Free Twice Shy by Patrick Freivald

she loved to see her so happy. "Let's do it!" The bookcase was on Teflon sliders. Ani slid it out of the way, exposing the basement door as her mother got the key to the padlock.
     
    *  *  *
     
    Ani spent the next several hours being poked, prodded, cut, injected, extracted, and implanted. Cells were removed from her body, subjected to chemical concoctions, and examined under microscopes. In its own way, it was kind of fun. It was almost eight o'clock—they'd worked through dinner—when her mother gave her a sad smile. "Sweetie, I have a new serum I want to try tonight."
    "Okay," Ani said. "I'll go get some audiobooks." She went upstairs, and returned a few minutes later with the old CD changer and a stack of Amy Glenn Vega's Nursing Novellas . She programmed the CD player while her mom watched her, a tear in her eye. All this crying is starting to freak me out. "What?" she asked.
    "Nothing." She wiped it away. "I hate putting my baby in there. And I hate what might happen if things go wrong." We've done it a million times.
    "I know, Mom. But we have to try, and we have to be safe." She opened the steel door in the wall, revealing a tiny room—it used to be an industrial coal furnace—equipped with a steel-reinforced recliner. As her mom shackled her in, she tried not to let her eyes wander to the propane tubes in the wall, or the asbestos-lined steel chimney above her.
    "Are they tight enough, honey?" her mom asked. Ani tried to sit up, lean forward, reach with her arms. She had no more than two inches of freedom in any direction. Perfect.
    "Yup."
    "Okay." Her mom inserted the steel bite-guard into Ani's mouth, then moved around behind her and pulled the leather straps tight. "Good?"
    Ani nodded, and her mom switched on the digital video camera and shifted into doctor mode. She moved out of sight behind Ani.
    "November eleventh, eight-twelve p.m. ZV-counteractive gamma-four trial one. Subject is female, seventeen years old, animate two years. Current success with beta-four excellent but dropping. Administering two hundred cc's gamma-four via injection into the anterior cerebellum."
    No matter how many times it happened, Ani never got used to the feeling of needles entering her brain. The prick through the skin, the push through the bone, and then... nothing. It didn't feel like anything at all. The needle pulled out, and a moment later, her mom appeared in front of her, surgical mask over her face, eyes searching.
    "How do you feel, honey?" Ani shrugged. "Any discomfort?" She shook her head. "Intoxication? Trouble thinking?" She shook her head again, and her mom turned to the camera. "No dilation, no visible response. Cognition appears to be human-normal." She turned back. "Good night, sweetie. I love you. I'll monitor your condition from upstairs."
    Ani mumbled "I love you, Mom" through the bite-guard. It might have sounded like English. The steel door closed, and she heard the bar fall into place. Words flooded through the speaker in the wall, and she tried to lose herself in the fiction.
     
    *  *  *
     
    At four-thirty a.m. her mom came in wearing a new nightgown, sheer cream-colored cotton and lace. She ran a battery of tests, then removed the bite guard and asked Ani questions. No, she wasn't hungry. Yes, she felt good—fantastic, in fact. She lived in Ohneka Falls, New York, was seventeen, a junior in high school. She knew the year, the president, blah blah blah. Satisfied, her mother unshackled her so she could get ready for school.
     
    *  *  *
     
    Dylan skipped school on Friday, which was awesome. He wasn't there Monday or Tuesday, either. Jake said he was sick and would be out for a week. Super-awesome.
    Ani got on the bus Wednesday morning and found Mike sitting in her seat, staring up at her with those beautiful green eyes. She tried not to smile, and failed. "Uh, you're in my seat."
    He grinned at her, stood, and let her past him so she could sit down. She brushed against him as she slid by, felt