Fuchsia Shock - 2.0
I don’t generally do this, but since it’s been a while since the first chapter, here’s a quick recap of events: A gentleman - who’s name we are yet unaware of - suffering from stage four liver cancer and a fairly advanced case of Alzheimer - decided to use his not inconsiderable savings to have himself frozen until such time as a cure had been developed for both conditions. Well, the alarm clock just went off in the form of medical technician, apparently the love child of a member of the Blue Man Group and a circus tattooed lady. Now he’s getting used to the idea of having hit a billion in one bet.
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“No big,” he waved, standing. ”You feel up to walking, amigo?”
“Um …” I moved my legs around and admitted that I might be able to essay a few steps. I rolled towards the edge and the mattress under me rolled under me in sympathy, firming and humping up behind me to support my back as I sat up. ”Clever bed,” I commented.
“I like mine a lot,” my purple tech agreed.
“Oh. So this isn’t a special bed for patients or whatever … and what is your name, sir?”
He slapped both hands against his thigh, chest, and forehead (in some sort of “D’oh” gesture I suspected; odd how the language hadn’t changed all that much, but the body language had) before exclaiming, “Bad here, sorry. I’m Zacharia Tochsten, but most simpsons call me ‘Z-Tech.’”
“I can’t begin to tell you how nice it is to meet you, Z-Tech!” I stuck out my hand without thinking.
A few seconds later, my tech laughed and sort of clapped his hands, with my outstretched hand in the middle of the clap. It stung. ”Sorry, ‘migo. I wasn’t shining; I just couldn’t figure out why you’d be so happy to meet me … then it rezzed in.
‘Shining’ and ‘rezzed in;’ I was going to need a slang dictionary. I grinned to myself and corrected that thought to read, ‘ a dictionary.’ For all I knew, Z-Tech was speaking formal English. I stood and discovered that my balance had yet to defrost. Z-Tech stopped my fall and stuck a wheelchair under me in one smooth move.
“Thanks,” I rested my hands on the … what the?
Apparently the same people who built Wonder Woman’s plane designed my wheelchair. I was obviously sitting on something, but I couldn’t see the chair beneath me. I slowly moved my hands and quickly determined that there were no armrests, no over-sized wheels, and no handles. I was sitting in an invisible chair! One that, perhaps, moved by either vocal or maybe mental commands!
Cool!
I said as much to Z-Tech and he grinned, exposing perfect teeth. ”No, ‘migo; you’re sitting on a low back stool. It was the only thing within reach that I could slide under you when you started to go down.”
“Ah,” I replied, blushing. ”A stool, eh? Not some sort of super futuristic wheelchair that works via anti-gravity and is mentally controlled, then?”
“Nat, just a stool,” he replied, adding, “Sorry; your’s sounds a lot cooler, though.”
“So, um .. what do you use for wheelchairs in this era?” I wasn’t going to let go of hope easily. Z-Tech stood up and glanced into the hallway, and then walked out and to the right.
A moment later, he returned with a wheelchair. It was a wheelchair. It looked like a wheelchair. One that folded for easy storage. A stainless steel and plastic wheelchair.
The back had been repaired with duct tape.
“Ta-da,” he smiled.
Moments later, still mentally cussing out Gene Rodenberry for getting my hopes up, we were heading down the hallway, my tattooed fuchsia medical tech pushing me at a pleasant walking pace. ”So no flying cars, then?”
“Nope … well, every couple of years somebody comes up with a sort of car with wings idea, but I guess that ain’t what you’re scanning, huh?”
“Space stations?”
“Sure, and the French are really nice about letting us rent space on them, too!”
“The only space stations are French?” I sputtered.
“Sure, sent up from the spaceport in Quebec. There’s another launch due this month, too. They’re almost finished building the resort.”
“A resort in space?! A French resort in space?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean, ‘migo. Finally gives those passenger shuttles somewhere to take the tourists now that the moon is off limits.”
“What the … what the hell happened to the … waitaminute! Tourists used to go to the moon!?”
“Yeah, sure; it was a big thing for a while, too. Then that movie star accidentally discovered the fossils and the U.N. shut the whole thing …”
‘FOSSILS!!? FUCKING FOSSILS ON THE FUCKING MOON!?!” I screamed.
A high pitched whine made me look up at the ceiling in time to see the small nozzle pop out of the tiles and shoot me.
When I opened my eyes again, I was either back in bed. A gorilla wearing lipstick, ear rings, and with a nice hair style was leaning over me, smiling and withdrawing a needle from my arm.
“Good morning, bright eyes!:” she exclaimed, seeing me awake.
I slammed my eyes shut and clenched them until red sparkles appeared. When I opened them, the female gorilla was still standing there, watching me without a trace of emotion. Or maybe she was showing lots of emotion … how the hell would I know?
“Are you okay, bright eyes?” she asked, concern in her light voice.
I swallowed. ”I’m sorry, Dr. Zira; I’ve just been having the strangest dreams.” Then I noticed the way she filled out her scrubs and decided against telling her to take her stinking paws off of me. ”Will Cornelius be joining us today?”
“What the smeg are you talking about?” she finally asked, bringing up a hand to brush a stray lock of hair away from her eyes … then she felt around the hair and started to laugh. ”Sorry; give me a minute.”
She did something to a hair clip looking thing and the gorilla face disappeared, revealing human features. Okay, bright pink human features with odd piercings, but still human. ”Sorry,” she apologized again, grinning. ”I must have activated the silly thing by accident.” Seeing my look, she added, a tad defensively, “A lot of us who work with timers have holo-mask like this. We’re waiting for the first NASA scientist to defrost.”