Broken Protocols by Dale Mayer Page B

implanted under her skin. Her nerves were fully grown. Any damage at this stage and she could lose the use of her hand. Scar tissue was yet another problem. He could only hope to get this over with and get her back into the pod quickly.
    He watched the man work fast and efficiently. When Dani’s wrist was open, he had to look away. There was little blood with the high intensity laser, but holy crap. He gritted his teeth, and being unable to help himself, he dropped a kiss on her head. After another long moment, he risked a second look at the surgery, relieved to see the tag lying nestled in the muscles. He could only wonder how the body adapted to such a thing. But his society had been using ID implants for a long time. They appeared to be the answer. They couldn’t be lost, transferred, or stolen – when removed from the body, an alert was automatically sent to the Registrar.
    “Is this going to work?” Levi asked. At least the specialist appeared to be competent.
    He nodded. “Should.”
    “It’s registered?” He couldn’t help asking questions. If this didn’t work, Dani’s life was in danger. And that was unacceptable.
    The specialist nodded again. “It is. When I get this closed up, I’ll start the programming.”
    Ah. Right. The whole computer world that his society ran off of. Dani had to be included or else she’d always be an outsider. A fugitive. And that would be very difficult. There were fringe groups in his world, as there have been in every century. They lived free of the government restrictions and regulations but barely eked out a living, always on the run from the military. He sighed, staring down at the gentle soul in his arms. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve any of this.
    “Done.”
    Levi looked up, relief flooding through him. “Are you?” He studied Dani’s wrist. The laser had closed the wound. It was red and puffy but surprisingly healthy looking. The man waved a healing wand over it, and that improved the look of the skin again. He exhaled. “Will she be in pain when she wakes up?”
    The specialist shrugged. “It’s possible. The body needs time to adapt. Her wrist will ache. The fingers could go numb off and on and could potentially swell.”
    All things the pod could help her with, so it was minor in the scheme of things that could go wrong. The specialist stood and collected his instruments. He repacked his bag then opened a side pouch and removed a comp unlike anything Levi had seen before. The man pulled a chair forward and sat down. Using an odd-looking antennae, he angled the comp so it faced Dani’s wrist. He clicked a few buttons and a series of lights under her skin lit up. Levi’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t realized how much programming went into this.
    But the stranger seemed to relax back into his chair now that he realized the system was active. He bent his head and worked his thumbs on the keyboard. The lights on Dani’s arm continue to beep and flash, then settled down to a steady pulse.
    Levi looked down at his own arm. There were no lights. No beeps. But if he bought anything, there was a series of lights as the system went through its security checks. He wondered how long this would take and how much information he’d need to give to make Dani a history. She had to have a full background for the databanks to be happy.
    He waited quietly for the stranger to work.
    The man looked up. “Her name?”
    “Dani Summerland.”
    The stranger keyed it in. Without looking up, he asked for her birth date.
    Doing the math quickly from the little he knew, Levi picked July 1st, 24 years earlier.
    There were several other questions as to gender, which he could easily answer. Then came the harder ones. Family history. He stalled. He could give Dani’s real parents’ name. He’d seen their names in Milo’s file, but he had no dates for them. He gave up their names willingly enough and waited, hoping more wasn’t required.
    “We’ll put down that