Chapter 2: Rehab is a Bitch!

“So, when do you get to have all this metal shit taken out of you?” Kathy asked as she tapped on one of the steel pins sticking out of his right arm.

“It’s only been two weeks Kat,” he replied as he flexed his left arm and scratched his nose. They had just removed the hard cast and replaced it with a padded wrap to serve as a reminder to him that it was still healing. ‘Like I’m gonna go flipping down the hall anytime soon,’ he thought. “Probably at least another week or two. Hopefully, they will all be out by Valentine’s Day.”

The tall, lanky girl casually traced her fingers up the halo apparatus that pinned his head in place. “Got plans? Dancing?” She was looking away indifferently but her mind was awaiting his answer with sharp anticipation.

He snorted. “Depends on your idea of dancing. Do you know the flopping halibut?”

‘I’d flop around with you,’ she said to herself. “Sounds kinky,” she replied with a smirk. “Is it a couples dance?”

He hiccupped and laughed. “Where is Al at?”

She hid her disappointment that he wasn’t just happy to have her alone with him. “He said he would come by later. His mom is ragging on him for one of his grades or something.” Finally, she sauntered over to the chair next to his bed and plopped into it, resting her arms along his bed rail and her chin on her arms. “So, what do you want to do?” ‘Make out for a while?’

“I dunno,” he sighed. “Sometimes I get so bored just laying here. There’s only so much to think about, ya know?”

“I guess so. I’m not in your shoes,” she gulped at her unintentional gaff, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I’d think that thoughts are as random and innumerable as stars, you know?”

“I guess I just keep getting stuck over the same thoughts, is all. I can only take them so far when I know there is more there.” He paused chewing his lip. “I just can’t get to it. It’s like a riddle I should know the answer to, but don’t.”

“Sounds like you need more information then,” she replied quickly. “Is it a subject matter you are trying to master — like the Fibonacci spiral?”

He snorted, “Each number in the sequence is equal to the last two ... done.”

“Maybe you could distract yourself with a book,” she suggested.

He pursed his lips shrewdly and nodded slowly. “That is exactly what I need.” He turned his head toward her slightly. “Could you get me a few at the library?”

She nodded lazily with her head on her arms. “Sure. What do you want?”

He thought about it. “Anything on corporate finance and Wall Street investing. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, futures, anything you can find.”

She sat up and shook her hair out of her face. She had long black hair that fell to her lower back and she rarely tied it up or braided it. “Yeah, I can do that for you. It’ll cost you though.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “Let me just grab my wallet...”

“Your money ain’t no good round here pale face,” she teased him back.

“What do you want then?”

“I’ll let you know when the time is right,” she replied smugly, before putting her head back on her arms so she could watch him.

“Well, that killed three minutes,” he said with a grin. “What else you got?”

She giggled. “Want me to rub your feet?”

He coughed and winced as he laughed. “Bitch! That was cold!”

“Nah,” she grinned. “Hey, when they cut off the other one, do you think they will let you keep it?” she asked with a gleam in her eye.

He gaped at her incredulously. “Why the hell would I want to keep my old dead foot?”

“So, you can stick it in a jar and put it on the mantel beside your old dead brain!” She tapped his bedrail with her hands and swung at an invisible cymbal. “Badum tish!” she mimed. “Now that was cold!”

Despite the soreness, he couldn’t help the laughter as he tried to keep from shaking his body. “Oh ... God! That ... hurts!”

“Good, laughter is the best medicine,” she quipped.

“Not when you have a chest tube,” he gasped back.

The day before Valentine’s Day, the surgical team had a meeting with him and his mother to discuss the prognosis of his ischemic limb. They performed numerous sensory tests to determine just where he felt pain, cold, and heat. Once they finished their exam, they drew a line around his lower leg just above his ankle denoting the point of amputation. When he drew back his gown, he compared the line with his other missing limb.

“I may be crazy for even asking this,” he said hesitantly, “but could you cut it off at the same length as my other leg?”

There was a harsh gasp from his mother but the doctors all listened with interest as he explained how it would probably be easier for him to adjust to prosthetics eventually if he didn’t have to stumble around on mismatched legs.

“Young man,” the chief of surgery commented, “that is a very astute observation on your part. You have been thinking about this for a while I can tell.”

