Femen Interlude #1
June 29, 2047 - "Cassandra is here," the aid announced.

Co-Leader Administrative Division Mackenzie turned. "Send her in."

But Cassy was already there. "I have it!" she announced. "If you will roll up a sleeve." An aid wheeling an IV kit followed her. The bag of saline solution appeared to shimmer.

"You're sure this will work?" Co-Leader Administrative Division Mackenzie said with a start, struggling to hide her irritation at Cassy's presumptuous entrance.

"Positive!" Cassy beamed.

When Cassandra defected from the Augment Resistance and turned herself over to the Femen, she promised to recreate the nanites that gave the Augments all the enhanced abilities produced by the organic spintronic chips that replaced their brain and nerve tissue, and made them nearly invulnerable from the graphene that permeated their cells. Nobody knew, yet, just how powerful an augment could ultimately become, because the process was so new that the existing augments were still adapting. And now the Femen co-leaders were going to have this technology, too.

Co-Leader Administrative Division Mackenzie sat down on the couch next to the window looking out upon the garden just outside her office. The magnolias were in bloom, she noticed with a smile as she rolled up her left sleeve.

Briskly Cassy swabbed her skin with disinfectant, patted at the vein, and then with a precise movement jabbed and taped the needle in position, and set the drip. "Now just lie back and relax," she said, "this will take about 20 minutes."

Suddenly, Co-Leader Administrative Division Mackenzie felt very weak and quickly laid down.

"Alia is already starting to come on-line," Cassy announced, referring to Co-Leader Civil Reeducation Division Alia.

"On-line?" Co-Leader Administrative Division Mackenzie asked, "doesn't the process take several hours?" Despite feeling very weak Co-Leader Administrative Division Mackenzie was fully alert. She recalled that Cassy had explained how it took several hours for the nanites to adapt to the individual, and she wondered how Co-Leader Civil Reeducation Division Alia could have progressed so far unless she had begun the night before.

"Yes, that would be true if we had fresh nanites," Cassy explained, "but I am using my own nanites."

Horrified understanding swept through Co-Leader Administrative Division Mackenzie with a chill and she struggled to rise.

"I will add your distinctiveness to my own," Cassy cackled with glee as she quoted a line from an old Star Trek story, "you will be assimilated, resistance is futile."

Rod Van Mechelen is the author of What Everyone Should Know about Feminist Issues: The Male-Positive Perspective (the page now includes several articles by other authors), and the publisher of The Backlash! @ Backlash.com and Cowlitz Country News. He is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and served for 9-1/2 years on the Cowlitz Indian Tribal Council.