The first maintenance alert started flickering non-stop red in the corner of his vision two months after he left the service. While he was lifting his third shot of whisky from the bar, neon lights swirling down through the amber-gold like blood in water; his shoulder seized with a sound he could feel in the hinge of his jaw, his fingers spasmed open more from surprise than pain, and the glass clattered back onto the counter, whisky and neon racing across the polished oak.

He couldn’t hear what the bartender said, half a sneer, slapping down a rag in the whisky’s way, over the first sour blat of that alert somewhere behind his right ear. Three flashes in deafening off-key before it dimmed to a nagging whisper and a light that wouldn’t go away when he closed his eyes; just a glitch in the servo. Once he rolled out his shoulder, he could lift his hand almost like before.

He just had to hold out his arm a little ways as he did, to keep the joint from locking up. So, he was luckier than most. If not for that flashing fucking light, he could almost have forgotten about it.

Could almost have forgotten it was just the start. No more maintenance meant the alerts would just keep coming. And sooner or later, something would break that he couldn’t ‘fix’ just by moving a little differently. The marvel of engineering he was living in hadn’t been built for civilian life – hadn’t been built for someone who had to pay his own maintenance costs.

Sooner or later, he’d face the same choice all of them did. Crawl back to the service, work for the cause in exchange for a body that worked, or else find a quiet place to rust away.