Fire! Pain! Ice! Pain! Fire!
Allie screamed.
“She’s not
integrating the neural nets. Please, doctor, put her back under. Giver her body
more time…”
Ice poured into
her arm, flowed up to her shoulder, burst all over her body, wrapping her in a
bloom of cotton. She sank under again.
Again.
Again.
Hot pokers in her
eyes, this time. Allie cried out, and a gentle hand pressed against her
shoulder, a cool compress against her forehead.
“Try to relax,
honey. Don’t cry – it will just hurt worse. I know, honey, I know…” The soft
voice murmured encouragement and endearments that Allie had never heard. The
soft touch soothed her wild panic. As she calmed, Allie thought about the pain in
her eyes. At least it wasn’t all over her body any more.
“That’s right, honey,
you’ve made a lot of progress,” the gentle voice said.
How did she know what I was thinking?
“That’s the
neural nets, honey. Your thoughts go straight into the system.”
You can read my mind? All the time?
“For now, while
you’re adjusting. We’ve had to monitor your progress. Your brain has to
re-learn how to work everything. You’ve been such a brave girl. Your eyes were
the last implant. Soon they’ll be online—”
You turned me into a robot? A monster?
The gentle hands
stroked her cheeks, her hair. “Oh no, honey. You’re no monster. You’re better
than human now. And no one will ever be able to hurt you again.”
No one? Allie thought
about that. She started to think about some of the hurt from before.
The voice said
sharply, “You can stop that, Alley-cat. Stop those thoughts. Don’t give them
power any more. Push them out, or down. Build a wall, or shove them into the
ground. You choose. You make it.”
Allie held the
memory like a swirled marble in her palm. She turned her hand upside down, and
the marble fell onto the ground. She reached down and pushed with her
fingertip, until the marble was buried. She stood up and brushed her hands
together.
“That’s right,
Alley-cat. Good girl.”
No one ever called me that before.
“You’re my little
alley-cat. The wild child. The unwanted girl. But I wanted you, Allie. I knew
you were special. You’re the youngest person to ever take the neural nets. You’re
going to be very, very special indeed.”
TBC…
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Dogs
in House
|
Houdini
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|
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Music
|
Sarah McLachlin, Shine On
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|
|
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Time
writing
|
30 minutes
|
|
|
|
|
May
word count
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4,156
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