Chapter III
The next day was hardly an improvement and Sara woke up trembling. When she finally managed to fall asleep, despite her outrageous heartbeat, she woke up after two or three hours, looking around in panic if the hollows would come to consume her soul. Her head was still processing images from yesterday's clash with the Espada, which ended in cease fire only because of sheer luck. Interrupted sleep did not bring her the expected relief, and when she rose from her bed, she had to maintain the pretense of being confident at all costs.
There are cameras here, she kept reminding herself almost all the time. Cameras are everywhere. He is certainly watching me and I need to make sure he won't enjoy today's tapes.
Again Sara put on the white uniform, on the one hand feeling uneasy because she was dressed like the enemy, and on the other - it were the only decent clothes available, so it's not like she had much choice. She brushed her hair and using the cosmetics from her handbag, she put on make-up using a nude color palette as if she still lived in the human world. She performed these activities almost automatically, lost in thoughts about what is going to happen next. When she was finished, she breathed deeply several times and headed for the workspace, where she almost died.
The hole in the wall was still there, with its unnerving emptiness, but because Sara didn't have the means to cover it, she simply focused not to look in this direction. All the appliances remained in the same places where she left them. Nevertheless, she checked whether the host hadn't come up with some sort of a Trojan Horse. Everything seemed to be in order, but there was always a possibility the Espada would like to mess up with her a bit.
She looked around the room, which was still a chamber of secrets. Laptop, tablet filled with notes in Spanish, smashed Windows phone, iPhone, massive cell phone from the nineties and a remote control for the absent TV were based on the human technology. Since the rest was not designed by her kind, she couldn't intuitively guess how to open the cabinets or get a stool in order not to stand all the time, or to adjust the lighting to her needs, or expand countertops, so that they offer larger space for work.
Even in case of alien technology, any mechanism developed by the arrancar had to follow the rules. Szayelaporro pointed out that he would not lend her any instructions or guidance and because of yesterday's incident, he would rather not visit her. Therefore, she had more than enough time to try any solutions she saw fit.
I don't care how loud he will laugh at me, she thought. I'm going to explore this office millimeter by millimeter. I suspect that somewhere must be a top secret control panel or...
She crouched in the corner of the room, next to the external door. Her fingertips were moving over the smooth walls of the furniture with the intention of hitting on an invisible latch or a hidden button. After an initial examination of the first part of tiles and cupboards, no such possibility was uncovered. She sat on the floor, watching the tiles pensively and carefully examining their surface as well as the grooves between them. She gave a lot of attention to the grout lines, which surprisingly were not filled in with grout, that is why she previously considered them to be mobile.
After several attempts to ignite the mysterious machines or to open a gate to another dimension (and preferably to the human world), she had no other choice but to change methodology, because this approach did not produce any results.
Suddenly there was the sound of a door opening, and panicked Sara immediately rose from the floor, getting herself ready for the next battle. But it was not the Espada this time. In the entrance stood two familiar-looking, meatball-like hollows with thin, spindly arms and legs. They left two parcels, wrapped in gray cardboard on the threshold.
"Lumina and Verona..." she muttered, remembering their names "What is it?"
She glanced pointedly at their delivery. As soon as the hollows put the load on the ground and freed their hands, they started jumping and waving his arms, as if presenting their own tribal dance. They had a funny habit of finishing each other's sentences, speaking in a mixture of Spanish and broken English.
"Lord Szayelaporro told us..."
"... told us to hand this over!"
"To go to Sara Morgenstern…"
"…because Sara Morgenstern hungry!"
"Hungry, huuuungry!"
'Hunger' had to be one of their favorite words, because hollows enjoyed repeating it a handful of twenty times, still jumping like puppets whose animator got mad and was pushing all of the strings at the same time, at high speed.
"If you've actually provided me with the food and not with leftovers from your lunch, please thank your master on my behalf for his concern" she said, smiling wryly to the 'messengers'.
She picked up the two parcels from the floor and put them on the countertop, but at the same time, the hollow with a single ponytail rushed towards her. Thanks to the fact that she was leaning against the wall, she avoided a collision, and Verona hit the cabinet and landed on the tiles. Lumina began to scream and went inside with a clear intent to dispense some justice. Sara looked around, where she could hide from them, but both hollows surrounded her. The way they were waving their fists might look funny if only she held any weapon more dangerous than her nails.
