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Infinity Smashed: Electrical Girl
Prompt: Stuff100 ‘Thunder’ H/C Bingo ‘electrocution’
Word Count: 3323
Summary: M.D. thought she was odd. Then she got hit by lightning.
Notes: This is the "first" Infinity Smashed story, basically the start of the main Infinity Smashed plotline. Yes, finally you get to find out how this whacky train got going in the first place!
Electrical Girl
I’ve never been good with electricity. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a doohickey destroyer. Watches stop, light bulbs flicker, computers die gruesome deaths, the whole thing. Don’t even ask about the static cling issues. So the whole thing started on Spring Break of Vandorsky’s (and I guess my) freshman year, when she was positive I broke the TV.
We were trying to watch one of Bela Lugosi’s last films on Channel 9 during a rare, once-in-a-year thunderstorm, the one where our part of Arizona catches up on all the rain it never gets any other time. Other people might’ve unplugged everything and waited it out with candles and board games, but it was Vandorsky’s birthday, and “dark and stormy” was her kind of birthday weather. She also had a nigh-religious faith in old B movies, and it was apparently the first time in eons that Bela Lugosi Meets the Brooklyn Gorilla had been on the air. (Shocking, I know.) With that confluence of factors, she wouldn’t have missed it for Armageddon. The weather just made it more appropriate.
As she fiddled with the TV rabbit ears, she said, “M.D., if you break the TV today, I disown you as my associate.”
“I’m on the other side of the room,” I protested from my exile on the couch. “Way out of the danger zone.”
Vandorsky pushed the on button. The screen popped on, displaying a bad Dean Martin impersonator. He got out a couple lines, and then there was a boom of thunder and the TV went black.
Generally, Vandorsky’s medication killed her feelings dead, but the look she gave me could’ve poisoned a well.
“Oh, come on, that was not my fault!” I complained. “It was the weather! I was way over here! I—”
The glare was not thawing. “Fix it.”
“What?” I whined.
She pointed at the window with one black-painted fingernail. “If it really wasn’t you, then the antenna’s probably on the blink again. So go fix it.”
“Out there?” As though to back me up, the wind howled and hurled rain like missiles against the glass.
“You’ve slept in worse.”
“Not lately! Your parents may think I’m the Second Coming of Satan, but even they—”
She began ushering me towards the window. “It’s March. You won’t freeze. And if it’s not your fault, I’ll be very sorry. But I think it is, so go fix it.”
I sighed, rolled my eyes, and went up to the window. “I don’t believe this. The twister is going to haul us off to Oz in a second, and you’re—”
Vandorsky unfolded to her full height and gave me the deranged Goth stare that had impressed me in the fifth grade. “You know what day this is. You know what movie this is.”
“All right, all right, quit with the face, I’m going…”
Had we lived basically anywhere else in Arizona, the rain would’ve been downright refreshing. But we lived in the cold part of Arizona. (Yes, it exists. High altitude.) My only hope was to make it fast.
Getting to the TV antenna wasn’t hard. This was not the first time it’d flaked, and it wasn’t the first time I’d had to fix it either, since Vandorsky had the coordination of a sedated Muppet. I pushed up the window, crawled out onto the sill, transferred to the fence from there, and after some scooting pulled myself onto the roof. I was already soaked to the skin and nearly slipped on the wet roof, but caught myself and made it to the apex.
From there I could see the antenna. Sure enough, it had bent from the wind.
The storm was raging around me, but I inflated my lungs and shouted down, “So not my fault!”
From the window, I could just barely hear Vandorsky’s response over the wind: “I am very sorry and resolve you of wrongdoing. Now fix it.” Then the window shut.
I rolled my eyes and gripped the antenna. “I could break my neck up here, you know. You better have lots of hot popcorn upon my return.” I finally got the antenna straight. “You owe me so—”
And then the lightning hit.
I don’t remember it. Probably never will. For all I know, I finished my sentence, or said some more, but some neurons probably got pretty well blasted, so I’ll never know for sure. All I have to go on is what Vandorsky later told me: she heard a thunderous BOOM, the whole house went black, and she dashed to the window just in time to see me hit the lawn like a sack of laundry—thankfully the grass part. Which I promptly set on fire. Well, smoldered it, what with the rain. But still, she was adamant that it was me and not the lightning.
