 "Armed
and Dangerous"
(In
its entirety)
by David M. Fitzpatrick
My girlfriend’s third arm didn’t like me
much. In fact, it wanted me dead. Judy didn’t believe it, of course. The
arm was just jealous, that’s what she always said. It had had Judy to
itself all its life and now it had to share her with someone—me. Two years
being with Judy and it always came down to that damned third arm coming
between us. I don’t just mean
metaphorically speaking—I mean literally, it came between us. The
arm grew from between her breasts, and although it was stunted and
unable to reach as far as her full-sized arms, it was poised
perfectly to attack anyone moving toward Judy from the front. I
couldn’t hug her, except briefly from behind, my arms around her
neck, and without daring to press up against her for fear of an
attack from the side. Our intimacy was nonexistent. And, yes—I
couldn’t make love with her. I know it sounds shallow, but after two
years, we’d developed a powerful physical attraction and both of us
wanted to do something about it. The arm, of course, wouldn’t let
us. I’d argued time and time
again about duct taping the thing down for an hour or so in order
for us to have intimate moments, but Judy was vehemently against any
such bondage. To her, they both shared one body and she didn’t have
the right to tie the arm up against its will. Her solution was
always the same: “She has to accept you, Nick. She’s had me to
herself all our lives, and she just has to get used to sharing you.”
“I’m tired of waiting,” I’d argue
back. “I just don’t think our entire relationship should revolve
around what it wants.” “She’s
not an it, Nick,” she’d correct me as she always did. “And her
name’s Midge.” That was what
her twin was supposed to have been named, according to Judy’s
mother. In the beginning, Judith Anne and Margaret Lee had been two
healthy embryos; the doctors had seen that with their fancy new
super-duper baby-checking equipment. Somewhere along the line, early
in the first trimester, Judy had absorbed Midge and only one baby
had been born… with a small part of the other conjoined.
I remember the shock when we first got
a little hot and heavy in my car. We were kissing, and she kept
kissing me back but every now and then she’d push me away with her
hand. It never occurred to me how she could push me if one of her
hands held the back of my neck while we kissed and the other rubbed
my thigh. Then a third hand suddenly tweaked my nipple in a serious
way. I yelped and jumped back, trying to figure out exactly what had
done the tweaking. Judy had burst into tears and launched into her
somewhat grotesque description of her malady.
It marked the only time in my life
that a woman had lifted her shirt up and I hadn’t focused on the
usual things. There it was, about a foot long, three-fingered,
hanging between her breasts. It was moving a little—trying to find
my nipple for another tweaking, no doubt. I was aghast.
As you can imagine, my first encounter
with the arm set the stage for neither of us liking each other at
all. But I really loved Judy; I must have to have remained in
control after that. She explained the whole conjoined twin thing,
the embryonic absorption, and so on. “I don’t have any control over
her,” she’d told me. “She has her own nervous system, Nick. It’s not
a brain the way you and I have brains, but more a rudimentary
version of one. She thinks on an instinctive level… but she feels.
She has moods. She has happy times and sad times, and times when
she’s angry…” I would go on
to learn more about the angry times. In fact, I rarely saw anything
but the angry times. I’d go to give Judy a kiss and my nipple would
get tweaked. I’d try to hug her and get punched in the gut. I’d put
my arm around her and the thing would go for a handful of skin. We
couldn’t sleep together; it would manage to find my hair, my leg,
and other parts I really didn’t want to have ripped off. But it
would try. One day, Judy was
cutting up stuff for a salad. Midge was helping, holding the head of
lettuce steady like a child who tries to be helpful but really isn’t
doing much good except in her own mind. Judy was chattering away as
she set down the knife and went for a towel to wipe off her hands. I
was standing next to her, bopping to some classic rock tune on the
radio, and thought it would be an opportune time to steal some of
the lettuce. I sneaked my hand in from the side and grabbed a big
hunk. Midge moved like a
flash, her three-fingered hand striking like a cobra and snatching
up the big butcher knife. The knife came whizzing down and I yanked
my hand back with a yell—too late. I felt the cold steel chop
through my index finger like a guillotine through a little head and
I lost almost half of it, cut off between the first and second
knuckles. If there had been
any way to kill Midge without hurting Judy in the process, I’d
probably have done it. I hopped around the kitchen hollering and
swearing and making threats while Judy confiscated the knife. Midge
waved around from the underside of Judy’s blouse. Judy tried to calm
me down and wanted to take me to the hospital, but I had no interest
in being near Midge right then. I flew myself in my aircar.
