PART 1
1
WAKING UP for the first time from nano-infusion treatment was a disorienting and altogether unpleasant experience for Dr. Craig Emilson. The feeling of nausea was overwhelming.
“Don’t try to stand up,” said the young doctor as she lightly pressed her palm against Craig’s chest and kept his back against the small bed on which he lay. “We have to do a quick test first.”
“I’m fine, really,” Craig replied as he tried to get up once again.
Again, the young doctor kept him horizontal. “Dr. Emilson, try not to be such a stereotypically bad patient for the next minute and just let me help you.”
Craig smiled. “You can’t turn off being a doctor.”
“Pretend,” the young doctor replied. “I have to make sure the
“I know how they work,” Craig replied. “My wife builds them.”
“She what?” asked the doctor, her routine suddenly interrupted by the interesting tidbit.
“My wife works with Professor Gibson. She makes respirocytes, so I already know all about them.”
“Hmm,” the doctor eventually responded after a barely perceptible moment of disappointment. “Then you know how important the
“Uh…”
The doctor smiled, flirtatiously. “Ha! So, you don’t know everything, Smarty Pants! We have to test the respirocytes and activate the pressure tanks to get the oxygen and carbon dioxide flowing, and there’s only one way to do that.”
“The Freitas test?”
“That’s right,” the doctor replied triumphantly. “And do you know how we administer the Freitas test?” She seemed to be beaming.
“No clue.”
“We get smarty pants like you to hold their breath.” The doctor’s teeth were nearly perfectly white and straight; her smile was gorgeous. “Ready?”
Craig grinned, acquiescing. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“All right,” she said as she held her small tricorder in front of Craig and watched the screen for information on the progress of the tiny, robotic red blood cells that were now flowing through his veins. “Hit it.”
Craig inhaled and then began holding his breath.
“You didn’t have to inhale,” the doctor observed.
Craig’s eyes darted to her questioningly.
“Just let it out nice and slow, but don’t inhale again when you’re finished.”
Against all of his instincts, Craig began to let out his breath nice and slowly, just as he had been instructed.
“You’re married, huh?” the doctor asked, apparently rhetorically. Craig nodded anyway. “That’s a shame. You’re way too handsome to be married. Handsome young doctors like you should be single. Then single doctors like me could marry you instead.”
Craig’s eyebrows rose in surprise at the forward come-on, but there was something about the young woman’s demeanor that seemed to make it innocent enough. He took it as a compliment and smiled.
“You feel that?” the doctor asked him.
Craig wasn’t sure what she was referring to. His first instinct was that her forwardness was starting to cross a boundary. Just as he was going to speak, ruining the Freitas test for the sake of politely cooling the woman’s jets, she spoke again.
“No shortness of breath. You could keep this up for four hours before you’d need to take another breath. Congratulations. You’re officially a
The notion of being a superhuman hadn’t crossed Craig’s mind until that moment. It was surreal. What she said was true: He’d felt no shortage of breath. Like most technological marvels, it was difficult for him to fully grasp it, so he just accepted it with a slightly marveled shake of his head.
“So what happens when they run out of air?” he asked.
“The respirocytes will…” She smiled again as she thought of the absurd euphemism bubbling to the surface. “…expel themselves.”
“Ah,” Craig replied.
“You can get up now.”
Craig sat up as the doctor uploaded her results onto a larger wall screen behind the small bed. “Thanks. That was…different.”
She smiled. “Now you can tell your wife she’s doing good work. The fruits of her labor are breathing for you. When you’re ready, just start breathing again and the respirocytes will shut down.”
Craig nodded and smiled sideways. “I will.” He turned to leave but turned back quickly on a whim. “Hey, what’s your name?”
The doctor replied, “
2
Craig walked quickly—nearly running—toward his bachelor’s officer barracks as he pulled his phone from his pocket and began dialing the number of his wife’s laboratory. As he crossed the threshold into his room, the phone was already ringing. He slipped the phone into the ultrasonic dock that sat upon a modest wooden table and pulled his hardback chair over so he could sit. He waited eagerly for his wife’s answer. “Come on,” he whispered to himself.
“Hello?” his wife’s voice finally spoke. His heart soared.
“Sam! I was worried there—”
“I never miss a call when we schedule it, baby, and I never will,” she replied soothingly.
“I still couldn’t help worrying.”
The irony of Craig’s words weren’t lost on Samantha Emilson. “I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be in a constant state of worry.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Craig replied, almost too quickly. “How’s your day going?”
Samantha wasn’t oblivious to her husband’s clumsy attempt to change the subject, but she decided to let it go for the moment. “The feds were here again,” she replied, her aggravation clearly audible. “That’s three weeks in a row now.”
“Did they copy all your files again?”
“Yeah,” she replied resignedly. “Every day they come in here, we spend the whole day being ordered around, showing them the same things we showed them the week before. It’s getting impossible to accomplish anything with them around.”
“You’re getting things accomplished, all right,” Craig replied.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, for starters, I’ve got respirocytes in me as we speak.”
There was silence on the line for a few moments before Samantha’s holographic image suddenly appeared, her face and shoulders hovering above Craig’s phone in crisp detail, interrupted only occasionally by the interference in the atmosphere. “Are you…serious?” she asked, her eyes unblinking.
Craig pressed the red ACCEPT button on his phone so his wife could see him too. He nodded sincerely. “I
