I keep my gaze straight ahead, dutifully ignoring the stares of bystanders no doubt wondering what a manual teen is doing outside of school on a Wednesday at — I risk a glance up to the distant clock tower — 11:34 in the morning. I can’t exactly blame them; most people in Palise assume that the only manuals in the city are those who are too young to get their nodes. Given my lacking height, the passerby must think I’m like, fourteen.

  Hang on, I’m no longer manual, am I. It occurs to me for the first time that I haven’t so much as checked my own reflection. With how weird my whole situation is, though, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that my eyes are still their hazel brown.

  Your eyes will probably change in the next few days, Minerva says.

  “Gah!” I jump, almost spinning around to see who’s talking to me. For a split second, my body feels more rigid, sluggish, as if defying my orders to move. It’s just enough time to delay my reaction until my mind catches up.

  I said don’t startle me! I mentally shout at Minerva.

  In response, she pulls up my profile avatar, who shrugs at me with a smug grin on their face. I didn’t even know she could do that.

  My bad, my bad. Figured by now you’d be a little more used to it.

  Right. Well, I’m not. We need some way to let you warn me before you talk, or I’ll cause a scene sooner or later.

  Because you haven’t already, she quips. And at any rate, unless you’ve got any ideas right now, I can’t exactly warn you beforehand. How would I even do that? Tell you that I’m about to speak?

  Well it would be nice if you could, like, wave at me like a normal person, or tap me on the shoulder, but you don’t have your own body so I guess… Hang on.

  Hanging. My metaphysical hands do not have great grip, Minerva jokes.

  Minerva, you do have a body, I think at her.

  Yeah, it’s a massive military complex five miles below ground.

  No, not that one. Just now, you waved at me with my avatar. You can manipulate their movements, can’t you?

  You know, I pulled that stunt as a joke because I thought it’d be funny. Not sure why it didn’t even occur to me. Correction: I am certain of why it didn’t occur to me. I will spare you the reasoning behind my resource allocations.

  She doesn’t bother explicitly voicing her agreement; I can feel it well enough across our… bond, or whatever this should be called. Now, how do I…

  A bit of prompting, and I manage to set my avatar somewhere along the edge of my vision, a mini figurine of myself. Little me — Minerva — adjusts the position a bit, settling in the bottom left corner of my sight. It feels kind of weird, like having a speck of dust over a camera that is overlayed onto the world. Once they — she? — have or has gotten comfortable, I close the rest of my profile window.

  Is this better?

  Yeah, a lot. Slight problem, though. It’s kind of weird looking at myself talking to me. Also, you’re still Minerva, right?

  Minerva hums. I can probably fix that. Later today, we can look into altering this avatar or setting up a new one.

  That’s costly, though, and I don’t have an unlimited budget.

  Minerva smirks at me with my own face. I never said we would have to pay.

  What do you… Ohhh. Cheeky. Government pays for it, we basically have an unlimited budget.

  Precisely. Also, don’t walk into that pole.

  I look up just barely in time to swerve around said pole, craning my neck to see what I had almost bumped into. It’s just an innocuous metal pillar, about as tall and thick as a street lamp. There are a few of these scattered around the city, serving no real purpose. No one really knows why they’re there, and most people don’t care enough to find out. This one is kind of odd, being planted right smack in the middle of the sidewalk, but it’s nothing particularly malign.

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  I sense Minerva react to that, but she doesn’t say anything.

  We continue the rest of our journey in relative silence, Minerva only occasionally piping up to navigate me through a particularly tricky intersection or give the odd comment on mundane things like the weather. It’s strange for both of us, I think; this feeling of sensing, albeit vaguely, the other’s thoughts and feelings. The weirdest part is that it creates a sort of feedback loop: every time I feel her thoughts leak over to me, I also sense her awareness that I know what she’s thinking, and so on. At the same time, I can’t deny how convenient it is: I physically can’t misinterpret anything Minerva says, and her intentions are conveyed with everything she says. When she points out the different species of birds that fly above us as we walk, I know that she is partly trying to distract me from the uncomfortable attention I’m receiving on the streets, and partly just making small talk to help me get used to her presence.

  Eventually, we arrive at our destination. My feet are aching, my calves cramped from walking half an hour at a fast clip. I guess even reinforced by technological magic, my body is still pathetically weak.

  Clearly, Minerva agrees, because our destination is the Palise Hospital E.R.

