Chapter Fifty-seven
The man in the pod
Thursday, March 22. 6:10AM. 125 S.A.
Locum. Lemac Lake. France
As soon as she had regained consciousness Lizbeth checked to make sure everything was all right but neither Shin nor the boy, who had escaped from the ship, were there. Carissia was out of commission so, she couldn't ask her what had happened during those seconds she had been unconscious. Because the ship's systems were dead, she couldn't use the surveillance video.
Lizbeth had heard the last moments before Carissia fell unconscious. Not finding Shin, she could only assume that he was still outside. The plane had disappeared. As they had thought, it had been a temporary anomaly of only a few minutes. That black cloud that had attacked the plane and the ship had also disappeared.
After the landing, the soldiers from the surrounding search teams had quickly gathered when they saw that the ship had suddenly splashed down in the lake. When she lowered the rear hatch of the ship Lizbeth quickly explained the situation to everyone's surprise and ordered the soldiers to bring the containment capsules. That was because they could not dismiss that those rescued passengers could not be a biological threat either.
Not only because of what happened inside the plane. But the transport of a pathogenic agent more than two hundred years old on board the plane should not be overlooked either, along with problems due to organophosphate inhalation, aerotoxic syndrome, which was a common occurrence in airplanes of that era. Shin's analysis of the autopsies the day before did not revealed nothing like that but it was better to be sure, because of how quickly everything had happened with the improvised rescue operation.
Therefore they would have to treat the survivors with the same protocol that was used for newcomers feys and OOPAarts. Those rescued people had to be quarantined and so the medical team had gone in to put them in pods.
Throughout the area there were problems with power and communications to the outside after that anomaly but, fortunately, the internal communications in the perimeter were still working, although with some intermittent failures. Thanks to that, the base camp had already received the news of what had happened in the air.
The clock showed 5:50 in the morning, when the operation in that part of Lemac Lake was in full swing under the storm that had not calmed down at all. Military rescue teams, wrapped in specialized emergency suits, surrounded the damaged Corvus-21, deploying a quick protocol to rescue the passengers from another time who were lying still unconscious inside the ship.
As the minutes passed the survivors were placed in special isolation pods, designed to provide advanced medical care. They were carefully transported out of the ship and then placed in a tent that had taken only minutes to set up on forest near the landing. The military doctors and nurses were as confused as they were surprised by the situation in front of them.
The isolation pods had been brought in when the operation began the day before, in case they had to deal with some kind of biological contamination. No one really imagined that they would be used for medical care.
Carissia, meanwhile, remained motionless and totally pale in her cabin. Her aeon body seemed inert, her circuits completely shut down. The ship, its systems irreparably damaged during the crash landing in the lake, lay like a wounded beast, unable to rise once more.
While movement continued in the rear by the medical teams, inside the cockpit Lizbeth was with a worried expression. She was currently removing Carissia's clothes from her top. Carissia's white back looked smaller than usual as she was lying still as if she were dead.
"Well, let's see where you had it."
Lizbeth wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and carefully tipped Carissia's body forward. The wound Lizbeth had suffered on her forehead during the blow had completely disappeared thanks to her ability to regenerate quickly. Her teeth had regained their normal shape, although her eyes still had a certain glow to them.
She touched Carissia's spine looking for something. Carissia's skin was like that of a human, there was no difference, although at that moment it was cold. That body could have passed for a human in another time, unless it was x-rayed to reveal the biomechanical organs.
"Agent Londonderry?" asked an FRT technician who had just entered in the ship.
"I'm here!"
The technician walked over to her and held out a small disc-shaped device that fit in a clenched fist.
"Here is what you asked for, ma'am. It's ready to use."
"Awesome. Thank you!" Lizbeth took the disk and returned to her work on Carissia, while the technician went back outside.
Touching near the thoracic vertebrae she found what she was looking for. A pentagon appeared on the skin and that part disappeared inside the body, as if it was a kind of internal plate, and revealed Carissia's vertebrae. Lizbeth with her slender fingers pressed on one of them and almost immediately a disk protruded, it was similar in appearance to the one she had in her hand. She removed it and replaced it immediately with the new one. She was a bit afraid to touch her. She was no expert on how Carissia's body worked internally. Although they had known each other for a long time, that had never happened before, and for Lizbeth it felt like performing some kind of surgery.
After a few seconds Carissia opened her eyes and her body straightened backwards slowly. The pentagonal opening had closed again and Lizbeth sighed in relief. The color of her skin took on a more normal tone and she could feel how upon contact with Carissia's bare skin she was beginning to regain a certain temperature. She could even feel her lungs beginning to function normally.
