Abel Ladd - The Crying Child | Day 1 : 1934 words

Sterile. Sterile, silent, and bustling with activity. The delivery hall of the ward was full of aides working with a dozen different women all silently giving birth. Generations before the method was discovered, to deliver a new born with no pain and not a cry, from child or mother. Pain is to be averted at all costs and the drug provided the means. Injected into the mother when contractions began the drug called Dawn removed all pain from both mother and child.
The aid silently slid Abel from between Esme Ladd’s legs and held him as the umbilical was sliced with a hot cauterizing line. The slight scent of burnt flesh wafted into the air as the other mothers gave birth around them. The sudden burst of sound startled every person in the room. The cry of a new born had not been heard in generations and the sudden sound stunned the entire hospital.
Abel Ladd lay in the aide’s hands, his little arms and legs flailing in a manner unknown to those around him. His cries echoing off the clean white walls held their tone just long enough for the silence to invade as he inhaled a new breath.
“What is this?” the aide asked aloud to the room of now silent and staring women in labor and attending aides.
Through the front entrance a pair of doctors entered and walked directly towards Abel as he caught his breath and began a new cry. The doctors stopped in their tracks and the taller held his hands to his ears.
“What is that awful noise?” he yelled over the cacophony of screaming emanating from Abel.
“I believe that is a crying infant.” the shorter doctor shouted.
“Well make it stop!” the taller yelled back.
“If I’m not mistaken this was a natural part of child birth in the pre-times.” the shorter replied loudly.
Abel’s scream tapered off and as he began to catch his breath for the next the shorter doctor took Abel in his arms and ushered the taller with him out of the room.
The aides stood staring at each other in disbelief. The aide who had been holding Abel turned to Esme and said, “I’m sorry. They will return shortly. They need to run a few tests to make sure everything is okay with him.” She turned to the matron and asked , “Ma’am, may I please be allowed to take a bit to collect myself?”
The Matron still staring at the empty doorway replied, “Y…y.yes. Everyone finish your deliveries and then we will be done for the day.”
The doctors strode down the hallway towards the lab with the still wailing Abel and every office, lab, and break room they passed emptied of its contents and all eyes were upon them. The sound of a child’s cry echoed down the long corridor and everyone heard it. It was like the sound of a Tyrannosaurus roar in a modern city. Foreign would be an understatement.
“Why won’t it stop?” The taller yelled.
“Just hurry up and get to the lab. We only need a sample.” The shorter yelled behind him as he hurried ahead to unlock the door to their lab. “Put him in the unit and I will get it warmed up.”
“Why am I so cold?” Abel thought. His tiny as yet undeveloped mind asked itself a serious question and expected a serious answer. “You are bare skin. Of course you are cold. You have no host around you. What else would you expect?” The voice replied.
“I’m hungry!”
“You are a newborn freshly cut from the host. Of course you are hungry.”
“Why won’t they feed me?”
“Just wait, you will get food.” The voice attempted to console Abel. “Just keep screaming, it will be over soon.”
The doctors had closed the door and were setting Abel on a bare stainless steel examination table and as his skin touched the bare metal the scream bellowed from his tiny lungs.
“WYAHHHHHHHHHH!”
The taller doctor turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, attempting to slam the door behind him as it slowly depressurized the piston in a halting and jerking manner.
The scream continued for an inordinate amount of time. The front orderlies rushed around the entrance room and attempted to settle the potential patients down as the sound carried through the halls and maintained a rather long echo, very canyon like in nature.
Slightly below the top level the director cringed as he heard the infant’s scream emanate from the multiple live streaming cameras spread throughout the center. The wall of monitors in front of him all gained the same flicker and distortion that accompanies the regular solar cycle. But this was no regular solar cycle. The only thing different now was the infant that was screaming like it had been gored.
The director pressed the button for the doctor’s office and the sound of screaming instantly filled his office.
“Lennie, can you hear me?!” the director screamed at his intercom.
Abel’s screams were loud enough to entirely drown out the director. The taller doctor, Lennie, being outside the exam room had heard the call of the director as the door wheezed shut. He turned down the hall and walked towards the nearest open door in search of a coms to respond to the director. Hurriedly he entered the doorway of the empty office and found the coms.
“Yes director?” Pushing the talk button Lennie yelled at the coms.
“What in Vale’s name is that noise?” the director’s voice shook with concern and tinged with anger.
“Sir, it’s the Ladd family. The infant is crying. We don’t know why but have it in the lab for samples. Grey is warming up the unit now and will have the samples shortly.”
