No Place Like Home

The electromagnets’ hum was something she felt more than heard, a deep thrumming quiver in the vanadium microfilament network threaded through her musculature. She supposed if she didn’t feel the tingling pinpricks that she should be worried.

She thought she could still feel the tingling in the soles of her feet, in her toes. Random misfires actually reaching Guenevere from the magnetically-scrambled nanos?

How much longer? she thought, knowing it would be useless to voice the question. The microphones inside Bertha only worked half the time during routine system checks.

3 minutes. Stop worrying. Autonomics will be back online in 5. The Wizard’s response scrolled along the bottom of her optic screens, green lettering against the dark of her eyelids.

Kailey sighed.

Stop fidgeting, you’ll throw off the calibration.

* * * * *

Jordan swept Kailey off Bertha’s ‘tongue,’ settling her in the wheelchair, holding each leg up as he tugged wrinkles from her scrubs. As routine and seemingly endlessly-repeated — and at times maddeningly irritating — as the motions were, Kailey felt comforted by them this time around.

Jordan glanced again at her smile. “What? That thing scramble your brains like it did the rest of you?” he asked, his brown eyes narrowing in suspicion.

She shook her head, dismissing his question with a wave of her hand.

“Well, aside from the usual burn from forced-motion control, your wiring looks to be all right,” the Wizard said, from the doorway of the glass control booth. “Guenevere’s diagnostics checked out, BODY-ROM autonomics are intact. You should start feeling some tingling right about… now,” he continued, glancing from the clipboard over to his watch.

Kailey’s legs twitched, and she sat up straight as the nano machines began transmitting again, waves of pins-and-needles through her lower body. She gripped the arms of the chair, closing her eyes, gritting her teeth.

“I hate this part.”

“Two more minutes,” the Wizard said, his eyes still on his watch.

Kailey gasped, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. The pins and needles seemed to’ve ignited, white-hot. She bit down on the scream, but it still came out a slow whimper.

“Jordan, you might want to stand clear,” the Wizard cautioned.

“It’s okay, Doc, I’m sure—”

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by his own sharp cry as Kailey’s right foot jerked up, connecting with the big orderly’s knee. He stumbled back with a curse.

Kailey’s knuckles had gone white, and she curled forward in the wheelchair, shivering, gasping for breath.

“Thirty seconds.” The Wizard watched the second hand sweep by on his watch.

The door to the Motion Control lab opened, and Dr. Singh slipped inside.

“Oh, dear, I had hoped—” he began.

Kailey pushed herself back in the chair, panting, wiping sweat from her brow with a shaking hand.

“Kailey, it could not be helped. A total purge of the nanos… it has never been done before. I did not think it would be this bad,” Dr. Singh said, as he knelt by one side of the chair.

She gave him a weary smile. “Been through worse,” she said, her voice ragged. She craned her neck, looking up at the transceiver. “Can I…?”

“It’s against protocols. No padding on the floor. Lots of sharp corners,” the Wizard said.

Kailey sat for a long moment, her breathing, still labored, but she wasn’t gasping for breath any more. Her breath caught, and she looked back up at the transceiver. Two green lights.

She stood, slowly, her balance wobbling. Her whole body seemed to fall limp, and the two doctors and Jordan all sprang forward at the same instant.

But Kailey swept herself in a half circle, poised, her back straight, facing the wheelchair, heels together, legs flexed, one arm stretched out behind her, the other held out in before her, as if she were reaching for the transceiver. Two green lights blinked furiously.

She slowly lowered her arms, smiled at Dr. Singh.

“It was worth it,” she said.

Jordan caught her as her legs gave out.