The humming stops. Air rushes down her throat and fills her chest. It feels good to gasp again. "How's her heart?" Prodmaster.

"Good. Bit of defib at first, but okay now."

Mr. Canton bends over from the head of the table: maggot skin stretched across a human face. "It's okay, Ms. Caraco. We're just here to help you. Can you understand?"

She tries to talk. It's an effort. "g-g-g-g-G—O—."

"What?"

"Th-this is Scanlon's work. Right? S-Scanlon's fucking revenge."

Mr. Canton looks up at someone beyond Caraco's field of view.

"Industrial psych." The redhead's voice. "No one important."

He looks back down. "Ms. Caraco, I don't know what you're talking about. We're going to take your eyecaps out now. It won't do you any good to struggle. Just relax."

Hands hold her head in position. Caraco clamps her eyes shut; they pry the left one open. She stares into something like a big hypo with a disk on the end. It settles on her eyecap, bonds with a faint sucking sound.

It pulls away. Light floods in like acid.

She wrenches her head to one side and shuts her eye against the stinging. Even filtered through her closed eyelid the light burns, an orange fire bringing tears. Then they have her again, twisting her head forward, fumbling at her face—

"Turn the lights down, you idiot! She's photosensitive!"

The redhead?

"—Sorry. We kept them at half, I thought—"

The light dims. Her eyelids go black.

"Her irises haven't had to work for almost a year," the redhead snaps. "Give her a chance to adjust, for Christ's sake."

She's in charge here?

Footsteps. A rattle of instruments.

"Sorry about that, Ms. Caraco. We've lowered the lights now, is that better?"

Go away. Leave me alone.

"Ms. Caraco, I'm sorry, but we still have to remove your other cap."

She keeps her eyes squeezed shut. They pull the cap out of her face anyway. The straps loosen around her body, drop off. She hears them backing away.

"Ms. Caraco, we've turned the lights down. You can open your eyes."

The lights. I don't care about the fucking lights. She curls up on the table and buries her face in her hands.

"She doesn't look so tough now, does she?"

"Shut up, Burton. You can be a real asshole sometimes, you know that?"

The sound of an airtight hatch hissing shut. A dense, close silence settles on Caraco's eardrums.

An electrical hum. "Judy." the redhead's voice: not in person, this time. From a speaker somewhere. "We don't want this to be any worse than it has to be."

Caraco holds her knees tightly against her chest. She can feel the scars there, a raised web of old tissue from the time they cut her open. Eyes still shut, she runs her fingers along the ridges.

I want my eyes back.