The Future We Wish We Had

ALIEN VOICES by P. R. Frost

‘ J’accuté comme…’ my nurse whispered to the trailing student nurse.

I heard that the last three patients who had this surgery went insane and committed suicide, I translated in my head. My many years in the ballet studio had forced me to learn French. I understood every dire word she said.

The student nurse proved that she had heard the same rumor. They left notes saying the alien voices from the nanobots…

“Enough idle gossip.” The surgeon’s looming presence in the doorway to my private hospital room cut short the women’s whispered confidences. “Mademoiselle de la Marachand must rest without anxiety.” He spoke in English for my benefit, but with a decided French accent. He’d been practicing medicine for many years in this Caribbean haven for money launderers, drug smugglers, and off-the-wall medicine.

I’d done a lot of research on him and his unique treatment for worn-out knees before committing to this strange and peculiar treatment. The AMA said it was unsafe and ineffective.

For me and other dancers staring at the end of a too-short career, his new technique looked like a miracle.

At twenty-eight I’d neared the pinnacle of success in the world of ballet. At twenty-nine I was close to losing it all because my knees were torn to shreds by the dance.

Faced with the prospect of never again melding my soul with movement and music into the glorious art of ballet, I searched for options. Even now, with the cold steel cage of the bed frame around me, my body twitched with the need to move with the canned calypso music filtering through the hospital.

Without dance the music was incomplete. Without dance I was less than half a person.

The drowse of pre-surgery drugs could not remove my need to dance.

“So will I kill myself?” I asked the surgeon as he lifted my gown to look at the markings made by the nurses on my knees. Perhaps the conversation I’d overheard was merely the product of my overactive imagination under the influence of those drugs.

“You speak French?” His eyebrows went up. He placed a warm hand on my foot. “Do not worry your pretty head about what these ignorant cabbages bandy about,” Dr. Bertrand reassured me. “They merely seek to thrill each other with tales of science fiction.”

So I had not imagined the whispered conversation.

“I do not fear voices.” Could these alien voices be worse than those of the mad choreographers, dictatorial ballet masters, and critics who think they are God?

“Yes,” Dr. Bertrand chuckled. “I have heard that dancers do not fear. You welcome pain as a necessary part of your art.”

“If it doesn’t hurt, you aren’t doing it right.” I tried to grin, but the drugs were making my face as well as my tongue numb.

“If you had not avoided treatment to your poor abused knees for so long, you would not require such drastic measures.”

“If I’d undergone corrective surgery sooner-a stopgap at best-I would have missed three of the most important years of my career. I might never have danced again.”

“Ah, but soon, I shall put that all right. My nanobots will repair all the damage you have inflicted upon your knees and keep repairing it for many years to come.”

“How long can you promise me?”

“My nanobots will last longer than the rest of your body. When you die of old age, your knees will remain as limber and strong as those of a teenager.”

“When can I dance again?”

“You will need a few weeks for the nanobots to work. Then you will feel the youth pouring into you.”

“I’m scheduled to open in London in eight weeks.”

“Eight weeks?” Dr. Bertrand shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Possibly you will be better by then, but I cannot promise peak performance in eight weeks.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said. The music played as I let the drugs carry me off. I could hear the music. I tried to move to the music. To dance.

Always, the dance.

Two days later, before breakfast, I ignored my physical therapist’s orders and rose up on tiptoe to test my balance. A big smile creased my face as I realized that Dr. Bertrand’s treatment had indeed worked a miracle. Pain-free, except for a tightness around the small incisions, I raised my arms and spun in a circle.

My body swayed and threatened to tumble. I caught myself on the bed railing and forced my feet to stay under me.

Someone sighed in relief. I looked around for the source of the whoosh of air through clenched teeth.

I was alone.

Perhaps I had made the sound. I certainly was relieved that I had not landed upon the still-healing surgery incisions around my kneecaps.

A few hours after that I tried again and accomplished five steps and a turn on tip-toe, then five steps back to the bed.

Étienne, the physical therapist, whisked me away to his gymnasium-or torture chamber-as the aides cleared away the lunch trays.

“You are a lot more limber this afternoon,” he said as he pushed my bent leg toward my chest.

I smiled at him but said nothing.

“Tell me when the muscles begin to protest,” Étienne said as he pressed a little harder against my leg. I loved the way his French accent slid from his mouth, almost like music. I could dance to his voice.

