Jackpot Kingdom by Sean Monaghan

Author:Sean Monaghan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triple V Publishing

Chapter Forty-Two

As they worked on her liver, Flis tried to talk with Grae.

The connection was dead.

The operation went smoothly, but right after, Flis felt woozy and tired.

Marla and the assistant placed a scurrow bandage on her, and Flis realized that she hadn't even seen the sliver liver when it was placed inside her.

But she could feel it.

Or, at least feel where it wasn't. The sliver liver was perhaps five percent the size of her original liver. That left a hollow in her side. Right below her ribs. It felt odd. Wrong. As if there was something missing.

She kind of wanted to touch it, her hand almost behaving like her tongue after she'd lost a tooth in a brawl. Her tongue kept feeling up into the hole like a little explorer. What's going on here? I'm sure there was a tooth. This is interesting. Probing and probing again.

Flis sat up and felt the tug of the incision repairs. Glue and stitching and the stickiness of the scurrow.

"You came through fine," Orel said. "I'm going to leave this on you to monitor your levels. Most people think their liver's just another organ, but it has a pretty vital role."

He held up a disk slightly smaller than his palm and perhaps a little thicker than a hair. On its face was a display, black with yellow text and graphs. An aerial as long as her finger drooped from it.

He slid her sleeve up and placed it on her bicep. The disk adhered. It was warm.

"It will send readings back to us," he said.

Nearby, her original liver lay in a transparent plastic tub, with a sealed lid. Bloody and gray and oozing.

Flis bent closer to look. Was that orange color from the nanites? Still operating?

"Do not worry about that," Orel said. "We shall have it incinerated."

"It's a weird feeling," she said. "I was born with it, and now it'll just get burned. While I carry on."

"You'd be surprised how many people have replacement parts," Orel said. "Something around sixty percent. Depending on the demographic."

"That's a lot."

Flis pulled the rippletalk up again.

"I need to get moving," she said.

"You need rest," Orel said. "As your physician, that's my recommendation. However, I can't oblige you. And given what Marla has said, perhaps you do need to get underway."

"I do."

"To where?"

"Cathpell."

"I don't know it. Sounds north."

"A long way north." Flis wasn't looking at Orel. She was working the rippletalk. Trying to get it to connect to Grae again.

"And transport?" Orel said.

"Working that out as I go," Flis said.

"They improvise a lot," Marla said.

"I figured that was the way of it. I have a private aircraft that would get you some of the way north. Very fast, but with a limited range. You would have to hop. Fueling point to fueling point."

"How fast?" Flis said. That made a big difference. If she could get some of the way at least. Find some other transport.

Perhaps just find Grae. That was the most important thing right now.

"Three and a half times the speed of sound,"

Flat out that would put her in Cathpell in little more than an hour.

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