by Ann Christy
“Apartment complex. Lots of buildings,” I offer. He stands still, or rather, as still as he can.
“One building.”
At that, he bobs his knees and says, “Ya!”
That’s actually not good. That means it isn’t in some out-of-the-way place where there are few roads in or out. It might mean downtown.
“Downtown,” I say, almost crossing my fingers in hope that he stands still. He does, but he’s twitchier, like that was too vague or not quite right, but close. There’s another possibility.
“College area?”
He bobs again and almost screeches, “Ya!”
“Are there other people around there?”
That question seems to bother him for some reason and he hangs his head, his fists working around the rails. But he doesn’t bounce.
“No more people are there. Only people like you?” I ask. It’s unlikely he calls in-betweeners by the same name that I do. It wasn’t like I had anyone aside from my mother to share terminology with.
He bobs at that one, but more slowly, his head still hanging.
“And more like the ones at the gate?”
His bobbing continues, but he looks up and I see no smiles now, only anger and sadness. Overwhelming sadness.
That’s another thing about in-betweeners. I’ve not had the chance to see many expressions on their faces other than needy hunger or blind rage, but their expressions are somehow more raw, unfiltered by social contract or fear of embarrassment. This must have been what humans were like long before we developed civilization.
Now, seeing all these emotions cross Sam’s face with such absolute purity makes me understand how it was that humans first came together. If this is how we were with each other, then hiding our feelings and intentions would have been impossible. Honesty would have been the default mode for human interactions.
I’ve been alone too long and these mental tangents are not productive. My mind is turning a million miles a second, so fast it’s almost nauseating. Just thinking about any one of the several options I’m considering is enough to make me want to hurl. Put all of it together, with no long-considered plan and no one to watch my back except an in-betweener who is really my biggest threat, and it’s too much for my system.
I’m a person of careful habits and that is why I’m still breathing and thinking instead of like Sam. I’m about to toss that entire box of habits aside with both hands.
Before I can think too much more about it and regain my senses, I call out, “I can go tomorrow. I have to find a map, arrange transportation. I’m not just going to walk out there with you.”
At the sound of my voice, I’m pretty sure he’s going to go all in-betweener on me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he jams his hands through the rails of the fence and puts his wrists together in the unmistakable sign for being handcuffed or tied. Then he presses his face to the bars, reminding me of a horror movie I once saw, and says, “Mehg sday.”
I know what that means without asking. He knows he can’t be trusted not to wander. He wants me to tie him to the rails of the fence and make him stay. His face makes me want to cry.
Three Years Ago - Mix and Match
My mother is worried. She won’t tell me that, but I know she is. The way she tugs at her lips with her teeth and looks at me with those greedy, never-leave-me eyes, tells me she’s girding herself for another frightening fight for my life.
I’ve been getting headaches again and, even though it should be a simple matter of getting another scan and verifying that it’s just a headache and not my cancer returning, there are steps that must be followed.
Nanite treatment is no guarantee against a cancer coming back, at least not in my case. Newer nanites for first aid, infection reduction, or even plaque control continue working, replacing themselves and maintaining a healthy population number inside their host. These new ones are replicated within the host by specialized factory nanites.
Mine were the first of their kind, really, and it makes no sense to keep a bunch of machines in your head after the cancer is gone. So all of these new and more complicated nanites didn’t exist during my treatment and that left my body to its own devices once my cancer was cured. But, like the doctor said, even one cancer cell left in my head has the chance to start the whole process over again. Probably not, but it is possible.
Yet, the headaches. My doctor has scheduled the scan but he’s told us that the more likely explanation is the growth of my skull around the scarred parts and my brain filling the space once taken up by cancer as I grow. That makes sense to me because I’m in a growth spurt the likes of which I never expected. The doctor says that’s just because my body had a few years of falling behind, with messed-up hormones and all of that. I’m getting tall. I like tall.
I could also be in denial. It’s an option.
Besides, I hate to say it, but if it is my cancer again, it’s not like they don’t know how to treat it. And they can do it better and with less pain than when I had it done the first time. They don’t even drill into a patient’s head anymore. For my second treatment, the nanites were simply shot into my spinal fluid and they did their thing. It’s almost an out-patient procedure nowadays. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not a huge exaggeration.
“What’s going on?” I ask, as our car nears the military hospital. The access road ahead is blocked and police vehicles crowd the intersection that leads off to the military shopping complex and gas station. Beyond a row of blockades, a crowd fills the road for as far as I can see.
My mother sits up higher in the seat, as if that added inch of height will somehow let her understand what’s going on. “I don’t know. I mean, I knew there were some demonstrations planned, but I didn’t realize it was going to be here. Or like this!”
I check the clock on the car’s dash and say, “I’ve only got an hour before my scan, Mom.”
This is important information. These machines are in high demand, now more than ever, and I don’t want to wait another week or two for another slot. I don’t want my mom to have to wait another week or two.
