She reached for the snake that was swallowing itself. But the snake took a final gulp of its tail and disappeared with a pop.
Some invisible force froze Stephanie’s hand. All sound in the hospital stopped. There were no squeaking wheels, no chattering nurses, not even buzzing florescent lights.
Then came a hiss of static, another pop, and suddenly Stephanie was holding the three-foot rattlesnake.
Confusion swept over her like vertigo. What had just happened? The neo-toy’s scales felt warm under her fingers.
“WTF?” she grunted while pressing her left hand to her chest. Her heart was kicking hard and her vision dimmed.
It was the new chemo, had to be the new chemo making her see things.
She frowned at the snake. “I’m losing my mind.” She shook the toy to make sure it was real. It coiled around her wrist. Real enough.
Two hours ago she had awakened alone in the hospital room. Memory provided no answer as to how she’d gotten there. Wasn’t the first time that had happened. “Effing chemobrain.”
She dropped the rattler and began to absently turn the hospital ID
bracelet around her wrist. Meanwhile the neo-toy slinked among the stuffed animals that cluttered her floor.
She’d found them in the toy chest. As usual they’d put her in a room better fit for a four-year-old than a fourteen-year-old. That meant most of the toys had been inanimate, cutesy things: grinning dinosaurs, bespectacled owls, blah, blah, blah.
But there had been a few neo-toys: a turtle, a mouse, a rattlesnake. San Francisco Children’s Hospital being public, they were ragged and dated.
But she’d taken an interest in them, not for their playmate value, which she’d outgrown years ago, but for their neuro-bandwidth. Each toy contained a small concinnity processor.
Using the room’s desktop, she’d hacked the neo-toys. Most of their nanoneurons had committed themselves to safety reflexes. But enough fibers had remained for a game.
She’d written several seek-and-swallow instincts for the snake and used her keyboard to remotely control the mouse about the floor. Initially the game had been to avoid the serpent, but soon she began venturing her mouse closer, goading her own neuroprogram. Eventually she’d fooled the snake into biting its own tail.
And that’s when...what? When she’d hallucinated about the snake swallowing itself?
“God, I can’t even remember what day it is,” she muttered before pressing her palms to her cheeks and her fingers to her hairless eyebrows.
The squeak of sneakers on linoleum made her look up. A tall South Asian woman in blue scrubs and a white coat was standing in the doorway. “Hi Stephanie,” the woman said with typical pediatrician perkiness. “I’m Jani.”
Only superhuman restraint kept Stephanie from rolling her eyes. “Hi,”
she replied in monotone.
Judging by the knee-length coat and the exhausted-but-not-yet-haggard expression, Jani was a new pediatric resident.
Effing awful.
Most women went into peds to play with toddlers. They usually had no idea how to be around a fourteen-year-old.
“I see you’ve put the neo-toys to good use,” Jani said while steeping among the stuffed animals.
The rattlesnake began investigating the newcomer’s white sneakers.
“Sleep,” the resident told the neo-toy to trigger its programmed reset instinct. The toy coiled up and lay motionless.
Like many South Asian doctors, Jani had a gratuitously long last name.
Embroidered on her coat in blue was “Rajani Ganapathiraman, M.D.” The woman crouched beside Stephanie.
Just to be a snot, Stephanie nodded at the embroidered name and asked,
“How do they page you on the intercom?”
Jani grinned. “Paging Doctor Ganapathiraman,” she imitated in baritone.
“Paging Doctor Ganapathiraman; Doctor Ganapathiraman to the name reduction room please.”
Despite herself, Stephanie sniffed with amusement.
“They use my first name or they text me.” Jani tapped the cell on her belt. “How are you feeling?”
Stephanie looked away. “Fine.” Suddenly she noticed there was something in her gown’s right pocket. A moment ago it had been empty.
Absently she reached into the pocket and pulled out a smooth green object. It was glass snake biting its own tail.
Weirdness.
Jani didn’t seem to notice the object. “Do you know how long you’ve been here?” the doctor asked.
Stephanie slipped the glass snake back into her pocket. “I guess my parents brought me in last night. I’ve been having trouble when I’m sleeping. Are you an oncologist or a nanomed doc?”
Jani shook her head and sent her black hair swaying.
Stephanie swallowed; she’d had hair like that once. “Well, chemo can make you stupid. It’s called chemobrain. And I’m on the traditional poison and in a trial for a new nanomed immunotherapy. The two together give me bad chemobrain. Sometimes I forget things at night.”
“You’ve learned a lot about your treatment?”
This time Stephanie could not help rolling her eyes. “My mom invented the neuroprocessor and was the one who started Conninity Corp. And my dad teaches about infectious nanodisease at the Monterey Institute. They’re always blabbing at me about it.” She stopped short of saying that she probably knew more about nanomed and neurotech than the pediatrician did.“I see,” Jani said before pausing. Her almond eyes scanned the younger woman’s face. “Stephanie, do you remember talking to me before?”
This made Stephanie nervously turn the hospital ID bracelet around her wrist. “No.”
“Do you know what day it is? What year?”
“It’s like mid August, 2017?” her voice squeaked. Jesus, had she really lost her mind?
“That’s right.” She smiled. “Don’t be scared. I just wanted to be sure.”
“What do you mean don’t be scared?” she blurted. “Sure about what?
Jesus! How long have I been here? How many times have you seen me before?”
Jani held up her hand. “Slow down; it’s okay...I’m not an oncologist, but I’m following your case. The cancer responded well to the treatment. And our research suggests that the side effects are temporary.”
Stephanie started to protest but then stopped. A terrifying memory flashed through her mind. “Mom said they might take me to a hospital for the dead.” She didn’t know what that meant but the memory was clear.
“She said you’d keep me here to fool me into thinking I’m still alive.”
Jani was holding up both hands now. “Slow down. The survival rates are scary but they’re far better—”
“You’re not listening. She said they’d take me to a hospital for people who’ve already died. I have to escape before—”
Stephanie started to stand but Jani put a heavy hand on her shoulder and said “Lullaby.”
The word opened a bloom of orange light across Stephanie’s vision. A static hiss exploded into her ears, and she felt herself falling. There was a firecracker yellow flash and then...nothing.