Art done by  Flinters. Lucy and story belongs to me.

Lucy is a quadruple-amputee bunny who lost her limbs in a car accident and had limb regrowth treatments on her fail, forcing her to rely on prosthetics to have dexterity and mobility. Her origin story is below.

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Lucy was the child of parents who loved the outdoors. From an early age, Lucy enjoyed going hiking and camping with her parents in the summer, learning to live in the woods with minimal supplies. That all changed though one winter night when she was on a trip with a friend and her parents. Going across an icy bridge, a gust of wind turned the van sideways. Hitting a patch of clear roadway, the van started rolling. Lucy’s seat-belt broke, throwing her from the vehicle and over the side of the bridge. She wasn't found on the ice below until morning, suffering from frostbite and hypothermia. The cold had greatly eased the the concussion she had received when she hit the ice, but it had also frozen her arms, legs, and ears so badly they had to be amputated close to her shoulders, hips, and head.

Lucy was in a coma for several weeks, remembering nothing of the accident. As to be expected, it was quite a shock for her to wake up and try to rub her still aching head, only to find she only had short stumps at both shoulders. Without ears to direct sound to her eardrum, it was also hard for her to hear.

Lucy was not to remain limbless forever though. Doctors had been busy preparing and programing stem-cell cultures they had taken from her body that they would transplant into her stumps, which would gradually grow into new limbs. A month after the accident, the first culture was implanted inside the stump of her right arm and Lucy braced herself for the process of growing a new limb cell by cell.

A week later, hope had turned to worry as no signs of growth had been observed. Reluctantly, they drew a tissue sample from her stump. When the results came back from the lab everyone became gravely concerned. Lucy's immune system had killed off the culture, even though it was made completely from her cells. Over the course of the next month they tried the procedure with each limb and each time the same result, her immune system killed off the cultures.

Lucy and her family were crushed. The only alternative for her was prosthetic limbs and all the problems they came with. Lucy went in for surgery yet again; whatever the pain the prosthetic caused her, being a limbless, bedridden bunny was simply unacceptable to her. Bases were drilled and screwed to the bones and nerve-coms to the ends of the nerves in her stumps; These would allow her to both control the prosthetics with nerve impulses as well as allow them be firmly attached to her, yet allow easy removal for maintenance, repair, and upgrades.

Wires were ran along her spine between her arm and leg stumps. These would allow her adjust the settings of her leg prosthetics from controls on her prosthetic arm. Because of weight considerations, the batteries that would power her prostetics would be in her legs with only limited power storage in her arms.

As soon as she was out of surgery, the physical therapy began. First was nerve stimulation to encourage the nerves to grow into and connect with the nerve-coms. This essential step was perhaps the most traumatic part of the process as it had to both be active 24/7 and required all pain medication be withheld. The nerve stimulation process itself was painful, but the bigger problem was the pain from the fresh surgery wounds. Lucy's family and friends setup a watch so that there was always someone close with her as she healed. They brought in buckets of fresh dirt and bark to drown out the hospital smells with the familiar smells of the outdoors.

Once the nerve stimulation was finished came the task of mapping out how her nerves had connected to the nerve-coms; nearly a thousand individual contact points on each one of the now permanently attached prosthetic bases made up a matrix of over a hundred thousand possible nerve connections in each limb. Mapping out the nerves consisted of Lucy's limbs being connected to a diagnostics computer and “moving” parts of her body that were no longer there. It was a surreal and frustrating experience at first; how does one “move” a hand that is no longer there? The therapists also went through and stimulated each nerve connection as well to determine which ones were control and which ones were feedback. Each stimulation was a shot in the dark; at one moment she might feel nothing, indicating an empty connection, and the next she might feel as if one of her fingers was on fire. Progress was slow at first, but as time went on, the therapists and prosthetic techs developed a basic nerve mapping for each limb. Now that they had this they could attach actual limbs to her bases and begin fine tuning the nerve mapping down to the individual finger and toe.

Lucy was thrilled at have arms and legs again, at least when she was in her therapy sessions, but now she felt firsthand the major disadvantage of prostetics vs regrown limbs. In theory, biological nerves are digital, firing to transmit a signal. In practice though, they behave much like an analog device in that it is difficult to determine what is signal and what is interference. While filtering out this cross-talk when receiving signals from the control nerve connections is relatively straightforward, the reverse was not true with the feedback nerve connections. The higher the sensitivity, which would allow her finer control of the prosthetic, the higher the rate of accidental stimulation. The brain interprets these persistent accidental nerve stimulations as aching pain, which persists as long as the prosthetic is powered on and the nerve-coms are being used.

