Doctor Clarke is at home this time. Normally he spends so long at the hospital the staff believes he lives there; certainly, the cot in his office adds to the suspension. He hangs up the phone after an hour-long talk, with what began as an explanation of the situation but turned into an argument as he began to break the chair handle and crack his phone. He knew this was coming, it was the reason he came home to take the call. Though he did not think it would be this bad.

“Yes, I agree that Viola’s condition is severe but even if the hospice care doesn’t work there are other arrangements possible. No. No. I don’t believe it. Yes. She is like her mother that way. No. I said no!” he screams into the phone. The line went dead as his teeth began to grind. “That arrogant bit~!” he growls as he slams the phone hard enough to crack the case.

He strokes his forehead.

After several deep breaths, he picks up the file on his home desk, “It just doesn’t make sense though.” He begins reading through the pages again. “The damage from the surgery’s removal process should have left you in a vegetative state if it didn’t kill you. But why did you have that much damage, to begin with?” he questions himself. “Your body showed minor damage from the NeoMuscle dosage used on you. But there shouldn’t have been that much left in your system or that deeply embedded in the tissue to cause so much damage. This doesn’t make sense.” He remembers feeling disgusted at the damage to the muscles in her ribcage and more so at the surgeon’s smug attitude about his handy work. But to have damage to her entire muscular structure, her nervous system, and being so emaciated that she can barely lift her head was far too much of a reaction from a normal nanotech system purge. There was not enough of a height or weight difference between her and the woman called Athena to warrant a huge difference in nanotech presence. Hospital policy will prevent anyone but Viola now from reviewing the nanotech recovered.

He strokes his beard, “So why?”

His eyes drift over to a picture he has on the corner of his desk. He picked it up, “You are causing so much trouble at the center. A red hot blade just like her, cutting away... the useless.”

Memories of Viola’s time with her parents came to mind; especially how much she would love to play with her father and how she grew more and more scared of her mother. It got so bad she would run and cling to her father, somedays she even clung onto his leg. “What happened?” he begins rubbing his forehead. Those days were so long ago. He had numerous conversations with her mother about all sorts of things; her research, the treatment ideas for terminally ill patients, multiple usages for nanotech, the theories of the superhuman, and even talk about the low birthrate due to the introduction of nanotech and chemtech. “Those were theories,” he began to mutter.

Images of young Viola itching her chest, coughing, and being so tired an increasing amount of the time began playing in the back of his mind.

He flips pages quickly through the file, “What did you do.” His search quickens. The file is tossed aside as he does not find what he is looking for. He begins flipping through an album. “What did you do!” he screams as he notices a change in Viola’s stature.

He finally gets to a picture he took shortly after the surgery before she left the hospital. She was leaning forward letting the robe she was wearing hang open slightly. He zooms in on the picture to see a scar from another incision line, right above Viola’s heart. “Oh, you stupid woman. You stupid, stupid woman. She’s your daughter.” His body naturally inflated slightly as his breathing sharpens rapidly. His hand breaks off the desk corner. “She’s your daughter!” he screams bolting out of his chair.

He storms around, tosses all the papers off the desk, and finally screams at the ceiling.

“They were just supposed to be theories!”

“They were just supposed to be theories.”

He collapses back into the chair.

“She was just a little girl.”  

“His little flower.”