"BORROWED TIME". (4.2)

BY:  MAURICIO ESCOBAR

4.2

A loud sound echoed in the room. It sounded like the echo of a heavy door being open and then shut; and then, steps; the sound of many steps hitting the floor out of rhythm and approaching; perhaps two or three people. They were walking towards him, towards his cubicle.

-       What?! –exclaimed Martin. –What did you say?!

But the neighboring voice remained silent. No response came. Clearly, the man wouldn’t speak with the strangers walking in the room… walking towards him. Had they heard their conversation? Were the approaching steps from the medics? Or the policemen? Or even someone else? What should he do?

Martin sharpened his hearing. The steps didn’t sound metallic and heavy but more like attenuated and light. Martin remembered the medics in plastic suits. Maybe it was the medics coming in to check on him. But he remembered the words of the voice, saying that he had played numb. Why had he? Had he played numb for the doctors? Why? Should he do the same?

Martin squeezed his teeth.

The steps stopped and the door of his cubicle opened.

-       He’s still unconscious –observed one of them.

It was a female voice. Martin recognized the muffled tone; it was one of the doctors that he had heard when he woke up the first time. Martin stayed stiff and heard the steps moving aside to him. The other muffled voice, male, spoke in numbers and terms that Martin didn’t understand. He was probably reading off of one of the monitors.

-       Look at this, Dr. Harper –said the female.

Martin kept his eyes close. He felt being touched on his chest. The hands were cold and rough; probably due to gloves. Martin heard the plastic material of the suits bending with the particular sound of a tense film being squeezed. At the same time, he perceived very clearly the machine-like breathing from the man’s suit. They were observing him.

-       Defib marks? –said the male.

-       It looks so.

-       What did Transit say?

-       They didn’t perform any CPR. Besides, the subject spoke of a plane crash…

-       Plane crash? –interrupted the other. –Are you sure?

-       I was there.

-       Could it be a glitch? You know, they just messed up the files?

-       No, I have verified –insisted the woman.

-       Do we still not know who is his ReLocator? –asked the male with certain worry.

There was a pause.

-       Who wants to know? –inquired the woman.

-       I’m just saying.

-       They haven’t said yet, in any case, but they want him ready soon. That sounds like a big one for me –she said.   

The monitors chanted for a brief moment in which the medics didn’t talk. Then, Martin heard a long mechanical sigh and the plastic moving away.

-       How big is the Planck Factor for this one? –inquired the male.

-       Twenty-three point five. Highly stable.

-       And the in-between?

-       Two weeks.

-       Who’s DeLoc-ing him?

-       Meyer…

Now, they were walking away.

-       Let’s move this one up…

The door locked and the voices fainted away.

Martin opened his eyes.

But he couldn’t see a thing. Everything was dark again.

TO BE CONTINUED...

"BORROWED TIME". (4.1)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

4.1 

No guts, no glory…

-       Hey, you –he heard. It was a whisper.

And then, there was silence.

No guts, no glory, brother…

And then a gunshot.

-       Hey, you, the newbie –said the voice again.

Martin opened his eyes slowly.

-       I know you can hear me!

He had been dreaming, but the voice was real. The atmosphere was nauseating, heavy and lazy. It took him more than an instant to come into his senses.

No guts, no glory, lil’ brother…

The sound of waves in the ocean… A bright sun…

He shook his head.

The rush of the events he had witnessed made their appearance quickly and as a first impulse he thought of jumping off and run away, almost as the man chased down by the policemen; but he promptly realized that his will was decimated and diminished. He tried to move his limbs but his bones felt weighty as bricks. The objects around seem to glow, a clear indication of some sort of drug or a tranquilizer taking effect. He remembered the sting in his neck and closed his eyes again.

No guts…

Where was he now?

He looked around. His eyes spotted strange monitors which let go monotonic beeps and outlined strange sharpie signals along with cascades of indecipherable numbers on their sophisticated screens. He couldn’t make out what they where.

The atmosphere felt charged and, soon enough, the heavy smell of disinfectant reached him. As his eyesight became sharper, he recognized he was still lying on a stretcher now parked in a sort of cubicle and if he was in a hospital or not, he easily deducted it was some sort of medical facility. Perhaps, there had been a rescue after all, but he didn’t remember a thing. Although the memory of the escaping man and the masked policemen and the medics were perfectly clear and even the spectral figure of the floating astronaut and the airplane were sharp, the imagery of past events seemed fuzzy and nebulous. He remembered he was onboard… but why was he there in the first place? He remembered he was going somewhere. Where was he heading? He remembered… The suitcase… It was important, but… what was in it? A conscious effort couldn’t return anything more than white noise and confusing thoughts.