I let my kneecap brush my breasts before I squeaked a protest. Etienne gently straightened my leg and let it rest upon the hard therapy bench. In truth I’d felt the burn in my thigh fifteen inches before I said anything. I needed to push myself harder and faster than either he or Dr. Bertrand thought prudent.

In my experience, all medical people were far too conservative. They didn’t want athletes-dancers-back at peak performance as soon as we could manage. We ceased to pay for their services when we felt ourselves healed, long before they were ready to release us.

“That was amazing, Mademoiselle. But you really should not press so hard,” Etienne é said, shaking his head. He stood back, hands on hips, a stern frown upon his face.

“I am a dancer. I do not interpret pain in the same way you do.” I tried to temper my excuse with a flirtatious smile. Hard-nosed critics had been known to change their reviews when I smiled like that.

“Then allow me to judge the intensity of your therapy. The nanobots need more time to repair the damage to your bone, ligaments, and cartilage before you begin to stress them. Even miracles need time.” He stalked out of the gymnasium-like room.

Before the orderly could arrive with my wheelchair to take me back to my room, I rolled off the bench to the treadmill. I used the handrails as a barre.

Long habit settled my posture into a classic première position to begin a ballet warmup, heels together, toes pointed out, left arm hanging down in slight curve with fingertips at the top of my thighs, right hand resting lightly on the improvised barre. The mirror opposite me reflected my long legs, narrow waist, long, dark hair pinned up in a ponytail. I smiled at the figure I cut, even wearing baggy sweats.

Except my feet pointed straight forward.

I forced them to turn outward along with my thighs and knees. My kneecap should face the same direction as my toes. Both should line up with my shoulder.

I sighed in relief when I achieved an almost normal première position.

No! Someone-someones?-shouted into my mind.

My feet and knees whipped forward of their own accord. My left knee buckled. I clung to the railing with both hands, desperate to master my rebellious body.

I inched myself back to standing. Then I eased my feet and legs outward until toes, knees, and shoulders again aligned. Then before my muscles could protest and change my position, I bent my knees into a demiplié, forcing my heels to remain on the floor.

Sharp pains shot from my knees into my brain. It felt as if someone drove daggers directly into my temples, again and again in rhythm with my elevated pulse.

I collapsed onto the floor, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. The moment I stretched my body flat on the floor the pain stopped. But the memory remained. I cowered there for many long moments, whimpering.

The orderly found me curled up in a fetal position. He carried me back to my room.

For the rest of the day I contemplated my situation from the confines of my bed. I let the nurses and Étienne do what they needed to do without protest, without interest. My entire focus and concentration riveted upon the overhead conversation just before the surgery.

Alien voices? Nanobots inside my body. Alien voices!

My mind looped around and around the problem. Could it be? Could the mad surgeon with his miracle procedure have done more. Much, much more?

The nanobots repaired damage. The doctor had hinted that they could even recognize new damage as it occurred.

Was the leap to recognizing potential damage too far?

From there might they not need to discourage behavior that could lead to potential damage?

No, I reasoned. That was madness.

Madness. Had the nurse used that word?

I waited and counted the hours until after midnight. The rehab wing grew quiet. The PTs and doctors went home. The other patients slept. Occasionally a nurse walked the corridors on her rounds. I could listen to my head without interference.

With as little bending and twisting as possible, I rolled from my bed and stood. So far so good. The knees did not protest. I took one step, then two in the direction of the bathroom. Still no reaction from the things inside me.

I turned my feet and knees outward-not the full ninety-degree angle I wanted, but enough to suggest a ballet stance.

Ten steps, then twelve. My knees felt a little shaky. A little hum of concern in my nape. I grabbed a towel bar for support. My knees stayed steady. The hum went away.

While I was in there I might as well take care of business. The raised seat of the john was a blessing in my condition. Once more, I turned my knees and feet outward and lifted my heels several times. My calf muscles welcomed the stretch and release.

Grab bars in all the right places helped me stand again. I left my legs turned and rose up on tiptoe. Slowly, ever so slowly, I lifted my right arm forward and up to cinquième en haut. Then I released the bar and lifted my left arm.

The hum in my head started up. I pretended it was music and stepped forward on tiptoe. The hum grew louder.

