by M E Wise
“She’s right you know.” I said to a new OG recruit watching the performance play out. “We left the garden behind a long time ago.” I began to hum my favorite hymn and walked with a spring in my step. I hummed louder and louder with a near psychotic enthusiasm drowning out the masses passing through the receiving bay. Molnar had some new toy he planned on playing with and I felt like a fight; a real fight and some isolation in the brig for my troubles. Crazy I know but without the crazy who would know they’re sane.
Lost Tales of Reign
A Day in the Life chapter 1
Sunshine
I held the most beautiful flowers in my hand but they gave me no joy.
“Daniel O’Shea was a beloved husband, father, brother and a fine musician. He loved the outdoors and spending time with his family. Danny was a godly man and so shall he be returned.” Father Michael Donovan, delivered the eulogy for a man I had not cried for yet. “Danny O’Shea is playing trumpets for the Lord now while David dances. He’s playing the ivories, he’s playing the guitar, he’s playing the music he so loved; the jazz of his soul.” The Father and my dad grew up together in Dublin before Mother and he married and moved to the States. His passing came quick and left us with little time to prepare.
I never thought I would be sitting front row at a funeral before I could drive but here I was. If some fortune teller would say that it would also be my father’s funeral; the indomitable Danny O’Shea, before the age of 40-it would be laughed off as lunacy. I feel like I have been in a perpetual mode of distraction preventing me from mourning the man who raised me to be his light. All I have done successfully is hold his widow’s hand through all of it. My poor mother! They had been together since they were teenagers. A tender sweetheart tale has now ended abruptly in a bittersweet bout of brain cancer.
“Let’s take a moment to pray for Danny’s surviving wife and daughter; Marta and Sara Dae.” Everyone bowed their heads. I was uncertain if I should also bow my head given that the prayer was for us, so I sat awkwardly staring forward. Dad didn’t raise us in the Church. He and mother left Ireland for a more secular life in the U.S., although a large gothic cross hung in our den where my dad played his many instruments and jotted down music with a flexible interpretive style. His other philosophies evolved as such too. “First let’s thank them both for bringing Ireland’s son back home to lay forever in his family cemetery.”
Amen! Came murmurs from the collected in the gallery.
“Heavenly Father, lord of mysterious ways and keeper of our souls, you have taken Danny back into your loving graces, and left his family in the care of the many people who cherished and loved him. We do not fault you, he was a good man. We only ask to keep his family strong and protect them in your loving light. Help us guide them in their hour of need! We may be saddened with our Earthly loss but we know man was not made to last forever. We are meant to return our vessels to the earth and our souls to Heaven.” Again the chorus of amen filled the three-hundred-year old church. “Rest now Brother Daniel Declan O’Shea; your work here is done.”
Something was completely unsettling about Father Donovan’s last statement. My father’s work was not done. Not be any measure of the word done! He encouraged me to go to school year round since 5th grade and now I was being accepted into college at 16. Who was going to push me that extra mile now? Mom wasn’t a scholar by any means. Maybe I am being completely selfish but I feel like I am on my own now. The family we didn’t know filed by in a viewing precession that lead them in front of us for condolences. I mostly nodded incoherently, as accents too thick to comprehend made for a sensory game of smiling and sad vocal mimes.
I looked to my mother, veiled and wholly withdrawn and I twice tried to say something but nothing left my lips. She had passed the point of crying. There were days with Dad in the hospice that she cried more than I believed humanly possible. We stood together and approached my Father’s resting corpse. This wasn’t right to me. My father was a very controlled and disciplined man. He wouldn’t just lie here unmoving for everyone to see him loafing. I fought an urge to shake him and let him know this. Father Donovan kept a cautious distance as we viewed my him this last time. Some well-intentioned but empty platitude was sure to be delivered soon.
“Marta,” He paused and took her hands, “we are all here for you. Dae; your father loved you like sunshine!” Tears then streamed from my face. I smiled as I could hear my father tell me that I was the light of day for him and my mother. “You were named Sara for your mother’s mother and Dae because you were the reason we rose each day to each challenge smiling!” He said it so often that I could hear it whispered from the grave now. I couldn’t look to him though, not with the tears flowing like rain. He would always see my light, never the rain.
“No Mom, Harvard Dreams is a metaphor!” Talking to Mom was exhausting, “They don’t literally make us dream anything. You’re being thick.” The slogan for this school year was written by the psychology department and my loving mother felt all psychologists were mind magicians! Or something comparable.
“We Make Harvard Dreams certainly sounds like they intend on making dreams. It’s the intent love.” My mother held firm to her delusions. “I wish I was pursuing a psyche doctrine! Then maybe I could fix you.” I was thoroughly joking but I could never tell which direction my mother was going to run with anything. “See! They have you wanting to fix people!” She fired back pouting on the video call. I ignored her and continued writing my biology paper.
“Can you blame me?” Marta O’Shea could beat a dead horse well. “You are away in college, learning things I can’t even imagine. I really don’t see a need for all this study, study and study. It seems like staring too hard at something and tearing it apart loses the value of the thing.”
