"Happy birthday!" I shouted, with that mix of pure excitement and the tender love of a father. My voice echoed in the room, broken only by the trembling flame of a lone candle. In front of me, Kirch stared at his cake with that expectant curiosity only children can have. One candle. Nine turns around the sun, and I was still making him the same cake as always, with the same care, as if I could somehow hold time in my hands.
Under the table, in the cabinet, rested his gift. The first of many. The one that would mark a before and after. While Kirch leaned toward the candles, I watched him with a mixture of anxiety and hope. His face shone with the fire of the candle and with something deeper: the intact trust of someone who still believes his parents will protect him from the world.
I bent down and took out a long box, carefully wrapped in decorated paper with a small ribbon on top. Kirch didn't hesitate. He took the package in his claws and began tearing the wrapping with the innocent impatience that defines happy children. Under the paper, a white box. Inside, a fragment of the future.
"A… an arm?" he asked, confused.
"A forearm! Isn't it great? I designed it myself. I thought about also making the hand, the fingers, even the entire arm from the shoulder, but I thought it would be better to replace it in parts. It's important you adjust little by little."
My voice was a torrent of contained passion. I looked at him with pride, hoping to infect him with that fire.
"But… I already have an arm," Kirch replied, lifting both limbs and resting them on the table, as if to remind me. There was a hint of fear in his words.
"You don't understand." I took his left forearm and gripped his wrist firmly. "These arms feel pain."
I pricked his scaly skin. Kirch flinched.
"They're fragile. Flesh and bone bleed. They fail. What I'm giving you is a chance to rid yourself of that vulnerable part of you and replace it with something better."
I smiled at him as I lifted the mechanical forearm to show it to him with reverence.
"I get it… So… it's better for me? Like what Mom did?"
He was worried, but he still believed in me. That's normal. He did it because he loved me.
"Of course! This will make you stronger. Stronger than others. Even stronger than me," I said, placing the metal forearm beside his own.
"And when am I going to be able to see others?"
That's where I made a mistake. My words had given everything away. Of course he wanted to see others. He'd been locked up for too long.
"Uh…"
I fell silent. It was Mareil who saved me.
"When you're strong enough that no one can hurt you," she said, placing a can in front of me. Her voice was precise. Her appearance, timely. I opened the drink and took a sip. A pause. A refuge.
Kirch straightened with an unusual seriousness for his age. He lowered his head, but lifted his eyes to look at Mareil. In his demeanor was a mix of respect and subordination. He didn't seem like her son. He seemed… something else. Mareil leaned slightly toward me, as if to whisper something, but stopped. She turned and left, perhaps remembering that she herself had improved her hearing.
"In any case…" I continued as she left the room. "This marks the start of a new stage. Best we begin as soon as possible."
"You're right," Kirch said. His words carried doubt, but also excitement. He was ready.
That very night, I began. Surgical cut, precise separation of bones. I made sure not to touch the nerves. The connection to the prototype was like a symphony. I felt like an artist and a doctor, a father and a creator. Each incision, each adjustment, was a brushstroke on a living canvas. And all thanks to the precision of my machines.
When everything was finished, I embraced him. I examined his new limb and began to ask him questions: Pain in the joints? Full mobility? Sensations when disconnecting cables? Everything worked. The prototype responded perfectly. I had managed to create a system that alerted his body with electrical impulses to any malfunction. Fascinating. And not just because I made it.
I took him to Mareil. I wanted to show her our achievement. Maybe, just maybe, I could draw a smile from her, like the ones she used to give me long ago.
She, cold as the steel we implanted, said:
"Make sure you don't make mistakes. When he's with me, I'll monitor his vital signs."
I nodded. It had been like this for three years—ever since Kirch had that problem with his eating. Sometimes I wonder if she's still alive, or if one night, in my sleepwalking, I replaced her with a mechanical servant without realizing it.
That night I watched her sleep. I just wanted to make sure she still felt. And yes… I heard her cry. Like every night.
For the past three years we haven't shared a bed. When she enters the room, she covers herself with the blankets and cries in silence. I wonder what really haunts her. I know Kirch affected her, but it can't be just that. I don't want him to know his parents are breaking. I wish I could help her… but the only things I know how to fix are machines.
And even so, it's not something I can allow myself to be distracted by. I wish I had the time to hold her, to understand her silences, to ease that sorrow that seeps from her eyes every dawn. But my time, my mind, my heart are now focused on Kirch. On shaping him. On turning him into something more than vulnerable flesh. On making him extraordinary enough to withstand the weight of a world that does not forgive.
By the time he was ten, I had already replaced his hand and forearm. Each of his fingers was substituted with surgical care: I needed to observe in detail how his body responded, how his mind adapted to that new artificial topography. It was a slow process. Difficult. I had to replicate the sense of touch through small electromagnetic waves that ran along the phalanges like whispers. The motors failed, snagging on the complexity of everyday gestures. The nerve endings were a sacred labyrinth I had to respect.
