I was a couple of years past puberty when they first brought me into my home. Maybe 15 or 16 years old, and fresh off the farm. I’d had the surgery maybe a month before. The small star-shaped scars on my body were still shiny and new, but they would begin fading soon. I was still sore, but even the earliest implants were small. As long as someone survived the neural integration, physical recovery from the process was quick.
They drugged me. For the pain they said, though they’d been weening me off the narcotics I was on right after they cut into me. Whatever it was, it knocked me out. Or least I don’t remember leaving the recovery center. No, the next images were of a house. Beautiful tall windows. Rooms ten times bigger than the cell I shared growing up. I was walking along about half conscious when I felt someone kick against the back of my knees. I felt myself fall, but they caught me, and settled me down into a kneeling position. I had been walking on a hardwood floor, but there was a mat beneath my knees. I could feel a small stool, just a foot or so up from the ground, that I was now sitting on. The room was open, dimly lit, and not so big as those I had first seen.