by Karl Beecher
He locked himself in the room and proceeded to potter around, calmly being calm and not at all prone to panic. He decided to check drawers and closets for anything he might have left behind. Since the occasion felt like he was about to check out of a hotel, Colin began absent-mindedly filching sundry items. Before he knew it, his suitcase also contained two bars of sterilising soap, three monogrammed hand towels, and a magazine about laser fishing. (He'd possessed sufficient presence of mind to leave the complimentary copy of the Abraman Holy Book in the bedside drawer.)
His room doorbell rang, bringing him to his senses. He set eyes on his haul, realising that he was, in fact, stealing from a hospital. He panicked, then cursed himself for breaking his own pledge about not panicking.
"Just a minute!" he cried, struggling to close the suitcase. The towels were fluffier than he'd thought. Finally, he gave up and stashed the case beneath the bed. "Who is it?"
"Doctor Gunga," came the voice of his specialist through the speaker.
Colin hurried to the door and let the Doctor in.
Gunga was a bit of a strange character. At first, he'd seemed like a fairly ordinary doctor: stuffy, impersonal, and bearded. But he'd soon begun to display an odd sort of reverence for Colin. It was Gunga who'd first revealed how some Procyans had taken Colin to be a prophet, a group that included the Doctor himself.
However, since the fallout from the ‘anti-Douglass' demonstrations, the Doctor had withdrawn his admiration and become brusque, aloof and largely absent. In other words, much more like a doctor.
"Good morning, Mister Douglass," he said in flat tones. "Our final encounter before you leave us. And how are you today?"
Colin didn't know how best to react. This was hardly a typical hospital discharge. At one point, Gunga had considered Colin not merely a patient but some kind of saviour. It couldn't be easy for the Doctor to watch him leave. How would Saint Peter have reacted if the man he was convinced was Jesus had said one day, "Sorry mate, you've got the wrong bloke. Gotta run."? On second thoughts, Peter would probably have then denied ever knowing him in the first place.
Colin sighed. "Not so bad, Doctor. Still a little groggy and forgetful though. Any idea when those symptoms will wear off?"
"The after-effects?" said Gunga. "Oh, not long. In a few days, you'll feel reborn. Please take a seat, and I'll make a last quick examination."
Colin sat down on the bed. Gunga took a small magnifying glass from his coat, leaned over Colin and began inspecting his eyes.
"Erm…Doctor," said Colin as he peered at Gunga's twitching, egg-sized eye in the glass. "Before I go, I hope I haven't caused you too much trouble. You know, with the whole…mistaken identity thing. I really didn't mean to—"
Gunga held up a hand. "Less said the better, eh?"
"Oh," replied Colin, feeling a little relieved. "Very decent of you."
The doctor straightened up. "Everything looks fine. Regarding the grogginess…" He put his glass away and pulled out a hypoderm, a little device like a syringe. "I can give you a stimulant shot."
He tapped a few buttons on the hypoderm and pressed it to Colin's neck. It hissed with a painless pinch.
"Nevertheless," continued Gunga, pocketing the hypoderm. "Since you bring up the matter, you haven't had a change of heart I take it? No divine flash of inspiration?"
"Erm…no, sorry," said Colin, rubbing his neck.
The doctor peered at him curiously. "No rising feelings of religious fervour? No divine messages coming to you from the ether?"
"I'm afraid not. I know that…"
Colin steadied himself as he began to feel light-headed.
"Erm…that a great many people got their hopes up about me, your…yourself included…"
His vision began to blur. The lines of the room softened, and Doctor Gunga became fuzzy.
"I…I…Doctor, I don't feel well."
"Just lie down," Gunga replied calmly. "We'll take care of you."
Colin planted his spinning head on the pillow. As he looked up at the white ceiling, he saw the Doctor usher someone into the room. In came a large man—no, a very large man—with a shiny, bald head wearing a porter's uniform.
Something felt very, very wrong. Whatever he'd just been injected with, it was no stimulant. Quite the opposite. He was all ready to panic once more but didn't have the energy.
"Tyresa…" he managed to slur. "Where's she?"