I overrode it by singing a jaunty little waltz. “One, two, step. One, two, step.”

The hum matched the lilt in my mind.

Arms still up, I dropped to both feet in a modified fifth position, all the while singing. On each third beat I took one step forward on the right toe and brought the left up into fifth position, toes aligned, heels facing opposite directions. Then I came down on the count of three, still in fifth position, heel to toe and toe to heel.

Six times I performed this simple exercise. Six times the aliens hummed along with me, so caught up in the music and the lovely stretch of calf, thigh, and back muscles that they didn’t notice how I moved.

Then they noticed. Straight, straight, straight, they screamed at me.

My feet and knees jerked to an ugly front face and without my will, marched me back to bed. The moment I placed both hands on the side bar, my legs gave out. I had to drag my tired body onto the mattress.

A smile tugged at my mouth as I drifted off to sleep.

For the next three days, every time I had a little privacy in the bathroom, I repeated the exercise, singing my favorite ballet waltzes ever louder to drown out the nanobots’ protests. Each day they took a little longer before forcing me back into their version of a normal stance.

By the end of the week I managed a few pliès-bends-entendues-stretches-even a quick ronde de jambe-a circle of the leg.

“I want a practice room complete with barre, mirror, and sound system,” I demanded of Dr. Bertrand on the following Tuesday. A week and a day after the surgery. Time was running out. Seven weeks to the opening in London. Seven weeks to tame the voices in my head.

“This is too early,” he replied, setting his jaw stubbornly.

‘Étienne has told you that I can walk the entire length of the corridor without aid. The time has come,” I insisted. I paced my little hospital room, my legs stiff in the exaggerated step of the dancer.

“No.”

“Yes!”

“No. You will damage yourself beyond the abilities of the nanobots to repair.”

“I have paid you a great deal of money for this treatment. I still owe you half the fee. If I cannot dance, I cannot pay. You will not get the second half of your fee.” I could be just as stubborn as he. I softened the demand with a smile and a gentle touch to his hand. “I must dance.”

“You may use the physical therapy room. But only if Etienne supervises,” the doctor conceded as he dropped a light kiss on my forehead. “When you fail, then you will know that I know how the nanobots work in your body better than you do.”

I did not retort with the “Oh, yeah?” that burned on my tongue.

The hum in the back of my neck began the moment I took my place at the barre Etienne installed in his beloved PT room. The treadmill, weight bench, and other accoutrements of his trade were all pushed against the back wall, out of my way.

“Adagio in 4/4 time,” I called to the computerized music system.

The slow, melodic tune drifted over the hidden speakers. I let the sound fill me as I drew deep breaths. The nanos picked up the count. Carefully I ran through gentle plies in first, second, fourth, and fifth positions. Blood coursed through my muscles, giving them warmth and flexibility. I reveled in the stretch and burn. Then I pushed into deeper grand pliés.

Ah! the nanos sighed.

I pushed a little deeper.

Not so much yet, they insisted and shot fire from my knees to my head.

I backed off, but continued through my routine warmup. The microscopic robots let me know when I went to far. We compromised on the grand battlements, leg lifts. I managed to bring my leg level with my hip; half as elevated as I considered beautiful and necessary; much, much higher than the nanobots thought feasible.

“How in the hell,” I asked Etienne, “do you work with football players who have to kick up to their shoulder level?” I mopped perspiration off my brow and neck.

Football players do not demand the precise placement of hip with a full turnout as you. The answer came not from Étienne, who remained focused on my motions, but from inside my head.

A full, coherent sentence from the bots. I raised my eyebrows in speculation. Was there more here than an invisible guardian of my cartilage? They seemed to be gaining in sentience. True sentience meant consciousness and appreciation for beauty.

My hope and spirits rose.

Until I moved to the center of the room and asked for a waltz.

Too much! Too much! the bots screamed. My knees collapsed.

Étienne clucked his tongue and lifted me into a waiting wheelchair. “We told you not to push yourself too far,” he gloated.

I turned my face away from his glower. “I will try again tomorrow.”

“But…”

“I did not fail today. I just could not do as much as I wanted. Dr. Bertrand said I could practice until I failed. I did not fail.”

The nanobots needed to love my dance. To know why I had to dance. Why the world needed dance and beauty and art.

Eat, eat, eat! the aliens inside my head insisted.

