Rebuilding

Orlok glared daggers at the gimp that was operating on him. He'd insisted on being fully conscious during the whole ordeal. One could never trust a person in a gimp suit. She scoffed at him.

"You fight was shit." She said casually as she pulled some swarf out of his side.

"I'm aware." He sighed.

"You know Rowan isn't going to be happy." The She-gimp supplied.

"I'm aware. Maybe she should have thought to check people for drugs in the crowds before I got hit with Fuckup juice. Then again she most likely put that on the weapon list herself. Are you done yet?" He growled.

"Not even close. Your guts are a mess. Be thankful you can't feel pain, else this would be *a lot* less pleasant without you under."

Orlok snorted and let his head fall back in disgust. What was pain to him when he had scorched that from his mind and his body?

His eyes rolled over to the gimp.

"So, what's your story? You another sex slave? Or are you here by consent?" He asked irritably.

A hand came up to scratch at the spot where his sunglasses weren't. Romeo had smashed them off. Bastard. Last he'd seen him and his Alpha friends were getting escorted out, the crowds eager to rip into them.

"You know, just because I dress like a gimp doesn't mean I am one. It's just a thing we do to scare people. Rowan's people took me off the street." The Doctor's tone became defensive.

Ah, so loyalty was a thing around here. Noted.

"Yeah, *I gathered.* Was it out of pragmatism or are these those rare, unheard of, friendly gangsters? "

"Is that so hard to believe? Criminals and monsters aren't mutually inclusive, you know."

"The bloodstains in the pit would suggest otherwise."

"People go in to fight their way to a better life, or drugs, or whatever it is they want. That's what the flesh pits are. A chance to work and fight for what you want."

"What a marvelously noble spin on a hive of scumbags getting it in the throat from OSEC up top, the cunt from Rowan and the ass from people like me who manage to crawl up it."

"People like you? You mean annoying wankers?" The Doctor asked, a British accent coming through.

"Sticks and stones, sweetheart. Watch that rib, I had to hold it together with soldering wire and some Pratley's Puttey a while ago. My craftsmanship was kind of shit."

"Yeah, about that. Mind explaining to me exactly what the fuck happened to you?" The Doctor asked.

"Oh, whatever do you mean Doctor Gimp?" He sneered.

"Funny guy. Traces of nightshade running through your bloodstream, stomach lining kept together with fucking industrial nails, granted small ones. Several fractures to the skull, indicative of getting stabbed. An inflated liver, *artificially* if I had to guess. Strange stitching over the insides of the bones in your arms, mostly around the eblows and wrists. Oh, and these aren't human adrenal glands either."

"There's a reason people call me 'Frankenstein'" He sighed.

"And you did this bullshit to yourself *because?* You irritate me but I'm still a Doctor. My job to help patients. You go through a torture chamber?"

"What is it to you?" He snarled.

"My job, like i just said. You think just because i work for Rowan that I don't know what 'Empathy' feels like?"

Orlok sighed aggressively.

"Mining accident. Shrapnel."

"Yeah, and the stitching that almost seems to imply you guy cut completely in half and then stitched back together. You know how fucking suspect that is? OSEC are the only people that can afford nano-surgeons good enough to stitch torsoes back together like that."

"I didn't *get* *stitched* back together. I did some science and fixed myself up."

"What... like... while you were buried under the rubble?"

"No, after they hauled me out and cauterized the wounds. It was a clean cut from a piece of sharpened scaffolding so it wasn't hard. Well, not if you have the right materials on hand... and mindset. I just had to crawl over to my legs."

"Now you're just bullshitting me. No medical tech ever goes into the mines that some fucking dig monkey could use to fix this sort of shit."

"No *medical* tech, no. My brain was already a little damaged, I couldn't feel pain very well at that point. You'd be astonished what you could do if you sneak into the foreman's office and re purpose the diamond cutter they use on smaller samples. Just gotta cut that parts they cauterized, just the burnt parts.

Probably a good three or four inches of me went, hence why I'm only six three and not six six. Which is bullshit."

"What's bullshit is how you re-attached your legs after cutting the stumpy pieces away."

"In the mines we use Plaste-Paste-Gell on the more complex machines. It's a smart gel that goes and takes a template of a machine and then when applied to an object and told to 'go' attempts to move things back into the shape of that template.

The doctor dropped her scalpal.

"Bullshit. I've heard of treatments like that before, nobody ever survives the attempt. It's just an experimental pipe dream. Any volunteers died of overloaded pain receptors after a few seconds. Even if your nerves had been damaged, I heard about guys that had theirs *medically scorched*beforehand to try this shit. The pain found a way through and overloaded their systems. Their wires got all crossed, hearts exploded, eyes shorted out. Humans are just water and meat and electricity. We can't handle that kind of pain."

"Exactly. I'd heard about some of those experiments during one of my routine eavesdropping sessions on the suits. I didn't bother trying to neatly sever my nerves, I just caved my skull in with a drillbit and dug my pain receptors out entirely."

"You dug your own brain out?"

"Not that hard when you're already busy dying. I heard about a guy on old earth that lived for like twenty years after getting a piece of rebar through the skull and out the other end. I'm a sissy by comparison."

"But... you must have... how did you not die from that?"

Oh goody, a chance to screw with people.

He turned to the doctor and did his best slasher smile. Showing his teeth in a manic grin. He lowered his head and looked at the woman through crazed eyes.

"I *am* death itself. Did you honestly think a *soul* could survive that? Foolish. I'm just a corpse running on autopilot, following the last orders of its master. Just mental synapses and flesh and meat and bone and water and electricity. Such *glorious motherucking electricity.*oh, and Blood too. Blood to get the blood flowing for it's own sake. But you wanna know a secret?" He chuckled and leaned in closer to the doctor.

She took a step back, stepping into her table.

"I sometimes *do* yearn for the touch of a woman again. Oh how I do miss my fair lady Death. Such a pretty corpse she was, with those maggots in her eyes, bloated from the gas. The way her hair fell after that shell ripped its way through her. You know... you'd look *fucking ravishing* with maggots in your eyes." He leaned in as if to kiss her.

The doctor stayed rooted to her spot. He saw the fear in her eyes and... something else. Lust. Hah, these people really were freaks.

He leaned in closer and rested his teeth against her earlobe. "You've got such gorgeous ABOOGABABABOOGA!!!" He howled insanely.

The Doctor screamnd and tripped over herself in her rush to get THE FUCK out of the room, leaving behind An Orlok as he laughed insanely.