The blurry outline of Gunga turned to him. "Don't worry. We're taking care of her too."
Colin tried to get to his feet, wanting to find Tyresa, but his body felt heavy as lead. He yelled out her name.
The last thing Colin remembered was the bald man's huge hand reaching over his mouth and pressing painfully against it.
2
Tyresa strode through the hospital corridors, avoiding the disapproving glares of the staff around her.
There were probably a dozen different reasons behind those chastising looks. Because she spoke to men as equals; because she walked around without make-up; because she wore rugged, practical clothes instead of a stupid, dainty dress. If people didn't like any of that, that was their problem. None of it bothered her.
(Well, the dress thing bothered her a bit. She'd like to have worn one on Procya to make things run smoother, but had been put off them for life ever since her mom had told her wearing a dress made her look like she was attending prom night at a reform school.)
The biggest axe that people had to grind probably concerned Tyresa's wandering around the hospital without a male chaperone, which was against hospital rules for female visitors. She'd already tried casting Colin in the role, but as a patient, he didn't qualify. In the end, she'd passed off Ade as her husband. It had worked, but not well. Not because he was an android. In fact, the Procyans, unfamiliar with realistic-looking androids, had accepted him as human—although his pale, artificial skin caused passing nurses to keep enquiring whether he was unwell. The problem had actually been Ade maintaining his submissive role as Tyresa's servant, asking her for orders and permission to do things. On a world where having a dominant wife was viewed as scandalous, Ade was disapproved of even more than Tyresa.
Now Tyresa was about to leave, the staff had begun to let the issue rest. With Ade back on the Turtle, she could once again cast newly-discharged Colin as her chaperon.
Colin escorting her. Now there was a joke. He was harmless enough, and he meant well, but he was greener than a forest moon. Most of the time, he had no idea what he was doing. Without someone to nurse him, he was totally lost in the galaxy. Eventually, with Tyresa's help, maybe he'd start to get the hang of things, but for now, he couldn't hit a black hole if he fell in one.
Tyresa approached the doors marked ‘Conference Room 4E', where Deputy Gilper had asked to meet her, presumably to go over his plan for escorting them to the spaceport. None of it was necessary, of course; she was perfectly capable of protecting Colin. However, there was always the outside chance of trouble, so a little extra protection wouldn't hurt. If only Gilper weren't such a pompous shitkicker.
The solid double doors parted and swept open automatically. Inside, the long, narrow room was flooded with light from a series of tall windows. A conference table made of thick, dark wood ran the length of the place.
At the far end of the table stood Gilper flanked by two younger, taller cops. The Deputy was the kind of cop who always wore an arrogant smirk, as though he suspected everyone of something and wanted you to know he'd get you for whatever you'd done. If he could catch you. He wasn't exactly an impressive figure: middle-aged, middle height, and middle heavy, he looked as though the only thing he could catch these days was the flu.
The two men beside him looked much tougher. They were kitted up to fairly ridiculous lengths: flak jackets, boots, and enough equipment hanging around their waists to fill a hardware store. Each carried a proton rifle.
"Come on in," said Gilper, not moving a muscle.
His smirk was particularly pronounced as h
e eyed Tyresa. She thought nothing of it. He probably enjoyed trying to unsettle people.
She eyed the grunts beside him. "Their get-up's a bit dramatic, isn't it, Deputy? We're just taking a short ride to the spaceport."
Gilper shook his head. "We're not going to the spaceport."
Tyresa jumped as the doors behind her thudded. She glanced back to see they'd closed behind her. "Hey, what's with—"
She clapped eyes on Gilper and broke off. He'd drawn his pistol and was pointing it right at her. Her first instinct was to chuckle. This whole charade had the air of a sick joke.
"What's with the heat?" she smiled, pointing at the weapon. "No need for any of that. We're leaving right now."
"Uh-uh," drawled Gilper. The smirk vanished. "You're not leaving."
Tyresa's own smile faded away. "What are you talking about? You've been dreaming of throwing me off-world for days, we both know that."
