CHAPTER 3

SLIP, SLIPPING AWAY

My eyes and face contorted as I put the glass down, "Oh God, when are they going to make this cherry flavored?"

Mable laughed, "Don't hold your breath 123265." She continued to calibrate the gate. "We've never gone back and surveyed this far in the past. It's over two centuries ago. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"This is probably a dead end, but I did the research and found that the birth ratio in the Princeton area of boys to girls declined to 47 to 53 births per hundred in 2015. At the same time, they had an unknown disease kill off half the squirrel population. I think it's worth a look, but I want to go back to 2010 to get a head start on the disease. If I don't see signs of The Scourge in 2010, I can go to 2015 the next time.

"You do know that they still drove machines that used gasoline back then?"

I nodded, I had done some homework on the era, but not that much since I didn't think I would be observing humans this time around. "I doubt I'll see any. I'm programed to observe squirrel and other rodent carcasses around Lake Carnegie. I don't think I'll go any further than that for now. If I see signs that the squirrels have The Scourge, I'll come back and get permission to dive in and get one."

"I have you calibrated for February 2010 as requested. It's winter, so look for the squirrels in tree knots and ground holes, they're not too active in the winter." she said, still looking at the vid screen in front of her.

I laughed at her, "Mabel! I know where to look for squirrels and rats. I've been doing it for fifteen years now."

She nodded, "I'm sorry 123265. I've had a lot of new trainees the last few weeks."

I smiled at her. "Oh, just in case of problems, what's the password on the account?"

"32787." Mable said. "It's an internet account. Did they teach you how to use the internet?"

"Yeah, but it was a long time ago."

"The user name is Scourge, the password is 32787 and the account name is your mother's name. It was set up by her when she worked on TAP."

I nodded and then took off my robe. The gate room was kept at 60°F in order to keep the Gate from surging and slipping a surveyor. Even Mabel wore clothes in the Gate room to keep warm. I had goose bumps flash over my flesh as I shivered. I stepped into the blue-green waves of light and felt myself being swept back in time. I always had a sick feeling at first, especially after drinking the tag, the liquid that allows the Gatekeeper to find you if you slip into the time stream. I knew that once I reached my destination my stomach would settle down.

It was taking longer than usual because I was going so far back. I was a little excited, more so than usual. The furthest I had gone back before was 2086, and that was to the Gobi Desert. This would be really interesting, it was just possible I might see humans in the environment, something that rarely happens on my surveys. Most of the surveys tend to be in forests, National Parks, mountains or areas where it is easy to find wildlife to observe. On occasion, we'll hear about an urban rat population dying and we get to observe them in the urban environment, but the furthest back that we found urban rats dying in any significant numbers that we could possibly link to The Scurge was 2130.

My heart was beating fast, but there was little I could do. While we traveled we were frozen in stasis, unable to move even if we wanted to move. It usually took at least a few minutes for us to come out of stasis when we reached our destination, but that didn't pose a problem since we weren't interfering with the time stream.

I felt something that I hadn't felt before, like an electrical impulse. I could feel it in my heart. My thoughts started to become jumbled and I was trying to remember where I was going and why, but all I could think about was pudding, chocolate pudding. I had an image of swimming in chocolate pudding. Then somewhere in my mind I was screaming in my head and falling, falling out of the sky. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. I was slipping, slipping into a large body of water.

It's cold, damn, it's really cold. I can't move and I'm upside down in water. Where am I? What am I doing here? Why can't I move? I hear voices. I can't think straight, what am I suppose to do now? I hear male voices. Am I in a colony? Why are there men here? What is going on? I need to move, I need to swim, I need to get some air or I'll drown!

"She's just laying there."

"Her head's down in the water. I think she's dead."

"Try and get her into the boat. Now! She'll go into hyperthermia if you don't get her out of the water Kyle."

"Yeah, yeah, okay."

What's going on? Thank God, my head is up, my head is up! What is he doing? A man is putting his mouth on mine and blowing. Why is he doing that? How disgusting! Oh God, I can move, I can move now. I've got to stop him.

"For God's sake, get off of me. Who gave you permission to do that?" I pushed him as hard as I could, "Oh, it's so cold! It's...so...colddddd."

The male at the far end of the boat spoke,"Get her into shore, they've got a blanket for her."

