Nobody Leaves on Spare Legs

The clinic sat between a battery laundrette and a dumpling stall that never seemed to close, no matter how hard the rain hammered the alley or how hot the air turned under the street canopies. Tala Venn worked the late shift with her sleeves rolled to the elbows and her gloves stained at the fingertips, guiding a dock worker’s lower leg into alignment under a lamp hooded with cracked plastic. Outside, the city kept rearranging itself in wet layers: freight trams groaned under the pavement, delivery bikes hissed through runoff, and a red paper charm on a nearby doorway slapped the wall each time the wind shoved down the lane. The smell was a mix of solder, fryer oil, ozone, and the metallic damp that clung to every lower-block corridor after midnight. Her autoclave coughed like it resented being awake. The dock worker, a broad man with a jaw full of old scars, flexed his repaired ankle and laughed in disbelief. —You make it sound easy, he said. Tala tightened the last latch, checked the pressure seal, and pulled away with a shrug that had no room for comfort in it. —Easy is what people call work they did not do themselves. He thanked her three times on the way out, as if repetition could make the gratitude less embarrassing. Tala nodded once, wiped her tools, and set the kettle to boiling cloudy tap water into something almost drinkable. Across the alley, the dumpling vendor was still shouting his midnight special with the enthusiasm of a preacher selling salvation by the bite: pepper paste buns, broth cups, fried starch rolls wrapped in recycled foil. The whole block smelled edible and tired. Tala was deciding whether dinner counted if it came in a paper sleeve when the door chime gave a squeal that sounded almost offended, and Jory stepped in, soaked through, one shoulder lower than the other, carrying a hard case under his arm as if it held either valuable hardware or bad news. He shut the door with his heel, shook rain out of his hair, and grinned at her in the way only a younger brother could get away with. —You still alive, or did the clinic finally win? He looked older when he was wet, the shape of him sharpened by cold and street light. Tala set down the wrench she was holding and stared at the case. —If you brought me a dead battery, I’m charging you for the funeral. He snorted, tossed the case onto her bench, and said, —I brought you work. That is almost the same thing.

Jory leaned against the counter as if he had every right to be there, which was exactly the sort of confidence Tala found suspicious in anyone who was not paying for an appointment. His jacket dripped onto the floor grating. The clinic’s floor sensors registered the moisture and lit a small amber warning that meant nothing, because the place had been warning them about everything since the building was new enough to still have a brochure. Tala crossed her arms. —You came here at this hour to bother me? —I came here at this hour because you refuse to answer calls before sunrise and because the city is full of people who think a good decision can survive until morning, he said. He gave the room a quick glance, taking in the open limb, the tool tray, the stack of spare actuators, the kettle, the tiny shrine of unpaired screws she kept sorted by thread count. His mouth twitched. —Still decorating with bolts, I see. —Still talking, she said. He lifted his hands. —That was cruel. I’m injured. —Emotionally, yes. Physically, I’m not convinced. Tala wiped her palms on a rag and motioned toward the chair near the calibration frame. —Sit down. If you are here because your knee is making noises again, I will charge you for the insult. He sat, but only because he liked pretending to obey. For a few seconds they listened to the alley noise around them: the vendor’s voice, the hiss of rain on the canopy, a scooter whining past with a cargo crate strapped behind it, some distant argument rising and fading upstairs. Jory set the hard case on his knees without opening it. —I need a custom build, he said. —No. —You haven’t even heard the part where I am desperate. —I heard the part where you think that changes anything. He smiled, but his eyes stayed fixed on her. —It’s a relay. Dawn start. Tight turns, moving platforms, freight frames, the ugly sort of route that eats borrowed hardware for breakfast. I need runner-legs that won’t fold me in half halfway through.