Written by Joshua Falken
Chapter 2 - Partial Recover and Diagnosis
Dr. Andrew Matrix analyzed - or better, he tried analyze - his daughter's blood-energy, in the microscope. What was a little hard, due to the fact of the blood in question be invisible. A fast energy discharge would bring it back to the normal, but just for some nanos. The logic stated that a continous discharge would maintain it visible, but what happened was the erasing of the tested sample.
Frustrated, he turned off the machine and went to the room B1423, of Mainframe General Hospital.
As soon as the door of the elevator opened, he verified that the floor was empty. Good, he thought, as less people know better.
The room B1423 was completely isolated, only used in case of suspected infection by some virus Class 20. Now, that isolation was used to protect Dot.
Sat down outside in a bench were Bob, Matrix and Enzo. They slept, tense expressions in their faces. They should have waited the entire cycle for news! Carefully to don't wake up them, Dr. Matrix observed the interior of the room through the observation window. He thought in the story that they had invented to explain her permanence in the hospital. Officially, she had suffered very serious burns by the whole body. That was the story that Mainframe Data-Times and Mainframe Tattler had published. In that moment, AndrAIa should probably be playing the PR expert. After all, if Command.Com of the system suffers an accident, that's news, right?
With a sigh, he entered quietly in the room.
Sat down in a chair beside the bed, his wife, Kathleen, slept. In the bed there was a sheet molded in the forms of a sprite, as well as the deformation in the bed. Sensors that measured the neural activity floated over the pillow. A connected needle to a serum glass planed in the area where should be the right arm.
Kathleen woke up on that moment.
"Oh. Hello, Andrew."
"Hi, Kathleen. You look terrible." He said, commenting his wife's tired face.
"You aren't better." She answered, distracted.
"Yes, I know."
Holding her husband's hand, she whispered:
"I still can't believe. I mean, I *know* that Dot is sleeping in that bed, but, nevertheless..." She shook the head. "Any news?"
"No really. The biopsies and the medical readings indicate that she's physically well. She will wake up as soon as she recover the forces." He explained, going in direction of the neural activity meter.
Kathleen nodded.
He bit the lower lip when he read the readings.
"Well.. it isn't something to *really* worry about." He thought.
After two cycles, Dot had not still recovered the conscience. In meanwhile, two people would be always with her, until that she woke up. Even to prevent that Dot hurted herself, in the case that she had a fit of panic, what would be a very natural reaction before the circumstances. In that moment, the vigil was done by Bob and Enzo.
While the older sprite keeped his eyes shut, Enzo observed the empty bed, bewildered. He already had read sci-fi stories where the protagonist become invisible, and now... it was his sister that was in that situation. Although a part of Enzo was thrilled with that, the other part was really concerned. A lot of stories finished with Invisible Sprite going mad. Of course that would never happen with Dot, but...
Dot began to groan.
Bob immediately pressed a button, calling Dr. Matrix and the others. The two sprites was in alert.
Some thing made Dot's eyes burn. She opened them and a really strong light began to shine, blinding her. She tried to close her eyes, but the light continued to shine.
"OH, MY USER! MY EYES!" She screamed, in pain. "SOMEONE TURNS THAT LIGHT OFF!!" She tried uselessly to block the light with the transparent hands.
In a spasm, Dot threw with the legs the blanket that covered her away. Now, the only indications of her presence were the marks of the mattress of the bed and her pain screams.
"TURN OFF THAT SPAMMED LIGHT!" She yelled, pleading.
Enzo turned off the light of the room, while Bob hugged her, trying calms her. He ignored the chill that he felt when feeling a resistance where his eyes said that there is nothing there.
"Dot, calm down!"
He felt Dot stop of moving, as soon as the light was turned off. But the fast breathing and the tone of the voice showed the fear that she felt.
"What did happen?! Why I can't see....."
"You suffered an accident. The experiment in the Project Rainbow gone wrong, and part of the energy reached you." He took a breath. "You are invisible."
"Invisible?" She asked, in a whisper. She was seeing with her own eyes the transformation, but even so a part of her mind demanded a confirmation.
"Yes."
Bob felt Dot stand very still. He loosened her of the hug, slowly.
In a controlled tone, she asked for a mirror. Enzo sought in a drawer and he found the requested object. The Guardian in training saw the mirror float from his hand, when Dot caught it.
She looked at the mirror, unbeliever. Bob was seated behind her, and she saw him perfectly in the mirror, but she didn't see the own reflex!
Bob and Enzo saw the mirror fogged, with her breathing.
All of a sudden, the mirror dropped in the bed and the deformation, where was Dot, undone.
"Dot?..."
They heard the water running in the sink on the other side of the room. They turned back in time of seeing the water form a puddle in the thin air, rise and splash over an invisible surface, revealing Dot's face. With an incredulous and afraid expression. Enzo felt a chill when he saw his sister's face disappear, as the water slipped away.
"So, Dot, how is it to be like a ghost?" He asked, cautiously, with a weak smile. Bob closed his eyes before that disastrous humor attempt.
"I'm not sure yet." Now her voice came from *behind* them, close of the door of the room. "Do you *really cannot see me*?" She asked. The expression in their face already answered the question.
"Wow." She whispered.
She couldn't believe. She was invisible.
In that instant, Dr. Matrix entered and asked, when he not saw the form of Dot in the bed:
"Where is she?!"
"On your side." Dot answered.
Dr. Matrix's reaction was a previsible fright.
