Purple Monster

‘Can I see them?’ she asked. The Nurse brightened he even smiled at her, it was a soft gently smile and sad at the edges but it warmed her.

‘Of course you can, though Immanual is a bit of a mess I must warn you,’ he lead her out of the room and away from the cold seething Dr. She wasn’t sure but she felt the Nurse hated the Dr more than she did.

They walked into the ICU there were machines that went bleep and and the sound of bellows hissing air – somethings were just high tech versions of simple mechanical apparatus. Other things were not really recognisable as machines at all and had a greasy organic look to them. Snake lay on a bed in the corner, in a drugged sleep, reddy fluid was seeping through the white-synth cloth, wipe clean and breathable – perfect for a hospital. She sat on a stool pad that flipped out from the side of the bed. She took his hand it was cold, and waxy looking, mottled yellow and quesy pink. She felt a pressure build in her chest. His chest rose and fell in a slightly asymetrical way beling the new diamond ribs he would be sporting.

She remebered how warm he had been in her bed the almost burning quility of his skin and she wanted to weep. She kissed his fingers and the Nurse with drew discretly. She rubbed her check on him time spun away from her and she stayed pinned to him, unable to take her eyes off his blue hair – they’d shaved half of it off.

She smiled thinly at the thought of what he’d say to that when he awoke.

An hour later the nurse took her to see Bodge, he was in a High Dependency Unit and one of the greasy machines was wrapped around him with spiked tendrils puncturing his skin. It made her feel sick it was like watching an alien chow down on him. She knew what it was but that didn’t overly help. She had never felt a revultion like this when she had seen the first machanical life supports not even the Iron Lung.

‘It’s horrible isn’t it?’ the Nurse asked indicating the machine, she nodded.

‘It looks sort of organic and alive,’ she said shivering.

‘It is,’ he said, ‘Its a cyborge made with stem cell tech, it is actually working out what he needs biologically and then through nano-tech nerve splices telling the computer bits. The machine and the animal it is are inseperable.’ From the tone of his voice he really didn’t like it.

‘They are useful they save lives mechanical means couldn’t but I can’t help thinking that they are some how a huge parasitic life form we are attatching.’ He convulsed slightly in a shudder of his own.

‘Oh Bodge I’m sorry’ she whispered.

As she left the ward she felt so unbeleivably weary, the Nurse gave her a hospital meal even though the Dr maintained she had discharged herself with her refusal to let him poke around in her insides in the search of Bio-Nan.

He winked at her as he set it before her in the day room, ‘you were right to prod the Doc about Corp intervention.’ he said smiling. ‘He wont tell you this but… Snake? Will get his treatment all covered and they even said they would transfere payment from you to him ie you don’t need as much treatment as you were entitled to so they are giving it to him.’ his face dropped though. ‘It is only a fraction of what he needs but it will probably keep him alive until his next installment of medi-allowance comes in.’

She thanked him and then gobbled up the fish in white suace. She beamed her gratitude to him. At reception she had a few issues trying to get all her artifacts back. The Lasar pen was technically illegal but as it wasn’t a registered design they couldn’t proove it as such. Changed back into her Still suit gash and all she left the hospital – apparently security would soon be calling at her rooms for a chat.

She got back to her rooms and slumped on her bed fully dressed the acid pink bomber jacket and all. She slept fitfully for a couple of hours and then awoke starving. Her suit really was gashed though and she felt it needed repairing before she did anything else – just in case. If the attack was aimed at her or was just the begininning of the islands failing she’d need to bail and fast. She dug out her micro-eleectronics kit from one of the many pockets hidden in her jacket and stripped out of the suit.

She was just seeling up the cosmetic rubber type coating of the irridescant suit when a lound and perfunctional knock hit her door and echoed jarringly around her room.

She sighed and scrabbled into the suit. The repair chaffed abit on the inside – she would have to try and sort that later.

She opened the door and two Security stood there in there ‘office’ uniforms Black double breasted jackets with Russian-Oriental type frogging and fastenings. They were three quarter length with square formal cut and she almost choked shoulder pads there trousers where drain pipe tight afairs in a lycra type fitting material hugging there not skinny legs. They had curly toed black felt shoes on – completely impractical for chasing criminals but they did look kinda cute in a pixie type way.

‘Yo’ she said letting them in, ‘Bevy?’ they nodded and she flipped the switch on the kettle. Then begain the hunt for a third mug – she knew she had four so why where there only two in evidence?’

She finailly found it acting as a book mark in a tome on 20th centry atomics.

