More crazy talk, I know, but that's how it felt to
me—like the flesh, muscles, and bones that made me
whole resented me for using them. N o n e of my patch¬
work parts worked quite the way they were supposed
to. Every movement was slower, a half-second lagging
behind what it should be as if my new body knew I was
an imposter and was determined to fight me every inch
of the way. It was a creepy, alien feeling that sent shiv¬
ers down my spine, making me want to scream.
But I desperately needed the meds so I pressed on,
robot-stepping across the floor for what felt like days
until I finally— FINALLY— stood beside the meal tray
carrying my multicolored salvation. W i t h sweat pour¬
ing down my face and my hands shaking so badly I
could hardly hold the cup, I dry swallowed the entire
batch of pills in one gulp and let the plastic cup fall to
the floor.
I'll be damned. I actually made it.
I smiled, savoring the moment. Then my eyes rolled
up into my head, the world started to go black, and I
went down hard.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - N I N E
Rehab went on for eight grueling weeks and Junie the
sadistic old physiotherapist was with me every pain-filled
step of the way. To tell you the truth, the old cow actu¬
ally grew on me a little. She was cold and ruthless, and
she bent, stretched, twisted, and basically worked me
over every day until I could hardly stand, but she was as
straight a shooter as I had met in my whole time here at
the castle.
Junie never lied to me, not once. She hated bullshit,
always telling me exactly what we were going to do and
how we were doing it. I liked that about her. Don't get
me wrong—I didn't like her—she pulled no punches
and was probably the crankiest old bitch in the entire
medical profession but as long as I worked hard, she
treated me fairly. Unlike the rest of the goons around
here, she was genuinely trying to help me get some
semblance of a life back, and for that I appreciated her
effort.
My new body held up remarkably well, all things
considered. It was something I worried about a lot. At
night I'd dream all these freaky worst-case scenarios
about my stitches popping loose while Junie put me
through my paces and blood splashing the walls as my
arm or leg fell off. The nightmares were somewhat
comical to think about during the day, but they scared
the shit out of me while they were happening. I'd wake
up screaming and crying and reaching down to hold
my leg in place to stop the bleeding. Crazy stuff, I'll
admit, but what else was new? My entire life had be¬
come one big crazy dream.
On the Monday m o r n i n g that marked the start of my
ninth week of rehab, Junie walked into my room doing
something that shocked m e , something I didn't know
she was capable of.
She was crying.
N o t wailing like a schoolgirl, n o t h i n g as dramatic as
that, but there were tears r u n n i n g down her cheeks and
I could tell from her red-flushed face she'd been trying
to get a grip on her emotions for a while already. Maybe
she was h u m a n , after all. Doubtful, but maybe.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing. Mind your own business, and put that
damn plate down. You've been eating like a horse for
weeks now. Rate you're going at, you'll be a fat pig in no
time. That what you want?"
She was changing the subject, hiding something from
me. Mind you, it was the truth—I had been eating a lot
lately, and y e s , I was gaining weight, but I was still a far
cry from being fat. It was Junie who had urged me to eat
more, to help get my strength back quicker. So why
would she bitch about it now? Simple: she wouldn't.
She wiped her tears away with a casual swish of her
hand, then left no room for debate that the subject was
closed, launching into another of her famous Holly¬
wood military-inspired tirades.
"Come on, Fox, get your lazy butt in gear. We gotta
get you on that treadmill. We've already lost ten min¬
utes while you were filling your face instead of stretch¬
ing. N o w get to it, mister. Move it!"
"Yes, sir? I mocked her, but still jumped up and got
ready to follow her out the door. Joking around was fine,
disobeying direct orders wasn't. "Ready when you are."
Junie scowled, shook her head, and headed for the
door. I stepped in behind her, goose-stepping in her
tracks, feeling good this morning. My good mood only
lasted until Junie pulled open the door and I saw Dr.
Marshall and Drake standing patiently out in the hall.
Drake was bigger than ever. Huge bulging muscles
and an impenetrable, menacing stare. I hadn't seen him
in several months and by the looks of it he'd spent a
good portion of that time in the weight room. He didn't
look particularly happy to see me.
N a t h a n Marshall looked fit and trim, leaning against
the door j a m b , with a wild, feral look in his eyes. His
handsome face was calm, but from the set of his j a w I
could tell he was clenching his teeth, maybe angry about
something. I hoped it wasn't me. Drake scared m e , sure,
an animal like that would scare anybody, but it was Dr.
Marshall that worried me. He looked royally pissed
and I couldn't stop myself from t h i n k i n g he was here to
take me back to the operating room again.
