Ivy explained to Angus that medical technology in her world had progressed far beyond that in Angus’s world. In Angus’s world, terminally ill patients who needed new organs to get well were added to an organ transplant list. When an organ came available, factors such as blood type and overall health of the patient had to be considered before surgery commenced. There was a limited amount of time to perform the transplant, limited organs available, and countless patients who needed them.
In Ivy’s world, doctors, medical researchers, surgeons, and nanoscientists had collaborated to develop synthetic alternatives to organ transplants. In Ivy’s world, anyone who needed an organ transplant would receive a synthetic one if no natural alternative were available. Eventually, patients came to prefer the synthetic organs.
As the technology developed and became less expensive to produce, synthetic organ marketers realized they could sell smart medical devices not only to save lives but also to improve upon them.
“What do you mean by that?” asked Angus.
“Well, does your dad ever complain that his knees hurt? Does your mom color her hair?” asked Ivy.
“Well, I have noticed some mornings that my mom has a white streak down the middle of her head. When I get back from school, the white streak is gone. Sometimes her hair looks darker,” said Angus.
Ivy said, “When people age, their body parts wear out. They get arthritis. They go gray or bald. They can’t see or hear as well.”
“Yeah. They get grouchy, too,” said Angus.
“No one wants to get old. And in my world, the scientists are trying to prevent it,” said Ivy.
She explained that businesses began to make more than synthetic organs for live-saving purposes. Seeing dollar signs, they began offering replacement parts to slow down the aging process. At first, only the wealthy could afford new knees and eyes. More and more companies began developing the body part implants to capture the anti-aging market.
The supplies of the parts increased and led to a decrease in prices. Businesses were no longer realizing the huge profits they once had and needed a new plan to increase demand for their parts over their competitors. They began improving upon the body parts. It wasn’t enough for ears to hear; now, they must be able to receive media transmissions. A new hip might cost you a quarter of your life savings, but you could program it to move at various speeds to make you the best mambo or cha-cha dancer in your retirement community. Now, mothers really could have eyes in the back of their heads.
Like annual physicals and dental checkups in Angus’s world, body part implants became a regular part of a healthy human life in Ivy’s world. Adults without implants were pitied for not having adequate medical insurance. And as the technology aged, the original implants wore out or became obsolete. Constant upgrades and release patches became the norm. As soon as you had broken in a new set of knees, the company you’d bought them from would announce it had completed development of a much better cartilage version and would discontinue support for the previous knee package.
Any injury, no matter how minor, was viewed as an occasion for a new implant or upgrade. Doctors and nurses began to forget how to minister to the original human body; they became technicians who applied software patches, repaired electronic glitches, and fixed hardware. They were mostly trained in preventing and curing computer viruses, not biological ones. This learned ignorance about the human body meant that any food, animal, or environment that could potentially make a human being ill was viewed as a distinct threat to life.
Angus listened intently to Ivy’s story. “That explains why AC’s mom makes him take those nutrition pills. She doesn’t trust the food.”
“Angus, there is no food,” said Ivy. “The governments of the world have abolished food. We all have to take the pills. Some people have illegal vegetable gardens, but you have to pay heavy fines if you’re caught.”
“Oh. And what about animals?”
“No domestic animals. That’s why AC made that robot; it’s the only way any of us can have a pet. That’s one thing I’m going to miss about body jumping. Seeing animals. Being one.”
Ivy sighed. “In this world, if you’re lucky and have parents brave enough to take you to the country, you might see some wild animals: a deer or maybe even a fox. In the city, we only have the animals that know how to live around people invisibly: rats, mice, sometimes a coyote. Lots of bugs, which you already know. And of course, birds. Though as the trees die out, we have fewer of those.”
“Trees die out? Why?”
“The polymers of course. They can’t grow through it. Nothing can.”
And then she told him how the polymer had been developed.
