And then, as if by magic, Sergeant Neff was already behind the robotess and grabbed her by the shoulder.
"Catch up!" he ordered in a commanding tone. "This guy is breaking the law! He used this club to sell contraband! I want you to catch him before he gets away. Quickly!"
Delia Asia Vieira, of course, had not planned to engage in anyone's pursuit, and this latest order blew the last of her patience. But for all her hatred of what was happening, she understood: Neff would not leave her alone until she did his will. Her hands clenched into fists. Against her will, but with iron determination, she turned and ran.
The young man, seeing that he was being pursued, quickened his steps, but Delia Asia Vieira was not going to lag behind. Her steps were precise, fast, her mechanisms worked with a precision that people could only dream of. Only two thoughts flashed through her head: to catch up with him and to end this absurd episode. She felt his pulse, his fear, and this only fueled her desire to catch him.
Sergeant Neff was not far behind. He followed her, waving his arms and shouting commands, something about blocking the escapee's path and warning him, but Delia Asia Vieira was not listening. Her attention was completely focused on catching this stranger.
They raced through the streets, their footsteps echoing in the empty city, but when they almost caught up with him, he abruptly turned a corner and disappeared into the dark alleys of the city. Looking back again, the young man rushed towards a huge building that turned out to be the local hospital. The walls of this institution looked gloomy and neglected in the silence of the night, but for a fugitive it seemed to be the perfect hiding place.
Sergeant Neff, without wasting any time, issued the command:
"After him! Don't let him get away!"
Delia Asia Vieira followed him wordlessly, her footsteps echoing down the night street. They both reached the hospital door, and Sergeant Neff pushed it open first, certain that he had to continue the pursuit. The sterile smell, the heavy door handles, the dim light coming from the corridors-it all felt cold and unsettling.
They moved along the empty corridors of the hospital, and its abandoned and forgotten corners became increasingly gloomy. Doors locked with a key, partitions on which a shadow flickered only for a second - all this added tension to their pursuit. However, there were no people, no signs of life. Only empty, dusty walls and the pitiful light of lamps that dimly illuminated their path.
When they reached the end of one of the corridors, their attention was drawn to a small door standing ajar. The room behind it seemed strange. Inside, among the stinking, dirty rags, there was a large pile of multi-colored fabrics on the floor. The rags were crumpled, thrown onto the floor, as if carelessly left by someone. A sign on the wall, barely visible because of the dust, read: "Toilet for patients. Entry only with passes and accompanied by orderlies." This strange and disturbing sign did not bode well.
Delia Asia Vieira approached the door, scanning the space with her sensors. She noticed that the strange atmosphere inside the hospital made her feel out of place. Everything was wrong. This patient toilet, with its neglected appearance and locked door, it all seemed like a collection of misunderstandings.
"This is not where we wanted to be," she said, looking around and nervously at Neff.
Sergeant Neff, tired of the constant harassment, grimaced and walked into the room, avoiding the pile of rags. He noticed the sign, but quickly ignored its contents.
"This place may be connected to our fugitive," he said, bending down and examining the floor. "It's hardly just trash."
Delia Asia Vieira glanced around the room, trying to figure out what could be going on here. It looked like someone was trying to hide in this abandoned corner, but there was nothing to suggest that there could be anything important hidden here.
The rags seemed to have no meaning, and robotess was about to continue her examination when Sergeant Neff, clutching some document in his hands, suddenly spoke up:
"You can go. I'll stay here. This place... it's strange, and I need to understand what's going on here. You, as always, will figure it out yourself," he said, not looking in her direction.
His voice sounded a little tired, but there was still a firm determination in it.
Delia Asia Vieira raised her eyebrows in surprise, but said nothing. She knew Neff was a man with a mysterious charisma, but this action confused her. He clearly knew something she couldn't understand. And now she was alone, in this foggy and unfriendly place. What to do next? How to understand what was happening in this hospital, where everything seemed strange and empty?
"Okay," she said over her shoulder, heading toward the hallway, "but if you find anything, don't be quiet. I'll be looking."
Neff merely nodded slightly in response, continuing to study the documents. He did not whisper to her and clearly had no intention of interfering with her efforts.
Left alone, Delia Asia Vieira walked further down the corridors, feeling a sense of unease growing in her chest. The hospital was empty, and with every step the feeling grew stronger. The sound of her footsteps echoed through the empty rooms, while her sensors searched for any traces of life.