"Where is she?" a familiar voice made Lizbeth turn around, as Carissia was initiating her systems.
Mai stood there wearing a mask and wrapped in the work overalls, which had now transformed some parts into a long hooded windbreaker to cover from the rain. She entered quickly and one of the soldiers pointed her to the cabin. Despite wearing a mask her expressions were relieved to see Lizbeth.
She looked around at the movement and to another of the rescued children, which the teams were currently pulling inside a pod. "Is it safe to come through?" Mai asked.
"Yes, ma'am. We haven't detected any airborne pathogens, there is no toxins either," one of the doctors inside informed her.
Mai could see that there were about five still to be removed and three were already inside pods, ready to be taken out of the ship.
How many have been rescued? Mai wondered as she entered the ship and walked over to Lizbeth as the mask retracted from her face. "Are you all right?" Mai asked as she approached the cockpit and stroked Lizbeth's back, who was still busy covering Carissia's nakedness.
Lizbeth nodded and looked at her. Under other circumstances she would have hugged and kissed her right there, but that was not something to do at that moment with all those people inside the ship.
"W-What the heck happened?"
"Honestly, even I don't know how it all happened yet." Lizbeth finished zipping Carissia's clothes and turned around and Mai felt Lizbeth grab her hand and squeeze it a little. "I don't know where Shin is now, I lost consciousness for a few seconds and I don't know what happened to him afterwards."
"Yes I heard that, even though communications are not working well. I came as fast as I could." Mai put her hand on Lizbeth's face, it was as cold as ice. Without a word, Mai bent Lizbeth's head and kissed her on the forehead. "You guys are fine that's what matters. Shin must be fine, don't worry. He's probably landed somewhere with the parachute, or the integrated glide devices in the backpack. He's probably on his way here."
"He hasn't tried to contact me."
"He had the roach in his ear, didn't he?"
Don't call it roach, Lizbeth thought. "I don't know. I think he had it. But I can't get through to him. What happened at Area Zero? Did Oxy and Dr. Reubens show up?"
"No, nothing yet. Phil's leading the search team."
"Two missing agents and a possible kidnap victim missing, and over twenty people rescued today from a plane that crashed yesterday... it's another Thursday."
Mai looked at her with a pursing of her lips. "If you're in the mood to joke then you're fine."
"I won't deny, I was scared up there."
"You have to tell me everything later. There are already people looking for Shin, right?"
"Yeah, a team is searching the area. But with this storm, who knows where he might have ended up. I'm worried because one of the kids we rescued escaped. I'm worried he did something stupid."
"Well, let's hope he turns up quickly." Mai pursed her lips. At that point, there was nothing to do but wait. There was no reason to think that anything had happened to Shin. The intermittent communications problem was due to that electromagnetic anomaly the plane had produced, and was the reason they couldn't communicate with him for sure.
"System activated." Carissia got up from the pilot's seat and looked around in confusion. Lizbeth had finished adjusting her clothes at the neck part at exactly the right time. Carissia turned around and met the worried faces of Mai and Lizbeth.
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"How are you feeling?" Mai asked.
Carissia tilted her head slightly. "I'm fine, just a little confused."
"What happened when I hit my head?" Lizbeth asked.
Carissia opened her eyes and seemed to remember everything and proceeded to tell them both what had happened, which in the event was not much. After that dark thing touched the ship she had almost lost control, and after Lizbeth hit her head she had closed the hatch for safety. Shin had the turtle backpack, so she thought that even with that storm he could escape given his adventures in the past and the fact that he could not die.
***
"I can't believe it," Natsuki said, as a pair of soldiers from the medical team walked past her and Ryuuji.
Both were wrapped in clothes that matched Mai's and had changed parts to become a windbreaker. Both had received the diagnosis that the air was clear and the masks disappeared from their faces.
"The missing victims were never on the plane," Ryuuji noted.
The two had accompanied Mai on a fast transport from the base camp when the news of what had happened arrived. When they heard the story they didn't believe it, let alone when they heard the details that kept coming in. The plane that crashed the day before had appeared in the sky and a rescue operation was been improvised at 30,000 feet. It sounded too good to be true.
But when they arrived with Mai and saw the condition of the ship they realized that much more happened than had been reported. The landing had been bad, and the Corvus-21 was in a calamitous state leaning on the shore of the beach, that separated the road and the forest from the waters of the lake.
