Eb had moved his prosthetics manufactory onto the hospital grounds. A convoy of ambulances meandered in the dirt with maimed soldiers inside of them. I knew I must look a wreck. I had taken to rubbing and worrying the skin on my face such that I was pocked and scabbed. My eyes were rimmed red with fatigue, and even I could feel how furtive I’d become. The nurses at the front desk gave me queer looks until I showed my prosthetic to them, and then they pointed out where I and the boy should go, a building on the grounds set off and to the side of the main hospital.
Eb saw me almost the minute I walked into the new manufactory. I shook his hand vigorously.
“Sorry for the inconvenience. We moved locations in a hurry.”
I clenched my jaw. I was in bad shape. “So much of me has become constru
