“You focus on my voice. I can’t use any drugs to knock you out yet. It’ll just make this whole thing take longer. The nanos will split time between healing your feet and processing the drugs out of your body, and it won’t help you. Once your feet are mostly healed, I’ll put you to sleep. The second I can, I promise I will. You hang on until then.”

I couldn’t help crying. I hated it. I hated feeling weak and right now, I was weaker than I’d been in a long time. But the sob slipped free, and I couldn’t help it.

If there were a hell, then I was in it.

The burning faded and then it was like needles sewing my skin. The twitches under my skin made the burning from the implant I’d had seem like child’s play.

“I swear, the nanos will burn out with this job in a few hours, tops. Your feet are that bad.”

“It-t’s o-ok-kay.” It came out half-sob.

She patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry about talking. Focus on breathing. This first hour will be the worst. Then it’ll get better. You ever had them before?”

I nodded, and I’d swore I’d never to have them again.

“If it was because you were sick, then they probably stuck around for a while. But they only last that long with illness, especially common illnesses. With an injury, they burn out much faster. It’s more work for them. I know I told you that you’d be fine and I was wrong, but I’m not wrong about this.”

The nanos flared, and it felt like a thousand needles ripping into my feet.

I screamed, and she gripped my hand tighter.

“You’re feeling your feet and the repair. Humans only feel the injury, and it slowly gets better. But you won’t be that lucky. You get injury plus the repair plus the energy imbalance. I’m going to keep on talking. You feel the need to pass out, you go on, but I’m here with you to the end. You listen to my voice.” She squeezed my hand. “I was born in New York…”

For the next hour, I heard all about Audrey Faith Paris. How when she was twelve, she and her father managed to hide her mother during Liberation Week but lost her to a common illness a year later. Which prompted Audrey to go into the medical field. With homeschooling and online classes, she moved through high school and was an undergrad in a few years. She knew that there were other halfers out there and she wanted to be there to help them. So she raced her way through medical school.