1
She said, “Your scars are gone.”
I said, “Don’t rub it in.”
She smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, more a brief curl of her too-red lips and a barely perceptible dimple in her too-white skin. But still, a smile. “Been looking for you,” I went on. “Leave of absence, the university said.”
“Not through choice. But I did make good use of the time.” Her eyes swept over my face again, the face I’d chosen on return from Ceres, the same face I’d left with almost a year ago, albeit now sans scars. Fixing them wasn’t my idea and my reaction to the first glance in the mirror had sent the CAOS Defence med-tech scurrying from the room in mortal panic. My less-than-polite requests for another procedure were refused on ethical grounds; apparently there’s a limit to how many face-changes a human bod
