Abi kept her distance from the man leading her down the hall, matching his strides to make sure she didn't get too close. She may have chosen to follow him but she didn't trust a single hair on his head and she watched him warily as he stepped back into the darker hallway. They were headed back towards the room with the pods.
"Mother, please ask Karine to meet us in the medbay. And open these doors," he added, turning to stand in front of one of the doorways that had slammed shut earlier. He turned to look at Abi and gave her a smile that was almost apologetic. "It won't be a long walk from here. If you feel like you are going to be sick again before we get there, please let me know."
He was waiting for a response so Abi nodded, following behind him when the door slid open. The doors down the hall slid open as well and Abi paused for a moment, her head spinning with thoughts about finding a way out.
"Karine will meet you in the medbay," the robotic voice sounded from above again and Abi flinched, turning to see that the man was down the hall and had paused to wait for her. Giving the doors a final look, Abi stepped over the threshold and followed the man through a maze of hallways. Some were larger, some were narrow, but all were completely empty and metal from floor to ceiling. There was something cold and sterile about them that kept Abi on edge.
The air started to get warmer as they went. Abi had barely noticed how numb her feet and hands had become in her haste to escape and they tingled, almost painfully, as they slowly started to warm up again.
"Here is our medbay," the man said, having come to a stop at another doorway and motioned with a hand for Abi to go first.
"Hi Walter, did you find her?" He turned to look at the doctor before turning back to Abi, motioning again for her to go in first. This time he stepped away from the door, giving her a bit of space as Abi slowly came closer. "Come on in!"
Karine's voice was cheerful and inviting as Abi stepped into the room.
It was remarkably like the hallways they had walked through; plain metal floor and walls and not much in the way of windows or decorations. Several black screens sat above a counter and a woman sat in a chair in front of them.
Abi took a moment to look her over; she wore the same clothes as Walter but was quite a bit smaller, with darker skin, eyes, and hair. She had a warmer smile and Abi thought if she hadn't just woken up in a metal maze of a nightmare she may have found comfort in it.
Karine grinned and reached out a hand but Abi was looking around the room and hugged her arms across her chest when she felt both sets of eyes watching her. For a medical room, it was noticeably empty of all of the medical supplies she was used to seeing during her visits with her own doctor. No blood pressure cuffs on the wall, no exam table, no jars of cotton swabs or those wooden sticks that always made her gag.
"How are you feeling right now?" Abi turned to look at Karine when she spoke but paused to think about it.
"Kinda nauseous," Abi admitted, shifting her weight between her cold feet nervously. Her voice still sounded slow and hoarse, her throat burned with the effort.
"That'll be from the hypersleep," the doctor said knowingly, turning her chair to face the screens. Abi watched, fascinated, as she waved a hand over the counter and blue lights started to glow against the metal, taking the shape of a large keyboard with far more buttons than Abi remembered seeing on her own laptop. The doctor's thin fingers ran over the keys quickly and one of the black screens lit up, words running across the screen in time with the typing. "It tends to make people nauseated but it should go away on its own within another ten minutes or so. How long have you been awake?"
The tapping against the counter stopped and the doctor turned her head to look at Abi over her shoulder.
"Sixteen minutes," Walter answered, his hands behind his back and looking very much like a guard on duty.
The tapping on the counter continued for a moment before Karine stood up and moved down the counter, waving her hand again. A drawer opened at her command and Abi watched with wide eyes as the drawer shut, disappearing entirely back into the plain wall.
Karine turned to Abi, a handful of tools in her hands and a comforting smile on her pretty face.
"Here, let me get the table out." Karine handed the tools off to Walter and walked to a plain wall, her hands commanding a table to slide out from the wall just like the drawer.
So the rooms and halls aren't bare. They just hide everything. Abi briefly wondered if she could make drawers and tables appear too but the thought was cut off when Karine patted the table.
"Hop on. I just want to check your vitals." Abi moved slowly, feeling sluggish and taken aback by how different this office was, but she pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the table. The metal under her was cold to the touch and Abi clasped her icy fingers together in her lap, trying to stifle the shiver that ran up her spine as Karine took the tools back from Walter and placed them in a line on the table beside her.
