PRETTY MINDS
Minerva fell into the lifestyle of a cosmetic surgeon quite easily.
On every subject she operated on, her fellow team members always complimented her on her excellent work. She inwardly basked in her pride every time a colleague or intern called her "Dr. Cable." She instantly became used to this, seeing as she had always kind of hated her first name. Soon, the only people who ever called her "Min" or "Minerva" were Az, Max, and Dr. Valen. She could always count on one of these three to save her a seat in the hospital staff's cafeteria. Before, trying to talk with or meet people had always been painful for Minerva. She had always been well-respected but not well-loved, an outsider no matter where she went. She had been a fool to think that the soccer field was her home before. This was where she belonged.
The only bad thing was Maddy. Whenever she passed her in the hallway, Minerva awkwardly glanced down and kept walking, pretending not to notice her. The first few times that Min and Maddy were assigned to both work on the same patient, one of them would conveniently have a conflict come up. The hospital admin quickly learned not to make this mistake again.
When they weren't working, Min and Az would meet at one of their new rowhomes in the suburbs and work on their independent research projects. Most of the doctors had one, of their own choosing. They needed an interest or hobby to occupy their spare time, and they weren't trained in anything else. Even though Min's and Az's weren't related, they still worked on them in the same house for company's sake.
Although she didn't admit this to a single soul, Min actually didn't have a specific project yet. She was having some difficulty focusing her interests. Az's project was very noble. He was trying to save the number of subjects who died each year during their operations (a secret that Min hadn't learned about until medical school). He had determined that being unconscious for so long (the operation lasted almost twenty-four hours) was what usually did it, so he was trying to develop a safer anesthesia.
Min always tried to encourage Az, but another thing that she never admitted to anybody was that she didn't really care about saving lives. Minerva didn't really like people, anyway. Most of them were empty, lazy, vapid sheep. Masses of humans, whose lives didn't matter all that much.
That was what Min was thinking as she scrolled through the millions of data on the screen. It was a late night like any other: she and Az sat in his house's office at separate desks, their backs to each other. No lights were on except for the workscreens illuminating their faces. Min clutched her coffee mug in both hands and took another sip.
What she was looking at was a database only available to doctors. Anybody could get his or her hands on a medical textbook, but this was exclusive. It contained detailed facts and stats for just about every human on the planet, and was constantly being updated. It had been Min's personal obsession for the past year or so. She stared and stared at the data, trying to find something eye-catching about it, some trend to study. It was all very interesting, but there was just too much of it to make sense of.
Naturally, Min always seemed to gravitate towards the brain-scans. She loved comparing them, across age-groups and genders, professions and cities of origin, seeing which areas were more developed on different people and so on.
It was very late at night, and Min was getting quite bleary-eyed. Her head ached, and she knew she should go to bed soon, but she just couldn't stop. She clicked on a data point at random, opened up their brain-scan, and zoomed in, and zoomed in…not quite sure what she was doing.
That was when she saw them.
On the left frontal lobe. Barely perceptible, really. Minerva blinked hard several times, to make sure that her tired eyes weren't playing tricks on her.
There appeared to be some tiny little scars, abnormal structures, lesions, whatever you wanted to call them. Minerva certainly didn't remember learning about these in any of her neurology classes. Could they be cancer?
She opened up another subject's scan. They were there again. And again. And again.
Wait, there weren't any on this one! Min quickly opened up a new folder and saved all of this subject's data.
She did this for anybody who didn't have these strange little scars. She was on a streak now, and started going faster, and faster…
When she had well over one hundred checked out and filed, Minerva decided to compare the subjects' data. She was very much wide awake now. The tiny lesions showed up on people all over the world, of every age, and according to Min's quick estimations, well over ninety percent had them. She looked over all the negatives again, trying to find some correlation.
Wait. They didn't show up on people of every age. Although there were several adults, the negatives were overwhelmingly young people: children and teenagers.
Minerva scanned the positives yet again. There were no littlies or uglies to be found.
This was too much for one night. Minerva abruptly stood up and snapped her workscreen shut. She quickly strode across the office and into the bedroom. "You alright, Min?" Az called after her.
"I'm fine! I'm going to bed now," she answered.
"Okay, I'll be there too, in a sec," Az said.
Min was practically panting now as she pulled on her pajamas, filled with adrenaline after her disturbing discovery. She chewed up a toothpaste pill and slid under the covers. Feeling rather uncomfortable, she rolled over to her other side. And did it again. And again.
