Follow-Ups

Often I tell a story to show a snapshot of an idea, but since these are all real people they have continued their lives. Here's what happened to a few of them:

My friend from Jump is in a happy relationship which has lasted over a year. He bought a house, and they happily live together in it.

The man from the fruit stand in Better People never even called me back to say he didn't want to hire me, but I did get a job with one of the better respected computer-related companies in the world. Go figure.

I did in fact almost fail my background check, but not because of all the moving, but because it was a little tough to prove I ever worked for the feds. Crash sorted me out, he's the man.

The bounty hunting team lost. We were carrying the robot live (long story) and the motherboard shorted literally as we placed it on the competition field. We lost the competition but wound up with lots of interested sponsors. Pippin and I lost track of the team after that, he's still being completely absurd and enjoying it.

I'm no longer homeless. My first housemate I lived with for a year. He has a little dog, but it's well trained and well mannered. Now I live in another crazy community, but thankfully I don't have to run it, so I never feel like I have to stop anything from happening.

Being barefoot at my new job is much better tolerated.

I did call Nexus once when I needed a hand. He hung up.

Scavenging never goes out of style, the Torii and my new home both have furniture from the adventures with the feds.

Joat had a baby.

Magpie and Gilby lived together for a whole year. Impressively, nobody wound up getting punched, though there were a few close calls.

Gadget is still the politician, and is happily doing grad research.

Mime got her life together and is now getting licensed to do real estate. She's still boy-crazy, but I feel her taste has improved significantly.

My new meds cause me to bruise all the time now. Hilarity ensues. Related: I did lose the weight again, but I never managed to get my little plant.

3Stack runs the program I ran with the feds now. He's grown a lot in some ways, but is still a little silly.

My grandmother from Rice is fairing poorly, and has trouble remembering a lot now. She's scared, and we're trying to be comforting. My other grandma is comfortable and as happy as she can be, given the circumstances.

I do less breaking and entering now, and mostly scheme about taking over the world with varied success.

The project from Up is put on hold more or less indefinitely but has been absurdly educational.

Drummer's geographical challenges haven't prevented him from getting an extraordinarily respectable series of software jobs.

My friend from Las Vegas and I realized the situation was a little impractical but we're both still good friends and remain in touch.

Vex runs his own company now, where he makes tools that suck less.

Arbor totally still is bitter about that damn burrito. He ran into PJ recently and brought it up.

Elephant in the Room

"I thought you were gone."

I feel like a ghost walking the halls of Umbrella. My department had moved buildings in the 8 months I was gone, so at first I considered pretending I had been on a training rotation and then moved back with the group when they changed buildings, but eventually, as usual, just telling the truth was easier.

"I was on medical leave."

Nobody ever really knows how to respond to that.

My body is covered in bruises. Nobody ever knows exactly how to respond to that either. At first I made an effort to wear long sleeves and hide them, but then I got questions about if I was being abused when they peaked from the hems of my jeans or the edges of my sleeves. That was fun to joke about for a while, but now I just wear them openly everywhere but Torii, where they never knew I went on leave at all.

Nobody at Umbrella dares to ask me any questions about my physical appearance. I had a few days where I tried to see what I could get away with, and eventually borrowed and wore a pair of bondage leg restraints under my jeans for a day just to prove to myself that my coworkers were genuinely just afraid to ask.

Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap. I feel like I run like a child, that I somehow never caught up with the grace of other adults in movements other than fighting. The striking noises of my bare feet on the pavement cause my coworkers to turn, "Are you sure you should be running outside with bare feet? You could make yourself sick again."

This is the crux of the issue: nobody wants to believe another person deserves this to happen to them, and at the same time, admitting that an otherwise healthy active 24-year-old was knocked on her ass for the better part of a year completely by chance is frightening because it reminds my coworkers, many of whom are closer to being 40 than 20, that it could happen to anybody, and that we don't have control over these things.

They color-code beef as unhealthy in the cafeteria, but I pile it on my plate with spinach. I can see my coworker looking at my plate. I feel like they watch me a lot.

"I'm suppose to eat iron."

"They prescribe you iron too?"

"Yeah, but I am also suppose to eat it."

"Ah."

"It's part of the deal about winning the genetic lottery."

"That's why you were out?"

"Yeah."

He seems comforted. I suppose now in his mind this can not be my fault, and yet also not scary or some grim reminder of human fragility.

"[That] Sucks."

"Yeah."

He and another coworker invite me to play pool that night, which they've never done before.

It's a few days before the topic comes up again.

"I won the genetic lottery too."

"Oh?"

