Page 138 of Return of the Nine

The chime woke her. Vida got to her feet with a groan and opened the door. Ziggy was wearing another lovely gown that made her pretty, elegant and casually formal. If casual and formal could exist in the same place, it was on Ziggy.

“Come on. Dr. Meevin is waiting and she sounded a little freaked out. Apparently, the researcher has arrived.”

“What about breakfast?”

“After you get out of that suit. We have no idea how you are going to feel once you have been freed from it, and you are at the edge of the dangerous zone.”

Vida scowled. “Fine. Lead on.”

They walked back to medical; the borrowed open robe flowedaround her and belied her mood with its cheerful colours. Mornings were not her favourite time. Everyone’s auras were scrambled in the mornings. Too much of the dream state overlapped the waking body.

There was a crowd outside the medical bay, but it wasn’t the procedure that drew the attention. There weretworesearchers from the Balance waiting for them with a nervous Meevin while Ula was fiddling with a length of fabric on a hangar.

Vida smiled as she entered the room. “Just for the record, I am not getting naked with an audience. Ula, if you could get this suit off me that would be great.”

Dr. Meevin opened a panel at the back of the room and unfolded it. “Here. This should allow you privacy. There is a med robe folded up for the rest of the exam before Ula fits you with the second suit.”

“Where is the lav in case I need it?”

“Over to the left behind that panel.”

“Thank you.” She smiled brightly, and Ula accompanied her behind the privacy screen.

“How are you feeling?”

“A little rough. My body aches like I am coming down with an illness. Can you get the suit off?”

“Yes, but I warn you that the pain could return, so if you do need the lav, do what you have to do quickly. I can have you wrapped up again in under a minute.”

“Thanks. Are you enjoying yourself?” Vida raised her eyebrows as Ula put her hand on the flat control panel in the centre of the suit.

“I am. This has been the first real-world test of this survival suit. It is designed to act as an emergency exoskeleton in case of injury. It won’t heal you, but it will keep you intact and process all of your body’s excretions for a limited amount of time. I am working on the timeline, but this is definitely proof of concept.”

Ula pressed a few of the buttons and the suit began to retract into the handheld size it had started off as.

As the external support disappeared, Vida grabbed for the shelf holding the robe. It held her while the suit crawled away from her skin and back into the pod. She thudded to the floor with a splat sound.

Since the robe had become clutched in her hands, she wrapped it around her while Ula tried to pull her to her feet.

“Tell people who are wearing the suit to remove it while they are seated or lying down. Having someone cut your strings is disconcerting.”

With her body partially covered, she got to her feet and finished arranging the robe.

“Sorry, Vida, I had no idea that it would drop you like that.”

“You said it yourself, exoskeleton. My muscles thought they had the day off. Oops, I will need that lav after all.”

She walked as quickly as she could around the corner and toward the lav in the medical lab. Relief was not a strong enough word. She had begun to feel that her eyes were swimming the moment that the suit came off.

After she was no longer feeling pressure, she hung up the robe and recalled the instructions for using the solar unit. The shower was in the small cubicle, and she stood in position for a moment while the blast of light scrubbed her clean. Even clenched eyes didn’t manage to stop the bright after-flares on her vision.

She put the robe back on and felt a little more like herself when she exited. At least she was clean and no longer smelled like the inside of a can. That metallic tang had been driving her nuts.

The crowd that was waiting for her was a little surprising. Two members of the Balance were standing side by side, but S’rin’s aura glowed.

Vida paused, “Dr. Meevin, Researcher S’rin, ResearcherLerinian? I was under the impression that there would only be one member of the Balance here today.”

The stranger bowed. “S’rin insisted on accompanying me here today.”

---