Subterran

Part I: Reinventing Bone Structure - Chapters 13 - 18

"You're all set there, Jonah," the doctor said, slapping me a bit too hard on the back. "Just let the machines run their course, and we'll have you on your way in no time."

He left me to it and I settled back into the pinpricks, the matching shapes, the rudimentary math problems and the scenes from famous movies which were relayed into my thoughts. My mind's gut response to these images would inform M.C. whether or not I was on the right track.

When I got the results back, it had been determined that yes, I was employed in the correct position. Doctor Marc handed me a second plastic info slip, thinner, longer, and with a gold star at the top.

"A little something extra," he said.

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NAME: Jonah Von Edinbarrow

EYES: Green

HAIR: Black

HEIGHT: 5′ 6″ / 5′ 10″ with surgical alteration
BUILD: Slender/Athletic

CONCLUSION:

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NOT BAD LOOKING

PURCHASES THE LATEST FASHION TRENDS

FRIVOLOUS WITH ALLOWANCE

INDISCRIMINATE WITH BED PARTNERS

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'VE BEEN SELECTED AS RECIPIENT OF THIS YEAR'S MODEL CITIZEN AWARD

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I tucked it into the carry slot on my acu-tank, now in standby mode, recharging and breathing quietly. I figured this meant I would get a bonus, maybe a gift card. The time on my tank reads 6:72 p.m.

Chapter Sixteen

Vampires Beware: Sunlight appears beyond the horizon.

On D.E.F.'s 1st birthday we held a theme party: Toddler's Spring Break with Zombies – Extra Gore Included. The tykes just loved it as the living dead chased them around the main floor of Hypocrite Wedding, which converted to a kids' Funtime Arcade during the day. Friends I didn't recognize made small talk with one another as their offspring screeched and squealed, running in circles across the dancefloor. Mari was wearing a pale green gauzy dress with rubber ducks on it, demonstrating her taste for absurdist whimsy. D.E.F. was dressed as a zombie victim; the party organizers had painted on fake wounds and dusted his skin a pale powder green color, many remarking on what a realistic job they'd done.

For now, the birthday victim sat on my lap. He'd had enough of being chased by zombies for the time being.

Here, give him his birthday Gummy Tummies, Mari's tablet read. Our fingers brushed as I took the offered aqua blue glass jar with sticky sharks and whales inside.

"Open up, son." I made the spoon fly around like a pixie-marine starship in wartime. He gulped them down in one go, the eager little tyke. Springing off me with a small thud, he ran screaming and giggling, arms and legs flailing, laughing as zombies followed him at a deceptively slow pace, always careful to let him believe he was one step beyond their reach.

"We've gotcha! Arrrgh!" A friendly zombie attacked, unleashing a deadly tickling. D.E.F.'s peal of laughter pierced through the walls of the NightChapel, perhaps beyond to the stars that were supposedly above.

#

I was cold and hot at the same time—cold from the tips of my fingers to the soles of my feet, and hot from the inside out. It seemed Generik was having lo-power days more frequently, or maybe my ability to regulate my own body temperature was suffering due to a conflict with some other modification. I would need to get an update. I'd heard about a new thermo-plasma skin transplant—proven, affordable, and with a money back guarantee to boot. I needed to do something before my hands turned blue and my fingers fell off. Sometimes during a lo-power interval people became so frozen to the core that they just stared off into the distance, long and floating, barely there for the next couple of days or weeks, words falling from their lips in nonsense rhyme or trailing off in mid-sentence. Nobody questioned it, we were all used to it and knew it just took a little while for them to thaw out.