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Ghost in the Machine: Red Letter Day |
| Written by Thea | |
| Tuesday, 18 March 2008 | |
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Share it:      This is a work in progress... By no means is this the finished product. I just don't know where to go from here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. --- Rhett Sinclair. A happy go lucky guy by anyone's standards, he had a few, shall we say, problems. He liked to do things nobody else did. For the most part, he liked to do acrobatic stunts. You see, Rhett was a rebel. His daily pattern consisted of getting up, showering, eating a light breakfast and heading out to jump, twist and turn his way to a healthy, slim body laced with muscle. The problem with this was, Rhett lived in a nocturnal, sloth-ridden society. Nobody wanted to eat right or stay clean... Rhett knew he was destined for greater things when he was contacted by the mayor of his hometown's sister city and asked to participate in an athletic competition. Being an adult, he had the right to make his own choices. And he chose to go. This was why he kept up his daily routine even when his family told him he didn't have to work so hard. His response had been an affectionate smile and a shake of the head, then he'd left to go practice a new variant of his usual twists and turns. He was in the field trying to figure out how he was going to start when the ground beneath his feet began to shake and vibrate. He knew what that meant... "Uh-oh..." He turned and ran for the nearest transport unit and was whisked home immediately. Of course, being so far out meant he'd arrived before disaster struck. The only ones who were healthy, fit and clean were the scientists... And when he ran into the Observatory with wide eyes and trembling hands, they knew. Rhett was a scientist's dream! He could anticipate earthquakes, hurricanes and typhoons based on the slightest movement of any geothermic weather pattern. A new member of the team looked up when he put his hand on the Earthquake Alert panel and frowned. "Scientists only, sir. Please remove your hand." "Alarie, that's Rhett Sinclair." Alarie had the grace to blush and look down. "Sorry, sir." "That's quite all right... Go ahead, Rhett." Rhett merely nodded and hit the button that started the Earthquake Alert sequence. But nothing happened. "What's going on? It should have gone off by now!" "How far out were you?" "Jackson's Field." The scientists frowned, then Alarie went under the control panel to see what was wrong. When she came out right away with a broken wire in her hand, Rhett began to curse violently. They didn't try to stop him... They were thinking what he was saying. So he grabbed a handset, punched a few buttons and waited impatiently until he heard a triple toned chime that told him he could use the backup system. His voice rang throughout the city... "There is an earthquake on the way here... Please evacuate your homes and head for the nearest earthquake shelter. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I repeat, there is an earthquake on its way to the city. THIS IS NOT A DRILL!" Then he hung up and stood there with his hands on his hips as he waited for a confirmation light to flash as the first shelter took in its maximum load of terrified occupants. Seconds turned into minutes, then the first lights went on. Five shelters were already full. "That's five so far." By the time the earthquake hit, the houses that lined the streets were empty. The earthquake shelters were all full, some to overflowing because one shelter wouldn't let anyone in. The Observatory was empty as well, save for a solitary figure who checked panels and watched the screens. When the earthquake finally passed, everything was in total disarray. Homes had been shoved upward with so much force they'd been flipped onto their roofs. Businesses that hadn't been damaged too severely donated their stock to the victims who had lost everything. But in the center of town, the magnitude of the earthquake was felt the most. Their beloved Observatory was in ruins. The epicenter of the earthquake had been right underneath it, due to a misaligned tectonic plate. Alarie, the novice member of the team, was the first to notice who was missing... "Oh my God, where's Rhett!?" Nobody could find him in any of the houses, shelters or other places one would normally hide during an earthquake. Someone began searching the rubble that was all that remained of the Observatory and made a horrifying discovery. He swallowed heavily and made a grim announcement. "Found Rhett's kerchief..." He held up the blue and white kerchief that always hung from Rhett's back pocket and showed it to the assembled crowd. It was covered in a sticky red substance... "Oh my God." Rubble began flying away from where the