“Are you ready for the weekend?” Farokh asked.

“Absolutely, I can’t wait. I even talked to Monica at work and she’s ready to cover for me. If you can make it, we could even leave at noon on Friday, have an extra half day”, Nia replied.

“That’s perfect!! PTO is not really an issue at work for me, especially since half the department heads are out on conferences and whatnot, so I can definitely make Friday at noon” Farokh beamed. “There was something I wanted to show you before we leave, if you’re up for it. Something…work related.”

Nia’s eyes went wide. “You mean… I finally get to see what you are up to? Fuck yes!”

Farokh and Nia had met through friends of mutual friends at some party while both were still at university. Nia had quickly fallen in love with the gentle and intelligent guy with his bronze skin and his friendly laughing eyes. After some prodding, she learned that he was studying at her university and was generally well liked, so she did some more digging until someone could give her his number. She had long learned that men were generally idiots when it came to relationships. While she liked her men to be confident and sure of themselves, she neither felt the urge to be wooed, nor catered to or worshipped. She had no patience for traditional gender roles. Equality encompassed all aspects of life, she thought, and so she tracked him down and asked him out over the phone. That was three years ago. He had already worked at his current place of work and his qualifications allowed him to advance at his company. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she recalled that he’d mentioned that his place of work, a company called ReducTec, even financed some of his studies.

Despite having been in a relationship with Farokh for three years now, she still had no idea what he actually did for a living. He was very secretive about his work, only replied that he wasn’t allowed to talk about it, because it was so confidential. At first this had bugged Nia, but she had long stopped asking him about it. That’s why she was overjoyed by Farokh’s announcement that he’d like to show her something related to his work. She had no idea how it would factor into their weekend, but now that part of the mystery was about to be unveiled to her, the little bit of uncertainty was making her even more anxious for the weekend. Monday was a national holiday, and now that she had managed to secure another half day, things just seemed to fall into place perfectly for once. They’s hop in the car, drive to a remote lakeside AirBnB about five hours away, just across the border in the Italian Alps, and enjoy a nice couple’s weekend.

She could hardly wait.

The next two days passed in a blur. Since she wanted as much fun time with Farokh as possible, Nia had begun packing her bag as soon as he had headed home for the evening. She wanted to be ready to go when she got off work on Friday. When she’d told Farokh about this on the phone, he too began packing his bags. He loved when she got this excited. Her passion and excitement completely took over and she became this beacon of positive energy that danced through life as if she’d just been told she’d won the lottery.

They didn’t live together yet but planned to change that in the near future. They’d decided to proceed slowly with their relationship early on, and it had been the best decision the two had made. Both of them had busy lives and by living apart, they’d both had the time to savour the time they actually got to spend with each other, while also having a retreat where to themselves. The way they’d handled their relationship so far, their time together had always felt like a calm island in the rough seas of life. Besides, in reality they mostly just slept apart. Nia couldn’t remember the last time they had been apart for more than three days. The moment they had realised this was the moment they decided to get serious about moving in together. Later, though. For now, Nia was simply looking forward to a nice quiet weekend with Farokh all to herself.

Nia noticed she had a bounce in her step as she walked past the gate into the small yard in front of the apartment building in which she’d rented a small two room flat on the ground floor. Farokh had her spare key and they had decided that he should swing by her place and wait for her there.

She let herself in the front door and entered the staircase. She took the two steps up to her apartment door and opened that too. Farokh’s bags were near the front door, fully packed and ready to go.

“Heey”, she shouted. “Farokh?”

“Hey hey!” His muffled voice came from her kitchen. He emerged with a goofy grin on his face and embraced her. They shared a quick kiss and a short quiet moment before they pulled apart. “How was your day?” he asked.

“Uh, good. A very quiet day, I mostly did my paperwork, talked with Monica, Ben and Hannah and wasted time until I got to leave.”

Farokh chuckled. “Productive as always, huh?”

“Hey don’t judge me, a girl’s gotta live. Besides, I haven’t been able to be very productive all week. Are you ready to leave?”

“Almost. Let’s put our bags in the car, and then I want to show you something. Oh, and maybe it’s best if you go and use the toilet before we leave now, just in case. You’ll see why in a few minutes.”

‘Yes’, Nia thought to herself. ‘Finally!’