But all of a sudden, when Verona and Lumina hit the tiles simultaneously...
...the top drawer emerged from one of the cupboards, located near the place where Sara was already having cold feet.
The sound of activating the mechanism and the mere appearance of the locker, which previously wasn't there, had to scare hollows to the extent they hastily fled, dodging a mysterious surprise.
The door closed behind uninvited guests automatically, and Sara once again could sigh with relief and thank for the unanticipated opportunity to avoid painful consequences of the confrontation. What is more, accidental meeting with Lumina and Verona helped her to unveil part of the mystery of this room. And although in fact she was hungry and wanted to eat the food from the human world instead of the usual synthetics, she put the parcels aside. Drawing proper conclusions from what she just saw became the top priority.
Because the room was rectangular in shape, its arrangement could be associated with an oversized qwerty keyboard. Pressing the appropriate key combination activated opening the assigned storage space. As far as she could recall, Lumina and Verona were on the positions of the letter 'o' and the number '6'. The tiles sinking simultaneously caused the release of the lock holding in place the guidelines of extendable drawers. Later, she would surely need to try different combinations of keys, and if the tiles were too far from each other, Sara immediately considered the possibility of adapting weight plates of some sort for support.
When she successfully came to the conclusion how to explain the phenomenon behind the storage area, the time has come to deal with the contents of the drawer.
It was in stark contrast with the surroundings, just a moment ago being a uniform surface without a single scratch. Judging from its size, if the others were the same, she could guessed there were two additional ones. Activating another pair of guidelines to extend, didn't make sense at the moment, because she wouldn't be able to examine their content, so she focused on reviewing what fell into her hands instead.
The drawer contained a dozen or so small bottles made of dark glass and a rack of vials. She selected a random flask, capped by an old-fashioned bottleneck, with a label hand-written in Spanish and Latin. Szayelaporro's scribbles (if it was him describing this collection) were legible, and Sara could guess what was written due to some resemblance to English terms. This one was labeled as almond oil. Something, however, was amiss about the substance and she was thinking for a while, before moving on with the new discoveries.
All of a sudden, the revelation almost hit her in the head.
This psycho hopes that I may mistake prussic acid with the oil of sweet almonds because of a similar name! she laughed to herself Oh, how sorry I am to disappoint you, hollow.
With growing enthusiasm, she sat down to read the remaining labels, focusing primarily on what error could she make judging the contents based on the descriptions, without analyzing the fluid itself. The vials were not classified in any way, but she believed they contain concentrated dyes or pigments used for painting on skin or dying hair.
If she interpreted all clues properly, this small part of the storage space contained substances used in cosmetology as well as poisons. Because some packaging were downright tiny, not much bigger than a fingernail, Szayelaporro succeeded in gathering an impressive collection in just one drawer.
That's great to have something to do the make-up with or to wash myself, when to run out of what I had with me when I was captured. But to be honest, I would rather find a way to go home. I guess I'll need a whole load of patience to accomplish that. I won't uncover all secrets of this damned place in one go, that's just not possible.
She tried to repeat Lumina and Verona's method to open the storage and hit the same combination of 'keys' to close the drawer, and then pressed her feet on the equivalents of the letter 'o' and the number '9', because this one was conveniently close. As expected, Sara found another storage opened before her eyes. She walked closer, preparing for another thorough review, but in this case, the contents and their usage were clear. There were a variety of tools, ranging from a set of thin screwdrivers, the smallest of which must have had a diameter of a hair, a box of surgical utensils, a microscope, a burner and packaging stirrers. For the time being, she didn't need any of these items, so she closed the drawer and proceeded to further inspection.
Only after she was satisfied to gain one hundred percent of knowledge from this lesson, she opened the package delivered by Lumina and Verona. She was indeed hungry, and the revelation, which she had just experienced was not able to feed her. In one of the airtight containers she found steamed fish, and the second included a mixture of chopped, warmed vegetables. There was no seasoning or butter, so the dish tasted rather flat, but certainly was healthier than the ubiquitous synthetics. It was also fairly unlikely it contained any poison or drug.
I could suspect that he'd try to add a 'surprise' to curry or a sweet dessert, but this thing would not be able to hide even the taste of salt particles.
