by Ann Christy
I’ve only got fourteen days to decide. Just two weeks to decide if risking what might happen to me if I take the nanites is better than letting nature take its course.
Day 12 - Evening
I’ve only gotten a few days into this and I’ve already skipped a day writing in the journal. In my defense, I was very busy yesterday. Sadly, I had to kill my neighbor, which was not the way I intended to spend my day.
Reading that sentence again brings up feelings I don’t really know how to describe. Shock, perhaps. That seems a logical option. Maybe it’s simply that I can’t believe how strange human existence has become. How did things shift into this strange new reality so quickly? Even more surreal is that I’m quite proud of how well I did it. Isn’t that odd?
Writing it down might help me to process it, though it might not be helpful to read later. You can skip this if you’ve had your fill of such doings. I can only imagine what you’ve had to deal with if you’re here in my house and reading this on some unknown future day. I intend for this journal to be filled with helpful things, not just my paper therapist. This is pure self-indulgence on my part. Straight up paper therapy.
If you’re still with me, then what happened yesterday was inevitable. I’ll say that straight away. It was not gratuitous or out of the blue, or even more than exactly what was needed. It was an outcome that had to happen at some point. We all knew it. I just didn’t know it would be me that had to do the deed. I kept hoping Grace would die on her own, probably like everyone else. It was a foolish hope.
Everyone understood a few basic truths from the first day the news explained it was nanites causing the Awakened to run amok. What a diminishing phrase that is to describe our situation; run amok. Amok indeed. It’s the end of our world, nothing less than that. Even if we succeed in overcoming this, the world we lived in before is utterly gone. The trust we had in our own inventiveness will be a thing of the past.
Caution will replace our incessant desire for everything new. Violence will be business-like, a given that we must accept as a part of life. Technical advancement will be viewed with suspicion. And people like me won’t exist.
Wow, that took a depressing turn in a hurry. Best not to think about that.
Anyway, the neighbor in question—just in case you’re reading this entry—is the one across the street and two houses down. Pale yellow house with dark green shutters. She was one of the ones that woke up on that first day, the ones they call the Awakened, like they’re a more advanced and aware version of humanity. I won’t bother going over the beginning again.
Technically, the ‘she’ I’m talking about isn’t the person that owns the house, but rather the mother of the owner. I mentioned them in my previous entry, but here’s the full skinny on them. Marcy is the homeowner and Grace is her mother. Like millions of others, Grace had occasion to receive First Responder nanites. As per standard practice, paramedics administered First Responder nanites to her. They do that for almost everything serious now, just to be safe. Unlike most people, she wasn’t suffering a heart attack or a stroke, which is what they thought when the ambulance was called.
Instead, she’d suffered an aneurysm, and as everyone knows, First Responders don’t work all that great on such a condition. I mean, they work to keep the person alive or even resuscitate them, but when a vessel bursts in a person’s brain…well…it isn’t good. And since hers was in a spot people don’t generally live through, as evidenced by her dropping dead the moment it happened, she didn’t come back all rosy-cheeked and smiling.
Like thousands of others, she was an FRF—First Responder Failure. It’s such a benign sounding set of letters: FRF. They even say it like it’s cute…FiRF. It sounds like a cartoon character instead of the description of someone trapped in a permanent coma, possessing perfect physical health in most cases, yet utterly without conscious mind. It’s a nightmare, if you ask me.
Anyway, Marcy’s mom had been in their spare bedroom for about three years. The nurses came every day, two times a day. I know Marcy very well. I’d call her a friend, but not a close one. I know her husband less well. I know how he likes his martinis, but not the real him, if you know what I mean. Marcy and I, on the other hand, have shared many a long talk over coffee.
Marcy was always weighing the idea of putting her mom into one of the care homes, but the waiting lists are so long that if you don’t get on a list before a new care home is built, you won’t get in. At least not until one of the patients dies of old age or something. They’re remarkably healthy, those FiRFs. They seem to live forever, even though they never wake up. That’s probably an exaggeration, because they certainly do die, but you know what I mean.
Marcy felt bad about the idea of her mother being in one of those units, particularly when she had two empty suites in her house and stayed at home during the day. Given the state FiRFs are in, it’s not like they’re difficult houseguests. To top it off, her mother was on Medicare, which isn’t exactly friendly to long term hospitalization.
The costs were an issue, particularly for a good care home. Medicare apparently covers very little, and only the cheapest homes are on their approved list. If you want your family FiRF to get anything remotely like good care, then you’re going to be the one paying for it.
Also, have you ever been to a FiRF unit? I hadn’t. I’d never thought about them at all, other than to hear about the protests because of the costs to taxpayers. Marcy had visited plenty of them.
One day over coffee, after her mom had been there a few months, I asked Marcy why she was so reluctant? That was right before my first surgery, so you have to understand my state of mind to understand the question, or the conversation in general. I was in a wheelchair and very limited in my movements, so the idea of trapping oneself and restricting one’s movements when you didn’t have to struck me as an insane thing to do. And really, that’s what Marcy was doing from my standpoint. She was putting herself into the position of having to be always at home, always on watch, always on duty.
