And the first men became two, just as the brothers were two.
The men of the cold lands were the noble Cainites,
Ranging and hunting the beasts of the earth,
And the men of the hot lands were called the Abelines,
Eating of the fruit of the land and the fish of the rivers.
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My amigo, Dr Sneed, picked up my bones like I was wrapped in swaddling and he set me in a basket and put me into the reeds of the river. Ants wearing lipstick danced upon my skin to the tune, the bass and the beat of Bebopalula and I scanned the room for Amanda, because she was my baby, except she didn’t know it.
I liked Dr Sneed. He dressed in black like Johnny Cash and he ticked a lot from his tourettes. Never swearing, just ticks of it; throat noises and buh-buhs here and there. Tick tock, tick tock. To think they’ve cured Cancer and HiX and this guy was still going around with strangers thinking he was a retard, because a wire was frayed a little somewhere inside of the genius that is he was. IQ 163, according to his file.
‘Hey amigo’ I called out to him, but he disappeared before I could add to it and thank him for keeping it quiet all that time. My habit.
I must had been the worst Medic in the history of the Corp and one of the only people on the project that didn’t need the salary, apart from Amanda. At that moment, it made me the sucker, the one with the dick in my mouth, but I was spinning and some of it was real, it was going on, man.
I was laughing my head off as my tin can popped out and the ship gave birth to me, or shat me out; G-force making my cheeks look like I was blowing on glass. Pieces of the ship started falling off and it burned like a Viking funeral, but I had my own sparks going off in my brain, like wow. I was way too gone to notice all the details, but there were details I’m sure. I knew I’d get the news feed later on from the others, if we lived. I saw another pod zoom maybe half a mile ahead of me and it sent me on one, laughing my arse off; a real tickler. A Bobby Dazzler.
Self-medicating just moments before it all went tits up, was probably a stroke of genius on my part, as I’d been pissing the bed for weeks with my night terrors and I wouldn’t have fared too well in that situation had my blood not been pumped full of this and that; stuff for the battle zone, washed down with a glass or two of Mother’s Ruin.
My mind swam still within those same reeds of itself and I was thinking of a candelabra I’d bought once for mad money, for no reason at all… I don’t know why, maybe I’d seen a comet or part of the ship, but sparks were forming and flying like blistering rain. Then I was thinking of other things; a reboot of something called a Ludewig Aero Strassenzepp Doubledecker that I’d ridden on in a city that I couldn’t quite place just then, a tattoo I got done old style at a barracks on Mars, a fjord in Norway where I’d waved at the northern lights to the horror of the superstitious locals, my mother before she leapt to her death, a single day I had spent (drunk) perfecting my quiff; greasing and combing, making it high (you need a good quiff in space) and lots of Amanda...
Bebopalula.
I was trying to raise my hands to my face, but I realised that Dr Sneed had strapped me in, which of course he would do and that became funny and it got me again. I saw my reflection in the porthole of the pod and I was blowing on that glass again from the G’s. Stars shot past me, or I shot past them, it reminded me of the first snowfall on the pyramids and Arabs on Motoskis, then war. Something always reminded me of war.
I blacked out/I blacked in. In out, in out I shook it all about. Repeated several times until darkness engulfed me like someone had pulled my power cord…
-
I was upside down and I’d puked everywhere but didn’t remember doing it. I stank of bile and I was covered in chunks of something that look like Minestrone.
There was a gaping hole in my arm the size of an English pound and I had my radius bone sticking out of it like a bastard. It wasn’t as funny as it had been. There was no pain, but I knew it was gonna come with cherries on it. My blood was still pissing out. I knew I could sort it once I got to my feet and fathomed once more how to stand tall and walk like a man, but for the time being, I was a bat.
I had dreamt of a giant lobster outside when I was dipping in and out of it; my toes had been in pools of consciousness, my fingers tapping away with the ants that I’d danced with, until they forgot the song and left me on my own in the pod to figure it all out.
Was I a thousand feet up? I was coming down with a snapped bone protruding from my lower arm, hanging upside down on a planet with nothing but a signal. I was alone and I could feel the panic taking hold of me and I didn’t know what kit the pods in the infirmary held as standard, or what kit Dr Sneed might have thrown in with me... I was wearing pyjamas.