She looked at the doors, peering through the windows into the empty chambers. Sometimes, silhouettes could be seen through the smoke-blackened windows, but as soon as she approached, everything disappeared, leaving only the still air. The walls that seemed to have once held many stories were now silent, as if this strange world had been forgotten long ago. The fog creeping through the windows only intensified this feeling.
And then, as if for a lifetime, another door appeared on her path. An ordinary metal door without any markings or features, just a door that might have been unremarkable if not for the feeling that Delia Asia Vieira could not ignore. Her heart sank, and she reached for the handle.
But before she touched him, she paused. What if this was all just a trap? What if Neff, despite giving her freedom, was still up to something?
Throwing these thoughts aside, she resolutely opened the door, but as soon as her gaze penetrated the room, her heart sank with horror. In the corner of the room sat a little girl - her face was mysterious, like everything in this place. She was surrounded by a slight glow that could not be natural, and her gaze was strangely adult for a child. The girl was sitting on a small chair, thoughtfully playing with some toy in her hands. Her brown dress was slightly wrinkled, and on her feet were those same white stockings with black shoes that Delia Asia Vieira had already seen earlier. A strange acquaintance. A strange meeting. But it was what the girl said that caused a real hurricane of emotions in robotess.
"Oh, you're just in time! I just got back from Robert, we were visiting literally the day before yesterday. We had a really nice time, he told me so many interesting things!" said the girl, not paying attention to the expression on robotess's face.
The girl's words hung in the air like a heavy stone. Something in robotess's chest sank, and her heart began to beat wildly. Robert? He was dead. She had seen the letter herself, read it when she learned that Robert had asked her to come to him, because he had only three days left. The letter had clearly stated that he had been waiting for her, and he was gone a week later, when the letter finally reached her. Dead. He was dead. And now this girl, who claimed to have visited him just the day before, was talking about him as if he were alive.
"How is that possible?" the words escaped robotess's lips, and she clutched the door handle. "How can you say such things? Are you sure he's alive? Robert died a week ago. I saw his letter myself. If it weren't for that letter, I would never have known."
The girl calmly turned to her, continuing to play with the toy in her hands, as if she did not notice at all how much pain and doubt her words were causing robotess. Robotess's heart sank with anger. She could not allow herself to accept her words so easily, even though her face was so serious and trusting. The questions multiplied, but the answers did not come. How could it be that she was wrong? Or was the girl hiding something?
"You're lying," she blurted out angrily. "You can't say you were with him when I know for sure he's not there! You couldn't have been there. You couldn't..."
The girl just looked at her calmly with her big eyes, in which there was neither fear nor anxiety. It was like a clash of two worlds - one alive and real, the other strange and illogical.
"You're so serious," the girl said, ignoring the irritation her words caused robotess. "You wouldn't understand. Just follow me. I have something important for you."
Delia Asia Vieira couldn't explain why, but she had a feeling in her body that the girl was hiding something. She tried to ignore this premonition, but her intuition told her that her suspicions were not without foundation. The girl continued to persuade her:
"I want to show you a letter from Robert that he wrote to you. You have to read it. He wrote that you would understand everything once you picked it up. I won't tell you what he wrote, you better read it yourself."
And although Delia Asia Vieira was on the verge of giving up and leaving, she could not overcome her curiosity. She followed the girl, internally struggling with doubts. The girl led her along the hospital corridor, and their steps sounded hollow in the empty, seemingly abandoned rooms. They approached the entrance to one of the small rooms, seemingly unremarkable. The girl stopped at the door and opened it, and it seemed that she was waiting for the robotess to go deeper into the room. And when she stepped over the threshold, the girl, without warning, abruptly slammed the door and locked it from the outside.
"Here!" she cried. "This is all for you!"
Robotess didn't have time to react. She was stunned, and alarms started going off inside her system. Before she could do anything, the girl had already disappeared behind the wall, leaving robotess with only the rough walls of this vile room, filled with the suffocating smell of rot and dirt.
There were flies in the corners and dirty spots on the floor, as if someone hadn't cared about cleaning it for a long time. The smell was so bad that Delia Asia Vieira Asia Vieira felt her systems working overtime, trying to get rid of the unpleasant influences. It all seemed strange, as if she had entered some abandoned place, left for those who were forgotten and unwanted.
Delia Asia Vieira knew immediately that she had been fooled. She clenched her fists, and the mechanisms of her arms began to work at full capacity. Every molecule in her was striving for one goal: to get out of here.
With terrible force, she threw her shoulders towards the door and, using all the power of her artificial muscles, crashed into it. The resistance was strong, the door was old and strong, but Delia Asia Vieira was not going to stop. The mechanisms creaked, the metal broke, but her efforts were immeasurably stronger.
