I had never been the best student in Political Cosmography, but at least I knew that my planetary system was in the 87th quadrant of the Human Imperial Conglomerate. But even though I realized that the question should have been rhetorical, I was very relieved to finally find someone who spoke my language and who could tell me how to get out of this dreadfully realistic and painful nightmare.
"What's your name?" he asked with an air of moderate diplomacy.
"Alésia Latrell" I answered frankly almost without sound, but unable to contain my relief for someone who could speak my language "What place is this?"
"Don't you know where you are?" he raised a surprised eyebrow but did not question whether what I said was the truth "In fact... how old are you? I do not think that it's reasonable for you to be a professional invader so young, that it's ... even more so for a Brard."
"I'm 17 years old, and I'm not a thief. I was in the hospital and then I was here ... I just want to wake up from this horrible nightmare and face another one waiting for me in the real world."
"Real world? Why would not this be the real world?" He was asking new questions according to what I was saying.
"This... all this place can only be part of a hallucination ... Full of Jomons ... I had never seen a Jomon in the flesh ... and the wooden doors of the palace ... furniture ... who has that much money? This place can not be real. So, I'd better settle down and just wait for the inevitable.
It was horrible to talk to him. Although nothing much had happened yet, I had not been able to relax my gaze for a second, as if I was hypnotised. He also kept staring at me with every word I said.
"And what is the inevitable?" He sat on a bench, not looking away and still remaining absolutely elegant and haughty.
"That... this afternoon the doctor must have shown the results of the tests to my mother, and after that, I do not doubt that I a positive for schizophrenia" the words were coming out of me so softly that they seemed to be fished by him.
He keep staring at me por a moment without ask anything. I couldn't tell nothing from his face. Had he believed in me? I could only keep staring back at he.
"So from what I understand, you, Alésia Latrell, 17, is a patient with schizophrenia who think is in a hallucination about this place ... is that all?" he summed up. I could swear he was trying hard not to laugh at me. At least he was not trying to kill me for the benefit "Do you even know who I am?" he said almost without restraint... Somehow my irritation with him was already almost greater than the fear that I was feeling of everything.
"I don't know.... Should I?" I sighed wearily. My body still trembled, ached and burned in different shapes and intensities. I still had to scowl every once in a while, if I moved in a bad way and the chains would hurt my skin even more. And he out there in front of me asking questions, he was evidently having fun at my expense.
"Most likely yes …" he grinned in disdain now,I guess he seemed familiar, but I could not recall where I had saw his face. He got up and approached almost menacingly, "Answer me one last thing, crazy Alesia Latrell, 17, how did you get into Henry's room?" he was not using that diplomatic smile anymore.
I hesitated a little before answering, trying to put myself in the question.
"You mean the room of the man who tried to strangle me?" I asked in doubt, although by logic, I knew it could not be someone else "The door was simply open ... oh, and it was not me who broke all those things." He pulled away, looked at me more intensely than ever, and for a moment I imagined I could see no more than his unfathomable eyes, somehow there was an overwhelming pressure, so when he thought it was enough, he simply walked away and went to the door "Hey ... I did not want to cause any problems, I don't even know how I got here! I ran away from the guards because I was frightened, I did not mean anything bad …"
But sure enough he was no longer listening to me. He had left, leaving me alone, and the uniformed guards re-entered. Evidently very reluctantly, the guard in the blue-gray uniform let go of the chains that held me, then went out and left me alone inside.
At least this time I had my arms and feet untied, not that I wanted to or could even get up. I inhaled deeply, smelling my own sweat and the taste of blood in my mouth. I felt the pain of the wounds and the echo of torture drumming in my head. I never imagined that a hallucination could be so realistic, intense, and painful. And on top of that, all my senses were working fully. I cried in silence.
I imagined that I had woken up and slept several times, and that at the same time it was as if I had not even blinked my eyes. I was just sure I really woke up when I realized that there was someone in the room with me. A Jomon stood in the doorway and looked at me with apathetic curiosity. He seemed to be as young as I — if he was a Brard he should not have been more than 18 years old — and had huge dark circles under his eyes as if he had not slept for days, not to mention the rumpled, dirty clothes.
