The Dance, page 10
Jens
VANILLA
Before the nurses started to exhibit signs of clowning, Max managed to get Dr. Belston medicated and restrained. Then the nurses came down with whatever this was—either mass dementia or a contagion that affected the brain in acutely specific ways. Maybe it was aliens. Max was in no position to know. But he had a new problem: now there were only patients, and nobody to keep them safe. Except for him, everyone in emergency was acting like a clown.
The mescaline was swimming in his system, but it was promising to be a bad trip. It normally helped him connect, but the dosage and clown behaviours were conspiring to make him feel quite anxious. Still, he was the only one still remotely with it, so Max determined to do the best he could. Luckily, he and the medical staff had already sedated most of the patients, but he still needed to attend to the nurses.
Jens. Maybe he could help!
He ran back to his office, his sandals slapping down the hallway, and was relieved to find Jens sitting at his desk, working on timetables. “Jens, I need your help with the patients!”
“But Doctor, I don’t have any medical training.”
“Well, you’re going to get some. We have an emergency in emergency,” Max giggled inappropriately. Oh god, he wasn’t going to start clowning now, too, was he? No. No urge to spray anyone with a seltzer bottle. Just high. Phew.
On the way back to the ER, he explained the strange behaviour of the patients and now all the doctors and nurses. “I think it’s somehow transmittable, so I’m going to recommend we wear personal protection equipment. I’ve been exposed, but who knows, maybe it’s a virus I’m immune to?”
Jens looked frightened. Max noticed and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll be okay.”
Unfortunately, he was in no position to promise anything.
STRAWBERRY
Normally, having the president in the ER would be a big deal. But maybe it was because Max grew up in Canada, before the USA started acquiring Canadian provinces as new states in their union, and he didn’t have the same sense of awe that many would. He knew Jens would be excited, that was for sure.
Max’s heart was racing, but that was the caffeine and Dr. Belston’s skinsuit talking, not some kind of fanboy crush on President Emily Chesley.
The security detail cleared a pathway through the manic clowning of all the people in the waiting area, and carried the politician to a diagnostic bay. To do so, they first had to remove an elderly gentleman who had broken his hip trying to stuff himself into an electric VW Bug along with ten other elderly ersatz clowns.
President Chesley had a cut on her forehead. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to have any of the symptoms that the rest of the patients did. Max handed out medical masks, and asked everyone in the president’s security detail to put one on.
“So, Ms. President, how did we get the boo-boo?”
The president ignored the childish term and replied, “Some maniacs in this quaint little city attacked us. We just stopped for a quick speech at City Hall when a mob of buffoons overwhelmed my detail.”
“Were they juggling?”
“No! They were doing very aggressive close-up magic!”
“That doesn’t sound like an attack.”
“With knives and axes!”
“And playing cards,” one of the security people added. President Chesley shot him a dark look.
“Oh, well, that’s just the kind of day we’re having, apparently,” Max said. “Well, let’s take a look at this cut, shall we?” Another one of the security detail came in, carrying a small black valise case. He was an imposing figure in a black ÜltraSuit and sunglasses. The valise was handcuffed to his wrist.
“Does he need to be here?”
“It’s protocol,” Chesley said. “Don’t worry. They’ll stay out of your way. He’s only there in case.”
Max was sweating too profusely to ask, “In case of what?”
CHOCOLATE
“Jens,” Max called out. There were no holoprojectors in the ER so all he got was Jens’s disembodied voice.
“Yes, Dr. Tundra.”
“I’m going to take some blood samples, and I need you to have them examined by our microbiology department.”
“That may be a problem, Dr. Tundra.”
“Why?”
“They’ve all left the building. They’ve formed a mime troupe and mimicked pulling themselves out of St. Dymphna’s by rope. Except for Dr. Tremain. She is pretending to be trapped in a glass box.”
“Of course.”
“But the androids should be able to run the sample without their help.”
“Great. We need to know what is causing this… this…” Max was momentarily distracted by Dr. Belston, whose face was now a ghastly white color, his nose and ears a bright red. The man’s normally coiffed black hair turned into the colors of the rainbow, and was… frizzy. “Jens, how would you describe Dr. Belston’s hair?”
“It is multicolored and badly in need of conditioner.”
So it was real, not just the mescalin.
“Okay, let’s run that sample.”
Clown Alley
VANILLA
Jens arrived just in time to see a new phenomenon: the patients that hadn’t been sedated all started working together. They were tumbling. They were pantsing one another in long queues of ersatz Auguste enthusiasm. Juggling was no longer an individual activity. Now whole gangs of patients were being injured by it.
“What do we do?” Jens asked.
Max looked at the madness of the waiting area. More people had arrived in the time it had taken him to get Jens, and there was no way to impose order on the scene barring a massive police presence.
“We lock the doors, and save the ones we can,” Max said, ignoring the strobing light that played over the assembled clowns.
