They would address her physical problems first, Ao Tara said. Then they would move to the true enlightenment of the dakini, whatever the hell that meant. A collective consciousness, unity with human and machine-kind, greater understanding of the world. It sounded like the ravings of every drug-addled or deeply religious person that she’d encountered. In the midst of her skepticism, Welga lost consciousness.

She awoke to a muddle of sensory input. Dim light surrounded her. The surgeon’s outline blurred, and a low hum filled her ears. She tried to move and thought she’d succeeded, but a downward glance said otherwise. Her body stayed still. She hung facedown, or so it seemed. In this microgravity room, direction had little meaning or consequence.

“Por Qué?”

“Good morning. Whatever it takes.”

Stop the Machinehood. “Thank Christ. Or Buddha. What’s happened?”

“You’ve received your first treatments, and you are currently in the second day of recovery.”

“Shit.”

“Is there a problem? Are you in pain?”

“No. No, I can’t feel a thing. I don’t remember any of it.”

What treatment was she supposed to have first? Recall proved hard in her current state of mind. Thoughts popped like soap bubbles when she reached for them.

“The initial treatment bypasses the neurological pathways that became dependent on the cerebral effects of zips. It also includes distributed processing elements that enhance my abilities,” Por Qué said.

Had she asked her agent?

“You did not request my help, but I could sense your difficulty.”

Really? Can you read my mind?

“I am not telepathic, Welga, but this surgery gave me permanent sensory residence in your brain. I’m getting better at interpreting the signals and extrapolating from years of data about you.”

How?

“Instead of being contained in a tiny processing unit and communicating through audiovisual means, I have significantly more computational power, and I can detect your cerebral activity through a distributed network of nano-scale carriers and scaffolds. The materials will break down over time, but they’ll be replenished via a generator built into your body. That surgery hasn’t yet happened.”

Well, shit, that’s almost as good as mind reading.

“For example, you cannot move your muscles right now, but thinking about speech activates neurological activity that I can track and interpret.”

Why doesn’t the military have this tech?

“According to the station WAI, the US military is aware of it, but they aren’t authorized to make this level of modification to a human body. Microgravity affects your physiology in multiple ways, from bone mass to cataracts to DNA repair. Genes express themselves differently here. That means therapies must target biogenetic systems in a different way than they do on Earth. Stations legalized modifications that most world governments have outlawed due to the risks, some of which are severe at surface gravity.”