Tales From The Space Force Pt. 02

About five minutes later Nakamura walked into the room and smiled, "I gather the meeting was successful?"

The colonel nodded back, "More or less, the Security Force Officer, Kalyke, was very interested and agreed to talk to their commander. So, we figure it will go as planned, with maybe a few changes."

Then he smiled, "He was also desirous of meeting you."

Nakamura smiled, "I would like that myself, I've enjoyed my contact with them when they were teaching us."

Lucas smiled, "He called you an artist, he was very impressed with your work." He turned to Evelyn and smiled. "But then, so am I." Evelyn smiled back at him.

They talked a little more about the meeting, then Lucas asked, "Since he said it would take a couple of days, do you want to do the upgrade tomorrow Nakamura-san?"

Nakamura smiled, "It's fine by me, it shouldn't take long to do, we should be done by the noon meal."

He then asked Evelyn, "Is that alright by you Evie?"

Evelyn nodded, "Yes, the sooner the better. Unless the colonel has a problem with it."

The colonel smiled, "None what so ever, go ahead and do it."

They meeting broke up and Lucas, Evelyn and Nakamura headed down to the lab. Once they walked in, Lucas saw Ellie doing something on the computer. He walked over and smiled, "Afternoon Ellie, do you have anything planned tomorrow?"

Ellie looked up from the screen, then shook her head, "Not really, why?"

Lucas smiled, "We're going to do the upgrade to Evelyn tomorrow morning and I want you here to help and learn. I was going to have Oberon here also, but unfortunately, he told me he was busy for the next few days."

Ellie smiled, "Okay, that's sounds good. Did you still want to have the other two senior techs in to observe?

He squeezed her shoulder and smiled, "Yes, this way they can learn a little more."

Evelyn noticed she moved her hand slightly as if to put it on top of his, but stopped as she realized what she was doing. She really needed to talk to her friend and see about fixing them up.

Lucas and Evelyn headed back to their quarters as did Nakamura. They were going to meet for breakfast, then head to the lab.

They got to their rooms, and went in. The door had no sooner closed, then her arms were around his neck and she pulled him in to kiss him. There bodies molded together as they kissed, then she broke the kiss and said, "I've wanted to do that all morning."

Lucas laughed and stroked her face, "So did I."

They relaxed the rest of the day, then went to bed and made love once more. Though they did keep it to one time as he needed to be able to function in the morning.

After breakfast the next morning, they went to the lab to start the upgrade. Evelyn was slightly nervous, she knew she wouldn't feel anything, but her brain still functioned as she would. Lucas smiled when she told him that, but he reassured her, "Don't worry, I'll give you something to calm you down and like when I fixed Brigit's hand, you won't see it."

She nodded and then he, Ellie and Nakamura started to prep for it. Lucas rolled his tool box close to the repair table, and asked her to lay down on it. Once she did, he raised the table into an upright position.

He smiled, then leaned in to kiss her, "For luck."

Then he said to her for the record's, "Pilot Saito, do I have your consent to upgrade your systems?"

Evelyn smiled, "My name is Pilot Evelyn Saito, and I give my consent to upgrade my systems."

She smiled once more and then they began. Nakamura began to prep the new components, while Lucas and Ellie prepped Evelyn. Lucas asked her to unlatch the small access panel at the base of her neck where it met her back. Evelyn did and this exposed the connections to her cerebral interface and the connection to her brain blood supply. Cyborgs had a reservoir that that held a type of blood replacement to keep their brain alive and working properly. It consisted of a small storage tank, with a built-in pump/ filter assembly that pumped the supply through her lung substitute to pick up oxygen and then circulated it to her brain and back again to start all over.

Lucas hooked in a syringe to the connection, then said to her, "Okay, I'm going to give you a small dose of a sedative, that should calm you down."

She nodded and he injected her. The effect was almost immediate, as he watched her relax against the table. He came back around and smiled; she had a slight goofy looking smile. "Feel better love?"

She nodded and replied sleepily, "Yes, it feels very nice. Almost as good as when we make love and you use your tongue on me. Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that."