She dashed out the door and found me in a seizure, which apparently lasted a minute or two. Thankfully, Vandorsky knew how to deal with those so that part, at least, wasn’t so bad, according to her anyway.
When the voltage had finally run its course, I came to, dizzy, sore, burned, and utterly drained. My memory clicked on, enough for me to register Vandorsky leaning over me, eyes wide, obviously trying to be alarmed despite the drag on her endocrine system. I felt a pang of regret; her mascara was dripping down her face, and her spiked hair had completely deflated.
“That,” I mumbled, “was not my fault.”
“I’m calling 911,” she told me.
“Don’t do that,” I said plaintively. “I’m uninsured.”
She called them anyway, though she had to run to the neighbors to do it. There wasn’t much I could do to stop her; I was still pretty addled and couldn’t get up. My memory kept cutting in and out, my sense of time was twisted into a pretzel, and everything felt like I was doing it for the second or third time.
Things mostly cut out after that. I surfaced for a brief bit in the ambulance; I could see the tubes and bottles above me. The EMTs were getting my sleeves off and I saw the red marks on my arms, feathery and branching out. They looked oddly pretty next to the old scars.
“What’re those?” I asked.
The EMT looked up. She had a needle in her hand. “Lightning flowers.”
“Oh.” And I was out again. Just as well; I’ve never done well with needles. According to the papers afterward, I didn’t do well with them then, either, and gave the EMTs some grief before they successfully managed to pin me down and sedate me.
The next time I came to, I was in paper apron and a hospital bed, staring out the window. The rain had stopped, but the clouds were still there. A large, fluffy cat sat on the sill, watching me placidly.
“Kitty,” I said. And my memory went out again.
Then the real circus began.
You wouldn’t think some stupid kid getting hit by lightning would be big news, but I guess it was a slow day, and highly improbable ways of getting injured have always been popular. For a hot second, I was apparently a minor sensation, though I don’t remember any of it and only have Vandorsky’s word on it. Apparently the battalion of nurses protected me from most of that, and I was able to come back to myself in relative peace. Not that it did me any good; once I had enough wit to keep an emotion going, I was terrified. No insurance, no money, no guardian, which meant that any minute, I was positive the hospital would kick my broke carcass to whoever they figured was responsible for me. There were a bunch of people that possibly met that designation, none of whom I wanted to see. In my post-lightning addled state, I wasn’t able to think all of that, but I did know one thing: I had to get out.
A shame I still couldn’t remember half of anything. Or get up.
It took a while to work through all the déjà vu, but eventually I realized that the cat on the windowsill was still there. I doubt I would’ve noticed if the window hadn’t been in front of my face a lot and if the cat hadn’t been the largest pile of fluff I’d ever seen. It wore a fancy mesh harness/backpack around its body, but no collar. And every time I looked up, it was there, watching me intently.
It was still watching me when I finally gained enough strength and intelligence to try getting out of bed. I was sitting up and pondering my feet when the cat pawed at the window.
“No,” I told it. “I don’t feed strangers.”
To which the cat responded, I never expected you to.
The words weren’t sound but thought, intricate and delicate as carved ivory—and also male, though how I knew that, I didn’t know. It was nice not having to guess, at least.
“You’re smart,” I said.
Indeed. No need to speak aloud; subvocally will do. How do you feel?
That was a question I didn’t want to think about too hard. “Are you an English kitty? You sound English.”
I am not. That’s your subconscious projecting onto me. I won’t waste your time; I’m afraid you’re in a bit of trouble—and I don’t mean the bill or Social Services.
I hung my head with a groan. Things were still pretty scrambled, but I could already tell that this day was not going to improve as it progressed.
“I ruined Vandorsky’s birthday,” I lamented.
I’m sure she understands. Normally, I’d break this to you gently, with proper introductions, but I’m afraid we don’t have time. Can you walk?
In answer, I started scooting my legs over the edge of the bed.
Good. We need to get you out of here, before Peripheral Immigration shows up.
I got my feet to the floor, wiggled my toes experimentally. “Who? What? What’s the plan again?”
Your accident—my condolences, by the way—has gotten the attention of a few officials you’d probably rather not speak to in your current condition. He saw my blank stare. We need to get you out of the country. I can help you. Do you understand?