A cop at the roadblock gestures with a bored wave of his hand for my mom to turn right, but she stops and lowers the window instead. The cop almost rolls his eyes as he takes a couple of steps forward at my mom’s polite, “Excuse me, officer.”
“Ma’am, you need to turn right. No, I won’t let you go past. The road is blocked.”
“Of course, officer,” my mother says, the level of politeness undiminished as if she didn’t hear the rudeness in his words. “I only want to ask where patients at the hospital are supposed to go. My daughter is a patient.”
He leans down, eyes me, and asks, “Can she walk?”
I nod and say, “Sure.”
“Then the officer at the end of the block will let you into the parking lot. If she can’t walk that far, ask him for a chair and an attendant will come get her.” He seems to realize then that we aren’t the people turning his day into a pain in the butt, so he adds, “Sorry about this, ma’am.”
A horn blares behind us and the cop steps back, leveling a look at the car that is anything but amused. He waves us to the right again.
There are cops everywhere. And where there aren’t cops, there are security guards that look almost just like cops. No military cops, though. I’m guessing that wouldn’t look good on the news. The guards all have the same wary looks, the same slightly angry stances. They do let us into the main hospital lot, which stretches like a discount store lot for forever, and I wonder how people who are physically restricted in some way manage to get to the doors. The front has patient drop-off, which is clearly not an option.
It’s hot out and I’m sweating by the time we reach the doors. There are hospital security guards there as well, this time in military uniforms, and we’re not even allowed inside the lobby until my mom shows her ID and my appointment is confirmed. Ironically, we’re early.
We grab cold drinks from the machine in the lob
by and then give each other a look that needs no explanation. We both want to know what’s going on. Of course we do.
Near the front of the hospital the mood is tense, but through the glass I can see the crowds covering the front parking lot and spilling out into the street. Signs pepper the crowd with slogans like, “Dead is Dead” and “Taxes Shouldn’t Pay for Eternal Vegetables” and even less flattering things. My favorite is the one that says, “Keep Your Nanite Cooties to Yourself!”
“Ah,” my mother says at almost the same time I do.
This is the only nanite-certified hospital in a hundred miles, so it’s the obvious focus for an anti-nanite demonstration, but I thought there were laws against interfering with access to places like this. And this is a military hospital right next to a military base, which should mean that this place is doubly protected from protests like this. Maybe the back lobby is considered access enough and maybe just being off the base itself is sufficient to make it open season for protests.
My mother worries at her lip again, then reaches absently for me, pulling me to her with an arm around my shoulder. Her hand brushes at my hair, perhaps unconsciously messing with my scar the same way I do.
“No one is going to stop giving nanites. If it has come back, I’ll get my cure,” I say quietly and lean my head on her shoulder.
She nuzzles my head and I can feel her cheek rise in a smile. “I know, baby. I know.”
There’s a delay with my appointment, but it’s only a few minutes. The harried nurse escorts me into the changing area and gets me ready to go so that they can regain a few minutes of their screwed-up schedule. As a result, I’m stuck standing in the antechamber with an attendant and my IV hanging out of my arm. It’s awkward, but it’s also an ideal time for me to pump him for some information.
“What do you think is going to happen? Because of what’s going on outside, I mean.”
He shrugs. “Something’s got to give. Every nursing home in fifty miles is full and people who shouldn’t be sent home have to go home to families who can’t properly take care of them,” he says. His attitude is sort of uninterested, his voice a bit dismissive as if this were all old news. Maybe it is.
I’ll readily admit that for the first year after my procedure, I was fascinated with everything nanite. I owe the nanites my life, the vision in my eye—however imperfect that might be—and every single experience I’ve had since the doctors put those little buggers into my head.
For another year after that, I was still interested, but no longer obsessed. The discoveries came too quickly for excitement to build and maintain itself. After another year of following the news only in the most casual way, I didn't just lose interest, I began to avoid the topic completely. I no longer wanted to be the girl whose brain was nearly eaten by cancer but was saved by nanites. My mom seemed to recognize that and it quietly became a topic we avoided, one that made us change the channel on TV.
So, I basically had no idea what he was talking about.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
The attendant turns to me, arms crossed up high as if he’s cold, and asks, “Really?”
I shake my head and try hard to look apologetic for my ignorance. But that appears to be unnecessary. It almost seems to excite him, like I’m a fresh new canvas he can paint bad news onto.
“All the deadheads. How are we supposed to take care of so many vegetables for ten, twenty…hell, fifty years? Think about it. We give nanites to these people whose hearts have stopped for whatever reason and it restarts their pumps most of the time, but what is really left? You can’t just tell someone that it’s been too long and you’re not going to administer the nanites to their loved one. It’s standard procedure for the EMTs.” He pauses, taps his head with a finger, and says, “No oxygen to the brain. Vegetables. If we’re lucky they’re brain dead and the family agrees to shut them down. Most of the time we’re not that lucky.”
