Steve Austin walked into the huge OSI complex. It was all very familiar to him with its bare white walls, linoleum-tiled floors, utilitarian furnishings, and medical and scientific equipment. There was nothing homey or inviting about the sprawling complex and yet it felt almost like a second home to Steve. He had spent so much time here over the last three years.

Being the human prototype for bionics hadn't been easy.

After he had healed from being made bionic and struggled to learn how to use his new limbs, the bugs had to be worked out. Every time a limb twitched or trembled, he had trouble maintaining his balance, couldn't focus his eye, had a power surge, struggled with fine motor skills, or couldn't control the amount of force he was applying with his hand, he had to be adjusted. It had been a constant and exhausting cycle of testing and fine-tuning his bionics.

Even after the initial adjustment period, there was the regular testing and maintenance, as well as the repairs when his bionic parts malfunctioned or were damaged. His human half was also very carefully monitored to keep him in optimal health. And then there were the quarterly psych evaluations he had to submit to where he was hooked up to a machine that measured his brain's Alpha waves and required to answer the most personal of questions.

No, it wasn't easy being the first cyborg. Steve himself once confessed that being an experiment wasn't much fun, even if it was successful.

And yet Steve had adapted and thrived.

Some might say that his background as a test pilot in the Air Force and then as an astronaut with the space program had prepared him in some ways to become a bionic man. He had passed with flying colors the very intensive medical and psychological testing that NASA puts its astronaut candidates through. And after he was chosen by NASA, he had undergone two years of rigorous training to become fully qualified as an astronaut.

But even with his background, Steve almost didn't make it. At one point early in the year-plus-long process to rebuild him, he had tried to take his own life. He would have succeeded if his nurse hadn't walked in on him and stopped him. After that, Dr. Wells took no chances and Steve was constantly monitored.

Steve then retreated into himself, refusing to utter a word to anyone. For months he endured almost weekly operations. Endured the numbing monotony of staring at the ceiling of his hospital room during those periods when he wasn't under the stupor of drugs or the electrosleep machine. Some operations fixed the damage to his body caused by the crash of the lifting body. Other operations were to prepare his body for the bionic prosthetics to come.

It took four months before Steve would talk to anyone. That day came when he finally accepted that he was going to live.

Oh, there were occasional setbacks from time to time where he would lash out in anger or retreat into depression or self-pity but, gradually, he came to accept being part man and part machine. He even admitted once that he would do his experiment over again.

Now, he was here at Rudy's lab again…this time checking in for minor surgery to remove scar tissue from one of his numerous earlier surgeries.

When Steve returned from rescuing Prince Hassad of Berdhabi, Oscar Goldman wasted no time scheduling the surgery for the next day. Oscar needed his bionic man fully functional.

Steve and the Prince had barely escaped with their lives. To get rid of an on-board bomb, Steve had executed a stunt called the Throw Away that pulled enough negative g's to safely release the canopy and allow him to throw the bomb out of the jet. The maneuver triggered Steve's vertigo and if it wasn't for Jan Lawrence talking him down, Steve wouldn't have been able to safely land the jet.

Steve's vertigo was so bad he couldn't even jump without getting dizzy.

"Good morning, Colonel Austin."

"Good morning, Vicky," Steve replied. "And it's Steve."

She ignored his request. "Your room is ready for you, Colonel Austin, and I've placed a hospital gown on your bed. You know the routine…everything off." Vicky, Rudy's new head nurse, was all business.

"Yeah," Steve replied unenthusiastically. He knew the routine all too well. While he was looking forward to being able to fly and jump again, he wasn't looking forward to this surgery, even if it was a minor operation. As many times as he'd gone under the knife, it was something he could never get used to.

Steve walked toward the hospital wing of the complex, which was an intelligence hospital that served members of the intelligence community. His room was the third door on the left. He paused in front of his door and looked thoughtfully at a door further down the corridor on the right.

Jaime Sommer's room.

He had a strong urge to walk over, knock on the door and say hello, but he knew there would be no answer. Jaime was in Ojai.

He reluctantly pushed the door open to his room. A hospital gown lay on the bed. Steve wasted no time undressing and putting on the hospital gown. After putting his clothes away in the closet and dresser, he opened up a small bag that he had brought with him and started unpacking. He didn't need to bring much since he always kept some clothes and toiletries here in his room at the hospital. After he finished unpacking, he stretched his six-foot frame out on the bed.

He didn't have to wait long. Vicky came in a couple of minutes later carrying some medical supplies. She hung an IV bag filled with clear liquid on a tall stand near the bed.

"How are you feeling today, Colonel Austin?"

"Fine. How are you?"

"I'm well. Any dizziness?" she asked as she grabbed his left wrist and felt his pulse.

"Not right now."

"Good, pulse is strong. When did you last eat?"

"I had dinner at seven."

"Nothing since then?"

"No."

"Good. Open up," she ordered as she placed a thermometer under his tongue. She efficiently wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his left upper arm, inflated it, and let it deflate. "Hmm…a little high."

She removed the thermometer. "Temperature normal."

Vicky then tied a tourniquet above Steve's left elbow and swabbed his inner arm with alcohol. "You're going to feel a bit of a pinch."

Steve winced as she expertly slid an IV catheter into his vein and then taped it down.

After attaching the saline bag, Vicky turned her attention to filling out Steve's medical chart.

Doctor Rudy Wells walked in a couple of minutes later. "Good morning, Steve!" he said cheerfully. "Are you ready to do this?"

"Hey, Rudy, ready as I'll ever be." Steve managed to sound relaxed even if he didn't feel it. His years as a pilot had taught him that. He had learned how to show a cool exterior even when his stomach felt like a bag of bricks.

But Steve's elevated blood pressure gave him away today and didn't go unnoticed by Rudy as he looked over Steve's medical chart. Rudy patted Steve on the shoulder. "Now there's nothing to worry about, Steve. This is minor surgery. We're just going to go in there and get rid of the lesion just below the cochlea of your left ear, which is affecting your equilibrium and causing the dizzy spells. In about ten days you'll be able fly and jump with no problems.

"Whatever you say, Doc. Hey, do you think I might be able to get out of here a few days early? I told Jan Lawrence that I'd try to make it to her graduation next week."

Rudy thought for a moment. "Well, let's play it by ear and see how you feel in a week."