Anticipating large-scale losses in their food and pharmaceutical holdings as the market for synthetic body parts matured, the CEOs of three major corporations combined their vast research teams and financial resources to develop two materials that would take advantage of the widespread anxiety the implant technology had created: a gray polymer and a clear polymer.
The gray polymer was cross-linked for strength and embedded with microcircuits that could be programmed to create light and heat and react to changes in the environment. It could be installed over any surface, was strong enough to use as a structural support, and was impervious to extreme heat, cold, light, and sharp implements. At the same time, its surface was cushioned, and it could absorb extreme impacts with ease.
The clear polymer used a similar chemical recipe, but the polymer chains were not bonded together. The clear polymer was a stretchy, almost gel-like substance. In direct sunlight, it seemed to glisten with moisture, but it was cool and dry to the touch.
Both the gray polymer and the clear polymer had obvious strengths but the same weakness: color dyes.
“The polymers are virtually indestructible,” explained Ivy. “The scientists can alter their chemical composition slightly to achieve increased strength, flexibility, and heat resistance and to assimilate memory chips. But they haven’t yet found a way to protect them against color. The smallest amount of dye degrades the polymer.”
“That’s what the nurse dropped on the bindings at the hospital,” remembered Angus. “It cut right through them.”
“That’s right,” said Ivy. “With enough dye, you can create a great big hole in the polymers. That’s why nothing in this world has any color. To protect the polymer which is the basis of ... everything.”
“Some things have color,” said Angus touching Ivy’s hair with a tentative finger.
“Living without food and animals is hard enough. Some of us don’t care to live in a world without color,” sniffed Ivy. “That’s why my mom makes the dye and stores it at our house.”
Angus began inventing. Ivy knew this because her friend was pacing the room, barking “Yes!”, “No!”, “Stupid! Stupid!” while running his hands through his hair.
Only when he’d yelled “That’s it!” and grinned at her, his hair sticking up rakishly all over his head, did she know he’d come up with an idea.
Angus looked at CATT rattling softly in the corner of the room.
“Come here, kitty kitty kitty.”
22
Mosquitoes
The evening sky was darkening, but the sides and overhang of the porch glowed softly, the artificial light growing in strength as the light in the sky disappeared.
In fact, all the polymer radiated, pushing back the night. The driveway, the fences, and the exterior of the surrounding houses: everything was alight. The trees in the park were illuminated from below. If not for the dark sky above, Angus wouldn’t have been able to tell what time of day it was.
“Is this world afraid of the dark?” Angus asked Ivy.
“Not so much afraid of the dark. More, afraid of getting hurt in the dark,” said Ivy. “Injuries lead to expensive implants and upgrades.”
Wearing matching white biohazard suits, Angus and Ivy prepared for their expedition. Angus dumped the backpack that held both his World Jum
per and his latest invention on to the porch and helped Ivy carry the glass jars out the front door. They lined them along the driveway with the names of the children facing outward.
“Is that all of them?” asked Angus.
“Yes. I think we should do Billy first.”
“Yeah, I think so, too.” Angus unscrewed the lid of the jar and tipped it to the side. The cockroach raced out and crawled up the arm of Angus’s suit. “You remember what you’re supposed to do, right?”
“I focus all of my attention on the nearest mosquito,” said Billy.
“Yeah. Then what?” asked Ivy.
“Somehow my mind will leave the cockroach body and move into the mosquito. It doesn’t make sense to me how that works though.”
“I don’t know how it works either, but it does. That’s how you ended up in the cockroach. Remember what you do next?”
“I fly back into the jar and wait for the others,” said Billy.
“That’s right.
While Angus had been working on his invention, Ivy had opened every jar and explained to the bug-children what they had to do to get their human bodies back. When Angus had told her his plan, Ivy had seen the genius in its simplicity. She’d agreed with him: Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones. The hardest part so far had been convincing AC’s parents that Angus had to go outside to exercise his robot.
The cat-dog sulked on the porch and blinked its eyes at them reproachfully.
