"Ya lookin' for that big group what was here?" asked a boy behind the front desk.
"Yeah! Where are they?"
"Headed out about a min ago."
"Why did they leave me here?" she whined. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do!"
"Mebbe ya shoulda stayed with 'em," he scolded, which wasn't remotely helpful. "Ya got trackin'?"
Arratoi frowned, but nodded. "I think."
"Well, they cain't have gone too far. Might catch up in a hour or so, if ya hurry."
Not helpful! "There's a man out here, in the jungle. He needs help, but I don't know what to do!"
The boy twitched his ears at attention. "Ah reckon ah could give ya a hand wit' 'im."
"Thank you so much..."
He put a 'back in a min' sign on the desk and followed Arratoi into the jungle. If the boy noticed the – SOMETHING hanging over the front lawn, he didn't say anything. "He's over here," she directed, tracing her steps to where Vepar? lay.
"Dag, he looks like he's been in a heap o' trouble," the boy noted. "Ah reckon ya cain't lift 'im even with mah help, eh?"
Arratoi grimaced. He had to weigh like a hundred stone! "Nuh-uh," she agreed.
"Ya look like a FR/B," he noted. "Ya cain't move 'im?"
The thought hadn't crossed her mind. She felt stupid for not thinking of that sooner. "I don't know where to put him."
"Ah, hokee." He scratched his head for a moment. "Try to send 'im to 16,20. Tha's the hospital wing."
Arratoi nodded, suddenly nervous that her spell would fail. Hebi had scolded her for summoning baby Zog. What would happen to the man if she messed up again?
NO! She needed to do it! So much depended on her being the girl big enough to succeed on her own that Zorrillo said she was!
- 10 THERE=16,20
20 FOR VEPAR=1
30 GOTO 10
"It din't work?" the boy asked, pointing out the obvious.
"It has to work!" she whined, trying again. "Why isn't it working?!"
"This is Vepar?"
"He was a few days ago."
"Ah'unno. Don't look like a Vepar. Lemme try somfin'."
Arratoi looked on in worry as he cast a spell of his own.
- CTRL-ALT-U
CTRL-F > "Root"
"Orne?" Arratoi was both amazed and envious of the spell. He couldn't have been more than a couple grades ahead of her. How did he know to do that? At the same time, she couldn't begin to comprehend how it worked, even though she understood the second half. It was as though she was on the cusp of understanding but it was just out of reach... "What base is that?"
"Ah... DK, I think."
"DK?" She'd never even heard of that! "What do they do?"
"Ah'unno. Ah jes' know it when ah see it."
She stared at Orne, trying her spell again:
- 10 THERE=16,20
20 FOR ORNE=1
30 GOTO 10
"Jes' behind the hotel. There's a e-mergency centre there. Handy when we get all these kids what don't wanna wait fer a safeguard fer the pool."
"Uhn." Arratoi bowed in courtesy. "Thank you for your help."
"Ah, don't mention it."
She hightailed it to the hospital wing in dismay. It scared her to be the only one who had even a hint of who he was and what he'd been through, especially because she didn't know much at all about him. "Where is he?" she cried, rushing through the front doors to the administration desk.
Oblivious to the screaming until it assaulted her ears in the form of the receptionist barrelling past her.
"Huh?"
An orderly came running up. "What's the matter?"
"A dead person just appeared out of nowhere!" the receptionist cried. "He's behind the desk!"
"He's not dead!" Arratoi shouted, stamping her foot.
The adults finally noticed her. "What do you mean?" asked the orderly. "What do you know about this?"
"He was in trouble, and I sent him here!" She ran behind the receptionist's desk to check on him, hoping she hadn't indeed killed him in the process. "He's just in sleep mode."
They followed her to examine the body, checking his pulse. "Yep, he's just asleep," the orderly agreed. "You should be more careful how you send people, though—he could have appeared in a wall, and then what?"
Arratoi's lip trembled in distress. "I sent him where he told me!"
"Who?"
"The boy at the hotel!"
"Hmm. His calibration may be off. Or—what grade are you?"
"Five!" she cheered as best she could, but it felt empty somehow.
"Oh. Well."
"What?"
