Clearing stage 1, she moved quietly through the open doorway to the next phase of preparation for the day’s work. Two years ago, she had been acutely self-conscious of her nakedness and of the weight of the stage-1 interface that trailed tubing behind her like a tail, but no longer. Stage-4 replaced that interface with a much larger one anyway.

Taking the eighth featureless steel door on the right of the featureless steel corridor, she entered one of the many stage-2 rooms. Four metres by three, the blank room contained nothing except the stage-2 couch and associated equipment. She connected her tail to the machine and straddled the couch, checking that the tubing fell into the guides without kinks, and lowered herself onto the already-slick interface.

She lifted her legs onto the couch and relaxed back into its firm warmth. She would be here for half an hour, so she was determined to be comfortable.

Below her, the machine began to purr into action.