by Jule Owen
“Get out of here,” she says.
“Mum…”
“Get out!”
“You’re scaring me!”
Pain convulses her. She grips the bedclothes, then falls sideways onto the bed and is still.
“Mum… Mum, for God’s sake!”
Her medibot attempts to connect to the Nexus to dial an emergency ambulance. The connection spools, redialling again and again and failing. He tries Dr Girsh again to no avail and then tries emergency services. Finally, desperate, he tries the beebot and sends a voice-to-text message to Clara. He says, “Help, please! Pick up!”
Clara calls immediately. An image of her sat at Gen’s piano materialises in his Lenz. “Hi, Mathew! Are you ok?” She turns, frowning at Gen, “It’s Mathew.”
“What are you…? What is that?” Gen begins.
Mathew says, “Please. I don’t have time to chat. We need an ambulance. Mum is sick and our network isn’t working. I can’t get through to our medical services.”
“I will get right on it,” Clara says. “I’ll call you back.”
“Thanks.”
Mathew turns to Hoshi. She is quiet.
“Mum?” he says.
Then a call notification comes through to him. The words float above Hoshi’s head. The message includes the Panacea logo. The ‘From’ tag says Pan Special Medical. He answers, frowning.
A voice says, “You are listed as Hoshi Mori’s emergency contact. Can you confirm?”
Mathew says. “I’m her son.”
“Are you with her now?”
“Yes. She is sick. I can’t get a line out to our doctor.”
“Your name is Mathew, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Mathew, we are going to help you. Okay?”
“Who are you? You’re not our usual medical service.”
“We’re a division of it.”
“Why couldn’t I get through to Dr Girsh?”
“Don’t worry now. Let’s help your Mum, shall we?”
“Okay.”
“Her medibots show some pretty serious indicators. She isn’t responding to my calls. Is she conscious?”
“She was a minute ago.” Mathew leans above Hoshi’s prone body. “Mum,” he says, gently shaking her. “Mum!” Her eyes are closed. She is motionless. She doesn’t even groan. “I’m not sure now. She’s not speaking.”
“She has a pulse. And I am getting data that says she is breathing. Can you confirm?”
“Yes. She is breathing.”
“We have an ambulance on the way.”
“Thank you,” Mathew says. “Please hurry. Does the data tell you what it is?”
The woman on the end of the connection says, “No. But don’t worry. She needs you to stay calm. We will be there in four minutes. You need to put her in the recovery position. Do you know how to do this?”
“I do. I used to. I… Tell me. Please.” Mathew feels like his brain has frozen.
“Okay. Kneel to one side of her.”
“Is she on her back?”
“Sort of.”
“Can you activate video on the call?”
“Yes. Yes. Sorry!” Mathew says. He mentally fumbles his Lenz controls.
“Okay. Good. I can see you. Put her left leg flat.” She waits. “Yes, good. Put her arms to the side.” Another pause. “Good. Put her left arm at a right angle with her hand pointing upwards.” Again she waits for Mathew to respond to the instruction. “Pull her other hand across her body and tuck her hand under the side of her head with the palm touching her cheek. Bit more. Yes. That’s it. Bend her right knee. Pull it a bit further. Pull on her knee so she’s on her side. Lift her chin and push her head back. That’s good. Well done. She is breathing steadily and I have her pulse. Are you ok, Mathew?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re in your road. The ambulance is here now.” A short pause. “They are outside. You’ll need to let them in.”
There is a loud knock on the door. Mathew scrambles, runs down the stairs and opens the door to a man and a woman in crinkly white boiler suits. Their faces are covered in masks. They are carrying a gurney.
“Are you Mathew?” asks a man’s voice, muffled by the mask.
“Yes.”
“I’m Alice, that’s Mike,” the woman says, nodding to her partner.
“Hi,” Mathew says numbly.
“Where’s Mum?” Mike asks.
“In her bedroom.”
“Show us the way.”
Mathew leads them up the stairs. They immediately get to work beside Hoshi. Mike speaks to the Nexus connection linked to the ambulance.
Alice considers Mathew sympathetically. “Great work on the recovery position.” She smiles and Mathew manages a small smile back.
Gen and Clara appear and hover in the doorway.
“The door was open. Are you alright?” Gen says. She comes across the room towards him. “I tried to call an ambulance but when I got through they told me one was already on its way. Looks like they are here already.”
Mathew shakes his head. “I didn’t know they were coming. Thanks, Gen.”
“Don’t worry, she’s probably just exhausted. She has worked herself into the ground,” Gen says.
“I don’t think it is exhaustion,” Mathew says. He catches Clara’s eyes.
The medics gape at them. “What are they doing here?” Mike asks.
“It’s okay,” Mathew says. “They’re friends.”
Mike says, “It’s not okay, actually.” He turns to Gen. “Didn’t anyone try to stop you?”
Gen shakes her head, “No. We walked straight in.”
“Those security cretins are useless!”
Alice says, “Okay. Not now. Let’s get her on the stretcher. We need to go.”
Mike stands to one side and says, “This is Pan IDC3. We’re coming down with the mother and the boy. Plus we have two other guests. Please confirm.”
