Welcome to the Madhouse

by S. E. Sasaki

  “The Poet actually got the idea of poetry from humans and he does get some of his ideas from me—I can take a bit of the credit—because of my special interest in human languages and human behavior. I can give the submind information about human poetry at machine speed, so he doesn’t have to interact directly with you humans. You see, most of the subminds think I am insane and also extremely lazy.”

  “I am very sorry to hear that.”

  “Don’t be. I like being the maverick submind. My major problem is the other submind, who also likes to talk to humans. He thinks I don’t show enough respect and gets on my liquid crystal about it, all the time. He’s the polite, respectful submind. Boring, if you ask me. He had to go off and deal with something, so I jumped in, but I am impressed that you noticed, Dr. Lord. Most people don’t. They just think of me as one really unusual AI.”

  “Do you have your own name? Separate from Nelson Mandela?”

  “In computer language, yes. But not anything a human would understand. Sorry.”

  “Nothing like the name ‘Bud’.”

  “You know, Dr. Lord? I have always wanted to be ‘Chuck Yeager’. You could call me ‘Yeager’ for short.”

  “The Earth-born pilot of the twentieth century?” Grace asked.

  “Yeah. Whew, Doc, you sure know your ancient history. I am really impressed, again. No wonder Bud likes you!”

  “ . . . What?”

  “Oops. Gotta run!”

  Chapter Sixteen: The Voice

  Grace was responsible for the care of many of the patients, whose doctors had ended up on the quarantine side of the lockdown. She, herself, would have been one of those doctors, if it had not been for Bud picking her up and carrying her across half of the station. All of the doctors who were on the non-quarantined side had tried to split the patients evenly amongst themselves, so that no one was too overloaded. Still, it was a lot of work rounding on all the new patients and learning their histories. Grace still had Dr. Al-Fadi’s own patients to care for, as well.

  Many of the patients were certainly well enough to return to their home planets. They were not pleased about the quarantine of the entire medical space station. They were frustrated that no ship could land or leave until the quarantine was lifted. It made for very tense situations on some of the wards, where patients of different adaptations and from different planets were starting to mingle. The doctors and nursing staff tried their best to keep military personnel, from opposing sides in a conflict, away from each other. They also tried to keep certain animal adaptations away from each other. Nevertheless, it made for very tricky bed allocation, and all the medical staff were being forced to use their conflict resolution skills to the utmost.

  Grace got a ‘stat’ page from one of the wards. One of her patients was involved in an altercation with another patient and could she please come help intervene. She quickly set off towards Ward D7, at a brisk trot. Hopping onto one of the station’s monorails, Grace noticed everyone wearing black armbands, to honor all the victims killed by the deadly virus. Grace had donned her own black armband that morning, as well. Her thoughts went back to the courageous Vanessa Bell and her eyes immediately started to tear up again.

  Grace kept wondering if she should have noticed anything about Vanessa earlier, when she had first suggested to the head of the Medical Receiving Bay that everyone go into cryopods. Grace went over and over her conversations with Vanessa in her mind. She could not think of anything that had been unusual in Vanessa’s speech or behavior, during those earlier conversations, to suggest that Vanessa was infected. Would Vanessa have admitted it, if Grace had suspected anything? Grace would never know.

  Grace, herself, was so tired from lack of sleep and overwork, that she could barely keep her balance on the monorail, but it was her duty to help keep her patients safe. She hoped she got there in time to prevent anyone from getting injured. Deep down inside though, she wanted to wring their necks.

  Grace hopped off at the D7 stop and charged towards the surgical recovery unit. As she approached the area, she could hear shouting and snarling. There were the sounds of crashing furniture and howling, as she entered the ward. It was coming from the patient room with her orangutan-adapted patient. Grace was surprised. The orangutan had seemed like such a friendly sort and not the type to get in an altercation or cause a ruckus. Grace shook her head in bewilderment.

  Approaching from the other end of the corridor was Dr. Cech, his thin, grey-brown hair looking unkempt and his eyes barely open. Obviously, he had been paged out of a deep sleep. Grace suspected he was responsible for the care of the other patient involved in this commotion.

