NOVEL NEXT 199. [BOLERO] Post-Op Follow-Up
199. [BOLERO] Post-op Follow-up
[Designation: SCALPEL]
[Instrument Class: PRIMAL]
[Anchored Realm: TIDEREIGN (+2)]
[Item Description: Cut through the skin, and you'll see. Anchoreds, Wayfarers, and yes, even Aberrants too. We're all the same flimsy ensemble of mutant parts. Accidents of evolution. Waste products of endless reincarnation, jury-rigged to rot and crumble the moment one cog bends askew or another wheel spins awry. Why not, then, celebrate our imperfections as they are? See that shadow standing behind you in the mirror? Who do you think is shining the light?]
***
In a stark contrast to Tidereign's natural sleep cycle, anesthesia had left Zacarias a groggy, bumbling mess.
This time, it couldn't even be described as 'sleeping for a long time'. Rather, he'd quite literally lost a chunk of his afterlife. A gaping black void where his soul and its associated memories—real or dream or otherwise—had gone poof into fine Dust, never to be recovered again.
"It serves you right," Bubblegum chided as the two of them snuck through a deserted corridor in the Duskpool Infirmary. Or rather, Bubblegum snuck with oil-lamp in hand while Zacarias tried his best to stumble after her, occasionally using the grimy wall to steady himself. "Why would you go under the knife of a surgeon you know nothing about? If I hadn't arrived in time, who knows what the tiger might've done to you?"
Bubblegum was half-right at least. If this were Manesfera, Zacarias would surely have looked up 'Gladiolus aft'Branagh' on ratemydoctor. Those ratings tended to skew disproportionately low, but at minimum, a [3.5] or thereabouts would've been the reasonable cut-off. Even putting all that aside, an 'elective' surgery like the one for his shoulder should've come after months of appointments, referrals, tests, and waiting lists. It certainly hadn't warranted a same-Night admission and treatment!
But Bubblegum wasn't there that first Night, when Zacarias had nearly shit himself in front of a massive shadow emerging from the so-called morgue. She couldn't know his unending relief upon learning that the creepy hospital was indeed staffed by a living, breathing, hulking doctor who certainly seemed to know what he was talking about. In that moment, Zacarias would've agreed to anything, as long as it meant he wouldn't have to sleep in the basement alone.
Besides, it all turned out fine in the end, didn't it? Renna herself had attested the surgery to be a success. And for the rest of his afterlife, Zacarias would never get another chance to be operated on by an Época Victoriana doctor, with ether as the anesthetic of choice, no less!
Zacarias wasn't usually one to be taken in by novelty, but now, he groggily allowed himself the exception. Just another example of a certain Rakshasa's bright-eyed attitude rubbing off on him.
Speaking of rubbing…
"What are you doing?" Zacarias tried to ask, but it came out more like 'warra-hoo-june'. He tried to focus as he watched Bubblegum, currently busy rubbing a patch of grime off the wall on her side of the corridor. The frog woman stepped back to allow the Manusya a better look.
Some kind of writing. Maybe a sign to tell patients and their families where to go? Zacarias squinted to read the damn thing, but try as he might, the words just wouldn't register in his mind. Goddamn, the ether really has done a number on me, huh?
"There's nothing wrong with your reading comprehension," Bubblegum said helpfully. "This is a foreign language. Likely whatever the Tiryagas used before the Common Meruvian Vernacular became, well, common."
"Arrar? Har-loono-wadda?"
"A very long time ago." Bubblegum seemed to have no trouble keeping up with the immediate post-op dialect of Zacko-ese. "Take Pretjord as a reference point. I know for a fact the earliest documents from Tyr Djofulesen's reign were already written in the CMV. Assuming it disseminated across the Six Realms at around the same time, this floor of the hospital must be well beyond 300 years old. Which makes this very peculiar, indeed."
Zacarias was about to (try to) ask what 'this' referred to. But the frog woman wasted no time to demonstrate it herself.
[Auxiliary Technique: ELEMENTAL FLUX]
Shovel spin in a tight circle. A [Fluxing] sphere to suck in the elements around her, but it was a rather gentle and respectful version of the technique, fit for the hallowed halls of a medical institution. Renna nevertheless managed to 'Roomba' up much of the muck and grime, enough for her oil-lamp to shine upon a hallway restored to its former glory.
Despite his heavy head, Zacarias knew to raise one eyebrow at what he saw. Linoleum floors and vinyl walls, both embedded with what could only have been LED lights. Forget period piece. This part of the creepy hospital wouldn't be out of place in modern-day Manesfera!
"Warra-faa…?"
"It's something you recognize, is it?" Bubblegum stopped her Roomba-ing to ask, wide-set eyes shimmering with curiosity. "Something that would belong to a more technologically advanced civilization, perhaps?"
Zacarias nodded blankly, even as the gears in his head slooowly churned to life.
Currently, he and Renna were on Level B3 of the Duskpool Infirmary—one floor lower than the elevator could take them. There'd been no stairs leading to it either, which meant their part-time Roomba had to first 'make a mess'. Namely by [Elemental Surge]-ing away the floor in one of the rooms upstairs. Good thing we're not in Manesfera. Because if the surgery didn't run up my insurance premium, the repair bill certainly would've!
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
All that to say, the only thing stranger than the existence of an entire 'inaccessible' section of the basement would be if said section had somehow been built in the future??
"No, I don't think that's right," Bubblegum quashed Zacko's musings, even though he hadn't voiced them aloud. "Based on the linguistic and geological evidence, this floor is certainly older than the one just above it. By at least several centuries, as we've already established. The question isn't when but why. Why was it abandoned, only for a technologically inferior city to be built on top of it?"
