Accidental Creatures (18 page)

Helix ignored him, taking the headset with her up to the loft. Today Night Hag was a red-head in a green satin ball gown. “Wow,” said Helix. “Going someplace special?”

“No, just having fun.”

“Well good for you,” Helix leaned back on Hyper's bed, making no effort to hide her arms, which Night Hag had yet to comment on.

“How’s the new job?”

“Awful, wonderful. I don’t know, Night Hag, I think I”m going crazy.”

“You’re not crazy. What’s going on?”

“The other vatdivers are giving me a really hard time. My girlfriend broke up with me. I’m not a very good vatdiver but I love it. Or I should say, I love being near the vats, the smell of the growth medium... Everyone says it stinks, but I love the way it smells. It makes me feel more alive. Isn’t that weird?”

“I don’t think that’s weird at all.”

“Then you must be pretty weird yourself.”

Night Hag laughed, and nodded her head. “Most people would say so.”

“Well, it was your idea I become a vatdiver.”

“I thought you said you liked it.”

“I do. Well, like I said, I like being near the grow med. Swimming around with these,” she waved her lower arms at Night Hag, “trapped inside a divesuit all day I could do without. I’m saving up for a custom suit, but it’ll be awhile, and in the meantime-”

“You wear a suit?” Night Hag interrupted.

“Of course,” Helix sat up in surprise. “What did you think? That I swam around in there naked? Growth medium is really dangerous. That’s why I can’t figure out why it appeals to me so much. Maybe the vatdivers are right. Maybe I’m suicidal. But I don’t feel suicidal. I feel like I’m fighting for my life. I wish I didn’t have to wear the suit. I could use all of my arms. But I need the suit to protect me from the grow med.”

“Maybe you don’t need to be protected.”

“What? Night Hag, since I’ve let you see me, have you noticed anything different about me?” She waved her lower arms again for emphasis. “This is not a construct. I’m a sport. If anything, I’m even more susceptible to vatsickness than a normal human being.”

Night Hag shrugged. “A sport is what?”

“Someone with a mutation.”

“But a mutation is a change in the genetic code. That can be anything. How do you know that besides your physical attributes you are not also mutated to have an immunity to the growth medium?”

Helix shook her head in disbelief. “You know what? You’re crazier than I am. Look, I’ve got to go, I just borrowed this transceiver from a friend. He wants it back.”

“Wait, where can I reach you?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll call you tomorrow. Bye.” said Helix and hung up. She lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. An immunity to the growth medium. Night Hag obviously didn’t know what she was talking about. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were true? Then she could swim in the vats without the cumbersome suit, touched and embraced by the beautiful green waters. The thought of it rolled around and around in her mind, lulling her to sleep.

oOo

At work the next day the dream was still with her, making the reality of her situation even more difficult to bear. She floated in the vat, the murky fluid surrounding her, but not touching her. The harsh rasping of her breath was loud in her ears. She propelled herself with a gentle twitch of her flippers, drifting towards a small blot a few feet off.

The coagulant hung suspended in the growth medium; a bundle of replicating cells, pink and blue and fibrous, and already sprouting. They were like weeds. Just one, if allowed to grow, could ruin an entire vat.

Somebody - probably her — had missed this one on the previous sweep. It was nearly the size of her palm, fringed with tendrils that reached outwards, and in at least one case, formed new coagulants. Helix grasped it in one hand, holding it firmly while she gathered tendrils with her other free hand, trying to be careful and not break any. It would be so much easier if she could use all of her arms. She could hold the body still with her uppers, while her lower hands nimbly drew in the tendrils, which sometimes narrowed to a millimeter or less in width.

As it was she simply drew gently on all of them at once, hoping not to feel the sudden jolt of a break, which she did. She examined the coagulant in her hand, turning over the pulpy thing until she found one long tendril, broken off at the end. She stuffed the agule into her bag and examined the area carefully, searching for the dark spot of another coagulant in the milky green of the growth medium. There, to her right and a few feet away. She’d been wrong. The agule she’d found had not sent out tendrils and formed more agules, it was the sprout of an even larger one, as big as her head and bristling with outgrowths. Helix’s lower arms writhed in frustration as she swam towards it. She unfastened the seals of her divesuit and drew the zipper down to free them.