  After some arguing and a large amount of grumbling (mine) and a long session of insisting I watch my health (Minerva’s), I finally gave in to her nagging. Admittedly, I might have overreacted there. It is true that a concussion is nothing to shrug off. At least I won’t need to worry about the ankle; it finished healing what little remained of hte discomfort within thirty minutes.

  Gods, it’s so disconcerting. Discomfort of breaking my ankle. Never thought I’d be the one to say that.

  Technically speaking, you twisted your ankle, Minerva says. She’s done something with her ‘voice’ so it feels less… omnidirectional, and more like it’s coming from the avatar. It’s kind of weird, but it feels less disconcerting. Still, I have to get used to not reflexively looking to my left whenever she talks.

  But now, my stalling is over. I hesitate for the slightest moment at the base of the stairs — why would a hospital be elevated enough to need stairs? Wouldn’t that make it less accessible? — before summitting them. The sleek glass doors slide open too quickly for me to catch a glimpse of my reflection, parting to reveal an open lobby room with chairs and a lot of people at large counters looking incredibly bored.

  Minerva guides me to the counter helpfully labeled “Emergency Room” on my left, where a tall, robust, young-looking woman is explaining to a concerned father that no, his daughter is not going to die waiting for a doctor to check her arm. She has the distinct air of someone who has had this conversation before.

  I dutifully line up behind the father and his daughter, the latter looking no more than eight years old. She has a cute bow in her wavy blonde hair, a pink-on-white polka-dotted dress, and is cradling her left arm, which Minerva informs me is swollen and likely a fracture. For her part, the girl isn’t crying, though it looks like she’s in pain. Her father, a younger middle-aged man with tousled brown hair, is passionately waving his hands at the lady behind the desk. A pair of prosthetic limbs, not unlike Jay’s, juts out of his lower back through tailored sleeves in his crisp white blazer; he has one of them hooked around his daughter’s shoulder for, I suppose, reassurance. I’m not sure which party is meant to be reassured; his daughter, or himself.

  After the fifth time the secretary — Ms. Plasata, according to the minimalist plaque on her desk — conspicuously glances my way with her pale blue eyes, the father seems to get the hint and finally leads his kid over to a nearby chair, where he decides to stare reproachfully at me like the wait time is my fault. I ignore the attention, turning to the lady behind the desk. Her eyes are, now that I’m closer, actually brown with blue rims; and the markings on her cheekbones are simplistic.

  “Good morning. Name, please?” Her eyes glimpse over me passively.

  Cutting right to the chase, I see. Not that I mind.

  “Rowan Losha. Sixteen years old, birth date August 9th, 2109. M—”

  I almost say “Manual,” before catching myself. Should I still classify myself as Manual? No; you have a profile on the Hive now. Right. Thanks, Minerva.

  “Er, Augmented,” I finish awkwardly.

  “New to the Hive?” The woman smiles.

  “Somewhat,” I say.

  “Alright, I have your file open. What is your reason for visiting?” she asks.

  “I just need to get a check up for a concussion,” I reply.

  “Hm, first time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any urgent symptoms?”

  I think for a moment. No headache, no dizziness, my balance is just fine; what else… Blurry vision, vomiting, fatigue, ringing in the ears, forgetfulness, confusion, amnesia, delayed response, slurred speech… Minerva rattles off symptoms like a wikipedia page, and each one I dismiss.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “One moment, I’ll update your file.” The woman clacks away at her computer some more. What model is that thing? It looks ancient, even without the physical keyboard. “You haven’t filled out your medical information yet. Would you like me to fill it out with you?”

  She looks distinctly like she would rather go back to arguing with that father than do the paperwork for me.

  “Oh, um, give me a moment to fill…”

  Her eyes widen suddenly, causing me to trail off.

  “That will not be needed, Mir Losha. I apologize sincerely for the wait. Right this way, the InDoctor will see you immediately.” Ms. Plasata says quickly, with a tone of respect and something akin to trepidation that wasn’t there before.

  Without waiting, she turns and walks through the door to the triage. I follow hastily, not wanting to be left behind or get lost in the maze of corridors that is most ER rooms. My worry was unfounded; she’s waiting at the end of the hallway for me.

  As the door closes behind me, I vaguelly note the voice of the father from before, yelling emphatically at my back. Something about it being unfair that some “teenage mannie punk” be treated before his daughter.