Small Problem -2- It's the Little Things... by Melanie Brown (Patreon)

Small Problem

Part 2

I felt like I was floating. I had no concept of the passage of time. I had nightmares of tiny bugs nibbling at my brain. Strange sounds would rise and fall. Lights would flash, sometimes dim and others brilliantly bright. I also felt as if I was burning up. I struggled to wake up, but I couldn’t force my eyes open. Sometimes I felt like I was falling, and other times as if I was drowning. I tried desperately to suck in a breath. It was a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

I was falling. Spinning. Falling…

*  *  *

I awoke with a start. There was a loud slamming sound, but I hadn’t fallen. I felt as if I was lying on my back. I couldn’t move, but I heard voices. Indistinct at first. Then started to sound clear.

Sounding like it was at the bottom of a well, I heard a female voice announce, “Doctor. The patient is beginning to wake up.”

I couldn’t move, but a very bright light was shone into my eyes. “Good reaction. Notify kin.”

“Yes, doctor.”

I tried to speak, but couldn’t.

The doctor leaned over me, and I could now see him clearly. “I honestly don’t know how to ease you into reality. You’re in for a shock, that’s for sure.”  What the hell is this big shock? How long have I been out? I can’t speak, and it’s driving me crazy.

There was some commotion at the room’s entrance. The doctor said, “Mr. Moore. We’re going to bring your family in. Your wife and daughter. They’ve already seen you.

The face of my beautiful wife Charlotte entered my view. Behind her, I could see my equally beautiful daughter Cathy. Charlotte looked to one side and asked, “Is he fully awake? Have you told him?” Told me what? Did they have to amputate anything? Was I out for years?

In the background, I heard the doctor say, “Yes… He’s fully awake. And no, he has not been informed of his condition. He still can speak because of the drugs to immobilize him.”

Charlotte looked back at me and tried to force a smile. “Welcome back, Stan. You’ve been out for three weeks…” She looked away with a questioning look. “Can I tell him that?” Looking back at me, she said, “Yeah. You’ve been in a coma or something for three weeks. We thought we were going to lose you once or twice.” She looked at me and frowned. “You’re not going to believe what happened. Cathy. Come over here and talk to your father.” Charlotte stepped away from my vision.

My beautiful daughter came into view. She started crying. “That’s not my dad! It’s a freak! A freak!” She burst into tears and ran off. I tried to move and couldn’t It was like my muscles were frozen. I couldn’t speak. My daughter just called me a freak and ran off. What the hell is going on? I passed out.

*  *  *

“Mr. Moore? Good, you’re awake. I’m Dr. Nettles. I apologize for what happened earlier. That should never have happened. The attending doctor has been thoroughly reprimanded.” I tried again to move, but couldn’t

Frowning, Dr. Nettles said, “Don’t try to move just yet, Mr. Moore. We’ve given you a sedative that keeps you from moving. It’s necessary for what I’m going to inform you of. We don’t want you hurting yourself.” Oh, my God? What has happened to me? Have I become a monster?

Dr. Nettles said, “Mr. Moore. You’ve changed. A lot. We’ve been informed that you had yourself injected with nanites… little tiny medical robots.” Dr. Nettles forced a smile. “The good news is that you’re now cancer-free. However, there have been a few other changes. The fastest way to do this is for me to hold up a mirror. Brace yourself, Mr. Moore.” Dr. Nettles then slowly held up a mirror.

I tried to move, but couldn’t. I couldn’t believe what I saw in the mirror. Instead of me, I saw what looked for all the world, like my own daughter Cathy last year when she was fourteen. Is this a joke? What I was seeing was impossible. I strained to move and passed out.

*  *  *

Without going into a lot of detail, which we don’t have anyway, the nanites somehow decided that I was not only the wrong age, but gender as well. I’m a fourteen-year-old girl. I could be younger or older, but the consensus of the hospital’s doctors is that my new age is fourteen. That makes me younger than my own daughter. So I’ve been cured from aging, being male, being far-sighted, my prostate cancer is completely irrelevant, as I no longer have a prostate.

And not only all that, I’ve been terminated for being reckless with company intellectual property. And somehow, I’m no longer a legal person. Just like that Secret Agent Man, they’ve given me a number and taken away my name. And I’ve been slapped with dozens of non-disclosure agreements. It seems that getting cured of old age is very popular, if not exactly ethical.

