Arron woke up the next morning with the right side of his face still aching along with the ever-present pounding migraine that was still plaguing him.
He stumbled into his bathroom and took a few of the generic painkillers that had been given to him by Doc Octy. From what Kix had told him, the pills were far safer than what the hospital gave out.
Arron felt a gnawing hunger deep inside of him disappear as the pills started to take effect and he started to inspect his face in the mirror. The slightly bloody and bulky bandages that had covered his face were now removed.
Arron tilted his head in several directions as he inspected it.
“Doc Octy really did a good job fixing me up,” Arron muttered to himself.
There were no eye-catching visible scars like the chief or the other members of ERF 3. The only slightly noticeable thing was the new pink skin that had been generated to close and heal the wounds.
Arron lightly touched his face feeling the tenderness of the new skin.
He stopped inspecting his face and quickly took a mist vibration shower before putting on his dark M1 uniform.
Even though one of the side effects of the pain pills was forgetting your hunger, Arron grabbed a pack of synth-energy jelly to eat as he headed out into the hallway to get onto the Mag-shoot with the other waiting early risers.
Ding!
When the Mag-shoot reached the 298th floor the doors opened and both Kix and Toothbrush stumbled in along with a dozen other random people.
“You look better this morning,” said Kix, slapping Arron on the shoulder.
“The Doc sure knows his business,” said Tooth as he looked at Arron’s face.
“My head still feels like crap with this damn migraine,” said Arron.
“Give it time, it should go away,” said Kix.
And so Arron suffered through the day, and then another, weathering the pain as well as he could. But by the end of each day, the pain was only getting worse.
***
“Hmm… Everything is healed back to 100%. I’m not sure why you are having such problems,” said Doc Octy, as one of his slim metallic arms returned to his back after finishing poking and prodding Arron.
Arron was not sure if all the ‘Tests’ that Doc Octy was doing were necessary but he did not say anything about it hoping that it would help find out what was wrong.
The Doctor’s eyes were zoomed in as they continuously took deep scans of Arron’s right eye.
“So what do I do?” asked Arron.
He was holding his head with his right hand. It looked like he was trying to use his hand to push down the pain in his right eye.
“You have two options. One: nothing. Maybe the pain will stop. Two: I can make an appointment for you tomorrow with a friend I know. He can replace your eye with whatever upgrade you want. Of course, it will cost you money since M1 doesn’t have the money to pay for such things. The stingy M1 bean counters would just be throwing the entire budget into an endless pit with all the wounds and injuries you guys end up with.”
“Implant? Is that necessary?” asked Arron, hoping for some other option.
“That’s up to you. If the pain is unbearable, then get it fixed. If not, just ignore the pain.”
Arron sighed, day by day the pain was getting worse. He didn’t know if he could last another week without going insane from the pain.
“..and how much would something like this cost?”
“Don’t worry, with your monthly salary you should be able to pay for it. That is if you are not like Ward who wastes it all on useless junk,” said Doc Octy, slapping Arron on the shoulder.
“Then please make an appointment for me,” said Arron, after several seconds of hesitation.
Doc Octy left the operating room to talk with Nurse Neca while grumbling to himself about his choice of job.
“He gets to do all the fun stuff, taking out and replacing parts, while I’m stuck here patching up idiots…”
***
The next day.
Arron sat in the well-lit front lobby of [Dr. Impleman’s Implants]. He was slightly early for his appointment so he was forced to wait.
The lobby was filled with extremely plush hover couches and reclining armchairs. The room’s atmosphere was far posher than many, if not all, the places Arron had been to on the first level.
Surprisingly, there was no secretary in the lobby and only two other people were waiting along with Arron. They were both wearing expensive flying suits and were busy typing up documents on their hidden holo-keypads.
The expensive furniture and the people inside all made him feel out of place in his work clothes.
Since he didn’t know of any other place that was a reputable implant shop, he just quietly sat there. He trusted that Doc Octys friend was good enough seeing that the business was able to stay open in the core of level one for several years and had not been shut down by Mother and Father. Unlike the hundreds of shady shops that were open one month and shut down the next.
‘Dr. Impleman must be raking in the credits if he can afford an office in the 12th Sector,’ thought Arron as he stared at the ceiling.
A sliding door at the end of the room slid open and two people walked out of it.
