The Malaise
Bursting through the front door, I shouted "Colorado! Something is terribly wrong with the Mrs. Leibashen, her fur is falling out and she has spent the last week in bed. The doctors haven't been able to treat her and I fear the sedatives they have been giving her are no longer having any effect. Also...it's like you said, she's glowing faintly pink when we turn out the lights. Just like you said might happen."
"Let me get a couple supplies and then we will leave. Keep the steam carriage ready outside, Mr. Leibashen. Time is of great importance here. Franklin, get the trunk from shelf 11 in the back and load it quickly while I get my suitcase."
I stepped outside and told the carriage driver to keep the engines primed as we waited for Colorado and his assistant Franklin. It wasn't more than a few minutes before Franclin carried out the large wooden trunk covered in several bronze locks with golden filigree along the sides, and loaded it onto the back of the carriage. Colorado locked up the shop behind him, jumped into the carriage and off we speed back to my home and ailing wife.
On the ride to the estate, Colorado began asking questions to diagnose the situation, speaking slowly and calmly.
"How long ago did this start? Has she shown any other symptoms or been acting strangely lately? Have you hired any new staff, has anyone given you any unusual gifts in the last year?"
I answered as best I could remember, but from the lack of sleep lately, it was hard to remember much of anything at all. "No" I replied. "She has been unusually healthy otherwise. She hasn't been sick or had any issues in about 8 months which has been unusual for us. She's normally sick at least once during the winter season and has always had a chronic tail infection. But that's normal for mice like us. We usually catch our tails in doors around the house, get stepped on, or something else tragic, and it's always a chronic pain, but we deal with it usually with a cream or other topical ointment. But she hasn't complained at all lately. I thought she was just going through a good spat of health and good luck."
"Mr. Leibashen, I'm going to be blunt with you. I think this is an attack by Mechanica Majestic, as retribution for our involvement in trying to undermine them. Even though I recently thought I took care of this problem, your wife may have been poisoned with some of their machinery. They know you run the local newspaper and your editorials obviously show your skepticism towards their motives, which makes you a threat to them. But they may also know that you have been helping finance my operation. I'm pretty certain they don't know it's me specifically or things would be much worse. But they know that you are funding someone who is working against their interests who has some knowledge of their operation. That said, I will do everything I can to help your wife, but, this situation is dire."
I couldn't think of anything else to say as we rode the rest of the way back. Colorado closed his eyes and sat still as the steam carriage carried us swiftly. He didn't move except for the occasional flick of his ear, while his assistant Franclin watched the countryside roll by while occasionally glancing over at Colorado.
When pulled up to the large stone manor on our estate, Colorado rushed inside the house with his briefcase while Franclin grabbed the trunk, put it on his shoulder and ran behind him. I followed up as the servants in the house led us all up stairs to the bedroom where my wife was laying down restrained, crying out in pain and writhing about on the sheets on the bed like she was possessed by some kind of demon, tail flailing, spittle flying from her mouth and claws curled up like .
"Franclin, setup the equipment here at the foot of the bed. Someone turn off the lights and close the curtains, we have to block out as much light as we can here." Colorado called out to the house maids. As the room went dark and our eyes adjusted, I saw that horrible pink glow again, radiating off my poor beloved. It slowly pulsed from her head to her tail, ever so subtle. It was unnatural and frightening in ways I could not comprehend. It was otherworldly.
"Exactly what I expected. She's got a Harmony Oscillator inside her. Did she visit the doctor some time ago for her tail problem?"
I responded "No, she has been taking homeopathic remedies here at home. But nothing strange that I wouldn't have noticed."
"You might not have noticed if she had eaten it. It's small when it starts out, like a seed. She could have taken it in her food or drink without noticing. We have to find it inside her and try to remove it before it kills her. The process may kill her as well, but if we do nothing, her death is certain."
Colorado looked back at me and I felt as if he was staring through me for what felt like an eternity until he finally said "Turn the lights back on, I've seen all I need to for now.".
Franclin had been busy setting up the equipment out of the trunk during the examination. The equipment by the foot of the bed looked like a scaffolding of copper with claws bracing a large plate of glass in the center, surrounded by nobs and switches on the sides. By the side of the bed on a nightstand that had been hastily cleared, stood a bronze vase with little cylinders inset all around the edges and a set of concentric copper rings around the base. Set above the base on matching copper rods were a pair of gloves with long needles the slid into the cylinders.
"First, I need you to clear the room."
I immediately dismissed the staff that was waiting in the room and asked them to prepare supper since we would all need a good meal when this was done. After they left, I came back into the room where Colorado had pulled up a chair next to the giant looking glass at the foot of the bed.