Maybe that sounds insensitive, but not when you think about it. Her mother didn’t have any thoughts at all, or at least none that science could confirm. She didn’t know who was caring for her, or even that she was being cared for in any way. Like most of the world, I never questioned the FiRFs were essentially brain-damaged to a point just shy of brain death. So, to give up one’s life to watch a dead person in a bed seemed like a waste to me.
I just read that again and yep, it sounds insensitive. Please forgive me for that. If we were talking face to face, I could probably smooth that over some, but paper and pen are what we have. And remember, I was extremely limited in my mobility at the time. I would have done anything—well, I did do anything—to get some of that freedom back. Also, I know better now. Just accept that I’m sorry for my previous views and know I didn’t mean to be horrible.
Back to Marcy and our conversation that day.
She’d missed the signups for the care home that now stands at the end of our road, where it meets the highway. Her husband wasn’t pleased. They were in a pretty big dust-up over it. As we sipped coffee and ate lemon cookies in her kitchen, she shared her feelings. She also described the FiRF units so I would understand.
She’d visited several and the layout is fairly standard. Instead of rooms or wards, there are long, dormitory type spaces. As in, huge rooms meant to contain as many human bodies as possible. Think more like an auditorium and less like a hospital ward. The FiRFS are laid out in long rows on special beds with equipment racks behind them. They never move, other than muscle spasms, and their care needs never change, so much of that care is automated. They’re almost entirely without human contact. Imagine that for a second. Then imagine what it would be like to put someone you love into a place like that.
In a FiRF unit, the beds tilt all at once, moving bodies into new positions to avoid pressure sores. The machines beep their feeding times, as they do for medications and everything else. The only human touch they g
et is washing, which is only as frequent as required to stay healthy. They even figured out some way to automate the removal of waste.
The way Marcy described it was eerie and a bit spooky. I understood her reluctance once I heard about the units. To put her mother there would be to remove her from the circle of human care and love. That isn’t an easy thing to do to someone you love, even if you know that person is essentially gone.
Anyway, once I heard that, I understood. You probably know all about the FiRFs. You must. If you’ve survived to this point, it can’t be by pure luck. I’ll skip the parts you probably know and get to the meat of it. Yuck, what a turn of phrase. I should switch to pencil, so I can erase bad phrasing like that. Too late now.
So, here’s the setting. Marcy at home, her husband at work, and her mom in a bedroom upstairs. On the big day, Grace woke up. She tore up her nurse fairly severely, but they got her tied to her bed. Eventually, she had to be gagged to stop her screaming. I went over to help as much as I could, but as the days went on, we all understood what we were facing. Grace would never tire, never cease struggling to free herself, and never stop looking for someone to tear up if she did get free. The Awakened don’t tire. Not ever.
After the curfew went into effect and the news told us it was FiRFs that were the danger, no other neighbors would come and help. Not one. I don’t blame them, and Marcy didn’t either. They helped from a distance, but no one would go into the house. I think I mentioned that before too, but it bears stressing. Why? Because it brought home how terribly isolated anyone who was different could really become.
I know I won’t forget that lesson. I wonder if I’ll be on the outs someday, particularly if I let anyone know about my medication. I can’t imagine being even more isolated, but I think I would find out exactly how hard it is if the neighbors found out I have vials of nanites ready for injection.
So, it was just Marcy and me and her mother, but mostly Marcy was alone with Grace. The food that goes into Grace’s stomach tube ran out after a few days, but with solar power and a working fridge, Marcy was able to process food into goop for the tube. The neighbors contributed veggies to the cause as well.
This near the coast, it’s only prudent to have power backups. Plus, this is a green neighborhood, certified by the city and quite proud of that fact. The upshot is, between all of us, we could both provide and process food for Grace’s tube.
Except, regular food wouldn’t cut it. The goo that normally goes through the tube is complete nutrition and highly concentrated, but it also doesn’t clog the tube. It’s gross, but it’s very scientific and meant for a long term feeding tube. What we got through food processors and blenders wasn’t any of those things.
Within five days, Marcy was here crying because she couldn’t unclog her last clean tube. I went over and helped her clean and disinfect things, but it was obvious the situation was going downhill fast. Her beautiful house still looked beautiful, but it had begun to stink. The smell was wafting down the wide staircase like a dark miasma, a combination of souring skin, urine, and feces. It was all I could do not to flinch or make a face when I walked through the front door.
I wasn’t sure how to approach it at the time, but when I looked at Marcy and touched her shoulder, she basically crumpled into me, almost collapsing in tears. She knew. She just couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Two days ago, I went over to hold Grace down while Marcy did what she could to clean her up. What I saw on the bed-bound woman were wasted limbs and a gaunt face. Because the Awakened never tire, I think they burn a lot of calories. Marcy couldn’t get enough of whatever it was Grace needed into her. It was descending into cruelty. Marcy couldn’t see it. She was looking with the eyes of a daughter, and one who loved her mother dearly. I tried to bring up the topic of ending Grace’s misery, but Marcy freaked out entirely.
