Ghosts and Waterholes

I've been awake for nearly 2 hours. Insomnia has become a regular part of my life in the last several weeks. I know it's because I'm afraid to sleep. The dreams are too much for me. Much harder than reality. I thought I might chat and have a glass of wine. Maybe this will help?

Things are heating up at the lab. I'm still working on the double blind thing and Spook has asked me to help bring Lt. Blazic up to speed on 'ice'. He took me to dinner today, the leutenent. Lots of painful small talk. He seems curious as to how much I know about your work. I keep telling him the same old thing. I'm a pathologist, I look at samples. Better than 75 % of what I do I know little or nothing about the project behind it. My clearance doesn't allow for some levels. I think the uppers are worried that you may have shared information with me. Shit, they have so many bugs up our asses they could have heard our heartbeats. He gave me a signed copy of "Singularity". Interesting reading. He's getting better as hiding the pity in his eyes.

I'm being sent to Chicago for two days next week. Stephen is going to stay here and take care of the critters. He's doing great and looks like he's serious about his girl from Cal Tech. Her name is Barbara.

Pete, I feel no different. No, that's not true. What I feel is 'no better'. Not surprised? About capt crunch. I thought that I would somehow feel better. What or why things would change I don't know but I thought they would. I'm sitting here in the dark, writing to the dead and the only real difference what I've done has made is to make my hate myself.

That I've done something rash is an understatement. That it is irreversible is fact. All I can do is..isssss nothing? Tell her? warn her? F*ck that. I still believe she hasno right to life after what shes done. I also had no right to take action against her. Did I? Goddamit,, the battle in my brain continues. I spend hours with my head in my hands thinking 'what have I done, what have I done, what have I done...' it's a crime, isn't it? Yes, of course it is. Yes. It was wrong? I don't know I don't know! Yes, of course it was wrong. But nothing has happened to her and if she's learned any gret lesson, nothing ever will right? Am I egocentric to think I've broken new ground in ethics and that as family of the victims I had a right to my actions. Or am I just totally crazy! I'm crazy, she has no warning! Sure, she may never drink and drive but she'll drink, surely? God I've killed her. I've murdered her. How could I have done this? What was I thinking? I can't fix it. I can't make this undone.

Catharsys

I guess I’m still processing what I’ve done. Funny thing is...I feel no remorse. That part of me that keeps screaming that she’ll have it coming almost warms me. And isn’t it true? Can’t the world get on with one less drunk killing and maiming? Why do I have to ask? Am I still trying to justify to myself what I’ve done? Will I be able to live with this if capn crunch has a couple beers with her friends and suddenly keels over? Honeslty, Peter, I have no...NO remors. Am I fooling myself? God, I keep hoping to find something within myself that will reassure me that I am not a monster. I don’t want to be happy that I did what I’ve done.

I’ve exposed her, I was angry and I wanted ...what? Vengence? Some cruel justice? Worse yet, I will do nothing to correct what I've done. I couldn’t if I wanted to and I don’t want to. I’m glad I did it but I want you to know.

When I was in school some friends and I were screwing around with drug delivery concepts and of course trying to find an interesting way to party. We designed a nanotube that would carry alcohol to the brain. Host the various molecular constituents around the body until a catalyst brought them all together to do whatever we wanted them to do whenever we wanted them to do it. There were three or four ideas we threw around but we thought it would be cool to be able to self-inebriate sort-of at will.

The idea kind of grew, took on a life of it’s own. I always thought our creation would be a great deterrent for drug offenders. Use their drug of choice as the catalyst to trigger an imbedded deterrent. You know, perhaps making a drinker pass out as soon as their blood alcohol reached a predetermined level. No more drunk drivers. Terri wanted a weapon that could take down a target and make it look like alcohol poisoning. Funny, right. We thought we were so original and ahead of our time. Stupid, so stupid.

Problem was, like most eager kids, we hadn’t thought it through. Didn’t take into account the fact that alcohol is toxic until it is metabolized, first the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase to acetaldehyde, an adrenergic toxin, then by the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase, to acetic acid. Our nanos bypassed that whole process. We were geeks, not chemists. One of my lab partners was our test subject. He died and that was the end of our project. Doors closed, doors opened.

To the point, I kept the nanos. And now I’ve used them. Mjr. Rojas won’t be out of hospital for a while but it doesn’t matter. They are very stable. Long decay. But no burn. They also don’t evacuate. When she goes, if anyone looks hard enough, they will find them. If they look hard enough, they will realize she didn’t die of acute alcohol toxicity. A good technician will notice this.

