It's that time of year again, folks!
Time for posting the drek that is NaNoWriMo!
“Why didn’t Maggie get the regular, healing nanites, in all these times going to the doctors?” asked Sam. “Wouldn’t she qualify as the sickest of the sick?”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know if she didn’t get them for some reason, or if she did and they didn’t do any good.” He paused. “I do know that if we can get her into the Tower, we can get some of the super nanites into her blood stream if she doesn’t have them. Or maybe they just don’t work for her in the first place.”
He realized he was babbling. “There are a lot of don’t-knows, and it’s my sister, and I’m rather pissed about this whole thing. I just want to help my sister.”
Madeline went back on the couch to her boyfriend. She sat next to him, rubbed his back a bit. “I know, I know.” She signed, continued. “I think it’s more scary to have some clue of what is going on than none at all.”
Miriam spoke up from the floor. “I’d rather know something, anything, than nothing at all.”
“But only knowing a part is worse. You may have better questions but the answer is more elusive.”
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose.
“So, I suppose that Maggie is going, then?” He sighed this time.
Madeline looked at him. “Yes. Please.”
He looked down at his daughter.
She nodded, firmly, and repeated Madeline.
“Please?”
+++++++++
Maggie was settled into her stark white hospital room. In an attempt for more color and cheer, there were blue and light blue pin stripes on the walls, which in actuality made the room faintly blue and faintly cool.
She closed the blankets tighter around her. Closed her eyes. Imagined the yellow and red and orange that should be the fall in this area of the world. But the leaves never quite got their full chlorophyll green on and now the autumn colors were faded as a result. Not as vibrant. Not like the fire and power of the earth that it could be. More colors like in her youth.
She let her mind drift. A thousand pallets of color spread out in her mind’s eye and a thousand brushes were dipping themselves in the palates, mixing the colors, making their own alchemy of light and wavelengths and frequencies.
“Mrs. Turner? Mrs. Turner?”
A soft feminine voice broke Maggie’s musings. She opened her eyes. “Yes?” she replied even more softly.
A bright smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes greeted her now open eyes.
“Time for your medicine!” the nurse cooed. Her mouth was smiling but the woman’s eyes were flat, expressionless.
“Yeah.” Maggie answered, flatly. She struggled to sit up.
The nurse reached over to press the button for the headboard to lift up. “There, there we go.”
Maggie bit back a few hundred creative comments she would give the mix matched expressioned nurse chick. The woman was only doing her job.
“Tell me again,” glump. She swallowed. “Why these can’t be taken with my IV?”
The nurse shrugged. “Doctor’s orders. Couldn’t tell you. Maybe it has to go through the intestinal track first and not in the bloodstream first?
Maggie answered with a non-committal “oh.” Having swallowed the pills, Maggie leaned back into her pillow and the nurse started the button to move the headboard down.
“No, no, wait.” Said Maggie. “Let me sit up awhile.
The nurse firmed her lips but complied with the request.
“There, there. Are we comfy?”
Maggie just looked at the nurse. Seriously, she thought. Seriously?
Again, Maggie’s inner editor choked back the smart ass comment. Just because you are pissy and sick doesn’t mean that you have to make other people pissy and sick. That was another family motto, thought it’s not quite verbatim. Maggie threw in some other creative names over the years.
“Fine, thank you.” Maggie answered. She hoped the now-go-away tone was not too subtle.
She need not have worried. The nurse, having done her duty, stepped smartly out of the room.
Maggie glanced down the woman’s body. She wondered what kind of woman she was, besideds the obvious grumpy and failing to hide it.
The woman was wearing heels. Not high heels, and not black, either, although Maggie’s sleepy mind imagined that at first, in the incongruent ness of the shoes on a nurse. “What the…” she muttered to herself.
Maggie closed her eyes again.
++++++++
Edwin stepped into his sister’s room. She was asleep, lying there, pale and thin on the bed. He tried to see improvement but the whole spectacle of his vibrant sister, so alive, so kinetic, he couldn’t get past his memories to see how she would have any signs of improvement. Edwin didn’t know. He supposed there was. Oh, hell, he thought.
He was still standing at the door a couple of minutes later. He came to himself, realized where he was and walked into the room to sit down at a chair by the head of Maggie’s bed.
He realized his mind was wandering lately. Lately? More and more since Jory came back into his life. Still, they weren’t together, but having Jory as a de facto brother makes him as omnipresent as his own brother and sister. Jory had moved into Mom and Dad Calledon’s home back when Amanda was first starting her own treatment. Mom and Dad wanted them to both to stay when Amanda got better. Edwin supposed they wanted another son to replace the disappointment that Edwin was to them.
Edwin shook his head. Where the hell did that thought come from? Mind wandering lately? Worse, now, yes, with Maggie not only sick but here, here in his Tower. Here were he would have to face the reality of what his fellow wizards, heh, colleagues were doing, what they where causing.
