Under the Knife(107)

(please no)

“I tried to decide how you could experience something similar, as recompense for what Jenny went through. I thought long and hard. I’m not a doctor or a medical expert. But I read. I read voraciously. And I was interested to come across accidental awareness during general anesthesia. Also called, I believe, intraoperative awareness.”

(oh my God)

The heart-rate monitor wailed.

His thin lips stretched into a thinner smile. “I see you’re familiar with the concept. We all take it for granted, I suppose, that if we ever have to undergo surgery, and we need to go to sleep for it, we’re not going to wake up in the middle.”

(please NO)

“I was delighted to hear your anesthesia colleague refer to it earlier today in the operating room. Like he said, it’s a rare event. But still: One is one too many for such an unpleasant experience. Don’t you think?”

(PLEASE NO)

“Can you possibly imagine? What it would be like? To be completely awake as you undergo abdominal surgery?”

He leaned a little closer. They were almost nose to nose. “Take Jenny’s surgery, for example. A laparoscopic appendectomy. A straightforward operation, from what I understand. Think of it. First the scalpel carving your skin up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Then those sharpened plastic ports, twisting into your abdomen, like giant screws. Stretching. Tearing you open. Then all of that carbon dioxide, filling you up, and your insides swelling like an enormous balloon.”

(I’M SO SORRY)

“Of course, that’s just the prelude, because then the surgery really starts. Metallic instruments, pushing and pulling on your intestines, this way and that. Cutting and stapling of bowel. The pain would be unimaginable.”

(I’M SO SORRY SHE DIED)

“But not without precedent.” He got a faraway look in his eyes. “Japanese samurai called it seppuku. Ritualized suicide. Remarkable. Such discipline. Such control. The offending samurai made two large cuts across his own abdomen with his katana—his sword.” He used his hands to mime the motions across his belly. “The ritual was intended to cleanse him of his dishonor. Appropriate in your case. The English Crown, on the other hand, took a different approach, hundreds of years ago. They called it drawing and quartering. Traitors were first hung until not quite dead, then disemboweled, then their intestines burned while they were still conscious. The subsequent beheading must have seemed to them the greatest mercy.”

His attention returned, and he refocused it on her. “I for one can’t possibly imagine what it would be like. Waking up in the middle of surgery.”

(I’M SO SORRY I’VE ALWAYS BEEN SO SORRY)

“Although, in your case, you’ll have never gone to sleep, so it’s a little different.”

He leaned even closer to her; and, for one absurd instant, Rita thought he was going to kiss her cheek. Instead, Finney reached out and gently repositioned her head and neck so that her eyes were tilted toward her feet, taking care not to move her tube out of place.

“That’s better. I want you to be able to see everything, Dr. Wu. The operation you’ll be undergoing tonight, compliments of Delores, is the appropriate one, of course: a laparoscopic appendectomy. The same one you performed on Jenny. Morpheus will keep you paralyzed and inject some stimulants into your bloodstream to ensure you remain completely awake for the duration.”

(OH GOD)

“Oh. And one more thing, Dr. Wu. Your sister.” Through her peripheral vision, she saw him lay an object next to her right ear, on the same flat surface she was lying on. “She has an implant in her brain. Similar to yours. It’s a bomb.”

(OH GOD DARCY OH GOD)

“I’m going to detonate it in a few moments, after Delores has started. I’ve put a speaker near your head: so that, before it’s over for you, you can listen to your sister die.”

(NO YOU BASTARD SHE’S JUST A KID)

“This will be the last time you and I speak. Or, rather, that you hear me speak.”

(PLEASE GOD THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING)

As he turned away, he said, “You’ll want to scream. I’m sorry that you won’t be able to.”

Finney disappeared. There were shuffles, and a small grunt, and then Delores’s silver form appeared above her.

Portable, Delores is portable, they carried Delores here.

She heard the familiar sound—two taps followed by a whir—of Delores’s gyroscopic feet latching into place on either side of her abdomen, securing Delores into position.

“Power on,” Delores said. “Systems check in process.”

Battery-powered for up to eight hours.

Now all she could see was Delores, squatting over her, her four stinger-like appendages aimed directly at her bare abdomen. Rita saw a distorted reflection of herself in the bright silver of Delores’s undercarriage.

Oh God.

This was really happening.

“Systems ready,” Delores said.

This was really happening to her.

Delores was GOING TO OPERATE.

ON HER.

AWAKE.

“Delores,” Finney said. “Initiate laparoscopic appendectomy protocol.”

“Of course. Initiating laparoscopic appendectomy protocol.”

With her head in its new angle, Rita could see everything. Delores’s motors ground and whirred as the camera and the three Swiss Armies spun a foot above her bare torso.