I’ve become a murderer. As soon as she drinks again, the acetic acid will act as catalyst. The tubes will conveine in her thalmus and toxin will flood her brain. Her CNS will fry in seconds. Her only repreive will come if she never drinks again. Ever.

Merry Mabon

The holiday was passed in my hotel room. Quietly. Simply, a little bread and cheese and wine. And of course I had to have corn and melon.

I miss you so much. I need my baby Lily, we only have 6 pictures of her. I..."I" only have 6 pictures of her. I finally started my period again. Once breastfeeding ended things went back to normal. What the hell is that? Normal? It took so long to make it stop. Mom tried to get me to go to the hospital and donate my milk. I had to keep reminding her of the drugs I'm taking and that I DIDN'T F*CKING WANT TO!!!

Capn Crunch goes to rehab in 7-10 days. I'll be paying her a visit before then. And no, I'm not taking a bat with me.

My flight took forever this morning. With Houston shut down I guess flights are horked all over the country. Did I mention they actually had a little rain and thunder while I was in the bay area.

This is truly pathetic, I am talking weather with my dead husband. Am I finally tiring of this? Maybe I'll be able to move on soon? Maybe I'll want to see friends again and visit with Mom and Stephen? What do you think? A year? Maybe two?

I guess I should mention, there's clicking on our phone. Maybe someone is paying attention? Might just be routine due to the new trials. I must be paranoid. I've burried reality under so many names and dates and locations. How could they know I'm talking. Maybe they don't and it's just routine. But there's only a few of us that do this..

Looks like they may assign me to the latest kswitch project. The last iteration of the MI seed went well, or so I'm told. 100% consistant on taking out the left ventricle with no residue after 11 minutes. It goes to human trials soon.

I'm getting scared, Petey, I don't want to be touching the shit that actally kills people on purpose. I've been able to avoid this until you died. Blazic will be heading the team and requested I continue with his group. Spoogmeyer agreed. They didn't even consult me! What could I have said?

I try to not think about it. All I do is confirm data. I don't expose, I don't activate, I don't recover. I always wanted to ask you but was afraid, too afraid that asking would bring down my wall of denial. How did you choose who died? How did you carry that weight? Was a name handed to you or did you have to pick one yourself? I don't have that Pete. I don't have the strength to use humans as guinea pigs. How many will we dose before we consider the trials a success and move on to killing them on purpose? Who are these things planned for? Pissy world leaders, military types, noisy activists, team members with loose lips? Don't doubt it for a second.

I'm Scaring Myself

The duality is frightening. I'm losing what little power over my vengence that I may have had. My anger, my rage has become bigger than I myself can contain. My shrink sees it and has said something at work. Spook looks at me funny sometimes and Blazic is watching me closer than I think he should. But I don't care. I know their only interest is in whether I can perform my duties. They needn't worry about it. I have better control and I think I'm better at parking my personals while I'm working.

I go home tomorrow morning. I ended up skipping dinner last night and spent the time formulating my next action in this whole thing. This is what has me unnerved. That I seem to be quite comfortable with the plots dancing in my mind. I have the hospital convinced that I am from capt crunch's church group and my near-daily status calls are concern not curiosity.

She's doing much better today, thank you. The feeding tube came out and she's recovering nicely. Woo-friggin-hoo.

City by the Bay

Spoog sent the team to SF this week. Not sure what the others are up to but I'm to meet up with the MEMS team up here and review some new applications and then help define a test scheme. Same ole shyte. They've got an assasin bug, no, wait, it works this time...yeah, right. We're going to this club later called Asia SF. Supposed to have great food and a show of transers doing showtunes. Somebody pinch me. I'd rather see the zoo.

The Abyss stares back

My god, I’ve turned into a stalker. I can’t get ‘every breath you take’ out of my head as I do my digging. I’ve been trying to find out more about capt. crunch. (funny, yes? that’s what I call her now...morbid, I know) It’s not easy, though. I am trying not to draw too much attention, but I guess those I’ve asked write it off as morbid curiosity. I’ve dropped a few hints that I may file a wrongful death suit. It’s an excuse, lame, but an excuse.

What am I doing? Hell! I don’t know! What do I hope to accomplish? It won’t fix anything. Why do I have to know who she is and where she goes and what she does? (well, she’s not doing a whole lot at the moment.. she’s still being tube-fed. F*cker!) Is it just some weird way of processing my loss? I’m absorbed by her. Nothing, not my work, not my hobbies, not my friends or family, nothing is on my mind like the capt. That’s gotta be it, I’ve lost my f*cking mind.

