Page 38 of Broken Dream

Science fiction.

Or just science?

Whatever it is, I need to hear Louisa and her colleague out.

“Jason!” Louisa swooshes into the room. She’s in her sixties but doesn’t look a day over forty, with light-blond hair and sparkly blue eyes.

Following her is a beautiful young woman with dark-brown eyes and light-brown skin. She smiles at me.

“Jason, meet Dr. Gita Patel.”

Dr. Patel barely looks out of her twenties. Somehow her white coat looks all wrong on her. She should be wearing lingerie on a runway somewhere. But Louisa says she’s a pioneer in her field.

I rise. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Patel.”

“Please,” she says, “call me Gita. It’s an honor. When Louisa mentioned you to me, I took the liberty of reading some of your papers.” She flashes a smile at me. “I’m impressed, Dr. Lansing. And I’m not easily impressed.”

“Thank you. And call me Jason.”

“Of course.”

Gita sits down in the chair next to mine while Louisa takes a seat behind her desk.

“Gita and I have discussed your case at length, Jason,” Louisa says. “And I agree with her assessment that you may be a candidate for her revolutionary nerve-transplant procedure.”

I glance down at my right hand.

The tremor is so slight that most people don’t notice it, but I know it’s there. I can feel the unsteadiness. The nerve injury that stole my surgical career from me.

From the accident that stole so much more.

“We’ll begin with some new scans,” Gita says. “We need to assess the extent of the damage, understand how it has evolved since your last evaluation. Then we have to map out the path for the new nerves.”

My heart races. “And if the scans are promising?”

“Then we prepare for the procedure,” Louisa says. “The nerve graft will take some time to prepare, given its complexity. It’s not just a simple transplant, Jason. We’re talking about creating a conduit between your living cells and a harvested graft.”

“Yes.” Gita nods, her gaze steady. “The sooner we begin, the better.”

Louisa leans forward on her desk. “Jason, this isn’t without its risks. Gita’s technique is groundbreaking, and though she’s seen one success, it’s still considered experimental. There could be complications.”

I look back down at my hand—my unreliable, traitorous hand. The hand that once performed intricate surgeries.

“I understand,” I say after a moment. “But what do I have to lose?”

Gita looks at Louisa and nods. Then she turns to me. “Jason, there’s a chance this might not work. There’s a chance that your condition might even worsen. But there’s also a chance that you could regain full functionality of your hand, possibly even enough to operate again.”

I glance back down at my hand, now trembling slightly more than before—or maybe it’s just my imagination. The scars on my palm are a constant reminder of everything I’ve lost.

My condition could worsen, she said.

But so what? I’ll be no worse off than I am now—unable to perform surgery.

Fuck it.

“I’m in,” I say.

“Very well.” Gita stands and extends her hand to me. “Jason, we will do everything in our power to bring back your steadiness and your precision. I can’t promise miracles, but Louisa and I can promise our absolute commitment.”