Penguin Boy

What do you call a man with no arms, no legs, floating in a pond?

Bob.

The old joke ran through Jerry's head as he sank towards the bottom of Grenadier Pond, dragged down by the weight of his prosthetic limbs. He had arms and legs, but they were toddler-sized, too small for his body. Unfortunately, the prosthetic limb extensions that allowed him to function almost normally floated about as well as anvils.

Gotta get these damn things off…

Finally, he managed to trigger the releases on his legs and backed out of them by pushing against the bottom of the pond. His short, stubby lower limbs and torso floated upward, leaving him anchored upside down by the weight of his arm waldoes. A hard yank on a lever in each forearm released the straps and sensor pads, and then he was floating freely.

Enough light filtered down through the murky water to allow him to orient himself, and he began to paddle his way back to the surface. He'd been submerged for almost two minutes, but he was only now beginning to feel the panicky impulse to inhale that could kill a drowning man.

His head broke the surface and he took a huge, gasping breath, gagging as the fishy-smelling greenish water trickled from his hair into his mouth. Irony, thy name is Jerry, he thought. In utero gene therapy had corrected a fatal kidney disorder — and stunted his limbs. Stunted limbs required artificial limb extensions that made it impossible for him to swim — but let him stay submerged long enough to —

Had it been long enough?

Jerry turned slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible. Smith's goons were nowhere in sight. He relaxed and began swimming toward the muddy bank of the last "natural" body of water in the city, where his would-be assassins had left his clothes and the forged suicide note.

"Whoa, dude! You picked a hell of a place to go skinny… dipping…"

Jerry froze, but decided that the the gangly, pimple-faced teenager who had been caught in the act of checking Jerry's clothes for easily-pilfered valuables looked harmless enough, in spite of the aluminum cane in one hand. He waddled toward his clothes.

The kid stared unabashedly, transfixed by the sight of a naked man with a normal head and torso — and arms and legs better suited to a toddler. From the way he leaned on the cane, Jerry guessed that he was a misfit, too — just not in Jerry's league.

"These clothes can't be yours," the teenager blurted. "They're —"

"Normal?" Jerry asked. "They fit okay before I took my arms and legs off."

The boys eyes widened even more.

"Prosthetics," Jerry said. "Like bionic stilts, except the arms have hands that work pretty much like real ones." Sighing, Jerry rummaged through his clothes until he found his wallet. He dug out his driver's license (with the add-on card needed to make room for all the restrictions) and showed the picture to his uninvited guest.

"Geez — they let you drive?"

Jerry suppressed the urge to scream. "Yes. They let me drive, sometimes, with the prosthetics on."

"Where are they? You said you took them off."

"At the bottom of the pond," Jerry said. "I had to take them off or I would have drowned."

The boy nodded, then asked, "Why'd you go in the water with them on, then?"

This time, Jerry did scream. "They threw me in, you moron! They wanted me to drown, to make it look like suicide!"

The boy's face crumpled, and Jerry hoped that he wasn't going to cry. Jerry had never cried (in public) in all the years he had spent coping with being a freak, a cripple… a penguin boy. 'Penguin boy' was the one nickname he actually hadn't minded — much — after he had seen real penguins streaking through the water like stubby torpedoes…

"Look, I'm sorry," Jerry said. "There was no way you could have known. But I'm worth a lot of money. My parents sued the clinic that made me like this, and won, big time. Some people figured out a way they could get control of that money — if I wasn't around."

"So they tried to kill you, and make it look like suicide? Dude, that sucks the big banana."

Jerry nodded. Then he said, "Do you have a job?"

The kid shook his head. "Just finished my mandatory school time. No job, no money for college… And a bum — leg…" The kid blushed as he compared his 'challenge' to Jerry's.

"Wanna be my driver and personal assistant? I need someone to help me into these damn clothes — you'll have to cut off the sleeves and pantlegs somehow — and drive me to the nearest police station."

The kid looked at Jerry with a mixture of elation and suspicion. "What's it pay?"

Jerry laughed. "Enough. I'll pay your tuition and arrange your schedule so you can take whatever courses you want."

The kid frowned, then said, "I want that in writing. Now, how short do the sleeves have to be?"

Jerry held his arms straight out from his body. "About like so," he said. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Andy." The boy pulled a cheap Swiss Army knife clone from his pocket and began to saw away at Jerry's clothes. "Andy Morgan."

"Andy, there's a signing bonus in it for you if you have a candy bar or some gum on you," Jerry said. "I have to get this pond-scum taste out of my mouth before I puke."

Andy grinned. "Slightly-crushed granola bar, fifty credits."

Jerry feigned outrage, then said, "Deal. You can pull the creds from my wallet while I get dressed."

He just hoped that Andy would be up to the task of helping him to dodge any further attempts at assisted (and resisted) suicide. Maybe they could rig Andy's cane with a taser…

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