A few years ago Mort had barely been able to crawl out of his bottle long enough to cold-read credulous idiots into believing he could speak to their dead loved ones.

He’d known better at the time, damn it, but he’d let himself worry more over the possibility of losing an hour or two than her safety. He pounded his fists together and stared up at the sky with bitter eyes, but the alien stars mocked him, and his jaw clenched as he powered his com implant and sent out a full-powered omnidirectional pulse, heedless of the quarantine system’s sensors.

My iron’s just comin’ to natur’.

Medical technology seeks to develop thought-controlled artificial limbs.