He points to his glasses, "They say the odds of my eyes being like this is 1 in 10,000."

I nod.

Slowly we begin drawing the personal boundaries: how much I'm comfortable talking about and how much other people are comfortable hearing. As a rule people seem to either be completely uncomfortable with admitting I was gone or want to hear everything.

Slowly but surely the need to talk about this is less, because it isn't such a big deal anymore, and eventually it seems to not matter at all. I think people can get use to almost anything with time.

At the very least, it's a relief to not have to hide being sick anymore.

Breakfast in Bed

Everybody's got their pet peeves.

Jace's was crumbs in the bed. It didn't matter what it was, if I ate any food at all while sitting on the bed I'd catch hell for it. He had some sort of incredible crumb-finding radar which would cause him to always detect when such a transgression had taken place, and he was remarkably effective in voicing how much this annoyed him.

The relationship came and went, and like most relationships which end for reasons other than the fact the two people don't love each other anymore, the breakup was rocky. It was fraught with teary phone calls, wishing that caring deeply about another person was enough to make a relationship work.

I did still care about him, so I did take the phone calls.

"Hey,"

"Hey,"

There was a long pause, because neither of us had any idea what we were suppose to say.

"I just miss you," he said.

"It's OK."

Another pause. He's getting desperate to make some sort of conversation.

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting in bed, eating a sandwich."

He hung up.

I guess that sums it up.

Green

I felt grossly underdressed.

There were five people sitting at the desk in the front. I was unsure if I was their equal, but there was a sixth seat at the end which I knew would be eventually for me. Dimly in the background I can hear the announcer, "And our final panelist is Pika Chu, who will be joining shortly."

Ah good, so I wasn't suppose to go up there.

"Pika," the shout-whispering voice behind me sounds irritated, "Go sit down."

Crap.

I'm the youngest person at the desks by easily 15 years, and the moderator seemed to have somehow not noticed.

"So what's your comment on the state of the market compared to 10 years ago?"

"Sorry, I'm not old enough to have an appropriately informed opinion on that."

On the upside, they did leave us some pretty nice food to eat at the end.

"You did a pretty good job," Sparks smiled, "held your own with the big-shots."

"Thanks."

"I'd wear shoes next time though."

My panicked face caused him to try to backpedal and reassure me.

"No it's ok, your feet were so filthy I don't know if anybody not in the first two rows noticed..."

Attending

The door won't open. Romany shakes it and then fumbles with his wallet, but can't find his ID. I turn and look behind me.

Oh yeah, I think, I'm going to get busted.

The door next to it is open, and the two of us casually stride in. I'm forced to follow behind him because I have no idea where we're going. The campus is a huge sprawling maze that almost nobody walks across because of it's size, and the buildings are no simple matter either.

We're sitting in the back of an auditorium now, but the professor hasn't noticed us. He didn't notice the kid climbing the wall to get a better seat either, which is comforting.

By the end of the class I'm asking questions.

By mid-way through the next class I'm arguing with the professor.

I'm still wearing my sweatshirt from the wrong school the whole time. When I'd left the house this morning, I had had no idea where I was going.

"You don't go here," she said over the five-minute break. It was almost a question.

"Is that important?"

The scowl broke into a huge grin, and Romany introduced us. It was one of those instant friendships, "Say you're in my major, we audit classes all the time..."

"You're very interesting," a boy back in class said, "What do you study?"

I found myself unsure of what Essy's major actually did. "Computer Science."

"And what is your specialty?"

"I don't have one,"

There was a few seconds pause when I realized that all grad students have specialties, but that this kid was foreign and had no idea how the American school system worked.

"Ah," I finished, "Undergrad only, I work in robotics."

He seemed impressed.

***

"Did I tell you I'm going to Bimodal?"

"What? You must be incredibly proud... when did you apply?"

"No, I didn't get admitted, and I'm not a student, I'm just attending."

"Pika..."

***

Keys, wifi access, email address, course schedules, majors, advisors: the logistics of this are impressive. Since it is January, I'm suppose to already know my way about the campus.

***

I stood near the professor during the break while another girl came up and easily get permission to audit the course. Positive it was the best way to remain not found out, I walked up right after her.

"Um, I wanted to audit too."

The professor beamed, "Wonderful, well you heard my answer to her. I'm very pleased. When I was an undergrad I audited all sorts of classes, best part of my education."

I smiled.

"What's your name?"

I hesitate for a moment, considering giving him the name of a real student.

"Pika"

"Well, Pika, it's a pleasure to have you in class and its good to see you're taking your education into your own hands."