Prodigus Torus

Chapter 1

The Aftermath

LA wasn't just overcrowded with subpar buildings, housing far too many people, it had large swathes of wasteland covered in discarded equipment and electrical components, not to mention the occasional rubbish dump shipped in from Elysium itself.

Cleo made regular scavenging trips when she wasn't working at the local hospital, looking for anything she could salvage to use for repairing old equipment and devices that the hospital simply couldn't afford to replace.

It was during one such visit to the wasteland that she witnessed a Elysium craft crash down, followed by what can only be described as a mugging. She'd hunkered down under the heavy cloak she always wore to avoid scrutiny from the satellites and used her binoculars to watch what happened.

She had no love for Elysium, but the occupant of the craft was literally a sitting duck when all hell broke loose, and was caught in the crossfire, taking a bullet to the chest.

The urge to rush over was strong, but she had very little she could use as a weapon against them and could only keep her position and watch, and hope the occupant didn't die before she had the chance to reach him. She was grateful she had her coagulant injector with her. Something she generally took with her should she injure herself on some rusty metal. It would stem any haemorrhaging and negate the need for a tetanus injection.

As the muggers were chased away from the site by who she can only assume were agents sent by Elysium, she shouldered her backpack and rushed over to where the victim of the mugging was sat still slumped in his seat.

Fuck.

John Carlyle.

Of all the Elysium people for a bunch of misfits to hijack, it had to be him…

She yanked out an inhibitor connector from her bag and clipped it to the port behind his right ear. It would instantly block all read outs that Elysium would no doubt be monitoring. They wouldn't be able to track him as long as the clip remained in place. He was unconscious, but she felt for a pulse and found a faint one, though judging by the hole in his chest he didn't have long.

She quickly pulled the coagulant injector from her bag and jammed it into the hole, pushing the button firmly to stem all the bleeding. She had no idea how close the bullet had come to his heart, but given it hadn't killed him outright, she hoped it was still intact.

Now came the tricky part. She'd came to the wasteland on foot, and although she was 5'10", she wasn't sure she could carry him. She didn't want to drag him though, so she settled for pulling him over her shoulder with a grunt, hoping it wouldn't jostle him too much and cause more damage as she made her way slowly to her apartment. She didn't want to risk taking him to the hospital and having him be recognised. She could patch him up herself, as long as he didn't have any significant damage to his heart, and she had plenty of equipment at home to scan him with, along with plenty more she was still working on repairing or upgrading.

She did her best to put him down onto her bed without letting him fall and began rummaging around for a portable scanner to check his injury. Thankfully, the bullet had missed his heart, but it was still lodged between his ribs. It was a miracle it hadn't hit a lung or he'd have possibly drowned in his own blood. His blood pressure was on the low side, but wasn't dropping. She'd possibly need to steal a bit of blood from the hospital if his pressure didn't improve.

The coagulant was doing its job nicely, but it would hinder the removal of the bullet.

She huffed.

She would need that blood if she intended to get the bullet out. She'd have to dissolve the coagulant to get at it, and he could start to lose blood again.

She would need to keep him unconscious for the time being if she was going to leave him alone for a short while. She sighed in relief when she found a delta wave device, slipping it across his forehead. She tutted at the skin mod between his eyebrows and actually rolled her eyes at the laser tattoo next to his ear.

Looking him over, he wasn't missing any items. He still had his watch, his shoes, his tie, even a ring. Whatever they were mugging him for, it wasn't his possessions, and she doubted he was carrying cash. She checked his fingers, but his prints were intact. He still had his eyes, so it wasn't for his general biometrics. The only other option was whatever data he had stored in his brain.

She ran a hand through her hair.

This was not what she'd envisioned for her day. She had planned to scavenge for parts through all the discarded debris and try to get some more devices fixed that she could take to the hospital. But, the portable scanner she'd fixed would have to do.

