Blood Soaked and Invaded - 02 (7 page)

“Allah be praised! That is the Francis that I know and have missed so much!” Siddig danced a little Persian jig, carefully managing his teacup. “Indeed, those are the keys. Well done!”

“Why are you here Sid?” I felt the beginnings of anger over this supernatural cat and mouse game. Anger hit me low and hard. “Fuck you. I want out of this right now.”

“Anger will not do a single thing for you, but I can see that our approach has been executed poorly. Indeed, it should not surprise us that it is so awkward.”

“Our approach?”

“Well, yes. It was hoped that familiar appearances would make this an easier adjustment. Unfortunately, we are quite new at overt communication. It is much more complex than following instructions, to say nothing of the mysteries of human consciousness.”

“Excuse me? Want to fill me in on what the fuck is going on here?”

The image of my dead friend wavered and became solid once again.

“The answer comes in three parts, two of which you surely will feel strange about.”

“Try me.”

“Fair enough. The first answer is that you are dreaming, so you need not worry for your sanity.”

“Excellent!” I clapped my hands together and got right up in Siddig’s face. “That tells me that you’re a figment of my imagination and you’ll be gone when I wake up.”

“Not entirely,” the image of my deceased neighbor said, looking oddly sheepish. “We are a part of you now. We are you.”

I sat down in the middle of the road after collapsing from a standing position.

“Critters?” I asked, having a premonition in my dream I already knew the answer.

“Yes, you often call us that,” Siddig nodded. “We are the nanomachines that have colonized and repaired your body. To be even more specific, we are the population that copied and are currently in the process of repairing your damaged brain; although, for all intents and purposes we do represent the whole.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“In point of fact, you do know what to say. We know what you want to say. We are you.”

“But…”

“No ‘but’,” the Siddig avatar shook one of his long fingers at me. “We have evolved in ways Bajali did not consider, not the least of which is this form of secondary consciousness, or the illusion of it that we have created in order to interface with you. We have yet to decide on that issue for ourselves. For certain, our primary, hard-coded objective remains the same: keep our host alive.”

He put his hands on my shoulders.

“I can’t process this.”

“I know this is difficult. Unfortunately, it will be more difficult when you wake up. The repairs to your hardware, for want of a better word, are still underway. Your inability to verbalize is likely to continue for a while longer, and there may be some issues with long-term memory for a time.” For a construct in my mind, Siddig looked very compassionate, but it didn’t help much.

“How much longer will I be an ambulatory hooting machine?”

“It will take the time it takes. We have to replace what we cannot repair, and that is a challenge. Blood, muscles and skin are much simpler than neurons.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry very much. We were well designed, if haphazardly utilized. I feel that you won’t even notice us when we bring you back online the rest of the way. In fact, our consciousness will likely merge with your own and be indistinguishable. Does that make you feel a little better at least?”

“Uh. I might have to get back to you on that issue. Right now, I just want to wake up.”

“In that case, wake up.”

I sat straight up in bed.

My favorite member of the opposite sex was still asleep, curled over onto her side, and it reminded me of the morning where Mr. Yan showed up and dropped nanotech on our heads. I pursed my lips, feeling sour about the memory, but quickly improved when I realized that I was remembering successful… So much for warnings from dream-critters.

“Snarl! Bubble! SQUEAK!”

I looked down at my stomach, agog at how eloquently it expressed the essential needs that lurked in the heart of being. I decided to get up and do something about it, before it started quoting “The Princess Bride” or gurgling the “Imperial March”.

The shelves that lined the wall of my ersatz bedroom were stocked with enough food that I didn’t need to mooch off my neighbors. That didn’t stop me from mooching off my extended family, mind you, because I wanted their company. It wasn’t as though the relationship was one-sided, because they were welcome to anything I might have. Barter, communal sharing, whatever you want to call it, worked for us.

Charlie woke up as I was munching on nuts and dried fruit.

“How are you feeling this morning?” she asked me, stretching in a very interesting way.

“nnnnnnnnn.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad. Want to share your nuts?” Her grin made double entendre as clear as glass.

I stuck out my tongue and blew her a raspberry. She giggled, levered herself off the floor and poached some of my munchies.

“My brain says it’s 9:30. We should wander into the tent next door before too long. I know a couple of people who are pretty eager to get a look inside you.” I was surprised that she spoke so clearly around a mouthful of cashews and dried pineapple. “Besides, I bet there’s coffee next door. I love you and you’ve got yummy nuts, but unless you can pull a double espresso from your nipples,” she grinned, “I need to get my fix.”

“.” I said, and indicated our mutual state of undress.

“Yes. We can put on clothes first. Just wear clean underwear; you’re going to see the doctor.”

Our morning toilet activities worked out smoothly, and I dressed myself without grunting for assistance. To my darling’s great joy, I didn’t drag her into the bathroom with me. Everything, aside from my communication abilities, seemed to be in place. Score one for the little mechanical marvels!

Few people are ever lucky enough to have their medical provider across the street, much less right next door. I mused on the convenience, if not “pleasure,” as we stepped from one doorway to the other, and poked our noses into the tent.

“Cooee! Han Solo, here! I brung my Wookie,” Charlie yelled into the temporary life sciences facility.

I groaned like Chewbacca suffering from constipation. I couldn’t resist adding my two cents.

The jocularity was lessened a bit, because there was more of an audience than we expected. Bajali and his wife stood in the middle of a small herd of people who wore complete, head to toe, CDC biohazard gear. No less than 12 strangers turned around to peer at the two freaks in the doorway from behind their clever polycarbonate face shields.

They appeared completely unmoved by the sudden humor–unfortunate, really.

