Cyber's Change

by Jamie Davis

  The food helped from what Cass could see. Shelby and the others had all perked up by the time they finished breakfast.

  Cass checked her watch. “We need to go. It’s almost time for our reservation. You all know I’m not going to go easy on you just because you’re all hungover.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” Shelby said. “I’m ready to take you on.” She didn’t sound as if she meant it, though.

  Cass noticed Shelby didn’t have the usual bounce in her step. “Hey, we don’t have to do this right now.”

  “I’ll feel better once more of breakfast hits my system,” Shelby replied. “The implant uses more blood sugar for power than the rest of my brain. I should have eaten more last night before I went to bed.”

  Cass laughed. “I’m not sure you could have kept it down. You were pretty far gone by the time we made it back to our room. You’re not planning on doing that every night we’re here, are you?”

  Shelby raised a hand to her forehead with a pained look on her face. “Good Lord, no. That was a bit much even for me.”

  “I’m glad,” Cass said. “I wanted a little attention last night and you were in no condition to give it to me.”

  Shelby put her arm around Cass’s waist. “I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Cass said as they headed out to the beach following the other two couples.

  The guy running the jet ski operation on the beach had everything all set up for them. There were six wave riders tied up in the lagoon just beyond where the small swells of waves formed.

  Shelby had made the reservation, so she headed over and checked in while Cass and the rest of them put their stuff down and stripped down to their swim suits. Cass kicked off her flip-flops and ran over to where Shelby was chatting with the operator of the concession.

  “They’re really easy to operate, Miss. You just twist the throttle on the handle to make it speed up, and let go to make it stop. Turn the handle bars left or right to steer.”

  Shelby nodded. “I’m sure we’ll get the hang of it. We have them for the full hour, right?”

  “Yes ma’am. I’ll come out and flag you down to let you know when your time is almost up. Otherwise, you can just come in whenever you’re done before then.”

  Shelby turned towards the other five girls. “Come on, they’re all set and ready to go. We’ve only got them for an hour, so let’s go.”

  All six of them cheered as they waded out and climbed aboard their jet skis. The operator started and untied the jet skis and gave them all a gentle push towards the center of the lagoon. Soon, all six women raced off through the swells near the shoreline, heading for the calmer water in the center of the lagoon.

  As the wind blew through Cass’s hair, a shiver of excitement passed down her spine. She’d never done anything like this before and it was the most fun she’d ever had. She hadn’t a care in the world and no worries.

  For a while, all six of them chased each other around in circles. Then they headed down the beach a distance from where they started. The course marked with bobbing orange buoys gave them obstacles to weave through as they rode.

  After they’d been riding and racing for a half hour, Shelby called out and pointed to a rocky outcropping a little farther offshore. It jutted up about fifteen feet in the air from the larger sea swells coming into the lagoon.

  Cass saw it and knew what Shelby wanted. She said, “Hey, let’s all race from here around that rock and back to the shore. Last one in has to buy us all drinks at the bar later.”

  Their reply came as a chorus of shouts and trash talk.

  Before Cass could do it, Shelby laughed and raised her hand in the air. “Ready?”

  “Yes!” Cass yelled out.

  The others hooted and hollered their own replies.

  Without warning, Shelby pulled her hand down as she yelled in rapid succession, “3-2-1, go.”

  By the time Shelby said the word go she’d already twisted the throttle all the way with her other hand. Her jet ski took off, getting a big head start on the others.

  “Hey, not fair!” Cass yelled. She leaned over the handle bars as she goosed her own throttle and took off after her roommate. She screamed with delight as she chased after Shelby, the wind whistling past her ears.

  Cass and the other four girls on the trailing jet skis rode in a tight pack, all jockeying to get in position to try and catch up with Shelby.

  They’d closed the distance some by the time Shelby got to the rock. She slowed a little and took the turn a little wide.

  Cass saw her chance. She could cut the turn short and beat Shelby around to the other side if she kept her jet ski at full speed.

  She was so intent on beating her girlfriend, Cass didn’t realize why Shelby had steered wide.

  A shelf of rock jutted out from the outcropping just beneath the water. Cass didn’t see it until the very last instant.

  Too late, she jerked the handle bars to the right to try and avoid the rocks. Despite the last-minute twist to the side, Cass’s jet ski hit the submerged ledge at full speed.

  She sailed over the handlebars head first, slamming into rocks jutting up from the reef.

  Cass’s last thoughts consisted of a mix of terror and disappointment. Then, everything went black.

  Chapter 8

  Shelby sat in the hospital waiting room, leaning forward with her head in her hands. For the hundredth time she squeezed her eyes shut as the events played over again in her mind.

  She still couldn’t believe what had happened. The whole accident unfolded in front of her like something out of a holovid horror show.

  Shelby didn’t realize Cass didn’t see the submerged rock until it was way too late to try and warn her. If only she’d thought to pull up and wave her off.

  The images played through her mind again.

  Cass flew from the jet ski, her arms and legs flailing like a rag doll. She slammed into the rocks headfirst. As her crumpled body slumped down into the waves, Shelby remembered thinking she had to be dead.

