Alistair Raven and the Stormtrooper in Stilettos (Book 1)

Part 3 - Chatter 4

"Next!" Julian beckoned and Alistair stepped I and sat on the padded reclining chair as Delilah swivelled the opticon over his eyes. Alistair nervously batted his eyelids, as Julian manoeuvred beside him.

"This won't hurt a bit," he promised as he strapped Alistair's wrists to the chair and the opticon prepared to adhere a pair of Eye-Fi - the standard issue military lenses, now with the 3D enhancements - to Alistair's corneas.

As the Eye-Fi  lenses bonded to his eyeballs, Alistair bit his tongue and his hands clenched on the metal armrests. Julian had blatantly lied: the procedure absolutely KILLED! Julian pushed Alistair's head back and squeezed three droplets of corneal neovascularisation nanotech-solution into the corners of his eyes; the microscopic technology dissolved in to the aqueous humour and calibrated the lenses, integrating seamlessly with his real eyes as Alistair took his first steps towards symbiosis. If his eyeballs weren't stinging before, it now felt like a million simultaneous pinpricks. Aps began to flood Alistair's vision; a kaleidoscopic stream of information streamed down his optic nerve as it acclimatised.  Little status bars and a crosshair targeting system appeared in his vision each time he blinked and with a flutter, the Eye-Fi  had installed. The searing pain ebbed and once the process completed, Julian held Alistair's wrists so he boy couldn't rub his eyes as his vision refocussed.

"Who says being jabbed in the eye with a red hot poker isn't fun?" Julian chortled cruelly, releasing Alistair. "Next!"  At the front of the queue, Chelsea was not as keen.  "Don't be a ninny," he chided her.  

Meanwhile, Nightengale had begun to fuss over Rocket as she initiated his medical check; Rocket certainly played up to her attention, flexing his cannons and trying on the charm. A line up of energized Tommies waited, eyeing off the sultry robot, jealous the 'ranga had got in first.

"Such a brazen hussy," Delilah tutted as she swung the opticon over Chelsea's brow, unimpressed with the flirtatious nurse. Chelsea gripped the chair, blanching as her eyes were also assaulted. "She's just a piece of trumped up, fluffy medico-equipment." Delilah huffed.

"Jealous?" Elvis asked as he fiddled with Alistair's goggles, downloading all his collected information into a sonic server. He pointed his device into Alistair's eye and Elvis swiftly uploaded the information into Alistair's lenses in a separate, easy to access folder.

"These blinkers," Elvis said, holding up the Civil War goggles that had served Alistair so well, "are obsolete."

Squinting, Alistair struggled with the library of aps while Chelsea was released from the opticon. Standing before her chum, her own vision cloudy, she eyed him suspiciously.

"What you looking at?" she called and Alistair's eyes frosted and he began to turn beetroot red, fidgeting uncomfortably, shocked by the new vision.

"What are you blushing for?" Chelsea squirmed.

Alistair looked up, down and all around, trying very hard to avoid her.