It was the greatest novel ever written.
My right hand, without bothering to consult me, reached over and picked up the phone. My left hand managed to put up a faint struggle for a few seconds. Then, while my right hand held the phone, my left hand punched the appropriate number.
Scott had told me that Porlock’s microbots were programmed to perform multiple tasks. I was starting to guess what those tasks were. Max Porlock could have made a fortune with his nanotech hardware, but he wanted to be a best-selling author…
The phone was picked up on the third ring. “Scott?” I heard a voice inside my mouth say, as the microbots took over one more portion of my body. “Sam Kurtz here, at Augean Press. I’m going to fax you the contracts for Max Porlock’s novel.”
With that damned chuckle of his, Scott asked me: “So you like the book, then?”
I managed to speak, but by now the microbots were rearranging the furniture in my brain so rapidly that I had no way of knowing how much of my response was my own free will and how much of it was nanobot neurosurgery.
“Do I like the book?” I answered. “Let’s just say that I can’t put it down.”