“Ah,” I say because I can’t think of anything else to say. I get a picture in my mind of endless rows of perfectly healthy people who will never wake up again. I mean, half the people in this hospital probably have half a dozen different types of nanites running around inside their bodies. Who knows what that will do in the long run? You can buy some communist country’s cheap-o versions on the internet now if you don’t mind the possibility of getting caught by the postal inspector.
Before I can think of anything intelligent to say, he goes on. “I mean, look at it this way. Everyone dies. That’s the price of living. We should play the hand we’re dealt.” He shoots a knowing look my way from under his lowered brow and adds, “We’ll pay for screwing around like this. One way or another.”
His last words hit me like a punch in the gut. He has no way of knowing that I’m one of those people who didn’t play the hand she was dealt. There’s no way he can know that he’s telling me that I should have let myself die, that my mother should have let her only child die.
While my instinct is to say something mean, to cut him with some clever bit of sarcasm I can’t think of just yet, I decide that I should just forget it instead. I decide to forgive him for his inadvertent wish for my death. But I clamp my lips together to keep from saying something nasty in case my high-minded ideals leave me.
There’s no need, though, because the door opens and another woman shuffles past, her hands pulling her robe tightly to her body and her eyes downcast. Hospital etiquette. I know these rules and I keep my eyes away from her as well. Preserving dignity is big in the chronic patient culture.
Now, it’s my turn in the machine.
Today - Choices, Choices
I’ve never been this close to an in-betweener that I haven’t filled full of bolts or arrows first. I don’t have handcuffs or anything like that, but I do have zip ties. I keep a few in the front pocket of my backpack along with other necessities. They’re handy for hanging larger things off my pack, like the handles of the jumbo bottles of stuff they have in that warehouse. It leaves more room in my pack. I’m an expert at reusing zip ties. I doubt very much anyone is making new ones, so I really hate wasting them.
I use the newest zip ties I have in my pack, the ones I figure probably still have the tightest lock on their little teeth. Sam loses it when he first sees me, of course, but he actually does manage to get himself under control. He holds his hands out again, palms pressed together like he’s praying, and looks down. It’s a quick procedure and the zzzt of the tie securing his hands makes me feel better.
I don’t look at him or say anything more. I just turn and walk rapidly away. Running seemed to get him going before, so I’m going for something calmer and less provocative. It’s such a long walk, but when I get behind the first building—an assembly building for perfumed sachets that still fills the air inside with a strong floral scent—I let my breath out in a relieved sigh.
Maps aren’t something people used too much by the time all this went down, but I do know where one is. It’s old, but even an old map has got to be better than nothing. Sticking to the visual shelter of the buildings, I make my way to my original destination this morning—the trucking hub for nonperishable groceries.
Inside, it’s dark because I’ve shut all the big bay doors and stuffed plastic in the cracks to keep out as many vermin as I can. Even with that precaution, bags of rice and the like started developing little gnawed holes and food began to scatter before long. I emptied as much as possible into a bunch of barrels and plastic bins I collected from other buildings, but I’ve probably lost as much as I’ve kept. The concrete floor makes little crunching noises under my feet as I cross the vast space. These noises seem louder than normal today. The dirt and grit is building up faster than I can get rid of it. I take that as a sign that I need more people here. Even kids.
The office is old-fashioned and very well used, just as you’d expect a busy trucking office to be. Keeping it updated probably fell somewhere behind wallpapering their trucks in priority, I’m guessing. On the w
all over a battered metal desk in the corner is a very old map with a trucking logo prominently displayed in the corner. It looks like something that should have a pin-up-girl calendar right above it, it’s so old.
It’s not much, but it’s all I have. I’ve been through the trucks before, and don’t remember any local maps in any of them. I would have grabbed anything as useful as a map when I scooped up all the pulp-fiction novels I found inside the cabs. I’d have done it just to have more to read, if nothing else. My mother had a map, but we lost it along with the extra backpacks—and extra weight—during our escape from the law offices.
I pull out the paper with the address and shine my flashlight onto the tiny print covering the bottom third of the map. Streets are listed in alphabetical order. If this place is near the college, then even if the building is new, the street would have been there for ages.
And there it is. The coordinates listed—alphabetical along the bottom and numerical along the side—show the street smack-dab in the middle of the college area of town, which is to say, old downtown. It’s a place of narrow streets, curbside parking, and very poor sight lines. In short, it’s possibly the worst place I might venture into and still hope to remain in one piece.
But, on the upside, the deaders are truly dying—or slowing way down—and the in-betweeners are becoming deaders much faster due to lack of living food. While I would expect that area to be a crowded mess, it’s possible that they’ve died off there even faster than out here. I mean, what’s left to eat once all the apartment cats and Chihuahuas are gone?
My positive outlook subsides as my finger traces a path on the map back to where we are now, on the outskirts past the entire downtown area. I’ll either have to go through that part of town, or take a long and circuitous route around it. That will invite anyone who might have survived out where the sight lines improve to grab themselves one teenaged girl.