More Perfect by Temi Oh

Author:Temi Oh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2023-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

23 MOREMI

Someone is screaming. Moremi realises, only when a nurse rushes in, that it’s her.

Almost every part of her aches, and she has no sense of what time it is because – she discovers this when her fingers touch the bloody skin on the side of her temple – her Pulse is not working.

‘Calmati,’ says the nurse, ‘il dottore ti parlerà presto.’ Moremi’s hands finds that a patch of hair has been shaved off around her ear. Is her Pulse still there? She tries to rip off the dressing to find out; all the while her hands are shaking.

She’s had nightmares like this, ones where she wakes up without a Pulse. Each time she wakes from them she thinks, I’d rather pluck an eye out.

She feels dizzy without it, totally bereft.

‘Starai bene,’ the nurse says, ‘presto.’ And something in her tone conveys her sympathy. The door swings open and Halima appears, looking harrowed, her face tear-stained, hair wild.

‘You’re awake,’ she says. ‘Oh, thank God.’ She runs over to kiss her sister.

‘What’s happened to me?’ Moremi asks. ‘Where is my Pulse?’ She can only remember the previous night in flashes. A riot of sound in her head, and pain, pain, pain. The fireworks, the fire, the attack. ‘Orpheus? My husband.’ And then a strange surprise at the sound of the word. She hasn’t said it out loud before.

‘It’s okay,’ Halima says. ‘Everything—’ but then the doors fly open again and the doctor dismisses the nurse saying – the blue translation light on his own constellation flashing – ‘Don’t worry, Valentina. This patient can’t understand you. She’s Pulseless.’

Moremi hears the word like a blow to the chest.

‘I’m Dr Wells, the consultant neurologist here at London Bridge Hospital.’ He does some quick checks of her neural function, flashes a light in her eyes, asks her to follow his finger with her gaze, to touch her nose and then touch his stylus, which he holds about a metre from her face.

‘Okay,’ he says finally. ‘You, and everyone else who was present during the symposium last night, were exposed to a virus.’

‘A virus?’ Moremi asks.

‘Not a biological virus,’ the doctor says. ‘One that infects computers. Malicious software written to alter the way that your Pulse operates. This one is well known to the authorities, it has been used every now and then in certain attacks. The virus targets the arrays on your auditory nerve, makes you feel as if you’re hearing an unbearably loud sound.’ The thought of a virus, like a tapeworm inside her brain, is nauseating.

‘They wiped it off your CPU,’ Halima says.

‘But you will need to keep your constellation off for at least thirty days. Then you can come back and we can assess if there is any remaining damage.’

‘Thirty days?’ Moremi says.

‘I just thank God you’re going to be okay,’ says Halima. ‘You’re lucky it’s just that.’ Halima’s eyes are welling up again. ‘It could have been so much worse. It was for so many people. I feel sick just watching the videos.

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