The answer as it turned out was quite a lot. The doctor’s quick visit turned into a several hour discussion. Essentially the problem was the country under the stress of alien assault and civil strife could not afford the National Health Service anymore but politicians keen to avoid the reputation for killing it had instead changed it. Medical treatment was still free at the point of delivery but now people were expected to pay back the cost of care once treated. The debt could not be avoided via bankruptcy and leaving the country already difficult due to alien assault was forbidden until NHS debts were paid. If you had unworkable debts you were allowed into “Community service programs” and accommodation was provided. Generously and at no extra cost. There was an illegal song about it called working on the vomit gang.
Morgan clearly was never going to pay back the cost of his treatment even if his assets were found and still available. Eleven years of hospital care was going to run into an eye watering cost and that was before rehabilitative care was considered. Funding Panels met every six weeks and most people went to heroic lengths to get discharged before they went before the panels as these were the primary means that you ended up in “community service programs”. Apparently if you were not at a hearing then judgement was deferred for some reason.
Morgan had four weeks three days. It was going to be impressive if he was eating solid food by then. Even if his family could be found there was a good chance they would deny him rather than be saddled with his health debts.
Other things included that the UK had become like Europe, it was now a papers please society. Identity cards were issued and you better be able to produce them. Punishment ranged from detention until you could be verified to long term incarceration. Technically that was also until you had your ID verified but if the person who couldn’t be bothered to do his job was in charge of your release, well, get comfortable.
The talk ended when Morgan asked if he would have been better off staying unconscious and the doctor in all seriousness told him that he was grateful to only have to deal with health difficulties.
Sleep caught up with him quickly but he woke up just as exhausted as before he slept. A buzzer had been placed near his bed and he jabbed it viciously. Suddenly the thought of debt bondage for the care he was getting made him much less sympathetic and appreciative of the care staff. He was almost disappointed when an auxiliary he didn’t recognise arrived quickly. “Ah Mr Moran just in time, your breakfast was going to be returned” the man said while propping him up in bed. Ignoring the protests about his name the man left returning with some glop that was in a tray and probably was meant to be food.” Now doctor says see what you can stomach, you’re going to start with some porridge and I’ll help you with it”. Ignoring the look of disgust and sitting in front of Morgan the man picked up a plastic spoon and started to feed him.
A lot of emotions were boiling up, frustration, rage, grief, irritation and mostly disgust at the taste of the stuff boiled up within him and suddenly his arm shot out grabbing the wrist with the spoon. A tense moment of eye contact the carer tried to laugh it off whilst pulling the hand off of his wrist. Morgan would normally have let go having made his point but this day this situation was hardly normal so he hung on glaring at him, even going so far as to tighten his grasp. After all he was still recovering so his grip was going to be a joke. The auxiliaries face went from surprise to irritation to alarm and then with a loud crack from his arm to shock. The sound was so unexpected that Morgan released his grip staring at the carer who clutched his arm protectively .Backing out of the room pale faced he called for help while Morgan suddenly collapsed back to sleep.
The sensation of hunger is what woke him coupled with a heavenly smell of delights. Hunger driving him on he forgot he was infirm and needed Physio before he could move and climbed out of bed. Staggering through the doors he found the source of the wonderful smells, a sandwich left on a chair. Not at all interested in working out who it belonged to it was wolfed down immediately and then he set out to hunt for more food.
That was the theory anyway, the practice involved more staggering and bouncing off objects. Eventually he caused enough of a ruckus for someone from the nurses station to come find him. Wary of rushing to help the nurse backed off and he asked “are you alright – what can I do to help you?”. Shocked at how hard it was to speak Morgan croaked “Hungry. Thirsty” and then started to look for a chair. The nurse seeing this found him a wheelchair and then after assisting him to seat safely wheeled him back to his room. The chair was so loud, was oiling wheels a thing of the past?
Once back into bed the nurse looked at him and then asked “now if I bring you food you promise not to break my arm?”. When Morgan gave a confused look he continued “do you know? Ray got a colles fracture today where you grabbed him. He insists you did it”. A what fracture? How could I do anything I’m helpless, can’t move or do anything.’
Eyebrows raised the nurse walked out. A few minutes later he returned with some packets of sandwiches and a jug of water. Placing them down looking away from him he stated “To answer your earlier question, a colles fracture is the name for a type of wrist fracture usually caused by compression”.
He busied himself by tidying up various surfaces before he continued “You claim you’re helpless, immobile, useless right? I can understand why with your probable care path but you know for a immobile patient you just walked a fair distance. My advice? See what you can actually do” and then turning to look at him added “the chances of anyone in this facility waking are absurd. Why don’t you try to beat the odds again I say”.
