22. Proslo
22
PROSLO
K aia’s medical file made grim reading. She had no medical history before the age of nearly eight as both she and her older brother had been unattended births and never taken to see a medical professional. Not for so much as a check up, no immunizations, and definitely not whenever they’d inevitably fallen sick. Neither child had seen a dentist prior to then, either.
Cross-referencing this information with what was in their social services file legally, the two children had never existed prior to the day their mother, one Kathleen McGillis, tried to board a flight from Honolulu to Hilo, on the Island of Hawai’i, for which the state was named. She had been acting erratically and was found to be under the influence of what was later determined to be an illegal substance known as magic mushrooms. She also did not have a valid ID, instead insisting that the flying was freedom and that they could just take her word that her name was Plumeria Surfrider Stargazer.
Her fingerprints quickly proved that to be false and she told the social worker who came to take the children that their fathers were ‘all men’ and she didn’t have names for them. Kathleen’s parents hadn’t been able to take the children for medical reasons of their own, nor had they wished to.
Kaia’s heart condition was discovered after she fainted several times at school and her foster parent took her to a pediatrician. It was determined that at some point she’d most definitely had had scarlet fever, which had attacked her heart, and further damage was caused to it from advanced dental caries. What could be filled had been and several of her baby teeth had to be pulled. She had adult teeth appearing and they were coming in decayed.
Akoni was fortunately healthy, despite his own bouts with childhood illness, poor diet, and lack of appropriate medical and dental care. He too, had cavities, but nothing as severe as his sister’s. A note was there stating that Kathleen had told them she’d given Kaia pineapple juice mixed with sweetened coconut milk in a bottle to keep her quiet as she was a colicky baby who’d cried a lot. Copies of their dental records showed the pediatric dentist felt the decay was due to sugars pooling in the mouth from sweet drinks placed in a baby bottle they kept in their mouths as infants and toddlers and made worse by a diet which contained a lot of fruit, candy, and carbonated soft drinks.
I took a closer look at Kaia’s test results and scans done at the human hospitals and compared them to the doctors’ findings as to the severity of her heart problems. Our own scans had quickly revealed the damage not only to her heart and teeth, but her immune system in general. Getting up from the conference table I was currently using as a desk, I returned to sickbay, entering the acute care wing. I plastered a smile on my face, approaching the bed holding the girl’s diminutive form.
Michik and Lithir looked up from where they were reading the monitoring screens.
“There’s your dad now,” Lithir told her brightly.
She stared at me wide-eyed.
“Hello, sweetheart,” I said to her, keeping my tone gentle.
“Hi.” Her hand reached for mine and I took it. She was frightened, her fingers squeezing mine in desperation.
“She’s a brave little female,” Michik informed me, reaching down to ruffle her hair. “She didn’t even flinch when I held the injector against her arm to release the nanites into her system.”
“I’m used to needles but that was better because it didn’t hurt,” she told him gravely. “Just a poof and some tickles which made me want to wiggle.”
“That’s my girl,” I praised her, bending down to kiss the top of her head. She stared at me wide-eyed, as if no one had ever done that before.
“So it’s for real? You’re my forever Daddy and the little robots inside me are going to fix my heart?”
“I am your Daddy and the nanites will do what they can.”
“I’ll just take the DNA sample to the lab so they can start,” Lithir said, hurrying away with a sealed swab he picked up from the side table.
“The nanites will fix it enough to make you well enough to go home,” Michik explained to her. “The lab is going to sequence your DNA and use it to grow you a new heart. After you get it, it will be as if you’d never been sick.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
Michik turned his attention to me. “I injected her with three different sets of nanites. One set is repairing and maintaining her heart and its functions, the second will repair any other damage they find in her body and support her immune system in general. The third set I have repairing the enamel on her teeth and killing the unwanted bacteria in her mouth feeding caries and causing plaque. Once she’s had her new heart, she’ll need to rest while her body gets used to having full function. Then we’ll have her come in, remove the fixes the human dentists did by filling and capping, and introduce new nanites which will continue the repair to her teeth, both those above and below the gum line.”
