Mommy, Daddy, and Ashtin's Left Arm

In order to prevent accidents, children were tested for magical potential regularly, starting as soon as they spoke their first words. Until age ten, they were tested at least twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Until age sixteen, they were tested once a day. Since there were no records of a mage gaining their powers after their early teens, testing stopped after that.

Testing was done covertly, without the child knowing. It was performed by parents, doctors, and counselors, who didn’t want to burden the children with the fear that they may one day test positive. Occasionally, teenagers during their rebellious phases avoided contact with their families and counselors, making it difficult to test them. As a result, they were sometimes only tested every few days. This was considered an acceptable risk, since it was rare for teenagers to become mages, and even rarer for them to cause damage when they did.

But sometimes, even twice-a-day testing was not enough to prevent accidents.

When he was five, testing had shown that Ashtin produced magical energy, but that it would be difficult to use, and Ashtin showed no aptitude for it. About half the people who produced magical energy couldn’t cast spells, and Ashtin was not expected to become a mage. Perhaps he never would have, were it not for the accident.

The accident wasn’t his fault. It occurred when he was seven years old, before he changed his surname to Blackford. A train car was transporting volatile chemicals along the city’s perimeter when a nearby toddler reached for it, accidentally casting their first spell. The spell derailed the car and sent it toward Ashtin and his parents. A warning shout notified Ashtin’s father of the oncoming car. He tried to push his wife and son out of its path, but the car toppled over, crushing his parents.

The train car crumpled, absorbing as much of the impact as it could in a desperate bid to protect the chemical container. In the process, Ashtin’s left arm was pinned under the car and severed at the shoulder by the sharp, crumpled metal. Feeling intense pain, but not realizing what had happened, Ashtin rolled away from the wreckage, leaving his arm behind. He didn’t get far before the container, which had compressed and ruptured from the force of the crash, combusted, raining fire down on him.

Horrified bystanders could only look on as Ashtin screamed in pain. He tried to push himself up, to run away from the pain, but, hampered by the fire, and with only one arm, he only fumbled unproductively. Everyone expected him to die, but he did not. Something strange was happening to him. When fire burned away his flesh, more regrew to replace it, but it only served to further fuel the flames. He reached out with his good hand toward them for help, but none dared approach the wreckage, and many turned away so that they would not have to look at him.

Shipments of dangerous chemicals were always escorted by at least two fire trucks and an ambulance, so emergency responders arrived quickly, but to Ashtin, the agony had seemed to last for hours. A gynoid rushed forward with a fire extinguisher and doused him with it, covering him in dry powder and extinguishing the flames. The dust invaded his eyes and lungs, prompting an uncontrollable cough. He couldn’t see, so he was taken by surprise when he was lifted off the ground and dunked into a tub of water. More water was poured over him to wash off his head

“Can you hear me?” the gynoid asked him. When he nodded, she said, “I’m going to wash out your eyes. Try not to move.” His right eyelids were pried open by the gynoid, and she flushed him with water. She hadn’t given him enough time to prepare, and he jerked back, losing his balance. He tried to steady himself with his missing left arm, and his swollen shoulder slammed into the side of the tub, causing him to cry out in pain again. The gynoid quickly pulled him up and flushed his left eye out. “Try not to move,” she repeated.

Ashtin could feel a strange rumbling in his left shoulder, but next to the pain he had experienced, it was nothing. Blinking, his vision cleared in time to see other members of the rescue team pulling his father’s body from the wreckage. He was uncharred by the flames, but battered and broken by the impact.

“No!” Ashtin tried to shout, but his lungs protested. They did not have the strength to continue screaming. He gasped and choked as the gynoid lifted him from the tub and wrapped him in a towel.

The gynoid placed one hand on his cheek to turn his face toward her. “Don’t look. Look only at me. I’m going to keep you safe.”

Exhausted, Ashtin began to lose consciousness, but his shoulder began to rumble, and bone began to sprout from it. Sensing something was happening, the gynoid unwrapped the towel to take a look. Ashtin looked too, and for a moment, he was able to calmly observe his arm regrowing, but then the pain began. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the pain of being dismembered and burned alive, or the pain of his new arm forming. He tried to stop it, but he had no control over the process.

Hugging him to her chest, the gynoid whispered into Ashtin’s ear. “Don’t move. Everything will be fine. You just have to get through this. I will protect you.” Ashtin squirmed, grunting quietly as his arm regrew. Had the gynoid not been holding him, he would have fallen to the ground and thrashed about in pain. After a few minutes, his arm finished regrowing, and the pain faded. He stopped moving, and the gynoid loosened her grip on him.

“Where’s my mommy?” Ashtin whispered. “I want my mommy.”

He attempted to turn his head to search for her, but the gynoid once again placed her hand on his cheek and repeated, “Look only at me.”