Alone Morgan started to eat, demolishing sandwich after sandwich he suddenly realised something. That was the first positive thing anyone had said to him in quite some time. Sleep soon caught up with him once he had finished eating though for the first time in a while there was a smile on his sleeping face.
Time was something he had trouble keeping track of fading in and out but when he next woke though still ravenous he was significantly less tired. In addition the curtains were drawn and it was daytime. He got the impression it was morning but supposed it could have been evening just as easily. A press of the buzzer and a quick head round the door resulted in a round of medical measurements after which some soup was put in front of him. He did note that people seemed to be giving him a wide berth, it was an odd feeling. Since this meant that nobody was trying to spoonfeed him he could live with that for now but it did bother him. Several helpings later and finally feeling full a tall muscled man walked in. With a smile and introducing himself as Geoff he sat down.
Geoff opened the conversation with “Lets talk about Physio then – I’m here to perform an initial evaluation. If you have any difficulties tell me straight away. This is not a test and you can’t fail it, just tell me what you can do”. The tests went on for some time starting with simple movements and then moving eventually onto body weight resistance. After pushing Geoff’s arm back in a palm push exercise Geoff excused himself and Morgan listened as he demanded to check the case history. The acoustics in this place kept fooling people into thinking they could not be heard Morgan concluded as he shamelessly eavesdropped. Though uninteresting it was still better than staring at the walls.
After 15 minutes Geoff returned and apologised saying “I am going to recommend a full physical on you. At this point in time not only do you need minimal physiotherapy, mostly stretching exercises for movement, you are better than some of my private sports clients. I would ask if you had taken a specials test but you have been down years before any incidents and have not been exposed to a hard landing so it would just be a waste of time and money” with which he walked out then suddenly popped back in “see you tomorrow – prepare to be pushed mate”. After a pause it seemed that this time he had actually left which prompted Morgan to sit and rest.
The next week could be characterised by one common theme – why are you responding so well to treatment? Geoff may have been the first person to use the word special around him but each time checking the file it was dismissed as he had not been near a hard landing. As the only active and responsive patient in the facility he ended up talking to the staff quite a lot. It was a few days later when he asked Marie, the locum doctor he had first talked to about the test and peoples reluctance.
Marie made some notes before replying “Mmm yes I can see why people are thinking about it. These days its an explanation trotted out almost every time there’s a non standard test result. Ok er lets explain why everyone’s wary – right firstly I in common with just about everyone have no idea what they test or how. All I can tell you is that the test itself seems to take very little time but that it seems to be done in batches. So when people ask how long till they get results its less than three months really is the only honest answer. Frankly these days the test is almost useless, I mean if you grow wings or start spitting fireballs you’re a special, the test is superfluous”.
Though he started to laugh Morgan stopped “wait wings and fireballs. Are you serious?”.
Marie nodded adding “sometimes both”. After checking he was not going to scoff she continued “ but the problem is not all specials are that showy. I mean if your special ability is to hear thoughts or see radio waves then a doctors observational skills don’t help. And then we get to the reason this largely superfluous test is over subscribed. Mental health. Every loony or wannabe crawls out of the woodwork if there is a nearby hard landing each claiming to be the great mumpum or gibberish and we cant just dismiss it out of hand.”
Morgan stretched in the grotty sofa in the staff room and thoughtfully asked “would that help with the batching issue? And really is being a special so special? Ok so you have wings and assuming not vestigial you fly around a bit. Other than saving on Uber what is that good for”.
Marie giggled “vestigial huh, suppose I’ve heard of worse. I mean fair point some abilities are only useful in combat and they get drafted either to the army or to some national service group if there a conscientious objection. Other abilities would be a liability in combat for example one person I know is an EMT who can make everybody around him glow in a certain range. Terrible if you don’t want to get shot and great if you’re looking for people in rubble after a battle or disaster or something.”
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Morgan mused “ok so he puts sniffer dogs out of business – other than kudos what does this do for him?”
Marie smiled “Well no sniffer dogs are still needed if someone is out of sight but look never mind that. The point is that though you get registered and put on a demand list so that people can call you out for a deemed need you get a bonus income, a kind of on call fee for the country. That varies according to assessed usefulness but is never minor. In addition in most circumstances you stand outside the chain of whatever command is trying to tell you what to do.”
Morgan frowned “so money, independence, kudos & mental health are all reasons why people might want to make exaggerated claims of specialness. Makes sense. Why are people so reluctant to test?”
