My hunt for an ID began on the first floor. I scoured every desk and looked underneath anything with space between it and the ground.
There had to be something...fucking think, Alvina, where would they have the IDs. This was a hospital; there were inevitably bosses, right? The bosses were likely passing out the access cards, so if I could find an office or something, that would be a better place to look.
Since all the rooms were stripped of practically everything, it was hard to tell which ones were important. As I rounded a corner, I found another hall of doors I hadn't explored yet on the same floor as the door locked with a reader. One of the destroyed rooms had some intact frames on the walls, and one read 'Mary-Anne Hospital Chief Executive Officer 2063'. I hadn't seen the word executive before. Still, the chief and officer gave me the idea it was an important position, so I searched the room but came up with nothing until I was about to leave.
As I was going to step over a pile of paperwork, the word 'access' caught my eye.
"No way," I said as I bent down and picked up the paper with badly faded words. I could make out most of what it used to say: 'Mr. Ferdinand wanted me to pass on the message, off the record, of course, that things have been tense with...we need to change the way we access... basement before anything...new...cards are in Hallie's office.'
The note was stamped March 15, 2076, a little more than a few weeks before the Great Swallowing. The person who wrote this, I wonder what happened to them. I shook my head, trying to wipe away the thought of what used to be here and who.
The things they had to go through and endure in the early days of the aftermath of the Swallowing and then the war must've been hell.
After a deep breath, I set the paper back where it was and began looking for Hallie's office. It was a quick find as her door still had an engraved sign with her name on it. I ran my fingers over the rusty old plate, 'Hallie Sebastian, MD, Ph.D..'
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I hummed as I pictured what she'd look like in my head, what I thought a hospital would be like if it were active and bustling like I'm sure it used to be. I'm curious about Hallie's job. Was she a records keeper? Or what did Geneva call them? A secretary? Someone who took calls on phones and sent messages on computers?
With the ease of the world back then, I couldn't begin to fathom what it could've been like to wake up and just be.
After a few moments of silence, I finally went in and found this office smaller than the rest. I looked around the room and determined the desk was the only thing not searched through. The drawers were held closed with a key-oriented lock, and seemingly nobody bothered to try and break in or maybe even forgot, as I remembered a crowbar in the Chief Executive Officer's office that was clearly used to pry open the locked cabinets and drawers.
I retraced my steps and found the tool before returning to the office. With all my strength, I hooked the end of the bar into the top of the drawer and pried the drawers open one by one until I found what I was looking for. A whole stack of cards held together with paper and a rubber band states 'NEW CARDS 03/76' in black ink.
I did a celebration dance before realizing I had what I needed and sprinted over to the room with the scanner.
I held my breath as I pressed the card to the reader, but when the green light turned red, and the door clicked, I squealed in excitement and began dancing again, "Screw you, Walker!"
I entered the room and began looking around.
Aside from some dust, the room was spotless compared to the rest of the building, which had been ravaged so long ago. It gave me a little bit of a sickly feeling. I felt so out of place being in here with how dirty I was. I felt like I was ruining a well-preserved piece of history. As I looked around, the thing that began to concern me was that nothing was in there.
It was darker since there was only a singular window in the room, and the sun was beginning to set. I was running out of time on Bear's behalf and hadn't made much progress since I'd been here.
This was a government facility, for goodness sake. They were the most secretive people possible. What would they have done? This room is here for a reason.
I felt my way along the table, seeing if I missed anything. Just as I was about to give up, my fingers grazed something on the underside of the table. It was a giant plastic outer shell, and when I pulled it back and felt the button residing beneath it, I couldn't help but grow a smile on my face.
Oh yeah.