He didn’t want to face Madeline’s tomatoes. He didn’t want to see the damage that Amanda’s heart took from the radiation levels on her birth mother’s body. He didn’t tell Jory that Amanda’s mother worked at this very Tower, doing maintancece in the high charge reactor tunnels. The shielding, the protective clothing, health and ration level checks, they all failed enough to cause Amanda’s mother to miscarry. Except that she didn’t. The small mite was sent to the town for an unlikely adoption and far away enough to lose the possible connection to the Tower and her health. The mother thought she had miscarried, resigned from her lucrative Tower job, and moved back to her childhood home. She was running a small daycare in her home and taking midwifery classes.
Edwin was able to keep tabs on the woman, the mother of his former lover’s child. Chemistry was not his only skill. The same computer skills that enabled him to see into another person’s life were the same skills he used to re-program the nanites underneath the noses of the scientists in control of that program. He managed to get a couple of nanites into the regular store and those couple of nanites re-programmed the rest.
He supposed that Maggie’s case will skew their test results, and he didn’t give a fuck. He felt more and more restricted by the Tower ideals and Tower goals. He still fought for lab space and equipment time and computer processing room, because that is what you do when you are in a Tower.
Maybe from here, he could make a difference for the people he loved. Yeah, loved, he thought. He realized that he had love all his life and he didn’t feel it, didn’t understand it.
And, it took thirty some years to get it, even though he grew up with it, the unconditional love from his parents, his brother and sister. And later, with Jory. But it was not to be, at least with Jory. At least right now. At least, Edwin supposed so. How could he smuggle nanites out of the Tower if he was seen as a townie? A unionizer, maybe? Lofty goals, this transmutation of matter. Needed trustworthy people for it. No outsiders. We even built a city within a city and a Tower to keep the common people out. For their own good, really. Of course.
This is the doctrine that Edwin heard and listened to and fell in love with, the simplicity of the social design. Screw psychology, how about some clear caste lines with everyone knowing his place and staying there?
But he was seeing that it wasn’t that easy. The caste system he was imaging didn’t exist. There was the Tower, there was the town. One was capitalized, one wasn’t. For your Tower, it was just the Tower. Only other Towers had names, numbers really, but they gained the names of their surroundings, a city or town name, usually.
The caste system should work for the benefit of all, he mused. And it wasn’t. And, somehow, the uptight little man, knew this.
“Why didn’t Maggie get the regular, healing nanites, in all these times going to the doctors?” asked Sam. “Wouldn’t she qualify as the sickest of the sick?”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know if she didn’t get them for some reason, or if she did and they didn’t do any good.” He paused. “I do know that if we can get her into the Tower, we can get some of the super nanites into her blood stream if she doesn’t have them. Or maybe they just don’t work for her in the first place.”
He realized he was babbling. “There are a lot of don’t-knows, and it’s my sister, and I’m rather pissed about this whole thing. I just want to help my sister.”
Madeline went back on the couch to her boyfriend. She sat next to him, rubbed his back a bit. “I know, I know.” She signed, continued. “I think it’s more scary to have some clue of what is going on than none at all.”
Miriam spoke up from the floor. “I’d rather know something, anything, than nothing at all.”
“But only knowing a part is worse. You may have better questions but the answer is more elusive.”
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose.
“So, I suppose that Maggie is going, then?” He sighed this time.
Madeline looked at him. “Yes. Please.”
He looked down at his daughter.
She nodded, firmly, and repeated Madeline.
“Please?”
+++++++++
Maggie was settled into her stark white hospital room. In an attempt for more color and cheer, there were blue and light blue pin stripes on the walls, which in actuality made the room faintly blue and faintly cool.
She closed the blankets tighter around her. Closed her eyes. Imagined the yellow and red and orange that should be the fall in this area of the world. But the leaves never quite got their full chlorophyll green on and now the autumn colors were faded as a result. Not as vibrant. Not like the fire and power of the earth that it could be. More colors like in her youth.
She let her mind drift. A thousand pallets of color spread out in her mind’s eye and a thousand brushes were dipping themselves in the palates, mixing the colors, making their own alchemy of light and wavelengths and frequencies.
“Mrs. Turner? Mrs. Turner?”
A soft feminine voice broke Maggie’s musings. She opened her eyes. “Yes?” she replied even more softly.
A bright smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes greeted her now open eyes.
“Time for your medicine!” the nurse cooed. Her mouth was smiling but the woman’s eyes were flat, expressionless.
“Yeah.” Maggie answered, flatly. She struggled to sit up.
The nurse reached over to press the button for the headboard to lift up. “There, there we go.”
Maggie bit back a few hundred creative comments she would give the mix matched expressioned nurse chick. The woman was only doing her job.
