The scientists were also correct about the effect it would have on him. As the treatments continued, he began to gain more control over his movements. He was still very weak, but he could stay awake longer and even sit up in his bed by himself for short periods of time before becoming exhausted. In spite of these changes, he dreaded each trip back to the micro-alembic chamber.
And though his health improved, the emptiness he felt never went away. He worried about what the scientists had planned for him and why he was even in the Institute in the first place. The riddle of his past weighed heavy upon him. When left to himself, which was most of the time, his mind would invariably drift back to this mystery as he tried over and over again to imagine the life he once had lived. But he never caught the barest glimpse of what that might have been.
“It’s time for your translation,” the scientists informed him as the bed tilted and slid him into a chair covered in polymeric padding. They had been telling him this change was coming for some time. Now it had finally arrived.
The micro-alembic treatments had ceased. He was strong enough now to take short walks around his room. The progress in his rehabilitation seemed to please the scientists. They informed him that the transition to his new quarters would be the final phase of his recovery. After that, there would be a short evaluation period—a mere formality they assured him—and then he would have his bioseine initialized. He wasn’t sure about that last part, but he was glad to be leaving his small room.
The chair swiveled towards the door. The scientists fell in behind, following as the chair glided of its own accord into the metallic hallway beyond his room.
They moved through several doorways before coming to a stop in front of two wide, alloyed doors. They had to wait a moment before these opened, but once they did, they passed into a small, square room and then stopped again. The chair swiveled in place, facing the entrance they had just passed through. The scientists also turned to face the doors, which whispered shut in front of them.
Adan found it strange that they were no longer moving. And, as there did not seem to be any other exit, he asked, “Is this my new room?”
There was no bed or other furnishings, but he could not think of any other reason why they had stopped like this. The fact that the two scientists were standing alongside him in the cramped space and giving no indication that they meant to leave made it seem all the stranger.
“No, this is an elevator.” one of them said. “We are moving you up to the first floor, remember?”
“Oh, an elevator,” Adan said, though he wasn’t quite sure what that word meant. He had been told there were several floors in this building and that the top floor was where he would be staying, but nothing about an elevator.
Soon the doors opened again. Instantly, he perceived that he was in another place. He marveled at the fact that he had not felt any sensation of movement and yet here he was, clearly in a new part of the building. There was a blue tint to the walls and a subtle, pleasant fragrance in the air. The atmosphere was brighter and crisper than anywhere else he had been. It evoked pleasant feelings inside of him. He began to wonder if perhaps things might turn out all right after all.
As the scientists ushered the chair into the new hallway, it swiveled to the right and into a new passage. Then, another strange novelty presented itself: people. Some walked down the hallway towards him, others passed from behind. Adan stared at them in unabashed wonder. They were so different from the scientists he was accustomed to seeing. The most obvious change was in their clothing. They wore loose, pearl-blue jumpers. Not a single silver lab coat was to be seen. They also moved with an energy and a briskness which the scientists lacked. Passing by Adan’s little entourage, several of them gave quick, curt nods to the two men escorting him. The scientists, in turn, acknowledged the greetings, but only barely. They shifted their gaze in the general direction of the newcomers, but otherwise failed to acknowledge them.
The chair glided to a halt just in front of another set of doors at the end of the hallway. Then it swiveled in place to face another door along the wall. This door slid away, revealing a small, well-lit room. The ceiling was swathed in an inviting glow. The walls were unadorned, but their basic, off-white color gave Adan more comfort than the metallic walls of his old room. Even though this room was just as small as his previous one, it had a much larger bed with no side slats.
Adan’s chair drew alongside the bed, then rose, simultaneously extending itself and inclining into a horizontal position. Though it was done slowly, the unexpectedness of the maneuver made him afraid that he might be tipped out. But the chair compensated for his knee-jerk reaction and smoothly guided him onto the bed without incident.
“This is your new room,” one of the scientists said. “If all goes well, you should not be here long. A handler will be with you presently. Do you have any questions before we go?”
“Yes, what’s a handler?” Adan asked, surprised that the scientists would actually invite his questions.
“Someone who will help monitor you during this final phase of your recovery. We passed some of them in the hallway. Researchers will still be evaluating you, but the handlers will be your primary contacts during the time you are here.”
Adan nodded, excited at the prospect of getting to meet the people he had seen in the hall. He was about to ask another question when the door swished open. A person wearing one of the pearl blue jumpers strode through.
“Here you are,” one of the scientists said, “We’ll leave you now.” They turned and left without another word, practically meeting the handler at the door.
Adan’s attention turned immediately to this new visitor. Though she wore the same, cropped haircut as the scientists, there was something about the way she moved that betrayed her femininity.
The handler walked quietly over to the side of his bed and gave him a brief smile before she spoke.
