I looked into my reflection and rubbed my skinless hand across my new face. Mode smacked my hand away, cutting herself on gear 37C. ?I just finished that, don?t go cutting it up now.? Mistress? She sucked on the wound, grumbling. Grabbing for some tape with her left hand, she fumbled with it until it dropped to the floor. ?Dammit!? Allow me to do that. I slowly and carefully wrapped her injury to perfect symmetry and tore the tape at a perfect straight line. ?You idiot,? she mumbled as I worked. ?Always getting hurt, and being one of the only ones like you who can feel pain, I expect you to be more careful from now on.? She pulled her hand away and rushed out of the room. A moment later she came back in and we both said ?Thank you!? at the same time before she looked again at me in that odd way and rushed out again. As I remembered, she was going into the human village to get more Synthetic Skin. Although it did not make much sense to me why the humans would have such a thing.
I turned back to the mirror, and the face that gazed into mine was wholly unfamiliar. ?Hello.? I said and watched the lips of the strange man move in sync with mine. It was me in the mirror? I had a shock of wavy blond hair coming out of my head, spilling over almost down to my shoulders, mostly covering my eyes. I lifted the hair, shining silver gears were turning around and around in my eyes. I let the hair drop back into place. My mouth had gone from a small, pursed thing to a pair of full, red lips. I stared at it for a moment, then headed into the parlor. I sat down at the bar and started disassembling my hand. I do not know why I was doing it, I just suddenly started taking it apart, piece by tiny piece. When I heard the door slam I came to and saw that I had taken my right arm apart to the elbow, every piece laid out methodically down the length of the bar. Mode was in the Special Room, which I was not allowed to go into, and had left a bit of a mess behind in the entrance. I rapidly reassembled my arm and proceeded to clean up the mess. Shortly after I finished, mistress came out of the Special Room with a new arm cover. ?There you are, Zeto, and aren't we being a good little robot today? Usually you put cleaning off until nightfall. Maybe that new programming is starting to kick in? Or is this your way of thanking me?? I didn't say anything, I couldn't. I felt increasingly odd as this bewildering night wore on, but I knew one thing for certain. I had to modify a few things before the night was over or terror would surely strike our hidden base. Even I don't know where this place is, in case I fall into enemy hands. I can get here, but I'm not sure how it works. I mumbled some colloquialism and headed into my room. I opened up the closet and looked over my clothing options. Over half of them were... I exhaled minty-freshness from my mouth an a brief, hard burst. Sigh I removed my maid clothes, which were clearly not designed for a man to be wearing, and Grabbed a pair of too-tight jeans off the rack. I didn't bother with a shirt, but I did grab the jacket Mode had given me last week. The sleeves were too long, so I used my knife to shorten them, and hemmed the edges. Now they were about halfway to my elbows. Perfectly symmetrical. I looked over at my closet again. I had about four pairs of normal jeans and about 30 pairs of cargo pants. Before I knew what I was doing I was screaming and tearing all of the zippers out of, off of, and away from the cargo pants.
I awoke in a heap of destroyed pants, fabric gently falling through the air. I was wearing that jacket I had modified, only it was covered in zippers! Zippers on the sleeves, zippers on the pockets, zippers on the neckline, some of them seemed to have just been sown into the fabric of the jacket itself. Mode burst in. ?What the hell is-!...? She started laughing hysterically, her eyes wild. Her hair was flying as she threw her head back and let more roars of insane laughter roil out. I started crying again ?I destroyed Mistress' gifts to me.? She looked down at me (I was kneeling on the floor) and laughed even harder. Then she pulled out a handkerchief and wiped my face with it. I stopped crying, I like it when she does things like that. ?First of all...? She said choking back more laughter. ?You look ridiculous. And secondly...? The handkerchief unrolled in her open palm and she chuckled again. ?You put the wrong stuff in your tear-duct again.? The kerchief was covered in black oil. I grabbed my hair and yelled again. I rushed over to the mirror in my closet to see two perfectly aligned trails running down my face. The ink had sunken into the skin. I was tattooed. ?I-I kind of like it.? I said, pulling off my face and removing the tear-ducts. Mistress chuckled some more. ?You know what? I kind of like it too.
A few more tune-ups, and I was ready for another trial run. Hopefully, this one won't require combat. If it does though, I'll be ready.
