Chapter 47 - Monster Hospital

20 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

To Oliver the day had been a beating. Notwithstanding the extra eight hours in the day, he had started early with the discovery he now had a chronic condition, and that his voice and hair had been reduced in stature. He endured multiple exhausting aptitude tests, and finally ended the day with a disastrous flirtation with his aunt. Jennifer kept her distance at dinner, and ignored him, even when he offered a token of an apology, or a warm greeting as they passed in the hallway.

“Lick them tomorrow,” Benjamin offered. He had picked Oliver up and taken him over to the makeshift changing station in his room, what had formerly been a desk, but now had blankets and an array of wipes. The smaller man’s eyes were distant, lost in his thoughts. In two days, he had bounced from the past to the present to the future, to alternate timelines and astral projections all deep in his mind. Nothing seemed real anymore. Oliver looked up at Ben’s smirk of a smile and returned a frown. He closed his eyes and took a short breath, waiting for his new father to begin the ritual.

“Oliver, you have the hardest job, do you know that? I don’t know how you do it.” Oliver opened an eye to see Ben as he pulled at a drawer looking for garments appropriate for sleepwear.

“Before we met, I didn’t even know this was happening, but every day I slowly build up,” Ben searched for the word, “it’s like a charge, just all the heavy burdens of my life wearing on my body, and now I have you and you just soak it all up. I can’t get enough of it. No matter how much I overflow, how much I build up, you just take it all away. And you do it so effortlessly.”

Oliver opened his other eye, he stared at Ben, who with smooth movement came down and reached around the smaller man. He brought all of Oliver’s mass entirely into his chest, letting him linger there. He could feel Ben’s chest relax as the arms grew tighter, the giant heart slowing. Oliver took a deep breath and with tiny hands he gripped Ben’s shirt, unsure if he was supposed to do something else. After a few seconds, Ben returned Oliver to the impromptu changing pad, satisfied with the exchange. He had at least accomplished one thing today, and it was helping lighten his sour mood.

With practiced hands, Ben pulled Oliver’s shorts past the knees and off his feet and ripped the pull-ups in one deft movement. He turned to the side and grabbed a prepared single deep blue garment; he unfolded it and began shaping it to match Oliver’s underside. He then laid the garment next to Oliver. He heaved the small man up and over, and his large fingers easily brought up the sides and tapes. Before sealing it, he reached down, bringing up a large bottle of powder.

“Say when.” Benjamin offered, hoping to lighten the mood. Oliver tilted his head to avoid looking, and then gasped as the dry flakes were sprinkled like parmesan cheese on his privates.

“That’s fine.” Oliver offered, only to have Ben quickly seal him in his new night underwear, tightening the tapes at Oliver’s stomach.

“I see you smiling,” Ben pointed at Oliver’s chest, his voice pitched up, giddy as Oliver’s mouth reshaped to brighten the room.

“You said you guys aren’t servants, but since I’ve moved here you’ve been my chauffeur, my chef, and now you’re my personal valet. I’m not even paying you.” Oliver chided back. Ben and Oliver knew these were not luxuries. Oliver may have a servant, but he could not give the taller man orders.

Was the lifestyle of the rich still glamorous if you could not make any choices? Even now Ben had returned with a diaper cover, a large white elastic and vinyl overwear that he carefully slipped up Oliver’s legs. No matter how extravagant and decadent the experience of having another man dress you, the choice of garments inverted what should be a luxury for Oliver. He had to wear this, because his dad said so.

Ben cut to what was bothering Oliver, “Jennifer was so excited to be with you today, what happened?” Oliver blinked, but one look at Ben’s face confirmed why he was so forward with the question. His best friend, his wingman, wanted to hear how he crashed and burned.

“She wanted to go the distance, and I didn’t,” being honest about it was surprising to Oliver, he had done the gentleman-thing and winchestered out.

Ben the dad came back, “Yeah, um, you two have to live together, I don’t think you two should be close in that way.” He had been Jennifer’s father for less than a week and already needed to protect her from all the horny boys.

Oliver became serious, and for a brief moment the two men were equals.

