one the rest of the crowd began to pull away their clothes to reveal their own augmentations: hands, arms, calves, thighs, all on display.
Shaw’s excitement swelled as he stared at the glistening mass of metal and bones that stretched out before him, crossed arms in solidarity and defiance.
“No longer shall we hide who we really are,” he bellowed. Pointing across the street to the courthouse in view, “We shall show them we are prepared to fight for our rightful...”
The door burst open. A sudden panic spread through the hall like wildfire, the protestors fearing the authorities had barged in to break up the demonstration.
Two men, completely drenched, shuffled in, leaving streaks of water and blood in their wake. They dragged something heavy and only a few steps further set it down on the floor, struggling to haul it any further. One of them shouted for a doctor.
In the midst of the crowd that had gathered around them lay a woman, unconscious and badly bruised. Blood trickled from a gash on her lower lip. A purple bruise engulfed her right eye. Her short, cropped hair was matted with congealed blood. Her frayed clothes hung loosely off her.
A man pushed through the crowd and, with purpose, knelt down to examine her. He checked her pulse at the neck and then flashed a light into her eyes. As he rolled up her clothes to scrutinize the rest of her body for wounds, he paused abruptly. Marvel dilated across his eyes.
When Shaw finally made it to the clearing the doctor was standing before him smoking a cigarette, deep in thought.
“How bad is she?” Shaw asked.
The doctor didn’t respond, instead stepping aside for Shaw to see for himself.
The lip cut was a faint ghost now, having healed miraculously. The bruise, too, had receded, restoring the original pallor to her face. Shaw stared in astonishment and alarm for, where one would have expected wheat-colored skin to be, lustered gunmetal hued prostheses gleamed instead. Stretching out from the base of her neck it contoured all the way down to her toes: every bit of it augmented. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