She slipped her cloak back on and checked the prone man, making sure he wasn't bleeding. He was still in delta sleep, thanks to the device across his forehead and the hole in his chest was still plugged for now. She wasn't a surgeon, but she'd had experience pulling bullets from enough people over the years that she felt she could do it without needing the hospital's help. They were stretched enough. It would also raise too many questions, and the last thing the hospital needed was droids rampaging through the corridors to retrieve him.

She strapped a bio monitor onto his wrist so she could keep an eye on his vitals whilst she was gone, and slipped out the door.

The hospital was its usual chaotic self. The waiting room was beyond overcrowded and the receptionists were constantly battling a never-ending stream of triage based on the severity of the complaints. The most common were workplace injuries and lung conditions, especially cancer. The air quality for large cities like LA was terrible. There were very few places left on Earth with clean air. The Earth would repair itself in time, but that would never happen whilst humans did nothing to help it.

When the rich left the planet, they doomed it to die a slow death. Everyone without money was simply collateral damage. They could have used their wealth to fix things, but they didn't. And they refused to help those left behind.

It was a constant source of frustration for her, but she couldn't solve such an equation alone. All she could do was help in whatever way she could.

"Cleo!" a voice called from across the waiting room. It was a senior nurse she'd known for years.

"Hey, Carlos. I fixed the portable scanner," she greeted him, pulling the scanner from her bag and handing it to him.

"That's great, but we still need the monitors you said you'd fix," he responded.

"Yeah, I know. I'm just struggling to find the parts they need. I might have to get creative, but I don't want to bring them back until I know they work properly and accurately."

"Okay, well, as soon as you get one working, we need it."

"You'll be the first to know. I'm gonna go check the discards in the basement, see what else I can salvage. I'm still working on the atomiser. It could really help with the lung issues we keep treating. Oh! I got a few more masks working," she responded, pulling two filtration masks from her bag.

"They work to filter the air outside?"

"Yep. Put them on, you breathe clean air. I have a couple more at home I need to test. I know the factory that makes them. I go scavenging in their discards every so often, but their security is pretty tight."

"If they would just give them to everyone, we wouldn't have half the patients in this place," Carlos stated.

"If only… I gotta go. I'll bring those monitors as soon as I can and let me know when the next blood drive is!" she said, waving him goodbye as she disappeared down a corridor.

Of course, checking the discarded equipment in the basement was just an excuse for her to go raid the stores for blood and a magnetic retrieval device. The stores were of course code locked, but for someone like her it was easy enough to bypass. She took only what she needed and left after also grabbing a few broken scanners she could easily fix at home.

Security in the lower levels was lax. Most of the police droids were focused on keeping order in the waiting rooms and adjoining wards. So far, she'd never had a problem with the occasional visit to the stores, and if missing items were noticed, no one ever said anything to her. With all the engineering work she did for the hospital, perhaps it was considered a fair trade off.

When she got home, John was still thankfully asleep. She set everything up that she would need to remove the bullet and seal the wound. She used the hand scanner again to check that there was nothing else metal he'd had implanted in his chest for whatever reason Elysium dictated was required, and set about performing the fine balance between dissolving the coagulant and using the magnetic retrieval device to pull the bullet out.

She swore when he began to bleed again, though she was prepared with more coagulant and covered the wound with a silver calcium alginate dressing to help prevent infection. She sighed heavily in relief and hooked him up with the blood she'd taken to hopefully help replace the blood he'd lost. She couldn't keep him asleep for too much longer, but she at least wanted to wait until the replacement blood was in him.

She spent the next few hours working on the monitors she been trying to fix for weeks. She wasn't holding out hope that she could fix them with what she had and knew she'd need to do another scavenger run to the wasteland.

She'd been asked more than once over the years why she stayed in LA when there were other cities, other countries with better prospects, better land, even better air. None of them were like Elysium, but they were doing better than here.

In truth, she couldn't abide by the daily suffering that people had to endure and if she could do something to help improve it, she would spend her days doing just that. She wasn't a doctor or a nurse, so she built and repaired whatever equipment she could to help the local hospital out.