I squinted at him. “Yes.” No.
He tried again. Do I have your permission to assist you?
That, I felt a little more sure about. “Yes.”
He sighed. Good enough. Come on, let’s go. I’m afraid I can’t open the window from this side.
I was wobbly and light-headed, but managed to get to my feet, grab my IV pole, and shuffle my way for the window. It took all my sedated strength, but I got it open… a crack. Then it jammed.
I whined with frustration. My hands burned, the IV was everything I didn’t want inside me, and I didn’t want to try hobbling out the front door past however many medical staff.
Hold on. The pack on the cat’s back opened up, and a spindly metal arm came out. It didn’t look particularly strong, but he got it into the crack and between that and my arms, we got the window the rest of the way up—or enough for me to slither out anyway.
But before I could try, he said, let me take care of that IV for you.
I laughed. “What IV? There’s no IV.” I reached for the tube, planning to pull.
No! Don’t do that. Let me handle it. Another metal arm came from his pack.
If he wanted to do it, fine. I turned my face away and screwed up my face, but while the sensation was upsetting, it wasn’t as bad as I expected. Those little arms were pretty dexterous.
There, all done. Can you make it down?
I just laughed at him. We were on the first floor; of course I could make it down. There was a mammoth yucca underneath me, but that was no big deal. It seemed safer to fall on than the rocks. “I’m M.D. What’s yours?”
He sounded dubious. I don’t think you could pronounce my name. What’s a common name for men here?
I said the first that popped into my head. “Bob.” Then, “Bobcat! Yes. Okay?”
I could feel a tingle at my temples, as though he was doing a quick scan to figure out what the word meant and why I thought it was funny. He seemed to like it, anyway. Bobcat will do fine for now. Pleased to meet you. I’ll be your caseworker for today.
“Okay.” He couldn’t be worse than the human ones I’d encountered.
While I slithered between the yucca and the brick wall of the hospital (and took a lot of thorny pokes to my anatomy in the process), Bobcat jumped down to the ground; it might’ve been a tight squeeze for me, there was plenty of space for him. The arms had gone back into his pack. Are you properly dressed for this?
“Enh. Not really.” Underneath the paper apron, goosebumps were popping up all over my skin, and I was shivering, not just because I was cold. My vision was starting to sharpen at the center and blur at the edges, but at least my head was starting to clear.
Bobcat gave me a searching look. Are you all right?
“I don’t like hospitals.” I pulled the gown tight around my body, tied the plastic laces around my middle to try and hold the flimsy thing together as best I could. “Can you drive?” I was now alert enough to realize how stupid that sounded.
Alas, no. I did come with money for a cab, though.
“Great. Come on, pit stop.”
I staggered to the cabs lingering around the hospital. None of them seemed at all surprised to see me in my paper apron and bandages.
…
The Vandorsky house still had some news vans and such around it, but I had snuck into her house before. It took a lot of effort in my dilapidated state, but I managed to cut through some lawns and (after a couple attempts) climb the fence into the backyard, where I knocked on the back door.
Vandorsky opened it. “Dude. You should not be here. Are you okay?”
I grinned winningly at her and threw out my bandaged arms. “Adventure!”
“Yeah, okay.” She ushered me in, and I leaned on her for a moment.
“Sorry I ruined your birthday.”
“It’s okay.” She glanced down and back. “You have a cat.”
“He’s my caseworker.”
One of the wonderful things about Vandorsky was that nothing ever fazed her. “Okay. Nice to meet you, kitty, but you have to stay outside.” She shut the door on him. Then, to me, “your stuff is upstairs. You better hurry, before my parents get back.”
My old Army backpack was stashed in Vandorsky’s all-black room, looking downright colorful in comparison. I gave it a happy squeeze. No matter where I was sleeping or what I was doing, the big green pack had been my staunch companion, weathering the years with dignity, grace, and a lot of duct tape. Among the rest of my necessities, it had a change of clothes, and I took the opportunity to take a quick hot shower and change. The heat helped revive me a little.