“Tell me again,” glump. She swallowed. “Why these can’t be taken with my IV?”
The nurse shrugged. “Doctor’s orders. Couldn’t tell you. Maybe it has to go through the intestinal track first and not in the bloodstream first?
Maggie answered with a non-committal “oh.” Having swallowed the pills, Maggie leaned back into her pillow and the nurse started the button to move the headboard down.
“No, no, wait.” Said Maggie. “Let me sit up awhile.
The nurse firmed her lips but complied with the request.
“There, there. Are we comfy?”
Maggie just looked at the nurse. Seriously, she thought. Seriously?
Again, Maggie’s inner editor choked back the smart ass comment. Just because you are pissy and sick doesn’t mean that you have to make other people pissy and sick. That was another family motto, thought it’s not quite verbatim. Maggie threw in some other creative names over the years.
“Fine, thank you.” Maggie answered. She hoped the now-go-away tone was not too subtle.
She need not have worried. The nurse, having done her duty, stepped smartly out of the room.
Maggie glanced down the woman’s body. She wondered what kind of woman she was, besideds the obvious grumpy and failing to hide it.
The woman was wearing heels. Not high heels, and not black, either, although Maggie’s sleepy mind imagined that at first, in the incongruent ness of the shoes on a nurse. “What the…” she muttered to herself.
Maggie closed her eyes again.
++++++++
Edwin stepped into his sister’s room. She was asleep, lying there, pale and thin on the bed. He tried to see improvement but the whole spectacle of his vibrant sister, so alive, so kinetic, he couldn’t get past his memories to see how she would have any signs of improvement. Edwin didn’t know. He supposed there was. Oh, hell, he thought.
He was still standing at the door a couple of minutes later. He came to himself, realized where he was and walked into the room to sit down at a chair by the head of Maggie’s bed.
He realized his mind was wandering lately. Lately? More and more since Jory came back into his life. Still, they weren’t together, but having Jory as a de facto brother makes him as omnipresent as his own brother and sister. Jory had moved into Mom and Dad Calledon’s home back when Amanda was first starting her own treatment. Mom and Dad wanted them to both to stay when Amanda got better. Edwin supposed they wanted another son to replace the disappointment that Edwin was to them.
Edwin shook his head. Where the hell did that thought come from? Mind wandering lately? Worse, now, yes, with Maggie not only sick but here, here in his Tower. Here were he would have to face the reality of what his fellow wizards, heh, colleagues were doing, what they where causing.
He didn’t want to face Madeline’s tomatoes. He didn’t want to see the damage that Amanda’s heart took from the radiation levels on her birth mother’s body. He didn’t tell Jory that Amanda’s mother worked at this very Tower, doing maintancece in the high charge reactor tunnels. The shielding, the protective clothing, health and ration level checks, they all failed enough to cause Amanda’s mother to miscarry. Except that she didn’t. The small mite was sent to the town for an unlikely adoption and far away enough to lose the possible connection to the Tower and her health. The mother thought she had miscarried, resigned from her lucrative Tower job, and moved back to her childhood home. She was running a small daycare in her home and taking midwifery classes.
Edwin was able to keep tabs on the woman, the mother of his former lover’s child. Chemistry was not his only skill. The same computer skills that enabled him to see into another person’s life were the same skills he used to re-program the nanites underneath the noses of the scientists in control of that program. He managed to get a couple of nanites into the regular store and those couple of nanites re-programmed the rest.
He supposed that Maggie’s case will skew their test results, and he didn’t give a fuck. He felt more and more restricted by the Tower ideals and Tower goals. He still fought for lab space and equipment time and computer processing room, because that is what you do when you are in a Tower.
Maybe from here, he could make a difference for the people he loved. Yeah, loved, he thought. He realized that he had love all his life and he didn’t feel it, didn’t understand it.
And, it took thirty some years to get it, even though he grew up with it, the unconditional love from his parents, his brother and sister. And later, with Jory. But it was not to be, at least with Jory. At least right now. At least, Edwin supposed so. How could he smuggle nanites out of the Tower if he was seen as a townie? A unionizer, maybe? Lofty goals, this transmutation of matter. Needed trustworthy people for it. No outsiders. We even built a city within a city and a Tower to keep the common people out. For their own good, really. Of course.
This is the doctrine that Edwin heard and listened to and fell in love with, the simplicity of the social design. Screw psychology, how about some clear caste lines with everyone knowing his place and staying there?
But he was seeing that it wasn’t that easy. The caste system he was imaging didn’t exist. There was the Tower, there was the town. One was capitalized, one wasn’t. For your Tower, it was just the Tower. Only other Towers had names, numbers really, but they gained the names of their surroundings, a city or town name, usually.
The caste system should work for the benefit of all, he mused. And it wasn’t. And, somehow, the uptight little man, knew this.