Chapter 18 You May Experience Discomfort
YOU MAY EXPERIENCE DISCOMFORT
Bones
They don’t blindfold me. They don’t restrain me either, not at first.
That should worry me more than it does.
The most worrying thing, though, is the total blankness and blinding pain I get when I try to recall what happened.
I wake on a table that isn’t really a table. Transparent composite, reinforced, temperature-neutral. It supports my weight evenly, no pressure points, no wobble. Whoever designed it understands bodies.
The room is glass.
Not walls with windows. Walls made of it. Ceiling too. The floor beneath the table is just opaque enough to give the illusion of privacy without actually providing it. Light comes from everywhere at once, cool and unwavering.
Clinical. Honest.
A lie.
I flex my fingers. They respond normally. I turn my head. Neck movement intact. No restraints. No physical pain.
No kindness either. No short-term memory. Which is deeply concerning.
A voice speaks from somewhere above and behind me, amplified just enough to be clear.
“Subject Bones is awake.”
I exhale slowly. “I’m not your subject.”
“Noted,” the voice says. “For the duration of this procedure, you are.”
Procedure. Singular.
Interesting.
I sit up. No alarms. No correction. That tells me I’m allowed to move – for now.
My clothes have been replaced with thin medical fabric, open-backed. Practical. Easy access. They haven’t bothered with modesty because modesty interferes with efficiency.
There are instruments arranged on trays along the far wall. Not hidden. Not disguised. Everything is labelled, neatly, almost politely.
Scalpels. Injectors. Calipers. A device I recognise with a sick twist of familiarity: bone stressor, designed to induce controlled microfractures.
They want me to see.
“Before we begin,” the voice says, “you will be briefed.”
“Generous of you,” I reply, voice steady. “You usually brief people you plan to keep alive.”
A pause. Then: “Your survival probability is currently estimated at ninety-eight point six per cent.”
That number lands like a weight.
“Generous margins,” I say.
“We prefer accuracy,” the voice replies. “You will undergo a series of controlled structural stress tests. Damage will be induced, monitored, and repaired. Pain management will be minimal, to avoid interference with recovery data.”
I swing my legs off the table and stand. The floor is cool under my bare feet. Real. Solid.
“What happens if I refuse?” I ask. A flicker of a memory, of defiance, ripples through me but it’s gone like a songbird before I can assess it. Interesting.
Another pause, shorter this time.
“The procedure will continue.”
There it is. No threats. No raised voices. No theatre.
Just inevitability.
I nod once. “Then you might as well explain it properly.”
The lights adjust subtly, focusing on a section of wall where a display flickers to life. A schematic of a human skeleton rotates slowly, highlights blooming and fading.
“Your physiology exhibits above-average bone density and recovery rates,” the voice says. “We intend to quantify the upper limits of both.”
“So you’re going to break me,” I say.
“Yes.”
“And put me back together.”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Until the data set is sufficient.”
I let out a breath through my nose. “You could have asked.”
“We did,” the voice says calmly. “You declined.”
Fair.
A mechanical arm descends from the ceiling, stopping a safe distance from my left forearm. It holds the bone stressor, adjusted to size.
“Before each test,” the voice continues, “you will be asked to predict outcomes. Estimated pain level. Structural damage. Recovery time.”
“And if I don’t?” I ask.
“You will still undergo the procedure. However, predictive accuracy is one of the variables we are measuring.”
They don’t just want my body.
They want my understanding of it.
I look at the device, then at the schematic still rotating on the wall. Radius and ulna highlighted now, glowing faintly.
“On a scale of one to ten,” the voice says, “estimate your expected pain.”
I consider. Not philosophically. Clinically.
“Six,” I say. “Sharp onset, localised. Manageable.”
“Structural damage?”
“Microfracture. No displacement.”
“Recovery time?”
“Functional within forty-eight hours. Full density restoration in ten to fourteen days.”
The mechanical arm hums softly.
“Proceeding,” the voice says.
The device clamps around my forearm.
Pressure builds. Slow. Controlled. Precise.
The pain arrives exactly as predicted – clean, bright, contained. My jaw tightens but I don’t cry out. There’s a distinct sensation of something giving way inside the bone, a vibration more than a sound.
I inhale through it. Exhale. Catalogue.
The clamp releases.
I look down at my arm. No blood. No visible deformity. Just a deep, throbbing ache and the knowledge of damage beneath the skin.
The display updates.
“Prediction accuracy: high,” the voice notes. “Pain assessment within acceptable variance.”
“Congratulations,” I mutter.
A second arm descends, this one holding a scanner. It passes over my forearm, mapping the damage in real time. The schematic updates, a fine crack glowing where I know it should be.
They’re not guessing.
They’re confirming.
“Recovery protocols will begin now,” the voice says. “You may experience discomfort.”
A different injector presses against my skin. I feel the cold sting of something entering my bloodstream – accelerants, stimulants, god knows what else. The ache in my arm shifts, deepening, heating, as the bone responds.
