The operation they give is far from ordinary. When Nora wakes from the memory in her mind, she witnesses it in splintered moments of consciousness. The two familiar men with wrinkled, expressionless faces, and a strong build hand a scalpel, forceps, and similar equipment to her doctor. She saw those two men during the event that placed her in here. One is the shadow that lifted her on its shoulders while the other is the figure that approached the Remnant. With one good look, one small surge of awareness, she recognizes them. Her doctor is Cain, and his assistants are his friends, his guards, Herve and Herrell.
Her eyes shut and she is left with the void of black and the hurt. She embraces the pain of the surgery, that is if it is indeed a surgery. Far worse suffering than this had afflicted her before, and she knows far worse pain is coming. She can sense that odd chill she felt during her awakening to this new world. She can feel the incisions and stitches, but her sense of location has vanished.
She grasps for alertness once more, after what length of time, she cannot decipher. One of the men hands Cain a small circular device blinking red. He grabs it with a pair of forceps and reaches to her neck. She feels the utensil enter her neck, her eyes turn heavy, and she returns to that nulled space in her mind.
…
Scratching and slamming are the sounds that greet her when her eyes open. A glaring spherical light hangs above and countless IVs puncture her arms. Her attire has not changed, but her legs are free of Wardens.
A bark, a howl, and a whimper ring out.
Nora fights through the blinding light and the chords that surround her. She shambles blindly forward, then her eyes focus on the world before her. At the only door in the small sable room, Herve and Herrell’s slightly shriveled forms hold back a glinting blur. They seem to catch the glistening outline, then it slips. A blue blaze emanates from it, striking one of the men in the hand. Clenching a now leathery and pink hand, the man exhales a hissing sound. His eyes flit toward the evasive creature, and he seizes it, pinning it to the ground. The burnt man raises a first, his eyes wide with beastly loathing, while his confidant simply stares.
Then Nora sees the creature–his square snout, his almost golden metal fur, the shimmer of light in his innocent eyes. It is Puck.
“Stop!” Nora exclaims.
The man unscathed by fire steps nearer, looking down on her without a word. His eyes are vicious, unyielding and his shadow is cold.
The girl does not bend. She enunciates slowly, “Let him go.”
They keep staring at one another, unmoving, unspeaking. She seems to penetrate something inside of him, then he nods to the other man. He releases the Saint Bernard and Nora hobbles to her dog. As Nora stands at the door, Puck circles around her, eying Herve and Herrell and growling defensively.
“I’m going to leave now, and you’re going to leave me alone with my father,” Nora demands. “Where is he?”
“He… is in… m-mMMANY places,” says one of the men.
“Where you…” the other picks up.
“SEEK to…”
“FIND… him…”
“Is…”
“Twenty… THREE…”
“FLOOR… twenty-three,” they announce in unison.
Nora steps out of the room, closing the door behind her without a word. She shudders. Her hands had been clenched, and now that they are not, they are shaking. What is wrong with them? What part of their humanity is missing? What did Cain do to them?
You act as if they were once human, the voice in her head scoffs.
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Nora and Puck progress down a plain hallway of dim black metal, lit only by lines of green on the wall. The further they go, the more she begins to notice the pain in her weak legs. Or, that is, the lack of it. She was attacked, her Wardens were ripped to shreds, but now her legs are only bruised. Then there is her neck. There is no pain there, and there are no stitches, no marks. It is as if she did not need to heal. Either medicine has grown in effect over the years, or something is very wrong.
The hall vibrates ever so slightly. A flooding sound echoes from afar.
The elevator door opens, and Nora and Puck enter.
She reaches for the button to floor one, hesitates.
Reading her thoughts, a robotic voice replies through the speakers of the elevator, “Floor one is restricted.”
She sighs. I’m going to find out what he did and why he did it. Take me to my father. Take me to floor twenty-three.
...