The orderly seemed to bite his tongue. "Whatever—nevermind." He took to the intercom. "I need to get a stretcher to the front desk, 20-43. Stretcher to the front desk, 20-43."
"What's that?" Arratoi asked, wondering how much more they needed her help.
"Is he your prior?"
"No, he just – fell." It was difficult to describe, since even she hadn't seen it happen. "But everyone left without me, and I was the only one there to help!"
Whether the adults were impressed, concerned, or disinterested in her actions, Arratoi couldn't tell. "Tell me everything you know," the receptionist said once she calmed down, taking a clipboard in hand and grabbing a pen.
As some more orderlies came to the front and lifted Orne onto a stretcher, Arratoi did her best to recall every detail about the man, down to the odd things he said to her and the fact that her group had gone, leaving her alone to help him. The receptionist nodded at each note, ticking off one thing or another every so often.
As the staff took Orne away, Arratoi wondered if she would see him again. It wasn't likely the captains would insist the group stay here to monitor his recovery... "Will I be able to stay with him?" she asked on impulse.
"What? Why would—" As she said it, the receptionist choked back her question. "I mean, it's lovely that you want to attend to this stranger, but won't your group be concerned that you're missing?"
"...no," she declared, partly out of spite.
"Are you sure? We can try to contact them to let them know where you are."
"I'm big enough to succeed on my own!"
"Well, who is your prior, anyway? We'll just send word so they're not worried about you."
"NO!" she whined. "I don't need them!"
"Okay, sweetie," the receptionist surrendered, throwing up her hands in defeat. "Just wait for a bit in the lobby while we set up his room and do some examinations."
"Thank you." Despite her worry, she was polite, after all. Arratoi took a seat in the waiting room, picking up a copy of Highlights and flipping through it.
A bit wasn't actually, though. As she finished the seek-and-find and grew tired of the magazine, Arratoi watched the telly, but it was some boring newscast. Ugh! None of the other magazines were good, though.
She was starting to get hungry. She hadn't gotten to eat breakfast, and it was approaching dinner. Who knew what she was going to do for supper... Tapping her emblem, she withdrew her purse and checked its contents: three pence and a rio.
"Where are the vending machines?" she asked, walking back up to the front desk.
"Down that hall, on the left. There's a bathroom on the right."
"Thank you."
She followed the hall to the niche where the vending machines stood, looking over the wares with a bit of uncertainty. The smallest price she could find was 1R5p, and this was her life's savings! For a candy bar that would leave her hungry in an hour! Whimpering, she felt the weight of being alone upon her—how would she manage without money?
Wait. Surely there was a reason people did so much with spells?
- CTRL-F > "rio"
"Did you find the machines okay?" the receptionist asked in a cheery voice, oblivious to her dilemma.
"Yes..."
"—is something wrong?"
"I don't have enough."
"Oh. I'm sorry, sweetie." She glanced up at the sky. "Well, it's nearly top-sun, so they'll be serving dinner soon. Perhaps we can get you a small plate of something when they do the rounds."
At least she had that much. "Thank you so much, mum!"
"Speaking of, your stranger is ready for visitors. I can't say much about what Nutria would tell you, though. He's the Base-ES in charge of—" She had to look it up on her chart. "—Orne."
"Okay. What room is he in?"
"Room 101." She pointed down the opposite hall. "Just that way."
Something about that gave Arratoi a strange sense of foreboding. "Thank you again."
She continued down the hall to the indicated room and knocked on the door before entering. "Hello," greeted the friendly man inside she guessed was Nutria. "Are you here to see Orne?"
"Ah..." Suddenly, Arratoi felt shy. She didn't belong here... "Yes?"
"Come in, come in." He was old—even older than Orne was—but he didn't seem completely scary. "I wanted to ask you a few things while you were here."
"...okay," she agreed, feeling it might be better to do what she was told. For now.
"How do you know Orne?"
Once again, she went into the story of how she found him, feeling a mix of triumph at doing what she had, embarrassment at failing where she had, and dismay that he didn't seem to be any better even after getting aid from a master healer.
"Hmm. And you decided to help out someone in need even when it meant being abandoned by your brigade?"