  Only the quick thinking of Katie and Alison, both nursing students, saved Cass’s life.

  The two of them jumped off their jet skis and swam over to where Cass floated face down at the base of the rocks. They rolled her over to keep her mouth and nose out of the water.

  The rescue squad boat arrived quickly, although it seemed like it took them forever at the time. Shelby knelt nearby on the partially submerged shelf of rock holding onto Cass’s outstretched hand as the island rescue paramedics set to work.

  There’d been so much blood in the water and all over Cass, Shelby didn’t think anything could be done.

  The rescue workers kept doing what they could to stabilize Cass. After working to secure her to a floating stretcher and stop the worst of the bleeding, the rescue team lifted Cass out of the water and took off in their rescue boat for the harbor.

  Shelby sat alone with the other four women on the rocks as the boat raced away, its siren blaring against the backdrop of seagulls screeching overhead.

  By the time Shelby got back to shore with her friends, it was almost an hour after the accident first happened. She raced to the front desk to try and find out where they took Cass.

  It took Shelby nearly another hour, with the help of the hotel clerk, to find out where they’d taken Cass and arrange for a boat to the neighboring island where the main hospital was located.

  Now all she and the others could do was sit here and wait. When they’d arrived, the nurse at the desk told them the doctors were operating on Cass and they were doing all they could for her.

  A clerk came out right after they got there to ask if anyone had any contact information for Cass’s family. Shelby looked at the other four then stood up and shrugged, muttering, “No, why?”

  “We need to speak to someone about her care. Are you her next of kin or partner?” The woman asked Shelby.

  “I guess I’m as close as there is down here,”
Shelby said, not realizing what she’d agreed to.

  The woman held out a tablet for Shelby to sign.

  “We just need your consent here to perform life-saving measures as needed.”

  Shelby considered the form on the tablet for only a few seconds before she signed, unsure what it all meant but wanting them to save Cass no matter what it took.

  She sat down to wait with the others again. Shelby probably could’ve found a contact number for Cass’s parents if she’d tried hard enough. They were the legal next of kin but Shelby wasn’t in the mood to spring her cyber identity on Cass’s parents like that, while telling them their daughter was in a horrible accident. It was better if she waited until she knew something more about her condition.

  Shelby knew it was a decision based in part on her own cowardice. She promised herself she’d find a way to contact them after Cass was out of surgery. It didn’t matter what they thought of her then.

  After sitting with the other four girls in the waiting room for more than four hours, a doctor in pastel green scrubs and a floral cap came out to find them. She was a short woman with dark skin and a set of telescoping ocular implants that Shelby would’ve thought were pretty cool in any other situation. She supposed they would be super helpful for a surgeon.

  The doc came over to them where they sat and asked, “Are you the friends who are here with Cass Armstrong, the girl injured in the jet ski accident?”

  Shelby stood up. “Yes, we are. How is she?”

  The doctor glanced at the tablet she held and looked up at Shelby. “You’re Shelby Moore, her partner?”

  “Uh, yes, that’s me.”

  The doctor smiled and said, “She’s going to be all right given enough time to recover and adjust. She was very seriously injured. Based on her head injury, we thought we were going to have little chance to save her but we managed to stabilize her. Lucky for her, in the end, our efforts and neural regeneration should restore a good deal of her normal function.”

  “What do you mean by normal function?” Shelby didn’t like the way that sounded for some reason. It triggered something in the back of her mind, something that upset her for some reason.

  “ Cass’s injury happened to come at a time advantageous to her outcome. We recently received some new cerebral cybernetics from the mainland. They are some of the latest gear, which we don’t always have on hand. Given the fact that she was on a student trip from the U.S., it was all covered under her student insurance plan.”

  “What was covered?” Shelby stared at the doctor as it dawned on her what the woman was saying. “You said implants. Did you…?”

  “It was the only way we could save her life. She had a severe brain injury and the blow destroyed part of her optic nerve on the right side. We had to do something to retain function or she would have been paralyzed on one side for the rest of her life. We managed to get everything in place in plenty of time for her body to avoid rejection. The nano bots went in and did their work making all the neural connections to the cybernetic core. It’ll take her a little while to get used to it, but she’ll be all right. After an adjustment period and some therapy, she should be almost as good as new.”

  “It’s not something she ever wanted. She doesn’t believe in them.” Shelby shook her head. She didn’t know what else to say. She wasn’t going to yell at the doctor for saving Cassie’s life.

  “When can we go see her?” Katie asked.

  “You can come back two at a time to see her, but only for a few minutes each. If you want, Shelby, you may stay by her side tonight. The nurses don’t mind. It might help Cass to see a face she knows when she wakes up later. What she needs most now is rest as the final neural connections are made while she sleeps.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Shelby said.

  “Not a problem. If you need anything, ask the nurse and I’ll be happy to try to get back to you as quickly as possible, otherwise, the residents in the ICU can answer any questions that might come up.”

  The doctor glanced at the tablet again. “I know you said you’re her partner. I don’t suppose you have anything to support that, do you?”

  “No, I’m sorry. We’re on vacation and didn’t bring anything like that with us.”

