“The doctor will see you now.” The receptionist peaked into the showroom from behind a curtain, made the announcement, and then promptly vanished again. A door opened on its own. A dark ramp like a stairwell leading to a basement loomed behind the door.

Wounded followed the stairs, and the Pink Mohawks followed behind her. Hogwash commanded the two raccoons and the chicken to remain behind and watch the front door for trouble.

The operating theater in the basement was crammed full of tools and electronics. A large furnace for cremations still stood against the wall opposite the ramp, and it smelled like it had been used recently. Doctor Gossammer whirled around in his office chair. He wore a dirty leather apron, but he had on medical scrubs underneath that. His receeding hairline had a few lines of grey but was mostly black and trimmed short. His complexion looked naturally greyish-brown, and his face appeared natural except for a single large camera eye which bulged out of his forehead. Eight arms sprouted from the sides of his chest.

He said, “Patients only – Oh, Hogwash. I wasn’t expecting you and your crew.” With his upper right-most arm, he waved the visitors in. “Come in, find a seat anywhere you can. I don’t have room for any more display models right now, but I’m excited about some new scale epidermises. We can talk about what I’ll need next week.”

Hogwash pushed a coffee cup out of the way and sat on the side of a table. “I’m always ready to talk business, but we came here today buying, not selling. This little lost piglet showed up on our doorstep. No filter, no CPU. She’s like blank canvas.”

The doctor’s cyber-eye tilted as it studied Wounded from head to toe. “Hmm, your eyes are natural, Miss?”

“Contacts,” answered Wounded. “I can take them out if you need.”

“Not needed, lay down on the table.”

The table was a steel operating table with intimidating restraints for arms and legs. Wounded paused only half a second before she bounced onto the table. “Will there be laughing gas?”

“No” said the doctor in a serious tone. “Hold still while the table gets as complete of a scan as possible. When was the last time you had a medi-nanite treatment.”

Buzzard answered, “Last night. I gave her some of my homebrew mix, but it didn’t take. Her immune system rejected everything. If it wasn’t for exposure to the some transgenic produce, I don’t think she would have pulled through.”

“A rejector, huh? Various allergies to nanites used to be more common, but I still see it once in a while.”

Anna laid down on the floor and folded her paws in front of her. “What is the story with your secretary, Doc? No matter how many times we make a delivery here, she always acts like we are strangers.”

“It’s not her fault,” the Doctor answered. “It’s the facial recognition software I made her install. Good for Trumen customers. When she sees an Uplift, it just doesn’t register well. Her attitude, that’s entirely her fault. But she is my niece. What am I going to do?”

Hogwash suggested, “She’d fit into one of your display cases just fine.”

The doctor’s second left hand tapped a screen on his wall. “You’re in rough shape. Lingering pathogens. Micro-fractures all throughout your skeletal system. No metals. No electronics. No RNA modification markers. An empty canvas.”

He turned back to Wounded. “The last time I saw this was in newborns in the New Delhi slums, and that’s been twenty years ago. Where did you come from?”

Wounded shrugged.

Buzzard said, “We were hoping you might know, Doctor.”

Hogwash said, “Can you at least hook her up with a lung filter so this doesn’t happen again?”

“Let’s see,” said the doctor. “He turned back to his screen. His left bottom arm reached under the table and pressed another button.

Wounded felt a mild tingling sensation run through her body.

The doctor said, “No filtration system, be it in the lungs, the throat, or even the mouth, will do its job without a CPU to tell it what to filter. Her nervous system is --” He shook his head. “Incompatible. I could have replaced your brain stem if you had come to me when you were younger. Your brain is too grown for it now, won’t adapt. That means no facial recognition software for you, Miss.”

Hogwash muttered, “Thank Odin.”

The doctor scratched his chin with his top right hand and said, “I’ll try something else. I can install a pain dampener under your skin. That can repress your entire immune system long enough to stop the rejections. Then we can get you some bio-implants. We have a special this month on fangs.”

A robot arm pressed a needle into Wounded’s left arm. “Ow!” Wounded shouted.

The doctor whirled around in his chair. His screen turned bright red. Anna’s ears perked up and she raised her head off her paws. The doctor stared with his mouth slightly open. The Pink Mohawks all leaned forward, suddenly at attention.

Anna asked, “What happened, Doc?”

“100% full rejection. I can’t do anything for you. You’re not a Truman at all, Miss. You’re a blank canvas.”