…Lil’ brother…

-       Hey, man!

The voice returned; he noticed, came from his right. He couldn’t lift his head to corroborate it, but he figured quickly that the cubicle was not all the room there was; apparently it was contained in a larger, bigger room and the cubicles were adjacent one another. Perhaps, more patients were in those cubicles and one of them was the voice.

-       Hey! You! Where are you from, man? –inquired the voice.

Martin couldn’t move his lips. His throat was painfully dry. He started to anxiously thirst for a glass of water.

-       Can you tell? Do you remember where are you from?

Martin fought to stay conscious and started to distrust what he was hearing. Where was he from? What kind of question was that?, he thought. Perhaps it was a foreign passenger of the airplane.

-       Hey! Hey, guy, you still with me there? –said the echo. –Uh, it’s the drugs. I know. You can’t talk, right? Their drugs are not too good, you know. I played numb and they bought it.

There was a brief silence just broken by the beeps and electronic moans. Martin coughed.

-       Oh, that’s a yes? OK, got ya. OK, so you can’t tell me where you are coming from… -said the voice doubtfully. -What about the president?

Martin frowned, now more conscious of the strangeness of the question.

-       What happened? –he murmured, but his voice was barely louder than the orchestra of gizmos.

-       The president… -continued the voice. –Uh… OK, uh… Just cough when you want me to stop. Was it Bush? Was it Bush, Jr.? Clinton? Was it…, uh, what was his name…? I knew him… Obama?

He tried to lift his head but his eyesight immediately started to spin. He put it back down.

Martin coughed.

-       Really? So you’re from after September 11, aren’t you?

-       What…? –Martin cleared his throat. –What happened? –but still his voice was too faint.

-       Is it true he is african-american? I would’ve loved to see that. I’m african-american myself. How’s the world? Is it too different?

However, Martin still couldn’t answer.

-       They say I have a few hours before they put me back –said the man.

Put back… where?

The flashback of the fugitive flared in Martin’s head briefly. He remembered him yelling it. He didn’t want to be put back.

Put back… where?

-       Help! –Martin finally could yell, audibly enough.

The voice didn’t reply immediately.

-       Be cool, bro. Save your strength. You have to be strong –it advised.

Martin tried to sit up, but still the world revolved violently around him. The drugs were still in his system.

-       Please, help me.

-       Calm down.

-       What… What is… this place? Where… am… I? –he stammered out between coughs.

-       You have to be strong –the voice replied, but it sounded more like a consolation.

Martin frowned.

-       What?

-       Please…

-       What?

-       You have to be strong, bro –said the voice, this time almost inaudibly.

-       What…?

There was a tense silence right after.

-       You’re going to die.

TO BE CONTINUED...

"BORROWED TIME". (4.0)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

4.0        TRANSIT

It all begun with the sight of a very blurry and gray figure.

-       20 mg of Epinephrine! –barked the blur with muffled voice.

-       Increase the serum dose! –he heard someone else say.

A shiny, illuminated, metallic-looking roof; the noise of rushing steps; the rambling of the wheels of a stretcher on the floor. Was he in a hospital?

-       Check pulse! –said now a female voice. He could see the strange shape joining the others

-       One-ten over sixty! –reported a third voice.

-       It’s low!

-       Doctor, the glucose level is below 70 mg/dl –informed one of the shapes.

-       Hypoglycemia… Is he diabetic?

-       The report doesn’t say so.

The memories were diffuse. He remembered loud screams, the whirring sound of jet turbines, the fire… and the water.  Where was the airplane? What had happened? Had he crashed? Was he being rescued?

He could guess that he was lying on a metallic surface, on a stretcher. He could see the light bulbs on the silver ceiling passing by in rapid succession. He was being transported somewhere. An emergency room? He could barely keep his eyes open.

The voices kept yelling in terms he couldn’t understand; but he realized that the voices from the figures reached him muffled and distorted, as in the way of a person that speaks with his lips covered with their hands.

-       Signs of Chlorpropamide!

-       Three glucose tablets! –ordered the first blur.

He felt something being forced through his mouth. He coughed.

-       Where… am I? –murmured Martin almost inaudibly.

-       Vital signs stabilizing!

He felt rough hands touching his chest.