I stared aghast at the mounds of yams, a tiny green salad drowning in oily dressing, a large portion of fruit salad dripping mayonnaise, and a slab of beef covered in rich Béarnaise sauce. And on a side plate a six-layer piece of gateau chocolat, complete with gooey icing.

“You want me to eat this crap?” I nearly gagged at the thought of putting so much fat into my body at one time.

“Well, of course. This is what the doctor ordered for you,” the kitchen aide sniffed. “This is how les Américains eat!” She flounced out of my room.

“Too much fat,” I snorted and pushed everything aside but the salad. I scraped off as much of the fat-filled dressing as I could.

You must eat. We need fuel to work on your body.

I stuck to my guns as I nibbled the salad.

Please?

Suddenly I was not in control.

The meat disappeared down my throat faster than I expected. It tasted so good, I wanted more. Never since I had begun to dance professionally at the age of fifteen had I so craved food.

The yams too, the nanobots reminded me.

“But the sauce?”

It will not hurt you. And as if reading my mind, It will not detract from your muscle mass.

“Promise?”

Promise.

So I ate the yams and sauce as well.

“Nice to see that your appetite has returned,” Dr. Bertrand remarked. He entered my room just as I finished the last forkful of super-sweet gateau.

“Let’s just monitor the activity of my nanobots after your workout today. There should be a slight increase in activity as you rebuild your strength.” He attached sticky pads to either side of each knee and then stuck wires to the brackets on each pad. The wires led to a handheld monitor the size of my PDA.

The gadget clicked and hummed to itself, much like the nanos hummed in the back of my head. We’d been through this procedure every day since my surgery and rehab.

Dr. Bertrand frowned. “I have never seen activity at these levels. If I did not know better, I’d say I’d given you four treatments, not one. I don’t see how the number of nanobots I gave you can generate these readings.”

The monitor began playing a lilting Andalusian tune. “En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor,” by Joquin Rodrigo, I thought. A nice piece, easy to dance to.

“You said the nanobots had self-repair and replication capabilities to give them longevity.” I tried to look innocent. As long as the nanobots appreciated music and let me dance, they could replicate themselves a thousand times over.

“No dance for you tomorrow,” Dr. Bertrand said through his frown. “You did too much. The nanos won’t be able to keep up with repairs if you keep pushing yourself like this.”

“I’m checking myself out and going home tomorrow,” I replied icily.

“You can’t! You aren’t ready. You’ll collapse before you get to the airport.”

The monitor buzzed and beeped, then returned to a much slower pulsing tone, the tone it should have had before I had exposed the nanobots to music.

I smiled sweetly at Dr. Bertrand. The nanos had completed their repair job for the day.

For three days the nanos kept me anchored to the barre while I worked.

When they finally released me for some true dance-after a good warm up at the barre, of course-I almost shouted with joy.

“Computer, ‘Woodland Rhapsody’ by Alexander,” I called to the music system. The lilting strains of my favorite piece of music in the world drifted out from the speakers, a New Age piece played on synthesizer and uilleann pipes.

I began the slow, twisting moves of the dance created especially for me two years ago, just after my first bout of tendonitis. The work had become my signature piece. I always ended solo performances with this dance. I always received multiple standing ovations and dozens of bouquets of roses when I performed it.

The adulation was nice, but did not compare to the sheer joy of dancing to this music.

Tears came to my eyes as the music overwhelmed me. I became the dance, the music, the art.

By the time I completed the triumphant celebration at the end my ears rang and sweat dripped from every pore of my body. My heart beat too rapidly.

“Now you know,” I told the nanobots, “why humanity craves art. Existence is chaos, conflict, and fear. Art is the flower bud of beauty that allows us to step back from the horrors of life so we can find the hope and joy in living.”

I exulted in finally being close to what I was meant to be. Only one more step remained in my recovery.

Inside me, the nanos wept with awe.

We have spent some time working on your pelvic muscles, the nanos informed me as I entered the dressing room of a private studio in London.

“What’s wrong with my pelvis?” I sank onto one of the benches and began digging leg warmers and pointe shoes out of my bag.

I was due to open at the Royal Albert Hall in just two weeks. I needed to get into rehearsals in the next day or two at the latest. But I didn’t want anyone to see my first venture onto pointe. Certainly the nanos would protest. The argument might take several hours. But I knew how to convince them.