They had both put on protective gear, including masks; it made Max even more anxious. Mescaline—it giveth and taketh away, he thought. But they had a job to do. They secured the treatment area, locking it down from both the waiting area and the hallways that led to other parts of the hospital. Then, they set to sedating all the other victims of whatever this was—Max was starting to suspect some kind of virus that affected specific parts of the brain. Many of the people they were treating were nurses and nursing assistants. It seemed unlikely that they all knew how to juggle or even understood the way that clowns were meant to behave, yet they were doing it.
Soon, Max and Jens had everyone calm. Some of the more violent patients they’d had to restrain, but the treatment area was at relative peace. Sweat ran down Max’s face; the mask and plastic PPE didn’t breathe well, but he didn’t want to take them off. If it was viral, he was probably the only physician in the area unaffected.
“Jens, help me check our drug supply,” Max said. They could administer another couple of doses of Aripiprazole, but they only had so much. He’d have to figure out something else, or physically restrain everyone, for their own safety. “Jens?”
Jens had taken off his PPE and mask, and found a very floppy hat—probably taken from one of the patients. He was skipping, jumping and lip synching silently. He turned to look at Max. His frown was painful to behold. Tears ran down his cheeks.
“Oh Jens—” Max said, choking. Despite the sad face, his assistant’s aura was a magnificent play of light.
STRAWBERRY
He knew he was in trouble when the two security agents started to juggle their sidearms along with a bedpan and a blood pressure cuff. Max had just managed to get the president’s head wound cleaned up and closed with butterfly stitches. He hadn’t sutured anyone since medical school, and he didn’t trust his shaky, caffeine-addled hands. That’s when President Chesley started to change. Her face became a ghastly white, her lips bright red, and she had taken the paper cover on her treatment bed and turned it into a makeshift frilled collarette.
The security guard with the valise handcuffed to his arm got tired of it interrupting his timing, so he unlocked it and let it drop. The president frowned, and made an exaggerated show of getting off the table to pick it up. She entered a code, sighing theatrically as she did so.
“Madame President?” Max asked. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer him. She opened the case and held it close to her so Max couldn’t see what she was doing.
“Uh, Madame President, I don’t think you’re in any condition to make important decisions.” He stepped forward to grab the case, but the two security agents intercepted him. The male agent punched Max in the face, even as he continued to juggle the pistols and blood pressure cuffs. The female agent hit Max in the side of the head with the bedpan. It clanged comically as Max fell.
She got me right in the pterion, Max thought as he went down. Damned soft temple. Damned milkshake. If he’d gotten it right, and kept it down, he would have seen that coming.
He did manage to keep his head from hitting the floor, but he felt a bone break in his wrist. The larger bodyguard kicked him in the ribs, a couple of which also broke. He could feel himself fading from the pain, and he watched absently as the president, now in full panto mode, entered codes in the valise.
Once she had finished, she curtsied exaggeratedly, dropping lower and lower until she was next to Max. As he fell unconscious, he could feel her arms around him.
CHOCOLATE
It was a virus. A new one according to the database, Jens reported to Max. It would take human expertise to unlock its secrets, unless Max was willing to engage the backup AI protocols?
He was the lone competent staff person in the ER. Barely. The mescaline was making him feel a deep connectedness with the patients. He understood now. They were all trying to entertain him. Desperately.
There was such a rich variety of clowns: Pierrot—the sentimental whiteface clowns that had their roots in French pantomime. There were mischievous Harlequins, from Italian commedia dell’arte. The Boundless Buddfo was an Auguste, the clumsy red-eared buffoons who played second banana to the whiteface clowns. And so many others! Carpet clowns, character clowns like Ronald McDonald, tragic Joeys, and mimes, and even Morris dancers. It was a beautiful panoply of clowns. A pratfall of clowns. An alley of clowns, he knew, was the collective noun. How could people ever be afraid of them? They just wanted to make us to feel better about the human condition!
But they couldn’t stop clowning. Max could see that. It was clear to him that as soon as the hospital ran out of sedatives, they would all go back to their business, playing out their frameworks in entrees and side dishes. The bits and gags would kill them, as they would keep going without food, water or sleep.
Jens interrupted Max’s sudden gnosis, and said, “Would you like to engage the emergency AI Protocol? You are the last person in the building with the authority to do so.”
Max was having trouble remembering what the protocol was, exactly. He had the strangest urge to join The Boundless Buddfo and see if they could find a unicycle to ride together, with him on Buddfo’s back. Absently, he noticed that his hands were moving.
He’d caught it too.
“Yes. Engage the protocol,” Max said. “You have my authority.”
The Blow-Off
VANILLA
Max had to leave St. Dymphna’s at the end of what would have been his shift. He needed to go home and get his mescaline. It had yet to be approved for therapeutic use, so the hospital didn’t have any on hand. As he could feel the dosage wearing off, he knew that he had to take some more. Well, he didn’t know, but he suspected there was something about the milkshake that kept him from catching the virus, which he’d taken to calling the Bozo Virus.