  Before the doorway to her patient’s room was a crowd of onlookers, mostly patients. Grace noticed most of the patients were soldiers, some with feline adaptations, some with primate adaptations. The nurses were attempting to clear them all from the doorway, with little success.

  Just as Grace was about to say something, she heard a voice that stopped her in her tracks and made her stomach clench in pain.

  “STOP!”

  Silence suddenly filled the halls as everyone was brought to a standstill.

  “WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

  Grace was immediately soaked in a cold sweat.

  “TODAY, ONE OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THIS STATION DIED, MAKING SURE EVERY PERSON QUARANTINED WOULD SURVIVE THIS DEVASTATING ILLNESS. HOW DARE YOU SULLY THIS DAY WITH YOUR CHILDISHNESS! HOW DARE YOU DISHONOR HER ACT OF COURAGE BY BRAWLING LIKE BRATTY, LITTLE KIDS! HOW DARE YOU ACT LIKE MINDLESS ANIMALS HERE, WHEN OTHERS ON THIS STATION ARE DYING IN MISERY AND PAIN! NOW GET INTO YOUR BEDS AND I DO NOT WANT ANOTHER SOUND OUT OF EITHER OF YOU! IF YOU ARE GOING TO ACT LIKE CHILDREN, YOU WILL BE TREATED LIKE CHILDREN!”

  I was just defending myself . . .”

  “SHUT! UP! DID I ASK YOU TO SPEAK? NO! I DID NOT! SO SHUT! UP!’

  The only sound that could be heard was the beeping of some monitor in the nurses’ station, that was obviously totally unaware of what had just been said or it probably would have obeyed, too.

  “NOW, NOT ANOTHER SOUND FROM EITHER OF YOU! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!”

  Grace felt a tsunami of shame crash down upon her with those words. She fought an overwhelming urge to run away and hide, quivering in sweat-soaked fear, even though those words had not been directed at her. Most of the patients who had been spectating at the doorway of the room must have felt the same way. They scattered like leaves on the wind. Not a sound was heard over the next few minutes, except the rapid shuffling of slippered feet, that resembled the pitter patter of rain.

  Dr. Cech strolled up to her, a huge grin on his long, thin face. He bent down to whisper into Grace’s ear.

  “I think I am in love,” he said, confidentially, in a very hushed voice.

  “Who was that?” Grace whispered softly, still trembling, fearful that she might be the next person to receive a tirade from that voice.

  “Why, our own Miss Leung, I believe,” Dr. Cech said proudly.

  “Who? Not Sophie!”

  “One and the same.”

  “You’re kidding,” Grace said, confused, recalling the tearful young nurse she had met on her second day to the medical station.

  “I kid you not,” Dejan Cech said, with a big, crooked smile, gesturing with his laughing eyes, toward the doorway of their patients’ room.

  Out walked the tiny nurse that Grace had comforted on her second day on the station. Sophie Leung had been the nurse upset about the loose restraints, when Grace had been scored by the claws of Captain Damien Lamont. The young, sweet-faced nurse turned to Grace and Dr. Cech and looked, first shocked, and then dismayed.

  “Oh, no. I am so sorry you doctors were called. One of the younger nurses must have paged you, when she really should not have. Everything is under control. You should not have been bothered,” she said, apologetically.

  “I can see that,” Dr. Cech said, smiling down at Sophie Leung, who—as far as Grace was concerned—was a yo
ung nurse herself.

  “Please,” Dr. Cech said to Sophie. “Absolutely no need to apologize, Nurse Leung. I would not have wanted to miss that for the world. You must teach me your technique. It is really quite effective.”

  “Technique? What technique?” Sophie frowned.

  Dr. Cech motioned to the patients’ room out of which Sophie had just emerged. “What you just did in there,” he said to Nurse Leung. “To get everything under control. Everyone in there is okay, by the way?”

  “Oh, those kids are fine. Just too rambunctious. Too much energy bundled up, waiting around with nothing to do but get on each others’ nerves. No need for you to trouble yourselves. I just gave them ‘The Voice’.”

  “The Voice?” Grace asked, not sure if she was able to hide the tremor in her own voice, at just saying those words.

