I laughed a little at Dr.Whisper and looked around my room, “HAHA! Good one, Doc! Getting some sexy nurse to use your name and talk to me! Really clever! You can come out now! I need to talk to you!”

Dr.Whisper blinked at me a few times and asked, “Who are you talking to? I am Dr.Whisper.”

I chuckled at her words and said, “No, no, no. Dr.Whisper is a man. I know that for a fact. He’s the one who performed surgery on me. A lot of surgery.”

“Umm, Fives, about dat,” Adjani began to say before he was interrupted.

“Do you mean Dr.Ellie Whisper?” Dr.Whisper asked, sounding a little offended and surprised at the same time.

“Yes. Dr.Ellie Whisper. Not some purple-haired goddess using his name,” I confirmed.

Dr.Whisper bit her lip and shook her head, looking just a little offended and angry, all while not losing her smile. “Well, for your information, Dr.Ellie Whisper is my father, and he’s been missing for about two years. I am Dr.Elaina Whisper, and the last time I saw him was when I graduated med school. His last words to me were that he was proud of me and hoped I would surpass him. Then, he disappeared from my life, and I never saw him again,” Dr.Elaina Whisper informed me, sounding very angry now, “Now, should we talk about your surgery, or do I need to get you a new doctor?”

I fell silent for a moment as I processed the information, turned to Adjani, and swatted at him, “Why! Didn’t! You! Tell! Me! Sooner!?”

“Everyone kept interruptin’ me!” Adjani defended as he backed away, out of my reach.

“You wouldn’t have been interrupted if you didn’t stop for a quick twenty creds!”

“Hey! Twenty creds is twenty creds, and I would never charge such a beautiful man!”

“Oh, so you’re a bottom and a ho!”

“OKAY!” Dr.Whisper yelled over us, “I am leaving you to a different doctor. Goodbye!”

“Wait! Wait! Wait,” I said, raising my hands placatingly, “Come sit, let’s talk medical stuff.”

Dr.Whisper stared at me for a moment, then walked to the foot of the bed and opened the folder, “Your leg was shattered in six places. Two fractures in your femur and two in your tibia and fibula. During your surgery, we’ll put you under anesthesia and extract the—”

“Did your father leave you anything before he left?” I asked, interrupting her.

Dr.Whisper glared at me, “Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

Dr.Whisper wrinkled her nose at me and reached into her scrubs to pull out a metal chain necklace with a single long, thin, black rectangle on it. “Here, happy now?” She asked, very annoyed about talking about her dad.

I squinted at the necklace, faining not to see it, “No, can you come closer? Last thing I’ll ask about, promise.”

She rolled her eyes but came within a foot of me, still holding out the necklace, “Can you see it now?”

I nodded, and with a swift, practiced move, I reached out and yanked the necklace off her. The metal chain snapped easily and slid out of the black rectangle through the hole at the top of it. Dr.Whisper yelped in surprise and stumbled back a few steps before quickly moving to the door. “Stop her,” I commanded, and Adjani complied. He grabbed her arm and pulled as he slapped a hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming again and hid out of view of the room’s door.

After a few moments of silence and nobody checking in on the room, I sighed in relief, “Relax, Doc. We’re not going to hurt you,” I pointed at the wheelchair between us and said, “Sit. I’d like to have a civilized conversation.”

I turned my attention back to the rectangle in my hands as Adjani slowly let go of the good doctor so she could sit. It was only five inches long and half an inch wide, with no grooves, crevices, and no holes. I paused. There was a hole at the top of it before. Where did it go? I ran my fingers along its sides until I heard a soft ding that only dogs and I could hear. I mentally marked where my finger was when I heard the ding and pressed the spot again. Nothing happened. I pressed it again, and another ding.

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I smiled and turned to Dr.Whisper, who was shakily sitting in the wheelchair, “Do you know what this is?” I asked, gesturing to the rectangle.

Dr.Whisper shook her head, “No, only that it belonged to my father.”

“What do you know about your father’s work?” I asked next.

“Nothing, just that he was an excellent surgeon,” the doctor answered, a pleading fear creeping into her voice.

My smile widened, “Your dad was a biotech genius. And I don’t use genius lightly. He was the master of genetics, bio-memory storage, surgical nanites, and so much more,” I gestured to the rectangle in my hand, “When you touch this, do you hear a beep sometimes? And on that note, how good is your hearing?”

“My hearing is excellent. The best in the hospital. But I’ve never heard it make any sounds.”

