- Chapter 16 -
The Reason Behind it All
The hospital room was pitch black when Martin woke up. He couldn't see anything around him and could barely tell when his eyes were open. The place was eerily silent and he felt that something had gone terribly wrong.
He removed the tubes that were neatly inserted into his veins. The last one he pulled out pained him tremendously, leaving red welts on his wrist. He forced his legs over the bed and was shocked to finf them useless, like broken flower stems. His ankles twisted inwards as if he hadn't used his legs in a while. How long have I been here, Martin thought?
He noticed the wheelchair by the door, and with the help of the extended table lamp beside him, he moved it closer to his bed until he could finally hop in it and wheel himself out of his darkened dormatory.
The white-walled corridors were just as vacant and silent as his room. He was about to make his way towards the small cafeteria of this three story hospital when he spotted Anna by the double doors that led to the maternity wing. She had a sour look about her, her cropped blonde hair blowing in the breeze of a strange draft.
"This isn't real, is it?" Martin asked, finally making the connection. This place wasn't a hospital. This place wasn't even real at all. He started to recognize the manipulations in the threads. Anna was toying with him. Giving him what he desired most - information on his family - only to rip it away from under him. What was she getting at?
"What are you doing, Anna?" Martin asked, walking towards her.
She raised her head, a few short strands of hair falling into her eyes. "Do you begin to understand what the Agency is capable of, Mr. Christ?"
"What was the point of all this? Dragging me on for months, only to tell me you aren't an Agent. And then promise me a life rich in prospects, drag me to some unknown facility across the country with the hopes of reuniting with my family. I'm zapped out, wake up here, find out here isn't real and that you are an agent."
Anna tried to follow along with his retelling. She always laughed when her students did this. Confusing them was the first step in controlling them. None of her pupils ever trusted her again. And this is what was needed for a good Agent to suceed. Trust nobody.
"It's our latest technique in discipline. We see how far we can convince the students that the Agency truly is an evil operation. Students don't usually figure this part out so quickly. I'm proud of you." She said, finally locking eyes with Martin.
He looked away instantly. "I don't want your approval. I don't want anything to do with you, Anna Simeon. I know your real name; what you look like. Do you think for a second I wasn't prepared for this eventuality? You were right about one thing, Anna, and one thing only."
She smiled, and pushed herself off the wall where she was resting lazily. She brushed her hair behind her ears and flashed another smile at Martin. "Oh yeah, and what was that, Mr. Christ?"
"Don't trust anyone."
Martin ran against the wall, seemingly walking on it, and jumped off, kicking Anna square in the jaw. She fell back and the world she created, the hollowed hospital, began to shrink around her, the black edges blurred with tints of purple until she was back in reality, her own world.
Anna walked out of the simulation room and headed down the same corridor that she and Martin walked down a few weeks ago. She was furious and it was apparent in her fast and agressive step. She didn't look up nor talked to anyone she came by. Anna arrived at the last door and didn't knock before entering.
The room was silent. The person she wanted to talk to was writing something on her desk. The woman's blonde hair flowed gracefully behind her back. Anna had no manners.
"You told me the simulation would work. That it was up to par with our ressources." Anna said, sitting down across from Jenna Crown, the person in charge of operations.
The other woman stopped writing and put her pencil down. She removed her thick, horn-rimmed glasses and looked at Anna. "It's still experimental and I warned you. Where's Mr. Christ, now?"
"Hopefully he believed your story and is out looking for Mary. How could he control the simulation like that? He didn't come out the same way I did, back here. How is that?" Anna asked, quite confused, something that didn't happen much here.
"I'm not sure how he did that yet but he cannott escape, Anna, you know the consequences."
"Yes, I know. If we don't catch him, the messiah will never be born"
"Good. so you understand the stakes at hand. Now find the bastard and bring him back" Jenna Crown barked, returning to her writing. She told Martin the truth in the simulation, or at least her avatar did. She had indeed adopted Mary. She was nowhere near Babylon though.
If Martin wanted to find and rescue Mary, an idea they planted in his mind, he would have to go to the one place he doesn't want to; back to the agency.
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