There was only darkness. It had been a dreamless sleep with no awareness. A muted sound rang out somewhere at the edge of consciousness There was no telling how much time had passed or what was going on around her. Her thoughts began slipping away, the concentration fading, but a voice sounded out again, this time louder and clearer. It was definitely a human voice, but it was impossible to tell what he was saying. The voice brought her back and solidified her presence. It became more and more frequent until finally the words were intelligible.
“Wake up, Margit,” the voice said. She looked towards the source of the voice. There was a slightest bright spot in the dark abyss. The light outlined a silhouette of a boy.
“Who are you?” Margit asked as she strained her eyes. She approached the figure. Each of her steps was wary.
“Margit you have to wake up,” the boy sounded almost as if pleading. With the distance between them closed. Both the sight and sound of the boy became more apparent.
She had only seen him once, but heard many times. “Fabio, is that you?”
The boy halted as if shocked, then continued. “Good, I’ve finally came through to you. You are in danger. You need to wake up immediately.”
“What happened, are we in the hospital yet?”
“Concentrate, first wake up and then we can talk. I will help you along the way.”
Margit was forcing her eyes open and Fabio used all the hardware at his disposal in order to stimulate her neurons. Before she woke up, the land around her began taking on more definite shapes, but the small inconsistencies were helpful to separate the virtual world form the real one. She wondered whether it was possible to accidentally remain in the wrong world. No, focus. Wake up.
She began feeling the weight of her limbs even if they were still immobile. Come on, I’m so close. Just as she felt like she was about to break the barrier separating her from wakefulness, the world began going dark once more. No, don’t. Come back! She felt desperation grabbing at her. She didn’t understand what went wrong. She wanted to shake herself, but felt as if her hands and feet were restrained. She wanted to cry out with anger. Then stopped trashing around. Wait a minute. My hands are restrained. Am I actually? She forced herself to calm down and took deep slow breaths. She focused on her body. Now that she had taken the time to examine her situation with some self-possession, it was very obvious to her that she had already been awake.
She was lying in a dark room, strapped to some sort of bed. Am I in the hospital already? What is going on. Then she remembered that she had been ignoring Fabio the whole time.
“Fabio, what is going on?” She almost forgot that she didn’t need to speak out loud. “Where are we? What danger?”
“We don’t have much time. You are in the hospital,” Fabio responded.
Margit sighed in relief. “Good, then it’s time to start the plan.”
“I’m sorry Margit, but it doesn’t look like that’s possible.”
“What?”
“I don’t know yet, but I can only assume th…” There was a short pause as Fabio’s personality protocol crashed again. “Assumption: Margit was not supposed to wake up at all.”
“Come on Fabio, don’t crash on me,” she responded, anxious to hear the rest. “Increase your verbosity.”
“Results inconclusive. Chances Flora betrayed you significant. Analysis still ongoing.”
The shock on Margit’s face was soon replaced with fury. That lying bitch. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted her. It was only to save Gabor. Margit gasped. Is he already dead? No. It can’t be. Maybe he was never here. I need to get out. “I’m guessing there are no gear around.” There was no response from Fabio.
She strained against her binds. They were too tight to allow for an easy escape. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. She was in a room with a couple more light hospital beds. The windows were curtained and let through little light. It must have been night-time. She turned her head to the other side. There was something that caught her eye. A small portable table on wheels. There were some medical instruments placed on its surface. What drew Margit’s attention was a scalpel.
She began thrusting with her entire body, trying to get the bed to move. The bed jumped around a little, but there was no apparent movement towards her intended goal. She tried a couple more convulsions, but there was no improvement. The wheels are blocked. She decided to try and change her approach. She began stretching her head towards her hand. The tension in her neck and shoulders was desperately trying to stop her advance. She needed to stop several times to catch a breath and recover. After a few more tries she was able to reach her binds. Without as much a second thought she bit into the strip. It wasn’t too hard, but it was soon obvious to her that her teeth were not made for the task at hand.
She tried searching her binds for a way to undo them without having to break them apart. Her body was screaming with strained pain, as she tried to take a look at the other side of the bind. A moment later all the strain was gone. Time seemed to slow down, as the ground was speeding towards her face. She landed on her side. The binds kept her from shielding herself with her arms and legs, but they did help soften the blow. She hit the ground the hardest with her hip, but her face followed soon and she slapped onto the floor.
Everything hurt. Margit tried to lift her head. The room was spinning in front of her.
“Margit, you need to move,” Fabio’s voice echoed in her head.
It made her groan in pain, but she focused once more. At least I fell in the direction of the table. She braced herself against the bed and then jerked herself forward. She slid a couple of centimetres forward. She was grunting all the way to the table. When she at last reached it, she was out of breath and sweating heavily. She tried reaching to the surface with her top hand, but was unable to reach. She got as close as possible and grabbed the single pole that held the tray. With her limited movement she simply shook the table back and forth until the instruments started clattering to the floor. The scalpel was among them. She scooted to it and picked it up with her bottom hand. She started cutting as soon as she held the blade. It took a couple of minutes, but her hand was finally free. The other limbs were free a lot faster in comparison. She took a look around the room, still clutching the scalpel.
