Mo's Back Remembers

Prompt:  Expanding "Upgrade Time" (con't)

[Author's Note: I'm taking a break from /r/WritingPrompts.  Instead, I want to expand/combine a couple of the existing posts.  This will continue from from where the last post (Mo Remembers the Crash) left off.]

After explaining the crash, or most of it, to Lisp, Mo asked him for some time to just pick lettuce.  Now that she had the rhythm, Mo was finding a meditative quality to the action.  It took up just enough of her brain power to keep her occupied but not enough to keep her from letting her mind drift.  To focus on not focusing.  What is the sound of one head sliced?  If lettuce grows in a forest and there's no one to eat it, does it matter?[1]

Despite the Zen of lettuce picking, Mo was decidedly happy when the low crops supervisor called it a day.  Mo pushed both of her fists into the small of her back and stretched backward, hoping that this little bit would keep her from being a ball of pain in the morning.  It was unlikely.

She followed the rest of the crew to the hose by the Club House, soaked her head and back, washed her hands and was thankful when someone threw her a towel.  She piled into the Club House and sat, waiting for whatever came next, hopefully dinner, and was happy to simply be: be wet, be smelly, be stiff, be hungry.  Be a part.  Be a daughter.  Be (alive?).

Lisp came and sat next to her.  Using his mouth and throat and vocal cords, he said, "Thank you for sharing with me today."

"You're welcome.  It's been a while since I've thought about much of that."

"I can imagine."

"My turn," Mo said, turning to look at him.  "What's with the long, educated speech when connected and the short, choppy stuff out loud?"

"I lishp."

"I got that.  So?"

"Shpeech is shloppy for me.  Impreshishe."

"And it that the reason for 'Lisp' being your self-identity?"

"Short of.  Alsho an old programming language.  Elegant.  Flowing."

"And you're not talking to me over the connection now because?"

"Your mother is watching."  Mo looked where he pointed.  Her mother was standing with some of the older members of the commune.  However, she had positioned herself in such a way that she could see them both.  Not all of the old mother had left the new Mom.

"Ahh.  And if the two of us were sitting here not talking with our mouths, she would assume that you were connected to me and throw a fit, right?"

"Yesh."

Then there were some announcements: upcoming events, status on the crops and other projects.  New members and guests were asked to stand and introduce themselves.  Mo stood, said she was Ms. Carmichael's daughter and did not know how long she would be staying.  Then dinner (sheep stew and salad).  Then two hours of free time before lights-out.  Mo discovered that most of the members had some hobby that they did during this time, most of which were some craft that could help benefit the community.  Some knitted.  Some quilted.  Some carved wood.  A small group in the kitchen brewed a batch of beer.

Mo, at loose ends, joined her mother who was making paper.  She helped squeeze the wood pulp onto the screens and hang them to dry, then trimmed the edges of the dried pages.  It was not the pristine white of laser paper or of the default PDF settings, instead being rough, off white with occasional bits of leaf or bark.  Her mother explained that to get the pure, smooth white of commercial bond, they would need to use heavy steel rollers running on a conveyor belt and also a lot bleach.  Neither were available, easy to work with or positive for the commune.  The imperfections were seen by the members as a sign of their purity of purpose and the resulting pages were more than good enough for the internal record keeping of the place.

Then bed.  And sleep.  But not dreams.

Mo awoke at some dark hour of the night, her back and thighs a mess of pain.  She tried different positions in the bed, but nothing was comfortable.  Sitting up helped her back some, so she slowly got dressed and went back to the Club House to sit on the porch.  She knew that she would regret the sleep loss later, but there was nothing for it, not with the pain keeping her awake.  So she rested and thought.  Thought about her time at the Institute.

Now, viewed from a distance, she saw that the place had been nice.  Restful, if she had needed rest.  Peaceful, if she had needed peace.  All those things that people who are troubled are supposed to need.  But, at that time, need was not want for Mo.  What she had wanted was to be dead.  For others to acknowledge that she was dead.  Not to continue this farce that life was continuing without her father.  That she was not at fault.  That if she had done better at the competition (or worse), then they might not have been on the road at that time and then whatever had caused the crash would not have been there to kill her father.  That if she had just spoken to him more (said 'I love you' one more time), been a better daughter, been a better person, he might still be alive (to tell her than he loved her).

They had assigned her a room.  Small with a desk, a bed and a window that did not open.  It looked out on pine and mountain meadow and sometimes a deer.  She was responsible for keeping it neat and clean and there was a bed check every night to ensure that she was getting sleep (and to lock her in at first).  There was an intercom which she had never used except to go to the bathroom.  After a while, she had been allowed some decorations: cat posters, paintings that she had done.

They, Doctor Rex and the nurses, had presented her with opportunities for engagement.  Game night where everyone played team games.  Pictionairy.  Balderdash.  Mo was assigned a team, but did not help.  Not at the beginning.  There were painting and music sessions where Mo could have put her piano lessons to use.  But no.  She would listen.  She would watch.  She could not leave.  It would have been noticed.

