Mother's Hand

Chapter One

SIX YEARS LATER

"400–Ana..." I shouted, while my mind scrambled to figure out what was going on. "Four hundred," I stammered again. My voice was hoarse and I sounded desperate like I wanted me to remember what I was saying.

My arms were pulling hard at the restraints on the bed and I was sweating, no – I was drenched, as if I had been struggling and screaming for hours. My chest heaved up and down with each breath.

They had taken something from me, I could feel the absence of it. But... I didn't know what it was.

"400–Ana," the words held a meaning, like some former version of me had tried to scrawl them inside my own brain; the one thing I can't forget. As I tried to hold on to their significance, they slipped through my fingers and my own thoughts flooded back in waves, washing the message away.

A nurse was in the room, standing over my bed. Her mouth set a tight line. In her hand was a needle and her thumb was against the plunger.

The nurse cocked her head, her face held an edge of disappointment, like I was an experiment that had failed.

She lifted the needle.

Then all at once my body was under my control. 'Wait," I said.

My lips had one last fluttering stammer trying to say the name again, but I stopped them. I was in control.

I am okay.

"I'm back... I lived," I said and took a deep shuddering sigh.

The nurse's face creased into a smile, she tipped her chin down, looking at me through her eyebrows like I was an errant child.

"Welcome back, 828-Kal."

She covered the needle and quickly turned away. The deft way she did it registered some concern in my mind, but I laid back on the soggy pillow and focused on steadying my breathing.

Focused on being inside myself.

I am really here. I am really me. My service is complete.

The heart rate monitor rung out in a rapid beep beside me.

"So you are. You should rest 828-Kal," the nurse said, from across the room. "It'll take a moment for you to come back to yourself. Sleep for a while."

I closed my eyes.

I dreamt again and worried that this was the world I was back to. Thoughts swirling and endlessly repeating. Memories and fantasies blurring, then chasing consciousness and perhaps finding something that feels like it for a moment. Pulling myself around that feeling and trying to muster myself awake and even coming close; hearing deep muffled sounds, seeing light change and move, like I was a baby in a womb. But no matter how hard I tried; I could not wake.

Each time I managed to rise up; I organized trying to keep myself sane. Focus on memories.

I'm just a simple veterinarian and I've always been happy with my lot. I enjoy speaking to my prim Section Three clients in the suburb where I live. Playing videogames with my best friend and next-door neighbor Gary. Listening to Mother's stories from my purple robot monkey while I worked, cloning and re-cloning my client's favorite pets. Administering cymonacide when it was time for their well-cared for lives to come to an end.

Cymonacide.

The needle the nurse had was a cymonacide needle.

Why would she have that near me?

I fought the pull of my unconsciousness. I grew bars around me and made myself huge, like a great ape I shook my existence.

I will not sleep!

Somewhere far away, the rhythmic beep of my heart sensor rung out.

I used it like a lifeline to pull myself back to consciousness.

I laid awake, but I kept my eyes shut. As my mind unscrambled, the questions bubbled up.

Why was I screaming the name 400-Ana? And then, more immediately concerning, Why the skuff was the nurse holding a cymonacide needle?

One thing at a time Kal, I told myself. Be thankful you're alive. Get home. Get safe. Get away from here.

And, despite the cymonacide and the haunting name. I had one clear realization that flooded me with relief.

I finally have my body back.