But I succeeded. One by one, the fingers began to move again, first like hesitant marionettes, then like natural extensions of his will. And the pain was minimal—or at least, that's what Kirch said. Maybe to reassure me. Maybe because he truly was beginning to trust his new body.
"Is this all?" Kirch asked me as I delicately adjusted the final component of the pinky.
I smiled, caught off guard by his question. So direct. So him.
"All? With only one arm? Not a chance. This is just the beginning. We still have to calibrate your neural interface so it adapts to your new parts… and I'm working on other prototypes you're going to love. They even include, by the way, a replacement for those beautiful eyes of yours."
I spoke while reviewing my notes, my diagrams, my obsessions. The idea of what Kirch could become burned inside me like a sun.
And though it was hard to admit, that idea… gave me hope.
"Why are we doing this?" Kirch asked one night, without raising his voice, with that unsettling calm children sometimes have when asking the hardest questions. "My eyes work fine… My arm worked too. I don't remember my body failing… before Mom's experiments."
The silence thickened. Trapped in a note that no longer made sense, I pretended to write a little more, as if the words could shield me. Then I closed the notebook abruptly—not violently, but like someone who accepts that there's no escape but the truth.
"Because the world is horrible, Kirch. Because even if something works, it's not always enough. Because out there everything hurts, everything demands, everything crushes you if you're not prepared. Because this world is full of broken things, of incomplete people… and I don't want you to be one of them."
I paused, trying to let the air bring back my clarity. Then I took his mechanical hand in mine. It was cold, as expected, but when I touched it I knew he could still feel the warmth I offered.
"Because I care about you."
"Is the world really that… terrible?"
"Yes," I replied without hesitation. I wanted him to believe me, even if he was too young to understand.
He stayed silent for a moment, then nodded, with a seriousness that didn't belong to his age.
"Alright. Then I have to be stronger. I know you both want the best for me."
Maybe, finally, he understood. Maybe that was the day he stopped being a child.
When he was halfway through ten, I decided to replace his eyeballs. I already had a functional prototype. But I made an elementary mistake: I forgot the power source. There was no core to feed the rest of his systems, and without that, his body simply couldn't sustain the enhancements.
"I see… blurry," he told me, walking into my office without warning, without drama, just as someone might report a slight discomfort.
I went to him immediately. I examined his artificial eyes. They were static. The motors that controlled the pupil weren't responding. Mechanical silence.
"They're not moving," I murmured, more to myself than to him.
The diagnosis was clear: without a constant flow of energy, the mechanisms collapsed. His body was receiving enough food to process, but it didn't know how to distribute that energy. It was a sterile overload. And all because of my mistake.
"Don't worry… I'll fix it."
But to do that, I needed to tell Mareil the truth. I walked with Kirch to her office. When we entered, she looked at us as if she already knew what was coming.
"What now?" she asked, without raising her voice, without hiding her disappointment.
"I can't see well," Kirch replied.
She brought her hands to her face, exhaled deeply. She looked at me. She was expecting a technical, precise explanation, as if there were no room left for any other kind of answer.
I gave it to her. Everything. Without embellishment. Just facts.
"But I already have a solution. I'll fix it soon," I added, trying to contain my anxiety.
"And how much longer will it take you? I warned you. You had to be meticulous. How could you not think of something as basic as the power source?"
I didn't know what to answer. Her reproach hurt, but even more so my inability to protect her from the consequences of my mistakes. At least now she was showing some emotion.
"Make a temporary solution. Something functional. He can't remain blind."
"Maybe some glasses," I said, picturing Kirch with small lenses over his snout. As if childhood could be given back to him in the form of objects.
It wasn't until he turned eleven that I managed to build a proper system: a battery integrated into his tail. A series of cores that would not only power his implants, but also allow him to store energy for moments of high demand. I designed it that way to avoid interfering with the rest of his body, to prevent conflicts with future modifications.
The rest of the year passed between adjustments, upgrades, and more interventions. I reinforced his ribcage with a flexible alloy. I implanted the first neural link. I modified his jaw to improve his sensory and digestive analysis capacity. And yet, I still didn't have time to fix his eyes. There was always something more urgent.
Now time was running out. Kirch was about to enter adolescence. I knew he would soon begin to question everything. And I wanted him to be ready by then.
Meanwhile, my nights were consumed writing observations, refining the thesis. The thesis that, if approved by the National Committee, would grant us immunity. And then, finally, Kirch wouldn't have to live in exile. He wouldn't have to choose between us and the world. He could have both. He could have a future.
The night he turned twelve, I had a dream. At first it was a memory: Kirch floating in the acclimatization capsule, surrounded by warm fluids and pale lights. Mareil sitting beside me, clenching her fists tightly. Tears. Hers. Mine.
Then, the dream turned to fiction: the three of us together, walking through a park. Kirch laughing. Making friends. Building little robots with my tools. Mareil and I arguing about silly things. About dinners, about movies. About whether spring had arrived early. But none of that happened. None of that was real.
We stole all of that from him.
She, for a greater good for the world.
I, for a greater good for him.
And every night, I tell myself the same thing:
I hope it was worth it.