BOOK OF MIA: 2081
Chapter 8: Sterile
[*Warning: Chapter contains some descriptions of injuries some may find graphic and is not intended to upset anyone.]
I wake to stare at the stark white ceiling. Long tube lights burn bright and my eyes narrow from the onslaught. I panic, gagging on something shoved down my throat. I claw at my neck and mouth, trying to pull out the breathing tube, and my throat clamps down on it in my panic. But the sensation that I cannot breathe has me trying to go tube-free.
"Hold on, child! You're going to rip your stitches open and damage your throat!" An elderly nurse pulls the white curtains aside and rushes to my side, slapping my hands away. "You're intubated! Just relax, and Doctor Hill will take it out properly. She's on her way."
"Relax." Her grip on my hands softens, and she squeezes them instead, trying to reassure me.
She lets go of one of my hands and I grab her desperately. Don't leave me! Don't leave me. Whoever you are. Don't leave me. I eye her chest for a name badge. She doesn't have one. What kind of nurse doesn't wear a name badge? Then again, her uniform is a little too military for my liking. Grey, tailored, monochrome. Everything in here is monochrome. How boring? I miss my fairy-lights and colourful room, even though I resemble a goth most of the time. I have an inner fairy, alright, sue me!
She returns my squeeze, hearing my wheezing panicked breath. "I'm not leaving. I'm right here. Just going to give you a dose of morphine. Bet that chest of yours is hurting a little."
I nod. Or at least try. My head is pounding. The worst time to have one of my notorious migraines. As the morphine courses through my veins, despite my discomfort and the desperate sensation that I cannot breathe, I relax. I close my eyes, wanting it to be over. All of it. Whatever it was. Part of it feels like last night was a giant nightmare that I am struggling to wake from. But I'm in some kind of hospital, intubated; my chest hurts, my head throbs, and I can smell the sterile, chlorine-rich air around me. They all tell me otherwise. This is as real and that's fudged!
The nurse pats my hand before letting go. "Now, I'm going to check your bandages before Dr Hill gets here, okay? She won't be long."
Her icy hands untie the front of my robe and brush past my sensitive skin, causing goosebumps to ripple across my entire body. Her hand pulls at the corner of the medical tape, securing the dressing to a large area of my chest. I watch, curious to see this hole that almost had me dying, and I'm surprised I'm pretty much naked. My chest is bare except for the blood-soaked bandages. My embarrassingly small breasts, out for people to see. Thank God the bandages cover one side at least.
As I hear footsteps approach us, I move my robe over the other half of my chest, trying to preserve a bit of my dignity.
I catch the nurse eyeing me. She smiles. "Don't feel embarrassed. We are here to help you."
I try to smile, though the tube won't let me. Instead, I watch as she peels the bandage away from my chest.
Her brows knit together as confusion reigns over her face then. She moves in closer to stare at the area I cannot see. Her head's in my way, and I'm unable to move because of the tube inside me. I squeeze her forearm. What is it?
She eyes me and shakes her head, placing the bandage back over the wound as a woman wearing a stethoscope around her slender neck enters the cubicle, pushing the curtain aside further, revealing a vast concrete hangar filled with hospital beds. The pop of red on her lips is the only colour to break the drabness.
Her lips are full, and her pout stirs into a smile as she looks at me. "Good morning. Mia. I'm Doctor Hill."
I try to nod. Hello.
"Let's get that tube out of you so you can talk!" She dons some gloves and gets on with it, trying to take the intubation tube out of me quickly and safely. The tube slithering out of my throat has me cringing and wriggling. When I'm clear of the tube, I cough and cringe at the pain in my chest.
"Give her some water!" Dr Hill says, and the nurse brings over a bottle that has a nozzle.
She squeezes some freshwater into my mouth. I'm thankful, and I drink like I haven't had water in days.
"Thank you," I rasp, my voice only a scratchy whisper.
Dr Hill nods before the nurse catches her attention. "What is it, Geeta?"
Geeta flashes me a reassuring smile and peels back the bandage. Wordless.
I watch Dr Hill. Her brown eyes squint as she stares at my chest. Too long for my comfort.
"Is it bad?" my horsey whisper disrupts them.
Dr Hill shakes her head, her eyebrows rising. "No. The opposite, actually." She takes the soiled bandage off and puts it on the tray the nurse offers. "May I?" She points at the wound site and I nod. "I'm going to touch you, Mia. Can you tell me if you feel pain, numbness, anything, okay?"
I nod again.
Geeta peers over at me as Dr Hill lightly presses around my ribs. Occasionally, I wince, but the sensation is of numbness more than pain, mostly.
"Can I see it?" I ask. I want to see this wound that has two medical professionals looking baffled. Why do they seem curious about my wound when they've seen worse things in their emergency ward?
Dr Hill nods at Geeta again, and she returns with a mirror in hand and holds it over my chest at an angle so I can look at this curious beast.
All I see is a fresh pink scar the size of a tennis ball where my right breast had been.
"We had to remove the damaged tissue, Mia. But with new augmentation and bio-silica, once you have plastic surgery, you won't be able to tell the difference between the new breast and the old one; aesthetically, physically, or neurologically. Of course, milk production on that side will be out of the question, as expected, but that'll only be an issue if you are thinking of going the natural route and having biological kids, naturally in the future."
