The Dangers of Tattoos

Two minutes into Intro, just as I announced that a quiz would follow the lecture, Angelica Merndevel screamed. Everyone laughed, thinking she was making a joke. But Angelica kept screaming, a high pitched, banshee wail. She grabbed her forearm and began to slide out of her chair, twisting and turning, trying to escape the pain in her arm. I was stunned; they don’t prepare you for this in grad school. It wasn’t until she hit the floor that I started to move.

Someone beat me to her. Kathy Greer was kneeling next to Angelica as I got there. She had come all the way from the back of the room to the front row before I could move the five feet that separated me form Angelica. She must have started moving the moment Angelica screamed. Kathy wrenched the girl onto her back and swore. Under Angelica’s finger, I could see the mobile-tat flashing and pulsating. With each twist and pulse of light, it shook itself out of its natural shape and spread through her skin. Kathy looked up at me an ordered, “Hold her.”

I dropped down and pinned Angelica’s legs. The boy sitting next to her — a Legacy whose name I can never remember, Bob or Biff or Wellington — shook himself, slid out of his chair and reached for Angelica. “Arms,” Kathy instructed, and he pinned Angelica’s arms to her sides. Kathy looked down at Angelica for a moment and then pulled a knife out of her back pocket.

She paused, then slashed. Angelica screamed even louder, but Kathy slashed again, peeling the infected skin off in sure, quick slices. BobBiffWellington turned grey and Angelica nearly kicked my ribs out, but we held on until Kathy had completed her surgery.

And then it was done. Twenty minutes later, the departmental first aid kit had been fetched, Angelica’s would had been cleaned and bandaged, paramedics had wheeled her out and the three of us, Kathy, BobBiffWellington, and me were leaning on my desk, watching the police put the finishing touches on our statements. BobBiffWellington broke the moment. “That was amazing, dude.”

Kathy smiled. It looked out of place on her gaunt, angular face. “Yeah, when I was on patrol in Caracas once, the guy next to me got grazed by a sniper. It busted his mobile-tat and he reacted like he’d been gut shot. The corpsman did just what I did. He told us later that if the chems and stuff hadn’t been cleared out, they could’ve burned his skin away.” She shook her head. “Shame, too, it was a real nice tat. Stars and Stripes rippling across his bicep like it was blowing in a Georgia breeze.”

“I thought that those things were safe,” I said.

“Well, if ya go to a legit place. The cheaper guys just use whatever junk they get their hands on. It’s okay as long as it stay in the tubing, but if it gets out your in trouble.” She pushed up her sleeve to reveal a rather impressive Marine Corps tattoo done in red and black ink. “That’s why I stick with ink.”

BobBiffWellington had apparently just caught the Caracas reference. “Caracas, huh? Wow, you are old.” The moment he said it, his eyes widened and he turned beat red. “I .. I .. I mean you look good for your age.”

She shook her head. “Aww, you say the nicest things.”

BobBiffWellington turned even redder and I took pity on him. “Why don’t you go and ask the department secretary to get someone in here for me to clean up that blood?” He nodded and practically ran off.

“Thanks, Prof. Why did you tell the cops the knife was yours, though?”

“School policy forbids weapons on the campus. I can get away with since I can claim I need it for my lab work.”

She grinned. “I didn’t realize bi-ops and nano factories were so violent.” She stood up, patted her pockets theatrically and announced “I am off to find a smoke.”

“On campus?” I snorted. “Good luck.”

“That’s why I intend to go looking in a bar.”

So those are today’s lessons: cigarettes can be found in bars and stick with plain old ink for your tattoos. Now you can never say that you never learned anything useful in school.