The Horizon of Veronica Smart

Image via Metropolis (1927)



 

 

The speedboat named The Horizon, owned by one Veronica Smart, was an unsalvageable mess after plowing uncontrollably into a less-fortunate speedboat, which had no salvageable persons onboard. But The Horizon had Veronica Smart, and her insurance was very good and rescuing her was like salvaging gold bars with little rubies worked in. The Coast Guard picked up what remained of Veronica Smart and, after finding that she was in no way responsible for what happened, left it to the doctors to figure out how to make the most out of what they pulled out of the water.

 

Veronica was young, healthy, 28 years old, the daughter of a politically-influential billionaire. She was attractive, headstrong, athletic, and missing quite a lot, but the doctors were reasonably sure that they had the technology to keep her mostly intact and functional.

 

Of course, there was the issue of consent. What they were proposing was a bit dramatic. But when they explained that her body, such as it was, could either undergo dozens of operations and months if not years of physical therapy to regain a portion of her original functionality, or could be restored to even more optimal functionality by a full replacement of her damaged limbs with the most advanced cybernetics, she was intrigued. Having though about it for a bare minute, and understanding full well that money was no object--she consented. Getting right back to what she considered her business, without any major hiatus, seemed a fully reasonable decision.

Of course, it didn't go quite as well as was expected.

Good-bye, Terry Pratchett.

One of the authors of one of my favorite novels has passed, and I am actually pretty unsatisfied with that. He wrote more than 70 books, but I would be ashamed if I said that was enough for me. He was an endlessly imaginative, genuinely witty, distinctively humane writer.  He will be missed.

Grizzly: Predator

I know I am not living my best life.

I am also in no hurry to start.

Flesh of Her Flesh

Sylvan didn't consider himself a ghoul, even if that was what they technically called his kind of work. He considered himself an ex-med student, for the most part, and an artist, at times. He offered a commodity (skin) and a talent (the cleanest scalpel-work a careful eye ever thought it saw). He made enough money to keep himself and her in their flat. He realized it wasn't a permanent arrangement, but it would do.

"Her" or "she" meant his mum. He stopped thinking of her as "Mom" or "mother" for now. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he had, it was just that she had contracted a severe form of narcovirus and simply wouldn't wake up, as far as anyone knew. No one ever did. He wasn't even sure there were trials, although at first, he sincerely looked for them. It was just that there were so many, many other New Plagues that fought for grant dollars. He got discouraged, and then got wrapped up in trying to kit out their place with proper equipment for her long-term care.

He was just over the line, what with his scholarship and her savings. And it wouldn't feel right, anyway, leaving her as a ward of the state, where anything might happen to her. Not after she worked so hard to get him into school with the burning faith that he could do something about the scary reality that was settling in.

She developed dropsy. It wasn't to be unexpected. He left her alone for great periods at a time while he still tried to pursue his studies. She. He was sure she wasn't uncomfortable, breathing normal, he fought to get Lasix to pump through her IV to work out the fluid and stabilize her blood pressure. But she just expanded on the bed. He moved her with difficulty as he regularly checked for atrophy or bedsores, flexing her legs for intervals in the hopes that she wouldn't curl into a grim fetal position. But she lay her damp form on the bed, straight, and with skin entirely smooth...

The kind of care he tried to provide between classes and tutoring was just the humane requirement she deserved, was all. The penalty for victim-dumping was high for people inclined to shorten their loved-one's lives, whether for compassion or financial reasons, probably because everyone was supposed to keep up hope. But he didn't even consider an alternative, even if it kept him trotting. He didn't really even have the cash to hire a migrant nurse under the table, anyway, not that he would entirely trust one. He heard things.

But that skin. So much of it.