Lunarly: A Fire Sale Classic

Toni - Death by Clamping

Toni

"34% Chance Death by Clamping"

       He had not died yet.  He thanked the Gods for that miracle.  Not that he didn't have it coming, no, he expected to die any second now.  It could be a bomb, it could be a sniper, or maybe some poisonous spider had found its way on to that navy ship that landed the other day, and then somehow crawled all the way to the police station, and into his office, and was planning on biting Toni after lunch.  He wasn't sure how it was going to happen, its not like he was a fortune teller or anything, he just knew that it would happen.

       Toni was in his office.  He never felt safe there.  Although, he never really felt safe anywhere.  His comp screen had Kilter Gobelt's most recent image.  It was an old image, and a ghastly attempt at one, too.  Must have been done with a malfunctioning reimager, because Kilter's head was attached to his foot and the arms were coming out of the stomach.  Toni had heard that some of the old reimagers would sometimes scramble the image, but this was ridiculous.  He tried his best to unscramble the image using some generic parts and mechanical implants.

       Didn't matter, though, Detective Jinx didn't need Kilter mobile, he just needed him to be able to talk.  And Detective Jinx was growing impatient, and as the number one suspect for the future killing of Toni, he tried to keep the detective as happy as possible.

       It took a while for the Frontal Hospital to find Kilter's last reimage, because it was such an old image.  So the delay was not Toni's fault, but he doubted Jinx would accept that excuse.  But now that he had the information, he could proceed with the reimaging, and perhaps Jinx would spare this poor lab technician's life.

       "Reimage-Away," said Toni to his comp chip.

       The machine in front of him was a contraption atop a glass cylinder.  Inside, a fire erupted and was put out in a moment, to sterilize the environment.  From a trapdoor at the bottom of the cylinder came out the remains of Kilter, the legs separated from his torso, and each at about 30% proper mass.  The head was the worst, almost completely destroyed, except for a bit of brain matter attached to the stem.

       A dozen little mechanical arms with lazers at their tips spread out from the machine on top, and started printing.  For the first few minutes, the lazers worked on rebuilding the bones, and then they moved to the muscles, fats, and organs.  Last came the skin.  Once the body was complete, they moved to the head, which usually took longer; as brains were often more complicated, they required a finer touch.  Also, due to the sensitivity to light the glass darkened, so Toni could not watch the last process.

       For Kilter, the brain took about a minute.  Not much activity there, thought Toni, but he immediately regretted the thought.  What if Kilter was a mind reader?  Once he awakens, he'd be angry with Toni, and probably kill him for the lack of respect.

       When the reimaging was done, the reimager made a soft 'ding' sound, like when a nanowave finished cooking.  "Reimaging-Release."  The top half of the glass cylinder swung open.  "Send alert to Detective Jinx."

       Toni waited a long time, almost ten minutes, before the detective arrived.  He was wearing his fake brown leather jacket, the perfect jacket for concealing a dissolver or a shotgun.  "Kon'nichiwa, Toni.  You got bueno noticias for me?"

       "Yes," whimpered Toni.

       "What?"

       "The reimaging is done."

       "Well, where is he?"

       Toni pointed meekly at the reimager.  Kilter was still in the chamber, probably unable to move with his current torso.