First, there was the uncomfortable tightness around his neck, like his shirt collar was buttoned too tight. Next, a... fuzzy feeling in his head, and equally vague pain, a pinching, in maybe a dozen places. Then, the most worrisome, Brent swore he heard voices.

      "We need your email password, Mr. Gately." Dreamily, along with the voice, came a dizzily floating image of a nurse, leaning over him.
      "Turn the power up, for Chris'sake!" Disembodied, a strong male voice, God, speaking in third person, like some psychopath or politician.
       "Mr. Gately, are you all right?" The pretty, eighteen-year-old secretary, her long, frizzy brown curls making the sweet oval face look even younger, looked up at him with concern in her wide blue eyes. "Call me Brent." He found blue eyes on a brunette disconcerting in a way, wondering if she colored them with contacts; then he remembers his high school friend, Bushy, who had one blue eye and one brown eye. Suddenly the smell of her perfume wafted him back to full consciousness, to reality. "I need your email password."
      "Sorry, Janet, I keep having... my mind wanders occasionally."
       "It's no wonder, you have so many things on your mind." Her voice was childlike, or maybe it was birdlike, the trill of a mockingbird, ever changing, ever shifting. "I think you must live in a different dimension from the rest of us. But, if you'll give me your email password, I'll see if I can organize your thoughts for you, save you the time of searching through them."
       "I feel a little funny, giving anyone my password, sort of like taking off my pants." Brent mused, searching for a thought he couldn't find. He felt the collar around his neck, and a pinching like alligator clips on his brain. "Not that there's anything there to be ashamed of, mind you, just... exposing your thoughts; and your friend's thoughts." She wants to organize my thoughts? he asked himself.
       "Oh, I understand," Janet laughed, and her voice was definitely like a mockingbird, singing in a treetop. "But, I'm your private secretary," she purred the word private intimately, like a caress. Janet leaned close to him, right breast brushing his left arm, chestnut curls dancing on his shoulder, and a slight dampness on the nape of her neck made the smell of her skin so tangible, for a moment Brent thought he'd swoon.
       "Not that high, turn it down, down, for..." the disembodied male voice, in a panic.
      "Sponge bath" Janet said. "Yes, yes..." the disembodied voice.
      "What?" Brent asked, his head jerking backwards, hands shaking.
       "I'm sorry," Janet spoke softly, placing one soft and perfectly manicured hand gently on his thigh. "Am I being too forward? You're just so..." her olive hand petted Brent's thigh ever so lightly, like she would a bird. "I was so thrilled when they said I'd get to work with you. My job is to make sure that all your correpondence stays current, if I have to do it myself." Her hand pats his thigh.

       Suddenly Brent felt self-conscious, as though he were being watched. Yet, he knew he was in his office, a corner office with two glass views of San Francisco, sitting in his leather chair, hands perched like sparrows on the laptop atop his large glass desk. Two less comfortable chairs set facing his desk, two white unadorned walls behind, two metal filing cabinets, and the girl standing beside him. Still he heard the voices and felt the eyes, all looking at him. One of the nodes came loose. Janet is barely five feet tall, less than ninety pounds soaking wet-- she has to run around in the shower to get wet--but what's there is all woman, like Robert Palmer sang, she's simply irresistible. There, it's connected, back on line. Now calibrate the biocurrent.

      The thinness of the clothes, bodies underneath, why is he sweating Brent wonders. A bright light in his face.

       "Okay, if we turn the current up here, on these two nodes, we might be able to push the signals through the damaged area, dammit more topical, the cognitive's working!"

      The woman is next to him, and she's naked underneath her clothes. Why is she standing so close beside me, Brent wonders. More nurse or geisha than secretary.

       Janet holds a stack of emails, laser printed on 8-1/2" by 11" white sheets, 20% cotton bond. The nodes in his brain begin to tingle, there are 24 of them, or is it six, they become one, an electric humming that's part of his brain. In her hands, small, slender, a woman child's hands, a woman's hands, the emails feel like a washcloth. Sweaty testaments are lifted, washed underneath, then dried. "Some powder would be nice," Brent tells Janet.
       Bright lights flood him, a metal case pinning his head, all the eyes hid behind the lights... the lights are once again two unadorned white walls, and his secretary asks him, "Will there be anything else, Mr. Gately? Just buzz if you need me," she says over her shoulder, walking past the walls. Alright, we did it fellows. Let's shut it down for now.

      The tingling subsides, but not like electricity leaving a circuit; the current has become biological, encaptured in brain, sinew, cell and synapse. And memory. Brent swivels his chair and watches San Francisco fade in the sunset. Sleep is coming, the voices have gone, along with the feeling below his waist. Only Janet's voice, every few hours, touching his arm, asking if he's all right.