Chapter 2

Nick

I came to from the sound of dripping water. With great effort I opened my eyes and tried to make out something. However, there was complete darkness. Suddenly, I felt pain all over my body - looks like my nerves decided it was time to turn on. I tried to remember what happened. Yeah... it seems I was really hit hard by the electric shock. I wonder what scared me? Clenching my teeth until I felt pain in them, I tried to move my arm. It twitched slightly. After a short rest, I continued trying to reanimate my muscles. One-two. One-two. Clench-and-let go. That's how Sensei taught me, right? After pumping some blood through my muscles, I began to feel better. Half an hour later, I managed to crawl to the wall and lean against it.

In the meantime, I was trying to understand what had happened. It is clear that I was hit with an electric shock, but its not clear how that happened - my hands were in gloves and I kept the wires in pliers. Then I smelled some scorched hair and decided to feel my head. On the back of my head, I felt an extreme wave of pain. All my hair was burned off there. Now it is seems clear what happened. After turning toward the sound, I involuntarily leaned back and touched the back of my head to the bare wires. Thinking this over, I was surprised that I was still alive. In addition, the wound on the back of my head hurt only when touched. I tried to figure out whether that was good or bad, but I could not think of anything.

I felt my forehead again. Seems my glasses are not on my head, I need to find them. Whistling a special pattern, I was relieved to see the flashing light that blinded my eyes, which already became accustomed to the darkness, and I heard a weak buzzer. Back at home, I was constantly losing my glasses, so I set up a program that reacts with light and sound to a certain whistling melody. Judging by the reaction from my body-comp, he remained intact. Though this really isn't surprising, since usually they are made to be protected from numerous external influences, because people always carry them with them. Some freaks even bathe without taking it off.

Anyway, it took some time before I managed to get up, put on my glasses and look around. At first I was going to check what happened to the switchboard, finish the work, go back to the office, and take care of my head later. It was not hurting so much anymore. However, the first glance at the wall, where the panel should be located, made me freeze motionless. The wall was empty. No switchboard in sight. "Maybe I was thrown back?" - I thought and walked along the wall to the left and right about twenty meters. I did not find anything. As far as I was thrown back, the shield should be close. However, it was not. Then I looked at the walls. For a some time now something was nagging at me, but I did not pay attention. Looking closer, I realized that the walls were different. Not believing myself, or rather, my body-comp - because a it was currently the one synthesizing the image - I turned on the LED flashlight on my glasses, which looked like a bright strip along the border of the glasses. Visible space was reduced to several meters and synthesis of the graphics automatically stopped. The sensitivity of the body-comp sensors was enough to scan the surrounding space up to a dozen meters in total darkness. Based on the results of the scan, in real time it generated a realistic picture of the surrounding space, in which it is much easier to navigate than in the small light of a headlamp. In the presence of at least weak illumination, this visible area increased further. In the afternoon, it just passed though the real picture, and any further image processing was dependent on any customized programs for generating the surrounding world.

But now I needed a flashlight to see with my own eyes what the computer previously showed me. The sight was not much different from before. The wall turned out to be metal with a silver surface, while in our basement the walls were concrete. I cautiously touched it. Nothing changed. All this really stressed me out. To have a complete picture, I set the computer to scan my surroundings using the flashlight in order to expand the visible area. Almost instantly, the image before my eyes cleared up and I looked around.

I stood in the corridor, but the corridor was different. Not the one I was in before. Instead of damp, dripping concrete, there was metal around me. Dirt with layers of dust including dry leaves, branches, wood dust and even bones of small animals rustled under my feet. I shuddered, I really do not like rats. "Perhaps," I thought, "the problems with my head are much more serious problems than I guessed." I spent a minute re-configuring the body-comp health monitor. This program can not replace real medical scanning and analysis systems, but thanks to the built-in sensors of the body-comp, the rapid analysis performs quite well. After I started the analysis, I also decided to check whether I had become a sleepwalker after the electric shock, or whoever it is who walks while dreaming - somehow I had to have gotten into this new corridor! But alas, the system showed no such thing. Just an immediate change of scenery. After checking the results of the scan, I found out that I have no serious problems, except that it is worth visiting the hospital for further analysis and treatment of the burns on my head and that I can take some light painkillers or do some relaxation therapy, but that is optional.

After picking up my bag, I carefully moved toward the exit. That is, the former exit. Here, who knows where it is. In order to not go mad with fear, I decided to stop trying to form any hypotheses. I'll think of something else later...

