Cold liquor slid down Li Jie's throat. He set his glass back on the table and looked at his new friend, the hulking metal fellow named Clifford Stiller.
Uh... maybe they counted as friends?
"You're saying you can't drink?"
"That's right," Clifford admitted with a nod.
"And you can't eat?"
"Not that either."
"What if you only ate vegetables?"
"No. None of it works."
Clifford's metal features twisted into an expression somewhere between pain and resignation.
"My body has no stomach, intestines, or any other digestive organs. Food and alcohol have nowhere to go and can't be broken down or absorbed. I also have no tongue or nose in the biological sense, so I can't taste or smell anything.
If I actually tried to eat or drink, solid food would accumulate in my mechanical chest cavity or neck, causing blockages and malfunctions. Liquids would seep into precision joints and circuitry, causing short circuits, corrosion, and severe failures."
"That's really..."
Li Jie stared at the metal face for a few seconds, then shrugged and took a sip of whiskey. "Not drinking might be no big deal, but not eating... can you still taste anything? I mean, if you insisted on trying."
The mechanical head slowly shook. "I have a chemical analysis module. It can detect a liquid's composition, alcohol concentration, and pH. But there's no taste. It's like... like reading an ingredient report instead of tasting something."
"That does sound pretty lousy." Li Jie flicked the wrist exposed beneath Clifford's cuff, producing a couple of sharp taps. "Were you part of some kind of augmentation experiment?"
"No. It was a car crash."
Clifford shook his head and said quietly, "I used to be a race car driver. I was badly injured in a crash during a race, and someone put my