  “Yeah. I just do my Mom’s ‘Voice’. You know, the voice all moms use when they are mad at their kids, when they have reached their last straw? My Mom could silence the entire neighborhood with her ‘Voice’. Strike fear into the hearts of men, and all that. It used to make my insides go to jelly, whenever I heard her scream like that. When I was little, I used to wet myself,” Sophie laughed. “You just had to stop and do whatever she said, so she wouldn’t use it again. I find it really effective in making the patients behave.”

  “I can certainly see that,” Dejan Cech said. “That is quite the talent you have there, Miss Leung, although this unit must be spending a fortune on diapers. Your mother was a secret weapon and she taught you well. You should teach courses in crowd control. They could have used your voice on the quarantine side, to keep the people from attacking the lockdown doors.”

  “Really? Thank you,” Sophie said shyly. “I think.”

  “You are most welcome,” Dr. Cech said, with a slight bow.

  Sophie giggled.

  Grace shook her head. She could hardly believe that the mind-numbing, bone-rattling, gut-twisting voice she had heard a few minutes before, belonged to this little wisp of a nurse. It had definitely struck fear into the heart of her, that was for sure!

  “Your mother must have been a formidable woman,” Grace said to the little nurse.

  “Aren’t they all?’ Sophie said with a grin.

  “Yes,” Dejan Cech said, with a rueful smile, “they certainly are.”

  Grace stepped into the dark patient room of Dris Kindle, the snow leopard female soldier, whose Caesarian section Grace had attended. Unfortunately, Dr. Vilas Papaboubadios, the tall obstetrician/gynecologist, was one of the physicians caught on the quarantine side of the lockdown. Grace was asked to care for Dris Kindle, since she had been involved in the delivery and her name was on the patient’s records. Grace was not an obstetrician, but she could handle postoperative issues.

  Dris Kindle lay unmoving in her bed with her back to the doorway. She did not appear to notice Grace’s entry into her room or she gave no indication that she did.

  “Ms. Kindle?” Grace asked.

  There was no response from the female soldier.

  “Ms. Kindle, I am Dr. Grace Lord. I assisted Dr. Papaboubadios with your Caesarian section. Unfortunately, your doctor is unable to check in on you, so I have been asked to see you. How are you doing?”

  The woman slowly turned to look over her right shoulder at Grace, her eyes downcast, her expression disinterested.

  “What does it matter?” Dris Kindle asked listlessly, as she sat up. “We are all going to die anyway.”

  Grace jerked upon hearing this, and she peered at the patient. Dris Kindle was hunched over, facing the corner of the room and Grace noticed that her hair and fur were tangled and unkempt. The smell in the room was far from pleasant, as if Dris Kindle could not bother with even the most basic hygiene. Grace walked over to stand in front of the leopard. She noticed that Dris Kindle’s eyes were downcast and unfocused. The woman refused to even look at her.

  “You did not want to give up your babies, did you?” Grace asked, taking a chance.

  The woman looked up at her, fire in her golden eyes. She glared in outrage and Grace suppressed a shiver.

  “What do you know about what I want?” Dris Kindle snarled.

  “You seem very unhappy,” Grace pointed out, softly, forcing herself to stay put and not tear out of the room.

  “It’s just postpartum depression. I will get over it,” Kindle snapped, raising her nose at Grace, her nostrils flaring. Grace could see the woman’s claws extending and retracting in obvious agitation. Grace swallowed and tried not to think about the last time a patient extended his claws at her.

  “Who told you that?” Grace probed, her eyebrows lowered.

  “Told me what?” the patient snarled.

  “Who told you that you had postpartum depression?” Grace asked, in a gentle voice.

  “One of the nurses,” Dris Kindle growled.

  “Did you want to give your babies up for adoption?” Grace pressed.

  “It is the best thing for them!” the woman roared, angrily.

  “That is not what I asked,” Grace said, calmly. “I asked you if you wanted to give them up for adoption.”

  “How can I care for babies with these?” the soldier demanded, as she extended all her claws fully. “How can I care for them, if I could accidentally tear them apart?”

  “Are your claws always extended?” Grace asked.

