“How in the hell,” I asked Etienne, “do you work with football players who have to kick up to their shoulder level?” I mopped perspiration off my brow and neck.

Football players do not demand the precise placement of hip with a full turnout as you. The answer came not from Étienne, who remained focused on my motions, but from inside my head.

A full, coherent sentence from the bots. I raised my eyebrows in speculation. Was there more here than an invisible guardian of my cartilage? They seemed to be gaining in sentience. True sentience meant consciousness and appreciation for beauty.

My hope and spirits rose.

Until I moved to the center of the room and asked for a waltz.

Too much! Too much! the bots screamed. My knees collapsed.

Étienne clucked his tongue and lifted me into a waiting wheelchair. “We told you not to push yourself too far,” he gloated.

I turned my face away from his glower. “I will try again tomorrow.”

“But…”

“I did not fail today. I just could not do as much as I wanted. Dr. Bertrand said I could practice until I failed. I did not fail.”

The nanobots needed to love my dance. To know why I had to dance. Why the world needed dance and beauty and art.

Eat, eat, eat! the aliens inside my head insisted.

I stared aghast at the mounds of yams, a tiny green salad drowning in oily dressing, a large portion of fruit salad dripping mayonnaise, and a slab of beef covered in rich Béarnaise sauce. And on a side plate a six-layer piece of gateau chocolat, complete with gooey icing.

“You want me to eat this crap?” I nearly gagged at the thought of putting so much fat into my body at one time.

“Well, of course. This is what the doctor ordered for you,” the kitchen aide sniffed. “This is how les Américains eat!” She flounced out of my room.

“Too much fat,” I snorted and pushed everything aside but the salad. I scraped off as much of the fat-filled dressing as I could.

You must eat. We need fuel to work on your body.

I stuck to my guns as I nibbled the salad.

Please?

Suddenly I was not in control.

The meat disappeared down my throat faster than I expected. It tasted so good, I wanted more. Never since I had begun to dance professionally at the age of fifteen had I so craved food.

The yams too, the nanobots reminded me.

“But the sauce?”

It will not hurt you. And as if reading my mind, It will not detract from your muscle mass.

“Promise?”

Promise.

So I ate the yams and sauce as well.

“Nice to see that your appetite has returned,” Dr. Bertrand remarked. He entered my room just as I finished the last forkful of super-sweet gateau.

“Let’s just monitor the activity of my nanobots after your workout today. There should be a slight increase in activity as you rebuild your strength.” He attached sticky pads to either side of each knee and then stuck wires to the brackets on each pad. The wires led to a handheld monitor the size of my PDA.

The gadget clicked and hummed to itself, much like the nanos hummed in the back of my head. We’d been through this procedure every day since my surgery and rehab.

Dr. Bertrand frowned. “I have never seen activity at these levels. If I did not know better, I’d say I’d given you four treatments, not one. I don’t see how the number of nanobots I gave you can generate these readings.”

The monitor began playing a lilting Andalusian tune. “En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor,” by Joquin Rodrigo, I thought. A nice piece, easy to dance to.

“You said the nanobots had self-repair and replication capabilities to give them longevity.” I tried to look innocent. As long as the nanobots appreciated music and let me dance, they could replicate themselves a thousand times over.

“No dance for you tomorrow,” Dr. Bertrand said through his frown. “You did too much. The nanos won’t be able to keep up with repairs if you keep pushing yourself like this.”

“I’m checking myself out and going home tomorrow,” I replied icily.

“You can’t! You aren’t ready. You’ll collapse before you get to the airport.”

The monitor buzzed and beeped, then returned to a much slower pulsing tone, the tone it should have had before I had exposed the nanobots to music.

I smiled sweetly at Dr. Bertrand. The nanos had completed their repair job for the day.

For three days the nanos kept me anchored to the barre while I worked.

When they finally released me for some true dance-after a good warm up at the barre, of course-I almost shouted with joy.

“Computer, ‘Woodland Rhapsody’ by Alexander,” I called to the music system. The lilting strains of my favorite piece of music in the world drifted out from the speakers, a New Age piece played on synthesizer and uilleann pipes.

I began the slow, twisting moves of the dance created especially for me two years ago, just after my first bout of tendonitis. The work had become my signature piece. I always ended solo performances with this dance. I always received multiple standing ovations and dozens of bouquets of roses when I performed it.

The adulation was nice, but did not compare to the sheer joy of dancing to this music.

Tears came to my eyes as the music overwhelmed me. I became the dance, the music, the art.

By the time I completed the triumphant celebration at the end my ears rang and sweat dripped from every pore of my body. My heart beat too rapidly.

“Now you know,” I told the nanobots, “why humanity craves art. Existence is chaos, conflict, and fear. Art is the flower bud of beauty that allows us to step back from the horrors of life so we can find the hope and joy in living.”

I exulted in finally being close to what I was meant to be. Only one more step remained in my recovery.

Inside me, the nanos wept with awe.

We have spent some time working on your pelvic muscles, the nanos informed me as I entered the dressing room of a private studio in London.

“What’s wrong with my pelvis?” I sank onto one of the benches and began digging leg warmers and pointe shoes out of my bag.

I was due to open at the Royal Albert Hall in just two weeks. I needed to get into rehearsals in the next day or two at the latest. But I didn’t want anyone to see my first venture onto pointe. Certainly the nanos would protest. The argument might take several hours. But I knew how to convince them.

A lifetime of carrying your bags and books and things on the same hip. Then an imbalance in your posture-you tighten your butt but neglect your abs. You had pushed the joints out of alignment. We have corrected that and stimulated the muscles so that they hold.

“Oh. A lifetime of bad habits. Thank you for correcting it. I’ll work on eliminating those bad habits.” I loved this new relationship with my nanos. I’d found that I could finally indulge my appetite without gaining weight. The nanos put every calorie to good use. They’d added firmness to my breasts, eliminating the beginnings of sag. My skin felt fresher and more elastic all over my body.

I arched my feet within the pointe shoes and tied the ribbons securely.

A strange, numbing silence took over the back of my neck.

I slipped from the dressing room into the studio and took my position at the barre. No time to waste putting music in the CD player in the corner. I had to do this before the nanos became suspicious and closed me down. I’d just have to hum along to my warmup routine.

The silence in my head spread through my shoulders and arms as I dipped into my first round of plies.

Biting my lip, for concentration, I rose out of the bend and continued stretching up and up until my feet rolled to a full point within the special shoes.