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...
