Chapter 8: They Tried to Stop Me From Rehab, I said No, No No

For the second time in my relatively-short life, especially in an era where lifespan extenders are a regular thing if you have the credits to pay for it, my world was nothing but pain. The first time was really bad, but it was somewhat localized, as the worst hurting places were the places that they jabbed the neural shocker against my bare skin. After a while, the nerves just shut down from over use. So it was like a roaring fire rising and fading quickly.

This was different. If the first time was a raging fire, this was a creeping volcano of molten lava creeping throughout my body. It all burned equally, and it was more painful than my torture., because there was no coma I could lapse into this time, as the nurses and technicians tried to keep my system from going into neural shock.But that was ok. They say that a patient’s mindset means quite a lot when it comes to pain tolerance and how we deal with it. This time I wasn’t being tortured. This time I wasn’t waiting to die. This time I didn’t fear betraying Alex. I was doing this for him, and for myself at the same time. That allowed me to keep the pain at bay.

I remember the first time I opened my eyes in almost a decade. As I had become more used to my HI-AI interface, I had spent all my time in the virtual environment. After all, when I was the Ghost in the Machine, I’d much rather be the Goddess Online rather than Broken Mary Donovan. What did my body offer me except for pain, suffering and immobility? So, it felt like I was raising sixteen tons of rocks by opening my eyes. I still had my interface, as part of the rehabilitation, but I wanted to spend as much time as I could in the real world. The light was nauseatingly painfully bright, but I still had some of my VR abilities, and sent a mental command to the light system to provide a minimum of light that I could open my eyes a squint without feeling sick.

“Ah, Miss Donovan. I see we’re making excellent progress...” a voice said to my right. I tried to move my head to view this, but I found my head trapped in between two immobilizer blocks. “Shhh ... don’t move, it’s ok ... Your neck muscles are weak and don’t have the strength to turn, yet...” the voice continued, and the person to my right stepped out in front of me and the bed automatically adjusted so I could see the speaker. It was my surgeon, Doctor Wilhelm Toten, the pioneer of Neural Regenerative Implant Surgery. Despite his obvious brilliance, he dressed like my old childhood doctor. White doctor’s jacket with about nineteen different implements in his pockets, unkempt short grey hair that seemed to shoot out everywhere, and a bushy grey mustache. I half expected him to offer me a lollipop if I was a good girl and took all my medicine.

He took out an analyzer and started to run its beam back and forth down my body, and nodded as he spoke with a thick Neo-German accent. “It seems you have taken very well to the Neural Regenerator. Right now, your muscles are so weak from lack of use, that you resemble that of a newborn. But luckily, unlike a newborn, we can train your body somewhat quicker without all the awkwardness of growth, because it’s something you’ve done before.” I tried to speak, but nothing would come out, but he just nodded. “Your voice will be one of the first things that come back, but again, lack of use makes things difficult to start. However, your advanced HI--AI interface will still work, as it will be how we retrain your body quicker than we would naturally. Because we can use it to augment your neural pathways, your body will respond more naturally to commands through your interface at first, but as you get more comfortable, we will have you try to do it more naturally, as your body will be used to doing the activity. For right now, however, you can communicate through your HIAI voice interface.”

I thought for a moment, then projected through my HI-AI interface. My voice (was it still my voice, I wondered? What would I sound like when I got my OWN voice back) projected through the speaker. “The pain is manageable, Doctor. When can I begin rehabilitation, and how fast can I go through it? I’ve got things to do and people to see.” His eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. “Normally, we would recommend a MINIMUM of two weeks recovery time from the surgery before even beginning minimal rehabilitation. Right now, you’re experiencing a decent level of painkillers, but any more than that will impair your motor cognitive abilities and undo the very thing we’re trying to build up, your body’s building up muscles. The only reason that I’m not isolating you to 30 minutes outside your HI-AI interface daily at MOST was because I know that you wouldn’t follow it.” If I could blush yet, I would have, but he chuckled. “Miss Donovan, I have heard of your stubbornness, shall we say, when it comes to issues that really matter to you. Between that and the fact that SOMEBODY downloaded my private HI-AI protocols for rehabilitation procedures already. I wonder who could have done that?”

Damnit, Guilty as charged. But I wasn’t going to let a little bit of pain, or in this case a LOT of pain stop me. “So, since you’re not restricting me to a ghost 99% of the time, what are you going to do?” He grinned and looked to the open door. “I spoke with the House Master, who told me I had two options. One is to completely lock you into your body 24 hours a day, because any restrictions we put on you virtually, you’ll figure out a way to get past. That would mean your rehabilitation would take a year or more, and you’d go mad from boredom.”

Ok, I liked this doctor, but didn’t like him too. He knew me too well. A year was NOT going to happen. I didn’t care if they had to ship me out, life support system, broken Mary and all that. The problems I foresaw were coming and it wouldn’t be a year before they would show up. “You’re right. That’s not an option. Which leaves, what?”His grin was mischievous at that moment. “She has put at my disposal a member of your house who will work with you to rehabilitate you at a pace that is safe for you and nothing more. She told me “It’s not Alex, but I know you won’t disobey HER. Not that I think you would, mind you, she’s going to be tougher on you then I’d like, but you know how the military is.”