Inky Blood

I slammed my forearm down on the desk. The metal was shredded, having been jammed in the door mechanism there were definitely parts that needed to be repaired. Of course, the skills required were not in my possession. With my one good hand I placed the head on the apparatus, sealed the container and pushed a button.

​I watched as the head was scanned, broken into, taken apart and eventually compressed into a red mess. A small syringe appeared at the lower part of the machine, processed by the machine and containing a blue, neon liquid. I wiped the blood off the desk with an oily rag and clutched the syringe after. Jamming the needle into my temple quickly I shot the information into my skull. The nanobots began collecting the information and a portion of my mind went dark as it stored the skills.
After five minutes of fiddling with my arm I suddenly had the ability to complete the repairs I needed. I took the tools at hand and began my work. I broke off scrap metal and began tinkering with machinations within. The technology began to whirr to life as I worked. I still had some adjustments to make to ensure it understood what I wanted it to do. Eventually my fingers began to move when I told them too. I used spare metal to rebuild the outside of my arm; soldering every corner and edge expertly as if I had been working like this my whole life.
I held my arm up and moved my digits. Everything was in place and working better than it did before. Now it was time to steal the face. My own was mostly electronic now, but with equipment around me I could now steal the woman’s face. It wasn’t any more difficult than stealing her skills. I pulled a drive from the machine that crusher her skull and took it to the other side of the room. There was surgical chair with several mechanical arms hanging above it. I slid the drive into place and the 3D model of her face appeared.
Lying down in the chair I began pushing the buttons in a sequence that not only changed the authority access from the corpse in the middle of the room to me, but also started the process for my new face to be built. As the machine began to heat up I stared at my face in the viewing screen. There was only a metallic skull and cruel eyes. In an hour that would change. Once the machine was ready I sedated myself and let it do its work. A murky, electronic darkness awaited me in my sleep.
I heard the struggles of the past life belonging to this mechanic. The law always out to get her. She provided too much help to the wrong people, but they could not pin her down. She was agile, smart and innovative. She was always five steps ahead of any officer, making her a brilliant strategist than anybody I had met. She cared about the downtrodden and hated the corporations that wore the boots. Her name, my name, is Angelica Doks.
When my eyes opened I saw a different face in the viewing screen. It was pale, fleshy and it had dark purple hair. Before I could collect myself and stand to my feet the restraints on the chair bound me. I was unable to move as a monitor descended. It face the ground and a holographic projection appeared of Angelica appeared. She stood before me and shook her head.
“I must say, I never thought I would bite the dust so soon,” Angelica told me. “But I knew it would happen. You made the mistake of stealing…me…in my own home. I have contingencies that you are no doubt trying to remember, but can’t. Let me tell you what is about to happen.”
The hologram walked over to me and sat down on the mechanics chair casually.
“Every night my brain goes under a deep-dive scan and my personality and memories and skills and whatever the hell makes me, me is placed into a powerful storage device just above this ceiling,” Angelica explained pointing up at the dingy ceiling. “Right now you feel your mind being cleansed of memories.”
I immediately tried to recall the past, but indeed, I could not. Why am I sitting here and why am I so terrified?
“I notice you have stopped struggling around the halfway point, which means your purpose as been deleted as well,” the strange woman told me. “These are your last moments before my mind is restored in your body. I must say, it is fine body too. High tech, beyond anything you can find outside of the corporation. All fail-safes are disabled, easy as always, but now that your body is off the grid they will be coming here soon.”
The stranger stared at me curiously before nodding to herself.
“You have no memories now, so you have no crimes either,” she told me. “I will place you in a drive and send you to the corporation. I’m sure they would be happy to have a fresh mind to work with. Thank you for the new body, I’ve always wanted to go full cyborg, but it wasn’t going to happen with just scrap metal. Enjoy the afterlife; I’m sure I will see you there.”
 
Angelica removed the restraints and sat in the meekly. In front of her was her fleshy body. It was bleeding massively from the wounds inflicted by the assassin. The weapons within her now were deadly and undetectable, which made sense considering how the assassin killed her without being scanned properly.
She climbed to her feet, feeling great. The strength inside of her now was immense. Her mind restored, but the body not her own. The experience of tonight will haunt her for the rest of her life, but Angelica had more terrifying memories than this. She walked around the room collecting her most important pieces, storing them in a slim backpack. Once that was done she began walking towards the door, only to stop upon hearing the surgical chair buzzing.
Angelica turned to see it eject a drive; it was steel, high-tech, no doubt belonging to the assassin. She walked over to it and plucked it from the machine. It had a small LED screen that displayed a single message.
“Please, I don’t want to die.”