Looking slightly irritated She replied “thought I’d already said its a limited resource – People want to get tested, its the testers who don’t want to get swamped –to stop from getting buried under frivolous requests rules were put in place. It needs two doctors to sign to agree a test and if its later judged by a review panel to be frivolous those doctors can be censured which ranges from a telling off to fines and disbarment. I mean you’d really have to work at it for disbarment but even so everyone’s cautious. Look I have no real responsibility for your care but reading your file tonight there is no reason you haven’t been discharged. My advice? Nobody here will stick there neck out. If you’re unlucky enough to get caught up in a hard landing and survive try to get tested. Send me a copy of the results. Otherwise forget it unless you grow wings”.
They chatted amiably for the rest of the night. Marie took some gentle ribbing on the way out about chatting up a crusty with a wry grin.
The following day when Morgan awoke in the afternoon he got dressed and decided to take the advice he had received by looking for a way to discharge himself. After all how hard could it be? Petty martinets across the world can always find a way to answer that question and being an administrator for the interests of patients in a building where they are all in a coma does not usually attract the best and brightest.
“So I can discharge myself at any time if I sign a discharge waiver?” Morgan stared at the quite trim middle aged man fiddling with a well kept beard. The office was larger than he would have expected for a function that must be almost never used. His first impressions had been quite positive, well kept desk, neat stacks of paper, well maintained to do list on a whiteboard and a open enthusiastic person watering plants. All that had been before he started talking of course. Relaxing back in his chair the bearded man nodded with a frown. “ Well yes but that might be awkward – you need to prove that you are you. I understand your ID was misplaced during your convalescence? Do you remember your ID number at all for us to rustle up a replacement for you? It would be irresponsible to just let you get carded as soon as you walk out.” Not yet irritated Morgan sat down and reminded himself of the three steps to bureaucracy – first get the information about what you need, second give them whats needed, third get the result. He was on the first stage.
“No sorry I don’t think I’ve ever had documentation for my ID. Needing it is a new development for me– oh whats your name by the way?”
“Paul MacKen but you can call me Paul. Oh dear well you have some details surely. Look fill in this form and lets get the ball rolling.” Though there was some further chit chat most of the rest of the meeting was simply form filling combined with some bio metric measures. It filled most of the remains of the day and though if asked he would have claimed to be irritated by the whole situation form filling just somehow felt like he was taking steps to take control.
It took three days for the forms to go through and for a provisional ID to be issued. In all honesty Morgan was surprised by the efficiency. Of course his name was wrong but he could live with being Moran again he supposed. Proudly showing it round caused the preparations to get rid of him to swing into gear. Firstly he had a full series of fasting bloods and annoyingly whilst hungry a full physical workout with the physio. After that both the pharmacist and the lead doctors came round and chatted to him both of them basically telling him that he was fine and stop wasting the time of busy people. The words bed blocker were sprinkled quite liberally through both conversations.
The problems came from two dimensions. The first was a psychiatric consult who just claimed that he was too woefully informed about current conditions to be unsupervised. That led to the second problem – the community discharge team. Essentially they refused to believe just about everything about him. The Psychiatrist was a tall painfully thin lady who only answered to Dr Scott (its about boundaries with patients she coldly asserted) and she agreed to drive him to a discharge facility basically to put him in front of them and point to him so they couldn’t deny his existence. As his first trip outside it was an opportunity to look around. Initially bothered it soon came to him that she hadn’t driven through any large urban concentrations and he had kind of assumed he would. Dr Scott pursed her lips when he made that observation.
“See this is the sort of thing that worries me. Obviously hard landings have been discussed with you but it takes time to understand the consequences. Hard landings they target large populations. Cities are a response to industrialisation by concentrating populations near the work and dispersal of populations is a response to orbital bombardment. We –the people who have lived it- no longer notice it except to get uncomfortable in crowds. Seriously agoraphobia is a major part of my caseload these days.”
After a pause to consider Morgan decided to ask “if you think I’m so under prepared why are you helping?”
She laughed before replying “the freedom to make decisions include bad ones – my job is to make sure of sanity not wisdom”.
The discharge team was called Jake and Jake capitulated when he was presented with a person in front of him. He arranged for a one month stipend to be credited to his ID all the while apologising that it wasn’t longer to give him time to find work and accommodation. The only other useful thing he did was leave him with the lost property to get clothes. After forty minutes three sets of clothing and a rucksack later they drove back to the William Grove facility.
Dr Scott was silent for a while then asked if he was bothered by wearing dead peoples clothing or the fact that it was all out of date style wise? “No not really, its charity and beggars cant be choosers. Cheers though I was trying not to think of that.” An awkward silence grew and wanting to fill it Morgan decided to scratch an itch in his curiosity “Actually I was wondering about the yellow doors on some of the buildings we passed. What’s that about anyway?