I also took the opportunity to give myself a good looking over. Physically, at least, I seemed to have gotten off easy. I still felt sore, dizzy, and frail, but my skinny brown arms still seemed in one piece, and the burns looked pretty minor. The only thing that suggested I’d had anything more than a cooking accident were the lightning flowers up my arms: dark, leafy patterns that were now blistering. They hurt, but not as much as I expected, so I grabbed some new bandages from my pack and covered up. Washing my hair had showed some black instead of blond at the tips, but whatever. If I’d picked up any new injuries from my ecstatic reunion with the ground, I couldn’t differentiate them from the old ones, so I didn’t bother trying.
It felt wonderful to be warm again. I’d always had trouble with the cold, and March in Flagstaff was nothing to sneeze at. But in my bag were my spare jeans, undershirt, over-shirt, sweatshirts, and thick socks, all reasonably clean. Also bike gloves; I wasn’t sure if they’d make handling things any less painful, but it couldn’t hurt to try, and at least they’d cover the burns.
While I changed, Vandorsky said through the door, “They came looking for you.”
“Who?”
“Guys in suits. They asked me if my parents were home and wouldn’t talk to me; they left when they realized you weren’t here. Also, there was a lady.”
“With the suits?”
“No, after them. She was creepy. Didn’t speak English very well, tall, short black hair.”
Wasn’t ringing any bells. “What was her accent?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t recognize it. She said she was your sister?”
“No.” None of my foster siblings had ever been close enough to call a sister, certainly none matching that description, and Vandorsky knew that.
“I didn’t think so.” Vandorsky sounded almost annoyed at herself. “She looked a little like you, so I guess… never mind. It was dumb.”
I shoved my head out. “Wait, she did?” I had never met anyone who looked like me, not in this town. My race had been a matter of some debate throughout my foster adventures.
“Well, sort of. Her face was kind of like yours? But her coloring was way different, like cooler? And she was mega-buff.”
“Huh.” I pulled my head back in and continued getting dressed. “Wonder what her deal was.”
“I don’t know.” That was odd. Vandorsky always thought something about everyone. “I just know I never want to see her again. Everyone acted weird around her.”
Hmm. “Hey, Vandorsky? You saw that cat, right?”
“Yeah. I saw the cat. Big. Fluffy. Kinda brownish-tan, right?”
“Yeah. Did he talk to you?”
“No.” She sounded tense. “Is he talking to you?”
“Yeah.”
I’d never heard that tone in her voice before. “What’s he saying?”
“That I need to get out of here. And I think I’m going to take him up on it.”
A long, long silence. Then, “okay, M.D. Okay.”
She didn’t sound incredulous. She didn’t sound upset. She just sounded tired, and at the time, I was too sore and beleaguered to think past that. I was just glad she didn’t seem to think I was messing with her.
I came out, fully dressed. I felt a lot better clean and clothed. “Thanks, Vandorsky. Don’t worry about me, okay?” She was stone-faced, and in a way I found a little worrying. “I’ll be okay. I’m always okay.”
“Yeah. Just another adventure for you, right?”
I smiled, relieved. “Yeah, just another adventure.”
She looked at me. “Air hug?”
“Air hug.”
We hugged the air in front of us, something she’d come up with when she found out I didn’t do the whole physical contact thing.
“Sorry again about your birthday.”
“I’ll have more. Good luck, M.D. Call me when you’re situated, huh?”
Bobcat was waiting impatiently for me at the front door. I shouldered my backpack and left.
“I feel a lot clearer in the head than I thought I would be,” I remarked. “I mean, just a while ago, I could barely tell front from back, and now I actually feel pretty okay.”
Ah. Bobcat’s mental voice sounded a little embarrassed. That’s me, actually. I’ve taken the liberty of letting you piggyback on my clarity, for the short term. I apologize, but I thought it might go smoother that way.
“Is that why I’m taking this so calmly?”
Yes. I’m afraid that you’ll crash within an hour or two, but hopefully we’ll have you to safety by then.
So the only reason I was this collected was because my mind was being tampered with. I felt like I should be angry, but it wouldn’t come. I wondered if that was Bobcat’s doing too, but didn’t ask.
Bobcat darted ahead of me. He seemed to know where he was going, so I followed after him.
Word Count: 3323
Summary: M.D. thought she was odd. Then she got hit by lightning.
Notes: This is the "first" Infinity Smashed story, basically the start of the main Infinity Smashed plotline. Yes, finally you get to find out how this whacky train got going in the first place!
