Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. It is a draft; there are mistakes, many misspellings and sometimes long periods of no updates. copyright: ion fyr 2026
The following follows post 57 from 25 October.
Etelka.
When Etelka had dressed–she had worn pants before, but baggy ones, and the shirt was closer to Nila’s haltertop piece than anything at all she was used to. Someone, whoever had provided the clothing had left her an outer, long shirt, which she felt slightly more dressed in. All black clothing, unsurprisingly. It was most likely Luc. Her own boots had been replaced as well–again with some modern militaristic set, the kind that Nila always wore.
After braiding her damp hair loosely behind her at the base of her neck, she went into the common room, Luc’s version of a parlor.
He and Pool were sitting there watching as she came out. Pool seemed anxious and was trying to write something in his tiny notebook with his left hand (he was right-handed.)
Luc leaned back.
“It will likely be several days before Nila is awake, and a few weeks before her arm is regrown,” he said.
“Regrown!?” Etelka was used to future-shock, but the surprises never ceased.
Even Pool looked at Luc, with astounded curiosity.
“Yes,” he paused to find the simplest possible explanation for them. “It is like an artificial womb. We can grow body parts with an appropriate scaffold, like flesh on a skeleton. The bones were printed this morning–they’ll be stronger than the originals, then inserted into this ‘womb’ and attached to Nila’s arm. The tank will be filled with microscopic bots that will peice together cloned tissue, cells from Nila herself and rebuild her arm. This will take a few weeks.”
“Can you grow whole bodies in this day and age?” Asked Etelka.
“A qualified ‘yes’.” His tone suggested the ‘but’ coming. “We can, but as far as I am aware, the bots cannot replicate a functioning brain–parts of it yes–but I’m told they never function properly. Living tissue but brain-dead.”
“Oh.” Her eyes were wide with curiosity, but she had to think about it for a while before formulating proper questions.
Luc could see that Pool wanted to ask something. “Yes, Constable?”
“Would it be possible to acquire a new arm for me as well? I don’t want to impose, but it would be very helpful and convenient.” He waved his pencil around clumsily in the air with his left hand.
“Dr Daytime has one of her apprentices working on the interface already. Your mechanical bits differ from our technology significantly. It’s just a matter of finding the right interface between the gears and pistons, and our optical cables and synthetic musculature, or so I’m told. None of this is my area of expertise.”
“Mr Maron, What is your…?”
Etelka interupted, which Luc thought intentional. “Mr…Luc, I haven’t seen anything resembling a broadsheet since we’ve arrived here. What do your people do for daily news or scientific journals?” Etelka’s habit of not learning anything from the future that would corrupt her own timeline–which was never a very consistent ideology for here, her own time-vessel owed its very existence to a temporal loop–was tossed out the window by her curiousity this time.
“Oh, yes. I forgot entirely. I apologize,” Luc said.
Then to neither of them: “Access Net.”
Ion Fyr 