TITLE: Alphabet Soup: U is for Ubiquitous
AUTHOR:
Marisa 'Mayonnaise' Jane G.
DISCLAIMER:
I don't own, and didn't raise the Power Rangers, so I'm not responsible for how they turned out. As always, I'll give them back in the same condition I borrowed them in.
SPOILERS:
Up to and Including: "Heroes Among Us"
ARCHIVE:
Contact me please.


U is for Ubiquitous - Parents are the single greatest influence in their children's lives...


While her Rangers were off enjoying themselves in a well deserved break after the day's battle, playing pool or some such in the main area of the Garage, K flicked off her computer screens, and stretched from her seat before she wandering across to the lab bathroom, where she secured the door behind her. Bending over, she rooted through the contents of the cabinet underneath, surfacing some time later with a bottle of shampoo, a small washrag, and a single bladed shaving razor... musing over the events of the day as she ran the sink water to heat it.

She only had her sweater off when there came a knocking at the door.

"Occupied," she replied, somewhat irritably, "For at least a half an hour."

"Half an hour? Are you alright?" came Summer's voice from the other side.

"I'm fine," K replied, as if the question were quite stupid indeed, already working on the buttons to her shirt. "I'm bathing if you must know."

"But there's no shower in there..."

"There's a perfectly good sink," she replied,

"Wait... seriously?"

"Yes seriously!" K began re-buttoning her shirt, exasperatedly.

"You do know there's two shower tubs upstairs, right?"

"I approved the blueprints for the whole base," K replied opening the door, "I know what's upstairs."

"And you didn't put a shower in your bathroom?"

"It's an unnecessary luxury," she sputtered, "and besides, it would have tipped you off I was living in the Lab."

"Come on," Summer reached in and grabbed the shampoo off the sink ledge. "You're not washing in the sink anymore."

"Excuse me?" The doctor was taken aback at the commanding tone Ranger Yellow took as she reached in again, stealing K's washrag and razor as well.

"No. More. Sink-baths," she gestured as if to usher K out of the bathroom. "You're using mine and Gemma's bathroom upstairs."

Sighing deeply K, stepped out of the bathroom, and making a fair show of reluctance, followed Summer out through the Garage. She couldn't help but notice, as she passed, that the Ranger's weren't playing pool anymore. Ziggy and Flynn were watching television, Dillon was under his car, and Scott was nowhere to be seen.

"I still don't get it," she heard Gem asking Gemma as they sat in the kitchen, snacking, "Why did he give back the medal? I though that's what he wanted..."

"He didn't want the medal," Summer explained, breezing through, "He just wanted his father's approval. No, you're still coming with me," she caught K as she tried to take her shampoo back and escape back to the Lab.

Glaring a little, K followed Summer up the stairs, noting to herself the strange, out-of-place-ness she felt in the upstairs, having never actualy left the ground floor of her base before. Summer stopped and opened the door to the bathroom apparently shared by her and Gemma. K had intended when she deigned the place for the bathrooms to be shared equaly, but apparently the archaic social convention of mens and womens bathrooms had won out, leaving the five male rangers to share one bathroom, while the two girls laid claim to the other.

Summer ushered K into the bathroom... this one tiled and white, unlike the cement floored and cinderblock walled bathroom down in the lab, and before K could protest Summer had darted around her and was already running a bath in the tub, pouring some strange sweet smelling purple liquid into the water, which caused the water to foam under the tap.

"This shampoo is terrible," she noted, smelling the contents of the bottle, "Use mine," she pulled a bottle down from the caddy hanging from the shower head and placing it on the edge of the tub "And here's some body wash... it's no good washing your whole self in hand soap all the time... and some shaving cream... have you been shaving with soap?" She scowled a bit at the brown military issue washrag, glancing at her own loofah, hanging from a hook below the caddy, and then to Gemma's soft white washrag hanging off the soap dish, and in the end conceded there was nothing to be done about that, at least for now. She handed over the washrag, stepping around K as she did.

"I don't want to see you out of here for at least an hour," Summer commanded, with a smile. "Have a nice bath, and relax for once," she added as she dissapeared through the door with K's shampoo. It was then that the Doctor began to realize how Ranger Yellow had been keeping Ranger Black in check all this time. It was quite possible to be shanghaied by Summer before one even had the chance to protest.