After a few bites she realized how much she missed ordinary food, even as simple as this meal. She felt tears welling up in her eyes and she instantly realised it is not only about diet. She was a captive in Hueco Mundo, a world full of hollows, monsters feeding on human souls. The arrancar who got her imprisoned belonged to one of the highest ranks, Las Espadas and he planned to carry out the experiments on her. She was lucky that her body was still intact, and not missing any limbs or internal organs.
She was in the lab all alone, without anyone to ask for help or even let go of the grief during a conversation with another person. She could not predict what lay ahead of her, she could only guess, however, that according to the scientist's plans, there was no chance for her to come out of this adventure alive. On the other hand, Sara promised herself to work hard so that such vision would never materialise.
But I will return, she argued fervently with her mind. I'll do whatever it takes to go back home. And this hollow should better watch out.
The next days were spent on productive activities. Sara managed to gather a handful of information about her surroundings and gain some first-hand experience with the alien technology. Admittedly, none of them brought her home, but at least it helped her to ease her mind from speculating about the next days and horrors to come. Her psychopathic 'guardian' was yet to demonstrate more tricks from his inexhaustible arsenal. So far, he didn't spoil the recent days with his presence, and thus did not deprive her of pleasure of exploring the mysteries of the laboratory.
The first success encouraged her to continue to explore space she called the warehouse, although now any definition or label seemed to be irrelevant. If the main purpose of this room was to store any cargo, it would be arranged differently. The rectangular shape, a relatively small volume of containers and the empty section in the middle must have served other, unique purpose.
It's also possible that he simply adapted a broom cupboard to my 'needs' and I'm trying hard to look for hidden catch and strings attached where they don't exist.
She switched on the laptop, which – similarly as the other electronic devices - was not password-protected. The battery was fully charged, and network sensors showed several options to choose from, as if someone thought about installing transmitters somewhere in Las Noches.
No way... I can't believe that wi-fi works in Hueco Mundo!
But it somehow seemed logical after she gave this idea more insight. The Arrancar Army had to have their tools of communication and exchanging information. Access to the network of the human world gave them further opportunities to identify and observe the enemy from distance. The connection was amazingly quick. She launched a web browser, but then encountered a kind of a firewall. News portals, including websites of the daily newspapers did not work, as well as the access to email accounts. This was hardly a surprise, rather a proof of her captor's forethought and attention to details.
Sara made an overview of the installed programs. Most of the Spanish names didn't tell her absolutely anything, and she preferred not to click on random icons, in order not to carry out, for example, formatting the hard drive. She found applications resembling individual components of the MS Office. She also located the communicator of Las Noches, which, however, she was unable to launch, despite several attempts.
Either it's an extremely smart application, allowing only hollows to use it and blocking humans after checking the fingerprints hitting the keyboard, or someone screwed up the install file...
She walked away from the computer, and her mind began to wander over the deciphering how to open the overhead lockers. The bottom tier had lost its secret aura, but she was yet to find the correct combination of keys releasing the lock on the upper containers. She tested various options, which in the long run was tiring, especially as she couldn't celebrate any success. That's why she made breaks, playing with the laptop, checking the applications on the iPhone and looking for use for the shattered Windows phone. Recently she took out the battery, which was intact and could be used as a portable power source...
...but only after Sara would familiarise herself with local energy storage policies. And that wouldn't be anytime soon.
Be patient, she advised herself. The sooner I can think of anything, the better, because it's not holiday and I can't expect anything positive here. On the other hand, I should not jump from one idea to another or throw myself desperately at every scrap of information I get. An in-depth analysis and drawing appropriate conclusions is the key to survival in this place.
Overcoming her reluctance, she returned to struggle with the keys to the areas yet unknown. Her main motivating factors were the plans how to utilize this discovery. She believed that the system of keys must have certain features in common in the entire laboratory centre. Therefore, if she managed to work out the simplest ones, she would be able to move to the more complex ones, for example, the blockade on the external door. Naturally, Octava Fraccion were probably waiting outside, but it didn't matter much. The sheer discovery was more important. Clearing this obstacle was like another stone that she could jump on her way to the final goal.
When testing different combinations of keys, her thoughts flew away and after a while she was able to justify this sensation. Jumping around and pressing tiles, taking mechanical, repetitive actions - all of them didn't fit the extravagant breadth of the Espada's cabinet of curiosities. Sara would rather expect a multi-level interactive strategy game with lots of puns and unusual puzzles.
Or I'm trying to convince myself that I'd prefer such a charade?
However, it was too late - her mind picked up this idea and decided to stick to it as much as a mountaineer does with their rope.