“Yessir,” he replied humbly, “and I realize it’s probably contrary to the institution to remove tissue that is still ... alive.” He lifted his left hand and rested it on the external brace holding the pins in his left thigh. “I just wonder, that’s all.”

The old balding doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully and nodded. “We have to discuss this and I want to reach out to a colleague of mine over at Walter Reed.” He gestured and the group of white coats left the room together leaving him alone with his incredulous mom.

The following morning, they came for him early and took him to the OR where they removed the external fixators from both his legs and his right arm. When he woke up before noon, he spent several groggy moments taking inventory of himself. He felt less weighed down and encumbered. Glancing about he was relieved to see the metal pins and frames absent. His head remained secured firmly in the cranial traction but he was elevated enough that he could reach down and pull back the sheets covering his legs. Both of them ended roughly 4 inches below his knees, though the left one was wrapped in a thick white gauze dressing. The chest tube had been removed a week ago and he was hoping to be able to soon go pee for himself. Reassured by his discovery he let his head ease back onto the pillow and closed his eyes to rest.

Several hours later the anesthetic had worn off and he required large doses of morphine to control the pain. They let him sleep for the first couple of days until he was able to bear the discomfort with minimal narcotics. When Alan and Kathy came by to visit him two days after Valentine’s, they found him stuffing his face from a heart-shaped box of chocolates. He looked up and regarded them with a bright expression.

“Hey guys,” he mumbled with his mouth full. “Did you bring me these?” He held out the near-empty box full of wrappers. There were several pieces that he had placed back after taking a bite out of them. “Have some.”

Kat poked through the wreckage, shaking her head. “I did, but — damn dude ... I didn’t think they would let you eat the whole box in one sitting,” she mused.

“They never told me I couldn’t,” he replied licking his chocolate-covered fingers. He surrendered the candy and allowed them to pick some of the un-chewed pieces.

“You look pretty chipper for someone who just got his other foot chopped off,” Alan said rummaging for a piece of chocolate.

“Man having all those fucking rods out of my legs, hip, and arm is awesome!” he replied. He held up his right arm with its soft cast and turned his hand around. “See? I am right-handed again. Now I can rewrite all those notes I took down last week.” He was referring to the dozen or so books that Kat had brought for him to read. As he began learning about the basics of investing, he asked her for a couple note books and pens to take notes with. It was a slow process with his offhand but he took his time and made sure he could read everything he jotted down. There was a stack of books on his table with torn pieces of paper for bookmarks through them. He was champing at the bit to begin buying stock but Scott advised him that they were still weeks to months away from a settlement.

When his mom saw him reading so diligently and taking notes, she grumbled that his time would be better spent getting caught up with his schoolwork.

“Have them bring it by,” he replied nonchalantly, “I can get it done too.”

She knew better than to challenge him on it.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Kathy sang as she chewed on her piece.

“What, no kiss?” Peter joked.

She curled her lip at him. “And risk putting my eye out on that Robocop get up?” she replied snidely, secretly longing for nothing less.

“What, are you two going steady now?” Alan asked with a disgusted tone. Kat could’ve kissed him for bringing it up. “Like Donny and Marie?”

Peter frowned at him. “Do I look like Donny Osmond?”

“Captain and Tennille?”

Kathy poked him. “Do I look like Toni?”

The Asian Nerd scrutinized her for a moment. “Hmmm. More like Cher.”

“That’s make me Sonny,” Peter quipped.

“I like it!” she beamed reaching over to touch his untrimmed hair inside the halo traction ring. “You’ve got the hair for it; you just need the handlebar under your nose.”

“Mom says I need a haircut and wants them to take the hardware off long enough to give me a trim.” He scratched his scalp over his right ear.

“Sure, risk total paralysis for the sake of a haircut,” she growled.

“That’s pretty much what the nurses told her.”

Alan was wearing a backpack and slipped his arm out of one of the straps. “I wish you had access to a computer here,” he said pulling out a thick binder. In the middle of it was a small stack of 5 ¼” floppy disks held together with a rubber band. “I got Slots and Bingo here but I really need your help with them.” He set the disks on the table and set the notebook beside it. When he opened it, the pages were full of handwritten strings of complex C code. They were working on creating several games but Peter was convinced that if they could develop a simple slot machine and build on it, it would be a huge success on the bulletin board network. Maybe they could even sell it to a program developer.