Anything but that! Kill me if you want, but no more op
erations. Not when I'm just starting to feel human again.
Seeing them outside the door caught Junie by sur¬
prise too. She didn't seem happy to see them either.
"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Just yester¬
day, you told me I had another full week."
Dr. Marshall smiled and stood up straight. "Well, as
you're aware, certain other recent developments have
forced me to rethink my plans. I'm tired of waiting
around* getting reports that this fool"—meaning m e —
"keeps improving and getting near full recovery of his
new body, while—"
He stopped right there, but he'd said more than
enough. Obviously things hadn't gone well with
Andrew's transplant into the other flesh suit, but what
had happened? Was Andrew back swimming in his
glass container? Was he dead? This probably wasn't the
best time to ask but my mouth had a way of doing
things on its own sometimes, independent of my brain.
Before I could stop myself, I went ahead and let my
curiosity get the better of me.
"What happened to Andrew? Is he okay?" I asked.
If I thought Dr. Marshall had been clenching his
teeth before, he was really clamping down now, grind¬
ing his teeth together to prevent himself from scream¬
ing. His face turned beet red in seconds. Now, I've seen
anger on a man's face befor
e, many times, but this look
went way past that. Dr. Marshall gazed at me with pure,
murderous hatred.
Uh-ob, now Pve done it!
Drake stepped forward and kneed me hard in the
groin, sending me to the floor in a hurry. My insides felt
like they'd been set on fire. I lay there coughing and
gagging, massaging my balls. I would have screamed
but I was having too much trouble breathing. By the
time the pain eased off and I managed to climb to my
knees, Dr. Marshall was gone. Drake was still there,
looming like the Grim Reaper in my doorway, watching
me with only mild interest, as if I mattered as much as a
flea on a hound dog. God, how I wanted to kill him.
"Have him ready tomorrow m o r n i n g , Junie," he said,
then walked away.
Junie looked at me with pity, or as close to pity as her
sour face could ever muster, then headed for the door.
"Wait," I said, still on my knees. "Have me ready for
what? W h a t the hell is going on? W h a t happened to
Andrew?"
For a m o m e n t she paused, and I thought she was go¬
ing to tell me. Instead, she started to cry again, and ran
out the door. I heard the key rattle and the door lock,
and then listened to Junie sob as she retreated down the
carpeted hallway. Soon everything was quiet. Too quiet.
It was as if the entire facility was collectively holding its
breath, either in m o u r n i n g for whatever had happened
to Andrew or in silent fear of his father's wrath. I
couldn't speak for everyone, but there was no question
which one of those was keeping me silent.
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y
Constantly staring at the back of a locked door wasn't
a whole lot of fun. I couldn't help it, though, having
convinced myself that Drake or Dr. Marshall was go¬
ing to reappear suddenly, charging through the door to
nab me if I let my guard down too long. N o t only was it
nerve-racking, it made for a bloody long day and an
even longer night.
No one showed u p , of course. N o t Drake, not Mar¬
shall, hell, not even Junie. Just me and my overactive,
paranoia-refined-to-an-art imagination. By m o r n i n g , I
was mentally and physically exhausted. I'd slept off and
on for four or five hours, repeatedly waking up with an
anxious start, thinking I heard the door opening.
To distract myself—either that or go totally loony
and start r a m m i n g my head against the door—I de¬
cided to kill some time by exercising. Tired or not,
anything seemed better than j u s t sitting, waiting for
something bad to happen. Most of the things Junie had
been making me concentrate on in rehab could be done
j u s t as easily here in my room as down at the gym so I
slid the bed to the side a few feet to give myself some
elbow room and went to it. N o t h i n g major, just bend¬
ing, stretching, some push-ups and j u m p i n g jacks but
twice as many as my usual routine and I was soon
wheezing and panting like an old, overburdened farm
mule. I was sweaty and smelling decidedly ripe, so I
peeled off my soiled T-shirt and was heading across the
room to find a new one when I noticed my body in the
full-size dressing mirror h u n g on the wall. I mean re—
ally noticed it, for the first time since my transplant
into this flesh suit.
Stopped me dead in my tracks.
Until now, I'd made a habit of not noticing—other
than a few unavoidable peeks while bathing and dress¬
ing, but never taking in the fall picture—quite content
to ignore the stark reality reflected in the silver glass.
For sanity's sake, the old adage "out of sight, out of
mind" had become my new motto. Words to live by, but
with my fears renewed that I might be revisiting the
operating room again, suddenly I was curious to exam¬
ine myself to see how bad I truly looked. Stripping na¬
ked, tossing my pants, socks and undies onto the floor
beside the sweaty T-shirt, I slowly turned around and
around, struggling to stifle the scream building in my
throat.