Not to mention gender changes. They could make a gazillion dollars from both those, but they would also lose that much from lawsuits. And somehow, they’re worried about how that would affect society. So this all this has to stay so very hush-hush. Several members of Congress have been told emphatically that no, we don’t have any de-aging nanobots.  Nobody knows how the word got out, but the company CEO wants their head. Literally.

While in the hospital, my precious and lovely wife divorced me, citing that I’m underage and she’s not into girls. So when I was released from the hospital. The company, in a moment of wanting to look magnanimous, put me up in guest quarters at the company offices. And when they announced there was going to be an inquiry, I was given the use of one of the company lawyers, who are, of course, paid for by the company. And since this wasn’t a court of law, the lawyer was mostly there to tell me when to shut my mouth.

*  *  *

“Come on in. Be seated. Is this everyone?”

“We’re still waiting on a member of our legal team. Oh. Here she comes.”

Director Wilson looked around the large conference room. “Okay. I believe we have everyone, so let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

I was very uncomfortable sitting right next to Director Wilson. It was like back in school, having to sit next to the principal even though you’ve done nothing wrong. I sighed. Well, I’ve done something hugely wrong.

Director Wilson smiled around the room. “Thank you all for coming. I know everyone would like to end this ordeal quickly, but we need to give the subject the respect it deserves. On my right is Dr. Lee Took Dongbang, Sr. Vice President of BioSynthIndustrialMedical and CEO of the North America operations.

“Seated immediately to my left is the reason for this hearing. She is the former Mr. Stanley Moore. On her left, a few seats down, is the former Ms. Moore and her daughter.  Next is Dr. Patel, head of engineering. And lastly, we have Mr. Goddard, legal counsel and his team.” Dr. Dongbang looked at his watch.

Director Wilson shuffled some notes around. He cleared his throat and said, “Now, the reason for this inquiry is the disposal of this small problem…”

I exclaimed, “Disposal! What?” I looked around the room, terrified.

Looking embarrassed, Wilson said, “Sorry. Poor choice of words. I mean the disposition of this small problem. The first order of business is to discuss the damage this girl has caused our company with her reckless disregard for the company’s rules and protocols, leading as a direct result to her current condition. We could have her institutionalized, but Mr. Goddard feels this would result in very bad press.”

Director Wilson paused a moment while he took a few slugs from his water bottle.

Before he started speaking again, he waved his water bottle in the air. “Anyone need another bottle? And these mints are awesome. Anyway, to hurry this along, as you can well understand, Mr. Dongbang was ready to punt this little bugger into next year. But her attorney pointed out the interesting fact, that her violation of our policies actually saved us several billion dollars.

“No. It’s true. If we had gone ahead with trials using the same version of the nanobots that Mr.Moore had used, every participant of the trial, and we were going to have at least two thousand participants, every one of them would have become fourteen-year-old girls in excellent health. And that would have been a disaster. There was an undetected bug in the nanite programming that went undetected in testing.

“Turns out a teen rat looks just like an adult rat, and nobody verified the rat’s gender before and after testing. And nobody noticed how many cures each rat got. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Moore, we would have gone into trial that would have cost us billions.”

Director Wilson looked over at me and placed his hand over his heart. “And so we give you our sincere thank you. We would never have caught the error in time.”

I looked over at the director and quietly asked, “May I ask what the error was exactly?”

Dr. Patel stood up and shouted, “It was your sloppy programming, bitch! You hardcoded an object with a wrong value! In the method _checkMorphAgent!”

I thought for a moment and then frowned. “The summer hire wrote that method. I thought I verified her code.” I shrugged.

Dr. Dongbang stood up. “I have to meet with a client. Carry on, director.” He left.

After the CEO had left the meeting room, Director Wilson said, “Now that we’ve dispensed with all the technical items, we need to focus on disposing of the girl.”

I stood up and shouted, “I’m a human being, you know. I object to being disposed of!”

Director Wilson frowned. “That’s not what I meant. We can’t let you continue to stay in our guest room. We can’t keep the vending machines on that floor loaded with chocolate bars. So here is the solution proposed by our legal team. After much negotiation, we seem to have reached an equable solution.”

“Nobody’s said anything to me!” I blurted out.

Mr. Goddard of the legal team said, “You’re below the age of majority. We don’t need your input.”

Wilson said, “Before I was so rudely interrupted, I was saying, we’ve reached a solution to our problem of what to do with this girl. The plan is for Ms. Moore to adopt this girl and take care of her.”