#
Not too long ago, amputations were
disastrous, and reattaching severed parts was an important part of
treatment. It usually required packing the severed part on ice until
it could be reattached, and the time factor was critical—it had to
happen right away. Luckily, regenerative techniques were far better
nowadays. Dr. Brisbane applied a medicated wrap to the area and
prescribed regenerative nanobots, saying it would take around a week
to fully regrow the finger.
“The nano drug injects several thousand microscopic regen nanos into
your system,” he explained. “They’re specially programmed to rebuild
that finger. Unless, of course, I reprogrammed them incorrectly and
you end up with another thumb instead.”
He laughed at his own joke, but I
wasn’t feeling very amused.
“Anyway, in a week they should have done their job, at which point
they’ll shut down and be flushed from your system,” he finished.
“How did you say this happened?”
“My girlfriend’s third arm wants to
kill me,” I said. “Ah, yes.
Grows from her chest. From the sounds of it, she could have that
safely removed, you know. Same technique I just used on you, really.
The nanos simply detach the arm and create new skin over the chest.
She wouldn’t feel a thing.”
“She won’t do it,” I told him. “She thinks it’s her sister.”
“Well, just so you know it can be
done. If you get her to change her mind, bring her to my private
practice.” It sounded like a
great idea, but of course she’d never go for it.
#
Of course, she didn’t go for it. She
was upset that I even brought the subject up. She cried and I felt
bad. From the bottom edge of her shirt, Midge flipped me off.
“I just can’t see any other solution!”
I exploded. “The thing tried to kill me today!”
“Oh, of course she didn’t!” Judy said.
“How can you say that?” “What
do you mean, how can I say that? It cut off my finger with a butcher
knife!” “It’ll grow back in a
week,” she said, as if annoyed I had dared to bring up that
unimportant topic. “Are you
going to say then when she cuts my head off?” I was fuming mad now.
“She just has to get used to you,” she
said, as robotic as the microscopic nanos who were busily carrying
out their assigned tasks inside my body.
“You’ve been saying that for two
years. It’s never going to get used to me! It’s jealous of me and it
always will be!” She cried
some more and I punched a wall and left. I loved Judy. I really did.
But how much more of this could I take?
#
The next day, Judy said, “I’ve been
wrong about Midge.” My heart
leapt for a moment. Could she have come to a logical conclusion?
“It’s not simply that she’s jealous of
me in that she’s possessive,” she said. “She’s jealous of me in that
I have a loving partner in you, and she doesn’t.”
“Buy her a glove,” I said gruffly. I
was sitting on the other side of the room, watching TV, separated
from the woman I loved because of a mutant third arm. It was like a
problem child that controlled our relationship.
“That’s not funny. Maybe if you tried
showing her some affection… showing her that you care about her…
she’d accept you.” “I don’t
care about it,” I said, heavily emphasizing the ‘it.’ “I don’t even
want it here. I love you.”
She didn’t say anything for a few minutes while I watched TV.
Finally, she said, “I think we should break up.”
I looked up in shock. That was the
last thing I ever expected to hear. I don’t downplay Judy for her
condition or make myself out to be some kind of hero; but the fact
was, she’d be hard pressed to find another man who would stick with
her without physical intimacy because of a third arm growing out of
her chest. “What?” I said.