Electrical Girl
I’ve never been good with electricity. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a doohickey destroyer. Watches stop, light bulbs flicker, computers die gruesome deaths, the whole thing. Don’t even ask about the static cling issues. So the whole thing started on Spring Break of Vandorsky’s (and I guess my) freshman year, when she was positive I broke the TV.
We were trying to watch one of Bela Lugosi’s last films on Channel 9 during a rare, once-in-a-year thunderstorm, the one where our part of Arizona catches up on all the rain it never gets any other time. Other people might’ve unplugged everything and waited it out with candles and board games, but it was Vandorsky’s birthday, and “dark and stormy” was her kind of birthday weather. She also had a nigh-religious faith in old B movies, and it was apparently the first time in eons that Bela Lugosi Meets the Brooklyn Gorilla had been on the air. (Shocking, I know.) With that confluence of factors, she wouldn’t have missed it for Armageddon. The weather just made it more appropriate.
As she fiddled with the TV rabbit ears, she said, “M.D., if you break the TV today, I disown you as my associate.”
“I’m on the other side of the room,” I protested from my exile on the couch. “Way out of the danger zone.”
Vandorsky pushed the on button. The screen popped on, displaying a bad Dean Martin impersonator. He got out a couple lines, and then there was a boom of thunder and the TV went black.
Generally, Vandorsky’s medication killed her feelings dead, but the look she gave me could’ve poisoned a well.
“Oh, come on, that was not my fault!” I complained. “It was the weather! I was way over here! I—”
The glare was not thawing. “Fix it.”
“What?” I whined.
She pointed at the window with one black-painted fingernail. “If it really wasn’t you, then the antenna’s probably on the blink again. So go fix it.”
“Out there?” As though to back me up, the wind howled and hurled rain like missiles against the glass.
“You’ve slept in worse.”
“Not lately! Your parents may think I’m the Second Coming of Satan, but even they—”
She began ushering me towards the window. “It’s March. You won’t freeze. And if it’s not your fault, I’ll be very sorry. But I think it is, so go fix it.”
I sighed, rolled my eyes, and went up to the window. “I don’t believe this. The twister is going to haul us off to Oz in a second, and you’re—”
Vandorsky unfolded to her full height and gave me the deranged Goth stare that had impressed me in the fifth grade. “You know what day this is. You know what movie this is.”
“All right, all right, quit with the face, I’m going…”
Had we lived basically anywhere else in Arizona, the rain would’ve been downright refreshing. But we lived in the cold part of Arizona. (Yes, it exists. High altitude.) My only hope was to make it fast.
Getting to the TV antenna wasn’t hard. This was not the first time it’d flaked, and it wasn’t the first time I’d had to fix it either, since Vandorsky had the coordination of a sedated Muppet. I pushed up the window, crawled out onto the sill, transferred to the fence from there, and after some scooting pulled myself onto the roof. I was already soaked to the skin and nearly slipped on the wet roof, but caught myself and made it to the apex.
From there I could see the antenna. Sure enough, it had bent from the wind.
The storm was raging around me, but I inflated my lungs and shouted down, “So not my fault!”
From the window, I could just barely hear Vandorsky’s response over the wind: “I am very sorry and resolve you of wrongdoing. Now fix it.” Then the window shut.
I rolled my eyes and gripped the antenna. “I could break my neck up here, you know. You better have lots of hot popcorn upon my return.” I finally got the antenna straight. “You owe me so—”
And then the lightning hit.
I don’t remember it. Probably never will. For all I know, I finished my sentence, or said some more, but some neurons probably got pretty well blasted, so I’ll never know for sure. All I have to go on is what Vandorsky later told me: she heard a thunderous BOOM, the whole house went black, and she dashed to the window just in time to see me hit the lawn like a sack of laundry—thankfully the grass part. Which I promptly set on fire. Well, smoldered it, what with the rain. But still, she was adamant that it was me and not the lightning.
She dashed out the door and found me in a seizure, which apparently lasted a minute or two. Thankfully, Vandorsky knew how to deal with those so that part, at least, wasn’t so bad, according to her anyway.
When the voltage had finally run its course, I came to, dizzy, sore, burned, and utterly drained. My memory clicked on, enough for me to register Vandorsky leaning over me, eyes wide, obviously trying to be alarmed despite the drag on her endocrine system. I felt a pang of regret; her mascara was dripping down her face, and her spiked hair had completely deflated.