“Ben, I’m going to tell you something. I didn’t tell the air force this. Not I.E.D.R. Not State. No one. But I’m telling you because I would have wanted…” Oliver drifted from the sentence, “I’m telling you. The Nitz didn’t teach me their language by having me sit in a classroom or watch movies or anything. They, um…” Oliver turned his head and bit his lip, his diaper crinkled slightly as he shifted up, “They did their…” He brought his hand up to his head and nestled it. Taking a large breath, he turned to face Ben directly, “They can put thoughts into your head. Like telepathy.”

Ben slowed his breathing through his nose, but otherwise kept his mouth fixed. He came down closer to Oliver, then nodded, “Thank you, I’m glad you thought to share that with me.”

He was not glad. He was not sure how to take this revelation. Either Oliver was losing his mind, or psychic powers are real. Deep down he already knew the answer to this, because Collins had done something. There was a hole in his own mind from before Professor Korge’s party. It hurt too much to think about.

“Jennifer can do it too.” Oliver bit his mouth again, and then tried, “I think she’s been doing something to me since we first met. I snapped at her pretty hard when I figured it out.”

Ben casually glanced at Oliver’s small bed, a sharp contrast with Jennifer’s crib. Maybe there was another reason the littles needed to be kept in cages. He shuddered to consider it. Jennifer’s parents had been portal specialists, was it possible Jennifer was not from around here too? Could all littles potentially be time bombs?

“Jenny’s certainly special.” Ben went for another approach, “Oliver, I know you’ve been having some trouble adjusting, but have you considered this, I won’t call it paranoia, but.” He restarted, “You’re in a new place, nothing is going the way you think it should go, and you’re retreating into old habits, thinking there are enemies everywhere. Maybe you just need to talk to a doctor, it could be something trivial. When’s the last time you had a normal night’s sleep?”

Oliver was about to explain further, but stopped himself, taking a second to relax and think hard on what Ben was suggesting. He had been off his game for a while. What was he spending his days doing? Drawing plans for a satellite network? Oliver looked up at the giant man, Ben’s concern for was earnest.

“You’re right, I should probably see a doctor.” Oliver admitted. The whole idea was stupid, he was imagining things and taking it out on his new family. Tomorrow he would apologize to his aunt and maybe even explain to her his time he was captured. Help her understand why he was so…

Ben interrupted the thought, “Perfect, because we already scheduled an appointment for you tomorrow.”

“When… wait.” Oliver blinked in confusion, “I can’t… when were you going to tell me?”

Ben shrugged, “Tomorrow, I guess. Some things are ‘need to know’. They have this new procedure Victoria wants to see if you qualify for. One of your cousins got it recently. I don’t know all the details, but maybe it can help with a few things.” Ben lightly poked at Oliver’s stomach above the elastic band, where a small bit of flab had built up in middle adulthood. He casually aimed his finger up at Oliver’s hair where the dark brown had shifted to gray and white.

Oliver looked down at his diaper cover, the smooth white plastic a reminder of how much he had lost already before looking up at Ben, “Promise me, you’re going to protect me.”

Now it was Ben’s time to feel disappointment. What had he done to make Oliver ever believe he would not be there for him? “Of course, nothing is going to happen. I just…”

Oliver gave him space to continue.

Ben continued to ramble, “All these problems you’re having, with your job, with helping me, with Jennifer. It’s because you’re trying to be too big. Yes, it’s what I signed up for, you want me to help guide you to be the best you.” His voice shook sadly as he ended. The burdens of the day were back, like Oliver had just given them all back to him. Babies were supposed to make things easier, and yet Oliver was here, demanding things of him, expecting things from him. Not just food and drink and a crib but help with his own burdens of the day.

Oliver could see the stress come back to Ben, his shoulders slumped, and his face grew long, stretching the forehead to wrinkles, as he looked down at the boy. Ben did not know how to solve Oliver’s problem; he could barely keep his own life straight. Oliver poked at his new diaper cover, expecting it to somehow give a hint on how to get Ben back to square one. Ben needed Oliver to help carry his burdens, he had needs and he had admitted only Oliver could meet them.

“I get my being a big kid makes things hard for you in a few ways, but I can still appreciate some of the little things. Just promise to keep this as just a thing for you and me.”