He took the notebook and began reviewing the notes. They were written in different hands. He recognized the harsh blocky text from Alan’s pudgy grip and the thinner elegant script from Kat’s left-handed writing. There was a great deal of his notes included, but it had been several weeks since he contributed to the effort. He was still the better programmer in C, however, and they relied on him to fix all the bugs as they came up.

“Why did you cross out all these attributes?” he asked as he began thinking in the programming language.

“Because it fucks everything up when you hit jackpots,” Alan replied.

“There’s nothing random about it,” Kat added. “They are almost sequential and the payouts are staggered in orderly increments.”

They remained silent for several minutes as he pored over the notes frowning. “I think there is something wrong with all these iostream inputs,” he murmured. “But I can’t do anything with this.” He put the notes down and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I need to get in front of it to see how each ‘cout’ displays.”

Kathy nodded with her lips pressed together. “Every time you win the ‘Jackpot’ or ‘Big Money!’ the fonts are all wrong and my color commands aren’t working.”

“That’s because they aren’t ordered properly in the main function. You need to write it into the standard namespace declaration.” He sighed in frustration. “I need a fricking computer!” he grumbled.

“I could bring mine here,” his friend replied hesitantly.

“Al, that beast weighs a ton,” he replied. “You’d kill yourself lugging it down the hall, much less across town.”

“It’s okay,” Kathy replied trying to ease his angst. “We can figure it out. It just takes us longer. The Bingo graphics are awesome. The tumbler and chute are finally working out and the balls appear and roll down the chute like we wanted.” She flipped to another section of the notebook. “The problem is when it switches displays between the tumbler and the player’s cards.”

Peter sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Leave the notes with me tonight and I’ll look them over when my brain isn’t all foggy from these drugs.”

His two friends sat quietly beside his bed and watched him for several minutes. There was a small TV guide next to the television sitting on a shelf in the corner. Alan grabbed it and began thumbing through it. “Wanna watch some boob tube?” he asked. “Doogie Howser, Quantum Leap, Baywatch...” he winced and glanced at the taller senior across from him. She rolled her eyes at his embarrassment.

“Quantum Leap,” Peter replied suddenly interested. His friend got up and turned on the television and the channel box beside it.

It took two weeks of begging pleading and an adolescent meltdown before the neuro/spinal specialist listened to Peter and considered removing the external cranial fixator. He was surprised when the doctors rounded and advised him of their plan.

“You are going on a road trip tomorrow Mr. Shipley,” the Chief of Surgery stated. There was a feeling of anticipation in the room.

In his head, Peter started repeating the lyrics of an old Beatles song:

‘Got a good reason,
For taking the easy way out.’

“Um, okay,” he replied setting aside his newest edition of PC Gamer. “Where am I going?” He automatically looked toward the grinning senior resident Dr. Merchant whom he was most familiar. “Shouldn’t my mom be here for this?”

The 26-year-old ‘Doogie Howser’ nodded. “She is on her way as far as I know,” he replied. “I spoke to her about an hour ago.”

“We can come back once she gets here if you like.” Dr. Hearst (Chief of Surgery) added.

“Oh, no,” Peter cut in, interested. “I’m all about some day-trippin’. Please, fill me in.”

Only ‘Doogie’ caught the reference and grinned once more. “Well, you are always talking about how you wanted to go to UW.”

He stared back at the group blankly. “Um.”

Dr. Merchant stepped closer and wrapped his knuckles on the halo frame that kept his head pinned in place. “Dr. Osterman wants to obtain better imaging of your cervical spine before he will consider removing the Iron Maiden,” it was a term of endearment that Peter, Kathy, and Alan came up with a while back; it stuck.

Peter began thinking of what they had said so far and started putting the pieces together. “A CAT scan?”

The Chief of Surgery nodded. “We are still installing ours, but the Montlake Campus has one of the best on this coast,” he said. “And one of the only MRIs.”

“MRI,” Peter replied, testing the term. “Magnetic something right?”

Just then his door opened and his mother entered the room appearing slightly disheveled. He caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar man standing out in the hallway before she closed the door.

“I’m so sorry for the delay, doctors,” she greeted nervously as she walked over to stand beside Peter’s bed. She touched his face and shoulder reassuringly.