Besides, she added in thoughts, such a simple, even simplistic solution could not be the correct one, and was arranged as a fortunate coincidence.
Sara took several steps forward, which were loosely based on the chassé of cha-cha-cha, her favorite ballroom dance. She emphasized the graceful movements by overexaggerated footwork.
One of the steps must have hit the bullseye, because the storage compartment located above her suddenly opened, and its contents - a pile of books - fell onto her head. She tried to protect herself by raising her hands in the air and catching the volumes, but she managed to grab just one of them. Then the source of flying literature went dead. She left the one in her hands on the counter, then gathered the others and put them together, trying to guess what they had in common, except that all the titles were in Spanish.
What was more, most of them were language textbooks.
She reviewed this collection, rather bizarre for a laboratory based in a world of hollows. Some books looked like they were printed in the XIX century, their pages were yellow-grayish and graphic design was archaic. In turn, others were completely modern, as if they had just emerged from the bookstore and bore no signs of use.
Sara realised they didn't appear in this shelf by accident. These books were clearly waiting for her with an evident purpose in mind.
Well, then. Since señor Espada thinks that I need to fill in inexcusable gaps in the knowledge of foreign languages, I'll start cleaning my backlog.
She smiled mischievously.
First I'll try to memorize the nasty words to properly comment his ideas, and then I'll pretend that I don't understand what I'm saying. He probably won't take this joke well, but it'll be fun anyway.
Sara knew the number of her credit card by heart and for a very brief moment she was tempted to purchase new clothes, shoes, bags in one of her favorite online stores. Only after giving this idea some thought, she gave up. Reasons were obvious. She had no doubt that her 'guardian' would be able to circumvent any security protocol and hack the transaction data, although it would not make much sense. Why would he be interested in accessing her bank account? What he would buy with that money? He would not find sufficient amount to take over a country, so this move wouldn't pay off. Sara got a well-paid job, but she invested most of her earnings in mutual funds, bonds and shares, so it often happened that her current account didn't show impressive digits.
Even after reassuring herself that the Espada would have no benefit in breaking into her funds, she thought about the instructions she needed to provide the courier. With increasing amusement she imagined a bold adventurer, who undertakes the task to deliver the consignment to the Las Noches base.
It's a pity, because in the new Balenciaga's collection there are quite a lot of white clothes, which I guess that Aizen's army would like to wear. Maybe if more of the arrancar would be interested in ordering them, we could apply for free shipping... if it wasn't for the address. But even Spanish-language would get lost in Hueco Mundo.
She smiled to herself, going one step forward in her bold wishes for comfort and wondering if Szayelaporro Granz would have provided her his funds if she asked him to do so. Or if by fortunate coincidence she found his credit card... if he had any, that is.
I think that here it's enough to have Aizen as the boss.
Eventually, Sara decided to take the risk and used her credit card to buy some music. She liked working in silence, but the conditions in the laboratory in this respect were quite unnatural, like in a tomb. Not a single sound came from the outside, and she had uneasy feelings that her breath or footsteps are too loud and were distracting her like an artillery charge. At the same time, she was lacking contact with people, exchanging jokes and anecdotes, even the despised small talk. Favourite songs were going to be a remedy for the mind-boggling emptiness.
Her taste was very diverse, and because she was interested in the history of music, she happened to listen to classical music, but also various genres of rock from different decades, as well as heavy metal. She also often bought the soundtracks from musicals, which she enjoyed, watching them performed on stage. She also followed the pop scene since the end of the World War II. Actually, she could say the same about most types of music, as during the dance classes she was dealing with variety of rhythms and beats.
Sara was keeping an eye on the downloading status. After a moment, the albums that she just bought were to be found on the computer's hard drive.
She was getting impatient waiting for her music base to build up. She also had singing in mind. Although she wasn't very good in that, she found singing – even out of tune – relaxing. She liked to listen to songs in different languages, which helped her become acquainted with their accents. This not only supported the learning process, and at the same time it made it more enjoyable.
Sara had been studying English and German for a long time, and used them in every day communication in business. Because of her origins, she was also a specialist in Slavic languages. She had no problem understanding the majority of citizens of central and eastern Europe. She was self-taught in Russian, including the alphabet, and in spite of some problems with grammar, she spoke the language quite well. She became familiar with basic Romanian when one of her friends married a woman originating from Romania. She liked Serbian and Croatian, but did not have time to learn them properly and could just say a couple of basic phrases.