Oliver lifted up his arms and hands, leaning forward towards Ben, “Kiirk, 'Bee' Tower, 'Oh whY' one over Beddie, twenty feet east, inbound for landing.”

Ben grew to a full ten feet and with swift hands lifted Oliver’s body to match. His giant arms easily carried Oliver in a spin, and then up to the ceiling and back down to the floor in an erratic pattern. The smaller man tumbled through the air, free of all burdens. Now he was back on Terra with his friends facing the dangers of the multiverse head on, he was back on Earth with infinite freedom and possibility, and finally after one last spin, he was snug in his blanket, with his eyes closed and mind dreaming of days times to come.

* * *

21 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

Oliver found himself in a chair the large mechanical contraption coming around from behind and over his head, covering his face. The doctor pushed a single button on the contraption, filling the room with a clunky whirl, like a coin slotting into a machine.

“Left? I think? It’s close.” Oliver cautiously mentioned.

“Hmm,” was the only response from the elderly man hovering over the device. With a slow motion he leaned back behind himself and flipped up a switch. Bright lights crowded the room, and he leaned forward again to maneuver the head contraption up and over Oliver’s head. The small man’s large eyes flickered around the room, blinking against the strong lights.

“His reading eyes aren’t coming in right,” Doctor Mundell voiced concern. His clean chubby face aimed the statement to Oliver’s parents who were quietly waiting at the door, rather than man he had just diagnosed.

“My eyes are perfect,” Oliver objected quickly.

The doctor seemed ready for the answer, “Yup, and that’s the problem. How many books are you reading each day Oliver?”

Oliver tilted his head, he considered himself a man who was well read, who spent his day reading and writing reports. Effortlessly the man had the nailed what was an embarrassing fact of Earthlings in the 21^st century. No one reads these days. Oliver tried a small lie, “I don’t know, maybe a couple a week? Let’s just say I’m a new arrival, and I haven’t gotten a chance to get to the library.” Was he going to need to start reading books before going to the optometrist like he brushed his teeth before going to the dentist?

Doctor Mundell turned to Ben, “I’m going to recommend at least a hundred pages a day, I’ll write up a prescription for the glasses to help shape the eyeballs overtime to improve his duration reading. That should help bring his speed to better match other children his age.”

Jennifer, who was sitting partly in Victoria’s lap, held up two fingers and put rings around her eyes, then giggled and pointed at Oliver. She mouthed the word “dork”. Despite Oliver’s best efforts to make amends, she spent the morning either ignoring him or even talking down to him. It was as though she knew he was fated for something terrible today, and she did not want to speak to the walking dead.

Ben interrupted the demonstration, “What about the amaryllis colorblindness?”

The doctor lifted out of his wheeled chair and moved over to a counter on the edge of the room, “I think I have something for that,” he dug into a drawer pulling out a set of glasses, before bringing it over to Oliver. The frames were thick and black, and too large for Oliver’s face. The doctor’s oversized hands let them rest precariously on Oliver’s nose.

Mundell grabbed a card from the counter and held it up to Oliver. The picture was shifted from what had been a pink, white flower to vibrant blues and purples, and Oliver’s eyes grew to the size of the lenses in excitement, his mouth slightly agape in shock at what he was seeing. He slowly maneuvered around the room. The doctor, Ben, and Victoria matched their pre-filtered appearance, but now a aura of blue and purple shining around Jennifer. Where previously there was a woman of about thirty years of age, now her face had a youthful smoothness, and her cheeks rosy and plump. Oliver leaned slightly to catch his adorned face in a mirror.

The six-year-old was back, his hair youthful and tight, and body thin. Oliver flipped the glasses down his nose slightly to look above them. The man in the mirror was thirty-six again.

“Is this what you guys see all the time?” Oliver questioned as he stared at the baby girl squirming in Victoria’s lap.

“See what all the time?” Mundell asked. Oliver’s condition was rare but easily treatable, but none of the other Amazon children were articulate at explaining the differences. Oliver reached behind himself and pulled out a tiny wallet, and then followed up with an image of himself, reaching for a toy at SeaWorld.

He held the picture up for Mundell, “With the glasses on, I look like this still.” The doctor came in close, looking at the thirty-year-old picture and back at the boy, unsure of what the tiny one was trying to explain. An Amazon being asked if they saw babies everywhere, was like asking a fish if they knew what water was. Oliver wafted the picture in the air before catching something on the back of the photo.

