[Chimaera182]

The car slid to a halt in the driveway, and Buck yawned. This had to be the longest day on record. Between the boring class lectures and the stress of preparing for the holidays at his job, the pressure seemed unending. At least I’ll have a chance to unwind tonight, he thought, looking forward to a night of reckless partying.
The door opened as he walked up the path. “Dude!” Charles “Chaz” Sharp shouted, embracing Buck in a bear hug. “Man, how you been, yo?”
“I’ve been better,” Buck managed. “You’re hugging too tight.”
“What?”
“Let go!” Buck pushed out of Chaz’s embrace. “You could wrestle gators with that grip of yours.”
“Sorry, yo; it’s the new arms, G.”
Buck started. “What?”
“Man, I was in Iran, remember? Lost my whole left arm in a suicide bomb-run, and before they got me to a doctor, the shrapnel that got in my right arm damaged too much or somethin’. Had to cut it off from the elbow down.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Buck said. He knew it was trite, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say to his friend.
“No, it’s great, man. These robotic limbs rock! Here.” Before Buck knew what was happening, Chaz lifted his left hand, grabbed his pinky, twisted it and pulled it right off. The entire display nearly turned Buck’s stomach. “Man, I got this USB memory thing in my hand now, I can store all kinds of stuff on. I put my iPod music in one of my fingers, but now . . .” He trailed off.
“Hey, Buck!” a voice called from the doorway. He turned and caught sight of Cessily Liverpool coming down the walkway. “Hey, Chaz, Eve and Vincent need your help with the equipment.”
The sound of his name seemed to shake Chaz out of his reverie. “Okay, that’s cool.” He nodded to Buck then went back inside. Cessily beckoned to him, smiling, and Buck followed.
He felt relaxed now that he was with his friends. Sure, the workload was steadily increasing, and the demands of his classes as finals drew near were overbearing, but at least he could relax with his friends. His family. He smiled as he stepped inside behind Cess. I really needed this, he thought, willing the tension to leave him. A good ol’ session of—“What the hell is that thing?”
Eve looked up at him from the . . . apparatus that dominated the table. “Oh, hey, man, you’re here.”
“What is that?” he asked again, eyeing the strange contraption Eve and Vincent had been working on.
“Hey, man, it’s Buck,” Vincent said from underneath the table. “Don’t you know what this is?”
Buck shook his head. “It’s a WILL,” Eve explained, taking him by the arm and leading him over to the couch. “We’re setting it up, then we’re going to have a blast.”
Buck’s nervousness went up a few notches as he eyed the machine suspiciously. A WILL was one of the most powerful—and dangerous—devices in the hemisphere. Use of the WILL had been the direct result of several dozen deaths in the United States alone, leading to it being outlawed in most of the civilized world. It wasn’t something Buck had ever wanted to try before.
The stories he had heard of the device’s properties had once made him reconsider. A couple friends of his had tried the WILL and told him it was the most intense high of their lives. Unfortunately for Buck, the WILL required an implant to plug into, and Buck had foregone implants of any kind.
“I think I’ll stick with your pipe, Eve,” he said slowly, not taking his eyes off the WILL.
“Wimp,” Vince muttered from under the table.
Eve glared at the man’s legs. “It’s not like you have a choice, anyway,” Eve replied, turning back to face him. “You really should have invested in a CRAP, you know. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
Vince pulled himself out from underneath the table. “Done.”
“Finally, G,” Chaz said. “This is gonna be sweet, yo,” he added, smiling at Buck knowingly. Buck held his friend’s gaze for a second then turned away.
Without waiting for the others, Chaz grabbed hold of one of the cords dangling from the WILL. With his free hand, he took hold of his left pinky and tore it off with less finesse than he had earlier. In the same motion, as the artificial digit was removed, the WILL plug was inserted into the empty socket.
“Hey, you sure you got this thing workin’ right?” Chaz growled. “’cuz I’m not feeling curtains.”
Buck blinked. “What?”
“Dude, this is stellar, man,” Chaz whispered. “My compact tape instructor finish.”
“What the hell—“
“It’s the WILL,” Vincent explained. “Don’t worry; he’ll remember how to speak eventually.”
Buck watched the display with revulsion. A machine was capable of doing this to a person? This just was not right on so many levels. “Maybe you should unplug him,” he suggested hesitantly.
“Go unplug yourself, narc,” Chaz bit out.
“Calm down, Chaz,” Eve intervened. “He’s just not seen it before is all.”
Cess nodded. “C’mon, let me have a go.”
“I need to bathroom to the go,” Chaz said, then shook his head. “Go. Bathroom.” He unplugged himself, and Buck noticed a small blue spark that arced out from the WILL plug to the connector port in Chaz’s artificial hand. “Wow, that’s good stuff.” Chaz staggered back, falling into the sofa behind him. He just sat there, silent, for a minute; then, with obvious effort, he picked himself up and slowly made his way to the bathroom.
“What happened to him?” Buck asked, turning back to Eve.
“It’s just the WILL. It’s pretty powerful stuff, man.”
“It’s not just that; he seems . . . I don’t know, less human somehow.”
“Oh, c’mon; you’re not seriously suggesting that the WILL is somehow robbing him of his humanity,” Eve scoffed.
Buck shook his head. “It’s not just the WILL. What about his arms? I mean, with the kinds of implants people get nowadays, it’s a wonder we don’t turn into the Borg.”
Eve looked at him with surprise. “The Borg? Pull your nose out of Star Trek and the future and embrace the now. Just because people are attaching devices to their bodies does not make them into inhuman cyborgs.”
“My turn!” Cess yelled at that moment, lunging for the dangling cord. She grabbed the cable, caressing the connector jack. “Ooh, baby, come to momma.”