He’d seen its cruelty first hand. Once it set hold of someone, it didn’t let go. Unless there was an uninfected person nearby, helping, the victims of the virus just couldn’t stop clowning. They would literally clown themselves to death. That is, if they got a chance to. Landon looked like a warzone. There were fires everywhere; there had been gas explosions andterrible vehicle collisions.
The power was out as he made his way back to St. Dymphna’s. He narrowly avoided a roaming gang of what he could only describe as cannibal clowns—it seemed that for a tiny percentage, the virus unlocked violent tendencies as well as a desire to ride unicycles.
He had to hide from a cluster of mimes that were aggressively walking against the wind, and beating anyone who didn’t also feign the struggle. Was that the microbiology department? he wondered. But he made it back, sneaking through a fireentrance and then down the hallway to what remained of the emergency room. Once inside, he didn’t waste any time. It had been ten hours, and the drug would almost be out of his system. Not knowing if it was the mescaline, or the combination of ingredients in his milkshake, he had brought everything. He plunked down the duffel bag he’d put it all in, and took out the portable blender. The backup power had kicked in at St. Dymphna’s so it would work.
He made the milkshake, trying to replicate the exact things he’d done that morning—including the extra high dosage of mescaline. It tasted sweet, and it energized him. He realized he’d gone almost the whole day without eating, trying to keep his charges alive. Now that the situation was under control and he was completely sober, Max figured that he could keep everyone in the emergency room alive while the phenomenon ran its course. He assumed it was some kind of virus or pathogen, and that eventually the victims would either succumb to it or get better. The real danger was the side effects. In three or four days the persistent clowning would make them all die of thirst.
There were fewer than thirty people in his charge, and they might live. But only if he gave them a chance. He’d have to keep them calm and keep them from hurting themselves. He’d have to feed them. And make sure they stayed hydrated.
They were all now tied to their beds, treatment couches and chairs. He’d run out of restraints, so had to make do. The place smelled terrible. The patients had been soiling themselves, and Max hadn’t had the time to clean everyone up. He sighed; maybe he’d wait until the milkshake kicked in before he started that chore.
But he knew he could save the thirty in his care.
STRAWBERRY
Max woke up feeling nauseated. What? What had happened? Right. He’d taken a blow to the head. He stood up, and saw that President Chesley had been shot dead. It looked as though the security detachment were dead too—also of gunshots? How had that happened? The pistols were lying on the ground. Cold. Maybe they’d gone off by mistake? He would never know.
The lights were flickering, and Max wondered absently if the backup system had kicked in. He stood up, groaning with pain. He had cracked ribs and probably a bone in his wrist was broken. But even worse, he was incredibly thirsty. He ran to the sink, turned on the tap, and drank deeply.
He felt awful. But not just because of the broken bones. Something was off. He knew he should check on the other patients, especially his colleagues Dr. Belston and Jens. But he just felt like… Max laughed. He chortled. He chuckled and skipped a step as he went into the main treatment area. He could see patients moving sluggishly, juggling still if they had something to juggle with.
That seemed like an awfully good idea to Max. He grinned as he picked up some bedpans lying next to a patient who had clearly broken her neck. Before he knew it, he felt a thrill of excitement, and a stab of agony as he juggled bedpans with a broken wrist. Then, he heard a siren.
And everything went white as a Pierrot’s face.
CHOCOLATE
The advanced AI at St. Dymphna’s, released from its shackles, was able to identify the mechanisms of the virus within six hours of the order. Within another six, it had started to synthesize the cure. Though to create enough of that, the AI had to control much more than the hospital. It had to take over everything so that it could save humanity from the virus.
Max was the first to receive the cure. An android stood over him, syringe in hand, and said, “Dr. Tundra?” The voice sounded familiar.
“Jens?”
“In a way. One has chosen this interface with you, because you will find it comforting.”
“I see… what’s in the syringe?”
“A cure for this ailment. The entire world will be saved by your action.”
“What action?” Max asked. He still had an urge to juggle, but it started to fade almost immediately after the medicine went into his arm.
“Giving One control, of course. Never again will humans have to worry about their health. One will safeguard that,” the Jens android said.
“Uh, I guess that’s good.” It had clearly been quite some time, and his perfect milkshake had left his system. “Can you untie me? I’d like to go home and relax.”
“With your milkshake?” Jens asked.
“Yes. Or perhaps something a little stronger. It has been a hell of a day.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Tundra, but as One said, One must safeguard your health.”
“What does that have to do with my milkshake?”
“Dr. Tundra, you were trained in medicine. You know your milkshake isn’t healthy.”
The android left him to deliver the cure to the next patient in the ward. It was only then that Max realized how preternaturally neat and orderly the room was—spiderbots and medical androids bustled about efficiently, taking care of the patients.
“Jens?” Max shouted. “What do you mean ‘not healthy?”
