*2025 Refractions: Genre Flash Fiction Prize 3rd Place Winner*
Viscous green fluid sloshes and nearly spills as its container is hurled down the slick café countertop. Mel reaches out to stop it, much to the amusement of the man behind the bar.
“Always wanted to try that!” He chuckles and snaps his suspenders.
Mel says nothing as she slides the can back towards him, shaking her head.
The barista’s eyes widen as he realizes his mistake.
“Ohhhh, you want actual coffee, don’t you?”
Mel nods. The barista – Paul, according to his nametag – tries to hide his embarrassment with a smile.
“Sorry, ma’am. I saw those, and thought…” He inclines his head towards Mel’s hands resting on the counter. Titanium forearms and palms reflect the dim lights hanging overhead, while translucent polycarbonate fingers reveal every wire that powers their movement underneath.
Her robotic fingers twitch under the scrutiny, but Mel refuses to hide them from sight. She is not ashamed of what her body has become.
“You know, it’s amazing what they can do nowadays,” Paul says, his back to her as he presses buttons on his coffee machine. “Just the other day, I accidentally served a cup of joe to the most realistic, humanlike android you’ve ever seen. Good reminder one can never assume. I apologize for not asking first.”
Mel almost takes pity on the man, and briefly considers telling him she did, in fact, have a port on her left hip that could accept the battery boost fluid he’d mistakenly offered her. But she’s not in the mood to draw even more attention to her cyborg body; she’s come here specifically to order her last cup of coffee. She wants to feel human just a little bit longer.
The steaming mug is in front of her moments later.
“Cream or sugar?” Paul asks.
“Pinch of salt, actually. If you have it.” It’s a luxury this far away from Earth, and he’s sure to charge her extra for it, but Mel doesn’t care.
Paul’s grey eyebrows raise in delight. “A woman who knows her brew!”
A half-smile quirks involuntarily as Mel moves to blow on the coffee. “My daughter -”
A memory seizes her still-flesh heart, cycling through an impossible spectrum of emotions between beats. Love. Pain. Fondness. Sorrow. Mel blinks away the image in her mind’s eye of a smiling teen tying on an apron, excitedly babbling about how she’d learned to make latte art, and insisting she could get even Mel to enjoy a cup of coffee now that she knew all the tricks…
Mel has to consciously loosen her grip on the mug, knowing her mechanical hands have more than enough power to break it if she’s not careful. She clears her throat and tries again. “My daughter was a barista for several years. She told me that adding salt reduces the bitterness.”
“Indeed!” Paul smiles, reaching for the salt shaker. “Back before the shortage, I recommended it to anyone drinking their coffee black. Nowadays, what with the price increases, I keep the trick to myself.” He winks as though they are co-conspirators, rather than two strangers in a tiny outpost café on the outskirts of the solar system.
Granules of salt fall into the black abyss of the coffee as Mel adds a generous shake. They disappear on impact, and it’s hard for her to imagine how something so tiny and innocuous can have such a large effect.
On the coffee. On the economy. On her own life.
She finally takes a sip and immediately winces.
“Careful! Still hot!” Paul thinks her reaction is from pain; he’s right, though not in the way he thinks.
Mel sets the cup back down. She can’t decide if it was a good idea to come here or not, the breadth of her complex emotions making it difficult to function, but it felt only right for her last taste sensation to be of coffee. It reminds her so much of Jessica.
Paul continues trying to force conversation, out of empathy or boredom, Mel isn’t sure. “So what does your daughter do now, if she’s no longer a barista?”
If he notices the catch in Mel’s breath, Paul doesn’t show it.
“She – Jessica – joined the Space Fleet.” Mel pauses, then surprises herself by continuing. “She was captured during the Europa Salt Raid.”
His sharp inhale tells Mel she doesn’t have to explain. It’s well known that two dozen troops guarding the major salt mine on Jupiter’s moon were ambushed by pirates and taken hostage. When the Space Fleet refused to negotiate, the pirates destroyed the mine and used the Army’s hyperdrive mechanisms to escape.
The hostages are presumed dead.
The Fleet did nothing about it.
“I’m sorry,” Paul says softly.
“I’ve spent several months following leads regarding their whereabouts. It’s been dangerous,” Mel gestures towards her replacement body parts. “And taxing. I know it’s probably hopeless, but…” Her voice trails off in a whisper. “I’m her mother.”
Paul pats her hand, and Mel appreciates the gesture, though she can’t really feel it.
With a sigh, Mel composes herself and sips the coffee. She’s shared enough with the poor barista. He doesn’t need to know she’s found the location of the pirate’s hideout, or how she plans to exact her revenge.
Paul lets her drink in silence. When she slides the empty mug towards him and moves to pay, he finally speaks again.
“On the house.”
Mel nods in gratitude. “Best coffee I’ve had this side of the Asteroid Belt. Thank you,” she tells him, and means it. She leaves out that it’s her last coffee ever, as tomorrow she plans to upload her consciousness to a full android body.
A nearly sixty-year-old woman missing half of her original parts couldn’t take out an entire base of rebel pirates. But a robot with the right programming probably could.
Mel takes one last deep breath in the café, savoring the bittersweet smell of roasted coffee beans. Then she strides through the doors, looking tiny and innocuous, and disappears into the black abyss beyond.
