Chapter 45
“What are you?” I managed, sitting up and running my hand through the solid looking image. He wavered as my hands passed through.
“I am Laioli, the holographic Factor of the Athenaeum complex.”
“The what?” I asked stupidly. He repeated the exact same words and my stunned brain finally accepted what he was saying. Of course, I knew what a hologram was from my stay in Reyjdask but to see one working in a city long dead for five thousand years was a total shock.
“Food. Food and clothing,” I sputtered. “I need both.”
“What type of food do you prefer, Sir Tifnaren?”
“Tobias Spencer, my name is Tobias Spencer,” I answered swiping my hand through his image again. “How is it you are still working after five thousand years?”
He paused. “My databanks state it has been 4362 years and some odd days since last a request has been made of me.”
“A long time. I require blood to survive. Can you provide hemoglobin?”
“Scanning…yes, sir…Spencer. The storage facility has the capability of replicating blood from supplies the medical storage vaults. A, B or O?”
“It doesn’t matter. I can eat meat, too. Clothing should be trousers and blouses. Vests with pockets, colors that will blend in and not be noticeable in the woods.”
“Camouflaged?”
“Yes. Exactly.” I felt a beam of light scan me and knew it was checking for my size. The hologram spoke again as he tilted his head.
“The med scan says you need medical attention. Please follow me.” He turned and walked down the hallway. After a second’s hesitation, I followed marveling at the fine workmanship inside this white mansion. He stopped at an innocuous door and it opened to reveal a room in brilliant white that looked very much like the med center in Reyjdask. I automatically went towards the bio scanner and sat in it.
I watched the graphs go wild as they tried to assess my strange new system. Temperature 89° instead of 98.7, no discernible blood pressure and my heart beat at a rate too low to sustain life yet I breathed and existed. Still, it knew what to do for my aches and pains hooking me up to a transfusion of O-. Within minutes, I was feeling almost normal and my body began to heal itself. Most precious of all, the collar’s imprint on my neck faded and with it, that overwhelming sense of despair.
“Your color is better,” he observed.
“What was your name again?” I asked relaxing for the first time in days.
“Laioli.”
“Can you fix me up with a rare steak and some tea?”
“I will see what the auto chef has on hand, Sir Tobias. As for clothing, there is a shower behind that door and clothing suitable for you on the vanity.” He pointed to a door I hadn’t seen before and when I looked, turned back to him, he had vanished. Which did not surprise me; such was the nature of a hologram.
I got up off the cot and pushed the door open to find a well-equipped bathroom with a shower stall, toilet, sink, mirror and vanity. Stacked on the countertop were folded clothes – trousers of a tightly woven slick material in dark blue, a pale lavender shirt with big cuffs and a leather vest with satin back and many pockets. Underwear, socks and new lace-up boots. Everything exactly as I had imagined it.
Next to the clothes and towels was soap and shampoo for my hair. I didn’t waste any time, I jumped in and turned it on expecting cold water after all these thousands of years but the plumbing still worked. Steamy hot water cascaded down in pulsating waves that massaged my muscles. I groaned in sublime relief and enjoyed every moment standing under it until my skin wrinkled. When I emerged from behind the frosted glass doors, Laioli was waiting by a table that was set with trays of food steaming hot and smelling delicious. I wrapped a towel around my waist and stood over it.
Mashed mounds that look like potatoes, meet with bloodied gravy and bread so white it made me drool. A salad filled with every imaginable vegetable and dressed with a spicy honey mustard I could smell without tasting. I looked at him.
“How is this possible? To keep food fresh and preserved for all this time?”
“Part of it was flash frozen and stored in stasis pods,” he explained. “It preserves them as if they were only picked yesterday.”
“Did you – can you do that to people, too?” I asked in horror.
“No. Although we have the technology to do the freezing, we do not know how to thaw out the bodies without gross cellular damage. The few results I’ve found in our databanks were complete failures. Gross failures.”
“I left two of my horses out in the park. Is there someplace in the city I can stable them with food and water?”
“There is a riding complex on 12th Street and Rieterhof. There are facilities there,” he said and before my eyes, map appeared with a dot that I read as ‘You Are Here’. It showed me the route from the battery to the stables and back to the horses.
I nodded my thanks, dried off and dressed only to snatch three slices of meat between two pieces of bread I made on the run. I was more eager to place the horses into safety than to worry about my own.