Alone again K sighed, and hung her sweater on the back of the door, resuming her undress while observing the foreign bathroom. Neither the bathroom in her lab, nor the ones in Alphabet Soup, had ever had visible tanks, or lids on the seats of the toilet. When the rest of her clothing had joined the sweater on the hooks on the back of the door, she turned off the water, and after a moment of hesitation, stepped gingerly into the hot bath, settling into it with some discomfort. She hadn't wanted to tell Summer, but the truth of the matter was, they had never had a shower in the Soup, and she'd outgrown the tiny tin, hose filled washtub available to them when she was only eight.

While the Alphabet Soup contact protocols, to which she had been conditioned early on to comply, had severely limited the manner in which assets and handlers were allowed to physically interact, it had allowed, for younger assets, assistance with personal care. Before she had turned six, Ma'am had always drawn her a lukewarm bath in the tiny tin tub, helped her to bathe, and to dress, and to care for her hair. When she was six and seven she had only drawn the bath, and helped with washing and combing her hair, leaving K to do her own washing and dressing, but from her 8th birthday, K had been almost solely responsible for her own personal care, and had never bothered with the tub, finding it faster to wash directly out of the sink. She was more than slightly accustomed then, to her method of bathing and did not anticipate enjoying the sensation of immersion in liquid.

It was, however, not as objectionable as she had presumed it would be, though she found the temperature somewhat stifling. In fact the longer she sat there, upright with her arms around her knees, as it didn't occur to her to recline, the more she felt she could almost remember sitting in a tub like this some very long time ago... but every time she tried to grasp at the memory, to reach out toward the feeling of gentle hands running through her hair... the memory changed in her minds eye. The warm water, warm air, white tub and gentle hands were traded for rapidly cooling water, the chill of cold air on damp skin, the tin washtub and Ma'ams sharp fingernails scratching across her scalp. Bathing with Ma'am had never been a relaxing experiance, but even so, she had secretly resented the diminished contact as she got older... longing, despite protocol, for a closer relationship with her handlers.

In due time, K gave up trying to remember when she'd last had a warm bath, and finally reclining in order to wet her hair, turned her thoughts back to what she'd heard walking through the Garage. Scott's father had come to award him a medal... and he had returned it. Although this confused Gem, it made perfect sence, on consideration, to K, unlike Summer's insistence on this bath, she thought as she began to shampoo her hair with Summer's strangely sweet smelling shampoo.

The desire for a closer relationship with your parents was something she felt she could relate to. Lacking parents for as long as she could remember, of course, it was the approval and affection of her handlers she sought out, seemingly to about as much success as Scott was having with his father of late... which was none at all.

Outside of personal maintenance assistance allowed when she was small, there was very little physical contact allowed between assets and their handlers. The greatest expression of positive physical contact allowed between them was a hand on the shoulder, and the greatest quantity of negative physical contact allowed was a double handed arm restraint, usually performed on an asset by both handlers, each seizing a limb, to force a reluctant asset to walk where required. Hand to hand contact was permitted in most forms, especially with younger assets who may have needed to be, quite literally, led by the hand, but they were also permitted a slap on the hand as a form of discipline, a handshake to seal an agreement or as congratulations for a job well done, or the hand to hand contact necessary in handing over objects, but so much as a simple hug or a pat on the head was clearly forbidden.

Baring that, there was only verbal assurances to look forward to. Before she'd discovered their lies, the mere desire to hear Sir or Ma'am say "We're proud of you," was enough to cause K to ignore all else to keep her projects on time line, and within budget. She often stayed up long past when she should have been asleep, worked through meals, and sacrificed her 'recreation' time to make deadlines. Once when she was eight, she'd been so determined to make her deadline that she'd hidden from her handlers that she hadn't been able to hold down food for several days, afraid they'd force her to take a break.

Of course it hadn't worked out as she meant it to, as she'd been forced to stop in the end anyway. Thinking back on it she had only a vague memory of getting a dressing down for low productivity, words like, 'disappointed' and 'ungrateful' being thrown about, because the project was falling behind on the timeline. She was too tired to cry, too tired to process most of what they were saying, the room was spinning and then there was a sharp pain in her side and she was intimately familiar with the cement floor.

"Oh my God," Ma'am rushed forward.

"What are you playing at K? Get back in your chair, honey."

"K?" a gentle hand on her face, "Oh God, she's burning up."