In general, it's hard to scare me with something. Physically I'm strong, I've trained in combat Sambo, not as intense as I used to in college, but I try to keep in shape. I am a mentally stable person, however, a situation like this will worry even the most oblivious person.

Slowly walking along the corridor, I realized that the sound of water drops was getting closer and that it was coming from around a corner. Carefully peeking around the corner I saw exactly the same corridor, only very damaged. The ceiling sank and both walls were penetrated by some pipes. From one such pipe a liquid was dripping. The puddle below was small. Apparently, some of the water (is it really water?) is going somewhere. Strange as it may seem, after only 20 meters behind this blockage the corridor ended (even though in my "basement" I walked more than a kilometer).

"Stop," I said to myself, "does it make sense to go through the pipes and look at the end of the corridor?" Maybe I should go back and examine the other end of the corridor? But who knows how far I will have to go that way, here I have already arrived somewhere. Okay, I'll check everything here and go back if I do not find anything special. With great effort I made my way through the blockage of pipes. Along the way I checked the liquid dripping from the ceiling. Strange, but it was water. Ordinary water. As shown by a simple analysis from my body-comp, the water is not only safe to drink, but also contains some healthy minerals. After another hundred meters, I was at a dead end. Well, why was this corridor even here then?! That's it. I must rest and think. Who am I? Where am I? My glance fell to the floor and slowly rose higher. Nothing. I sat down, leaning against the wall, and, as I was closing my eyes to fall asleep, noticed a silvery line at the junction of the wall and floor. The hard carpet of garbage and dust hid it quite well, so I did not notice it right away.

Okay, before I do anything else, I need to rest a little. I'm extremely tired. Once I returned to the water, I took a couple of sips. It tasted like a normal mineral water. I analyzed my sensations: seems alright. It seems the water is actually safe to drink, the body-comp did not lie. Now I'm glad that at least I will not die of thirst. I drank as much as I could, just in case crawled to the wall, relaxed my body and closed my eyes. Then I decided to check on that relaxation therapy that my body-comp suggested. I set up my computer to stop the session in case someone appeared nearby, settled down and selected the link to the proposed therapy

After about an hour I felt quite cheerful, even my head stopped hurting. I wanted to jump, run around, and was really just full of energy. Realizing that this is abnormal for my condition, I began to think about it. So to sum it up, I suffered from a large electric shock recently, my muscles were wadded and overall my sensations were horrible. Now I feel fine, I do not even feel hunger. How could this happen? An increased effect from the relaxation session? The only thing that occurred to me: I drank this unknown water. "Is this Living water [refers to a traditional Russian folktale], or what?" I tried to joke, but I actually did not feel like joking at all. Okay, let's accept the hypothesis that it is the water that helped, I can't think of anything else anyway. An hour has passed, my stomach does not feel hungry, and my sensations are normal. Just in case, I drank some more water and moistened the back of my head - "what if it really does help?" - and went to explore the end of the corridor.

So, what do we have here? I squatted down and within a few minutes I scraped the dirt and dust off the joint of the wall and floor that I had previously noticed. After finishing the dust and mud removal work, I mentally gave myself a pat on the back for my previous observation. The "dead-end" wall turned out to really be a door. A little researching revealed that the door moves into the wall and at the moment is not covered tightly - there is a gap between it and the riser. I took a screwdriver from my bag, with great difficulty put it into the slot, and pulled with all my weight. Well, at least the screwdriver is thick enough and made of good metal. The door slowly began to move to the side, I helped it by pushing it away from the door-frame using my feet. As soon as the door was fully opened, a soft light turned on in the room in front of me. Surprised, I jumped back into the corridor. The light turned off. Ugh, one can get a heart attack from surprises like this! Interesting, what kind of automation mechanisms does this use? Judging by the condition of the corridor, it hasn't been serviced for ages, even so the devices still work. I took a deep breath and took a cautious step into the room. The light automatically came on again.

The room turned out to be large, around the size of the gym we had in college, only round. I was especially surprised by the walls - a shiny metal, divided into sections with some inscriptions or drawings in each of them. The soft gloss of the metal did not strain my eyes. Along the walls there were some devices, from the far wall to the center stretched a smooth a table or rather, more likely, a control interface. In the center of the room, in front of the interface, was an armchair turned away from me, it also seemed to be metal. Where the light was coming from, I still did not understand - its as if the air itself was glowing. Slightly hesitating and, just in case, shooting a panorama of the room on my the body-comp, I walked slowly to the chair...