Valeria by Kaitlin R. Branch

Author:Kaitlin R. Branch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyrical Press, Inc.
Published: 2012-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

Two weeks passed without much to do but Mache never managed to become bored. Needing little sleep, Valeria woke him for breakfast early in the morning. Mache sat and talked to her, often answering questions she stockpiled in the night, until she went to conduct her experiments and build her prototypes. Once, she came and dragged him away from trying to work out how to cook a carrot to show him something, holding his hand in her natural hand and explaining it to him in rapid fire words, bouncing up and down in excitement. He watched her more than he listened.

Her eye patch was flipped up, her hair streaked with oil and a smudge of some sort of bright red dust on her cheek, her breathing rapid and excited. “You explaining what the auto adjuster was gave me an idea to use a similar system of weights to power joints. It would be a cheap way to get rid of the steam engines I have to attach to the limbs I make for the public now. Look at this prototype!”

She picked up a tangle of wires in the rough shape of an arm.

“Why don’t you make your kind of limbs for the public?” he asked. “Like your hand? You mentioned they were expensive but for something like that surely it would be better to lower the price and get more sales?”

She beamed. “You mean like my hand? It’s a dangerous and long procedure. I didn’t have anything to lose. If you’re going to chop off a hand, you’d need to have a guarantee of the replacement being better, wouldn’t you? Some people will take the risk, but not many.”

He found himself slightly less queasy than usual at the thought, probably because of the smug excitement in her expression. “I see. This will make normal limbs better?”

“Leagues better,” she exclaimed. “Instead of lugging around the engine to work it, they shift the remainder of their limb in the framework, which sets off the weights and moves the arm as desired. Oh, I can’t wait.”

Mache chuckled, reaching out to rub the streak of red off of her cheek, smoothing her hair back in the meantime. “I’ll come get you for dinner, ok?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she said, already bending over the prototype, head tilted to put her artificial eye close to her work, hand splitting open to attack the wires and weights.

* * * *

It was two in the morning when Valeria shook Mache awake. Her breathing was hard and she was kneeling over him. He blinked as her hair tickled his lips, murmuring, “Valeria?”

“Mache,” she whispered. “You have to get up.” She reached out, pulling at him to get up faster, cupping his cheeks. “Mache, the CEO.”

“What?” He snapped awake. His eyes widened, suddenly at full attention. She wasn’t even fully dressed, clearly in her underwear and the same shirt she always wore without the leather bustier. His eyes widened as he realized the lamp she’d put on the floor illuminated every last curve before her words sank in again.

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