It was worse than I'd thought. A lot worse.
Oh my Godl What have I become?
A single cold word slithered to mind, describing my
new body perfectly.
Abomination.'
I'd known right from day one I was going to be ugly
and god-awful to look at naked, but what surprised
m e — n o , shocked m e — m o s t was how wwhuman I looked.
Ugly I could live with, but this pasty-skinned, sewntogether, wretched creature in the glass was worse than
anything I'd imagined.
W h a t was wrong with my skin? It j u s t didn't look
right. They hadn't used the same type of people for the
donor parts, so some areas of my body were smooth
and youthful looking while others—especially my
legs—were old and wrinkled and covered with dense,
matted hair. My left arm was covered in bright colorful
tattoos but they ended at my shoulder, cut off mid pic¬
ture. Something was w r o n g with my back, too. They'd
forgotten something—fat, muscles, whatever—because
the skin had been stretched so thin over my spine as to
be almost translucent. I could see the vertebrae in my
back pivoting on their disks every time I twisted to
look over my shoulder.
Worse by far were ray scars. Dr. Marshall had obvi¬
ously sewn me together with function in mind, not
fashion, alignment of parts far more important than
could have given some thought toward what I'd end up
looking like and at least tried to minimize the scar¬
ring.
Oh my God!
I was unable to tear my eyes away from the stranger I
saw crying in the mirror.
The scars were thick, puffy, dark red, and everyA
where on my body. Twenty thousand stitches; maybe
more. I looked like a pieced together mannequin cov¬
ered in h u g e , blood-engorged leeches—bigger; tape¬
worms maybe—placed end to end to form living ropes
around my body. The ropes of scar tissue intersected
with other scars, and the end result was a patchwork
quilt of meat—a jigsaw puzzle of flesh tossed together
with no more care or concern for me as a h u m a n being
than an angry child has for an old broken toy.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, and cried. At least
my tears were my own and I let them pour out in rivers
as I cursed Dr. Marshall with every ounce of hatred I
could drum up within me. Marshall was a brilliant sur¬
geon and I was convinced he could have significantly
improved my appearance. He j u s t hadn't wanted to.
N o , this was exactly how he wanted me to look. I hated
him for that more than anything else he'd done to me.
A key rattled in the lock on my door and five seconds
later Junie came walking into my room without both¬
ering to knock
. Had it been Dr. Marshall, I'm pretty
sure I would have went after his throat with my teeth,
even if that meant going through Drake to get at him,
but seeing Junie and the sad expression on her face as
she gazed at my pitiful nakedness, I j u s t lowered my
head and started crying again.
"Help me," I sobbed, slumping to my knees on the
floor. "Please help me get away from here, Junie. Es¬
cape or suicide, I don't care which. He's taken every¬
t h i n g from me, everything, and I can't do this anymore.
I just can'tl"
Junie stood rooted to the floor j u s t inside the door¬
way, silent for the longest time, but then she closed the
door and moved over beside me. In the quietest of
whispers she said, "I'll try."
That was it. N o t h i n g more. N o t even a reassuring
smile when I looked up at her. It was back to business as
usual and she was hustling me into my clothes and or¬
dering me to get my ass in gear. Maybe I hadn't heard
her right, or worse yet, she might not have said any¬
t h i n g at all. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if my m i n d and
ears were playing tricks on me but regardless, whether
it had really happened or not, a tiny seed of hope had
been planted within me. I wasn't ready to j u m p for joy,
but it was enough to get me off the ground and moving
again. For now, that would have to do.
"So what happens now?" I asked once I was fully
dressed and in control of my emotions again.
"Drake will be along soon to bring you to the video
conference room. He wanted me to make sure you were
ready."
"Video conference room? So I'm not going back for
more surgery?" Junie shook her head no, scolding me
with her eyes for j u m p i n g to silly conclusions. I was
relieved but still confused. "What's Marshall up to,
then?"
"Documentation, of course. No one has even at¬
tempted, much less succeeded, in doing what Dr. Mar¬
shall has done with you. You might not see it the way
he does, of course, but the. truth is you're a medical
miracle."
"So he wants to parade me around like a freak on a
leash for the cameras and let the world pat him on the
back for being so brilliant. I can hear it now. Come see
the pathetic little Jigsaw Man. Fuck that! That maniac
needs to be locked up, not admired. He's murdering and
mutilating people, Junie. Destroying people, mentally
and physically, j u s t to get his academic rocks off. And for