7: Awakening
Miriam opened her eyes. She was lying in a tank filled with a pink glutinous matter. Her clothes had gone, and there were thick black cables attached to her body. Arms, legs, hands, feet, body, and even the back of her head.
Where was she?
There was a mask over her mouth. Presumably it had been providing her with oxygen while she was floating in the tank. But then the air stopped coming.
Panicking, struggling to breathe, Miriam tore off the mask. She surfaced, gasping for air, and looked around her.
I've died, she thought instantly. I'm in Hell.
She was sitting in this tank in some sort of hellish industrial complex, all dark metal and whirring fans. The skies above her were dark, clouds boiling across the sky, their progress punctuated by flashes of forked lightning and deep booming rumbles of thunder.
There were more tanks on either side of her. Each one contained a human being, naked and bald-headed and with those cables attached to their bodies. Lying in the tanks of pink slime like corpses in glass coffins.
She looked down, and saw more tanks. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Tens and hundreds of thousands. Maybe even millions. The rows seemed to go on forever. And there were these things climbing over some of them, metallic creatures – robots?
"Where am I?" Miriam whispered. "Oh, God, where am I?"
*
Where is she?
I'm looking for her.
Hurry up, then. The Matrix has rejected her. They'll unplug her soon. If we don't get there first…
I know! I know! Now shut up and let me concentrate!
We've narrowed down the search area. She's somewhere in Field 12B505.
There are over twelve thousand pods in that field.
I'm aware of that.
Which one is she in? Have the trace results come through?
Right here. Row… oh, top row. Row 1, Column 10110.
They've sent the robot out to unplug her.
Get into position. You know what to do.
*
Miriam felt the top of her head. Bald. All her hair had gone. Her beautiful long black hair, her pride and joy, one of the few things she'd liked about her appearance.
A thought occurred to her, and she gingerly felt the back of her head. Her fingers touched on something cold and hard and smooth; a cable. Plugged directly into her brain.
"I should have taken the blue pill," she whispered. "Everything back to normal."
But she'd made her choice. She was stuck here now, come what may. Where were Horus and Alethia? They said that she'd come with them, but where were they? Were they lying in tanks too?
"Alethia! Horus!" Miriam yelled. "Are you there? Where are you?"
Something landed in front of her. But it wasn't Alethia or Horus. It was a giant robot, the size of a man, gleaming blackly in the night. It had dozens of electronic "eyes" and metallic tentacles, each one with a buzzing, whirring instrument attached to it.
Terrified, Miriam backed away until she bumped against the edge of the tank.
"No… no, please," she gasped.
A pair of metal pincers shot out of the robot, and clamped shut around her head in a vice-like grip. There was a sound like a dentist's drill; the robot was unscrewing the cable in the back of her head.
When the cable dropped out, the robot abruptly released Miriam from its clutches and allowed her to flop back into the tank.
Miriam breathed out, relieved. But her ordeal wasn't over. The other cables began pulling themselves out, yanked out by an invisible force, and then a drain in the bottom of the tank opened up. The pink fluid drained away, and Miriam found herself being sucked out with it.
She flailed helplessly, trying to purchase a handhold on the smooth glass walls of the tank and stop herself from falling, but it was useless. With a howl, Miriam plunged into the drain and fell for what felt like an eternity until at last she landed with a splash in a deep pool of greyish water.
She couldn't swim. She'd never been able to swim; somehow she just couldn't manage to stay afloat. For a few seconds Miriam fought to keep her head above water, but then she gave up the struggle and let herself go under.
The last thing she was aware of was the sloshing sound of the water, then air, and being lifted towards a bright light…
"Got her."
*
Miriam opened her eyes yet again. She still didn't know where she was.
It hurt to blink. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to do anything. So that ruled out Heaven, anyway. And she wasn't in enough pain to be in Hell; she just ached all over, as if she'd run a marathon the day before.
Miriam closed her eyes, hoping that this would bring her a small measure of relief. It didn't. Her eyes still hurt, just like the rest of her.
"Where am I?" she asked, a little hoarsely.
"You're in the real world," said a familiar voice. Horus.
"Jesus, Horus, will you get out of here?" said a woman impatiently. "The poor girl isn't wearing anything! If you want naked women, go look at one of the anatomy books! Now get out and stay out!"
"My God, Hecate, you think that's why I'm here? To get an eyeful?" said Horus, sounding insulted. "My mother taught me better than that."
"Your mother wasn't even your mother, Horus. You just thought she was," said the woman called Hecate. "You were grown, remember? Just like everyone else on this ship. So if you're not here to gawp, why are you here?"
