25
I am under the surface
Where the blackness burns beneath
Ruelle, "Deep End"
Jade
"Your judgement remains forthcoming."
It was the guttural promise Robotnik had thrown at her, as she was locked back inside the glass partitions of a medical bay.
Whatever had drawn him into a silent rage in the elevator had barred any further conversation between them. The fragile, precarious understanding Jade had been fighting so hard to initiate had shattered in the wake of that message.
He will never trust you.
She stood there for sometime, after the main entryway resealed behind him, eyes blurring on the thick slider door. It was almost violent, she thought, to feel such a severe separation between what she had done and what she truly wanted to do. Even when she'd slashed Orin's calf open the outcomes of her actions had never felt this dire; this betraying to her own self.
Temporarily surviving another life or death scenario was not a thing to grieve, yet even so, the methods by which she had survived were a new torment. The shock of it was like another stun burn.
She reasoned, with fierce determination, that if she could just disregard every memory associated with her captor, or better still, slice the murderer out of her thoughts entirely — instead of repeatedly and tortuously circling back to those few, terrible moments where nothing had made physical sense — then perhaps the task before her wouldn't feel so treacherous now.
The dark current of it all threatened to sweep Jade's feet out from under her. She kept urging her thoughts towards anything else, pacing the length of a wall.
To that jarring, difficult end, she finally managed to put her attention on the dozens of fully activated SWATbots stationed in the greater medical ward. Most of them marched throughout the stretching room but a few, it appeared from her limited vantage point, had halted near another glass partition at the far end. Six more stood directly outside her own clear cage, surrounding the box as she imagined gigantic, monolithic columns might – cold, silent, and unperturbed by the emotions of the living.
With an intensity of focus born out of a rising need to dissociate from her current predicament rather than any true interest, she tried to pinpoint which bot had held its rifle only inches from her face in the generator room. After minutes of studying their sleek profiles, however, she found they were all painstakingly the same.
You should be dead at least ten times over by now.
The thought clawed its way to the surface, pushing against her weakened sense of control and then breaking free entirely. She let the ominous cloud of it expand, somehow more eager to entertain this definite truth than anything more complicated and appalling. Spreading her fingers out on the paraglass, she was reminded too harshly of the fragility of her skin. The scars on her chest seemed to prickle.
A soft beep sounded behind her. She'd almost forgotten she wasn't alone.
Glancing over a shoulder as the med-bot reanimated, she watched the smooth planes of its body split and unfold into two sets of multi-jointed limbs. The sight brought back some foggy, school-aged memory: a video of an Earthian insect carefully emerging from a cocoon.
Her gaze slid back to the death machines — to those designed, humanoid monstrosities which would forever trouble rather than intrigue — as the med-bot warbled, "LIE DOWN, PRISONER. YOU REQUIRE TREATMENT."
It scanned and prodded her forearm as it had before, and she wondered if the caretaker had woken after sensing her distress or if it had been remotely ordered into performing its duties.
The latter option made her step away, saying sharply, "Go cure someone else."
The soft, mechanical noises died immediately, the tree-like unit stilling. Inexplicably, and despite her rule of keeping emotional distance between herself and any animated being without an actual heartbeat, the action was a bit mollifying.
Soft silence filled the room, even as the bot's attentive words echoed in mind.
She wished her immediate problems could be as easily solved as ordering a robot into new protocols. In his haste to make her an unwilling and unarmed accomplice to Robotnik's downfall Colin could have, at the very fucking least, left her a device similar to his own: a remote which would allow her control over several SWATbots.
Maybe she'd make it further with such a boon. Maybe not. But either way, it would be better than relying solely upon her unpracticed, betraying voice for defense.
Why did you have to say it? she thought before she could eviscerate the dangerous question. Why couldn't you just dissociate from the moment and do what you meant to, without deepening all of the self-inflicted bullshit by alluding to more?
At her back, the med-bot reanimated again, resuming its protocols as if nothing had happened.