“I can’t keep doing this to you,” she
said, trying not to cry. “You need to have your life. You need to
have intimacy with someone. I can’t give that to you because of
Midge.” Midge was on her
belly, peeking out from under her shirt, and began quivering. She
slid back inside Judy’s shirt, like a snake into a cave.
“But I love her too, Nick. She’s part
of me—in many ways, not just physically. I could never have her
removed. I could never… I just couldn’t kill her. She’s wrong to
behave how she does, but… I can’t hurt her. And I can’t go on
hurting you.” “I don’t
believe this,” I said. “I’m being dumped for a spare arm.”
She broke into wailing sobs again.
Midge was nowhere to be seen.
“There, see, you’ve done it, Midge!” I
hollered at the arm. “You wanted me gone, and now you’ve got it. And
in the process, you’ve hurt Judy!”
“Please don’t yell at her,” Judy
bawled. “She doesn’t understand.”
“Oh, yes she does!” I yelled. “That
little bitch understands far more than she lets on. She knows what
she’s done.” #
I went home and fumed for hours.
Later, on my computer, I headed for my contact list and pulled up
the entry for Dr. Brisbane—the only person yet who’d suggested a
solution. I wasn’t about to lose Judy over that damned arm. Visions
of spiking her coffee with nanos flitted through my head. No shock
there; visions of hacking the damn thing off with a chainsaw had
been going through my head for two years.
But I’m not cruel. I could never do
anything that underhanded to Judy. At the same time, something had
to be done. I jacked in to Brisbane’s netsite and chatted with a
regeneration technician for a while. By the time I logged off, we
had an appointment. #
When I picked Judy up the next day in
my aircar, her first question was, “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” I told her as I found
the proper airway a hundred feet up.
She said nothing as we flew across
town. Midge didn’t put in an appearance and never even ruffled
Judy’s shirt. She knew she was wrong, oh yes; she was feeling guilty
over yesterday. I think it was at that point that I fully realized
Midge wasn’t just possessive and jealous of Judy, and that the love
Judy had for her was not one-sided: Midge loved Judy, too. She
really cared about her. Was it animal instinct, the way a dog
blindly defends the master he loves? Maybe, or perhaps it was more.
It didn’t matter. It would all be over soon.
Presently, I dropped out of the airway
and descended into the medical park. As soon as we sailed around to
the building clearly marked with Dr. Brisbane’s name, Judy began
shaking her head. “No, Nick,
I can’t do that. You know I can’t.”
I found a parking spot, dropped the
car into it, and killed the engine. I looked to her as seriously as
I could manage. “Listen to me, Judy. Do you love me?”
“I love Midge too—”
“That wasn’t what I asked you.”
She paused, searching my eyes. “Of
course I love you. But if you love me you won’t make me do this.”
I thumped the flight yoke,
exasperated. “Judy, you need to have faith in our love—and in me.
Trust me.” She looked at me,
her eyes watering, and she studied my face intensely. “I do trust
you,” she finally said softly.
“Then come with me,” I said. Out of the periphery of my vision, I
saw her shirt ripple. She
swallowed. Her right hand came up to lie on Midge, to stop her from
moving. “Okay,” she said, her voice cracking. Then to the arm: “It’s
all right, Midge.” We went
into Brisbane’s office together.
#
Brisbane programmed eleven different
prescriptions of nanobots and said the whole process would take over
four weeks. He insisted we call him the minute anything didn’t go
quite right. But it went perfectly.
It was two years, two months, and two
days exactly from the day we had met, and finally we could make
love. For the first time, we were face to face, a mass of
intertwined arms and legs. We kissed from the front, our bellies
pressed together, and we were as one—in every way; yes, we were
making love. It was wonderful, better than either of us could ever
have dreamed. The month of
nano treatment had been extensive, but the results were fantastic.
Throughout this long night of passion, although I felt her move from
time to time, Midge never bothered us. Of course not; she was in
love. And very busy, at that, holding hands with Bob, the third arm
that now grew from the middle of my chest.
|
Without a doubt, I can say this was the
biggest freaking publication disaster since Night to Dawn screwed
up 