Dok used a dropper to put water into Brian’s unblinking, bloodshot eyes and a few more drops into his mouth. “I guess I wouldn’t call this a coma, exactly, but you’re definitely catatonic. See? When I move your arms like this, you hold whatever position I leave you in …”
His computer buzzed, its small screen reading “Janice Rose.” He touched the machine, leaning down to speak to it. “Answer. Full visual.”
A hologram of a thin woman appeared between Dok and the wall. Her light brown hair was shaggy with ends sticking out from where countless strands had broken. Her eyes were red-rimmed and watery with dark bags under them, and her mouth hung open. “Hi, Dok,” she said.
“Hello, Jan. What can I do for you?” Dok asked.
“I think we’ve got the flu, Dok. Real bad. Maybe one of the new ones that’s been killing people.”
“Maybe. They do seem to get worse every year. Tell me how you’ve been feeling.”
“We all got headaches.” She swallowed. “Dizzy. Can’t eat. I got a ringing in my ears and so does my mom. She got it so bad she’s going nuts. Sometimes she yells at the noise, telling it to stop.”
“How long have you had these problems?”
“Couple weeks.”
“Why did you wait so long to call?”
“Seemed like it was getting better a few days ago. Then it got worse again.”
Dok narrowed his eyes, staring intently at the hologram. “It was warmer a few days ago,” he said. “Show me your furnace, Jan. I want to see how you heat your apartment.”
Jan’s arms reached out in front of her and then the hologram changed. It was a typical heater for the squalid dwellings in the Zone, a metal box with a couple of pipes underneath that sucked filthy air from outside into the burning chamber and pushed it back out hotter and filthier. They were illegal all over the world because they could burn anything and typically released thick clouds of smoke, but almost everyone here had one. “Show me the chimney where it connects to the furnace, would you, Jan?”
The hologram changed again, and now it appeared that Janice’s furnace was sitting directly in front of Dok. The chimney, like that of every other furnace of this type Dok had seen, including his own, was covered with metal fins to recapture as much heat as possible from the smoke.
“Okay,” Dok said. “I don’t see any obvious leaks, but I’m guessing you’re getting a low-level dose of carbon monoxide all the time. Open your window right now and shut the furnace down—put out the fire. Get out of there for at least a few hours—maybe go on the building’s roof, if you’re safer from attack that way. When you come back you’re going to need to remove the chimney pipe and clean out the stuff from inside. Monoxide might be backing up into the burn chamber and escaping that way, so I also want you to check the door seals and latch. You should start to feel better soon, but I want you to come and see me no matter what, okay?”
Janice nodded. “We will, Dok. Thanks.”
“Sure, Jan. Come see me soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
Dok terminated the conversation, turning back to Brian. “That’s me. Full-time healthcare provider, part-time maintenance man.”
He felt Brian’s forehead. “You came in with powder all over you. I guess this is some drug, but honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it. Since you hold your position so well, I’m going to keep you leaned up against the wall like this for a while; maybe some of the stuff will drain out of your brain.” Dok shrugged, even though Brian was the only patient in his tiny, shabby apartment. “Not exactly cutting-edge medical treatment, but aside from hoping that this saline IV will flush out your veins, there’s not much more I can do right now.”
Larbilastier household, executive quarters, Celarwil-Dain Securities, Inc
Nathanial W. Roan sat at the dining table. The front door opened, admitting his wife, Gwyneth. He straightened his back but kept his eyes down.
“Ugh,” she said. “I can smell the grease from that burger all the way over here. You’re playing those ridiculous oldies songs from burger joints again, aren’t you?”
He stared at his sandwich. “I like those songs, ma’am. They take me back …”
She slipped off her shoes and hung her coat in the closet, where it dripped onto the tiles. “You play those songs again and again. And every single time you hear them, you decide to synthesize a couple burgers. Burgabrosia Corporation receives yet another royalty and you gain yet another lump of fat around your middle.”
He set the burger down, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel and running a hand up over his forehead. “May I make something for you, ma’am?”
“Pulsarin,” she said, passing him and heading into the bedroom. “It’s going to be a late night for me; new reports came out.”
Mr. Roan adjusted the settings on the synthesizer, remembering her preferred levels for bacterially-secreted caffeine and other stimulants, synthetic proteins, vitamins and carbohydrates, patented flavoring, and antidepressants. He turned the last one back down. Gwyneth said too much antidepressant made it bitter.
In a few seconds it was warm. He rapped twice on the open door before carrying it in, so as not to surprise her. She was carefully placing her Accepted collar pin on the dresser, under the Accepted mirror Mr. Roan was technically forbidden from gazing into.
“Your Pulsarin, ma’am,” he said, setting down the tray. She nodded. He started to close the door again but she snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor.
He knelt.
“I stopped by Family Resources yesterday,” she said.
His anxious gaze shifted up to her face for a moment, taking in her profile as she examined her smooth, Statused head in the mirror.