Min was squirming uncontrollably now, her mind reeling. She focused on taking calming breaths and focusing her mind on something else.
Az climbed into bed next to her after about a minute of this. When he draped an arm over her, Min instantly stiffened.
"Something is bothering you, I can tell," he said after a while.
"Oh, I'm fine," she lied.
"No, you're not," Az said. "Come on, Minerva. You can't fool me. I've never seen you this agitated before," he whispered, full of genuine concern.
Min took a deep breath before speaking. "Well, I think I've finally found a topic for my independent research," she said, her voice shaking.
Az immediately sat up. "You mean you didn't have one before?"
"Well, not really," Min said meekly, hoping he couldn't see her blushing for shame in the dark. "But I sure do now."
"Do tell," was all he said.
"I think that the operation does something bad to people's brains!" she blurted out.
Az let out a low whistle. "Normally, I wouldn't doubt your research, Min," he said, "but don't you think that if it did do something bad, the population would be somehow impaired?"
"I guess you're right," she said slowly. "People don't exactly seem to be impaired, even if most of them are pretty stupid." Az laughed heartily at this, and Min joined in.
"Well, whatever it is, you should probably put it out of your mind for now," Az said, and kissed her forehead.
"Oh, I will," Min promised. "But first I have to ping my old mentor. He's a neurologist, you know."
"What, at two a.m.?" Az asked.
"If he's not awake, he won't answer," Min said, and she took her interface ring off the nightstand and put it on. "Message to Dr. Valen," she said. "It's Minerva Cable. I need to meet with you as soon as possible." She waited a long minute, but there was no response.
"Oh well," she sighed, and fell back onto the bed.
"Do you want me to distract you from it?" Az asked, his voice suddenly changing tones.
Oh no, Min thought. Not again. Between medical school, and now their work and research, she and Az hadn't really devoted any time to attempted lovemaking. Az kissed her, and she kissed back. They did it again, becoming more and more intense. Minerva really didn't mind this part; in fact, she sort of enjoyed it.
But then he took all her clothes off, and next his own. Az was touching and kissing her everywhere now, trying desperately to get her aroused. Min knew that she should do the same, but she just couldn't. She loved Az. He was one of her favorite people. But when he pulled her closer under the covers, her whole body screamed NO.
Min pulled away, much more violently than she ever had before. "I'm sorry, Az," she said, as forcefully as possible. "But this really isn't helping. I'll feel better after I talk to Dr. Valen."
And Az stopped, polite as always. But Min sensed his frustration and impatience with her. The poor man had put up with Min and her lack of desire for many years now. He rolled over onto his other side, facing away from her, and eventually fell asleep.
It was many hours before Min did the same.
/
"Ah, Minerva! Good to see you," Dr. Valen greeted Min as she walked into his office. "My goodness, young lady! Look at you! Had a rough night, I'm guessing?" Min might not be able to get unpretty-making bags under her eyes, but her face showed her exhaustion and inner turmoil. And her frantic ping last night was enough of a clue.
Instead of returning the doctor's greeting, Min pulled up her findings on the tablet she had brought, and breathlessly relayed all her conclusions back to Dr. Valen.
The room seemed to become a few degrees colder when Min realized that there was no sign of shock in Dr. Valen's expression. Instead, he folded his arms and looked down, averting her gaze.
After a long and awkward silence, he leaned over his desk and took both of Min's hands in his. He looked up at her, and his face showed sadness, pity, and many other things unrecognizable to Min.
"Oh, Minerva," he sighed. "I suppose there's no hiding it from you now. I should have known that one as smart as you would eventually figure it out. I'm just sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this awful secret. I know that I can trust you of all people with it, Minerva. Don't prove me wrong."
"What are you talking about?" Min cried, becoming more and more upset.
Dr. Valen looked down again. "Those lesions you discovered are not an accident," he said.
He then proceeded to tell her everything: about how soon after the pretty operation had been invented, the government officials realized that giving people beauty wasn't enough. They still fought with each other, and had uncontrollable appetites. It looked like the world was heading right back to the age of the Rusties. Then he told her that by making a few simple alterations to the left frontal lobe, this whole problem could be fixed.
Min had been too excited to eat breakfast that morning, but she still felt like she was going to vomit.
As Dr. Valen was telling her about the Restricted Experimental Area where he sometimes worked, an enclosed pre-Rusty tribe from where the city drew their test subjects, Min interrupted him.