Zacko's gears continued their languid churning, recalling a conversation from a—how many cycles ago was it now? We manage the best we can, a unicellular tabbycat had said while wearing a multicellular smile. As long as the Keeper wills it, we live and die by the Gloam. Just how had the Tiryagas fallen out so badly with their god that their whole city had traveled backward in time?
"Certainly something we ought to get to the bottom of," Bubblegum said again, apparently now a mindreader on top of being a part-time Roomba. "But first, let us see what else we find in the basement."
No argument there. Bubblegum snuck forward with oil-lamp in hand, and Zacarias did his best to follow, slowly but surely regaining his strength and balance.
There was nothing of note for the rest of B3, unless you counted modern medical equipment as something of note (Renna certainly looked like she wanted to, but she resisted the urge). The frog woman eventually picked a storage closet as her next demolition site, requiring a few extra tries due to her unfamiliarity with the flooring material.
As soon as they landed on B4, even Zacarias could sense something was up. For example, he didn't need to be a ripple-reader to know that someone had passed through here recently. That someone clearly hadn't expected anyone else to come after them this far underground. They'd been careless, leaving plenty of tracks to follow.
A burnt-out oil-lamp, glass casing still warm to the touch. A half-eaten pot of stew, still fresh enough to have been rustled up in the last few cycles. And most damning of all: a literal track on the floor itself. Great, ragged lines as if a body—or perhaps bodies, plural—had been dragged through the muck and grime.
The outrealmers followed the track. What else could they do? Soon, Zacarias's strictly Manusya senses filled with more clues, warning him of the horrors that awaited.
A treatment room like any you might see at a Manesferan hospital. Adjustable bed, bedside monitors, and even an upholstered chair meant for a visitor. Except in this case, the patient clearly wasn't expecting any visitors.
A Tiryaga man—the cinnamon-furred drunkard Zacarias met at the factory just the other Night—lay sprawled upon centuries-'old' linen. His body, together with his dapper Victoriana clothing, had been ripped apart. From throat to navel. Skin, muscles, and bones splayed apart to offer a voyeuristic window to not-so-living anatomy.
Zacarias was wide awake.
In his newly lucid state, he watched—with a slight twinge of distaste—Renna bend over the corpse, no doubt fascinated by a rare sight. Namely the physical remains of the recently dead. Another quirk of Tidereign, no doubt, and Bubblegum was of course entitled to her scholarly inquiries.
But Zacarias wanted no part of it. What he did want, however, was to punish the evil motherfucker responsible.
What's going on, mijo? I never used to care about the poor, nameless suckers who couldn't hack it in a cutthroat world. Traveling with Serac really has done a number on me, huh?
"A dead body that stays behind after its soul had left," Bubblegum now murmured to herself, still 'perusing' the open wound like it was a textbook. "A hospital built atop the remains of a long-abandoned one. There's something about this Realm, isn't there? It seems… reluctant to let go."
"If Trippy Version One were still around," Zacko found himself murmuring alongside the frog woman, no longer slurring his words, "he'd probably pinpoint the exact philosophical allegory we're supposed to take from that. Luckily, he's not here. So, all I'll say is let's go have a chat with my surgeon, hm? A little early for a follow-up appointment, maybe, but I've got a few questions for—"
"Why?"
"Why confront the sick murderous fuck who did this?"
"No. Why would Gladiolus do this?"
"Because he's a sick murderous fuck? In my experience, his kind usually don't need a good reason to—"
"You weren't at the operation," Renna said seriously. Zacarias raised an eyebrow. Renna made a face and tsk'd. "Alright, you were there, but you didn't see, hear, or read what I did. There's a method to the tiger's madness. Even this senseless murder of a fellow Tiryaga must be part of that method. Understanding the why and how could be the key to—"
Krruunnkk…
A distant, mechanical rumble. Both outrealmers looked up in unison, then back at each other. There was only one thing anywhere nearby that could make that noise. Which meant…
"The elevator!" Bubblegum yelled, then bounded out of the room and back up the hallway, leaving loud squish-patters with every step. Zacarias hastened to follow, at the same time limbering up and shaking out the cobwebs.
So soon after the operation, the right shoulder was a little delicate. No matter. He wouldn't be much of a NINEFOLD master if he couldn't occasionally give his shoulder a break.
By the time they doubled back to the end of the hallway barred by a sliding door, it was clear even to a ripple-blind Manusya that they'd missed their ride. The hidden elevator, its path unblocked, rumbled past B4. The noise continued deeper into the underground.
"Well shit," Zacarias said with performative nonchalance. "How do we follow it? Punch more holes in the floor?"
"Too slow," Renna said decisively, then wasted no time to enact an alternative. She gripped DREDGER with both hands and swung it straight into the sliding door in front of her. As one might've guessed, it was made from a brittler material than the rest of B4—built after the fact by someone who had something to hide.
[Auxiliary Technique: ELEMENTAL SURGE]
So, guess we're just jumping straight down the shaft.
It certainly was the quicker option, assuming the Upheavers were willing to take a leap of faith. Even as Zacarias leaned over the edge to peer into the dark, grimy shaft, a pink blur whizzed past him and jumped. Bubblegum's bare, webbed feet found purchase on the opposite wall, whereupon she began a vertical sprint, gaining on the rumbling metallic box with every squish and patter.
You couldn't have at least given me a heads-up? Zacarias thought with a wry smile, but his mind too was already made up.
A leap of faith into a dark elevator shaft? Acting on pure intuition rather than careful planning? Child's play compared to some of the punches he'd already rolled with on a journey that had started from the lowest pits of hell.
After all, Zacarias Borges-Juventus was the king of rolling with punches. A lifestyle that had been beaten into him since childhood, carrying all the way into the hustle and grind of Manesferan adulthood.
[OATH registered: Like my mama always used to say: be water, mijo.]