Lydia's Mollusk

by Sean Monaghan

  "Ah," the nurse said. "My grandmother had curtains instead of dimming windows. Sheets of fabric hanging from a rail in front of the window. She had to draw them closed in the evening."

  "Let's not focus on that point," Lydia said, though she smiled. It was good having the nurse around right at this moment. His playfulness was helping to relax Arnt.

  "Drawn to the ocean," the nurse said. "As if these want to return." He pointed at her arm.

  "Return," Arnt said.

  The nurse looked between them. He scratched at his chin.

  "Sorry," he said. "I've been spoken to before about this. I'm just supposed to take the blood. Maybe a little conversation about the weather or how the Knicks are doing this season. Not supposed to get into personal conversations which might touch on the medical side. I apologize."

  "It's all right," Lydia said. "It's friendly. And I suppose you don't get many of these kinds of things?"

  The nurse shook his head. "I shouldn't say, but no. I haven't seen this before at all. Nothing like it."

  "Can Cooperville help with it?" Arnt said. "No offense, but. Small town. Small facility here."

  "Not a question I can answer." The nurse glanced back at Lydia's arm. "At a guess, I would say they'll keep you here. You're their baby, after all. But they're going to bring in experts from all over, I'm sure. All over."

  "All over," Arnt said. "I heard Shreveport."

  "Shreveport, sure. I guess." The nurse seemed perplexed.

  "Ignore him," Lydia said. "He's calling up a private joke there. Something that's barely funny between siblings."

  The nurse nodded. "I'll get these to the lab." He lifted the little rack of her blood samples, and headed out through the door.

  "We're in the system now," Arnt said. "Now we'll learn patience."

  "Yes." Lydia itched at her arm. Some of the skin around one of the holes was going slightly red. Like it would with a pimple.

  Perhaps her body was finally reacting against it.

  Perhaps there would be some answers. Soon.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The experts arrived in the morning. There was commotion outside Lydia's room. On both sides.

  In the garden, a small, long-eared cat was climbing the trunk of the tree with the nest. The cat had gray and black spots in its lighter gray fur, and long white tufts curling from the tips of its ears. The fledglings' parents were setting up a cacophony of chirps and screeches. Warning the cat off.

  From the corridor came the sound of Samena, in stern discussion with someone who was clearly not accepting her answer. Presumably that answer was 'no'.

  A couple of times, Lydia heard Samena say, "My patient, my call."

  Lydia lay in the bed, the front half angled up, putting her into a half-sitting position. She had a bunch of sensors attached to her arm and head. Mostly just adhesive circles, each connected on the thinnest of wires back onto a couple of toaster-sized machines on chrome stands.

  The machines hummed. Lights on their faces blinked. Busy gathering data. Busy feeding back into the hospital's AI analytics.

  Maybe they could figure out why she wasn't feeling sicker than she was.

  She felt fine. Better than fine, even.

  Arnt still hadn't arrived. He'd gotten a motel nearby, and promised to be back by sunup. He'd probably slept on and then decided to grab donuts and coffee before falling back into the maelstrom of the hospital.

  The door opened with a quiet squeak and Samena slipped in. She barely opened the door a crack. The disinfectant smells whirled in with her.

  "Your brother's here," she said, turning and keeping her back to the door.

  "And those experts we were expecting?"

  "And a whole bunch we weren't. There are industry representatives."

  "Industry?"

  "People from Sondrel and ProDot. And subsidiaries. Someone from Numerical. It's like a breakout room at a genetics convention."

  "So it's geneticists," Lydia said. "Rather than accountants and lawyers?"

  Samena smiled. "Sharp. Yes. Lawyers. Practically choking on their neckties. Ready to produce writs demanding to see you."

  "Wow."

  "You've become quite the celebrity. Security is coming. They know to let your brother in."

  "Security isn't here already?"

  "The hospital manager has gotten our own lawyers down." Samena smiled. "You know how that will go. The back and forth could keep them logjammed for days. Weeks, even. Until then, none of them can set foot in this room."

