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With a thought, you dial your mom on the holo. It’s not too late in Stockholm, is it? The sensation of waiting for the connection is odd. Not unpleasant, but you can <span class="mu-i">feel</span> the dialing tone more than you hear it. Just like the ghostly images filling your thoughts it is simply there, present, as unquestionable a presence as gravity or the ground and yet… so very clearly fake.
This strange new perception is already becoming less disorienting, more nova than strange, but people having issues mentally adapting to cyberware suddenly makes far, far more sense. Vik rolls his chair away for a minute, giving you a bit of space. Do you even need space for a call anymore? Do you even need to speak?
The tone fades, and your mother snaps into existence by your side, framed in red light. It’s not really her of course, just a mental impression of a live video feed from her seaside room at the clinic, but for a second or two she <span class="mu-i">is</span> there, far more real than her hologram at the funeral.
“Kai? It’s late, dear… Is something wrong?” She asks while sitting down, the camera panning smoothly to follow her.
“No no,” Your thoughts flow freely, carried soundlessly - and a bit sloppily, every hesitation and mistake caught before you can subconsciously correct it - through the Net connection and across many thousands of miles, “I I got a, got a -”
There’s a sharp inhale, your mother cover her mouth with one hand; she looks more gaunt than even just a few days ago, or perhaps it’s the light of her room’s lamp, “You got a NeuralLink.”
“Of of course, you know know, mom. Is it soso obvi-clear?”
“Yes, very.” She laughs sweetly, exactly as she used to when you learned something new - it’s been years since you’ve heard that tone, not since you came home babbling about your first girlfriend in middle school, “Take your time, you’ll control it soon; I know you will. Are you feeling disoriented?”
“No no. Good fine. Missed laugh, miss you.” …That slipped out. It’s true though.
She gives the camera a melancholy look, “You know I miss you too, Kai, always. How did the procedure go, are you recovering well?”
“Yes yeah preem, mom. Got got nova chrome, good great doc, vik. Said I am was gene… said…” Your thoughts become too jumbled to continue, and you mute yourself for a moment, taking time to gather your focus before tackling the subject, “He said the shots you gave did to me as kid were are… gene-?”
