iMate

It had been almost two months since Claire had been in a surgical chair, with her face numb to all feeling. The first time was when her iMate was being installed, and it was frightening but not painful. The actual removal of her iMate hurt a little more.

She couldn’t believe that only a few months before her life had been so normal, but with the installation of that tiny device in her brain, everything had changed.

The man beside her, dressed in a white coat with thick glasses, made another small incision behind her ear and pulled her iMate from her head just as easily as he had placed it in. When he pulled away, he looked down at her with a reassuring smile.

“All done, Claire.”

Claire tried to smile back, but her face was still a little too numb to do so. The man reached his hand out to her and pulled her from the chair, guiding her into the wheelchair beside him.

“Now I’m going to take you to the conference room. We have just a few questions to ask you. Is that alright?”

She gave him a soft nod and he began wheeling her out of the room and down a long hallway that Claire was sure she’d get lost in if she didn’t have a guide.

Pulling open a pair of wooden doors, the man pushed her into a room filled with a large table and half a dozen people sitting around it. They all looked so smart and so intimidating, and it only succeeded in making Claire even more nervous than she already was.

“Claire,” a woman on the end spoke with a wooden pencil stashed between her fingertips. “How have things been since the installation of your iMate?”

Luckily the feeling to Claire’s face was beginning to come back, but she could still just barely speak. “Good.”

All of the men and women began writing on the papers in front of them and they wrote for so long that they couldn’t have just repeated what she said. That made Claire even more nervous than the prospective of the questions she'd be asked. They were going to analyze every little answer in a way that only a scientist could.

“Did you find your soul mate?”

If there was a more perfect question, Claire couldn't think of it. Just one thought of Liam made all her nerves disappear and she smiled to herself, thinking of the past two months she’d spent chasing after and eventually catching him. He was perfect for her in every way, from how puffy his eyes were in the morning to the way he liked his toast twelve shades past burnt. He made her happier than anyone else, and she knew that was what a soulmate was supposed to do.

The iMate worked. It was always going to work. It brought people love at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected places. It made things happen that seemed impossible, and without it Claire didn’t know where she’d be.

She wanted to tell them that yes, the iMate worked, and yes, it brought her to the most amazing man in the world. She wanted to thank them for showing her that love did exist and that happiness wasn’t just some big show. She wanted to give them the perfect answer to their question, because they had given her the most amazing gift of all, but she didn’t know how to put it into words.

All Claire could do was smile and give them a soft nod of her head, but that was all the answer they needed.