Immobility

“You’re dangerous. They were right to store you,” said the technician. “But they weren’t right to wake you up.”

Horkai didn’t bother to respond. “Tell me where I am,” he said.

“You’re here,” said the technician. “Where you’ve always been.”

“Where’s here?”

The technician didn’t answer.

“Shall I come over there and make you answer?” asked Horkai.

The technician smirked. “Empty threat,” he said. “Even I know you can’t manage that.”

Horkai pressed his lips together. Carefully, he rocked his weight onto one elbow, shifting from the opposite elbow to his hand. The pain made him groan. He rocked the other direction, forced himself onto that hand as well.

The technician looked worried. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said.

Horkai ignored him. He tested his arms. They were both weak, atrophied, but would, he thought, support him. He gathered his weight on his arms, swung his legs and body out off the table.

Only his legs wouldn’t hold, wouldn’t move at all, in fact. They splayed and collapsed, and his forehead glanced off the table next to his own just before he struck the floor hard, pain shooting through his ribs and hip.

He lay there on the floor, staring at a brushed metal table leg. He reached up and touched his head, brought his hand away and saw fingers grown slick with blood.

“You’re paralyzed, Horkai,” the technician said. “A paraplegic. Don’t you remember?” Horkai turned and saw that the technician was now standing. “I’d help you up,” the man said, “but I’m afraid to get close to you.” And then he left the room.

* * *

HE PATTED HIS FOREHEAD. As far as he could tell, the gash was not bad. The bleeding seemed to have stopped almost immediately. Indeed, after a moment, he had a hard time telling where exactly the gash itself was.

He pulled himself up to sit, still feeling pain deep within each movement, and straightened his legs as best he could. Then he lay back again and began to think.

What did he know? Very little. He had been stored—he knew that somehow, knew what that meant, but could not for some reason remember where he had been stored or why. Nor why they, whoever they were, had unthawed him. He knew his name, Horkai, or at least a name that sounded plausibly like it could be his own. He knew, looking at his arms, that for some reason his skin was exceptionally pale. He knew, looking at his body and running his hand over his head, that he was hairless, and remembered, or thought he remembered, losing his hair in a blast. There was a name for it, for the blast, or for the thing the blast had been part of, something he could remember: Kollaps. Why had that come to him seemingly more naturally than his own name? He could remember something about the Kollaps itself but very little about what he had done before or what he had done after, in the days just before being stored.

How long had he been stored? Was his brain sufficiently awake now that he could trust it? He closed his eyes, trying to capture and organize the bits and scraps that beat around his skull.

And why hadn’t he remembered he was a paraplegic? Even if his mind hadn’t remembered it, wouldn’t his body still have known? Wouldn’t it have done something to prevent him from throwing himself off the table?

He patted his leg, but couldn’t feel anything in it. He tried to move it, failed. Why, now that he’d been told he was paralyzed, didn’t it feel right? Was he in denial?

The problem, he began to realize, wasn’t just trying to assemble the little he thought he knew into a narrative—it came in determining which of the memories were real, which were things he’d dreamed or imagined.

3

HE MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP, must have dozed off again. The next thing he was conscious of was the sound of male voices, the feel of their hands as they lifted him off the floor. He saw three of them, one holding his legs and one lifting each side of his body. Or, rather, four: the original technician had returned as well, though he kept his distance, standing back by the door.

Horkai winced at their touch, groaned.

“Awake, then?” asked one of them, a ruddy man with a wispy beard and a pockmarked face. He didn’t wait for a response.

They balanced him on the edge of the table a moment, muttering back and forth to one another, then gathered him up more securely. The ruddy man came around behind him. He worked his arms under Horkai’s arms and locked his hands over Horkai’s chest. The other two made a kind of chariot for his hips and legs. They were larger than the ruddy man. One was black haired and the other brown haired, but otherwise they were seemingly identical in appearance: brothers, maybe twins.

“Still getting your bearings?” the ruddy man asked from behind him, his breath warm against Horkai’s ear. “Can’t imagine what it’s like to be frozen for so long. Nor what it’s like waking up.”

“It’s terrible,” Horkai said.

“Of course it is,” said the ruddy man affably. “But you’re awake now,” he said. “Oleg, Olaf,” he said. “Might as well do this. He’s not getting any lighter. Down to the end of the table and off it on the count of three.”

Horkai braced himself, but it didn’t seem to lessen the pain when they lifted him. The ruddy man’s arms felt like they were cutting him in two, each line of contact like a band of fire. What’s wrong with me? he wondered. How can I make it stop?

“Knus, get the door for us, will you?” said the ruddy man, his voice abrupt with effort. “It’s the least you can do.”

“All right, Rasmus,” the technician said, and Horkai watched him pull the door open. The others, grunting, lumbered awkwardly across the room, maneuvering him through the door and out.

Beyond the door was an access hall. It was wide and long, the floor made of concrete that was weathered and cracked. The walls, concrete as well, were falling apart and roughly patched, holes covered with warped half sheets of plywood smeared with tar. The ceiling was also plywood, a series of layered sheets, the gaps filled with something that looked like tinfoil but had a bluish sheen. It was propped up here and there with lengths of pipe, some still gray with grease, others mottled with overlapping ovals of rust.

“Doesn’t look much like it used to, does it, Josef?” said Rasmus. “We’ve done our best to keep things going, but I’m the first to admit it hasn’t always been easy.”

“We’ve kept up the important things,” said either Olaf or Oleg.

“The things that matter,” said the other brother.

“Time, the great destroyer,” said the first. And both brothers laughed.

“How long has it been?” asked Horkai.

Rasmus’s steps stuttered, and Horkai dipped in the brothers’ arms as they tried to compensate, the jostling causing him a fresh burst of pain.

“Knus didn’t brief you?” asked Rasmus. “He was supposed to.”

Horkai had to wait a moment for the pain to subside before he could respond. “Knus and I had a bit of a misunderstanding,” he admitted.

“I heard you tried to kill him,” said Oleg or Olaf, raising an eyebrow.

“We all heard that,” said Rasmus. He smiled. “Should we be worried, Josef?”

He acted as if he were joking, but there was an undertone in his voice that made Horkai wonder. But why would they be nervous about me? he wondered. I’m paralyzed.

The hall ended in a sort of garage door painted brick red. The paint had peeled away in places to reveal bare metal. A large hand crank was to one side.

“Olaf, help me hold him,” said Rasmus. “Oleg, take care of the door.” Rasmus inclined his head to Horkai,