“Hello, Adan, I’m one of your handlers,” she said, looking him in the eye.
Adan, who had so little experience with conversation, was rendered speechless by her presence. No one had ever looked at him so intentionally before.
“I’m part of the team that will be monitoring you during your brief stay in this ward,” she continued. “If you need anything, all you have to do is ask and we’ll either come to you or answer. Just raise your voice a little and say—‘Support’.”
The room brightened slightly with her change in intonation and another voice answered back. It sounded as if it were coming from right there in the room. “Hello, Adan. Welcome to Generational Sciences,”
“Who is that? Can they see me?” Adan asked.
The handler nodded as the light faded back to normal. “Yes. We can see you from anywhere. So, now that you know how we can be reached, I’ll leave you to yourself. Just let me reposition your bed before I go. I don’t think the researchers left you very well situated.”
Her eyes lost focus and Adan became startled. She was no longer looking at him, but through him, the way the scientists did. As her face went slack, the bed softened and extended itself, tilting to bring one of his legs, slightly akimbo, more into the center of the bed.
After it finished moving, her eyes returned to their previous, lucid appearance.
“There. I hope that helps,” she said and half-turned to go.
“Wait—please don’t leave.” Adan reached out and touched her arm. “I need to talk to somebody. Can you answer some of my questions?”
She regarded him with a mixture of pity and resignation.
“I’m sorry. It is against protocol to answer anything outside of what you’ve already been told at this point. And I’m being called away right now, anyway.”
“Why can’t I remember anything? Who am I? Do you know? Does anyone?” The questions burst forth. He saw her tense up, but he kept his hand on her arm. He didn’t know when he might get another chance like this.
The handler shook her head, “I only know what they tell me. Enjo
y your stay here.”
Adan started to say something, but the glazed look had returned to her eyes along with a numbed expression. The conversation was over. As abruptly as she had entered, she disappeared into the hall and the door whisked shut behind her.
In contrast to the hopeful way the visit had begun, he was left with a hollow feeling now that the handler was gone. Perhaps things weren’t going to be that different after all. He was alone again, just like before.
But there was something else that bothered Adan in the long moments after the handler left. For he had caught something in her expression just before her eyes had gone cold. A look of concern had darkened her face, as if something wasn’t quite right. Perhaps he was just imagining it, but he couldn’t shake the impression for all he tried.
Four
A Dead Node
Adan awoke with a stabbing pain in his temples. One of the researchers was leaning over him, his hands near Adan’s throat. He wasn’t doing anything to hurt Adan, merely adjusting something, his clothes perhaps or something on the bed. The man withdrew them a moment later.
Peering up at him, Adan wondered if he was actually a researcher after all. He wasn’t wearing a lab coat or even a blue jumper. Instead he wore a black coat covered in dust. And his face was unlike anyone Adan had met in the Institute. His dense eyebrows pressed together, as if he were concentrating or pressed for time. His thick black hair stood out at odd angles. But the most striking thing about him were his eyes. Their light azure color contrasted so intensely with his dark complexion that Adan found himself transfixed beneath the stranger’s gaze, wondering just who this could be.
But staring at the stranger only caused the stabbing in his temples to intensify. Adan shut his eyes, hoping the pain would go away.
Was this some new kind of treatment? Or had something gone wrong in the Institute? Adan had the distinct impression that this man didn’t belong here.
Then he remembered the handler, their conversation, and her abrupt departure. The worried look on her face flashed into his mind. He opened his eyes again and the room was empty; the man had left. The abrupt departure was not unusual, but it did nothing to dispel the unsettling feeling in the pit of Adan’s stomach.
“Support,” Adan called out. He waited for a moment, but no one answered. The pain continued to escalate. “Support, can you hear me?”
The door slid open and a handler stepped inside. At first, Adan thought it might be the one from before, but then he wasn’t so sure. There wasn’t the same buoyancy in this woman’s movements and she didn’t look directly at him the way the other one had; she didn’t smile and her eyes stared at the wall beyond him, vague and unfocused.
“What’s wrong?” the handler asked, pausing just inside the doorway.
“Something’s not right,” he said. “I’m in pain—what’s happening to me?”
A backwash of bile burned his throat. It wasn’t just the pain that turned his stomach; he could take that. It was the uncertainty. Something terrible was happening, he was sure of it.
The handler made her way towards him, producing a thin, translucent rod from a fold within her clothing. She held it above his head where it emitted a soft, yellow light. She studied his face under the soothing patterns it projected onto his skin. Luminous ribbons danced in the air, providing a momentary distraction, but the pain did not go away. It felt like his temples were cracking apart, as if he were back in the micro-alembic chamber.
He cried out in pain. The rod went dark and the handler shoved it back into her clothing.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, and then jogged out of the room.