  "It sounded as if they were about to break the door down."

  "It's all bluster. So long as I kept telling them no, there's no legal way they can enter."

  A loud chirrup from outside made Samena glance at the window.

  The cat had reached the point on the tree where the branch met the trunk and was working its way around.

  "Hey!" Samena said. She went to the window and tapped the corner. The window folded open, letting in more of the sounds of the garden. Insects buzzing and other birds trilling.

  "Get out of there you!" Samena shouted.

  The cat darted away down the trunk. The adult birds continued their loud chirrups.

  "Servalene," Samena said, waving the window closed. "A couple of them got in and are disrupting things. Don't know where they came from."

  "Aren't cats everywhere?"

  "Sure, but the system is keyed to them. Keeps them out. Domestic cats. But these are genetic-hybrids. A little bit of serval, and some other things."

  "Pretty," Lydia said.

  "Sure, if you like that kind of thing. I'm more of a dog person."

  "Mmm."

  "The gardener was supposed to have rounded these two up already. I'll have to check into it."

  "The garden's an important part of the hospital, isn't it?" Lydia said.

  "Couldn't run without it, really." Samena pointed at the door. "Those folks out there are all about bottom lines and intellectual property infringements, but this is the real life. This is where it's all happening. Does that make sense?"

  "It's about nature, not dollars?"

  Samena smiled. "Yeah. Sounds clichéd."

  "I know. Economy versus nature. That's been the way of it for a long time. Long, long time."

  Samena came over, holding out her right hand. She took Lydia's left hand.

  "Careful," Lydia said. "You don't want what happened to Arnt to happen to you."

  Already the tendrils poking from the holes were leaning toward Samena's hand. Interested.

  "I've checked through the details from Arnt. There were some particulates there. Genetic material that wasn't his own."

  "Mine?"

  "A mix. Yours and these." Lydia put her left index finger close to the largest of the nodules. Pointing. "These are blending with you."

  "Blending?"

  The tendrils were focused now on Samena's finger. The tendril from the largest nodule began tapping its tip on Samena's fingernail.

  No effort to plunge into the skin. Exploratory.

  "Interesting," Samena said.

  "I'm about to be a lab rat, aren't I?"

  Samena's lips thinned and she nodded. "I'm doing everything I can, but ultimately what's going to be the best medical way forward is going to be the best scientifically too. They'll need to know. If the genetic hybrids are attacking—"

  "She didn't attack me."

  "—people, then something will ultimately need to be done."

  "So, they're not interested in creating a race of superhuman mollusk people?"

  Samena laughed. She let go of Lydia's, hand. The laugh trailed off and Samena's face fell a little.

  "Interesting thought."

  "Someone said something about letting this run its course."

  "Arnt told me. He said it, but he was expressing incredulity, as I understand it."

  "You can't take it out of me. Can you?"

  Samena said nothing.

  "It's like when they talk about those inoper
able cancers, isn't it? So spread and diffuse that there's no way to get all of it. At least, not without destroying everything in its path."

  "Yep." Samena glanced out the window again. The birds had stopped their raucous chirruping. One of them stood on the nest's edge with a squirming caterpillar in its beak. Things just circled on back to where they'd been.

  "We could take the arm," Samena said. She indicated on her own arm, sliding the side of her hand across the bicep, just above the elbow.

  "Yeah," Lydia said. "Then I'll get some prosthetic. Not great."

  "They're pretty good now. Full tactile feedback. Sensory touch. You'd even feel pain, if you dialed that into the order. Put the prosthetic down on a stove element and you'd scream and jump away."

  "Yes. And it still wouldn't be my hand."

  "You may have no choice."

  Lydia said nothing.

  "You're left-handed." Samena blinked.

  "Yes. You saw that on my admissions. Never really something I'd thought much about. But go figure now, an artist with a prosthetic dominant hand."