"THIS UNIT IS DENIED ACCESS TO MEDICAL BAY A22. LIE DOWN AND REMAIN STILL, PRISONER. YOU REQUIRE TREATMENT."
For several seconds the missive didn't fully register. It was so very quiet and unobtrusive now, next to the volume of her anger.
She pushed away from the glass partition as the words finally sank in, rounding on the spindly creature. One of its padded arms extended above her chest, scanning with a blue light as she asked, "Clarify now, what room are we in?"
"CURRENTLY STATIONED IN MEDICAL BAY A4."
"Then why did you mention A22?"
"THIS UNIT IS DENIED ACCESS TO MEDICAL BAY A22. TREATMENT OF PRISONER IN MEDICAL BAY A4 IS THIS UNIT'S FIRST PRIORITY."
Quickly estimating the number of medbays between her and the pair of motionless SWATbots at the ward's other end, she asked, "Okay, but where is A22? In this medical ward?"
"AFFIRMATIVE. MEDICAL BAY A22 LOCATED IN MEDICAL WARD TREATMENT SECTOR, COMPLEX LEVEL FORTY FOUR."
It was more information than she should be allowed. All of the robots she'd ever reanimated within the academy had imploded their circuit boards when faced with verbal questioning. It was an irritating, ingenious failsafe she had never quite figured out how to work around.
The separation was clear now, however: all of those interactions had been with combative units. This unassuming med-bot could, however unlikely, be receptive to further questioning on her part because, it horrendously seemed, Robotnik hadn't intended to heal any inquisitive prisoners here. Why else would one of his minions be so talkative?
Inhuman, conniving sociopath… got you now.
She slipped around the robot to get a better view of the medbays in question.
"So besides me, there's another person in this medical ward?"
"AFFIRMATIVE. TWO HUMANS RECEIVING TREATMENT IN MEDICAL WARD TREATMENT SECTOR, COMPLEX LEVEL FORTY FOUR."
"Is the other person under guard, in room A22?"
A moment's delay, and she knew it was working around a series of recall queues, trying to determine if it was allowed to answer the question. She held her breath.
"AFFIRMATIVE."
They have to be down there then. Her mind raced, wrestling to reign in the excitement.
There was someone else nearby — possibly someone who knew Orin and his potential whereabouts — and whether an actual ally or not the distinction felt entirely unimportant at the moment. What was more pressing was the danger of losing the informative leak she'd stumbled upon. She need only trigger a failsafe with the wrong, prying question or endure the misfortune of Robotnik checking in on her again, and the med-bot would likely shutdown.
"Okay think," she murmured, searching her minimal surroundings for guidance. It was only now that she noticed the meal she'd denied herself hours ago, in lieu of a dead end sprint for information.
Too tired to entertain any more thoughts about being poisoned, she cut into the cold meal and watched the guarded medbays from afar. However, what was supposed to be a secondary concern entirely, her hunger quickly raged to the forefront of reality. She'd barely chewed through a bite of the rich protein before needing another. In the end, if only for the persistent threat of cameras, she had a hard time keeping herself from licking the plate clean.
Examining the outer medical ward more critically, she tried to refocus and savor the even colder mug of tea. Now that she ignored the looming, persistent symmetry the SWATbots maintained, the two guards stationed near the distant cubicle were an obvious deviation.
"What information is available about the person in medical bay A22?"
The med-bot had left her alone as she ate, scanning the side table and straightening medical supplies with sharp movements.
"A22 OCCUPANT: PRISONER. HUMAN. FEMALE. TREATMENT INITIATED FOR CARDIAC ARREST AT ZERO TWO, TWENTY THREE STANDARD HOURS. PATIENT DENIED ALL CLEARANCES."
Realizing there was another woman stuck in the same hellscape sent a strange jolt of comradery through Jade's chest, but then, just as impulse-quick, her next thought was, why cardiac arrest?
She gripped her mug tighter. "Is she conscious?"
"NEGATIVE."
"Are you able to…" she struggled with how to innocuously phrase the question, "Are you allowed to relay messages to her attending caretaker?"
