My original intention this month was, as per usual, three to six flash-fiction stories with the theme of nanobots, a sci-fi staple of microscopic robots that can enter a human body and repair damaged tissue (or enter a computer system, or any number of proposed uses). But as a busy schedule and a vacation got in my way, when Evan’s email reminding contributors of deadlines came in, I was suddenly frantic: I’d forgotten all about it. So I’m cheating a little bit as I offer the following story, which was originally published in a startup magazine that turned out to be run by incompetent editors and page-layout people (and died as quickly as it launched). Luckily, the story fits nicely into the nanobot theme.

So is this flash fiction? Some might say yes, but no..

Is this the annual January “All Things Lit” issue where I get to break the mold? Certainly not.

Is this a procrastinating columnist who now has too much to do before heading out on his motorcycle for a week? Absolutely.

“Armed and Dangerous”
SF (nanobots)
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 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.

One day, Judy was cutting up veggies for a salad. Midge was 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 the knife down 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 had greatly improved. 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.

“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 her mutant third arm trying to kill him.

“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; fantasies 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… and Judy had to agree to it. 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 treatments 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.
 

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short-stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.