418

Chapter 3: The Wedding-1

3

The Wedding

“Hello,” Bolt typed into the messenger beside the smiling face of Andrea Dover. “Are you there?”

Bolt sat staring at his screen. It was good to have an assistant, but not good if the assistant didn’t respond. If she didn’t respond soon, he might have to start to think about doing something about the assistant that didn’t respond. Bolt even had an opportunity to take in a deep breath—he was holding it—if she didn’t respond by the time he exhaled; she must not be there.

“Hi,” the messenger scrolled up with Andrea’s reply, “what’s up?”

“I need you to do something, I need you to go to Clinic 14 and check on a claim that is in progress.”

“Okay! :D :D” came the response. “Send me the details.”

“I’ll make you a ticket.”

Andrea Dover secretly despised her boss. He treated her like an errand girl, and—in her opinion—he was exactly the thing that was blocking her advancement at the Popular Insurance Company. But the thing about bosses is they have absolute power over you. The best way of dealing with them is to say, “yes,” to everything you are asked to do, but volunteer for nothing unless it is dead easy to do. She hated going to the clinic—they were dark, kind of scary and, if she were lucky, she wouldn’t see something she wouldn’t be able to unsee. More often than not, something unexpected and horrible, some mess of mangled flesh, was waiting for her. Being the junior claims adjuster, if it was awful, she was going to get to see it. She had hoped this job was going to lead her to an office where she could reach out to people on messenger and send them places where they were going to lose their appetite. Or their sleep, as sometimes happened to her.

She sat at her desk, looking at her screen. Well, the ticket hadn’t come in yet, and she wasn’t going anywhere without documentation. Perhaps he would forget. That would be nice. Maybe he’d send the ticket to the wrong Andrea. That had happened loads of times before. She sighed. He must not have much to do today, she thought, because in her ticket inbox popped up a “new ticket,” red flag.

I seemed to be waking up again. I was still underwater, but now floating just a few inches below the surface. I could feel cold light on my face. I could see light, but my eyes were stuck shut, and my arms and legs were still not responding—as if encased in cement—but now I seemed to be floating. I needed to get to the surface but still couldn’t move. I held my breath, if I could hold my breath long enough, I might just be able to break the surface with my mouth and I’d be able to breathe. I was fairly certain I couldn’t breathe underwater. Within seconds my heart was pounding, but my head was pounding even worse, the left side of my head was twice the size as the right side, and every pump from my chest caused it to grow bigger. I had to break the surface. I couldn’t do this for long. I would have to take in a big chest full of water. I had tried. I opened my mouth, gasped expecting to feel fluid coursing down my throat, turning my lungs into soft coral. But it was air. I must have broken the surface though I still felt like I was soaking in water.

I tried flexing my face in order to pry my eyes open. I couldn’t lift my hand. All I could do was wiggle. The pain in my left cheek was exquisite, sharp and grinding. My tongue checked my teeth—those that I remembered being there were still there. My eyes felt like they were going to burst as they watered with the pain. I know I moaned and called out, but I couldn’t hear anything as my ears were still below water. Finally, I managed to work my right eye open. There were flecks of crusty, sticky, yellow goo that obscured the light. I could see a ceiling, and if I strained my eyes downward, I could see a flickering fluorescence. The ceiling was gray concrete, and there were pipes and tubes fastened to it. I wasn’t in a lake; I was in a warehouse.

I tried calling out but my cheek bit me back hard, and something hoarse came out. I wasn’t going to be able to do that again. It didn’t matter, no one was coming.

Andrea Dover headed down to the carport. Hopefully this wasn’t going to be one of the memorable visits. She tried to put that out of her mind as she stepped into a car. What really mattered was how could she get her boss’s job…without it looking like she was trying to get her boss’s job. She tried to get comfortable in the car. The door shut behind her, she slid away, turning the problem over and over in her mind.

Some time ago it had dawned on Andrea that, bright as she may be, as keen as she may have been, and as good as she may be at her job, she still had a cap on top of her, and there was a filter through which all her work was presented to management two levels up. That cap and that filter was the same thing: Bolt Greene, firmly fastened in place and blocking her way. The realization of what Bolt Greene was doing to her career sickened and disheartened her.

She had to find some way to get out from under the smothering bushel and let her light shine. As the car drove along and she watched a map view on the screen. At the impressive average speed of sixty-seven mph, her pod wove through traffic. But, how was she going to break through this ceiling? What could she do without arousing Bolt’s suspicions?

Bolt, as she had come to discover, had some family connection to the Popular Insurance Company. She had started in sales; it was amazing she had managed to get out of sales. This job, claims adjuster, junior or not, was a desirable position. It seemed to lend to the idea that the next stop would be something policy related. It appeared to be a bottom level management position. She remembered how happy she was when she got the job. This was the first step of many steps she was going to take in a long and prosperous career. Only it wasn’t. There was lots of work like this a seemingly unending flow of Joe jobs, fetch-its and “look this up for me, would you?” type of things. Trivial stuff that would have been faster if he’d done it himself.

