MARCH 2117
ROUTINE STUDDING PROCEDURE
植
入
手
术
Dr. Jens Remker, chief of the surgical unit here, is meeting me in a few minutes to discuss a routine studding procedure, my third and most extensive. Diamond studs and rotors will be implanted in all the critical fighting joints, especially the knees, elbows, wrists, ankles and fingers, part of my body armor. There will be some additional repairs and cloning of cardiac and neural tissue. This is for my own good, my transformation, they say. When I pass these hospital walls without paintings or proper signs, just puke-green color with little sperm-shaped splotches of pink rendered with white corkscrew tails that go off in all directions, I’m uneasy. This is supposed to be a distracting image.
“You’re Naomi?” The question hangs in the ether. Under twilight anesthesia, I catch only a silhouette of a tall blond Aryan leaning over my bedside. He carries an old-fashioned digital tablet.
“Doctor Jens Remker. Pleased to meet you. I’ve looked up your records.”
He takes my natural hand. This, I understand, is prelude to the final step. I’ve read all the caveats: loss of personal femininity, at least its human form. Whatever sexuality I have will become diminished, absorbed, into cyborgian agenda. My life span will shorten with this surgery, but frankly, I don’t know what I’ll do without it. Perhaps, in Marco’s absence, I need to feel exclusivity, a power and distinction in body and mind that very few possess.
Dr. Remker, Austrian by birth, has frosty blue eyes that magnetize me. He seems kind. He has high cheekbones and a narrow square jaw, hints of gray at his temples mixed with abundant thickets of blond. Thirty-eight years old, a triangular muscled frame, one dimple, a disarming smile so intent I can hardly believe he’s survived 12 years of surgical training, which tends to turn physicians into dissectionists.
“You must be an athlete?” he asks, eyes widening, scanning me up and down.
“I pole va—” I meant to say “vault” but my speech is slurring.
Remker’s natural inclination is to put his patients at ease. His touch and reluctance to touch tell me this. He waits for my signal. I turn my left palm up, natural fingers opening just a little. Slowly he squeezes the left as he inserts several feeds in the right forearm and thigh, explaining what he’s about to do. His team will inject stem-cell foragers followed by nanoseals to augment growth in my organs—heart, lungs inner ear, gut, larynx, sensors and eventually my joints and skin, which will color gold in the sun and then teal in waning light and dark ocean blue in the evening.
“You know,” he begins, as though preoccupied with a question, then withdrawing it. “You have a lot of beautiful hair.”
He’s brushes it back as I watch him with one eye; he’s tucking it full and thick into a blowsy surgical cap. “Your physical appearance, by necessity, will change with this surgery. Your hair, your cheekbones, the natural curve of your fingers and hands.”
“I’ll still have my hands, won’t I? At least my one natural hand. I’m told I’ll fly, zoom anywhere above everything.”
“Mostly hopping and skipping in short-haul flight. Like pole vaulting, only higher and faster—a bit like vaulting long distances in mid-air.”
I close my lids, feeling the wings spreading from my back.
“I’ve signed the paperwork already.”
“Naomi, you’ll lose something.”
“My fear, hopefully.”
“Your hair, your natural skin color. Your girlish appearance.”
The nurses enter behind him. Their dress is weird; they wear clear polyimide helmets, apparently to protect from cautery sparks. Two are dressed in black leather jerseys, aprons and pantaloons, as though they work in a foundry. I hear them revving a high-speed drill, tapping hydraulic hammers, gathering up wads of instruments and cotton batting.
“You won’t feel anything,” Jens assures me. “Doping is incredibly effective.”
“I feel everything physical. Even under anesthesia.”
“Well then, you’ll be so enhanced I won’t be able to talk to you!” He smirks, then breaks into a Cheshire-cat smile. Perfect teeth. “Just want you to be fully aware.”
“I am.”
“Your personality and memories, at least some of them, will disappear,” he says, unkinking the IV tubing. “The chemicals affect the follicles of the scalp, too, like chemotherapy, but eventually some hair will grow back. Besides, you’ll be wearing the standard Argonaut cap and body suit most of the time, covering everything but your face and the Logoharp antennae, which, when mature, will resemble ablated antennae of a longicorn. Your epidermis will feel smooth; other times it grows scales for your protection.”
“I’ve been told my facial contour and eyes will appear more ‘Chinese,’ at least mixed blood, thanks to the surgical transformations. Is that correct?”
His speech slows. “I can’t tell you exactly.”
“Please answer my question.”
“I can’t tell you.” He whispers, “Every patient is different.”
Is he afraid? Am I? Out of the corner of my eye, I detect each IV starting to drip. Remker’s long fingers are gloved, all fluids dripping now. The cold currents in these chemical streams fill me up as though I’m swimming in an icy river. All the fluids swell my visible veins, but this is expected given volumes of blood and Ringer’s lactate required for surgery.
“Naomi, you’ve read the fine print, right? Your metabolism and aging will accelerate, as will your cognitive capacity. But you’ll have virtually no taste in your mouth, and limited sensations of touch. Aging is much faster than normal. Expect to live roughly half the length of a normal human life span.”
“I understand. Worth the sacrifice?” I suddenly flash an image of ruddy Jack London, who said he wanted to be a “meteor in magnificent glow,” not a permanent planet.
“Why must I wear this Argonaut suit? It makes no sense to me! No one will ever see me work.”
“On the contrary, Naomi, scribes and interrogators accompanying our dignitaries in the ocean luges are seen and critiqued in social media. Your face will appear in phones and holo-screens.”
“I don’t like that. I like privacy.”
“Why? If you’re going to be a journalist, you’ll be so exposed you’ll grow weary of it. Besides, you’re still beautifully formed.”
I don’t know how to take his compliment. He sticks me in the thigh with 10 needles at once. A surgical gatling gun, wheel within wheel.
“Can I trust you?” I ask.
“Do you have a choice?”
He turns away, but I can’t help tracking his every move. His face is pure Brancusi sculpture, angular, futuristic. Tapping on the tubes now, the valves fully opened. The anesthesia smells like
powdery pink bubble bath, a disgusting inhalation making me gag. “This isn’t supposed to happen,” I muse, looking into the glaring operating theatre lights. “There’s a dead armadillo on the street.”
“Your past life,” he laughs. “Did you run over one on your Volokopter?”
He lifts me from the waist, pushing a spittoon tray in front of my mouth. I vomit hardly at all, but then multiple arms come out and gently push me back down. “There’s an armadillo run over by a passing VTOL, don’t you see?” I plead with Jens, but he doesn’t see it. “His beady eyes are popped. No amount of armor can protect him.”
“Relax,” he laughs.
“I am.”
“You’re not changing your mind, are you?”
He mumbles something about nanoseals and diamond studs, then the new cardiac and neural implants, making my core even stronger. A hint of alarm in his voice, although the question is moot because all the permissions have been signed.
He waits.
“It’s okay. Go ahead. Just go ahead. Please.”
The blond Aryan with perfect aquiline nose nods, signaling his crew, squeezing my left hand and leaning closer to me.
“You’ll be bruised all over when you wake up; your head will spin for a few days, so you won’t be going anywhere.”
I tighten my fingers around his.
“No speech, either. Your larynx will be spliced and reshaped to accommodate the last modules for your harp, though frequency synching won’t happen this time. You won’t like the noise at first. Some soft switches will let you turn down the volume or change channels.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Jens. Just call me Jen.”
“No, Dr. Jens. I prefer your name with the s. You’re a plural kind of guy.”
He nods. His mining light is the last thing I see.