A lifetime of carrying your bags and books and things on the same hip. Then an imbalance in your posture-you tighten your butt but neglect your abs. You had pushed the joints out of alignment. We have corrected that and stimulated the muscles so that they hold.

“Oh. A lifetime of bad habits. Thank you for correcting it. I’ll work on eliminating those bad habits.” I loved this new relationship with my nanos. I’d found that I could finally indulge my appetite without gaining weight. The nanos put every calorie to good use. They’d added firmness to my breasts, eliminating the beginnings of sag. My skin felt fresher and more elastic all over my body.

I arched my feet within the pointe shoes and tied the ribbons securely.

A strange, numbing silence took over the back of my neck.

I slipped from the dressing room into the studio and took my position at the barre. No time to waste putting music in the CD player in the corner. I had to do this before the nanos became suspicious and closed me down. I’d just have to hum along to my warmup routine.

The silence in my head spread through my shoulders and arms as I dipped into my first round of plies.

Biting my lip, for concentration, I rose out of the bend and continued stretching up and up until my feet rolled to a full point within the special shoes.

Fire laced through all of the delicate bones and muscles from toe to knee and upward.

NO! You can’t do this.

“I will do this. The dance is not complete without pointe shoes. The lines of my body are asymmetrical unless I continue the line of my feet into a full point.” I dropped down to flat. The fire went away.

I tried again.

The pain increased and rose up to my hips and into my heart and lungs.

Gasping for breath, I bent double.

The moment my heels touched the ground the pain reduced to a burning ache. Air rushed back into my lungs.

“Let’s try something else.” I marched over to the portable CD player in the corner and shoved in a disc. By the time I returned to the barre, the nanos had begun to hum along.

Hoping I’d lulled them into submission, I tried again.

They reacted more violently. I collapsed onto the floor, straining to breathe through the pain.

We cannot allow you to damage yourself beyond our ability to repair you.

“Then get busy and replicate a bunch more of you. I will do this. The dance is not complete unless I go on pointe. My career is finished if I can’t dance on pointe. Without my career, I am nothing.”

Silence.

When I could bear to stand up again, I tried one more time to rise up on pointe.

This time the nanos reduced me to puddle of pain and tears. I had to crawl back to the dressing room.

Inside the studio the music continued its lonesome routine, playing for the dance without a dancer.

Alone in the dead of night, I sat on the bed of my furnished flat and stared at the bottle of pain pills Dr. Bertrand had given me. Sixty of the big green caplets with the unpronounceable name. Heavy-duty medication, barely legal in the U.S., and certainly not in the dosage and numbers in that bottle. Enough to last me an entire month if I took the prescribed amount of one with breakfast and another when I went to bed.

Was it enough?

I arched my feet one more time.

No reaction from the nanos.

I stood up and stretched into a long arabesque.

Still no reaction.

I reached for my pointe shoes.

The nanos collapsed every muscle in my body.

Crying for all my lost hopes and dreams, crying for the end of my art and dance, crying for the end of me, I crawled back onto the bed.

The bottle of pills still stood on the nightstand. A big glass of water sat beside it.

Choking on my tears I shook six pills into my hand and reached for the water.

What are you doing? the nanos asked in alarm.

“The only thing I can do. You won’t let me dance. Without my art my life is reduced to mere existence. There is no hope, no joy, no beauty.”

You may dance; just not with those torture devices.

“That is the only way I can perform ballet. The dance is not complete without an audience.”

Then invent a new form of dance, a less destructive form that does not require turnout or pointe shoes.

“They call that modern dance. I find it ugly.”

I swallowed one pill.

It went down sideways and stuck in my throat. I gagged and drank more water until it cleared.

Damn. Now I’d have to get more water to take the rest of the pills.

One is enough.

“No, it isn’t. Not to end the pain in here.” I slammed my fist onto my heart. A new spate of tears blurred my vision as I refilled the glass of water.

You will damage yourself. We cannot allow that.

“You have damaged my identity, my very soul to the point of no return.” I tried to put another pill into my mouth and found my hand shaking so badly I dropped them all.

Cursing, I crawled around on the floor seeking them out.

You will end your existence if you take all those pills.

“And your point would be?” I found four. That should do the job. And there were others in the bottle. If my hands stopped shaking long enough to open the childproof cap.

