There's some comfort in his story finally being at its end.
This isn't how Coin thought he'd go, bleeding out in a hidden service centre at the ass end of the galaxy, mechanical body parts severed and strung over his head like the worst of party decorations. But if he's being honest - and Coin may be a crook and a thief, but he's not a liar - it isn't exactly out of scope. By all accounts he should be halfway to Turniget by now, or getting his brain fixed in a reeducation clinic in Realto 9. Worse things have happened to better crypto-anarchists than he.
At least he's been left alone for a minute, with Deputy Commissioner Deren Rieger, AKA the De-Commissioner, having left the cell a little while ago. It's a weary but welcome reprieve, to breathe, to starve, to lie in a steadily growing pool of his own blood, and to drive himself crazy with all the things he should or should not have done in order to not wind up in here.
Coin flexes his muscles, and immediately regrets it - it's super weird, wiggling your toes at one end of the room when your thighs are on the other.
His limbs are still connected to the little integration chip in his brain, at least until they take that out of him that too. Not only can he feel the magnetic cuff tethering left leg, right leg, right arm to the rack, but also the points at which the fingers of his right hand rest against the smooth, white wall. The faint damage alerts where certain sections are scratched or dented. The wetness of his own blood dripping off the integration ports, down the back of his wrist.
They're useless to him now, though - every single enhancement he's put into himself, rendered to nothing by brute force and a couple of magnets. Coin would feel hopeless, or frightened, if he could give the emotions any space amongst the pain.
Minutes turn to hours, and when he hears the shh-whoomph of the pneumatic door, Coin has no energy to spare except what he uses up in a pathetic groan. But at the slap of a wet mop Coin does look up, to see -
Oh. Oh good gods, he's alive.
Coin sees an android, one who has patched him, and been patched up by him countless times. One here to his rescue.
"Art," Coin says.
He knows it's really him from the visual history - the slightly miscoloured synthetic skin under his left eye, from that time Coin only had #DFC183. The silver stud in a single pierced helix, the android asking does this typically cause pain to a human? As the needle went through. The section of neck plating that doesnt quite sit right ever since it was torn off that once.
But if they were old acquaintances not-quite-recognising each other across a room, at least Art would have had to look at Coin to check. As it stands, not a single glance is afforded. The mop swipes slowly left to right.
"Arthur. Hey. Art."
His voice is hoarse from the screaming earlier. Stupid, in the end, to use a vital resource up so quick. When Coin reaches his flesh arm towards the android, in the path of the mop, his hand is deftly circumnavigated.
"Arthur," he tries again, knowing its no damn use - the thing has been wiped. "Tag one-eight-three-four. Oi. Pause subroutine." If he can just get Arthur to take his arm down off the wall, maybe he has a chance of getting them both out of here.
The android pays no mind, completely focused on his task of dragging the mop side to side through the leakage of Coin's blood. His movements are smooth and efficient, like in all things, and he's wearing a thin vest in fluorescent green that reads I'M HERE TO HELP on the breast. His eyes, dimmed like when they're in night mode, carefully track where the offending liquid escapes the sweep of his tool. He retreats to the interior corridor once, to rinse the mop when it's doing nothing but making things dirtier.
It's then that it clicks. Art came in here because of a cleaning main routine adjustment made by Coin himself - a bid to get him to clean into the access chamber, and not just to the threshold. He probably thinks he's doing that right now. Coin lifts a shaky hand to press thumb and forefinger into closed eyelids.
"Give me my arm. Or, or a leg - void, Art, give me anything. Look at me."
For just a second, it seems as though he's used the magic words - mercifully, Art looks at him. Moves a little closer with that blank but open expression on his face, the same one he gets after gently advising Coin that his heart rate is elevated, asking if he'd like to do a breathing exercise.
Then the android pulls a cloth from his vest pocket, and wipes up a missed smear of blood by Coin's head.
Coin can't help the unearthly laugh that escapes him.
"She's gonna kill me." He laughs again. "She's gonna fucking kill me, and you're gonna hear it. You're gonna be right outside the fucking door."
If Arthur understands, there's not a single indication of it. He moves back into the corridor, internal service ticket closed, moving to the next. The fluro vest has the same cheerful slogan printed on the back in block letters, this time with a smiling cartoon dog underneath.
"Don't you dare leave me here," Coin pleads.
The door closes.
Maybe there are worse ways to go, Coin just can't think of any right now.