“That,” I mumbled, “was not my fault.”
“I’m calling 911,” she told me.
“Don’t do that,” I said plaintively. “I’m uninsured.”
She called them anyway, though she had to run to the neighbors to do it. There wasn’t much I could do to stop her; I was still pretty addled and couldn’t get up. My memory kept cutting in and out, my sense of time was twisted into a pretzel, and everything felt like I was doing it for the second or third time.
Things mostly cut out after that. I surfaced for a brief bit in the ambulance; I could see the tubes and bottles above me. The EMTs were getting my sleeves off and I saw the red marks on my arms, feathery and branching out. They looked oddly pretty next to the old scars.
“What’re those?” I asked.
The EMT looked up. She had a needle in her hand. “Lightning flowers.”
“Oh.” And I was out again. Just as well; I’ve never done well with needles. According to the papers afterward, I didn’t do well with them then, either, and gave the EMTs some grief before they successfully managed to pin me down and sedate me.
The next time I came to, I was in paper apron and a hospital bed, staring out the window. The rain had stopped, but the clouds were still there. A large, fluffy cat sat on the sill, watching me placidly.
“Kitty,” I said. And my memory went out again.
Then the real circus began.
You wouldn’t think some stupid kid getting hit by lightning would be big news, but I guess it was a slow day, and highly improbable ways of getting injured have always been popular. For a hot second, I was apparently a minor sensation, though I don’t remember any of it and only have Vandorsky’s word on it. Apparently the battalion of nurses protected me from most of that, and I was able to come back to myself in relative peace. Not that it did me any good; once I had enough wit to keep an emotion going, I was terrified. No insurance, no money, no guardian, which meant that any minute, I was positive the hospital would kick my broke carcass to whoever they figured was responsible for me. There were a bunch of people that possibly met that designation, none of whom I wanted to see. In my post-lightning addled state, I wasn’t able to think all of that, but I did know one thing: I had to get out.
A shame I still couldn’t remember half of anything. Or get up.
It took a while to work through all the déjà vu, but eventually I realized that the cat on the windowsill was still there. I doubt I would’ve noticed if the window hadn’t been in front of my face a lot and if the cat hadn’t been the largest pile of fluff I’d ever seen. It wore a fancy mesh harness/backpack around its body, but no collar. And every time I looked up, it was there, watching me intently.
It was still watching me when I finally gained enough strength and intelligence to try getting out of bed. I was sitting up and pondering my feet when the cat pawed at the window.
“No,” I told it. “I don’t feed strangers.”
To which the cat responded, I never expected you to.
The words weren’t sound but thought, intricate and delicate as carved ivory—and also male, though how I knew that, I didn’t know. It was nice not having to guess, at least.
“You’re smart,” I said.
Indeed. No need to speak aloud; subvocally will do. How do you feel?
That was a question I didn’t want to think about too hard. “Are you an English kitty? You sound English.”
I am not. That’s your subconscious projecting onto me. I won’t waste your time; I’m afraid you’re in a bit of trouble—and I don’t mean the bill or Social Services.
I hung my head with a groan. Things were still pretty scrambled, but I could already tell that this day was not going to improve as it progressed.
“I ruined Vandorsky’s birthday,” I lamented.
I’m sure she understands. Normally, I’d break this to you gently, with proper introductions, but I’m afraid we don’t have time. Can you walk?
In answer, I started scooting my legs over the edge of the bed.
Good. We need to get you out of here, before Peripheral Immigration shows up.
I got my feet to the floor, wiggled my toes experimentally. “Who? What? What’s the plan again?”
Your accident—my condolences, by the way—has gotten the attention of a few officials you’d probably rather not speak to in your current condition. He saw my blank stare. We need to get you out of the country. I can help you. Do you understand?
I squinted at him. “Yes.” No.
He tried again. Do I have your permission to assist you?
That, I felt a little more sure about. “Yes.”
He sighed. Good enough. Come on, let’s go. I’m afraid I can’t open the window from this side.
I was wobbly and light-headed, but managed to get to my feet, grab my IV pole, and shuffle my way for the window. It took all my sedated strength, but I got it open… a crack. Then it jammed.
