Chapter Nine
Jonah put the file in his hands aside again and picked up another one. He felt like he had gone through each of these files a thousand times already, but no matter how many times he looked at them, he still didn’t understand what he was seeing. The information contained within them didn’t make sense. He remembered the examination that he had undergone prior to the mission very clearly. He knew exactly what they had gone over with him and the tests that they said that they performed, yet the information that was contained within the files didn’t correspond to what he remembered. Some of the tests and vitals that they had done weren’t accounted for, while others that they didn’t do were recorded with details that he knew hadn’t actually been taken.
He put the file down and opened another, laying it beside the other so that he could compare them side-by-side, then opened his own and reviewed it against the others as well.
“I just don’t understand,” he muttered to himself. “The height and weight are off. Not by much, but they’re still wrong. Why would they do that?”
He read through the test results again.
“I know that I didn’t have this test, but there’s results.”
The sound of his own voice in the silence of the room was uncomfortable and he fell quiet again. It was like just hearing himself talking without the benefit of someone responding underscored the fact that he was largely on his own. As soon as that thought moved through his mind, he knew that it wasn’t accurate. Though there were others who were still in the basement with him, he knew that this journey that he was taking, the path that he was on as he tried to unravel the mystery of the files was his own. None of them knew what he had been through and wouldn’t be able to help him. He wouldn’t ask them to. They had gone through enough and were facing their own troubled and complicated journeys moving forward. They had already been forced into a war that meant nothing to them. They didn’t need another fight that wasn’t there placed at their feet.
He ran his fingertips along the series of numbers that was supposed to be the results of a test that he remembered taking, but knew that they weren’t the results that he had gotten. Jonah sifted through the rest of the files and pulled one out. He flipped it open and read the same results from it. After a few seconds, he closed the file and turned it to check the name on the front to make sure that he had chosen the right one from the stack. He had selected it because he distinctly remembered the day after he had gone in for his examination when he sat down for lunch with Brandon and discussed their test results. This particular test had been presented to them as largely experimental. It wasn’t one that they had undergone before for any of their missions, but the doctor had told them that they needed to go through it now because of specific environmental concerns regarding the area of space where Penthos resided.
As with nearly everything else that had to do with the department, none of them had questioned anything that the doctor had told them that they needed. As he looked back on it now, he cringed at how pliable they were, how willing they were to simply go along with whatever was said to them, whatever was expected of them, without question. It was as though they never even thought about themselves and what they were actually giving themselves over to, they were too wrapped up in the idea of what they might accomplish or who they might one day be. Now Jonah knew that he would never be that trusting or selfless. He would never be able to simply agree with what someone said without questioning what that meant for him and how it might turn out if he went along with it. Though he was happy to support and assist those who had come to mean so much to him on Uoria, he did so with caution, evaluating each step and each order before he followed it.
Jonah reviewed the test results another time. It was as though he thought that if he looked at them enough, he would be able to make the results change so that they better fit with what he thought that they should say. He knew that they didn’t properly record the results that he had gotten on the test, and also didn’t correspond with what Brandon told him that he had received. Though he knew that there was always a chance that Brandon had lied about his results, Jonah knew that when he looked at his own file he didn’t see the proper series of numbers. Even if his numbers did even vaguely correspond with his results, Jonah knew that there would be no reason for Brandon to lie about his own results. The true purpose of the test and what the results meant was something that was never revealed to anyone on the team. They only knew that they were undergoing a new, experimental test that would ensure that they had some undefined characteristic that ensured they would properly withstand the environment of Penthos. Since they had no understanding of what the results even meant, there would be no reason for Brandon to try to fabricate his own results.
It was obvious to Jonah that the results were changed purposely, but why? What would be the reasoning behind putting the team through a strange experimental test, telling them their results without giving any explanation of what those results meant, and then changing the results when they recorded them in their files, especially if those files were just going to be hidden away for no one to see? He stacked the files carefully and tucked them against the wall so that they wouldn’t be disturbed and then gathered his bag and his lightstick and started back up into the abandoned medical ward again.
This wasn’t the first time that he had entered the derelict hospital since the others left, but Jonah still didn’t know what he expected, or even hoped, to find when he explored the examination room. The glow of his lightstick filled the empty hallway and he let it fall on each of the closed doors as he went. He wondered why they had bothered to fill the rooms with the useless equipment before sealing up the hospital. Why didn’t they bring it out with them when they left the building for the last time? Or if they weren’t ever going to use it again, why didn’t they just leave it in place in its original rooms rather than taking the time and effort to divide it into the abandoned examination rooms and then close the doors, almost as though creating tombs for the remnants of the era?