I nodded. It was a sound plan, one I would have implemented if I had been in charge of her case. She was my young, so I wasn’t.
“Where will I go home to?”
I looked at Michik. “How many days?”
“Two should be sufficient, including today. The nanites will be well established and done enough by then. We’ll run diagnostics first to be certain, however.”
Two days. We’d still had a week left of our honeymoon, having spent a week in Guam for our wedding and the first half of our honeymoon before arriving in Honolulu to start the second half. We’d been there less than a day when Keliani had shown up to upend our lives once more.
“Well, first, we’ll go back to the hotel so we can continue our vacation. Vacations are wonderful ways to rest. You can float in the pool and we’ll go sightseeing. Have you ever been to the royal palace or the aquarium?”
She shook her head. “I was in the hospital when my class was supposed to go to the palace and aquarium tickets are expensive.”
I winked at her. “We don’t have to worry about that.”
“Just be sure she doesn’t overdo it. In fact, I suggest taking a hoverchair for her to use when you take her out anywhere she’ll have to do a lot of walking.”
I nodded. “I’d planned to.”
“I’ll go make the arrangements.” He tapped Kaia’s nose playfully. “I’ll leave you to get to know your daddy better and see you later.”
“Okay. Bye Dr. Michik!”
She watched him go, then said, “This is a lot different than Queen’s. It doesn’t smell as funny and the tests and stuff don’t hurt or take a long time.”
She swallowed. “Will getting a new heart hurt?”
“You won’t feel it,” I promised her. “You’ll go to sleep for a very little while, and Dr. Michik will use nanites to help remove your heart and ferry your blood where it needs to go. Then he’ll put the new one in and the nanites will make it grow new connections.”
“But they’ll cut my chest open and break my ribs.”
I winced. “The nanites will fix those right up as well and it will be as if you’d always had your new heart and never had surgery.”
“Like magic,” she breathed, wanting to believe it was true so much it broke both of my own hearts.
Thankfully, it was true and in two month’s time, she’d discover the truth of it herself.
“It might seem like magic,” I told her, “but it’s simply advanced technology.”
“Like Star Trek,” she nodded and I nodded back at her, having heard the analogy to a human vid franchise before. “So, I’m getting a floating wheelchair and we’ll take the flying saucer back to Hawaii only we’re there for vacation and not to go back into foster care.”
“That’s right. You and your siblings have now been adopted by my mate and I.”
“So Kathleen can’t try to get us back again?”
“Only for vacation if we want to.”
“And she won’t be allowed to come see us?”
“Do you want to see her?”
She shook her head no. “She’s too messed up,” she replied sadly. “Plus, I don’t think she’d be nice to you and my new mom because you’re more regular people. You know, following government rules and stuff. She’d call you child stealers like she did my one foster mom this one time.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry about that. If you don’t wish to see her, you do not have to.” Besides, I knew from the file that she was currently in prison once more, this time for possession of illegal drugs and for vandalizing property belonging to the intentional community farm who’d taken her on in a work trade situation after she’d somehow managed to get a fishing boat to take her to the Big Island. She’d slacked off of her work assignments and failed to pay rent, so had been evicted, but not before she damaged their solar panels, water tanks, a pick up truck, and the one bedroom cabin she’d been staying in.
“Can I talk to Akoni, Maui, and Mo-mo before we go?”
“We can see if they’re available now,” I told her, knowing that Betty would have kept her tablet nearby at all times in case I called..
“Yes!” she replied excitedly.
“Xeranos, video call to Betty please.”
The wall across from the end of her bed rearranged itself to show a picture of Betty and we heard ringing sounds as if a human telephone was alerting its owners to an incoming call. I heard her suck in an astonished breath at the sight, her eyes wide in surprise.
“Hello!” Betty answered. “You caught us at precisely the right time! We just sat down to eat.” She panned the tablet around to show the other three children sitting at a picnic table outside of a food truck in a beach parking lot.
“It’s Kaia!” Maui shouted. “Hi, Kaia! Did they fix your heart yet?”