Kids? Gee, lady, I'm only sixteen. I haven't even thought about sex, or surrogacy, let alone kids. I stare at the scar — not sure how I'm supposed to feel about missing a breast. They were still new to me and I was still getting used to them. However, something tells me the uneasiness I sense off the two women has nothing to do with my missing body part.
"Why do you look worried, Doctor Hill?" I ask, my voice returning to normal. I can't help myself. A moment ago, when they rescued me from the river, they were certain my injury was going to be the end of me. Now that I'm here, and healing — or healed — they look worried. "I'm not dying anymore, am I?"
Dr Hill shakes her head, takes the mirror from my hand, and places it on the side table. She then pulls a chair over and sits facing me.
"How much do you know about biotechnology and CodeTech, Mia?" she asks.
CodeTech? What does it have to do with my injury? Its failure almost killed me last night. In my honest opinion — sorry granddad — CodeTech can take a hike for all I cared, not that I was ever going to say it out loud in front of my mum. She does not like hearing negative talk about her family or their legacy.
"It's a piece of crap that doesn't respond to fight-or-flight situations?" I offer, repulsed.
Dr Hill nods as her gaze drops to her feet. "Have you ever heard of the God Codex, Mia?"
I laugh. God Codex? What twerp came up with that name? Wasn't it bad enough the technology that turned us into bionics replaced our gods of old and we now pray to the codex to keep us safe? But referring to it as The God Codex? — stuff that.
"Gods are myths, Dr Hill. CodeTech is just bio-nanotechnology. Nothing more."
"Nothing more? Mia, it's a technology that allowed humans to exist when we should have died off with the rest of complex life forms! We have nanites in our lymphatic system coded to detect and seek mutation caused by radiation and eliminate cancer. Coded to shield us from the environmental toxins and poisons that would penetrate our skin otherwise? We haven't used sunblock creams in decades. The tech that also allows the disabled to become able by bypassing nerve damage through a new neural bridge?" Dr Hill smiles at me. "Sounds like god to me."
"I know what CodeTech does for us, Dr Hill. Except, last night mine didn't work, did it? So it's not faultless."
"I doubt the real gods are faultless," Doctor Hill mumbles, squeezing my hand. "But CodeTech is not bulletproof technology, dear, not yet anyway. Not last I knew." She clears her throat and gets up, pacing the floor. "And, turns out, you're not CodeTech technology. Your tech is completely merged with your biological matter, in the most perfect symbiotic sense. I thought I made mistakes in my initial tests, but — your tech is not possible, not yet, Mia. Not with the Codex that exists, nor the nanites they use. Which begs a lot of questions..."
How did my chest wound stir and my failed technology lead to a conversation in theoretical tech come alive? Yes, granted, it was the field of research before my great grandfather died, but even then, a genius like him never succeeded on that front. "I don't understand what you're talking about, Doctor Hill," I say.
"That's what I want to know." Dr Hill turns by the foot of my bed and stares at me. "Your thesis field for your graduation? Is it not, biological infusion of nanotech, Mia? A field a renowned scientist theorised decades earlier."
I stare back. How does she know my field of research is Theoretical Science? I haven't even finished my paper yet. I have two weeks to submit it. Not much time, but I'm sure I can finish if I get back home soon. "What does my research paper on an old theory have to do with my CodeTech being different? And how can it be? It's standard issue."
"You're right. This tech of yours has nothing to do with your theoretical research... I can't possibly think a child can create something like this. Nevermind." She brushes me off with a smile. "Answer me this. Do you know how long you've been out, Mia?"
"Maybe a week?" I surmise from the scabs around my wound; safe to assume I've been out a little while.
The smile on Dr Hill's face makes my spine tingle.
"What is going on?" I ask because I smell something fishy.
Her smile gets wider, and she turns to Geeta, the nurse. "Geeta, would you be a darling and tell Mia how long she's been out?"
"You've been out maybe less than two days," Geeta responds, eyeing me uncomfortably.
"It's a miracle, wouldn't you say, Miss Love?" Dr Hill's smile is so wide, it makes me cringe a little in fear. "Care to explain why you heal so fast? Or why your nanites are so different. They are not proprietary CodeTech tech, despite the clearance on your back saying it is."
What? Not CodeTech? What does that even mean? Everyone is CodeTech. Every survivor. The whole damn City. Something tells me though, as I eye the young doctor and Geeta, this is not the City anymore.
"What you're implying, Doctor Hill?" I ask, my breath staggering out. Alarm bells ring in my head. "You're the doctor. Why don't you tell me what's going on? And you can start by telling me how you know my name or my field of research?"
Fudge! I should not be egging her. "Also, I want to know where my friend is!" I demand. "I want to see him now." Ask not, want not, right?
"You will. Once I have my answers, and I will have my answers, Mia. You have a tech that does not belong to you. A tech my lab's been trying to develop for decades. A technology you just happen to have in your system." Dr Hill's smile disappears. "I intend to find out how you got it and from whom. Because I doubt the City has any brains left after the purge, not since Doctor Amour died and left his scribblings, scribblings that are in my care."
She turns on her heels to leave, glaring at me one last time. "Make sure our friend here doesn't wander off unescorted. Ever," she says as two guards appear by my cubicle and the doctor disappears.
Nurse Geeta gives my hand a genuine squeeze. "I'm so sorry, I can't help you," before she leaves.
And I'm all alone. Just me and a couple of guards. Out of the pan and into the fire, I suppose.
Great! Just great.