Bad Blood

  "What am I supposed to say?" On camera she appeared to be talking to a plastic spider plant.  She was back up, back up eyes on a remote surgery.  "Yes, I'm still here."  The Peoples' Clinic had been bought out by the State.  "Of course the family is a mess.  They think their beloved matriarch is dying.  And has been for like thirty-six months." (i)Ooooo, too close, too close.(i)  "Now I'm supposed to tell them, (i)we were wrong, they were wrong, somebody front door'd up, the rubrics got messed with, the standards were warpy...what?" 

  "Let the intern monitor the surgery and come with me please," a thin-haired similar looking woman appeared at the desk.  The excitement was palpable.  "What have you got?" 

  A hand pressed down on a shoulder ready to fly down to the urgent care room without locking the handgun away.  "A man in a barrel.  And a woman who seems frozen.  Just hitting the man over the head with a chalkboard eraser." 

  A special safe in the desk being locked.  "You serious?" 

"What else did you guys

  learn there?" 

  "See, it's a different understanding of the world." 

  "Like how so?" 

  "Like," a deep sigh, "Money isn't the only factor in the meaning of (i)forever war(i)." 

  The other guy refocused his eyes in the Google glasses and snagged a (i)notes(i) file for the desktop.  "And, there wasn't that dreaded classification of WMD, before 

  "Okay, great," said an outgoing team lead.  "Make sure you tell everyone else." 

  "WHAT THE HEAHECK IS THIS?" A woman had pulled a sheet off a real size reproduction of the outgoing team leader.  There was a palm slap imprint in the thin "skin".  The woman took all of this in.  "Wife had enough of missing you?" 

  The team lead shifted his weight in the office chair and put his elbow on the arm.  It fell off.  "Kids actually.  They've won this round." 

"Just GO. Get outta here.

  Remember everything our generation taughtcha.  (i)Go.(i). Live your lives."  The great white Indian put a foot down on the place where the hoop had been broken.  "Mine.  I will fix it." 

  "The political nastiness is (i)never(i) going to end," a scarred face poked itself out of a closet and scared some people. 

  "Look at them." 

  "Yeah, they just pack up and go on their way." 

  "That's because a military life goes on and on, but it's different for civilians." 

  "The public just gets dumped on." 

  "Like any of us knows what to do as the war, as the wa," another asthma attack.  "Leave her alone," a man rushed to her side and helped her sit down.  "Don't stress." 

  Someone went to a woman with a purse and dramatically explained asthma attack.  An inhaler was produced. 

  "I guess some good news at this point is that it's people dedicated to politics that are making way back to Congress." 

  "But the campaign." 

  "They all raised a lot of money in other ways too, so they can tone down all this." 

  "You know, I do feel better having met so many other people who are at least not apathetic." 

  "Yeah, we're leaving the rest of this to the political animals." 

  "Hey, they're not that.  But they are as disciplined as the military on strategy and acting once they get there." 

  "MY VIDEO!  LOOK, LOOK!  If you like Country music.  This is cool." 

"Girl," she said to the

person in the gorilla suit, "Nobody goes through cultural transformation without having some issues." 

  "Come on ape!  Come inside so we all can eat."  Others started making all manner of monkey family sounds. 

"We don't know what

  to do with our parents." The middle-aged siblings had gotten call backs on jobs they were interested in doing.  "In town for health care?" One stuffed a slice of devil'd egg into his mouth and shook his head vigorously (i)nooooo(i).  The other revealed try outs for pre-young-adults. 

  Someone graciously offered to hang with the parents at a day camp for austistic spectrum people. 

  "Bring the eggs!" 

  "They have their own food." 

  "For us."  The parents searched pockets for reading glasses, ponchos, and hydration tablets. 

"This is Xtreme."

  The rafting guide had ducked the river tour into a spit of earth on an island that had been worn into a ramp.  A man not really dressed for rafting wrung out his dress pants.  An observer noticed, (i)bulge in pocket, no bulge at island stop(i). 

  "It has to do with weight.  So much rain adds so much weight to our gear." 

  "And persons," another person tried to wring out clothing. 

  "Probably too many variables for it to ever be an Olympic sport." 

  "Then how do people live?" 

  "We keep it to friendly competition on this side." 

  "Right, it's not legal in our country to lethally eliminate competition." 

  "Someone's carved out a fire pit." 

  "Sandwiches anyone?" Someone else held up a grocery bag dripping water like it was a solar shower. 

"See how it's," the person

  started a sentence for the observer to finish.  "Like a fishtail?" 

  A nod.  "Once it's launched it gets it's swim on and can go pretty much anywhere depending on it's," a glance at photography of the night sky with and without the dark forms portending destruction.  "Payload?" 

  "Fueling technique, fueling capacity," the person drifted into thought. 

  Out of the pool.  Water streaming off bodies built to machine their way through all terrain.  Not that the people were the machines, but everything about their persons were being developed to precision and poise.  "Could rival," a coach who'd eyed the competition speculated. 