-       What are these marks? –said a female voice. –Has he being defibbed?

-       Resuscitation performed by the Transit personnel after the Relocation for sure –said someone else.

-       Pulse stabilizing! –said the third one.

-       Where… am… I?

-       Pressure increasing!

The blurry figures started to become clearer and sharper. Now they looked more human, but still indescribably deformed, as if they were wearing outfits.

-       Where am I? –he said again, this time a bit louder.

-       Increase the serum –ordered the first voice.

-       The vital signs returning to normal –said the other.

-       Am I dead…? –he asked and was ignored again.

-       Blood pressure is one-twenty over eighty now.

One of the figures pointed a flashlight directly to his eyes. The flash blinded him momentarily, but then silhouette approached close enough to him to realize that it was a person, more exactly a woman; but she wasn’t wearing an outfit. It was more like a suit resembling that of an astronaut.

The realization battered him with the force of a strong wave when it hits a ship in the ocean during a furious storm. 

The floating man…

The bracelet…

The suitcase!

-       Where am I? –asked Martin, trying to get up. Immediately the woman looked back and pulled him down.

-       Calm down –she said. –We will help you.

The image of the floating astronaut on the airplane was very vivid in Martin’s memory, but he rapidly corroborated that the suit worn by the woman and the other doctors looked different; these appeared more like the suits used to protect oneself from radiation.

-       What happened to the airplane?

-       Calm down –she repeated.

-       Where’s my suitcase? I had a…

-       Calm down, mister.

-       Did the airplane crash? –said Martin.

The woman shook his head behind the plastic helmet.

-       Airplane?

-       The vital signs are back to normal –announced the main figure. –Sedate him and put him in the Recovery Room.

-       Where is this one being reloc’d from? –asked the woman.

-       He’s a newbie –said the other one. –Two weeks. Washington. Train crash.

-       Train crash? Why is he talking of an air--

Martin observed one of the medics readying a syringe.

-       No! –Martin implored. –Please, no!

Suddenly, an alarm went off. The medics stopped its walk.

-       Dammit! –barked one of them.

-       Watch out!

Martin lifted his head. Blinking yellow lights from the ceiling started to twinkle and that made it hard to see.

He saw a long corridor where people wearing the same protective suits dragged other patients in stretchers. The corridor ran long up to a corner where it turned to the right, out of sight. Out of that turn he saw a man emerge. The man turned to his left and ran desperately towards their direction. Martin couldn’t see him well, but the man seemed to be in his mid-forties. He had white hair and was dressed with nothing but a patient coat. As he ran closer, Martin could notice he was dragging several IVs and other medical equipment connected to his wrists and neck. As Martin could reckon, he was connected to a similar set of equipment; thus, he figured, that man had just got off his stretcher and ran away.

But… Why?

-       Shit! –exclaimed one of the medics.

The fugitive stopped momentarily and tried to open one of the doors at one side of the corridor unsuccessfully. Then, a group of other men appeared, popping out from the same direction the running man had ran off of. The chasers, two or three in total, although weren’t wearing suits as complicated as those of the medics’, they still had their noses covered with masks similar to anti-gas masks.

-       Stop! –yelled one of the chasers. Again, his voice was diminished by the covering mask.

-       No! –said the fugitive.

-       Stop! Right now!

The masked cop pointed at him with something that looked like a gun. The man didn’t pay attention to it.

-       Sir! Stop! Now! Put your hands up! Now! Now!

The running man was a few steps in front of Martin and the suited doctors when he stopped. The man had his hands up but still showing his back to the chasers. Martin could see his features: sad, broken, desperate.

Why?

The cops started yelling while pointing at him the strange guns.

- Sir! Put your hands up! Turn around! Slowly, turn around!

The man was panting and sweating.

-       I don’t want to go back! –he sniffed.

-       Turn around!

-       Sir!

-       Turn around!

The man looked at Martin.

-       I don’t want to go back –he murmured.

And then he could see it.

The bracelet.

Just like that he had seen on the floating astronaut’s wrist, right before he passed out; the running man had an identical one. He looked at his own wrist and confirmed his memories were accurate. He had one too.

And then the man started running again, but then he stopped abruptly. His eyes opened wide and his body started to tremble. Under the loud sound of the alarms, Martin could hear the electrical discharges whipping across the man’s humanity. One of the cops had shot his stunning gun. The escapee fell heavily on the floor, and when he was lying there another cop shot him again. The man’s body stretched again and his features numbed. He had his fingers folded like claws and his eyeballs turned around in white.