Fuckfuck.
Sound came to me in bursts that infiltrated my tomb and met my ears like static; insects, birds and a roar of thunder.
I wet my lips, worked my tongue around my mouth and created a bit of moisture in there.
“Pod status”. No reply.
I tried once more thenworked one of the buckles that I could reach. I took off the other restraints on the harness which held me in place and crashed to the bottom of the pod, which was the top and went dizzy for a few seconds.The pod didn’t move, so I knew it was relatively secure and I was safe from a sudden drop; one less thing to worry about.
How much blood had I lost?
I stood with the port hole next to my feet and I saw that I wasn’t far off the ground. There was some kind of kit bag in the pod and a suit for me to put on before Amanda saw me in my PJ’s, wherever she was.
I operated the manual lever to open door and it did as it was told. I threw the kit bag and the suit onto the floor below me; mud or clay, a few feet which was safe for me to drop down to and I did.
I squinted as the sun met my eyes. Noises assaulted my senses.
Bebopalula…
I didn’t feel like singing anymore. My arm was sending urgent signals to my brain that a river of pain was about to wash over me. I scanned the trees in my panic, but took little in, other than the fact I was safe for the time being, alone for the time being, under a canopy of trees not unlike the trees on Earth. I took comfort from none of it.
I dragged myself away from the pod; my legs betrayed me and I slipped, then fell against the stump of a tree long dead. I opened the kit bag and spread the contents out before me so I could see what I had to play with; I injected myself with 256mg of military grade anomorphine, applied crystaline gel to stop the flow of blood from my splintered wound and it congealed in seconds. The one thing I prayed for in the kit was there and I thanked Elvis that it was; a pristine Panasonic Boneprinter.
I unfolded the sections of the machine and attached them until they formed a cylinder. I activated the holopad upon it, waved my instructions and placed my injured arm inside it. It pulsed, then began to scan the limb to create a mold. I used my free hand and teeth to open the vials I needed and I poured the right amounts of liquefied Carbon, Staceon 7 and Monuxl grade steel into the end chamber. A low drone, followed by a single beep indicated that the scanning was done. I removed my arm from the cylinder and watched as a copy of my bone formed itself anew from the materials I’d put in. I was mesmerised by it; a part of me rebuilt without the imperfection, but I was also preparing myself mentally for what was to come.
I’d performed surgery hundreds of times in the infirmary and in the operating theatre. I’d fixed people up on the battlefield and even below ground in the darkness of the mines. I’d seen some nasty shit. I’d put my hands inside a guy’s ribcage once as he spoke to me and another time I opened up a guy’s brain and operated as the sub burned around me. It’s what I do.
I’d never had to rip my own bone out of my skin before. It wasn’t a doozy and if got it wrong, I’d either end up losing the thing, or I’d be dead.
I was twitching and itching and part of me wondered if I had enough drugs in the bag to overdose on. I didn’t, other than the Blues, but they’re not fun.
I took 500mg of Capzalxone, I used a laser cutter to open my lower arm completely so I could remove the bone, which I did and then I vomited and couldn’t stop heaving. I took out my new bone from the printer and placed it into the flesh of my arm, pushing it in, turning it within the meat until it faced the right way and made sense. I took a handful of nano-surgeons, freaky little bugs and dropped them into my flesh to do their business and fuse the tendons and bone fragments together then seal an effective joint between the Humerus and the Carpals. I wished them luck and they danced to a different beat. No bebop, this was more Wipeout.
I sealed up my own arm with the same laser I used to cut it open with, after changing the settings, I applied more gel to it and it healed as if I’d dreamt the whole thing. I felt the sensations then as the surgeons fixed my new arm from within, before they would expire and eventually I’d piss them out. It went on for a minute and then I had full movement and my operation was a success.
I lay in the shade on the ground, recovering from my ordeal, surrounded by packages, needles, vials and wrappers I’d discarded. I drank a salt pack and started to chill the fuck out. My senses returned and sound returned to me beyond the beating of the heart in my chest.
The trees above me were gigantic and would make dwarves out of Redwoods back on Earth. I saw the silk of a spider’s web in one of them, but no sign of a spider, if that’s what had wrought it.
