Pate (January 2019)
Do the next thing. That’s always what I told myself when I found myself overwhelmed or feeling helpless. There was always something to do. Something I could control, even if I felt powerless in the current situation.
Tonight, I could only think of one thing to do.
Exposure to the bitter cold should do it. Here, in the dark, on the sidewalk. I wonder how soon before I pass out, never to wake up again.
Do the next thing.
I threw off the dirty ragged blanket and yanked off my threadbare coat, tossing both against the building. The chill hit me like a stinging wave. I pulled off my shirt and began shivering. Oh, this is dreadful. Do I have the willpower?
“Hey, get up. You can’t sleep on the sidewalk.”
I looked up to see one of our proud men in Blue.
“Come on, pal. Move it.” He poked me with his nightstick to emphasize the seriousness of my violation.
I staggered to my feet, pulled my shirt back on, and picked up the coat and blanket.
“What are you trying to do, freeze to death? There’s a shelter on East Third halfway down past Second Avenue.”
I shuffled out of the alley onto East Seventh. Guess my heart wasn’t in it. I thought I’d hid from passersby. But authorities have eyes everywhere. As I well knew.
Only a few cars were traveling Seventh, a contrast to its usual congestion and life. The city was sleeping—as much as it ever did. Which was not much. Like me.
“This blanket smells really bad,” I said aloud. I had retrieved it from the trash bin behind a clothing store near the Park. I assumed it was reasonably clean of bodily fluids and insects. But it still smelled rotten.
After a half mile, I turned onto East Second and found the shelter in the middle of the block. As he entered, a young man sitting at a table on a folding chair bolted upright, as if he’d been asleep. College-age, doubtless volunteering for college credit or to impress a girl. When I got my degree, we got credit through becoming experts in our field—although a Master’s of Information Technology didn’t offer much in the way of volunteering.
“Hi. Need a bed? Food?”
“Yeah, both. What time is it?”
“Two forty-five. Here, sign this sheet, then come on back, I’ll get you a bowl of soup and show you where to sleep.” He wrinkled his nose. “And I’ll get you a clean blanket.”
*
2 Eris (January 2006)
The little girl opened her eyes and then squinted in the bright antiseptic light. It hurts. So much—
A motion to the side caught her attention. “Gramma? Why are you here?”
“Hello, Eris, my dear.” Her face was pinched and worried; she looked like she had not slept. But Gramma lived in Dallas. What was she doing here—
Eris jerked upright. Mommy. Daddy—
“Eris, dear, I have some bad news.”
“Where are mommy and daddy?!” Tears formed in her eyes.
The old woman took the girl’s hand and shook her head. Matching tears appear in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, little one. They did not…survive. They did not suffer—”
Eris screamed and tried to get out of the bed. Two nurses appeared to hold her down, while a third inserted medication in the tube which led to her arm.
“Eris, Eris, please,” croaked her grandmother, “let them help you.” She stopped to take a breath. “It is terrible, terrible, I know. But we will be okay. You’ll come with me to live.”
Eris did not agree that it would be okay. They couldn’t be gone—they couldn’t! She squirmed under three nurses’ firm grips.
“Now, now, Eris,” one nurses said in an irritating soothing tone. “We’re just giving you something to calm down. Relax, honey.”
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
Her grandmother was speaking, but she couldn’t understand the words. A rushing sound filled her ears, and she felt like she was going blind.
As she began to drift off, she heard her gramma tell the nurses, “We have no other family. The poor little thing.”
In the near future, when biotechnology is stretching the limits of ethics and legality, a man, a woman, and a young child are caught up in a heavily funded project based on the work of a brilliant geneticist. But bio-research firms, Big Pharm, governments, and black marketeers see a way to become wealthy and powerful. Kidnappings, payoffs, political intrigue, and murder follow the test subjects, who must decide what to do with the data and the lives that have been destroyed—and find a way to save the child.
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