Lucas grinned blushing, "That's alright, now to make this even easier." He got a soft blindfold out of his box and slipped it over her head. "Just like I explained the other day, if you don't see it, you brain won't react." He slipped it over her eyes, and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

Nakamura walked over wheeling a small table with the parts laid out, then he smiled, "Why did you do that Lucas? I mean the blindfold, not the kiss."

Lucas grinned, "I've found that if they can't see what's happening, their brains don't involuntary react to what were doing. Normally, I just put a screen up around what I'm working on, but since we're working on her head, I had to find another way. So, I thought of the blindfold."

Nakamura nodded, "Wonderful, that does make perfect sense. I'll be so happy when you come to work with me."

While he was doing that, Ellie had laid out the things he would need to do the work, and wheeled the table closer. Then, she got Lucas a pair of gloves and she smiled to herself, "I feel like nurse." Which in a sense, she was.

She turned to the two others they had been observing and explained a few things to them, then turned back to Lucas handing him the gloves.

Lucas thanked her and pulled them on, "Okay Evie, we're going to start. Just relax, it won't take long. Just think about the taste of the steak the colonel promised you and other things you'll be able to taste again."

She answered in a low dreamy voice, "Kay... love you... Lucas. And... I'll get to taste you... finally."

Lucas blushed again as Ellie and Nakamura grinned at him.

He picked up a scalpel, then split the synth-skin from the corner of her mouth to her ear. Then he said to Ellie, "Retractors please."

Ellie handed one to him and he inserted it between her side teeth, then Ellie handed him the other and he installed it on the other side. Once in place, he screwed them open evenly until her mouth was propped open slightly.

He then asked, "Everything alright Evie?"

He got back a, "Ummm."

He grinned; she was pretty high. Then he said, "Jaw release tool please."

Ellie handed it to him, then moved the light so it was shining directly into her mouth. He focused his eye in on her jaw, inserted the tool and released her jaw on either side, then screwed open the retractors a little wider. He looked everything over, then nodded. Ellie handed him the tool to unhook the tongue assembly, then he inserted it, unhooking either side. Then he turned the tool around and screwed down the jacking points. He handed the tool back to Ellie, and she handed him the tool to remove the tongue assembly. He slipped it over her tongue, attached it, then he pulled the assembly out.

He handed it to Ellie and she sat in a tray on the table. He inspected everything and it looked okay, then he smiled to Ellie, and also looked over at the observers. "Did you understand how I did that?"

Ellie smiled nodding, "Yes Lucas, it doesn't seem that hard to do." The other two nodded also.

He nodded back, "It's not really, the whole secret to it is when you jack it out, you just do one turn of the jacking tool at a time, alternating between the left and right sides. This way you pull it out straight, and don't stand a chance of bending the connection. Once we put the new one in, we just do the same, but screwing the assembly in."

He smiled, "It's really not hard, just time consuming. But, not as long as it would take to replace the connector if you screw it up it."

Haruki had watched his student as he operated, he was once again impressed both with his expertise and the manner in which he treated Evelyn, his assistant and the two he had observing. He was really wasting his time in the Space Force. He had talked to many of Lucas's people and others he had worked on, they all said basically the same thing. Then he had talked to the girl named Brigit, whose hand he had fixed. She showed him the repair and he was amazed once again, it didn't even look like it had been touched.

After she showed him, she said, "He's wonderful, I was worried it would leave something like a scar, but he said it wouldn't and he treated me like a flesh and blood patient, not like some... thing or machine."

Haruki smiled once more, "That was very nice work Lucas, here's the new assembly. It goes in the same way as the old one and the connection is also no different, we just used empty pins in the connector."

Lucas nodded as he took the small plastic case. "Good, I was wondering about that, but I figured that's what you did."

He opened the case and removed the new tongue assembly. He inspected it and the connection to make sure nothing was damaged. Satisfied, he hooked the installation tool to it and inspected Evelyn's mouth cavity one more time. Then he put it in place and reversed the removal procedure making sure everything was installed correctly.

After he inspected everything, he hooked up the connection on her neck to the diagnostic machine. Haruki handed him the portable drive that contained the new operating system and Lucas hooked that up to the machine also. He hit the start button and the machine went through a diagnostic test, then once finished, it installed the updated operating system. While it was doing that, Lucas explained to Ellie and the others what it was doing, looking for, and updating. Then he answered some of their questions until after fifteen minutes, when a green light Illuminated and the screen read, "Update complete. All systems operating within normal parameters."