The one to exit the room first was a young man who was wearing dark elastic shorts that revealed his well-oiled metallic legs which shined a bright gray due to the parasteel that had been used.
“Thanks for the tuneup doctor,” said the young man.
“With the amount of running you do, that should last you a while,” said the elderly doctor patting the young man on the shoulder. He was wearing a long white lab coat that was spotless and had his long black hair pulled back and tied in a tight ponytail.
The doctor opened up a system window on his holopad and checked off a few things and typed in a few notes before he swiped the window towards the young man sending him the bill.
When the young man paid the bill and left the office, Dr. Impleman turned his attention to the three people waiting.
“Arron?” he asked.
Arron stood up and walked over to the doctor. Dr. Impleman sized him up before silently nodding.
“Right this way.”
Arron followed the man through the sliding door and down a short hallway before entering a large and dimly lit operating room. The entire room smelt like it had just bathed in strong industrial cleaning chemicals.
Along the right wall, there was nothing but rows of cabinets with various implants. On the left wall, there were hundreds of large para glass containers from ground to ceiling that were bubbling with green liquid. Inside each container were several different organs and body parts.
“Sit here,” said Dr. Impleman, slapping a plush reclining chair that looked out of place in the sterile operating room.
Several metal trays were attached to the chair with an array of different sharp tools and electric instruments neatly laying on them.
“So you are one of Octy’s patients. Don’t get many of you guys here since everyone there tends to go to the ‘Cheap’ places. Trust me you picked the right place. I have even operated on myself several times before.”
Arron couldn’t see anything that looked like an implant on the doctor’s body.
Dr. Impleman sat down on a hoverchair near Arron and tapped on an invisible menu to check the notes he had taken when the appointment had been scheduled.
“You’re here because your right eye is causing problems after an accident.”
“That is correct,” said Arron, not bothering to mention that what happened to him was no accident.
Dr. Impleman scooted right up next to the reclining Arron and looked at his right eye for several seconds. He silently picked out several sharp instruments and a few tools from one of the trays and transferred them to an empty one.
“If you want, I can replace your left eye as well. I won’t charge you any extra for the work, just the basic cost for the implant,” said Dr. Impleman, as he finished picking the proper tools he would need.
The trays holding the remaining tools silently retracted back into the large reclining chair.
“That’s okay. I only need the right eye to be replaced,” said Arron, as he eyed several of the tools that he had never seen before. He had no idea what they were used for or why so many of them were needed.
“Alright. There are three different types of implants that you can choose from. Each one fits a different price range.”
“Option One: Organic Implant. 10K credits per eye. It’s extra if you want the eye color to match your other eye. With the purchase, you can come back and get a free check-up, tune-up, or replacement. Option Two: Hybrid Implant. 5K per eye. This implant is a mixture of cybernetic and synthetic materials. It looks like an eye but is not the real thing. 5-year warranty. Option Three: the cheap implant. 1000 credits per eye. Made entirely from cybernetic material. You will have to come in every year for a replacement or an intensive repair checkup. No warranty. Each option is the base price without the standard tax set by Mother and Father,” said Dr. Impleman in a quick and well-rehearsed chant that he had repeated 1000s of times before.
“The Hybrid Implant,” said Arron after thinking it over for a few seconds.
“Right, is there any specific software you would like to have installed on it? If you are not too picky with what software you want, then you can use the basic software package that comes as a base package with no extra cost.”
“Anything that can help me with my job would be fine. I don’t need anything expensive,” said Arron.
Dr. Impleman nodded before tapping a button on the armrest of his hoverchair.
A small drone popped out from under the chair and floated over to Arron’s right eye where it started to take all the measurements it needed.
When it was done it returned to its hidey-hole.
Dr. Impleman pulled a clear mask down from the ceiling with the thick connected tube extending all the way out from a hole In the ceiling.
When the mask was placed over Arron’s mouth and nose, it automatically created a suction force firmly attaching to his face before it started to pump out an unknown gas.
“Gaseous Ethylene. It will knock you out and block the pain,” said Dr. Impleman, patting Arron’s shoulder before he stood up and walked to the far end of the left wall passing by many of the bubbling containers.
The last thing Arron saw before the Gaseous Ethylene knocked him out, was a blue synthetic eye looking back at him as it was being carried on a sterile tray.