“I’m sorry, CATT,” said Angus. “Your tail was an integral part of the solution.” The robot rubbed its tailless backside against the house and meowed.
There was no shortage of mosquitoes hovering over the wet driveway. The cockroach jumped off Angus’s arm and skittered away. “Billy! Where are you going?” called Angus.
“Look,” said Ivy holding up the jar. One lone mosquito sat on the rim. “In you go,” she coaxed. “It’s only for a little while. We can’t hear you now, Billy. You’re too small. You’ll have some company in there soon. I promise.”
Angus unscrewed the cap of the jar labeled Dylan. A stinkbug scrambled out of the jar and ejected a foul smell.
“Ugh!” said Ivy. “Dylan, quickly swap bodies and get in here.”
A second mosquito flew into the jar.
“Angus, you’ve got to move faster than that or we’ll be here all night. We still have to pick up the dye.”
Angus unscrewed two caps simultaneously: Beth and Patricia.
“Oh no!” cried Angus as a wolf spider chased down a one-winged fly and quickly dispatched it. “Beth just ate Patricia!”
“No worries,” said Ivy. Two mosquitoes landed on the jar lid. “Keep going.”
Angus opened jar after jar until all the creepy crawlies had flown, crawled, and hopped away. Ivy closed the lid of the mosquito jar and held it up for Angus to see. A swirling gray cloud buzzed inside the glass.
“My entire science class,” she said.
Angus grabbed his backpack off the porch and slung it over his shoulder. The robot growled at him softly.
“Oh, come on CATT. Don’t be such a big baby. We’ll get you another tail.”
The robot hid its multicolored metal head under a rubber foot and howled.
“Okay! Let me see what I have in here.”
Angus unzipped his backpack and rummaged around among its contents. His trusty screwdriver would work, but he didn’t want to be without it. Some rope left over from his adventure on the Fearless Flea. Nah. A pinecone: Nope, he didn’t know how to attach it, and it would look weird. A shoelace? He held it up. No, it just hung there. A candy bar and an apple: He’d need to keep those for later if he didn’t go home for dinner soon. This was a job that required the supplies in his lab. His lab, not AC’s creepy bug surgery.
“How about this?” asked Ivy holding up a stethoscope.
“Where did you get that?” asked Angus.
CATT’s eyes glowed and the robot clattered off the porch and clanked toward Ivy.
“I swiped it from one of the nurses at the hospital. I don’t think they even use them. They’re only for show.”
“CATT likes it! Let me put it on him.”
Angus pulled some bits of wire out of his backpack, wrapped them around the stethoscope’s ear pipes, and fastened the ear pipes to the robot’s posterior. The resulting tail dragged on the ground, so Angus shortened the conduit by tying several knots in it. The head stood upright.
“Now you can wag your tail and listen to heart beats at the same time,” Angus said proudly.
CATT gleefully rattled back and forth around the two children.
“Okay. Everyone happy? Let’s get the dye,” said Ivy.
Getting the dye from Ivy’s mom had taken longer than Angus had expected. Surprised and thrilled to see her daughter outside of the hospital, a muscular version of Mrs. Calloway had hugged and kissed Ivy, and then hugged and kissed her some more. And when she had learned about Angus’s part in rescuing her daughter from the doctors and their tests, Mrs. Calloway had hugged and kissed him, too.
Over a plate of fresh vegetables that Mrs. Calloway secretly grew beneath full spectrum lights installed in a hidden closet, Ivy had even told her mom about the potion, Angus’s World Jumper, and how his alter ego, AC, had dosed the other children in a misguided attempt to cure Ivy.
Angus couldn’t believe Ivy told her mother all of this, and even more, that Mrs. Calloway believed her. And then, Angus had eaten some raw broccoli and two carrot sticks. In a world without food, even crudité had tasted wonderful.
Mrs. Calloway had driven them to the hospital and pulled around the side, away from the entrance.
“The kids are quarantined on the third floor. Count three windows up.” She pointed. “The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh windows from the left are the quarantine rooms.”