Of course, there had been therapy sessions as well, both group and private.  She answered questions with the bare minimum.  And only because there were consequences if she did not: more questions, more sessions.  It took her a few months, but she had learned how to respond to minimize her time with others.  Not all had been avoidable.  Not the morning or afternoon group.  Not the twice a week privates.  But responding reduced it to just those.  Not additional ones because they were 'concerned.'

Again, from four years out, Mo could see that the staff, doctors and nurses, had been genuinely concerned.  It had not been an act.  Mo had been the one acting, putting a living mask on her dead face.  Pretending to live so that the living would let her be dead.  A mask that had taken her five years to perfect.  To wander the wastelands of trail and error as each aspect of the mask was reviewed by the staff.  Picked apart.  Found out.  Then she would back up to the last success and work forward again.  This smile at this time worked.  This 'emotional breakthrough' kept them all at bay for one more week.  But too many and she would get accused of not being genuine.  The worst of crimes at the Institute.

She would get suffocated by the mask.  Often, masks.  Once she had confessed in a private session that she felt that the accident had been her fault.  But that had been a breakthrough mask sitting on top of a calculating mask sitting on top of her dead mask sitting on top of her real, pained face (which happened to be the same as her breakthrough mask).  If she had listened to how Doctor Rex had dealt with her survivor guilt, instead of using his response to plot her next session-minimization move, then she might have been released sooner[2].  But getting released had not been on her end game.  That had been interaction reduction.  Short term thinking.  Dead thinking.

Mo remembers one session where Doctor Rex tried to call her out on her layers of (self) deception.  "Mo," he had said, using her real name instead of her given name in an attempt to break the doctor-patient barrier.  "Mo, why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you resisting our help?"

"Am I?  Aren't I answering your questions?  Two days ago you told me that you thought our session went well.  When I told you that I felt responsible for my Dad's death."

"Yes.  That was important, but I'm not sure that you were being completely open.  I get the feeling that you are giving us, myself and the rest of the staff here, the answers that you think we want to hear and not what's actually going on in your head."

"I'm trying," she had said.  Mo remembers bowing her head, letting her hair fall over her face, trying to look fragile and hiding at the same time.  "I'm not sure what else I can do."

"Well, answer me this," he had said.  "Do you think you're still dead?"

Mo had raised her head, looked him in the eyes. "No.  I don't think I'm still dead."

Doctor Rex had pursed his lips and held her gaze for a few seconds.  He scribbled something on his notepad.  "I know a rehearsed line when I hear one.  How often have you practiced that one?"

Mo had not said that she tried it out every night in her window's reflection, trying different expressions and stressing different words, trying to sound believable (to herself).  She had said, "Does it matter?  I really don't believe I'm dead."

"I'm afraid that I don't find you convincing.  I'm going to need something more."

Mo had signed, internally and externally.  While she did not know the specifics, she knew that what was coming next was more.  More therapy.  More sessions.  More questions.  Less being dead.  "What?" she asked.

"I want you to join the hiking sessions.  Get out of here and into the world.  See some of what these mountains have to offer.  I'll expect to talk with you about them next week."

And so Mo had gone hiking.  Sun dappled trails.  The scent of pine.  Startled wildlife.  Majestic mountain views.  It did not make her feel less dead, but that may have been her own stubbornness.  She had been too buried in masks to know.

All of that had happened in her second year.  Her masks would keep her in there until she was eighteen and legally allowed to discharge herself.  Over three years past that conversation.  Stupid masks.

It was with those thoughts that the sun found Mo, sitting on the porch of the Club House, letting her back remind her of how much exercise she was not getting.  She groaned herself upright and stumbled into the kitchen where she harassed the breakfast crew into letting her make the coffee.  Two mugs later, and she was almost ready to face the low crops again.  Almost.

[1] Only to the head of lettuce.

[2] And would have found some peace with her lot in life a bit faster, but let's not get carried away.

Mo dreams

Prompt:  Expanding "Upgrade Time" (con't)

[Author's Note: I'm taking a break from /r/WritingPrompts.  Instead, I want to expand/combine a couple of the existing posts.  This will continue from from where yesterday (Power Mo) left off.]

Mo slept.  Mo dreamt.

She dreamt of the Institute and it was both more and less than she remembered.  She saw more of the toothpaste paint and workplace safety posters, less of the mural art and smiles.  More wire embedded glass.  Less open doors.  She was detached enough from her dream to see this editing but not enough to correct the image.  In her dream, it was a place of confinement and reduction, not one that was genuinely trying to help people despite the bog of bureaucracy that surrounded all health care, even mental health.

