“In the end, I guess I would choose to help,” I answered, giving her what she wanted to hear.
She gasped with delight, jumped up from the chair, and threw her arms around my stiff and unsuspecting torso. The hug was clumsy. Her guilt evaporated like a fog hit by the morning sunshine. “I knew you would.”
But would I?
“I have a surprise for you in the hall. I wanted to wait until you’d warmed up those muscles of yours with the exercise pole before I showed it to you. Close your eyes.”
I could definitely use a surprise. The door slid open and closed, but I didn’t hear anything else except her footsteps. “Okay, open them,” she called.
An apparatus of some kind that looked like a small, green chair standing at attention, minus the salute, was positioned at her side.
“Is it some kind of hoverchair?” I asked.
“No, I think you’re beyond the hoverchair. This uses antigravity. It’s called a Standup. Standup on.” At her command, a hum like a muted whisper filled the room. “It’ll hold your body in position, and by reading the electric impulses in your brain, help you use your muscles correctly, so you can walk. That’s why we couldn’t have you use it until now. There’s a minimum amount of muscle control needed for it to work, and you didn’t qualify until this week.”
A light tap from Ella’s hand brought the device to the edge of the bed. “We just need to get you within twelve inches, and then Standup will pull you upright. It’ll work best if we angle your back into position.” She lifted the corner of the sheet and tossed it away from my body.
As I rotated on the bed and aligned myself with the machine, my back caught the vacuum of the antigravity compulsion, lifted me up and off the bed, and firmly drew my limp body against the molded padding. “This Standup has been synched to your L-Band. It’ll only follow your commands and adapt to your body. It has multiple settings, from maximum to minimum support.”
“I definitely need the maximum setting,” I was quick to add.
“Yes, you do, at least for the first week or two, and then maybe in another month you won’t need it at all. Now let me show you how this works.”
Fabulous! After a ten-minute tutorial, I could walk, bend over, and lower into a sitting position using Standup, a slab of limber rubber, to obey my movements. Walking was incredibly liberating, but I was embarrassed by how I must look being adhered to an animatronic chair, wearing hospital clothes, and barefooted. I definitely didn’t want Michael to see me like this.
“Once you’re able to use it on the lowest setting, you can switch to using just the stimulation pack.” As I stopped in front of Ella, my muscles burning and twitching, she pushed on the back of the apparatus. “In three to four weeks, this is all you’ll need.”
Yeah, right. How about in three or four days?
“This is absolutely amazing,” I said after a lap of the room with my new mechanical friend. “I can’t wait to leave this place. It’s so boring in here. I want to go to the botanical garden. That’s the first thing I want to do. Can I get dressed and go now?”
“No, I’m sorry. Due to your condition, your activities are still limited to this room, but you won’t need a NURSE bot anymore. Now you can go to the bathroom and even take a shower by yourself, so no more SUDS.” Thank God for that. “Aren’t you anxious to take a proper shower?”
“Yeah, I’d love to take a shower, but I’d rather see the garden.”
“When you’re physically ready, I’ll take you to the garden. And in the meantime, I’ll keep bringing you flowers.”
“Then what about a window, so I can at least see outside now? You said once I’m L-Banded I—”
“No, honey, not even a window.”
“What about the balcony at the end of the hall? Dr. Little allowed me into the hall once before. Can’t I just—”
“No, you can’t leave this room,” she said sternly after I let my fist drop hard against Standup’s arm. “You’ll see our world soon enough. What you need is a hot shower. Let me show you how to use it.”
“Yeah, right,” I mumbled.
As she approached the bathroom door, it slid to reveal an all-white room with glossy walls and a smooth, milky floor. It looked spotless and smelled minty clean. A round vessel stood on the floor, its lines fluid and abstract like a statue. In the corner loomed a glass compartment with double doors. When she pushed on one side, both doors sprung outward accompanied by a welcoming ding-ding.