I whined with frustration. My hands burned, the IV was everything I didn’t want inside me, and I didn’t want to try hobbling out the front door past however many medical staff.
Hold on. The pack on the cat’s back opened up, and a spindly metal arm came out. It didn’t look particularly strong, but he got it into the crack and between that and my arms, we got the window the rest of the way up—or enough for me to slither out anyway.
But before I could try, he said, let me take care of that IV for you.
I laughed. “What IV? There’s no IV.” I reached for the tube, planning to pull.
No! Don’t do that. Let me handle it. Another metal arm came from his pack.
If he wanted to do it, fine. I turned my face away and screwed up my face, but while the sensation was upsetting, it wasn’t as bad as I expected. Those little arms were pretty dexterous.
There, all done. Can you make it down?
I just laughed at him. We were on the first floor; of course I could make it down. There was a mammoth yucca underneath me, but that was no big deal. It seemed safer to fall on than the rocks. “I’m M.D. What’s yours?”
He sounded dubious. I don’t think you could pronounce my name. What’s a common name for men here?
I said the first that popped into my head. “Bob.” Then, “Bobcat! Yes. Okay?”
I could feel a tingle at my temples, as though he was doing a quick scan to figure out what the word meant and why I thought it was funny. He seemed to like it, anyway. Bobcat will do fine for now. Pleased to meet you. I’ll be your caseworker for today.
“Okay.” He couldn’t be worse than the human ones I’d encountered.
While I slithered between the yucca and the brick wall of the hospital (and took a lot of thorny pokes to my anatomy in the process), Bobcat jumped down to the ground; it might’ve been a tight squeeze for me, there was plenty of space for him. The arms had gone back into his pack. Are you properly dressed for this?
“Enh. Not really.” Underneath the paper apron, goosebumps were popping up all over my skin, and I was shivering, not just because I was cold. My vision was starting to sharpen at the center and blur at the edges, but at least my head was starting to clear.
Bobcat gave me a searching look. Are you all right?
“I don’t like hospitals.” I pulled the gown tight around my body, tied the plastic laces around my middle to try and hold the flimsy thing together as best I could. “Can you drive?” I was now alert enough to realize how stupid that sounded.
Alas, no. I did come with money for a cab, though.
“Great. Come on, pit stop.”
I staggered to the cabs lingering around the hospital. None of them seemed at all surprised to see me in my paper apron and bandages.
…
The Vandorsky house still had some news vans and such around it, but I had snuck into her house before. It took a lot of effort in my dilapidated state, but I managed to cut through some lawns and (after a couple attempts) climb the fence into the backyard, where I knocked on the back door.
Vandorsky opened it. “Dude. You should not be here. Are you okay?”
I grinned winningly at her and threw out my bandaged arms. “Adventure!”
“Yeah, okay.” She ushered me in, and I leaned on her for a moment.
“Sorry I ruined your birthday.”
“It’s okay.” She glanced down and back. “You have a cat.”
“He’s my caseworker.”
One of the wonderful things about Vandorsky was that nothing ever fazed her. “Okay. Nice to meet you, kitty, but you have to stay outside.” She shut the door on him. Then, to me, “your stuff is upstairs. You better hurry, before my parents get back.”
My old Army backpack was stashed in Vandorsky’s all-black room, looking downright colorful in comparison. I gave it a happy squeeze. No matter where I was sleeping or what I was doing, the big green pack had been my staunch companion, weathering the years with dignity, grace, and a lot of duct tape. Among the rest of my necessities, it had a change of clothes, and I took the opportunity to take a quick hot shower and change. The heat helped revive me a little.
I also took the opportunity to give myself a good looking over. Physically, at least, I seemed to have gotten off easy. I still felt sore, dizzy, and frail, but my skinny brown arms still seemed in one piece, and the burns looked pretty minor. The only thing that suggested I’d had anything more than a cooking accident were the lightning flowers up my arms: dark, leafy patterns that were now blistering. They hurt, but not as much as I expected, so I grabbed some new bandages from my pack and covered up. Washing my hair had showed some black instead of blond at the tips, but whatever. If I’d picked up any new injuries from my ecstatic reunion with the ground, I couldn’t differentiate them from the old ones, so I didn’t bother trying.