“It’s quite alright Ms. Shipley,” Dr. Hearst replied. “We were just presenting your son with a plan for tomorrow to help us determine how his spinal injury is healing.”

“I’m going on a road trip to UW hospital,” he told his mom with a grin. “I’m gonna get a CAT scan!”

She looked curiously around at all the white coats. “A CAT Scan?”

Dr. Hearst nodded. “It’s a relatively new technology that allows us to view the head and spine in 3 dimensions. And we are also going to do an MRI since we are there and the unit is available. That will give Dr. Osterman a much better idea of how far Peter’s spine has healed.”

“And with luck, he can remove the rest of this hardware and progress into rehabilitation,” Dr. Merchant concluded.

Another knock sounded on his door and his two friends burst in. They stopped just inside the room, staring in astonishment at all of the doctors and his mom.

“Um ... wow,” Kat said while Alan fidgeted with his backpack.

Peter caught another glimpse of the man in the hallway and felt a sense of concern at his rough unkept appearance and bitter scowl. Then the door closed behind them and everyone was looking at the two gangly nerds.

“Is this a bad time?” Alan gawked.

“Honey, we are having an important family discussion right now,” Janet said firmly. “Perhaps you can just wait out...”

“I’m going on a road trip tomorrow!” Peter interrupted. He grinned at his astonished friends. “Goin’ to UW for a CAT scan and an MRI. Then maybe I can lose the Iron Maiden!”

It was entirely happenstance that the tall native American girl was wearing a faded black Iron Maiden Seventh Son tour shirt at that particular moment. It wasn’t lost on any of the men gathered around as they all peered at her briefly. Their gazes probably had nothing to do with her lack of a bra or her prominent nipples that pressed against the material.

She still reacted by crossing her arms self-consciously as the color rose in her cheeks.

“Whoa, dude!” Alan exclaimed, oblivious to the situation. “Magnetic resonance imaging is high-tech! That’s like, right out of TRON.”

Kathy giggled. “You’re gonna be ‘de-rezzed’ Sonny.”

“Is any of this dangerous?” Janet asked trying to get the meeting back on track. “Will he be exposed to too much radiation?”

Dr. Merchant nodded acknowledging her concern. “It is negligible Ms. Shipley. The radiation in the CAT scan is concentrated along a plane or ‘slice’ if you will, that is thinner than a human hair. We receive more radiation from a television set to be honest. And the MRI emits no radiation at all. It is perfectly safe for him.”

“Um,” Alan cleared his throat and then blushed when everyone turned to look at him. “But the Iron Maiden is metal right?” he asked. They continued looking at him expectantly. “I mean the MRI uses a 5-ton magnet, right? Won’t it, like, rip his head off or something?”

His choice of words served only to cause Peter’s mom to have a near heart attack.

“Jesus! Alan!” Kathy whirled angrily and slugged him in the chest.

Janet’s eyes widened and she glanced at Dr. Hearst with a panicked expression.

“Oof!” the half-Korean gasped from the punch. “Hey! Sorry!” he wheezed. “I was just asking!”

Peter just shook his head and laughed out loud which served to calm the room down. “Jesus Christ Al!” he giggled. “Are you trying to kill my mom or what?”

Dr. Merchant raised his hands placatingly and cleared his throat. “Please. Just relax,” he said. “Ms. Shipley, despite our young genius’s words, I can assure you that everything will be perfectly fine.” He turned to gaze sharply at the contrite boy before continuing. “First off, we will be removing the external fixator entirely — it wouldn’t fit inside the tube anyway. Second,” he directed his gaze back to Peter’s friend, “no one has, or ever will be dismembered by an MRI.”

The meeting lasted for ten more minutes before the group of doctors disbursed.

“Who’s the stiff outside, mom?” Peter asked pointedly after they left.

She looked exceedingly uncomfortable and wouldn’t look at him as she replied, “Just a friend. His name is Paul and he is helping me out with things while you are laid up in here.”

“What sort of things?” he pressed, but she didn’t answer. “Are you dating already?”