You cannot mean to end your existence! they cried in alarm.

“I mean precisely to do that.” I managed to get a second pill into my mouth.

But, but…

I’d never known the nanos to sputter.

It didn’t matter any longer. I had to do this. I grasped the glass of water firmly.

“Without the dance, I am nothing. All the pain, and agony, cutting myself off from friends, denying myself the pleasure of a movie, or an art museum, or a loving relationship… I endured all of that because it interfered with my dancing. Now I have nothing. I am nothing.”

If you kill yourself, then we will die, too.

“So? What good are you if you won’t let me dance?” I got the glass as far as my mouth.

Then my hand clenched so tightly the glass shattered. Water sprayed all over me. The precious pill dropped to the floor once more.

Blood ran down my hand and dripped on the floor from half-a-dozen glass cuts.

“Now look what you made me do.”

We cannot allow you to terminate yourself or us.

“I’ll find a way.” I picked up one of the larger pieces of glass. Big enough and sharp enough. I aimed it over the big artery in my wrist. I remembered reading somewhere that those who were more serious about their suicide slashed lengthwise, along the artery. Cutting crosswise was only a gesture by those who cried for help.

I watched my blood pulse in my wrist and poised it to slash lengthwise.

Is destroying your body with pointe shoes more important than living?

“Dancing on pointe is an essential part of the dance… of living.” I brought the glass shard closer to my wrist, bracing myself against the pain I knew would come. The final pain I must endure.

If we let you dance on pointe will you continue to live?

“Dancing on pointe is life to me. Without the pointe shoes I cannot perform; I cannot complete the art of dance without an audience.”

A huge sigh of resignation ran through my body.

Clean up the broken glass, then sleep. We must replicate ourselves one hundred times over to accommodate your art. For the stake of beauty.

Crying in relief I obeyed and flushed the last of the pills down the toilet. The nanos had given me another chance to live.

“Donna, you’ve never looked more radiant!” Lucien, the company director, gushed as he gathered me in a hug tight enough to disrupt the layers of blue chiffon that constituted my costume.

“It’s all that time I spent in bed recuperating from surgery,” I lied by way of explanation. He’d never understand the sentient nanobots in my system that kept my body looking and performing like a twenty-year-old.

“I watched the rehearsal this afternoon. ‘Rhapsody’ was positively poignant. You’ve added new dimension to your work.” He held me at arm’s length, inspecting my new costume, complete with a crown of flowers, wisps of green leaves about the chiffon, and fluttery wings on a flexible wire. My fairy costume.

“Your knees working okay?” Lucien had known me to dance through excruciating pain without admitting it.

“Better than new. The procedure worked miracles.”

“How long will it last? This company needs you dancing. Our receipts were way down during your absence. Audiences just do not react to your understudy the same way they love you.”

He’d recommended conventional surgical techniques when the tendonitis first hit me three years ago. Those procedures were really only temporary pain relief. Joints never were the same afterward.

“My knees will outlive you.” I smiled graciously at the white-haired gentleman of a certain age. He’d been around so long no one dared ask how old he was, and yet he had more energy and stamina than a dozen dancers put together.

In fact he’d pointed me toward Dr. Bertrand and his controversial techniques when my pain became so acute I could not walk.

I wondered…

“But will your knees outlive you? That is the important part.”

I smiled enigmatically.

“Time for you to go on, Donna.” He kissed my cheek. “Merde. He whispered the universal “Good luck” of all dancers. Though why we said “shit” to each other in French, I’ll never know.

“I have to go easy on the jumps,” I apologized.

No jumps, the nanos nearly screamed in my ear.

“There are no jumps in this dance.” Lucien looked puzzled.

“I’ve added a small tourjete and pas de chat.” Next week I’d make those little jumps bigger. Then we’d go for the truly magnificent grand jeté leaps I had once been famous for.

We won’t let you undo all our repairs with jumps and leaps and such.

“That’s what you think,” I told the nanos sotto voce.

“Did you say something?” Lucien asked.

“Just a little mantra to psyche myself up for my premiere.”

No jumps.

“We’ll see about that.” I could out-argue stubborn, mad ballet masters, cranky conductors, and insistent bean counters like Lucien. What were a few nanobots to a true dancer? “If I don’t jump, leap, and turn, the dance is not complete.”

We must complete the dance. To dance is to live.

Exactly!