Dawn of the Courtezan: Phase 01 (The Eighteenth Shadow)

by Grafton, Jon Lee

  The thought of actually growing a baby inside was…

  Foul.

  Marlene sneered at the thought. She opened the desk drawer and snatched up a HempButterz bar in a gold foil wrapper. Her mouth flowed with saliva. Being honest, she knew she had only volunteered for the pregnancy cycle so she could have an excuse to eat more. It was not lost on Marlene that she had secretly maintained her gestation diet for the seven months since their daughter had been born as well.

  The standard 2,100 calorie NAUS citizen diet is so… anorexic! I hate skinny bitches.

  A trash can shaped Kleendroyd© hovered past. The polishers spinning on either side of the small bot made a high pitched whirring. Nurse Fossbender curled her lips at the droid like a possum caught in the act.

  This was why I never work nights, all the bots and simpleminded orderlies flitting about like gnats.

  A female patient down the hall moaned loudly, almost a scream.

  Fossbender lifted her rumpled chin and barked at the ceiling, “Computer, increase muzak volume station five.”

  The computerized jazz got louder. She could no longer hear the moaning, and the floor bot soon glided mechanically away down the hall, restoring relative peace. It was better. She devoured the HempButterz bar and smacked her lips. She let the last, oversized bite coagulate between the roof of her mouth and her tongue, then dropped the wrapper in the trash can, watching as the disintegrators fired and the wrapper vanished in a purple matrix of laser light. Sadly, even this wonderful little mouth party could not lift the fog of irritation that hung about.

  Patient 373-C was to blame.

  In addition to being the RN on Greystone’s L3 slaughterhouse floor, Nurse Fossbender also functioned as a Vision Certified Social Worker for Level 1 and 2 alcohol offenders on the light security wings. She had taken advantage of the free Behavioral Mod Certification offered to nurses by the IRS. The course took eight weeks to complete and was made available to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Vision for D$999. It was taught in the community classroom at the Chinese Wal-Mart Consortium. It was easy therapy. If you didn’t have an answer to an addict’s specific problem, there was always the fallback response: quit drinking alcohol / start vaping jane.

  Marlene had been a VCSW for three years. Her best patients acquiesced out of fear. They were usually first time offenders afraid of losing their job, afraid of losing their lovers, pets or children. There were a thousand ways to bend the will of every addict.

  That is, until she met patient 373-C.

  Four hours earlier, she had shuttered observation in 373-C’s room after the last floor CVSW had completed his rounds and departed. Being a flight risk, the patient was restrained. The nurse labored her thick calves down the hall and scanned into the room, smiling lugubriously, dragging the tips of her orange false fingernails across the night-shined surface of the plastic, blue door. She locked it manually from the inside. She passed her holotab in front of the wall com to disable the room’s dedicated microdrone.

  In her heart, Nurse Fossbender believed the morning’s SAMCL operation on this particular patient would be a victory for society at large. This moment, however, was personal.

  The patient gazed at her venomously and spat like the snake she was, “Well, if it isn’t The Bookshelf. Don’t you know entering my room without notice breaks the rules, fatty? I think I’m gonna have to report you.”

  The nurse pulled a small, silver disc the size of a coat button from her pocket and dropped it on the girl’s neck. The vocal inhibitor illuminated. Nanotentacles emerged from either side of the disc and plunged themselves into the patient’s throat, paralyzing her vocal chords.

  The girl’s eyes grew wild with fear. She struggled to scream, terrified, doing her best to recoil. A teardrop rolled slowly, methodically down her freckled cheek as the nurse loomed over.

  Nurse Fossbender grinned warmly and said, “Oh, you’re not the first young troublemaker whose been chastened by my tongue. But you still have to be the stupidest betty I ever met. You’re on L3! The only rules now are the slaughterhouse rules, cunt. You don’t seriously think crying is going to make me feel sorry for you? I’ve been waiting two months for this.”

  She grabbed the control grip of the bio-brace that ran over the girl’s rib cage and yanked it using her substantial body weight. Patient 373-C gasped from the pressure. Her bloodshot eyes darted back and forth, desperate, flickering between the nurse’s approaching face and the blinded microdrone hovering innocuously in the corner.

