Chapter 48
Ver

Up on the shelves where the artificial limbs are stacked, crawling and rustling begins. Transparent fingers unfurl, covered with microchips. Disproportionately long, rainbow-toned legs stretch artificial tendons. A reflective, glassy torso vibrates, then shimmies to life.

Aiyo, please let this not be real.

Sticky sounds emanate from the artificial limbs as they clasp onto one another. Limbs that are better—by Yuan’s twisted standards—than what anyone was born with. Clap, squelch! They form conglomerates of barely recognizable hands, arms, legs, abdomens. Like bacteria making biofilms. Glomming together, sticking to a surface, and multiplying all over it. Burying it.

In this case, the surfaces will be Aryl and me.

Some of the masses the artificial limbs form are six-sided, like snowflakes. Others are two legs that walk, like real human legs, with two hands attached to them. Hands ready to strike, to grab. Fingers ready to dig into flesh like claws. I wish the homunculi had heads to give them some semblance of humanity. They barrel toward us, guided by the movements of the expressionless human workers still fixated on their monitors.

Terror floods every cell in my body, red and violent. My headache scorches my skull from the inside. Beside me, Aryl curls her fingers into fists. I test out my cane in my hands, knowing it will be useless against the onslaught.

Yuan watches his creations with pride. Beside him, Osmio opens the side door that he and his employer must have used to reach the balcony.

“This will be such an unfortunate accident,” Yuan says.

He turns his back on us and walks away, too weak to watch us die.