Chapter 5

Over the next 18 hours Naira worked non-stop, keeping herself awake and wired with the sort of illegal energy drinks & stimulant cocktails that Violet herself would likely have enjoyed in her youth. Before starting work she walked around the prone form of Violet, occasionally lightly stroking the various scars that crossed her pale skin, gently caressing her left shoulder, noting how it wasn’t level with the right, and the strange faint protrusions under the skin. She knew those were where it was reattached and rebuilt after the accident, before finally sitting on a stool above Violet’s head. Lightly running her fingers over the mess of scarred skin where her left ear should be she used her other hand to bring a magnifying glass up, and with her next generation scalpel. Unlike the ones of her youth with their simple metal blade this had a microscopic laser tip which, whilst having only working on direct contact would also semi cauterise the cut, keeping them clean.

With this in hand, and a Deep sigh & shoulder shake she made the first cut atop Violet’s head, straight through her hair, and brought it down to where the left ear would be, then mirrored on the right side, before ever so gently peeling her scalp apart to expose her skull.

From then on she used various highly specialised tools to firstly expose the nerves, and to attach them to the polymer muscles and synthetic cartilage of the ears to her skull directly. Next she parted the scarred skin over her left ear canal, and started adding the processor connections onto the exposed auditory nerve deep in the canal. Once complete she drew the connections up via synthetic nerves all the way to the left feline ear, then connected it to the microscopic bio electromechanical receivers built into the ear itself.

 She then had to remove Violet’s right ear, before gaining access to her working eardrum. With a deep steadying breath she perforated it, then set about removing the damaged drum to get to the auditory nerve, before repeating the process. Once completed she replaced Violet's scalp, draped  the covering furred skin she’d made to cover the ears, with the ‘natural’ smooth bit on the inner ears, before tucking it in to fit.  Then using the medical skin adhesive that had been one of the most expensive materials to get, and most difficult, she sealed Violet’s scalp up, trimmed the excess skin off at the same time, and set everything to heal

Then using the operating tables own motorised systems she was able to not only turn Violet over, but also able to use a split in the table to expose the base of her spine, before making a cut right at the base of the tail tattoo Violet had the beginning outline of on her back and cutting down to expose her spine.

Naira could be seen to hesitate before cutting into Violet’s spinal cord. She needed to cut into it, splice in the nerves and to permanently affix the tails own synthetic spinal column extensions. But one wrong move here, or even the right one, if things went wrong here Violet would be unable to walk. And Naira Knew for her beloved friend that would be It. Game over.

Pausing to wipe her brow on her operating scrubs she held her breath and made the incision. 

From there it was a case of attaching the spinal extensions, effectively fusing them to Violet’s bones permanently, then melding the polymer muscles & synthetic nerves onto the two feet of tail to allow full movement, and covering the whole thing in the furred skin, and sealing it all to heal, making sure its length was supported safely, before reversing the table and finally collapsing in a chair next to Violet’s left shoulder, sleep taking her with her mumbling “gods I hope this all works”

It was several hours later that Naira was stirred from her uncomfortable slumber by a brace of alerts gently beeping to her left, signifying that Violet was waking up from the deep anaesthesia she’d been under for 22 hours. Standing and stretching to her full height, before releasing the clips holding her dark hair with dusky pink and purple highlights loose from it’s work ‘bun’ and running her fingers through all it’s mid back length, letting it fall behind her shoulders.

Turning she silenced the alarms and checked the readouts, before turning back to see Violet just starting to wake up, her eyes very slowly fluttering towards open, before flinching tightly shut as she weakly muttered “too bright”

“Oh shit, sorry!” squeaked Naira while scrambling to turn the theatre lights down from Violet's naturally light sensitive eyes “is that better?” Violet’s eyes crept open again slightly “Thank you” she croaked.
“How do you feel Vee?” Naira asked, her face wrought with concern
“Like I’ve been ran overrr, do you have waterr?” came Violet’s reply, her voice scratchy and weak

“Of course” Naira leapt up to get some in a glass, and grabbed a metal straw before gently putting the straw in Violet’s lips, and smiled thinly as she took several sips, swallowing hard each time before stopping

“What can you feel?” asked Naira nervously
“all too much, everything feels hyperrr weird” mumbled Violet

“Can you move your toes at all Vee?” asked Naira as she looked down Violet’s long legs in time to see her toes wiggle slightly “oh thank the Goddess!!!” whispered Naira before breaking into tears
“Wait” whispered Violet “I Heard that….” 

With that both were sobbing gently, tears rolling down both their faces