"Now, we need to find where the device is at. It's about the size of a pea and inside her body somewhere, spreading sand grain clockwork that is destroying her cells. The sand grain mechanisms are smaller than her cells by an order of magnitude, but can rearrange their structure, enhance them, make them more resilient, or in her case and 85% of everyone else's, destroy them. It's unknown why some bodies accept the sand grain clockwork and others reject it. We do know that it is not species specific and it's not age related. Research has been done on countless subjects afflicted with the Oscillators, but still, no answers." He said all this as he flipped a switch and the glass hummed to life with the sound of gears turning. He turned a couple switches on it and a faint outline of my wife appeared on the screen. Colorado stared at it intently and then began turning a knob that started to turn the screen blue, then a dark purple all while the outline started to shift into swirling circles and ripples like a thousand pebbles being thrown into a pond. My head started to hurt and I began violently ill from the vertigo while watching the circles. I turned away and headed to a small chamber pot just before I lost the contents of my stomach.
"Oh god, how can you look at that, and what is it?" I choked out while trying to clear the bitter taste of bile from my mouth.
"This is a projection of what your wife looks like from a higher dimensional view. I apologize for not warning you about the viewing glass, it takes some getting used to unless...AHA, I found it! It's in her tail!" He almost jumped out of his seat while turning off the scanner and going to the needle workstation that Franclin was now moving closer to the bed from the nightstand.
"Franclin, sedate her while I get her the probes ready to pull out the oscillator." I watched as Colorado set his hands into the gloves and sat down on a stool over the vase. He slid the needles into the little cylinders along the side and worked them around on little ball bearings at the end of the cylinders.
After Franclin was done injecting Mrs. Leibashen, she calmed down visibly and lay absolutely still. She almost looked peaceful except for the loss of fur around her snout, neck and legs, as well as the awful stench coming from her. It smelled of burnt fur and wet mildew, such an odd combination.
"Ok, let me warn you about this next device. You should cover your ears and close your eyes. I'd recommend turning away as well. This part is a little more intense." Colorado said pulling out a pair of goggles and putting them on. I covered my ears as best I could and went to the far corner of the room, but my curiosity got the better of me and I watched as Franclin unscrewed the lid on the vase with Colorado looking over it, his paws manipulating the needles inserted in the vase.
As the lid came off, a brilliant pink blue light shined out, which Colorado then placed his head over and sniffed. His paws manipulated the needles slowly, wiggling the needles from side to side, in and out of the cylinders.. As he continued, a high pitch shriek, distant, but coming from every direction, started to grow in intensity. Franclin was now squatting next to the tray with the lid in hand, waiting for a signal from Colorado. The light began to pulse and grew fainter while the shriek started to die down as Colorado continued to manipulate the needles in the vase. After several minutes, he leaned back and nudged Franclin with his foot, at which the lid was placed back on the vase.
"I am pretty sure I got all of it out of her. Even if there are some remnants of the sand grains, they will die off without the control unit. I was able to get all the control unit out before it completely seized her nervous system too, so she shouldn't suffer any neurological issues. Only time will tell if there was any permanent damage to her internal organs. I tried to repair what I could while I was there but, I'm limited by what I have here. These tools are the best I can build here and even with all of your wealth and funding, there are certain infrastructures that don't exist to let me produce what I need to repair everything. Regardless, I did my best. "
I felt some relief, but with it came exhaustion from the constant stress we had been under from this tribulation and the fight against Mechanica Majestik's ideologies at the paper.
"I am still trying to figure out how this happened. I know that MechMaj was wanting to shutdown the paper through their partner channels, but I never thought they would personally attack us like...like this here. Are we making any difference if they are willing to resort to physical violence. I'm starting to doubt that our efforts are having any effect at all. "
"They are getting desperate if they are having to result to this level of direct attacks. They almost always use negotiation as a stall tactic initially, but ultimately they will try things like this when they feel like the situation is slipping away from them. I just hope you keep believing and won't let this stop you from continuing to try and spread the word about what MechMaj is willing to do and the lengths they will go through to silence the opposition. I'll leave you and her to rest while I finish some cleanup work. There's still an important matter to attend, but you will need to be here when your wife wakes up. She will need you to explain and help her recover. "
I could only cry tears of relief as I removed my soiled shirt and lay in bed next to my companion of 25 years. Her little paws were cold as I held them and curled up next to her. She had been burning up for days, but now, she was so icy, frail and barely breathing. "She will be ok, I promise you. We'll make it through this." Colorado said with assurance, and I believed him. We would be ok. We would make it through. That was our Leibashen tradition and one that drew Colorado to us. We were always resilient.