I woke up to complete darkness. However, this was nothing new; complete darkness was all I had known my entire life. Being born blind had been an impediment all my life, but that was supposed to be over today.
I still couldn't believe my luck. Cybernetics are expensive, even more so for a girl like myself. The average person couldn't care less about helping a twenty-something blind girl out despite claims to the contrary.
Begging in the streets didn't exactly get me the money I needed. It's exhausting to depend on the kindness of strangers when strangers are neither kind nor dependable.
The only real problem here could be the money. If this surgery didn't work, someone would have to pay. I didn't understand who was willing to fork out the money, just that someone had. I had gone under the knife to begin the implantation process.
I heard someone approaching, figuring it was the doctor or a nurse coming to check on her. I felt a hand against the back of my head before something metallic touched my neck.
Then it happened. Green lettering, or what I assumed was lettering, appeared in my mind. These could have been pictures or some random glyphs. I had no concept of what letters were. But it was a strange sensation, something other than darkness for once in my life.
I waited, an eternity that only felt like the longest few seconds of my life. It was strange for me to be so impatient about seeing more after spending a lifetime of seeing nothing. The only thing I had ever visually processed were the weird symbols in my mind, but I wanted so much more. It took only a flash (I think it would be called a flash) before everything changed.
The room I found myself in wasn't too bright. It wasn't a problem as my new cybernetic eyes adjusted naturally to the new conditions. I looked around, and for the first time, I saw another person. I'll admit, not quite what I expected. How does one describe the first person they have ever seen after twenty years of living in a world without the need for those words?
He must have recognized my reaction for what it was. He looked at me and made an expression that left me unsure about it, smiling perhaps? At least that's the word that best fits what I saw.
"Ah good, you're awake. I take it by your movements that you now have vision?" The man said in the same gruff voice I had heard before the procedure started.
I nodded my head. "Yeah, it's unlike anything I could have ever imagined."
The man's smile changed, but again, not sure how I would describe it. "I imagine it's going to take a lot for you figure out, being new to the sighted world."
Another nod from me.
"I suppose you'll probably need to learn how to read," he continued.
"Yeah, I probably will. It took me long enough to learn without sight. I can only imagine how long it will take me with."
The grizzled man shook his head. "No, you misunderstand. You got some fancy new neural processors in there now. It doesn't take much. I can download all sorts of things into your brain. After a night of sleep, you'll know everything there is to know about reading, even in different languages. Even make it where you can hear languages and know them too. And recognize objects without having to learn all their names."
I raised my eyebrows and nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, that all sounds amazing."
His smile changed again, though the word I would use this time is sinister. "You have to understand it's not free. It's also not included in what I've already put in you."
I sighed. I couldn't be surprised that it wasn't free. Nothing was free in Neo Seattle.
"How much?"
"Four thousand."
I closed my eyes, the darkness returning for a second. "You just spent how many hours putting what, a half-million dollarpounds worth of cyberware into me and can't throw in a few lousy downloads?"
He shook his head, "Not how it works."
I shook my head in response. "Fuck man, until ten minutes ago, I was blind. I don't have that kind of money." I let out more expletives, but in no way did they resemble anything like a sentence.
"That's quite a mouth you have there. I'm sure you know how to use it."
His statement caught me off guard. I mean, he wasn't wrong. That whole thing about the kindness of strangers being hard because strangers were neither kind nor dependable was pretty accurate. About the only thing a street girl, let alone a blind street girl, could depend on in Neo Seattle in 2093 was that all kindness had a price.
It wouldn't be my first rodeo, though it would be my first time seeing it. I had spent many a night using my body to make sure I had a place to stay and food to eat. This was an essential need, probably my most essential need now that I could see. I nodded in assent.
That sinister smile he had became more so. "Alright, you can get up out of that chair now; your body should do just fine. Get on your knees, get those tits out, and get sucking."
To my surprise, he walked away while I started to lift myself out of the surgical chair I had been in for at least a day now. I was a little wobbly as I stood up. He quickly returned with a cyberdrive in his hand.
"Tits out. You can drop to your knees right there."
I sighed but nodded. Looking down, I realized that I was seeing my own body for the first time. I made a mental note that the shirt I was wearing, whatever color it was supposed to be, was ugly, and I shouldn't wear anything like it again.