“Who are the guests?”
“Neighbours. There was no one at the door to stop them. PanSec is fricking useless. They were meant to be right behind us. What are we meant to do, hang around on the doorstep and wait for them while our patient dies? I’ll have McMurphy roasted.”
“Okay, confirm. Security is there now. I am looking right at them. You are okay to come now. Bring the neighbours.”
“What is going on?” Mathew asks.
The man turns to Gen and Clara. “You need to come with us to the hospital.”
“I’ll happily accompany Mathew, but Clara needs to get home.”
“You’ll all have to come. Did Ms Mori enter your house before she came home?”
“No,” Gen says. “She came straight here from her car. Why does Clara need to come to the hospital?”
“It’s a precaution…”
“Against what?”
“We don’t know what is wrong with her yet, but she may be contagious.”
“But we only just walked through the door.”
“As I said, it is a precaution.”
“We need to go, Mike,” the woman says.
The medics work together to get Hoshi onto the stretcher and then lift her and start to carry her from the room. The man speaks to his Nexus communication connection again. He says, “We’re on our way.”
The back doors of the ambulance are open. Two armed, uniformed men stand in the middle of the road. Mike says to one of them, “Where the hell were you?”
They start to explain. The medic interrupts. “Never mind. We don’t have time. Don’t let anyone in the house until the investigation team gets here.”
They get the stretcher into the ambulance and put it on a trolley and lock the wheels. “You as well, please,” he says to Gen, Clara and Mathew.
There’s a bench attached to the side of the ambulance, facing the stretcher. Alice follows them and pulls the door shut. She helps them find seat belts and checks Hoshi and the stretcher are secure.
“When will you tell us what i
s going on?” Gen asks. “Why is this ambulance unmarked?” When the medic doesn’t offer any response, Gen says, “We have a right to know where you are taking us.”
“We’re going to a medical centre to help Hoshi. I know you’re worried,” she says, “but the best thing you can do for her right now is stay calm.”
“Will she be alright?” he asks.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
Mathew pins his elbows to his knees and leans forwards, resting his chin on his clasped hands and stares at his mother, unconscious on the gurney. She has to be okay. She just has to be. He can’t lose another parent.
5 Cold War and Missile Crisis
They enter the building at speed from the back of the ambulance, through battered blue-painted double doors. The stainless steel plates at the bottom take the impact from the stretcher trolley.
Mathew only gets a glimpse of his surroundings as he is led inside an old brick pre-21st century building with black drainpipes and bars on the windows. There is no signage above or on the doors. Whoever owns this place wants it to be anonymous.
Three other medical staff meet them, all in protective clothing. Hoshi’s trolley is wheeled away. Mathew moves to follow after it, but Mike holds him back.
“I want to go with her,” Mathew says.
Alice says, “I know you do, but the doctors need to be given room to do their work. You’ll be in the way. We also need to run some tests on you.” She puts a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Come on. The sooner we get these tests done, the sooner you’ll see your mum. Okay?”
Mathew nods but he is sick to his stomach as they walk away.
They are led along a wide corridor with strip florescent lighting flickering, lightening and darkening a section of their route. The walls are a dull, sickly orange. There’s a scruffy grey panel that runs at waist height with a hand rail and scuffed stainless steel plates instead of skirting boards.
They pass through three sets of hospital doors, turn, turn again and stop in front of two sets of scrubbed steel door lifts. The medic presses a button on a panel. They watch the floor indicator illuminate and the numbers count down as the lift comes to them. Mike stares ahead, stony-faced. Alice studies Mathew’s face and tries a smile. She pities him. The man does too, but he is angry as well.
The doors open. They get in. There’s an old faded poster on the wall of the lift with health warnings about TB. The place mustn’t have been used properly for years.
They ping through floors and then the doors open again.
They are disgorged into another corridor, much like the others they have travelled through. The lights comes on as they walk.
“What is this place?” Gen asks.
“It’s a special facility for infectious diseases.”
“There’s no one here,” Clara says.
“This is a quarantined section.”
“Why do you need all this space? It looks abandoned.”
“Panacea likes to plan ahead.”
They enter a long corridor that splits two rows of hospital rooms. They all have floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows and are furnished identically with metal-framed hospital beds on wheels, white mattresses, clinical tables and mobile screens.
“Here we are,” the nurse says, as she comes to a halt, “We have to keep you apart for now, I’m afraid. One of you may have been infected and not yet passed it on. Gen, if you could come with me. Mathew, go with Mike. Clara, I’ll be back to deal with you, if you could wait here.”
Mike leads Mathew through a door into a small anteroom, lined with cupboards and shelves full of medical kit. Directly ahead there is another door, which leads into the main room that will be Mathew’s. It unlocks automatically as Mike stands before it. It is bioID-controlled, Mathew thinks.
“You’ll need to change into this,” Mike says, holding a pale green hospital gown, taken from the anteroom. “Behind there,” he indicates to the corner of the room and a screen on wheels. “We’ll need all your clothes. You’ll get them back when they’ve been cleaned. Oh and remove your e-Pinz, please.”
