Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. It is a draft; there are mistakes, many misspellings and sometimes long periods of no updates. copyright: ion fyr 2026
The clinic belonging to Dr Daytime, was both figuratively and literally underground. It was of the sort of cool quite that rarely was possible in cities, a subbasement somewhere under Tesifon, possibly even below the shallow water table. It was not a terribly noisy city on the surface–nothing compared to Londbridge or Rome, but here in the underworld she was deep enough to escape even the vibrations of ground transports.
Ghostly technicians drifted by like gossamer wisps in the hallway beyond the steel door of her room. A cart with wheels, one of which twitched squeaked like a mouse, several hours before.
She had never met Daytime, but had heard her mentioned in passing from Luc’s lips to another acquaintance of his, words of the Mesopotaimic language that she did not understand. The doctor might have looked in once or twice while Nila lay in drugged sleep healing, leaving only a dim memory of a woman with thick black hair with a touch of grey, a beautiful Sinti nose and warm demeanor.
She might have been in the room–Nila’s moment of unexpected lucidity–when everyone realized that Pool was wearing her raincoat. What the fuck! How did he get my raincoat?
But that moment was only an interlude between long periods of dozing and bizarre dreams. Hunting, chasing…
Her arm itched like a freshly healed wound, an a feeling of dread passed over her, not so much at the sudden memory returning of her forearm being blown off, but of the amount of time she must have been out of consciousness for it to regrow to the extent that it clearly had. She could feel and wiggle her fingers, though the arm was still encased in a the flexible vat-tube rising up above her elbow.
She opened her eyes, and must have tripped a monitoring sensor because she heard an alarm chirp in the other room.
Within that sleeve on her arm, through it’s transparent wall she could see her arm, pink and fresh, looking intact, if a bit raw.
Footsteps approached in the hallway beyond the door and a man came in wearing light green scrubs.
He was typical Mesopotamic by his face and beard, tan skin and maybe thirty years old with short cropped beard. A long, brutal scar ran across his right eye from the above the brow, cleaving it and the eye itself, and continuing to a twisted mass in front of his right ear.
He smiled when he spoke, in Brethmanic with a slight local accent (almost but not quite Luc’s accent). “How are you feeling Ms Tagore? We are all amazed with your progress! I have never seen a recovery so quick. It is highly unusual. The Doctor will be pleased that you’re awake, though, I must say, even she cannot fathom how your body overcame the level of sedatives in your system. Truly amazing. She is en route.”
“I am Omar, by the way,” he added.
Omar proceeded to scan data on his scroll, presumeably regarding her stats and recovery, though he kept glancing up at her and smiling, resurring her.
She was hungry and smell spiced fish on him. “Is there anything to eat around here?” she asked him, when he seemed to finish his analysis.
“Something with fish and noodles. Spiced.” Nila hadn’t had anything hot since well before she went to the island. There she had only nutrient bars, and then nothing, but some dimly remembered broth on the Hut.
Omar looked at her with utter kindness in his remaining eye. “Yes, Ms Tagore. I will have something brought to you. You appear to be in a remarkable state of recovery. I have alerted the Doctor. I will return in a moment with some food for you.” He turned and walked out. She watched him go. Despite his old wound he seemed strong and healthy.
As she devoured her curried noodles with fish and nuts, Omar returned again with Dr Daytime. The Doctor was much the same as the blurred version from her drugged haze, but was shorter and older.
“Ms Tagore. We are astonished by your recovery. Your arm has regrown much more quickly than anticipated. I wish I could identify how. It is a complete mystery to me. I have a suspicion I would like to follow up on, when you have time, but I understand there is some urgency with your team…”
The lilt of Daytime’s voice reminded Nila of her parents and grandparents.
“What kind of follow-up? I appreciate the new arm and all, but…” as she said it, it dawned on her why, “…you think my devices contributed.”
“Well, yes, in fact. That is precisely what I think. There was no trace of your rings according to Luc and Ms Kekszemu, and there appear to be nano-particles of an unknown vintage throughout your system now. “
“When you have time, I would like to look at the changes in your physiology along with Ms Kekszemu who is more familiar with those devices. Perhaps we could find time when you return.”
“Return? I’m going somewhere?”
As if on queue, Luc and Etelka walked through the door.
“We’re going to Singhapol.”
“Oh, yeah. Pool stole my raincoat.” How did he steal my raincoat? He went to the island in 1889. My coat is now…now-ish. She realized she didn’t actually know what year it was.
“We don’t really know why Pool is in Singhapol, or how he got there, but we think it has something to do with the semantic engine on the island and the Copy that we picked up there,” answered Etelka. She was uncharacteristically dressed in modern clothing, and seemed quite natural in it. There’s something going on between them, Nila thought. She didn’t know why but there was even more familiarity now than there had been before.
“Semantic Engine? Oh, right, the mechanical artificial intellegence…It didn’t seem mechanical when I was there, before it blew up. And copy of what?”
Luc was about to explain, and paused to check the room to make sure everyone present had been looped in, but he was interrupted when the door opened again.
Nila’s attention darted to the sudden movement through the door. “He Pool, why the fuck did you take my coat?”
Pool stood gaping, cowed by her abrupt and somewhat agressive accusation.
“You’re not Pool!” She said before anyone else could answer. “Who the fuck are you?”
Ion Fyr 