I bit my lower lip and re-focused on the rectangle. I pressed the spot that makes beeps twice to make it beep again and ran a thumb down from that spot to the bottom of the rectangle to make another beep, “Your father was more than just a tech genius,” I said as I found a spot in the bottom middle to make a third beep, “he was a predictive genius,” I heard a fourth beep three-quarter of the way up and on the back side, “When I told him I intended to fight my Master and claim my title, do you know what he said?” a fifth beep a quarter way up and on the top side, “He said, ‘I’ll be there to patch you up with three new limbs and a fourth for good measure.’ And well, he was right. I did need three. With a fourth for good measure.” And a sixth and final beep on the very top of the rectangle.

The black rectangle began to spin, morph, and grow into a cylinder twice as wide and an inch taller, with a red glowing ring around a button at the top with the Roman numeral five on it. “What is that?!” Dr.Whisper asked, sounding more than a little afraid.

The red ring dinged, and a tenth of it turned green, “It’s a memory stick,” I answered with a gleeful grin. I put the stick in my mouth to hold it and slid out of bed and into the doctor’s lap, wrapping my arms around her neck as though we were lovers on our honeymoon. “Adjani,” I said, turning to him as I took the stick out of my mouth, “Be a doll and get a few scalpels and other surgical supplies. But mostly scalpels.”

“Heard dat. I’ll see who— what I can do,” Adjani complied and left the room.

The red ring dinged again, and another tenth turned green. Dr.Whisper eyed it suspiciously and with fear, “What are you going to do with that?” She asked.

I looked into her beautiful golden eyes and said, “I’m going to use it on you. If Dr.Whisper felt it prudent to give you a memory stick, it means he’s dead. It’s something I intend to look into. And since he designed this so only I could unlock and use it, that means he couldn’t avoid whatever happened to him and wanted you to take over his work.”

“More like he wants to use me as a tool and replace my mind with his,” Dr.Whisper said, shaking her head in disgust as another tenth of the ring turned green, “My father. Using me like a worthless tool.”

I cocked my head at her as she spoke, and after a moment, another tenth turned green. “That’s not true at all,” I countered, “You really know nothing about your dad, do you?”

“How should I? He was hardly there?!” Dr.Whisper snapped on the verge of tears.

Another tenth turned green, and I shook my head, “Another thing about your father is that he never lies.” Another tenth turned green as I paused for a moment to let my words sink in, “He would come up to me and tell me in detail the most horrendous surgery stories, so horrible they gave me nightmares.” Another tenth turned green, “He called me a monster after I told him my story about my parents.”

“Yeah, and?” Dr.Whisper asked, as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“When I asked him if he would kill his family,” another tenth turned green, “He said, ‘I love and care for my family too much to kill them, and I am too proud of my daughter to hurt her in any way.”

Another tenth turned green as Dr.Whisper whimpered, “Did he really say that?” a small smile forming at the corner of her lips.

The final tenth turned green, and I shrugged, “No. When I asked that, he threw a scalpel at me and told me to go fuck myself.” Then, I placed the bottom of the stick at the base of her neck and pressed the button.

Dr.Whisper’s eyes went wide, and her body became stiff as though she was having a seizure. After a moment, her body relaxed, and she passed out. That’s when Adjani walked back into the room with his hands in his black coat. “I’ve got everythin’ we need,” he said as he pulled out ten scalpels, two suture scissors, a dozen plastic bags with needle and thread, and three forceps. I nodded, raising my hands for him to pull me up. Adjani rolled his eyes, “We should’ve just let yuh have de surgery, and den I wouldn’t have to carry yuhr fat ass around.”

I took supplies from his hands and set them on Dr.Whisper’s lap as he picked me up and put me on the bed. “If we got the surgery, the hospital would learn that my prosthetics are stolen experimental tech, and we’d be arrested,” I fired back.

“Hey!” the door to my room opened, and an old female nurse came barging in, “I saw you stealing from the supply closet! What did you take?!” the woman yelled, then noticed the unconscious Dr.Whisper. She flushed with anger and said, “I’m getting security!” and before she could even turn and run, a scalpel came out of nowhere and impaled her throat. The nurse fell against the wall and slowly slid down it as blood began to flow down her throat.

I smiled and turned to face the now half-conscious Dr.Whisper as her face contorted into realization over what she’d just done. I clapped my hands slowly and said, “Well done, Doc. Now you’re on our side.”