He didn't respond. Instead, he reached to his belt and brought out his little, hand-held communicator. "We have the woman," he uttered into it. "You can move on the husband now."
Husband?
Ade!
Shit. This was no joke, more like some sort of coordinated attack.
"Gilper, what the fuck is going on?" she demanded.
The Deputy was in full gloat mode. "There's been a change of plan…you foul-mouthed hussy."
He nodded at one of the grunts beside him.
Oh shit.
The rifle flashed white, and Tyresa's world went black.
3
Ade stood in the SS Turtle's monitoring room, a small anteroom to the engine bay where the propulsion systems could be monitored without venturing into the ship's dark, noisy bowels. Humans generally didn't like noisy bowels in any form, so this room was built mainly for their convenience.
He keyed in the sequence for the final round of engine diagnostics. His ability to execute several hundred keystrokes per minute meant the whole complicated process took only two-point four seconds. For some reason, this skill tended to impress humans, who largely maintained the opinion that faster was necessarily better. Except in situations when it wasn't. As usual, the rules for deciding one way or the other were ill-defined. Like many aspects of human culture, the ‘fast vs. slow' debate defied precise logic, leaving Ade's programming to struggle when trying to comprehend it.
This reflection on human behaviour—which took somewhat less than one nanosecond to process—had passed through Ade's CPU upon hearing a voice behind him gasp, "Wo-o-o-w!"
The android turned to see a young Procyan spaceport worker peering slack-jawed over his shoulder. He was the technician assigned to oversee the SS Turtle ever since Mister Spudge had been reassigned elsewhere.
"May I be of assistance, sir?" enquired Ade.
"How d'you type so fast?" asked the technician. "You got implants or something?"
"It is quite a normal rate for me, sir," replied Ade. "Being an android."
The young man stepped back and snapped his jaw shut. "You're an android?"
When Ade confirmed it, several expressions passed over the man's face as he looked the android up and down. By matching them against his database of human non-verbal communication, Ade was able to identify surprise, then awe, followed by acceptance, cogitation, embarrassment due to defecating oneself (although that seemed a likely false positive), realisation, and suspicion, until the man finally settled on aloof detachment.
"Oh," he replied, a hint of disdain sullying his tone. "I see."
Disdain for androids was typical in Abrama. The spaceport staff had almost unanimously treated Ade with contempt, except for Mister Spudge.
"Anyway," the man continued. He proffered a tablet he'd been carrying under his arm. "Just need you to sign off on the work done."
"Delighted, sir."
Ade scanned the text, an inventory of the maintenance work and alterations.
"Everything seems in order, sir," he said, keying in his approval. "I must say, your staff has done excellent work, Mister Spudge in particular."
"I'm sure he'd be thrilled to know a robot approves," the technician said with a measurable ninety-nine point eight percent probability of sarcasm. He took back the tablet, then walked towards the doorway.
"Shall I show you to the—" began Ade.
"I can find my own way, thank you," he sneered before disappearing into the main passageway—and then reappearing again going in the other, correct direction past the doorway.
Ade turned back to the console and watched the diagnostics readout, a slowly-growing list of green text. Miss Tyresa would be most pleased when she saw the increased engine efficiency ratings for herself.
Just then, a great metallic crash echoed from down the passageway. It was possible the technician had suffered an accident, so Ade hurried through the doorway.
"Sir?" he called out. "Are you all right?"
No reply came. Everything was quiet and still. He couldn't see the man or anything out of the ordinary. At the end of the passageway, the airlock was open to the spaceport outside. It was possible the man had fallen from the exit ramp, or maybe the ramp itself had collapsed.
When Ade reached approximately halfway along the corridor, two gentlemen leaped simultaneously through the airlock door and landed heavily on either side of the passageway. They were clearly not spaceport workers. Their blue-grey uniforms, flak jackets, and helmets marked them out as members of the local constabulary. Each man also carried a proton rifle.
"Freeze!" one of them yelled at Ade.
"I shan't move, officers, if that's what you mean. May I be of assist—"
But the rifles fired before he could complete his question. It was most rude of them.