“Sound’s good”, she said and headed first to the bathroom and then to her bedroom, where her packed bags were waiting.

She heard Farokh’s bags rumble and the front door open. He was already gone with his bags when she got to the front door. She found him waiting by the car. The trunk was open and his bags were already inside. He took her bags from her and lifted them into the trunk, where he placed them next to his own. Then he slammed the trunk closed and the couple walked back to the flat arm in arm.

“So, what is it you wanted to show me?” Nia couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“You’ll see”, Farokh just said as he opened to door to her apartment and led the way inside. He immediately headed to the kitchen, where Nia found a big box of some sort.

“Oh wow, what’s this?” Nia felt curiosity well up inside her. The box was about half a metre high and one metre long, though it looked like it could be extended through some sort of sliding mechanism if necessary. One side had a big hole that was lined with a long and taut silicone lip around the edge. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, seeing as she knew absolutely nothing about her boyfriend’s work, but somehow the box still surprised her. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it and was anxious to find out what it was.

“I…I am not sure how to best explain this to you”, Farokh stammered. He was usually very confident without being overpowering, a character trait she valued greatly. It took Nia a moment to realise that the stammering didn’t originate from a lack of confidence, but was just general nervousness. He was just as excited for her to see it as she was, she realised. Why was her nervous? She studied his face and body language. He suddenly seemed vulnerable, as if he was desperate for this to go well. As if he were afraid of her reaction and its ramifications. This excited her even more, and she didn’t even know what she was looking at.

“Hey, I love you, okay?” Nia said, looking into Farokh’s eyes. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week.” She smiled at him encouragingly.

“I have also looked forward to this, way longer than for just a week. I just don’t know how to explain this to you. It…” he paused, trying to find the right words. “…it is really weird.”

Nia giggled. “Weird isn’t too bad. I can deal with weird.” She saw some relief in his eyes. It was just a flicker, then it was gone again, but it was definitely there.

“I don’t know how much weirdness you can take, though. Anyway, I think it’s best I just showed you, if you like”, he continued.

“Yes, please!”

He was about to give her instructions before he paused yet again. “Okay, two things: number one: I will ask you some super weird questions in a second. Please don’t ask any questions, please don’t try to figure it out yourself. Just answer them for now. I will explain later.

Number two: This will have consequences for a little while. By that I mean days or even a few weeks. I’m honestly not sure which one I got (I’ll explain that as well in a second). Are you ready to experience the consequences of what we do in a second for an extended period of time?”

“Um…” Nia was taken aback. What a weird thing to ask. How could she possible answer without knowing more? Still, she wanted to know. She wanted to find out. “Yeah, sure”, she said, her tone slightly projecting some of the uncertainty she felt.

“Okay then”, Farokh said, making eye contact before springing into action. He pulled the box to the centre of the room. “If you had to lose one limb, which one would you lose and where?”

Nia had not expected this sort of question. “No idea. Um…a leg? No, that would probably be annoying after a while. An arm then? But that could get even more annoying, I couldn’t play the accordion anymore. So maybe.. what?” She paused and looked at Farokh, who had broken into a fit of laughter.

“Not being able to play the accordion anymore is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about missing an arm?” he asked incredulously while desperately trying to catch a breath. This was what he loved about her. She was very odd, but in a very lovable way. Her mind was working in mysterious ways and it fascinated him.

“Well…yeah”, Nia said. “You said not to think about the questions, so I have to try my best to answer them.”

“I see” he snorted and quickly drew her into a tight embrace. He planted a kiss on her mouth and she immediately reciprocated. He tightened her grip once more and the released her. “So? What’s your answer?”

“Well… if I had to decide, I would probably…oh god, I don’t know. I never thought about it.”

“Say a genie said you temporarily had to lose at least one limb. No matter how many, or which one, or where, as long as it is at least one limb. If you knew it was temporary. What would you reply?”

“Huh…Well if a genie said so, I’d probably pick both arms below the elbow. I don’t know I think I would get annoyed by the asymmetry of missing only one, and having only one leg also sounds annoying.”

“Huh, okay”, Farokh said. “Okay… well, close your eyes and let me move you for a moment, okay? No peeking and don’t resist.”