And look at her he did. For several long minutes, he stared silently into her gray eyes. Then, he said, “OK, Mom. I’ll only look at you.” Before the gynoid could process his words, he threw his arms around her and hugged her tight. The muscles in his new left arm, unused to moving, ached and shuddered, but he did not let go.

Unable to remove Ashtin from her without harming him, the gynoid rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital. He nodded off at least three times during the ride, but every time his arms started to loosen their grip, he woke up, tightening his embrace around the gynoid. He couldn’t process what had happened. He knew his body had regrown, but he had no idea why. He knew his father was dead, but having not seen the train car approaching, he did not understand what had caused the tragedy.

The only thing he knew for sure was that this gynoid had saved him, and that she had promised to protect him. She had sounded so much like his mother that, because he had not seen his mother's body, he could almost convince himself that she was his real mother, just transformed. She was all he had left in the world, and he was determined to never let her go.

At the hospital, he refused to let any of the doctors or nurses examine him. He had never seen any of them before, and they all wanted him to let go of the gynoid. He wouldn’t speak to them either. His lungs and throat were still sore, and it took all the energy he had just to stay awake. After an hour of this, the hospital got a hold of his pediatrician, who rushed to the hospital as quickly as he could. Ashtin, remembering the doctor, reluctantly followed his orders, but he held the gynoid’s hand as he did so.

The physical exams showed that Ashtin was healthy, though he was exhausted and dehydrated. There was heavy scarring around the area where his arm had been severed. The doctor ordered a battery of diagnostic tests and then asked a nurse to insert an IV catheter, but Ashtin backed away when the nurse approached.

“I’ll do it.” The doctor extended his own hand toward the nurse. “Now Ashtin, this is going to hurt a little bit, but it’s just a little pinch, OK?” Ashtin nodded, but when the doctor reached for his left hand, Ashtin pulled it away.

“Ashtin,” the gynoid cooed, picking him up. “This is important. We need to keep you healthy. How about your other arm? Would you prefer that?” Nodding, Ashtin finally let go of the gynoid and held his arm out to the doctor. The gynoid covered his eyes as the doctor inserted the catheter. The nurse, meanwhile, set up a saline drip. When they were finished, the gynoid removed her hand and said, “You need to sleep. We’re going to take you to a bed now.”

“No, stay.”

“I need to get changed,” the gynoid said. “If I do not remove some of this residue soon, my chassis will corrode.”

“Chassis?”

“My body. I need to clean myself soon or the chemicals will hurt me.”

“No,” Ashtin reached out for her. “Please stay, Mom.”

Accepting the role of his mother for the first time, the gynoid told him, “Good boys listen to what their mothers tell them, and I am telling you to let the doctor take care of you.” Her voice was soft but firm. “I will return for you later. I promised to protect you, and I shall, but you are safe with the doctor.”

Nodding, Ashtin allowed the gynoid to place him in a wheelchair, and the nurse quickly wheeled him out of the room. For the first time since the accident, tears formed in Ashtin’s eyes, and he sobbed quietly for a few minutes before finally succumbing to exhaustion.

⁂

When the doctors could find nothing wrong with Ashtin, a trio of mages were admitted to his bedside to examine him. His arm had regrown, they surmised, due to a deep connection between him and his magical energy. He had not cast the spell himself. Rather, his magical energy was so entwined with his body that it had become molded to his biology. When his arm had been severed, the magical energy merely grew new body parts around itself. They speculated that if they decapitated him, he might grow an entire new body, though none wished to test that theory.

After a few days, Ashtin was cleared to leave the hospital. As promised, the gynoid returned for him, bringing with her his new clothes. Ashtin watched silently as she laid out the child-sized mage robes on the bed for him.

Despite his young age, Ashtin understood the weight of what those robes represented. To be a mage was to be separated from society. On more than one occasion, while walking with his parents, they had crossed the street to avoid passing by a mage. Everyone feared them, and because of that fear, they weren't treated as human by most of the population.

Though he didn’t know it at the time, some mages resented the gynoids for this. They were hurt by the notion that mechanical beings were more widely accepted as human by the public than mages of flesh and blood. These mages either learned to live productively with these feelings, or they were quietly eliminated by the council.

What Ashtin did know, however, was that he didn’t want to wear those robes. If he did, everything about his life would change. Much had already changed with the deaths of his parents, but he had imagined he would return to his house with his gynoid mother, attend the same school, and play with the friends he already knew. Now, he realized he would never see his friends again. If he tried to go back wearing those robes, they would shun him.

Briefly, he considered running away. Maybe he could escape all the way back to his house. He would put on his normal clothes and return to school the next day like nothing had happened. He would be happy. He would still be human.

He knew, however, that he would eventually be caught, and his mother had already warned him to listen to what she told him. What if she abandoned him for disobeying her? He would be completely alone if she did that. A life with a single family member was better than a life with none, so he donned the robes without a single complaint.