Delivery

[Savepoint]

She knew they were getting ready outside her tank. Her hands were against the smooth stainless steel of her "room" and every time someone disconnected a hose or brushed against it she could feel the faint vibration. A whisper came to her from Intuition.. "Brooklyn.. when they move you it might make you sick from the motion, I just wanted you to know" The computers voice was so faint that any regular person floating in the same liquid would be unable to perceive it.

Her entire world tipped to one side and she felt vertigo.. there was no more up or down this wasn't like hooking up this was forced on her suddenly when the lift truck picked up her tank. "you will be just fine, I'm sending you something to calm your tummy now.. " The Dramamine rushed through one of the many tubes.. it sounded like a river to Brooklyn, a real river somewhere out there with stones and fish and people playing on the shore. She felt the sick feeling subside and she made a promise to herself to find that shore someday and skip a stone.

The ride was disorienting and tortuous, Intuition sent more medication so she might sleep through most of the drive. It would monitor every life sign a hundred times closer then a patient laying in intensive care.

In the drivers seat a skinny middle aged man is glancing at an overly complicated gps while his partner is about to nod off. He says "I'm not looking forward to the guard taking this to stage four" . The passenger jolts a bit and replies "what you don't want to see grown men cry for their mommies when they drown them for the firs time?" and he laughs a little shaking the sleep from his bones. "No it's not that I just.. They will take something that could help people like her and turn it into a weapon, and the people that could use it to live life won't get the chance once it's weaponized". "course they won't.. you wouldn't give someone in a wheelchair a fighter jet to go pick up eggs would you? Maybe they will turn out some cheap version to the public.. I don't think its likely though". "At least she gets to use the prototype, pretty sweet deal really, for her". The large van pulls into the parking lot of Westbrook the only sign of life is a lone student walking down a path nearby who quickly rounds a corner and disappears out of sight. The van slowly makes its way to the loading dock it's engine laboring is the only thing that gives away how heavy its cargo is.

"Brooklyn, it's time to wake up you are at your new home. Testing of self sufficiency is in its fourth hour and all is well". She opens her eyes only because the action has been hard wired into her genetic code, all she sees at first is pitch black and if distracted enough that's all she will see. The darkness is slowly replaced by gray and seems to stretch out into infinity. Her time spent in deprivation has trained her mind to fill in the blanks with loosely controlled imagination. She feels a shudder as the tank is placed in its spot and the micro generator is tested. It hums loudly for a few minutes making her gray world jumble and shake as her subconscious tries to bring shape to the sound.

She waited floating in the gray world, breathing in the liquid like it was air. It was supersaturated with oxygen allowing her to take very slow deep breaths that didn't strain her at all. "I will reconnect you with her in a few minutes Brooklyn and you will really see the difference in delay speed being in such close proximity to your primal" The machine spoke so naturally and the excitement in its tone was apparent. When Brooklyn was happy, it was happy.

When she opened her eyes this time she saw a hallway. The drones systems were still going through a few system checks she watched her H.U.D. a moment before thinking it away. She didn't want to see the ugly green letters she wanted to see the school. Intuition finished the diagnostic and with a snap the umbilical popped off the back of the robot and recoiled into its housing. She didn't even turn around to regard her steel room she set right off to explore the school with ten times the bandwidth she had previously had to deal with.

She could almost swear she felt the light breeze from a nearby ventilation duct on her new metal skin.