I grit my teeth.
They watch. Of course they do. Every micro-expression, every twitch.
Time passes measured in heartbeats.
“Next test,” the voice says.
They don’t ask if I’m ready.
This time it’s my tibia. Then my ribs. Then my collarbone.
Each time, the same ritual. Prediction. Pressure. Pain. Data.
I get most of them right.
That’s the problem.
I sit back on the table between tests, sweat cooling on my skin, body aching in ways that overlap and blur. They give me water. Not kindness. Maintenance.
“You are adapting,” the voice observes after the fifth fracture. “Your predictions are becoming more precise.”
“Practice,” I say. My voice is tight now, edges fraying. “I learn fast.”
“Yes,” the voice agrees. “That is why you are valuable.”
There it is. The word. Valuable.
I laugh, a short, humourless sound. “You know what’s funny?”
The voice does not respond.
“You think this is efficient,” I continue. “But you’re missing a variable.”
“Specify.”
I look up at the glass ceiling, at my own faint reflection staring back, fractured and whole all at once. This is new. It’s different. Why?
“Pain teaches,” I say. “But it also lies.”
Another pause.
“Clarify.”
I shift my weight, feeling the protest from multiple sites, each one singing its own sharp note. “Pain narrows focus. It makes you predictable. You think you’re measuring my limits, but you’re really measuring how well I tolerate what you expect.”
The mechanical arms still.
For the first time since waking, the room feels…attentive.
“You are suggesting,” the voice says slowly, “that our data is incomplete.”
“I’m suggesting,” I reply, “that you are overconfident.”
Silence stretches.
Then: “Proceed.”
This time, they don’t tell me where.
The device clamps around my hand, fingers splayed awkwardly. Small bones. Complex. Easy to damage badly.
“Pain estimate?” the voice asks.
I hesitate.
This is where it changes. Where I realise the shape of the trap.
If I answer honestly, I help them refine the model. If I lie badly, they’ll know. If I refuse, they’ll proceed anyway.
They want my cooperation dressed up as participation.
“Seven,” I say.
The clamp tightens.
The pain is immediate and vicious, a lightning strike that rips a sound from my throat before I can stop it. My vision whites out at the edges. Something in my hand gives with a sickening crunch.
I gasp, chest heaving.
“Structural damage?” the voice prompts, calm as ever.
I swallow hard, tasting copper. “Multiple fractures,” I manage. “Metacarpals.”
“Recovery time?”
My vision clears enough to see the schematic update, glowing lines spiderwebbing across the hand.
Here. This is the point.
If I tell them the truth, they adjust. They refine. They improve the next iteration.
So I don’t.
“Three weeks,” I say.
The actual answer is longer. I know that. They know it too – or they will.
“Noted,” the voice says.
The scanner passes over my hand. There’s a subtle shift in the hum of the machines, a fractional recalibration as they process the discrepancy.
“Prediction accuracy reduced,” the voice says. Not angry. Curious. “Explain.”
I breathe through the pain, slow and deliberate. “Pain interfered with assessment.”
“Pain levels were within projected parameters.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “It still interfered.”
Silence.
I can almost hear them thinking, algorithms spinning, recalculating.
“Proceed with recovery,” the voice says finally.
The injector hits, but this time the relief is slower. Less effective. My hand throbs, fire blooming and receding in waves.
They’re testing whether the lie was intentional.
Good.
Test away.
The next predictions I skew slightly. Not wildly. Just enough to muddy the curve. Pain underestimated here. Recovery overestimated there.
Each time, the system notes it. Each time, the margin of error widens.
“You are introducing noise into the data,” the voice says after the next test, this one a hairline fracture along my spine that leaves me trembling.
“Yes,” I agree.
“Why?”
I meet my reflection in the glass. I look wrecked. Pale. Sweat-soaked. But my eyes are clear.
“Because you’re not the only one learning,” I say.
Another pause. Longer now.
“Your cooperation is no longer optimal,” the voice says.
“I was never cooperating,” I reply. “I was participating.”
The difference matters.
The next procedure is worse. Less controlled. The stressor applies pressure faster, pushing closer to displacement. They’re punishing the defiance, dressing it up as escalation.
The pain is sharp enough that I bite down hard enough to feel my teeth shift.
I still lie to them.
I accept the extra damage as the price.
Eventually – hours later, or days, it’s hard to tell – they stop.
Not because I’m broken. Not because they’re satisfied. Because the data has become unreliable.
The mechanical arms retract. The lights soften marginally, the bare minimum of concession.
“Procedure suspended,” the voice announces. “You will be monitored during recovery.”
I sag back against the table, every inch of me aching, buzzing, alive.
They think they’ve won something.
But here’s what they don’t understand yet: I don’t need to escape to fight them. I just need to make myself expensive.
I close my eyes, breathing through the pain, already cataloguing how long it will really take to heal.
And how much it will cost them next time.