“I don’t see any windows,” said Angus. The gray polymer walls of the hospital were illuminated against the night. No clear polymer was visible.
“Sure, you do,” said Mrs. Calloway. “Squint your eyes so they’re a bit unfocused and look at the wall again.”
Angus drooped his eyelids and gazed at the hospital. With his eyes unfocused, he noticed that some areas of the wall glowed a bit brighter than the others. “The brighter parts? Are those the windows?”
“Yes. The hospital walls automatically close at dusk. But you can always tell where the windows are once the illumination comes on. Now, out you go before someone notices the car idling here. I’ll watch you from across the street and swing back around to pick you up once you’ve finished.”
The doors on either side of the car opened, and Ivy and Angus clambered out from two sides.
“CATT, stay with Ivy’s mom,” said Angus.
The robot meowed but obeyed, and clanked into the front seat beside Mrs. Calloway. Angus grabbed his invention from his backpack, picked up two jars of blue dye, and slammed the door. Ivy gently cradled the jar that held her classmates.
“What do you call it?” asked Ivy.
“I’m not sure. Dye-Blaster, maybe? Dye-Zooka? Dye-Cannon?”
“I get it: Dye-Blaster because it will blast the dye. But why Dye-Zooka?”
“Have you heard of a bazooka? It’s a weapon that launches an anti-tank rocket. It’s long like this.” Angus held out CATT’s tail, or what was left of it.
After detaching the robot’s PVC tail from his body and putting on his safety goggles, Angus had found among AC’s supplies another PVC pipe of a thinner dimension along with some caps, couplers, and glue. He had sawn, drilled, and glued the PVC into a nozzle and piston. The thinner PVC pipe, or piston, nestled perfectly within CATT’s repurposed tail, or nozzle.
“And you’re going to suck up the dye with it and shoot it at the windows? I think you should call it the Dye-No-Mo. Because there’ll be no more dye once you’re finished.”
“No. I’m going with Dye-Blaster,” said Angus.
“Dye-Blaster,” said Ivy. “Sounds okay. Cool invention.”
“Thanks, but I can’t take credit for it. My dad and I built two of these last summer before a kayaking trip. We hid them in the bottom of the boat. When we got out on the lake, we pulled them out and squirted all our friends. It was hilarious!”
“Did they get even?”
“Eventually.” Angus unscrewed the dye jar lid, stuck the nozzle of the Dye-Blaster into it, and pulled back the piston to fill the chamber. “But it took them a while, because we could shoot from 50 feet away. And none of them could paddle fast enough to get to us before we reloaded. Did you find the windows?”
“Yes. There and there.” Ivy pointed. “Don’t forget to squint your eyes before you aim.”
Angus pulled off the hood of his biohazard suit, placed the piston against his chest, squinted his eyes, sighted along the nozzle, and pulled the nozzle to his chest. The nozzle began to move sluggishly downward along the piston and then jammed. Blue dye squirted out of the nozzle at five feet and rained down on Angus’s head. More dye dribbled down the end of the Dye-Blaster and stained his white suit.
“Oh no!” said Angus.
“What happened?” asked Ivy. “I thought you said it would shoot 50 feet.”
Angus tossed the Dye-Blaster on the ground in disgust.
“It jammed. I forgot to grease it. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” He clenched his fists and drew back his foot to kick his malfunctioning invention. Ivy grabbed it off the ground quickly.
“Stop it!” she ordered. “We don’t have time for a temper tantrum right now. My friends are depending on us to cure them. We have to get this thing to work. What kind of grease do you need?”
“You know, waterproof grease. Petroleum jelly or bike lube. Something like that. I don’t have any with me. It won’t work.”
Ivy wrinkled her brow for a moment. Her face brightened and she began waving her hands over her head.
“What are you doing, Ivy?”
“Motioning to Mom.”
“What for?” asked Angus as Mrs. Calloway’s car pulled up.
Cyborgia Page 14