"Lady, what were you doing swimming naked in the lake in February?" the male named Kyle asked.

"I wasn't swimming you idiot, I was drowning."

"But it looked like you fell from the sky. What happened?"

"Are you joking? You think I'm going to carry on a conversation with a man? Especially one your age? What colony are we in?"

"Colony? We're in Princeton lady and this is Lake Carnegie you just dived into."

"Princeton has a male colony now? When did they open it? Why did they open it?" I was shivering, my body was a bright blue. We reached the shore and another male came over with a blanket and wrapped it around me. "What is wrong with all of you? I'm a woman. The breasts should be the clue. You're touching a woman!."

They just stared at each other. Another man in a uniform came running down to the edge of the water where they were standing around me as I sat shivering on the grass.

"Alright, what's going on here?" he asked. I noticed he had a large gadget strapped into a black belt. I thought it might be a weapon known as a gun. But I wasn't sure. Most guns had been destroyed as a result of the International Female Independence and Male Dominance Act of 2178. The only guns in existence that I knew of were in the hands of the females who patrolled the edges of male colonies to prevent the men from escaping. Any male discovered beyond the border without an authorized female escort was killed on site. We had learned a long time ago that once a male gets the taste of freedom, they just keep trying to escape, you can't tame them again. It was decided that we would just put them down, rather than leash or contain them. It was also a great deterrent to the other males. The guns used by the guards didn't use gunpowder or bullets. They were strictly a beam that disrupted cells at the quark level. It was quick and painless.

The one who had pulled me into the boat held up his hands, "Hey, we didn't do anything but pull her out of the water. She was drowning."

"Lady, did these boys touch you?"

"Yes, they touched me." I answered truthfully.

The taller one backed away from me, "Whoa...yeah we touched her, but just to get her into the boat."

The male in the uniform looked at me, "Is that right? Did they do anything else?"

"Yes, they spoke to me without my permission."

For some reason everyone stopped talking and looked at me and then each other.

The male in the uniform wiggled his eyebrows and tapped his head with a finger, "I think you guys better take her to Princeton Plainsboro to get checked out...if you know what I mean."

They apparently did, because they pushed me towards a machine with doors. When we got in they played with the controls and we actually traveled through the streets in it. The inside of it had warm air and I started to feel my whole body tingle and burn like it was thawing out. There was music blaring out of the front of the machine, singing about male domination and death.

We arrived and they took me into a building that said, "Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital." It was a very antiquated hospital filled with equipment that was best left to a museum. They were still using computers with keyboards and, when you walked in there were no scanners to scan and direct you to the specialty that you needed. Instead, you talked to a nurse at a desk.

The nurse, a tall female, asked, "Name and address?"

"123265."

"Is that your address?" the Nurse asked.

"No. It's my identification."

She seemed annoyed, "Yeah, right. Okay 123...here, fill this out and have a seat."

I filled it out the best I could. I didn't know what a phone number was or an insurance number. I handed it back to the nurse and she pointed to an area and instructed me to sit down. I was forced to wait with the males who had brought me to the hospital. There were also other males in the same room. Some were touching women, but at least the women were dressed. I assumed that the women could always recycle their clothes and take a shower later to get the stench off. It was all very confusing and no one could explain to me why such an antiquated hospital still existed and, more importantly, why I had been brought to it!

My kidnappers had disappeared out the door after talking to a tall male with a deep scowl. They called me into the examination room by yelling, "Jane Doe." I didn't respond until someone finally pointed at me and yelled, "Hey you, room 6."

I went in and saw a young man in a lab coat. He was obviously part of a practical joke, because the lab coat obviously belonged to a Dr. Urich, the name written on the coat. I hoped the woman who owned the lab coat would be able to recycle the coat before having to wear it. The kid looked at some papers and then started towards me with a black piece of cloth attached to a rubber hose which in turn was attached to a machine. At first I couldn't believe he was doing it, but I was right. He was going to touch me! The men in this colony were very brazen. I saw a tray with a drawer under it. I pulled the drawer out and saw the scissors. I grabbed the scissors and waved them at the male.