It felt wonderful to be warm again. I’d always had trouble with the cold, and March in Flagstaff was nothing to sneeze at. But in my bag were my spare jeans, undershirt, over-shirt, sweatshirts, and thick socks, all reasonably clean. Also bike gloves; I wasn’t sure if they’d make handling things any less painful, but it couldn’t hurt to try, and at least they’d cover the burns.
While I changed, Vandorsky said through the door, “They came looking for you.”
“Who?”
“Guys in suits. They asked me if my parents were home and wouldn’t talk to me; they left when they realized you weren’t here. Also, there was a lady.”
“With the suits?”
“No, after them. She was creepy. Didn’t speak English very well, tall, short black hair.”
Wasn’t ringing any bells. “What was her accent?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t recognize it. She said she was your sister?”
“No.” None of my foster siblings had ever been close enough to call a sister, certainly none matching that description, and Vandorsky knew that.
“I didn’t think so.” Vandorsky sounded almost annoyed at herself. “She looked a little like you, so I guess… never mind. It was dumb.”
I shoved my head out. “Wait, she did?” I had never met anyone who looked like me, not in this town. My race had been a matter of some debate throughout my foster adventures.
“Well, sort of. Her face was kind of like yours? But her coloring was way different, like cooler? And she was mega-buff.”
“Huh.” I pulled my head back in and continued getting dressed. “Wonder what her deal was.”
“I don’t know.” That was odd. Vandorsky always thought something about everyone. “I just know I never want to see her again. Everyone acted weird around her.”
Hmm. “Hey, Vandorsky? You saw that cat, right?”
“Yeah. I saw the cat. Big. Fluffy. Kinda brownish-tan, right?”
“Yeah. Did he talk to you?”
“No.” She sounded tense. “Is he talking to you?”
“Yeah.”
I’d never heard that tone in her voice before. “What’s he saying?”
“That I need to get out of here. And I think I’m going to take him up on it.”
A long, long silence. Then, “okay, M.D. Okay.”
She didn’t sound incredulous. She didn’t sound upset. She just sounded tired, and at the time, I was too sore and beleaguered to think past that. I was just glad she didn’t seem to think I was messing with her.
I came out, fully dressed. I felt a lot better clean and clothed. “Thanks, Vandorsky. Don’t worry about me, okay?” She was stone-faced, and in a way I found a little worrying. “I’ll be okay. I’m always okay.”
“Yeah. Just another adventure for you, right?”
I smiled, relieved. “Yeah, just another adventure.”
She looked at me. “Air hug?”
“Air hug.”
We hugged the air in front of us, something she’d come up with when she found out I didn’t do the whole physical contact thing.
“Sorry again about your birthday.”
“I’ll have more. Good luck, M.D. Call me when you’re situated, huh?”
Bobcat was waiting impatiently for me at the front door. I shouldered my backpack and left.
“I feel a lot clearer in the head than I thought I would be,” I remarked. “I mean, just a while ago, I could barely tell front from back, and now I actually feel pretty okay.”
Ah. Bobcat’s mental voice sounded a little embarrassed. That’s me, actually. I’ve taken the liberty of letting you piggyback on my clarity, for the short term. I apologize, but I thought it might go smoother that way.
“Is that why I’m taking this so calmly?”
Yes. I’m afraid that you’ll crash within an hour or two, but hopefully we’ll have you to safety by then.
So the only reason I was this collected was because my mind was being tampered with. I felt like I should be angry, but it wouldn’t come. I wondered if that was Bobcat’s doing too, but didn’t ask.
Bobcat darted ahead of me. He seemed to know where he was going, so I followed after him.
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--Rogan
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I think you mean 'absolve'?
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Also, I'm pleased/terrified to realize you described Bobcat's "voice" the way I've been interpreting any dialogue you've mentioned from him. The carved-ivory-preciseness, I mean. Mindspeech is hard to put into language.
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--Rogan
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--Janusz
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I hadn't heard that! I actually based some of it on one of my uncles, who had family reputation of never being able to wear a watch, because they'd always stop. Nobody was sure why this was so, but our mother theorized that he had some kind of bodily electric field or something that interfered with watches and such. (And who knows whether that family myth was true!)
--Rogan
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I know that polyfrazzlemented has issues with electric charge, sometimes people accidentally glitch the trackpad of their laptop or cause the internet to shut down, and they've had problems with cars breaking on them
--Janusz