Chapter 16
Blade’s holo-lenses fade to transparent
as the music in her earbuds slowly hushes to a whisper then dies out all
together. Peaking open one purple glazed eyelid Blade finds at the very
corner of her vision an e-suited med-specialist stepping through the scrub-lock
of her isolation chamber.
Good, they sent a woman.
Blade has never thought of herself
as especially shy about her body, but this part of the procedure, being
scrubbed naked with a brush, is uncomfortable enough without adding a man’s
insensitivities. A grin wrinkles Blade’s gel coated face. Down through
the transparent purple ooze her slit eyes can just barely make out a dozen
or so round sensor patches adhered to various parts of her body. No bigger
than small dermopatches the sensors virtually reproduce her body's every
nuance outside at a med-station.
They must have finally noticed
me spike every time they sent a guy in to do this.
"Well, specialist DeSilva, they tell
me you should be ready to leave us today." The medtech’s voice says with
helmet clarity deep inside Blade’s ear.
Blade doesn’t answer, but then who
in their right mind would open their mouth with a face full of deactivant
gel?
Stepping up to the vat table the e-suited
woman quickly slides one hand up under Blade’s head, knifing her gloved
fingers down into the gelatinous purple goo that Blade lies submerged in
up to her face. Blade’s hair, evenly cut to less than an inch over her
entire head, gives the med-tech’s hand little resistance. Then bracing
herself against the vat the medtech pops Blade’s head loose of the gel's
slurping suction. With her left hand supporting Blade’s head the medtech’s
right hand cuts a gash down through the gelatin to expose Blade’s right
arm.
"Both your daughter and cabin-mate
have been notified of your release schedule, and have replied that they’ll
be meeting you at the check-out desk. Your daughter Roselene seems especially
anxious to have you back. Arm up, please." The med-tech lifts Blade’s right
arm from the gel's heavy cling and places her fingers within easy grasp
of a small rounded hand-hold. Faded pink blotches of skin on her fingertips
and at the edges of her cuticles still show where the meds have replaced
bits of her shin with micro-grafts. The med-tech’s gloved hand slips back
under Blade’s shoulder and down her ribs to just past her hip.
"Roll up, please."
This part of the procedure is impossible
to actually accomplish but Blade tries hard to roll her right shoulder
up out of the goo, and is rewarded for her effort by a small pocket of
air under her back. Continuing to knife her hand down under Blade’s body
the med-tech carves out a small cavity of air under her right knee.
"Okay, and now your leg." Both women
pull together to free Blade’s leg. Quickly elbowing a padded support bar
up under Blade’s leg the med-tech then lifts Blade's foot out over the
vat's smooth rounded edge.
"Oh, and speaking of your darling
daughter." Without lowering Blade’s head back into the goo the med-tech
switches support hands and moves herself around to the vat's opposite side.
"That little archive of her with the Captain is really rave. Shoulder up
and arm, please." Cutting her gloved left hand down to loosen Blade's left
arm and shoulder the med-tech then stops to look down straight into Blade's
eyes.
"You ready?" This time the woman waits
for Blade's conforming nod. "Okay, and… up!"
Blade pulls her sore neglected body
up from the vat; a flat transparent oval that always reminds her of a human-size
Petri dish full of grape jelly, and her a gel-locked lab specimen.
Like most isolation rooms this one
is sparse, all smooth polished metal walls and coved corners. Other than
the deactivant vat the room’s only other equipment is a padded slip-resistant
footstool and a pair of tethered rings hanging from the ceiling. Pushing
a thick coating of purple gel from Blade’s shoulders with her left hand
the med-tech uses her right to support Blade’s back.
"In fact." The woman's voice continues.
Lost in the procedure's rhythm Blade has to think back to remember what
the woman had been talking about. "The archive has even been picked up
back Earthside. On the educational nets mostly. One of my little nephews
posted me about seeing it in his class at school. Captain Movlinka and
your little Roselene really put on quiet a show." The med-tech chuckles
softly as the woman lifts Blade’s left leg up from the gel leaving only
her naked bottom stuck down in the hard churned goo. As the med-tech runs
both hands down Blade’s chest to slough off the thick wall of deactivant
gel she pauses for a moment to admire the faded vine of variegated green
ivy climbing up across Blade’s abdomen to cling under her right breast.
"That will never be the same." The
woman’s helmet nods at the tattoo. "You’ll have to have it redone. The
deactivant has faded it badly." As the med-tech looks up she sees Blade’s
head give a small negative twist.
"Really?" Even through the faceshield's
distorted reflection Blade notices the woman’s surprise. "Too bad. You
really should, you know. It’s quite smashing. Really. You ready now?" With
strong gloved fingers the technician twists Blade’s legs over the side
and away from the gel's last remaining suction. As her body spins around
with a sickly slurp Blade pushes the remainder of the gelatin out of her
lap and she slides herself up out of the vat.
"You ready for your shower?" The technician
asks as Blade finds her footing. She nods back at the woman's helmet.
"Good." One end of the room erupts
with water as several batteries of shower-heads along the ceiling and walls
suddenly come alive. The footstool and ring-braces quickly disappear into
the spray.