With hot drinks served all round and them perched on the limited white plastic furniture in her room. Before they could start asking her awkard questions like what her legal name was about she blasted them fortunatly she was on friendly banter terms with most of the Islands security. ‘What the hell happened last night? I thought you guys were supposed to have weapons decetors and stuff?’ She was scowling at them and to her relief they withered slightly.

‘We…er… don’t actually know to be honest. The club was attacked – they got projectile weapons in which should be impossible and they got into the restructed areas and hit the lighting curcuits. We were sort of hoping you’d have noticed something unusual?’ She shook her head – or course there had been the Goth-Chick but she wasn’t about to start spouting that kind of suspicoun – not wehn it could lead people to asking questions about her.

‘They also hit the Club,’ they said – she stared at them.

‘Anywhere else hit?’ she asked but she already knew the answer.

‘No,’ her heart sank the two places she worked had been hit. No where else and they were not the only ‘clubs’ or entertianment rooms on the Island.

‘What about the other Islands?’ she asked clutching at straws. They shock their heads black shades moving errily in her over lumed room.

‘Shit’ she said quietly.

They heard her – they had to have enhanced hearing, ‘I see you’ve come to the same conclusion as us then,’ she stiffened – what that they were hunting her down and had sent in some high end assasins?

‘The band is becoming too popular for its own good,’ she stared at them, ‘the only venues hit where the ones where [forgotten what I’ve called the band] play regually and it was in the programme that you were playing last night but not weather you were DJing or playing.’ The Security nodded sagely – she was still gaping open mouthed at them.

‘Any ideas who would have it in for the band?’ they asked. She shook her head and they nodded again – she was starting to get the feeling that she had been sent the thickies as a little bit of a joke – except they were good security guards. They had little imagination meaning that they didn’t imagine that people couldn’t do things.

They left and she showered. She wanted to wash her memories away but worries pressed in on her. This ment she was most definatly being targetted and that Snake and Bodge where laying in pieces in the Medi Unit becuase of her. She had thought it would take them longer to track her down – she supposed the band had been getting popular and that maybe some video stream had made it around to them and they’d tracked her from that. MAn she thought – with the way the tech had advanced they probably had some spider crawling through the Internet looking for her face. She shuddered inspite of the warm airated water. She stepped out of the shower and looked at her body in the mirror – she was developing a tan from sitting outside in the afternoons but was still pale from all that time she had spent in labs.

Her muscles were still taught under her skin and she looked fit apart from the new red scar, still scabby and weepy. A few white echos of older scars hovered on her skin. She patted herself dry and donned the now decontaminated Still suit. She was going to have to wear it in her sleep now – she would wear the coat too. She wondered how long Snake would need to recuperiate and weather it would be fair to take him with her – and what the hell were they going to do about their Corporate debts?

Suited up she headed out to grab a ton of take away sea food – she planned to while away the evening eating – the wound repair felt like it was scouring her stomache of its lining.

An hour and three food shops later she returned with cartons of fried sea weed, Hot Shrimp Soup, oysters, battered cod, krill burgers and many sides of cockles and welks. She set it all out on her desk and begain to eat. Her brain switching off to ponder her situation.

She still wasn’t entirely sure why *they * were after here. They had been since the beginning though. She was sure that they were involved with most of her narrow escapes and the darkest furthurest memorys of the hiding and hidden or the blood running down the walls and her home on fire – she couldn’t remember the home but the sense of what what had happened – the enormity and her vulnrability.

A child an endless child set to roam the world, it had been big and scary and full of danger and she hadn’t been an endless child she had grown up just so fucking slowely it made her cry.

All her friends died so quickly it seemed and yet her life stretched forever. She hit the desk with the flat of her hand. She glared at the girl with her ‘radical’ magenta hair and felt the chasim of loneliness open up before her. If she wasn’t careful she would fall into it and never be able to climb out.

Snorting she left the room, she had to check on Snake and Bodge – perhapse the Corp would give her a top up lone to fix Bodge – somehow she doubted it. Even if they did it would add more time on to her working on the Islands than she would ever have normally considered.

At the hosptial Snake had been moved to a prep room, ‘They are preparing him for a new lung,’ said a different nurse this one with tawny tufty hair, bleaches in mottled patches – she looked like one of the extinct mountain lions. The Punk took an instant like to her.

She went in and held the still uncouncous Snakes hand she couldn’t take her eyes off of him, the thought of losing him when she had only just had him seemed so unfair. She blased with anger and stared in a glazed space untill they wheeled him out for the surgory.

Posted: Friday, November 20th, 2009 @ 9:39 am
Categories: Uncategorized.
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