Midday drew a deep breath as he reluctantly sat himself on the operating table. A heavy pit of anxiousness was forming in his chest as he came face-to-face with the reality of the situation: he was allowing what was essentially a stranger to perform an experimental surgery on him that had never been tested on a human before. A procedure that, if successful, would result in him having some sort of alien ‘creature’ permanently embedded in his mouth and, if it was unsuccessful, well, he tried his best not to think about that. Either way, Midday found himself nauseous with fear. He had a strong urge to back out, to run away and try his luck with a different approach, but the fact remained that he was desperate to see improvement fast—and that this was the quickest way toward that end.

“Drink this,” said Netari as she handed him a vial of yellow liquid he knew after watching this same surgery be performed on Mister Potatoes was the anesthetic that would keep him from flailing about throughout the procedure.

Midday took the vial and stared at it for a while, not quite ready to take the plunge.

Netari, seeing this behavior, rolled her eyes. “You’re wasting my time. Yours too.”

“Yeah, I know, but this is serious…” Midday looked down at his lap, taking his eyes away from the vial. “I won’t lose my sense of taste or anything like that, right? And there are no downsides to this procedure besides an increased appetite, right?”

“That’s the theory, yeah.”

“But you don’t know anything for sure…”

“How could I? You’ll be the first human I’ve done this procedure on.”

“But you’re reasonably confident that everything will work out fine in the end, right?”

“If I had to put an estimate on it, I would probably put the likelihood that everything goes off without a hitch at 70 percent.”

Midday froze. “Only 70 percent? Isn’t that… kind of low?”

“Well… I’m 100 percent confident that you’ll survive the surgery, at the very least. The only way you could die is if you went into shock, but I have the means of handling that should it happen. You really don’t need to be so worried. I’m the best doctor in Neighborhood 8, you know.”

“But what does that 70 percent represent then, if not survival?”

“Unforeseen side effects.” Netari shrugged. “Again, I’ve tested this procedure on several animals over the past few weeks, including several large mammals. The results have been promising across the board, so I see no reason to believe that the results would be any different for a human.”

“But what if they are?”

“Then that would be your problem, not mine.” Netari walked over to Midday and bent down above him, with her towering frame looming over the feeble young man. “Tell you what: how about I sweeten the deal for you just so that we can get things moving along? I'll have one of the people indebted to me complete your quota tomorrow in your stead so that you can take the day off to recover from the surgery—not this is a procedure that you need a whole day to recover from. How does that sound?”

“But wouldn’t that person get a strike?”

“They would, yes, but that’s not your problem, is it?”

“No… I suppose not.” Midday sighed. He felt a little guilty about so readily accepting an offer that would inevitably result in the suffering of someone else, but only a little. Altruism was by no means his strong suit. “I’ll do it if you bump your offer up to two days.” He kept his eyes on his lap, neither daring to look up at the giant above him nor exactly sure why he had risked ruining what was undeniably already a very generous offer.

Netari grinned. “The person I have in mind for this already has a strike, you know. They would end up spending the wheel if I made them do that… which is fine by me, of course—perhaps even preferable in this specific case—but I don’t know if the same holds true for you. Do you really want to send someone to the wheel just so that you can laze about doing nothing for an extra day?”

“Do you not have multiple people indebted to you? Wouldn’t it be possible to have one person do my quota one day and then have another complete it on the day after that?”

“Perhaps I do. But frankly, I would prefer to send this person to the wheel if possible. Being as cruel as possible to those who go against me is good for my image. Gotta send a message and all that, you know how these things go.”

Midday flinched. He had forgotten just how notorious Netari was among the residents of Neighborhood 8. She was someone who had no qualms about letting patients die if they refused to accept her outrageously unfair terms, and had even been known to have other competing doctors killed off if their affairs conflicted with hers. Midday reckoned she probably would have had Gork assassinated too if the good-natured doctor hadn’t been under Romulo’s protection. “And… just what did this person to anger you so much?”

“They went to another doctor despite agreeing that I would be the only doctor they would ever visit for the rest of their lives.”

“Oh, umm, I see…”

“So what will it be, Midday? Make your decision.”

“I guess… I’ll take the two-day option.” Midday felt like an awful person, and he found himself amazed by the sheer extent of his callousness. If this stranger got unlucky with the wheel—which was not very uncommon at all—they very well might die because of this decision. Moreover, if they managed to get a nonfatal yet still hazardous option, Netari would surely use their injuries as a chance to make them all that much more indebted to her. And yet despite having considered all of these possibilities, Midday had still made the greedy choice in the end. The guilt was already weighing down on him somewhat, but the real source of discomfort was fear about what might happen if his cabinmates—especially Gork—found out about this arrangement.

“Ha! I underestimated you, Midday! Two days it is!” She let out a hearty laugh before curling her lips into an impatient frown. “Now hurry up and chug that vial.”

Midday did as instructed and finished off everything in the vial in one huge bitter gulp. His muscles immediately started relaxing themselves as a result, making it nearly impossible to move them in any way whatsoever. A few seconds later, his mind started getting hazy, and then, just a few seconds after that, he was out cold.

Netari wasted no time in beginning the procedure.