"AFFIRMATIVE."
It was too good to be true. She gnawed at her bottom lip, trying to put something safe and simple together — a message which wouldn't rattle Robotnik too severely when he inevitably saw it. Whatever had him fuming would hopefully keep for a while longer.
"Send the following message to loop on the attending med-bot in room A22: 'Room A4 here. Recovered from stun bolts after a few hours. Just the two of us in this place, it seems.'"
The bot's sensor panel flickered, registering her request, but the rest of the robot stayed unresponsive. She stared at it hard, before it finally droned, "MESSAGE RELAYED."
A flutter skipped across her chest. "I can't believe I ever considered dismembering you," She patted the bot's nearest arm.
Pushing her luck with more questions could wait. Refilling her tea and settling on the treatment bed to start her vigil over A22, Jade lets the temporary victory smother everything else except the possibility of gaining an ally.
At first, it felt as if she had been jostled out of sleep by a shift in the atmosphere.
The outer medical ward had dulled to a clinical, blue-grey version of darkness as she slept. The SWATbot's scarlet visors seemed to bob in midair. Jade was unwillingly reminded of the freezing hangar, so many floors below.
Dreaminess yielded to apprehension as she remembered that tomb-like place, with its hundreds of aging, screeching robots. The eerie memory of their pursuit rose up, clouding the outer medical ward in the same fog of unease.
For a brief, dizzying moment, she could almost feel Robotnik's metal arm at her waist again.
"You're safe here," she found herself whispering. It was a promise from an age ago, when Orin was small and afraid and always desperate for their mission-bound dad. She had wrapped him in those words too many times to count.
And after all those absences, dad still chose to leave us...
The bitter realization echoed and twisted in the sterilized air until it became something else entirely. Like a cry she hadn't meant to utter.
Jade sat up, unsure she had heard correctly. But then it happened again and she was certain — there was another voice besides her own in the ward.
She shifted on the treatment bed, squinting out into the dim, down the pathway between the many medbays. Her forgotten mug of tea slipped from the covers, shattering on the floor to create a minefield of jagged teeth.
She watched the outside scene helplessly.
Floor-level sublights flickered in and out of view as three shapes neared. The flanking pair were rigid and ruthless. The slumped, middle form jerked against their towering force. Cords of hair whipped back and forth.
"Stop!" Jade shouted, her need for composure evaporating.
Scrambling from the bed, boots crunching on porcelain, the dull thud at her temples felt equal to the deadened sound of her cries. She'd almost forgotten: the room was soundproofed.
SWATbots pulled the woman along with vicious, constant force, moving her halfway across the ward in seconds. Jade realized she has no definite way of communicating with her now. No way of stopping whatever was happening. No way of gaining new answers or an ally. No way of helping.
When she started banging against the paraglass, the med-bot hummed back online.
"Did the prisoner in A22 send a reply?" she yelled at it, jumping and waving along the clear wall. The woman still hadn't noticed her but Jade had noticed the blood stains on her jacket.
"NEGATIVE."
"What are they doing? Where are they taking her!"
"PRISONER TRANSFER CLASSIFIED."
The surge of panic felt sickeningly selfish — revolving around the information she might lose in the woman's absence — but there was also sympathetic horror as well. The woman's muffled, anguished screams were otherworldly in the calm sterility of the treatment center.
Digging her nails into her palms, Jade yelled with her, hammering the paraglass until her fists stung. But then she saw and stopped.
The sudden discernment of features was overwhelming — sable skin and high cheekbones and ripped, black fatigues.
Somehow, the realization made her feel all the more helpless.
"Rhodes?" Jade choked in disbelief. "Rhodes!"
The Swiftjustice pilot finally looked up at her, the wildness in her gaze turning into wide-eyed recognition. She yelled a string of words but it was all buffeted against the thick pane of paraglass between them.
Jade shook her head, pointing to her ears. "Can't hear you!"