After months of therapy, Lucy was allowed to wear prosthetic arms and legs outside her therapy sessions. They had minimal strength so she didn't accidentally hurt herself or someone else in case there was a malfunction, but it was incredibly liberating for her to begin feeding and grooming herself again. She had to be careful when unpluging the prosthetic from the power cord, as the internal batteries only lasted a couple minutes, she could not stray far from her room.

Lucy was a proficient problem solver, her parents had taught her how to survive in the woods with minimal supplies and she applied those skills to her new limitations. Despite knowing next to nothing about electronics and nothing about prosthetic limbs and software programing, she now had lots of time and plenty of motivation to learn as much as possible about both. In a matter of months she had learned the workings of her limbs and how to program them. Through experimentation she fine tuned the programing of her limbs to double the battery life while keeping acceptable dexterity and touch, an accomplishment that both impressed everyone at the hospital and significantly increased her mobility between recharges. The hospital staff were impressed with her proficiency and recommended she continue her education on cybernetics once she left the hospital.

Leaving the hospital, now fitted with her own full set of prosthetics, was both liberating and exposed a whole new set of challenges for Lucy. Mountings for prosthetic ears had been implanted into her skull so she could have ears that would direct sound to her eardrum, but they could only be moved and positioned by hand, making expressing herself visually sometimes difficult. Even more challenging was the limited battery life of her prosthetics. For someone used to living in the woods for days with what could be carried in a backpack, not being able to go even a full day without having to recharge the batteries in her prosthetics put an end to her families camping trips. Dealing with the reduced dexterity and walking ability in everyday life took time to become accustomed to as well.

At first Lucy wore her prosthetics 24/7, not wanting to be limbless and helpless again. As time went on and she readjusted to everyday life, Lucy began to see the advantages to not wearing her prostetics all the time. With them turned off, there was no aching pain from the nerve-coms. With them removed, she could rest her stumps from having to hold their weight. As she slowly came to terms with being an amputee, she began to see her prostetics not as a part of her, but simply tools to overcome her disability. Just like a person will wears glasses to overcome their nearsightedness, she wore her prostetics to overcome her injuries.

As Lucy began going about the everyday life of a teenager, she soon became very self conscious about being called “a cyborg”. She came to hate the term, the way it inferred that she was somehow something different than before. Talking to her parents about her feelings, they encouraged her to politely made it very clear to people that she is and always will be a bunny who happens to be an amputee. Though at first it seemed like it would backfire, with teens latching onto it as a means to tease her, it worked at putting people at ease most of the time. Though she still got strange looks when she came into class, took a seat near the wall, pulled a charging cord out of a compartment in her leg, and plugged her prostetics into an outlet. People were also often unnerved by the sounds her prostetics made when she moved, even though they were not that loud. Lucy did her best to overcome these difficulties in her everyday life.

Lucy took the advice of the doctors and technicians at the hospital and concentrated her studies on cybernetics and prostetics. Her proficiency was already good before she even left the hospital but, as she finished High School, she was doing her own major rewrites of the controller software and was doing her own maintenance and overhauls on her prostetics. Going to college Lucy continued to get strange looks from how nonchalant she was about taking her limbs on and off in class if she needed to use it as a reference. Having extra limbs sticking out of her backpack cemented that image. There was a reason however for this behavior; going to school in cybernetics is very similar to getting a medical degree and the costs were significant. In order to save money, Lucy was cutting corners when it came to maintenance on her prostetics. Breakdowns were a frequent occurrence, but she was good enough at spotting when one was about to occur that she was able to stop and swap out the offending limb. It was during one of these breakdowns that she met her future husband.

Jeremiah, a bunny with large loppy ears, was going to school to be a doctor on the same campus as Lucy. He had noticed Lucy in the past and found her somewhat esoteric nature endearing, but he was not sure how to introduce himself. He got his chance one day when he saw Lucy having trouble with her prostetics. One of her legs wasn't working so she was trying to swap it for the spare she had with her, but that one wasn't working either. Other people were just leaving her alone, but Jeremiah decided to go up to her and ask her if she needed help, not like she was going to run away from him. Lucy was flustered, but accepted his help. Jeremiah had no training in prostetics and had no idea how they worked, but thought they were interesting. As the two of them worked to get Lucy walking again they started talking.

Lucy found Jeremiah to be cute, nice to talk to, and found his medical knowledge to be insightful. Before too long the two of them were good friends, and after several months it turned into a serious relationship. Like any new couple, the two had to accept and compromise between each other. Jeremiah hated Lucy's habit of leaving her prostetics around the apartment. Lucy disliked the odd hours Jeremiah kept due to his medical studies. The two of them cared for each other enough though to work around these difficulties. Jeremiah was initially creeped out at how Lucy enjoyed being limbless when relaxing and sleeping together in bed. It took time for him to understand how uncomfortable it could be for Lucy to wear and use her prostetics and that it was part of how she coped emotionally with the loss of her limbs.

