Domino

7 Digitisation

"If you will settle yourself back and try to relax a little, we are ready to begin the process," the female program said gently to Sarah as she tried to take a few deep breaths to settle the rising nerves she had about the impending process. Dr Horatio had introduced her as Alyssa, an advanced computer construct who oversaw the well being of the returned Children of Earth, and thus was more than adequately versed in the integration of brain patterns with digital realms.

There was a young girl too, who took Sarah's hand and beamed a large smile up at her as she stood beside the reclining chair. 

"You may experience a tingling in your extremities," she said softly but her smile and large eyes were exuding confidence beyond her apparent age. "Pins and needles I believe it's called, or at least Captain Maddox kept complaining of that during our time together. It's just a lingering effect on your nervous system with no adverse issues."

"Praia is quite correct," the female program added, stepping up to be beside the chair. "Another side effect possible is you biting your own tongue off, but if you put the crafted mouthpiece which Praia is going to hand to you in your mouth, we should hopefully avoid such unpleasantness."

"Anything else you want to tell me to calm my nerves?" Sarah scoffed, glancing between the program and the girl with wide eyes, whilst being quite sure they needed to practice their bedside manner a little more.

"You may wet yourself a little," Praia whispered as she leaned in close, her voice almost inaudible as she tried to relay that small detail.

Sarah shot her an incredulous look.

"Praia! She is incorrect Miss Lancaster, there is no evidence that this process adversely affects bowel or bladder control. Praia is just trying out her new found sense of humour at a rather inappropriate moment."

"Fine," Sarah said under the exhalation of breath, a slight nervous glance cast towards Dr Horatio who stood nearby, observing the process being undertaken. "Shall we get on with it then before I do actually pee myself through natural demands?"

Praia giggled a little as Alyssa cast a scornful look, firstly at her patient and then to the young girl.

"I like you Sarah," Praia said softly. "You're funny."

Sarah nodded a little in response, wondering how funny Praia would find her alter ego should the dreams that she'd been having be anything to go by. The chances are that Praia would want to be nowhere near that version of her, as he had the impression no one tended to get too near, or was allowed to be.

"I am engaging the system now. Praia, you need to release Miss Lancaster."

Without a word, Sarah felt the small hand slip away from hers as a buzzing seemed to fill her ears, followed by an almost numb sensation around her temples.

She stared over to Horatio, her eyes almost pleading for him not to make her go through with the process, that she'd changed her mind. It was too late.

There was a pulse of energy and Sarah was forced to close her eyes as she felt a sharp sensation pulse through her body, her mouth unwittingly biting down on the mouthpiece that had been provided to her.

Then everything went dark.

There were voices in the room with her, she could clearly hear them and as she opened her eyes tentatively against the overhead glare from the observation lights, she realised that she was back in the bed which she'd first awoken in.

"Doctor..." she mumbled out, her mouth almost failing to form the words as her tongue flopped about slightly, no matter how hard she tried to make it behave.