She looked shocked by his interrogation and bristled. “No! It’s none of your concern anyway.” She bent over and kissed his forehead. “I have to go. Don’t stay up too late, you have a big day tomorrow.” She sniffed disdainfully at the piles of computer books and magazines and notebooks. She turned her sour expression onto Alan and Kathy who smiled back at her nervously. Then she walked over to the door and opened it. They all followed her with their eyes and watched as she nodded to the man waiting for her. He looked strung out, with worn-out denim jeans, a thread-bare, stained t-shirt, and a ripped army surplus field jacket. His dark brown hair was greasy and uncombed and he had the tell-tale scars of childhood acne all over his face. He glared back into the room, peering at each of the three teenagers before the door closed once more.

“Well Paul looks like Captain Loser,” Alan muttered after they had left.

“Tell me about it,” Kat grumbled. Then she turned and slugged him again angrily.

“Ow! What the fuck, whore face?” he snapped.

“Way to go and almost give his mom a stroke you dumb ass!” she growled back.

“I’m sorry!” he replied, both to her and Peter. “I was just asking is all.”

“Never mind,” Peter said ending the argument. “Let’s just hope I can get this fuck...” he stuttered as his door opened to admit one of his nurses. She was looking at him with her eyebrows raised. “Erm ... this ‘freaking’ chunk of metal off my brain case,” he finished sheepishly. She came over to check his vital signs and asked him how his pain was. He said it was about a three of ten and asked for Tylenol or Motrin rather than the narcotics. For some reason, his frequent invasive thoughts made him fearful of the drugs they kept giving to him when his pain was bad.

After she left to get his medication Alan removed another notebook from his bag and set it on the table.

“I think we worked it out,” he said cheerfully as Peter opened the notebook and began scanning the lines of handwritten code. “We used your mini program to help run diagnostics on the code sequences and it helped tag a ton of character omissions and overstrikes. Once we fixed all that, executables started working like a charm.”

Kathy lowered his bedrail on her side and sat on the edge of his bed. She felt pins and needles up her spine when he touched her skin where her shirt lifted above the hem of her jeans. She could’ve purred when he ran his hand softly against her back. “I wish you could try out Oingo Bingo,” she said. She coined the name after one of her favorite bands. “I think it is ready for beta testing on the Gooney board.”

The Gooney Board was a popular BBS networking system that attracted thousands of computer programmers and gamers who checked out free shareware programs and played online games and interactive role-playing start-ups like Dungeons and Dragons and Star Wars. They planned to release a limited version of each game for people to try out and — if they liked it, they could buy the full version by mail order. Each game could be copied onto a 5 ¼” floppy disk and sent to the customer through USPS Media Mail for practically free. If they could make enough money in sales the first thing Alan was going to do was upgrade his disk drives and slave them together to help them burn several floppies at a time to help meet demand. Peter was hoping for enough to buy his PC and Kat just wanted a 1990 Camaro RS.

“I’ve been thinking about something we should probably discuss, now that these two games are about to get released,” Peter said as he absently slipped his hand up the inside of her shirt. She made no move to interrupt him.

Alan was sitting in a chair opposite them with his feet up on the bed.

“If we are going to go into business together, we need to establish a company.” He was about to continue when the nurse returned with his Tylenol.

“You mean like a corporation?” Alan asked as he swallowed the pills and took a drink of water.

Peter cleared his throat, thanked the nurse, and nodded. “More like a limited liability partnership.” He shuffled through his books and pulled out a thin paperback. “In Wyoming they have a State Statute called an LLC for partners in the oil drilling business.” The nurse regarded them curiously as she turned to leave the room. “I spoke with Scott and, with his help, we can establish something similar so that we are each represented equally and protected for ... whatever. We could call it PAK Gaming or something and all sales will go to the company. We would have a Tax ID so that we can purchase floppy disks wholesale along with everything else we use to produce our programs. Then we pay ourselves out of the company profits.”

They looked at him and nodded while the door closed behind the curious nurse.

“That sounds like a lot of red tape to jump through,” Kathy mused. “But kinda of cool. Are we old enough to do it?” She relaxed back against him and felt like she was on cloud nine.

“There is no age restriction involved,” Peter replied. “It’s in our best interests anyway so I’m having Mr. Bales provide me the application forms. I’m drawing up a simple set of bylaws for us to go over and vote on. Then we just have to pay a $30 filing fee to get it registered with the State. We can make up business cards, letterheads, a business logo...”

