Re: quicklog: atticus/matt
[He looked at Atticus' face, at his closed eyes, his mess of dark curls.] You know I was with Steve. During the war. Know maybe that I was a prisoner. Remember that much. I don't know if my version's better than his, probably has more holes in it. [He reached across with his right hand and laid it flat on Atticus' chest, just across the port scar, as if he'd get the contours better through his palm.] Germans wanted something like what made Steve how he is. They shot me up with something that wasn't as good, sort of halfway did the job. [The nightmare of those weeks of experimentation weren't worth recounting, he didn't think, and he left them behind as if they'd never been. It was already a story with enough bad news in it.]
I cut loose, ran with Steve again for a while. We got in a bad firefight in the woods in France. Don't remember where. Bet it's in a history book somewhere. I took a fall off a ridge fighting another guy hand to hand. [He tapped a short, fleshy thumb on Atticus' chest.] The Germans found me, dragged me off. I remember it was cold.
[Suddenly the narrative burst into reality, into vividness, detail, and color.] There was about an inch of snow on the ground, and I could see where they were dragging me it was leaving a trail of blood behind, pink and red. I didn't feel anything, I'd already lost too much blood, hit my head too hard. I can remember thinking something about how pointless it was for them to drag me off, because I was a corpse. I thought I was dead, but stuck in my own body. And they'd bury me alive, with me, the ghost, still trapped in there. [A thin smile.] I was fucking delirious. I could see the arm was mangled, and I thought I was looking at some other body. I don't know. You think crazy shit when you're dead. Next thing I knew, they were taking my arm off with a bonesaw and nothing else. I was awake, and I tried to kill them for taking my arm without asking. [A low chuckle. He looked down. He hadn't noticed his left hand clench to a fist, or each plate flare out in anticipation of danger and high mobility needs.] I don't know what they did to make it do that, to make it work, but they scrambled my brain pretty good when they did it. It wasn't in great shape anyway, after the fall.
[Saying the words made him feel it in a way talking around it didn't. The fall made him feel the sickening drop, the absence behind him, the sound of his own skull when it hit the bottom of the ravine.]
After that it was - I don't remember most of it. Drugs, electroshock, endless tests to get the arm working, build up function. I think they were trying to get the serum to grow new brain tissue around whatever they put in my skull, integrate it better, get the coordination more fine. Months and months. And I didn't remember my name, or where I came from. [He slid a little closer to Atticus.] Or what I was for. I got an education.
[He took a short breath, and the plates flattened out, locking together again into a smooth, cohesive surface. It was, by far, the most words he'd strung together in a stretch since he'd come to live in this town. No question. Whether he would even have been capable of talking for that long six months ago in that many complete sentences was up in the air. Unlikely, probably. He forgot to even think about it, just tapped Atticus on the chest again.] What about this one? [He knew what it was the moment he saw it. He didn't have a scar to prove it, but he'd had one, once or twice. At least, he thought he had.]