"I..." Tears started to form in her eyes. "I didn't—"
"Oh, it's okay, my dear! You have a good heart to try to help others, even when it costs you to help." It gave her small comfort, anyway. "Now, here's what I can't figure out."
He performed the same spell that Cavall had performed earlier, forming a series of pop-ups that depicted various unidentifiable points in time. "What ARE those?" she asked, eyes filled with wonder at the sight.
"See—that's just what I can't figure out." Nutria shook his head in bewilderment. "Most people are at least a little aware of the Base-DK people. Fewer people know what it is they DO. I'm not sure if it ties into what these strange events are in his history, and I'm even less sure why they all seem to take place YESTERDAY."
"Yesterday?!" How could he have grown so old in ONE DAY?
"It's definitely a mystery," he agreed. "There seems to be far too much in the history for the span of time this covers. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to depict anything in our known universe!"
Arratoi looked at one pop-up, depicting a city-sized fortress on giant tank treads, chasing a smaller fortress across a vast expanse of barren wasteland. Where could that possibly be?
"Now, I could possibly track down another Base-DK and ask just what this could be, but they tend to be private people, not eager to let just anyone know about their specialty. Given the things I see here, though, I can begin to see why they would keep such secrets under wraps. If they open doors to whole other planes of existence, who knows what it could mean for the stability of our own?"
"A door?" Arratoi thought about the – SOMETHING she had seen. "What about a tear?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like—"
Just then, Orne started to stir. "Oops," Nutria muttered. "I must have brought him out of sleep mode. Good morning, sire!"
Orne blinked his eyes slowly, looking about the room as he did.
"Please don't stress yourself, sire," Nutria continued. "We have you under sedation, considering your current state. Your little saviour is here, too, if you would like to see her."
He looked at the two of them, then at Arratoi directly. It was difficult to say whether he was in any more pain, but at least he wasn't screaming. "'Allo, sire," she greeted, curtsying.
If he wanted to say anything to either of them, he didn't. It was as though he couldn't even...
"Can he speak?" Arratoi asked, her mind jumping to all kinds of horrible conclusions.
"He should be able to speak just fine," Nutria consoled her. "It may simply be the shock of being back from whatever these places in his history are."
At the mention of his history, Orne seemed to shudder. Nutria took his hand and used his healing ability, sending impulses of calm back through the man's body.
"Am I really back..." he whispered, almost too low to hear.
"You are on the star," Nutria replied. "We know of no designation other than The Universe for our universe, but you are here."
"What base am I?"
"Your source code says DK."
Orne closed his eyes, frowning. "I had to learn to survive. Now I don't remember how to shift back."
"We can try a manual shift, if you like," Nutria offered. "A word of warning, however—it may be painful to be coerced."
"Pain..." His tone was indiscernable. If Arratoi didn't know better, she would have thought he sounded resigned to it.
"Is that a no, then? I'm okay with letting you recover first before deciding, of course."
"How old am I?"
Nutria frowned. "You SHOULD be fifteen years. However, your physical condition, affected by SORAS, describes one of thirty-four, as does your history covering a span of time of one day."
"That long..." He looked as though he wanted to cry and never stop, but he couldn't remember how.
"Now, there ARE options. We have a reversionist who can step you back a day and POSSIBLY undo the damag—"
"NO!" he shouted, struggling against the sedation to keep Nutria away from him. "No..."
"It's okay! We aren't going to do anything you don't want. I'm just explaining all the options."
"Why don't you want to revert?" Arratoi asked, not understanding.
"I can't—" Orne seemed to struggle for the words. "Never forget."
"Never forget what?"
"My dear," Nutria explained, putting a hand on her shoulder, "as you may or may not be aware, reverting erases one's memory, because new memories are a part of the progress one makes in life. If we revert him a day, he may indeed lose all these nineteen years of accumulated history—and, in that, something vital. Even reverting him an hour may erase years."
Arratoi shrieked in dismay. "I reverted ten...!"
"I noticed something had happened, yes." Nutria patted her on the head in what was probably reassurement, but it felt patronizing. "Don't worry—your reversion was not strong enough. I managed to step forward again to regain a state of stability."
She wasn't sure if she was relieved or annoyed. Reversion was supposed to be permanent!
No comments:
Post a Comment