I held on to the edge of the stretcher as they dragged Jay through the hospital corridors. Everything was happening so fast.

Doctors and nurses were doing all sorts of sick things to him, pricking his arm with needles and placing an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

How could this be? Jay was fine yesterday.

An older woman in a white coat looked at me. "Excuse me, are you related to the patient?"

I looked at her name tag. Dr. Algorithm. "I'm the writer."

"Any idea what happened to your novel?"

I could barely speak. "I-I don't know. Everything was fine up until Jay said he wasn't feeling well. I asked him what was wrong and he said his read count was low."

They wheeled Jay into a room. Poor little guy. He looked so pale.

Dr. Al looked at me. "I see. Did you feed him original views from other users?"

I sensed a lecture coming on. I didn't want to confess, but I had no choice. "No. All views came from me."

She groaned. "Oh, this again."

I tried changing the subject. "Any idea what's wrong with him?"

"Well, it appears Jay here isn't ranking. His spikes in unique readers are too inconsistent to break into the top 1,000."

No, not my Jay. "That can't be. His vote count is healthy for his age. He's got to at least be ranking in the Undiscovered list."

"I'm afraid not. He's too young to be undiscovered."

I looked down at Jay. His eyes were closed, but not in a manner that suggests he was sleeping. No, he looked horrible.

The doctor took Jay's pulse. "This doesn't look good. What genre do you have him in?"

I was dreading this question, too. "Um, Romance."

Every nurse in the room winced. What ever happened to bedside manner?

"But he's been on and off that genre for weeks," I added.

"How could you possibly think it was a good idea to add him to such a competitive genre in his current state?"

Well, gee. Raising a novel doesn't come with a users manual.

The doctor reexamined Jay's vitals. "I don't think he could even rank in the Spiritual category at this point."

The words pierced my ears. Tears threatened to leave my eyes. "Please, doctor. Don't tell me he's too far gone."

A nurse showed up, flicking a syringe. "Doctor, I got you 10 cc's of vote-for-vote."

The doctor gasped. She raised her hand and struck the nurse on the left cheek. "You're not in for-profit nursing school anymore, you fool. Don't you know we only use that on tweens?"

I was taken aback by her abrasive attitude. I didn't want her around Jay, but she was the only one who could save him.

"You have to wait outside," she told me.

I knew I had to let her do her job, but I couldn't leave Jay.

There was no time to protest. Two male nurses grabbed my biceps and literally dragged me to a plastic chair just outside the door.

***

"Miss Elle?" I heard in the darkness.

It took my brain a second to acknowledge that I was sleeping and just barely waking up.

The edges of my eyelids separated slowly. My spine ached from having been sleeping slouched on a chair.

Dr. Al looked down at me. "Miss Elle, please wake up. I've got some serious news."

I sat up immediately. "Jay. How's Jay?"

"He's fine. We had to perform an emergency genre change. He's in recovery now. He's going to be okay."

I sighed. The only thing that registered was that he was alive.

But wait, what was that first part? I stood up. "I have to see him."

"Miss Elle, there's something I need to tell you."

I sensed bad news. It was too tempting to cover my ears and sing loudly. "What is it?"

Dr. Al looked down. "You may want to sit down for this."

I hated being patronized, but I did as I was told.

"Miss Elle, we had to switch Jay to..." she took a deep breath. "To General Fiction."

It was a blow to the gut. She might as well have been a high-end publisher telling me Jay would never find a place on a bookstore shelf.

I covered my face with my hands. "No, no. He doesn't have a genre."

The doctor placed a hand on my shoulder. "Please understand, Miss Elle, Jay can still lead a normal life."

I looked at her with angry eyes. "Lead a normal life? My Jay can never have a fan base."

"Many General Fiction novels have gone on to be very successful. There's The Cheaters Club..." she hesitated. "And uh, and others ones."

I wiped desperate tears from my face. "My poor Jay's as good as unpublished. Even if he ranks, he'll never survive in a Fan-Fiction-dominated world."

Dr. Al reached into the inside pocket of her lab coat, drawing out a thin stack of pamphlets. She handed them to me. "Please take these. You'll find plenty of answers here."

I took them, reading the big, white letters on the top one. It had a picture of a woman in a sundress in the middle of a field of flowers, stretching her arms out like Jesus on the cross and lifting her closed eyes towards the sun like she was practicing photosynthesis. The words read Your Novel Is Literary. Now What?

I took a deep breath. I had to be the adult here. Jay needed me. "Does it ever get easier?"

"I advice all my patients to give it time. Jay will be frolicking in the top 100 of the What's Hot list in no time."

"In General Fiction."

She frowned. "Yeah, in General Fiction. I'm sorry."