Andreina, her bag in hand, climbed down the steps from the coach and walked up to the line that had started forming in front of the ‘female induction’ door. She managed to get there third in line, which she liked. She didn’t like being late, or at the end of lines. Even though it often meant more waiting later. Her husband had a different area to go to, so she didn’t bother to wait for him to put down his book and come.
A woman came and opened the door from the inside and she saw that same woman sit behind a desk. “Name?” she asked the first lass in line and quickly sent her on.
“Name?” she heard when it was her turn.
“Mrs. Andreina Moravia,” she said.
“Birth date?”
“First month, seventh day, fifty first year after.”
“Rank in family?”
“Fifth, second lass.”
“Husband’s name?”
“Lorcan Moravia.”
“Go in the door,” the woman said, feeding her answers into a slot in a machine on her desk. “Find the first empty cylinder and get in it. Tech should already be in there.
Andreina nodded and hurried through the door. She was very excited about this. She had never had an accepted tech medical exam!
The other lasses had chosen the first three cylinders, and there were six, so Andreina hurried forward and quickly got in the fourth cylinder, laying back and feeling the strange light play over her, making her feel warm and sleepy.
So much so that she was rather startled to feel a cool wipe on her leg and look down to see a woman wiping her leg in a circle and holding up a…
“Ow!” Andreina said as the woman poked the very large needle into her leg.
“Ah, thou art awake,” the woman said. “Broke this leg when thou wert young, did thee?’
“Yes. I was five.”
“Whoever set it did a good job, but our little nannites will take care of a few rough edges. Make it easier for thee to run.”
“Did… is the exam over? Did it find anything else? Am I increasing?”
“Nope, not yet,” the nurse said, matter of factly. “How long have you been trying?”
“Oh, only just over a week.”
She laughed, “Thou needn’t panic yet then. Everything shows green in your female organs. Overall thine exam went well.”
She took a wrist band and clicked it onto Andreina’s wrist. “Just a few deficiencies in some of the rarer vitamins and minerals, from thy lower class diet, and a little short on D…. Like everyone else on the planet. But we should have all of that cleared up in no time. When thine levels have been good for a few days this little thing will beep and come off. Bring it back here. Oh, and when thou feelest a kind of scratchy feeling in your throat and like you want to heave, come back here; it’ll be time for thynanites to come out.
“Sit up.” Andreina did and the nurse watched her, as if afraid she would pass out or something. “Anyway, any other medical problems outside of the norm for basic come right back, no charge for exams while in basic. Or on ship. That pile there is thine initial set of clothes, I’ve put the clothes thou camest in into our storage. Put them on, we need to keep you moving.”
Andreina hurriedly got up, but the next lass didn’t even wait for her to dress but got in the cylinder. Andreina took a second to examine the very strange clothes she had been given. She found a short sleeved pull over blouse, the blouse marked clearly in large black letters on the front and back: X4056, and underneath that A. Moravia. She was glad to see the v-shaped collar of the lower class. She had loved the outfit her husband had bought her, but she still felt better in a blouse of her own class
Then she picked up a pair of shorts and blushed. The idea of wearing shorts outside of her house!
She understood that this was a training exercise, and indeed a clan affair, with only clan people, so thus sort of extended family. Still, her mother and aunts would no doubt be horrified at the idea she was about to go outside, in public, in lads clothes.
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Von