Mai had run out to the Corvus-21, but they stayed behind so as not to hinder the work of the teams on the ship. Natsuki had her problem that she could not be easily perceived too. Despite the fact that those present had their special equipment to detect and hear her, Natsuki decided to stand to the side to make room for the teams working around her.
Ryuuji turned to look to the makeshift camp tent, which had been set up to carry the newly rescued. In less than minutes at least thirty people, including military personnel, had gathered there.
A new capsule passed by them, and both could see signs of pallor and a slightly haggard face on one of the rescued children.
"This is going to be a nightmare for social services later," Ryuji said.
"Yeah, I can imagine."
"I don't want to imagine what's going to happen when they wake up and are told that their relatives passed away yesterday, and that they were all already presumed dead two hundred years ago."
"How do we know it won't happen again? Who knows if all the rumors that this place was really cursed weren't because of the plane."
"We can't say they were just talk after today."
"Well at least there are no giant worms with copper jaws."
"I think I prefer worms... this is horrible," Ryuuji pointed out.
Natsuki sighed, the day was just beginning and already it looked like there would be a lot of work. At least it was good that there were survivors, when everyone imagined that no one had survived that tragedy. "Now the question is... what the hell really happened? Anomaly? Or was someone behind it?"
"I guess they'll tell us when they wake up," Ryuuji replied.
It was at that precise moment that a scream was heard. It was a scream of terror. They both turned in the direction it came from. It came from that tent where the medical team were carrying the rescued in the pods.
"Have they started to wake up?" Natsuki asked.
They both started to head for the tent when a military doctor came out from it. "Please come quickly, one of them regained consciousness!"
"What's happening to him?"
They both bridged the meters that separated them from the tent and entered.
Inside the tent were located all those pods. The tent inside was a distorted space, large enough for everything to fit comfortably. Several doctors were in each of the pods checking the rescued. But at that moment they all stopped and looked in the direction of one of the pods. It was the one from which the scream had come.
The pod was in a corner and there were two doctors in it. Doctors that at that moment were trying to calm down who was inside. Ryuuji and Natsuki approached and saw him.
Inside that capsule was an old man. Besides being a man with an old face, the truth was that he didn't look old physically.
"Let me out!" the man shouted in English, pounding his fists on the transparent surface of the capsule.
"Please, try to calm down, sir," said one of the doctors. "We are taking care of you. We have to make sure you have not suffered any injuries."
"You don't understand! Let me out! Or at least stop him!"
Ryuuji and Natsuki approached the capsule and took a closer look at the man. He was desperate. But more than being inside the capsule, it seemed that the reason for his agitation was something else.
"Please, sir. Calm down. The doctors are trying their best to stabilize you. You were in an accident," Ryuuji explained.
"Japanese?" The man looked at Ryuuji and then turned in the other direction, fixing his gaze on Natsuki. Natsuki frowned. "You do not understand. Where am I? What day is it?" the man asked.
Ryuuji understood his agitation. After all he had just woken up in that pod and found everyone around him speaking French, then Japanese, after all none of the survivors had a Neurowire.
"One moment, can you see me?" Natsuki asked.
Ryuuji ignored that and simply answered in English. "You are in Lake Lemac. On the French side. You took a plane in 2012."
"I know that! We are in the year 125 again, right?"
Ryuuji and Natsuki looked at each other. "How do you know that?"
"Today is March 22nd?"
"Yes," Natsuki replied .
"What time is it?"
"6.20 in the morning."
"You have time to stop this! You have to stop it!"
"What are you talking about?"
"The accelerator in Geneva! In Meyrin! The girl you're looking for is there! She's with Leteo!"
"Who are you talking about?"
" Leteo..." the man paused as if he was remembering something. "Where is Leteo?"
"What's your name, sir?" Ryuuji asked.
"J-Jack..." let out the man as his gaze wandered around the place. "Where is Leteo?"
"What girl were you talking about?"
"Her. The professor. He... Janus had ordered her kidnapped."
" Professor?"
"Yes! The fey girl named I-Ishijima Kanade if I r-remember well. And L-Leteo…"
Ryuuji and Natsuki looked at each other confused. Did that have anything to do with Oxy's disappearance?
"Who is this Leteo you speak of? Leteo Waters? The scientist?"
" Leteo... yes, I understand," said the man with wild eyes. "To you he was not Leteo. His name to you is Lee. Professor Lee."
Ryuuji and Natsuki didn't understand what they were hearing. It turned out that the professor Reubens had something to do with the theft of that artifact from the Vatican and Oxy's disappearance?
"Why did you just said accelerator in Geneva? Did Professor Reubens kidnap our colleague?"
