out

cord, right where it leaves the skull. We use the trial-and-error method for coding the motor nerves. It hurts. When I finish, all I have to do is push a button and the muscle it's wired to contracts—max contraction, more than you could trigger with the voluntary nervous system. Once I've got you wired, I slap you in the frame and strap you up rigid. The frame is articulated, so you get isotonic work along with the 'metrics. Then I work you over like one of them guys in a torture chamber, know what I mean? You'll come out of it screaming for mercy, every muscle in your body yelling for help. You'll turn black and blue all over. This goes on for a week. Then it gets worse." He shook his head. "Like I said, not many fellows can take it."
"How long?"
"Give yourself a break, mister. A few times a year I sell a tank job, not a max but just whatever somebody needs, like a demo player is slowing down, he needs toning up fast; or some of these specialty show people, after a long layoff. And even at that—"
"How many hours a day do I spend inside?"
"A day?" Goldblatt barked. "You work day and night—that's if you're talking minimum time. But that's for lab cases, theory stuff—"
"We'll test the theory."
"You must be in some kind of hurry, mister."
"That's right. And we're wasting time."
Goldblatt nodded heavily. "It's your bones that'll get bent, my friend, not mine. All right, strip down and I'll run you across the 'tab monitor and see what we got to work with."



13

The insertion of the hair-fine electrodes took three hours—three uncomfortable hours of probing in sensitive flesh with sharp-pointed metal, alternated with tingling shocks that made obscure muscles jump and quiver. At the end of it, Bailey touched the coin-sized plastic disk nestled against the base of his skull and winced.
"That's the easy part," Goldblatt said cheerfully. "Now we gh