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The Perfectionists

Chapter 6

Freak

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It was a long time before she saw him again. She found out later that he’d gone home and quarantined himself, knowing that there would be camera footage of what he’d done. Knowing the trouble he’d be in for exposing himself and everybody else to danger, not only the members of G.O.D., but everyone who lived inside The Bubble. He’d stashed a biohazard suit in the first airlock as he'd walked in, and on the way out he stopped to put it on before leaving the facility to go home. But he wore it out of the cocoon rather than into it, which was backwards. An indication, and more than that, a tacit admission, that his intent wasn't to protect himself from contamination, but to protect others from himself. And of course there was still footage of him walking into the Cocoon unprotected. So they knew that he’d put the integrity of The Bubble at risk, in full consciousness of what he was doing, and a price would have to be paid. The stakes were just too high.

Luckily, his quarters were outfitted with one of the standard quarantine protocols, and he had implemented it immediately, and then spoken to the other members of G.O.D. via holoscreen, and convinced them to try to buy him time. The others had laid their own reputations, and the reputation of their project, on the line, by pleading his case with The Council. After a heated debate, which lasted several days, The Council grudgingly agreed to a ten day grace period. If, during that time, any symptoms, of any kind, even the common cold, were to manifest themselves, Hal's quarters were to be permanently sealed off, leaving him trapped inside. The enterovirus didn’t make exceptions: if an individual was infected, he or she manifested symptoms within six days. All they had to do was wait a week, two if they wanted to be extra careful, and they would have their answer. And they did want to be extra careful. Because the whole point of The Bubble was to keep the enterovirus out. The Bubble was their only defense against extinction.

But the quarantine wasn’t the reason for Hal’s extended absence. If that had been the only issue, she would have seen him again several weeks later, when, after multiple extensions, physical self scans, and a complete failure to manifest any symptoms of any kind, he’d miraculously emerged unscathed from the whole scandal, several weeks later. He’d received a reprimand from the council, and they’d assigned a monitor to live with him for several months and report back on his psychological state, but they’d believed him when he told them that he’d walked into the cocoon without a suit because he could see it was the only way to help Eve, and that he saw, based on his own research, no risk whatsoever in taking that action. And they’d conceded that he did wear a biohazard suit back to his quarters, and that he’d initiated quarantine procedures, to ensure that nobody else would be exposed, on the off chance he turned out to be wrong. And they'd recognized, while making a point of emphasizing that they did not agree with him on this issue, that he believed G.O.D.’s work to represent the last best hope for the human species to continue into the future in some form.

Of course the council didn’t want to legitimize this last one by seeming to agree with it. Nobody wanted to believe it. Not really. Not even Hal, or the rest of the team. There were other teams that had been working to solve the enterovirus problem by focusing on the genetics of the survivors, rather than by attempting to engineer an entirely new race using the genetic code of the old, as G.O.D. was doing (and as, by now, everybody had to admit that they might have successfully done, since Eve had survived her first several weeks outside of The Womb). A solution to the issue of drastically lowered birthrates within The Bubble was also being sought by several of these groups. And everyone, including G.O.D., was rooting for one of the other approaches to be successful.

But Hal, like the other members of his team, had examined the genetics thoroughly, using all of the technology available, and come to the conclusion, with what he considered to be a negligible statistical margin of error, that there was no possible means of modifying an existing organism to protect it against the virus. G.O.D. were essentially realists. They didn’t believe in chasing rainbows. From their perspective, the efforts of the other groups were rooted in an unwillingness to acknowledge the facts. From G.O.D.’s perspective, it was time for a last ditch effort.

Eve was that last ditch effort.

It took almost a year and a half for all of the tests to be finished, and her release into The Bubble approved. Until then, she remained in her Cocoon, with the exercise equipment and the holoscreen for entertainment. But she spent more time in the bath than she did anywhere else. She’d missed Hal very much at first, and felt bitterly angry with him for abandoning her. But her time spent in the water, beginning that fifth day of her life outside of The Womb, was a saving grace, without which she likely wouldn’t have survived. The morning after his visit she’d arisen on her own and crawled straight for the bath, and by noon she had yet to emerge. The nurse was sent in, and convinced her to come out and take a nap, and to have some lunch, which thrilled the entire staff, because in addition to it’s being the first time she’d shown any kind of acquiescence, it was the first time she’d allowed herself to be fed, and there had been a growing fear that she would starve herself to death. But immediately after her nap she was back in, and stayed until the nurse arrived at dinnertime.