A few seconds passed, and the door finally tore in half. The sharp sound of the rupture echoed throughout the room, a foreshadowing of the consequences that would follow her actions.
Stepping out into the hallway, Delia Asia Vieira looked around, expecting to see the girl. But the hallway was empty. The fog continued to slowly spread through the hospital, swallowing up the space. The girl had disappeared. But where could she have gone? Why had she been trapped so easily, and now she had disappeared as if she had never been there?
Delia Asia Vieira couldn't afford to waste time. She quickly walked in the direction the girl had disappeared. There was only one thing in her head: the answers to all the questions that remained had to be found as quickly as possible. But without knowing where she was or what to expect, she continued moving through the corridors, hoping that something would become clear soon.
After Delia Asia Vieira had escaped from the locked room, the hospital had suddenly changed beyond recognition. The space that had seemed empty and deserted just a moment before had suddenly come alive. People were appearing everywhere - patients, doctors, visitors. It was as if they had appeared out of nowhere, as if some invisible force had plucked them from another dimension and thrown them here. Robotess froze in place, watching this sudden chaos.
At first she thought it was another trap or illusion. But the people seemed too real. A woman in a white coat hurried down the corridor, looking around as if trying to find a way out of this labyrinth. Two men with tense faces were arguing heatedly about gunshots heard at the other end of the hospital. One claimed to have seen a dead body near house number 34, the other insisted that he had heard someone's voice through a loudspeaker.
"I swear it was Gene York! He was talking to his wife, I heard it myself!" one of them shouted, clutching a bloody handkerchief.
Delia Asia Vieira tried to make sense of what was happening, but every new word that reached her auditory sensors only added to the confusion. Everything around her seemed shaky, as if reality was being torn apart, leaving room for something darker and more inexplicable.
Delia Asia Vieira stood frozen in the center of the vortex. She tried to process the data her sensors were desperately collecting from all directions, but the overabundance of information was causing her processor to overheat. Everything around her was a kaleidoscope of distorted sounds and blurry shapes, as if someone had cranked the reality settings to the max and broken the controls.
The last bit of logic in her software tried to keep her from descending into chaos. But every time she thought she was beginning to understand what was happening, it turned into something even more inexplicable. She noticed a woman in a white coat stumbling toward her.
"Help!" the woman's voice was hoarse, as if she had been screaming non-stop for hours. "I have a child in my arms! You have to... you have to find him!"
Delia Asia Vieira, still unsure if these people were real or just another trick, tried scanning the woman. The data was extremely unstable, as if the woman existed and didn't exist at the same time. Her image was shaking like the signal on an old TV screen.
"I... don't understand..." Delia Asia Vieira whispered, but her mechanical voice was drowned out by the growing noise around her.
Meanwhile, the two men continued to argue. One of them, according to the analysis, was a security guard, and the other looked like an engineer in a work uniform.
"Look, we need to get out of here before it's too late!" The engineer was clutching a small black lantern in his hands, from which a weak light was pouring. "We're stuck between worlds. Don't you understand? There's no Gene York here, nor his wife!"
"I heard their conversation through the speaker myself," the guard seemed to be starting to lose his composure. "That means they're here, and we can find a way out!"
Suddenly, the lights in the hallway flickered, and for a few seconds everything was dark. Delia Asia Vieira felt a strange pressure on her sensors, as if someone was trying to interfere with her perception. When the lights came back on, she quickly walked towards the patient restroom where she had last seen Sergeant Neff.
But when Delia Asia Vieira opened the door, her mechanical sensors immediately responded to the emptiness inside. No sign of the sergeant. The toilet, which had been filled with heavy breath and the smell of cheap tobacco just a moment ago, now seemed sterile and empty, as if he had never set foot there. No note, no contact number, nothing to indicate where he had gone. Not even the imprints of his heavy boots on the dirty linoleum remained. It was strange - too strange, even for this place, which was increasingly resembling one big, distorted labyrinth.
"Sergeant Neff?" Delia Asia Vieira called, but her voice, amplified by the built-in speaker, only echoed off the tiled walls.
There was no response.
Delia Asia Vieira activated her search protocols, activating every possible sensor. If the sergeant had been nearby, her analyzers would have picked up his heat signature or biometric data. But nothing - it was as if he had simply been erased from reality.
"This can't be," she thought. "People don't just disappear without a trace."
But in this place, it seemed, anything was possible.