“Cool, I call dibs on designing the Logo,” Kat chirped. She was by far the best artist of the three — and the entire school for that matter. “Who has thirty bucks?”

Alan raised his hand. “I do. But I expect to get paid back.”

“You can take it out of the first sales,” Peter suggested. “The first ten orders should cover it.”

They planned on selling Oingo Bingo for $3 and the Zombie Slots for $5.

“When do you think, you can start getting out of bed and get mobile?” Kathy asked as she placed her hand tentatively on his thigh over the blanket.

“Check it out,” he answered pointing to the corner of his room where a wheelchair was parked. “I already got to go outside and even eat in the cafeteria today,” he said brightly. “Pushing the wheels is a bitch with the Iron Maiden on my head, but hopefully I can take it off soon.”

“Then what?” Alan asked.

“Then I get to go to a nursing home full of old folks for a month or two of convalescence,” he answered. “Scott says the settlement is going forward as expected and once the Arbitrator guy signs off on everything, they will begin retrofitting our house so that I can roll in and out the door on ramps and stuff. I won’t be able to move home until that is completed.”

“So, then we can take you to the library and show you how the games are working!” He let his feet drop to the floor and stood excitedly. “Dude, I can’t wait for you to be able to check them out.

Peter felt suddenly empowered and ready to take on the world once again. Life was looking up for once and he could sense that things were aligning favorably for him. He could smell Kathy’s soft fragrance from her shampoo and he reveled in the sense that she wanted to be with him despite his disability.

“We gotta get if we’re gonna catch the next bus,” Alan said as he slipped into his backpack.

“Yeah, I know,” Peter sighed regrettably. “Could you give Kat and me a second, buddy?”

The stocky Asian boy regarded them for a moment before making a gagging noise and stepping out of the room. “Don’t name it after me,” his sarcastic voice trailed off as the door closed.

Kathy turned toward him and leaned closer. “What’s up, Sonny?” she asked quietly. She searched his blue eyes for any sign of unease. There wasn’t any.

“Hey, um,” he felt his cheeks warming as he struggled for words. “I just want to say thanks, you know, for everything.” Inside he cursed himself for being a total chicken shit. ‘Grow up idiot!’ He cleared his throat and looked into her soft brown eyes. “I mean. You are incredible, I think. And even though you’re almost a senior citizen ... I’m, I like...”

She snorted and grabbed him by his jaw, pinching his cheeks. “Senior citizen my ass!” she growled and then leaned forward to press her lips against his. It was an awkward first kiss because of the external fixator with its metal posts and pins, but they were both oblivious to the situation as they locked their mouths together and tasted one another’s tongues. He felt her draw in a deep breath and then sigh with complete, blissful surrender, as she gave herself entirely to him with one simple gesture. He breathed deeply as well and grabbed her sides with both of his hands, tracing the outer curves of her breasts relishing the contact. He held her like he never wanted to let go and they stayed like that for several minutes.

Finally, Alan burst through the door loudly. “C’mon Kat!” he cried out with agitation. “You guys can make babies some other time. We gotta go!”

She sniggered against his mouth and when they parted, he recognized an entirely new brightness in her eyes as she gazed back at him. “Herr dweeb calls,” she murmured to him. “This is to be continued...” she added getting off the bed to join the shorter boy by the door. “Bye,” she said softly to him.

“Bye,” he replied harshly. When they were gone, he reached under his blanket to adjust his rigid hard-on that sprang up during their kiss.

The transport to UW Medical Center north of Seattle, took an hour, by ambulance. They could’ve gone quicker with lights and sirens but elected not to, despite his urging. There were three male doctors packed inside the square rig as well as the two female attendants. Dr. Merchant sat up front with the driver. They were just as excited to experience the new imaging technology as he was to get the damn screws out of his head.

Once they arrived at the hospital complex, he was transferred to a wheelchair and rolled through the vast winding halls to the Radiology Department. He was helped out of his hospital garb and into a back-less patient gown that left his ass flapping in the breeze. The imaging staff wheeled him further into the bowels of the department where they transferred him once more to a nonferrous gurney and asked him dozens of questions that could’ve probably been answered by the attending doctors of his records. “Do you have any metal in your body?” “Do you smoke?” “Are you sure you have no metal in your body?” “What about drugs?” “Are you really, really certain that you have no hardware inside your body?”