“Shelters. If you get warning of a hard landing find one and get underground. The Kinetics mostly ground burst and do very little penetration so getting underground is how people survive at least the bombardment in a hard landing. The raiders always target a few of them for the slaughter stage which is you know. Grim. Most have more than one entry/exit but even those lucky enough to get out still face exposure to the bio-weapons that create specials”.
Morgan jerked “Bio weapons? Why do you call them that, I was told that people desperately try to get exposed for the chance to be more than normal”, Dr Scott sighed then signalling pulled into a lay-by.” Remember what I said about bad decisions earlier? Well its true that some people do that. The cynics call it evolution in action. Fact is most people do not appear to be infected - roughly one in 20 and of those infected 2 in 7 die. That last one by the way seems fairly consistent over time and worldwide though data is not shared from all countries. Of the remaining 5 only one or two get anything useful. Not sure of the stats on that but those are the last I heard.”
Staring into the distance she was silent for a while and then stated talking again. “Personally I think everyone in the area of a hard landing is contaminated but some people are lucky enough to fight off the disease or whatever it is. Some people have managed to get themselves to multiple sites and no change occurs. There are cases who develop after multiple exposures but not many.” She flicked her hair and Morgan suddenly realised that he had not been with a woman for quite a while. Dr Scott was not really his type being too thin for his tastes but for some reason that did not seem to be making a difference.
Trying to ignore the traitorous voice in his head that was urging him to examine her more closely he decided to ask for more details. “Well that’s a different view alright. What happens to those who don’t get anything useful – what’s useful mean anyway?”. Hopefully distraction would get his wandering mind back to the job at hand.
With a chuckle she unclipped her seatbelt and relaxed back “Ok this is stuff I was looking up for our next session and my notes are in the office but here goes. Useful is defined as having an ability or characteristic that has civilian or military benefits. Strength is an example of something that would have both. Useless is an ability that has no conceivable use but is not harmful, the ability to change the colour of your faeces would be an example I recently heard of.” Morgan found himself relaxing as she talked, her voice when she was not being sarcastic had quite a soothing tone.
“Lastly detrimental abilities are those unfortunates whose abilities are harmful to themselves, others or the general civic good. There are several unfortunate examples but a general go-to is the Korean case of Min-Jun a 15 year old musician who suddenly exuded a deadly nerve gas that killed his entire city block and was slowly spreading. It bypassed filters so it killed the response team as well. Eventually snipers resolved the issue. Tragic. He was by all accounts an average to nice kid but he was just too dangerous to live. Anyway ratings are debatable and can be appealed. There’s a German pensioner who compels honesty for a mile around him. Great for interrogations but the murder rate around him just keeps climbing over time. His value is always argued, rarely when he is nearby though.”
They both went quiet for a second thinking about that and then she continued.
“What else, umm yes, all specials once registered are subject to call up if anyone finds a use for the power. There’s a retainer for being available that varies according to rating which is the main reason to appeal your rating. So should I tell Marie that you’re staring at my legs?”
Morgan realised with shock that she was right and suddenly started stammering out an apology which she cut off with a laugh – “Its ok, normal in fact. Just be aware that you seem to have a higher testosterone count than is normal for your age, almost teenage boy levels in fact. But you haven’t answered my question, should I tell Marie?”
Morgan’s mouth opened, then it closed. This repeated a few times until Dr Scott started laughing and waving a wedding ring in front of her face he had not noticed “Calm down patient boundaries remember. You should be aware though that your Endocrinology is haywire especially for someone of your age. Marie and I trained together so I have been teasing her recently about the gossip. Should I stop?”
Morgan just paused and then sitting upright replied at last “Sorry. I had not realised I was being rude. As for Marie erm well look as far as I’m concerned I’m also married. Joanne may have moved on over the last eleven years but I have not. Marie is just a doctor who was looking after me. And you know flattering but why would I think an old crusty is interesting to a young woman like her?” It was Dr Scotts turn to sit back with a thoughtful look and stare at him for over a minute. Even despite the apparent hormones there was no confusing this as anything other than study of a sample in front of her. “I think I missed a symptom – so have you. When we get back use a mirror.” At that point the conversation was apparently over and they drove back.
After his journey settling back he decided to go and look in the mirror. A scrawny young man stared back at him probably late 20’s maybe early 30’s with a hard life. Though not an athlete or bodybuilder he was also in what looked like reasonably good condition maybe a bit barrel chested. It was not a 68 year old office worker who was suffering from decades of immobilisation. Only the face looked familiar and that was from pictures of himself as a young man.
What the hell?