Karine grabbed an instrument and moved to stand in front of Abi. There was a click and a light appeared, and suddenly the blinding white light flashed up to Abi's face and she flinched back, raising her hands to block it as a shock of pain erupted behind her eyes.
"Sorry," Karine apologized, moving the light away and waiting until Abi blinked the pain away and lowered her hands back to her lap.
"I should have warned you, I need to check your eyes." The doctor lifted up the light again. Abi bit down on her lip as the light flicked across her face, pausing painfully long in front of each eye before the light clicked off and was placed back on the table.
"Maybe a minor form of a concussion," Karine said, more to herself than to Abi, and looked over at Walter who had retreated to the doorway again. "Can you put that into her file?"
Walter nodded and sat in her chair, his fingers moving across the counter rapidly. When he was done he turned the chair to face them again, waiting and watching patiently, almost curiously.
"Does your head hurt?" Karine asked, her hands coming up to probe the sides of Abi's neck through the spandex fabric. Her fingers were warm and while Abi wanted to move away from being touched by these strange people, the warmth felt nice. "Does you head hurt?" Karine asked again.
"It did with the light," Abi said and Karine probed along her base of her neck and along her collarbones before removing her warm hands. She felt goosebumps on her arms as a shiver ran through her again when the lack of warmth made her feel colder than before. "Not so bad now."
"Add light sensitivity, pupils reacted appropriately," Karine said to Walter and he turned the chair to tap away on the counter. "You can take off the cap now, I need to check your ears."
Abi felt at the fabric around her head and found a seam along her neck. She tugged the tight fabric off of her head and felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as the chilly air met her skin. Her hair fell around her neck and shoulders but offered her about as much warmth as the cap had, which was not as much as she would have liked. Karine's warm hand reached up and pressed against Abi's jaw, silently moving her head to the side and pushing her hair behind her ear.
Abi let the doctor check out her ears, press something against her chest and back and stomach to listen, and opened her mouth wide so she could shine a light into her throat. She laid back on the table when Karine asked her to and allowed the doctor to press her fingers against her stomach, expertly feeling her abdomen and nodding when she was finished.
"Everything else looks fine," Karine said, setting down her final instrument and gathering them all up to go back to the hidden drawer. Walter typed away on the glowing blue keyboard and Abi slowly sat up, letting her legs dangle over the side of the table again. "You'll need some proteins and carbs, so drink one of these." Karine moved closer to the door to a plain spot on the wall, and this time Abi wasn't as surprised when part of the wall moved to reveal several bottles. "Strawberry or chocolate?"
"Strawberry," Abi said when she realized the question was for her and took the opened bottled that the doctor offered to her, watching as the door slid shut and the bottles disappeared from view.
"Do you have any questions for me?" Karine asked, leaning against the wall beside the screens and crossing her arms while Abi took an experimental sip. The drink reminded her of strawberry milk and as weird as the thick liquid was, it was better than the metallic bile that she had been tasting since she had vomited.
Abi tried to say something but had to clear her throat to try again.
"Where am I?"
Karine smiled warmly at the simple question.
"You're on the Covenant. We're on our way to Origae-6. Our scientists have been studying the planet for years and it seems to be the best option for sustaining human life." Abi felt her mouth go dry, struggling to process the words and names that were so foreign. "You weren't supposed to wake up yet. None of us were, actually. There were some issues with the ship and some of the colonist pods were damaged, yours too. You're pretty lucky if you only have a concussion from that." Karine paused again like she was giving Abi a chance to say something. "We're still a good seven years or so from Origae-6 but we'll figure out what's going on and get everyone back into hypersleep soon."
Abi's head felt like it was heavy and she closed her eyes as tightly as she could.
Damage to a ship. Origae-6. Seven years.
Maybe Abi really did have a concussion, maybe that's why none of this was making sense. Abi tried to remember anything that would explain this; there was something seriously missing if she had ditched her dreams of art school, of becoming an art teacher in New York, to go sleep in a pod for years. That something would have to be massive to explain the gaps in her memory.
Abi lifted a hand to her head, the room feeling like it was buzzing around her. Her hands felt like they were tingling again and white spots started to appear at the edge of her vision when she blinked.
The last thing she remembered was hearing something loud crash and Karine and Walter jumping towards her before everything went black.