“That’s an astute philosophical point from someone claiming not to tear something apart while shredding my life choices in the process.” Her face frowned and she relented. Mom could play dumb with the best of the dummies. “I really need to finish this paper Mom.” She rustled around in her favorite chair and fiddled with the tablet we were sharing connections on. “You’re right. You just go back to work and I’ll, I’ll go to the pub, I guess.”
This pity party was the normal sympathy bait Mom trapped me with. Only I didn’t have time for it. “Love you Mom!” I blew a kiss at the camera. She blew a kiss back. “Love you too. Glub, glub!” She added before signing off. Mother! Dad would say she had a head full of cats and one rogue rocking chair. He’s probably rocking away in her headspace now.
The first semester at Harvard was a breeze. Dad made sure I was greatly prepared for college. Summers were spent taking precursors to everything. This semester however was a fresh hell bent on straining every youthful mind muscle I had. Advanced Biology had a professor with an agenda. Dr. Alan Watson had spent several years knee deep in a controversial movement to study the genetic heredity associated with space travel called Halfer Syndrome by laymen of press shows. Halfer was a disgusting and limited way to express or understand something so complicated.
The debate on the source of Halfer Syndrome has been going on for nearly thirty years now. The first few cases were only recorded to families who conceived after one or both family members had served on tour in space for more than six months. That was only a half-truth; ironically, considering mankind had been in space since the 1950’s and here we were over a hundred years later and just now seeing these conditions. It didn’t add up. Some think it has something to do with Mars, others believe it has something to do with chemicals in the rebreathers on the long term transports. The worst are the religious fanatics who think God is punishing our children for their parents’ transgression into Heaven.
I personally don’t believe it has anything to do with any of those things. Maybe it’s wild speculation on my part but the DNA of the people who have the condition was cycled with strange code in them. These distortions seem like perfectly exchanged mutated traits
but they don’t appear natural to our evolutionary condition. I have been completely apprehensive in sharing my ideas. First, I’m only 16 and I am a young woman. Secondly, I don’t have the paper to ceremoniously back my claim. Maybe this hypothesis in my final would be the beginning of both my acceptance in the peer group and a new view on the condition.
“In closing; it is my opinion that the concept of Halfer Syndrome, as it pertains to the relation of the connection it seems to have with long term space exposure is only partially correct. The sudden decline of the person’s health given our data would seem to lead us to a conclusive finding that the condition is time responsive. That response time has a significant value in the understanding of the origination of the condition and future investigative measures must concede this. I posit that Halfer System is designed to avoid detection and even made so by an unseen force or forces.
Halfer Syndrome is not a natural change so I submit the Halfer Obfuscation Theory. If we are to further understand this condition, we must consider a source beyond natural introduction.”
And one deep breath later the print key loomed. I am either going to get laughed out of college or applauded for my originality.
Professor Watson laughed so hard his faced turned blue. Two other colleagues also teased loudly about aliens plotting to take over the human race with hotness. I was completely mortified as I entered the “think tank” where all the tenured, doctored and decorated instructors collaborated and found them having a good laugh at my expense. “Is it any wonder who wrote this? She’s brilliant but she could easily be a model!” Dr. Epstein added snidely.
Their commotion settled as they realized I was standing at the end of the hall. These men were the pillars of the department. Dr. Alan Watson practically built the Halfer identification methods for early detection before birth. Dr. Elijah Epstein was the Dean of Medicine. He taught the entry seminar on sexual harassment. Professor Abraham Baruti was the man who I give most credit for my deciding to pursue Harvard as the vehicle to my future. What was there to say? I was a girl among men and they were behaving like boys.
“Ms. O’Shea, may I see you a moment?” Came a voice I knew from an office nearby. I turned toward the voice and I did not give the think tank one good reason to see me as weak. Not a single tear would give them any reason to further their folly or some horse to white knight their way into an apology. I was here to better myself not acquire permissions to be here.
“Your theory,” Dr. Drakos began, “is some of the most original thinking on the subject I have had the pleasure of reading. Those gentlemen are only mocking their own fallacious inadequacies. It’s jealousy dear. Plain and simple.” Dr. Diana Drakos was known for being a relentless ball-buster. Aside from any respect that may guarantee her with myself, her other reputation for being a chauvinistic lesbian made me cautious. Pictures of her wife and adopted son sat on her desk.
I sat down flustered but contained. “We all have our mountains to climb.” She brandished a bottle of old whiskey and splashed it into some coffee. “A taste?” She offered. I waved off the offering. “Too young for the fineries? Oh well. Your theory again has some weight to it. How would you like to intern at my lab?” The sudden offer threw me for a loop. Such a strange turn of events. “Of course I would be interested! More than interested.” I jumped on the opportunity.