Growth medium rushed in to touch her everywhere with warm, soothing wetness. She began drawing in tendrils, her lower hands grasping their fleshy strands, tracing them, plucking the agules that bulged at their ends and placing them in her bag. She had the whole complex of agules cleaned up in a fraction of the time it would have taken her with two hands.

Helix moved on, relishing the feel of the growth medium on her skin. This was more like it, more like she’d imagined vatdiving would be. She removed her face mask and thrust it heedlessly into her bag with the agules. She dived deeper, searching for more cells with eyes surprisingly unclouded, only returning to the surface of the vat for air after gathering ten more.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she heard someone shout when her head broke the surface. Helix ignored the voice, took a breath, and dived to the bottom of the vat, growth medium swirling about her, hiding her from sight. In the depths she heard the muted clamor of an alarm, and looking up, saw the vague forms of divers approaching. There was nowhere for her to go. She relaxed and let the loosened dive suit slip away, its clinging touch replaced by the soft caress of the growth medium. She plucked a nearby agule, its texture pulpy and slick as she rolled it between her fingers. She ate it. Its juicy crunch and salty flavor were more satisfying than any food she’d ever tasted.

She watched her dive mates come for her, shadowy forms gradually emerging from the surrounding haze. She had every intention of going peaceably, allowing Vonda, Coral, Benny and Val to take her by her arms, and draw her up, towards the surface, but the closer they got the bigger the whole white dry cold world became, and she did not want to leave the emerald green waters she had found. And they were emerald green, and ever clearer as her eyes lost the habit of air. She could see agules dotting the waters like stars, thousands of them, some no bigger than a pinprick, others over twenty feet away. And all over her skin, a feeling like smell only different, the currents speaking to her about where they had been, and how many agules there were there.

She could be such a good vatdiver now. She could clean this vat faster than any of them, and they were pulling her out, and she’d never get to do it again. The waters lightened as they rose, and above the surface loomed like a rippling sheet of glass.

She pushed out at the divers holding her arms, twisting to free herself of their grasp. She managed to get her lower left arm free, and she used it to pry Vonda off her opposite shoulder. Benny, who still had firm hold of her upper left arm, recaptured the lower limb and pulled them both back against her shoulder. She put her upper right hand on his head and tried to push him off, but Vonda had rallied and was twisting her lower right elbow the wrong way.

As they broke the surface, the air suddenly erupting with shouts and sirens, she thrashed in their clutches, futilely attempting to remain in the vat. It wasn’t until they had dragged her out and pinned her to the diving platform that she remembered to breathe.

She would have jumped up and dived back in, but several strong arms prevented it. “What’s wrong with her?” someone shouted — Coral.

“She’s flipped. Where’s April?” said Vonda.

“Right here.”

Faces loomed above her, but her eyes were still clouded with growth medium. “Let me go!” she screamed, straining against the hands that pinned her.

“Jesus Christ, somebody get a sedative. Everybody stay suited, she’s drenched with the stuff.”

Helix felt the slick tingle of an epidermal on the inside of her lower left elbow. In a deepening haze, she felt herself carried off the diving platform and into the decontamination showers. They scrubbed her everywhere with stinging disinfectant soap, and then subjected her to the evaporator until her every pore was desiccated and barren as a desert. It was April who took her out, and dusted her from head to toe with acrid biocide powder. Cold, naked, and itching everywhere from her colleague’s ministrations, Helix began to weep.

“Don’t cry,” April told her harshly, “your tears will help the stuff spread. Saline solution’s not too far from growth medium as it is. Not that it’s gonna make any difference. The way you were wallowing around out there, you’ve probably swallowed some, and Val says you had your eyes open, so if you wanted to get out of my hair, you took one quick way of doing it.”

“I jus’ wanted to use my arms,” Helix slurred vaguely.

