Quo vadis?
17 Aug 2016Ryan Murdoc
"Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood." Henry Miller"How’re you feeling today, Mr. Coragon?"
I opened my eyes. Cold white light was piercing into them. My lids slammed shut mere moments after.
I inhaled deeply. The scent and the sound of the womans voice from somewhere behind me made me believe that I was in a hospital or medic center. Hopefully I was still on Greeboski's. With luck this woman wasn't named Jennifer.
I assembled some saliva and cleared my throat before answering. My tongue was stuck to my palate and I felt thirsty to no end.
"I'm...ok, I guess. Mind telling me where I am and how I got here, Miss...?"
"I'm Professor Garbon, and you were found on the docks near your ship. According to what I've been told, you left a trail of destruction from somewhere inside your ship to the outside..."
"Destruction? I don't remember..."
"Considering the state of your head it'll be a miracle if you did. I've never come across something like your gray matter Mr. Coragon, and that's putting it mildly"
"Yeah, well, it seems I've undergone a treatment that wasn't exactly beneficial for me. But regarding the state you found me in..."
Trying to rise from the table, bed or whatever I was on, I found myself pushed back gently from behind.
"Please don't move for a little while longer... you're fully awake for the first time in two days. We had to keep you in an artificial coma. The amount of meds we had to apply just to stabilize you was enormous. At one point I thought we'd lose you completely, you were screaming about someone named..."
The sound of a door sliding open interrupted her speech. Someone came in, by the sound of it a man with heavy boots. Probably military by the crisp way he walked.
"Thank you Professor, I'll take it from here." It was CMDR Reykur
"But I wasn't finished..." she replied, curtly.
"My dear Professor, you've been a great help recovering his health, But there are matters of grave importance I have to discuss with CMDR Coragon that can't wait. Now, if you'd be so kind..." he replied in a similiar tone.
After a moment of silence the Professor rushed past and through the door, talking to herself under her breath.
Sitting up and miraculously finding myself in underwear, I turned to Reykur and wanted to ask him about the recent events, but was stopped dead in my tracks as some fabric was tossed into my face. It was a black T-shirt and likewise colored pants. He placed some black boots on the ground before my bed.
"We can talk on the way out, get dressed. We don't have all day."
"Damn, what's the rush? I can barely move my limbs and I'm thirsty as hell."
"Just do as I say, Coragon. Remember I'm ranked above you."
I was done putting on the T-shirt and slid off the side of the bed, only to find out that my legs wouldn't support me. Yelling in surprise I fell. Luckily, Reykur was quick and halted my descent.
"Damn man, you're heavy...can you stand?"
"Just give me a few more moments ok? And thanks for calling me fat."
"Oh, stop being so touchy..."
"While I'm trying to dress up here, you might as well fill me in on what happened, because I don't know squat about it. As usual, one could say..."
I finally sat myself on the edge of the bed again and attempted to slide into the pants, with mediocre success at first, but it got better by the second.
"Alright, short version. For some unknown reason, you completely went nuts in your ship, smashing your fists against the ground, walls, whatever. It should've hurt bad enough to make you stop, but it didn't. You went on outside and pounded on some heavily reinforced containers who were empty at the time..."
He showed me some pictures of the damage I've caused on his holopad. My eyebrows tried to reach the ceiling.
The containers looked like as if a Verrix went nuts and rammed it's massive body against them. There were dents everywhere. Deep ones. Dried blood, too.
I looked back at Reykur, then down to my hands.
"You were finally stopped with a tranquilizer gun. They needed to shoot you twice until you started to slow down. Your hands were pretty much gone at that point, broken bones, severed muscles, tissue, you name it. Now look at them..."
"What the hell is going on..."
Reykur looked straight at me, and that look gave me the chills.
"I've been viewing the documents that were assembled about your recovery. As it looks, they didn't have to do much after getting you here. Your body started to regenerate itself, repairing the damage."
I looked at my hands in disbelief.
"I know I'm pretty messed up but how..."
"I have no other explanation other than whatever caused you to go bonkers must've messed things up there even more than before. We’ve already confirmed that you have a special brand of nanites in you. That's probably why this happened, but even they couldn't reconstruct you this fast."
I still stared at my hands, shaking my head.
"Aside from this, we uncovered more data from the stick. You know, the one you got out of that derelict T9? I've sent you the text file we uncovered. We now have pictures of the woman that seems to be in the possession of a very important chip. I believe you know her..."
He put up the holo of the woman in question.
Brown hair, hazel eyes and skin white as a ghost.I whispered her name.
"Miss Martian..."
My head decided it had enough and exposed me to the mother of all headaches. Searing pain split my skull in half.I screamed and pressed my fists against my temples I couldn't hear the voice of Reykur anymore.
People rushed in, hands all over me, to keep me in place. I felt a pain in my arm as they injected something.Time came to a standstill as my conciousness faded away.With it went the pain, and the last thing I saw before everything went black was her face.
"Mar......ti....an...."
To be continued...