Wasting no time, she rushed back into the hospital corridors, which had suddenly come alive again. Everywhere she looked, people were wandering around - patients, doctors, guards and visitors. Their faces were confused and afraid, and their voices merged into a chaotic cacophony. A woman in a hospital gown ran past her, crying and shouting something unintelligible about a "letter from Gene York" that she "knew everything about."
Delia Asia Vieira tried to peer into the faces of those around her, but it was impossible to discern anything in the crowd. Multiple figures flickered past her optical sensors like static on an old television. She made her way through, searching for any sign of Sergeant Neff, but instead her auditory analyzers picked up snippets of conversation:
"I heard his voice! Gene was talking to his wife from behind the wall!" one of the patients screamed, clutching the sleeve of a passing doctor.
"It's all an illusion! We're being held here like mice in a maze!" answered another voice, belonging to a man in a rumpled shirt, who was rushing from side to side as if possessed.
"No, it has to do with house number 34, I swear," said a third person, his face distorted in panic.
The deeper Delia Asia Vieira went into the chaos of the hospital, the more her systems became overwhelmed by the amount of data coming in. Her artificial intelligence tried to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, but each new detail only muddied the overall picture. It seemed like all these people were talking about different things, but somehow they were all connected.
She stopped by the wall, closing her eyes to momentarily turn off her optical sensors and focus on other channels. Delia Asia Vieira decided to change tactics. She connected to the hospital's local network, hoping to extract at least some information from the internal system - surveillance cameras, visitor logs, anything. But all requests returned with errors or, worse, with data encrypted with an unknown algorithm.
Suddenly, the corridor in front of her opened up in another flash of light. The walls began to shake and the ceiling lights began to flicker, as if trying to blind her. She barely managed to steady herself before she fell when she felt another strange pressure on her sensors. It felt like someone or something was trying to penetrate her system, as if reality itself was trying to rewrite her code.
And then, in the midst of the chaos, she heard a familiar voice - hoarse and full of fatigue:
"You have to hear me..." it was Sergeant Neff.
But the voice did not sound in physical space, but directly in her processor.
"Where are you?" she asked in panic, trying to find the source of the signal.
"I'm... stuck... in the basement. I can't open the door... You have to..." his voice was breaking up, as if the connection was extremely unstable. "Go down to the basement. I'm there. I can't sit there for long..."
And again everything was swallowed up by silence.
Delia Asia Vieira froze, analyzing what she had heard. Her sensors were showing anomalies again, but now she had a new landmark - and soon she was racing through narrow corridors, half-immersed in semi-darkness. The data she had managed to glean from the fragments of signals and messages led her to the basement of the hospital. This was where, according to her calculations, Sergeant Neff should be, if the signal she had picked up was not another deception.
The hallway grew darker and narrower, and the air filled with the smell of damp and chemicals. The ceiling lights flickered, filling the space with a deathly light that made the shadows seem alive and writhing. Finally, through a massive metal door with peeling paint, she heard the familiar, raspy voice of the sergeant.
"Damn it, you again?!" Neff winced as Delia Asia Vieira walked in. His scarred face twisted in anger. He clutched his chest as if protecting the wound. "You left me there, in that damned toilet! You... You abandoned me!"
Delia Asia Vieira froze. Her systems were feverishly analyzing his behavior. The sergeant's emotions were fluctuating between rage and despair, his pulse was racing, and his breathing was ragged, almost hysterical.
"Sergeant Neff, please calm down," she began, trying to keep her voice soft. "I didn't abandon you. I've been looking for you this whole time.
"You're lying!" He took a step toward her, his fists clenched and his eyes glowing with madness. "If you wanted to find me, you wouldn't have disappeared so easily! I'm left alone, trapped in these... these crazy visions!"
"Sergeant," Delia Asia Vieira said calmly, although her internal systems were already preparing for a possible attack, "I could not control the anomalies that occurred in the hospital. I tried to find you. And I found you.
Neff froze, breathing heavily. His anger was slowly evaporating, leaving only weariness and bitterness. He looked like he had been through hell.
"Why... Why did you come back?" he asked finally, his voice hoarse.
"Because we need to figure out what's going on," Delia Asia Vieira replied. "I couldn't just leave until this was all over."
Neff wiped the sweat from his forehead, as if he had finally given up. He sat down on the dirty floor, leaning his back against the cold wall.
"Okay... let's say I believe you," he breathed. "But what now? We're stuck in this... nightmare."
"We need to find Delia York," the robotess said, crouching down to be at his eye level. "Remember that girl in the brown dress? She has something to do with this. She locked me in a room with flies, and maybe she knows how to get out of this place."
