Lindsay pressed the first dosage against his wrist and donned his headpiece. He felt the adhesive eye-cusps grip his sockets, then a wash of numbness as local anesthetics took effect and threads of stiffened biogel slid over the eyeballs to penetrate his optic nerves. He heard a faint annihilating ringing as other threads wormed past his eardrums into predetermined chemotactic contact with his neurons.