“You just wanted to-So you forfeit your life, so you can use all of your arms, once. I don’t even care about you, but you jeopardized the lives of your dive mates as well. Thank God nobody’s seals or masks came loose during that tussle you threw, because if they had, it would be negligent homicide, instead of simple suicide, and you wouldn’t have a chance to find out what the sickness is going to do to you, because I’d kill you first.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to fight. I just didn’t want to leave the water.”

April shook her head slowly. “I don’t know about you. You don’t seem to be simple minded, but you don’t show any sense, either.”

April abandoned her lecture for the moment, and held out a sterile gown made out of paper. “You know how much it costs us to stock these things? Can’t use biopolymers though, they have an ah, affinity.”

“When can I go home?” mumbled Helix. Never, she thought, answering herself, never.

“Well there’s not much point in sending you to a hospital. There’s no cure for vatsickness, and with the exposure you got you’ll probably only last a few days. Besides, the company won’t pay for it. Remember those waivers you signed? You’ll be just as well off with the painkillers Mavi buys from Orielle as with any of that doctor shit. I’m just keeping you here until someone comes for you. There’s something wrong with you. In your head. You’re a danger to yourself and others. I can’t just turn you loose.”

Besides, thought Helix, if you did, I’d probably try to find a way to get back into the vats, and you know it.

April escorted her to a small cubicle off the decontamination chamber which held a bench, a folding chair, and a table with two ancient and plastic coated magazines on it. “Now are you gonna be a good girl and wait here quietly, or do I have to give you another epidermal?”

“No dermal,” said Helix, and she sat down on the chair, folding her hands across her knees obediently.

“Can I have my clothes?”

“Not until your friends come to get you.”

oOo

She itched. She itched and she’d never realized how much she’d always itched. And now she would itch for the rest of whatever life she had left. The only thing that she had ever found that stopped the itching had been taken away from her as soon as she found it. “I might as well die,” she thought, raising her arms at the white walls surrounding her, regarding her own biocide dusted limbs, caked and dry like they were already mummified, “because this is not being alive.”

The door opened and Chango rushed through, followed by Mavi. Chango’s face was red and streaked with tears. “Helix, we heard what happened! Oh my god, why?” she rushed forward to hug her, and then stopped short. “Why did you do it?”

Helix shook her head. “It’s not catching, you know that.”

Chango looked at her suddenly. “No, it’s your skin... It’s started already, hasn’t it?”

A shiver went down Helix’s spine and she once again regarded her skin. “No, this is just biocide powder. They dusted me with it to soak out and kill the growth medium. It’s driving me crazy. It stings. But nothing’s happened yet.”

Mavi closed the door and walked slowly towards her. She was pale, almost as pale as the powder caked on Helix’s skin. She glared at Helix with eyes like two black pits of fire. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

“What-what?”

“She doesn’t,” Mavi said to Chango, “she has no idea.”

“Mavi-” Chango said, “please. It doesn’t matter now. It’s too late.” She turned back to Helix and wrapped her arms around her, clinging to her. She started crying again. Helix ran her palms across her back, soothing her. Chango’s tears soaked through her paper gown and into her skin, soothing the itching there.

“Oh for goddess’ sake, stop. Chango, you’re going to get her wet, quit it.” Mavi forcibly separated them.

“You know,” she said, turning on Helix again, “You I don’t care about, not anymore. But you endangered the lives of everyone in that vat. They had to come after you. You fought them. They aren’t there by choice. They’re there because they have to make a living. And you could have killed any one of them with this suicidal tourist trip you’re on.”

Helix gritted her teeth, “Can we go now? I want to rinse this shit off.”

“You want to-Did you hear that? She wants to take a shower!”

“Mavi,” said Chango from the doorway, “let’s just go.”

“We’re going, we’re going.”

Helix rode in the back seat of the convertible, while Chango drove and Mavi glared at her over the front seat. A sudden wave of uncontrollable shivering overcame her. She thought at first it was because of the wind, but the shaking only got worse, until her muscles were spasming in rapid, jerky motions, and she couldn’t stop it, and she couldn’t get a decent breath because her lungs weren’t working right and the wind kept snatching her breath away, but it wasn’t the wind. She could have gotten her breath back if she could have followed it, but something was holding her back by the throat, choking her.