The trip to the elevator and then down to the parking garage was decidedly anti-climactic after everything they had gone through over the last few hours. Cerys and Ko helped Jam and Ram into a van the ex-supervisor had prepared at some point in the past. Then they lifted Su-Min and Trace inside and left the place behind.

  Cerys made a quick stop so Ko could retrieve Trace’s car after he had sent her a key for it and then led the way to her clinic. In the end, they had decided to simply leave all of Su-Min’s belongings behind. Ko would just buy her new clothes. It was sad to lose the keepsakes, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  “This is my clinic,” Ko said, motioning to the building behind her. “If you ever need anything, you can find me and my mother here. Thank you for everything that you did for us.” She lifted up her mother and carefully carried her inside.

  Trace, who had been unstrapped from the chair and was sitting in the passenger seat, carefully got out of the van, and turned to the three women still inside it. “Keep in mind what I said. He’s sort of an odd guy, but he’s smart. Anything you feel like telling him about Siren’s Rush would be incredibly helpful, but Ko is right, you’ve already done a lot for us. If you need help just getting information, or knowing where to get something, he is who I would talk to… If I didn’t already know other people for those sorts of things, I mean.”

  Trace had given Pushman’s contact details to Cerys and her sisters and was explaining -badly- what it was the man did.

  “Eh, whatever, just contact him or don’t. Either way, if you three ever need help, you know how to contact me. Just maybe wait until I can walk properly again.” He finished with a wink, closing the passenger side door as he took a step back and waved.

  Inside, he found Ko and Hannah bustling around her mother, hooking her up to various monitoring devices and an automatic IV and nutrition tube. The last step was to strap her down, for when she inevitably panicked upon waking.

  “Hannah, I’m going to need your help upstairs. I’ll be calling Sevorah as well if you can show her up when she arrives, and lock the doors afterward?”

  Hannah looked somewhat confused as she nodded. She had noticed that they were both injured, but hadn’t realized it was that serious.

  Ko made the call to her mentor as they walked to the elevator. “Hi, Sev. Trace and I just got back from visiting my mom, and a lot happened. Listen, Trace needs some work done on his spine. Can you bring over some synth-nerve material and help me and Hannah perform a surgery on his back?” She nodded to a conversation only she could hear. “Yeah, I’ll have him all prepped by the time you arrive; no worries. I just want to attempt replacing the nerve that was damaged instead of doing something more invasive.”

  They rode the elevator up to Ko’s apartment, where Trace carefully took a shower, while Ko found a place for the guns they had brought back. After Ko took her own shower, they hopped down to the second floor.

  “How many questions are they going to have when they see the condition of my spinal disc? I would assume that one which recently took a bullet fragment would look a lot different than mine will.”

  Ko paused as she helped Trace onto the operating table. "I’ve been trying not to think about that, since I don’t have a good solution at the moment." She frowned, considering the implications of showing Sevorah and Hannah his mostly healed spine. "The nanites have been working on healing the damage, ever since it happened, and I imagine any swelling in the area has gone down a bunch as well. So no matter what, it won’t look like a fresh injury, or what they would expect from something like this.”

  Trace pulled off his armor, and then his shirt, revealing his pale skin. The PlugDocs and nanites worked well together in sealing the holes. Each bullet hole that had been sealed had shrunk in size as the sealing material was cannibalized. They weren’t fully gone, but merely decreased by around a fourth to a third in size.

  He shivered as she poked at one of the injuries and then began hooking the various machines up to him.

  “Hannah already knows about the nanites and the GHOST System, at least in part. Maybe it’s time we brought Sevorah into the fold as well. I know you have your reasons for not wanting to and I understand that they are valid. But as long as she understands that this isn’t something we control or own…? Can she really say anything or complain too strongly?”

  She snorted. “You’d be surprised at how strongly Sevorah can complain about something. It doesn’t need to matter or be something she or anyone else can control. I’ve heard her rant and rave for days simply because the power kept fluctuating at her apartment. That was all; it made her lights flicker. It wasn’t strong enough to turn off the TV or ruin the refrigerator, it was just annoying. That was all. Granted, they later found that some gonk was running a slicer business in the basement of her building, so, yeah.” Ko shrugged.

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  He raised a brow and shook his head as he lay down on the operating table. “Great pep talk there, Ko. I’ll let you decide what to tell them.”

  Ko nodded. "Alright, whatever, I’ll think of something, hopefully. I'll brief Hannah and Sevorah when they arrive." She finished getting Trace settled on the table and began prepping the surgical area. "Just try to relax. I know you're a little leery of getting more cyberware, so I’ll do my best to make sure that it isn’t needed. We'll take good care of you."

  Trace took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. "I trust you, Ko. I know you've got this."

  She gave him a reassuring smile as she finished the preparations. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door as Hannah showed Sevorah in.