Cathy squealed, “Mmmmom! I don’t want that freak living with us!”

I stood up and shouted, “I’m not a freak! I am your father!”

Cathy folded her arms. “I can’t be older than my father! Freak.”

My former wife said, “Will you shut up, child? This is how it is!” I learned later that the company gave my wife a large sum of money to take me off their hands.

Mr. Goddard said, “Our legal team will create a person for the girl to be and all legal documents. When we’re done, you’ll have to enroll the girl into school. The girl’s name will be Amanda, which was your choice.”

“Amanda? Don’t I get a choice?”

My wife sneered at me. “No. Remember? Amanda was the name we picked if we had another daughter.”

Director Wilson looked around the room. “Alright. Looks like all business has been taken care of. This meeting is dismissed.”

*  *  *

“You’re awfully quiet, Amanda.”

“What would you like me to say?” I asked. We were all piled into my wife’s… backup…  my mother’s car heading for some restaurant called Peaky’s for lunch. I was sitting in the backseat staring out the window. Cathy informed me that she gets the front seat because she’s the big sister. Whatever.

“I’m sure you have a lot on your mind,” said the person who I must now call Mom.

Interesting that she kept the last name Moore. Since we’re divorced, I thought she’d revert to her maiden name. I was struck by a sobering thought. I now have a maiden name.

“You’re starting a whole new life! Nobody gets to do that.” She was talking to me.

I looked at her face reflected in the rearview mirror. “I’m grateful that you took me under your wing so I won’t be tossed into the care of strangers. Wilson had planned to hand me over to Child Protective Services.” I paused a moment allowing myself to get angry. “I’m an engineer, dammit! I’m not some fucking child!”

Mom frowned at me through the mirror. “Watch that mouth of yours, young lady! We don’t talk like that in this family.”

To the mirror, I said, “Sorry.” Cathy giggled. I think I’ve found the tenth ring of hell.

Mom drove her car into the parking lot of Peaky’s. Odd that I’ve never eaten here before. As she shut her door after we shut ours, she said, “Come along, girls. I’ve been wanting to try this place for ages, but my curmudgeon ex-husband never wanted to.”

I frowned at her. “Are you going to do this all the time?

Mom chuckled. “Hey, if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have adopted you.”

Cathy turned to Mom and asked, “Does Amanda need a high-chair?” She laughed uproariously, apparently thinking she said something funny.

Mom shook her head. “Stop teasing your new sister. You two need to get along.”

Laughing, Cathy asked, “What’s the point of having a sister if you can’t mess with her?”

Mom frowned. “Just try to contain yourself, okay?”

I stuck my tongue out at her.

Pointing at me, Cathy exclaimed, “Did you see what she did?”

Shaking her head, Mom said, “Just enter the restaurant.” She then grinned at me. “You behave too.”

After we were seated and picked up our menus, it became apparent why we’ve never been here before. The menu consisted of items like hotdogs, sliders, mac and cheese, and other items I’d normally expect on a kid’s menu. The atmosphere wasn’t much better with an area of video games. Still, there were plenty of adults and few children. It was the lunch hour.

I spotted an item right away that I wanted. It was one of the more expensive menu items though. “Mom. Can I have the chicken fried steak?”

Mom didn’t even look up from her menu. “Can you or may you?”

Shit. Seriously? I sighed. “May I have the chicken fried steak?”

Grinning, Mom said, “Yes, you may.”

Cathy said, “I’m getting pizza!” They have pizza? How did I miss that?

Mom opted for the chicken salad, which consisted of a salad loaded with chunks of chicken.

After a few bites of my chicken fried steak, I exclaimed, “Hey, this is better than… um… uh, this is really good.” Mom frowned at me. I looked at her and shrugged. “What?”

The lunch was pretty good. I wasn’t allowed to play any of the video games. As we piled into the car, Mom said, “We’re going to the strip mall to get Amanda a few items she needs, like underwear.”

Cathy interrupted. “You’re not getting into my underwear, freak.”

“Cathy!” Mom exclaimed. “Be nice to your sister. We’re also going to get Amanda’s ears pierced.”

I wrinkled my nose. “No. I don’t want my ears pierced.”

Turning in her seat to look back at me, Cathy said seriously, “Trust me, girl. You want it.”

Mom laughed. “Your big sister has spoken!”

*  *  *

End of Part 2