Kristina-Anne Prophet got to the hospital before her husband did. She’d skipped the train and paid for a private ride. It would still be cheaper than Rick’s ambulance bill.
They let her meet him as he came in on a stretcher. “Rick, baby? Rick?”
“He’s not responsive.” The words hadn’t come from Rick, and they weren’t said to her—the paramedic had said it in a clear, calm tone.
Bet he got trained to say it that way. It doesn’t sound at all like my husband might be dying. Her husband was flushed.
In the same tone, the paramedic said, “Temperature of 104. We started IV fluids, second bag. Drew cultures, chem, CBC, lactic, and calcium.”
“Blood sugar?” the woman—a nurse?—asked.
“One-twenty, not ketoacidosis—his boss or”—the man broke from the flat tone to express annoyance briefly—“former boss, whatever, said he doesn’t think he’s diabetic.”
“He’s not.” Kristina was happy simply to add something to the conversation, to be involved.
“Wife?” the nurse asked.
She nodded.
“I recognize you from—”
“Yup,” Kristina was far too terrified to be embarrassed.
The nurse’s face no longer bore the businesslike expression she’d had. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Is he—”
The nurse put her hand over Kristina’s. “I said I’m glad you’re okay.”
Kristina winced, then nodded. “Uh, we were robbed a couple weeks ago. He got beat up pretty bad. Took a blow to the head.”
The paramedic nodded. “His implant site is hot, dry. He’s only moaned or said anything once, and it was when I touched him there.”
They wheeled him to a bay, and Kristina followed. The paramedic looked at her, then at the nurse, then said in a low voice. “If he fucked with his implant, he could be…” The man sighed and leaned in toward the nurse. “I don’t know what we got, maybe the suits come down for him.”
The nurse nodded and turned to Kristina-Anne. “He a spy?”
Genuinely confused, Kristina asked, “A what?”
“Corporate? State?”
Eyes wide in shock, she shook her head. “No, not—do we look, I mean, we couldn’t afford to come in after the robbery and you gotta know my medical bills—”
“Recently paid off in full, I hear.” The nurse’s look was stern.
“A study, my brain, my, uh…”
“I know it’s a program or something,” the nurse said. “My name is Stephanie, by the way.”
“I’m Kris—wait, you know my name.” Confusion had overwhelmed her concern about Rick. “You know about the study?”
“Yeah, I mean, not details,” Stephanie said. “But they wanna know if you come back in here the way you did last time.”
Kristina startled and looked up. “That… makes sense.”
“You signed a release, so—”
“Yeah, no. It’s… I don’t care about that.”
“Okay.” Stephanie turned to the paramedic. “I don’t think it’s espionage, Barry, but it’s over your paygrade, anyway. I’ll take it from here.”
Barry nodded and they moved Rick to a bigger cot. The paramedic hurried back toward the exit.
To Kristina, Stephanie said, “I’ll get triage over as soon as I can.”
She nodded.
“If his breathing changes, gets faster or slower…”
“I’ll come find you,” Kristina added.
The nurse started to leave, but she turned and sighed, then came back with a penlight. She lifted Rick’s eyelids and shined the light into his eyes. “Oh fuck.” She turned back and yelled, “Doc? I need a Neuro!”
The room became a blur of activity. A man, younger, asked her about Rick’s health history. She told him some details he put into a pad. The man, the doctor, blinked. “Wait, he’s a reCon?”
Kristina shrank to take up less space and winced. In a quiet voice, she said, “Yeah.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry.” The man lowered his tone. “Not a lot of ‘em make it out, and it just—”
“It’s okay.”
A team with a cart came in, and two nurses in bright blue uniforms examined Rick.
The doctor pulled her aside. “I’m Dr. Stevens. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“It’s okay, what’s going on?”
“He’s got an infection and his brain is swelling.”
An older man walked in. Dr. Stevens broke from her to speak to the new guy. “He’s a reCon.”
The older man scowled. “Fuck, that complicates things. He carrying a card, or…” The man sighed. “They’re supposed to carry something to tell us what hardware, what version—”
Kristina tugged Dr. Stevens’ sleeve. “In his left forearm. There’s a chip you can read? Maybe?” Rick had told her about it, but it had been years and she’d forgotten the details.
“Oh.” The older man perked up.
Dr. Stevens smiled. “That makes it easier. I’ll go get the…” The doctor trailed off, reaching into the cart for a tool that looked like a scanner. He waved it over Rick’s forearm, making sure not to get in the way of a nurse putting what looked like a rather large needle into one of her husband’s veins.
“I don’t know this one. D11TZ96?”
The older man squinted, pulled his electronic pad from a holster at his belt, then tapped the screen. His face fell. He looked at Kristina. “How long ago was your husband reformed?”
“Ten—no, eleven years ago.”
The older doctor exchanged a knowing glance with Dr. Stevens. “They don’t usually make it that long.” He looked at Kristina again. “The suicide rate for ReCons is…”
She gulped and nodded. “I know.”