searcher had found the kerchief and they hit the sub-basement door, which was all that was left of their beloved Observatory. The door screeched open to reveal Rhett Sinclair, slumped over a chair and totally motionless. His once blonde hair was sticky with his own blood and his fingers hung limply. With a whimper, his youngest sister raced in and knelt beside him. She was only 5 years younger than Rhett, and already showed signs of being like him. Thin, athletic, healthy, always clean... She put her hand on his shoulder and whispered his name. "Rhett?" A slight tic on his eyelid, then it was gone. But it gave her hope. "Come on, Rhett, I know you're in there." "Seanna, he's not going to answer you." "Shut up, Dad, I know what I'm doing, okay?" Then she turned back to Rhett. The tic returned, then faded again. Something was wrong. He'd been hurt worse before this and had always woken up right away. "Rhett, come on back... We need you. Please." His hand twitched slightly, then came up to hover in front of her. She grabbed it in both of hers and held it tightly, silently begging her big brother to come back to them. Her eyes closed and her head tipped forward a bit. One thing the Sinclair siblings had in common was the ability to think themselves out of any situation... Seanna was turning things around. Without a sound, she found herself inside a virtual reality world that closely resembled the video game movie "Tron". Her voice echoed a bit as she turned around. "Rhett?" "Seanna?" "Where are you?" "I'm not sure... What does the room you're in look like?" "That old video game movie Tron." "Uh-oh... I know what's going on." "What?" "The earthquake overloaded all my natural resistances. I'm trapped inside my own head!" "What are we going to do?" "Get out of here and take me to the hospital in our sister city. I'd rather be there than here, you know?" "Yes, I do know. I'll get you there myself or my name isn't Seanna Sinclair!" Which it was. Rhett's laughter echoed in her ears as she opened her eyes with a gasp and turned around. There was a term for people like Rhett, who were trapped inside their own heads... When she stood up, she brushed the dirt off her knees and sighed. "He's a Ghost in the Machine." Silence fell. Then the mayor spoke up. She wasn't as corpulent as her Council, but not quite as slender as Rhett and Seanna. "Where does he want you to take him?" "Our sister city." Faint gasps emerged from the crowd, but the Mayor's glare shut them right up. Then she turned back to Seanna. "Take the City Transport. I'll authorize it for you." "Thank you, Madam Mayor." She turned around and lifted Rhett into her arms with an ease that left the watching crowd stunned. Rhett was nearly a foot taller than her, but she carried him like he was an infant! The crowd parted like the Red Sea and let her pass by. An ambulance was waiting for her and they offloaded the stretcher without a word. It hovered in mid-air and she put him on it. The straps were done up and she sighed quietly, then took hold of the sidebar and started walking toward the City Transport pad. It was a transport system that connected the two cities... Sunside and Moonridge. Rhett and Seanna lived in Moonridge. Sunside was her destination. A low chime, then a mechanical voice could be heard. "Number of passengers and method of transport, please." "Two, medical transport." "Are both passengers mobile?" "Negative. One is on a stretcher." A red beam whisked over them, then vanished. "Confirmed... Is this trip authorized by the Mayor?" "Affirmative." A bubble floated down and encased them both in a gentle curve of air that kept the stretcher steady and let Seanna stay standing. "Transport underway... Safe journey." That was a funny thing for a robot to say... But Seanna didn't have time to think about it. The bubble was moving. It floated down the passageway and into a large chamber that closed itself off once they were inside. The bubble slowly dissolved and the chamber shot upward like a rocket. It stopped slowly, decelerating so they wouldn't be thrown around. The doors whisked open and they were on a moving conveyer that took them to another chamber. This one went down slowly, another bubble forming around them as they traveled. The doors opened and the bubble took them out into a long hallway. When the second bubble dissolved, it seemed like they hadn't gone anywhere. But they had... Seanna moved the stretcher out into the sunshine of a city that was Moonridge's exact opposite. Clean streets, slender citizens and orderly traffic made her smile faintly, then she gripped the stretcher and moved to the local transport system. The mechanical voice she heard was warm and friendly... "Welcome to Sunside, where can I send you today?" "The hospital." "How many are there?" "Two, my brother's on a stretcher. We're from Moonridge..." "One