Ghosts On Holiday

Chapter 1 of (?) - The Tumor

(Hi! I've never written fanfiction before, or at least not that I remember. But I love TADC and this idea came to me at work, and I just had to write it out. I might write more, I think I will, but I wanted to post this short first chapter just to see what people thought. This isn't really edited, it could arguably be called a first draft. Still, I hope you like it.)

The ringing in his ear was worse today, he noticed, as he sat typing away at his computer. It was a sound like the falling off ring of a bell, only it tended to stay in one steady tone. It'd been happening for months, and at first he didn't know why. He'd thought maybe years of listening to tapes too loud in the car had finally caught up with him. But why only in one ear? Why his right ear? Some days it was better, some worse. Today it was particularly bad, but all he could do was ignore or accept it. 

Or so he thought, until, while pouring a cup of coffee in the break room, he blacked out.

"Mike?" A worried voice called out to him, as he opened his blurry eyes. The world was spinning. He felt sick to his stomach. It felt like he was on a boat in choppy waters. He could feel pain in his hands as well. Pain from where he'd spilled the boiling hot coffee on himself as he fell. As his vision started to stabilize, he saw his coworker, his friend, Grant, standing over him with a worried expression.  "Oh God, Mike, are you okay? You spilt hot coffee all over your... You fell... You... You didn't hit your head did you? You don't look good Mike you're... You're pale... I think we need to get you to the hospital."

Mike wouldn't have gone to the hospital, he didn't tend to worry about illness. But this was different. The ringing in his ear, passing out at work. 

He rode in the back of Grant's Ford Escort, head leaning against the window as Grant and his fiance, Destiny, talked about him. They were worried. He wasn't paying much attention. Instead he stared out the window, thinking about his project, and how he really didn't want to miss a day of work. 

"Mr. Dobby... I'm... Very sorry to have to tell you this." The doctor said, after hours of waiting, and many, many tests. "You have a brain tumor. It's... Inoperable. It's growing slowly, but based on its location and size, there's not much we can do but monitor it." The ringing was in both of his ears now as he stared at the doctor. All the color had drained from his face. "Nothing... You can do?" He said, voice quivering slightly. "Radiation therapy is an option, it could possibly shrink the tumor, but it's a crapshoot at best. It would be debilitating to your quality of life, the best we can..." The doctors words faded as the ringing became a buzzing noise. A buzzing in both of his ears. A tumor. Inoperable.

- - - - -

Grant and Destiny gave Mike a ride back to the office, and from there Grant drove him home in his own car. The drive was quiet for the most part. Grant finally spoke, a pensive look on his face. "It's gonna be okay Mike." He said, letting a sigh out through his nose. "You're gonna get through this. Everyone at the office will be there for you." Mike nodded, his head pressed against the passenger window of his own car, which he'd been advised not to drive until they were sure the blackouts wouldn't be a regular thing. 

All Mike could think about was his project. Projects, really. The creative AI was the focus of the whole team. Mike had been the lead, but once the heavy lifting was done, he was allowed time to work on his own side project that he felt could be a major contribution in time: a brain scanner. Making a full scan of someone's mind at a point in time. Capturing who they are, their thoughts and memories. This was of course to help the AI. What better way to learn than to study a human mind, the most complex organic computer in the universe? But now, Mike was wondering if some part of him knew. Some deep subconscious self, aware of what was happening. Aware of the growing lump on his brain. And that part was looking for a way to preserve itself. It was a silly thought. Then he thought of home. His stomach twisted up. He closed his eyes. "Mike?" Grant said. "Yeah?" He replied, not moving or opening his eyes. "Don't give up, okay?" Mike smiled a little bit. Grant had always been like the dad of the team. Making sure everyone got enough sleep. Giving out sagely advice, despite being only slightly older than the rest of them. "I'll try." Mike said back. "That's all I can ask for." Grant said back with a small smile of his own. 

- - - - 

Mike stared at the front door to his home, backpack over his shoulder, trying to calm himself. Grant had dropped him off, and Destiny had swung by only minutes later to pick him up. "You gonna be alright Mike?" He'd nodded, but it was a half-hearted nod. This was the hard part. Mike didn't know how he was going to face what came next. How could he tell her? How could you put that burden on someone you love? Mike closed his eyes and leaned his head against the door. It felt cold against his forehead. Hot tears slid down his cheeks from his closed eyes as he sat there, thinking of his head pressed against the door, and the tumor inside of it, growing. Finally, he pulled his head back. He opened his eyes, and quickly wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. He sniffled, took a deep breath, and centered himself. Then, he grabbed hold of the handle, and walked inside.