“O-okay?” Nia did as she was told. She closed her eyes and let Farokh guide her. She let him push and move her around and supported his moves with her muscles whenever she was certain she knew what he wanted her to do. Soon she bent over a little. Farokh had grabbed both her arms at the wrist and pulled her down. She felt her hands, then her arms touch something silicone-like. The hole, she remembered.

“Hold still”, Farokh said suddenly. “No peeking.” She felt him leave her side and heard him enter her bedroom, but he was back in under a minute. She felt him pulling something over her face and tightening it to fix it. ‘A blindfold’, she realised. Then she felt him putting something in her ears. Earbuds. Soon soothing oriental music started to play and she let her mind take her on a trip.

And then it stopped. The music paused and the earbuds were removed. The blindfold came next. Was she allowed to open her eyes again? She didn’t know, so she kept them shut.

“You can open your eyes again”, Farokh said gently.

Nia opened her eyes and blinked a few times to get used to the brightness again. She rubbed her face with her hands and… huh, weird. This didn’t feel right. She looked at her hands again and…

“Aaaaah my hands!!” Nia suddenly felt nauseous. Her arms were missing just below her elbows. Both of them. She began to hyperventilate and held her arms up, as far away from her as possible, as if that made a difference. “Farokh! Farokh!! Farokh!! My arms.. where are my arms..??” She continued screaming and panicking, wildly waving what remained of her arm through the air, staring at the ends of her arms with wide eyes.

“Hey, hey, Nia, NIA, listen to me, listen!! Shhhh, everything’s okay. Shhh..” He kept repeating this and slowly moved in for a tight and reassuring hug until she finally calmed down. “Listen Nia, it’s fine”, he finally managed to say.

“It’s fine???” She shrieked incredulously. “My arms are m…”

“I know”, he quickly interrupted her. “You have to listen to me for a second, yeah?”

He gripped her shoulders tight and looked her straight in the eyes. This seemed to calm Nia. She focussed on Farokh’s intelligent and pretty eyes. She saw worry in those eyes, but weirdly something else as well. Something she hadn’t expected. Excitement? Satisfaction? This surprised her, but weirdly enough, his calmness seemed to help. She took a deep trembling breath and nodded slowly.

“Okay.” He smiled. “Nia, this was supposed to happen. This is what we do.”

“You…you cut off people’s limbs?” She sounded incredulous.

He giggled. “Well, n..actually yeah. At least that’s what we are hoping to do in the future.”

“But…why?” Nia still seemed confused. Of course, he thought. Who the fuck wouldn’t be confused in this situation?

“Should I explain in the car? We have a long drive ahead of us.”

“In a second. Just…you said..” It finally clicked in Nia’s mind. “You said this was temporary, right?”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“So how long?”

“Huh?”

“How long will I stay like this?”

“I’m actually not sure”, Farokh said. “But I can narrow it down a little bit”, he added hastily when he saw Nia begin to panic again.

“Explain”, she said, her arm stumps hanging by her side.

“We have worked out all the quirks for the removal and restoration, those things work really well. However, we want this to be adjustable. The final product will have different settings, for example for different time intervals of the removal. We’re still experimenting with that, though we have figured it out now. We made these boxes for testing though they are probably be a lot like what our first product that goes up for sale will be like. Each box has a different time setting. I didn’t have a lot of control over which box we get. I just made sure the effect lasts at least a day. After we had all the boxes with a lower time limit removed, I had them assign one to us randomly. I didn’t look which one it is. I can look if you want, but I thought I would leave that up to you. I figured that you might actually enjoy the uncertainty if you got past the first shock. However, your hands will definitely come back, the duration is anything from a day to a month.” Nia visibly relaxed when she heard this. “What, did you think I just permanently crippled you?”

“Not really… I love you and I trust you. I was just overwhelmed by the experience.” She took another trembling breath, but she already looked calmer. “A month is a long time, but I can do that, I think.” She inspected the ends of her arms. “Huh, it looks like I never had hands. Look, the skin just stretches across my…” she seemed to search for the right word, before she settled on “…stumps.”

“Yeah, the device works extremely well. We call it the Atomizer. It has two settings: with or without time limits. If you don’t set a time limit, the reduction (that’s how we call it), is permanent, but can be reversed at any time with the right counterpart for the machine. Unfortunately, both our boxes without a time limit are needed elsewhere right now, so I had to get one with a time limit. The ones with a time limit cannot be manually reversed, but they come back after the set time limit has expired.”