“Fabio, load the plans.”
“I’m afraid we are in a different room from the one that was planned.”
“Of course we are,” Margit whispered with a note of cynicism. After speaking she glanced around and strained her ears, even though she knew that she had been a lot noisier over the last minutes. She was alone. Nobody expected her to wake up and she wouldn’t if it wasn’t for Fabio. I’m glad I kept him a secret. She put her ear to the door, but there were no sounds coming from the outside. The door was closed, but it was the kind that could be opened from inside. She opened the smallest possible amount, letting a tiny line of light enter the room.
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Outside was an empty lit hallway. Margit decided to wait for a moment and listen. On her way she met no one. Most doors turned out to be locked after she had tried as gently as possible to open them. After a while she heard a noise coming from in front of her. She tried the first doors, but they were locked. The long straight hallway didn’t offer much in terms of hiding places. In a fit of panic she dashed behind a water fountain, that stood next to some benches. She crouched and as the footsteps drew closer she put her face in her hands. Am I serious? This is the best I could do? Just take me away and end it already. She knew there was no way someone could walk past her and not see her.
That is why it was even more baffling that two people just walked past without sparing her as much as a glance. Margit stared at them and gestured towards herself. Only then did she notice the pale bald heads of the two people that were carrying boxes. Abelos? It was strange to see Abelos in other places than warehouses or in the streets where they performed their manual labour. I guess they are used more widely than I thought. In the end they are moving around boxes anyway. Since she didn’t really know where to go, she decided to tail the two. At the start she kept a good distance, but after a bunch of turns and almost loosing them, she began walking mere paces behind. The Abelos never showed any reaction to her presence.
They kept going until they reached a door. One of them swiped his hand and unlocked it. Margit peaked inside over their shoulders. The room contained six beds, all of them were occupied. Since there were no people walking around, Margit followed the Abelos inside. There were Abelos in all of the beds, all were connected to tubes that came from containers mounted on stands beside the beds. There were bandages on their heads and arms. A lot of them were stained red. The sight made her knees wobble. Despite the queasy feeling she approached one to take a closer look. It was obvious that they had undergone operations to insert implants in them. What are the tubes for? Is it anti-rejection drugs, or just a simple IV drip? Her focus then shifted to the table next to the bed. It was just like the one from which she had taken the scalpel.
There were small bits of metal and wire on the table, all covered in blood. Why? It’s as if they removed the implants instead of putting them in. What could they possibly hope to achieve with this? Her perplexity was broken with the sound of doors closing. She gasped and charged towards the door, almost tripping over her own feet in the process. To her astonishment the door opened with no resistance. In the hallway she saw the backs of the two Abelos, leaving to do whatever they were ordered to next.
Back in the room she saw the box that they had delivered. One box contained some medical supplies, but nothing more useful to Margit than the scalpel she was already holding. The other proved much more interesting. It contained green-blue scrubs and even white lab coats. Margit tried putting on the scrubs, but then decided to simply put a coat over her regular clothes. I might need my own clothes if I live through this and escape. She took another glance at the beds.
“Fabio do you see all this? What is going on?”
“Data is added to the analysis. Results pending.”
It must be some intense analysis if he is being this quiet. She left the room and went in a new direction. This time she made haste. There was no telling how long she had before they realise she had made it out of her binds. She only slowed down when she heard people approaching her. They were right in front of her, walking casually towards her while talking. She hid the blade in her sleeve and continued at a steady and firm pace. The two doctors went past her and just gave a nod as they passed.
In front of her a man emerged from a bathroom and continued towards another door. Margit saw that the room was an office with a couple of computers. An idea materialised inside her.
“Fabio, can you help me infiltrate the computer system?” She prompted the Shell. Inside the hospital system she would be able to get her hands on all kinds of information.
“Yes, Margit,” Fabio responded.
Margit scuttled behind the man, trying to make as little noise as possible. As he unlocked the door, she slipped inside behind him. She ducked behind a desk and let him continue inside alone. He sat at his own desk and logged into his computer. Margit gave him a minute to get absorbed into his work, then slunk behind him brandishing the scalpel. She lifted the blade, preparing to stab the man in the neck. She hesitated for a moment. I can’t. She looked around for alternatives. There were cables on one of the other desks. Margit took some. She positioned herself once again behind the man. He was wearing headphones and was completely oblivious to anything going on in the room. Margit put an arm around his face and the scalpel to his throat.
“Don’t move and be quiet,” she whispered into his ear. She felt the shallow panicked gasps against her arm. “Stay still if you want to live. Do you understand?” The man nodded, but made no attempt at talking. “Good, now slowly put your hands together behind the backrest.” He obeyed and she tied the hands together, making sure to make the knots tight. “Now lift your legs.” It was a messy job, but soon the man was secured. Margit felt sorry for him, the discomfort was all too obvious. She wheeled the man in a corner of the room.
After she was done, she connected to the computer. She let Fabio do all the work, looking for logs, maps and whatever else he was able to find in the short time they had.