After Ella left, I was a naked, semi-invalid with Standup, a giant Gumby, on my back. I drew my arm across my breasts and rounded my shoulders as the shower’s lights, set on “tranquility mode,” exploded and sparkled against the glass walls like the inside of a geode. A melody echoed from the floor like a distant tribal song, its vibrations invigorating the soles of my feet.
As the blood-warm water pulsed down my back, all I could think about was Michael. There was just something especially alluring about a guy who had the power to wake up a girl from the dead. Had he lied to me? Yes. But I couldn’t hold it against him. He had to. It was his job. And due to his job, we couldn’t be together.
When I left the shower, the mirror above the bathroom sink bore the refection of a girl. The image grimaced at the hollows under its eyes and the paleness of its cheeks, but then it smiled, pleased its lips were still plump and red, and that its irises glistened like sapphires. Its brows were thin and perfectly arched and its eyelashes long and full despite a one thousand year sleep of death. It was hard to believe that reflection was me.
Finally—underwear and bra. Both fit perfectly. The silky robe Ella left for me was luxurious and girly compared to my other robe and the plain tunic and pants I had been wearing. It was easy to put on and take off, comfortably slipping between my back and Standup’s green cushion.
Several minutes passed as I walked around my room, taking Standup for another test drive on the lowest setting, and challenging the strength of my muscles before I realized I was crying, not from the frustration at my pale, atrophied frame or for joy in having the artificial ability to walk—but for what would happen if I could escape from here. Could I be a brave girl in a brave new world?
Breakfast was waiting for me along with a service bot that was busy changing my bed sheets. Steam rose from two deep-yellow yolks, the smell of sweet melons filled the air, and all I thought about was Michael again, and how hurt and disappointed he’d be if he came to my room to find I was gone.
As Standup lowered like a handheld telescope, I pressed a button on its right side to keep it at its minimal setting. My liberator rolled away and parked itself against the wall, leaving my back flat on the bed and my legs dangling. Within days—not weeks like Ella thought—I’d be able to walk using just the stim pack, and then I’d try to get the heck out of here. I couldn’t think about Michael. I had to think about my own well-being.
If only there was a magical place called Tasma that I could run to, a place free from the plague’s wrath and government control.
Chapter Nine
One last stretch and I was ready. My thigh muscle twitched as I lay on my back, pulling my knee into my chest. When I switched legs, I turned my head and gave Standup a wave goodbye before straightening my leg. Using my rubber friend at its lowest setting for two days tripled my mobility, and by day three, the stim pack became my new companion, pumping just enough electricity in my limbs to keep me stable as I marched around the bathroom, knowing no one would see my progress from there.
By the end of the week, Standup and its detachable pack were nothing more than a prop, as I kept it firmly against my back and paced my room with the apparatus in sleep mode. Finally it was time.
The black almond-shaped windows stared at me and I stared back, then I scanned the walls, searching for hidden obscuras, looking for the tiny dot of a lens or dime-sized bulge beneath the plaster to give away their locations, but the gray walls were unflawed, as smooth as glass. One swipe with my foot would deem the room “free,” and o
ne bound from my bed would take me to the switch embedded in the floor. I had to reach it before my act of defiance was discovered by spying eyes behind evil obscuras or blackened windows.
As Standup glistened under the starry lights of my room, I strained with all of my might and pushed up on first my elbows, then my knees with the balls of my feet pressed into the soft mattress of my bed. I made the leap, landing on all fours and reaching for the button with an outstretched hand. My heart beat hard, anticipating that my first grab for freedom would trigger a silent alarm, sending a brigade of armed bots to my hospital room, but the buzz from a bot gliding across the warm floor didn’t follow.
Tiptoeing to the door, the scratching fabric of my white hospital clothes making the only sound, I cringed as the familiar ding sounded upon the opening of the door, unlocked for some reason I didn’t know, or maybe my L-Band making it open, its programmer naively believing I could never accomplish an escape during the dead of night.
