At home
I buried my face in my hands.
A muffled scream escaped.
Heat spread across my lower abdomen.
A strange sensation.
My finger brushed my lips.
What was I doing?
Why… why did I want to feel?
Suddenly, I wanted to do things I never would — like hum.
Why did I want to hum?
I hadn't known it was possible to feel something like this without Pefentanil.
I shook my head, trying to quiet the storm inside me.
I was finishing preparing my bath when an official CMG alert chimed on the bio-screen.
Global Medical Committee Official Notice No. 23.47-5/2341-SO London, 01/03/2878Subject: ProscriptionTo all members of the medical community,By collegial decision, the Committee has resolved to exile Riki Akiyama, registered with the Tokyo Regional Medical Council under number 345245-TO, revoking his right to practice medicine.As of today, his presence within official medical institutions is prohibited. Any involvement by other members of this distinguished community in actions related to the proscribed individual shall likewise result in exile, in accordance with the International Convention of Medicine, its articles, and the Rules of the Global Medical Committee.No further communication.All members are required to comply.Respectfully,Hideaki Katayama
President, Global Medical Committee
My face went cold.
I reread the notice several times, as if the words might rearrange themselves.
The Committee has resolved to exile Riki.
She really did it.
Hideaki exiled him.
I stepped into the bath.
Let the warm water close around me —
as if it could dissolve everything.
As if I could vanish with the steam.
The heat soothed the uterine contractions, rising and receding.
I tried to process it.
Professional exile meant losing everything.
He would be barred from official institutions.
Denied access to upper-level societies.
Unable to receive employment in his field.
Rebuilding a new career would take a decade.
Riki had received the most severe sanction.
No.
He earned it.
What he proposed—
Not only that research, but so many others before it.
I shook my head.
Redirected my thoughts.
To what mattered.
Maia.
Tomorrow.