It felt as if she was sliding towards the edge of an unseen precipice now, without rope or further recourse. It didn't matter that Rhodes was Swiftjustice. If Jade missed this narrow chance to do something, she knew she would fall just as hard as the woman before her.
It was Quan all over again.
What if the SWATs don't bring her back? What if they are taking her to—
Rhodes continued to speak, exaggerating two syllables on repeat. The question turned desperate, her fight with the SWATs resuming.
Jade followed the quick rounding and narrowing of her lips, trying so hard to comprehend. When it clicked she imagined she could actually hear the name.
"Chelsea?" she clarified.
Rhodes nodded emphatically and in the next second Jade mouthed back, "She's safe! Got away!"
Relief suddenly eased the pain in the pilot's features. She seemed an entirely different person.
The knowing has calmed her, Jade thought numbly, paralyzed by the continuing sting of inability. At least she knows a loved one is safe—
A half-formed impression suddenly solidified, shifting towards evidence-based truth. Jade had never known for certain about Chelsea, until now, but Rhodes started speaking again and she pushed aside the revelation.
Too many syllables blurred together this time. Frustration built like a palpable ache. A question of her own hovered unsaid but there was so little time left.
Worsening the moment, the main entryway began to slide open, spilling a yellowy shaft of light inside. Lipreading was growing impossible. If only she had some other way—
With another jolt Jade remembered the meal. The reddish sauce she had left behind.
Turning, grabbing, using the plate like a paint palette, she backwards wrote huge letters on the wall with shaking fingers. So thankful her dad gave her brother such a short name.
"Orin?!" she cried, tapping the glass.
Rhodes started passing through the backlit doorway, still trying to watch and understand. Fighting for a foothold to slow the pace of her captors.
It registered then.
A sharp, negative head shake came. Rhodes looked pained once more.
The blast door hissed closed, masking the vivid scene in flat grey.
It seemed as if a piece of the world had been wiped away there. Just one harsh, cleansing stroke, and a life was suddenly beyond discernment. Perhaps Rhodes never existed at all.
The mirror of her brother's name felt like the only evidence Jade had to confirm that the surreal was in fact her true reality. Otherwise, it could have just as easily been a nightmare.
She listened to nothing and everything all at once, the world tasting vacuum-hollow. Her thoughts were caught in a web of interpretations and possibilities. She desperately flipped each answer over, before finally latching onto the greatest hope within them.
To do anything else was unacceptable. She wiped her cheeks roughly.
A head shake could mean anything.
It does not mean Orin is gone.
It just means Rhodes doesn't know for sure.
She could still have ideas.
With slow movements, Jade stepped around the remaining bits of porcelain. The med-bot had suctioned most of it away but a few shards had slid under the bed. Dipping low, she picked up the largest.
You have to try harder now. You have to do something. For her. For anyone else left in this place.
"Stop cleaning."
The med-bot froze at the order, shutting off its vacuum. Confirming her hope for its continuing obedience.
"Are you allowed to send recordings to your master?"
"AFFIRMATIVE."
Finding the right words was like trying to mitigate an impending forest fire with flint and steel. Too many sparks, issued too quickly, and she risked burning everything to the ground — herself included.
"Send this," Jade ordered, ghosting a thumb over the porcelain's sharp edge.
"The woman who just left here is someone I met briefly. Someone I hardly remember, but also someone who I now think has something monumental to lose, if given the opportunity to talk to me."
The next part was harder still. She funneled fear into a new flask and relabeled it fury, drinking deep. If he didn't believe her, or if she had guessed wrong altogether, she would have nothing left to offer in the fallout except the obscene.
"She knows where my brother is. I know she does. She's flown too many missions into Robotropolis to not know a base location. And wherever a hideout is, Fiske can't be far away."
The bloodsoaked front of Rhode's jacket flickered across Jade's vision, urging her on.
"Your intel on Fiske hadn't changed when we last saw each other... So obviously Rhodes hasn't been helpful so far."
She steeled her tone, staring into the med-bot's body camera.
"Before you do whatever you intend to do, Doctor, let me interrogate her."