<P><B><JC>TWIST
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<P><B><JC>CHAPTER THREE: Dead Eyes
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<P>The worker peeled piece by gooey piece from every nook and cranny of the deceased body in front of him, digging remnants of metal and augs of all kinds out from under the whitening skin, hearing bones snap and seeing the last blood the body contained ooze out like porridge. Sometimes he would have to reach a gloved hand in, dig around the intestines or other various organs manually, extracting as much as possible for recycling or even further use on another body. It was a gross job, but somebody at UNATCO had to do it.
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<P>Andreas tugged softly on another aug sample deep within the body. This one in particular had been specifically attached right to the nerves - some of them were like that, welded right into an organ or flesh. Most of them were like that. Some of them were nice and loose - the kind that were just implanted, the kind that were easy to take out. Andreas liked those. He pulled those out first every time they gave him a new body to disassemble. Then it was the attached suckers. He hated those.
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<P>He pulled at the piece some more with his tools. He'd have to sever the flesh and bone and nerves around this one, clean it out, sterilize it. But he had enough of that for the day. He'd rather filter the organic matter of the damn thing with a torch. Maybe he could borrow a flame thrower from Sam Carter. He chuckled through his surgeon's mask at the idea.
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<P>Andreas gave the piece one heavy yank. He watched the fleshy mass around it stretch to unnatural limits like pulling a slice from a hot pizza, and finally snap, splattering a bit of liquid up on his uniform. He got the aug out, but it still had a chunk of fleshy tissue hanging on it. It could be cleaned. He threw it into the pan that held the rest of the smaller, lesser gadgets and augmentations he had removed so far.
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<P>"Now here's a Kodak moment." Malcolm Whiteman stepped up behind him, looked down at the pale and just-beginning-to-decompose corpse. "Finally got your ass kicked, eh, JC?" he jokingly asked the carcass. Andreas grinned a bit.