He had not seen it before. The text was invisible to the normal human color spectrum but glowed a soft blue under the glasses. It was a message from his Terran self.

“I recreated your old photo. Thanks for waiting for me Jen.”

If Jen had taken the first photo, then Jen would have been from a world slower than Terra, and his twin had only met her again because he had gone off world.

Oliver’s hand shook as he looked over the photo, staring across the room at the young lady with a thumb in her mouth. How could he have been so arrogant to believe something like nuclear war was strong enough to sever his destiny? The physics of the multiverse was telling him to shut up and sit down.

“Hmm, sorry, I don’t see anything special about this, maybe you can write something down, what it’s like to grow up without a color. Your teachers next year would love that,” Doctor Mundell was happily helping, he was still stuck in seeing Oliver as a six-year-old since Oliver had mentioned it upon first meeting the man. It was proving to be not an entirely useless superpower. Not wanting to provoke him further, Oliver put away the photo.

“You can keep those for now, and I’ll be sure to add color correction for your prescription,” the doctor covered his mouth and whispered to the parents, “We don’t want him to accidentally watch the yoU-Vee channels.”

Oliver hopped from the chair, a leap far enough to cause his ankles to shake, before bouncing towards his family.

Victoria leaned in, taking in Oliver’s oversized face, her own mouth smiling as she adjusted his shirt and shorts to hide the slightly peaking elastic band, a sparkle on her teeth drawing Oliver’s eyes, like a serpent. Ben stood up and reached out his hand in thanks to the doctor.

“It means a lot you were able to fit him in this morning. We have an appointment with Doctor Mugkran right after this, do you know if we can get to his practice from here?”

Mundell stared at Jennifer, who seemed entranced by her reflection within Oliver’s new glasses. She already seemed perfect as she was, but who was he to tell a parent how to raise their child. “Lots of parents are taking their little ones to see him these days. Yes, just go down the hall just after reception. You need to go up a floor to go across and then down, but it will take you to the rest of the medical offices.”

* * *

On Amazonia, pediatric hospitals are not limited to the sick or the dying. Most trivial illness that humans face had numerous simple cures or preventions. A pill that stops the cold, a shot that cleans the arteries, a machine to regulate the organs. And yet the giant hospitals exist, not as warehouses for the sick, but as factories. In go to the tiny humans and outgo littles, branded with a condition that strips their adulthood, and their bodies quickly remolded to match.

“You know you don’t have to fill that out. I am happy to fill in my medical history,” Oliver offered politely, his feet dangling and bouncing against the bottom of the chair, as he glanced up to Victoria.

“It’s questions for the parents, don’t you worry about it Oliver,” She waved him off, bringing the clip board closer to her as she did, so Oliver would not able to glance at what she had filled in.

“Don’t you need to know what I’m allergic to?” Oliver inquired again, shifting a bit up in the chair hoping to catch a glimpse of his possible future.

She kept it close, carefully considering each option on the clipboard with her pen. She asked what was to her a rhetorical question, “Why would we want to give you an allergy?”

Oliver frowned and turned to look around the office. A single television hung far from the ceiling, the sound kept silent on a daytime interview show, something chosen for the staff’s amusement rather than the patient’s. In the corner was a simple children’s setup, with cardboard books and walls adorned with a plastic castle. A large purple ball was clutched by small man, his body struggling to stay up right on the wobbly surface. Not long after Oliver’s party had settled into the office, a rowdy group of Amazons had buffaloed through the door. Each of the giantesses had a struggling smaller man or woman in their arms.

Oliver was too far away to hear what had caused the sudden outbreak of maturosis, and subsequent abduction of a half dozen littles, but the administrative staff were unfazed by the sudden surge, bringing out emergency gagging pacifiers. They had directed the group of ladies into an organized fast line, and their boisterous activity was supplicated on the insistence a doctor would be out shortly to officiate these captured men and women into their new status as forever babies. No one seemed the least concerned over this mass outbreak, it was just another primdi.