Beams of light had drilled through the canopy in places, capturing dust particles and making them glisten like they were something more.
I’d been laying there for minutes. Just playing at being alive. Then I realised that the thunder I’d been hearing in the pod wasn’t thunder at all. To the right of me, through a line of dead wood, there was a mighty waterfall, the height of a Skytower but thrice as majestic. The mist of the waterfall sprayed the air and it was that which I’d seen in the light that fell between the leaves, not dust. What blew my mind there and then, like the dubious hooker I’d once met at a Casino in Nigeria, was that the water flowed upwards. It was beautiful; a reverse waterfall mindfuck defying the laws of gravity as I knew it and it was half a mile high, reaching to oblivion.
I watched it until my eyelids demanded to blink. Exhausted and spent, I let sleep take me once more and I lay on a strange planet, having fallen from a ship in the sky, in my pyjamas.
-
When I awoke for the second time, my mind was together. I’d dreamt of Dr Sneed and something important he had to tell me, but he never got the chance to as his body burst into flames from within and he boiled and burst inside and charred on the surface of him; well smoked in a hickory pulled-pork version of himself.
It was still daylight. The insects and the waterfall still dominated the sound in my ears. The mess of my kit bag was where I left it and the bone that had been in my arm since birth lay discarded and redundant below the pod where I’d thrown it.
The skin on my arm itched. It felt burnt and sore, but I saved the healing meds for a later purpose, then took a hit of something more personal, to take the edge off my usual five a day habit.
I put on my suit. It wasn’t full military spec, but it was certainly protective enough for a Medic cracking on with the job in unfriendly territory; it’d take a stray shot or a blade, but nothing heavy or sustained.
I took stock of what was left in and around the bag, then gathered it up and strapped it to my shoulder. I still had enough Anomorphine to treat a serious injury, enough sodium chloride to perform a blood transfusion, a catheter, an IV tube, a canula, a pack of W.H.O Propyl Blues (instant death pills to the common man), five plugs of Adrenaline concentrate, 500mg Mepyramine Xaprit supercharged antihistamine, half a tube of crystalline gel to stop a heavy wound bleeding out, or controlling several small bleeds… an emergency surgeon’s knife (which would come in handy when the cells of the laser cutter were spent), a MedWand usually for testing samples of water for bacteria, (or blood for illness), three salt packs, a half empty bottle of valium and my favourite uppers; MSXS aka Pussydrops.
The boneprinter was useless now without the vials of materials, so I left it, but took out the cells in case they could be used to power something else. Mad money kit.
No food.No survival kit. Whether Sneed had left it out in his haste, or whether the infirmary pods didn’t come with them I didn’t care. I was outraged. I spend my whole corp life repairing and healing the jocks; making good the damages from combat, or stupidity, with no thanks. No one cares if the Medic survives… all of a sudden I’d gone back in time. I was never accepted. I would always be their geek - just there to keep the superstars battle-worthy, so they could keep those kill numbers rolling in.
I pulled the parachute down from my pod, tore off what I needed and stuffed it into the kitbag to use later as a blanket.
I had no shooter and other than my surgeon’s knife, I’d have to defend myself against man or beast with my bare hands. It was all on me...
I set off, following the water that flowed in reverse. I saw strange flying insects, that hovered about their business in neat lines, travelling on grids invisible to me. I stayed clear of them, unwilling to be my own test subject and get stung.
I climbed the side of the waterfall and after an hour, I’d still not breached the canopy of the trees and was yet to find any sign of life, other than the insects.
I rested once more, cooled my skin in the water that rushed up the walls of the rock which I climbed. I used the MedWand and I tested it. It was safe to drink. It had high mineral content. A few things that you wouldn’t want in there, but it was perfectly safe. We’d lucked out and I was exploring a distant planet that had water like home, but much cleaner. I tasted it. It was sweet, sugary almost. I drank it, but just enough to subdue my thirst, fearful of a night holed up in an alien jungle with stomach pains and sickness to contend with.
Then I saw on the rock behind the curtain of water which flowed upon it, markings; intentional and coloured. Not a picture exactly, but a symbol, long worn away and eroded by the water, but still visible. It was a symbol I had seen before.
Hey Amigo!