HUMANITY 2.0
YEAR 001, DAY 001 - PART ONE
I thought I should go ahead and start writing a record of my life, as self-important as that sounds. It's not like I've got much better to do; Zee won't let me do any real work, so when I'm not travelling to the countless abandoned cities and ruins of our ancestors, I pretty much sit around and/or have sex. I've been trying to put together as much of our ancestors' history and knowledge as I can -- the stuff 15226 missed -- because so few of you ever lived in the old world, and it has so much to teach us.
Nina suggested to me the other day that I myself am just as much a source of history as any relic I could find, which prompted me to start writing this autobiography of sorts. Egotistical, I know, but I think I've earned at least a little bit of this. It's not really just my own story; it's the story of the earliest days of our people.
So this is a record, from the beginning, of how I -- Benedict Stanton -- ended up as the progenitor of Humanity 2.0. Actually, scratch that, the girls always hated that name -- and they can certainly outvote me. So they've all been calling our people the name Hannah picked -- hominus.
It all started with me getting sick. I didn't actually remember getting sick, and certainly not as sick as I felt when I woke up. I just went to bed one night after untold hours of study for my organic chem final, and woke up in such a bad state that my roommate John apparently called the paramedics. I don't even remember that part, that's just what I was told afterwards. I had crashed at about one in the morning Saturday after who knew how many calls to meet in some bar or another from some of my geek friends, who actually had social lives -- unlike me. That was the last thing I remembered.
I'd never been so sick before; I'd had the flu bad once, and chicken pox, and a case of appendicitis when I was seventeen that was apparently almost ruptured when they took it out. Those were all nasty and painful, but this was worse. Given, at twenty-two years old in that era, I should have expected that, sooner or later in life, I would inevitably have a brush with my mortality.
Still, to me that was always something that would come later, maybe when I had grandkids. No sense kidding myself, I thought -- I wouldn't see any kids in my life, let alone grandkids. It took monumental effort to even get girls to hang around with me, let alone touch me, which had led to my life being the romantic equivalent of the Saharan desert.
My eyes opened in the hospital, and for a time I couldn't even think about anything, the pain was so bad. It was everywhere, every breath, every heartbeat, every tiny noise I heard from outside the room just sent more pain reverberating through me. It took interminable ages -- but probably half an hour or so -- for me to even get myself together enough to realize I wasn't at home, or ask myself what was going on. Someone came into my room and adjusted something, and said something I don't remember. Not long after, the haze started to clear, though I felt decidedly stoned -- probably they upped the dosage on my painkillers. It was welcome, in any case.
It was a hospital room like any other. I was alone -- there was another bed, but it was unoccupied. The room was painted a drab blue-gray, and there was some poster on the wall detailing various tracheal disorders. There was an IV in my arm, with who knew what mixed in with its saline solution. I didn't get stupid and remove it, but I definitely needed to know what was going on.
I rang the little buzzer next to my bed... hopefully it would summon somebody. A few minutes later, an orderly or nurse or somebody who wasn't a doctor arrived, a barrel-chested middle-aged guy with partly covered old tattoos -- he looked like he'd just stepped off a Harley and changed into his scrubs.
"Hey, pal, how you feeling?" His rough voice only added to his biker dude image.
"Ach... gah...." My voice croaked. I didn't realize how dry my throat was. I tried again. "Like... shit."
"Hah. Sounds about right. I've got a few little tests to run on you here and the doctor will be right in."
"Okay... what... yucchhhhh..." I coughed again, for a moment. "What happened to me?"
"I'll let the doctor tell you that, buddy. Last I heard, they were still trying to figure it out.
I tried to keep my worries under control as he asked me some questions about my condition -- if the pain was focused in any particular part of my body, what did I do the night before, am I allergic to anything, who's your insurance provider, some other things. Routine and boring. Completely sensible questions.
Aside from the insurance, which was still on the old man's policy -- who knew, it still worked even when he was in prison -- I couldn't help him much. The pain was everywhere in my body, and I didn't do anything unusual yesterday. I had spent the last three days basically cooped up in my apartment.
There was some good news -- he was also here to deliver on something the doctor had cleared me on, codeine. He put it in my IV bag and wrote for a little while after we finished, gave me a big and possibly fake smile, and off he went. He left me with some water to drink on the nearby table, at least, but I could barely use my arm well enough to pick up the cup.
That challenge occupied me for about fifteen minutes, most of which I spent intently staring at the cup and devising a strategy by which I'd grasp it and drink down the contents. It was during this time that I started to feel the effects of the drug. Good stuff. It was another interminable while before a doctor suddenly barged in.
"Hi... Mr. Stanton?" She had a nice voice -- I turned my head away from the window to greet her. That was a mistake. Whatever pleasantry I'd meant to return was lost in another agonizing symphony of pain. When it cleared, I saw her sitting down next to me. She was good-looking, though she was definitely not a college kid like me.