That might sound like a strange offer, but by that point, we’d already started dispatching Awakened that got to our neighborhood. It had already become almost a given that any Awakened had to be killed, if for no other reason than to be merciful to them. No one would want to be that way. It was a big step for us to take, going from avoidance to killing, but once we did, it quickly became our go-to solution to an Awakened gnawing at our siding to try and get through the walls.
Suffice it to say, yesterday morning the inevitable happened. Grace got loose when Marcy changed the pads under her body. Marcy was quick enough to run into another room and get into the closet, but she was trapped there. Lucky for her, her mother went down the stairs—or fell down them. None of us knew she’d gotten loose. Grace’s gag meant we couldn’t hear the screams. Marcy got down one of those temporary ladders that unfold for fire escapes. She ran over here in bare feet and pajamas.
Why me? I suppose if you don’t know who I am or haven’t seen any of the newscasts about me, then it might be a good question. Why come to a lady with no legs for help? The answer is partially because I was the only one in the neighborhood that would go near Marcy’s house. But it was also because of my legs. More precisely, it’s the way they work with the electronics that run through my body, assisted by those now-frightening nanites. These new legs of mine make me the perfect choice to come to when help is needed.
I can run very, very fast. That’s an understatement. I can run in excess of twenty miles per hour. My best speed is clocked at thirty-three, though I could only hold that for a few seconds. No monster can catch me if I get a head start. And my fake legs are strong. A kick from me will crumple metal or knock a door entirely off its hinges.
I had some trouble at first because the feds didn’t think it was a good idea to have someone like me running around. After evaluation by a team of dour-faced fed scientists, I was half afraid that I’d get tagged with one of those collars they use to track wildlife. It was like they thought that giving regular people super-limbs would somehow turn them into criminals or super-villains. Maybe you’ve seen the endless articles weighing the morality and safety of creating people like me.
As I said, all of this makes me the ideal person to come to for help in such a situation. And we’ve had our share of these once-human monsters coming out of the woods into our neighborhood. I already knew what it took to kill them.
I went over, opened the door, waited for Grace to attack—which she did without delay—and then I kicked her face in. It was horrible, and I hated it. I was also in fear for my life, which made it a surprisingly easy thing to do. That’s what I really hated, how easy it was. I simply held onto the supports of Marcy’s porch, then kicked straight up to snap her head back, then kicked her face. It was horrible and easy. Too easy. It took no more than five seconds. It crumpled her head like an empty beer can.
You might think it would have been easier to get someone with a gun to just shoot her. Then again, if you’ve been out there long enough to get here, you know that’s not a good idea. Shooting doesn’t work unless you’ve got time to plug more than a few holes into their heads.
It’s not like the movies, where suddenly even pencils and butter knives will go straight through a skull. And it’s not like any impact to the brain suddenly shuts them down. They move so much and so quickly that it’s not at all easy to aim at exactly the spot needed either.
We’ve only shot them in the field behind our houses, but they can still run for quite a distance before they fall. And it takes a lot of bullets most of the time. And sometimes, even after lots of bullets, they get up and come back for more. Even out here in our quiet neighborhood, we’ve figured out that close in shooting is probably not a smart choice.
Smashing their heads works and with me doing the kicking, it’s one or two blows, with the first blow always stopping their forward movement. Hammers are good too. It’s strange, but what I do is actually safer than using a gun. I had the unfortunate opportunity to try that out when I went to the field right after this started, but before we figured out that there were Awakened in our woods. Well, that’s actually how we found out
they were in there. Fred shot one three times before it fell, yet I kicked one in the head and it dropped like a stone. We were all really surprised by that. Still, it was a good thing to find out.
And yesterday, I had to use that skill on Marcy’s mother, with her hundred and twenty pounds of pure cannibal rage and her cloud of white hair. I’m not happy about it, but I am glad it’s over. We don’t have to wait and wonder when Grace will get loose anymore. We knew it would happen eventually, and now it’s over.
Poor Marcy. Her husband still hasn’t come back, so she’s alone now. He was at work, which is no further than thirty miles from here, but that might as well be the length of a continent nowadays. He had to cross the high-rise bridge for his commute, and they lifted it almost immediately, stopping any traffic via that route. I don’t think anyone is going to make it back coming from that direction unless they’ve got their own personal ferry handy.
After we buried Grace, I could tell Marcy was readying herself to ask me to run across this city and find her husband. She stopped herself before the words escaped her mouth. I’m glad, because I would have said no. Maybe that’s selfish, but the truth is, I have no intention of dying for a lost cause. If he’s not here, there’s a reason for it, and that reason isn’t a good one. I’d never find him and I’d just wind up dying while looking.
Now that it’s over, I can feel the sigh of relief in the neighborhood, almost like the houses themselves are a little more at ease. The people living here shouldn’t feel that way, because the world is now filled with screaming Awakened, but it is what it is. They felt threatened because there was one they knew about, one they were sure was hungry and tied to a bed within sight of their homes. It would be hard to sleep easy knowing that. I know I kept my ears tuned for anything odd.
Two of the other neighbors were outside this evening. Both were shouldering rifles, but they were outside and talking in the middle of our quiet street. That hasn’t happened in several days, so I know they feel safer now. I’m certain they shouldn’t.
