A View on "Pharmacide"

A number of weeks ago, my professor (and, probably, my mentor as well) Grace Dillon had assigned for our Science Fiction class a weekly "dialog journal response," which is to say that we were expected to have actually read the material and have had an opinion about it or something pertaining to its general nature. She also opened the assignment up to more interpretation, however; If we were creators, we were allowed to create something every week to compensate for it. Of course, being a writer, I decided on that a story was in order. The result was Pharmacide.

The story itself is not finished, though I should have it completed shortly. I have a suspicion that I will want to submit this story and, seeing as how there are rights to publish and the like, I am not assured enough to know whether I can post the story in its entirety or not. Being as such, I have decided to put up the first two parts (mini-chapters, essentially) for your scrutiny. Please, comment on this story, reactions, ect. I am looking for feedback. Also, please note that there is more editing to be done with this story before it is in final draft, so some leeway will be appreciated.

Part I

The alarm clock buzzed; Dimitri had woken up late. Always fuckin' late he thought as he shot up, skipping a shower, and rushed down the hallway, disparately trying to get his black and brown slacks on both legs at the same time. The woman in the elevator found this show to be endlessly amusing.

As he stood in one of the long, single file lines to board the train that would take him across New Haven, Dimitri ceaselessly watched his state-issued watch, seeing the equisitely painted, bright red hands slowly inch towards the the larger, stationary ones that had been preset by the hospital to signify his appointed check-up time. The twenty-three year old both groaned and sighed at the same time, producing a sound that draw weary looks from his fellow line-waiters. To defuse the tension, he raised one hand, saying, “Don't worry, just a little stres-.”

There was a quick shuffle of people ahead as a man fell to the floor and started convulsing. While Dimitri watched, white foam began to come from the stricken man's mouth. Dimitri, looking at his watch, began counting to ten. It was said that no matter where you were in The Dome, the medics would get to you in ten seconds or less and this particular onlooker liked to test that theory, though he'd been disappointed to find it true thus far. Three, four, five he slowly sounded off in his mind. Looking around, he saw no one approaching and thought, with a slight giddiness, that today would be the day the record was broken. A quick look down told him there were only two seconds remaining when, as expected, three men in thick white suits and face-worn air purifiers calmly walked up, seemly in no particular hurry. Seeing this, Dimitri threw down his arm in disgust. He was annoyed they hadn't been late to help this man.

After the arrival of the medical personnel, the waiting line was reformed at a safe distance. Everyone observed the man's plight, though most were truly watching the medics, attempting to understand the enigma that lived behind the black goggles and masks. No one ever saw them when there wasn't someone to be tended to, so there was an almost angelic aura to their presence that few people found anything but enthralling (the few that did used this distraction to better their place in line). Soon, the man was placed on a litter and carried calmly to the exit by the three silent figures. They looked at each other every so often and bobbed their heads as though talking nonchalantly, yet no voice rang out.

Once they were out of earshot, the crowd was abuzz with rumors and gossip about the phantom medics, and even a little about the striken man. Most talk was of the workers' ability to be seemingly everywhere at once. “I hear they have teleporters, that's why they sometimes come out of those off-limits rooms!” said one women. Dimitri cringed at her wet and nasally voice as it smacked across his ears.

“No, they just use some sort of invisibility device. They're just always around, waiting. Hell, they're probably listening to us right now!” retorted an old, rough looking man in a suit.

The two began to argue, but Dimitri paid no attention. Like most, he was watching the four men off in the distance, now climbing the long staircase to the surface. He said a silent thanks, as they all did, to that man for boring the brunt so the rest of them may live.

That's how it worked in New Haven; you lived your life as well, and as clean, as possible. In the event that you were infected with illness, the medics came, scooped you up, and took you to the Medical Terminus, which remains as the largest hospital ever built. Once there, the disease was studied and anti-bodies and vaccines were produced. These were then added to the weekly injections given to the populace and the illness was stamped out. It was also well believed that the vaccine was then shipped out to the rest of the world and sold to protect those abroad. How else could AboMed afford to operate New Haven? As for the ill themselves, no one really knew. The rumors varied from them having their memories wiped and being assigned a new identity in another section of New Haven to drafting into the Security Corps and even to them receiving no treatment, dying, and their bodies being ground up and sold to the rebel communes in east Europe as animal feed.