“You witch, what did you do to me!” A tiny man yelled; that drew the eyes of the room. Oliver watched the overgrown baby, his face extra plump and hair reduced to just a small fluff, struggle with tiny arms against the woman holding him up in her arm. Despite his pathetic size, the baby managed to squeeze through the elbow, pushing himself down and out along her dress until falling to the floor in a ruffle.

The small man’s eyes and mouth grew wide, desperate, and surprised at his freedom. He pushed with tiny arms up and his whole body was brought straight up, revealing just a thick white diaper against his otherwise naked body. With uneven feet he took one step forward and then paused for a long time unsure of his success before trying with his other leg. His gleeful face turned to horror as his whole body fell back directly onto his white exterior. Tears began to build up and the baby man’s face turned red.

“No more walkies. All gone!” bellowed the ten-foot-tall woman, gulping a large laugh as she reached down to her baby and forced him back up into her arms. The man continued to wail until automated doors closed behind him, leaving the lobby in silence.

“Did you see the baby try to walk Jennifer?” A high-pitched voice came Victoria, “He looked so cute trying to waddle.” Her eyes lingered down on Oliver, watching him smack the bottom of the chair impatiently with his legs. She brought up her pen and added another note to Oliver’s paperwork.

* * *

Doctor Mugkran had been ignoring Oliver the entire time he had been examining him, focusing on instruments and readouts from various machines he had probed the small man with. Victoria had gotten ahead of Oliver, and with a sentence had stopped Oliver’s magic trick. The man saw him as a tiny adult, below the attention of even a small child.

The whole room was filled by a spinning copy of Oliver’s brain – a hologram projection being produced in real time by the strange hat and wires. Victoria had told Oliver they were just here for a checkup and some vaccines, but no physical on Earth had ever included a routine brain scan. She was not being honest with him.

“I don’t like how this looks at all,” Doctor Mugkran warned, directing his concern to Ben and Victoria.

“Is it… is it Maturosis?” Ben asked, as though that were a real condition that small ones could get.

The doctor hesitated, as though contemplating the possibility before replying, “I don’t think so, he’s got some build-up in the hippocampus, but that’s typical for his age. No there’s something weird here.”

“Oliver, can I ask you a question?” The doctor’s demeanor had shifted from concern to the false face of a conman. Now he was doing the sale, giving the small man full attention. He bent down his knees a few inches to be level with Oliver, and this close he could make out the gray and white specks that sprinkled through his thin facial hair.

Before Oliver could answer, the doctor went straight to his question, “Have you ever been exposed to radiation?”

“Well, there was that time I started a thermonuclear war.” Oliver started to joke. Then the sensors on his charts started to spike as the possibility came to him causing his blood pressure to rise. “Wait, is it cancer? Everyone who was on Terra got checked thoroughly for radiation damage, did they miss something?”

The doctor ignored Oliver again turning to Ben and Victoria, “I can do an exploratory probe, rip out anything that would be inappropriate.”

“That was exactly what I was hoping you’d recommend,” Victoria said, calmly. She had told the Doctor she needed an excuse to get Oliver under the knife, carve out his adultness. Now the doctor and she just had to convince Ben.

“No way,” Oliver said, ripping at the strange contraption that was on his head, distorting the hologram, and returning the room’s lighting to normal, “This is ridiculous.”

Ben was stuck between the two. He looked at Oliver and then the doctor and then Victoria, before returning to Oliver. Victoria had mentioned correcting Oliver’s sleep schedule to match the thirty-two-hour day. If there really was some sort of cancer - he did not want to have a sick baby.

“I am not sure we should be moving this quickly, just focus on the small things first,” Ben felt like he had taken his car in for a simple oil change, only to be bamboozled into an engine replacement. He could tell something was a-foot, but not the specifics. Victoria was extremely calm over finding out Oliver had been in a thermonuclear war.

The doctor could see Ben’s hesitation, he was too protective. He needed to separate the dad from the boy to make to sale, “How about this, I’ll have the nurse come in and get little Oliver prepped, and meanwhile, mom and dad can come with me back to my office and I’ll go over just some things, make sure we’re all on the same page of what we want done or not. This is a perfectly normal procedure; we can be in and out in a few hours.”