Martin knew it immediately.

This was no hospital.

-       Let me out… -he murmured initially, but then he yelled. –Let me out!

He tried to get off the stretcher but he had been strapped to it.

-       Let me out! –he demanded.

-       Hit him! –shouted one of the doctors.

The third doctor that had prepared the syringe lifted it up and pushed out a few drops.

-       Let me go!

He felt the sting on his neck.

-       Let… me…

And then the figures turned blurry again.

TO BE CONTINUED...

"BORROWED TIME". (3.1)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

3.1

 

Harper shook his head and looked at the other one with hopeless features.

-       We need to put him back –he said.

-       No.

-       He’s dead.

-       No…

-       Cap…

-       No!

-       Gershon is going to die in there if we don’t put this guy back.

-       No!

Then, suddenly, the bracelet in the man’s hand emitted a electronic whine after which the green led stopped blinking. Immediately, the alarms moaning in the back stopped their chanting.

-       What happened? –said Meyer.

Harper sighed and returned to the computer panels. Meyer observed the ReLoc and noticed the sluggish up-and-down motion of his chest.

-       He’s back –Meyer gasped from the other side of the room.

The defibrillator was showing the characteristic rough, sharp signal as it beeped rhythmically. Meyer exhaled air noisily.

Harper approached the man and placed the stethoscope on his heart; then, he checked the pupils.

-       Goddammit… -murmured Meyer, trying to overcome the excitement.

-       It was his glucose level… -he said. –Hypoglycemic attack.

-       Will he be alright?

Harper didn’t answer. He was still in his diving suit, soaking wet.

He started disconnecting the defibrillator slowly.

-       Wallace… He’s of no good. We need to put this guy back.

-       What?! –Meyer exclaimed. –But you just revived him. Is he going to be alright?

-       Yes…

-       Then what?

-       The damn counterweights, Captain, it’s all messed up!

The sergeant then pointed at the suitcase. Meyer observed the rectangular silver box attached to the man’s wrist with a pair of cuffs.

-       Now that’s the damn problem, Cap?! You didn’t mention that!

-       I didn’t know!

-       Seriously?

He gazed at Meyer coldly.

-       Seriously, Cap? What is in that suitcase, Cap? –he asked in a flat tone.

-       I don’t know, Dylan.

Meyer walked to the body and lifted the pale man’s hand.

-       Are you kidding me?

-       I’m telling you, Dylan…

-       Do you think I’m stupid?! Look at it! –he said. –He is attached to the case. There was no way Gershon could have cut it off; Gershon knew he shouldn’t but still he relocated him –Harper walked towards Meyer until his nose almost touched the other’s. -What’s in that suitcase so as to make Gershon take such a risk?

The other remained silent, unable to counterargument. The medic rinsed the water and sweats off of his face and shook his head.

-       OK, Captain, don’t answer, I don’t want to know, but you know this guy is of no good –he said.

-       What do you mean? –asked Meyer, eyes wide-open. –You said he was going to be OK.

-       Yes, but he’s not good. Whatever is the suitcase –he explained, -the extra load messed up the Planck Factor, Cap. You might not know everything, but you know how relocations work.

Meyer remained tight-lipped.

-       This Reloc is faulty, Cap, and we need to put him back… -he murmured.

There was a brief, tense silence.

-       It’s my son, Dylan… - finally said Meyer. -It’s my son who we are talking about here and… You’re my brother, for Christ’s sake! There must be something you can do!

Sergeant Dr. Dylan Harper put his hand on Captain Wallace Meyer’s shoulder and spoke to him very slowly:

-       Cap, I need twenty-four hours to complete the surgery on your son… This ReLoc is unstable and won’t last even an hour. I’m sorry. There is nothing I can do…

TO BE CONTINUED...

 

"BORROWED TIME". (3.0)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.0.        RECOVERY

Harper, hands on his head, walked from right to left and back to right, like a lion trapped in a cage. Then, he exploded: 

-       Just what in the fuck is that?! –Harper yelled, irate, pointing at the silver suitcase. -I could’ve been killed! Jesus Christ, Gershon could’ve got killed! –he yelled again, now pointing at The Vault.

Meyer was speechless. The wet body lied stiff on the metallic floor.

-       Is he dead? –Meyer murmured.

Harper headed to the computer panels.

-       Goddamn! –he exclaimed after watching the screen.

