She’d sniffed, she could remember that for some reason.

“But Doc, it don’t move no good.”

Luckily, her newest source of troubles hadn’t noticed, or at least had grace enough to keep her mouth shut about it.

“Its all in your mind,” she’d said, tone polite like her smile though in truth she’d felt only irritation at yet another patient full of complaints, ones that were no doubt baseless like most of them were.

But she couldn’t, or rather had no desire to say such.

She had some bedside manner even for the stupidest of her patients after all.

Plastering a warm matronly smile or at least the appearance of such, for the old woman in front of her in no way shape or form resembled her own daughter, she patted the old lady’s cybernetic leg.

The limb spasmed.

For a moment doubt began to creep in before she’d squashed it with the certainty born of hard-won experience, conferences, and the newest research.

“Fret not, Ma’am.” A second pat failed to elicit another spasm, and the remnants of doubt faded. “Surgery is not magic, and healing takes time. As for the after effects? Merely a trick of the mind, its all in the brain, you see. Fret not. Everything will be fine.”

“But doc⁠—”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have more patients to see.” Ones which, with some hope, wouldn’t keep trying her patience or doubt her hard-earned skills as a surgeon.

“Miranda.”

Right, that was her name, wasn’t it.

“Miranda, can you hear me?”

Blinking, and coming back to the present, she struggled to focus, struggled to think while above her bright lights seemed to pass in a rush.

And why for the love of Asclepius had she been thinking about that ornery patient of all people?

The lights above made her nauseous, compounding the feeling already there. She tried to sit, to shift at least, but the sharp spike of pain managing to pierce through the haze of the narcotics drew a pained moan past her lips.

Only…that wasn’t the sound of her voice.

Not as she remembered it at least.

The spike of adrenaline helped bring further clarity to her thought and senses. Enough so that she could notice the steady frantic beeping of a machine, a series of machines and a pump both. A pump, she realized with dread, that was busy all but breathing for her and judging by the dull ache of things squirming and slithering into her lower thorax and abdomen, she had a sneaking suspicion as to the identity of the rest of the machines.

But it was the face of her co-surgeon leaning over her gurney that made it all click. “Miranda, can you hear me?” the man asked again with a worry-filled synthetic voice emanating from a shining chrome smooth head in the image of a man and with blinking eyes and attached to a body to match.

The tubes in her made speech impossible but she could at least produce a weak groan and a tired, equally weak and slow, oh so slow, nod.

Her co-surgeon and former fellow let out an electronic laced sigh of relief. Whoever said Ai’s didn’t have feelings had clearly been living under a rock for the last century or so. If anything, the silica man with a propensity for retro style, Jacob, had too much of the stuff for Miranda’s tastes. Why, the sometimes annoying bolt in her behind, cared a bit too much for the patients’ wellbeing and other such rot when all that mattered was ensuring each and every surgery went off without a hitch.

Which, more or less, was always the case for as long as she’d been the Hospital’s Chief Neurosurgeon.

In between her friend and the second best surgeon she knew, after herself, barking orders at the orderlies and nurses wheeling her gurney and the machines along, she blinked and if her breathing was still her own, her breath would’ve hitched.

But the machine cared not for her wishes.

“It’s all right, Miranda,” Jacob said, the lower half of his screen for a face forming a warm smile and, hesitating for but an instant, reached and gently, oh so gently patted her hair. “You’re in good hands now, you are safe.”

She gurgled something like a question and Jacob almost stumbled.

“You, uh, don’t remember?” he asked with a note of worry. “There was an accident.”

At the word the memories came back in a rush of flashes of pain, heat, and terror and she could but shudder or do something akin to it.

Her friend merely patted her head again with a nod and the archaic selection of pixels forming his mouth set in a thin line.

“Its over now. Don’t worry, Miranda,” Jacob said and flashed her another smile. “You are in good hands. You trained them after all!” he said and the wiggle of his fingers drew her focus and, if she wasn’t strapped to a gurney she would’ve groaned for her friend had a sense of humor entirely too human and as such, entirely too bad for her tastes. “And guess what!”

Fixing her gaze upon her co-surgeon, she blinked for he was pointing at her legs, the same legs she couldn’t feel!

But the machines serving as her heart and lungs cared not for her building panic.

“You always did complain about how thin your legs were and how tall I was.” The non-sequitur made her blink, the confusion helping offset her panic as she met that same dumb smile that made her smile and her daughter laugh whenever ‘Uncle Jacob’ visited. “Well, guess what,” he said. “Soon enough, you’ll be able to fix both!”

It must’ve been the narcotics and the trauma both.

Otherwise why would it take her almost a second and some to catch on.

Jacob merely nodded at her horrified questioning gurgle, the line of pixels forming a sad smile.

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “The damage…well, that can wait for when you’re back on your feet, get it, eh? Feet? Tough crowd.” He theatrically shook his head. “But worry not. I remember each of your lessons and our operations together,” he shot her a thumbs up. “And once you wake, Sylvia will be there waiting for you, think about that, eh?”

But Miranda could merely but shiver as the lines of lights overhead flashed in a dizzying manner and with nary a hiss, the doors leading to the operating theater slid open and soon enough, her eyelids grew heavy and Jacob scrubbed in, offered her a, no doubt, smiling thumbs up behind his mask and darkness claimed her.

Miranda awoke to that selfsame darkness.

No.

This, this felt an order of magnitude deeper still, if such a thing were possible.

Well whatever, the operation must’ve been a success and while she would congratulate Jacob for it, she’d also make certain to keep reminding the silica man in the days to come that he’d said, all but promised really, that her daughter would be there to greet her and, while Miranda’s bedside manner might be somewhat…lacking.

Having your patient come too in utter darkness was a choice to be sure.

Mind made up, she smiled and prepared to⁠—

She didn’t smile.

Blinking, she drew in a breath rich with the precursors of anxiety.

Only, she did neither of those two things.

Miranda tried to open her mouth.

But she had no mouth.

Tried to breathe.

But she had no lungs.

Tried to wiggle about, but no nerves were there to heed her brain’s commands or limbs to answer.

Only blackness.

A terrible suspicion began to form in the back of her mind but no.

Surely not.

That would be preposterous.

She’d