It took about nine months before Bolt arrived on the scene. She had got there first, since she had been working in claims longer. His connection—an uncle or something—had dropped him in fresh out of college, right on top of her. It might have been okay, but she knew more about the job, wanted the job. But yet, somehow, he was entitled to the job. At first that made her angry, but then she realized his boss’s probably felt his sense of entitlement was good. This made her feel even worse: they were rewarding his marginal competence and indolence! How could this be fair? Fair or not, she must not blow it, because she could always find herself starting in sales in some other company.

She had to be smart, she had to be alert for the opportunity, ready to make a shift if there was to be a chance to vault past Bolt Greene. Acting in desperation was not a good idea. That kind of thing could follow you for years, once it was attached to your employment record. But waiting was the hardest part. The car pulled up at the clinic, a soft chiming voice alerting her, “You have arrived at Clinic 14. Please prepare for departure. The door will open when it is safe to disembark.”

Andrea stepped from the car, sighed, looked up at the building and muttered under her breath, “I hope this isn’t going to be messy,” and strode toward the entrance.

Of course, it was whiter than white as she entered the clinic. There wasn’t anyone sitting there. The rows of seats were all neatly arranged, and there were magazines that had been arranged on the tables, spread out in a fan, an equal amount of each magazine showing. Andrea moved briskly toward the staff.

As she approached, the staff, who had been sitting ramrod straight, broke into a smile. “Hello, how can I help you?” The reception staff behind the desk asked, its eyes directed but not focused on Andrea.

“I’m Andrea Dover from the Popular, and I’m here to see,” she paused as she looked down at her mobile in her hand, “um, 686381KAA418.”

As Andrea spoke the last number of the ID, the attendant’s fingers—following some ancient artifact of programming—tapped it into an imaginary console that wasn’t on the empty desk, and replied, “Yes, of course, I will send for a medical technician to escort you. One moment, please.”

The staff went back to sitting or doing whatever it was that staff did when they were waiting for some real-world interaction. Andrea turned to face the two double doors that lead to the back of the clinic. Almost immediately the door burst open, and another staff member gazed in her direction, “Andrea Dover?” it asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Please follow me,” it added, programmed to sound cheerful, but Andrea didn’t care. This was Bolt’s job. Whatever she did, he was going to take credit for it, and that was annoying her. He should be here, about to see whatever mess she was about to see. She followed the med-tech into the gray, dimly lit back rooms of the clinic.

They walked for quite a while, from pool of light, to pool of light, through the corridors of hanging curtains. Andrea, though she dreaded what she might see, was happy to be out of the gleaming white area of the clinic; so much easier on the eyes. Maybe the relative darkness of this part of the clinic might help her not see something she might not have been able to forget. Abruptly, the med-tech stopped, turned to her and said, “I have to warn you, this may be unpleasant. You may find what you are about to see may disturb you. Would you like to proceed?”

Andrea smiled dryly. It didn’t matter if it disturbed her, it was her job. But explaining this wasn’t going to get her job done. “Yes,” she replied impassively, “please proceed.”

Obediently the med-tech turned and pulled back the curtain.

She was braced for the worst and felt a wave of cool relief was over her as the med-tech stepped away, allowing her to see the staff that was laying in the medibed.

There wasn’t all that much to see. The body was secured in restraint foam and had been cleaned up efficiently. There was no blood, other than dried crumbs that had become wedged between the foam and the flesh. There were no open cuts, no puss, no broken bones sticking through the skin, and no plastic patches applied to places where skin was missing, allowing anyone to see what might lay below.

What there was, was an awful lot of bruising. Andrea stepped up to the bed to see the extent of damage to the face. The left cheek was stitched shut and almost black with bruising.

“Oh!” Andrea gave a little shout. The right eye was moving around and, shrouded in its deep purple flesh, a tiny slit, caked in yellow goo, had split open and a blue eye was straining to look at her.

Well, 418 was alive.

I was immobilized. I felt like I was alive; certainly, my face hurt, and the left side of my head had been mashed and throbbed at even the thought of moving. Is this what being dead is like? It couldn’t be, I was in too much pain, and I’d always imagined death to be rather painless once the dying part was over. And as I was contemplating whether I was dead or not, the light got brighter, like a veil was being lifted away.

Much to my surprise, I didn’t see little angels coming to take me away, but dark hair, a rich dark face, clean skin, radiant cheeks and sharp brown eyes appeared over my face. She didn’t smile, she looked concerned, puzzled, and somehow relieved. I tried to say something. “Help,” I tried to say, “I am stuck here, what has happened?”

Angels must speak some other language, because she didn’t reply but simply recoiled at the sound of my voice, a look of horrified disgust on her face.

“No,” I tried to continue, “please help me!” I wanted to reach out to her and grab her arm. She would know I was alive, and that I was a person too.