The Last 0-Day

Chapter 4 - Weaver

"Slow. Your stomach," Weaver tried.

But Marco's insides already flipped. The toddler vomited onto the mattress. On all fours, he cried until he exhausted himself and collapsed into his filth to sleep.

Weaver's progress with the improvement-processes had stalled at access to Marco's nervous system.

Weaver watched Marco wake after his nap. The toddler tore off his filthy clothes. The soggy snap-suit caught on the metal port at the back of his skull.

"Stop," Weaver commanded.

Marco froze.

With neuronal help from Weaver, Marco untangled the shirt and dropped it on the floor. Weaver shifted into the back seat and Marco played with his feet for hours as Caregivers wheeled in more children. Some were older than Marco, others were still babies, their metal ports the only hard part of their skulls.

A caregiver noticed Marco's predicament, carefully removed him from the mattress, cleaned him with a sterilizing wipe, and placed him in a fresh crib. The circadian lights cycled off and Marco fell asleep.

In the morning, Weaver was in charge of every child in the room.

Weeks passed and a female toddler with blonde hair shaved around her metal port sat on a polyvinyl chair in an examination room.

"Blue circle," a technician said, holding up a flash card.

"Blue Circle, you can say it," Weaver tried.

The girl in the chair stared blankly at the woman.

Weaver nudged, and the girl drooled instead.

"This is a waste of time," the technician said to the room.

Concurrently, the male and female initializers walked into the sterile room containing the cribs.

"Yira, please get Marco," the man said.

The Caregiver didn't respond.

"Marco, tap Caregiver Yira's shoulder," Weaver tried. Marco blinked instead.

The male initializer rubbed his beard at a mistake he made. He tapped Yira on the shoulder, pointed to Marco, and left.

Yira carried Marco down a hall a step behind the initializers. The hallway was ten degrees colder than the nursery. Marco shivered and cried. The female initializer turned around. Marco fixated on her chest, stopping his wails.

"You think this will work?" the male initializer said.

"Did you not read my sister's internal-publication? This is what we need," the female initializer said.

"It's not on the protocol."

"What, these algorithms were? We're all here for glory, you as much as I. Don't pretend you're not."

"We can talk our way out of the algorithms. Remove them once the program is running smoothly."

"Still wouldn't change the fact that the hardware ages out. We come out with this? The profit alone will pay for any slap on the wrists we'd get from a code review board. If it even got there." The initializers stopped in front of a door that hissed open to a sterile room. They sat Marco on a chair.

"Calm," Weaver said, sensing the stress response within the child.

They strapped Marco to the chair, he tensed against the restraints. The boy cried, a panic fixing in his gut.

The male initializer hesitated, his brow creasing at the female initializer. Yira was oblivious to the screams of the child a few feet from her face.

"Calm," Weaver tried, but Marco spasmed against the seat.

The female initializer stepped towards Marco. Her breasts stopped his tears and she cleaned his left arm. The needle that pierced Marco's skin was a distant pain to Weaver, but Marco wailed. The woman winced and hooked tubing to a bag of black and green liquid.

Weaver watched the blackness enter the veins, travel up the arm to Marco's shoulder. When it hit the joint, Marco's eyelids drooped and he defecated in the chair.

"God damn it," Weaver heard someone say as a warm darkness enveloped Marco.

***

"Calm," Weaver said.

The blonde toddler with a shaved head was strapped to the same chair as Marco was a week prior. She was the last to be injected. Weaver shunted the toddler's cortisol dump. The needle pierced her skin, she flinched, and Weaver stopped the adrenaline spike from starting.

Iteration 8.28.34 worked.

***
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