  "You'd make it work. Art isn't about a piece of flesh, from what they tell me. Art comes from in here." Samena tapped her sternum. "Right? Metaphorically."

  "Yes. Metaphorically."

  Samena sighed. She took out a fat pen.

  "I meant to show you this." The pen began unfurling into a thin display. Similar to the way Arnt's phone expanded, but much simpler.

  Samena passed the display to Lydia. Light glinted from the face.

  It showed a list of terms that meant nothing to her. Endocrine, basal ganglia, lymphatic system. Lots of numbers with them. Most of the numbers were in red.

  "I'm guessing this isn't good."

  "It's progressed through the night," Samena said.

  Lydia looked at her arm. It didn't look so very different. Tendrils and nodules. The holes in her skin.

  It looked the same. Maybe there was some thickening in the shell parts. Maybe some more color in the tendrils.

  "Internal," Lydia said. "It's progressed internally, hasn't it?"

  "Substantially. I'm holding these people at bay, but we need to get you into the resonance chamber and do a full body work up. We need to figure out what the next steps are. Personally, I'm thinking that any solution will come from these people."

  "They are lawyers. They'll argue this out of me. Come up with some piece of irrefutable evidence and the whole thing will wither and die?"

  As she said it, something trembled through her. Through her chest. Tingles and shakes.

  "Funny," Samena said. "Frankly I think it's more likely to be a lab tech. Some scientist who's working at the practical end of these things."

  "An experimental treatment."

  "It will have to be. As far as I can tell, this kind of thing hasn't happened to anyone before. Ever."

  "One person," Lydia said. "A woman. Let me just talk to one person. I don't want a whole quorum in here arguing with each other. Arguing with me."

  Samena smiled. "I know just the person."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Through some subterfuge and misdirection, they moved Lydia from her little room with the birds' nest outside the window, into another little room closer to the cross section of the hospital's H.

  The walls were sky blue, and there was a frieze of teddy bears and bumble bees around the wall at chest height. Supply boxes in racks, with disposable gloves and wipes and tongue depressors and other sundry items.

  The window looked out at the row of windows along the garden side of the H's cross part. All of them silvered so it was impossible to see in. A creeping vine reached up through the middle, clinging to the wall. Tiny yellow flowers hung in bursts, and insects buzzed around them.

  An orderly bustled in holding a tray with a jug of juice and a glass. He set it on the bedside table and slipped away.

  Rather than a bed, the room had a flat examination table. It was cantilevered from the wall. In the ceiling, a fat ring at least a yard across sat nestled into a hollow. There were rails and pivots.

  Samena had Lydia take a drink from the glass.

  "Not just juice, right?" Lydia said.

  "It has markers in it. Easier for our friend up there to see what's going on inside you." She pointed at the big ring.

  A technician joined them. A girl who couldn't have been more than eighteen. She was wide-eyed and silent.

  Her dark hair was pulled back into a thick ponytail. She had spectacles, which was unusual. She went straight to the wall by the bed and tapped at it. A section of the wall wound back and a console folded out, along with a stool.

  "This is Mel," Samena said. "Fresh out of Granston, already interning."

  "You're a doctor?" Lydia said.

  "I'm older than I look," Mel said. "I still get carded when I go out."

  "I believe that," Lydia said. "Cops and doctors."

  Samena gave a little giggle, but Mel just frowned. She turned to the console again and tapped in some commands.

  "Lie up on the bed," Mel said. "You're already in your smock."

  "Bed," Lydia said. "Table." But she got onto it and began to lie with her head at the wall end.

  "Sorry," Mel said. "Other way around."

  "Of course." Lydia turned and stretch out. The smock fell aside slightly and she pulled it back into place. The table whirred softly and tabs or baffles or something wound up into place, holding her head and hands and ankles firmly. The cushioning was cold.

  Something bumped the window. One of the gazelles, bumping its nose against the glass. A long black tongue poked out and licked, leaving a long smear of saliva.

  "They do that a lot?" Lydia said.