-       What?

Harper rushed back and kneeled down next to the pale man; then, suddenly the alarms jumped off again.

-       Shit, shit, shit! No, no, no!

-       What?

-       The medical kit! –ordered Harper. –Quick!

Meyer ran back to the platform. The haste of his hurried footsteps was muffled by the chorus of sirens wailing in all kinds of endless repetitive patterns; the improbability of the events he had just witnessed revolved with the chaos of a swarm of bees inside his head. A man that had just disappeared and another one that had just appeared…

There was water still pouring out of The Vault and it had formed a huge pond next to it. Harper had been able to retrieve the subject at the very last moment of the procedure. Now something else was coming out wrong. Meyer’s heart was pounding furiously behind his chest. He grabbed the kit box and ran back to the Sergeant, panting.

-       Sheez! What’s wrong?

-       The hell if there’s something wrong! –said Harper.

-       Is he dead? –Asked Meyer again.

-       We need to revive him.

The Sergeant looked up at him and handed a small bottle broke in half. The label was still intact. Meyer read it.

-       Insulin? Where did you find it? –asked Meyer.

-       It was in his pocket –said Harper.

-       What did he do?

-       Come on, turn it on! –ordered.

Meyer switched on the small box which immediately started beeping. Harper exposed the chest of the man lying on the floor and glued the terminals around his heart. The suction pads rapidly adhered to the skin forming a ring of red skin around their circumference.

The body was flat, wet, stiff and pale. Meyer couldn’t help shuddering.

Harper acted swiftly and accurately with the mechanic and sound movements of those who have the training and the experience.

Sergeant Dylan Harper had served the last ten years of his life in the Military, where he had won his degree in Medicine and had worked as chief of the medical division of the Marines for the last five years. Meyer remained silent as the doctor prepared the body for the jolt.

-       I’ve seen it before –said the medic.

-        What?

He pressed his fingers against Martin’s jugular and then observed the display in the machine. There was no pulse. Harper continued:

-       The ReLoc sees the death is imminent. They don’t want to suffer.

-       What do you mean…?

-       He gave himself an overdose of Insulin. Wouldn’t you do it if you knew you would die?

The chronometer on the defibrillator started its countdown. The silence of the room was periodically broken by the unbearable intervallic whines coming off of The Chamber and the fuzzy thoughts running wild in Meyer’s head.

Meyer looked back at The Chamber and thought of Major Gershon. One minute ago he was in The Vault. Now he was gone, projected out of existence…

Unlike The Vault, The Chamber was a big coffin-shaped, metallic-colored sarcophagus that resembled those used by the Egyptians to keep the mummies; it was right next to The Vault. It was lit like a Christmas tree, all emergency red leds twinkling all around its surface. Gershon was in it.

Meyer observed the bracelet clipped to the subject’s right hand and saw the led wasn’t still red, but it was green and twinkling.

-       Not a good sign –said Harper when he noted Meyer’s gaze. –Gershon’s in trouble.

-       Shit! –Meyer gasped.

-       Cap… This doesn’t look good –the doctor murmured.

-       You can’t give up, doc…

The defibrillator screamed in a continuous beep.

-       Step aside!

Meyer pressed the red button. They both moved away from the corpse. The machine transmitted the electrical charge and the body arced up and the muscles contracted in a sudden, violent jolt; just for a second Harper thought the big black man was going to open his eyes, stand up and scream; instead, the body just fell heavily on his back, laying flat and unmoving, like a big doll.

Harper remained still, almost as a mannequin, observing the body. The alarms kept howling and the leds of the bracelet flickering. The defibrillator still emitted a continuous beep and showed a flat line in the display. Harper consulted his watch.

-       Charge! Twenty-fifty!

Meyer prepared the new charge with trembling hands. Harper approached the body and started the cardiac massage.

The box beeped again.

-       It’s ready!

-       Clear!

The body arced up again, this time with more violence. Meyer tightened his teeth. The machine still squealed in a single tone and the line on the display was still horizontal. Harper observed the bracelet and its green led twinkling, now more rapidly.

-       Shit! There’s no much time. Three hundred Joules! –he ordered.

Meyer obeyed.

Harper resumed the resuscitation procedures franticly. The seconds that the defibrillator took to recharge itself were charged. Meyer bit his lower lip in tension.

Everything depended on that man being brought back to life.

The defib wailed.

-       Clear!

The body was jolted one more time.

The line was still flat.

TO BE CONTINUED...