When I woke again, I found myself lying on a bed.
Thank the heavens. This time it was a real bed. The mattress felt like some kind of rubber or leather product, hard as a stone slab, but at least it wasn't a freezing metal platform.
I tried to move and, to my surprise, that murderous, tearing agony was gone. In its place was a sore, swollen, tolerable dull pain. I looked down. Fresh bandages were wrapped around my chest, clean and spotless, not a trace of blood.
I drew a deep breath. My lungs still ached with a heavy, muffled pain, but the air went in smoothly. No more wheezing like a busted bellows.
I was actually… alive. And it looked like I'd been fixed?
I scanned the room. It was brutally austere. All four walls were gray alloy, no windows, only a thick, heavy-looking door made of the same material. Aside from the bed, a table, and a chair, there was nothing. This was less a hospital room and more a cell.
By my bedside stood a… thing.
It was a "person," about one meter seventy. He wore plain, coarse gray cloth, but the exposed skin was riddled with metal ports and tubing of various thicknesses. His right arm had been replaced wholesale by a precise-looking mechanical limb, and his left eye was a scanner that flickered with a dim green glow. His face was expressionless, his gaze empty—like a factory-fresh automaton—except it was still a human face, which made the whole sight profoundly uncanny.
"Data vault confirmation: target has regained consciousness," the half-man, half-machine said. The voice was a flat, electronic synthesis. "Identification code: Specimen Beta-073. Greetings."
Even the designation got upgraded—from Ω to β. That sounded like… a promotion? I tried to amuse myself through the bitterness.
"How long was I out?" I asked, my voice still hoarse.
"According to record, you were comatose for forty-seven standard hours. Approximately equivalent to two Terran days," it replied without emotion.
Two days? I couldn't help marveling. This warped world scored negative points on "humanitarian care," but its medical technology—no, its "repair technology"—was absurd. With injuries like mine, back home I'd be bedridden for ten days at minimum. Here? I struggled up into a sitting position. I was dressed in a loose, rough gray outfit; my plaid shirt and jeans were long gone. My chest still felt swollen and sore, but I could move freely. Two days to get someone with a perforated chest cavity back on their feet. The tech level was downright unreasonable.
"Where am I? Am I allowed to leave?" I asked, clinging to a sliver of hope.
"This location is Observation Cell Seven, Medicae Wing, Fortress Valmonda, Adeptus Arbites, Imperium of Man," the cyborg answered. "By senior directive, you are currently under Level-One supervision. You are not permitted to exit this area until directives are lifted."
I understood. I'd been soft-confined. From "suspect," to "mascot," to "holy relic," and now I'd become a tightly monitored, research-worthy "rare specimen."
I let out a silent, crooked laugh. What was this supposed to be—an employee benefit?
Right then, my stomach betrayed me with an untimely "gurrk—," loud in the cell-like silence. Only then did I realize that since I'd been dragged into this hellhole, aside from a few lifesaving mouthfuls of water, I'd eaten almost nothing. The hunger rose from my gut like fire, nearly smothering my fear of the unknown.
"I'm hungry," I told the half-machine, nearly pleading. "Can you give me something to eat?"
The green light in its eye flickered, as if running an evaluation. "Existing directives do not include dietary restriction. Your request falls within authorized parameters. Follow." It paused, then added, "Based on your provisional identity clearance, you will be escorted to Lower Canteen Three for a meal."
Provisional identity. Lower canteen. Fine. Better than starving.
Under the escort of that half-man, half-machine—no, that servitor—I stepped out of the cell. The corridor beyond was still steeped in that oppressive Gothic gloom. The thing in front of me walked with a swaying, clockwork-toy stiffness, its strides rigid and exact. Metal soles struck the floor in a steady rhythm. Now and then, colleagues that looked seventy or eighty percent like it passed by us, but none of them acknowledged us—no one even glanced over.