The moment she disappeared, his left arm began to quiver. The movement was slight, but he wondered if it was a sign of things to come. Soon, the same pain raging inside his head invaded his arm. The limb twisted and jerked in agonizing waves. Adan had suffered spasms before, but these were different. There was a pattern to them, as if they were somehow intentional. He fought against them, clutching his arm, but the violent twitching would not stop.
A moment later the convulsions spread to his abdomen. The muscles in his torso shook in the same throes of torment pulsing through his arm and head. He tried to double over from the pain wracking his midsection, but found he could no longer move on his own; he was completely paralyzed.
To his horror, his torso began to rotate on its own. It turned slowly and awkwardly, dragging the rest of his limp frame along with it. He wanted to scream or call for help, but couldn’t make a sound.
With his body on its side, his feet and legs swung over the edge of the bed while his torso jerked upwards, forcing him into a sitting position. Something else was in control of him now. He had become a captive inside his own flesh.
His legs slid off the bed and his feet hit the floor. His body trembled violently as he slowly rose to a standing position. In an instant, the pain vanished completely. His entire body went numb. He lost all feeling and all connection to his physical self—everything except his sight. For all he knew, he might have been floating at the side of his bed, drifting along in some horrific nightmare.
His body shook continuously, making it difficult to keep what he saw in focus. The room teetered back and forth, but he could make out enough of it to see he was being turned towards the door. Once it came into view, his body rambled in that direction, traversing the room in irregular bursts as if he were being kicked across the floor by a giant foot. The door caromed this way and that until he stopped in front of it.
A long pause followed, in which the quaking of the room settled down and everything grew still. As he stared at the door, he wondered why the handler had never come back. If they could see him like they said they could, they would have to know something was wrong with him by now. Or were the scientists themselves doing this to him?
The door jettisoned open and his body staggered through. The lurch forward was smoother this time, but still disorienting. After a few twitching gyrations, he faced the double doors at the end of the hallway outside his room.
He stared at the doorway, waiting. That was all he could do; he couldn’t even think. His mind was too numb from the horror of what was happening.
The doors flew open and he started moving again. The invisible force controlling him shoved him through the opening. There was no calming blue tint to the walls in this new hallway. A series of paltry yellow lights ran along the ceiling. Several adjoining passages opened off to either side. Another set of double doors stood at the other end. He had only just been thrust forward into this new hallway when, from one of the adjoining passages, four people emerged, heading towards him.
Finally. Help was on the way.
The newcomers were dressed in loose, dark gray coats that went down to their ankles. Each wore a silver band of metal around his neck with a ball of the same metal protruding at the base of the throat. They walked towards him two by two.
Adan had no idea who they were, but he was certain they had been sent to fix whatever had gone wrong with his body. And yet, as they moved closer, they gave no indication they even saw him.
They were talking amongst themselves, though ‘talking’ was hardly the correct word. He didn’t know how he was able to perceive what transpired between them, but he had the undeniable impression they were sharing their thoughts with each other, carrying on some sort of wordless conversation with their minds. That they were doing this was bizarre enough, that Adan could listen in on it was even stranger. It wasn’t anything like regular sounds or voices. And yet, he could not deny what he was ‘hearing’.
“Can you bring up the visuals for the subject’s last known position?” came a thought.
It seemed to belong to the first man on the right. But there was more to the thought than the simple message. Along with it came unspoken information about the man’s name, position, and other details. These were woven in, as much a part of his thoughts as the ideas he was expressing, like a sort of mental signature to the message. His name
was Jax and he was a member of a security force called the assessors.
“I've got the location, but the timestamp is from over two slices ago. That can’t be right,” answered Rip, the man walking beside Jax. Adan knew his name simply from hearing his thoughts as well.
“Have you ever had a node go dark for that long?” asked Cal, one of the men behind the first two.
“No. The esolace must have gone down,” Jax suggested.
“Come on, that can’t happen,” Cal scoffed.
“How do you know what is or isn’t possible for the Administrators? How many flat-lines have you been through?” Jax asked, but it was a question to which he already knew the answer. Seeing this, Cal didn’t bother answering.
By now, the men were not far from Adan. He still had no idea why they hadn’t seen him, but he was certain that if they didn’t notice him soon, they were going to walk right into him. He watched their progress with a growing sense of alarm, silently willing them to look at him. At the last possible moment, they swerved to either side and passed him by without ever acknowledging his presence.
Adan remained perfectly still. What in the world was going on?
Though he could no longer see them, the mental conversation between the men continued playing through his head.
“He’s gone,” Rip observed.
“Okay, Com, it’s a dead node.” Jax’s thoughts were not addressed to any of the men with him, but to another, his commander, who was in another building altogether.
The next thoughts Adan perceived lacked any of the details he had apprehended from the mental messages of the others. He had no idea who they came from, only that this person was not among the four walking down the hall.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 3