Jonah’s thoughts wandered again to the strange reality of the abandoned hospital. He couldn’t understand why the ancient medical ward was still there. It didn’t make sense. The rest of the old University had been demolished, yet this, the most outdated and unusable building of all of them, had remained so that it could be used as the lost and forgotten skeleton of the new laboratory building. He wished that he could return to the buildings that he had spent his time in when he was studying and working at the University. Walking through the hospital had given him a taste of his previous life, yet reminded him blatantly and painfully of how long it had been. These were not the floors where he last stepped before he climbed onto the ill-fated ship, but those that were had long-since been destroyed. It was a sad feeling to think that he had walked along those hallways so filled with anticipation and even excitement, not realizing that it was the last time that he was ever going to see them. It was a foregone conclusion that within a few weeks, they would return and simply walk along the same path back to the department rooms. Instead, he had moved along that familiar path, the images that he was seeing passing through his eyes and into memory.
Without fully knowing why, Jonah turned away from the crumbling hallway and started back down into the basement so that he could go back up the stairwell and into the corridor above. He stepped out into the corridor and was immediately struck by the energy that filled the space. It was as if he could still feel what the rest of the group had felt when they were making their way down the corridor and out into the open space around the building. It suddenly struck him that he didn’t really know what had happened to them in the time between them leaving him in the basement and them getting out of the building. He could only hope that it had not been as difficult as the last time that they were there. Ignoring the nervousness that made its way down the back of his neck and into his stomach, Jonah made his way toward the stairs that they had climbed to go through the laboratory building. He wove through the floors of the building, trying to remember what doors they had used, until he finally found his way back to the room behind Ryan’s lab.
Jonah hesitated in the backroom. He didn’t know what might be inside the room, if even Ryan himself could be waiting for any that might return. For a moment, he considered turning back around and heading back to the basement, but he knew that he couldn’t. He had to go beyond just the basement and the medical ward if he was going to understand what happened. His hand felt almost electrified as he placed it on the doorknob to the lab and pushed the door open. As soon as he stepped inside he was struck by the cold, still feeling, and sharp, unnerving scent of the space. He looked around and knew immediately that they had not been the last ones who had walked through that room.
There had been chaos in the lab the last time that he had been inside. The conflict with Ryan had tossed the entire space into complete disorganization and left the surfaces covered with blood, chemicals, and other remnants. Now the entire lab was back in its original pristine condition. If anything, it was more organized and cleaner than it had been before. He could smell the cleaners used to wipe away all reminders of them and feel the chill of the temperature having been turned down to accommodate a delicate experiment.
The Valdicians had been here. They had come to the lab after the group left to repair what they had done and bring the room back into the condition that Ryan expected. Jonah couldn’t imagine that they would have done something like that out of any sense of kindness or affection for Ryan. Instead, it was more likely out of a sense of responsibility, obligation, and even fear.
He walked to one of the tables and ran his fingers along the surface. It was cold but dry, telling him that the room had been restored well before, likely only briefly after they had captured Ryan. Most likely they had come into the room to free him and been commanded to fix the damage that had occurred, as if Ryan believed that he could pretend that it hadn’t happened if he didn’t have to look at it. He was leaning down to look under the table when he heard a slight gasp from across the room.
Jonah stood up sharply and looked toward the door. He hadn’t thought to look at the main door to the lab when he first stepped in and now noticed that it was standing open a few inches, revealing a figure standing in the hallway just outside of the lab, a halo of golden yellow glow at its feet.
There was a tense moment when both stood completely still, aware of the other, but unsure of what to do next. Finally, Jonah took a step forward and lifted his lightstick up above his head to shed more of the light toward the figure so that he could see it more clearly. When it did, he could see that the figure was a woman, her hand rested on the doorknob. She looked both startled and confused, but unafraid.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hello,” Jonah replied.
Her head tilted slightly and Jonah wondered if there was something about his voice that sounded different to the people of Earth a century after his own time and that had struck this woman strangely. She took a somewhat hesitant step toward him, crossing the threshold of the lab. Her hand slid across the wall beside her and her finger pressed into a dip on a silver metal panel. In an instant, the room filled with a blinding white light. After days with nothing but the glow of the lightsticks and the light from the small lanterns in the basement and the hospital, the illumination felt like it was exploding in his head. He grasped his temples, pressing against the pain that he felt in his temples and crumbling forward with the shock. It took several moments for his eyes to acclimate to the bright light and for him to be able to open them again. When they did he found that the woman had disappeared. He rushed around the table to the door and looked out into the hallway. He could see the faint remnants of her light moving around the corner at the far end of the corridor and felt an uncomfortable sensation in his belly, wondering who this woman was and why she had come to Ryan’s laboratory in the middle of the night when the building was locked and no one else was supposed to be there.