Dragon-the-Tribrid

When she awoke, she feared that it had all been a dream, that she was back in the vat, floating in empty shapelessness Only she saw no acid-eaten steel catwalk, but a pristine ceiling of white tiles, with a glaring electric bulb in the center. Where was she? She heard movement and voices, muffled and unclear, as through deep water. Embarrassment flooded her, and her gum-vision rippled in agitation. How many people were here? Had they been watching her? She was naked. With the desperate speed of a girl who wakes up in a stranger's bed after a wild party, she pulled together a body, clothes, colors, her flesh stiff and sore, the way she used