Kristina-Anne tried to focus on the battered magazine in the hospital waiting room. An obese man kept staring at her with a look that was half disgust and half leering, which distracted her. Would he dare try anything in a hospital?

Her mother had tried to call, but Kristina had refused, and it went to voicemail. She couldn’t figure out how to answer without letting on that something was wrong—very wrong—and her mother wouldn’t have the self-control to restrain herself from talking badly about Rick. It didn’t matter to her mother that he might die. She’d probably throw a party.

Her timing had been impeccable. Her family had cut her out of their lives when she stayed with Rick after the conviction. They almost never called, but her mother had the strangest sixth sense about when things were the scariest or most divisive in Kristina’s marriage.

The obese man was still staring at her. She narrowed her eyes and leaned toward him. He tilted his head and leaned forward too.

Without warning, she slapped him as hard as she could. “Stop fucking staring at me, asshole.”

Everyone in the room turned to look at them, but Kristina kept her unblinking eyes on the man. He set his jaw, and for a moment, Kristina considered whether she’d made a mistake. Two security guards stepped closer, but then they stopped.

The fat man broke away first, looking around the room, then muttering, “Dumb bitch.”

She went back to her magazine and the next time she looked, the man was no longer staring.

She read the magazine, something from months ago about personal automobiles and luxury houses. She practically banged her head against the glass wall between people like her and the people those articles were made for.

It hadn’t always been that way. She’d come from money, or at least some semblance of middle-class comfort.

Her life with Rick had looked promising until the…

She shook the thought away and picked up another magazine, this one only about opulent California homes, mostly on the beach or in the mountains. So many fucking granite countertops. She sighed.

It had been hours. They’d tell me right away if he was dead, right? The thought terrified her, and she pushed it away, but it hadn’t been quickly enough.

She tapped her foot on the floor, gently at first, but with more force as the activity failed to calm her. She breathed in a short, quick breath and pulled a strand of her hair hard, so hard it hurt. She focused on the pain and her heart rate slowed. It had been close. She’d almost felt it, and she couldn’t let herself feel it. When Rick was alive and well, then she’d break down and cry, but every emotion in her mind was a flat piece of glass at that moment. If she looked at her feelings the right way, they nearly disappeared, like two-dimensional paintings of fear and loss, anger and pain, turned on their sides.

A tired man entered from the surgical bay, and when he motioned to her, her heart leapt into her throat.

She stood and it was as if someone else was her and she was a ghost gone to faded place where no one saw her. Mechanically, her legs dragged her where the surgeon stood.

“You’re Mrs. Prophet?”

She nodded.

******************************************************

They’d kept him in the hospital a month, first to stabilize him and kill the rest of his infection, then for another surgery for a new implant. That had healed faster than the first surgery.

He’d been home for a day. Kristina had said little on the way to their apartment, and as soon as they got inside, she quietly stepped to their room and closed the door behind her.

Rick sighed and flopped onto the couch. He was wired, but his head hurt near the incision. He pulled a bottle from his pocket quietly and removed a pain pill, then swallowed it dry.

Hector had called while Rick was in the hospital, then came to his room to make a business proposal. He said he was willing to wait for Rick to recover, but that he wanted to sponsor Rick’s career as a professional Ruckus Online player.

Rick had tried to stall. He knew a fully functional implant would render him useless, but Hector had dangled the prospect of his future before Rick’s eyes, assuring him his “package” was safe with him. It was a threat. Bringing up Kristina’s eggs after asking for what he’d wanted couldn’t mean anything else.

He felt like an idiot for not thinking about security and storage for her eggs. More than that were the hospital bills, which Hector offered to pay if Rick played for him.

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Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been a reasonable short-term solution, despite the fact Rick now understood Hector was a much more dangerous man than he’d ever given him credit for.

These worries had plagued him during recovery, but they only got worse during the initialization of his implant training. Though he hadn’t yet practiced in the SR environment, the limited AR and VR tests were high resolution, and though he’d not yet confronted truly violent simulations yet, it didn’t look good for his future as a fighter.

What would Hector do if Rick couldn’t fight? He could blame some early problems on the difficulties of adapting to the new implant, but after that?

On the way home, the muni ads took him by surprise. He’d gotten used to their absence. He’d searched for Kristina’s sketchbooks, but it seemed she’d tucked them away somewhere, and none of her supplies were out.

The doctors had asked him about his experiences with the old implant, but he hadn’t mentioned Ditto. No one had believed him before he’d collapsed, and it would be easy to simply attribute him to a malfunctioning implant.

But what about the very real impact Ditto had on his outcomes? There was no straightforward way to explain it.

He sighed as the pain meds kicked in. He saw why people got hooked on them, but he didn’t like the unfamiliar feeling of being comfortable in his own body. He’d spent so much time disciplining his body as though it were a thing foreign to him. That’s what the doctor told him. They said his attitude had caused him to ignore the obvious signs his implant was malfunctioning, and Rick had gone along with that explanation. What else was he supposed to do? Admit he needed the implant to stay damaged so he could secure his future?

