Innerscape, Part 1, Induction

Induction Day 1

Miira awoke to the gentle light of pre-dawn and the first, sleepy chattering of birds outside her window.

A flood of relief rushed through her, and she opened her eyes, expecting to see the familiar outlines of her room at Dhurai, but the off white walls were nothing like the warm, forest green she was used to. And the expensive, modern furniture was nothing like the comfortable, well worn antiques of her home.

The biggest shock, however, was the view through the window. Mile after mile of new wheat marched towards the distant hills beneath a hot blue sky.

Birds circled in the distance, and the buzz of insects created a soothing hum, but none of it was real. The window was not a window, and the wheatfields were just a memory from her first years in Australia. Wheat did not grow like that any more...

"Close curtains," Miira whispered, her heart pounding with disappointment.

She should have left the damned screen as it was. Waking up to Dhurai would have been less of a shock...

...but also more painful...

"Sit up, 45 degrees," she said in a stronger voice.

As the bed obediently reconfigured itself, Miira ignored the curtained wall screen, and stared at the nice, blank wall opposite.

Dhurai was gone, and yearning after it would only make her miserable. She had done her weeping last night. Now she would just have to accept things as they were.

...those wheat fields will have to go though...

Perhaps she should ask for a live feed of what passed for a beach these days. It would not be pretty, but at least it would not remind her of what she had lost.

The soft hiss of the door plucked Miira from her bleak mood, and she looked up with relief as a nurse came in.

The petite little woman was no taller than Miira herself, but she looked an order of magnitude stronger. And younger. She was followed by a medical cart.

"Good morning, Ms Tahn," the nurse said with a bright smile. "My name is Jane and I've been monitoring you during the night."

She must have seen my blood pressure go sky high, Miira thought as she gave the young nurse a warm smile.

"Charge Sister Watson will be here shortly," Jane continued, "but until then would you mind if I took some baseline tests?"

"No, of course not, Jane," Miira replied, knowing full well the question was rhetorical. Innerscape had been testing her from the moment she arrived, and she could no more refuse their tests than she could fly.

Besides, she knew she should be grateful that so many of the tests had been unobstrusive. Sensors in the bed had been tracking her temperature, pulse and heart rate all night, while a bank of sensors embedded in the painting above her bed analyzed the composition of her breath every five minutes. The blood tests had to come sooner or later.