May Speculative Fiction – One Hundred Million Dollar Man
Pixabay image by Brigitte Werner
One Hundred Million Dollar Man
He gazed in the mirror, examined the right side of his body. The crisscross intertwined wires on his arm and hand resembled the veins and blood vessels. Screws joined the wires at the junctures of the shoulder, elbow, wrist and finger joints. The metal on his right chest resembled the rib cage except it extended to the waistline. Inside the rib cage was a mercury-like lung. He smiled and switched the focus on the right arm, beamed with the left eye, zoomed in and out to magnify the images. He blinked and the zooming was gone. He blinked again, any movement of the dust in the air caused an acute alertness.
“Honey, your manager Mr. Pacheco is here.”
“Thank you, dear. I’ll be right there.” He folded the right hand into a fist with a squeeze, the skin on the face and the right side of his body closed with no trace of wires and metal.
“Hi Ron.”
“Xylon, let’s step outside to talk.”
Xylon crabbed a shirt to put on while walking outside.
“For the next fight, Mr. Marlow wants you to do a knockout in 15 seconds. That would put you on #1 of the Heavyweight Knockouts. He doesn’t want to mess around with the sissy exchanges.”
“No problem, Ron.”
“He also wants you to blow his brain out.”
“I can’t do that. His wife and my wife are friends.”
“You don’t have to kill him, just make sure he doesn’t bounce back.”
“I can do that much. I’m just not a killer.”
“You’re lucky. When the car crashed into the side of our car, it smashed half of your body. I phoned Mr. Marlow, and he instructed me to take you to Dr. Lebedev’s lab. Doc’s experiment was 1% from being perfect but Mr. Marlow wanted him to fix you anyway.”
“I’m thankful Doc saved my life.”
“We’ll take you to Dr. Lebedev for maintenance once a month. We can’t guarantee what you got is all you need to be alive. Mr. Marlow made a one hundred million dollar investment on you. He also made an investment on Dr. Lebedev’s research to perfect you.”
“I owe Mr. Marlow my life.”
“You do. He has great plans for you. He wants to pay a visit to the Federal Union Bank next Tuesday. Your eye will come in handy and you’ll unlock the code for the vault within 30 seconds.”
“This is going too far. I’m a fighter, not a criminal, Ron.”
“You don’t want to argue with Mr. Marlow. He saved you and wants your family to have a comfortable life.”
“What does it have anything to do with my family?”
“This is the end of our conversation. We’ll pick you up next Tuesday at 1:00 p.m.”
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This post is written in response to Diana Wallace Peach‘s May Speculative Fiction #Writingprompt. If interested, click the link to find out how it works. You have until May 23rd to submit a response. Happy Writing!
May Speculative Fiction – One Hundred Million Dollar Man
The Showers of Blessings 