Patricknodded and then said louder to the group below, “We’ll probably need to wait anhour or so.”
Thenhe turned to me. “Shall I help you get down? Here, take my hands and I’ll loweryou.” I came close to the edge and held his hands. “Turn the other way, so youcan hold onto the edge with your feet.” Then he shouted, “J? Ready to holdher?”
“Readyas I’ll ever be,” said J.
“Finally,”said Peter and everyone but me laughed.
Idid not know what that meant, but it seemed to me it was said in good spirit.
Patricklowered me down and J grabbed my waist, holding it tightly as he brought medown.
Hesmiled at me and said, “Do you want me to show you around?”
Ismiled back and nodded.
Jand I walked farther up the hill until we reached the end of the once-inhabitedarea, the edge where the forest started again. He turned around to face thehill and sat down. I sat next to him.
“Thewhole city is too big to walk through now, but I thought I’d pick a spot whereI could show you a few places.”
“Okay,”I said and looked around. He was right. From this spot, we could see a largepart of the deserted city.
“Here,”he said, pointing to a place halfway down to the rugby stadium. “That was theplace where I worked.”
Ilooked, then frowned. There was virtually nothing lefton that spot. “I don’t see anything.”
“Iknow,” he said. “There wouldn’t be any. The building was made out of wood. Itwas all very natural.”
“Whatwas it?”
“Arecuperation center.”
Ilooked at him. “And what was your role in society?”
Somethingabout my question made him smile. “Well, I don’t know what my role in society was, but I was a trainedphysiotherapist. First, I worked with stroke and paraplegic patients.”
Ishook my head slowly, not understanding. “What are those?”
“Well,a brain stroke typically happens when a blood clot blocks the blood supply to acertain part of the brain by clogging the artery.”
“Thereis no such thing in Uni.”
“Really?How can that be? Strokes are the third leading cause of mortality in the firstworld.”
“Were.”
“Okay,yes, were. But how can you guys control that?”
“Ido not know the details, J. All the information about bio-medical enhancements isproprietary to the Anas and Booleans.”
“Andthey are?”
“Theyare a species of Descendants. Anas are focused on medical science, and Booleansperform molecular and genetic experiments.”
“Doyou guys have any diseases at all?”
“No,”I said, and then I lowered my gaze. “Not unless we come to Earth.” My thoughtswent to Stevanion. J didn’t say anything, but he must have been thinking thesame thing and we shared a few moments of silence.
“Whatwas the other one?” I asked.
Heraised his head. “The other what?”
“Yousaid you worked with stroke patients and paraplegic patients. What areparaplegic patients?”
“Paraplegicpatients had a trauma—ah, injury—to their spinal cord that blockedthe use of their legs, and sometimes, depending where the injury was, also thearms. But I mainly worked with those where the injury wasn’t as serious, andthere was still some use of the lower extremities, as well as the arms. In bothcases, the goal was to train the body to recover movement and coordination.”
“Butyou said you worked with those patients in the beginning. What happenedafterward?”
“Right.So the building was originally built for stroke patients, but it was repurposedas a facility for… hmm, Scrambles. It’s…not a nice word, but that’s what everyone called them.”
“Whowere Scrambles?”
“Well…the people with scrambled brains.”
Ishook my head slowly. “I do not understand.”
“No,I know. So here is the story. At some point—it must have been about five yearsafter I finished my studies—a new drug appeared. It turned the worldaround. It activated all the brain centers. It hyped up the brain bigtime.”
“Hypedup the brain?”
“Anormal person—in my time, at least—used ten, maybe fifteen percentof their brain at any given moment, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Thisdrug made it possible to use several times that capacity. You would not believewhat people were able to do! Luckily, for some reason it remained extremelyrare and not many could get hold of it.”
“Whydo you say luckily? Isn’t it a good thing to use the brain to such a capacity?”
Heshook his head hard. “No. In the very beginning, people thought there were nodrawbacks, but after one or two months of use, they—broke. They could nottalk anymore, they had no coordination of their bodymovements, even their vision centers failed, so they could not see anymore.They were… scrambled. Half of the patients died in the days after the scramblestarted, but some didn’t. And as you can imagine, they had all the symptoms ofthe people I’d worked with before, so I was transferred to work with them.”
Helooked to the front, his gaze far beyond the stadium. “I can’t escape thefeeling that the thing had been manufactured.”
“Whathad been manufactured?”
“Thedrug.” He turned to me. “This wasn’t some natural plant that got dried,chopped, mixed with cement, or dipped into gasoline. This drug came out of nowhere,all of a sudden, and it was available on different continents at different locationsat the same time. As if someone was trying it out on the people.”
“Tryingit out? You mean like an experiment?”
“Yeah,exactly like that: finding out how it works on Humans.”
Isearched my nanoprobes, trying to gather more information on pre-Ev history.
“Idon’t understand.” I looked at him and said, “This historical fact is significantenough to be saved on the nanoprobes. I should have some information saved onthis topic. But I don’t have anything.”
Ilooked at him again.
“Isthat surprising? It might not be so important for the Descendants.”
“Unlessit was.”
Inthat moment, the gray ruined city disappeared in front of my eyes to give wayto a Vision.
The brightly litlab is crammed with people in white coats, bent over their lab benches,observing robotic manipulators, talking in groups of three or four. This is a labI have seen already. This is the lab where Tania’s deceased husband worked.
Universityof Neurotechnology and Innovation. UNI.
The alarm soundsand everyone is still for a moment. And then they start rushing toward the exit.
Even after all thepeople are out, the alarm still sounds and the lights still blink. Two new peopleappear, walking into the lab from the exit. They do not wear white coats but ratherhazmat suits. They reach the large refrigerator nextto the