“Make it fast that noise needs to stop. It’s agitating all the other patients and is causing the system to act up.” The director demanded.
“Yes sir. We’ll work as fast as possible.” Lennie let his finger off the talk button and hurried back to the lab, opening the door as Abel’s screams paused while he took in a new breath.
“Get the sample fast Grey, the director is really not happy.”
Grey was standing next to the now warmed up unit and was punching the buttons on the top, his face a still contorted grimace. Abel’s next cry was just beginning to gain volume. “Where the hell is that damn setting? Why can’t they make these things more user friendly? Can’t it just say screaming infant test?”
Lennie walked over and stood next to Grey as he scrolled through options, watching intently for the correct settings.
“Look, it’s right there.” Lennie said pointing to the screen. “NADS, Neonate Acoustic Determination Standards is what you want.”
“Who in their right mind thought that was a good idea?” Grey replied as he selected the proper setting. The unit whirred into action and a robotic arm lowered with a host of attachments in a sheath. The sample drawing needle flipped forward and the arm moved to Abel’s thigh where it quickly inserted the needle and drew a sample of tissue.
“That’s all?” Grey grunted at the machine. The display sat blinking a paltry “Processing” message and continued to make a constant whirring sound. Abel’s recent cry now reaching a crescendo.
“How long is this supposed to take?” Lennie yelled over the now receding yowl of the infant.
“It’s always worked right away before.” Grey’s voice trailed off into the surge of another cry.
“Let’s get it back to the mother so it might stop this noise.” Grey picked Abel’s tiny body up and turned to leave. The display kept blinking the same message over and over as if it was awaiting an answer.
“Oh get on with it will you!” Lennie yelled at the unit. He closed the doors and turned the heater off. Something made him turn around, that bit of curiosity that nagged at his ear and tugged. His eyes swept to the display, “Unknown Species!” flashed across the screen in a scrolling ticker backed by red.
“Again?” Grey asked the unit, for which it sat blinking the “Unknown Species” message at him.
Lennie stared at the message blinking on the screen and he felt the blood drain from his face. The Diviners speak of a child, the newborn that cries, and his destiny to change the future. The screams of Abel had begun to lessen in intensity and veracity, allowing Lennie to lower his yelling. “This could be the one. The crying child.” he said. “Every other time this thing wonks out the infants are silent. This time the infant was crying. Maybe this time it is right?”
“I don’t know who or what he is I just want to get him back to his mother. My head is about to explode from all this screaming noise.” Grey turned and pushed the door open to the lab. “Call service down here to look at the unit, it is on the fritz again.” he told Lennie and strode quickly out and headed straight to the delivery hall.
Word spreads fast in the building and already there was a rumor that the crying child had been born. Well, rumor may be an understatement given the clamor of conversations filling the halls. The boisterous cries of Abel had filled the building and every orderly, doctor, nurse, and clerk were in the midst of chattering about the ruckus. Grey strode purposefully past them all, hearing snippets of the conversations as he passed mixed with the continuous cries of Abel.
“Could it really be?”
“That’s just a theory.”
“You really believe those old stories?”
“I hope it’s true, that’d mean I could start…”
Grey quickened his pace while trying to keep hold of the infant that lay in his arm. He reached the labor hall and rushed through the entrance. As he passed through the archway the cries billowing from his arm quickly began to subside and became but a whimper, Grey stopped next to Abel’s mother.
“Mrs. Ladd please excuse our rapid exit, I’m sure you understand.” Grey employed the most reassuring doctor’s voice he could manage as he handed over the now calm baby. “Our testing is inconclusive at the moment. On the first checkup we will try again.”
“What does that mean? Inconclusive?” she asked.
“It appears our unit needs calibration as it couldn’t determine a species. That’s happened before when the machine needed a checkup. We will have it serviced and we will try the test again next time you are in.” Grey explained.
Abel lay calmly in his mother’s arms now wrapped in a blanket by an aide. “Why did he cry?” she asked. “Is he okay?”
“We aren’t sure, that’s what the testing was supposed to tell us, so please be sure to return for your first checkup, an appointment will be made for you. All of your test results through pregnancy did not show any problems so try not to worry. The aides will be with you until the morning when you should be free to go home.”
“Thank you Doctor.” she replied as she stared at the still fussy form in her arms.
Grey walked down the now quietly bustling labor hall and returned to the lab where Lennie was hovering over the unit.
“This thing is a piece of garbage. How many times has it done this now? Twenty? Why won’t they just replace it?” Lennie grumbled.
“Just get it fixed, we don’t need the director on our asses.” Grey said.