Now that’s settled, what do I know? I know that she’s divorced. No kids. Lives on base but don’t know where yet, more than likely guest housing. Career military from what I can see. More than likely they’ll discharge her. They’d have to! You can’t just keep going around running people over. And she won’t if I have any say in the matter.

I dream about it, you know. Not sleep-dreaming, but fantasize. At first, when I’d catch myself thinking of awful ways she could die, I would cringe and my mind would run away to some safe subject. But as the weeks have passed, I find a bit of comfort in thinking of terrible, ironic accidents befalling her. How about a piano falling on her head? Too quick and too messy. Hit by bus? Too cliche. Falling off the USS Enterprise and chopped into fish bait, oooh, I’m angry today. Doused with alcohol and lit up like a candle...eeew. now there’s a thought, killed by the very thing that killed my family. Okay, I have to stop this. It’s not fun anymore.

Wow, that whole thing just brought on a good solid hour of tears!! I mean big time, rolling on the floor, ‘can’t get that kind of sorrow without a pint of single malt’ tears. And there I fell asleep but didn’t dream of the capt crunch. I dreamt of our trip to Victoria and Bushart Gardens. Remember the dalias that were the size of dinner plates. And “Just Joey”? And the fantastic fireworks that ended when the stage caught fire?

The nights have turned cold early this year and I’ve had to bring the parrots inside early. Trinidad didn’t mind but Pepito hates me. Scarlet is just plain psycho. I love you. I miss you so very much. I’ve accepted that it’s somewhat a blessing that we had Lily for so short a time. If she had been older, if she’d become someone other than that tiny bundle that slept most of the time, if she’d uttered a word or smiled or played games....I can’t even go there.

New Nightmare

I woke early, bad dreams of the war coming to our streets again. Now, right now. Several cities all at once and the people are afraid again. Busses, buildings, bridges. All the bodies and then they rose up and you and Lily were walking with them.

I look at bodies every day so why does dreaming of them frighten me?

In your shoes

The warrent officer has replaced you in the lab. His name is Lt. Willm Blazic. No, really, that’s how he spells it. Jean’s already calling him willamina, says he’s too pretty to be a man. She misses you so much. Everyone does. I'm tired of the eggshells. I now not only feel life a freak, everyone treats me like one. The strain is visible. Doc bumped up the meds, doing a little better.

Back to golden boy...Some kind of counterpart that was working out of the UK on the same stuff. He was part of a civilian until a couple years ago, did consulting for the corporate contracts. He was offered a commission and now he’s here. He says he knew you, that you corresponded and talked a couple times. Nice enough guy I guess but he asks too many squiddy questions. Don’t know if he’s really clueless or just fishing. That’s not fair, he knows his stuff, and yours too, apparently. He took over Icefox. Spoogmeyer says he’s not yet briefed on Evergreen and wants it that way for a while.

Fury

What the hell am I donig here? I can't think, can't move, can't do anything except think about horrible hateful things. I truely lost my mind. Help me Peter.

I wish I could fall asleep for a thousand years and wake up and all this would be gone and buried under dust and sand. All I want to do now is break shit. I can't stand the sight of anyone happy, isn't that terrible. I feel like some demon has taken over my brain and drives me to create havoc. I actually have on a small scale. I trashed the whole kitchen last night. The whole damn thing. I have never felt so out of control in my life. I droped a glass and that was all it took. Now the floors and counters are covered with the remains of anything I could grab. I didn't think just smashed things. Now i'm regretting it tho. I woke to the overpowering stench of liquid smoke and garlic, the barbeque from hell lives in our kitchen. At least I'll have something to do when I get home besides wander aimlessly around the house hating being alone.

Im so screwd at work to day. I wan't able to process even the first set of slides and samples, Spook will kill me if I fall behind again...I wish I had someone I could tell about this. evne my therapist is gone today. Golf in vegas. What a sh*thole. I want so much to go see the bitch and take a big stick with me. Oh god, i've lost my mind. Who am I now petey? I used to think I was such a peacful person. But who am i kidding look what we do. wWht we built, Pete. This shit kills people. Onl thing that makes us different from the chemmys is that we seem to think we can control the LTBs. If that were true waht am I doing here. testing and checking to make sure no one drops dead withoug permission. that the troops behave jsut like some f*cking beurocrat watns them to. "smile for the media, frowns for the cameras" fight bravely, sit quietly, they control it all. And we gave ti to them, just like fatman and lttleboy we don't even q2uestion waht our creations are used for and in fact we monitor to make sure there are no bumps or hickups. The f*ckers aught to have to look eachother in the eyes when thety kill them not all secretly. oh shit I've gotta go. I ca't be ehre right now.