4
Colin woke slowly. Consciousness leaked back in stages.
First came the sound. A gentle, rumbling white noise.
Then vision. A warm, low light crept in, hazy and indistinct at first, just an expanse of dark, creamy colours.
But his brain seemed hesitant to activate, afraid of processing the current situation for fear of what it might discover. Trust me, it seemed to assure Colin, we probably don't want to know where we are.
Nonetheless, Colin rubbed his eyes and slapped a cheek, spurring on his fuzzy senses and reluctant brain. The white noise turned out to be an ambient hum, like air conditioning but deeper and somehow more distant. It reminded him of the background noise on Tyresa's ship. He sat up and looked around, hopeful that he might be on the Turtle, but then his surroundings came into focus. This wasn't the Turtle. He had no idea what this place was.
He was lying on a bed, just as he was when he'd passed out, but it was doubtful he was in the hospital—not unless it had another wing furnished by a faux-luxury hotel chain. He lay not on thin, pale sheets, but a thick, burgundy duvet. Instead of being plain and whitewashed, the surrounding four walls were cream-coloured with fancy panelling along them. All in all, the room appeared moderately liveable, although it was barely bigger than a stationery cupboard and contained no other furniture.
Colin's stomach felt delicate. He ran a hand across it and found he was still wearing his plain, white t-shirt, as well as the shiny grey trousers he'd obtained on Ceti. The accompanying gaudy blue and white jacket hung on the wall. He'd have been happier to learn it had gone missing.
A doorway stood at the other end of the room. Colin still felt drowsy, but he pulled himself to his feet without too much trouble. He pushed the button beside the door, but nothing happened aside from a little red light flashed back at him. He tried to slide the door aside with his bare hands, but his efforts were futile.
"Hello?" he called. As he spoke, his lip felt tender and swollen. He rapped loudly against the metal. "Hello!"
Nothing.
How did he get here? The last thing he remembered was being in his hospital room with Doctor Gunga and then suddenly feeling unwell. He had lain on the bed when another man, a large man—no, a very large man—with a shiny bald head had ente
red. Then, an ominous feeling, a sense of something being wrong. After that, he remembered nothing.
A sinking feeling told him he wasn't supposed to be here. His heart began to pound, and the adrenaline surge cleared away his drowsiness.
His thoughts turned to escape, but the closest personal experience Colin had of escaping locked rooms was playing puzzle games on a computer. One usually looked inside teapots, or behind oil paintings, or in the pages of books. That eventually yielded clues towards solving the logical puzzle that sealed the door.
Colin looked around. He was in a bare room with a bed and nothing else; teapots and oil paintings were decidedly scarce. And, unless dust could unlock doors, nothing useful lay under the bed. So much for that idea.
He leaned against the wall and was wondering whether there might perhaps be an air vent somewhere, conveniently large enough to fit a fully-grown adult when a beep came from the doorway, and the red light beside it turned green. The door opened to reveal Doctor Gunga standing in the passageway outside.
"Doctor!" blurted Colin.
It was a relief to see someone he recognised, even though Gunga seemed to be somehow behind all this. Beside Gunga stood a large man—or rather, a very large man—with a shiny, bald head. He was wearing a suit now, but this was definitely the so-called ‘porter' who'd kept Colin quiet earlier.
"Good morning, Mister Douglass." The Doctor spoke curtly but not unkindly. He seemed vaguely uneasy. "How are we today?"
He came into the room, leaving the bigger man in the passageway.
"Confused," replied Colin. "What happened? Where am I?"
"First of all, you're safe," said Gunga. "I don't want you to worry."
That, thought Colin, was the first thing people said when there was every reason to worry. "That's not what I asked, Doctor."
"I know, but I need to check up on you first. Questions later. Please sit down."
Colin sat on the bed, while Gunga reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a hand-held contraption, about the size and shape of a cigarette packet. It was a medi-scanner, something Colin had seen plenty of times during his stay at Saint Barflet's. At that moment, it finally registered with Colin that Gunga wasn't wearing a lab coat, just his ordinary brown suit. That was something else to suggest they were no longer in hospital.