"Girl? You mean that... damn ghost girl?" Neff frowned, trying to remember. "Yeah, I heard about her... someone said they saw her. But what's she even connected to the hospital?"
"I don't know yet," Delia Asia Vieira answered honestly. "But when she tried to lock me out, she said something about 'this is her home.' Maybe she's the key to all this."
The sergeant thought for a moment, then stood up abruptly.
"Okay, if this girl can help us get out of here, then I'm with you. But if this is another trick..." He narrowed his eyes, studying the robotess, as if trying to penetrate her artificial mind. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"No," Delia Asia Vieira answered with unexpected honesty. "But we have no other choice."
They exchanged a quick glance and moved forward, going deeper into the dark corridors of the basement. Delia Asia Vieira and Sergeant Neff walked along the dark corridors of the hospital basement, dimly lit by flickering lamps on the walls. Their footsteps echoed in the silence, and it seemed that the darkness was thickening around them, becoming denser with each passing minute. Delia Asia Vieira felt that the anomalies around her were increasing. Her sensor systems constantly recorded small distortions of space, but she ignored them, focusing on finding a way out.
"This way," Neff croaked, pointing to another turn. "If we continue down this tunnel, we should come out at the elevators."
But before they could turn, Delia Asia Vieira suddenly caught movement at the end of the corridor. Her optical sensors instantly focused on a figure slowly approaching them. It was a man - tall and thin, with deep shadows under his eyes and his face hidden under a hood. He moved silently, like a shadow, gliding across the floor as if his feet did not touch it.
"Who is it?" Neff asked sharply, raising his lantern and pointing it at the stranger. But the light only illuminated the pursuer's face for a moment before he disappeared into the darkness.
"Run!" Delia Asia Vieira shouted, pushing the sergeant aside. "It's a trap!"
But it was too late. The stranger moved forward with incredible speed. Everything happened too fast: the impact of the heavy object stunned Neff, and he fell to the floor with a dull groan. His flashlight fell from his hand and rolled across the floor, filling the dark corridor with an unnaturally flickering light. Delia Asia Vieira tried to rush to help, but her computing algorithms instantly calculated that if she slowed down, they would both be captured.
"Sorry, Sergeant..." she whispered, pushing down the guilt. Her systems were telling her that survival was the most important thing right now.
Having made up her mind, she turned and ran. Her metal feet pounded the floor, echoing off the walls until she reached the elevator lobby. Behind her, she heard the dull thuds and muffled moans of Neff, but Delia Asia Vieira knew that if she stopped, she too would be overtaken by the mysterious pursuer.
With nervous tension, she pressed the elevator call button. The doors creaked and the elevator slowly opened, as if deliberately teasing her. When Delia Asia Vieira ran inside and turned around, she saw at the last moment how a dark figure stopped at the entrance to the hall, still holding a heavy object in his hand. The stranger seemed to be watching her, making no attempt to approach.
The elevator doors clanged shut and the car began to rise. Delia Asia Vieira allowed herself to relax for a moment, but her artificial heart was still thrumming with the adrenaline simulation that was helping her move faster.
She had lost. Sergeant Neff was still in the basement, possibly dead. Her systems were seething with what might have been called the pain of loss, if she had been human.
"He believed me," thought Delia Asia Vieira. "And I left him."
But the rational part of her program told her that she simply had no other choice.
Alone again, Delia Asia Vieira realized that her purpose had changed. The search for the mysterious girl named Delia York no longer made sense. Her true purpose was to find Robert, who had been her creator, the one who had given her life. But he was gone. He was dead. And it had been seven days. Her entire existence now boiled down to one thing: finding his grave. Maybe at least finding the place where his body rested, and then she would have some understanding of her future, of why everything had happened this way.
Delia Asia Vieira stood in the elevator, trying not to think about Neff, whom she had left behind. His fate was already unclear. What had happened to him? Had he survived the elevator, or had he been captured by that mysterious pursuer? It didn't matter. All that mattered now was Robert.
When the elevator finally stopped, her metal feet landed on the hospital floor. She stepped into a corridor that seemed empty, but her sensors were constantly receiving distortions: rustling sounds, echoes of voices, strange sounds as if something or someone was moving in the farthest corners. But Delia Asia Vieira didn't pay attention to it. She had to find Robert's grave.
The hospital had become a labyrinth for her, with no exit. But she hoped that at least one clue, a trace, something that reminded her of Robert, could lead her to answers. She headed for the main exit, the image of Robert standing in front of her still alive in her memory, saying that he couldn't be with her forever. And now, a week later, she was trying to get to his grave to somehow complete this searching journey.