Victoria snapped up, which forced Ben to reluctantly follow. The doctor peeked his head out the door, and waived down the hall, “Nurse Schelling!” The three Amazons left the room, the doctor holding the door open for the nurse to enter, giving her a quick set of instructions.

Oliver watched carefully as she entered the room, at nine feet she still towered over him, and her pale skin matched the tight white uniform that covered her body. To Oliver’s surprise, she even wore a small white cap, trimmed with a blue line atop her short-cut but heavy brunette hair. Nurses on Earth had not worn outfits like this since before Oliver was born, and yet here on Amazonia the apparel continued without irony. Nurse Schelling carefully pushed a small cart, roughly Oliver’s height, into the room.

Out of new habit, Oliver dropped his dorky glasses, letting him look at the woman with his native eyes. He saw the shimmer instantly – the odd distortion of air and light that had accompanied the earlier hologram – only visible with one eye looking above the frame, and one looking through.

“You’re not from around here.” Oliver joked. “How’s the weather up there?” he asked both slowly and coldly, aiming his sight and question directly at the woman’s chest.

The woman shifted her belt, and her image began to shrink, from nine feet to six, “Ve’ve been tracking you since you arrived, ve knew it was only a matter of time you would investigate the hospital.” She reached into the cart before her, and within a moment her arm was back, now aimed straight at Oliver. In her hand was a small gun, reflective stainless steel, short black grip, and tiny enough to conceal either on her body or cart.

Sweat built up in his armpits, but Oliver kept his attention to the woman’s eyes, “The accent, Verdant?”

She briefly paused, lowering her aim before bringing it up again at the man across the room. Nurse Schelling’s face was like a thinning oval, her sharp red lips and pale face boxed in a serious unmovable expression.

“If you kill me it’s going to draw a lot of attention.” Oliver was thinking through spy movies in his head. How did James Bond get out of this? Flipping a coin at a laser? Exploding pen?

“That’s vhy I’m going to inyect you with this,” She reached her free hand into the cart pulling out an thin long needle, attached was a thick tube that reflected grey sparkles. Through his glasses, the syringe gave of a rainbow of colors, reflecting a bright aura that hurt to stare at. “Another case of spontaneous maturosis, instant onset babyhood, and you’ll be out of our vay forever.”

Options were playing in Oliver’s mind. Could he charge her? Wait for her to lose attention? Grab something to throw? Dodge a bullet? Negotiate? Keep her talking? Wait for the doctor to return?

She slipped the gun to the side, and brought out a small laugh, “The best part is? Ve can blame this whole thing on Earth. Vhat vas their top agent doing with nanomachines? Can you imagine the scandal, it might even be enough for sanction, to kick your stupid planet off the council.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Oliver continued to stall, “There are other agents that will follow me, they’ll uncover the truth. Are you prepared to stop them?”

“I don’t think so, I happen to have heard you’ve been disavowed by your government.” Oliver could tell she had planned for this, she was probably watching him from the moment he stepped onto this world, and this was the first opportunity he had been away from a guardian and protector.

Victoria’s face popped into Oliver’s head, from yesterday during the Markowitz test. “Stop trying to solve your problems like an adult.” He shook as the glistening vial approached, each step from Nurse Schelling a step towards his inevitable fall to babyhood.

Oliver scrunched his face, and eyes, took a large breath, and then sneezed. He did not even bother to cover his hands. The nurse looked at him confused; wet spots glistened on her cheeks.

“Sorry, it’s getting worse, it’s actually why I came here today.” He gave a soft cough and then a large sniffle through his nose.

“Vhat’s? That’s disgusting. Cover yourself.” For a man who was about to be turned into a baby, Oliver was behaving awfully immature.

“It’s the ass-boogers. My aunt has it really bad. We were hoping to get a vaccine in me before I go completely…”

The woman stopped and then shuffled a foot back from Oliver, “Stop trying to stall.” Ass-boogers, what a disgusting man. She could feel each breath around the sick man like he had poisoned air. Her cheeks burned like acid, she wanted nothing more than to run and wipe her face, but her hands were occupied.

“I can’t help it. It’s super contagious here. And I’m one of the worst... I can’t stop thinking of trains lately. Like did you know the fastest train is the Shanghai Maglev and that it once got a top speed over five hundred kilometers an hour, that’s almost two hundred kilometers per hour faster than the fastest Japanese train. Why is that in my brain? Why do I need to know this fact?”