After a few minutes zoning out, he stood and went to the fridge, but passed on the beer this time. It was too early for that, and mixing the alcohol with the narcotic wasn’t something worth screwing with yet. Instead, he picked out an apple and savored its frigid crunchiness and the tartness of its taste. Each aspect of its changing flavor made him more and more interested in—

He laughed. The fucking drugs, man. Whoo! He poured a glass of water and finished the apple. He’d learned that too many opiates on an empty stomach made him nauseated. It was always better to have something in his stomach, and the fiber would help ameliorate constipation. The joys of the human body.

Tentatively, he approached the living room AR array. They’d told him at the hospital that the new implant was an improvement over the rather old tech he’d been stuck with before, but he hadn’t yet hooked up to a live, internet connected array outside a brief moment watching a video detailing his discharge instructions before he left the hospital.

He winced, anticipating pain when he plugged in the cable, but there was none. He’d gotten so used to that. The AR net came alive in front of him, and he navigated to a news site.

The vividness! The colors were brighter, and the AR elements seemed more real than they’d been with the old implant. Where the hospital discharge video was a three-dimensional representation of a flat screen, the news page was a dynamic, ever-changing swirl of competing stories. He pulled one of the scenes toward himself—one that depicted a reporter standing at a crime scene—and it expanded, hiding the other stories behind it. Rick’s heart rate climbed, and he felt as though he were pulled back into a point within himself. The reporter guided him through a synthesized reproduction of what police had put together about the crime. As soon as the simulated suspect pulled his gun, Rick got dizzy. He pushed the scene away.

Fuck. It hadn’t even been as realistic as a genuine video, and it had been enough to cause distress. He was well and truly fucked.

His phone buzzed and he sent it to the AR array. Hector’s face smiled back at him.

“Hey, Killer. You ready to get back in the game tomorrow? The rig’s all set up.”

Don’t call me Killer. Rick hesitated. “Yup. All ready to go. Just training at first until I get my bearings, right?”

His boss waved the concern away. “You’ve got time to get used to it with the fancy new equipment. You like?”

Rick touched the back of his skull. “Still hurts a bit, but it’s… uh…”

Hector grinned like the cat who caught the canary. “I put a few bucks in for top of the line—no charge. I know you’ll make it back in no time.”

And if I don’t? “Yeah? I haven’t heard from Alex yet. She okay with it?”

Hector laughed. “She’s fine. She met your wife—while you were under.”

Kristina had mentioned it, and it made him just as tense hearing about it now as it did then. “That why she’s keeping a distance?” he asked.

Hector shrugged. “Girl shit. Who knows? You figure it out, I’ll be the first in line to hear about it.” His expression got serious. “Alex mentioned you were sorta drunk for that tourney. That gonna be a problem going forward?”

Rick shook his head. “The pain was getting to me. I should have just gotten the implant checked,” he lied. “The money…” He sighed. “Don’t threaten me about my… package again, yeah?”

Hector looked sheepish, but something about it made Rick think it was a show. “I shouldn’t have done that. I was…” He put a hand on the back of his neck. “I got a lot of pressure here.”

Rick swallowed. “I’m going to try. I need some free time in your private version of the game so I can get back into form. The new implant is…”

“Whatever you need, man. There’s a rank one tournament in two weeks. I’m sure you’ll be up to it by then.”

Rick winced.

Hector backpedaled. “Of course, it’s totally okay if you can’t.”

Rick raised his hands. “I wanna get back to it as badly as you do. It’s better work, and it pays more.”

His boss’s smile was Chestershirian. “It’s fun, isn’t it?” A predatory light flashed in his eyes. “I’m not good at it, but Alex is trying to help.” This time, Hector put up his hands. “Not that I’ll ever be a pro like you and Alex.”

Rick swallowed and tried to control his breathing. “I’ll start tomorrow, but I may still be on some painkillers, so I could be sloppy at first. That’s why I want the training module with just bots.”

Hector nodded. “Yeah, whatever you need.”

“Oh, and…” He tried to seem the next part seem casual. “No Alex at first, okay?”

Hector gave him a knowing look. “Don’t wanna embarrass yourself, huh?”

Thank God. He feigned a relieved look. “I didn’t want to say it.”

“I’ll keep her out, insist I want extra training from her. How long you want me to keep her away?”

He looked around the room, as though searching for answers. “I’ll know after the first day.”

Hector gave him a few eager nods. “Done.”

“Alright man,” Rick said. “Thanks for checking on me.”

The older man winked. “I always check in on my investments.”

Rick narrowed his eyes. “Right.”

“Later.” His boss’s image disappeared, and the news story came back to the front again.

A wave of nausea rippled through Rick. He endured it, as well as the anxiety for as long as he could.

Thirty seconds passed on the clock before he had to close the window.