He awoke in no pain, but in darkness. His efforts to move were thwarted by bonds he couldn't see, and he was both scared and tired. A woman's voice called his name.

"Matthias. Matthias, can you hear me?" A short pause, and then again, "Matthias? Matthias."

He attempted to respond, but his inhalation caught on something. He found himself coughing uncontrollably, his lungs trying to remove something wet.

"Easy now, careful." The hand at his forehead was uncomfortably warm. "Are you awake now?"

"Gelf," he choked out as the coughing subsided.

"Yes, sir. Mister Gelf -"

"Just... Gelf," he interjected. "That's what I go by. Where am I?"

"Mato, Brazil," a deeper woman's voice responded. She didn't sound as close. "Panacea's head facility."

"Okay. And why am I here?"

"You were badly injured," the first softer voice said. "Panacea recovered you and brought you here."

Gelf paused to reflect on this, but he drew a big blank. He vaguely remembered closing a sale in the afternoon, nothing further.

"I can't see anything," he offered, trying to swallow down the panic.

"You're blindfolded," the same soft voice said again. "And immobilized. It's all part of the procedure."

He tried to think of what 'procedure' she might mean. Panacea was known for providing a wide range of medical treatments and being at the forefront of vaccine research, but when he read up on them, he didn't remember anything about emergency surgery. They were a pharma and device company, with some specialized clinical facilities. But, why had he researched them in the first place? He must have had a reason...

"I'm here because of the retainer agreement," he finally said with more certainty than he felt.

"That's right," the deeper voice - the older woman, he decided - said from what he was gauging to be the foot of his bed. She had a clipped accent that he had heard from Brazilian English-speakers before. "The contract had an emergency treatment clause - it's standard for high-value employees. Most see it as a major perk of working here."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"I'm not your employee," Gelf insisted. "If I'm not mistaken - based on my memory of a contract I signed three weeks ago - you wanted to consult on a PR issue. We agreed to talk in secret, set things up for about a week from now. I guess you saved me the cost of a plane ticket."

"The original calendar date of the meeting has come and gone, I'm afraid," the older woman sighed. "But we'll be happy to wait until your condition has progressed."

Another wave of panic hit Gelf, and he found himself coughing uncontrollably for another minute. Both women waited until he calmed down and spoke again. "How long?"

The younger woman spoke. "I should introduce you to Doctor Almeida. He can explain more about your condition."

"How long since the accident?" Gelf insisted, and put as much steel into his voice as he could.

"We really should allow the doctor -"

"A day? A week? How long?"

"Six months," the older woman finally said. "To be exact: today is day one-hundred and ninety-one of your treatment."

Gelf cursed.

A nasal voice, probably male, interjected in what Gelf assumed was Portuguese. It wasn't Spanish, which Gelf spoke and understood moderately well, but he could pick out several of the common words.

The younger woman immediately took on the role as translator. "Doctor Almeida says that you need to stay relaxed and pace yourself. Too much stress could impede your progress."

"Progress towards what?" Gelf asked, kept in the dark in more ways than one.

"Your spine was severed at your ninth thoracic vertebra," she continued to translate. "Your heart and lungs were intact, but nothing below them. Entire systems were absent or failing when you arrived."

Gelf felt his eyes widen in horror, felt some sort of cloth against his lids. "How am I alive?"

"We have," the older woman began, "a number of experimental programs that we were able to bring to bear in your case. Your organs have been replaced."

"A maioria deles," the doctor interjected.

"Most of them," the young woman translated, then continued. "The missing endocrine, digestive, and urinary organs have been reattached and tested, but the legs take longer to grow."

"I'm missing my legs," Gelf repeated, the panic rising, worse this time.

"Temporarily," the older woman insisted. "Calm down, Mister Gelf. The programs are still technically experimental, but you're nowhere near the first patient. You'll have everything back before you leave here - and all in perfect working order, absent even the normal wear and tear. Like you're twenty again."

These further details did nothing to generate calm. "Who authorized this?" he finally managed to ask. "I didn't consent to treatment, so who did?"

"I did," the older woman responded. "You weren't able to make these decisions for yourself. It was an emergency. You have full control over your treatment going forward."

"And who exactly is it I'm speaking to?" Gelf tried to sound a lot more confident than he felt.

The older woman responded. "Standing next to you is your case worker, Kara Leeman. Doctor Almeida is here as well.

"And I am Claudette Fernando, chief executive of Panacea. I have a very important job for you, Mister Gelf. And when you are ready to hear the specifics, I'm quite certain you'll be interested. "