"Grandma, I'm home." He called out. He could hear the TV on in the living room. Then he heard shuffling footsteps, and his grandmother was there in the hallway. "Mikey! You're home late. Long day at work?" She said, standing a few feet away from him, next to the doorway into the living room. "Yeah. Long day..." He said, shutting the front door behind himself. He stood there, and so did she. After a moment, her face went from joy to concern. "Is something wrong?" She said, taking a few steps forward. "You look... you look upset." Mike forced himself to smile. "It was just a hard day at work grandma..." He said, and she nodded. They both stood there for a moment more. Finally, she placed her hand on the doorway. "Well... your dinner is in the fridge. It's the wrapped plate. After you eat, you should get some rest, okay? You look tired... and you know I don't mean that in a bad way." She said with a genuine grin, and then turned to walk back into the living room.

"Grandma?" Mike said, and she stopped, lookng back. "Yes Mikey?" 

Mike walked forward quickly and hugged her tight, closing his eyes as he set his head on her shoulder. Mike's grandma was shorter than him, and a bit bigger, so he had to bend a little to hug her. At first she seemed shocked, but she finally hugged him back. "Oh Mikey boy... it really was a long day wasn't it?" She said. Tears were running down Mike's face again, and he hoped... no, he prayed, that she didn't notice. "Yeah..." He said, doing everything in his power to hide his quivering voice. "Yeah it was..." 

- - - - - -

Mike had lived with his grandmother since he was a teenager. After his parents divorced, it was hard for him to find a stable life with either of them, so he ended up staying with her a lot. And a lot eventually became all the time, after a particularly rough couple of incidents at both his mother's and father's houses respectively. Even now, in his mid-20's, Mike stayed here. The pay at C&A was okay, but if he lived on his own, he knew he'd just be getting by. His grandmother letting him stay here was a blessing, really. He'd been able to save a lot of money, and she was always looking out for him.

 Now he wondered if the money he'd saved even really mattered. 

After eating his dinner (broccoli, roast chicken and macaroni, three grandma classics) he showered and got into his evening relaxing clothes. Mike would usually get some more work done at home on his laptop, but... he didn't feel like it. Earlier in the day, he'd been so upset at the idea of losing a day of work. Even on the car ride home, all he could think about was the project. But now that he was home... he didn't want to think about it at all. He didn't want to think about anything. 

Mike brushed his shaggy blonde hair out of his eyes, and placed a hand over them for a moment. The ringing had come back. It made him feel sick now. He knew, without even really having to dive into his own head, that it was anxiety. He'd had problems with it in the past, but now... god. He really had something to be anxious about, didn't he?

Finally, Mike looked up, hands dropping to his sides. He'd been standing in the middle of his room for ten minutes at this point. He knew what he wanted to do though. He walked over to the foot of his bed, which was an XL Twin, and began to go through a milk crate full of records. 

Billy Joel, My Bloody Valentine, The Smiths, They Might Be Giants, The Beatles, The Beach Boys... he stopped. He stared at the album cover of the record he'd been looking for. On it was a sort of mannequin man yelling out. The Bends. Mike pulled out the sleeve for the Radiohead record, and took one step over to the record player next to it. He lifted the plastic cover, and set the record down on the spindle. He reached over, grabbing the headphones he had plugged into the players amp. He put them on before moving the needle to the third track, and hitting the play button on the player. 

Mike Dobby layed down on his bed with his headphones on, and closed his eyes. As Thom Yorke began to belt out 'Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry' Mike began to cry. He began to sob. He pulled his pillow over his head, and cried into it. He cried into the pillow as if doing so would transfer his sorrow into it. As the music filled his head, Mike let it out. 

Mike Dobby had an inoperable tumor in his head.

He didn't tell his grandma. He wouldn't tell his grandma.

He'd cry until he couldn't anymore. Then, he'd go to bed.

And in the morning, he'd go back into the office.

Months had passed. Mike rubbed his eyes and blinked them open, staring at the underside of his desk. He’d basically moved into the office as of late, spending nights in a sleeping bag on the floor. He’d wake up, make the first pot of coffee, work until he couldn’t anymore, and crawl into bed right there under his desk. It was what he needed.

Mike didn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t have work to focus on. The ringing in his ear had gotten worse. He was also getting headaches now, and sometimes the vision in his right eye would go white.

Mike pulled himself up into a sitting position and stretched, before reaching over to use the desk as a support to climb to his feet. He stretched again, turning his face up towards the ceiling, then looked back down, and saw the little red light blinking on his desk phone. He stared at it. The blinking red light meant he had a message. He knew what that message would be, who it would be. He swallowed as he felt a knot tighten up in his stomach. He closed his eyes and sighed. He didn’t need this first thing in the morning. Instead, he turned on heel and began walking through the small office towards the break room. The coffee maker and a frozen microwave sausage biscuit were calling his name.