"No! You don't understand. They have both been kidnapped. Janus ordered us to."
They were both confused. They didn't understand what was happening. That man was saying "us" which implied that he was involved in a kidnapping. But he was an old man and he had just arrived from that plane.
"Who is Janus?"
"He's the one who ordered us on the mission in the first place."
"What mission?"
"To write the past... to save the future…"
"What's going on?" asked someone who had just entered the tent.
Mai and Lizbeth had approached, alerted by the commotion inside the place.
Mai walked briskly to the pod and looked at the man inside.
The man's face changed. His eyes widened and his lips trembled.
"L-little... bell? R-Rei? It's... you, Suzune?"
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dhc4kfm-c09a3906-6c64-4f2c-a50d-1098b2c7cd2d.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1170,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_5_chapter_57_by_hasegawakein_dhc4kfm-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY4NCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGhjNGtmbS1jMDlhMzkwNi02YzY0LTRmMmMtYTUwZC0xMDk4YjJjN2NkMmQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTExOTEifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.YWWjm8aN-0gjhWVIjXOTRKmBEyaZpYTemW3nymLPEwk [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dhc4kfm-c09a3906-6c64-4f2c-a50d-1098b2c7cd2d.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1170,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_5_chapter_57_by_hasegawakein_dhc4kfm-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY4NCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGhjNGtmbS1jMDlhMzkwNi02YzY0LTRmMmMtYTUwZC0xMDk4YjJjN2NkMmQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTExOTEifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.YWWjm8aN-0gjhWVIjXOTRKmBEyaZpYTemW3nymLPEwk]
Mai's eyes widened. She froze as she heard those words. Lizbeth at her side took her hand and squeezed it and looked at her in fright.
"I-it's you, isn't it? How can that be possible? Are you alive?!"
Mai was paralyzed at those words. "Uncle Jack..." those words were barely a whisper escaping her lips, that Lizbeth was the only one who could hear.
Lizbeth let go of Mai's hand and approached the pod. "Sir, you are confused. You were in an accident."
The man turned to look at Lizbeth in confusion. "But... it's her. My precious niece Rei... Rei?" The man looked disgruntled and shook his head and then stammered.
Lizbeth was nervous and swallowed hard. Mai was paralyzed.
"No... it can't be possible. What's going on?" The man turned in Mai's direction again and put a hand to his head. "No... it can't be. What's going on? Hisui and Quincy never had a child... but... why do I r-remember you... who are you?"
The man held both hands to his head in horror as his face contorted into a grimace of pain. "My head!" A guttural scream came from his throat. It was as if he was suffering some sort of seizure. "My heeeeeaad!!!" He had started bleeding from his ears and nose.
"Stand back, please," said one of the doctors, addressing the SID team.
The four of them stepped away from the capsule, but Mai was still nearly paralyzed and almost looked on the verge of tears. "Uncle Jack..." she repeated. Lizbeth grabbed her and pulled her a couple of meters away.
The man named Jack was screaming his head off inside the pod and his body was contorting as he pounded on the surface of the pod. At that moment something else happened. It was as if his face was deforming. Not only his face. Other parts of his body were also changing. Globules were appearing and sliding under the skin. The screaming intensified for a moment. Everyone was at a loss as to what to do in the face of that sudden change.
Then the screaming stopped. But it was replaced by a beeping sound from the capsule's sensor systems. The man had gone into cardiac arrest.
The doctors worked quickly, opening the pod, and in less than thirty seconds they had a pulse again, but the change in his body would not stop, although he was now unconscious..
"Please, no more questions for now, let us take care of it."
"Do you even know what's happening to him? It's a change at the cellular level. It's like his whole body is changing," Ryuuji pointed out, looking at the diagnostics displayed on the pod.
"Changing into what?" Mai asked.
The doctor spoke, looking at one of the pod projected screens. "It's not metamorphosis. This is some kind of regeneration. It is as if his hypothalamus were producing stem cells in absurd quantities. If it weren't for the fact that it comes from a time when it didn't exist, I would say this is cellular rejuvenation." the doctor said, looking at one of the capsule's screens.
"What do you mean?"
"This man's body... it's like he's getting younger."
"..." Mai looked at the doctors in surprise and was about to say something else when she was interrupted by Natsuki.
"Mai... he said something else. He said that we have to stop something. That he had something to do with Oxy's disappearance and that professor from Italy."
Mai turned and looked at her quizzically. "What are you talking about?"
Lizbeth looked at the man. Whatever he knew, she feared the old man wasn't going to answer any time soon.
Of course, that would only be possible if he woke up.