After getting the monitors up and running, her next project was the atomiser. It worked a little like the Med Bays on Elysium did, but on a much smaller scale and without the anti-ageing capabilities. Mostly, she hoped it could treat cancer, especially in children.

She'd given up on the monitors for the time being and went back to check on her accidental patient. The blood bag was empty and checking his wrist monitor, his blood pressure had improved.

Time to wake him up.

She shut off the delta wave device and removed it from his forehead. She'd already removed his jacket and tie and ripped open his shirt. It already had a bloody hole through it, so if he had a problem, he could just suck it.

She folded her arms and waited, the faint beep of his heartrate increasing slightly as he awoke, his eyes beginning to flicker under their lids.

His dreams had been strange. A crashing shuttle and someone trying to steal information from his brain.

When he finally opened his eyes, it took a moment for his vision to focus. When it finally did, he was looking into the jade green eyes of a woman he didn't recognise. Tall, with dirty blonde hair and a scrutinising look on her face. Everything he could see in his peripheral vision told him that he was not on the Torus.

"Where am I?" he croaked out.

"My bedroom."

"Why?"

"My couch is lumpy."

"What do you want from me? Are you holding me for ransom?" he asked, his hands moving to the bandage across his chest.

Cleo blinked in surprise. "You think I dragged your dying ass to my home for ransom?"

"Why else would I be here?"

"Because you were dying. Wow, compassion really has become a foreign concept to you Elysians, hasn't it?"

"You could have alerted any authority to my location and they would have sent an emergency transport. You needn't have wasted your, uh, resources," he said, looking around at the old furniture and the multitude of broken devices in various stages of repair.

Cleo gave an exaggerated nod and pulled out the coagulant injector. "You would have bled out before they could reach you. This was the only thing keeping you alive until I could get the bullet out and get some blood into you."

"Are you a doctor?" he asked, trying to sit up.

"Careful, you might dislodge the coagulant. You need to heal. And no, I'm not. Spent enough time in them over the years to learn a few things."

He grunted and put his head back down. "Still, I'm sure Elysium will have already dispatched a transport to pick me up."

"Not likely," she answered, tapping her right ear at him.

He frowned for a long moment, then felt for his interface, his head jerking slightly in surprise when he felt a clip covering it. He gave it an experimental tug but it wouldn't budge.

"Yeah, I wouldn't do that. Needs my fingerprint to remove it. It'll shield you from their satellites."

"So, it is ransom."

She huffed. "No. I don't have a good history with your lot. I'd prefer to remain off-grid. Once you're healed enough, I can have someone I trust get a message out and have them meet you elsewhere."

"You're keeping me here?" he stated.

"Well, you're free to leave if you like, but with a chest wound like that you won't get far, and this neighbourhood houses quite a few people who work at your factories. Working long hours for shit pay. How do you think they will greet you?"

He wasn't stupid enough to wander out anywhere on Earth without his droids, and given they had been destroyed after the crash, he had no protection other than at the mercy of a stranger who saved his life.

She pulled out a blanket and placed it by his feet, noticing his shoes were still on. She began unlacing them but he tried to pull his legs up.

"Hey! I want your shoes off my bed. Believe it or not, we don't sleep in filth down here," she chastised him, yanking his feet back down so she could pull his shoes off, kicking them under the bed.

She threw the blanket over him which made him wrinkle his nose, clearly expecting a cloud of radioactive dust to fly up his nose, or something equally contagious.

"It's clean, but freeze if you must," Cleo said, disappearing into the bathroom.

She came back with a glass of water and he'd relented, pulling the blanket up under his chin as she set the glass down on the bedside table.

"I got work to do. The device on your wrist is monitoring your vitals, but the red button on the side will alert me if you need anything. Just press it," she instructed.

He glanced at the rudimentary monitor. It was old, but familiar. Decades behind what they had on the Torus, but it would do for the moment. The sooner he could heal enough to leave and get home, the sooner he could get into a Med Bay and undo any lingering damage.