  “What? Can’t talk?” continued the nurse. “Where’s your smart mouth now? Oh, how sad! Does it bother you? See, I turned off observation so we could have a private visit. You Traditionalists just cherish privacy, don’t you?”

  Nurse Fossbender grabbed the back of a metal folding chair and dragged it, screeching across the polished cement floor.

  She sat and leaned in slow towards the bed, relishing in the girl’s discomfort, nostrils flaring with stimulation, “Is it tough to breathe, dear?” she cooed. “You know why I’m here. Don’t you? The morning you were admitted I told you I’d find a way to pay you a special visit. Now it’s just the two of us.”

  Patient 373-C turned her head away from the nurse and stared at the narrow, rectangular window in the door. There he was, at last. A figure stood in white hospital scrubs watching the two women.

  Patient 373-C made eye contact and blinked, Not yet, you moron.

  The figure nodded and melted into the shadows. This scene with the nurse had to be played out first or the plan would never work. Patient 373-C had known there would be a confrontation as soon as the fat woman showed up volunteering to sub the graveyard shift, so she was doing the best she could with what she had. Besides, it’s not like there was a choice. The nurse came even closer. There was no one to help. This was the definite downside to spending your slaughterhouse prep in isolation.

  Patient 373-C’s breathing came in short bursts. She listened to the gargantuan woman’s crowing, guttural voice. She felt light headed. She couldn’t waste the oxygen to fight or she’d risk passing out. The straps were so tight.

  If she passed out, life as she knew it would be over.

  She decided to focus on immaterial things. Her blue hempjeans hung in the closet with a few other street clothes and the pair of black combat boots she had been arrested in. Patient 373-C noted how many different shades of blue actually made up a pair of blue jeans. They were all there, the full spectrum of her favorite color laid out in thousands of dyed hemp stitches ranging from cobalt to baby powder. Such a simple and beautiful thing. Her sweatshirt was a hemp-poly blend, pink in color. She hated pink! It didn’t even go with blue. Why had she stolen that sweatshirt from the thrift shop?

  Because she was doing the best she could with what she had.

  All the same, pink and blue garments had no business being in the same world together. Just like Marlene Fossbender and Tara Dean.

  Excerpt taken from The Peoples’ Progressive Encyclopedia 2073, Edition 27 Volume 2 Letter Frame 16:

  Alcohol addiction treatment programs at various IRS certified clinics around the country must follow standardized Federal Vision Protocols.

  At the time of this article’s publication, behavioral modification clinics funded solely by the IRS account for 51% of market share. 39% are funded primarily by corporations, though these private sector hospitals all (as required) receive secondary Federal grants. The remaining 10% of clinics are primarily non-profit in nature and are operated by community initiatives.

  In 2072, the largest private sector sponsor of Behavioral Mod programs in the NAUS was the marijuana conglomerate, CannabiGene©. Smaller localized marijuana producers follow with third tier donations.

  NOTE: As of January 1, 2070, 100% of contributions made to a Behavioral Mod hospital are tax deductible, assuming the hospital is Federally certified and receives at least 51% of its operating costs from the IRS Benevolence Fund…

  November 2079 – Two Year
s Eleven Months Before Event.

  Adult participants in NAUS Visionary Reeducation (Behavioral Modification) are required to stand up on the first day of group therapy and make the following statement: “Hello, my name is John Doe, and I am an alcoholic.”

  As Nurse Fossbender prepared to lead therapy that morning, the day had so far been typical. Sixteen new patients were registered. Three had missed the first day due to illness, stubbornness or the fact that they were still intoxicated at the time of admission. She scanned their profiles on her holotab while waiting for the rest of the patients to arrive.

  The first of the three absentees was Melky O’Brien, 36 years old, missed day one due to illness. Mr. O’Brien was a firefighter pulled over for manually floating through a red LED and destroying a pedestrian’s Fido battborg. As was standard practice, the police pulled bloodchem data from O’Brien’s combud and discovered he was floating while blended.