“They said that if you agree to do it amicably, you might be allowed to stay in this family housing unit. That’s two grades higher than where you should be since you missed that last promotion. Of course, it’s already one less than I should have, but when I marry Craig I’ll be on the top floor anyway.”
“You don’t have to do this, ma’am. Please reconsider.”
She turned from the mirror. Her face still wore a smile but her cold green eyes bored into him. She ran her fingertips through his short brown hair. “Of course I have to. We’re already three grades apart and it doesn’t look like that’s going to get any better. Right now it’s embarrassing, but after another promotion period, being with you could actually drag my career down, too. It’s one thing to fail on your own … but you know I can’t neglect God’s will. I have no choice but to leave you.”
“The promotions aren’t my fault. I was a Fasttracker when we got married! Then they stuck me in Office Furnishings—you know they hardly ever promote from Office Furnishings. It was just a random assignment that messed up everything.”
The smile had dissipated and her face was now expressionless.
He kept his eyes averted.
“Nothing at Celarwil-Dain is random,” she said quietly. Her voice had that strange rhythm all Accepted used when talking about their company or their superiors. Somehow they all managed to enunciate every word. She slipped back to her regular speech pattern. “I know you’re upset, so nobody outside this unit will know you said that.” She sighed, reaching for a pair of bactrosilk lounge pants. “But in some ways you’re right. You had such great potential and the company didn’t get you to bloom. You’re a failure because the company failed you. You should take this divorce as an opportunity. Please talk to Family Resources about reconditioning.”
“I don’t want them to recondition me, ma’am. I don’t want to change the way I think.”
“That’s precisely why you’re a drag on the company,” she said. “Your stubbornness is slowing our growth. Reconditioning can be done at any point in your career. You know that. We’ve been over it and over it. It is the only way to reach any higher than the third tier of management.”
He recognized the touch of euphoria in her eyes that welled up whenever she tried to help him be a bette
r worker. She was no longer looking at him, but rather at some infinitely distant place between them.
“Reconditioning will help you stop being so selfish,” she said. “You’ll remember that you’re simply one part of the whole—part of God’s plan.”
Vacuum
Sato marched ahead, taking long strides through the mist, always in the same direction, focused only on the thinning band of warmth from the Life Force.
From somewhere ahead came a single, clear tone that seemed to soften but not ever fully disappear. A chime, and the Life Force was guiding him toward it.
He reached a wall. It appeared to be an interior wall, dividing rooms from one another, but dirtier than any exterior walls he had ever seen at home. Only the small section in front of him was visible through the haze. He was certain his path continued beyond the barrier, but how was he to reach it?
The chime sounded again, directly on the other side of the wall. Sato raised his foot to kick, but his foot passed right through as if the wall itself were only a reflection. He took a cautious step, and then another, moving toward his mission.
MediPirates Bulletin Board
Posted by Dark Dok #cB449d:
Patient came in covered in a white powder which I assume is some street drug, though spectrometer came up with no commonly known substance. Patient became increasingly catatonic and has been motionless last three hours. Pupils unresponsive but vitals otherwise normal. Administered 0.9% IV NaCl to flush it out, tried talking to him to snap him back to the world of the living, but I’m running out of ideas. As a last resort, I’m now trying some Asian folk medicine, burning incense and striking a chime, hoping maybe it’ll stimulate his senses and get him moving again. Does anyone have any idea what I might be dealing with, here?
3
Some squalid dwelling
Sato stood in a small, cluttered room. A man with a strange purple complexion sat at a low table on the floor, burning incense and striking a chime. He fanned the incense toward another man who leaned against the wall, his actions resembling those of a Buddhist monk, except that he was striking the chime with halfhearted indifference.
The second man sat completely still, his eyes open but unfocused. His flesh was so pale it was nearly translucent. Wondering if the man still lived, Sato slowly reached out toward the motionless form.
In an instant, Sato was drawn in like a breath of smoke through a pipe. His spirit joined with the stationary body, settling deep inside the tissues.
Now he understood. This was the body he would use to fulfill his mission.
Lecture Hall 418A, Fisher University, a subsidiary of McGuillian Corporation
“Well! Good morning, Mr. Williams!” the professor called from the podium. The double row of brass buttons gleamed against the matte black of his uniform as he looked down his nose at Lawrence. “How nice that you’ve decided to join us.”
Lawrence stopped moving through the aisle, standing up straight to face the front of the lecture hall. “I’m sorry, Professor Gommelman, sir. I won’t be late again, sir.” He resumed shuffling sideways toward his assigned seat, his nostrils tingling from the mix of synthesized colognes, laundry soaps and shampoos wafting from his classmates. More than a hundred young men and women in Fisher University uniforms watched him, a few of their Golden faces cracking tiny smirks that betrayed their amusement at his situation.
“Since Mr. Williams is such an individual that he feels he can come and go as he pleases, I believe he is the perfect candidate to inform us about the Family Restoration Initiative.” The man seemed to be pointing at Lawrence with his chin. “You did read the assignment, Mr. Williams?”