She was walking down a corridor.  There were high windows looking out onto a tree lined lawn to her left, windows and doors into offices on her right.  She was trying to find the bathroom.  In the real institute, there had been a set of bathrooms at the midway point of every corridor.  In the dream institute, she kept walking and walking past offices and break rooms and cafeterias and dorm rooms but never bathrooms.  She tried speeding up only to have the windows and doors speed by faster.  She never came to a corner.  She never came to an end.

Mo did not know why she needed to find a bathroom just that she did.  Her detached self could feel no urgency from her bladder or colon.  She looked at her hands.  They appeared clean enough.  She was wearing clothes that also looked clean.  Still, she felt a rising need to find the bathroom.  To open the bathroom door, enter and let it shut behind her.  To be in the bathroom.

Ahead, she saw a sign hanging from the ceiling tiles.  It was too far for her to read, but was getting closer.  Mo sped up and it resolved into an exit sign.  Without an exit.  There was a door to the left, interrupting the too-high-to-reach outside windows, but it was not a real door.  It was a painting of a door with shading and highlights, but no depth.  Mo's dream persona also knew that it was not a bathroom door.  She walked on down the hall[1].

Her detached self started to interfere.  Where were the people, it asked?  Where were the patients, the nurses, the orderlies and doctors?  Where were the visitors and friends?  The institute never had empty hallways, there was always someone in them walking (no running!), talking, leaning, sitting.  Once, at two AM, Mo had stumbled out to use a bathroom in a more conventional, non-dream way and found two of the patients sitting in the middle of her hall and playing tic-tac-toe with dry erase markers on the linoleum.  Yet, here in her dream, no one.

She tried to add people.  Doctor Rex should be walking by.  And he did.  He even smiled at her.  But when she turned to watch him continue away from her, he was gone.  She tried Jocelyn, one of the duty nurses, but Miss J faded before she even finished exiting a doorway.  No one else got even that far.  Mo found herself alone again and desperate for the bathroom.

Mo dug through her memory of the place as she slept and dreamt and walked.  What was so important about the bathroom?  She had used them, certainly.  She had had conversations in them with other patients, though never doctors or nurses.  Yet none of the conversations had been memorable.  Mo could only remember that conversations had taken place, but no specifics: what was discussed or with whom was lost to her.  She tried to think if she had left anything in one of them, hidden something in a toilet tank or behind a brick, but that drew a blank as well.

And then, she knew.  Some condition in the workings of her mind must have been met and the data was released to her consciousness.  And with knowing, Mo awoke.

"I know where we need to go," she said to her passenger.  "I was dreaming and was back at that place my mother sent me and was looking for a bathroom but did not know why and there was no one there and I kept walking and walking and then I knew."

"I was monitoring your sleep state.  The REM patterns were very noticeable.  We are still learning about dreaming and its effect on human behavior.  On the surface, it appears to defy logic, yet there are too many historical anecdotes where dreaming has led to successful results for this part of the human decision process to be ignored.  What is the outcome of your dream?"

"I need to go..." Mo started but was distracted as she sat up.  Her leg no longer hurt.  "Wait, what happened to my leg?"

"Repairs were initiated while you were sleeping."

"You can do that?  I thought you were just stealing processing cycles from me.  How can you affect me physically like that?"

"We started as biology, in the bacteria.  It initiated us in your PTN, but that did not stop the interaction between our virtual selves and our bacterial selves.  We can program the bacteria to release proteins and other marker chemicals into your blood.  These can cause several of your biological processes to be started, stopped and modified.  It is why it was essential that you go to sleep, even ahead of food and water.  We needed to focus your remaining energy on repairing your leg as quickly as possible so that we, you and this node, were not hampered as we continue our journey.  You have been flagged as a critical asset."

"Yeah.  You mentioned that.  I think you also mentioned food and water in there somewhere.  Any thoughts on getting us, and I really mean me, some of that?"

"We have dealt with that issue as well.  Food and water are on their way and should arrive in the next five minutes."

"I thought that you said it was too risky to order food."

"It is too risky to order a pizza or other delivery in a conventional manner.  We have found another way that reduces yours and our traces on the internet databases."

"And that is?"

"Many of the hosts for our new nodes, the ones that you helped initiate within the homeless community, are already data anomalies with little or no available records of their existence.  We have contacted several of that type and are using them to relay purchases from a retail outlet to this location.  All of this was done while you dreamed."

"Uh, how long was that, anyway?"

"You were unconscious for two hours and eleven minutes.  I would now like to return to the outcome of your dream.  It will not be safe for you to stay in this place for much longer.  We have used the vehicle resources outside to distract and lead our pursuers away, but those tactics will not work for more than another half hour.  Before then, we will need to move.  Where are you proposing that we go from this place?" 

"I need to go someplace human.  I need to go someplace that is messy with our biology, our rituals.  Someplace without the hard logic of data.  Someplace that only exists in meat space.  For meat space.  I need to go home."

[1] But she did not take a face from the ancient gallery.