by John Gold
There’s almost nobody around. In all the time I spend wandering about the clinic, I only see ten or eleven people. But Sam Walton is my doctor, so I head up to the second floor to try and find him. In a pleasant turn of events, I step into his office to find a girl in a bikini there drinking a cocktail with a slice of orange in it. She’s young, not even twenty, and her trim body flaunts appetizing curves and lovely, soft lips.
Happily, the capsule is still managing my hormonal field.
“Hi, Doctor Alice.”
The girl leaps up with a shriek. Her cocktail goes flying.
“It’s okay, Miss Alice, I’m your patient, LJ. I’m back so I can become your former patient.”
The girl recognizes me, throws on a robe, and brings Sam Walton into the room. The director of the clinic is about forty, lightly graying and has a piercing stare. I sense how surprised he is, just as I can sense Alice’s fear.
“I see you’re back in your right mind, Mr. Bak. It’s been a while since you were here.”
“All thanks to you, my good doctor. Thank you for taking care of me when I needed it. And now, I would appreciate it if you could quickly examine me and declare me healthy. I’d like to see the real world again.”
I’m taken to a large, blindingly white room on the first floor. Even the furniture is white, without the least shadow. However, there’s somebody dark on the other side of the door, hiding in the corridor, and he announces his presence by knocking on the window in the door. It’s the first time I’ve seen his face - at least, the lack of one. He’s completely bald, with no mouth, nose, ears, or eyes. It’s like he has ashen skin pulled tightly over his skull, in fact. I notice a shirt collar on his neck, and the lapels of a black jacket on his chest. A funeral outfit? What is that, a hint?
He’s nervous, something I can sense, and that means there’s a real person in front of me rather than a hallucination. He must be keeping track of me purposefully. Maybe, a soul from the city of the dead?
Shadow, Slender, non-class, non-level
Really? Is that a present from the shapeshifter? I need to figure out what to do. It’s hiding in the shadows, it’s almost imperceivable, and it doesn’t even have a level. What if…
Sam walks into the room flanked by Alice and another couple of doctors. Slender is gone, almost as if he was never there to begin with. I’m the only one who saw him.
Alice and Sam ask me hundreds of different questions, suggesting a variety of situations. The rest of the doctors just stand off to the side. As their eyes follow the lines on an invisible interface, I see their mouths moving soundlessly. Their emotions show strong surprise; Sam is calm and collected. Alice, still afraid of me, just asks the rare trick question.
After being grilled for three hours, we chat for a couple more, meandering across a number of subjects. We go through the Lüscher color test and a variety of others invented by well-known psychologists. I remember most of them from when I was little, so I’m able to give them the answers they’re looking to hear.
Finally, I’m left alone with some food. Slender continues watching, occasionally scratching at the window. He doesn’t like being far away. Also, he hates the fact that I’m enjoying my meal.
It’s easier for me to study his abilities while he’s in material form. For instance, he’s an empath who senses emotions at least as well as I do. He’s strong enough to scratch at the glass before instantly disappearing into the form of a shadow. In that form, his speed is far beyond that of a normal human. It takes me a good half a minute to get up to fifty meters a second; it takes him less than a second. His top speed must be higher, too.
An hour later, Sam Walton returns. Judging by his satisfied face and the lack of guards, he has good news.
“Congratulations! From a psychological point of view, you’re completely healthy.”
My inventory and equipment immediately switch to what I had with and on me the day of the battle at Airis Castle.
The doctor’s face expands, eyes rounding.
“Sagie. You’re Sagie! Bloody Sagie!”
The name above my head is glowing bright red. Even somebody like Sam, living as he does at the edge of the civilized world, has heard about me. Better leave before they lock me up.
“Thanks. I’ll see myself out.”
The alarm sounds even before I leave the room, the sirens almost deafening me. I have to run in stealth mode, hiding from the staff as they scour the clinic. The first floor and all the exits are blocked by orderlies. Instead, I have to jump off the balcony on the second floor, quietly landing on the soft grass. The antiportal field is up and running, so they don’t think I’m going to leave through a portal.
After grabbing the clothes I filched, I head off for my meeting with Femida.
Logout
***
Hello there, real world! I’m back.
But the first thing I feel is horror at the state of my body. The miserable med capsule is barely maintaining it—all that’s left of my muscles are ligaments and a network of veins. I’m ravenously hungry, my head is spinning, and there’s a taste of… I don’t want to think about what my mouth tastes like. The life support system looks to be doing a terrible job.
The last thing I expect when I open my eyes is for my muscles to crunch. How can an eyelid crack? There’s too much salt in my body—my skin is thick and papery.
I look around to find myself in some kind of warehouse with hundreds of capsules arranged in rows. As soon as my eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, I see a sign pointing the direction to the exit. That’s not what I need, however, as there could already be people waiting for me; I need the elevator to the city. I need a public terminal with infonet access.
Crawling out of the capsule leaves me flopping on the floor. My head is still spinning, and I retch the remains of the medical solution. My hormones are going crazy—I want sex, blood, sleep, food, salt, sugar. I’m really going to have to rebuild my strength soon.