It took me a while, but I recognized him by the long hair that looked like tangled black clouds. It was the man in the room I had invaded. I felt scared, and soon regretted that I had moved fast. My head spun madly, and blood from my wounded wrists began to spread again. If he had come to finish me completely this time, there was nothing I could do. I could barely move my legs. My heart was pounding so fast and strong, I imagined he could hear the thud against my chest from where he was.
"Hello, miss Latrell!" I heard the greeting, breaking my bad expectations. But the next moment I wondered why I did not see him open his mouth to speak. It cost me to understand that he was speaking to me through a translator pen.
"Ah... Hello…" I replied apprehensively, looking from him to the pen.
When I did not say anything else, he switched on the pen and began to speak softly in his own language, and the pen made the simultaneous translation so that I could understand what he was saying:
"My name is Henry Siever, nice to meet you. Sorry for the inconvenience earlier. You caught me by surprise while I was asleep. In fact, it was a great surprise that you were able to get in there, given that no one should be capable of doing this if I do not allow it, since I prohibited entrance. So everyone is a little euphoric with your visit."
Henry Siever ... what a arrogant codename. If he did not want to tell me his real name, I did not had a need for a fake one.
"Mr. Siever, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to break into your room. I swear I just found the door open" I tried to justify myself to him. Completely aware that it was probably useless and that he would only laugh at my apologies as the one that came earlier "So please excuse me, it was not my intention to invade. I don't even know where I am or what is happening ... I just wish I had not lived this day …"
"You are on the planet Keret in Cepheus, the first quadrant and capital of the Human Imperial Conglomerate" he informed me politely "more precisely in the basement of the Royal Palace ... I think we are 'some' parsecs far from your home system. Did not you come from Pictor, quadrant number 87?"
I would have laughed if it had not been completely finished. Royal Palace of the Human Imperial Conglomerate? I never leave Satie and suddenly I was in the capital of the human empire? I had to admit that my imagination was really ambitious. It had brought me very far away.
"Can you tell me your story? What happened to you until you got here?" he asked politely through that weird pen. It was strange to hear both sounds at once, though it was understandable. Then he sat down beside me, took a case from a pocket, and set it beside me on the stretcher.
"What you're gonna do?" I asked apprehensively, fearing that he would also resort to torture to make me speak, which frankly had never been necessary.
"Just treat your wounds. I regret that I handed you over to the guards. I may look young for you, but you must take into account that I am a Jomon and I have been an experienced physician for several decades" he said, opening the case and revealing sophisticated medical instruments.
Of course I was not relieved to leave a guy who strangled me to the point where I lost consciousness to treat my wounds. What a joke ... as if I could stop something ... I had to give in. The biggest difference between the Brads and the Jomons was not physical appearance, but longevity. Some Jomons would easily have a life at least ten times longer than a very old Brard. There were several types of Brard, and various types of Jomons, so that expectation might vary, but I could expect him to be at least in his first century, or even more.
He put on his gloves and began to handle the scalpel, and I noticed that instead of opening my wounds even more, like the poor versions of my planet, he emitted a violet blue light that stimulated the healing of my skin. In a few minutes, my wrist felt like it had been hurt weeks ago, and there was hardly a mark.
"So? Are not you going to tell me about yourself?" he insisted quietly, concentrating on closing the second wrist now, which still insisted on bleeding a little.
Then I told him how my sanity had been contested in the last few months and how everything had been turned into a kind of hell… a social hell, familiar and now painfully physical, and that, after all that had happened today, of the electronics exploding in the hospital and of that extensive , painful and inexplicable appearance of myself in this place, I had convinced myself that I should really suffer from a severe case of schizophrenia. When I got to that part, he stopped what he was doing (wiping the back of my left ankle), picked up another device from the box, and pointed it at me.
It was a scanner. First he pointed it all over my body, then removed a mouthpiece, and thrust it into my arm. It hurt only for a bite. I knew what he was doing. What I liked to watch back in home were documentaries and once I saw one about great innovations of medical equipment. He was doing a thorough examination of me with an extremely advanced and expensive device. In a few seconds the device beeped and he activated his Link to check the result.
— Here it is .... we will see ... no fracture or serious injury in life. You had all the age-appropriate vaccines available on your planet. No genetic anomaly, despite a reasonable anemia now. No bad organ ... all hormones in order, all proteins in order, all neural functions in order — I must say that, except for its deplorable state of now, you enjoy perfect physical and mental health. Which leads me to ask ... when did you start having those problems?