The sound of glass cracking punctured the barrier between Tre's conscious and unconscious mind. The cracking permeating her dream, but the abrasive sound of the glass shattering broke her slumber completely.
Tre woke with a start and looked toward the sound. Naomi was sitting in the chair opposite to her with water flowing down her metal arm and shards of glass gripped tightly in the hand. The expression on her face was that of frustration and defeat. Tre immediately moved to take care of the mess, jumping up from her chair and grabbing a roll of paper towels from across her room.
The care and attention that was put into cleaning up the mess was that of a person tending to a wound. Tre was more concerned about the damage that water and glass would do to the hardware than for Naomi's physical health, but Naomi found it endearing nonetheless. After gently pulling whatever broken glass she could find from the gaps and crevices in Naomi's hand, she mopped up as much of the water as she could, then began gently moving each of the joints.
"I'm not feeling any grinding or anything," Tre said. "How about you? Does everything seem to be responding correctly?"
"I... uh..." Naomi worked her fingers, touching each tip to her thumb in the standard calibration technique she had become familiar with. "I think so... I think it's alright."
"Great!" Tre said with a smile, but pulled a screwdriver from her pocket like a magic trick and popped open a panel on the inside of Naomi's elbow. "It's probably a tension issue, so let's reduce that a little."
"I don't think it's all that bad, really," Naomi said, but didn't fight.
"It could always be better, right?"
"I don't know, I think it might be easier to just get used to it."
"Yeah, well, I'm running out of glassware, so..."
A red flush filled Naomi's cheeks as Tre continued in silence for a few moments. After making her fine adjustments, Tre took Naomi's hand into her own.
"Alright, give it a squeeze," Tre said.
"Isn't that... your real hand?"
"Yep."
"Okay..." Naomi hesitated, but gradually began squeezing Tre's hand.
"Is that all you've got?"
"No, Tre. Not even a little bit."
"Well, c'mon. Let's go!"
"Tre... I feel pretty confident that I could easily crush your hand and tear your arm off."
"Been there, done that." Tre's delivery was dry enough that Naomi couldn't tell whether she was actually joking.
"Really?"
"Well, no... It was actually blown off when I was working on the environmental control system on some backwater habitation module. I don't imagine it'd be that much different though, and I was considering getting a new arm anyway."
"I... see..." Naomi raised an eyebrow. She squeezed a bit harder, but applied nowhere near the amount of pressure needed to do something so violent. "I'm afraid you're going to have to find another way to do that."
Tre cracked a smile.