“Yes, sir, Professor Gommelman. I did read the assignment.” He had reached out to the university’s server and accessed his own account in the system via EI upon reaching the building. Knowing his lateness would irritate the professor and probably get him singled out, he had connected to the class’s real-time feed before entering the room. He opened his personal files as he settled into his seat. He felt a moment of panic as the waitress hologram loop started to play, along with the music, but fortunately his settings were closed and only he was aware of them. His face grew red and warm as he shut those files quickly, leaving the outline open and willing the EI to convert the transparent document back into standard format. “The …” he flicked his fingers in the air, scrolling through the suspended text. “The first part of our lesson was about the conditions leading to the Family Restoration Initiative … beginning with the debauchery of the past, and specifically, the influence of the popular culture of the time.”
The professor stared. “That’s all you got out of the reading for today? If my students are unable to glean more than this from the assignments, I’ll have to require a great deal more reading to make sure you’re all gaining enough knowledge from this course … Yes, Mr. Williams? Have you something to add?”
“Yes, sir,” Lawrence said, scanning the outlined material. “At first, better technologies meant resources were more affordable for everyone. Corporations grew until they became predominant in world social structure. But over time, the world’s resources became increasingly scarce, and corporate payrolls shrank.
“Companies controlled the world’s remaining resources with fewer and fewer employees, and it became essential for the corporate world to choose the very best people from the widest possible pool. The Family Restoration Initiative was an attempt to make individuals from the lower class more suitable for corporate work, both morally and academically.”
Professor Gommelman stared at Lawrence a moment and then nodded. Lawrence found his place.
“It … used to be that most people lived like wild animals, doing anything they felt like doing, any time they wanted. The glut of natural resources and the techniques that were developed for exploiting them after the Industrial Revolution caused a swell in the lower echelons of the upper class. This group eventually became known as the middle class. This segment of society consisted primarily of independent, non-collaborative sorts with socially primitive origins. They still had, as our text said, the jungle in their veins. Even the shows and movies they watched for entertainment reflected their disdain for authority. Their plotlines often encouraged subversive behavior—young people being disrespectful to their parents, for example—and these shows were actually considered funny by the standards of the day. Other stories had the heroes fighting against the police. Individualism and rebellion were glorified.
“As a result of all this focus on the individual, social order gradually deteriorated among this so-called middle class, and members of that class were increasingly worthless. Violence became more and more common because each individual believed he had a right to fight when his personal interests came into conflict with the society at large. These problems compounded dramatically when resources were no longer abundant and only those within the corporate structure could still legitimately participate in the economy, and now we’re back to a dual-class system.”
Lawrence looked at the professor again. Surely somewhere online there was a better, more digestible format. Could he find it quickly enough to cover the gaps? If he tried to find it, he would risk losing his—
“All right, Mr. Williams,” Professor Gommelman said. “I’m convinced you have at least skimmed the first few pages of the assignment. Go on.”
No time to look for a new source. He struggled on. “Our country enacted the Family Restoration Initiative to restore order—to reestablish God’s place at the top of the hierarchy, where He selects our political and corporate leaders for us. Of course, the law could never make anyone study or work hard or even be a moral person, but at least it serves as a framework for how society is supposed to function. Everyone has specific duties to everyone else, and these are clearly outlined in the statute. We know exactly what type of behavior children should exhibit, what responsibilities parents have … and there are penalties for failure. Generally, this is enforced as law only among the upper clas
s, whose conduct sets the standard for the lower class and is therefore the most important, but at least the lower class has some chance of understanding and making themselves valuable to society.”
“I’ll accept that for now, Mr. Williams, although you’d better have a lot more to say at exam time. Now, let me fill the class in on the points you omitted.”
(?)
“Mission! Must not fail. Duty!”
Brian sat up, quickly but silently, his eyes darting from side to side. The words had sounded so clear, but there was nobody talking to him.
His body had never ached so much. What place was this? Some prison? A shelter? Another person lay near him on a pile of blankets … with dark skin—Dok!
He relaxed again, nearly collapsing to the floor.
“Life Force is in danger! Must not waste time!”
He grunted, startled. It sounded like someone was shouting inside his head. Dok sat up.
“Brian! How are you feeling?” Dok asked.
Brian shook his head. “Did you hear that?”
Dok’s eyes narrowed. “Hear what?”
“That voice … . something about duty … danger … real loud. Just now. You heard it, right?” He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
“No.” Dok took Brian’s chin gently in his fingertips, turning his face toward the window and peering into his eyes. The light was too bright. Brian put a hand over his eyes, visor-like, and reached behind him with the other. “Shit,” he cursed to himself. “Don’t suppose I came in here carrying anything, did I, Dok?”
Dok stood, turning to remove something from inside an old, lidded cooking pot. He put the gun and gold coins on the exam table. “You’re going to have to stay here a few days, Brian,” he said. “Especially if you’re hearing things. A little sedative might take the edge off. I’ll get some tea packets to calm you down …”
The Book of Eadie, Volume One of the Seventeen Trilogy Page 4
