Stephen Smith

This Steel Soul

Android Processor Unit 54783 snapped awake at the feeling of a sudden electric surge. He hadn’t really been asleep, because he hadn’t been able to dream for the five hours he spent in his cocoon shaped recharging booth. As he stepped down, muscle memory compelled him to run a mechanical hand along the surface of his head, fingers passing through transplanted hair. Attached to his back by a plastic harness were pulsating wires and a coolant system, a monitor running alongside them for the benefit of engineers looking over cooling and power levels or any other kind of system damage. APU 54783 had been damaged only twice since he had come into existence, once when his body malfunctioned after handling an NIB magnet, and a second time when a dormant grenade had gone off in his hand. He could remember seeing blood spurting from the tear, but he also knew that to be impossible. What the engineers had mopped off the floor as he was transported for repairs was something closer to petroleum jelly.