Though the light was dim, I felt like staring into search lights. The effect of the drug was slowly fading and the pain, seeping back in. I knew that it had been a miracle that I was alive. I knew this not because I remembered what had happened to me, but by the seriousness of my wounds. My head hurt every time I tried to remember anything, so for the moment I decided to rest. I was suddenly hit by a wave of convulsions. I desperately tried to grab the sides of what seemed like an autopsy table. ‘Hell!’ ‘Am I dead?’ The convulsions made way to pain and nausea. ‘I am alive, or at least I should assume so for the moment because everything I did from then would be vital for survival.’
I carefully injected myself with another dose of the drug. Relief! I could fight the pain now. Slowly and carefully, I sat up and started to tend to my wounds with whatever first aid I could find. Now that the pain was gone, I began to wonder what I was doing in this dingy room. Before my thoughts could become coherent, I heard footsteps and reflexively got off the table and moved to the nearest dark corner and crouched. ‘Why did I do that?’ A senile man clad in scrubs entered. He froze at the sight of the empty table, looked startled and confused. I waited in the shadows, in silence.
“Anybody here? I am only here to help” said a weak voice.
After some consideration, I replied “Who are you? How did I get here?” I was startled at the seriousness of my own voice.
“I am Rivera, a mortician. I found you in my graveyard.”
In between bursts of pain, I muttered “I’ve heard of backyards, but ‘your’ graveyard? Anyway, where am I? How did I get these wounds?”
“Son, can you tell me your name? I just found you lying covered in blood in the graveyard; I don’t know how you got here. This is a place is separated from the village by the woods.”
“Village! I must be in NML!” I felt a sudden twitch in my head and suddenly it all seemed to come back. “Ah! I remember why I came here. I needed to collects a few plants to prepare some extracts. I am a doctor in a nearby village. I was attacked by the beasts. My name is Sylvan”
“Ah! They have become quite the menace. Frankly, I am amazed at how resilient you are. I have not seen such terrible wounds heal so fast. Are you really from another village in NML? ”
My mind was clearing up now, I examined my body to find a deep cut on the side which seemed to have just missed slicing open my kidneys and a long gash on the left thigh. ‘That will leave an ugly scar!’
“Anyway,” the weak voice continued “you should probably go to the village and get those wounds treated as soon as you can.”
“Yeah I guess so. Can you please get me my clothing and my bag? I think I should be able to manage on my own now. Thank you very much for your assistance Rivera.”
Despite his protests I left the lone house and headed into the woods. Something twitched in my head again, this time I could discern a faint click. A huge wave of pain and nausea hit me. My knees buckled and I fell headlong onto the dusty road. My brain seemed to swim around as I coughed out blood. ‘I’d be damned! I had entered a fugue state!? The auto-alarm had been activated. Well I guess there is a first time to everything.’ I reached into my bag and placed my fingers on the scanners which were extremely well hidden. The insides of what looked like a dusty, ordinary duffel bag whirred into life. A briefcase made of super-flexible polymers clicked open. I picked up my camouflage wear, checked if the suit was completely charged up and switched into it quickly. The dark overall covering the suit adjusted itself to fit me perfectly. I adjusted the suit temperature settings and activated the first aid. My head felt light as the morphine hit the blood stream along with a swarm of nanobots. ‘I must remember to thank Diedric when I meet him next time, if there were ever to be a next time.’ The nanobots started to heal the wounds from the inside. The broken cells were smoothly replicated using the raw materials that they contained within themselves.
I sat down, leaning onto the trunk of an old tree. ‘How am I in such a mess?’ I thought bitterly. ‘I have never been forced into a fugue state.’ Thank God! Diedric had insisted on having an auto alarm system that would let my brain enter a state of amnesia where a new identity would be supplied. That way, if I were ever captured, I would be of no use to my captors. He had created the proxy Sylvan, a doctor hailing from one of the many tiny villages in No Man’s Land or NML and encoded the primary objective as seeking a hideout in the woods of NML. Once I reached my destination I would automatically emerge from the fugue state. Diedric had mused about the significance of choosing the name Sylvan since it meant a spirit that frequents the woods. I smiled despite my pain. The whole system was such that, upon reaching the woods, I was only supposed to feel tired and remember nothing about the journey itself. But something had gone wrong. Something had gone terribly wrong. I reached into the bag and picked up a piece of laminated paper, of the size of my palm. After scanning my fingerprints and retina, the computer asked for my Code Name. I replied “Gordaine” gritting my teeth remembering that I was always denied permission to change my Code Name. The computer came to life showing an array of tools and automatically established a connection to the headquarters. My worst suspicions came true when I saw the computer initiate the self-destruct sequence. Diedric had come up with this addition recently. The computer housed nanobots, which could destroy the computer incase the security of the headquarters was severely compromised. This meant there was a Code Red Alpha Alert (CRAA). During a CRAA all the agents had a complete identity make-over. Ironically I finally got a Code Name change. All the information regarding the new identity was stored in the suit which had been automatically activated by the computer before it disintegrated into dust. I heard a faint click in my head, followed by a wave information being sent directly into the permanent memory at dizzying speeds. After a few minutes of disorientation my thoughts became coherent. ‘Ark! Ark Heys…. sounds good’ I thought to myself.
I got up and slowly started walking deeper into the woods. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was exactly that had led to me turning up half dead in some graveyard and the HQ into a CRAA. I activated the computer on my sleeve and started to scroll through what it had recorded of the past few days. I stopped dead. I had been in a fugue state for more than a week! How did they get to me when I was in deep cover! Just the thought sent shivers down my spine. It was happening. However much I would have loved to deny my premonitions, it was inevitable. Unconsciously, I started to walk faster; I had to get to Diedric quickly. If he was still alive, I knew where to find him. I had to do my part to save the planet before it was too late. I had to stop the imminent war!