The man sighed again. “He’s got a really early wetware version, and back then, they were still using genetic uplinks.”
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Kristina stared blankly at him.
The man got close and lowered his voice. “Are you religious?”
Kristina’s heart rate jumped. The doctor had asked a very dangerous question.
He shook his head and leaned in even closer before he whispered, “I’m not looking to report you, but if you believe in a higher power, if you know a prayer, I’d start saying it.”
She gasped, then nodded.
***************************************
A rope of ringing bells hung from the doorframe, and it tinkled like it was Christmas when Rick opened the door. His mother had given him only four quarters, but that was enough to try his hand at the beaten up machine waiting in the corner of the gas station.
“Triple Combo!”
The machine beckoned him toward it, as if it had a magnetic pull on his thirteen-year-old body, a magnet made of unadulterated coolness. The cabinet looped through its attract mode, the self-playing loop of gameplay designed to draw players—and their quarters—to the cabinet.
He’d skipped his last class to get there early, but the young man at the counter paid him no mind as he walked the aisle between the dusty medicine and grocery items no one ever bought because they were so expensive at a gas station.
“Brutal attack!” the machine called out more loudly than the standard, exaggerated sounds of punches and kicks that played barely more quietly beneath the bombastic calls. “Hi-ya! Hi-ya!” and “Thunder Kick!” came from a computerized male voice, followed by the “Ugh!” of the female ninja character the male samurai had struck. He’d seen the game before. He knew all the characters in the looping mode, and he’d watched silently in awe at the older kids playing one another many times already.
But he’d never played himself. Today was his day.
He dropped a quarter into the slot and the dramatic sound of a punch accompanied a flashing tear, like peeling paper, across the CRT screen. The game, a 2D throwback from who-knew-when, responded to his tentative handling of the joystick as he selected his character.
Agape. That was the one who looked like some cross between a Greek philosopher and an Indian yogi. His father wouldn’t have approved of either, but his father didn’t know, and neither Rick nor his mother would tell him. His father said she spoiled him. Rick rubbed the seat of his pants reflexively at the thought of that. His mother may have given him the quarters, but she whooped him harder than his father did, as if she needed to in order to prove she wasn’t raising a weak child. The Western Republic has no use for weak men. He nearly said it aloud despite himself there in the gas station, so ready was it at the tip of his tongue. If anything could get his parents to relent from the corporal punishment prescribed by their bible, it was his repetition of this mantra, expressed through gritted teeth, even as they struck him—though it was for different reasons. “The Western Republic has no room for weak men,” he whispered, and the man at the counter perked up at that, nodding approvingly as though he’d heard.
Rick had learned earlier than most; crying didn’t help, not him, not anyone. Not in this whore’s purse of a world where the temptation to be ungodly lay everywhere. It was in school, most especially. He felt the Devil’s hand waking his shameful parts when, despite his best intentions, Satan drew his eyes to girls’ legs beneath their desks, putting in his mind the desperate hope to catch one of them being unladylike, even if by accident. Forgive me, Father. He wouldn’t spoil his seed, not on purpose. What happened in his dreams, though shameful, was beyond his control. Forgive me, Father.
“Round One! Begin!”
Moving and jumping were easy enough to learn, and the first round was the least difficult. He’d heard the boys at school say that. Blocking attacks was also straightforward, or rather, straight backward. High and low attacks needed to be blocked at their levels, something he also learned quickly as the blond, on-screen soldier in army fatigues schooled him up.
He’d made it to the second computer opponent when the ringing of the bells at the door announced the arrival of a pair of older boys. Rick glanced at them, but didn’t let it distract him from the action on-screen. As the sound of their footsteps got closer, he breathed deeply, ready for whatever might come next.
“Hey kid, get off that machine,” one of them—he didn’t look at which—said.
“You can wait till I’m done.”
The voice was closer. “I said—”
“I don’t care what you said. Get in line.” He glanced back. The kid was big, maybe seventeen. He gulped. The Western Republic has no room for weak men.
The kid shoved him, and his friend, a skinny guy with chunky black glasses giggled. “Where did you get the money to play, anyway? Your mommy—”
In one motion, Rick turned and punched the skinny kid in the face, knocking his glasses off. The bigger guy couldn’t react in time. Rick pivoted to him, slamming him against the cabinet.
But the larger kid’s mass was too much to overcome. The boy laughed and punched Rick’s nose. Instantly, Rick’s face felt as though it had been flattened, and he blinked away the involuntary tears that tried to well up. There was another blow to the side of his head, and he went down. Someone kicked him, then the beating began in earnest, with strikes coming from all sides.
Within thirty seconds, they’d stopped and the angry sound of the clerk was in the mix. “Knock it off!”
Rick caught the sight of the older kids’ high-top shoes pulling away, or maybe they were dragged away.