"Wait," she said. "I found some post-ops in the database who didn't have the lesions. What about them?"
"Ah," Dr. Valen said, but this time, he was smiling. "We still need a few people left to run things. Politicians, firefighters, wardens, rangers. We cure them all as soon as they enter their fields."
Suddenly, Minerva felt like a fool, because she had forgotten one very obvious question: "What about me? And you? Do we have them?"
"All doctors are cured. You're a surgeon, Minerva. Your job requires you to think." That meant that Maddy and Az didn't have them, either.
"How? When?" she asked, the questions suddenly exploding out of her.
"You know how we give all new pretties the birth control hormone?" he asked.
Of course Min knew. That was another secret that she had learned in medical school: specialized hormones were snuck every day by the hole in the wall into the food or drink of a new pretty, otherwise, unwanted pregnancies would be popping up in New Pretty Town left and right. And new pretties were much too stupid to remember to take a pill (Min shuddered as she realized that now, she knew why).
"Of course I do," she said.
"Well, we do the same thing when students enter medical school. Specialized brain nanos are given as soon as they are enrolled. You drank yours in your morning orange juice one day without even realizing it," he said, chuckling.
Always literal-minded, Minerva responded in a deadpan, "I don't drink orange juice, I drink coffee."
"Ah, well, you know what I mean," Dr. Valen said, waving a hand. "Well, I suppose we should both get back to work now. Just one more thing, Minerva: do not speak a word about any of this, to anybody, or there will be serious consequences for you," he said, suddenly turning serious. He stood up and showed her the door, pleasant again. "If it ever bothers you so much that you need to talk to someone, there's always me."
"Wait!" Min said. "Are you sure I even got the lesions in the first place? I mean, I always felt different from all the other new pretties. I was a lot more serious…"
"Oh, you had them all right," Dr. Valen interrupted. "But there will always be those people who are so smart that they manage to think around them. Playing soccer probably helped, for you." Dr. Valen patted her shoulder and smiled. "It's highly possible that you are just a special circumstance."
/
Before she went back to work, Min hid in one of the stalls in the women's locker room and cried, just a little bit. The weight of the world had just been dumped on her shoulders, after all. At least she could talk about it with Dr. Valen. Everybody that she knew was brain damaged, besides her fellow doctors. Her parents (no surprises there), and Max…Max! She had to save her.
But Min put those thoughts aside, at least for now. She took a deep breath, blew her nose, and reported to duty.
/
When Az came home that night, he found Min sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space, a plate of dinner untouched in front of her.
"So, how did your little chat with Dr. Valen go?" he asked.
"Oh, it turned out I was worried about nothing. What I noticed was perfectly natural," Min lied.
"Are you sure?" Az asked. He didn't have the lesions. It would be hard to fool him. "You seemed pretty convinced last night."
"Well, I was wrong," Min said matter-of-factly. "It's nothing that we need to look into further. I'm choosing a new research topic," she concluded tersely.
Az turned away, still not quite believing her.
Okay, so a couple of notes to my reviewers: Leah-wa, I would love to talk with you further about your ideas. Please tell me, are you the same Leah-wa on the WesterForum? And what happens between the three of them is kind of the point of this story, so keep reading!
"Hi," as always, your comments inspire me so much! 3 Really, I am a typing fiend because of you. (and all the other reviewers.) Here's a couple tips: if you want to communicate me, the best way to do so would be to get an account on here, or join the Scott Westerfeld Forum. Both ways are quick and painless. I'm not sure if using the reviews section is the best way. Since you are a guest, I needed to approve your reviews before they went up. I approved them all, because I like seeing that my story has 25 reviews. (Which may be cheating…) And for your fangirl pleasure, I am working on a "cover illustration" for this story (because I draw too). And I accept your proposal.
Secondly, I embarrassed myself by making a couple mistakes. I pride myself on not usually doing that. In the last chapter, I said that Min reflected on how she had not been in the hospital since she got the operation. Um, I like totally forgot about that last chapter I wrote…oops.
My other mistake? In Uglies, when Tally meets Maddy and Az, Maddy says that when they met, she had just been named to the Committee on Morphological Standards. But I have them meeting while still in med school! GAH I hate it when people go against canon! But in my defense, when Maddy says "met," maybe she means more like "got together." According to my story, they certainly do hide some things…
The next chapter will be one of the most important ones. Seriously, it's like one of this story's climaxes. Stay tuned and review!
Love,
Fanna