Taking a deep breath, I stretched my neck through the doorframe. The hall was unoccupied, not even by a JAN, which I speculated would recognize me through my L-Band and report my location.
At the end of the corridor, a wall shined with a steel-gray door—an A.G.-lift, the elevator, my next stop. In socked feet, I scurried rodent-like, my shoulder against the wall and jumped when the A.G.-lift opened its thick door with a magnified ring and suck of air. The door panel retracted and then slid back into place when I was safely inside.
“Um, lobby.” But all was still. “Um, ground floor.”
My words echoed against the lift’s steel walls, walls without buttons or numbers to indicate the passing of floors. How did I make this thing work? The door opened, and I held my breath. A tiny bot shaped like a bell entered, humming and hugging the walls, sucking lint from the corners of the lift, and completely ignoring me. Thank God.
It vacuumed the floor in a succession of parallel sweeps, dodging my feet as I stepped over it and moved to the far wall. When it was done, the wall at my back vibrated, the door opened, and I emerged into a large, dimly lit room with a panel of windows and a pair of double doors to the east, the bot skirting past me to continue its cleaning job in the hall.
Where was I? I didn’t care as long as the door looming in front of me led to further freedom. But would I be that lucky?
As I approached the window, my reflection appeared, followed by what was on the other side—the sky, dotted with stars, and the smile of a crescent moon, softened by a trail of wispy clouds. Yes! My body shook as I stepped forward and the heavy doors separated, releasing the gust of wind knocking on the other side. Catching the breeze, my hair danced across my eyes as I entered the chilly night air, rubbing my arms, taking quick steps, and ignoring the pain in my thighs as I broke into a solid run. Cranking my stiff arms and breathing hard, I pounded against the patterned concrete that was littered with tiny stones.
It didn’t matter where I’d end up—alive or dead—I was free from GenH1 if only for a few seconds. But the seconds turned to minutes as I continued my escape away from the compound and onto a foreign street where movers hovered against the artificially lit sky at different altitudes of three to ten feet, their bullet-shaped noses and penetrating headlights piercing the cool air.
How could a world where its citizens were tethered to a central computer, and randomly viewed by strangers, be beautiful? But somehow it was. Despite the lack of trees and grass, I stood in tears and awe at the rivers of lights created by cars that flew against a backdrop of buildings reaching upward into infinity. When a spotlight above found my location, I squinted against the harsh light and drew in a deep breath.
I could run. I could end it now—throw myself into the path of a low-altitude mover, letting its metal nose plow into mine, ending my short reign as baby-maker. But I stood unblinking until a team of men in tight, black uniforms came up behind me.
“No,” I screamed, dashing to the left and spinning to free myself from a hand reaching toward my arm.
There was time to make a dash and I took it, dodging a small mover and ducking beneath one with a little more altitude. With lungs craving oxygen, I jumped to the intersection and ran until I reached the other side of the street.
A row of uniform houses with perfectly manicured yards ran the length of the sidewalk. From each numbered front door, a small porch met a mover-width driveway that cut across a patch of synthetic grass to reach the curb. Equidistant from one another and identical from their slick roofs to their beige exteriors, they looked eerily familiar. I’d escaped into a real game of Ascendency, each home mirroring its occupants like fellow clones, its building plans used again and again to replicate the neighborhood.
Darting left, I sprinted down the sidewalk as the sound of footsteps at my heels increased. There were no trees to hide behind, no bushes in which to lay low and catch my breath, the landscape as sterile as a female clone. Obscruas on the light posts gave away my location, and within seconds a bot-driven patrol mover appeared beside me, slowing to match my speed.
With a last burst of energy, I scrambled forward into the line of traffic, but this time my weak muscles didn’t carry me to the other side of the street. I’d misjudged my capabilities.
My heart fluttered as a low-hoverment vehicle came toward me, its bumper meeting me at eye level. But my feet didn’t move. I closed my eyes and held my breath, anticipating the pain. Dropping out of the way wasn’t an option, was it?