While trying to adapt to the new conditions, Sara turned on some of her favourite music and it didn't take her long to start singing along. She couldn't resist the temptation of playing with the fact she was under constant surveillance and chose the songs with suggestive lyrics, such as 'I want to be a victim ready for abduction' or 'Let me have it, let me grab your soul away.'
She even declared, 'I'm not an animal in the zoo, this animal will jump up and eat you.'
It was like a discreet way of sticking her tongue out at the Espada.
It's childish, but still it's funny.
With a triumphant smile on her face, she organised the textbooks according to the difficulty level and put them at the side, next to English-Spanish and English-Spanish dictionaries, and separated them from the third group of more advanced materials such as fiction and poetry. She anticipated a lot of reading and memorising, because nowhere she could find any pen or paper, to write down summaries of the lessons or do the exercises. She was disappointed by that, because the information she recorded using handwriting was always quicker to understand and learn.
The first chapters contained the absolute basics that Sara found very easy. She was repeating aloud the formulas of greeting, introductions, saying goodbye and various courtesy phrases that usually appear in the initial lessons, but that were completely impractical in the current circumstances. She could not imagine that being in Las Noches she would ask anyone to show the way, or explain that she speaks poor Spanish (it's obvious! At least until she has not assimilates the each lessons), or ask where she can find the restroom.
All the time she had an issue with no means to draw up notes. The touch screen was not made for writing long theses or neverending blockbusters, but in this case it was her only option. She picked up the iPhone and felt a sudden revelation. After the initial learning of the grammar and vocabulary of a foreign language, Spanish menu in the device – without the possibility to change it into English or any other language – lost its mysterious aura. That gave her an idea how to enrich the fill-in-the-blanks exercises.
She switched on the App Store – it was not locked, although she didn't plan to buy anything – and with the proud twinkle in her eye, she found the local version of Siri. She hadn't used the functions of a personal assistant too often, regarding it as just a whim for geeks, but now it offered the perfect opportunity to get to know its potential. The latest models of iPhones were supposed to respond to voice, and to verify this, she laid the device down on the countertop.
"Hola, Siri."
She said the command a little too loudly, as the distance that separated her from the 'interlocutor' was not that long. The iPhone apparently didn't mind, because the screen flashed, clearly being activated, and a moment later her words appeared written in white font on black background.
"Me llamo Siri" said the pleasant female voice. "Esperando instrucciones."
Although the application didn't have a webcam, Sara smiled at the phone.
"Me llamo Sara Morgenstern."
"Saved in memory."
"My new contacts. My brother's name is Aleksander Morgenstern and his number is", here with a little help from the textbook, she listed a random string of digits. "My best friends are Anna Brodecka, her number is," again, she said a random number "and Liwia Roman, her number..."
Application flawlessly repeated three names and saved the phone numbers in contacts. The numbers were fake, but it was just to test the capabilities of the device and her own, related to learning a new language.
Sara played with the app, asking some simple and largely pointless questions like: "¿Cómo eres?", "¿Cuál es tu color favorito?" ¿Hablas inglés? "(in this case the answer was, unfortunately, negative)," ¿Quién es tu papá? "," ¿Quien es tu mamá? "or" ¿Qué opinas de las tabletas Android? ", which turned out to be unexpectedly funny. When she exhausted her list of ideas for exploiting the application, she closed it by an ordinary farewell:
"Adiós, Siri."
After that, she reached for the book, but the impulse told her to withdraw her hand. She was still staring at the iPhone misty-eyed.
And if I only could...
She mused.
Why couldn't I? Since there is no limiter or anything of that sort...
She scrolled the list of available applications and found the ones she considered helpful for her plans. Programs to check the weather, the location on the map or the clock seemed to be completely impractical in the laboratory. However, Sara immediately began to think about modifying their code, changing parameters and adapting them to her current needs.
I'll definitely need an app to draw a map of the lab, because I probably saw like one hundredth of its size and I don't want to get lost here. I could also use a sensor to measure the energy levels. It's a bit unfortunate that I don't have the notes from training with the Twelfth Division, when I was explained the mechanics of the process, but let's see how much I still remember. I'll try my best to play with the technology used in Hueco Mundo. Let's see how it goes...
She turned on her favourite music again and while singing along with the rock band, she started to work.