“Mavis.” The voice was low, warm, coaxing her toward consciousness like fingers brushing the edge of a dream. ‘Oh, did I fall asleep again? Every damn time he treats me, I’m out.’ Her lashes lifted slowly. The blurred shape of Dwight sharpened into view, seated at her bedside. The late morning light slanted in from the floor to ceiling windows, warming the smooth skin of his bald head.

  “Welcome back,” he murmured, his hands already in motion, plucking acupuncture needles with the precision of someone who’d done this ten thousand times. “How are you feeling?”

  “Ugh. As good as can be expected,” she said, her voice edged with a fatigue too sharp to be only physical. “Sorry, Master Dwight. I’m just… now wrapping my head around all of it. The amazing, the catastrophic…” Her words frayed at the edges, the sentence tapering into the quiet between them.

  “Mav,” he said with a small shake of his head, “it’s Dwight. Please. Not Master Dwight, just Dwight.” His smile was quick, but his eyes stayed steady on hers. “It’s normal to be angry, disappointed, sad. You do you. We don’t take it personally. Say what you need to say. That’s what this place is for.”

  “But Dr. Olivia calls you Master Dwight all the time,” Mavis shot back, adjusting her bed so she was propped in a semi-seated position. The mechanism hummed softly under her weight.

  “Yes, she does,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “That’s just our thing. But I’d ask you, as I’ve asked her, drop the pretense. I’m not what I’ve learned. I’m what I do with it and right now, I’m just Dwight.”

  He draped her right leg and began to work, kneading the muscles in slow, practiced arcs. She watched his strong hands moving her body, her brain knowing the pressure and stretch were there but sending nothing back in return. The absence was a hollow space in her awareness she couldn’t stop noticing.

  She shut her eyes. Images of the past four days rose up, the endless consults, Dr. Olivia explaining nanomachines “knitting her spinal cord together.” ‘All I can see is mechanical spiders, running along strands, stitching frayed ends with their silk.’ The thought made her jaw clench.

  Acupuncture with Dwight. PT with Anni. The resident chef Bobby’s daily visits with food she sometimes didn’t have the heart to eat. All courtesy of her so-called benefactor, TzuLao. The name alone made her teeth set. She knew this level of care didn’t appear from nowhere. TzuLao had to be either the person or the guardian of the person who hit her.

  And instead of gratitude for the private suite, the lake view, the high tech miracles in motion, she felt only anger. Anger at needing any of it, at the debts someone else had decided to erase. Anger that if she hadn’t been hit, none of this would exist. ‘And the coward hasn’t even shown their face. Just throwing money like it’s a solvent for guilt.’ She fumed internally.

  Olivia and Dwight had hinted TzuLao knew everything about her, her condition, her progress, even her moods, ‘still they couldn’t show up for a single damn day and say, sorry for shattering your life and leaving you paralyzed.’

  “Mav?” Dwight’s voice was quiet now, probing. He’d moved down to her foot, fingers working in silence until he’d sensed the tight coil of her jaw.

  “Nothing,” she said, and the word came out flat. Then, remembering his ‘you do you,’ she asked, “Honest?”

  “Honest,” he replied, glancing up at her as his thumbs pressed into a sole she couldn’t feel.

  “I’m trying, really trying to be grateful for all this.” She gestured to the room, the view, him. “But all I feel is pissed at the person making it happen.” He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he covered her first leg and moved to the second, the sound of linen brushing over skin filling the space between them. His hands found the rhythm again, press, circle, release.

  “Mav,” he said at last, “we’ve told you what we can about TzuLao, and yes… it’s a silly name.” His mouth quirked, but the faint crease between his brows didn’t fade. “Two things. One your anger is absolutely valid. I’d feel the same in your place. Rage is a normal passenger on this road. Two, the person who caused this…” his eyes drifted down to her leg, then back up, “…is the same person who built this.”

  His gaze swept the room, lingering on the details, the monitor by her bed, the adaptive equipment, the quiet hum of climate control tuned to her comfort. “Not just out of guilt, but out of a conscious decision to take full responsibility. To make reparations. I can’t tell you why you haven’t seen them yet, but I will say feel your anger, feel your pain, it’s the path to healing and it’s yours.”