After pausing a moment to let the
water temperature stabilize the med-tech walks Blade forward into the steaming
torrent, the hot spray stinging at her tightly closed eyes. Chin pressed
down to her collar-bone Blade’s searches through the falling streams for
pockets of breathable air. Soon large globs of purple goo fall slowly off
the back of her head and down past her face revealing even more fresh tender
skin to the water's stinging bite. Melting chunks of deactivant soon expose
Blade’s aquatic earbud lifting the pelting water to a sudden roar, but
the med-tech’s instructions still speak clearly into her ear.
"Assume the da Vinci position, please."
Sliding one hand through each of the
suspended rings Blade stands with both arms straight out at her shoulders,
her straightened legs spread so that her feet fall directly beneath her
elbows. With a soap-wand in one hand and a stiff round-bristled hand brush
in the other the med-tech steps up onto the footstool and begins scrubbing
at Blade’s newly shorn hair. She’s had short hair in the past. It always
tends to make her look like a rebellious teenager. But she hadn’t had been
given an alternative. As it is, Blade feels fairly lucky to have any hair
at all. Had she been a man the meds would have depleted her bald without
a second thought. With Blade's head, arms, and shoulders scrubbed clean
the med-tech grabs Blade’s hand and flips it around palm up.
"Here." The med-tech’s voice says
deep in both ears. Cracking open one eye against the stinging splash Blade
squints down along her arm and through the ring at the dollop of a thick
paste being squeezed into her hand. "It’s conditioner. Rub it in until
it’s all gone. Use both hands, it’s good for your palm skin too."
Following the technician’s instructions
Blade rubs the thick oily paste into her pale blonde stubble as the woman
scrubs down her chest and stomach.
Smart lady. Blade smiles.
Keep
me distracted.
After completing her back and hips
the med-tech takes a small step back.
"Would you remove your diaphragm for
me, please?"
Blade places one foot up on the footstool
and reaches down to quickly remove the soft plastic disk. She hands it
to the med-tech who quickly slips it into a bio-hazard pouch.
"Would you prefer to do this yourself?"
The woman holds up the soap-wand and scrubber. "I’ll have to inspect your
job when you’re finished, but you’ll be less likely to hurt yourself than
I will. Just remember, you’ve got to be completely clean. Every
fold, every follicle, every pore. Understand? If the lock-sniffers
detect anything on you at all you’ll have to come back inside and do it
all over again."
Blade nods. This seems considerably
better treatment than her first med-tech. He’d had the gentle touch of
a sadistic homicidal rapist. With her foot still up on the stool Blade
quickly becomes intimately familiar with the exact state of both her reproductive
organs and urinary tract while the med-tech continues scrubbing at her
legs with a second set of cleaning tools.
The numbing taste of deactivant finally
rinsing from her lips blade sucks in small sips of water to spit the sleep-sticky
glue from her mouth. The water tastes hot clean and pure. Continuing with
what she only hopes is a thorough enough crotch cleaning Blade clears her
throat to try on the sound of a few words.
"You say my Rosie is ship’s buzz?"
Blade’s voice cracks froggy from lack of use. Drawing in another gargle
of hot water she rolls it through the back of her throat then spits it
back out with a throaty cough.
"Ship’s buzz? I should say so." The
med-tech smiles inside her closed helmet. This treatment is purely physical,
but all recovery stems primarily from a patient's mental stability. Spontaneous
conversation is invariably a good sign. The med-tech continues, hoping
to draw Blade out a bit farther. "That little cutie of yours really can
dazzle. And that Dees guy, the one who did the original archiving, after
he did that classroom archive he put together a revised one using a bunch
of the stuff that Atlantis released just after the incident. Nearly everyone
on the ship’s posted it to at least one person back home. Most of them
a lot more than that."
"I suppose my mother’s seen it by
now." Blade sighs. With nothing to do but lay in dish of purple goo and
watch her holo-lenses flash programmed archives under her closed eyelids,
Blade has seen Dees’ remake archive several times. That idiot did a wonderfully
fantastic job of making the situation full of ironic drama; despite the
fact that the main tragedy was only Blade getting a little shit on her
fingers. At one particularly poignant moment Dees weaves Roselene’s childishly
simplistic description of her mother’s work up in the cargo-pod with the
frantic zero-g preparations taking place just outside waste-reactant vault
three-eighty-six and then occasionally breaking this cross-flow with sharp
squints of pain taken from inside Blade’s helmet-holo. Poor Meg must have
cried for hours. She’d cried herself the first time she’d seen it, despite
knowing the truth.
"Can’t say for certain, but last night
while you were asleep your mother did post a public notice on the ship's
net thanking everybody who’d helped in your rescue, and then thanking the
rest of us for taking care of her grand-daughter until you’re out of isolation."
"Oh, shit!" Blade shakes her head
slowly, the frightening vision of the entire ship now being involved in
her personal life floods through her mind with nightmarish reality.