moment, please." Seanna waited patiently as the Sunside transport system warmed up and brought the transport pad to their location. She moved the stretcher onto it and felt her feet being secured by a magnetic field that traveled up her body until she was totally encased in it. Then magnetic clamps rose up and held the stretcher in place so it wouldn't move during transport. A chime signaled the computer they were ready and the pad began to move. "Have a safe trip." "Thank you." The Sunside hospital was a quiet, orderly place that was always busy in one form or another... And today was no exception. The Sunside transport system alerted them to an incoming patient from Moonridge being accompanied by his sister. That was nothing unusual... They were always getting patients from Moonridge. Then the transport system told them who the patient was. "Patient's name, Rhett Sinclair." "Any visible injuries, CT?" "Negative." "We'll be on standby... Thanks for alerting us." "You're welcome." CT was the nickname for the local transport system. If Rhett Sinclair was being brought in by his sister, something awful had happened. When Seanna arrived with the stretcher, there were three orderlies waiting for them. They didn't shove her to the side, they walked beside her. "What's the prognosis or do you have one for us?" She stopped and sighed. Her voice was awash with tears... "He's a Ghost in the Machine." One of the orderlies cursed and another one hit a panel on the wall. "We have a Ghost in the Machine from Moonridge. It's Rhett Sinclair." The response was laced with static, but even that couldn't hide their shock. "Bring him to Room Twelve!" "Yes, sir!" The pad for Room Twelve was waiting for them when they got to the lift system... It whisked them there without a sound. Seanna got a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach and refused to move more than ten feet off the pad. "What's wrong?" "I have a bad feeling about this... Someone wanted Rhett out of the way so they had him in the Observatory during the earthquake. And when they told you to bring him to Room Twelve, I got a strong feeling of impending doom. I am not taking him in there!" "Wait a minute! Earthquake!?" "Yes. We got hit by a massive earthquake less than three hours ago. Rhett went to warn the city from the Observatory... Someone generated the epicenter right below the Observatory because of that misaligned tectonic plate it was built on. If we hadn't found him in the sub-basement..." "Shoot. Hang on a second." He went to the panel on the wall and tapped a button. "Sir, Moonridge has been hit by a massive earthquake... Request permission to send aid." "What!? When?" "Less than three hours ago. Rhett's sister thinks someone wanted him out of the way... She won't take him into Room Twelve." "She can put him in any of our Ghost Rooms. Is she there with you?" "Yes, sir, she is." Seanna knew what the question would be, so she nodded for the orderly to tap the button again. "Seanna Sinclair, sir. Rhett was in the Observatory when it hit..." A door whisked open and a portly man emerged to stand beside the stretcher. "I'm the administrator of this facility... Were you able to get a magnitude reading on that earthquake?" "It leveled the Observatory." He pondered that a moment, then nodded abruptly. "Johnson. Contact the Mayor of Moonridge. Tell her our supplies are at her disposal." "Yes, sir." "Hansen. Contact our Mayor and tell him Moonridge is in a state of dire emergency." "Right away." "Miss Sinclair, you can put your brother in any of the Ghost Rooms. Davis, watch them both. Make sure NOTHING happens to either one of them." "Yes, sir!" The administrator left to begin the supply transfer to Moonridge, leaving Seanna with orderly Davis. He inclined his head and spoke quietly. "Where would you like to take him?" She didn't even hesitate. "Room Three." Room Three wasn't too far away from Room Twelve... They were able to walk the stretcher down the hall. Seanna breathed a sigh of relief when the stretcher was clamped into place on the west wall. Then she stiffened when someone grabbed her arms and started pulling her out of the room. "Hey! Let her go!" "No visitors allowed." "She just brought her brother in, dammit... Let her go!" "No visitors!" And they started dragging Seanna out of the room. She did something they'd only seen Rhett do... She locked her knees, bent forward and threw the guy across the room! Davis whistled, then nodded and let her into the room. The guy she tossed took one look at her and stopped cold. He knew that face... He looked at Rhett, who was conscious but trapped in his own mind, and quietly left the room. Rhett's eyes were open... The brown eyes that were usually so warm and full of laughter were vacant now. Copyright 2008 Thea |
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