I didn’t want to be a mother—at least not the way they wanted me to.
The mover’s lights obliterated my vision. This was it. The end.
“Remain where you are.” It was the voice of a bot.
When I opened my eyes, it was as if time itself had stopped. Every mover within my view was frozen midair. Even those on parallel streets were at a standstill, including the members of GenH1 security who were as rigid as their accompanying bots.
I was approached from all sides, and within seconds someone pinned my hands behind my back with a palpable, electric band of light.
“No, let me go,” I screamed and kicked, jerking left and right to knock the security officers away with my shoulders. But they stood solid, their hold tight around my arms.
“I don’t want to go back,” I continued to shout as they led me back to a life of submission.
Despite almost being hit by a mover, seeing them for real soaring with almost inaudible purrs above the pavement, their sleek designs effortlessly slicing the wind, kept my heart rate from settling. My hair fluttered with each passing hoverbus. The night air, combined with the strange splendor of this regulated world, was intoxicating.
I slowed almost to a stop as a bovine-sized bot came around the corner, sucking bits of rock and debris from the opposite sidewalk, but the officer behind me pushed me along with a palm to my back. At that point, I dropped my head, watching my now-dirty socks doing little to protect the tender soles of my feet. But when we approached GenH1, I lifted my head and oddly found myself captivated by the grandeur of the building’s modern architecture.
The lobby was empty, with the exception of a bot with a rubbery face and permanent smile stationed behind a long counter, and another bell-shaped one buzzing across the floor to collect lint and dust.
As the guards wound me through the halls of GenH1, the muscles in my legs became sore and stiff, making it hard not to drag my feet as we rounded the corner and ended at Dr. Little’s office. He was the last person I wanted to see.
“We’re not used to defiance,” he said through a yawn after the door slid closed behind me. “You had us fooled, Miss Dannacher. You’re stronger and more physically capable than you led us to believe. I don’t like to be fooled, or awakened at three in the morning.”
“I’m sorry I ruined your beauty sleep. You need all you can get,” I smirked, twisting my hands against the electric cuffs.
“We can’t afford to have anything happen to you. If you hadn’t triggered a pedestrian warning system with your L-Band,
you wouldn’t be here with us today.”
Oh, lucky me. “Can you at least take these cuffs off now? I won’t run away again. I promise,” I huffed as I crossed my fingers and bit my bottom lip; my only real promise was not to cry in front of Dr. Little.
He nodded, and in the next second, the electrified beam disappeared with a touch from one of the guards. I let my arms drop to my sides and sucked in a deep breath.
“No need to promise. You won’t be leaving us again. The proper adjustments have been made to your L-Band. The tier four techs were careless. Not being privy to the project, they equated your condition to that of a comatose invalid and set your L-Band accordingly. They’ll be punished with a decrease in pay.”
Dr. Little rested his hands on his desk and interlocked his fingers, his eyes burning into mine.
“Are we done here?” I asked, shifting my gaze away from his. From over his shoulder, I saw a rectangular glass case about a foot-and-a-half tall, positioned vertically over a strange object centered on a wooden base. Chipped from gray stone, the object stood just over a foot tall. It didn’t take me long to recognize what it was.
“I see that you’re admiring Claus,” he said.
“Claus?”
“That’s what I like to call him. He’s over eight—”
“Thousand years old. I know all about him.”
“Then I’m sure you’d like to hold him. I rarely take him out of his home, but since you promised to never run away again,” he said sarcastically, “I think I’ll make an exception.”
I didn’t answer but watched as his fingers fumbled to lift the glass case and remove the object from his so-called home.
Claus was a fertility idol, a male fertility idol, which made it extremely rare. It was discovered in Germany shortly before I left 2022, hence Dr. Little’s German name for him. Officially, he’s known as the Man of Zschernitz, named for the town near which he was found.
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