My wet clothes and I crawl in the direction of the elevator, as I’m so weak that I can’t hold my own weight up. But I’m alive. And I got out of Project Chrysalis.
Hanging onto life, happiness, and the real world, I crawl toward the exit from this hell.
Wait, am I in the morgue? Why are there so many capsules? Why is it so quiet?
It takes me almost an hour to find the elevator, and I pee out the last of the solution on the way. That’s enough to send me into a fit of laughter and a new round of retching. I’m not sure how this could get any worse, but I’m going to get out of here.
The elevator takes me up to Arpa’s business district. Skyscrapers, hotels, flying shuttles, and the sky, which I’ve missed so much, all loom above me. Nobody pays the least bit of attention to the skinny guy next to the elevator wearing a hotel robe. A robot street cleaner helps me get to the nearest café, from which I get in touch with Femida.
“This is the worst. I want to get some food in me, sleep, and go see a doctor. Where’s my premium capsule? I miss my orphanage.”
“Pull yourself together, you wimp! What do you think this is, a pity party for you? Where are you now?”
“Arpa, business district, a café called Quidditch, capsule forty-seven. Have you sent the hitmen out yet?”
“You’re hilarious. I’ll think about that,” Femida replies, trying to make her laughter as evil as she can. “Sagie, send me the money, and I’ll have you taken somewhere safe. Nobody will find you there.”
“Are you sure a place like that exists?”
“Believe me, nobody will look there.”
“Fem, are you going to send me to Pluto?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” she replies with more evil laughter. I guess she likes that.
Twenty minutes later, an elderly man leads me from the capsule to an inconspicuous aerocar and takes me to the space port.
Femida made sure there was food and new clothes for me. God, this is the best soup I’ve ever eaten. “Drink” would probably be m
ore fitting, of course, seeing as how my jaw isn’t quite working yet.
The driver doesn’t introduce himself, saying that he doesn’t want to know anything about me. His job is just to get me to my destination and not ask questions. Does Femida scare everybody, or is this just professional etiquette?
There’s an old interplanetary shuttle, a Viral, waiting for us at the space port. They were replaced by the newer Mosquitos more than ten years ago. Their only upside is that the crew is guaranteed survival no matter what happens.
The aerocar driver carries me to the cabin and disappears, though the captain shows up and straps me to the seat.
“What’s that for?”
“Your own safety. You’re too weak.”
“I’m not that weak?”
“We’re going to get thrown around a little during the flight.”
“How is that possible? We’re in space.”
The captain looks at me sternly.
“Believe me, we’re going to hit some turbulence.”
A couple of hours after we leave Arpa, the engines cut out, and I hear a wild crash. Artificial gravity shuts off; the emergency system locks the doors. Is this what he was talking about? Our whole tail fell off!
The captain glances in through the window in the door to the corridor and knocks on the glass. He’s wearing a pressure suit and starts to open the door. Oh, god, the vacuum! He’s going to kill me!
Jerking a little, I remember that I’m buckled in.
The door opens, and I let loose the longest string of curses I can remember from my time working in the space port. The captain’s parents and their mental capacity get an honorable mention, I stop to describe a number of sexual deviations, and finally, the spotlight turns on the captain himself. He’s still standing in the corridor, holding onto a human transport capsule.
“I see you’re having fun in here. It’s been a long time since I heard that much cursing.”
It’s only then that I realize the helmet of his suit is open.
“I’m sorry, I have a problem with my head. But if you don’t mind, in the future, let me know ahead of time when something like this is going to happen.”
He moves me to the capsule, and we fly out into open space through a hole in the ship’s hull. To my surprise, my frozen body is flying next to me. Femida apparently had the foresight to imitate my death using a clone.
We’re picked up by an unmarked cargo ship, and the capsule is set to hibernation mode once we’re on board. I don’t know how much time passes or how many more tricks Femida pulled.
I wake up, already changed, in a cabin. Judging by the way I feel, somebody treated me for a little while, and a happy smile spreads across my face.
It’s a one-person cabin, basic medical service is provided, and, judging by the smell, so is food. On a small table, there’s a tray with some grub and a thermos full of hot tea.
The food and clothes are as simple as could be, but I love every second. Bread and soup made with natural ingredients, a piece of some strange, sweet fruit, and tea. I feel strength flooding my body with each spoonful.
I’m barely done, the spoon back on the tray, when the cabin door enters. A girl wearing a technician’s outfit is standing in front of me, her facial features vaguely familiar. I realize who she is before she takes two steps.
“You actually aren’t a fat idiot.”
“Ooph, I would kill you if you weren’t twice dead already.”
Her natural, dark chestnut hair flowing down to her shoulder blades looks blood-red in the artificial light. Her chest is modest, her figure is slender, and her face is pleasant. From her manner of moving and speaking to her habits and tics, she’s identical to her character.
Femida demonstratively crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes. If I didn’t know her so well, I wouldn’t realize that it’s all calculated. My heart quivers, blood floods to my cheeks, butterflies flutter around my stomach, and my pants start to feel tight.