  She stayed quiet, letting his words settle. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t cement my judgment in one moment of sheer stupidity. Whoever they are, they have the means and the will to do all this. Thank you for validating my anger Dwight, most would tell me to take the help and appreciate it.”

  Her breath came slow, measured. She let some of the heat drain out of her chest, her fingers unclenching where they’d gripped the blanket. When she opened her eyes again, she gave Dwight a small, tentative smile.

  He returned it, but his eyes betrayed him. Somewhere behind the calm, a shadow lingered because he already knew what the final tests would say. And he knew that the fragile victory she’d just claimed could be swept away in an instant.

  ~ ~ ~

  Hours later, after an exhausting PT session and bath, followed by another excellent meal Mav leaned back, sore but satisfied. ‘I thought I was in shape, shit, Anni’s a demon woman,’ she thought as her dishes were taken away and she flexed her aching shoulders. That’s when she saw Dr. Olivia walk in.

  “Hiya, Olivia,” Mav started, dropping the emo-angry persona. It was time to face this head on. She knew Olivia had the final results from the nanosurgery and recent tests. The doctor had been perfect in setting expectations, but Mav had dared to hope, putting her faith in science.

  “Hi, Mav,” Olivia began, rolling a stool over and sitting, hands folded in her lap, a serious look on her face.

  “Shit,” Mav whispered, reading the truth there. Her faith shattered, tears sliding down her cheeks. She could feel her racing life slipping away. If her mom were alive, she’d be furious at the injustice.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “Yeah, shit,” Olivia echoed, surprising Mav, who’d never heard her swear. “I’m sorry, Mav. The nanosurgery is precise, but the shearing nature of your spinal injury is the problem. The nerves are connected, the tissue is healing, but the signals can’t get through the congestion.” She took Mav’s shaking hand.

  “I know it looks grim, like you’ll spend your life in a chair.” She caught the rage in Mav’s eyes. “Wait, let me finish.” Not trusting herself to speak and not wanting to lash out at the wrong person for her pain, her rage, Mav nodded for her to go on.

  “I believe we have one more card to play. Something we’ve been working on is technology that can create a reality where the body can heal. It may sound strange, but you’ll understand.” She took a drink of water.

  “I’ve been leading an eight year study in VR assisted nerve stimulation after nanosurgery. Using a zero g environment like a body temp pool or a gel matrix, patients ‘walk’ and ‘reach’ in a virtual world. The body doesn’t realize it’s not actually doing it and begins to heal minor nerve damage. Placebo effect on a grand scale.”

  Mav’s tears slowed, replaced by shock. “People healed? People like me?”

  “No, not then. It was early tech. But with military trials on veterans, and as VR hardware and software improved, immersion deepened. We found that the more fun and intense the experience, exploring alien worlds or running through ruined cities, the more nerve re-routing we saw. Hormonal payload plus emotional engagement and when they forgot they were in the tank, the healing accelerated.”

  “Like having a soldier play a war game?” Mav asked. “Wouldn’t that trigger PTSD?”

  “You’d think so, but no. In-game, they’re superhuman, in control. That confidence starts to untangle their constant state of being triggered.” She smiled.

  Mav returned the smile and equity asked, “so, are you proposing we use this VR-assisted nerve stimulation?”

  “No, Mavis. I’m proposing better.”

  ‘All that lead in, and then more tease!’ Mav groused inwardly. ‘She must be terrible to be intimate with, one more kiss, one more touch. No getting down to business! Not that I'll be feeling that anytime soon.’ Mav kept her expression neutral and failed, looking at Oliva with frustration.

  “I see your frustration and I will not lead you on with a lot of blah blah blah.” ‘Too late for that!’ Mavis thought with an inner snort, but appreciated the Dr’s explanation leading into this point.

  “In the past five years, the Northern Territories Gaming Control Commission approved the first TIER, total immersion environmental reality system. Developed by Eclipse Interactive, owned by WannabeWayneTech, it passed alpha six months ago and just launched in MMORPG form.”

  Mystified by most of what Oliva had just said, Mav answered, “Nope, and I don’t understand much of what you just said. I have never played a game in my life.”

  Olivia blinked. “Never?”

  “Nope. No apps, no holo games. They seemed like a waste of time. I was too busy.” Mav replied with a look of distaste.

  “So, you don’t like games?” Olivia asked, picking up on the look.