Later, Matrix, AndrAIa, Mouse, Ray and Kathleen were in a waiting room. The renegade guardian didn't get to avoid to walk to and fro. His girlfriend and his mother were seated on a bench. Mouse was cleaning her katana, in a reflex action, leaning against the wall. Ray was just standing close of her. On that moment, Dr.Matrix, Bob and Enzo entered. There was a gap between Enzo and Bob.
"How is Dot?" Kathleen asked, trying to the maximum hide her apprehension.
"Huh... Mrs. Matrix ... why you don't ask her?" Bob spoke, clumsy, indicating the space between the youngest guardian and him.
"Huh... how are you, Dot "? she asked, even more clumsy.
"Fine, I think."
Everybody turned in direction of her voice, *on the other side of the room*. The light of the waiting room decreased abruptly of intensity. The combined events left all of them nervous.
Dr. Matrix cleared his throat:
"Her eyes are sensitive to light now."
That information left everybody calmer.
"Hey, Dot, are you really ok?" Mouse asked.
"I think that yes. For what my father told me, out the fact of being invisible and my vision to be, seemingly, much sharpened, I'm physically well." Now her voice came from the middle of the room, beside AndrAIa.
"Dot, cut it off, please!" Her mother asked.
Ray laughed nervously. "It seems that we are playing
hide-and-seek!""Sorry." She tried to explain. "That is that walking, I have the sensation that I am still here..."
AndrAIa shallowed hard, when she felt something bump into her.
"Excuse me, AndrAIa."
"It's fine, Dot. But can't you stop while we talk?"
"It is a little strange to speak with you moving of place." Enzo explained, trying to help his father.
"Her gait is very stealthy, isn't?" Mouse comented with Bob, who blinked surprised.
They heard a sigh. Then a chair leaned in the wall turned to them and the cushion was forced down.
"Does that help?" Dot asked, her voice coming from the chair. Like them they didn't comment, she asked:
"I think can ask now: how did I become this?"
They explained again, this time more detailed. Yes, an accident had happened during the test of Project Rainbow. No, they didn't know what had caused that reaction, but they were researching that in the Project records, or better, in what had remained of the records. They are waiting Dr. Cisco recover from his injures, to question him about the invisibility process. No, the tests didn't indicate any collateral effect besides the invisibility and a type of intensified vision. And no, they didn't know as make her visible again.
The father tried comfort her:
"Dot, we are doing and we will make everything that is possible to revert this."
Dot was in silence for an instant.
"Huh... Daddy, do I have to stay here?" She inquired, weakly. He and Kathleen changed glances: both knew how Dot didn't like to be in hospitals, since she was a kid.
"I think is better you to be under monitoration this downtime. Only for we be sure that you are well."
Resigned, she agreed.
In the dead of the downtime, Dot looked at the roof of her room. She doesn't know what scared her more: the fact of being invisible or of being in a hospital. Not getting to sleep, especially because her eyelids were transparent, she standed up and she began to walk to and fro.
She placed the right hand in her face, feeling the invisible fingers. She looked at her own body, seeing through it. When she passed her hands over her body, she felt that still used the clothes of the day of the accident.
She clicked in the icon, rebooting clothing. Now, she felt that she was using a long coat, but that was also invisible.
Then, she lied in the bed. The moulded form was of a sprite in fetal position.
In the next cycle, Matrix and Bob were back to the fourteenth floor of Mainframe General Hospital, to take Dot to the last medical exam. It would be in the floor below, already properly isolated.
The door opened, and Dot's voice spoke:
"Let's go?"
With the brother at one side and the boyfriend of the other, they went to the stairways. Mouse was right: Dot walked very quietly. In the first step of the descent, Matrix and Bob felt be grabbed and pulled down, at the same time that they heard Dot yell. They had not only fallen downstairs, because the two sprites held themselves in the handrails.
"I-I think slipped..." Dot recovered the breath. "I think I'm not accustomed to go down stairways without seeing where I step..." They heard a forced laugh. And very embarrassed, they noticed. For the rest of the descent, Matrix carried his sister in the arms, in spite of her protests.
Later, the invisible sprite was placed in a neural exam machine, similar to an Userworld's MRI. A chill went by the spine of Dr. Matrix, that operated the device: while in the screen of it, Dot's head appeared, to the naked eye, there was nobody in the machine. Results of the exam: normal neural readings, except for some high activity outbursts.
Back to the room, Kathleen and AndrAIa talked with Dot, while Matrix and Bob talked with her father, outside.
When AndrAIa left the room quickly, Matrix asked:
"Dad, is she really alright?"
"Well... yes. There were some changes in the neural signals, but everything inside of the normal patterns."
"What kind of changes?" Matrix pressured.
"The sleep waves present some frequent high activity outbursts. That's normal, considering what happened. Only if the outbursts were very potent and went in a constant way is that would be a reason for concern."
The game sprite entered again in the room, bringing a bag.
"Come in!" Kathleen called them a little later.
When entering, they saw Kathleen sat down in the chair, AndrAIa leaning in the wall and a female sprite in motorbiker black wear. Boots, leather pants, a leather jacket with the collar shut, gloves and a helmet with a mirrored visor.
The "motorbiker" opened the visor of the helmet. There was not a face inside of it, they just saw emptiness.
"At least now you don't have to speak to empty space and I can leave this hospital room". Dot said.
Go to Chapter 3 - Hostage Situation