He smiled, and the lips were human, though his tongue was black and the teeth were various jewel-tones. The lenses over his eyes twisted and spun, but then he pushed them up on his forehead, and she realized they were glasses or goggles. His eyes underneath were bloodshot, but human, peering out of that smooth metal mask. “Hey, Doctor Oh, nice to meet you. It’s OK, you can stare. I know it’s a lot to take in. My face had a serious disagreement with some acid when I was working on a mining ship way back when. These aren’t even my original eyes – they got jellied, but the muscles were pretty intact, so they fitted me with transplant eyes. They could have done reconstruction and made my face more face-like, but I decided to just embrace the cyborgism.” He held up his right arm, and it was mostly metal, too – maybe entirely metal – apart from a crystalline window in the forearm that showed the mechanical musculature underneath. Instead of fingers he had a bloom of various delicate manipulators. “Why not go full machine-man, right?”

He pounded on his chest, and there was a clank under his coverall. “I’ve still got my heart, but there’s a redundant backup system in there too, and my liver and kidneys are way better than yours, being bioengineered, and I’ve got some great stuff going on in my Achilles tendons and knees, we’re talking major piston stuff, you should see me lift with my legs, and as for my–” He stopped, coughed, and said, “Sorry, never mind. See, cap, I remembered about how there’s a line I shouldn’t cross, right?”

“Ashok is into self-improvement,” Callie said. “I think he aspires to be fully modular so he can swap out any body part as needed. They’ve written him up in medical journals, and they weren’t even all called Abnormal Psychology Today.”

“My brain is still mine, though,” Ashok said. “I mean, mostly. I won’t say there aren’t any augmentations. I’m not a barbarian from barbarian times. Crap. I mean, I didn’t mean–”

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Ashok,” Elena said. “You have a deep knowledge of mechanical-human interfaces, I assume?”

He nodded. “I’m way ahead of you. Whatever weird metal brain-spiders attached themselves to your friends’ heads? If there’s a way to get them out, I’ll find it.” He paused. “But if the implants do anything interesting I might mod one up to use myself. Never turn your back on innovation, wherever it may be found, that’s what I always say.”

“I have literally never heard you say that,” Callie said. “It’s not even a saying. It’s barely a sentence.”

“It’s what I always meant to say, then. When do you want to fire up the magic box here, cap?”