That Tear Problem
by Natalia Theodoridou
"Now flex your arm," the controller said. Her voice sounded dry and mechanical through the speakers.
"The real one or the other one?" I asked and immediately received a neuro-ping: You are real.
"Both your arms are real, soldier," she said.
I always thought of her as a woman, but really it was just a voice. There was no way to tell gender.
Focus.
"Right. Which one do you want me to flex?"
"The left one."
I flexed my left arm. It's one of the limbs they rebuilt after the accident. The Neuropage pinged me again, just in case: You are real. All this is real. I wondered if they figured out I had found the glitch. Was that what prompted this ping? But it couldn't be; the pager was supposed to be entirely incorporated into the nervous system. No outside access available.
Unless that was a lie, too.