The Voice stayed silent. I thought it had left until I heard a rustle. "We brought you here because we need your services, Jack Meter. But first we had to repair you."
"Repair me? What am I, a toaster?" I yanked on whatever was holding me down. "Let me up, will you?"
"We cannot do that, Jack Meter."
"What did you do to me?"
"You were dying."
"Of course, I was dying, you moron--that was the whole point."
"You wished to die?"
"Give yourself an A-plus, bozo."
"This complicates matters." The Voice sounded worried. "We thought you would wish to repay a debt. This is the custom of your race, is it not?"
This situation, already strange at the outset, had degenerated into the bizarre. The Voice acted as if it didn't know much about my "race," as it put it, but claimed it had reversed years of abuse to my body. And it played the weirdest music I'd ever heard. I threw out a wild guess.
"The next thing you'll tell me is that I'm not on Earth anymore, right?"
"In a manner of speaking," The Voice said, "no. Yes."
)