  “It’s not that, I’m ambivalent to them, I mean, my friends played them, and some lost themselves in them, others found a balance, and yet others just stopped playing them as they started adulting. So, that mmo... thing you said, and the company doesn't mean a thing to me, I have always been a bit more partial to reality.” Mav answered.

  “Ahh, I see. Well, when we are done, why don’t you ask your AVA, Goo right?” Mav nodded. “Ask Goo to give you a crash course. MMO, massively multiplayer online, millions of players. RPG, role-playing game, you grow your character’s skills. Eclipse Interactive is the biggest in the world. Their games, paired with TIER, fully immerse players and that immersion is the key.”

  “So by playing one of these games, I could trick my body into creating alternate neural paths? Reverse-engineering my nervous system?”

  “Well, that is a way to say it, yes.” Olivia began, “It isn’t just playing one of these games though, it will be immersing yourself deeply in one of these experiences. This will give your body the stimulus that we believe will elicit the alternate neural pathing. It is all due to the amazing technology of TIER and the time compression that it uses.” Olivia paused, looking at Mav with a curious expression, thin brows arching over her deep chocolate eyes.

  “Mavis, this is where it gets interesting. We would like to make you our first trial candidate for TIER assisted alternate neural pathway stimulation therapy. We have received permission to move forward with this trail, and believe it would be the key to helping you walk again.”

  Mav sat quiet for a moment, considering the implication of what she had just said. ‘Well, from victim to experiment, you would think they hit me on purpose. But, why the fuck not, it isn’t like I have much choice.’ Making up her mind she said, “Do you really believe this is the best approach for me, and it’s not that I am just convenient for your trial?”

  Looking shocked then sad Olivia replied. “No Mav, you are not just convenient, actually we pushed to get the trial open for you. We really believe this is the way forward for you, with the severity of your injury the chances of any alternate pathing happening is slim at best with the current treatment. With this, the ability to fully immerse you in the reality where you can walk, run and jump, I do believe you will heal.” she finished taking Mav’s hand and holding it tight.

  “Ok, I believe you,” Mav said, squeezing her hand. “This TIER technology and the time compression thing you mentioned, could you tell me...” and stopped as Olivia held up her hand to stall her.

  “Whatever questions you have, I will not be able to answer them effectively. I understand the system to a degree, but it is not my field of expertise. I am going to have you meet with our lead technician to go over the actual specifics of the system and what to expect.

  "Samson,” Olivia spoke to her AVA, “please call Arthur up to Mavis’s room please.” Her AVA responded with an affirmative and she turned her attention back to Mav. “Arthur is a bit eccentric, but he is a genius design technician and is the lead designer for Wannabe. He headed up the design team for the tech that Eclipse Nexus is built on.”

  “So, I'm gonna meet some ‘surge fanboy/gaming hardware geek who is going to talk nonstop nerd and use terms I don’t understand, yay!” Mav mumbled while the Dr was speaking to her AVA

  “I’ll wait here to introduce the two of you and then let Arthur explain the technology we will be using to put you in a TIER based game, and what's great about a TIER game is that you don’t have to be suspended in a gel matrix to achieve the total immersion effects!” she declared.

  “I don’t understand, why is that, won’t I know I'm lying in bed with some helmet and haptic gloves on?” Mav asked, uncertainly.

  “That is where I came into the design part of this tech. You see, the stimulus is delivered directly to the brain via neuralnano connections.” Olivia said a little pride coloring her voice.

  “What, like the nano you programmed to stitch my spinal cord back together?” Mav said, surprised to see this revolutionary medical treatment being used for something so trivial as video games.

  “Close enough, yes. The nanomachines are similar, but the principal is different. Instead of mending tissue, these tiny gals connect neural transmitters in the brain that stimulate the motor neurons and create a loop back to the system, so if you think ‘walk’ you’ll walk, but you don’t have to think the command, you just walk and as your avatar will move. Other nanomachines provide the stimulus of touch, heat, even pain, all in your brain.”

  “Oh… kay,” Mav said slowly, disbelief edged with irritation at the thought of this much technology being burned on something as pointless as gaming. She swallowed the rest. Her benefactor clearly had skin in it, shareholder of Eclipse Nexus or the parent company, whatever.

  ‘Why antagonize the person who owns you,’ she thought, heat curling tight in her chest, ‘for the rest of your life!’