When Mathew reappears, Mike puts his clothes into a white shrilk bag and ties the top. Mathew places his e-Pinz in Mike’s outstretched palm.
“I should take your Lenz as well, but I don’t have a box for them. I’m trusting you. Don’t use them here, okay?”
Mathew nods.
“There’s water there,” he points to a jug and a glass on a table. “And a toilet.” Mathew watches as Mike opens a door, revealing a toilet and washbasin.
“I’ll leave you to it. Someone will come to do the tests shortly.”
Mike retreats to the antechamber, taking the bag containing Mathew’s clothes. It takes a few minutes for him to pass back into the corridor. When he emerges he is no longer wearing the boiler suit.
The room is fifteen foot square. A series of small Canvases hanging on the far wall display an array of constantly changing data and graphs. Mathew goes to examine them but each data label is an abbreviation or a specialised term. They make no sense to him. Instinctively, he tries to search for them on the Nexus but fails to get a connection. He realises that wherever they are, it is sealed like a military bunker.
He perches on a hospital bed on a crinkly blue paper sheet, wearing the thin backless hospital gown Mike gave him. Clara is across on the other side of the corridor, facing him. Long panes of glass run floor to ceiling, separating them. They stare at one another. He feels calmer looking at Clara.
Someone new comes along the corridor dressed in a white protective suit, pushing a stainless steel container on wheels. The stranger goes into Clara’s room. Mathew stands and walks to the window. Clara talks to the suit. She waves and smiles slightly at Mathew as if to say, “It’s alright.”
Another Panacea staff member comes into Mathew’s room and the door shuts securely behind.
“Hello Mathew,” says a male voice behind the mask. “I’m Dr. Wilson. I’m here to do some tests. How are you feeling?”
“Where is my mother?”
“She’s upstairs in intensive care.”
“What are they doing to her?”
“Running tests.”
“What kind of tests?”
“We’re trying to find out what is wrong with her.”
“But you suspect it’s a virus of some kind. Otherwise you wouldn’t have us here.”
“Correct.”
“I want to be with her.”
“That’s not possible right now. We need to complete the tests on your mother and run tests on you and your friend.”
“How long will it take?”
“Not long.”
“Then can I see her?”
“Probably, yes. When we know more.”
“Have you told Clara’s mum and dad where she is?”
“Yes, we have let them know she is safe and that we will take her home as soon as possible. Now, it is important I do these tests. We want to get them to lab as soon as possible.”
“What tests are you running?”
“We already have your medical data from your biobot. That gives us all the information we need about your blood, urine, faecal, the functioning of your organs and a host of other data. I’m going to inject another kind of biobot. Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. It’s actually made from a synthetic material, which will dissolve naturally and totally disappear in a few weeks. It’s a little machine specifically designed to hunt viruses.”
“Doesn’t my biobot already do that?”
“Yes. It’s programmed to find all known viruses. The virus your mother has isn’t on the biobot’s central database. The one I’m injecting is more intelligent, and can detect the signs and shapes of viruses not yet catalogued.”
The doctor opens a flap on the top of his shining silver trolley to reveal a needle attached to a tube, in turn attached to a machine hidden in the metal box. Mathew remembers the time he had his own medibot fitted by his mother’s health insurance company. The mac
hine was similar. The doctor finds one of Mathew’s veins. There is a sharp punch.
“Right, you’re done,” the doctor says. “We should have the results soon. A few hours, max.”
“I have to stay in here for hours?”
He contemplates Mathew and says, “It’s pretty boring isn’t it? Especially without the Nexus.” He goes to the wall of Canvases, opens a control panel and fiddles with the interface of buttons that appears on the screen. The channel flickers and then switches to the TV.
“Any better? You adjust the channel using these buttons here. They respond to voice command. Okay? The access code is PanMenu. Designed to be top secret, obviously.”
Mathew nods. “Thanks,” he says.
“You’re welcome. There’s a button above the bed. Press it if you feel unwell, but we’ll monitor your biobot and will know before you if there are any bad signs.”
Mathew wonders if he’s meant to be comforted.
The doctor leaves and Mathew gets off the bed and pads to the window to stare at Clara.
“Are you alright?” she mouths.
He nods and mimes back, “Are you?” He puts his hand against the glass. Clara does the same.
Later, Mathew is on his bed, watching the news. Russia has pushed back the allies to the Polish border. A US military spokesman explains that although the situation may seem bad, the Russian supply line is dangerously stretched. Another news story covers the floods. Someone points to a watermark on the side of a building and says the water level has dropped.
Mathew wishes he could find out what is actually going on via the Blackweb.
The Blackweb! Mathew thinks. I haven’t tried the Blackweb!
The medic took his e-Pinz but he still has his Lenzes. He opens Charybdis by voice and initiates a connection.
This will never work, he thinks, waiting.
But it does. He is in.
If Clara had her beebot they’d be able to speak, but the hospital staff have taken it away with all her other things. He hopes they don’t examine it too carefully. He is grateful now that he went to the effort of making it appear like a brooch.
Who should he call? His grandmother? He doesn’t want to worry her.
I need to be careful.