The fingers' joints scrunched softly as their owner moved them all, one by one, checking whether the code treatment showed any inprovement on the corrupted limb.
Like electricity it gently sparked through the arm, a subtle pulse, a faint echo from the day that still rang in her memory with dazing might. A day she had never seen coming.
Not after the evening the train station awaited her with yawning emptiness, confused looks mocking the desperate wife in search for her husband. A husband that never came to their date.
A yellow gleam flickered in cracks penetrating the whole arm, veins of the interior blood stream, data being the fluid life. It resembled the thin valleys forming on an aging statue, that never grew tired of holding her head high. Sadly, her smile did not follow this mantra.
Two large scars stretched over her abdomen, skin wrinkled and of pale color, eternal reminder of his greeting gift.
And a single cut, deep, red and revealing a tiny speck of white from the teeth below, changed the flawless face of a once snarky yet strict leader into a fierce, and oddly grim picture.
The scars had appeared days after she had received the wounds from which they originated. Her right arm a mess with code made visible through splitted skin from holding her right arm into the buzzing saw maws of a cy-bug.
The cut on her lip from the crash, when she speeded right into the metal head of another metal insect.
And the scars on her belly from the swing he had performed when his other half took over his mind, swallowing his common sense and humanity for the blink of an eye, slicing through both armor and skin like a hot knife through butter.
It had been just like her wedding day. The programmed one. Just that this time, her husband, or what had become of him, had managed to actually hurt her. And she in turn...spared him.
"It messed with your program, Sarge. Took it as a missing piece in an already completed puzzle...or something along those lines. Basically, your code took whatever happened back there, as something of importance. Real importance, if you know what I mean."
Spears was pacing around as he tried to word what he had seen in the code room -for he was the one with the most coding knowledge- to the Sarge, who was absently grazing the arm through which her very being glimmered out, the cut on her lip making it look like she was always snarling a tiny tad on that side of the mouth.
"Is it permanent, marine?"
Her voice lacked any emotion. It was but a dull rill compared to her usually passionate, yet rigorous river of words. She didn't look at the soldier. Never lifted her arms of that limb that looked so frail, about ready to crumble away, was still able to hold and fire a rifle. Even more so after Spears tweaked the sudden change in her code in the code room itself.
Tamora already knew the answer before he could speak it out loud.
"I'm 'fraid it is, Sarge. It didn't damage any original bits and bytes though. Just...a little cosmetical...uh..."
"Ugliness"
She moved the affected hand around, watching the 1s and 0s flash by through the vein-like flaws. The free hand, balled to a fist, resting at the abdomen scars.
-"You cut me open, handsome. In the true sense of the word."-
"I wouldn't call it that, sarge, bu—"
"Get me my rifle, soldier. I'm going out."
She got up, calmness personified, approaching the soldier who was baffled by her sudden change of motion. He didn't think as he grabbed the rifle automatically, and handed it over to be firmly accepted by fingers looking as if they were torn between ingame graphic and raw data.
Something about the Sergeant's whole demeanor...seemed off. Very off. Even more off than her code box, which was already chaotic looking compared to its former, pristine box form.
And without a further word, the rifle mounted, she left the shuttle, the marine's base, and marched into the wasteland. Bug hunting after quitting time.
But the platoon remained in their base, following their leader's orders.
They knew he was out there, but a monstrous shadow of his original self. But they were not allowed to take him out of his misery.
She forbade it.
Both as an experienced bug hunter, who knew that even the marines would have to deal with huge loss should they go after him.
And as a wife, who held tight to her broken past, not willing to let go from the one thing that made her smile.
Fixed to be broken.
Broken to be fixed.
To be broken once more.