Inhuman(39)

Thel sighed and closed her eyes, trying to be patient. “This era is so...slow...fumbling with clunky devices to access information that may or may not be accurate. Thank God I didn’t have to live back then, when everything was so archaic.”

“Well, we’re stuck ‘back then’ for the foreseeable future,” the A.I. responded. He opened the drawer in the bedside table and found a bracelet reminiscent of one he remembered from his own time as a candidate, inhabiting an extraordinarily similar sim. “This will do,” he said. He swiped the small touchscreen, searching for information. “It’ll just take me a moment to hide our location, and then…voilà. Hmm. It appears James’s chances of surviving depend on whether or not he inhaled water into his lungs.”

“We know he did,” Thel said, her heart suddenly thundering to life in her chest.

“Not necessarily,” the A.I. replied calmly. “There is a chance that the water never made it past his nose and mouth, since his airways might have automatically closed off. I saw him clutching his throat as though that were indeed the case. If that turns out to be what occurred, then his chances of survival are quite high.”

“What if he did inhale water into his lungs?”

“Then there’s still a chance of secondary drowning, unfortunately.”

“Secondary drowning?”

Anywhere between now and forty-eight hours from now, he could develop pneumonia symptoms. If that happens, he’ll die quickly, unless we can get him out of the sim.”

“So what do we do?” Thel asked, desperate. “Just watch him?”

The A.I. nodded. “At the very least, we have to let him recover from his concussion. Remember, all of our avatars are human and, therefore, extraordinarily suboptimal. A concussion recovery can take anywhere from just a few hours to a few weeks, depending on the severity.”

“Did you read that online too?”

“Yes,” the A.I. replied before setting the bracelet down on the bed and slumping his shoulders, exhausted.

“What about your face?” Thel asked, standing up and crossing to the other side of the room to check on the A.I.’s gruesome wound.

“I think we should clean it and bandage it up. Perhaps a little Tylenol might be in order.” He turned and headed to the bathroom in search of supplies.

Thel followed him.

“Why are we here?” she asked him. “We could’ve hidden anywhere in the sim, but you decided to come here, one floor below where the candidate lives.”

“I’m not planning to hide much longer,” the A.I. replied as he opened the medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink.

“What do you mean?” Thel asked, shocked. “The candidate’s still out there.” She leaned forward and spoke in a harsh whisper, cognizant that the candidate could be nearby, possibly right above them. “If he finds you, he’ll kill you.”

“That’s possible,” the A.I. conceded as he pulled some rubbing alcohol and a few cotton balls from the medicine cabinet. He sat on the edge of the tub, poured the rubbing alcohol on the cotton, then began to gently apply it to his opened wound. He winced in pain.

Thel’s upper lip curled in revulsion. “Uh...do you want some help with that?” she offered.

“There’s a gauze bandage there.” He pointed to the medicine cabinet, blood painting his fingertips red. “It looks to be adequate to cover the wound.”

Thel grabbed the bandage and unwrapped it before sitting next to the A.I. on the cold porcelain edge of the tub and applying the bandage over the wound. She struggled not to vomit as her eyes briefly fell on the visible teeth marks in the flesh at the top of his cheek. “That really, really looks like it hurts.”

The A.I. faintly smiled, though anything more than a faint smile would’ve been too excruciating. “Milady, believe me when I tell you I have looked much worse.”

“You’re going to look a heck of a lot worse if you try to confront the candidate before we know what’s going on,” Thel cautioned. “We were extremely lucky to survive.”

“I’m not so sure,” the A.I. replied, his brow furrowing as he thought deeply.

“What?” Thel reacted, holding her hands out in dismay. “He locked us in a speeding car and drove it off a bridge! Then he hovered above us, that sadistic son-of-a-bitch, and waited for us to drown! What is there to be unsure about?”

The A.I. sighed. “Plot holes.”

“Excuse me?”

“The candidate said someone contacted him, and we have no reason to doubt his story. He knew details that only someone familiar with the sim could’ve known.”