  "Never," Samena said. "One of the reasons they stay is that they practically ignore the building."

  "So, what's up?"

  "You. You're here."

  "They didn't look before. Besides, how would they know? The windows are reflective. And, why would they care?"

  "Maybe the same way you're drawn to the water, they're drawn to you."

  "I think you're just making fun of me now. I'm betting that the windows get salty or something and they're persistently licking at them. You must have a robot of a person who goes around wiping away the gazelle smears."

  "No," Mel said, still tapping at the console. "They definitely don't do this. At least I've never seen it before. Never heard of it happening."

  "So I guess it's my fault," Lydia said. "I suppose you're going to bill me for the cleaning."

  "Probably," Samena said. "We have to make money somehow."

  "Goodness knows we're not making a cent from MedPay," Mel said. "I think the expression the admins use is 'blood from a stone'."

  "We do fine," Samena said. "Just that you don't get to do as much research as you would like."

  "You're a researcher too?" Lydia said. "This is a research hospital?"

  "Most are now," Mel said. "And yes, in another couple of years I will drop 'Dr." as my title and revert to 'Ms.'"

  "She's working on her PhD," Samena said. "Quite brilliant, this one."

  Above Lydia, the big ring began humming. A couple of small bright lights on its face pulsed.

  "Enough about me," Mel said. "Let's see if we can get a good scan of you and we'll be able to figure out the next steps in your recovery."

  "Is that what it is?" Lydia said. "A recovery?"

  "Or something else."

  "Metamorphosis."

  Mel glanced over. She adjusted her spectacles. "We'll see what hap—"

  The clunk of the door opening cut her off.

  Arnt stepped through.

  "What did I miss?" he said. He had two take out coffee cups with bright green Starbuck's logos. He sipped from one.

  "Nothing," Samena said. "We're just getting started."

  The pitch of the ring's hum increased and it gave a small jerk.

  Downward.

  Lydia stared up through it.

  The arms took over and the
ring descended, turning as it came.

  "This is like the magic trick," Arnt said. "The woman is floating and you pass a hoop over her to prove that there is nothing holding her up."

  Samena and Mel looked over at Arnt. Arnt's eyes fixed on Mel. Despite what he'd said, she actually smiled at him.

  "Ignore him," Lydia said. "He's just being disruptive."

  "I'm never disruptive!"

  "That," Mel said, still tapping at the console, "I find hard to believe."

  The ring moved into place. Right by Lydia's head.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The ring was like white porcelain. Polished to a near-mirror finish. It trembled as it hung near her head.

  "Magnetic resonance, right?" Arnt said. "You'll zip it along, and back and then you'll have a much better picture of her insides, right? I mean, all the sensors have done a good job, but this is far better. I've got to say, I'm glad. Glad that you're taking this seriously."

  "They have been," Lydia said. "You can stop talking now."

  "Please lie as still as you can," Mel said.

  "Hard to move with these blocks holding me in place." Lydia couldn't turn her head to look at Arnt, and she gave up holding her eyes to the side and just stared straight up.

  The arms supporting the whirring ring began moving along the rails. Parallel to the bed. The ring wobbled a little as it traversed her body.

  "Is it supposed to be shaking like that?" she said.

  "It's not ideal," Mel said, "but, you know, funding. The software corrects any issues, so I'm not concerned."

  "How are you doing, Lyds?" Arnt said.

  "I'm in a giant magnet here. What do you think?"

  "Figure you're feeling real confident that they're going to get to the bottom of it."

  "Sure. I think the worry if about those industry types out in the corridor. I bet they're still circling like condorenes."

  "You bet. They very predatory, even if a lot of it is defensive."

  Cool air blew around Lydia as she lay on the table. Finding the gaps around the smock.

  The ring moved on. Past her head, past her chest. Hips. Legs. Feet.

  The ring began its journey back. Still humming. Still shivering.

  It would be over soon. Then what? More poking and prodding. More people telling her that they didn't know enough about it. They needed more tests.