- - - - - -

Both the AI and Mike’s brain scanner had come along tremendously. The Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity, or CAINE for short, was already creating a steady output of different scenarios and ideas. It wasn’t perfect. It was slow working, and the ideas weren’t as out of the box as Mike or the rest of the team had hoped, but it was something. His brain scanner on the other hand… the files were too big. Far too big. They never compiled correctly. These roadblocks frustrated Mike, of course, but the fact that it worked at all was the real progress. He’d put the thing together using whatever parts he could find. An old scanner. Some bits and pieces of an MRI machine the company had managed to secure on auction. The thing was heavy though. You had to wear it for a while to get even a half scan. Wendy, Grant’s co-worker and also girlfriend, had said it was like wearing a toaster on your face that weighed ten pounds. This had made Mike laugh, but also felt a bit discouraging.

As Mike stared at the coffee maker, listening as it chugged and whined, spitting out the black caffeinated goodness that he’d need to start his day, he thought about the scanner. Mike had been told that at most, he had 5 years. The tumor was growing slowly. Inoperable, but slow. Like a meteor heading towards earth. Unavoidable. At worst, he had a year. That was if it suddenly began to progress faster than the doctors estimated. Mike had… decided to avoid radiation therapy for the foreseeable future. While the tumor in his head did have its setbacks, radiation therapy would make him even sicker, even if it did possibly prolong his life. He picked up the pot and poured coffee into his X-Files mug. One side was a picture of Mulder and Scully, and the other the infamous ‘I Want To Believe’ poster. Mike stared down at it. He wanted to believe. He did believe. He knew he could fix it… he knew he could make it work.

- - - - - -

“Hey Dobby Dobb…” Wendy had wheeled herself over in her chair from her cubicle, which wasn’t too far from Mike’s desk against the wall. Mike felt her hand on his shoulder, and he looked back from the monitor. She looked concerned, but as per usual, beautiful. The wrinkle on her forehead when her eyes drew up like that. Even the little frown. He hated that he worried her so much with his illness.

He hated it.

He dropped his eyes to her lap, pulling his hands back away from the keyboard. “Hey Fey Fey.” He said, feeling a small blush come to his cheeks. He always felt a bit dumb with their pet nicknames, but she liked it, so he didn’t really care. Wendy’s last name was Ferreira. He’d tried calling her Wenny Wen when they first started dating, but she didn’t like that.

Wendy Ferreira had been Mike’s girlfriend for nearly two years at this point. Her family had moved to the US from Brazil when she was a kid, and they’d met when she started working here not much longer after him. Pretty early on, when they were just hanging out as friends, Wendy told Mike she was named after the wife from the Shining, and the lead in Peter Pan. “So I’m based off two badass ladies. One who stabs her crazy husband, and another who can fly. Too bad I can’t do either. Not that I’d stab my husband… unless he made me.” She’d taken a pose like she was holding an imaginary knife, and Mike had pretended to be scared, and they’d both laughed. He fell in love with her not long after.

“How’re you feeling today?” She asked. Mike was back in the present, still sitting at his desk, staring at his beautiful girlfriend and her worried face. “I’m okay. Just focused on work like usual, y’know? The ringing is still there, but... it kinda just fades into the background if I ignore it enough.” He said, smiling weakly and looking up at her. The ringing wasn't so bad today, and he'd only had one headache earlier in the morning, which a second cup of coffee and a pain killer seemed to help.

She smiled back at him, though it was a worried smile. “Did you… Did you sleep here again last night?” Mike had to look away from her face again. “Yeah I… I did…” He said, swallowing as he did. Wendy hated that he was sleeping at the office so much. She thought it wouldn’t help him with his illness.

“Mike… I know… I know it’s hard but… have you… talked to your grandmother lately? Have you… have you told her?”

Mike pulled away from Wendy as if she’d threatened to hit him, which caused her to jerk back as well. He turned back to face his computer, hanging his head. “I… no… I haven’t…” He said, balling his fists as they rested on the desk. “I… look… I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I love you, I really do. And I’m going to be with you all the way through this. But you need to tell her. She loves you too… and she’d want to support you just like I do.”

Mike had closed his eyes, and tears had began to form behind his eyelids. He turned his head in a way to make sure she couldn’t see. “I appreciate it Fey Fey… but… I got work to do can we… can we talk about this later?”

