“Your brother, Donny, almost died of exposure, Ms. Summers” said
Doctor Binney. “It’s very lucky for them
you came by when you did. If we didn’t
have the new Synaloe™ they’d have lost their fingers, their noses,
toes and… well, other parts.”
The doctor turned his attention to Lyle. “The other patient, the one with no I.D.,
he’s better off, but these SPECTACLs use a conductive cream that froze to the
back of his head and we can’t peel the unit off without tearing away a chunk of
skin – and if we tear out one of his brain implants, it could cause an
infection that could lead to Meningitis.
We’ll just have to wait until he regains consciousness and try again.”
“When will they wake up?” asked Portia.
“They’re sedated for now. Give
it time. We see this with the Fullsenz
addicts. They stay hooked into that box
until they starve to death.”
Portia looked down at Donny with disgust. How could such a clever prick of an older
brother have turned into such a Pheely-geek?
Portia had not flown all the way home from Florida just to watch her
brother sleep in a hospital. Their
grandparents were moving in with their parents and she had come to box up the
remaining keepsakes from her childhood bedroom.
The trip had been planned for a month and she assumed her impending
presence had inspired her parents to inflict “tough love” on Donny, though they
might not have been conscious of the connection.
Beside Donny, in the next bed, lay Mickey Humboldt, Portia’s first
teenage crush. She couldn’t help feeling
a little flutter of excitement, even all these years later, standing in the
presence of ever-cute Mickey Humboldt.
Just lying there, he was alluring and dangerous – even with his face
covered in medicinal cream.
Donny opened his eyes after about 10 minutes of Portia standing and
staring at him with a mixture of tenderness, anger and disgust. Though he was still recognizable as her
brother, Donny was 15 kilos overweight.
His long, dark hair was unkempt and he had a beard that made him look
even heavier. The skin that wasn’t
covered in cream was gray and clammy.
“Porsh,” he squeaked out.
“Porsh, you’re …”
“Beautiful?”
“Older,” said Donny.
Portia frowned at him but couldn’t help smiling when he winked his
cream-covered, right eyelid. “What
happened?”
“You started a pheely session sitting on a snow bank.”
“Oh, bad idea.”
“Yes, right up there with licking a metal pole on a subzero day.”
Donny looked to his right and left, stiffly. He saw his friends. “How are they?”
“They’ll survive, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “If you want to know what I think of the
three of you almost killing yourselves so you can thrill-ride in a nonexistent
world living wasted lives then…”
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