  Nurse Fossbender shook her head. A citizen need only wait two hours after vaporizing their last hit before they could legally pilot a hovcar! If people couldn’t wait two hours or use autopilot, they deserved an FUI, let them suffer.

  It was boilerplate thinking like this that had garnered Nurse Fossbender her nickname, The Bookshelf.

  In addition to the corroborating bloodchem data, Melky O’Brien was unable to recite the alphabet backwards, skipping every other letter within 59 seconds while standing on one leg. He failed the roadside sobriety test and was arrested. When the police searched his hovcar, they discovered a mason jar wrapped in a flannel shirt under the passenger seat containing 2.3 oz of persimmon rum.

  O’Brien was charged with floating under the influence and possession of an illicit substance. The man had no prior drug record and was sentenced to the usual thirty days of L1 Inpatient Behavioral Modification. Nurse Fossbender blinked periodically, auto-scrolling through the holodata as the rest of the group shuffled glumly into the room.

  O’Brien was put on Bmod leave without pay, however, the Lawrence Fire Department was picking up the cost of his rehabilitation. His wife had not divorced him, she noted.

  Foolish woman. Once a drunk, always a drunk.

  Nurse Fossbender wasn’t paid to tell people the obvious. She was paid to tell people how to build a better happy.

  Mr. Melky O’Brien sat in the corner with a head full of red hair buried between his enormous Irish hands. The man looked like he was about to die from embarrassment. She noted this quickly in his file. The system was already doing its job.

  The second tardy patient was a recent arrival to the North American United States on a work visa from Afghanistan. The man was a nuclear physicist, according to holorecords. Missed day one due to stubbornness, refusing to leave his room. They all got a free day to burn, though Marlene Fossbender had zero empathy for foreigners arrested on Union soil. Particularly those who violated drug laws.

  These people knew the rules before they came here to take advantage of our job market.

  They could not have their cake and eat it too. No economy in the world could compare with The Union’s since the passage of Amendment 33.

  Every time she got a foreigner, Nurse Fossbender realized how much the citizens of other barbaric, alcoholic nations would benefit from thirty days beneath her heel.

  If only Kansas was the world’s capital…

  This rowdy Afghan didn’t speak English. She would have to update her Afghan translator app. The man sat, sullen in the back of the room beside the boozebum firefighter, O’Brien. She would use him (and the pathetic state of the Afghan economy) to exemplify what happens when nations cling to outmoded, 20th century drug norms. She noted this opportunity in the Afghan’s file and moved on to review admin notes on the third tardy patient.

  This one was interesting. Patient 373-B. Missed day one due to intoxication. The subject somehow bribed an orderly to bring her a half pint of still vodka during the intake process! Tara A. Dean, age 25, employed as a tattoo illustrator at Doragon Skin Works – CA. The girl was sent here from New Riverside, California, by her family’s attorney. All hospital fees were paid in advance by her nearest living relative, an Asteria Dean. This female was a second time offender. Nurse Fossbender felt goosebumps kindling on her arms as she scanned the lines of personal data.

  First of all, this patient was extremely attractive. Nurse Fossbender looked around the meeting room on the off chance she had missed the betty walking in. She had not. The holotab projected two different images. One was a hospital file holo of Tara Dean at age fourteen when she was admitted to Greystone Behavioral for the first time. Her hair in that holo was irritatingly long and natural, hanging down past her elbows in shining black waves. She had piercing green eyes, a button nose and flawless, olive skin.

  Too much eye liner and mascara for a teenager, thought Fossbender.

  She looked frighteningly adult in the holo. Her NADI report indicated she was 83% Lebanese, 14% Israeli, with a scattering of French, German and Mexican comprising the last 3% of her heritage.

  A typical American betty.