“Why can’t the reductions with a time limit be reversed manually?”

“We haven’t figured that out yet, but the experiments we performed on our staff volunteers always failed in that regard. Some just didn’t respond to the restoration, but most resulted in some pretty bad looking deformities that we couldn’t fig with out technology. We had to had the limbs in question surgically amputated, use the Atomizer to remove some of the stump and only then could we restore it. It was a pain to do and we haven’t found a way to tackle this issue yet.”

“But the limbs come back anyway without a time limit?”

“Yeah, once the time limit has expired.”

“How?”

“Well, the way the machine works is it disassembles your arm on a molecular level and creates a smooth residual limb, like yours.” Farokh nodded to Nia’s stumps, which she had taken to inspecting again. “It is pain free and quick. The cells in your stump are programmed to remain this way until the time limit has expired. Then your arms enter a phase of rapid growth and your hands come back. It took us a while to flesh out the regrowth as well. It used to hurt. Do you remember having growing pains as a child?”

Nia nodded.

“Well, rapid regrowth was like that, only much quicker and much more intense.”

“That sounds unpleasant…” Nia said, still eyeing her stumps.

“So I’ve heard. But we figured out a way to make it painless, so don’t worry.”

“That’s good to hear.” Nia gave Farokh a weak smile. “This is so weird! I can’t feel my hands anymore. I only have an echo of what fingers felt like, but that memory is slipping away already. Now when I try to move my fingers…” She looked at her stumps which twitched slightly, but stayed still otherwise, “…nothing really happens.” She looked up at Farokh.

“Yeah, so far the Atomizer is not like an amputation. It is more as if you had been born like this. That means that you don’t get phantom pain or phantom sensations.”

“It’s so freaky! I kinda wish I had fingers to feel my…stump though. Boy it feels weird talking about my…stump. Actually having a stump.” She rubbed the ends of her arms together in a desperate attempt to feel their new shape.

“How do you feel?” Farokh asked.

“Huh? I don’t know. Weird. But…also fascinated? I don’t know, I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”

“So you’re not mad?”

“Wha…no, why would I be mad?”

“Well, I just crippled you for at least a day, possibly much longer. I was a little worried you’d be mad.”

“Ah, I see. Yeah, I can understand why you would get that idea, but I already said I trust you. I love you, you gonk. This is exciting and interesting and I love that you finally got to share some of your work with me.” She kissed him on the cheek again when she saw the relief in his eyes. “Besides, now I get to watch while you have to do all the work”, she added cheekily.

“I love you too, you little weirdo.” Farokh grinned and kissed her too. “Let’s leave, shall we?”

“Sounds good.”

“Oh, before I forget: This tech is still top secret. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get clearance to show this to you. You cannot be seen without your hands by your neighbours, at least not right now.”

“O-okay? So what happens if I am stuck like this for a month?”

“I figured you come and live with me for that time. We have a company doctor who will write you a note for work if you are still handless when we come back from Italy, and I’ll take care of you until you have your hands back.”

“Ooh I’d like that”, Nia cooed.

“Maybe throw on something with long sleeves to walk to the car now? Or at least a coat to cover the arms?” Farokh suggested.

“I haven’t packed my coat yet…”

“Perfect”, Farokh exclaimed. He quickly left to fetch Nia’s raincoat and held it open, so that Nia could slip her arms into the sleeves.

“Could you also take my earbuds and my phone? Just throw them into my backpack and take that.”

Farokh did as he was told. They left the kitchen and Nia went to open her apartment door. It took her three tries until she remembered her arms were significantly shorter and handless now. She used both her stumps to push down the handle and pull the door open. Farokh just watched and enjoyed the show. After Nia had pulled the door shut, Farokh locked it and walked behind Nia to the car. He opened the door for her and let her in. He placed Nia’s backpack in front of her in the legroom of the passenger seat, before he closed the passenger door and walked around the car to the driver’s side. He slipped into the driver’s seat, closed the door and helped Nia lose her raincoat. He watched as Nia struggled to fasten her seatbelt with her stumps and clapped when she finally managed with a triumphant howl. The couple kissed once more, then Farokh started the engine and the two began their long drive down south towards Italy.