"I’d delete that particular expression
from your vocabulary if I were you, Specialist." The med-tech’s chuckle
tickles deep inside Blade’s ears. She realizes the woman’s motive is purely
to roust her from a week's inactivity and electronically enforced sleep,
but this is not at all funny. In the long boring days since the incident
Blade's world has become considerably more complicated; and all without
the least bit of her consent or participation. Apparently her mother back
on Earth and her four-year-old daughter have more control over Blade’s
life than she does.
"You heard any word from corporate
on this?" Scratching the last remnants of the oily paste through her short
blonde shag with nearly nonexistent finger-nails Blade wonders just how
much truth a corporate med-tech will be willing to tell her. "Am I going
to survive this, or should I go ahead and book return passage now?" Within
the water's roaring splash Blade again hears the woman’s echoed chuckle.
"We’re still on patient privacy, there’s
no archiving of this, so I guess it’s safe to tell you. But I’m warning
you. If asked I’ll swear I never told you a thing."
"Fair enough."
"You’re going into this thing really
strong, girl. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is coming out pulling
a positive spin. Rumor has it that with Roselene up on the bridge Atlantis
Corp legal was forced to abandon their usual Pavlovian paranoia and had
to actually think about what they were doing for once. They had a dependent
minor up on the bridge and we all know how drastic the statutes involving
psychological damage to a minor can be.
"Then when your friend Lieutenant
Forrest wangled himself into Atlantis Corp Command and Captain Movlinka
gracefully removed Roselene from the bridge and kept her occupied until
our people could get you out of that sewer, the whole thing comes off looking
like one giant love feast. All sides ‘Freely cooperating for the betterment
of Mankind’, as they say." A measure of sarcasm slips into the woman’s
voice. "TransOrbital gets what amounts to a whole day's worth of free advertising
in three-quarters of the classrooms on Earth, and Atlantis Corp gets some
dramatic but completely harmless PR. They come out looking like totally
responsive and responsible corporate immigrants who put their employee's
lives ahead of corporate security. An after that PanPacific Aquafarms thing,
this is like pure gold to them." Blade watches the technician scrub the
sole of her uplifted foot.
"And, on top of that -- and this part
is totally rumor rumor – they say that that sample you brought out
with you is some sort of weird new recombinant reaction that no one's ever
seen before in any of the models. One guy said your people were calling
it a trans-state stability."
"I think he made that up." Blade laughs
as she spits another mouthful of water out into the spray.
"That’s what I thought. Either that,
or he was trying to describe something that he can see in front of him,
but can't really understand."
"True too." Blade nods.
"Well." The med-tech stands after
completing her inspection of Blade’s cleaning job. "That seems adequate
enough. I guess it’s time to take you into the next chamber so we can do
it all over again."
"How many times?" Blade roughed skin
still throbs against the water's sting.
"At least two. Probably more like
three or four."
"I’ll have no skin left!" Close to
despair Blade draws in and then spits out more water.
"We’ll leave you some of your skin,
but not much hair. Your body is likely to stay mostly depleted until some
of your follicles begin to recover."
"Great! Now not only will I have a
teenager's hair, but I’ll have the hairless body to go with it."
"Who knows, your cabin-mate might
like that."
"Fred?" A laugh explodes that Blade
quickly reels in. "I’m afraid Fred will never find out. That’s part of
our deal." The spray stops with the same abruptness that it had started,
leaving both women – one in complete e-suit, the other quite naked – standing
at one end of the slowly dripped isolation room.
"Lieutenant Forrest then?" The med-tech
asks with slight hesitation. This conversation is confidential, and if
asks only intended to access the patient's mental well being, but after
a week of listening to all the rumors and gossip about Blade and her mysterious
triangular relationship the med-tech is simply dying to know.
"John’s nice," Blade can’t explain
to herself why she should answer the med-tech’s question, revealing her
mind's secret corners to a stranger whose name she doesn’t know and face
she can barely see, but lately she’s felt a gnawing necessity to explain
herself where the two men are concerned. Her words simply fall out. "As
a matter of fact, John is very nice. Handsome, happy, and smart.
I keep imagining him standing with his arms around me and my head on his
shoulder." As Blade sighs she shakes the image from her mind, then looks
up at her distorted reflection in the med-tech’s face-shield. "But he’s
a sail-ship spacer. He's going to spend the rest of his life circling between
Earth and Mars in one of these overgrown flying Ferris Wheels. And as everyone
knows, solarsailors never dock orbit with Mars."
"Not even an outbound affair?" The
woman questions softly. Blade apparently needs to vent, and the med-tech
feels more than willing to accommodate.
"Are you crazy? With Fred in my quarters?
Men are still men. If I sleep with only one, then he gets all possessive
and the other one gets jealous. If I sleep with them both, which I wouldn’t,
then they both get all weird and start acting stupid. And then I’ll still
be stuck living with one of them for the rest of the trip. This way I may
have to sleep alone, but at least my life isn’t a living hell."
"Well then, I guess an elbow-length
treatment glove won’t impede your love life much."
"Do I have to?" Blade whines,
sounding remarkably like Roselene.
"At least two weeks." The med-tech
nods inside her helmet. "Now, into the lock with you."
Chapter 17
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