Her delicate features hardened, and she cocked the gun up angry, “Autism is not contagious.”

Oliver coughed again, “Autism is not the least of what it gives you. It attacks the entire nervous system. There’s a vaccine in the fridge over there I’m supposed to get. If I don’t get it soon...”

He had merely glanced at the clipboard of options the hospital had offered while waiting in the lobby another new parent had been filling out. All sorts of maladies could be given to one’s child to better recreate the experience of those precious early years. With a checkmark and a trip to the doctors you could give your new baby immobility, incontinence, illiteracy, even reset his or her whole sensor system to the first few weeks after birth – no longer able to perceive the world as anything other than shapes and smears. Emotional regression was just another of a long set of disturbing abuses the Amazons were prepared to inflict on their new children.

He pointed to the fridge in the corner, she cocked her head, keeping an eye on him while looking at the boxy machine in the corner. The fridge door was labeled with warnings and directions both professional and dire.

“Look, just give it to me, and then you can do whatever you want once I get my medicine. That’s what the real Nurse Schelling was supposed to do. If I don’t get it, there’s going to be some questions.” Oliver’s distress was over his face. He seemed more afraid of the disease as he was of her gun.

She lowered the gun slightly, but before Oliver could act, she raised it again. “I’m only going to look because it might be a good idea to see if they have a cure for anything we might care about.” She slowly walked backwards towards the fridge and upon reaching opened its heavy, large door. Just as Oliver had hinted, there were rows of small boxes and jars. She waved her gun at Oliver, who had not moved an inch from the bed, before taking a jar from the front shelf and closing the fridge.

The clear container had been given the label autism, along with the drug name, Neuroharmony - A Thompson and Thompson product. Distr. Juventas – Losantiville

“This?” She was incredulous. The Amazons had a cure for being neurodivergent? This off-world venture on this hell world was turning fortuitous. Not only would she deal with Agent Swift once and for all, but she would also return with another miracle cure.

“Quick give it to me, my head’s starting to…” Oliver reached up to his glasses and shook, “Look, I don’t care about your nanomachines, Earth has no idea what you guys are doing here. I just need that. That’s all I came here for.” Oliver coughed again, hacking in her general direction.

“Hey, don’t get your…” She looked at the jar, then laughed. “Of course, I can yust give myself the shot.”

“No!” Oliver protested as she reached over to the counter, grabbing a syringe. He watched the woman quickly fill the needle. Nurse Schelling really could have been a nurse in another lifetime.

“Please, just save some for me,” Oliver pleaded.

“Oh no. I’m going to use your dose on myself and take the rest when I blast out of here. This is what it means to explore the multiverse, all the cures, all the science, all the discoveries of all the other vannabe Verdants… their discoveries are now ours. And now the multiverse has given us one more golden egg, far out of distribution, another cure.” She flicked the needle over in her right hand, and the gun in her left. She then jabbed into her upper arm’s muscle, gritting her teeth, before pulling out the needle and switching gun hands back.

Oliver kept a flat look at her, not disappointed, just waiting. Nurse Schelling reached back for her nanomachine filled syringe before stopping. Now her head was on fire, while a giant wedge was forcing itself between her eyes and tearing out the back of her skull. She closed her eyes, bringing her free hand up, before remembering to keep her eyes on Oliver. She shakily shook the gun at him, but the room lights were too bright.

The air conditioning kicked on, a whirling of an old fan blade kept ticking against a loose screw, causing an irritable rattle every three point eight seconds. She wanted to vomit, instead, she knelt, and carefully bent her arms around her knees. The rattling continued. The lights were too bright, she could hear the humming of the cathode tubes as they flickered electricity on and off dozens of times per second.

Oliver was at her side. His face was unreadable. He told her to think of her last train ride, to remember the roar of the engine, the blur of senses and color, and it was enough to help distract her from the rattling. He took her gun, which she had forgotten was in her hand. He took her hologram projector. Then he guided her to the hallway, explaining to a friendly nurse that this young lady had just wandered into his room.

Just another patient with sudden onset maturosis – some were even beginning to think it could be contagious, given all the new cases popping up these days.