"Look, I just need to hook you up to the monitor to see if you're okay. I won't hurt you." he said to me as I lunged at him. As he said this, the door opened and another male entered! He was tall, very tall for a male. It was the scowled faced male I had seen in the waiting area. He looked smug and intelligent, at least intelligent for a male. He was old, with graying hair and eyes the color of blue you see on delft china in the museums. His demeanor reminded me of that species of Great Apes that were long extinct, the silver backed ones. He was both amused and curious. I was confused. I felt myself drawn to him. Me, drawn to a male! You can understand why I was worried. My whole world felt upside down.

This male, this tall one was very abrasive and impudent. I was sure he must have large balls, indicating genetic alteration for breeding, but he didn't. His balls were about the size of a Kiwi fruit and the look on his face when I grabbed them was both shock and amusement. He was incredibly odd for a male and well spoken. His vocabulary was intelligent and, I hate to admit, witty. The younger male didn't have a clue that the tall one was making fun of him.

After the tall male left, I was taken by two female nurses to a roller chair and wheeled into a room with a large machine that made a pounding sound when I was inside. I am pretty sure it was the sound of the magnets inside of it being activated. In my classes I had seen holographs of them. They were known as Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines, the precursor of our Tao Scanner, although much more primitive.

The young male followed me back to a room with a bed where a female nurse helped me into a gown and put me under the covers. They brought me the flimsiest sandals made out of a felt material and card board. The nurse, the one the Silverback later referred to as Nurse Hatchet, (although her tag said Brenda Mason, R.N.) presented me with the slippers and a tub full of odds and ends as if I had just been awarded a prize. There was a wrapped brush that said, "Toothbrush", toothpaste, a plastic cup, plastic pitcher, powder, lotion, shampoo and something called "conditioner." She showed me how to turn on the machine with flat moving pictures at the end of my bed. The young male and the nurse both left.

I had a horrible taste in my mouth, probably from the lake water. I wanted to remove the taste so I took out the toothbrush and opened it up. I had seen someone in 2099 use one and was familiar with them. The toothbrush was an opaque purple with white bristles and a blue line down the middle or the bristles. I looked for the button or switch, but didn't see one so I assumed it must be voice activated. "On!" I said. "On." I said again. But nothing happened. I felt so frustrated. I heard someone laughing. It was the Silverback male.

"What are you laughing at?" I inquired.

He was holding his stomach, but his laugh was stilted, as if laughing was an uncomfortable thing for him. "I just can't imagine what you think you're doing." He walked over, took the toothbrush from me, grabbed the toothpaste and put some on the brush and handed it back to me.

I looked up at him and was struck by how blue his eyes were, "Well? Now what do I do? It won't work!"

His brow and eyes narrowed like I was a curiosity. He said very slowly as if I was retarded, "You put it in your mouth and brush up and down over your teeth, gums and tongue."

"No joking." I tried to give him a look of disgust, "Yes, but why isn't it vibrating?"

"Because it's a manual toothbrush...you have to do the work." He looked at me sideways, "I can see manual work isn't your forte, is it? What do you do for a living? Live off of Daddy's money?"

Money? Yes, value units. I remember. Money is their equivalent of value units. I was shocked, "My father has money?"

He raised his eyebrows and put a hand up to his check, "You're asking me?"

I was frustrated, "You just said my father had money!" I shook my head. "What is your identification number and where is the Mater?"

He blew air from his cheeks and looked almost as frustrated as I felt, "Mater, what is a Mater? You keep asking for the Mater."

I was getting angry at his cheekiness. The fact that he even spoke to me without my permission was irritating enough. But his tone was condescending. I spoke slowly, as if he was the one that was retarded, "The Mater is the female in charge of the male colony. Obviously, this is a male colony. I want to talk to the Mater."

He smiled to himself, "Oh, excuse me. I had forgotten what a Mater was. I'll get her for you."

He left. The young male came back and told me that, so far, they hadn't found anything wrong with me. He had ordered a psych evaluation, but it would be about an hour before they could get down to see me. I had no clue who was coming or why, but since I was waiting for the Mater, I really didn't care how long it took.

The Silverback showed up with a woman about my size, dark hair and eyes almost as blue as his. She had sharp features and dressed in clothes although she exposed most of her breasts.

"Hello, I'm Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine."

"Are you the Mater of the Colony?"

She looked at the Silverback with suspicion and then at me again, "The what?"

"Mater? The supervisor of this place?"

She seemed to understand that, "Yes, I'm the supervisor of this hospital."