“Fem, you should go.”
“Really that unhappy to see me? We just met, and you’re already kicking me out. Men!”
“My hormones are all messed up. A little more, and I’ll throw myself at you so we can roll around in the bed. Believe me, you’re better off leaving.”
“What if I don’t mind?” She isn’t faking it, but I know her too well.
“In that case, my heart wouldn’t be strong enough to handle the stress. Plus, that would irretrievably ruin our relationship. I just see you as a person now, not as a woman, and I like it that way. I don’t know how to build relationships. Anyway, let’s talk later. I’m having a hard time thinking with the smell of your body this close.”
She leaves without saying something, and I realize that I don’t regret it. I really would have died of a heart attack. I don’t really get what she wasn’t going for, either. What was that all about?
The ship docks, shaking me slightly. A guy wearing an engineer’s suit helps me to the exit from my cabin, and I realize what Femida was talking about as soon as my feet touch real, soft soil.
“Wait, we’re…on Earth?”
“Yes, sir.”
The blue sky, the clouds, the smell of sea air and grass. Wind! Real wind! There’s ground under my feet, not cold metal like at the stations or stone like in Arpa.
Femida was able to get me into the Azure August resort, one of thirteen Lunar runs here. Earth is now a nature reserve nobody over twenty is allowed to. That was Lunar’s method for making sure that the progress the planet’s nature was making wasn’t arrested, as it’s been resting from the influence of people for a hundred and thirty years. It was Armadillo Industries’ job to look over humanity’s cradle at first, with the privilege then inherited by Lunar. They were the ones who built the autonomous complexes used to cleanse the environment of all traces mankind had left there. Without taking money from the UN or sharing their technology, they just got to work restoring Earth’s biosphere. And here I am.
The male nurse who greets me sits me down in an airseat and takes me to a one-person room with a normal bed.
As soon as the door closes behind him, I fall asleep with tears in my eyes. I can’t believe I’m here. Earth! The birthplace of humankind! Practically everyone lives and dies in space, never having seen Earth. But I’m here in one of the resorts, in a separate room with a soft bed and a natural blanket.
A smile on my face, I relax into the tender arms of Morphius. LJ appears in the corner of my consciousness to guard me as I sleep.
It’s a weird feeling, sleeping and not sleeping at the same time. You lose your sense of where you are on the continuum from one to the other. Again, the girl leading me through the flowering meadows appears in my dreams—her white dress, the soft skin of her hands, the pollen that falls on my white pants. My heart hurts, my soul aches, and she’s gone. LJ tells me that someone’s coming.
I wake up with a yell to stare up at the white ceiling with complete emptiness in my head. My heart pounds, tears pour from my eyes, and the feeling in my soul is so rotten that I want to go to sleep forever. I want to sleep so badly. Falling into the half-dream, half-normal sleep world I can’t get past is driving me crazy.
Those thoughts occupy me for just five seconds. On the fifth, the same male nurse walks into the room. They’re setting up a med capsule in my room, a kind I’ve never seen before.
“I’m sorry, what model is that? I’ve never seen one like it.”
“Judging by the number of non-disclosures I signed, I doubt you’ll ever see one again, too. This thing would save you from a direct hit with a plasma cannon that separated your head from your body. It has an autonomous power sources that’s stronger than… Whoops, there’s the first warning from the system. I’d better not say anything else.”
His name is Claude, and I decide he’s the only person I’m going to talk to.
Ten minutes later, he’s back to take me for a complete checkup, and then preparatory procedures.
They s
ay they’ll get to work in a week. I’m supposed to spend the intervening time in the med capsule so it can get my nervous system ready for the procedure, which will involve completely replacing all my old tissue with new samples grown from stem cells. They only do the same to nervous systems if it’s absolutely necessary, however. My case falls into that category, and so that’s why I need the extra prep time. My damaged nerve tissue will be completely replaced. That will be the most dangerous part of the procedure.
Claude dunks me in the med capsule filled with the solution, telling me that I won’t be able to come out for the next week. My consciousness slips into the virtual space, and I see a timer ticking down from seven days.
I get a message from Femida marked Urgent.
Your new name is Ribonz Almark. Your age and medical card are the same as Angie Ganet’s. You’re in a sanatory as part of an experimental research group, and you owe me another half a million for all the comfort and the new identity. And that’s cheap! You have no idea how much work I put in to save you. Pay for the rehabilitation yourself, and then go with whatever kind of modified neuronet you want.
P.S. Forget about what happened on the ship.
P.P.S. Let me know before you log into Project Chrysalis.
There’s nothing to forget, so I just send her a reply.
But sweetie, what about the alimony?
Judging by the date and time in Project Chrysalis, it’s been a bit more than three days. I need to hurry if I’m going to drop by a couple places and still make it to the League of Hunters on time.
It’s half an hour later when Femida shows up. Before we step away from the clinic’s dome, we put on our patient outfits. Almark and Gaia make their grand entrance into the world.
Femida can choose whose name to show, hers or Isaac’s, so she can just go with Gaia once she has on her patient clothes and Isaac’s armor.