I moaned and tried to sit up again. My E.F.S. was still flashing health alerts at me. I lifted my PipBuck to check the automap, wishing all my friends wore PipBucks so I could just locate their tags. Of course, that’s exactly the problem that got me into this whole mess a month and a half ago, wasn’t it?

I looked at my foreleg and stopped breathing.

I wasn’t wearing my PipBuck anymore. Where the metal device should stop and my flesh should start, they didn’t. Instead, they melded seamlessly into one another. I felt sick looking at it.

I had been so casual to dismiss the possible danger before, but now that it had actually happened, I felt a sense of violation and loss that I couldn’t explain. I just… I wasn’t me anymore.