As Lucy continued her education she became interested in the concept of passive cybernetics which would, instead of having nerve-coms being surgically implanted into the stump of a lost limb, allow a non-amputee to be able to control machines and receive feedback through non-invasive means. Talking over the idea with Jeremiah, he too became interested in the idea. Pooling their resources they began developing their own passive cybernetic transceiver designs. They kept the project to themselves, working on it in during their spare time. After much hard work, they had a working prototype that was far ahead of competing designs. However, it still wasn't good enough to use for controlling machines.

Lucy and Jeremiah, looking for other possible uses for their design, they experimented with the transceivers ability to impede nerve impulses. After some hardware and software modifications, the two of them discovered that their design was very effective at impeding pain nerve impulses, while allowing other nerve impulses through. Lucy immediately saw the practical implications of this ability. The persistent aching pain caused by the nerve-com crosstalk in her stumps had been something she had to accept and live with ever since the accident that cost her her arms and legs so many years ago. The first design was non-invasive and simply wrapped around her entire torso. While it wasn't very effective, it proved the concept. Lucy talked to Jeremiah about designing a version to implant around her spine to reduce, if not eliminate, the crosstalk pain. Jeremiah was reluctant at first but, after working with Lucy on improving the design, was convinced of the benefits.

With their limited resources available, they built enough medical grade transceivers to be implanted around Lucy's spine from just above her tail to just above her shoulders. They would be powered and controlled through the skin with a controller that would be attached to her back along her spine. This design would allow easy non-invasive upgrades, as the limiting factor in the design was the controller, not in the actual transceiver itself, which were built to last nearly forever. Using connections they had in the medical industry, they got permission for Lucy to get the transceivers implanted as an experimental medical device. As the date of the surgery came close, Lucy started to get apprehensive. She remembered when she first got her nerve-coms implanted and the painful stimulation and physical therapy required to get them working. Such things would be unnecessary here though, just some calibration. Still, the memories from after the accident continued to bother her. Jeremiah did his best to support Lucy emotionally.

The day of the surgery came and Jeremiah was there in the operating room assisting the doctors, making sure the transceivers were implanted correctly. Lucy had been terrified that, after the operation, she would have flashbacks to when she first lost her limbs. Jeremiah made sure to be in the hospital bed with Lucy laying on top of him, her nose against his chest, when she woke up. Still in a fog from the anesthesia, his scent filled Lucy’s mind with memories of her and Jeremiah being together. As she finally woke up enough to realize where she was, she asked Jeremiah to bring her up to his face, since she couldn't move herself with her stumps because of the stitches in her back. After he had carefully lifted her and moved her towards his face, she kissed Jeremiah on the nose for having the foresight to do something like this for her.

Once the incisions in her back had healed, Lucy and Jeremiah set to work calibrating the transceivers around her spine. The implanted transceivers worked far better than the external prototypes, but now calibration of the controller was even more critical. The two of them worked tirelessly to fine tune the settings needed to block the nerves signals that caused her pain while using her prostetics, while not blocking the signals that controlled them and provided necessary tactile feedback to her.

The finished controller fit into a small enclosure between her shoulders that connected to the transceivers along her spine. She could control the settings from the touchscreen on her prosthetic arm like she did the other settings of her limbs. The end result was not perfect, but a significant improvement. While her entire body was now noticeably numb below her neck when the transceivers were powered on, the aching pain that came with using the prostetics was gone and the tactile feedback from her prosthetics was unaffected. The two of them were very happy with the results.

Nearly a year of testing, and several patents later, the two of them debuted their invention at the national medical show. Their invention generated immediate interest from several large medical firms which all quickly negotiated contracts to license the technology they had developed as well as hire their services for continued R&D. Their invention made users of prosthetic limbs able to live and work without pain as well as greatly improved the lives of those living with chronic pain, either reducing or eliminating the need for pain medication or increasing the effectiveness of certain medications. For Lucy and Jeremiah, it meant the end of their years of frugal living. Money was no longer a concern to them and they could spend their time as they wished. For the two of them it meant both starting a family and continuing their research the field of passive cybernetics.

Years later, the two of them now have four children running around their home, which also has plenty of attached lab space for Lucy and Jeremiah to continue their research and test their inventions without leaving home. The loss of her limbs and ears was a traumatic event, but today Lucy will admit that everything seems to have worked out in the end. Being an amputee as well as a wife and mother is difficult at times, but through the good and bad she and Jeremiah know they can make things work out as they spend each day together with new challenges and adventures.