The baths changed everything. Now that she had access to an activity that she enjoyed almost as much as sleeping, she found herself able to interact more comfortably with the waking world. She picked up speech very quickly, as much of it was familiar to her from her interactions with others in the dreamworld, and as her genetic code had gifted her with high cognitive processing levels and excellent motor control. She began to have conversations, clumsily at first, with the staff, some of whom she recognized from her dreams. In doing so, she found another waking activity that she enjoyed: gathering information. She was hungry to learn about anything and everything, and thrilled when they showed her how to use the holoscreen to access The Bubble’s information decks.

As for her dream life, it was restored, in many ways, to its former fluidity and beauty. She spent her days bathing, exercising, and absorbing information, and her nights flying, with wide open eyes, through dreams, her own and those of others, bringing a quality of lightness, sweetness, and playfulness to each one she touched. Within a very short time, she was beloved by G.O.D., adored both in waking life and in sleep. But no one ever touched her, skin to skin, the way Hal had. No one ever walked into her Cocoon dressed, as she was, in simple clothing. No one ever tucked her into bed at night, touching her forehead with naked fingers.

Even after she’d been released, and given her own quarters in G.O.D.’s block (right next door to Amy, who became a kind of surrogate mother to her), she felt the fear in those around her. Fear of her physical makeup, the genetic traits that she carried, which would allow her (theoretically) to survive the enterovirus. Because, as everyone knew, a small piece of the virus’s genetic code had been used to create her. Though in almost every respect she seemed perfectly human, in a strange way Eve was akin to the enemy.

When she reached the age of sixteen she began attending school, and that was even worse. The other students were not members of G.O.D., and it took them much longer to accept her. They feared her; and when, near the end of that first year, she managed to find her first friend or two among them, even these were cautious, frightened of getting too close. If she hugged someone, it was always awkward. She could feel the tension of fear in their bodies. And she was forced to admit to herself that if friendships were this difficult, romance was going to be all but impossible. No boy would date her.

So it was with a mixture of indignation and longing that she ran to Hal, when he appeared, as if by magic, outside of her school building one day in early summer, grinning mischievously at her, and hugged him - briefly - before pushing him away so that she could hit him in the chest, over and over again, calling him every ugly name she could think of, until finally he wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him, genuinely held her, without flinching.

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©2018 Bennett Italia, all rights reserved.

It's National Novel Writing Month! Some of @freewritehouse's freewriters have bravely (or foolishly? Only time will tell...) accepted the challenge of writing an entire novel in one month. These are: @amelin; @botefarm; @felt.buzz; @grow23; @improv; @kaelci; @kaerpediem; @linnyplant; @mariannewest; @ntowl; @stinawog; @carolkean; @byn; @kipswolfe; @bennettitalia; @aislingcronin; @nonsowrites.

50,000 words total, which breaks down to 1,667/day.

From this challenge, stories are being spun. The following is one of them.

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In case anybody's wondering, this is my 83rd 5 minute freewrite. (Disclaimer: even under normal circumstances, these usually take me significantly longer than 5 minutes to write and edit. And given that November is novel writing month, "significantly longer" has taken on a whole new meaning ).

Today's prompt is "flashlight", but I didn't use it.

Word count for this installment is 1332.

*Come take part in the festivities at @freewritehouse! Lots of contests and other fun stuff for both writers and fans *

Many thanks to the incomparable @mariannewest for hosting these wonderful daily freewrites :) https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-382-5-minute-freewrite-tuesday-prompt-flashlight

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Horizontal rulers courtesy @cryptosharon

For a chance to WIN SteemBasicIncome, read and comment on my #freewritemadness posts For more information visit the @freewritehouse