Lucas smiled, "Good, now we'll just reconnect the jaw and make up some synth-skin gel."

He reconnected the jaw hinges and moved it up and down, back and forth to make sure everything moved freely. "Great. Ellie, could you please clean and put everything back while I mix up the gel? Then bring over the lamps."

Ellie nodded and started doing that with the help of the others, while Lucas and Haruki walked over to the work table. Lucas started mixing up the repair gel explaining to Haruki as he went. Once done they walked back over to the repair table.

Lucas smile as he brushed the lock of hair that always fell across Evelyn's eye and said to her, "All most done, I'm just going to rejoin the skin. Are you okay?"

Evelyn made the "Ummm" sound once more, then said softly, "Yes, I'll be glad when we're done, I need a kiss. I want to see if it's any different."

Lucas smiled and stroked her head, she sounded like she was starting to get back to normal as the sedative wore off. "So do I. It won't be long now."

He spread the gel over the incisions and brought them together. While he did, he said to Haruki, "Ellie already knows how I do this, the real secret is to make sure the cut sides are perfect when you put them together. And of course, cutting them right to begin with."

Haruki asked, "What do you mean Lucas, cutting it right?"

Lucas smiled, "Most people do a straight ninety-degree cut, but if you angle the scalpel slightly, you cut it on an angle, so the seam almost disappears."

Haruki eyes went wide, "That really is remarkable, how did you figure that out?"

Lucas blushed, "Well, when I was a teenager, I was helping my father do some work on the house. We were putting up some molding on a wall, and the wall needed more than one piece. Well, he said if you cut it straight across and a ninety-degree angle, the joint shows up. But, if you cut it at an angle, the joint almost disappears and takes very little filler to hide the seam. So, I thought it would work on Synth-skin as well, I took a repair piece I had and tried different angles and it worked. Also, being on an angle, it gives you a bigger surface to glue together, almost twice the width. That gives you a stronger bond.

Haruki just shook his head, "That is remarkable, you are truly gifted"

Lucas blushed, "Also, most people use too much of the repair gel, then wipe off the excess. But that just makes a mess of it. It takes longer to do it my way, but the results are always perfect as long as you take your time."

Haruki nodded as he watched. There was very little squeezing out of the incision, just a tiny line of the gel. Lucas then turned on the curing lamps, one to each side. "Now, we wait, it takes about fifteen minutes to cure with the lessor amount of activator."

He pulled a stool over, and sat down by Evelyn's head. Then he said to her quietly, "Almost done, just don't move your mouth or talk. You'll ruin all my work."

He stroked her hair, "I love you."

He inspected the patch a couple times to make sure it was melding like it should, then after fifteen minutes, he turned the lamps off and moved them. He gave it a final inspection, smiled and raised the table back up to a sitting position. He removed the blindfold, and smiled at Evelyn. "All done, just let me give you a little something to neutralize the sedative, and you'll be done."

She grinned a little and nodded. He gave her the neutralizer and closed the access hatch, then in a couple minutes, she was back to normal. He smiled and held a mirror up in front of her. "See? Everything back to normal, beautiful as ever."

Evelyn was almost all the way off the aftereffects of the sedative. She grinned and nodded, "Yes, I knew you'd do a good job." Then she started moving her tongue around and swallowing like when your trying to figure out what a taste was. "Something tastes a little weird."

Then her eyes went wide, "Something tastes weird! I can really taste again." She smiled at them and they all grinned.

Lucas smiled, "Well, I should certainly hope so. I hate to think we went through all that work and you didn't taste something."

Evelyn laughed, "I can't wait to eat something."

Haruki smiled at her. "Now, just remember, you can't eat everything in sight. The holding tank is not that big. Also, the saliva substitute reservoir built into the assembly is not very big. Granted you won't use much of it, only a couple drops at a time to help spread the different tastes to the taste receptor sensors, so your brain knows what it's detecting of the five elements of taste perception: salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami (savory). Without it, the tastes will not be as identifiable."

