Heather Lee heard the whisper of the slap’s approach before she felt it, a strike designed to bring her back into consciousness. With the hit, she took a sharp intake of breath and tried to get her bearings.

She quickly became aware of three things. One, she was nude underneath a rough blanket that draped her body as she sat in a chair of some sort.

Two, she was restrained, with her wrists, ankles, neck and waist strapped down to the chair.

Three, she was blind, with something tightly binding and covering her head and face.

None of these were positive developments, in Lee’s opinion.

“You’re awake,” said a voice, weirdly modulated. It jumped around in pitch and timbre.

This interested Lee. “What’s going on with your voice?” she asked.

There was a brief pause before the response. “That’s not the first question we got from your two compatriots,” the voice said. “They were more concerned with where they were and why they were being held.”

“I’m sorry,” Lee said. “I wasn’t aware there was a protocol.”

This got a chuckle. “My voice is being modulated because we know you have one of those computers in your head,” the voice said. “And we know that if you’re not recording me already, you will be at some point in time, and that you could use that to record and identify me. I would prefer that not to happen. For the same reason we’ve blindfolded you, so you cannot record any visual things that would give us away. And of course we’ve also restrained you so that you stay put for now. We’ve taken your combat uniform because we know it provides you with strength and defense advantages, and we don’t want you to have that. I do apologize for that.”

“Do you,” Lee said, as dryly as she could in the circumstance.

“Yes,” the voice said. “Although you have no reason to believe me at the moment, you should understand that we have no interest in abusing you, either physically or sexually. Removing your combat uniform was a defensive procedure, nothing more.”

“I’d believe you more if you hadn’t slapped me awake,” Lee said.

“You were surprisingly resistant to waking up,” the voice said. “How do you feel?”

“I have a headache,” Lee said. “My muscles are sore. I am dying of thirst. I have to pee. I am restrained. I’m blind. How are you?”

“Better than you, I will admit,” the voice said. “Six, water.”

What? Lee thought, and then there was something at her lips, a hard plastic nipple. Liquid came out of it; Lee drank it. It was water, so far as she could tell.

“Thank you,” she said, after a minute. “Why did you say ‘six’?”