I sat up straight, "I have a complaint. Your males are very cheeky. They have spoken to me without my permission on numerous occasions, they touched me without my permission and that one has been very impudent and impolite. He talks to me like I'm an incompetent fool and won't identify himself. I would like for them to be punished and re-indoctrinated. If you don't do it soon, they're going to have to be put down."

I must have opened her eyes to what was going on because she looked horrified. She grabbed the Silverback and pulled him out of the room. She was talking quickly at him. He nodded his head, said something and then she came back inside the room.

"I'm very glad we had this discussion. It is my understanding that Dr. House," she pointed at the Silverback, "is not your doctor. Doctor Urich is treating you. Dr. House is simply insuring that your stay here is comfortable. Dr. Urich has apparently arranged for some tests, an evaluation. The doctors from that department will be down soon and then we can figure out where to go from there. I'm sorry if they've been inappropriate, I'll talk to them." She smiled and nodded at me.

"Dr. Urich?. I haven't met a doctor Urich. I met a young male wearing her lab coat. But she hasn't shown up." I was very confused. I nodded towards the Silverback, "His identification is Dr. House?"

"Dr. Gregory House." She said with frustration in her voice, "If you want to file a complaint against him, I'll give you the information on where to do so."

"I've told you, his Mater, that should be enough. I would like an apology from him though. He has been very rude."

The entire time the Dean and I were speaking, the Silverback was sucking on some plastic stuck inside a paper cup. I had the impression he was observing us like I would observe a Holovid of my favorite heroine story. I felt like I was his entertainment.

"I'm afraid that you'll be waiting a long time for that apology. He is very difficult to control." She said.

He nodded in agreement.

"Then he should be put down." I tried to get comfortable, my head was pounding, "Mater Cuddy, you need to get control over these males or you'll find they'll just take over and we'll have to exterminate all of them."

She nodded in agreement, "I couldn't agree with you more." She looked back at Gregory House. She looked down at some papers at the bottom of the bed, "Now, I see you have no insurance on your admission form. It also fails to list your name. Can I have your name?"

"I'm 123265. And I don't know what insurance is. I may have it, but I'm not sure what we would call it where I'm from."

"Insurance is issued by a company that pays for your services here at the hospital. Do you have a job? Insurance sometimes comes with a job."

"I'm a Surveyor for TOP. I don't think I have insurance."

"So, you're an engineer?" she asked enthusiastically.

"No, I'm a Geneticist, but not a Genetic Engineer. My sub-specialty is Epidemiology, which, as you can see, makes me ideal to be a Surveyor."

She looked at me with her mouth pursed together and her brow furred. She clearly missed the connection between my background and being a Surveyor. I quickly determined that she had to be the most incompetent Mater I had ever met.

"Well, do you have any money to pay your bill with?" she asked politely, but I could tell she was a little upset with me.

I thought hard. I was still hazy from the recent events. I knew I must have slipped. But, I wasn't sure where I was or what I was doing. I remembered that if someone asked for money, then I had probably slipped pre-2100 when we went to the International Value system worldwide. Some of us have more value units than others, depending on our rank and status. Since I was a Breeder and a Surveyor with a Doctorate in Genetics and Epidemiology, I was high up on the value rank. I had a lot of units assigned to my value each quarter. I simply had to walk in to a restaurant or store, they would scan my right eye, and value units would be deducted from my account. Money was a thing of the past.

If they are using money, I'm suppose to do something...what is it? I have money somewhere...but, I can't remember where or how to get it. It has something to do with my mother's name.

"I think I have money, but right now I can't remember where it is. It's somewhere under the name Marie Callahan."

She wrote something down. "Well, Marie. If you remember where your money is, let us know. Do you remember where you live?"

"I have a flat on the third stratosphere between Philadelphia and New York, Unit 4-998, Stratos Venuto."

The Mater looked at Gregory House and he shrugged. "Well, we're going to have to have the social service workers find you a place to stay."

"Hey, I've already seen her naked; she can stay with me." Gregory House said with a wide, inviting grin.

The Mater turned to him and gave him a fierce look, but it didn't faze him. He was brazenly insolent. She turned back to me, "Well, once again, if you need anything, just let Dr. Urich know or you can contact me. I hope you get well soon." She turned to leave.

I yelled after her, "Am I sick? That young male said I was healthy."

The Silverback sighed, "Ah, but what do young males know?"

He had a point.