The Lost

Brain Surgery

Annabeth was woken by the system AI, Georgina. "It is six in the morning, Galactic Standard Time. Your procedure will begin in two hours. Please have some refreshments and wait for The Curator to arrive." She said.

Annabeth's eyes opened and she pulled back the covers as Georgina had been speaking. "Thank you, Georgina." She said and got up and out of bed. She ran her fingers through her hair, and went over to the small kitchenette that she thankfully had in her room, and she made some coffee. She ordered up a bagel and bacon, and she received it from a delivery bot within five minutes, and it was piping hot and fresh.

She smiled and thanked the service bot, who responded. "You're welcome." And turned around and left to go back to the kitchens.

She ate slowly and reviewed the notes that were taken over the tests about what the procedure would entail. She wanted to make sure that she was ready for the possibility of something that The Curator didn't expect. The Only possibility she was concerned with was that they placed a node in the wrong spot, and she turned into a vegetable. Not that they wouldn't be able to fix that scenario. but how much of herself would be lost if that happened?

It wasn't too much longer until The Curator knocked on her door, and they left, and went to the operation room. It was completely sanitized, and it was more than just The Curator and Benson in the room. The whole neural team was there.

Annabeth was a little nervous with seeing so many. Benson walked up to them as they came into the room. "Ah, there you are." He said and he held his hand out to shake Annabeths, and she shook his hand in turn. "Anna, if you will get ready in the next room, there is a gown waiting for you, and do a sanitizing shower. Then we will get you hooks up to the machines, which is a Holo-Scan projection of your brain. We are calibrating the implant transmitter system now, to make sure that we don't make any mistakes."

Annabeth nodded and walked to the next room with one of the attending nurses. Soon they could hear the shower going. Bensons turned to The Curator. "Glad you came early. We just got the last of the equipment. It's all being re-sterilized as we speak. We have ben having just a few problems with the power supply in the surgical transmitter. We have a second one on the way, and we don't feel we should begin the process without the second battery being present and tested."

The Curator nodded. "Show me the current battery and fluctuations, please." He said, trying to make a determination on whether or not the Neural team was being honest with their delays.

Benson nodded and handed the data pad to The Curator, who saw the fluctuations. "The converter on the mag strip and the positron output cables appear to be damaged. according to the Holo diagnostic on your tablet. You don't need a new battery, you need new cables." He said, and he sent a message to engineering, and requested the items on a stat basis. "However, the extra battery can still be quite helpful." He said as he handed the tablet back to Benson.

Benson took back his tablet, and he reviewed the data, and concurred The Curator's assessment to be accurate. He had trusted his diagnostic team to do their job correctly. He sighed and shook his head, and the requested materials were present when Annabeth came out in her surgical gown. She walked over to the table and sat down while the maintenance team replaced the tubing and couplings for the output. They ran three more tests, and then brought an apple into the lab, and the Holo-Scan machine. A 3-D representation of the apple appeared, seeds included, and they used the surgical equipment to transplant a node right next to a seed. they tested this ten times to ensure that the power output and accuracy was within the limits.

After the tests, they nodded that everything was good to go, and they were underway. The Curator hooked up Annabeth to the diagnostic machines, and they had Annabeth lay down on the medical table. Once she did this, the Holo Scan was positioned and a 3-D image of her brain was hovering in the air above the table.

"That's... my brain?" She asked as she looked at it. She could see the neural pathways, highlighted in blue, and she could also see the cybernetic components that had been replaced.

"Yes, Annabeth. This is your brain as it is now." Benson stated.

"Cool." She stated, and then they gave her the anesthesia, which knocked her out, She was out until the end of the procedure.