“I have a vested personal interest in these matters.” Dr. Drakos slid open a drawer in her desk and produced a photo album. “Take a look! Go ahead. It’s relevant.” She insisted and I complied. I opened the album and there were the traditional wedding photos with two brides instead of the other combination. I preceded a few pages as the baby pictures began to surface. “They’re adopted! If it wasn’t obvious.” She said proudly. “Notice anything?”
One of her children seemed more hidden than the other. I looked closer at the photo and it all made sense. “One of your adopted children has the condition.” I said confidently but respectfully. “It was as much a surprise to us as it is to you now. We sought a surrogate and late in the pregnancy we had the usual battery of tests done; and voila. I’m not French but you understand.” I looked further as the girl was still only a child. She wasn’t as visibly distorted as some children were.
“At least she had a chance with good parents. Some of these kids don’t make it from the womb.” I knew she was aware of this but it felt right to say.
“Yes, yes. The poor little things.” Dr. Drakos wasn’t completely sincere. I didn’t know how to interpret the comment and I let the moment drag on. “Well, I won’t keep you dear. If you want to take me up on the opportunity of a lifetime, get the forms and appear tomorrow at my lab by 6:00 A.M. sharp. Don’t keep me waiting.” I closed the album and passed it back to her aging hands. “This is a personal matter.” She patted the book. I completely understood.
“Tomorrow then.” I was reserved on the outside but completely doing back-flips in my head!
I left the office and the hallway was completely empty. The doors to all three think tank members were closed. I am sure they had something better to do. So what if I am the HOT girl, I’m the hot girl with brains to match. When I walked into this corridor I wanted to find out what other’s thought of my work, get the grade. Now I don’t care so long as they were going to read about me in published journals and syndicated articles. I have a full life ahead of me to accomplish more than my name on a glass paneled door.
The beaker flew crashing into the wall! The good doctor’s temper tantrums were growing completely old. Poor Laine did her best to quell these irrational storms but she was ever the subservient wife. “Di! Please relax. We can’t afford the equipment!” Laine pleaded. I kept my head down. It was 2093 and I was seventeen now with an associates in biochemistry, a minor in medicine, now pursuing a bachelor in those and a doctrine eventually in the medical sciences field; I could not afford losing my internship and setting myself back.
“They don’t want to fund Halfer research, they’d rather save that money for detention camps or something like Halfer licenses! What the hell does identifying the obvious have to do with solving anything?” Dr. Drakos had a very good point. But the lab was still struggling to keep our research going. “We could always start drug trials again.” Laine was a physician’s assistant and has worked with Di for ages, eventually becoming the only person alive who could tolerate the abrasive woman. “Drugs, drugs and drugs! The most cost efficient band-aid for the hemorrhaging masses.” Dr. Drakos mocked her.
“We have to consider leaving the University and establishing a practical clinic again.” Laine knew this was dangerous territory.
Diana Drakos loved the name on the wall lifestyle. “What notoriety is there in being the former tenured professor of Harvard’s scientific development if they stop developing anything worthwhile?” Dr. Drakos bit onto her pair of glasses ear piece. “What’s the point if we solve the whole damned thing and no one will touch it without the illustrious name of Harvard attached to it?”
I didn’t want to interject but I felt I needed too. “It isn’t only the surveillance efforts to keep track of Halfer’s causing problems, it’s the quacks offering cosmetic solutions and psychological adaptation programs to the Halfer community. People are desperate to hide the condition and not deal with it. There needs to be a place where these families can bring their effected loved ones for examination and treatment without the carnival that follows.”
Dr. Drakos paused and seemed like she was about to tear into me but suddenly switched gears. She paced a short distance and then snapped her fingers. “Harvard would absolutely fund a clinic off world if there was a possibility it could bring them some fame. Why not suggest we study this problem where it began?”
“Only we have no evidence to support Halfer Syndrome beginning in space or the locale of Mars!” I was irritated.
“So naïve.” Dr. Drakos pulled out some protocols for testing Halfers and the jurisdiction maps of each
study. “No one is testing out there! It’s brilliant really. Everyone assumes and yet no one has taken the conditions into such consideration as to actually go out into the control zone.” Laine was hanging on Di’s words as usual. “Only that isn’t what a scientific control is.” I stated confidently.
“Oh pish.” Dr. Drakos waived off my correction. “The patient is the control; the environment suggests method. What if the condition acts different in space? What if we can somehow put your HOT to the test?”
“Are you seriously going to use that acronym?” I stood quickly from my stool.
“Oh dear. Quit being so sensitive!” Dr. Drakos chastised me. “You write one bad paper and the world ends.”
“There isn’t anything wrong with the paper! It’s this pigheaded scientific community that won’t consider blatantly obvious observations for fear of the alien stain that might be attached to it!” I shrugged off my lab coat. Her abuse was too much. “Don’t go!” Laine offered a forced truce. “You’re the only intern left. You’re very valuable to the work.” Laine looked to Dr. Drakos for some assistance.
“What she means Ms. O’Shea is without the student we have no funding. No funding, no lab.” Dr. Drakos somehow made groveling an arrogant position.