"Contact protocol!" The hand was withdrawn quickly, leaving her alone again, in pain on the floor. "You can't coddle her, she's an asset: a thing, like a computer," Sir's harsh whisper to Ma'am was unlike anything she'd ever heard before. It was the first time she had reason to doubt that they cared about her, but it would not be the last.

"When your computer fan breaks, you don't just keep using it. If you do it overheats, and you've got a melted brick that you may as well use it as a doorstop." K felt herself lifted up, cradled in Ma'am's arms. "Do you have any concept of what an unchecked fever can do to a child's brain? Get the cot."

"But-"

"Get. The. Cot. Or we're both gonna catch hell when she gets brain damage or goes blind." The sound of retreating feet, "You hang in there K. Don't you go south on us here. Hey... buck up sweetheart... you pull through this and we'll get you some new sheet music for your violin... you'd like that right? Come on, stay with me here."

She had managed a murmured affirmative, fighting conflicting instincts to avoid interpersonal contact, and to seek comfort from the suddenly maternal Ma'am, despite the Contact Protocol conditioning. There was something about Ma'am's touch which reached some empty little pocket of K's soul which had once been reserved for a figure called "Mommy." It was that part of her which was fighting against her conditioning then, wanting to cling to the front of Ma'am's shirt and bury her face in her neck, and sleep there forever, but before she could resolve the inner conflict, the cot had arrived and the opportunity passed as she was laid down upon it, and Ma'am stepped away from her side.

It was been nearly a week before she was able to work again, laying alone for hours on the cot in nothing but her shirt, underwear, socks and a thin blanket which was alternately too hot, and not warm enough. A doctor she'd never met before or since periodically took her temperature, and asked her to drink from a cup of disgusting liquid she immediately threw up the first few times.

Once or twice she asked after Sir and Ma'am, wanting disparately to have company in her infirmity, but the doctor always said they wouldn't be coming back until she was well again, and she should know that. It was standard practice to quarantine sick assets, and even handlers, to prevent their spreading disease within the Soup. Only the nurses and, in extreme cases, the doctor visited the sick.

Only when she was finally cleared to work again, dressed back in her full uniform, and the cot and blanket taken away, did Sir and Ma'am return to her.

"K sweetheart, I need you to listen to me ok?" Ma'am had said, crouching down to K's level, on one knee, "This can not happen again. It's very important that we get this work done, and it's worse for the timetables if this happens than if you tell us right away when you're feeling suboptimal."

"Yes Ma'am..." K demurred, knowing full well that they were going easy on her because of her recent illness. If she had done anything else to delay a project like this, they would have been very cross indeed with her.

"Now," Ma'am stood, and backed up next to Sir, "I believe I promised you some sheet music, if you got well again. Have you considered which composer you'd like to work on next?"

"No Ma'am... it was my fault." K had replied, knowing somehow that in denying what she wanted... in punishing herself where they would normally have done so, she would earn their approval. "I should have told you when I was feeling ill. I don't deserve any new music."

"That's very responsible of you," Sir intoned, "We're proud of you K."

And that was better than any sheet music ever could be.

Sometimes, she knew the best way to win the approval of others, was to deprive yourself of that which you want. To give back the medal then, was the only natural reply for Scott, considering the only reason Truman would have given him a medal for going off directive, was if he were going easy on his son... trying to give him what he thought he wanted.

While she thought these things over, K had completed her grooming routine, which was more extensive than one would think of a person with such a low emphasis on appearance used to bathing out of the sink, however Alphabet Soup had strict personal grooming regulations which even now she never questioned. The scrubbing of fingernails and removal of visible androgenic hair, were, to her, simply the things that are done, along with keeping the hair at or above the collar and wearing freshly ironed work shirts. Though fairly certain that her hour was not yet up, K stood from the tub, seeing no reason to comply with Summers insistence that she remain in the tub for any specific length of time, and glanced around the bathroom, realizing as she hadn't on her way in, what was very wrong with this picture.

Hanging on the towel bars were a bright yellow towel, and a white towel with silver trim, both clearly used and re-folded at some point in the past, and no other.

"Touche," she muttered, picking up the bathmat and using it to cover herself as she opened the door and called out into the hall.

"Operator Series Yellow!" she called, "If I am forced to remain in this bathroom much longer... I may decide to experiment with chemical properties of the many lovely personal care products stored in here!"