“Task finished,” Fabio notified.
Margit disconnected. “Any results for Gabor?” She started making her way out of the room.
“Negative. Floor plans and evacuation routes have been obtained.”
“I see, in that case guide me outside. I need to escape.”
Fabio plotted out a course and made it visible in Margit’s display, overlaid across the floor. It seemed like a lot of the hospital was inactive at that time. Most of the rooms were dark, though an occasional doctor or technician was present in an office or examination rooms. Here and there a sign hung from the ceiling or was mounted on a wall. The plain illuminated text and symbol conveyed the information about the department of the hospital.
Margit didn’t pay much attention to them, but one sign stopped her in her tracks. The sign flashed on and off a couple of times, the lights in desperate need of replacement. This only made the words stand out even more. Biological Reformation. Margit stared with her eyes wide. As she made her way through the department, she kept her eye out for any working surgery room. A thought came to her unbidden. Did Fabio want me to see this? Maybe I mentioned it once. She gazed across the hallway and saw light coming from a window a couple of doors down. She slowly made her way to it, her breathing ragged. She peeked inside the window.
The scene before her was so baffling, her mind didn’t even process it at first. The public perception of biological reformation was something along the lines of growing organs in vitro and stem cell engineering. All sophisticated laboratories with test tubes, Erlenmeyer flasks and so on. Pinpoint precision, operating at the cellular level.
What she saw in front of her looked like a butcher’s shop in the slums. There was blood everywhere. A doctor was walking from one bed to another, carrying something. Margit’s stomach began heaving. She needed to lean against the wall. She made an effort to calm herself and breathe slowly. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat and immediately regretted her decision. After the compulsion to retch passed, a new need arose. She started shaking lightly and tried to choke back whimpers. The tears came anyway.
Inside the room was a patient lying on one bed. Two more were occupied by Abelos, though it was hard to even recognise them as such in that abominable scene. Their abdomens were slit open and insides hanging out. Blood was spewing on the floor in pulses. Near to the patient another Abelo stood, with a tube connected to his thigh. Blood was flowing through the tube, into a machine next to him, and then through another tube into the patient. More Abelos were standing in a neat grid in the corner of the room. The doctor was cutting something from an Abelo, and carried it directly to the patient, where more surgeons were operating. It looked as if they simply removed the same organ from the patient and promptly began attaching the new one. The patient’s bed stood out since it was by far the cleanest place in the entire operating theatre.
Margit could take no more of it. Even if they are synthetic humans, this is too much. How could they? Ilona appeared in her mind, which almost made her throw up once more and brought fresh tears to her eyes. This was meant for me. I could be in there. No. Ilona I’m so sorry. Her legs were weak and she staggered onwards through the hallway. Her mind was overwhelmed and it was all she could do to follow the red line along the ground. The thoughts of her injury and loss had never really left her mind, but the voices reminding her of the facts had grown weaker by the day ever since she had met Ilona. It was as if the Abelo was allowing her to fulfil some kind of duty, that she had needed so much even if she wasn’t aware of it. After a while she was able to walks without the support of the wall. All this time Fabio had been silent. She was just about to prompt him, when a sound behind her stopped her.
“Stop! Don’t move!” The sudden voice made her release a small gasp.
When he was giving new instructions, Fabio’s voice sounded in her head. “As soon as the lights go out, drop to the floor, then make a run for it along the path.” It seemed that his personality had been restored.
There was another angry command from the security officer behind her, but then at the same moment lights went dark and Margit dropped down. A stun bullet whizzed past her head and she felt the air stir around her face. The dark hallway displayed her way out, but now all the walls were highlighted with a green wireframe. She ran away from the angry shouts behind her.
“How did you do it?” Margit asked.
“I installed a little virus on that computer. I replicated a small part of the one you used inside Usurcor. Their electric devices and security logs should have taken quite a hit,” Fabio responded.
Margit thought about the implication of Fabio harbouring such a powerful program inside her head. No, it no longer matters.”How close is the exit?”
“It’s about a minute away. It’s fire escape stairs. With the disabled security they will be unlocked for you,” Fabio said. Margit continued running. “Wait slow down.”
“What?” Margit asked before ramming into the door. She grunted and was sure there was blood coming down her forehead. She threw the door open and stepped outside.
A cold wind greeted her. She was several stories from the ground. She plunged down the stairs, making heavy use of the guard rails. By the time she heard noises from the top level of the stairs she had managed to get most of the way down. She took off the lab coat and threw it away. She was once again free in the streets of Umevar. The smelly air brought a smile to her face even though both the running and strong emotions left stings and aches inside her chest.
She unsure where exactly in the city she was, but Fabio didn’t seem to share that affliction. His directions led her through thick crowds. People were the hard-working bees in the beehive of Umevar. To her own great amazement, she saw herself smiling at the people staring at her while she ran. She even spared a few winks here and there. I will cry again soon enough. Just let me run free for a few more moments. She wiped her face and only then she became aware that tears had already been streaming down her dirty face even while she had been smiling at the random people of Umevar. She laughed, but the sound that had come out of her sore throat was closer to a croak.