  Ko quickly explained everything that had happened in the stairwell to the two older women as they all scrubbed in. Soon, all three were gathered around the operating table, ready to begin the delicate procedure of repairing Trace's damaged spinal nerve.

  "Alright, Trace, we're going to put you under now," Ko said softly. "When you wake up, you should have full mobility back in your leg. Though you’ll obviously still need to be careful with it for some time."

  Trace nodded, forcing a smile despite his anxiety. "See you on the other side," He murmured as the anesthesia began to take effect. His eyes drifted closed as Ko and the others prepared to begin the intricate surgery.

  As Trace's consciousness faded, Ko took a deep breath and glanced at Sevorah and Hannah. "Alright, let's begin. Hannah, can you act as our general assistant and monitor his vitals? Sevorah, I'll need your assistance with the delicate nerve work and ensuring I don’t screw anything up."

  The two older women nodded and took their positions. Ko carefully made the initial incision using a precise laser cutter, exposing Trace's spine. The laser cauterized the area around the opening even as it was created. It made for less blood than a normal scalpel but required far more precision on the operator’s part, and the burns, though relatively minor, still left their own strain on the body.

  As she suspected, the area didn't look nearly as damaged or inflamed as it should have for such a recent injury.

  Sevorah frowned as she peered at the surgical site. "This doesn't look right. The tissue appears to have already begun healing significantly. Are you certain about the timeline of events, Ko? This injury could be weeks or even months old, not hours."

  Ko hesitated, knowing she needed to address this. "There's something I need to tell you both. Hannah already knows part of it. Trace and I have been in contact with Meredith due to some circumstances and gained access to a top-secret program of hers. It just so happens to also contain nanite technology as a core component of it, is all. It's been working to heal his injuries since they occurred. That's why things look different than you'd expect."

  Hannah nodded, surprised at the source of the nanites and program, but what Ko had said was still less than what she already knew after all.

  Sevorah's eyes widened. "Nanotechnology? Are you crazy? Do you realize how valuable and regulated that is?"

  "Of course we do! Now. But you don’t say no to someone like Meredith. Besides, it's... complicated. What I just told you is the quick and dirty version." Ko replied. "We don't control or own it. It's more that we were given access to it. I can't really explain more than that right now. What matters is that it's helping Trace heal, but it can't fully repair nerve damage like this on its own. That's why we still need to do this procedure."

  Sevorah looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but nodded reluctantly. "Very well. We can discuss this further later. For now, let's focus on helping him."

  With that settled, they returned their attention to the delicate task at hand. Ko carefully separated the discs in his spine and then went to work isolating the damaged section of nerve. While she was doing that Sevorah prepared the synthetic nerve material and removed any scar tissue that the nanites hadn’t yet gotten to.

  "Alright, they’re both marked. I'm going to make both cuts and remove the damaged portion," Ko said. "Be ready with the replacement section, Sev."

  Her mentor nodded, synth-nerve at the ready. Ko made two precise cuts, removing the damaged nerve segment in one go. Sevorah quickly moved in, deftly placing the replacement in position and then moving to a new machine where she could control the micro-sutures that were needed to secure the nerve in place. The final step was covering the site with a protective medical glue that would promote healing, numb the pain for a while, and give another layer of stability to the nerve while it healed.

  Without the glue, odds are he would be fine, in pain, but fine. The pain was the issue though. People in pain moved around, a lot, which put a strain on the sutures and could strain them, or even outright tear them if they weren’t careful. It was better to be safe than sorry.

  "Good, that looks clean," Ko murmured. "Now for the tricky part, putting him back together without ruining what we’ve already accomplished."

  For the next half hour, they painstakingly worked to put his spinal discs back into place and fix anything that needed to be touched up. It was slow, meticulous work that required intense focus and steady hands.

  Finally, Ko sat back with a relieved sigh. "I think that's it. How are his readings looking, Hannah?"

  The older woman studied the monitors. "Everything appears stable. No signs of rejection or complications so far."

  Ko nodded. "Good. Now we just need to monitor him as he comes out of anesthesia. With any luck, he should regain full mobility once everything heals."

  With the procedure finished, Ko allowed herself a small smile.

  It had gone surprisingly well, and as far as she could tell, there had been no complications. She wished she knew how the nanites would deal with healing the nerve, but the only thing to do was wait.

  Before any of them could say anything, a loud audible thump, followed by a scream, came from the first floor.

  “It sounds like my mother is awake.” Ko glanced at Trace’s vitals. “He should be out for another hour or so if you both want to come down with me. I think some introductions are in order for Hannah. Sevorah, you’ve met her before. I’m sure you would like to say hello.”

  Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to rate the story and to my latest Patrons! I have other stories up on my Patreon, including my current WIPs. Which are now Created G.H.O.S.T. System(My Cyberpunk story), WetWorks2, plus The Restaurateur and His Daughter and DungeonFall. :)

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