Mark Tiedemann - Mirage

Mia did not know if the tingling in her belly was the result of restored sensation or fear.

"Bogard, I want you to surveil the premises."

"I should not leave you."

"Listen carefully, Bogard. Right now we don't have enough information to make a decision. We need to know. You don't want to let the staff know I'm awake, fine. This is the alternative. I can't do anything till the anжsthetic wears off, anyway. I need to know what's happening, if anything. I repeat: surveil the premises."

Mia watched the big shadow, wondering if it would accept her logic and her instruction. Bogard was obviously still on the edge of a breakdown. That it still functioned evidently resulted from binding it to her safety, but she did not know how far she could push it.

"Your assessment is sound," Bogard said. "I will return as soon as possible."

And it vanished. Mia imagined she felt a slight shift of air, an almost-breeze, as it left the room. Its speed startled her, and she wondered then how it had been possible that it had permitted Senator Eliton to die.

She craned her neck to see the monitors around her. The readouts made little sense other than those for her pulse and respiration, which appeared slightly elevated but not out of bounds. The tingly sensation spread across her thighs and now she began to feel the heavy bruised pain of her wounds. She only remembered being shot once, but her memory was hazy on other details as well-she could not remember the specific instructions she had given Bogard, only that she had given them.

As she lay there waiting for all her senses to return, Mia began to puzzle over Bogard's report. It had convinced her easily that something was wrong, but was that in fact the case? Coming out of a rehab coma, nothing worked right. Her mind grabbed onto anything that resembled reason and order, so the first thing she heard seemed to make sense. Perhaps sending Bogard out like this was as much a reflexive attempt at verifying its perceptions as anything else. Field agents had better things to do than sit in a medical center holding a wounded but essentially fine agent's hand. It was reasonable to call them away, especially in light of what had happened not even half a day ago. Fourteen hours. She had allowed Bogard to scare her into believing what? That her life was in danger?

No city cop either…

"We must move."

She flinched at the sound of Bogard's voice to her right. She watched as it deftly removed all her monitors.

"Bogard, what-?"

"Little time," it said quickly.

It flitted to another part of the room and returned, moving too fast to follow. In the dim light it was difficult to see clearly, but it seemed squatter, more compact than it should. It pulled off the thin sheet covering her and for an instant Mia felt a pang of modesty.

Then it spread its arm against the mattress and expanded them to form a kind of sling. Mia had never seen this aspect of it in anything but a training video which had been itself circumspect about most of Bogard's potentials. Every other time she had witnessed Bogard's shapeshifting, it had already completed it, too fast for her to see, as when it had enveloped Eliton. She was startled and amazed at the process, like watching a part of the robot melt and solidify into a new shape.

"Can you move yourself?" Bogard asked.

"Y-yes, I think so…"

She scooted, her leg aching sharply, the rest of her body dimly echoing the pain, and shoved herself onto the sling. She expected it to be cold, but instead the material was comfortably warm. When she had gotten herself entirely onto it, Bogard lifted her and curled the edges around to cover her. She was folded against it, infant-like. Mia lifted her head and peered over the lip of the cradle.

Bogard carried her out the door in a vertiginous rush and down the dark hallway. Mia frowned. That was wrong. The lights should not be dimmed out here.

At the end of the corridor, Bogard stopped and turned so that she had a clear view back toward her room.

"Bogard, why-?"

"You will see." Bogard replied, voice hushed and low.

As she watched, a pair of black shapes crept up the hallway. They stopped at her door and huddled on either side. Then one of them crouched, pushed open the door, and Mia heard the sound of metal sliding on floor. The pair then hurried back the way they had come, rounding the far corner just as the door burst out from the pressure of a bright cloud of fire.

An instant later the sound of the blast hit Mia's ears. Bogard's shielding arms moved instantly to cover her face.

Then there was 'only the sensation of movement and the wracking tremors of fear. tactical parameters, standard conjoined facility, connection to sublevels and maintenance conduit, security level three, negative supplemental security, absence of police surveillance confirmed, intrusion confirmed, hostile intent assigned high probability, First Law violation exceeds potential, assigned highest probability, primary imperative coextensive to First and Second Law protocols, egress secure, subject risk through termination of medical protocols minimal, conflict assigned to auxiliary buffer, shield configuration, first-order expedience, initiate survive and protect protocols Bogard carried her down to a sublevel of the facility, among the storage lockers and systems components that provided support. Smooth-walled conduit snaked along the walls and ceiling; modules stood in ranks, interconnected, providing power and communications; conveyors stood motionless. Bogard shone a light among the dark shapes until it found the interrupted line that isolated the hospital. A simple switch, one that had not been touched in years, judging by the dust on everything else around it.

"Leave it alone," Mia told Bogard. "It will only let them know someone is down here."

Bogard did not respond, but moved past to another set of stairs, and down to another sublevel.

The passageways narrowed claustrophobically. Mia only glimpsed them in the short beam of light from Bogard. More conduit, pipes, collections of cable attached to boxes, rounded forms, or bunched masses of multicolored shapes, stained by age and moisture, the air smelling dank with the heaviness of hidden growth.

Then Bogard dowsed its own lights in the presence of bright red panels spaced every few meters. The traces of connective cables and tubes took on an organic appearance and Mia imagined, briefly, that they hurried down the veinous network of a living thing. In a sense they did-the deep viscera of the urban organism known as D. C.,

Bogard moved smoothly, without the shock she expected of running enfolded in its arms, and the motion lulled her. She dozed.

She came awake with a start, groping for the edges of a bed, her fingers coming against the walls of her cradle. Her leg burned with pain and her torso ached. She lay still for a few seconds, remembering, then realized that they were no longer moving. She raised her head to peer over the edge of Bogard's arms.

The chamber beyond was unevenly lit. Columns seemed to support nothing, lost in darkness. Large housings made ominous shapes in the half-light of old glow panels and a flickering illumination that danced somewhere beyond a wall to their left. Debris littered the floor. Stacks of objects here and there gave the place a forgotten quality, an attic melancholy. Cold air stroked her face.

"Bogard, where are we?"

"Sublevel eleven, beneath McMillan District."

Sublevel eleven… Mia tried to recall the D. C. grid. They were below the level of the ancient Potomac. McMillan Sector was several kilometers north of where they had begun.

"How long have I slept?"

"You have slept inconsistently. We exited the medical center eighty-seven minutes ago."

"Why have we stopped?"

"I have determined that for the present you are in no danger of detection. Further instructions would be prudent."