Floor twenty-three. She remembers that floor. On it, there was a room filled with plants and screens mimicking the outdoors. It was a garden, a disguised terrarium. It was her wonderland. It felt like yesterday, the last time she had been here. It had in fact been five days before the surgery to end her sickness, five days before the five-year slumber.
Her father gently pushed her into the terrarium as she sat on a levitating chair. Her pale willowy body was half-covered by metal, and that terrible feeling stabbed at her side, but she was still happy. She could never recall being outside, but she could always do the next best thing. In the gleam of the manufactured sunlight, there was a path of smooth cobblestone. Where the path ended, grass, bushes, and a few sycamores surrounded elegant flowers.
Many switches could activate the Allagi. Her father flipped a switch on the nearest wall. The moment he did this, the fierce pain in Nora’s side was greatly eased and the two individuals slowed with the world around them. The smallest movements in trees, bushes, and the falling leaves nearly froze in animation. This came as no surprise to Nora, as she had grown accustomed to it by her many visits here. This entire room was an Allagi.
As her father gradually moved her along their routine path, the girl glanced at her reflection in the glass. Her head was bald, her frail body too thin.
She looked out a window at the world below. Some people were moving ten times faster than her, others more than this. They were free from the chains of sickness that bound her, yet they did not look happy. They had all the technology and freedom in the world, yet they had their own chains. A normal person would have clung to the notion that the grass was greener on the other side, but not Nora. She was a joyful optimist, and with this special place she and her father shared, she did not need to take risks, to face the storms of life.
Nora sluggishly directed her focus to her father. He was beaming, while a different story was told by the wrinkles of his face and his greying hair. The operation was four days from now. He was tired, he was scared, however, he was suppressing his worry for her.
Nora espied the soft, diamond-shaped petals of yellow lilies, delicate white periwinkles, and red lotuses sprouting forth from lush verdant grass.
They stopped at an elm, resting on a small fabricated hill. This was their special spot, where they could take it all in.
Such beautiful plants were these.
Puck flying at her side, Nora walks through empty rooms and halls, then she comes to the garden. When inside, she whispers to her dog, and next, pet and owner depart.
The synthetic sky projected by the ceiling looks just as real as it used to. The trees still sway, as though the wind is not manufactured. And the bushes, the grass, the flowers–it is all vibrant and untouched in appearance.
Swaying a watering can over violet perennials, Cain stands on their hill, under the cool shade of the elm. He is waiting for her.
She follows the stone path to him.
“Why did you lie to me?” These are the only words she can bring herself to say.
Cain does not turn or flinch in the slightest. Instead, he continues watering the flowers. Eventually, he speaks.
“Do you know what I like about the flora of nature? It’s free. Free of the bustle, the sounds, the stench, the politics, the sickness. Free of people. Do you understand what I am saying? Do you see it?”
The girl does not know how to answer. She shakes her head.
Cain puts the bucket down and glares at her.
“People only get in the way, but you were different.” Walking nearer, he continues. “That is, until you got in the way.”
He backs her against a bush.
“You lied to me, and you hurt innocent people!” screams Nora. “You hurt my mother. You killed her!”
Don’t do anything reckless, the voice in her head demands, but she ignores it.
She springs forward and gives her father a good swipe across the face with her nails. He grabs her arms, laughs a little.
“Your mother did that. She paid a price for it, as you too will. I was here for you, I was protecting you. I have always protected you. And now, I will do so through the means of discipline. Herve, Herrell, keep her in her room.”
The two men stand at the other end of the room. They are impossibly quiet.
They step to her side, ushering her away.
“I wouldn’t do anything too hasty, if I were you,” Cain shouts across the garden. “Herve and Herrell are Hunters. Very little will distract them from you.”
Nora departs with those two men, Cain’s puppets, yet Puck does not join her.
“Stay, hide, find what he is hiding, then get me. You got it, Puck?”
These are the words she had told the dog when they entered the terrarium, and as Nora leaves, her thoughts resound in the silence.
Godspeed, you brave dog.