  The second image was her California DMV pilot’s holo, scanned at the time of renewal just a few months earlier. The contrast was stark. The patient’s hair was cut shorter now, accentuating the curvature of her lips and mouth, puckered together in an irritated expression. The young woman had earrings in this image, two pewter cobras. Beneath her left ear was a tattoo of numerous orange stars that cascaded down her sleek neck onto the line of her collar bone. The tattooed stars were big at the top and got smaller as they fell, condensing in a star pool universe at the bottom. Her eyes were still the same, bright and brash and blase all at the same time, though their gaze was tempered by less make up. The girl looked only slightly older in the second holo. She had not gained weight over the years like most drug users. In fact, patient 373-B was in fantastic physical condition and had requested a yoga mat.

  Hmphh.

  Nurse Fossbender despised people who exercised voluntarily.

  Tara Dean’s primary care nurse at the time of her first arrest was Marlene Fossbender’s predecessor, Neil Young, a notorious Traditionalist sympathizer who had retired two years earlier. Young departed Greystone with a reputation for leniency when it came to citizen alcohol violators.

  Nurse Young was a radical. That’s all he was.

  Not only would he deviate dangerously from Vision protocol by suggesting that it was okay to like drinking, he would even go so far as to say that vaporizing marijuana and taking Pleasium was not for everyone. It was absurd. The nurse gurgled with exasperation and looked up. Her bulbous eyes found a static holoposter on the opposite wall that she had read a thousand times.

  In a schlocky, green and black font, the holographic poster listed THE TWELVE STEPS TO VISION:

  1. The use of psychoactive substances for recreation by the NAUS Union citizens is normal and expected.

  2. Any psychoactive substance used to alter consciousness must further The citizen’s essential harmony between mind, body, environment and economy; aka – Vision.

  3. All legally approved psychoactive substances shall represent the will of the many over the desire of the few.

  4. Any legally approved psychoactive substance must further the ecological balance between North American United States society and the natural world.

  5. Psychoactive substances whose production place an undue burden on the Union’s naturally occurring fresh water supplies shall not be permitted.

  6. Psychoactive substances whose usage is toxic to the fabric of North American United States society shall not be permitted.

  7. Psychoactive substances that elicit emotions of anger, hatred or violence shall not be permitted.

  8. The Schedule One (1) Federally Controlled Substances; Alcohol, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, DMT, MDMA, LSD, or otherwise illicit pharmaceutical production, possession or use, in any form, outside of a Federally endorsed research facility – shall not be permitted.

  9. All tobacco, tea, coffee
and marijuana production facilities must comply with EPA regulations and prominently project their current IRS / MTF hololicenses in a visible locale at the dispensary’s public entrance.

  10. Unlicensed tea, coffee and tobacco production in a private residence or on privately owned land shall not be permitted.

  11. Any individual or group caught producing tea, coffee or tobacco on private land shall be required to undergo standard outpatient behavioral modification treatment at a regional Vision clinic. Second (L2) and third (L3) time offenders shall be subject to thirty day inpatient hospital treatment; the same as a controlled substance violator.

  12. Civilian applications for free government plots on which to grow marijuana may be uploaded at any DEA / EPA Registration Office or at the IRS payment kiosk located in your neighborhood police station.

  The words were benevolent, succinct, effective.

  Neil Young had not believed in them. This was reflected in his treatment records. Nurse Young logged extensive non-clinical notes on every patient. The fact that he had not only spent 40 hours a week at the hospital working, but actually pretended to care about these boozebums was flabbergasting to Marlene Fossbender.

  She began skimming the non-clinical notes from patient 373-A’s last visit, eleven years prior, and made it as far as, “My name is Tara Dean and if you…” before collapsing the file.

  So many words, so little time. I got a pair for you, missy. They aren’t nuts.

  Nurse Fossbender brushed over her holotab’s glass surface, swiping through the file to the public information on Tara Dean’s most recent arrest until she found the Riverside County, California, CNED report.

  She paraphrased it quickly.

  Subject was arrested in a vodka speakeasy in her hometown of New Riverside, California, by local CNED. She was charged on three criminal counts: 1) Possession and consumption of a controlled substance, alcohol. 2) Misrepresentation of Vision – this was a standard violation that every second and third time alcohol offender was charged with. 3) Financial support of a criminal enterprise (speakeasy).