“They started to! I gotta still get a new one but they’re making mine good enough for now so I get to come back the day after tomorrow! And I’m getting a floating chair!”
“Hi!” Mo-mo said around a mouth full of food.
“So she’ll be okay until you find a donor heart?” Akoni asked, obviously addressing me.
“She’s being grown her own new one, using her DNA,” I explained.
“Wow. So like, a cloned heart?”
“More or less.”
“Cool.” Then his eyes flicked to Kaia. “You do whatever they say. We need you.” His voice cracked.
“I will. Daddy and his doctor friends are making sure I’m getting better and then he said we’ll get to go see the palace and visit the aquarium and stuff. That’s why I’m getting the floating chair, so I don’t get too tired.”
“Can we go to a luau?” Maui asked.
“Maybe before we go,” Betty hedged.
I made a mental note to see if we could book tickets to the one our hotel held. They held them weekly and I was certain the next one was scheduled for the night before we left.
“We gots hair cuts and Maui didn’t want the lady to wash his hair,” Mo-mo tattled. “I didn’t make a fuss though ‘cuz we just had to lay in the chair and gots to wear a hat that didn’t let stuff get in our eyes. Mommy bought two for us to keep from the lady when she paided.” She lowered her voice into a whisper, speaking as if she thought that would make Betty and I unable to hear what she said next. “I think they’re rich. We gots new big suitcases and clothes and Maui gots a toy fire truck and I gots a new doll.” She picked it up from where it had been sitting on the bench next to her, out of sight. “She drinks from a bottle and pees! Mommy says she’s gonna get her some cloth diapers and clothes after we get home!”
“She’s very pretty,” Kaia told her. “What’s her name?’
“Baby Doll,” Mo-mo answered.
My young were all the most adorable beings ever, next to my bride.
Akoni leaned back into the frame. “Once you’re all better from your new heart, you can have surfing lessons and go paddle boarding with me! They have a holo deck just for that and taking hula!”
“Really?” Kaia looked at me for confirmation.
I nodded at her encouragingly. “Once you are cleared to do so, you can do those things if you wish.”
“Yes!” she replied, excitedly.
“We’ll see you soon in person, and we’ll call you again in the morning at nine,” I promised them. “She needs to rest now.” I could see tiny lines of fatigue on her face. The nanites were hard at work, but it had only been a few hours. They still had much to do and right now, she needed to rest and let them do it.
“Bye! See you later!” the twins chorused.
“Get some sleep,” Akoni told her. “Bye, Dad.” My heart swelled with emotion at him calling me that. I’d not expected him to for a while yet. Hoped, yes. Expected, no.
“Talk to you later. Akoni and I are ordering some things for them all so please let whoever you need to know to put them inside. It’ll be beds and stuff.”
I nodded. “I’ll let the mover know. We’re being given larger quarters.”
“We’re moving again already?” Betty groaned in dismay.
I shrugged. “The quarters on either side and above and below us are already occupied so they couldn’t enlarge the space. They’ll put everything in the same places in the correct rooms in the new one.”
She gusted out a breath. “Well, okay. More room would be better, I guess. I love you. Speak to you later.” She blew us both a kiss before disconnecting.
“I like her and are we really getting a big house?”
“Yes. You each will have a bedroom plus there will be a playroom and a spare bedroom should we decide to have another young.”
“You guys must be crazy rich.”
I smiled down at her gently. “The Fleet takes care of its own. Now, would you like me to read to you?”
“I’m twelve, so you don’t have to. I can read pretty good now by myself.”
“I know, but I’d like to.”
“Okay, then,” she said, unaware of how much like her new mother she already sounded.
I picked up the tablet she’d been provided for amusement and opened the library app. I tapped the selection for ‘classic children’s novels’ and selected the first one recommended for ages ten and up, ‘The Phoenix and the Carpet’. She listened raptly but as Xeranos lowered the lights, her exhaustion won out and soon she was fast asleep. I sat and watched her for several minutes, in awe that such a wonderful being had been entrusted to my paternal care, along with her equally special siblings. I was a lucky male indeed.