RAGE at the injustice

Rage! RAGE, ragerageragerage! F*ck, f*ck, f*ck!!!

She’s done this before! She did this before and walked away! She walked away without so much as a ticket. You and Lilly don’t even have the distinction of being the first people Major Rojas has plowed her car into. 5 years ago in San Antonio just after she makes captain she was DUI and paralyzed a 19-year-old squid. Ran his ass right over in a crosswalk at 17:30 in the f*cking afternoon! She nearly kills a kid and gets nothing but a broken finger. How did this happen? How? Instead of a tour in the stockade she went under house arrest in her posh quarters on the hill. Who is she? Who does she know. What dirt on a MG does she hold? Whose dick did she suck? God dammit! F*ck, f*ck , f*ck, f*ck! Who do I blow to put two clicks behind her left f*cking ear? its so unfair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ll find out, you just wait and see. I’ll find out and tell the f*cking world. God, please let her die! No! no, let her sit in a f*cking jail dreaming of my family bleeding to death on the hiway like I do!!!!!!!!

Rays of Light

What as day. You know I usually don’t like this time of year much because the sunlight comes too late for me to get my morning run in before work, and you know how lazy I am after work. And it’s so hot, too hot for running or biking or skating. But today, when I got off work, the sky was clear and the air was cool, and you should see the fog bank fighting it’s way over the mountains to get into the valley. For the first time in weeks I felt a sense of calm that reminded me of the old me. I guess it helps that things were very uneventfull in the lab. Oh, except that Natalie’s 13-year-old became sexually active. God! 13. And all to spite her mom. Those two. Well, you know. You were privy to enough of their battles. It just bugs me that some stupid teen-aged boy decided that it was okay to get on with a 13-year-old in a shed. Shit, a shed. No kid of mine will ever be a ‘shed’ kind of kid. Shit, shit, shit. don’t start crying. It’ll ruin a beautiful afternoon.

I hope the old me comes back. I don’t much care for this new one. Too glum. Maybe it’s just the drugs.

Stephen invited me to go riding up in the hills this weekend. I’m very uncomfortable with the idea. I was never the nut on my bike like the two of you were. He said he’ll behave. Yeah, right. First time some rocket passes him he’ll be off like a shot.

What are the chances that the weekend will be like today? Can the sun be soft and forgiving and the breeze hang around. What a change to be able to see the foothills instead of grey sludge. Who likes to chew their air? If it were Thursday instead of Monday I might hold onto a chance that the weather will hold.

That AMN kswitch is still a hot topic. I couldn't believe it but Spook actually agreed with me and sent in the report as it stood. Damn! Is this a good thing or a bad thing? We still haven't a clear picture of what the catalyst was. I understand they are sampling everything down there to find out and that Spook recommended that they reexamine that particular dendromer.

I have to wonder if the government and the company give any consideration to what could happen to the whole nano industry if the world ever learned of what we are doing? But what really blows my mind is that some sharp person didn't start asking very public questions as soon as the med industry started publishing. I mean, my god, it's not a very big leap to go from cure to weapon with this stuff. Are people really that naive or distracted? Or do they continue to have misplaced faith that an industry will police itself? Haaaaaahahahahhahahaha. We humans are Fools. Who needs bombs and tanks when you can just dump a little nano in an area and suddenly the whole f*cking city drops dead during a naturally-occuring electrical storm.

Bland Ramblings

God, I've been so busy. I think Spook is burying me on purpose to keep me from sulking. We also got hammered by the latest casualty samples. So many keep dying over there. And now with the disasters here, services are pounded. We're backing up CDC over in G unit. They're watching for outbreaks of all the typical water-born stuff. Already been a couple deaths. E-coli.
Scope creep big time on pjct Watercan. I'm not just watching for death-related bleed of profile. I'm now watching actual burn rates on live subjects. But it's double blind. No other parameters other than to see if I can find anything. Not even a hint on what was introduced to the test subjects, if anything, when, where, or who they are. Just check the samples for any dendromer residue.

Okay, so here's my big secret: I'’ve been taking therapy. No, really. Not just because the company and my docs say so. But because I think it is helping a bit. Just talking, sharing my grief. I wish they'd help with the nightmares. Doc wants to give me a new pill that will help me sleep. Problem is it knocks you right out. That worries me. I don't like the thought of some controllingoling my life so completely. God, what if I get stuck in some dream and can't wake up?