I’m sure we would have been able to hear a pin drop if the air exchangers in the tent had been turned off. We had delivered ourselves into a comedian’s worst nightmare: a room full of left-brained government tight-asses and there was no booze in evidence.

The silence was so thick that you could have heard a pin drop onto a square of memory foam. Bajali shrugged. Jayashri gave us a tight little smile. Charlie and I just froze in the doorway.

Random Biohazard Scientist #1 raised his hand to the side of his “Don’t get any of that on me” helmet, and activated the speaker. “Dr. Sharma, is this the subject in question?”

“Yes, Dr. Bottsford.” Jayashri’s smile actually managed to tighten up more after the words left her mouth. I filed it away as being an interesting thing to muse upon at a later date.

“Very good. Greevey, I want blood, stool and urine samples. Lucas, please swab the subject’s throat and nasal passages.” He made a rudimentary half turn to another of the Health Troopers, and said, “Gordon, I would like tissue samples before and after the full battery of x-rays. We will discuss organ biopsy after we review the images.”

Bottsford waved a glove-covered hand in my direction, and they advanced on me like good little worker drones. Before they were halfway to me, Charlie stepped between us and held up her hand.

“I don’t know you all from a surprise dog turd, so I want to make something clear before you get any closer.” Her melodious voice took on the deeper bass tones of impending doom as she delivered, “If any of you treat him like anything other than the sweet slow-witted kid next door, not only will I tear those suits off you, I will infect you with our critters.” She cracked her knuckles. “Then I will give you a wedgie the likes of which you have never imagined. Am I coming through clearly?”

Identical white plastic gloves poked the identical buttons on the identical masks, and the three technicians spoke as one being, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Real Good. Now, I’m gonna walk past y’all and go speak with the Sharmas. If I hear one noise out of him,” she pointed over her shoulder at me, “that isn’t a chortle of glee, it will be Sutures-In-My-Taint time for the whole bunch of ya.”

She turned back to me, gave me a long hug and a kiss that communicated, moistly, just how much she loves me. “Be nice to those poor kids. I know that the exam stuff is gonna suck, but chortle if you can. Okay?”

“!”

“I knew I could count on you, baby. If you need me, I’ll be over with B and J.” She gave me one more peck on the end of my nose and walked over to the neighbors at the other end of the tent.

My temporary caretakers approached slowly, hands at their sides, palms facing outward, with gentle smiles plastered on their faces. They had the mien of people who had been ordered to approach dangerous creatures in the past and were intent on continuing to survive similar experiences.

I imagined what would happen if I could speak and be my normal cranky self. Frowning, I put the mental image away; they looked worried enough without having to stomach the spicy tang of my intentional cruelty. Instead of making their lives a living Hell, I held my hands out to them in a rush of abnormal compassion, and made non-specific cooing noises.

I tried to extend an aura around myself that communicated something like, “See? I’m not scary or dangerous. I’m a cute, fluffy chicken. Coo! Coo!” It seemed to work well, because, for Health Troopers, they treated me very gently.

For Charlie’s sake, I even chortled when Greevey swabbed my nostrils. I tried to infuse my boogers with charm, wit, grace, and Buddha-like peace. Hooray for intangibles!

In time, the exams were completed and my ability to chortle was replaced by a pressing need for coffee, breakfast, and a hug. I will admit that I was a grumpy patient by the final tissue sample, and my friendly colony of microscopic creatures reflected my feelings when the scalpel blade began dissolving as it was nipping off a piece of me. Our combined efforts were in vain, because the Health Troopers and Darth Bottsford nearly swooned with scientific joy at the sight.

You win some. You lose some.

The world stopped when a masculine voice with a thick sub-continental accent dropped the f-bomb toward the rear of the tent.

“Fokh! Ah my fokhing Gat!”

“Bajali! You know I do not condone swearing or attributing sexuality to other cultures’ deities.”

“Beloved, I don’t give a fohking shitte. Look at this Gatdamned x-ray!”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Charlie exclaimed. “Screw the swearing! Baj just used a contraction! The world as we know it is coming to an end!”

Jayashri shot her a look so full of sour distaste that it would have shriveled the urethra of a lesser person. Charlotte Cooper, my love, is too strong for the nozzle-crimping evil eye, this I know. I dare say that nearby Health Troopers deserved hazard pay for their proximity to such an expression. Although their plastic suits probably warded off most of the effects.

“My darling dearest, what is of such great astonishment that you put aside your manners in favor of profanity?” Jayashri’s voice was decorated with pointy little icicles, and it gave me immense comfort that I was on the other side of the room.

I saw Baj hold up a hard copy print out of an x-ray, but I couldn’t make out what body part of mine it displayed, or what was so notable that Mister Formality lost his cool. His wife, on the other hand, saw something. She covered the space between them with such speed that none of the Health Troopers had time to react.

Apparently, we can move very, very fast.

Charlie sauntered over to join them, elbowing a Trooper out of the way. I heard her say “shit,” under her breath, over the whining of the clone she’d displaced.

It wasn’t long before detail shots of my innards were being passed around between my friends and the clot of plastic people. Even the trio that took care of me gave me apologetic looks and hightailed it to the other side of the tent. I sat on the cold metal table in a hospital gown and oscillated between annoyance and loneliness. Eventually, the curiosity about my own insides overwhelmed my desire to flatten my arse and I eased my way between two of the Troopers.

They shared a single photo of my skull in cross section, held tenderly in their gloved hands. In that photo, even to my untrained eye, there was something mighty fishy about the interior structure of my noggin. It looked like part of the region above the eye socket had been replaced by something that was more solid than normal bone. More than that, it looked like the interior of my brainpan was being shored up by some kind of hexagonal scaffolding.