I knew I wasn’t supposed to be in the shop, not even for a minute. But hiding in there? There was no way my family could afford the trespassing fines. Stealing? That’s three years in jail minimum, and I would lose my arm. “Sally’s Bionic Emporium - Since 3130” shined in shiny sheet metal on the front of the workshop. Smog hung in the air like a blanket, darkening the decrepit city. I crept into the old garage with light feet on the gravel so the rocks wouldn’t crunch when I moved.
I could see sparks flying from my hiding place under the rusted body of a decrepit hover-car. The smell of grease was slick in the back of my throat. My hair was plastered to my sweaty forehead, and I pushed it back to see the two men by the furnace. They were illuminated by the glow of the fire and embers jumping up around them as they hammered a sheet of metal flat. The stainless steel glowed, lighting up the work bench. Smoke burned my eyes, but I kept them wide open, waiting for the right moment.
The fear that twisted my guts into knots was all worth it, but the guilt was not. Nightmares woke me on a regular basis. I woke up in cold sweats, usually crying. More than once, I called out for my mother in the dead of night, but she never wanted to acknowledge what I did. “Be quiet, Milo!” she yelled angrily from her room, “You’re waking up the whole house.” She didn’t care where I went that Sunday afternoon, and she certainly wouldn’t comfort me when the waves of remorse made me sick to my stomach.
The men’s biceps were bulging as they lowered the chest-plate over a mass of whirling gears. They were one hundred percent organic: all muscle, no metal, unlike me.
Metal clanged against metal as they pounded the bolts into the frame. Then, they turned to their next project. I watched them tinker with the gears for hours, individually testing each system of pistons and levers. The gleaming metal fingers of the bionic arm opened and closed, and I knew I had to have it.
Sharp, rusted metal cut into the soft flesh of my side, and I jolted away from the pain. The plates in my arm screeched, but the men couldn’t hear over the scream of the saws. I felt like a nervous rabbit, waiting for the right moment to flee. It would be easier if I left that rusted piece of junk at home, but mom would have been suspicious if she saw me leave without an entire limb.
One evening, my fiancé asked me about the scars on my right hand. I didn’t tell Jax much about my childhood, but he told me more than enough about himself. His family was pretty big; he told me stories while we lie on the ground outside his cabin. He told me about his studies in economics and alternative currency, while I taught him the basics of developing carbon inventories. Jax wasn’t as interested in the finer points of global warming. Coming from the countryside, he didn’t have the same first-hand knowledge of how bad the pollution really was.
A brisk breeze played in the long, brown grass and tousled his blond hair. He wrapped his jacket around my shoulders to stop my shivering. I studied his face, although I had already memorized every feature. The tiny white scar above his eyebrow was from a fistfight with his cousin. “Funny,” he said, shifting on the red checkered blanket to face me. “His name is Milo, too.”  I kissed the sliver of a scar and he ran his fingers over the puckered skin of my palm. “You never told me how this happened,” Jax murmured softly. And I never would. 
The arm was carefully dipped in a barrel of water and steam hissed. When the men turned their backs to pour molten steel into a fresh mold, I seized the opportunity. My limp arm clanged loudly on the hover car as I burst out toward the cooling rack. I stumbled before falling into a sprint. The smoke felt like fire in my lungs as I sucked it down with each stride. Before the men could react, my good hand was already clamped down on the hot metal of the arm. With a sharp turn, I was headed toward the sliding wooden doors as the men scrambled to catch me. My feet skidded on gravel and my palm burned with pain as the hot metal ate through my skin. I had speed, but there was a mile between the warehouse and home.
Jax was bouncing Finnick on his knee, and our baby gurgled happily. I sat on the armchair across from them, greasing the ball joint in my shoulder with WD40. “When are you going to get rid of that rusted old thing?” Jax asked, nodding to my arm. I set down the blue can of oil and pondered the question. “It’s about time you got a new one.” He was right. Red-hot flames crackled in the fireplace, and I stared into them, mesmerized. I had grown a lot since I was sixteen. A year after our wedding, I replaced the shoulder attachment, but the bicep and forearm were disproportionate to my right arm. The pistons didn’t move nearly as smooth as when I first wriggled the fingers and the model was so outdated that replacement pieces were too expensive.
The fire popped, and I said suddenly, “Let’s go to the store.” Jax looked at me incredulously. “I was promoted.” I spent hours at the carbon accounting firm, overworking myself for the opportunity and it finally paid off. “I’m not working in the field any more. I’m in management.”
“No way,” Jax laughed with astonishment. I pulled the paycheck out of my pocket for proof. He shifted Finnick in his lap and tore open the envelope. His playful smile turned serious and his eyes widened with disbelief.
“That’s a whole lot of zeros, Milo,” he said, handing back the paper. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed with a bewildered smile. “You could get an arm and a leg with that kind of money.”
“Good,” I replied with a grin. Sally’s Bionic Emporium was long gone, but the prosthetic industry was still booming. “Let’s go tomorrow.”