I don't think I mentioned that Mr. Donaldson has been leaving notes and flowers every week. Such a sweet old guy. He called me Ruth the other day. Isn't that his daughter? The one that had cancer? I think he's finally losing it between the ears. Sometimes when I get home I see him just sitting on his garden swing staring at his feet, his eyes just as dull as death. His son's visits are the only thing that seem to fire him up these days. Rodney took the power mower away from him a few months ago, did he tell you? He was really pissed at the time. Especially because he didn't let his dad know who would be taking over the chore, just that he thought Mr. Donaldson was too feeble to handle it himself. I'd bet you money Rodney just wanted the ride-atop for himself. Always was a bit of a leech.

Optical rectitis-that shitty outlook on life.

The weekend sucked. I tried several times to get out and do something, but all I wanted to do was kick down the neighbor’s door and break that stupid Sinatra CD that he keeps playing at bleeding-ear volume. God! I hate Sinatra. Instead I decided on changing the oil on the bikes and adjust the shocks on yours to fit my weight. I got a little satisfaction from opening the throttle and watching the prick frown from his window. I’m gonna sell one of them to Stephen. He had his stolen and he hates to take the train. I took the Speed Triple out for a long ride but it sucked. Everything sucks. Still sucks. The doc says eventually it will stop sucking and to just keep doing things until they suck less. I wish I could cry. I can still feel the need sitting there in my chest like a hunk of black shit that I can’t cough up. If you haven't noticed, I now cuss like a truck driver.

I’m going by Lilly’s grave this afternoon. Did I tell you why I didn’t burn her, too? It was for your parents. They needed somewhere to leave flowers. That’s what your dad said to me. “I need a place to leave flowers.” and then he cried and cried. And to tell the truth, I need a place to leave flowers, too.

Viewing the vile

I saw the woman who did this. I went by the hospital to collect your affects and stopped by the ICU to thank the staff there. They did such a wonderful job of taking care of us both. That's when I saw her. Can you believe they had the bitch parked two doors down from where they had you. If I'd have know then what I know now I'd have taken a stick to her. Or a pillow. My views on DUIs is no secret to anyone.

She's in pitiful shape. Broken pelvis, shattered femur, broken jaw, some liver damage that managed to stop bleeding on its own. She'll miss her smile, because it's damn-near gone. No one can believe she survived. Isn't that the f*cking way of it? She's gonna be there for a while, but she gets to live.

She's awake now and was being questioned by this new warrant officer from the UK that's been following Spook around for a couple weeks. I was still in my lab coat and nobody seemed to notice me there, I could hear most of what was said. Major, on loan from Dallas, works for communications, whatever that means. She swears she only had a sip of champagne at a wedding that afternoon, doesn't remember anything about the accident, nor what she was doing in town so far from the wedding. Said she was staying in Playa del Rey with some bride's maid. Even claimed to be Buddhist! Guess she's going straight to hell.

Something happened to my sense of humor in all this. You won't find me as charitable as I used to be. In fact, I'm quite bitter, gets worse the more time goes by. Maybe it's just the drugs? I'm pitying me. Shit, I hate that!

Back to the burn

I started back to work this week. I still haven't decided if I'm glad or not. I guess it's good to be out of bed and have something to do, but I miss you being there. Spook called me in Wednesday to give a status briefing on the Kswitch that came in from the isle of discontent. It looks like a false-activate. The soldier had a very rare chrome defect, AMN. I'm still running scenarios and chem models but it looks like the buildup of VLCFA in his body jerked the dendromer event chain and somehow mimicked the catalyst. Subject was secops so they want to find out what went wrong. I wish I could get the details on his op. I assume they meant gitmo but who knows. Everything is a little freaky there anyway.

There are suits all over the lab asking questions about things they know nothing about. Mainly why I logged it as kswitch. I spent nearly an hour explaining the protocols on fatal catalyst response and how they relate. They seemed more interested in how I was able to detect it. Isn’t that what I’m doing for them, dah!? I wanted to say ‘ I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you!’ and laugh maniacally. They keep questioning the burn rate margin but it IS, IS, IS, outside normal paramiters, therefore a kswitch event. Spook will override me, the fire’s big, intense.

Monday our house was full of our friends and family, all there to pay respects. I’m talking with mom’s pastor, who delivered a wonderful program at your wake and he starts literally shaking at the thought of me sending you by some ‘satanic’ means. Your parents left as I began my parting ritual, worried I was sending your soul to hell, no doubt. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to beat that particular horse. It was all really nice. Your ashes are part of the rose garden now. Mom thinks it’s beautiful and Stephen thinks it’s creepy. I think I’d like to cry about it but I’m doped up on this stuff that keeps me even-keeled (drone). You’d love it. I finally can’t form an opinion about anything. At least for the next 6 weeks.