Alida woke up on a reclined examination chair in a room of buffed metal and mirror-shine white. For a second she reckoned she was in the medical procedure room at the hub and she could walk out to the tearoom and have a hot chocolate with Shuqba. A plasticface appeared above her.
‘Can you hear me, Alida?’
‘I’m not deaf.’ Her brain must have shorted out for a second. It all came back to her. Katzis had nabbed her from her work in the greenhouses to repair her implant.
Did he think his tinkering could make her deaf? She would’ve said hell no if she’d known there were risks. If saying no actually made any difference to these jerks.
‘Excellent. How many fingers am I holding up?’ Katzis waved three fingers in front of her face.
‘Three.’ She swatted his hand away. ‘Don’t tell me your poking around could’ve stuffed my brain up even more.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m going to activate your implant now. An interface panel should appear within seconds.’ He leaned over an OmniScreen.
‘Doesn’t it have to calibrate with my brain for a stretch or something?’
‘No need. Your neural pathways are already established around the existing hardware.’ Katzis looked up from the OmniScreen, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
Welcome to SEM Brainscapes. Let’s travel together into the future appeared in her vision.
‘Ah. Where’s MindComm?’ The interface panel was nothing like the IntelliEnhance panel.
‘You have SEMComm now. It’s a far superior system.’
‘But will I be able to check my MindComm messages?’ Shuqba would’ve tried to contact her. She could have news about Graycie.
‘You’ll be starting from scratch with a new ID for SEMComm. Although I dare say you could log in to the net version of MindComm. I don’t know why you’d bother. Most MindComm users are dead now.’
Alida smirked. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ There was no need for anyone to know she had a contact who had definitely not been killed by the implant malfunction.
‘Now select Advanced set-up from the menu.’
After Katzis had bullied her through her Brainscapes set-up he said, ‘While you’re here I’ll give you a hysteroscopy.’
‘What the hell is that?’ Alida tried to sit up. Whatever Katzis was on about, it sounded nasty.
‘Relax.’ Katzis took hold of her shoulders and eased her back down. ‘It’s a simple procedure to assess the condition of your uterus.’
He was going to mess about with her uterus? Alida wanted to bolt. It would be worse if she arced up. They would hold her down. It was always worse when they held you down. Shaking, she let Katzis put her feet in stirrups. He had a good perv around inside her. The greenhouse gig was hot and sweaty; she hoped she’d worked up a powerful vadge tang for him to gag on. She repeated the official medical-sounding word – hysteroscopy, hysteroscopy, hysteroscopy – over and over, convincing herself this was legit and not an unpaid-for violation.
‘Excellent.’ Katzis lowered her feet from the stirrups and turned away to fiddle with an OmniScreen. Alida closed her legs and sat up. ‘Everything looks healthy. Your uterine lining is ready to shed any day now so we’ll start you on injections to synchronise your cycle with Zaneela’s. Rest for now and let your brain adjust to the implant. And don’t be alarmed if you have some spotting.’
If all that poking around was to tell her she would have her monthlies soon, he could’ve just asked her. Her boobs felt like they had rocks in them and she fancied munching every crunchy, salty thing in the world.
Alida traipsed to the bedroom and lay down with her legs pressed tightly together to counteract the lingering feeling of cold metal pulling her apart. She logged in to her MindComm account. Ding, ding, ding. Message after message from Shuqba – and one from Ganya, which she deleted.
Tears streamed out of her eyes, wetting the hair at her temples and pooling in her ears. Graycie was alive and well. They were waiting for her.
Alida composed a message and hit send.