"I thought she might like to see a friendly face."
"Hah! Lousiest excuse I ever heard. Get out, you pervert. If you want to do something useful, go and tell Mac that, like in all the best Westerns, we got the girl in the end. Tell Ebisu he can go and get some rest; he's been up all night. And tell him to go fetch Alethia in here!"
"Yes, sir."
"Fuck you."
"I'd rather not."
"Who would you rather, then? Alethia, I expect."
"Fuck you!"
"No thanks. I'm married. Well, go on, lover-boy, what are you waiting for? Go tell Ebisu to fetch your darling Alethia."
"Goddammit, Hecate, will you just shut up? You know she doesn't want me."
"Bullshit. Of course she does. She's just too professional to admit it."
"Stop rubbing it in."
"I'm a doctor. We do rub things in. Like ointment. Now piss off."
There was a metallic-sounding slam, then a loud crash and a faint tinkling from somewhere near the floor. By the sound of it, Horus had just slammed the door so hard that it had come off its hinges.
"You broke the door, Horus!" Hecate yelled after him.
Miriam didn't catch his reply.
"And that's Doctor Vicious Cow, thank you very much!" Hecate yelled back.
Miriam started to laugh, and then clutched her chest.
"Ow, it hurts," she groaned. "Why?"
"Because you've never laughed, or moved, or blinked or breathed. You've spent your entire life dreaming away in that pod, not doing anything," Hecate told her.
"My whole life?" said Miriam. "You mean – my mom, and school, and going to Starbucks and everything, all that was a dream? My whole life just wasn't real?"
"You're quick on the uptake, kid. It takes some people weeks to get their head round the concept, and look at you – you haven't been awake five minutes and you get the idea already."
"What was that tank I was sleeping in? And those cables, and that robot? Where am I? I keep asking and everyone's ignoring me!" said Miriam anxiously. "And what's all this stuff about the Matrix? Please, tell me what's happened to me!"
"I think maybe you should wait for Alethia to tell you. She's better at explaining things. Right now I'm more concerned with getting you fixed up. Your muscles have atrophied, so we'll have to fix that. We'll get you something to eat, too. You really don't want to know what the machines were feeding you while you were floating around in that pod."
"I don't?"
"No. It'll make you sick to your stomach. Not that you've ever eaten anything to be sick with. Not here in the real world, anyway."
The door opened, and Miriam heard footsteps.
"Miriam?" Alethia said. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah…" Miriam said weakly.
"Good," said Alethia. "And Hecate, I want you to stop picking on Horus. You know he's shut himself in his quarters again?"
"Not again," groaned Hecate. "He's like a big kid! Anyone would think he was two, not twenty-two."
"What did you say to him? Tell me you weren't teasing him."
"I laughed about him and his big crush on you. And I called him a pervert."
"You didn't," said Alethia, sounding dismayed.
"I did too," said Hecate firmly.
"Oh, Hecate, why? You know how sensitive he is," Alethia sighed.
"Don't blame me. It's his fault for coming down here to stare," said Hecate.
"Look, he asked me if he could go down and check on Miriam, and I told him he could," said Alethia. "He was worried about her. She was so scared, Hecate, he just wanted to make sure she was okay. I know he acts all tough and he's always making jokes out of things, but he cares a lot about people. He just wants to help. I wish you'd stop being so mean to him."
"Sounds like you're pretty sweet on him yourself," said Hecate.
"Hecate, grow up, will you?" said Alethia, with a sigh of exasperation.
"I will if you tell him to," said Hecate.
"Just cut it out. We don't have time for stupid bickering. Come on, we've got work to do. Miriam needs patching up," said Alethia.
"Yeah, yeah," said Hecate. "Hey, kid, you can open your eyes now."
"They hurt," Miriam complained.
"They'll adjust pretty quickly. Try and keep them open as much as possible. The more you use them, the more you'll get used to using them, and it won't hurt so much."
"Okay," said Miriam, and opened her eyes. She was lying on a table in the middle of what looked like an operating theatre. Standing by her side were Alethia and the other woman, Hecate, who had shoulder-length brown hair, a long nose and a sharp expression. Both women were dressed in ragged, threadbare clothes and work boots that had probably seen better days.
"Sorry to have to make you go back to sleep when you've only just woken up, Miriam, but we have to put you under so we can work on repairing your muscles," said Alethia apologetically. "They've wasted away to practically nothing because of your lack of physical activity. It'll take most of the day to fix them."
"That's all right. It's not like I've got to go to school or anything."
"True," said Alethia. "Hecate, fetch the anaesthetic please."
And before long, Miriam was asleep again.