  “That’s all right. We can confirm with her family if you don’t. Do you have any contact information for her family? We plan to send a request to the University, but it’s after hours so we’ll wait until morning.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, Doctor,” Shelby said. “I’ll be able to find that for you. They’re traveling right now. I don’t think the University has their current information updated.”

  “All right, I’ll tell my clerk to remove the query from her to-do list. Make sure you get that to me right away when you find it. You can find me in the hospital directory over the net.”

  “Thank you again, Doctor.”

  The doctor walked away and Shelby turned to the other girls.

  “Did she say they gave Cass an implant?” Alison asked. “Isn’t she going to be super pissed about that?”

  Shelby shrugged, then sighed and nodded. “Probably, but they had to save her life, right?”

  “It must’ve been pretty serious if they did it without asking anyone’s permission,” Lisa said.

  Shelby thought back to what she’d signed earlier when the clerk mistook her for Cass’s partner. She pushed the thought from her mind. All that mattered was that Cass was alive.

  Katie nodded to the hallway the doctor came from. “Maybe we should go back and see what they did to her. It sounded like they did a pretty extensive upgrade.”

  Shelby looked at her friends and then at the door to the rest of the hospital. “Do you all mind if I go up by myself first? Then I’ll come down and you guys can go up, too.”

  “Of course. You go,” Alison said. “In fact, why don’t you just stay up there? The four of us will head back to the hotel. Just send us updates when you hear anything. There’s no sense all of us hanging out here in the hospital all weekend.”

  Shelby smiled and said, “I agree. Don’t waste the weekend. She’s asleep right now anyway. I’ll make sure I keep you up-to-date with what’s going on. I should be able to message you all through the night.”

  The four girls each hugged Shelby and left her in the waiting room. She turned towards the corridor the doctor indicated leading to the intensive care unit.

  Shelby took a deep breath and walked down the hallway following the signs until she reached a bank of elevators. She pressed the button to go up and waited for the next elevator car.

  She had no idea what she was going to say to Cassie when she awakened. There was no way to predict what her reaction was going to be when she found out about what the doctors had done to save her life.

  The only thing Shelby knew was it probably wasn’t going to be positive. All she could do was be there when Cass figured it out. The news would devastate her.

  When the elevator doors opened on the second floor, there was a desk with a clerk straight ahead of her. Behind the clerk, in a circular space, nurses scurried all around through open doorways situated around the central office station.

  The clerk smiled as Shelby approached. “Hi, can I help you? Are you here to see a family member?”

  “Uh, yes, I am. I’m here to see my girlfriend Cass Armstrong? The doctor said she’s here.”

  “She just arrived. The nurses are still getting her situated in her bed. I’ll have her nurse come out and get you as soon as she’s ready for you to come see her.”

  Shelby nodded and looked around. She didn’t want to go back downstairs to the waiting room. She spotted a few chairs next to the elevator doors.

  Shelby hooked her thumb over shoulder at the chairs. “Is it all right if I sit over here?”

  “Sure, honey. Go sit down. As I said, the nurse will be out very soon.”

  Shelby walked over and sat down, watching the buzz of activity in the busy intensive care unit. The nurses a
nd their assistants all seemed to be working on doing something all the time. They never stopped.

  She spotted two people, a man and a woman, in longer lab coats. She figured they must be the doctors who worked alongside the nurses to care for the patients here. Unlike the nurses, they stayed behind the counter at their desks most of the time.

  The whole scene fascinated her. While she’d settled on a psych major, part of her had considered becoming a nurse especially after Alison and Katie told her how much they enjoyed the program.

  This was her first time inside a hospital. Seeing all this made her think that all the action takes place in a hospital.

  Shelby pictured what it would be like for her in that role someday. It felt like a good fit.

  She was still lost in her thoughts when a nurse from the facility came over to her. “Are you Cass’s friend?”

  “Yes, I am,” Shelby said as she stood. “I’m Shelby. Is she all right? Can I see her now?”

  “Of course, you can. My name is Hildi. I’ll be her nurse from now until tomorrow morning. You can sit with Cass all night if you want.”

  “I would like that,” Shelby said as she followed Hildi back to one of the individual rooms.

  “On the overnight shift, we’re pretty relaxed around here. After I show you where Cass’s room is, I’ll show you where we keep drinks and snacks for families and patients. Feel free to help yourself if you plan on staying here tonight.”

  Shelby nodded, trying to take it all in as Hildi led her to one of the glass-walled rooms off the central desk area.

  Cass’s room had a glass sliding door facing in towards the center of the unit. Shelby stopped at the door and stood there, suddenly rooted to the spot. Her first view of Cass in the bed rocked her to her core.

  Cass had all sorts of tubes and wires hooked to her. There seemed to be some sort of metal fabric mesh encircling the top of her head. White bandages peeked out from beneath the mesh covering.

  Shelby figured the wire mesh was some sort of monitor for the implants. She scanned Cass’s body as she lay in the bed. Aside from some bumps and bruises on the rest of her body, most of the injury to her girlfriend centered around the right side of her face and head.