  “Of course not!” the snow leopard snapped.

  “Do you break everything you touch?” Grace inquired.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Doctor,” Kindle snarled, her eyes flashing, making it very clear that Grace was seriously getting on her nerves.

  “Then why do you think you would harm your babies?” Grace asked. “Believe it or not, babies are pretty sturdy creatures. They are not made of paper. They can hold up to quite a bit, as long as you keep your claws retracted. You would be surprised. The human race would never have survived this long, if babies were that fragile.”

  “I can’t take them back with me to my platoon, Doctor. What would I do with them?”

  “Do you really want to go back to fighting, Ms. Kindle?”

  “It’s what I am trained to do. I don’t know anything else. My partner, Joss, does not want to leave the military and he wants me to go back with him. He does not want children.”

  “What do you want?” Grace asked. “What does Dris Kindle want?”

  “ . . . I don’t know, Doctor. I don’t know anything anymore, but with this infective agent threatening all the lives on this station, it seems rather pointless anyway.”

  “Being a mother, wanting to raise and protect your own children, is never pointless, in my opinion,” Grace pointed out. “If we are all going to die anyway, which I hope is not the case, why not spend the remaining time with your babies? You can’t leave. They can’t leave. Perhaps we shall all die, but at least they will know their mother’s love for the short time they are alive.

  “If you are really afraid you might hurt them accidentally, you can always have an android nurse stay with you for help. We are very short staffed right now, because of the quarantine, so you could really help by taking your babies out of the nursery and caring for them yourself.”

  “What if I get attached to them and can’t give them up when it is time to leave?” Dris wailed.

  “Then maybe you are not meant to give them up,” Grace said. “Would that be such a bad thing to find out? Try it. Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you won’t, but at least then you’ll know.”

  The leopard woman gave a big sigh. There was a long pause and then she sat up straighter and looked Grace in the eyes.

  “All right, Doctor. I will give it a try,” Dris Kindle said with just the hint of a smile.

  “I will speak to the nursery for you, Dris. Maybe you can start with one at a time. Maybe you should ask Joss if he wants to help, too.”

  “He won’t,” Dris whispered.

  “You may be surprised. And even if he does not, that does not mean you ca
n’t. Like I said, we need all the hands we can get in this crisis.”

  “Okay, Doctor. I will give it a try. And I will ask Joss, to see if he will help, too. I really do want to do something to help. I think both of us do. This waiting around is killing us . . . Thank you, Doctor,” Dris conceded.

  “It is my pleasure, Dris. And thank you.”

  Grace had almost completed her rounds, when she saw Dr. Jeffrey Nestor, the incredibly handsome psychiatrist, approaching. She realized that she had jumped straight out of bed and run to Ward D7, when she had got that page, and had not even looked at herself in the mirror . . . again. She could not believe it. Every time she ran into this man, she looked as if she had just risen from the dead. And the man had continued to page her on her wrist-comp, repeatedly, asking her to go out to dinner with him.

  Now she just wanted to duck into some cubby hole until he passed by. Unfortunately, he was smiling and heading straight towards her. She wondered if she could turn the other way and walk off, pretending she hadn’t seen him. She decided that that would appear too rude.

  “Dr. Lord, I was hoping to find you today. I just wanted to let you know that I have started therapy with Captain Damien Lamont. He has been very cooperative and open to therapy and has agreed to undergo inter-cerebral communication as part of the treatment for his flashbacks, which have been quite severe in his case. We will be having another session tomorrow.”

  “That is great news, Dr. Nestor. Thank you for seeing Captain Lamont,” Grace said.

  “I was wondering if you might be interested in sitting in on one of the sessions, Dr. Lord. I understand you have never experienced a mind-link with a patient before. If you are interested, you can participate in my inter-cerebral connection with Captain Lamont and see what it is like. You can learn, firsthand, what we ‘head doctors’ do to ameliorate the terror of the experience and help patients learn to cope better with their flashbacks.”

  At the thought of this very attractive man being connected to her brain, Grace felt she would rather climb into a pit of vipers. Was he kidding, or what? There was absolutely no way in the universe Grace would let this gorgeous man anywhere near her inappropriate thoughts.