  People hungrily took their tags back.  

  "Why would they say that about the Tira Masoo?" 

  "What'd they say Darling?" 

  "Said there's no straight answers about how many people cross it." 

  "Well, that's not good dinner talk." 

  "How was your day?" 

  "Part of the answer has to do with where the fighting is.  (i)Fine(i)." 

  "And maybe also what a popcorn was saying about before 'monied'?" 

  "Probably.  There's always budget cycle and before it's hacked out there's a lot of 'army comparison'." 

  "How so?" 

  "Basics.  They've got 5000 troops.  They've got 25." 

  "Lotta mouths to feed." 

  "They don't feed theirs." 

  "No wonder so much infighting and, um, creativity on getting resources." 

  "Yah, thieving." 

  "Rape, pillage, and burning, nothing new under the sun.  Oh, and by the way, the Global Village messaging is not helpful.  Not with so many people defending their own lettuce patches." 

  "We'll be sure to let Washington know." 

"Just listen."

  "Everybody needs to stop blubbering.  That's number one." 

  People couldn't.  Wives and husbands smacked each other in the face.  Some couples followed suit on their individualized ways of helping each other focus, (i)right here, right now(i). 

  A person tapped into the Morse Code apparatus, "Our Editor has been shot in the knee with a poison dart." 

  Morse coded back was a question: Was it a tranquilizer? 

  The tests on the editor's body which had to be done by the editor using the one hand not paralyzed were not a match to any of the known "tranquilizers".  The apparatus coded back that the editor would be put on "the list".  The editor declined.  A taped-together walkie talkie informed everyone that the editor was not allowed to decline services. 

  "But then I met Melinda and I knew I was in love," the Cyborg explained to people missing limbs awaiting prosthetics.  Many had driven from several states away to wait and wait in a low profile, long hallway'd building rented by the CCP.  And it was many of these people who jumped off gurneys, benches, chairs, and in one case onto a Construction Site pole when what-looked-like "robo cops" entered the building with machine guns.  They formed two rows of threes as Asian men in underwear and not and shackled, were marched into the building.  

  The TV with the friendly cyborg changed into a static circle and that blew up into an angular faced black man.  The TV told, "These are defects.  Let them pass through to the Inner Chambers." The beings with the machine guns broke into in front, in behind, still at the door.  

  "Don't get sucked into the worm hole people," a white coat admonished the people sitting in the chairs seeming-to-be watching the television. 

  "Now everybody's pissed." 

  "I really could care less right now." The Team Lead stayed resolved.  Crunched more aspirin, gnawed on Beef Jerky, and drank black coffee.  "I need an update," he told the air.  "It's a wireless bubble," his good assistant explained.  The "bad assistant" had trashed his office, cut the lock on a file cabinet with a "finger nail", and stolen the Classified folders after a blanket "re-ghosting". 

  The update revealed all temps had left the building.  And both the Cultural people and the Military people were greatly annoyed.  Mostly because there wasn't enough time to keep abreast of (i)fluid situation(i), let alone hope to re-boot strategy. 

  The team lead tried to beep into a room.  The voice attempt was blocked.  He tried his swipe card.  That didn't work.  "They've already re-coded those."  

  "Kay.  This is a decision point.  And I need the team of teams to understand that there are currently instances of sistering programs.  That is being done so we can get a grip on what we don't know." 

  "Oh.  OH.  Can you leave this on.  She's a new chef the big wigs hired." 

  "No prob.  Here's the remote but it doesn't make the worm hole disappear." 

(p1)"The man came out of the building."

  (p2)"The man came out of the building." 

  (p3--the writer)"Got it." 

  (p2)"Did you find your mother?" 

  (unsub)"No.  Just this." Man started to hold up a three pound roll of bologna, person two: (i)Whoa, whoa(i). 

  (Team 1) "Okay, we're going to send in a Social Worker." 

  (Team 2)  "We wouldn't until the area is cleared of the ghost gun." 

  (T1) "Okay, where is it?" 

  (T2) "Believed to be in the bologny." 

  (P2) "There are robots heading down the back slope." 

  "Mrs. Potholder.  What are you doing behind the bookshelf?  Oh Lord." 

  "Put unresponsive but still breathing." 

"Who wrote that?"

  "Kurt Vonnegut for all I know, it's been a hundred lifetimes since I've been in school." 

  "Not the quote, the program." The person put in place to "co-exist" with the paid people blinked as if trying to wake from a dream.  "And, by the way, they are eliminating redundancies by the end of the week." 

  "So?" 

"I really don't know. You

  can prolly find out with your drones." 

  "Not sure either.  There was a routine campfire, everybody ate their one egg, and when I woke up this morning, just gone." 

  The camp counselors looked at each other, (i)truth(i)?  Truth. 

  For several days the salarieds wondered out loud.  Shock at the size and scale of the Forest.  The pounds and pounds of papered policy was undisturbed and left where it had been secretly (at great cost) delivered. 

  Shrugs and less snides by the few that had somehow kept their jobs.