Rick pulled his arms down from where he’d had them around his head as protection from the beating. Someone’s powerful arm dragged him from the dusty floor. “You okay?”
The clerk looked to be in his early twenties, and his smile seemed genuine. To the other two kids, he said, “Get out. Now.”
At first, the bigger kid seemed to be taking the clerk’s measure, but the clerk wasn’t a small man, either.
The Western Republic has no room for weak men.
The kids began to shuffle off. The skinny kid held his nose and bent to retrieve his glasses from where they’d come to rest on the floor.
“Wait,” the clerk said to the kids. “Get back here.” The kids stepped back, and the big one crossed his arms.
The clerk turned to Rick. “How far away do you live?”
Rick leaned in and said in a low voice, “Five blocks.”
The guy nodded. In a low whisper, he said, “You go first. I’ll keep them here ten minutes?”
Rick nodded.
“You’re dead!” the bigger kid said, assumedly to Rick.
The clerk slammed the kid back against the arcade cabinet and smiled. “Think you can take me?”
The kid looked defiant, but the clerk produced a roll of quarters. “What do you think I do all night when it’s slow?” He looked at the arcade cabinet, then turned to the skinny kid who’d been sneering at Rick. “You ain’t good at playing at all, I bet.”
The skinny kid gave Rick a long, lingering look, but then pushed his glasses back up from where they’d slid down his nose. “I’m a mean Haruka, most days.”
“Haruka? Damn, that ain’t an easy fighter to play.” The clerk winked at Rick and nodded in the direction of the door.
Rick took the hint, but as he edged toward the door, he kept his eye on the bigger kid who stared daggers at him. When Rick reached the door’s handle, the kid said, “You’re fucking dead.”
The clerk jabbed the kid in the gut, but in a way he could pass off as playful. “You got a lot of spunk, kid. I’m Jeremy.”
The kid frowned, and both he and the skinny kid took their attention away from Rick. They huddled around the arcade cabinet, preparing to play as Rick exited the station. When he was out of eyeshot, he began jogging. The clerk had promised ten minutes, but he wasn’t going to take chances.
When he got home, his father, a burly, dark-haired man named Jake, noticed the swelling around Rick’s eye.
“What happened there?”
“Nothing. Someone tried to start a fight.”
He frowned. “They started it?”
Rick sighed. If he lied, it would be worse. “I took the first shot.”
His father narrowed one eye, then slapped Rick so hard across the cheek it nearly knocked him down. “Didja cry?”
Rick faced his father, then shook his head.
The older man smiled, then hugged his son close. Rick grimaced from pain as his father’s embrace squeezed him where he’d been kicked.
The older man released the hug and held Rick at arm’s length again. “That was just for hitting first, okay? I’m proud of you, but don’t go around smacking anyone first.”
Rick frowned. “They were gunning for a—”
“I don’t care. It ain’t about that, you hear? You hurt someone real bad and the folks who saw it say you hit the other guy first, who do you think ends up in a jail cell?”
Rick studied the floor. “Yessir.”
His father pulled him back in for another hug, this one gentler. “You’re a good kid, and you’re gonna be a good man, you hear me?”
Rick nodded again, though his head was squished against his father’s chest. The smell of grease and cigarette smoke and a not unpleasant body odor filled his nostrils.
His dad let him go again. “You wanna learn how to fight for real?”
From the kitchen, his mother’s voice rang out. “He don’t need to learn how to fight, Jake.”
“Come in here and look at him ‘fore you say that, mama.”
“He’s gonna get hurt,” his mother said.
His dad rolled his eyes. “He already been hurt. Just come out here.”
His mother entered, and when she saw his face, she frowned. “It’s just a bruise.”
“Gonna be a lot more than a bruise tomorrow,” his dad said.
“I’ll be fine.” Rick rubbed his eye and winced. It would be a shiner, for sure.
His mother sighed. “What happened?”
“What does it look like happened?” his dad asked.
“What do you mean learn to fight?” Rick asked.
Rick’s mom didn’t look at him, but addressed his dad. “You mean to take him to Freddy.” It wasn’t a question, but an accusation. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Western Republic’s got no room for—”
“Oh, you and that shit again.”
The thought of fighting excited Rick, but he dared not say a word; he’d already gotten one beating that day.
His dad got a serious look on his face. “That shit is what a man needs to make it through the world, Candy.”
His mother looked at Rick, then at his father. “He has to wear headgear. He’s a smart kid, and if I wanted his brain turned to mush, I’d sign him up for football, y’hear?”
His father smiled and casually crossed his arms, like a king who’d won some sort of boon. His mother uncrossed her arms and his father kissed her.
Rick tried not to act too excited, scared he might jinx it. Wow. Real fighting? Maybe Sara-Lyn would notice him if he was a fighter.
The heavy weight of his father’s enormous mechanic’s hand on his shoulder made Rick puff his chest out, though he pulled it back. The meek shall inherit the earth.