"Lower Canteen Three" was housed in a vast underground space. The moment I entered, a strangely comforting, bustling human liveliness washed over me. This was less a canteen and more a factory workshop. Steam leaked from thick pipes, the walls were mottled, the floor greasy, and the air was thick with the smell of food… or rather, the odd stink of something heated until it became edible by decree. Hundreds of soldiers and staff in various uniforms sat at long metal tables. Conversation, swallowing, utensils scraping, shouting—everything blended into a deafening, indescribable drone.
I followed my escort to collect a metal tray. The man ladling out rations was a greasy cook, so fat he looked like a hill. With a scoop the size of a shovel, he slopped a heaping mound of sticky, suspiciously colored paste from a bottomless cauldron onto my tray.
Just as I stood there holding the plate of "unknown matter," looking around blankly for somewhere to sit, a delighted voice rang out.
"My lord! You're awake!"
I turned. A few soldiers in black combat kit were waving at me excitedly. I recognized them—survivors from the squad that had been out there with me before. One of them had even handed me a respirator.
I felt as if I'd been granted a pardon. I hurried over with my tray.
"Uh… hello," I said, offering them a polite smile as I sat in an empty spot beside them.
"That's wonderful, my lord. We were worried about you…" The young man who'd given me the mask looked genuinely stirred. "Didn't expect you to be up and walking so fast!"
"Your medical tech really is something," I said honestly—though a doubt nagged at me. "But… you don't seem surprised at all?"
"Oh, that?" Another soldier, a bit older, grinned wide, flashing white teeth. "What's that to be amazed about? The Medicae 'priests' have odd temperaments, sure, but their hands don't miss. They can stitch you back together even if you're snapped in two, so long as your brain isn't ruined. Dragging you back from the edge is like eating and drinking to them. Your injury? Two days is normal!"
So that was it. I'd underestimated this world's technology yet again, and the locals had long since gotten used to the whole "flesh is weak, metal ascends" routine.
"Here, my lord—eat up," the young man urged warmly. "You need strength."
I picked up a spoon, looked down, and prodded at what was on my tray. My eyebrows instantly knotted. Then I looked again—deeply suspicious—at what they were shoveling into their mouths.
What in the void was this?
On closer inspection, the substance on my tray included, but was not limited to: gray-white lumps that looked like boiled-to-death fat; dark red chunks of unknown tissue; all mixed into a murky green sludge.
Several tube-like strands—varying in thickness and looking distressingly like blood vessels or intestines—lay crisscrossed on top, draped in yellow, semi-congealed goo. The whole plate gleamed with oil, sticky and clotted, exhaling an indescribable stench of rot layered with a sour, fishy reek.
This… was for human consumption?
In an instant, I realized I wasn't actually that hungry. My stomach rolled violently. It reminded me of a famous "classic dish" from an old Hong Kong comic I'd once seen—"sick pig offal medley." Forget eating it; just looking at it was shredding my sanity. I suspected the slop bucket behind the fly-infested diner near my apartment would look more appetizing than this.
But when I lifted my head, the soldiers at my table—and the hundreds across the canteen—were all just like the parents in Spirited Away after they turned into pigs: faces buried in trays, devouring everything with abandon. Grease smeared their mouths. Some even wore expressions of contentment and enjoyment.
I forced down the urge to vomit, leaned closer, and asked the young man beside me in the steadiest voice I could manage:
"Brother… quick question. You people… eat this regularly?"
He raised his head with a perfectly reasonable, puzzled expression. A strip of something that looked horribly like duck intestine dangled from the corner of his mouth, slick with unknown yellow paste, swaying as he spoke—green mucus dripping from it.
"Yes, my lord," he said matter-of-factly.
Then—slurp—he sucked the "duck intestine" into his mouth and chewed with obvious relish.
"Army rations are like this. Naturally it can't compare to the refined plates the important people get. But today's actually quite good—there's natural meat. We've already reported your condition to the superiors. Before the Inquisitor arrives to take custody of you, you'll have to make do. Eat something, at least."
In that moment, I felt a string inside my head go snap.
(End of Chapter)
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