Haruki smiled once more, "The best thing to do when you're eating, is to chew the food up thoroughly and take small sips of water with it, that helps spread it across the tongue. The reservoir can be refilled and I've brought enough too last you for three months at a normal consumption of food."

Then he grinned, "Unfortunately, you'll still need to have a nutrient bar every three days to give you the extra things you need. But as I told you, you can shut down the sensors when you do."

Evelyn nodded, "I understand. Thank you so much Nakamura-san."

He smiled, "Just keep notes on everything for us so we can improve it. Now, lets try a little test. Close your eyes and I'm going to have you try a few things."

Evelyn nodded and Haruki gave her a small salt tablet. She took it and made a face, "That's very salty!"

Haruki smiled, "Correct, that was a salt tablet. Now try this." He gave her a lemon drop.

Evelyn nodded, then grinned a little, "That's sour, it's a lemon drop, I think."

Haruki smiled once more, "Correct, it may take your brain a few days to get used to tasting again and with the sensors. They're not perfect yet."

He gave her some more things to taste and she identified them. It did take some time with other things, but mainly because she hadn't tasted them before.

Then Haruki grinned, "Okay, now the last one." He gave her a small piece of chocolate candy. She immediately smiled in pleasure, "Oh, that's so good, I missed chocolate so much. It tastes wonderful."

Lucas came to her side and smiled, "I'm so happy for you Evelyn."

She smiled at him, then put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to kiss him. She finished, "Now that really tastes good."

The others laughed at the look on Lucas's face. Evelyn stood up and hugged him, then Haruki and Ellie. "I can't thank you all enough."

Then Haruki bowed to Lucas, "Torson-san, my most brilliant student. You did a marvelous, perfect job. The things you've learned and came up with will be added with the other things you've shown me. I demand, that once you are finished here, that you come and work with us. You will help many, many others with your talent."

Lucas blushed once more, he really hated to be singled out. All he really wanted, was to do his job and help people, he didn't want accolades from it.

Haruki smiled at his student; he knew him to well. "You needn't be embarrassed; you will be helping people and teaching others. Humility is a good thing, but sometimes I think you have a little too much for your own good Lucas."

Evelyn and Ellie agreed and nodded smiling at him.

They cleaned up the lab, then headed to their respective quarters to change and then go to the dining hall.

They all got something to eat, Evelyn did get some looks from the people working there when she took some real food. They sat down at the table they normally sat at, then Evelyn took her first bite of real food in years. She smiled as she chewed adding small sips of water, then smiled as she swallowed. "I know this isn't the best food in the world, but right now, it tastes wonderful."

Lucas smiled as he tried some also, "Yes, I agree, it's not the best. But I'll make sure they know to make you your steak tonight in celebration."

Evelyn smiled and finished her meal. The grinned as she took a bite of the small piece of chocolate cake she had chosen. "Ahh, that's much better."

Lucas laughed at the look on her face. He was amazed at the look of shear joy she exhibited as she ate.

She grinned, "It's lucky I can't gain weight, this cake is wonderful."

Lucas grinned, "Well, you can't gain weight, but you can fill up quickly. So, you might want to slow down a little. Save room for dinner."

He smiled, "Now, if your done. Why don't we take a walk in the arboretum, then go back to our quarters and I'll make you a cup of real tea."

She smiled and licked the frosting off her fork. Then they left.

As they walked, Lucas smiled and said, "I just hope you'll still look at me like you did that cake."

She laughed and squeezed his hand, "Always my love, always. You much nicer than cake."

They walked around for a while then went back to their quarters. Lucas made himself some coffee and her some tea. She smiled at the first sip, "Oh that's wonderful, but I think it needs some more sugar."

Lucas nodded, "It probably does, what you have now isn't as sensitive as a real tongue. I'd imagine you'll find you need stronger tasting food and drink, or at least until you get used to it."

She nodded, "That makes sense, the rest of me needs more to feel like it used to." Then she grinned evilly, "Like when you lick me, it feels much better when you do it hard."

Luas laughed and almost choked on the sip of coffee he just took. "Well, I just hope you like the taste of me now."

She grinned, "Once we finish this, why don't we go find out."

Lucas grinned, "You talked me into it, I want to see if your new and improved tongue feels the same. Or better."