Clara was still in her chamber when the summons came. She was beeped on the telecom on the wall. She answered it to find a disembodied voice informing her that she had to report to a med-bay for a physical.

“You must be kidding me,” she muttered. “Do they even spy on us in the chambers? Am I going to be handed a bill for using too much oxygen while making love?”

The idea would have been funny if she was not so sure that it might actually be true. She climbed into the cleanser booth and out then dressed hastily. A ticket popped out of the wall. She grabbed it and groaned. She’d cleansed one time already that day. The second tryst with the cleansers had just cost her five credits!

Furious and still out of sorts from that sexual encounter and its aftermath, she headed out of the room and toward the medi-center. Her nerves tightened with each step she took. She had not been told she had to have a physical and as far as she was concerned, it was likely just another way for the planet committee to get more credits out of her.

When the bay doors opened to reveal Marik standing there, her nerves not only went tau—they threatened to fray and snap.

Marik said, “Come with me, please.”

They were the only two in there, so she balked. “Why?”

His eyes met hers. “You need a phys.”

“Why?” her fists balled up.

His face didn’t change. “It’s the rules.”

“I was never told that. I’m not paying for this either.”

Marik’s lips lifted in a grin. “I see.”

Her thoughts were in chaos. Had Renall ordered the phys to make sure she was not ill or diseased? A little late for him to worry about that, wasn’t it? Her chin came up higher. “Why now?”

“Why not now?” His grin was meant to be disarming. Clara was not buying it.

Her eyebrow lifted. “I have been here for weeks. I never had to have one before.”

“They want to make sure your system is adjusting without issue.’

Oh. Well, that was plausible. Still, the idea that Renall had gotten worried she might be riddled with some dreaded illness stayed on. She knew there was no way out of the phys no matter how she felt about it too though. “Fine. Can we make it fast? I need to get back to the tables.”

“Not after that skull scrape.” He started walking, and she fell into step beside him. He added, “That is something else I need to check while I am at it. There can be some nasty after-effects.”

“You should have been there for the during,” she muttered.

Marik gave her a sympathetic look. “I have been. It’s awful. For a second I almost wished I would just go ahead and die, it was that bad.”

He had a point there. She let a grin lift her mouth. “Me too. Why do they let those things in here knowing they can do that?”

“Because they have lots of credits.”

Of course. On Orbitary, everything came down to credits.

Marik pointed to a bay bed, and they stepped into the semi-circle of its walls. Clara sat on the edge of the bed, but he said, “It’s full.”

Shit. She glared at him. “I need a cover at least.”

He pointed to a small stack of linen at the top of the bed, and she grabbed at it while he turned his back, fiddling with dials and knobs on the scanners. The mask went over her face. Confusion set in. Why a mask for a phys?

Then darkness took her down.

Clara woke hours later, in her own room. The room was black. Orbitary charged every single soul a surcharge for lights and wicks. Most people cut everything off the minute they laid down at night to avoid overcharging their credits, and to keep from getting a stiff fine for being wasteful with the resources.

She fumbled for a wick, the least expensive and resource using light. It flared, sending a small, slim band of light upward from its casing. Clara groaned as she sat up; her head ached, and she felt sick and slightly weak.

It all came flooding back. Clara staggered out of bed, determined to go have it out with Marik, but she could barely walk. She staggered into a chair just as the day’s bill came into her chamber.

Clara stared at it. The extra cleansing was not in there. Neither was the telecall for the phys—the one where Marik had gassed her for some reason.

She blinked a few times. Her brain felt dulled and fuzzed. Her fingers were sore. There was a distant roar in her ears, and her limbs felt buzzy and queer. She surveyed the bill again, trying to think.

Had she imagined the phys? Fallen asleep and dreamed it? It had felt so real though. But there was no bill for the call nor for the extra cleanse. She frowned, trying to think.

The day’s events unfolded in her mind. She got to the part where she had been attacked on the hall’s floor, and a new question arose.

Had she dreamed that phys? She had to have. Had to have. But—if that was so—had she also dreamed up that romantic encounter with Renall?

“Oh boy.” Her breath came out in a slow exhale. It was possible. That skull scrape had been no joke. She seemed to have dreamed up a cleanse that had never occurred, and a telecall that had not happened, and a phys—complete with a mask filled with gas—that had not happened either.

Relief sliced through her confusion. She didn’t want to examine how she felt about Renall and not knowing for certain if that tryst had been a figment of her imagination should have made things so much worse, but it didn’t. In fact, things felt far better with that uncertainty around it.

Too confused and sick to really process those things, Clara made her way back to the bed and cut off the wick. Her hands folded beneath her skull. Her eyes closed then flew back open as she felt, through all the other long list of complaints in her body, a stinging pain at the base of her spine.

“What the…?” Her fingers crawled around her waist and downward. She pressed softly at the stinging place on her skin. Misery stitched up along her spine. Her eyes went wide. She had felt that pain before.

When her chip had been placed in her body.

Eyes wide, terror creeping in, Clara lay there, staring into the blackness and wondering exactly what was going on.

Her courage had always been what had gotten her through, and it kicked in then too as the day dawned outside her window. She slung the covers aside and stood. She stood and then went to the dresser, yanking out clothes. Dana had made her another dress, but Clara disregarded it. She felt off-center, and the last thing she wanted to do was put her flesh on display.

Besides she had to go to Renall and demand an answer, and if she wore one of those dresses—well. She thought, I didn’t dream that. It happened. We made love. I don’t know what happened after, but I know we did make love. If I wear a dress like that again we may again. I want that, but not before I get answers.