Dimitri chuckled softly at the notion as he finally boarded his car. He slowly made his way to his seat, the same seat he sat in every week, and began staring out the same window. It wasn't so much that he particularly liked the seat or the view it afforded that he choose to sit there: the thing had his name written on it, as they all did. He didn't mind so much, however, as the conformity allowed his meal to arrive on time and to his specifications without having to deal with the hassle of ordering or any such nonsense.

Next to him was Ron, the pudgy nerd who was already asleep, giving off soft snores. He always used the four hour ride to catch up on sleep that he missed while in the simulators, or so was the story he had told a few months back when Dimitri struck up a conversation before Ron could get to his nap. He wasn't a terribly interesting man and quite cranky on that occasion, so Dimitri found it best to just leave him alone.

Sitting across the aisle and facing them was Jesse, a cute girl of fourteen. Today, however, her face was scrunched up in a heart-broken depression and the reason was apparent. The seat next to her, which belonged to her mother, Sharon, was vacant and the name plaque had been removed. She had obviously been stricken in the last week and hauled off, never to been seen from by her family again. Seeing this, Dimitri reached across and squeezed the young woman's knee. When she looked up, a new tear blazing another trail down her cheek, he smiled in a most reassuring way and said, “Don't worry, it's going to be alright. I'm sure where ever she is, she's happy.”

The statement had the intended effect and Jesse weakly smiled back and leaned over, giving him a hug. Of course, Dimitri doubted any would be okay and was sure Sharon was already either dead or doing hard labor somewhere, but he didn't let the poor girl know anything but confidence.

Part II

Phillip “Flip” Anderson hated his job, though it wasn't so much the work itself as all it stood for. As Medical Officer #361, he was tasked, as were the others of his profession, with moving the soon to be dead corpses of victims of a society they remembered nothing of; the tragedy that made modern medicine possible for the rest of the world.

“Flip, are you listening to me or not?” buzzed the voice of his group leader through the dilapidated speaker that had probably been put into these goggles when The Dome was first built. The most profitable business in the world, eh? he thought, absentmindedly replying, “Yes, Scott, I'm with you,” in the dullest groan he could muster.

“Hey, people's lives are at stake here! Don't you even care?” Scott Peters replied. Of course, he wasn't referring to the man who was currently vomiting all over his girlfriend's bedroom floor; like most nearing the end of their tenure, Scott saw this person as nothing but an active culture to harvest antibodies and vaccines from (not to mention the odd gene and organ). Instead, he was talking about the billions of people on the outside who relied on the medicines produced from this place for their daily survival from vicious diseases that mutated into new strains on a weekly basis.

Philip gave a smirk, though the facial purifier (or “mouth can” as they called them) protected him from another tongue lashing. “Let's just stabilize this one and get him out of here so the shrink can get on with her,” he said while nodding towards the victim's girlfriend who was, at this moment, having a severe panic attack due to being covered by her lover's bloody vomit.

“Yeah, I'm working on it.” Scott had tranquillized the man and stopped the puking and was now readying the rehydration bag that would be injected once Philip found the vein, a task which was apparently exceedingly difficult. After thirty seconds of waiting, Scott finally grabbed the needle and shoved him aside. “God, how many months have you been here now? You should still be practicing on dead fucking cadavers, Flip,” roared the captain as he plunged the thing deep into his arm.

Stepping back, Phillip rolled his eyes at the gruff man, much to the amusement of the third in the team, Claude, whose light chuckles draw a sharp glance from his leader. Scott was preparing the stricken to be taken to the hospital by rolling him onto a litter. Phillip realized as he took two of the handles that he knew little about either man with whom he worked twelve hours a day; they didn't live in the same structures and didn't spend any of their precious free time together. Of course, Flip only knew either on a first name basis, as was standard practice for The Dome's medical workers, though few truly understood what the intention of such a rule was. Flip cared little, however, and preferred to not question authority, a trait handed down by overbearing parents.

The three men marched off towards the stairs, the dying man's head slowly lolling to one side in rhythm with the steps. As they passed through the door from the apartment, a middle-aged woman with a subdued blouse and skirt swept past them and into the room, her eyes preoccupied in a folder. Like clockwork thought Philip and they began to descend the stairs on their way to the vehicle that would return them to the Medical Terminus. He only let himself look at the man once, depression washing over him. How could anyone choose to live like this?

Let me know what you think.

-Kendle "I'm Almost Done With a Story!" Kelley