There was quiet for a moment. Wendy didn’t move away, and Mike didn’t look back up. Then, he could hear her chair make the small rattling noise it made as it moved. But before she’d fully left, she spoke again. “I love you Mike…”

- - - - - -

That night, Mike Dobby found himself alone at the office again. The lights were out, and besides his desk lamp, the only thing that illuminated him was the light cast by his CRT monitor. He’d stopped working away at his code to stare at the blinking light of the phone. It had been taunting him all day. He could see it out of the corner of his eye, just a little red light blinking there. He had a message on his answering machine. Mike had been dreading hearing the message all day. He knew it was from his grandmother. He knew she was worried about him. He knew but… he couldn’t bring himself to face her.

He stared at it for a few minutes more, just lost in that blinking red light. The light reminded him of their AI. The color they used to represent it was red. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Mike blinked, and finally reached over, his finger hovering above the button to play the message. It stayed there for a few seconds, before he finally pressed it.

The speaker on the phone beeped, and a monotone voice spoke. “You have one new message. Playing new message.”

There was a bit of a ruffling sound, and then Mike’s grandmother spoke through the speaker of the phone. “Mike? Mikey boy? It’s… It’s your grandma. You haven’t been home in a couple of weeks and I… I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You know I love you. You know your grandad loved you too. He’d be so proud of you if he knew you got this fancy tech job like you’d always wanted.”

Mike winced at the mentioning of his grandfather, closing his eyes. His grandfather had died of pancreatic cancer when he’d turned 20. That was… over 5 years ago at this point, but the wound had never closed. Mike’s grandfather had been an old fashioned man, but a good one. The kind that was there for him, that loved him, but he couldn’t really talk to about emotional stuff. His grandfather had been kind of hard on him, especially when he chose to go into computer engineering. But when he’d seen how passionate Mike was, he’d relented.

Mike remembered when he showed one of his early successful programs to his grandfather, a sort of game that let you explore a pixelated circus. His grandfather had loved it. He wasn’t that technically knowledgeable, but he did have a home computer of course. It was how Mike first got access to one.

“Maybe you can sit down and help me write my memoir someday…” His grandfather had said, and patted him on the shoulder.

“Mikey… I know things have been hard for you lately. I don’t know if it’s work, or your girlfriend, or… just emotions, but I’m here for you. Your grandma has and always will be here for you, until I can’t be anymore, okay? You don’t have to come home, if you don’t want to. Just give me a call sometime. You don’t even have to tell me what’s wrong. I just wanna know that you’re okay. I love you Mikey boy.”

The phone beeped again. Mike was slumped over at his desk, hands in his lap. Tears dotted his pants below him. He felt pathetic. He was crying so much lately.

Mike hadn’t been able to tell his grandmother about the tumor in his head. He was supposed to be there for her. He was supposed to take care of her. And now he was going to die before she did. He was going to die from a cancer just like his grandpa did. His grandpa, who had asked him to take care of her.

!!br0ken!!“

Mike balled his fists and yelled out, slamming them down on his desk over and over. “IT’S NOT FAIR!!! IT’S NOT!!! FUCK!!! FUCK!!!!!” He stood up abruptly hunched over with his fists on his desk. Then, a red light blinked. And blinked again.

Mike snapped out of it, breathing heavily. He looked over to the machine, wondering if it had went back to cycle that blinking light. But no, the light was off after listening to the message. Then he looked to his monitor.

On the screen was a window, the window he’d been working in, and another window which had opened. In that window was… was the AI running. The little red dot. Mike stared at it confounded. He reached up, wiping his face on the back of his arm and leaned over his desk, to see what it was doing.

Slowly, a string of code was written out in the AI’s window. Mike watched in awe. He stepped back a bit from his desk as he stared at the monitor in the dark room. When it had finished, it had rewritten out a piece of his own code from the brain scan project, with a few changes. They were minor but… they made that part of the program run better. Mike pulled his chair back up and sat in it, staring at the AI.

He wondered if it was going to do anything else, but after a few minutes, nothing happened. Mike looked over the code it had written again, then at his own code, and finally, placed the code the AI had written into his own.

Then, the AI, the red AI or CAINE as they called it, did something else. Slowly, it generated a pixel art image of fireworks over a circus tent. Mike laughed, tears still drying on his face.

Mike and the others had trained the AI on many different things. Their own work, tons of different images. Mike had a lot of pictures of the circus… from when he was a kid. His grandpa took him there a lot. It always felt like such a magical place. Like a different world hidden away within our own, that you got to visit for just a little bit. Some kids had been scared of it. The clowns, the animals, the theatrics. Mike had loved it.